Keith Olbermann’s Unhinged Demand for the Detainment of Elon Musk Backfires

Is it too early to call for a wellness check on Keith Olbermann?

I know it’s less than two weeks before the 2024 election, one in which the left’s argument has collapsed to “the other guy’s going to lock his enemies up in prison if you elect him.”

Fair enough, Olbermann concedes: We’ll get there first!

In an X post that went over every bit as well as one might as assume, the former MSNBC and ESPN host said that, in order to save us from the guy who’s going to lock all his adversaries up, it was time to … lock one of his adversaries, Elon Musk, up. And he’s asking President Joe Biden to do it “Now.”

“We need to arrest and detain @elonmusk immediately,” Olbermann said Thursday night.

“He is operating on behalf of Russia. Cancel all contracts, seize his facilities, lock him away in a military facility.

“Now, @potus,” he added, referring to President Joe Biden’s official presidential account. “Not tomorrow.”

We need to arrest and detain @elonmusk immediately.

He is operating on behalf of Russia. Cancel all contracts, seize his facilities, lock him away in a military facility.

Now, @potus.

Not tomorrow.

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) October 25, 2024

Olbermann was reacting to a report in The Wall Street Journal which stated that Musk “has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022.”

“The discussions, confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions,” the report continued.

“At one point, Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said two people briefed on the request.”

Nothing in the article gave any indication that Musk had done anything wrong, just that he’d had discussions with Vladimir Putin.

It’s also worth noting that Starlink has been key to Ukraine’s effort to resist the Russian invasion and that, as the U.K. Guardian reported earlier in the month, negotiations over Starlink access for Taiwan apparently didn’t fail because of pressure from Putin or Xi but rather because of “Taiwan’s requirement that a local entity have a majority of any joint venture established.”

But why let facts get in your way? Olbermann certainly doesn’t, as evinced by the fact that he’s more determined to get Musk thrown somewhere equally more dark by the day.

Earlier in the month, for instance, Keith — who apparently hasn’t mellowed with age — was merely calling for Musk to be deported:

IT’S TIME TO CANCEL THE GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS OF @ELONMUSK. He’s actively spreading post-hurricane disinformation AND turned Twitter-X into a donation-in-kind to Trump

AND RECLASSIFY HIS IMMIGRATION STATUS and deport him

GET THE MONDAY COUNTDOWN PODCAST: https://t.co/4SaLbt5rs9 pic.twitter.com/1qX6M2ldpW

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) October 7, 2024

Musk, Olbermann said, is “now working in an in-kind donation turning Twitter X into a Trump advertising campaign. It’s time to cancel all the contracts and re-assess his immigration status, and hopefully deport him the hell out of the country.”

“If we can’t do that by conventional means, President Biden, you have presidential immunity,” Olbermann added. “Get Elon Musk the F out of our country and do it now.”

Now it’s military detention! Apparently, Keith is unsatisfied with the fact Biden’s Department of Justice is investigating Musk’s pro-Trump PAC. That sort of intimidation is for sissies! Either deportation or jail, @potus! Preferably both! And you have the immunity to do it, Olbermann says.

You may perhaps imagine the responses this shift merited, but they’re still funny nonetheless:

I hope Trump locks you up when he becomes president. That will be funny.

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 25, 2024

I believe this may be a function of late-stage syphilis.

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) October 25, 2024

I didn’t know there would be epic meltdowns before the election of President Trump, but here we are.

— Joseph Pino (@JosephPino_) October 25, 2024

You’re definitely not unhinged

— aka (@akafacehots) October 25, 2024

Of course, this would be funny if it weren’t so serious. Olbermann’s pyretic rantings may not make for good optics for politicians and pundits still within the mainstream, but expect to see slightly more reasonable variations on this theme on Friday morning as everyone lines up to make hay out of the Journal report.

Mind you, there’s nothing incriminating there. But again, why let facts interfere? After all, Musk is such a threatening friend of oppressors that … you can literally call for his arrest and detention, illegal though that may be under U.S. law, on a platform that he owns and get over a million views in just a few hours without having it taken down. Thanks for providing an object lesson regarding just how silly this rhetoric is, Keith.

If this is how deranged the left is going to get over the next few weeks as they grasp at whatever straw is available to them to guarantee a Kamala victory, this is just the beginning of the insanity.

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