August 28, 2023 • 43 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 22: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: After another mass shooting - one predicated on distinct and undeniable racism - shock and grief and rage can account for almost any reaction. But as Governor Ron DeSantis, who trades in distinct and undeniable racism and who had the gall to insist HBCUs in Florida would not be targeted when one was targeted Saturday, attended a vigil last night for the victims in Jacksonville, the crowd rightly booed and heckled him and his inanely smiling wife. And the local Democratic councilwoman made an unbelievable mistake. She told the crowd to "put parties aside. A bullet don't know a party."
She could not be more wrong.
A bullet not only knows a party but the bullets are there BECAUSE of a party and we damn well better say so.
We have mass shootings and we have nearly unfettered civilian access to weapons of war and we have an orgy of gun worship BECAUSE of Republicans. Period. Our gun crisis may not be 100% Republican but it’s 95%. Our awareness that at any moment, anywhere, anyone in this country could be murdered by sentient fecal matter and the only variables are which minority group THIS one murdered because of which Republican THIS one listened to, waxes and wanes. But there are four unswerving constants and they played out in Jacksonville over the weekend: they had the guns because of Republicans; if they didn’t have the HATE already they got IT because of Republicans; nearly all of our news media will refuse to say that mass shootings in this country are the unquestioned FAULT of Republicans, and no matter what the circumstances of this particular one were, Republicans will insist it’s too soon to – you know – try to STOP them from happening and to propose – you know – SOLUTIONS – is trying to exploit a tragedy for political gain. As opposed to trying to exploit a tragedy for donations from the National Rifle Association and making sure that nothing is ever, ever, done, to stop the next one.
Trump's other spawn, Vivek Ramaswamy, spent Sunday morning insisting that Mike Pence he should’ve refused to certify Biden’s election until the Senate agreed to instantly instituted new laws to mandate the most draconian Republican talking points about voting suppression: single-day elections, paper ballots, government-issued ID’s, and quote “led through that level reform and then under that condition certified the election” – as if every moment of the political day is a hostage situation and every law is optional because Vivek Ramaswamy sees a loophole to exploit.
Happily that performance on "Meet The Press" earned Ramaswamy the coveted endorsement of one viewer: O.J. Simpson.
The Trump Trials are now colliding in the scheduling space. One in the Washington case (when does the trial start? January 2024 or April 2026?) and one in the Atlanta case (Mark Meadows to be tried in local or federal court) both begin at the exact same hour. There are also more Atlanta defendants flipping on Trump before anybody asks them to. And the first signs of life are appearing in the attempt to actually DO something about disqualifying Trump from the ballot under the Disqualification Clause of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
B-Block (22:09) IN SPORTS: Spain's Soccer Kiss scandal continues to cascade. The Chicago White Sox still don't know how two fans got shot in the bleachers during a game. And the Oakland A's forgot they'll have to find a place to play four lame duck seasons before moving to Las Vegas (27:44) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Zillow mistakenly reports Trump sold Mar-a-Lago to Junior for 10 times its value ("Oops!"), Tucker and Musk are lying about the audience for Carlson's interview with Trump by a factor of at least 300:1, and Jonathan Turley 2023's biggest enemy right now is: Jonathan Turley 2021.
C-Block (33:32) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The odometer has turned over again. Now it's 4
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. They
heckled Ron DeSantis last night at a vigil for the
victims of the latest mass shooting in Jacksonville, and the
(00:27):
local district councilwoman told the crowd to be quiet because quote,
a bullet, don't know a party, unquote, and unfortunately she
was utterly mistaken. Utterly. I understand about grief, and I
understand about rage. And when a psychopath with Nazi symbols
(00:48):
on his guns goes to an HBCU and then to
a dollar store to specifically shoot people because they are
African American, I think I can just begin to have
a vague, genuine empathy about why somebody like council Woman
Jacoby Pittman would make such a mistake, defending, even for
(01:09):
just the moment, slime like Ron DeSantis, who has spent
much of this year spewing the kind of racist hate
that the Jacksonville shooter felt somehow entitled to put into
murderous form. Siding with DeSantis as he strode to the
mic and boasted he wouldn't let black colleges be targeted
(01:30):
by racists who already targeted them Saturday, while his idiot
wife stands there smiling doing her very dime store knockoff
impression of Jackie Kennedy. I get why she would make
a mistake under the circumstances, but it was a mistake.
In our America of twenty twenty three, a bullet not
(01:52):
only knows a party, but the bullets are there because
of a party.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Lord of Governor Ron DeSantis is here. We're going to
ask the governor if he would come now and remarks.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well, thank you for doing this.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I want to just say to the councilwoman, counsel woman,
counsel woman, I got you.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Don't worry about it. We've already been.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Looking to identify funds to be able to help one
make sure there's adequate security for Edward Waters College. We
are not going to allow these institutions to be targeted
by people.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
We let me let me thank you.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Okay, listen, y'all, let me let me tell you we
finna put parties aside because it in and about parties today.
A bullet don't know a party. So don't get me started. Okay,
Jacoby is nice, Well, Anne is not now thet the
if the governor wanted to come here and he bringing
(03:06):
gifts to my community. Y'all know, I'm taking the gifts
because we've been through enough already and I don't want
to go through no mo now, y'all, y'all just be
quiet just a minute, and let let the governor say
what he gonna say, and we gonna.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Get this pot is started.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
You hear me, Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
We have mass shootings, and we have nearly unfettered civilian
access to these weapons of war, and we have this
decade's old orgy of gun worship because of Republicans period.
Our gun crisis may not be one hundred percent Republican,
(03:46):
but it's ninety five percent, as our democracy crisis may
not be one hundred percent Republican, but it's ninety five percent.
As our climate crisis may not be one hundred percent republican,
but it's well seventy five percent. Our awareness that at
any moment, anywhere, anyone in this country could be murdered
(04:07):
by sentient fecal matter, and the only variables from tragedy
to tragedy are which minority group this one murdered because
if which Republicans this one listened to? That waxes and
wanes but there are four unswerving constants, and they played
out in Jacksonville over the weekend. They had the guns
(04:29):
because of Republicans. If they didn't have the hate already,
they got it because of Republicans. Nearly all of our
news media will refuse to say that mass shootings in
this country are the unquestioned fault of Republicans, and no
matter what the circumstances of this particular one, or any
gun tragedy are, Republicans will insist it is always too
(04:51):
soon to you know, try to stop them from happening
and to propose, you know, solutions, And they will say
that that's trying to exploit a tragedy for political game,
as opposed to trying to exploit a tragedy for donations
from the National Rifle Association and making sure that nothing
(05:12):
is ever ever done to stop the next mass murderer. So,
Counselwoman Pittman, don't get me started. You were wrong. A
bullet knows a party, A bullet in this country knows
who its friends are Republicans. And if you don't know that,
(05:35):
get out. Maybe you've been a great councilwoman in your
two months in office. I don't know I hope so.
But if your response is to kiss the ass of
the governor who is running for president on a platform
of slavery had a silver lining of giving its victims
blacksmithing skills, maybe you want to reconsider which party you
belong to. Now, if this was just about the tragedy
(05:57):
of this weekend and the shock, forgive me for saying
what I have said. Yes, I think you would disc
of a pass. But if it isn't and you meant that,
get out. And to those in that crowd who booed
this fascist DeSantis, God bless you. And please, if words
like this still have any meaning in our paralyzed, irresponsible, racist,
(06:22):
failed society, please accept not just my condolences but my
thanks because you all knew which political party killed your
friends and neighbors Saturday, and you showed the courage the
rest of us, including the Democratic politicians, including us in
the media, the kind of courage we have not shown
(06:50):
before we get to Trump. Let's pivot to Vivek Ramaswami.
And it is hard to believe that in a timeline
that has brought us Trump and DeSantis, this Ramaswami guy
may be the biggest idiot of them all. The primary
danger of the Trump era is the release of hatred
and violence and racism and brutality. But the secondary danger
(07:12):
is this ongoing release of this stupidity. This I will
again go to Howard Feineman's Pittsburgh term. It fits Ramaswami
like spandex painted on him. This jag off goes on
NBC yesterday and says, no, Mike Pence shouldn't have done
what Trump wanted him to do on January sixth, but
he should have refused to certify Biden's election until the
(07:34):
Senate agreed to instantly institute new laws to mandate the
most draconian Republican talking points about voting suppression, single day elections,
paper ballots, government issued IDs. And he said, quote Pence
should have quote led through that level of reform and
then under that condition certify the election, as if every
(07:55):
moment of the political day is designed to be a
hostage situation and every law must be optional. Because VIVK
Ramaswami sees a loophole to exploit, let's leverage it, let's bargain.
This jag off had the audacity to get up in
(08:16):
front of a national television audience and insist that anybody
under twenty five who wants to vote should have to
pass a civics test first. And since then he has
spent his entire week revealing he could not possibly pass
any civics test.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And he has.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Explained that the Constitution, which was not written until seventeen
eighty seven, won the revolution for us in seventeen eighty three,
and now he thinks, so long as you can get
away with it, you should be able to suspend the
Constitution and the laws a civics test before you can vote. Hell,
give this Ramaswami a breathalyzer test. But look out. The
(08:55):
Ramaswami machine may now be unstoppable. Last night, Vivek Ramaswami
got the most coveted endorsement in the political calendar.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
This morning, I got up and I found myself watching
to meet the press. They at the babik Uwamaswami on Now,
just like the debates, the Republican debates. I said, Hey,
this guy is onto something.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
But I love what he was.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Saying in this book. I was saying, it's fresh, it's new.
I got a little problem with his foreign affairs take.
And if he got himself an experienced person to run
with him, an experienced person, I would say, like Nikki Haley,
somebody that knows foreign affairs.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
This guy would have a chance. I think this guy
really would have a chance.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Oh J.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Simpson endorses Vivek Ramaswami oh J for the Ramaswami Haley ticket.
I'd say it's the kiss of death. But you know,
I mean, how can somebody not just this stupid, this stupid,
(10:07):
as stupid as Vivic Ramaswami. How can somebody not just
this stupid, but this stupid he thinks he's the smartest
man alive run for president? Well, how is somebody this stupid?
A sitting senator from Tennessee Marcia Blackburn tweeted, the Left
is able to release Donald Trump's mugshot, but they still
(10:29):
can't tell us who brought cocaine into the White House.
And you wonder, is she really so imbecilic as to
not understand that those two things have nothing to do
with each other. Oh, and that she doesn't know that
virtually all mugshots everywhere in this country are released, and
(10:53):
she hadn't noticed that the leading distributor of Trump's mugshot,
the one where he tried to look like big brother
and tried to hide his double, triple, quadruple and quintuple chins.
She doesn't know that the leading distributor of the mugshot
was Trump himself, Marsha Blackburn, Ramaswami, dozens more Republicans. I mean,
(11:16):
they can't be naturally this stupid and have survived to
the ages they have reached. They would have walked into
open manhole covers by now, all of them. There's only
one other explanation. They must be high as a kite
all the time. Okay, now the Trump schedule, and here
(11:42):
we go. The cases are beginning to go back up.
Like air traffic over New York at six thirty pm
every night, runway saturation get used to it. The juxtapositions
are about to get fierce. And then as we stride
further and further into the quicksand of the twenty twenty
four primary season and the election, all the principal parties
(12:02):
are going to need to higher away broadways best choreographers.
At ten am, a judge in Trump's Washington case was
going to begin a hearing on something essential while at
why this is a coincidence? Ten am, a judge in
Trump's Atlanta case was going to begin a hearing on
something essential. The Washington one is simpler to digest. This
(12:25):
is Judge Tanya Trutkin's hearing before setting a scheduled start
to the conspiracy case against Trump for trying to illegally
overturn a to borrow somebody's term perfect election. Again one
of those old fashioned multiple choice exams, which is bigger
an elephant or a mouse? The Special Council proposes to
start the trial January two, twenty twenty four. Trump proposes
(12:47):
to start April something, twenty twenty six. The judge usually
picks neither and sets her own date. But we're not
doing an eBay Best offers sale here. It's not going
to be splitting the difference. I will note that Judge
Trutkin already warned Trump that if he did not restrain
himself on social media, she would take it out on
him by starting the trial asap to protect the jury
(13:08):
pool from his efforts to poison it. And guess what,
he has not restrained himself on social media. I don't
have a clue where she will end up calendar wise,
but if she goes for any date in January or
February of next year, Trump is ft. Meanwhile, at exactly
the same hour, there is the conundrum facing Federal District
(13:31):
Court Judge Steve Jones. The bar to get a case
like the Atlanta one against the former Trump chief of
Staff Mark Meadows moved from the court in Georgia to
a federal court is not that high, sociate legal experts.
That's particularly so, they add, when the facts are this obvious.
Mark Meadows was a federal official at the time the
(13:54):
events he's charged over took place. This color of his
office thing is pretty clear. Unfortunately, Meadows may have killed
his own best argument because in filing asking to have
the case removed to federal court, he spends two pages
also asserting that he's not guilty of the charges because
they represent an attack on the essence of the First Amendment. Quote.
(14:17):
All the alleged conduct as to mister Meadows relates to
protected political activity that lies in the heartland of the
First Amendment. The First Amendment quote has its fullest and
most urgent application precisely to the conduct of campaigns for
political office. Unquote cool, cool, small problem the Hatch Act.
(14:39):
You're not allowed to conduct conduct relating to protected political
activity and campaigns for political office, while the color of
your office is green for go, go go. In short,
Meadows is asking the judge to protect him from being
charged with one crime by boasting for two pages that
(15:01):
he committed another crime. Don't like that. Late last night,
Meadows shored up his legal representation and clearly not a
moment too soon. He added one of the deputies from
the Ken Star Bill Clinton prosecution, not Brett Kavanaugh regardless.
(15:22):
ABC reports the courtroom will be packed in the Meadows
case with representatives of many of the other members of
the Trump nineteen because many of them want their trials
moved to federal court as well. Meanwhile, keep an eye
on this. Remember David Schaefer, the former chairman of the
Georgia GOP, the fake elector one of the Trump nineteen,
(15:43):
whose first move after the indictments was to release emails
that basically said Trump did this, Trump and his lawyers
Trump did this. Woooooooo, He's got company now. Kathy Latham,
the local official also tied to the accessed voting machines
crime in Coffee County, has said the same thing. I
served at the pleasure of the president and Sean still
(16:04):
a fake elector same thing. One of the benefits of
having eighteen co defendants from the prosecution point of view,
is that a majority of them can stay loyal to Trump,
and you'd still have as many as eight who will flip.
Of course, all of this is, if not academic, then
way less important if Trump is not actually on the
(16:26):
ballot next year. And you will remember why. That might
be the disqualification clause of section three of the fourteenth
Amendment fourteen three for short. And we are finally seeing
some early stirrings from people who want to make this
constitutional theory sing. Four years ago, Corky Messner ran for
(16:48):
the Senate seat from New Hampshire and Trump endorsed him.
And yet Corky Messner is loyal to the Constitution. I've
taken an oath to this country. My sons are serving
right now, and I believe someone's got to stay up
up to defend the constitution. Corky says he's not precisely
(17:10):
sure how he's going to do this, but he's going
to try to get Trump barred from the New Hampshire ballot.
Based on fourteen three, ABC News reports, the New Hampshire
Secretary of State met with mister Messner on Friday and
will now confer with the state attorney general. But the
Secretary of State does think this needs to be tested
(17:30):
in court. And yes, the New Hampshire Republicans are just
ornery and old school enough that they can be rapidly
pro Trump, but angrily more pro constitution. And now in Florida,
a tax attorney named Lawrence Kaplan paging mister Caplan Flease,
has sued in federal court to keep Trump off the
(17:52):
primary ballot next March nineteenth in Florida based on fourteenth three.
Next crewe Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, it
keeps saying it is going to be acting shortly on
Trump and fourteen three. Meanwhile, another ethics group, Free Speech
for People, is launching a campaign that starts with letters
to all fifty state secretaries of state going through the
(18:14):
fourteen to three argument and urging them to bar Trump
from their ballots themselves and see what happens thereafter. And
that would be phase one where Daris gets her oh ites.
Phase two from FSFP is legal challenges state by state
using state laws where they exist. These are not huge developments,
(18:37):
but they are a damn site better than commentaries about
how conservative scholars are convinced that fourteen to three disqualifies Trump,
even commentaries by me. One more thing, the Russian Investigative
Committee now says it's official, quote molecular genetic testing has
(19:01):
been completed unquote. It says and yes that one particular
pile of ashes from the private jet crash northwest of
Moscow last Thursday is was the Wagner group leader at
Guenny Progosion. So it thus becomes irresistible to Saturday Night
Live fans of a certain vintage good Evening Generalissimov Guenny
(19:22):
Pregosion is still dead. Also of interest, here, the murmuring
is beginning to get louder. There is a push starting
to get Jonathan Turley fired by George Washington University Law School.
Can I help? And you know whose comments are most
(19:44):
directly helping this along? Jonathan Turley's.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
That's next.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
This is countdown. There's his countdown with Keith old Woman.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith Alberman.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
In sports, the Spanish soccer kiss crisis continues to cascade.
The world governing body for the sport, FIFA, has now
suspended the president of the Spanish Football Federation for ninety days.
He has vowed to fight any punishment. Every one of
Spain's eleven assistant managers and coaches has quit in protest.
(20:39):
Each Spanish player has refused to play again for their country.
Other nations are vowing to refuse to play Spain ever
again because the FIFA suspension is insufficient. The federation chief,
Luis Rubiatis, celebrated Spain's World Cup victory, first by grabbing
his crotch and then by grabbing the back of the
(20:59):
head of the Spanish player Jenny Hermoso with both hands
and kissing her on the lips. She said it was
not consensual. He issued a statement that translates from Spanish
to English as some sort of gibberish about consent via
the circumstances, And apparently it's even worse in Spanish. It
loses something in the original, something about her lifting him
(21:22):
by the hips. His conclusion, he's not resigning, and if
you keep trying to make him, he'll just keep saying
he's not resigning.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Mediri no.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
No bomidi novoya meidiri novoyamidiri.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Okay, fine, you're not resigning. They'll fire you instead. The
Spanish government says it is now trying to remove Rubialis
by legal means. The Spanish Football Federation says it has
activated its sexual violence protocol and is investigating its own
federation president in Chicago. We might be able to use
the Spanish football Federation to look into this. Three days later,
(22:05):
and the White Sox are still not clear how two
fans got shot as they watched Friday's game from the bleachers.
They don't even know if the shots came from inside
or outside the stadium. A forty two year old woman
took a bullet in the leg and was hospitalized in
fair condition. A twenty six year old woman suffered a
graze to the abdomen and did not need medical attention.
(22:26):
Hope this doesn't offend anybody connected to this podcast. Do
we have anybody with any connections to the White Sox.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
This on this pod?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
On this podcast, almost no story though, is without a
silver lining, and this one is no different. After the shooting,
the White Sox canceled that night's Vanilla Ice concert. Thank you,
(23:01):
Nancy Faust from Oakland back to skating. As you know.
Oakland A's team owner John Fisher starved that franchise until
it was unwatchable and attendance flat lined, and this was
his excuse to make a deal to move it to
Las Vegas. Fisher has just found out he has a
big problem. No way there is a place to play
in Las Vegas before twenty twenty eight at the earliest,
(23:24):
maybe even twenty twenty nine, and he's leased in Oakland
runs out after next season. He's had the gall to
ask Oakland for an extension. The Mayor of Oakland has
replied by telling Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, who is complicit
in this staggering betrayal of one of its most long
suffering markets, that Fisher can have the extension provided that
(23:46):
when the A's move, they leave the name A's in Oakland,
and that Baseball promises in writing to put an expansion
franchise to replace the A's in Oakland, which they'll then
call the A's the current A's and we know what
A stands for here. Think they have an alternative renting
out the home of the San Francisco Giants for thirty
(24:08):
or forty games a year. If that doesn't work, Plan
C is to play in the A's Triple A minor
League stadium which is in Summerland, Nevada, and that seats
eighty two hundred people and doesn't have a roof. Still
(24:36):
ahead on an all new edition of Countdown. Oh, it's
anniversary month. I mean, I've been around so long it's
always anniversary month for something. This time it's the anniversary
of the start of my television career. And thus previously
untold tales of Ted Turner first time for the Daily
round Up with the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effect specimens who constitute today's worse persons in the world.
(25:00):
Should have done that with a Southern accent. Worst persons
in the World Turner impression the bronze to Zillo, the
online home selling site. It posted that ten days before
Trump was indicted in Georgia, he had sold Merri Lago
for four hundred and twenty two million dollars to his
son Junior. You know, even though Zilo estimated the value
(25:26):
of the place at twenty four million, that was the
price four hundred and twenty two million. Needless to say,
this was interesting, sounded like something you know, drug lord
would do before faking his own death. Five hours later,
Zillo finally answered a lot of inquiries by saying, without
further explanation, that this was a thing that was posted
in error, and they took it down an error. You bet.
(25:50):
The runners up Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk continuing to
lie about how many people saw the Carlson flatulent lap
sitting interview with Trump. The number they're now claiming who
saw it is like a three D four hundred, I
don't know, eleventy billion, whatever it is. In fact, that
number that they are putting out is how many people
saw the tweet of the interview in their timelines. The
(26:14):
old video view number that Musk has now hidden from
Twitter only required that people watched something for two seconds
to count as a viewer, so it was bad enough
measurable reports that the number of people who watched the
Trump Tucker Carlson interview for at least two seconds was
only fourteen point eight million two seconds who watched it
(26:35):
for even a minute way less. The debate, for which
it was supposedly counterprogramming, got twelve point eight million on Fox.
The goped debate, for whatever this is worth, crushed Tucker
Carlson with Trump in terms of actual audience in short
under Musk. Twitter has a new metric which includes people
who watch something and people who don't watch it. Genius,
(26:58):
I tell you genius, but the winner Jonathan Turley. People
keep asking me about Nathan Turley, who used to be
a regular on Countdown, and what happened to him. My
answer is, I assume it's blackmail. The real question is
what's going to happen to him next. There is mounting
pressure on George Washington University Law School to get rid
(27:19):
of him. The latest atrocity from John Turley described online
by somebody as Mike Lindell with tenure. He is whoring
out his reputation by telling his new pimps at Fox
that he can't understand the Trump charges because when Trump
called Secretary of State Ken Rafsenberger of Georgia and asked
him to find eleven, five hundred and seventy votes, he
(27:40):
was just demanding a recount. A recount, that's all. It was,
the recount which had already taken place before the phone
call a month earlier, a month after the audit. Worse,
Turley is in direct disagreement with somebody very well respected
in the legal game who tweeted on January third, twenty
(28:01):
twenty one quote telling Raffensburger to quote find the votes
on the Saturday before the inauguration is a breathtaking I
am as mystified by the request, as I am by
the logic such an opportunistic move to secure the sixteen
electoral votes would not work to change the outcome. Who
tweeted that position, completely contradicting and out arguing John Turley
(28:25):
John Turley. John Turley said that the request the Raffensburger
made no sense. Couldn't figure it out. Now he says, Oh,
it's just a recount. He's being blackmailed.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
John.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Remember when they tried to blackmail Jeff Bezos to give
Trump good coverage? You really think Bezos was the only
one looking at you? Turley, Turley Today's worst person. Annoy
(29:02):
Now to the number one story on this all new
edition of Countdown. And it's that time of year again.
It's August when the odometer turns over and my TV
debut becomes forty three years ago this month.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Holy crap.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And it all owes to Ted Turner and Lou Dobbs.
Part of this I've told before. I actually interviewed with
Cable News Network twice, once in April nineteen eighty, when
they were not yet on the air, and after that interview,
I saw no reason they ever would be. I wrote
in my diary, there's no chance they're ever going to
(29:41):
get it on the air in time. They were supposed
to go on in September, because the New York Bureau
of CNN consisted of one coffee table, a couple of chairs,
one coffee machine, a stairwell, one unisex bathroom, and one
staffer New York Bureau chief Mary Alice Williams. Plus the
day I went there, CNN Sports president Bill McPhail made
(30:04):
it too staffers. He was up from Atlanta after a
long year. My phone rang one day and McPhail asked
me to fill in for two weeks. In two weeks
for their New York sports reporter. I had no television
experience at all. Well, I'd watched it. She was going
on vacation on August third, sooner, McPhail added, if the
(30:24):
baseball strike ended before then. Her name was Debbie Segura,
and all I knew was vacation me okay. Turned out
it was part vacation, part get out of town, quickly,
very quickly, see CNN started as not just news news
or just news and politics and interviews and guests. There
(30:46):
was a half an hour business show every night, and
a half an hour show business show every night, and
a half an hour sports cast at seven, and another
half an hour sports cast at eleven and then one
in the middle of the night. There was a fashion program,
and there were hourly stock reports, and they had a
staff of meteorologists, and they had short sports casts almost
every hour of the day. And the business anchor based
(31:06):
in that New York bureau, which had expanded from the
one unisex bathroom, was Lou Dobbs, and as the producer
they had sent up to work with me when I
filled in for this Debbie Sigura. Phil Griffin later the
president of MSNBC. As he explained to me, when we
got in the car to go out to Shaye Stadium
to interview all those New York Mets guys, Lou Dobbs
(31:28):
was rumored to be stepping out on his wife with
the CNN New York Sports reporter and missus Dobbs had
found out, so there was even a rumor there was
somebody else who also worked in the CNN New York
Bureau who found out. So Bill McPhail's hurried call asking
me to fill in for the reporter for two weeks
in two weeks was because she was going on quote vacation.
(31:54):
Not long after all this, Dobbs thought it would be
smarter to leave New York for a while, like a
decade or so, and Debbie went with him. They got married.
This left New York without a sports reporter, and CNN
tried another one of their Atlanta anchors for a while,
but they kept giving him extra vacation time, so they
would have to bring me in freelance every month, and
(32:14):
finally the following March they offered me the job full time.
And I have not earned an honest paycheck since. And
I mean that in two ways. CNN was paying me
five hundred dollars a week, that's one hundred dollars a
day to go on national television. Even then, this seemed
a little low, and it was about forty percent less
than what I was making for like three days a
(32:36):
week in network radio. I pointed this out acceptingly because
I was learning how to do TV while on TV
and getting paid for it. It was a vocational school,
and that's when they told me that the five hundred
dollars a week was already more than they had been
paying Debbie Sigura and more than the guy they were
paying as their reporter in Los Angeles. And then Bill McPhail,
(32:59):
the head of sports, called and offered me a contract
for twenty five thousand dollars and I said, wait, five
five hundred dollars a week is twenty six that. Wait
a minute, you're offering me less for the contract. Why
would I take less? Is there health insurance or something?
And he said no, there's just the security of having
the contract. And I said, well, I'd rather have the
thousand dollars that you're docking me for signing, and they
(33:22):
found it somewhere, but they always reminded me how generous
they had been with that extra thousand dollars, and I
kept saying, that's not extra. You are already paying me that. Anyway,
none of that would have happened, though, without Ted Turner,
because CNN was his idea, and in fact, most of
what you saw from me on ESPN later that was
(33:45):
also mostly his idea too, sort of. Anyway, the basic
idea of SportsCenter sports news on national television on more
or less a daily basis. Ted did that. Not ESPN
and the daily sports news studio show on at the
same time every day or night with the same anchors
(34:05):
treated as seriously as a half an hour of news.
Ted did that. And buying sports teams to have something
to put on your television station, Ted did that too.
WTCG Channel seventeen Atlanta was the fringiest of FRINGEYTV stations
when Ted Turner bought it in nineteen seventy, But then
six years later he bought first the Atlanta Braves and
(34:26):
then the basketball Atlanta Hawks, and he bought a couple
of satellite dishes, and the FCC made the fateful decision
to let him put Channel seventeen up on the satellite
so it could be shown on those fledgling cable systems
around the country. And the next thing he knew, the
Atlanta Braves were America's team, and Ted, who was shameless,
(34:46):
promptly signed the first baseball player ever to take advantage
of what we now know as free agency, Andy Messersmith.
Andy Mesersmith got what looked like all the money in
the world, more money than any baseball player had ever
gotten or or we were certain would ever get one
million dollars over three years. With one catch. Andy Messersmith
(35:15):
had to wear uniform number seventeen WTCG Channel seventeen. You
see where this was going. He had to wear uniform
number seventeen, and instead of having Messersmith written on the
back of the shirt over the seventeen, he had to
have the word channel. So Andy Messersmith's uniform when he
(35:36):
broke in with the Atlanta Braves in nineteen seventy six
as the highest paid player in baseball history, the back
of the uniform read Channel seventeen. Baseball stopped that right quick.
It stopped ted the day he decided that he should
see what it was like to manage the Braves and
if it really was as difficult as his managers had
made it seem. His lifetime record was zero and one,
(35:58):
and he said, yes, this is very difficult. But the
cable sports genie that one was out of the bottle
and nobody was stopped it, and he aspn ran with it.
But next came news. Even then, his crazy idea cable
news network rested squarely on the first regularly scheduled nightly
sports newscast in national television history. CNN Sports Tonight at
(36:19):
seven at eleven and two am Eastern, while SportsCenter was
on in those days for fifteen minutes one night at
seven and then an hour the next night at ten,
and Sports Tonight was there Come News or high Water
seven nights a week. Of course, Ted Turner was not
just shameless, he was also technically penniless, so he hired
(36:40):
a couple of real veterans to run and anchor the thing.
Bill mcphil who helped invent the NFL on CBS and
Monday Night Football, was also his idea, and his former
CBS colleague Bob Wessler, and he hired Nick Charles, who
was a star of sportscasting on the Washington and Baltimore newscasts,
but everybody else the cheapest hires they could find. In
(37:01):
nineteen eighty one, Turner sent McPhail to hire me. That
was our second interview. When I told Bill I had
made forty two thousand dollars the year before working for
Charlie Steiner in radio. Bill spit his drink halfway across
the room. We were planning on hiring six guys to
start with, for a total of ninety five thousand. This
(37:21):
is when they were staffing up what became CNN Headline News.
I answered that I hoped that the other five guys
he was going to hire were prepared to make it
on seven grand each, because there was no way I
was moving to Atlanta for less than sixty thousand dollars. Well,
they got me anyway, and for less than sixty thousand dollars,
But I did not move to Atlanta, thank you, Lou Dobbs.
(37:42):
And they got Dan Patrick and Hannah Storm and Fred
Hickman and Dan Hicks and Gary Miller and dozens of
others and reporters and cameramen and producers and executives and editors,
and one sports production assistant from the original crew of
CNN Sports wound up becoming the president of CNN Worldwide,
(38:03):
and another wound up becoming the president of MSNBC. ESPN
reshaped television sports news anyway, CNN created it, and early
on CNN staffed ESPN and much of the industry. And
I'm skipping how Turner mainstreamed World Cup Yachting at least
for a while, and Ted and TNT and Ted and
(38:25):
the Goodwill Games and Ted and World Championship Wrestling whose
matches were actually held right above the CNN newsroom, so
that often you could hear the wrestlers slamming each other
on our ceiling. And by the way, the Braves winning
fourteen straight division titles and the repopulation of Bison in
the country. It was also Ted Turner, But my favorite
(38:46):
Ted Turner story comes from something he did not pull off,
not that he did not try. When the football owners
forced the players out on strike in nineteen eighty two,
Ted sent me to cover it every day for eight months,
and one day he showed up at the football strike
talks to meet with the players, and when he came out,
he announced that he would be bankrolling and televising two
(39:09):
football games in the middle of a football strike, one
at RFK Stadium in Washington and the other at the
Rose Bowl in southern California. And basically these two games
would pit pickup teams of striking players the American Conference
versus the National Conference. And he called his two games
the All Star Season. I've mentioned this elsewhere and before.
(39:31):
When I asked him about the acronym for the All
Star Season, he winked at me and shushed me, and
then he took me aside and he asked me what
I thought. I told him, nobody's gonna watch and he's
gonna lose money. And he looked at me and he said,
nobody watches you. I lose money on you. So what,
we'll make money eventually. He then explained that that was
(39:54):
really just designed to set up the owners. If he
could put the games together and get them on TV
with no more than one month's lead time, the players
you Union was willing to partner up with him. Ted's
real motive for the ass the All Star season was
nothing less than creating his own Football League, twenty four
(40:17):
teams which would begin play in nineteen eighty three or
sooner if necessary, and would be televised exclusively on TBS.
All he needed was the players going along with him,
and one little labor court ruling that the owners had
forced the players Union to go out on strike and
that would allow the union to negotiate with other employers. Well, obviously,
(40:41):
you don't have to be a football expert to know
that he did not get that court ruling, but they
went for it. Ted Turner was shooting for nothing less
than killing off the National Football League and replacing it
with a new National Football League owned by Ted Turner,
and he was going to give the players fifty percent
of the whole league. And don't forget nearly all of
(41:03):
this was done on a shoe string budget, with borrowed money,
with all of his employees convinced that he was crazy
and it wouldn't last until next Tuesday. And when we
would get our paychecks at CNN in New York, we
would race each other to the bank to cash them,
just in case there wasn't going to be enough for everybody.
So whenever something causes me to get nostalgic about my
(41:26):
start in TV, I inevitably find myself going back to
tales of Ted Turner, Owen Lou and Missus Dobbs and
the other Missus Dobbs, Missus Dobbs one and Missus Dobbs two.
(41:57):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countdown has come to you from our
studios high on top the Sports Capsule Building in New York.
Here are the credits. Most of the music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel. They
are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by
John Phillip Shanel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
(42:17):
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Olberman theme for ESPN two, and it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of esp and
E musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium
organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Jonathan Banks.
Everything else is pretty much my fault. That's countdown for
(42:39):
this the nine hundred and sixty fourth day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Arrest him again while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow Bolton's as the news
warrant still then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
(43:12):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. They
heckled Ron DeSantis last night at a vigil for the
victims of the latest mass shooting in Jacksonville, and the
(00:27):
local district councilwoman told the crowd to be quiet because quote,
a bullet, don't know a party, unquote, and unfortunately she
was utterly mistaken. Utterly. I understand about grief, and I
understand about rage. And when a psychopath with Nazi symbols
(00:48):
on his guns goes to an HBCU and then to
a dollar store to specifically shoot people because they are
African American, I think I can just begin to have
a vague, genuine empathy about why somebody like council Woman
Jacoby Pittman would make such a mistake, defending, even for
(01:09):
just the moment, slime like Ron DeSantis, who has spent
much of this year spewing the kind of racist hate
that the Jacksonville shooter felt somehow entitled to put into
murderous form. Siding with DeSantis as he strode to the
mic and boasted he wouldn't let black colleges be targeted
(01:30):
by racists who already targeted them Saturday, while his idiot
wife stands there smiling doing her very dime store knockoff
impression of Jackie Kennedy. I get why she would make
a mistake under the circumstances, but it was a mistake.
In our America of twenty twenty three, a bullet not
(01:52):
only knows a party, but the bullets are there because
of a party.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Lord of Governor Ron DeSantis is here. We're going to
ask the governor if he would come now and remarks.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Well, thank you for doing this.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I want to just say to the councilwoman, counsel woman,
counsel woman, I got you.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Don't worry about it. We've already been.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Looking to identify funds to be able to help one
make sure there's adequate security for Edward Waters College. We
are not going to allow these institutions to be targeted
by people.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
We let me let me thank you.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Okay, listen, y'all, let me let me tell you we
finna put parties aside because it in and about parties today.
A bullet don't know a party. So don't get me started. Okay,
Jacoby is nice, Well, Anne is not now thet the
if the governor wanted to come here and he bringing
(03:06):
gifts to my community. Y'all know, I'm taking the gifts
because we've been through enough already and I don't want
to go through no mo now, y'all, y'all just be
quiet just a minute, and let let the governor say
what he gonna say, and we gonna.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Get this pot is started.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
You hear me, Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
We have mass shootings, and we have nearly unfettered civilian
access to these weapons of war, and we have this
decade's old orgy of gun worship because of Republicans period.
Our gun crisis may not be one hundred percent Republican,
(03:46):
but it's ninety five percent, as our democracy crisis may
not be one hundred percent Republican, but it's ninety five percent.
As our climate crisis may not be one hundred percent republican,
but it's well seventy five percent. Our awareness that at
any moment, anywhere, anyone in this country could be murdered
(04:07):
by sentient fecal matter, and the only variables from tragedy
to tragedy are which minority group this one murdered because
if which Republicans this one listened to? That waxes and
wanes but there are four unswerving constants, and they played
out in Jacksonville over the weekend. They had the guns
(04:29):
because of Republicans. If they didn't have the hate already,
they got it because of Republicans. Nearly all of our
news media will refuse to say that mass shootings in
this country are the unquestioned fault of Republicans, and no
matter what the circumstances of this particular one, or any
gun tragedy are, Republicans will insist it is always too
(04:51):
soon to you know, try to stop them from happening
and to propose, you know, solutions, And they will say
that that's trying to exploit a tragedy for political game,
as opposed to trying to exploit a tragedy for donations
from the National Rifle Association and making sure that nothing
(05:12):
is ever ever done to stop the next mass murderer. So,
Counselwoman Pittman, don't get me started. You were wrong. A
bullet knows a party, A bullet in this country knows
who its friends are Republicans. And if you don't know that,
(05:35):
get out. Maybe you've been a great councilwoman in your
two months in office. I don't know I hope so.
But if your response is to kiss the ass of
the governor who is running for president on a platform
of slavery had a silver lining of giving its victims
blacksmithing skills, maybe you want to reconsider which party you
belong to. Now, if this was just about the tragedy
(05:57):
of this weekend and the shock, forgive me for saying
what I have said. Yes, I think you would disc
of a pass. But if it isn't and you meant that,
get out. And to those in that crowd who booed
this fascist DeSantis, God bless you. And please, if words
like this still have any meaning in our paralyzed, irresponsible, racist,
(06:22):
failed society, please accept not just my condolences but my
thanks because you all knew which political party killed your
friends and neighbors Saturday, and you showed the courage the
rest of us, including the Democratic politicians, including us in
the media, the kind of courage we have not shown
(06:50):
before we get to Trump. Let's pivot to Vivek Ramaswami.
And it is hard to believe that in a timeline
that has brought us Trump and DeSantis, this Ramaswami guy
may be the biggest idiot of them all. The primary
danger of the Trump era is the release of hatred
and violence and racism and brutality. But the secondary danger
(07:12):
is this ongoing release of this stupidity. This I will
again go to Howard Feineman's Pittsburgh term. It fits Ramaswami
like spandex painted on him. This jag off goes on
NBC yesterday and says, no, Mike Pence shouldn't have done
what Trump wanted him to do on January sixth, but
he should have refused to certify Biden's election until the
(07:34):
Senate agreed to instantly institute new laws to mandate the
most draconian Republican talking points about voting suppression, single day elections,
paper ballots, government issued IDs. And he said, quote Pence
should have quote led through that level of reform and
then under that condition certify the election, as if every
(07:55):
moment of the political day is designed to be a
hostage situation and every law must be optional. Because VIVK
Ramaswami sees a loophole to exploit, let's leverage it, let's bargain.
This jag off had the audacity to get up in
(08:16):
front of a national television audience and insist that anybody
under twenty five who wants to vote should have to
pass a civics test first. And since then he has
spent his entire week revealing he could not possibly pass
any civics test.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And he has.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Explained that the Constitution, which was not written until seventeen
eighty seven, won the revolution for us in seventeen eighty three,
and now he thinks, so long as you can get
away with it, you should be able to suspend the
Constitution and the laws a civics test before you can vote. Hell,
give this Ramaswami a breathalyzer test. But look out. The
(08:55):
Ramaswami machine may now be unstoppable. Last night, Vivek Ramaswami
got the most coveted endorsement in the political calendar.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
This morning, I got up and I found myself watching
to meet the press. They at the babik Uwamaswami on Now,
just like the debates, the Republican debates. I said, Hey,
this guy is onto something.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
But I love what he was.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Saying in this book. I was saying, it's fresh, it's new.
I got a little problem with his foreign affairs take.
And if he got himself an experienced person to run
with him, an experienced person, I would say, like Nikki Haley,
somebody that knows foreign affairs.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
This guy would have a chance. I think this guy
really would have a chance.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Oh J.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Simpson endorses Vivek Ramaswami oh J for the Ramaswami Haley ticket.
I'd say it's the kiss of death. But you know,
I mean, how can somebody not just this stupid, this stupid,
(10:07):
as stupid as Vivic Ramaswami. How can somebody not just
this stupid, but this stupid he thinks he's the smartest
man alive run for president? Well, how is somebody this stupid?
A sitting senator from Tennessee Marcia Blackburn tweeted, the Left
is able to release Donald Trump's mugshot, but they still
(10:29):
can't tell us who brought cocaine into the White House.
And you wonder, is she really so imbecilic as to
not understand that those two things have nothing to do
with each other. Oh, and that she doesn't know that
virtually all mugshots everywhere in this country are released, and
(10:53):
she hadn't noticed that the leading distributor of Trump's mugshot,
the one where he tried to look like big brother
and tried to hide his double, triple, quadruple and quintuple chins.
She doesn't know that the leading distributor of the mugshot
was Trump himself, Marsha Blackburn, Ramaswami, dozens more Republicans. I mean,
(11:16):
they can't be naturally this stupid and have survived to
the ages they have reached. They would have walked into
open manhole covers by now, all of them. There's only
one other explanation. They must be high as a kite
all the time. Okay, now the Trump schedule, and here
(11:42):
we go. The cases are beginning to go back up.
Like air traffic over New York at six thirty pm
every night, runway saturation get used to it. The juxtapositions
are about to get fierce. And then as we stride
further and further into the quicksand of the twenty twenty
four primary season and the election, all the principal parties
(12:02):
are going to need to higher away broadways best choreographers.
At ten am, a judge in Trump's Washington case was
going to begin a hearing on something essential while at
why this is a coincidence? Ten am, a judge in
Trump's Atlanta case was going to begin a hearing on
something essential. The Washington one is simpler to digest. This
(12:25):
is Judge Tanya Trutkin's hearing before setting a scheduled start
to the conspiracy case against Trump for trying to illegally
overturn a to borrow somebody's term perfect election. Again one
of those old fashioned multiple choice exams, which is bigger
an elephant or a mouse? The Special Council proposes to
start the trial January two, twenty twenty four. Trump proposes
(12:47):
to start April something, twenty twenty six. The judge usually
picks neither and sets her own date. But we're not
doing an eBay Best offers sale here. It's not going
to be splitting the difference. I will note that Judge
Trutkin already warned Trump that if he did not restrain
himself on social media, she would take it out on
him by starting the trial asap to protect the jury
(13:08):
pool from his efforts to poison it. And guess what,
he has not restrained himself on social media. I don't
have a clue where she will end up calendar wise,
but if she goes for any date in January or
February of next year, Trump is ft. Meanwhile, at exactly
the same hour, there is the conundrum facing Federal District
(13:31):
Court Judge Steve Jones. The bar to get a case
like the Atlanta one against the former Trump chief of
Staff Mark Meadows moved from the court in Georgia to
a federal court is not that high, sociate legal experts.
That's particularly so, they add, when the facts are this obvious.
Mark Meadows was a federal official at the time the
(13:54):
events he's charged over took place. This color of his
office thing is pretty clear. Unfortunately, Meadows may have killed
his own best argument because in filing asking to have
the case removed to federal court, he spends two pages
also asserting that he's not guilty of the charges because
they represent an attack on the essence of the First Amendment. Quote.
(14:17):
All the alleged conduct as to mister Meadows relates to
protected political activity that lies in the heartland of the
First Amendment. The First Amendment quote has its fullest and
most urgent application precisely to the conduct of campaigns for
political office. Unquote cool, cool, small problem the Hatch Act.
(14:39):
You're not allowed to conduct conduct relating to protected political
activity and campaigns for political office, while the color of
your office is green for go, go go. In short,
Meadows is asking the judge to protect him from being
charged with one crime by boasting for two pages that
(15:01):
he committed another crime. Don't like that. Late last night,
Meadows shored up his legal representation and clearly not a
moment too soon. He added one of the deputies from
the Ken Star Bill Clinton prosecution, not Brett Kavanaugh regardless.
(15:22):
ABC reports the courtroom will be packed in the Meadows
case with representatives of many of the other members of
the Trump nineteen because many of them want their trials
moved to federal court as well. Meanwhile, keep an eye
on this. Remember David Schaefer, the former chairman of the
Georgia GOP, the fake elector one of the Trump nineteen,
(15:43):
whose first move after the indictments was to release emails
that basically said Trump did this, Trump and his lawyers
Trump did this. Woooooooo, He's got company now. Kathy Latham,
the local official also tied to the accessed voting machines
crime in Coffee County, has said the same thing. I
served at the pleasure of the president and Sean still
(16:04):
a fake elector same thing. One of the benefits of
having eighteen co defendants from the prosecution point of view,
is that a majority of them can stay loyal to Trump,
and you'd still have as many as eight who will flip.
Of course, all of this is, if not academic, then
way less important if Trump is not actually on the
(16:26):
ballot next year. And you will remember why. That might
be the disqualification clause of section three of the fourteenth
Amendment fourteen three for short. And we are finally seeing
some early stirrings from people who want to make this
constitutional theory sing. Four years ago, Corky Messner ran for
(16:48):
the Senate seat from New Hampshire and Trump endorsed him.
And yet Corky Messner is loyal to the Constitution. I've
taken an oath to this country. My sons are serving
right now, and I believe someone's got to stay up
up to defend the constitution. Corky says he's not precisely
(17:10):
sure how he's going to do this, but he's going
to try to get Trump barred from the New Hampshire ballot.
Based on fourteen three, ABC News reports, the New Hampshire
Secretary of State met with mister Messner on Friday and
will now confer with the state attorney general. But the
Secretary of State does think this needs to be tested
(17:30):
in court. And yes, the New Hampshire Republicans are just
ornery and old school enough that they can be rapidly
pro Trump, but angrily more pro constitution. And now in Florida,
a tax attorney named Lawrence Kaplan paging mister Caplan Flease,
has sued in federal court to keep Trump off the
(17:52):
primary ballot next March nineteenth in Florida based on fourteenth three.
Next crewe Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, it
keeps saying it is going to be acting shortly on
Trump and fourteen three. Meanwhile, another ethics group, Free Speech
for People, is launching a campaign that starts with letters
to all fifty state secretaries of state going through the
(18:14):
fourteen to three argument and urging them to bar Trump
from their ballots themselves and see what happens thereafter. And
that would be phase one where Daris gets her oh ites.
Phase two from FSFP is legal challenges state by state
using state laws where they exist. These are not huge developments,
(18:37):
but they are a damn site better than commentaries about
how conservative scholars are convinced that fourteen to three disqualifies Trump,
even commentaries by me. One more thing, the Russian Investigative
Committee now says it's official, quote molecular genetic testing has
(19:01):
been completed unquote. It says and yes that one particular
pile of ashes from the private jet crash northwest of
Moscow last Thursday is was the Wagner group leader at
Guenny Progosion. So it thus becomes irresistible to Saturday Night
Live fans of a certain vintage good Evening Generalissimov Guenny
(19:22):
Pregosion is still dead. Also of interest, here, the murmuring
is beginning to get louder. There is a push starting
to get Jonathan Turley fired by George Washington University Law School.
Can I help? And you know whose comments are most
(19:44):
directly helping this along? Jonathan Turley's.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
That's next.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
This is countdown. There's his countdown with Keith old Woman.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith Alberman.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
In sports, the Spanish soccer kiss crisis continues to cascade.
The world governing body for the sport, FIFA, has now
suspended the president of the Spanish Football Federation for ninety days.
He has vowed to fight any punishment. Every one of
Spain's eleven assistant managers and coaches has quit in protest.
(20:39):
Each Spanish player has refused to play again for their country.
Other nations are vowing to refuse to play Spain ever
again because the FIFA suspension is insufficient. The federation chief,
Luis Rubiatis, celebrated Spain's World Cup victory, first by grabbing
his crotch and then by grabbing the back of the
(20:59):
head of the Spanish player Jenny Hermoso with both hands
and kissing her on the lips. She said it was
not consensual. He issued a statement that translates from Spanish
to English as some sort of gibberish about consent via
the circumstances, And apparently it's even worse in Spanish. It
loses something in the original, something about her lifting him
(21:22):
by the hips. His conclusion, he's not resigning, and if
you keep trying to make him, he'll just keep saying
he's not resigning.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Mediri no.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
No bomidi novoya meidiri novoyamidiri.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Okay, fine, you're not resigning. They'll fire you instead. The
Spanish government says it is now trying to remove Rubialis
by legal means. The Spanish Football Federation says it has
activated its sexual violence protocol and is investigating its own
federation president in Chicago. We might be able to use
the Spanish football Federation to look into this. Three days later,
(22:05):
and the White Sox are still not clear how two
fans got shot as they watched Friday's game from the bleachers.
They don't even know if the shots came from inside
or outside the stadium. A forty two year old woman
took a bullet in the leg and was hospitalized in
fair condition. A twenty six year old woman suffered a
graze to the abdomen and did not need medical attention.
(22:26):
Hope this doesn't offend anybody connected to this podcast. Do
we have anybody with any connections to the White Sox.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
This on this pod?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
On this podcast, almost no story though, is without a
silver lining, and this one is no different. After the shooting,
the White Sox canceled that night's Vanilla Ice concert. Thank you,
(23:01):
Nancy Faust from Oakland back to skating. As you know.
Oakland A's team owner John Fisher starved that franchise until
it was unwatchable and attendance flat lined, and this was
his excuse to make a deal to move it to
Las Vegas. Fisher has just found out he has a
big problem. No way there is a place to play
in Las Vegas before twenty twenty eight at the earliest,
(23:24):
maybe even twenty twenty nine, and he's leased in Oakland
runs out after next season. He's had the gall to
ask Oakland for an extension. The Mayor of Oakland has
replied by telling Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, who is complicit
in this staggering betrayal of one of its most long
suffering markets, that Fisher can have the extension provided that
(23:46):
when the A's move, they leave the name A's in Oakland,
and that Baseball promises in writing to put an expansion
franchise to replace the A's in Oakland, which they'll then
call the A's the current A's and we know what
A stands for here. Think they have an alternative renting
out the home of the San Francisco Giants for thirty
(24:08):
or forty games a year. If that doesn't work, Plan
C is to play in the A's Triple A minor
League stadium which is in Summerland, Nevada, and that seats
eighty two hundred people and doesn't have a roof. Still
(24:36):
ahead on an all new edition of Countdown. Oh, it's
anniversary month. I mean, I've been around so long it's
always anniversary month for something. This time it's the anniversary
of the start of my television career. And thus previously
untold tales of Ted Turner first time for the Daily
round Up with the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effect specimens who constitute today's worse persons in the world.
(25:00):
Should have done that with a Southern accent. Worst persons
in the World Turner impression the bronze to Zillo, the
online home selling site. It posted that ten days before
Trump was indicted in Georgia, he had sold Merri Lago
for four hundred and twenty two million dollars to his
son Junior. You know, even though Zilo estimated the value
(25:26):
of the place at twenty four million, that was the
price four hundred and twenty two million. Needless to say,
this was interesting, sounded like something you know, drug lord
would do before faking his own death. Five hours later,
Zillo finally answered a lot of inquiries by saying, without
further explanation, that this was a thing that was posted
in error, and they took it down an error. You bet.
(25:50):
The runners up Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk continuing to
lie about how many people saw the Carlson flatulent lap
sitting interview with Trump. The number they're now claiming who
saw it is like a three D four hundred, I
don't know, eleventy billion, whatever it is. In fact, that
number that they are putting out is how many people
saw the tweet of the interview in their timelines. The
(26:14):
old video view number that Musk has now hidden from
Twitter only required that people watched something for two seconds
to count as a viewer, so it was bad enough
measurable reports that the number of people who watched the
Trump Tucker Carlson interview for at least two seconds was
only fourteen point eight million two seconds who watched it
(26:35):
for even a minute way less. The debate, for which
it was supposedly counterprogramming, got twelve point eight million on Fox.
The goped debate, for whatever this is worth, crushed Tucker
Carlson with Trump in terms of actual audience in short
under Musk. Twitter has a new metric which includes people
who watch something and people who don't watch it. Genius,
(26:58):
I tell you genius, but the winner Jonathan Turley. People
keep asking me about Nathan Turley, who used to be
a regular on Countdown, and what happened to him. My
answer is, I assume it's blackmail. The real question is
what's going to happen to him next. There is mounting
pressure on George Washington University Law School to get rid
(27:19):
of him. The latest atrocity from John Turley described online
by somebody as Mike Lindell with tenure. He is whoring
out his reputation by telling his new pimps at Fox
that he can't understand the Trump charges because when Trump
called Secretary of State Ken Rafsenberger of Georgia and asked
him to find eleven, five hundred and seventy votes, he
(27:40):
was just demanding a recount. A recount, that's all. It was,
the recount which had already taken place before the phone
call a month earlier, a month after the audit. Worse,
Turley is in direct disagreement with somebody very well respected
in the legal game who tweeted on January third, twenty
(28:01):
twenty one quote telling Raffensburger to quote find the votes
on the Saturday before the inauguration is a breathtaking I
am as mystified by the request, as I am by
the logic such an opportunistic move to secure the sixteen
electoral votes would not work to change the outcome. Who
tweeted that position, completely contradicting and out arguing John Turley
(28:25):
John Turley. John Turley said that the request the Raffensburger
made no sense. Couldn't figure it out. Now he says, Oh,
it's just a recount. He's being blackmailed.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
John.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Remember when they tried to blackmail Jeff Bezos to give
Trump good coverage? You really think Bezos was the only
one looking at you? Turley, Turley Today's worst person. Annoy
(29:02):
Now to the number one story on this all new
edition of Countdown. And it's that time of year again.
It's August when the odometer turns over and my TV
debut becomes forty three years ago this month.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Holy crap.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And it all owes to Ted Turner and Lou Dobbs.
Part of this I've told before. I actually interviewed with
Cable News Network twice, once in April nineteen eighty, when
they were not yet on the air, and after that interview,
I saw no reason they ever would be. I wrote
in my diary, there's no chance they're ever going to
(29:41):
get it on the air in time. They were supposed
to go on in September, because the New York Bureau
of CNN consisted of one coffee table, a couple of chairs,
one coffee machine, a stairwell, one unisex bathroom, and one
staffer New York Bureau chief Mary Alice Williams. Plus the
day I went there, CNN Sports president Bill McPhail made
(30:04):
it too staffers. He was up from Atlanta after a
long year. My phone rang one day and McPhail asked
me to fill in for two weeks. In two weeks
for their New York sports reporter. I had no television
experience at all. Well, I'd watched it. She was going
on vacation on August third, sooner, McPhail added, if the
(30:24):
baseball strike ended before then. Her name was Debbie Segura,
and all I knew was vacation me okay. Turned out
it was part vacation, part get out of town, quickly,
very quickly, see CNN started as not just news news
or just news and politics and interviews and guests. There
(30:46):
was a half an hour business show every night, and
a half an hour show business show every night, and
a half an hour sports cast at seven, and another
half an hour sports cast at eleven and then one
in the middle of the night. There was a fashion program,
and there were hourly stock reports, and they had a
staff of meteorologists, and they had short sports casts almost
every hour of the day. And the business anchor based
(31:06):
in that New York bureau, which had expanded from the
one unisex bathroom, was Lou Dobbs, and as the producer
they had sent up to work with me when I
filled in for this Debbie Sigura. Phil Griffin later the
president of MSNBC. As he explained to me, when we
got in the car to go out to Shaye Stadium
to interview all those New York Mets guys, Lou Dobbs
(31:28):
was rumored to be stepping out on his wife with
the CNN New York Sports reporter and missus Dobbs had
found out, so there was even a rumor there was
somebody else who also worked in the CNN New York
Bureau who found out. So Bill McPhail's hurried call asking
me to fill in for the reporter for two weeks
in two weeks was because she was going on quote vacation.
(31:54):
Not long after all this, Dobbs thought it would be
smarter to leave New York for a while, like a
decade or so, and Debbie went with him. They got married.
This left New York without a sports reporter, and CNN
tried another one of their Atlanta anchors for a while,
but they kept giving him extra vacation time, so they
would have to bring me in freelance every month, and
(32:14):
finally the following March they offered me the job full time.
And I have not earned an honest paycheck since. And
I mean that in two ways. CNN was paying me
five hundred dollars a week, that's one hundred dollars a
day to go on national television. Even then, this seemed
a little low, and it was about forty percent less
than what I was making for like three days a
(32:36):
week in network radio. I pointed this out acceptingly because
I was learning how to do TV while on TV
and getting paid for it. It was a vocational school,
and that's when they told me that the five hundred
dollars a week was already more than they had been
paying Debbie Sigura and more than the guy they were
paying as their reporter in Los Angeles. And then Bill McPhail,
(32:59):
the head of sports, called and offered me a contract
for twenty five thousand dollars and I said, wait, five
five hundred dollars a week is twenty six that. Wait
a minute, you're offering me less for the contract. Why
would I take less? Is there health insurance or something?
And he said no, there's just the security of having
the contract. And I said, well, I'd rather have the
thousand dollars that you're docking me for signing, and they
(33:22):
found it somewhere, but they always reminded me how generous
they had been with that extra thousand dollars, and I
kept saying, that's not extra. You are already paying me that. Anyway,
none of that would have happened, though, without Ted Turner,
because CNN was his idea, and in fact, most of
what you saw from me on ESPN later that was
(33:45):
also mostly his idea too, sort of. Anyway, the basic
idea of SportsCenter sports news on national television on more
or less a daily basis. Ted did that. Not ESPN
and the daily sports news studio show on at the
same time every day or night with the same anchors
(34:05):
treated as seriously as a half an hour of news.
Ted did that. And buying sports teams to have something
to put on your television station, Ted did that too.
WTCG Channel seventeen Atlanta was the fringiest of FRINGEYTV stations
when Ted Turner bought it in nineteen seventy, But then
six years later he bought first the Atlanta Braves and
(34:26):
then the basketball Atlanta Hawks, and he bought a couple
of satellite dishes, and the FCC made the fateful decision
to let him put Channel seventeen up on the satellite
so it could be shown on those fledgling cable systems
around the country. And the next thing he knew, the
Atlanta Braves were America's team, and Ted, who was shameless,
(34:46):
promptly signed the first baseball player ever to take advantage
of what we now know as free agency, Andy Messersmith.
Andy Mesersmith got what looked like all the money in
the world, more money than any baseball player had ever
gotten or or we were certain would ever get one
million dollars over three years. With one catch. Andy Messersmith
(35:15):
had to wear uniform number seventeen WTCG Channel seventeen. You
see where this was going. He had to wear uniform
number seventeen, and instead of having Messersmith written on the
back of the shirt over the seventeen, he had to
have the word channel. So Andy Messersmith's uniform when he
(35:36):
broke in with the Atlanta Braves in nineteen seventy six
as the highest paid player in baseball history, the back
of the uniform read Channel seventeen. Baseball stopped that right quick.
It stopped ted the day he decided that he should
see what it was like to manage the Braves and
if it really was as difficult as his managers had
made it seem. His lifetime record was zero and one,
(35:58):
and he said, yes, this is very difficult. But the
cable sports genie that one was out of the bottle
and nobody was stopped it, and he aspn ran with it.
But next came news. Even then, his crazy idea cable
news network rested squarely on the first regularly scheduled nightly
sports newscast in national television history. CNN Sports Tonight at
(36:19):
seven at eleven and two am Eastern, while SportsCenter was
on in those days for fifteen minutes one night at
seven and then an hour the next night at ten,
and Sports Tonight was there Come News or high Water
seven nights a week. Of course, Ted Turner was not
just shameless, he was also technically penniless, so he hired
(36:40):
a couple of real veterans to run and anchor the thing.
Bill mcphil who helped invent the NFL on CBS and
Monday Night Football, was also his idea, and his former
CBS colleague Bob Wessler, and he hired Nick Charles, who
was a star of sportscasting on the Washington and Baltimore newscasts,
but everybody else the cheapest hires they could find. In
(37:01):
nineteen eighty one, Turner sent McPhail to hire me. That
was our second interview. When I told Bill I had
made forty two thousand dollars the year before working for
Charlie Steiner in radio. Bill spit his drink halfway across
the room. We were planning on hiring six guys to
start with, for a total of ninety five thousand. This
(37:21):
is when they were staffing up what became CNN Headline News.
I answered that I hoped that the other five guys
he was going to hire were prepared to make it
on seven grand each, because there was no way I
was moving to Atlanta for less than sixty thousand dollars. Well,
they got me anyway, and for less than sixty thousand dollars,
But I did not move to Atlanta, thank you, Lou Dobbs.
(37:42):
And they got Dan Patrick and Hannah Storm and Fred
Hickman and Dan Hicks and Gary Miller and dozens of
others and reporters and cameramen and producers and executives and editors,
and one sports production assistant from the original crew of
CNN Sports wound up becoming the president of CNN Worldwide,
(38:03):
and another wound up becoming the president of MSNBC. ESPN
reshaped television sports news anyway, CNN created it, and early
on CNN staffed ESPN and much of the industry. And
I'm skipping how Turner mainstreamed World Cup Yachting at least
for a while, and Ted and TNT and Ted and
(38:25):
the Goodwill Games and Ted and World Championship Wrestling whose
matches were actually held right above the CNN newsroom, so
that often you could hear the wrestlers slamming each other
on our ceiling. And by the way, the Braves winning
fourteen straight division titles and the repopulation of Bison in
the country. It was also Ted Turner, But my favorite
(38:46):
Ted Turner story comes from something he did not pull off,
not that he did not try. When the football owners
forced the players out on strike in nineteen eighty two,
Ted sent me to cover it every day for eight months,
and one day he showed up at the football strike
talks to meet with the players, and when he came out,
he announced that he would be bankrolling and televising two
(39:09):
football games in the middle of a football strike, one
at RFK Stadium in Washington and the other at the
Rose Bowl in southern California. And basically these two games
would pit pickup teams of striking players the American Conference
versus the National Conference. And he called his two games
the All Star Season. I've mentioned this elsewhere and before.
(39:31):
When I asked him about the acronym for the All
Star Season, he winked at me and shushed me, and
then he took me aside and he asked me what
I thought. I told him, nobody's gonna watch and he's
gonna lose money. And he looked at me and he said,
nobody watches you. I lose money on you. So what,
we'll make money eventually. He then explained that that was
(39:54):
really just designed to set up the owners. If he
could put the games together and get them on TV
with no more than one month's lead time, the players
you Union was willing to partner up with him. Ted's
real motive for the ass the All Star season was
nothing less than creating his own Football League, twenty four
(40:17):
teams which would begin play in nineteen eighty three or
sooner if necessary, and would be televised exclusively on TBS.
All he needed was the players going along with him,
and one little labor court ruling that the owners had
forced the players Union to go out on strike and
that would allow the union to negotiate with other employers. Well, obviously,
(40:41):
you don't have to be a football expert to know
that he did not get that court ruling, but they
went for it. Ted Turner was shooting for nothing less
than killing off the National Football League and replacing it
with a new National Football League owned by Ted Turner,
and he was going to give the players fifty percent
of the whole league. And don't forget nearly all of
(41:03):
this was done on a shoe string budget, with borrowed money,
with all of his employees convinced that he was crazy
and it wouldn't last until next Tuesday. And when we
would get our paychecks at CNN in New York, we
would race each other to the bank to cash them,
just in case there wasn't going to be enough for everybody.
So whenever something causes me to get nostalgic about my
(41:26):
start in TV, I inevitably find myself going back to
tales of Ted Turner, Owen Lou and Missus Dobbs and
the other Missus Dobbs, Missus Dobbs one and Missus Dobbs two.
(41:57):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countdown has come to you from our
studios high on top the Sports Capsule Building in New York.
Here are the credits. Most of the music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel. They
are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by
John Phillip Shanel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
(42:17):
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Olberman theme for ESPN two, and it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of esp and
E musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium
organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Jonathan Banks.
Everything else is pretty much my fault. That's countdown for
(42:39):
this the nine hundred and sixty fourth day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Arrest him again while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow Bolton's as the news
warrant still then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
(43:12):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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