December 11, 2025 • 52 mins
SEASON 4 EPISODE 39: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: As Trump threatens the New York Times with sedition and treason charges and tells finance clowns and his government goons that he gets to choose who gets to be on CNN and what they get to say, we are at the tipping point.
The first news reporter who stands up to his insults and calls him out to his face in public will get fired - and within 48 hours get a new job paying twice as much or more, and will become a national hero.
America is crying out for somebody to take the risk that isn’t really a risk and tell him to shut the hell up and to EFF off and to SHOVE his A++++ economy and his threats and stochastic calls for destruction and violence. It is time. NOW NOW NOW.
The tragedy here of course is that it is accepted, inside the news business, without a second thought, that there is nothing reporters – even bad ones – can do about this without risking their careers and lives. Bull. The first one who gets told “You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you -- you are an obnoxious -- a terrible reporter” and replies “So what? What does that have to do with my question? Nothing. And, with all due respect SIR, the majority of this nation considers you a failure as a president. And what does THAT have to do with your answer? The one you DIDN’T just give? NOTHING. The majority of this nation thinks you are vindictive, stupid, hypocritical, hateful, destructive, soul-less, and quite probably losing your sanity. I’M a terrible reporter? You’re the worst government leader in the history of the western hemisphere.”
B-Block (32:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sean Duffy wants you to wear a suit to the airport and...work out in it before you get on the plane? Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale calls for public hangings and says without irony or self-satire "If I'm in charge later..." OK, you first. And Missouri congresswoman Ann Wagner, in the middle of redistricting gerrymandering, turns out to not know the name of the third largest city in the state capitol district and thinks that city is in California.
C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody asked me how I felt about Chris Matthews being back on MSNBCNOWWHATEVER with Joe Scarborough and I actually said I felt sorry for Scarborough. Then I told them the saga of Chris, co-anchoring a funeral with me, drooling over Jennifer Granholm. On the air. So I'll tell you.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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. The
first news reporter who stands up to Trump and calls
him out to his face in public will get fired
(00:25):
and within forty eight hours will get a new job
paying twice as much or more, and will become a
national hero. America is crying out for somebody to take
the risk that isn't really a risk and tell him
to shut the hell up, and tell him to f off,
and tell him to shove his threats and stochastic hints
(00:45):
at destruction and violence and his A plus plus plus
plus up his ass. It is time, now, now now,
Because Trump has now threatened the New York Times with
sedition and treason charges for committing the heinous, unpatriotic act
of suggesting he's a little tired for criticizing him for
(01:09):
criticizing him. Doesn't matter that it's just another threat that
his losses over Kimmel and Komi and Tish James have
set back the clock on when he completely loses it
and tries to do any of this. Doesn't matter that
legally none of this fits sedition or treason. None of
it could fit in a million years. This is a
(01:30):
mentally deteriorating man. His disease or diseases, whatever they are,
are accelerating before our eyes. And each hour he gets
further and further convinced of his omnipotence, and worse that
only a tiny minority in this country opposes him in
the slightest he has almost unchecked power, and the Republicans
(01:51):
won't check the rest, and somebody has to check the rest.
And if he threatens the Times with treason and insists
in that stochastic terrorist way of his, we should do
something about it. I'm next, or your next, or the
guy down the street is next, or some Republican who
stands up is next. Two weeks ago he wanted to
(02:13):
hang Democratic senators and congressman like Kelly and Slotkin. And
now he wants to charge the New York Times with
treason and sedition and you are next. And just because
this isn't enough of a crisis that nobody's reacting to
it as a crisis, because well, he's always threatening the media,
and well he's always claiming somebody's guilty of treason, and
(02:36):
well he's always planning to get somebody anged. Ask Mike Pants,
am I right there is a pattern here over the
last week about which we need to take note and
summon genuine alarm. He is now trying to decide who
owns and operates the national news organizations and what they say,
even the tepid ones like CNN, and which shows get
(03:00):
to run on them, and which anchors must be fired
Aaron Burnett. And worst of all, this ties into that
word you're sick of me hearing. This is part of anosognosia,
because it's clear to the world that Trump is desperately,
menacingly psychologically dysfunctional, and there is no chance in a
(03:20):
million years that he has any idea that what he
is doing is part of that illness or any illness,
and no chance that anybody around him sees it that
way or will tell him that's the truth. This is
psychological dysfunction, This is mental illness. This is stochastic terrorism.
(03:42):
I will read that all to you now. Quote. There
has never been a president that has worked as hard
as me. My hours are the longest and my results
are among the best. In addition to all that, I
go out of my way to do long, thorough and
very boring medical examinations at the Great Walter Reed National
Military Medical Center, seen and supervised by top doctors, all
(04:06):
of whom have given me perfect marks. Some have even
said they have never seen such strong perfect marks. Some
have even said they have never seen such strong results.
I do these tests because I owe it to our country.
That's right, He's doing this a favor. In addition to
the medical I have done something that no other president
(04:27):
has done on three separate occasions, the last one being recently,
by taking what is known as a cognitive examination, something
which few people would be able to do very well,
including those working at the New York Times. And I
aced all three of them in front of large numbers
of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know.
(04:50):
In other words, he's used to being tested by doctors
who he does know, does pay, and does tell what
to say to resume. I have been told that few
people have been able to ace this examination, and in
fact most do very poorly, which is why many other
presidents have decided not to take it at all. Despite
all of this, the time and work involved, he said
(05:12):
it was pretty easy. The New York Times and some
others like to pretend that I am quote slowing up
and maybe not as sharp. As I once was or
am in poor physical health. Knowing that it is not true,
and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than
I have ever worked before, I will know when I
am slowing up. But it's not now, said every patient
(05:34):
of every neurological disorder and physical ailment ever. And here
is the operative part of this. Here is the true pathology. Quote.
After all of the work I have done with medical exams,
cognitive exams, and everything else, I actually believe it's seditious,
perhaps even treasonous, for the New York Times and others
(05:56):
to consistently do fake reports in order to libel and
demean quote the President of the United States in capital letters.
They are true enemies of the people, and we should
do something about it. Yeah, somebody has to do something
about it. Remove him under the twenty fifth Amendment. He's
(06:18):
as crazy as a jbird. Of course, that will not happen,
So somebody else needs to do something a little simpler.
Answer him, Answer him when he says things like this,
Answer him when he attacks you, answer him in the
same language. Answer him to his face, not with threats,
not with violence, for God's sakes, not even yelling or
(06:40):
a loud voice. Just answer him with reality, answer him
with the thing he never sees in his life, the
real world and the real world of how sick Donald
Trump is. Because the time is nigh. He is going
to snap soon enough. And though it won't look like
(07:02):
he sounds in these ranting almost fugue state, king lear
off his med's penultimate stage of whatever disease he happens
to have at the moment, wild rides on the dementia
j Trump delusion train. These are only the big picture. Well,
let's then nuke them. Fantasies the likelihood he tries anything
beyond the threat involved in this, That likelihood is remote
(07:25):
because nobody in power, not even the morons like Chief
of Staff Susie Wiles, who's now decided she's going to
make the midterms next year a referendum on Trump, and
thank you for that, Pat Summerl's daughter, not even Susie Wiles.
Things Actually pursuing anything like this against The New York
Times is anything but madness. What they like is the
(07:46):
threat element. They can sell the threat element. They also
like that darkest of undercurrents, the possibility that, again he writes,
we should do something about it and his stochastic call
for violence is picked up by the way it was
on January sixth by the insurrectionists, or buy the pipe barmber,
or buy the Maga militia. There is always that chance,
(08:09):
and it is very real. But the immediate threat is
action to silence and manipulate media to a degree not
yet seen even under this president. Three examples this week. First,
Trump has decided he gets to program what's on CNN.
He's already said he's going to be involved in the process.
(08:30):
Why which CNN may change hands. He's been in the
Oval office with Larry Ellison, who's still trying to buy
that network and make it even softer on Trump than
David Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery and Chris Lickt made
it soft on Trump. Per Natalie Andrews at The Wall
Street Journal. Quote, Trump has told people close to him
(08:51):
that he wants new ownership of CNN as well as
changes to CNN programming. He's got a close eye on
paramount efforts to take over Warner Discovery, while Netflix is
talking to Trump too. Unquote Trump mysteriously, since she is
the most milk toast person in primetime cable wants Aaron
(09:12):
Burnett out and probably Caitlyn Collins again, why you would bother?
I don't know these and the shows on MS are
not widely watched nor cited television programmings. They are now nothing,
again compared to say, the CBS Evening News over which
(09:33):
he is now a measure of control via Barry Weiss
and those schmucks. But he sees Aaron Burnett and Caitlyn
Collins and CNN, and as brain damaged as he is,
he must silence the critics and the criticism that he sees. Also,
there have been two more attacks on women reporters. To
(09:53):
ABC's Rachel Scott, here's a shock. She's gifted, she works
for Disney, and she's attention all you racist presidents of
the United States. She's an African American woman. Quote. You
are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let
me just tell you. You are an obnoxious, a terrible reporter.
And it's always the same thing with you. I told
(10:15):
you unquote. Also, Lachland Cart writes Breaker reports that the fatuous,
flatulent lap sitting quote interview unquote of dementia J Trump
the other day by the austed NBC correspondent dash of
Burns for Politico in which you'd recognize her if you
saw the video. She was the one asking the softball questions,
(10:36):
not following up on any of the stupid answers, and
then basically taking dictation throughout. They're reporting at breaker that
that interview was essentially the result of a quid pro
quote and Politico staffers are nearing open revolts over it,
and Trump attacked Politico specifically, and dash of Burns by
(10:56):
extension two dash of burns of Politico in the interview
with Politico, And no, I don't think she's very much
of a journalist, but I'll defend her right to try,
and God damned any president who tries to intimidate her
or anybody else, and that would even include Barry effing Weiss.
Attacking her is the job of media critics and journalists
(11:17):
and those of us who dabble in those fields, and
not presidents with enough influence to get her harmed anyway.
Politico named Trump to the top of its twenty eight
influencers in Europe or something, and then suddenly bingo it
had an exclusive with Trump during which he said he
was only giving their Crappola Organization an interview because it
(11:40):
had just made up another award for him, and then
he insulted them in her and she sat there because
the job is more important to her than is America.
Lachlan Cartwright writes, quote, breaker has learned what was brought
into the Oval Office fifteen minutes before the interview was
set to start. Brought in by senior administration officials, including
(12:02):
Communication Director Stephen Chunung or Chunk, as he's also known.
I wrote that, not Lachlan White House Press Secretary Caroline
Levitt and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who made it
clear they expected Burns to go easy on Trump. The
White House, however, explained there was a simpler explanation for
why Burns entered the Oval ahead of the interview. Unquote.
(12:26):
That was in the denial that there was any attempt
to influence the softball nature of this interview. But it
was just naturally softball. They brought her into the Oval Office,
according to the White House because because she'd never actually
been in the Oval Office before, because she's only Politico's
(12:48):
White House Bureau chief and a former NBC News Washington
political reporter. I'm having a hard time believing their story.
The tragedy here, of course, is that it is accepted
inside the new business without a second thought. That there
is nothing that reporters, even bad ones, can do about
(13:11):
this without risking their careers and maybe their lives. Bullshit.
The first one, the first one of you who gets
told you are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.
Let me just tell you are a terrible reporter. The
first one who hears that to their face and replies, so,
(13:33):
what what does that have to do with my question? Nothing?
And what does that have to do with the fact
that you didn't answer it? Nothing? And with all due respects, sir,
The majority of this nation, sir, considers you a failure
as a president. And what does that have to do
with your answer? The one you didn't? Just give me? Nothing?
But the majority of this nation thinks you are a vindictive, stupid, hypocritical, hateful,
(13:56):
destructive soul is and quite probably insane person. I am
a terrible reporter. You are the worst government leader in
the history of the Western hemisphere. Answer my effing question, asshole.
You don't have to repeat that word for word. The
first reporter, though, who does something like that anything like
(14:18):
that gets ushered out, maybe by secret service, and fired
before they hit the street outside on Pennsylvania Avenue, And
within forty eight hours they will get statues built of them,
and they will get new job offers at twice the salary,
at least half a dozen networks and online facilities, and
(14:39):
they may have to stop and give up a wonderful
life of being on the road with this madman and
instead become an anchor, or a host or something for
several million dollars more than they're currently making. And as
somebody said to a baseball writer decades ago, the road
ruins the best of them, and kid, you ain't the
best of them. Take the deal, take the desk job,
(15:04):
give that answer to Trump. Work for truth, not for
CBS or Politico or NBC or MS. Now go off
on him. And then turned it into a series. I
know a little something about this after years of complaining
(15:28):
about it on the air, and I was not a
White House reporter. I was not a confrontational guy. I
couldn't say this directly, but it was at a time
when something that was set on network television or cable
television would reverberate and would almost be the equivalent of
saying it to a man's face. And one day, after
years of minor and relatively controlled complaints, I read what
(15:49):
Bush and Cheney and Gingrich and Rumsfeld and the others
were saying about those of us who criticized the policy
of the Bush administration against Iraq and the way they
were leading this country. And one day I said, I've
had enough. Nobody is telling this guy to go to hell.
Somebody has to say he has to go to hell.
Somebody has to let him know. Somebody has to say
(16:10):
this on behalf of all the people out here. And
I don't know how many there are. There could be
thirty five, there could be one hundred and fifty million,
I don't know, but they're there. I can feel them saying,
tell this man to go to hell. And I did it.
And I did it expecting to be fired, maybe before
the show was over, and maybe not even having some
(16:30):
extra place to go outside of politics and news, maybe
not being able to go back to sports. And when
the president of the network then came into my tiny
office after this, as the room outside me was shaking
with people who really liked what I said, but figured
they were all going to get fired too. One percent
of me thought, you know, he's not going to fire me.
He's going to get me thrown into the trunk of
(16:51):
a car, and I'm going to wake up and get
mo Instead. The president of the network said, hey, buddy,
did you see the ratings? Can you do one of
those every night? Would you like a new contract, would
you like a real office, would you like a lot
of more money. I wasn't some kind of journalistic profit.
I wasn't some sort of historic genius. I wasn't some
(17:14):
sort of societal soothsayer. I wasn't imbued with the spirit
of Edward R. Murrow for a year, or a month
or even a week. Only three things were required then
and are required now, even in a time of fear,
to become the one who shouts, hey, Emperor, you have
no new clothes. First, you have to be prepared. It's tough,
(17:39):
but you have to be prepared to make way more
money than you're making now. Two, in this environment, this
guy has to yell at you. First, directly with fifty
cameras rolling at the time. You have to be prepared
for an event that may not come or may not
come for six months. But lastly, and most importantly, you
(18:00):
have to correctly divine that the American public has passed
the tip points and it desperately wants somebody to confront
this asshole and tell him to his face he's an asshole.
No matter what the personal risk might be, You're already
under personal risk. He already wants to charge you with sedition.
People supporting him already want you harmed or dead. It's
(18:21):
not that much of a percentage increase, and you don't
even have to divine that they were past the tipping point.
Just guess, Just assume it hasn't changed that much since
the last time you actually really assess this. He tells
Poor Burns of Politico that the economy is an A
plus plus plus plus plus, exactly the wording of the
(18:43):
fantasy from Little Ralphie in a Christmas story when he's
in the fourth grade. He says a plus plus plus
plus plus. And a new poll from Public First Polling
says that in the last two years, twenty seven percent
of US have skipped a medical checkup because of the costs,
and thirty seven percent of us said they can no
longer afford to go to a pro ballgame, and forty
(19:04):
six percent of us cat afford a vacation if we
have to use a plane during it. And these are
the inflation figures they are fighting against. Bacon three and
a half percent, checking five point three percent, let us
seven point four percent, bananas eight percent, ground b fourteen percent,
coffee one hundred percent. You know where I got those
goddamn inflation figures from? From the Efing Maria E Fing
(19:25):
Bartiromo show on Fox. This is the tipping point. You
are here on the map. America wants you to tell
Trump he's full of shit. One well crafted paragraph of
suppressed and controlled anger and it's over. I'd be happy
(19:50):
to do it myself, but as you may have noticed,
my skill at suppressing and controlling my anger on this
subject is waning. And also I retired from that platform
more than a day to go. But you are on
that platform now, You are on a platform while Trump
is trying to light the platform on fire, and he's
(20:12):
trying to light you on fire, and he's trying to
light America on fire. You are on the platform. Now
use the platform. Looking at you, Rachel Scott, looking at you,
Dash of Burns, looking at you, Caitlin Collins and Aaron
Burnette and anybody else he thinks he can get fired
from his new CNN looking at you, New York Times,
(20:34):
do it now now before he actually snaps and does
charge you with sedition. The other headlines as Trump continues
(21:02):
his cover up of the Second Strike, and that's in
addition to his cover up of the Epstein files, two
rather startling stories that didn't really change the score, but
which do remind us that the creatures who are loyal
to Trump, the ren fields of our time, are also
hypocrites and frauds who, outside of Stephen Miller, do not
even believe their own hate. They just sell it as
(21:24):
A federal court rules that the Trump usurpation of the
National Guard to terrorize citizens in LA was illegal, Thus
you can extrapolate that those military orders were also illegal.
CNN reports that throughout twenty sixteen, one Fox News pundit
and sometimes host kept beating the same drum about the
(21:47):
military carrying out illegal orders. As Trump kept insisting in
twenty sixteen, they should and they would, and when pressed
about what would happen if they didn't, he told a
Republican primary debate quote, they won't refuse, They're not going
to refuse me. Believe me as that we're telling began
of our current crisis in which he is changing the
(22:08):
United States of America military into Trump troops. Inc. While
that was going on in twenty sixteen, one Fox commentator,
a military contributor, insisted it was illegal and should not
happen and would not happen. Quote, You're just not going
to follow that order if it's unlawful. He insisted, the
(22:29):
military is not going to follow illegal orders. A month later,
he came back on and said the military won't follow
unlawful orders from their commander in chief. And after that,
as a guest on Meghan Kelly's Fox Show, Remember Meghan Kelly,
the man said, quote, here's the problem with Trump. He says,
go ahead and kill the family, go ahead and torture,
(22:50):
go ahead and go further than waterboarding. What happens when
people follow those orders or don't follow them. It's not
clear that Donald Trump will have their back. Donald Trump
is oftentimes about Donald Trump, and so you can't if
you're not changing the law and you're just saying it,
could you create even more ambiguity? Unquote, who who was
(23:16):
so morally and legally clear, Who was so insightful as
to the nightmare behind the nightmare. Trump issues illegal orders,
you carry them out, and then he backs away from
the orders, pretends he doesn't even know who you are,
and you go to jail. Who saw that coming? Who
was almost psychic about this? Pete hegseeth? No, the same
(23:39):
pete hegseeth And just as tragically. A year ago, a
lawyer representing America First Policy Institute answered a lawsuit by
claiming that the issue of Trump ordering Seal Team six
to kill a rival candidate, this was part of the
presidential immunity thing, that that was just a fantasy. Quote.
Military officers are required not to carry out unlawful orders,
(24:04):
this lawyer wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court
that was dug up by The Times. Quote, the military
would not carry out a patently unlawful order from the
president to kill non military targets. Indeed, service members are
required not to do so. Unquote again, who wrote that
powerful conservative viewpoint? Pambondy Yep, same Pambondy. When this is
(24:31):
over and Bondy and hegxeth go to prison for facilitating
illegal orders to the military, hegxeth and BONDI can at
least say I told you so as they look themselves
in the mirror. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Another day, another petard,
(25:11):
another hoisting to continue that theme. Remember those Bill Pulty
specials trying to prosecute Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook and
Eric Swalwell for filling out forms that said a home
they were mortgaging was to be their primary residence. Only
it wasn't, or it wasn't going to be all the time,
or it wouldn't be later, Remember that from pro Publica.
In a span of seven weeks in nineteen ninety three,
(25:33):
one real estate guy signed a mortgage for one house
in Palm Beach, Florida, declared on the application that it
would be his principal residence. Seven months later, he bought
another house, same street, same pledge, same mortgage app He
never lived in either. It was so transparently false that
the buyer's real estate guy told the Miami Herald that
(25:55):
his client had quote hired an expensive New York design
firm to dress them up to the nines and lease
them out annually, so they weren't his primary resident. He
was dressing them up to the nines and leasing them
out annually, so the mortgage app thing was a lie.
The buyer of both those houses was Donald J. Trump.
(26:19):
Well there's another coincidence also of interest here another tech
pro billionaire wants public executions. Cool you first, and pro tip.
If you're a congresswoman from Missouri claiming there is a
George Sorows plot to make Missouri's political decisions for it,
(26:42):
you probably better know that the city where you claim
that plot is being hatched. That city is not in California.
It is in Missouri, in the district next to yours.
But you've never looked at a map of your own
state while you're trying to gerrymander your own state for
(27:02):
the fascists. You will believe this. California, here we come.
That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
Olberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown. Somebody asked
(27:38):
me the other day what I thought about Chris Matthews
reappearing back with Joe Scarborough on MSNBS forgive me MS
now dumbest name change of all time, ludicrous Werson killing
off HBO to call it Max anyway, Matthews on with Scarborough?
How did I feel about that? I said, I actually
felt sorry for Scarborough. Then I told him the story
of Chris Matthews drooling on air while I sat next
(28:01):
to him drooling on air about Jennifer Granholm. So I'll
tell it to you next. In things I promise not
to tell first, believe it or not, there's still more
new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscrants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other
worst persons in the world to the bronze the secretary
(28:23):
of reality TV cancelations, Sean Duffy. All right, I'm going
to confess something to you. Duffy said it would improve
air travel if people didn't wear pajamas on the plane
and go barefoot, and and he's God, He's right. The
(28:44):
days of everybody in suits and fedoras is long gone,
and good riddance. In point of fact, your safety in
the event of a disaster on a plane is increased
if you wear a cap or a hat of some
kind and a leather jacket because it's flame retardant. Increases
your chances zero point zero, zero zero one percent or
something is your clothing choice. So the key improvement in
(29:05):
our air traffic chaos no of course, not him suggesting
that is stupid, but it is not a stupid suggestion,
or at least it wasn't until he followed it up
by then suggesting that maybe what people want in airports
now is a workout area for stair climbing and chin ups,
and they trotted out Robert F. Kennedy Junior, I finally
(29:28):
realized is actually one of the characters from the animated
series Family Guy, one of the weird guys in their office.
And Robert F. Kennedy did chin ups in the middle
of the airport because of course you see that all
the time, don't you. My god, you see more penguins
in airports than you see chin ups. Because what Sean
Duffy wants you to do is wear a suit and
(29:49):
a tie and then work out inside the airport and
perspire through your suit and your tie, and then get
on your plane and sit down next to somebody and
cause them to pass out from your stench. And if
Sean Duffy thinks that will decrease problems on planes, especially
pass singer intolerance and rage, he's dumber than I thought.
And frankly, I didn't think that was possible. The runner
(30:12):
unp worser data platform company Pallenteer and its co founder,
right wing nut job tech money fascist bro Joe Lonsdale,
paal of Barry Weiss and Peter Thiel and the rest
of the people who are using the money they got
from us to try to turn us into indentured servants
or silent cogs in a machine they own. Mister Lonsdale
(30:33):
left Pallenteer long ago, but when you hear about Volunteer
or Barry Weiss's university, which he's also been involved with,
this is what is at its heart, and certainly at
Lonsdale's He's joined this club of people demanding public executions.
Remember Charlie Kirk wanted public executions on pay per view.
(30:55):
He wanted kids to be forced to watch the public
executions of criminals. Well, now Lonsdale has posted on Twitter quote,
if if I'm in charge later, we won't just have
a three strikes law. We will quickly try and hang
men after three violent crimes. And yes we will do
it in public to deter others. Our society needs balance.
(31:18):
It's time to bring back masculine leadership. Imagine being Joe
Lonsdale and having so wasted your life, that you think
that the desire to see someone, anyone executed publicly hanged
is somehow masculine, as opposed to being a sign of
(31:39):
your sadism and fear and mental illness and stupidity, and
probably you know elon musk cocktails. Also note there is
no indication there that the opening of that tweet, if
I'm in charge later, that that's meant in some sort
of ironic or acutesy way. He means he intends to
be in charge later. They all think Trump is just
(32:01):
the start of business men owning the country, but the
winner the worst. And Wagner Republican representing the Missouri second
in the House of Representatives and in the middle of
the redistricting controversy in Missouri, and idiot middle of redistricting
and apparently she's never looked at a map of her
own state in her life, not even a map of
(32:23):
the area around its state capital. The California Democrat posted
this on Twitter at the end of last month. Concerned
citizens gathered at California City Hall Railroad Park on five
hundred South Oak Street to stop gerrymandering in Missouri. Access
the California Democrat to read the full story California MO,
(32:45):
mid MO are the hashtags and then there's a link
and she has retweeted this and taken umbrage and Wagner congresswoman,
and Wagner writes, Missouri's elections aren't decided in California. The
real threat isn't our map, but the Sorrow's funded network
trying to manufacture outrage. Missourians will choose Missouri's future. Uh.
(33:08):
Miss the California Democrat newspaper, it's based in the town
of California, Missouri. That's that's how. That's how they have
a city hall, railroad park in California, California. It says
California city Hall. This this California is not in the state.
(33:31):
It's it's in Missouri. And you the six term congresswoman
from the district next to California, Missouri. Apparently you didn't
know that. And oh yeah, she's the former chair of
the Missouri Republican Party. And oh, by the way, California.
The town is the seat of Monitou County, Missouri, and
it's the largest city in that county. And it's the
third largest city in the Jefferson City metropolitan area. And
(33:54):
if Jefferson City sounds familiar. Perhaps it should, since it's
the capital of the goddamn state. Her office denies she
didn't know California, Missouri was in Missouri, insisting, of course
she knows that she just deliberately wrote it this way
because because because it's it's George Soros's fault somehow. Then
(34:16):
if this sounds like the start of a Hallmark movie
and a bad one, yep, Congresswoman Ann Wagner used to
be an executive with Hallmark. Should have stayed there a
Christmas in California, Missouri. See the twist Representative Anne as
her Democratic opponent Fred Wellman ads wait till she hears
(34:38):
about the Missouri towns of Mexico and Cuba. Wagner redistricting Missouri,
and she doesn't even own a map. Today's other worst
person things I promised not to tell. And I was
(35:31):
speaking a couple of days ago about the coverage of
the two thousand and eight presidential election. You remember two
thousand and eight ancient history, back when there was an
American democracy, back when there was hopey changey things as
opposed to I hope you change into something other than
the president of the United States. I was talking about
(35:55):
two thousand and eight and was asked a series of
questions about our coverage at MSNBC, and the person asking
me questions had yet to mention the most significant roadblock
to getting things done, to getting that broadcast and the
other broadcasts that we did politically at MSNBC all those
(36:16):
years ago off the ground and then again safely on
the ground when it was all done. The assets we
had were extraordinary through most of the primary campaign that year,
and through all of two thousand and six in the midterms,
we'd had Tim Russert who would come on and after
the network coverage was completely over, would just sit there
(36:37):
with us for another hour on the air. What a
pleasure that was. And then we'd go out in the
hallway and talk about baseball, the good part of it,
plus dozens of people and that then new and sincere
Rachel Matdow, other people who really knew what they were
talking about and were trying to make a point and
(36:57):
make an inroad in what was then all conservative corporate media,
even at NBC. But the person had not asked me
one question about the major impediment, And the major impediment
was my co anchor for almost all of this was
Chris efing Matthews. Over the years, I have made allusions
(37:22):
to Chris Matthews and just how rare it was when
he was actually in the same plane of existence as
the rest of us in the universe. And I know
Chris never heard me say any of these things, because
Chris never listened. If Chris listened, Chris would probably still
be on the air every night with a nightly show
(37:43):
on MSNBC. There's a Dorian Gray picture of him somewhere
because he hasn't changed in appearance since the late nineteen nineties,
even though he's now well, you know how old he is.
He's two hundred and six. The story I want to
tell about Matthews, though, that I think symbolizes and summarizes
the entirety of my experience with him, which began in
(38:04):
two thousand and three. I was on the set with
him when he discussed the fact that this was George
Bush's day and mission accomplished was not an exaggeration. And
look at how well he fits in that flight man's uniform,
and he was talking about how he looked good in
the pants. That was the beginning of it. And I said,
(38:24):
don't you think there's something about bringing up the whole
flying experience and the Texas Air National Guard and that
whole question. You think that's a bad idea or declaring
mission accomplished while American servicemen's lives are still at risk
in Iraq and will be no. No, this is his day,
This is his day. Chris can always point to being
(38:45):
right about any issue that ever came across his desk
because he took every possible point of view on every
possible issue. He was anti Bush, pro Bush, anti Trump
pro Trump. He was everything at all times. And the
way you do that is the way Trump does. You
just don't remember what you said last time. You don't
(39:08):
think it's relevant, you don't think that anybody else is
going to remember it. There's a lot of similarity, there's
a lot of overlap in the ven diagrams of Chris
Matthews and Donald Trump. But I'm diverging. I promised you
the Chris Matthews story I could have before I sat
down in front of the microphone gone and looked this
up to get the exact date. I'm sure it was
(39:30):
two thousand and six or two thousand and seven, doesn't
matter much. It was cold, it was the winter. It
was deep in the winter, probably January or February, and
I had traveled to Washington on short notice because they
wanted me to co anchor with Matthews. The memorial coverage
of the funeral rolls two of them, a former president
(39:53):
Gerald R. Ford. Gerald Ford ultimately is down there with
what Harrison and a couple of other really short term
presidents like Chester Allen Arthur who just didn't make a
huge impact except for in his case one event the
pardoning of Nixon, really didn't do much as President of
(40:17):
the United States and yet President of the United States.
State funeral, Plus they were also going to give him
a second funeral the next day in Michigan, back in
his home state Grand Rapids, if I remember correctly. So
we were there for two days, me and Matthews all day,
doing the state funeral one day and then the next
(40:40):
day the funeral in Michigan. The state funeral was just
a typical day with Chris Matthews. I would say something
and he would then repeat it as if he had
heard it in his own head rather than coming out
of my mouth. Chris heard things that were said, he
just never heard who had said them. So he tended
(41:01):
to repeat a lot of the things I had just mentioned,
and he would jump in on interviews that he was
not supposed to be a part of, and all the
rest of the usual nonsense. He would read things on
the teleprompter that said Keith. He would read everything except
the word Keith, the usual stuff. So that was a
good day. The next day, when we moved to Michigan,
(41:22):
that was not quite as good a day. The Michigan
part of the two days of the burial Gerald Ford
was well, I'll make the joke now that I made
off set then and off air then, which was took
two days to bury him what he wouldn't stop moving.
The second day was conducted out of a Protestant church
(41:46):
in Grand Rapids, if I remember correctly, that had an
overhead window. And I forget the technical terms. Although my
dad was an architect, I don't think he did a
lot of churches. But there was an overhead length of
the church glass ceiling, and it provided extraordinarily bright and
(42:12):
mood altering light. And on that day, in the middle
of winter, at the middle of the day, the light
came in at such an angle that it really did
look kind of otherworldly. If not heavenly, and so as
all the leading Michigan politicos and many of the national
politicos who had traveled to Michigan to attend both halves
(42:34):
of the doubleheader of the burial of Gerald Ford as
they filed in, and to his credit, Chris Matthews knew
every one of them by sight, even if they were
on the monitor in front of us half an inch tall.
He knew that that was the dog catcher from Grand Rapids,
Michigan from nineteen thirty eight who convinced football star Gerald
Ford to go into politics and not football. He knew
(42:57):
every one of them. He knew the former mayor, he
knew the attorney general of Michigan. Seventeen attorneys general will
go and that was great. That was why when they
once gave me the opportunity in two thousand and eight,
I think it was to go solo and leave Matthews out.
I said, no, See, he's too valuable for stuff like that.
(43:20):
You couldn't possibly get a researcher to give me that information.
It would not be genuine and it would not be timely.
Chris Matthews knows off the top of his head who
that is. He has no idea why he's important. He
has no idea whether he has served democracy or undermined it.
But he knows who the hell that guy is. Why
that's Milton J. Erseg the twenty third still Solicitor General
(43:45):
of Michigan A's two hundred and six. So, now, when
the former governor, then the governor of Michigan came into
this church at high noon with light coming in above her,
the great former governor of Michigan came in, he knew
(44:11):
exactly obviously who she was. We all knew who she was.
She was Jennifer Granholme. Jennifer Granholm, whose public career began
as the woman contestant on an episode of the Dating Game.
Jennifer Granholme was then on The Dating Game in the seventies.
(44:32):
Was in two thousand and six seven at the funerals
of Gerald R. Ford. Is today a most attractive woman, fetching, handsome, beautiful,
whichever word you would like to use that is both
complimentary and yet not sexist. Well, on that day she
appeared in a very formal kind of mourning hat and
(44:56):
a black dress, and the light shining from above her
was perfect, and she hit a perfect hair day, all
the things that could combine to render one essential element
to this story. He wasn't wrong. Matthews was reeling off
(45:18):
the names of these other people. And there's the front
row in which the former deputy assistant dogcatcher of Kalamazoos.
And then he saw Jennifer Granholm walk in, and he said,
and now we see coming down the aisle the former governor,
the governor of a He started to pant on the air.
(45:41):
It's Governor Jennifer Granholme and she's perfectly attired. This went
instantaneously from the usual Chris Matthews high speed patter to
something akin to Robert F. Kennedy Junior on FaceTime. There's
(46:02):
no other way to describe it. If you were just
listening to Chris Matthews, and everybody but me was just
listening to him. I was seated next to him in
a studio at NBC headquarters in Washington. I could see
the look on his face, the look of astonishment, him
putting his head down next to the monitor so he
could see her better. And as again I noted, she
(46:22):
was extremely fetching that day. In all of her great
days of fetch she was very fetched that day. This
is absolutely true. On the other hand, we are covering
the burial of the former President of the United States,
Gerald R. Ford, and Chris Matthews is panting about the
(46:43):
pulkratude of the Governor of Michigan, and he wouldn't stop
look at the shape of the dress and how the
light comes in through the whatever the word was for it,
of the church. And she's this event is he began
to lose the ability to form sentences. And I don't
mean in the normal way that he would lose the
(47:05):
ability to form sentences. I mean he would get to
part that They were clearly telling him to stop doing
this because it was not just sexist and not just inappropriate.
But we were covering the burial of Gerald R. Ford,
I mean in the front row next to as we
(47:26):
continued the shot of Governor Granholm on a pool camera.
I must admit that nobody at NBC said, yeah, I
got me more of that hot governor. As the pool
shot gave us this of Governor Granholm, there was a
coffin out there with Gerald R. Ford inside, and he's
talking about Governor Granholm and how great she looks. I
(47:48):
can't imagine that anytime she should just hope they took
photographs of her for her next campaign for whatever. It's like,
oh my good God. And they're clearly talking to him
from the control room, telling him to stop, because every
once in a while he stops and speaks to them
like no, oh, no, I won't. And finally the producer
of this Court Harson, who was the producer of Hardball
(48:11):
Matthew's show on MSNBC, gets into my ear and says,
for God's sake, is there anything you can do? Can
you stop him? And I just looked at the camera
and shook my head and put my arms up in
what would be the you know, hands up, nothing I
can do about it emoji. I may have been the
model for that emoji. This is two thousand and six
or seven, after all. And they said, can you try?
(48:35):
Can you write him a note or something? So I
took a piece of script and I wrote on the
back of it Chris stopped talking about Grand Holme that way,
we are at a presidential funeral, and I underlined we
are at one two three line at one two three
(48:56):
line A one two three presidential one two three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten lines under that funeral circled and I slipped it
to him, and he kept talking about her, and he
looked at me, paused and nodded yes, like I was
asking him a question. About five minutes later, we threw
(49:18):
to a break and I saw one of the executives
of MSNBC come out and tell Chris that he had
to go and prepare Hardball for later that afternoon, and
that the rest of the thing would be anchored by me.
So every time and they did the pool camera go
back to reaction shots of Governor Granholm. I made sure
(49:42):
that that piece of paper that I had handed Chris
to which he thought was some sort of some sort
of question like are we at a president at funeral,
not an admonition that he was making an absolute jack
wad out of himself. I kept that note in front
of me, just in case I veered back into this.
(50:04):
I later told this story to Governor Granholm, who was
briefly a colleague of mine, Although you wouldn't remember this
because the network no longer exists, and I don't know
by that point if ten thousand people were watching our
shows on it, but it was a colleague of mine
on current TV. Even as I was trying to explain
to her, don't take this job. They're never going to
pay you. They're already running out of money. Jennifer Granholme
(50:30):
laughed coquettishly and said, Oh, that's not the first time
that's ever happened. I've done all the damage I can
(50:51):
do here. Thank you for listening. Most of our Countdown
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Schaneil, our musical directors of Countdown. It was
produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
bass and drums, and mister Shanail handled orchestration and keyboards.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best
baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. You heard her with
(51:13):
I Fought the Law and the Law one. The Olderman
theme from ESPN two was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It is our sports music. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today was my friend Chris matt Oh No, sorry,
that was Tony Kornheiser. Huh. Everything else was as always
(51:34):
my fault, so that's Countdown for Today, Day three hundred
and twenty six of America held hostage again, just thirty
seven days until the scheduled end of his lame duck
and lame brained term, unless he's removed sooner by Maga
and Epstein or Anosagnosia or Taile and All, or affordability
or the second Strike video. The next scheduled episode of
(51:58):
the program is Monday till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(52:19):
your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
first news reporter who stands up to Trump and calls
him out to his face in public will get fired
(00:25):
and within forty eight hours will get a new job
paying twice as much or more, and will become a
national hero. America is crying out for somebody to take
the risk that isn't really a risk and tell him
to shut the hell up, and tell him to f off,
and tell him to shove his threats and stochastic hints
(00:45):
at destruction and violence and his A plus plus plus
plus up his ass. It is time, now, now now,
Because Trump has now threatened the New York Times with
sedition and treason charges for committing the heinous, unpatriotic act
of suggesting he's a little tired for criticizing him for
(01:09):
criticizing him. Doesn't matter that it's just another threat that
his losses over Kimmel and Komi and Tish James have
set back the clock on when he completely loses it
and tries to do any of this. Doesn't matter that
legally none of this fits sedition or treason. None of
it could fit in a million years. This is a
(01:30):
mentally deteriorating man. His disease or diseases, whatever they are,
are accelerating before our eyes. And each hour he gets
further and further convinced of his omnipotence, and worse that
only a tiny minority in this country opposes him in
the slightest he has almost unchecked power, and the Republicans
(01:51):
won't check the rest, and somebody has to check the rest.
And if he threatens the Times with treason and insists
in that stochastic terrorist way of his, we should do
something about it. I'm next, or your next, or the
guy down the street is next, or some Republican who
stands up is next. Two weeks ago he wanted to
(02:13):
hang Democratic senators and congressman like Kelly and Slotkin. And
now he wants to charge the New York Times with
treason and sedition and you are next. And just because
this isn't enough of a crisis that nobody's reacting to
it as a crisis, because well, he's always threatening the media,
and well he's always claiming somebody's guilty of treason, and
(02:36):
well he's always planning to get somebody anged. Ask Mike Pants,
am I right there is a pattern here over the
last week about which we need to take note and
summon genuine alarm. He is now trying to decide who
owns and operates the national news organizations and what they say,
even the tepid ones like CNN, and which shows get
(03:00):
to run on them, and which anchors must be fired
Aaron Burnett. And worst of all, this ties into that
word you're sick of me hearing. This is part of anosognosia,
because it's clear to the world that Trump is desperately,
menacingly psychologically dysfunctional, and there is no chance in a
(03:20):
million years that he has any idea that what he
is doing is part of that illness or any illness,
and no chance that anybody around him sees it that
way or will tell him that's the truth. This is
psychological dysfunction, This is mental illness. This is stochastic terrorism.
(03:42):
I will read that all to you now. Quote. There
has never been a president that has worked as hard
as me. My hours are the longest and my results
are among the best. In addition to all that, I
go out of my way to do long, thorough and
very boring medical examinations at the Great Walter Reed National
Military Medical Center, seen and supervised by top doctors, all
(04:06):
of whom have given me perfect marks. Some have even
said they have never seen such strong perfect marks. Some
have even said they have never seen such strong results.
I do these tests because I owe it to our country.
That's right, He's doing this a favor. In addition to
the medical I have done something that no other president
(04:27):
has done on three separate occasions, the last one being recently,
by taking what is known as a cognitive examination, something
which few people would be able to do very well,
including those working at the New York Times. And I
aced all three of them in front of large numbers
of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know.
(04:50):
In other words, he's used to being tested by doctors
who he does know, does pay, and does tell what
to say to resume. I have been told that few
people have been able to ace this examination, and in
fact most do very poorly, which is why many other
presidents have decided not to take it at all. Despite
all of this, the time and work involved, he said
(05:12):
it was pretty easy. The New York Times and some
others like to pretend that I am quote slowing up
and maybe not as sharp. As I once was or
am in poor physical health. Knowing that it is not true,
and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than
I have ever worked before, I will know when I
am slowing up. But it's not now, said every patient
(05:34):
of every neurological disorder and physical ailment ever. And here
is the operative part of this. Here is the true pathology. Quote.
After all of the work I have done with medical exams,
cognitive exams, and everything else, I actually believe it's seditious,
perhaps even treasonous, for the New York Times and others
(05:56):
to consistently do fake reports in order to libel and
demean quote the President of the United States in capital letters.
They are true enemies of the people, and we should
do something about it. Yeah, somebody has to do something
about it. Remove him under the twenty fifth Amendment. He's
(06:18):
as crazy as a jbird. Of course, that will not happen,
So somebody else needs to do something a little simpler.
Answer him, Answer him when he says things like this,
Answer him when he attacks you, answer him in the
same language. Answer him to his face, not with threats,
not with violence, for God's sakes, not even yelling or
(06:40):
a loud voice. Just answer him with reality, answer him
with the thing he never sees in his life, the
real world and the real world of how sick Donald
Trump is. Because the time is nigh. He is going
to snap soon enough. And though it won't look like
(07:02):
he sounds in these ranting almost fugue state, king lear
off his med's penultimate stage of whatever disease he happens
to have at the moment, wild rides on the dementia
j Trump delusion train. These are only the big picture. Well,
let's then nuke them. Fantasies the likelihood he tries anything
beyond the threat involved in this, That likelihood is remote
(07:25):
because nobody in power, not even the morons like Chief
of Staff Susie Wiles, who's now decided she's going to
make the midterms next year a referendum on Trump, and
thank you for that, Pat Summerl's daughter, not even Susie Wiles.
Things Actually pursuing anything like this against The New York
Times is anything but madness. What they like is the
(07:46):
threat element. They can sell the threat element. They also
like that darkest of undercurrents, the possibility that, again he writes,
we should do something about it and his stochastic call
for violence is picked up by the way it was
on January sixth by the insurrectionists, or buy the pipe barmber,
or buy the Maga militia. There is always that chance,
(08:09):
and it is very real. But the immediate threat is
action to silence and manipulate media to a degree not
yet seen even under this president. Three examples this week. First,
Trump has decided he gets to program what's on CNN.
He's already said he's going to be involved in the process.
(08:30):
Why which CNN may change hands. He's been in the
Oval office with Larry Ellison, who's still trying to buy
that network and make it even softer on Trump than
David Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery and Chris Lickt made
it soft on Trump. Per Natalie Andrews at The Wall
Street Journal. Quote, Trump has told people close to him
(08:51):
that he wants new ownership of CNN as well as
changes to CNN programming. He's got a close eye on
paramount efforts to take over Warner Discovery, while Netflix is
talking to Trump too. Unquote Trump mysteriously, since she is
the most milk toast person in primetime cable wants Aaron
(09:12):
Burnett out and probably Caitlyn Collins again, why you would bother?
I don't know these and the shows on MS are
not widely watched nor cited television programmings. They are now nothing,
again compared to say, the CBS Evening News over which
(09:33):
he is now a measure of control via Barry Weiss
and those schmucks. But he sees Aaron Burnett and Caitlyn
Collins and CNN, and as brain damaged as he is,
he must silence the critics and the criticism that he sees. Also,
there have been two more attacks on women reporters. To
(09:53):
ABC's Rachel Scott, here's a shock. She's gifted, she works
for Disney, and she's attention all you racist presidents of
the United States. She's an African American woman. Quote. You
are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let
me just tell you. You are an obnoxious, a terrible reporter.
And it's always the same thing with you. I told
(10:15):
you unquote. Also, Lachland Cart writes Breaker reports that the fatuous,
flatulent lap sitting quote interview unquote of dementia J Trump
the other day by the austed NBC correspondent dash of
Burns for Politico in which you'd recognize her if you
saw the video. She was the one asking the softball questions,
(10:36):
not following up on any of the stupid answers, and
then basically taking dictation throughout. They're reporting at breaker that
that interview was essentially the result of a quid pro
quote and Politico staffers are nearing open revolts over it,
and Trump attacked Politico specifically, and dash of Burns by
(10:56):
extension two dash of burns of Politico in the interview
with Politico, And no, I don't think she's very much
of a journalist, but I'll defend her right to try,
and God damned any president who tries to intimidate her
or anybody else, and that would even include Barry effing Weiss.
Attacking her is the job of media critics and journalists
(11:17):
and those of us who dabble in those fields, and
not presidents with enough influence to get her harmed anyway.
Politico named Trump to the top of its twenty eight
influencers in Europe or something, and then suddenly bingo it
had an exclusive with Trump during which he said he
was only giving their Crappola Organization an interview because it
(11:40):
had just made up another award for him, and then
he insulted them in her and she sat there because
the job is more important to her than is America.
Lachlan Cartwright writes, quote, breaker has learned what was brought
into the Oval Office fifteen minutes before the interview was
set to start. Brought in by senior administration officials, including
(12:02):
Communication Director Stephen Chunung or Chunk, as he's also known.
I wrote that, not Lachlan White House Press Secretary Caroline
Levitt and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who made it
clear they expected Burns to go easy on Trump. The
White House, however, explained there was a simpler explanation for
why Burns entered the Oval ahead of the interview. Unquote.
(12:26):
That was in the denial that there was any attempt
to influence the softball nature of this interview. But it
was just naturally softball. They brought her into the Oval Office,
according to the White House because because she'd never actually
been in the Oval Office before, because she's only Politico's
(12:48):
White House Bureau chief and a former NBC News Washington
political reporter. I'm having a hard time believing their story.
The tragedy here, of course, is that it is accepted
inside the new business without a second thought. That there
is nothing that reporters, even bad ones, can do about
(13:11):
this without risking their careers and maybe their lives. Bullshit.
The first one, the first one of you who gets
told you are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.
Let me just tell you are a terrible reporter. The
first one who hears that to their face and replies, so,
(13:33):
what what does that have to do with my question? Nothing?
And what does that have to do with the fact
that you didn't answer it? Nothing? And with all due respects, sir,
The majority of this nation, sir, considers you a failure
as a president. And what does that have to do
with your answer? The one you didn't? Just give me? Nothing?
But the majority of this nation thinks you are a vindictive, stupid, hypocritical, hateful,
(13:56):
destructive soul is and quite probably insane person. I am
a terrible reporter. You are the worst government leader in
the history of the Western hemisphere. Answer my effing question, asshole.
You don't have to repeat that word for word. The
first reporter, though, who does something like that anything like
(14:18):
that gets ushered out, maybe by secret service, and fired
before they hit the street outside on Pennsylvania Avenue, And
within forty eight hours they will get statues built of them,
and they will get new job offers at twice the salary,
at least half a dozen networks and online facilities, and
(14:39):
they may have to stop and give up a wonderful
life of being on the road with this madman and
instead become an anchor, or a host or something for
several million dollars more than they're currently making. And as
somebody said to a baseball writer decades ago, the road
ruins the best of them, and kid, you ain't the
best of them. Take the deal, take the desk job,
(15:04):
give that answer to Trump. Work for truth, not for
CBS or Politico or NBC or MS. Now go off
on him. And then turned it into a series. I
know a little something about this after years of complaining
(15:28):
about it on the air, and I was not a
White House reporter. I was not a confrontational guy. I
couldn't say this directly, but it was at a time
when something that was set on network television or cable
television would reverberate and would almost be the equivalent of
saying it to a man's face. And one day, after
years of minor and relatively controlled complaints, I read what
(15:49):
Bush and Cheney and Gingrich and Rumsfeld and the others
were saying about those of us who criticized the policy
of the Bush administration against Iraq and the way they
were leading this country. And one day I said, I've
had enough. Nobody is telling this guy to go to hell.
Somebody has to say he has to go to hell.
Somebody has to let him know. Somebody has to say
(16:10):
this on behalf of all the people out here. And
I don't know how many there are. There could be
thirty five, there could be one hundred and fifty million,
I don't know, but they're there. I can feel them saying,
tell this man to go to hell. And I did it.
And I did it expecting to be fired, maybe before
the show was over, and maybe not even having some
(16:30):
extra place to go outside of politics and news, maybe
not being able to go back to sports. And when
the president of the network then came into my tiny
office after this, as the room outside me was shaking
with people who really liked what I said, but figured
they were all going to get fired too. One percent
of me thought, you know, he's not going to fire me.
He's going to get me thrown into the trunk of
(16:51):
a car, and I'm going to wake up and get
mo Instead. The president of the network said, hey, buddy,
did you see the ratings? Can you do one of
those every night? Would you like a new contract, would
you like a real office, would you like a lot
of more money. I wasn't some kind of journalistic profit.
I wasn't some sort of historic genius. I wasn't some
(17:14):
sort of societal soothsayer. I wasn't imbued with the spirit
of Edward R. Murrow for a year, or a month
or even a week. Only three things were required then
and are required now, even in a time of fear,
to become the one who shouts, hey, Emperor, you have
no new clothes. First, you have to be prepared. It's tough,
(17:39):
but you have to be prepared to make way more
money than you're making now. Two, in this environment, this
guy has to yell at you. First, directly with fifty
cameras rolling at the time. You have to be prepared
for an event that may not come or may not
come for six months. But lastly, and most importantly, you
(18:00):
have to correctly divine that the American public has passed
the tip points and it desperately wants somebody to confront
this asshole and tell him to his face he's an asshole.
No matter what the personal risk might be, You're already
under personal risk. He already wants to charge you with sedition.
People supporting him already want you harmed or dead. It's
(18:21):
not that much of a percentage increase, and you don't
even have to divine that they were past the tipping point.
Just guess, Just assume it hasn't changed that much since
the last time you actually really assess this. He tells
Poor Burns of Politico that the economy is an A
plus plus plus plus plus, exactly the wording of the
(18:43):
fantasy from Little Ralphie in a Christmas story when he's
in the fourth grade. He says a plus plus plus
plus plus. And a new poll from Public First Polling
says that in the last two years, twenty seven percent
of US have skipped a medical checkup because of the costs,
and thirty seven percent of us said they can no
longer afford to go to a pro ballgame, and forty
(19:04):
six percent of us cat afford a vacation if we
have to use a plane during it. And these are
the inflation figures they are fighting against. Bacon three and
a half percent, checking five point three percent, let us
seven point four percent, bananas eight percent, ground b fourteen percent,
coffee one hundred percent. You know where I got those
goddamn inflation figures from? From the Efing Maria E Fing
(19:25):
Bartiromo show on Fox. This is the tipping point. You
are here on the map. America wants you to tell
Trump he's full of shit. One well crafted paragraph of
suppressed and controlled anger and it's over. I'd be happy
(19:50):
to do it myself, but as you may have noticed,
my skill at suppressing and controlling my anger on this
subject is waning. And also I retired from that platform
more than a day to go. But you are on
that platform now, You are on a platform while Trump
is trying to light the platform on fire, and he's
(20:12):
trying to light you on fire, and he's trying to
light America on fire. You are on the platform. Now
use the platform. Looking at you, Rachel Scott, looking at you,
Dash of Burns, looking at you, Caitlin Collins and Aaron
Burnette and anybody else he thinks he can get fired
from his new CNN looking at you, New York Times,
(20:34):
do it now now before he actually snaps and does
charge you with sedition. The other headlines as Trump continues
(21:02):
his cover up of the Second Strike, and that's in
addition to his cover up of the Epstein files, two
rather startling stories that didn't really change the score, but
which do remind us that the creatures who are loyal
to Trump, the ren fields of our time, are also
hypocrites and frauds who, outside of Stephen Miller, do not
even believe their own hate. They just sell it as
(21:24):
A federal court rules that the Trump usurpation of the
National Guard to terrorize citizens in LA was illegal, Thus
you can extrapolate that those military orders were also illegal.
CNN reports that throughout twenty sixteen, one Fox News pundit
and sometimes host kept beating the same drum about the
(21:47):
military carrying out illegal orders. As Trump kept insisting in
twenty sixteen, they should and they would, and when pressed
about what would happen if they didn't, he told a
Republican primary debate quote, they won't refuse, They're not going
to refuse me. Believe me as that we're telling began
of our current crisis in which he is changing the
(22:08):
United States of America military into Trump troops. Inc. While
that was going on in twenty sixteen, one Fox commentator,
a military contributor, insisted it was illegal and should not
happen and would not happen. Quote, You're just not going
to follow that order if it's unlawful. He insisted, the
(22:29):
military is not going to follow illegal orders. A month later,
he came back on and said the military won't follow
unlawful orders from their commander in chief. And after that,
as a guest on Meghan Kelly's Fox Show, Remember Meghan Kelly,
the man said, quote, here's the problem with Trump. He says,
go ahead and kill the family, go ahead and torture,
(22:50):
go ahead and go further than waterboarding. What happens when
people follow those orders or don't follow them. It's not
clear that Donald Trump will have their back. Donald Trump
is oftentimes about Donald Trump, and so you can't if
you're not changing the law and you're just saying it,
could you create even more ambiguity? Unquote, who who was
(23:16):
so morally and legally clear, Who was so insightful as
to the nightmare behind the nightmare. Trump issues illegal orders,
you carry them out, and then he backs away from
the orders, pretends he doesn't even know who you are,
and you go to jail. Who saw that coming? Who
was almost psychic about this? Pete hegseeth? No, the same
(23:39):
pete hegseeth And just as tragically. A year ago, a
lawyer representing America First Policy Institute answered a lawsuit by
claiming that the issue of Trump ordering Seal Team six
to kill a rival candidate, this was part of the
presidential immunity thing, that that was just a fantasy. Quote.
Military officers are required not to carry out unlawful orders,
(24:04):
this lawyer wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court
that was dug up by The Times. Quote, the military
would not carry out a patently unlawful order from the
president to kill non military targets. Indeed, service members are
required not to do so. Unquote again, who wrote that
powerful conservative viewpoint? Pambondy Yep, same Pambondy. When this is
(24:31):
over and Bondy and hegxeth go to prison for facilitating
illegal orders to the military, hegxeth and BONDI can at
least say I told you so as they look themselves
in the mirror. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Another day, another petard,
(25:11):
another hoisting to continue that theme. Remember those Bill Pulty
specials trying to prosecute Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook and
Eric Swalwell for filling out forms that said a home
they were mortgaging was to be their primary residence. Only
it wasn't, or it wasn't going to be all the time,
or it wouldn't be later, Remember that from pro Publica.
In a span of seven weeks in nineteen ninety three,
(25:33):
one real estate guy signed a mortgage for one house
in Palm Beach, Florida, declared on the application that it
would be his principal residence. Seven months later, he bought
another house, same street, same pledge, same mortgage app He
never lived in either. It was so transparently false that
the buyer's real estate guy told the Miami Herald that
(25:55):
his client had quote hired an expensive New York design
firm to dress them up to the nines and lease
them out annually, so they weren't his primary resident. He
was dressing them up to the nines and leasing them
out annually, so the mortgage app thing was a lie.
The buyer of both those houses was Donald J. Trump.
(26:19):
Well there's another coincidence also of interest here another tech
pro billionaire wants public executions. Cool you first, and pro tip.
If you're a congresswoman from Missouri claiming there is a
George Sorows plot to make Missouri's political decisions for it,
(26:42):
you probably better know that the city where you claim
that plot is being hatched. That city is not in California.
It is in Missouri, in the district next to yours.
But you've never looked at a map of your own
state while you're trying to gerrymander your own state for
(27:02):
the fascists. You will believe this. California, here we come.
That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
Olberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown. Somebody asked
(27:38):
me the other day what I thought about Chris Matthews
reappearing back with Joe Scarborough on MSNBS forgive me MS
now dumbest name change of all time, ludicrous Werson killing
off HBO to call it Max anyway, Matthews on with Scarborough?
How did I feel about that? I said, I actually
felt sorry for Scarborough. Then I told him the story
of Chris Matthews drooling on air while I sat next
(28:01):
to him drooling on air about Jennifer Granholm. So I'll
tell it to you next. In things I promise not
to tell first, believe it or not, there's still more
new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscrants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other
worst persons in the world to the bronze the secretary
(28:23):
of reality TV cancelations, Sean Duffy. All right, I'm going
to confess something to you. Duffy said it would improve
air travel if people didn't wear pajamas on the plane
and go barefoot, and and he's God, He's right. The
(28:44):
days of everybody in suits and fedoras is long gone,
and good riddance. In point of fact, your safety in
the event of a disaster on a plane is increased
if you wear a cap or a hat of some
kind and a leather jacket because it's flame retardant. Increases
your chances zero point zero, zero zero one percent or
something is your clothing choice. So the key improvement in
(29:05):
our air traffic chaos no of course, not him suggesting
that is stupid, but it is not a stupid suggestion,
or at least it wasn't until he followed it up
by then suggesting that maybe what people want in airports
now is a workout area for stair climbing and chin ups,
and they trotted out Robert F. Kennedy Junior, I finally
(29:28):
realized is actually one of the characters from the animated
series Family Guy, one of the weird guys in their office.
And Robert F. Kennedy did chin ups in the middle
of the airport because of course you see that all
the time, don't you. My god, you see more penguins
in airports than you see chin ups. Because what Sean
Duffy wants you to do is wear a suit and
(29:49):
a tie and then work out inside the airport and
perspire through your suit and your tie, and then get
on your plane and sit down next to somebody and
cause them to pass out from your stench. And if
Sean Duffy thinks that will decrease problems on planes, especially
pass singer intolerance and rage, he's dumber than I thought.
And frankly, I didn't think that was possible. The runner
(30:12):
unp worser data platform company Pallenteer and its co founder,
right wing nut job tech money fascist bro Joe Lonsdale,
paal of Barry Weiss and Peter Thiel and the rest
of the people who are using the money they got
from us to try to turn us into indentured servants
or silent cogs in a machine they own. Mister Lonsdale
(30:33):
left Pallenteer long ago, but when you hear about Volunteer
or Barry Weiss's university, which he's also been involved with,
this is what is at its heart, and certainly at
Lonsdale's He's joined this club of people demanding public executions.
Remember Charlie Kirk wanted public executions on pay per view.
(30:55):
He wanted kids to be forced to watch the public
executions of criminals. Well, now Lonsdale has posted on Twitter quote,
if if I'm in charge later, we won't just have
a three strikes law. We will quickly try and hang
men after three violent crimes. And yes we will do
it in public to deter others. Our society needs balance.
(31:18):
It's time to bring back masculine leadership. Imagine being Joe
Lonsdale and having so wasted your life, that you think
that the desire to see someone, anyone executed publicly hanged
is somehow masculine, as opposed to being a sign of
(31:39):
your sadism and fear and mental illness and stupidity, and
probably you know elon musk cocktails. Also note there is
no indication there that the opening of that tweet, if
I'm in charge later, that that's meant in some sort
of ironic or acutesy way. He means he intends to
be in charge later. They all think Trump is just
(32:01):
the start of business men owning the country, but the
winner the worst. And Wagner Republican representing the Missouri second
in the House of Representatives and in the middle of
the redistricting controversy in Missouri, and idiot middle of redistricting
and apparently she's never looked at a map of her
own state in her life, not even a map of
(32:23):
the area around its state capital. The California Democrat posted
this on Twitter at the end of last month. Concerned
citizens gathered at California City Hall Railroad Park on five
hundred South Oak Street to stop gerrymandering in Missouri. Access
the California Democrat to read the full story California MO,
(32:45):
mid MO are the hashtags and then there's a link
and she has retweeted this and taken umbrage and Wagner congresswoman,
and Wagner writes, Missouri's elections aren't decided in California. The
real threat isn't our map, but the Sorrow's funded network
trying to manufacture outrage. Missourians will choose Missouri's future. Uh.
(33:08):
Miss the California Democrat newspaper, it's based in the town
of California, Missouri. That's that's how. That's how they have
a city hall, railroad park in California, California. It says
California city Hall. This this California is not in the state.
(33:31):
It's it's in Missouri. And you the six term congresswoman
from the district next to California, Missouri. Apparently you didn't
know that. And oh yeah, she's the former chair of
the Missouri Republican Party. And oh, by the way, California.
The town is the seat of Monitou County, Missouri, and
it's the largest city in that county. And it's the
third largest city in the Jefferson City metropolitan area. And
(33:54):
if Jefferson City sounds familiar. Perhaps it should, since it's
the capital of the goddamn state. Her office denies she
didn't know California, Missouri was in Missouri, insisting, of course
she knows that she just deliberately wrote it this way
because because because it's it's George Soros's fault somehow. Then
(34:16):
if this sounds like the start of a Hallmark movie
and a bad one, yep, Congresswoman Ann Wagner used to
be an executive with Hallmark. Should have stayed there a
Christmas in California, Missouri. See the twist Representative Anne as
her Democratic opponent Fred Wellman ads wait till she hears
(34:38):
about the Missouri towns of Mexico and Cuba. Wagner redistricting Missouri,
and she doesn't even own a map. Today's other worst
person things I promised not to tell. And I was
(35:31):
speaking a couple of days ago about the coverage of
the two thousand and eight presidential election. You remember two
thousand and eight ancient history, back when there was an
American democracy, back when there was hopey changey things as
opposed to I hope you change into something other than
the president of the United States. I was talking about
(35:55):
two thousand and eight and was asked a series of
questions about our coverage at MSNBC, and the person asking
me questions had yet to mention the most significant roadblock
to getting things done, to getting that broadcast and the
other broadcasts that we did politically at MSNBC all those
(36:16):
years ago off the ground and then again safely on
the ground when it was all done. The assets we
had were extraordinary through most of the primary campaign that year,
and through all of two thousand and six in the midterms,
we'd had Tim Russert who would come on and after
the network coverage was completely over, would just sit there
(36:37):
with us for another hour on the air. What a
pleasure that was. And then we'd go out in the
hallway and talk about baseball, the good part of it,
plus dozens of people and that then new and sincere
Rachel Matdow, other people who really knew what they were
talking about and were trying to make a point and
(36:57):
make an inroad in what was then all conservative corporate media,
even at NBC. But the person had not asked me
one question about the major impediment, And the major impediment
was my co anchor for almost all of this was
Chris efing Matthews. Over the years, I have made allusions
(37:22):
to Chris Matthews and just how rare it was when
he was actually in the same plane of existence as
the rest of us in the universe. And I know
Chris never heard me say any of these things, because
Chris never listened. If Chris listened, Chris would probably still
be on the air every night with a nightly show
(37:43):
on MSNBC. There's a Dorian Gray picture of him somewhere
because he hasn't changed in appearance since the late nineteen nineties,
even though he's now well, you know how old he is.
He's two hundred and six. The story I want to
tell about Matthews, though, that I think symbolizes and summarizes
the entirety of my experience with him, which began in
(38:04):
two thousand and three. I was on the set with
him when he discussed the fact that this was George
Bush's day and mission accomplished was not an exaggeration. And
look at how well he fits in that flight man's uniform,
and he was talking about how he looked good in
the pants. That was the beginning of it. And I said,
(38:24):
don't you think there's something about bringing up the whole
flying experience and the Texas Air National Guard and that
whole question. You think that's a bad idea or declaring
mission accomplished while American servicemen's lives are still at risk
in Iraq and will be no. No, this is his day,
This is his day. Chris can always point to being
(38:45):
right about any issue that ever came across his desk
because he took every possible point of view on every
possible issue. He was anti Bush, pro Bush, anti Trump
pro Trump. He was everything at all times. And the
way you do that is the way Trump does. You
just don't remember what you said last time. You don't
(39:08):
think it's relevant, you don't think that anybody else is
going to remember it. There's a lot of similarity, there's
a lot of overlap in the ven diagrams of Chris
Matthews and Donald Trump. But I'm diverging. I promised you
the Chris Matthews story I could have before I sat
down in front of the microphone gone and looked this
up to get the exact date. I'm sure it was
(39:30):
two thousand and six or two thousand and seven, doesn't
matter much. It was cold, it was the winter. It
was deep in the winter, probably January or February, and
I had traveled to Washington on short notice because they
wanted me to co anchor with Matthews. The memorial coverage
of the funeral rolls two of them, a former president
(39:53):
Gerald R. Ford. Gerald Ford ultimately is down there with
what Harrison and a couple of other really short term
presidents like Chester Allen Arthur who just didn't make a
huge impact except for in his case one event the
pardoning of Nixon, really didn't do much as President of
(40:17):
the United States and yet President of the United States.
State funeral, Plus they were also going to give him
a second funeral the next day in Michigan, back in
his home state Grand Rapids, if I remember correctly. So
we were there for two days, me and Matthews all day,
doing the state funeral one day and then the next
(40:40):
day the funeral in Michigan. The state funeral was just
a typical day with Chris Matthews. I would say something
and he would then repeat it as if he had
heard it in his own head rather than coming out
of my mouth. Chris heard things that were said, he
just never heard who had said them. So he tended
(41:01):
to repeat a lot of the things I had just mentioned,
and he would jump in on interviews that he was
not supposed to be a part of, and all the
rest of the usual nonsense. He would read things on
the teleprompter that said Keith. He would read everything except
the word Keith, the usual stuff. So that was a
good day. The next day, when we moved to Michigan,
(41:22):
that was not quite as good a day. The Michigan
part of the two days of the burial Gerald Ford
was well, I'll make the joke now that I made
off set then and off air then, which was took
two days to bury him what he wouldn't stop moving.
The second day was conducted out of a Protestant church
(41:46):
in Grand Rapids, if I remember correctly, that had an
overhead window. And I forget the technical terms. Although my
dad was an architect, I don't think he did a
lot of churches. But there was an overhead length of
the church glass ceiling, and it provided extraordinarily bright and
(42:12):
mood altering light. And on that day, in the middle
of winter, at the middle of the day, the light
came in at such an angle that it really did
look kind of otherworldly. If not heavenly, and so as
all the leading Michigan politicos and many of the national
politicos who had traveled to Michigan to attend both halves
(42:34):
of the doubleheader of the burial of Gerald Ford as
they filed in, and to his credit, Chris Matthews knew
every one of them by sight, even if they were
on the monitor in front of us half an inch tall.
He knew that that was the dog catcher from Grand Rapids,
Michigan from nineteen thirty eight who convinced football star Gerald
Ford to go into politics and not football. He knew
(42:57):
every one of them. He knew the former mayor, he
knew the attorney general of Michigan. Seventeen attorneys general will
go and that was great. That was why when they
once gave me the opportunity in two thousand and eight,
I think it was to go solo and leave Matthews out.
I said, no, See, he's too valuable for stuff like that.
(43:20):
You couldn't possibly get a researcher to give me that information.
It would not be genuine and it would not be timely.
Chris Matthews knows off the top of his head who
that is. He has no idea why he's important. He
has no idea whether he has served democracy or undermined it.
But he knows who the hell that guy is. Why
that's Milton J. Erseg the twenty third still Solicitor General
(43:45):
of Michigan A's two hundred and six. So, now, when
the former governor, then the governor of Michigan came into
this church at high noon with light coming in above her,
the great former governor of Michigan came in, he knew
(44:11):
exactly obviously who she was. We all knew who she was.
She was Jennifer Granholme. Jennifer Granholm, whose public career began
as the woman contestant on an episode of the Dating Game.
Jennifer Granholme was then on The Dating Game in the seventies.
(44:32):
Was in two thousand and six seven at the funerals
of Gerald R. Ford. Is today a most attractive woman, fetching, handsome, beautiful,
whichever word you would like to use that is both
complimentary and yet not sexist. Well, on that day she
appeared in a very formal kind of mourning hat and
(44:56):
a black dress, and the light shining from above her
was perfect, and she hit a perfect hair day, all
the things that could combine to render one essential element
to this story. He wasn't wrong. Matthews was reeling off
(45:18):
the names of these other people. And there's the front
row in which the former deputy assistant dogcatcher of Kalamazoos.
And then he saw Jennifer Granholm walk in, and he said,
and now we see coming down the aisle the former governor,
the governor of a He started to pant on the air.
(45:41):
It's Governor Jennifer Granholme and she's perfectly attired. This went
instantaneously from the usual Chris Matthews high speed patter to
something akin to Robert F. Kennedy Junior on FaceTime. There's
(46:02):
no other way to describe it. If you were just
listening to Chris Matthews, and everybody but me was just
listening to him. I was seated next to him in
a studio at NBC headquarters in Washington. I could see
the look on his face, the look of astonishment, him
putting his head down next to the monitor so he
could see her better. And as again I noted, she
(46:22):
was extremely fetching that day. In all of her great
days of fetch she was very fetched that day. This
is absolutely true. On the other hand, we are covering
the burial of the former President of the United States,
Gerald R. Ford, and Chris Matthews is panting about the
(46:43):
pulkratude of the Governor of Michigan, and he wouldn't stop
look at the shape of the dress and how the
light comes in through the whatever the word was for it,
of the church. And she's this event is he began
to lose the ability to form sentences. And I don't
mean in the normal way that he would lose the
(47:05):
ability to form sentences. I mean he would get to
part that They were clearly telling him to stop doing
this because it was not just sexist and not just inappropriate.
But we were covering the burial of Gerald R. Ford,
I mean in the front row next to as we
(47:26):
continued the shot of Governor Granholm on a pool camera.
I must admit that nobody at NBC said, yeah, I
got me more of that hot governor. As the pool
shot gave us this of Governor Granholm, there was a
coffin out there with Gerald R. Ford inside, and he's
talking about Governor Granholm and how great she looks. I
(47:48):
can't imagine that anytime she should just hope they took
photographs of her for her next campaign for whatever. It's like,
oh my good God. And they're clearly talking to him
from the control room, telling him to stop, because every
once in a while he stops and speaks to them
like no, oh, no, I won't. And finally the producer
of this Court Harson, who was the producer of Hardball
(48:11):
Matthew's show on MSNBC, gets into my ear and says,
for God's sake, is there anything you can do? Can
you stop him? And I just looked at the camera
and shook my head and put my arms up in
what would be the you know, hands up, nothing I
can do about it emoji. I may have been the
model for that emoji. This is two thousand and six
or seven, after all. And they said, can you try?
(48:35):
Can you write him a note or something? So I
took a piece of script and I wrote on the
back of it Chris stopped talking about Grand Holme that way,
we are at a presidential funeral, and I underlined we
are at one two three line at one two three
(48:56):
line A one two three presidential one two three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten lines under that funeral circled and I slipped it
to him, and he kept talking about her, and he
looked at me, paused and nodded yes, like I was
asking him a question. About five minutes later, we threw
(49:18):
to a break and I saw one of the executives
of MSNBC come out and tell Chris that he had
to go and prepare Hardball for later that afternoon, and
that the rest of the thing would be anchored by me.
So every time and they did the pool camera go
back to reaction shots of Governor Granholm. I made sure
(49:42):
that that piece of paper that I had handed Chris
to which he thought was some sort of some sort
of question like are we at a president at funeral,
not an admonition that he was making an absolute jack
wad out of himself. I kept that note in front
of me, just in case I veered back into this.
(50:04):
I later told this story to Governor Granholm, who was
briefly a colleague of mine, Although you wouldn't remember this
because the network no longer exists, and I don't know
by that point if ten thousand people were watching our
shows on it, but it was a colleague of mine
on current TV. Even as I was trying to explain
to her, don't take this job. They're never going to
pay you. They're already running out of money. Jennifer Granholme
(50:30):
laughed coquettishly and said, Oh, that's not the first time
that's ever happened. I've done all the damage I can
(50:51):
do here. Thank you for listening. Most of our Countdown
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Schaneil, our musical directors of Countdown. It was
produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
bass and drums, and mister Shanail handled orchestration and keyboards.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best
baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. You heard her with
(51:13):
I Fought the Law and the Law one. The Olderman
theme from ESPN two was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It is our sports music. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today was my friend Chris matt Oh No, sorry,
that was Tony Kornheiser. Huh. Everything else was as always
(51:34):
my fault, so that's Countdown for Today, Day three hundred
and twenty six of America held hostage again, just thirty
seven days until the scheduled end of his lame duck
and lame brained term, unless he's removed sooner by Maga
and Epstein or Anosagnosia or Taile and All, or affordability
or the second Strike video. The next scheduled episode of
(51:58):
the program is Monday till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(52:19):
your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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