November 7, 2024 • 31 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 67: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: "No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly." H.L. Mencken (1926).
Nice of Hispanic males to vote for the guy who will deport all their relatives and friends and namesakes and when they run out, deport them.
Also: the anti-Trump conservative who's trying to be optimistic: at least now Trump won't try another coup!
And Jeff Bezos congratulates Trump because if they're still blackmailing Bezos on Trump's behalf, this is what it would look like!
And details on the future of this podcast (yes, it has one).
B-Block (20:51) SPECIAL COMMENT TWO: My theory of The Lifeboat and how it explains who voted for Trump and why.
C-Block (34:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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. No
one in this world, so far as I know, and
(00:25):
I have searched the records for years and employed agents
to help me, has ever lost money by underestimating the
intelligence of the great masses of the plane people. Nor
has anyone ever lost public office. Thereby, the mistake that
is made always runs the other way. Because the plain
(00:45):
people are able to speak and understand, and even in
many cases to read and write, it is assumed that
they have ideas in their heads and an appetite for more.
This assumption is a folly. Hl Menkin September nineteen twenty six,
attributed to Barnum, or even movie mogul Louis b. Mayor
(01:08):
or now to Trump. The shortened version of that, of course,
is nobody ever went broke under estimating the intelligence of
the American public. I apologize to you. I should have
seen this coming Sunday night when I tripped over that
Time's Siena poll from last month of Hispanic voters. Trump,
who can now lay claim to being the Grover Cleveland
(01:32):
of our time, runs on anti immigrant nativism and hate,
anti Hispanic, anti Latino, anti Mexican anti Puerto Rican, anti
Latin American, clearly has plans for internment camps, clearly has
plans for retroactively changing the status of citizenship, including of
(01:54):
kids who were born here. People who today are fully
and legally here will not be tomorrow. And asked by
the pollsters from Sienna, when you hear about this, do
you think he's talking about you? About how bad immigrants are,
how bad Mexicans are, how bad Hispanics are, how he's
(02:16):
going to get them all removed, that they're poisoning the bloodstream.
When asked by the pollsters, when you hear this, do
you think he's talking about you? Two thirds of Latino
said oh no, which is short for oh no, He's
not going to eat my face. For those under thirty
in this demographic, the number was what seventy one percent?
Oh no, He's not talking about me. He means other Latinos.
(02:40):
Trump won Latino males by eleven points. And I have
two words to say to them, and they are on
behalf of the Trump administration, and the words are, by now,
he will deport people from the same place you or
your folks are from. He will deport people who have
the same names you do, he will deport your relatives
(03:03):
and friends. And when when he runs out, he will
change the laws and he will deport you and your
parents and your children. Because he's nuts, because he employs
a lunatic named Stephen Miller who violently, irrationally, homingly hates
(03:26):
Hispanic people. You know who I'm talking about, the guy
with the face that looks like a tiny penis. He
was turned down by a Hispanic girl for a date
in high school, or a girl he liked went out
with a Hispanic guy instead. I can't remember the details
of the story. A fella I know who went to
school with him told me once it's one of those
(03:48):
two things. This originates from all of that. So he
hates Hispanics exactly the way Hitler hated Jews, and Trump
who hates them, but less fervently because hating them takes
time away from talking about himself. He listens to Stephen Miller,
(04:09):
and he hears more votes. And not only does he
get elected president while his brains are draining out his
ears like a running yeast infection, but the very people
he is going to torture and deport vote for him.
Oh no, he's not talking about me. No one in
(04:29):
this world, so far as I know, and I have
searched the records for years and employed agents to help me,
has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the
great masses of the plain people. Or you can quote
the George Carlin line ran into Bob Costas on Fifth
Avenue Tuesday. Bob quotes our friend George. Remember what he
said about the intelligence of the average American. Think how
(04:52):
stupid the average American really is, and then remember that
fifty percent are more stupid than that guy Latino males
plus eleven for Trump. It would be funny if it
weren't true. So if you voted for him and you
aren't a white guy, two words by now. I actually
(05:16):
had one belly laugh since election night, and I have
the belly to prove it. There's a guy, Tim Carney
fitting name writes for the Washington Examiner, which is a
fascist propagandist rag which means it's headline writers are more
honest than the ones that the New York Times are.
And this is what Tim Carney wrote before the election.
(05:38):
Though I'm not voting for Trump, I might be rooting
for him, though one never knows until one checks one's
own heart as the results start coming in. But the
top two reasons I'd be happy if he wins are
One then he won't try to overturn the result. Two,
(05:59):
then he can't run again. Oh, the upbeat positive approach.
The dictator is half full, not half empty idea brilliant.
Thank god we elected Trump so he won't try another
coup and kill people. Yes, that's worth four years of
(06:19):
hell or however long until Trump dies, which has to
be soon. He's been acting like a melting statue and
looking like one for months. And then, of course we
get President Vance and during Trump's funeral, while they're standing
there saluting dead Trump while they're playing the anthem or
YMCA by the village people. While they're doing that, while
(06:41):
they're standing there, footin simultaneously strikes Poland and Chechia, and
while Vance literally pees his pants. That video will make
George Bush on nine to eleven look like Attila the
Hunt planning war games. Anyway, the second half of what
this guy Carnei wrote shows that the he won't eat
(07:02):
my face mentality transcends political division. Conservatives can't get their
heads out of their asses long enough to see the
world clearly, even for like thirty two seconds. Of course,
soon to be dead. Trump, if he doesn't stroke out
or his heart doesn't attack him first, is running in
(07:24):
twenty twenty eight. I mean, it may be a stunt
election because he might have eliminated the real ones by then.
But that's the point. He can't leave office, whatever happens
to these charges against him. If he leaves office, they
prosecute him. Did you see anybody in the mainstream press
write this yesterday? Even now, they're still just rewriting the
(07:49):
press releases. Oh, he's only going to serve the one
term because he can't serve the conservative carnie. They're all carnies,
doesn't know. All the other conservatives are getting their arguments
ready that the two term limit will not apply to
Trump because well, let's make up some bullshit. How about
(08:13):
the twenty second amendment means two consecutive terms. That was
a popular one they were floating around at the beginning
of the year. It's two consecutive terms, and then you
can't serve again. But you had two non consecutive terms,
could you could follow the second one with a third term?
I'm sure that's what they meant, right, Alito, and of
(08:35):
course the Supreme Court will rubber stamp that. That's what
Alito is there for. That and the insurrectionist wife's collection
of anti American flags. Danny can't run again, moron, I
have to tap the sign one more time. Yale historian
Tim Snyder. Trump is in the classic dictatorial position. He
(08:58):
needs to die in bed holding all executive power to
stay out of prison. This it means that he will
do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power,
will do all that he can to never let it go.
This is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else.
It is entirely inconsistent with democracy. Unquote. Oh, and about
(09:25):
the charges against him, it's not enough that Trump now
owns the Justice Department and will have the new attorney general.
I believe that's going to be silk fire Jack Smith.
Jack Smith is reportedly now trying to wind down his
prosecution of Trump for you know, treason. I believe that
there's actually a good legal reason for Jack Smith to
(09:48):
do this himself, rather than to stand there and say,
don't tread on me. That if he can withdraw wind
down the prosecution, he may be able to preserve the
charges for four years from now. I'm not sure about that.
I haven't seen anything definitive about that anywhere, and I
went looking. I am now as MENCN is looking for
(10:11):
the guy who went bankrupt underestimating the intelligence of the
plane folk. I'm now joining him in my endless quest
for information that I cannot find. In any event, what
Smith is or is not doing, what Trump will or
will not do to Smith is insufficient for Trump's henchman
and his old Attorney General, Bill Barr. That's right. I
(10:35):
had Bill Barr is my attorney general, and then later
Silk from Diamond and Silk. I wanted them both, but
Diamond is dead. Bill Barr wants the charges against Trump
formally dropped because whatever Trump has got on Bar, it
still works. I mean, he issued a statement yesterday. Listen
(10:56):
to this. It's like eight thousand words. American people have
rendered their verdict on President Trump and decisively chosen him
to lead the con for the next four years. They
chose him to lead us with full knowledge of the
claims against him by prosecutors around the country. I think
Attorney General Garland and the state prosecutors should respect the
people's decision and dismiss the cases against President Trump. Now,
(11:18):
the Department of Justice has four years been pursuing President
Trump in cases asserting novel legal theories have already been
gravely weakened by a series of court decisions. Those claims,
like the state prosecutions plainly brought for political purposes, blah
blah blah blah blah. He has the goods on me,
and they will tell everybody that I know what I
(11:39):
did and the name of the youth organization to which
they belonged. If I don't continue to felate Donald Trump
whenever possible. Signed Bill Barr, because yes, Bill, that's how
we settle prosecutions in this country. Hold an election. You've
been charged with attempted murder. Let's have America vote on it.
(12:04):
Lego is Star Search from the eighties and nineties. I
think Bill Barr, who is, by the way, one of
our greatest criminals, should be investigated by the International Court
of Justice and the International Whaling Commission. And one more
(12:24):
story in the no f's are given any further edition
of Countdown, the first of many. This is one of
the great examples of cowardice in American history. This is
Jeff Bezos who stood up to Trumpian blackmail eight years
ago at the cost of like a billion dollars when
(12:45):
they had him cheating on his wife and they said,
we won't print it, but you have to support Trump
in the Washington Post, and he went, no, I'm giving
the money to my wife instead. And then with or
without more blackmail. This year, Jeff Bezos bent over in
front of the fascists and said take me, I'm yours
(13:05):
and killed an endorsement of Kamala Harrison the Washington Post.
Not that it would have been decisive, not that it
would have moved twenty votes, but the point was, just
stand up. Put something once in your life ahead of
e fing money, just once, because if this is your plan,
in that last moment of consciousness before you die, you
(13:29):
calculate how much money you're worth, you've wasted your entire life.
And if there is some force in the universe, is
there is some intelligence in the universe, if there is
some design or creation in the universe, and that's your
last thought, I would assume you're going to hell. Jeff Bezos,
big congratulations. This son of a bitch writes yesterday to
(13:53):
our forty fifth and now forty seventh presidents on an
extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities.
Wishing re old Donald Trump all success in leading and
uniting the America we all love. Oh my god, what
(14:14):
an asshole, What a weasel asshole? Wishing real Donald Trump
all success and that he doesn't expose me or kill
me or whatever he told me he'd do to me.
Maybe Trump has something on Lauren Sanchez, like an RFK
(14:36):
Junior Olivia's story or something who knows only. Of course,
given Lauren Sanchez, it would have taken Trump like an
hour just to completely list all the things they would
have had on Lauren Sanchez. It is noted that after
Biden won in twenty twenty, Bezos did not congratulate him,
but in twenty sixteen he did congratulate Trump, and yet
(14:59):
we were all surprised when he sold out the Washington Post. Anyway,
this is not a tough fix here. Burn Amazon down
metaphorically speaking of course, I mean, if Bezos wants to,
as suggested, donate the Washington Post to a charitable trust,
along with the money to run it for X number
(15:20):
of years. Cool that mitigates. Otherwise F Jeff Bezos, F
Amazon I'd say we would all be best served by
looking down on him. But the little bastard is like
four foot nine as it is. Big congratulations to our
forty fifth and now forty seventh president on an extraordinary
(15:40):
political comeback. Christ what's next, your little shit? Your political
comeback soon to be dead Trump is more impressive than
Hitler's and Napoleon's combined. Congratulations on defeating democracy. Oh and
if you buy forty thousand Amazon brand pre fab no
assembly required concentration camps, it's free. Son of a bitch,
(16:11):
Son of a bitch. Jeff Bezos. A note about this podcast.
It will continue, but not right now, Gonna take the
weekend off. I do think the podcast has suffered from
being a little conservative. Needs to be a little bit
more pointed. It also needs to be not five days
(16:34):
a week. I'm getting old here, and probably not daily.
So let's say this. I'm still working on this. I'll
bring you at least two of these a week, and
definitely let's plan on this a new one every Monday morning.
Does that make sense? I mean, you don't want to
hear more about this anymore than I want to talk
(16:56):
about this endlessly. When something interesting happens something you may
not have heard, something that has struck some memory or
perhaps some insight within me. I will bring it to
you because Blutley, if the vice president had won, I
was going to retire, or at least semi retire. I
can't do that now, God damn it. I mean, I
(17:17):
need a nap. What I will do today is come
back with the second block, with a little more philosophy
on Trump climbing out of his crypt my lifeboat theory. Also,
I have an alternative plan here for what's ahead on
January twentieth, but I want to think it through a
little bit more. So I'm going to hold off and
i'll present that to you on Monday. With the caveat
(17:40):
right now that there are so many different ways to
prove that what I'm going to suggest will never happen,
but I should put it on the record anyway. And
maybe most importantly of all this, remember my story of
Little Kit, the new rescue puppy. Good news about Little Kit,
the new rescue puppy. That's next. This is countdown. So
(18:04):
I mentioned many many times that I'm old. I started
professionally full time in nineteen seventy nine. I mean that's
six decades worth of work. Not six decades, but in
six decades. And so the world of business that I
entered into in nineteen seventy nine is significantly different, was
(18:27):
significantly different than the one there is today. As bad
as it is now, as unfair, as misogynistic, as imbalanced
against women and members of minority groups as it is now,
it is much worse than my first job at UPI Audio.
I believe the total number of full time employees in
(18:48):
the New York office, which was headquarters, was twenty. There
was one woman she was not on the air, six
or seven newscasters, three sportscasters, and a business guy and
she was not on the air. The euro chief in
Washington was a woman. That was it. The next job
(19:10):
I had when I went to work for Charlie Steiner
at the RCAO Radio network when I was twenty two
years old, and this does apply to Trump. I'm not
just spewing out random information here. The second job was
much more egalitarian and forward looking and the head of
the operation, the program director, was a woman named Joe Interroante,
(19:32):
who was fabulous, and there were a lot of women
executives in the news on the news and great newscasters,
and young women and old newswomen, and it was really
very well balanced. But at some point somebody I knew
got a promotion. A woman got a promotion into a
department where there had not been a lot of women,
(19:54):
and there were two or three, I believe it was sales,
And as soon as she was promoted to running the
sales department, she fired all the other women. And I
was surprised by this, and I knew her well enough
to say to her why. She said, Look, this is
(20:17):
a tough business to be in. If you're a woman,
I'd certainly, of all the things, I don't need its
competition inside my own office. I was startled by this.
It had never crossed my mind as I considered the
inequalities between men and women in broadcasting and in other fields.
Now we're talking nineteen eighty one, it never dawned on
(20:39):
me that a woman who succeeded and moved up the
ladder would first turn their attention to getting rid of
all the other women. I thought there was some sort
of I don't think that we used the term sisterhood
at that point, but there it was. And the reason
that I tell this story is not to criticize women
(21:02):
and the vote and Trump, but just that it reminded
me of when I first developed my theory of the lifeboat,
and that this is about who voted for Trump and
how Trump got back into power and why we will
be paying for it. You and I will be paying
for it for at least four years, and there are
people out there who will be paying for it, you know,
(21:23):
for ninety five years, if there are ninety five years
left on this planet, because that's another thing we haven't
talked about yet. This is the last chance to avoid
total climate catastrophe, and the guy in charge thinks that
win mills cause cancer in birds or something, or wants
to nuke tornadoes because he saw it on TV once. Anyway,
(21:47):
So this is my theory of how he gets support
from people who he intends to punish and has now
a track record of punishing and torturing and destroying. How
he gets the suckers to line up and pay him
for the privilege of being beaten up by him. How
does he do this? And it's this woman from the
(22:11):
RCAO radio network in nineteen eighty one who fired all
the other women the lifeboat theory, and here it is
all of humanity divides into two groups. You are on
the Titanic. It sinks with astonishing speed, with astonishing loss
of life, with astonishing rapidity. People who are expert on
(22:38):
the disaster that befell Titanic point out that the movie
itself is like five times as long as the actual
hit the iceberg. Everybody in the water or at least
realize that the ship is sinking. Everybody in the water
ships underwater, that in real time just that part of
(22:58):
the Titanic disaster would be about twenty twenty five minutes.
So you're in the water and up from the freezing
North Atlantic. You pop your head above water and your
shock that you're not drowned, and next to you is
an empty, fully stocked lifeboat with sixteen seats and provisions,
(23:26):
and all of humanity everybody who has ever lived, falls
into one of two categories. Number One, you get into
the lifeboat, You take the towel that is provided there,
and dry yourself off, and you begin to calculate quickly
how many people you can bring in there with you.
(23:49):
There's sixteen sets of provisions, but what if we had
how many women do I mean, with fourteen women, do
we need a couple of men, even though it should
be all women to a couple of men, because we're
going to need to row. What about kids, If children
smaller amounts, we might we could have twenty two children
and leave the adults in the water, just a couple
of adults to pull the oars with me. There are
(24:10):
ores here, and you're doing all these calculations while you
are reaching out and pulling people into the lifeboat with you.
That's one kind of person. Half of humanity, one would hope,
maybe more, actually one would hope it would be one
hundred percent of humanity would fit into that category in
our hypothetical lifeboat. The second type, the trump voater, bobs
(24:37):
into this same situation underwater, comes to the surface, there's
the lifeboat, hops in, takes two towels out, cleans them,
cleans himself with the towels, drives himself with the towels,
drapes the towels around him. Now looks at all the provisions,
calculates how many days they will last, and grabs the oars,
(25:02):
and as people try to join him in the lifeboat,
vote says, good, they left me these oars. Let me
make sure I kill everybody trying to get into the
lifeboat with me. That's also I think the defining feature
between quote liberal unquote and quote conservative unquote. Do you
(25:25):
have any actual empathy? Do you have Have you ever,
once in your life done something for somebody else at
some loss to yourself? Outside of I think most conservatives
love their children. I could point to a lot who
clearly don't like Trump, But I mean, outside of that,
(25:48):
would you do something for a stranger that might, in
the lifeboat situation make you hungrier a couple of days
while you're on that lifeboat. That's what happened. And the
number of category number two in our lifeboat analogy, the
(26:11):
number of those in this country. Those are the ones
who say, oh, he's not talking about me, He's talking
about those guys. Take them. I know this is not
brilliant philosophical insight. If you'd like to see it more
startlingly clearly presented into political context, read the plot of
(26:34):
nineteen eighty four. Let alone all of the catchphrases in
the Ministry of Truth and everything else, all the things
the iconography of the novel nineteen eighty four. Read the
plot of it, which is, don't do it to me
do it to them. That's how this guy is back,
(26:55):
because we have crossed that point in human history again.
I'm sure we have been there many times before, but
we certainly are now here in this country majority of
people would take the oars and try to kill the
other people trying to get on the lifeboat. On that
(27:16):
happy note, let me do present you with something happy.
I told you that I had gotten a puppy with
a bad heart as a rescue and his name is Kit,
and the whole story about how he succeeds my seventeen
year old mine and Mena's name in French colloquial for kitty.
(27:39):
And suddenly they call up and they say, hey, we've
got a cat or a dog named Kit, And I said, well,
I think I'm supposed to take him. Then Kitty and Kit.
Then there was some indication for a while that the
surgery that Kit's going to have to have on his
heart was really risky and really dangerous, and his odds
(28:02):
of surviving and are not good. It turns out there's
a risk. There's always a risk. You're working on a
heart surgery on a three pound soul. It's not a guarantee.
But I ran into the surgeon and he told me
two things. One was, yeah, it's like nine and a
half out of ten survivors and they get complete recovery
(28:25):
for this, so we're hopeful, and the surgery will be
in a week and a half. And if spunk matters,
if vitality matters, he's got this nailed because he is.
He may be less than three pounds, but he acts
like he's about eighteen hundred pounds. But the reason for
telling the story is not just that that's good news.
(28:47):
And many people were very concerned about Kit when I
talked about him. He has no other symptoms, but the
surgeon who looked at him, I said, he's so small
and you're going to operate on him, and somehow it's
so it's striking to me. I've had another dog, my
other guy, Ted, had hearts surgery when he was ten
months old. But Ted was I don't know twice three
(29:08):
times as big as Kit. And it really struck me.
It's like he's really small. And the surgeon said, absolutely true,
he's very small. But I'd like to remind you we
do this surgery on kittens, and if Kit were a kitten,
(29:31):
he'd be a big kitten fingers crossed. I've bet all
(29:53):
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Follow me for the podcast. Promo videos on Blue Sky YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram, threads,
and Sky no longer on TikTok, I got banned for
life from TikTok were sharing a satirical anti Trump meme
because TikTok sucks. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil, the
(30:18):
musical directors, have countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
was on the guitars, bass and drums. Was produced by
Tko Brothers. Our satirical and fifty musical comments are by
the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports
music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by
(30:39):
Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for today, just
one five hundred and thirty six days until the scheduled
end of the term of lame duck President elect Trump.
(30:59):
The next scheduled countdown is Monday. As always, bulletins as
the news warrants. Well next time, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(31:31):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. No
one in this world, so far as I know, and
(00:25):
I have searched the records for years and employed agents
to help me, has ever lost money by underestimating the
intelligence of the great masses of the plane people. Nor
has anyone ever lost public office. Thereby, the mistake that
is made always runs the other way. Because the plain
(00:45):
people are able to speak and understand, and even in
many cases to read and write, it is assumed that
they have ideas in their heads and an appetite for more.
This assumption is a folly. Hl Menkin September nineteen twenty six,
attributed to Barnum, or even movie mogul Louis b. Mayor
(01:08):
or now to Trump. The shortened version of that, of course,
is nobody ever went broke under estimating the intelligence of
the American public. I apologize to you. I should have
seen this coming Sunday night when I tripped over that
Time's Siena poll from last month of Hispanic voters. Trump,
who can now lay claim to being the Grover Cleveland
(01:32):
of our time, runs on anti immigrant nativism and hate,
anti Hispanic, anti Latino, anti Mexican anti Puerto Rican, anti
Latin American, clearly has plans for internment camps, clearly has
plans for retroactively changing the status of citizenship, including of
(01:54):
kids who were born here. People who today are fully
and legally here will not be tomorrow. And asked by
the pollsters from Sienna, when you hear about this, do
you think he's talking about you? About how bad immigrants are,
how bad Mexicans are, how bad Hispanics are, how he's
(02:16):
going to get them all removed, that they're poisoning the bloodstream.
When asked by the pollsters, when you hear this, do
you think he's talking about you? Two thirds of Latino
said oh no, which is short for oh no, He's
not going to eat my face. For those under thirty
in this demographic, the number was what seventy one percent?
Oh no, He's not talking about me. He means other Latinos.
(02:40):
Trump won Latino males by eleven points. And I have
two words to say to them, and they are on
behalf of the Trump administration, and the words are, by now,
he will deport people from the same place you or
your folks are from. He will deport people who have
the same names you do, he will deport your relatives
(03:03):
and friends. And when when he runs out, he will
change the laws and he will deport you and your
parents and your children. Because he's nuts, because he employs
a lunatic named Stephen Miller who violently, irrationally, homingly hates
(03:26):
Hispanic people. You know who I'm talking about, the guy
with the face that looks like a tiny penis. He
was turned down by a Hispanic girl for a date
in high school, or a girl he liked went out
with a Hispanic guy instead. I can't remember the details
of the story. A fella I know who went to
school with him told me once it's one of those
(03:48):
two things. This originates from all of that. So he
hates Hispanics exactly the way Hitler hated Jews, and Trump
who hates them, but less fervently because hating them takes
time away from talking about himself. He listens to Stephen Miller,
(04:09):
and he hears more votes. And not only does he
get elected president while his brains are draining out his
ears like a running yeast infection, but the very people
he is going to torture and deport vote for him.
Oh no, he's not talking about me. No one in
(04:29):
this world, so far as I know, and I have
searched the records for years and employed agents to help me,
has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the
great masses of the plain people. Or you can quote
the George Carlin line ran into Bob Costas on Fifth
Avenue Tuesday. Bob quotes our friend George. Remember what he
said about the intelligence of the average American. Think how
(04:52):
stupid the average American really is, and then remember that
fifty percent are more stupid than that guy Latino males
plus eleven for Trump. It would be funny if it
weren't true. So if you voted for him and you
aren't a white guy, two words by now. I actually
(05:16):
had one belly laugh since election night, and I have
the belly to prove it. There's a guy, Tim Carney
fitting name writes for the Washington Examiner, which is a
fascist propagandist rag which means it's headline writers are more
honest than the ones that the New York Times are.
And this is what Tim Carney wrote before the election.
(05:38):
Though I'm not voting for Trump, I might be rooting
for him, though one never knows until one checks one's
own heart as the results start coming in. But the
top two reasons I'd be happy if he wins are
One then he won't try to overturn the result. Two,
(05:59):
then he can't run again. Oh, the upbeat positive approach.
The dictator is half full, not half empty idea brilliant.
Thank god we elected Trump so he won't try another
coup and kill people. Yes, that's worth four years of
(06:19):
hell or however long until Trump dies, which has to
be soon. He's been acting like a melting statue and
looking like one for months. And then, of course we
get President Vance and during Trump's funeral, while they're standing
there saluting dead Trump while they're playing the anthem or
YMCA by the village people. While they're doing that, while
(06:41):
they're standing there, footin simultaneously strikes Poland and Chechia, and
while Vance literally pees his pants. That video will make
George Bush on nine to eleven look like Attila the
Hunt planning war games. Anyway, the second half of what
this guy Carnei wrote shows that the he won't eat
(07:02):
my face mentality transcends political division. Conservatives can't get their
heads out of their asses long enough to see the
world clearly, even for like thirty two seconds. Of course,
soon to be dead. Trump, if he doesn't stroke out
or his heart doesn't attack him first, is running in
(07:24):
twenty twenty eight. I mean, it may be a stunt
election because he might have eliminated the real ones by then.
But that's the point. He can't leave office, whatever happens
to these charges against him. If he leaves office, they
prosecute him. Did you see anybody in the mainstream press
write this yesterday? Even now, they're still just rewriting the
(07:49):
press releases. Oh, he's only going to serve the one
term because he can't serve the conservative carnie. They're all carnies,
doesn't know. All the other conservatives are getting their arguments
ready that the two term limit will not apply to
Trump because well, let's make up some bullshit. How about
(08:13):
the twenty second amendment means two consecutive terms. That was
a popular one they were floating around at the beginning
of the year. It's two consecutive terms, and then you
can't serve again. But you had two non consecutive terms,
could you could follow the second one with a third term?
I'm sure that's what they meant, right, Alito, and of
(08:35):
course the Supreme Court will rubber stamp that. That's what
Alito is there for. That and the insurrectionist wife's collection
of anti American flags. Danny can't run again, moron, I
have to tap the sign one more time. Yale historian
Tim Snyder. Trump is in the classic dictatorial position. He
(08:58):
needs to die in bed holding all executive power to
stay out of prison. This it means that he will
do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power,
will do all that he can to never let it go.
This is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else.
It is entirely inconsistent with democracy. Unquote. Oh, and about
(09:25):
the charges against him, it's not enough that Trump now
owns the Justice Department and will have the new attorney general.
I believe that's going to be silk fire Jack Smith.
Jack Smith is reportedly now trying to wind down his
prosecution of Trump for you know, treason. I believe that
there's actually a good legal reason for Jack Smith to
(09:48):
do this himself, rather than to stand there and say,
don't tread on me. That if he can withdraw wind
down the prosecution, he may be able to preserve the
charges for four years from now. I'm not sure about that.
I haven't seen anything definitive about that anywhere, and I
went looking. I am now as MENCN is looking for
(10:11):
the guy who went bankrupt underestimating the intelligence of the
plane folk. I'm now joining him in my endless quest
for information that I cannot find. In any event, what
Smith is or is not doing, what Trump will or
will not do to Smith is insufficient for Trump's henchman
and his old Attorney General, Bill Barr. That's right. I
(10:35):
had Bill Barr is my attorney general, and then later
Silk from Diamond and Silk. I wanted them both, but
Diamond is dead. Bill Barr wants the charges against Trump
formally dropped because whatever Trump has got on Bar, it
still works. I mean, he issued a statement yesterday. Listen
(10:56):
to this. It's like eight thousand words. American people have
rendered their verdict on President Trump and decisively chosen him
to lead the con for the next four years. They
chose him to lead us with full knowledge of the
claims against him by prosecutors around the country. I think
Attorney General Garland and the state prosecutors should respect the
people's decision and dismiss the cases against President Trump. Now,
(11:18):
the Department of Justice has four years been pursuing President
Trump in cases asserting novel legal theories have already been
gravely weakened by a series of court decisions. Those claims,
like the state prosecutions plainly brought for political purposes, blah
blah blah blah blah. He has the goods on me,
and they will tell everybody that I know what I
(11:39):
did and the name of the youth organization to which
they belonged. If I don't continue to felate Donald Trump
whenever possible. Signed Bill Barr, because yes, Bill, that's how
we settle prosecutions in this country. Hold an election. You've
been charged with attempted murder. Let's have America vote on it.
(12:04):
Lego is Star Search from the eighties and nineties. I
think Bill Barr, who is, by the way, one of
our greatest criminals, should be investigated by the International Court
of Justice and the International Whaling Commission. And one more
(12:24):
story in the no f's are given any further edition
of Countdown, the first of many. This is one of
the great examples of cowardice in American history. This is
Jeff Bezos who stood up to Trumpian blackmail eight years
ago at the cost of like a billion dollars when
(12:45):
they had him cheating on his wife and they said,
we won't print it, but you have to support Trump
in the Washington Post, and he went, no, I'm giving
the money to my wife instead. And then with or
without more blackmail. This year, Jeff Bezos bent over in
front of the fascists and said take me, I'm yours
(13:05):
and killed an endorsement of Kamala Harrison the Washington Post.
Not that it would have been decisive, not that it
would have moved twenty votes, but the point was, just
stand up. Put something once in your life ahead of
e fing money, just once, because if this is your plan,
in that last moment of consciousness before you die, you
(13:29):
calculate how much money you're worth, you've wasted your entire life.
And if there is some force in the universe, is
there is some intelligence in the universe, if there is
some design or creation in the universe, and that's your
last thought, I would assume you're going to hell. Jeff Bezos,
big congratulations. This son of a bitch writes yesterday to
(13:53):
our forty fifth and now forty seventh presidents on an
extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities.
Wishing re old Donald Trump all success in leading and
uniting the America we all love. Oh my god, what
(14:14):
an asshole, What a weasel asshole? Wishing real Donald Trump
all success and that he doesn't expose me or kill
me or whatever he told me he'd do to me.
Maybe Trump has something on Lauren Sanchez, like an RFK
(14:36):
Junior Olivia's story or something who knows only. Of course,
given Lauren Sanchez, it would have taken Trump like an
hour just to completely list all the things they would
have had on Lauren Sanchez. It is noted that after
Biden won in twenty twenty, Bezos did not congratulate him,
but in twenty sixteen he did congratulate Trump, and yet
(14:59):
we were all surprised when he sold out the Washington Post. Anyway,
this is not a tough fix here. Burn Amazon down
metaphorically speaking of course, I mean, if Bezos wants to,
as suggested, donate the Washington Post to a charitable trust,
along with the money to run it for X number
(15:20):
of years. Cool that mitigates. Otherwise F Jeff Bezos, F
Amazon I'd say we would all be best served by
looking down on him. But the little bastard is like
four foot nine as it is. Big congratulations to our
forty fifth and now forty seventh president on an extraordinary
(15:40):
political comeback. Christ what's next, your little shit? Your political
comeback soon to be dead Trump is more impressive than
Hitler's and Napoleon's combined. Congratulations on defeating democracy. Oh and
if you buy forty thousand Amazon brand pre fab no
assembly required concentration camps, it's free. Son of a bitch,
(16:11):
Son of a bitch. Jeff Bezos. A note about this podcast.
It will continue, but not right now, Gonna take the
weekend off. I do think the podcast has suffered from
being a little conservative. Needs to be a little bit
more pointed. It also needs to be not five days
(16:34):
a week. I'm getting old here, and probably not daily.
So let's say this. I'm still working on this. I'll
bring you at least two of these a week, and
definitely let's plan on this a new one every Monday morning.
Does that make sense? I mean, you don't want to
hear more about this anymore than I want to talk
(16:56):
about this endlessly. When something interesting happens something you may
not have heard, something that has struck some memory or
perhaps some insight within me. I will bring it to
you because Blutley, if the vice president had won, I
was going to retire, or at least semi retire. I
can't do that now, God damn it. I mean, I
(17:17):
need a nap. What I will do today is come
back with the second block, with a little more philosophy
on Trump climbing out of his crypt my lifeboat theory. Also,
I have an alternative plan here for what's ahead on
January twentieth, but I want to think it through a
little bit more. So I'm going to hold off and
i'll present that to you on Monday. With the caveat
(17:40):
right now that there are so many different ways to
prove that what I'm going to suggest will never happen,
but I should put it on the record anyway. And
maybe most importantly of all this, remember my story of
Little Kit, the new rescue puppy. Good news about Little Kit,
the new rescue puppy. That's next. This is countdown. So
(18:04):
I mentioned many many times that I'm old. I started
professionally full time in nineteen seventy nine. I mean that's
six decades worth of work. Not six decades, but in
six decades. And so the world of business that I
entered into in nineteen seventy nine is significantly different, was
(18:27):
significantly different than the one there is today. As bad
as it is now, as unfair, as misogynistic, as imbalanced
against women and members of minority groups as it is now,
it is much worse than my first job at UPI Audio.
I believe the total number of full time employees in
(18:48):
the New York office, which was headquarters, was twenty. There
was one woman she was not on the air, six
or seven newscasters, three sportscasters, and a business guy and
she was not on the air. The euro chief in
Washington was a woman. That was it. The next job
(19:10):
I had when I went to work for Charlie Steiner
at the RCAO Radio network when I was twenty two
years old, and this does apply to Trump. I'm not
just spewing out random information here. The second job was
much more egalitarian and forward looking and the head of
the operation, the program director, was a woman named Joe Interroante,
(19:32):
who was fabulous, and there were a lot of women
executives in the news on the news and great newscasters,
and young women and old newswomen, and it was really
very well balanced. But at some point somebody I knew
got a promotion. A woman got a promotion into a
department where there had not been a lot of women,
(19:54):
and there were two or three, I believe it was sales,
And as soon as she was promoted to running the
sales department, she fired all the other women. And I
was surprised by this, and I knew her well enough
to say to her why. She said, Look, this is
(20:17):
a tough business to be in. If you're a woman,
I'd certainly, of all the things, I don't need its
competition inside my own office. I was startled by this.
It had never crossed my mind as I considered the
inequalities between men and women in broadcasting and in other fields.
Now we're talking nineteen eighty one, it never dawned on
(20:39):
me that a woman who succeeded and moved up the
ladder would first turn their attention to getting rid of
all the other women. I thought there was some sort
of I don't think that we used the term sisterhood
at that point, but there it was. And the reason
that I tell this story is not to criticize women
(21:02):
and the vote and Trump, but just that it reminded
me of when I first developed my theory of the lifeboat,
and that this is about who voted for Trump and
how Trump got back into power and why we will
be paying for it. You and I will be paying
for it for at least four years, and there are
people out there who will be paying for it, you know,
(21:23):
for ninety five years, if there are ninety five years
left on this planet, because that's another thing we haven't
talked about yet. This is the last chance to avoid
total climate catastrophe, and the guy in charge thinks that
win mills cause cancer in birds or something, or wants
to nuke tornadoes because he saw it on TV once. Anyway,
(21:47):
So this is my theory of how he gets support
from people who he intends to punish and has now
a track record of punishing and torturing and destroying. How
he gets the suckers to line up and pay him
for the privilege of being beaten up by him. How
does he do this? And it's this woman from the
(22:11):
RCAO radio network in nineteen eighty one who fired all
the other women the lifeboat theory, and here it is
all of humanity divides into two groups. You are on
the Titanic. It sinks with astonishing speed, with astonishing loss
of life, with astonishing rapidity. People who are expert on
(22:38):
the disaster that befell Titanic point out that the movie
itself is like five times as long as the actual
hit the iceberg. Everybody in the water or at least
realize that the ship is sinking. Everybody in the water
ships underwater, that in real time just that part of
(22:58):
the Titanic disaster would be about twenty twenty five minutes.
So you're in the water and up from the freezing
North Atlantic. You pop your head above water and your
shock that you're not drowned, and next to you is
an empty, fully stocked lifeboat with sixteen seats and provisions,
(23:26):
and all of humanity everybody who has ever lived, falls
into one of two categories. Number One, you get into
the lifeboat, You take the towel that is provided there,
and dry yourself off, and you begin to calculate quickly
how many people you can bring in there with you.
(23:49):
There's sixteen sets of provisions, but what if we had
how many women do I mean, with fourteen women, do
we need a couple of men, even though it should
be all women to a couple of men, because we're
going to need to row. What about kids, If children
smaller amounts, we might we could have twenty two children
and leave the adults in the water, just a couple
of adults to pull the oars with me. There are
(24:10):
ores here, and you're doing all these calculations while you
are reaching out and pulling people into the lifeboat with you.
That's one kind of person. Half of humanity, one would hope,
maybe more, actually one would hope it would be one
hundred percent of humanity would fit into that category in
our hypothetical lifeboat. The second type, the trump voater, bobs
(24:37):
into this same situation underwater, comes to the surface, there's
the lifeboat, hops in, takes two towels out, cleans them,
cleans himself with the towels, drives himself with the towels,
drapes the towels around him. Now looks at all the provisions,
calculates how many days they will last, and grabs the oars,
(25:02):
and as people try to join him in the lifeboat,
vote says, good, they left me these oars. Let me
make sure I kill everybody trying to get into the
lifeboat with me. That's also I think the defining feature
between quote liberal unquote and quote conservative unquote. Do you
(25:25):
have any actual empathy? Do you have Have you ever,
once in your life done something for somebody else at
some loss to yourself? Outside of I think most conservatives
love their children. I could point to a lot who
clearly don't like Trump, But I mean, outside of that,
(25:48):
would you do something for a stranger that might, in
the lifeboat situation make you hungrier a couple of days
while you're on that lifeboat. That's what happened. And the
number of category number two in our lifeboat analogy, the
(26:11):
number of those in this country. Those are the ones
who say, oh, he's not talking about me, He's talking
about those guys. Take them. I know this is not
brilliant philosophical insight. If you'd like to see it more
startlingly clearly presented into political context, read the plot of
(26:34):
nineteen eighty four. Let alone all of the catchphrases in
the Ministry of Truth and everything else, all the things
the iconography of the novel nineteen eighty four. Read the
plot of it, which is, don't do it to me
do it to them. That's how this guy is back,
(26:55):
because we have crossed that point in human history again.
I'm sure we have been there many times before, but
we certainly are now here in this country majority of
people would take the oars and try to kill the
other people trying to get on the lifeboat. On that
(27:16):
happy note, let me do present you with something happy.
I told you that I had gotten a puppy with
a bad heart as a rescue and his name is Kit,
and the whole story about how he succeeds my seventeen
year old mine and Mena's name in French colloquial for kitty.
(27:39):
And suddenly they call up and they say, hey, we've
got a cat or a dog named Kit, And I said, well,
I think I'm supposed to take him. Then Kitty and Kit.
Then there was some indication for a while that the
surgery that Kit's going to have to have on his
heart was really risky and really dangerous, and his odds
(28:02):
of surviving and are not good. It turns out there's
a risk. There's always a risk. You're working on a
heart surgery on a three pound soul. It's not a guarantee.
But I ran into the surgeon and he told me
two things. One was, yeah, it's like nine and a
half out of ten survivors and they get complete recovery
(28:25):
for this, so we're hopeful, and the surgery will be
in a week and a half. And if spunk matters,
if vitality matters, he's got this nailed because he is.
He may be less than three pounds, but he acts
like he's about eighteen hundred pounds. But the reason for
telling the story is not just that that's good news.
(28:47):
And many people were very concerned about Kit when I
talked about him. He has no other symptoms, but the
surgeon who looked at him, I said, he's so small
and you're going to operate on him, and somehow it's
so it's striking to me. I've had another dog, my
other guy, Ted, had hearts surgery when he was ten
months old. But Ted was I don't know twice three
(29:08):
times as big as Kit. And it really struck me.
It's like he's really small. And the surgeon said, absolutely true,
he's very small. But I'd like to remind you we
do this surgery on kittens, and if Kit were a kitten,
(29:31):
he'd be a big kitten fingers crossed. I've bet all
(29:53):
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Follow me for the podcast. Promo videos on Blue Sky YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram, threads,
and Sky no longer on TikTok, I got banned for
life from TikTok were sharing a satirical anti Trump meme
because TikTok sucks. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil, the
(30:18):
musical directors, have countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
was on the guitars, bass and drums. Was produced by
Tko Brothers. Our satirical and fifty musical comments are by
the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports
music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by
(30:39):
Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for today, just
one five hundred and thirty six days until the scheduled
end of the term of lame duck President elect Trump.
(30:59):
The next scheduled countdown is Monday. As always, bulletins as
the news warrants. Well next time, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(31:31):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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