December 21, 2023 • 47 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 96: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT:
There are still some around him who want him to stay above the fray on Trump and to stay above the fray on Trump morphing into Baby Hitler and especially to stay above the NEW fray on Trump and the 14th Amendment and your newest Hallmark Movie: A Trumpy Christmas At The Supreme Court.
But frankly, President Biden is at his best, his BEST, when HE is the spokesman for a nation dedicated to using all legal means to save this nation from Trump. He is not merely the President; he has a natural, perfect touch - blending matter-of-factness and the collective anger of 200 million Americans. Yesterday, tarmac at Milwaukee, Air Force One roaring in the background:
Reporter: "Is Trump an insurrectionist?"
Biden: "Certain things are self-evident. You saw it all. Now, whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision. But he certainly supported an insurrection. No question about it. None. Zero. And he seems to be doubling down on - about everything."
No one can REMIND you of the obviousness of an answer more efficiently yet without any sense of condescension or correction than Joe Biden. No one. Now - do it every day.
ALSO: This is a good moment to review the scholarly study of the 14th Amendment that really touched all this off. It was co-authored by the former clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts, and a conservative constitutional law professor so revered that his resume is 35 pages long.
It's also a good moment to take a second look at Dementia J. Trump's bizarre flex about echoing Hitler. "I've never read 'Mein Kampf'" was followed by something even stranger - acknowledging that sure he and Hitler are saying the same things, just in different ways.
It's another instant Biden ad, at the echelon of LBJ's "Daisy" Commercial from 1964. So I made one.
B-BLOCK (30:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Kellyanne Conway is back with something stupid. Next question: does she really exist or is she a dedicated comedian devoted to a bit, like the guy who portrayed Dame Edna? Charlie Kirk turns a rule about keeping highway rest stops open on Sunday into a battle of The Democrats Versus The Jesus. And Kari Lake is about to get Rudied. Sued by a Republican Arizona election official she slandered, she moved to dismiss and assumed it would be. It isn’t. She’s going to trial for defamation.
C-BLOCK (36:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The leadership of ESPN’s famed P.R. department just switched from my friend Chris LaPlaca to my friend Josh Krulewitz. And that made me think of the time nearly 27 years ago when I left ESPN forever (well, only to return in 2005. And again in 2013. And again again in 2018).
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. There
are still some around him who want him to stay
above the fray on Trump, and to stay above the
(00:26):
fray on Trump's totalitarianism, and to stay above the fray
on Trump morphing into Hitler, and especially to stay above
the new fray on Trump and the Fourteenth Amendment and
your newest Hallmark movie, A Trumpy Christmas at the Supreme Court.
But frankly, President Biden is at his best, his best
(00:50):
when he is the spokesman for a nation dedicated to
using all legal means to save this country from more Trump.
Biden is not merely the President. He has a natural,
perfect pitch touch, blending matter of factness and the collective
anger of two hundred million or more Americans. Yesterday, tarmac
(01:12):
at Milwaukee Air Force One, roaring in the background, the
backseat of the beast awaiting him, The question is shouted
at him about the Colorado Supreme Court decision, and he
shouts back that he cannot comment on a court case.
You can see he's just dying to comment on it.
And when the follow up question is shouted at him,
is he an insurrectionist? The President makes sure, he's not
(01:34):
yelling and he's not drowned out, and he ambles over
to the reporter and he lets her ask it again,
and then Joe Biden burns Donald J. Trump to the
ground with one casually flicked away match.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I think star certainly yourself, Evan, he's sawt on
whether the fourteenth runt of applies, and.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Let the court make that decision.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
But he's certainly supported any insurrection, no question about it, none, zero,
And he seems to be doubling down on about everything anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Burned him to the ground because no one can remind
you of the obviousness of an answer more efficiently, yet
without any sense of condescension or correction, than can Joe Biden.
No one. He can also throw into that mix anger
(02:35):
or wistfulness or cynicism, interwoven with humor, like a photoshop artist,
blending yellows and blues to get exactly the right green
for the occasion. He did it in the debates, he
did it in the Philadelphia speech last year. He did
it in the days before the coup attempt, when he
sucked all the credibility out of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
(02:56):
simply by repeating that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and
then giving an almost indiscernible chuckle of dismissal, more offhand
dismissals please, of anything that even hints that Trump is
not the consummate human personification of evil or stupidity or
(03:19):
hatred or cheesiness or insurrection. Do this every day, mister President.
Plant the damn questions if you have to, the rest
of us can do the railing and the yelling. You
be the one who condemns with that casually flicked away match.
(03:41):
And how the rest of us have railed from the
reaction on the right to this, especially from baby Hitler himself.
You would think that nobody has ever before tried to
get any candidate disqualified from the presidential ballot, you know,
like baby Hitler. Trump tried to get Obama disqualified and
(04:03):
used a fabricated fake birth certificate to do it, Like
he tried to get ted Cruz disqualified in twenty sixteen,
were being born in Canada on constitutional disqualification. I don't
want to win it on technicalities, but that's more than
a technicality. That is a big, big factor. Dementia j Trump,
January twelve, twenty sixteen, seed Rapids, Iowa. As if he
(04:26):
did not repeat over and over again during his first
campaign that Hillary Clinton should not be allowed to run
for the White House. Not allowed. Dementia J. Trump, October twelve,
twenty sixteen, Lakeland, Florida. She shouldn't be allowed to run
for president. She shouldn't be allowed.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I'm telling you she should not be allowed to run
for president based on her crimes. She should not be
allowed to run for president.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
For her crimes. He based that, I believe, on the
third clause of the fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution in
his mind that only he can see. So spare me
the how dare the Democrats do this? And oh, by
the way, the case was filed by Republicans, including the
(05:16):
former Republican majority leader in the Colorado House and Senate.
And speaking of which, as Elie Mestahl pointed out, if
and when the Supreme Court takes the appeal, and by
the way, tic tic tic, tic, tick, you got sixteen
days and now only ten of them aren't weekends and
or holidays. If the Supreme Court takes this seriously, rather
(05:40):
than letting Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow write its ruling
for it, the most intriguing part of its verdict will
be how it gets around that most treasured and publicized
of the fascists legal rationalizations for destroying everything, states rights.
The Court has used states' rights a Civil War term,
(06:01):
as the excuse to curtail early voting, as a reason
to shorten voting hours, as a justification for re establishing
aspects of Jim Crow voting laws, as a reason to
gerrymander semi sentient white supremacist blobs of excrement like Marjorie
Taylor Green into the House of Representatives. The Colorado ruling
(06:24):
is at heart a states rights case, or at least
it would be if it had been filed by Republicans
against a Democrat. Look, we are Colorado, We are a state.
These are our state laws about elections. These are our
state laws about presidential eligibility. These are our state laws
(06:45):
requiring us to observe and act at the instruction of
the Constitution of the United States. And the John Roberts
answer to that is going to be what, Well, Yes,
state's rights always not these states rights. As the Trump
liquors circle the wagons around Baby Hitler and cried due process.
(07:07):
Mister mss Dall also notes what I have noted here
before several times, that the disqualification clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment does not say convicted of insurrection, It says engaged
in insurrection. Senator elect former Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens
was not convicted, but he was disqualified Senator elect Vance.
(07:30):
Same thing that would be Zebulan Vance, a Republican writer
and the Confederate governor of North Carolina from eighteen sixty
two to eighteen sixty five. So same general disloyalty is JD. Vance,
just a different century on. And remember those amendments. They
are the backbone of America. The Second Amendment, even though
it does not include the word own or any synonym
(07:52):
for own, well, it guarantees gun ownership rights forever. The
Fourteenth Amendment, because it does not include a picture of
Trump along with his Social Security number, it cannot be
used to qualify him. Ever, the reminder also that the
Fourteenth Amendment was written largely, in fact, almost exclusively by
(08:14):
Since they like to bring up their role in the
Civil War all the time, the Fourteenth Amendment was written
almost exclusively by Republicans. More seriously, this is the Supreme
Court justice's chance to redeem their souls and their court,
(08:34):
to prove they are stewards of the intent of the
framers of the original text and the amendments, and not incidentally,
to save the nation from a man who would destroy
any part of its purpose or ethos for his own
personal purposes or amusement, a man who would destroy the
Supreme Court, this Supreme Court, these justices, any one of them,
(08:59):
including the ones he appointed. Asked Bill Barr, imagine ultimately
the liberation of John Roberts and even Amy Coney Barrett
and maybe even Gorsich if they concurred with Colorado and
Trump was no more in the American political world. And
(09:25):
still speaking of Republicans and the fourteenth Amendment, it is
imperative right now to revisit the story that really lit
the first fire under the premise of disqualifying Trump simply
by you know, reading the Constitution. Early last August, Will Bode, Faculty,
director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of
Chicago Law School, former clerk for Chief Justice Roberts, He
(09:49):
gave the Scalia Lecture at Harvard Law early this year.
Member of the Federalist Society, and not just that, but
past winner of the Federalist Society Award for the Best
Young Law Professor, the award they once gave to John
u the guy who told George Bushy had the high
sign to do the torture this. Professor Bode revealed that
(10:11):
he and constitutional law professor Michael Stokes Paulson were to
publish in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review during twenty
twenty four their studied academic, dry as dust constitutional scholarly
analysis that there was no debate about this, that there
was no lawsuit required, no protests nor rallies necessary. That quote,
(10:34):
Donald Trump cannot be president, cannot run for president, cannot
become president, cannot hold office unless two thirds of Congress
decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on January sixth, unquote,
Professor Bode said that, summarizing it for The New York Times,
(10:57):
in that quote, though he is almost wishy washy compared
to what he and Paulson write in the paper itself,
it is unquestionably fair to say that Trump engaged in
the January sixth insurrection through both his actions and his inaction.
The bottom line is that Donald Trump both engaged in
insurrection or rebellion and gave aid or comfort to others
(11:21):
engaging in such conduct within the original meaning of those
terms as a void in section three of the fourteenth Amendment.
Professors Bode and Paulson of the Federalist Society devoted a
year to studying the original meaning of it. Because the
(11:42):
ultra conservative Federalist Society have I mentioned these guys are
in the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society believes the Constitution
can be interpreted only in exactly the way its authors,
including the authors of the amendments, intended at the time.
A year studying this, and their conclusion was not just
(12:06):
that Trump is ineligible to be president, or to be
elected president, or to run for president, but that it's automatic.
It is the default position. It is to right this minute.
A lawsuit shouldn't be a debate over the meaning, they say.
A lawsuit should only be there as a measure to
(12:28):
force every official who has to certify a candidate's eligibility
to refuse to certify Trump because he is not eligible.
I mean, listen to this quote. Section three's disqualification rule
may and must be followed applied honored, obeyed, enforced, carried
(12:50):
out by anyone whose job it is to figure out
whether someone is legally qualified to office. In other words,
if you don't keep Trump off the ballot, if you
don't keep Trump off about, you may have broken the law.
As mister Bodes said, quote, the question of should Donald
(13:12):
Trump go to jail is entrusted to the criminal process.
The question of should he be allowed to take the
constitutional oath again and be given constitutional power again is
not a question given to any jury unquote. Again, this
was not written by the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I
(13:33):
mentioned Professor Bode's resume. Professor Paulson's is thirty five pages long,
and it indicates that, apart from his primary expertise the
Constitution and the federal laws relating to the Constitution, his
other areas of specialization are Church and State and abortions
slash right to life. These men should be Conservative superstars,
(13:59):
and Bode's work connected by clerkship to John Roberts and
by recognition to antonin Bloody Scalia, his work should actually
influence this court except for one thing. After their advocacy
for the Fourteenth Amendment and their insistence it is automatic
that right now, Trump is ineligible to be on the
(14:22):
ballot in Colorado or anywhere else. After that came out
last August, the fascists were silent for a day or so,
and then they found it. Professor Bod had at some
point been branded a never trumper, and in the world
of Baby Hitler and the Nazi etes, that's it. That's final.
(14:48):
He's opposed to Trump, therefore he's lying. There is no
argument for disqualification. There is no applicability of the fourteenth Amendment.
There is no fourteenth Amendment. In fact, Bod is a
never trumper. Therefore there is no number fourteen. When the
Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump ineligible because of his insurrection,
(15:11):
a writer for the Free Beacon, which is a pretty
fascist outfit, but in a minor league kind of way,
a writer named Drew Holden tweeted, in case you were
wondering why Dems and the media kept calling January sixth
an insurrection, it was to make this possible. On January sixth,
(15:34):
twenty twenty one, this sane guy, Drew Holden, tweeted, the
president of the United States, a man of our political
party conservatives, has given cover to a collective action that
can only be called insurrection. This is the way they think,
(15:54):
or more accurately, the way they do not think. They
do not even remember their world before they enslaved themselves
to Baby Hitler. And the loyalty requires the denial not
just of all other realities, but of refusing to take
the arguments of others or the arguments of themselves in
(16:17):
the past. As you know, sincere but mistaken, there is
only obeyance, there is only servitude. They are on a
mission to serve Trump and install totalitarianism on his behalf,
and no logic, nor persuasion, nor law, nor what they
(16:37):
said last week will stop them. I said it last week,
and I'll say it again. This is the scene in
our real life re enactment of the film Rosemary's Baby
where Mia Farrow shakes off the drugs, then the anesthetics
and the gaslighting, and she sees the devil on top
of her and she shouts, this is no dream, this
(16:58):
is really happening. And by the way they're publican Party
of Colorado has found a way around the state Supreme
Court and maybe the US Supreme Court, and maybe the
Supreme Court of the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda.
Trump can't be on the Colorado primary ballot, then we
(17:21):
don't hold a primary. This is the genius plan of
Dave Williams, the whackdoodle election denier who has only been
Colorado GOP chair since March but has nearly bankrupted the
organization already. Now Williams wants to scrap the primary if
Trump is struck from it, and he wants to get
(17:42):
permission from the National GOP and work something out for
caucuses with the Secretary of State. And then Dave only
read part of the story right. The Colorado Court ruled
the fourteenth Amendment applies, and because Trump is disqualified from
being president or holding any office, he can't be on
(18:04):
the cot Colorado ballot as a presidential candidate or anything else.
Doesn't matter how you nominate him. Dave, I guess this
would protect Trump from having to see somebody else quote
win Colorado unquote. Also, last night, Trump waited into American history,
and like anything that is not entirely about him, he
(18:24):
made an utter fool out of himself. The last time
the Democrats took someone off the ballot was in eighteen sixty.
They would not allow a man named Abraham Lincoln to
be so much as mentioned in the Slave States all right.
In eighteen ninety two, the Republicans in Florida took the
incumbent Republican President Benjamin Harrison off the ballot because they
(18:49):
preferred their own Republican nominee, the populist James B. Weaver.
He was the Republican candidate in Florida in eighteen ninety two.
In nineteen twelve, the Republicans in California and South Dakota
again took their own incumbent Republican President, William Howard Taft,
off the ballot so they could make Teddy Roosevelt their
(19:12):
official Republican nominee in those states, and the Republicans and
the Democrats in Alabama twice kept incumbent presidents off the
ballot Harry Truman in nineteen forty eight and Linda Johnson
in nineteen sixty four, because both of them tried to
end segregation. So if you're going to dive in to
who got removed from the ballot by whom Dementia Jay,
(19:34):
be careful what you wish for, because your comparison may
not turn out to be Lincoln. It may turn out
to be William Howard Taft. You know it's oddly apt,
isn't it. Trump and William Howard Taft now to the
(19:55):
lighter side of the news, and Adolph Hitler. The Biden
campaign has now crossed the rubicon on this, and I
mean in a good way. In the in your face
graphic with white letters on a red stripe and white
letters on a black stripe, and three pictures of Trump
and two pictures of Hitler, and the heading Trump Parrot's
(20:15):
Hitler and Trump's vermin quote, followed by Hitler's vermin quote,
followed by Trump's poisoning the blood quote, followed by Hitler's
contamination of the blood quote, followed by Trump's quote that
his political opponents are worse than Putin or Kim John. Oh,
that is some serious stuff. And also at the top
in the textbox above that graphic. This is not a coincidence.
(20:39):
President Biden himself has not gone that far, but a
little over four hours later, on his personal account, quote
Trump poses many threats to our country, the right to
choose civil rights, voting rights, at America's standing in the world,
But the greatest threat he poses is two our democracy.
If we lose that we lose everything on the Republican side.
(21:01):
It's almost as if Nicky Haley actually wanted to say
something like that to slam Trump for the poisoning comment.
But she is still the hapless, witless, gutless suck up
she was when she worked for him. She told the
Des Moines Register yesterday that Trump's comments were quote not
constructive end quote not necessary, end quote not helpful, to
(21:23):
which I say her comments are quote not enough. As
to baby Hitler himself, I think he took the night
off from campaigning so he could stay in and catch
up on his reading rise and fallow the third rite.
Maybe I have to admit something. While putting out the
(21:44):
bulletin and the regular edition Tuesday night, I completely missed
two things about his speech in Iowa. One, as the
Colorado Court was ruling, Trump was in Iowa, in Waterloo, Iowa,
coincidence less coincidentally, but more ominously, it was already a
clear sign of what's left of his sanity, barreling down
(22:08):
the hill before it utterly jumps the tracks at the
curve that Trump thought denying that he had ever read
mind comp was a great flex. But did you hear
what he said? Right? After he said he'd never read
mine comp. I did not hear it until yesterday.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
They're ruining our country, and it's true. They're destroying the
blood of our country. That's what they're doing. They're destroying
our country. They don't like it when I said that
and I never read mind compf They said, oh, Hitler
said that in a much different way.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
They said, oh Hitler said that in a much different way. Well,
if you never read mind comp, how do you know
it was in a much different way. Plus, the denial
is not just I didn't read that Hitler book. It's
I didn't read that Hitler book. And sure I'm saying
(23:04):
the same things Hitler did, but in a much different way.
See now, this is why, sooner or later, every person
who succeeds for a time by being unfiltered or telling
it like it really is, eventually falls off a cliff.
Hitler and I agree, we just say it differently is
(23:25):
not much of a defense. And once again, the last
eight years has taught us that for decades there have
lived among us millions of bigots and sadists and massochists
who were just pretending not to be any of those
things until somebody would come along to liberate them from
(23:47):
you know, self restraint. But like the dictator for a
day thing, Trump is again providing Biden with goldwater, will
drop the bomb on poor little Daisy caliber campaign ads.
I mean five four three?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Why there? These are the stakes and I never read mine?
Camp they said, Oh, Hitler said that in a much
different way.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
We must either love each other or we must die.
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home. Also of interest here,
(24:53):
the plaintiffs and the judge were a little worried Rudy
Giuliani might not have the one hundred and forty eight
million he now owes them on him. So basically the
judge just ordered Rudy to pay up like tomorrow. And
next on that front, Carrie Lake was confident that the
(25:14):
defamation case against her was going to be dismissed by
the judge. Well, Lake has not won a single court
verdict yet, and guess what she ain't about to start
doing so now that's next. This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith oldwoman still to come on. Countdown of
(25:56):
all the people I have kept busy and perhaps driven
crazy in my career, the least publicized. The least reward
did have been the poor station and network publicity guys
who've had to deal with me over the years. While
I understood them and cooperated with them far better than
(26:16):
the average broadcaster, I also pulled them out onto the
tightrope with me far more often than the average broadcaster.
Some were terrible at their jobs. There was one in
Los Angeles at KCBS who was best friends with the
sportscaster at KNBC and used to feed him stories about
me until management caught onto it and fired the whole department.
(26:39):
Some at ESPN were really helpful and sympathetic and friendly
to this day, and two of them are in the news.
Chrys LaPlaca just retired as the head of communications since
length the day they turned the first shovel of dirt,
and he has been succeeded by Josh Krulowitz, who I
have been torturing off and on since the early nineties.
So I thought this was a good time to mention
(27:01):
the day in May nineteen ninety seven, when I finally
ereb coupley and permanently left ESPN and SportsCenter forever, except
for when I returned to ESPN Radio in two thousand
and five, and then I returned to ESPN two in
twenty thirteen, and then I returned to Sports Center in
twenty eighteen. Anyway, the story of the exit coming up
(27:22):
in Things I Promise not to tell first time for
the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in the world,
the Bronze worse Kelly and Conway. I think Democrats wake
up every morning and they look at the calendar on
the iPhone and it says January sixth. The former d
(27:46):
List pundit for when all the smart ones were booked
told Fox Noise that day never changes and when they
get into an electric vehicle and go get an abortion,
every day is January sixth. Kelly and con Job, you're
talking about shelf life and letting go of the past.
(28:08):
That would be way less funny if Kelly Anne wasn't
part of the Christo fascist attempt to take over the country,
which of course has as its roots the life and
death of Jesus Christ two thousand years ago. But we're
worried about three years ago. Shame on us. Also, I
am beginning to become convinced that there is no such
person as Kelly Ann Conway, that she is a satirical
(28:29):
comedy character portrayed by a really dedicated actor, a guy
who's really in there on the bit, the way Dame
Edna Everidge was portrayed by Barry Humphries or whoever is
doing the Kellyanne Conway character is also portraying the satirical
comedy character known as Harris Faulkner Runner Up, where Sir
(28:52):
Charlie Kirk, who proves daily that stupidity and poor reading
comprehension can be extremely profitable. Liberals hate Christianity so much
they want to make it illegal for Chick fil A
to be closed on Sundays to provide employees a day
of rest. I left out paranoia, stupidity and poor reading
comprehension and paranoia. Turns out the story Kirk has warped
(29:15):
into some kind of Democrats versus Jesus thing. It's a
little different than he posits. Chick fil A is bidding
for the right to put its restaurants on the rest
stops on the New York State through Way and keep
the ones that are already there. And there is a
bill in the state legislature that would require all restaurants
at all the rest stops on the New York State
(29:37):
through Way to stay open and serve the customers seven
days a week because they all have semi monopolies. They're
the only things you can get on the through Way,
and part of the price they should pay for that
is you've got to be open when there are travelers.
And there are a lot of people who drive on
Sunday on the through Way, or as it's known where
(30:01):
I grew up, drive on Sunday on the True Way.
But the winner the worst, Carrie Lake. Carrie Lake is
getting rootied. She slandered Stephen Richer, County Recorder of Maricopa, Arizona, Republican.
By the way, of course, she slandered him this year,
(30:21):
claiming he intentionally printed the wrong image on the ballot
on election day so that tabulating machines would invalidate those ballots.
Obviously the ballots would have made Carrie Lake God or
whatever it is she was running for. Quote, these guys
are really really terrible at running elections, but I found
out they're really good at lying. And then Carrie Lake
(30:42):
said Richard profited financially by doing this, so he sued
her for defamation. She filed a demotion to dismiss the
court just denied it. She's going to trial for defamation now. Now,
as you may have heard and Carrie may have heard
but assumed it was just fake news, a jury awarded
Shay Moss and Ruby Freeman one hundred and forty eight
(31:03):
million dollars, and yesterday the judge ordered Rudy to pay
it now because there is every reason to think he's
going to try to avoid paying it ever, or to
hide assets. Carrie, Oh, Carrie Lake, You're next. Carrie. Never ever,
(31:24):
ever trust a fired TV newscaster from Phoenix Lake two
days worst person, including notescasters ever. There is a huge
(31:54):
oral history of ESPN from twenty eleven by Jim Miller,
and most of it is pretty good, but there's one
line in it that triggered this recollection. The executive he's
president of the company in nineteen ninety seven, was named
Howard Katz, and in this ESPN book he was quoted
as saying, I didn't fire Keith, I just chose not
to renew his contract. And then there's a couple of
(32:16):
quotes from guys I never heard of who said no,
we fired him. None of it's true. Howard and I
got along surprisingly well at ESPN and even better since
so I'm just going to assume he misremembered all this,
and he's right, I mean, legally, he chose not to
renew my contract early in nineteen ninety seven, and a
couple of weeks later, instead he offered me a new
(32:37):
four year contract which would have basically doubled my salary.
And even after I had said no thanks and I
signed with NBC, the then president of ABC, Bob Eiger,
whatever happened to him, tried to get me to back
out of the NBC deal, to renege on it, and
then sign a new deal at ESPN. So they offered
me two new deals after they didn't renew my old contract.
(33:00):
See how this works. In ninety six and ninety seven,
it was no secret that my choice was to leave ESPN.
I had come within hours of asking to be let
out of my deal. In the summer of nineteen ninety six,
a radio station in Chicago WMVP had wanted me to
go do the afternoon drive show there a mix of
news and sports, and they were offering me twice the
(33:21):
money I was getting to host SportsCenter, and I was
ready to go. Loved it, had a great week there.
They wined me, they dined me, and everybody offered me
a free beer. Welcome to Chicago, you're from out of town.
And then ownership of the radio station simply pulled the
plug on the station it was in thirty first place
and said they could save a lot more money by
(33:43):
simply rebroadcasting what was on FM radio. And eventually, and
this would have been interesting had I gone to Chicago. Eventually,
the owners sold WMVP to ESPN. Anyway, my ESPN deal
was set to expire on December thirty first, nineteen ninety seven,
but they had the option to extend it for I
(34:05):
can't remember either either for a year after that or
two years. But they had to notify me really early
in ninety seven, and instead, on February eighteenth, nineteen ninety seven,
Howard Katz proposed to my then agent that we tear
up the contract and do a new four year deal
that started at seven hundred thousand dollars a year and
(34:25):
covered a radio show with Dan Patrick and the Sunday
edition of Sports Center and the sp Awards ceremonies and
the Internet and everything else. This was a lot of
money for ESPN in nineteen ninety seven, seven hundred thousand
dollars a year. So we played around with that for
a while. But I didn't really want to go into
(34:45):
radio full time, not then when I still had dark hair.
So on April fourth, nineteen ninety seven, Howard Katz came
back with another offer, three sports centers a week plus
some radio, starting at five hundred and fifty thousand dollars
a year. I noticed that this was less than the
first offer, So two weeks later, we're at the first
ever Jackie Robinson Night at Chase Stadium in New York.
(35:09):
Howard came up to me and asked me, in front
of everybody in our booth, ranging from Chris Berman to
Robin Roberts, to all the producers, and briefly to President
Bill Clinton, he asked me if we were close on
this new deal that he'd offered me. I got angry
at him. He got angry at me for getting angry
at him, and I said, you know, forget it. And
what's more, it makes no sense for me to hang
(35:29):
around here as a lame duck. Howard, Wait, Howard the Duck,
and he calmed down. He said I could look at
other jobs and we'd let things cool off and talk
again about a new deal in a few weeks after
I looked around to see if it was something I'd
rather do than be at ESPN, and if it still
wasn't going anywhere, we would agree on a date early
in the summer and I could leave six months before
(35:49):
the contract officially ended. And then three huge things happened
about this that most people still don't know to this day,
even after all that, When I called Phil Mushnick of
the New York Post and Richard Sandomir of the New
York Times, and I told them I would be leaving ESPN,
and it appeared I would be going to go to
Court TV to be the host and executive producer of
(36:11):
my own sports show, four nights a week. I almost
stayed at ESPN once it got out that I was leaving.
I got a letter from a viewer who told me
that his son, who had autism, had been at his
other son's little league game, and when his brother banged
out a base hit, this kid, who had rarely ever
(36:32):
spoken in his life, suddenly shouted out One of my catchphrases.
This guy said, he hit the ball real hard. Then
there was a flyball and the boy said, it's deep,
and I don't think it's playable. Then they went home,
and this virtually noncommunicative child began to draw illustrations of
(36:55):
my catchphrases. For whatever reason, I had triggered some kind
of blossoming by this child at his brother and his
father sent me a book of the child's illustrations of
my catchphrases. I am not trying to suggest I really
had anything to do with this. It was good fortune
(37:16):
and circumstance and probably something to do with the tone
of my voice, nothing more. But I was very moved
by this, and I remain so and by other things.
People wrote to me or wrote in the press about
how much the show Dan and I did meant to them.
And I went back to Howard Katz and I said, look,
I know I've been impossible. You have to understand that
from my perspective, the company has also been impossible. But
(37:38):
Dan and I created too good a show to let
it die. When I go here to Court TV, I'm
only going to work Monday through Thursday on this new thing.
If you will send a car to take me to
and from Bristol every Sunday and give me some token
sal give me fifty thousand dollars or something. I'll just
do the Sunday night show for you every week. You'll
(37:59):
never see me, I'll never see you. It's the show
that has the highest factor of management control. It's basically
coloring in by numbers, and it reruns all morning on Monday.
So forty percent of the people who see Dan and
I during the week they see this one show. That's it.
If you want some other stuff for me to do,
like radio commentaries, great, we can negotiate that. But we
(38:20):
should not let this die. At least let's have it
on once a week. And Howard Katz said, Okay, let
me think about this. It sounds really good. And he
got back to me the next day and he said
it was the most difficult decision he had ever made
in this business, but he just couldn't do it. It
established too much of a precedent, especially the idea that
(38:41):
somebody could work at ESPN and also at some other
TV operation. He put it very bluntly. If ESPN was
not the sole employer of its people, it could not
control them. By threatening to fire them, and he looked
at me and he said especially you, And in the
same sentence he said, look, we'd love to continue the relationship,
(39:04):
though we see lots of ways you could fit into
ESPN Classic, like once a week or once a month
or whatever, and we'd like to get in on the
bidding for these radio commentaries that you're going to do
on the side. Well, it all ended surprisingly amicably. I
decided to go to MSNBC and NBC Sports instead of
Court TV, and as I signed the contract, I called
(39:26):
the ESPN president, Steve Bornstein and the head of Sports Center,
John Walsh. I called them from the office of the
head of NBC Sports, Dick Eversoll, And in my diary,
I can't tell if that was June nineteenth, nineteen ninety
seven or June twentieth, nineteen ninety seven, but I made
the calls, and it was Ebsall's idea, call them now,
call them right now, it'll matter later. The funniest thing
(39:48):
was the following Monday, June twenty third, I was packing
up my stuff in my house in Connecticut. I am
all set and I am officially beginning my first week
not working for ESPN. And instead working for NBC. And
the phone rings and it's John Waller in Los Angeles
for something, and he has to talk to my agent immediately.
(40:10):
Do you know where she is right now? Howard Katz?
And I have just spoken with Bob Iger, and he
wants to present a primetime proposal to you for ABC
and until you can continue at ESPN. And I laughed,
and I said, John, I signed with NBC last week
the World Series and the news show and super Bowl stuff.
(40:31):
Remember I called you from Dick Ebersol's office. You remember
it was Friday or Thursday, whatever it was. We're having
the news conference today. And he is dead serious, and
he says to me, oh, oh oh, and there's a
long pause. Well, well, I still need to talk to
your agent. Well. I had known Bob Iger, who had
(40:54):
apparently precipitated this phone call, since I was in college
in nineteen seventy nine. He had given me an hour
of his time just for career advice, because I had
interned at the TV station for which is first wife
had been a news producer, Channel five in New York.
I told that story, I think two weeks ago, and
Bob was wonderful to me, so I called Bob and
I explained what had happened, and he said, Steve Bornstein
(41:16):
only told me that you were leaving this morning. I'm
very very sorry. I knew there were contentious negotiations about
a new deal for you, but I had no clue
it was at the point where you might actually leave.
I should have known. That's my fault. That's why I
told John to make the call. He did. Trust me.
If I'd known, would have been totally different. I would
have made it right by you. You would have wanted
to stay. And if it doesn't work at NBC, you
(41:36):
call me directly and I'll bring you back here myself.
I mean, the ending was so unexpectedly and surprisingly pleasant
that even when my new bosses at MSNBC suddenly announced,
I think it was in newsweek that they were going
to call my program The Big Show, which was our
nickname for Sports Center at ESPN, the Big Show. But
(41:57):
they hadn't told anybody at ESPN that we were going
to call our MSNBC show the Big Show. It was
me who got on the phone with Howard and a
couple of other people at ESPN to apologize and to
make sure they were okay with it. So even after
my ESPN career was officially over and all chance of
my returning was dead, we tried to revive it, both
(42:18):
of us, Howard Katz and me in good faith. And
I don't think Bob Eiger was blowing smoke at me.
He had no reason to. And even after all that,
the parting was non nuclear. I think they sent me
a fruit basket for my first night at MSNBC on
October first, and then it all blew up. John Walsh
(42:39):
called the TV sports columnist at USA Today, Rudy Marsky,
and gave him my first set of ratings from MSNBC,
just to try to make me look like I couldn't
succeed without ESPN. Martski told me that direct quote, they
want to punish you publicly. Walsh has been pressuring me
(42:59):
to run the very poor ratings, and he said, I'm
going to finally do it. I just wanted to give
you a little war warning and maybe you have a comment. Well,
that set the tone for the next five years of warfare,
and it was nuclear pretty quickly. But this impression that
ESPN chose to dismiss me, or not renew me, or
not bring me back, its nonsense. Howard did not not
(43:21):
renew me. Instead, he offered to double my salary if
I stayed. If I had signed with NBC, Iiger was
still trying to get me to back out after I
had signed with NBC and stay at ESPN and ABC.
The irony of this minor detail from about nineteen ninety
seven printed in twenty eleven, I think is that I
had already returned to ESPN by the time it was printed.
(43:45):
I took an hour out of my day at MSNBC
to go on with Dan Patrick on his ESPN radio
show from two thousand and five through two thousand and seven.
A year after that book came out with that quote
in it, twenty twelve, I was talking to the executives
at ESPN about going back full time, and a year
later I did to launch a nightly show on esp two,
(44:05):
and that ended when they laid off like one hundred
million dollars worth of talent salaries in twenty fifteen. But
then I went back again in twenty eighteen, and I
did Sports Center, and I did baseball games on radio
and on TV, and I did reports, and I did commentaries.
I did the not top ten plays of the week,
and on and on and on, and finally we parted
happily in the late summer of twenty twenty so I
(44:28):
could return to political coverage and I knew they wouldn't
want that, and I didn't want to put it on ESPN,
and the unlikely result of that my parting happily in
twenty twenty. On the books at Disney, I am listed
as a Disney and ESPN retiree. I get benefits I
(44:51):
retired from ESPN. I mean, they didn't give me a
gold watch or anything, but I'm technically a retiree. And
if you had predicted that in nineteen ninety seven or
twenty eleven, well you know the cliche. I bring all
this up again because I don't know how often I
have thought of that father and his two boys, and
the one who started speaking, but only in my catch phrases.
(45:14):
I would guess it's at least once a month. Those
boys would have to be in their thirties by now
or nearly, and I wonder often of what has become
of them, and I sure hope they are well. I've
(45:43):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. Countdown has come to you from the Vince
Scully Studios at the Olderman Broadcasting Empire in New York.
Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on
the guitars, bass and drums, and mister Shaneale handled orchestration
and keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some
(46:07):
of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the
group No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of
ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by
Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer
today was my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and
(46:29):
Better Call Saul, and everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this the one thousand and eightieth
day since dementia Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the Insurrection
Act against him and them and the fourteenth Amendment and
convict him while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
(46:51):
is tomorrow boltons. As the news warrants still then, I'm
Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
(47:11):
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. There
are still some around him who want him to stay
above the fray on Trump, and to stay above the
(00:26):
fray on Trump's totalitarianism, and to stay above the fray
on Trump morphing into Hitler, and especially to stay above
the new fray on Trump and the Fourteenth Amendment and
your newest Hallmark movie, A Trumpy Christmas at the Supreme Court.
But frankly, President Biden is at his best, his best
(00:50):
when he is the spokesman for a nation dedicated to
using all legal means to save this country from more Trump.
Biden is not merely the President. He has a natural,
perfect pitch touch, blending matter of factness and the collective
anger of two hundred million or more Americans. Yesterday, tarmac
(01:12):
at Milwaukee Air Force One, roaring in the background, the
backseat of the beast awaiting him, The question is shouted
at him about the Colorado Supreme Court decision, and he
shouts back that he cannot comment on a court case.
You can see he's just dying to comment on it.
And when the follow up question is shouted at him,
is he an insurrectionist? The President makes sure, he's not
(01:34):
yelling and he's not drowned out, and he ambles over
to the reporter and he lets her ask it again,
and then Joe Biden burns Donald J. Trump to the
ground with one casually flicked away match.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I think star certainly yourself, Evan, he's sawt on
whether the fourteenth runt of applies, and.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Let the court make that decision.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
But he's certainly supported any insurrection, no question about it, none, zero,
And he seems to be doubling down on about everything anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Burned him to the ground because no one can remind
you of the obviousness of an answer more efficiently, yet
without any sense of condescension or correction, than can Joe Biden.
No one. He can also throw into that mix anger
(02:35):
or wistfulness or cynicism, interwoven with humor, like a photoshop artist,
blending yellows and blues to get exactly the right green
for the occasion. He did it in the debates, he
did it in the Philadelphia speech last year. He did
it in the days before the coup attempt, when he
sucked all the credibility out of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
(02:56):
simply by repeating that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and
then giving an almost indiscernible chuckle of dismissal, more offhand
dismissals please, of anything that even hints that Trump is
not the consummate human personification of evil or stupidity or
(03:19):
hatred or cheesiness or insurrection. Do this every day, mister President.
Plant the damn questions if you have to, the rest
of us can do the railing and the yelling. You
be the one who condemns with that casually flicked away match.
(03:41):
And how the rest of us have railed from the
reaction on the right to this, especially from baby Hitler himself.
You would think that nobody has ever before tried to
get any candidate disqualified from the presidential ballot, you know,
like baby Hitler. Trump tried to get Obama disqualified and
(04:03):
used a fabricated fake birth certificate to do it, Like
he tried to get ted Cruz disqualified in twenty sixteen,
were being born in Canada on constitutional disqualification. I don't
want to win it on technicalities, but that's more than
a technicality. That is a big, big factor. Dementia j Trump,
January twelve, twenty sixteen, seed Rapids, Iowa. As if he
(04:26):
did not repeat over and over again during his first
campaign that Hillary Clinton should not be allowed to run
for the White House. Not allowed. Dementia J. Trump, October twelve,
twenty sixteen, Lakeland, Florida. She shouldn't be allowed to run
for president. She shouldn't be allowed.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I'm telling you she should not be allowed to run
for president based on her crimes. She should not be
allowed to run for president.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
For her crimes. He based that, I believe, on the
third clause of the fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution in
his mind that only he can see. So spare me
the how dare the Democrats do this? And oh, by
the way, the case was filed by Republicans, including the
(05:16):
former Republican majority leader in the Colorado House and Senate.
And speaking of which, as Elie Mestahl pointed out, if
and when the Supreme Court takes the appeal, and by
the way, tic tic tic, tic, tick, you got sixteen
days and now only ten of them aren't weekends and
or holidays. If the Supreme Court takes this seriously, rather
(05:40):
than letting Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow write its ruling
for it, the most intriguing part of its verdict will
be how it gets around that most treasured and publicized
of the fascists legal rationalizations for destroying everything, states rights.
The Court has used states' rights a Civil War term,
(06:01):
as the excuse to curtail early voting, as a reason
to shorten voting hours, as a justification for re establishing
aspects of Jim Crow voting laws, as a reason to
gerrymander semi sentient white supremacist blobs of excrement like Marjorie
Taylor Green into the House of Representatives. The Colorado ruling
(06:24):
is at heart a states rights case, or at least
it would be if it had been filed by Republicans
against a Democrat. Look, we are Colorado, We are a state.
These are our state laws about elections. These are our
state laws about presidential eligibility. These are our state laws
(06:45):
requiring us to observe and act at the instruction of
the Constitution of the United States. And the John Roberts
answer to that is going to be what, Well, Yes,
state's rights always not these states rights. As the Trump
liquors circle the wagons around Baby Hitler and cried due process.
(07:07):
Mister mss Dall also notes what I have noted here
before several times, that the disqualification clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment does not say convicted of insurrection, It says engaged
in insurrection. Senator elect former Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens
was not convicted, but he was disqualified Senator elect Vance.
(07:30):
Same thing that would be Zebulan Vance, a Republican writer
and the Confederate governor of North Carolina from eighteen sixty
two to eighteen sixty five. So same general disloyalty is JD. Vance,
just a different century on. And remember those amendments. They
are the backbone of America. The Second Amendment, even though
it does not include the word own or any synonym
(07:52):
for own, well, it guarantees gun ownership rights forever. The
Fourteenth Amendment, because it does not include a picture of
Trump along with his Social Security number, it cannot be
used to qualify him. Ever, the reminder also that the
Fourteenth Amendment was written largely, in fact, almost exclusively by
(08:14):
Since they like to bring up their role in the
Civil War all the time, the Fourteenth Amendment was written
almost exclusively by Republicans. More seriously, this is the Supreme
Court justice's chance to redeem their souls and their court,
(08:34):
to prove they are stewards of the intent of the
framers of the original text and the amendments, and not incidentally,
to save the nation from a man who would destroy
any part of its purpose or ethos for his own
personal purposes or amusement, a man who would destroy the
Supreme Court, this Supreme Court, these justices, any one of them,
(08:59):
including the ones he appointed. Asked Bill Barr, imagine ultimately
the liberation of John Roberts and even Amy Coney Barrett
and maybe even Gorsich if they concurred with Colorado and
Trump was no more in the American political world. And
(09:25):
still speaking of Republicans and the fourteenth Amendment, it is
imperative right now to revisit the story that really lit
the first fire under the premise of disqualifying Trump simply
by you know, reading the Constitution. Early last August, Will Bode, Faculty,
director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of
Chicago Law School, former clerk for Chief Justice Roberts, He
(09:49):
gave the Scalia Lecture at Harvard Law early this year.
Member of the Federalist Society, and not just that, but
past winner of the Federalist Society Award for the Best
Young Law Professor, the award they once gave to John
u the guy who told George Bushy had the high
sign to do the torture this. Professor Bode revealed that
(10:11):
he and constitutional law professor Michael Stokes Paulson were to
publish in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review during twenty
twenty four their studied academic, dry as dust constitutional scholarly
analysis that there was no debate about this, that there
was no lawsuit required, no protests nor rallies necessary. That quote,
(10:34):
Donald Trump cannot be president, cannot run for president, cannot
become president, cannot hold office unless two thirds of Congress
decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on January sixth, unquote,
Professor Bode said that, summarizing it for The New York Times,
(10:57):
in that quote, though he is almost wishy washy compared
to what he and Paulson write in the paper itself,
it is unquestionably fair to say that Trump engaged in
the January sixth insurrection through both his actions and his inaction.
The bottom line is that Donald Trump both engaged in
insurrection or rebellion and gave aid or comfort to others
(11:21):
engaging in such conduct within the original meaning of those
terms as a void in section three of the fourteenth Amendment.
Professors Bode and Paulson of the Federalist Society devoted a
year to studying the original meaning of it. Because the
(11:42):
ultra conservative Federalist Society have I mentioned these guys are
in the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society believes the Constitution
can be interpreted only in exactly the way its authors,
including the authors of the amendments, intended at the time.
A year studying this, and their conclusion was not just
(12:06):
that Trump is ineligible to be president, or to be
elected president, or to run for president, but that it's automatic.
It is the default position. It is to right this minute.
A lawsuit shouldn't be a debate over the meaning, they say.
A lawsuit should only be there as a measure to
(12:28):
force every official who has to certify a candidate's eligibility
to refuse to certify Trump because he is not eligible.
I mean, listen to this quote. Section three's disqualification rule
may and must be followed applied honored, obeyed, enforced, carried
(12:50):
out by anyone whose job it is to figure out
whether someone is legally qualified to office. In other words,
if you don't keep Trump off the ballot, if you
don't keep Trump off about, you may have broken the law.
As mister Bodes said, quote, the question of should Donald
(13:12):
Trump go to jail is entrusted to the criminal process.
The question of should he be allowed to take the
constitutional oath again and be given constitutional power again is
not a question given to any jury unquote. Again, this
was not written by the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I
(13:33):
mentioned Professor Bode's resume. Professor Paulson's is thirty five pages long,
and it indicates that, apart from his primary expertise the
Constitution and the federal laws relating to the Constitution, his
other areas of specialization are Church and State and abortions
slash right to life. These men should be Conservative superstars,
(13:59):
and Bode's work connected by clerkship to John Roberts and
by recognition to antonin Bloody Scalia, his work should actually
influence this court except for one thing. After their advocacy
for the Fourteenth Amendment and their insistence it is automatic
that right now, Trump is ineligible to be on the
(14:22):
ballot in Colorado or anywhere else. After that came out
last August, the fascists were silent for a day or so,
and then they found it. Professor Bod had at some
point been branded a never trumper, and in the world
of Baby Hitler and the Nazi etes, that's it. That's final.
(14:48):
He's opposed to Trump, therefore he's lying. There is no
argument for disqualification. There is no applicability of the fourteenth Amendment.
There is no fourteenth Amendment. In fact, Bod is a
never trumper. Therefore there is no number fourteen. When the
Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump ineligible because of his insurrection,
(15:11):
a writer for the Free Beacon, which is a pretty
fascist outfit, but in a minor league kind of way,
a writer named Drew Holden tweeted, in case you were
wondering why Dems and the media kept calling January sixth
an insurrection, it was to make this possible. On January sixth,
(15:34):
twenty twenty one, this sane guy, Drew Holden, tweeted, the
president of the United States, a man of our political
party conservatives, has given cover to a collective action that
can only be called insurrection. This is the way they think,
(15:54):
or more accurately, the way they do not think. They
do not even remember their world before they enslaved themselves
to Baby Hitler. And the loyalty requires the denial not
just of all other realities, but of refusing to take
the arguments of others or the arguments of themselves in
(16:17):
the past. As you know, sincere but mistaken, there is
only obeyance, there is only servitude. They are on a
mission to serve Trump and install totalitarianism on his behalf,
and no logic, nor persuasion, nor law, nor what they
(16:37):
said last week will stop them. I said it last week,
and I'll say it again. This is the scene in
our real life re enactment of the film Rosemary's Baby
where Mia Farrow shakes off the drugs, then the anesthetics
and the gaslighting, and she sees the devil on top
of her and she shouts, this is no dream, this
(16:58):
is really happening. And by the way they're publican Party
of Colorado has found a way around the state Supreme
Court and maybe the US Supreme Court, and maybe the
Supreme Court of the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda.
Trump can't be on the Colorado primary ballot, then we
(17:21):
don't hold a primary. This is the genius plan of
Dave Williams, the whackdoodle election denier who has only been
Colorado GOP chair since March but has nearly bankrupted the
organization already. Now Williams wants to scrap the primary if
Trump is struck from it, and he wants to get
(17:42):
permission from the National GOP and work something out for
caucuses with the Secretary of State. And then Dave only
read part of the story right. The Colorado Court ruled
the fourteenth Amendment applies, and because Trump is disqualified from
being president or holding any office, he can't be on
(18:04):
the cot Colorado ballot as a presidential candidate or anything else.
Doesn't matter how you nominate him. Dave, I guess this
would protect Trump from having to see somebody else quote
win Colorado unquote. Also, last night, Trump waited into American history,
and like anything that is not entirely about him, he
(18:24):
made an utter fool out of himself. The last time
the Democrats took someone off the ballot was in eighteen sixty.
They would not allow a man named Abraham Lincoln to
be so much as mentioned in the Slave States all right.
In eighteen ninety two, the Republicans in Florida took the
incumbent Republican President Benjamin Harrison off the ballot because they
(18:49):
preferred their own Republican nominee, the populist James B. Weaver.
He was the Republican candidate in Florida in eighteen ninety two.
In nineteen twelve, the Republicans in California and South Dakota
again took their own incumbent Republican President, William Howard Taft,
off the ballot so they could make Teddy Roosevelt their
(19:12):
official Republican nominee in those states, and the Republicans and
the Democrats in Alabama twice kept incumbent presidents off the
ballot Harry Truman in nineteen forty eight and Linda Johnson
in nineteen sixty four, because both of them tried to
end segregation. So if you're going to dive in to
who got removed from the ballot by whom Dementia Jay,
(19:34):
be careful what you wish for, because your comparison may
not turn out to be Lincoln. It may turn out
to be William Howard Taft. You know it's oddly apt,
isn't it. Trump and William Howard Taft now to the
(19:55):
lighter side of the news, and Adolph Hitler. The Biden
campaign has now crossed the rubicon on this, and I
mean in a good way. In the in your face
graphic with white letters on a red stripe and white
letters on a black stripe, and three pictures of Trump
and two pictures of Hitler, and the heading Trump Parrot's
(20:15):
Hitler and Trump's vermin quote, followed by Hitler's vermin quote,
followed by Trump's poisoning the blood quote, followed by Hitler's
contamination of the blood quote, followed by Trump's quote that
his political opponents are worse than Putin or Kim John. Oh,
that is some serious stuff. And also at the top
in the textbox above that graphic. This is not a coincidence.
(20:39):
President Biden himself has not gone that far, but a
little over four hours later, on his personal account, quote
Trump poses many threats to our country, the right to
choose civil rights, voting rights, at America's standing in the world,
But the greatest threat he poses is two our democracy.
If we lose that we lose everything on the Republican side.
(21:01):
It's almost as if Nicky Haley actually wanted to say
something like that to slam Trump for the poisoning comment.
But she is still the hapless, witless, gutless suck up
she was when she worked for him. She told the
Des Moines Register yesterday that Trump's comments were quote not
constructive end quote not necessary, end quote not helpful, to
(21:23):
which I say her comments are quote not enough. As
to baby Hitler himself, I think he took the night
off from campaigning so he could stay in and catch
up on his reading rise and fallow the third rite.
Maybe I have to admit something. While putting out the
(21:44):
bulletin and the regular edition Tuesday night, I completely missed
two things about his speech in Iowa. One, as the
Colorado Court was ruling, Trump was in Iowa, in Waterloo, Iowa,
coincidence less coincidentally, but more ominously, it was already a
clear sign of what's left of his sanity, barreling down
(22:08):
the hill before it utterly jumps the tracks at the
curve that Trump thought denying that he had ever read
mind comp was a great flex. But did you hear
what he said? Right? After he said he'd never read
mine comp. I did not hear it until yesterday.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
They're ruining our country, and it's true. They're destroying the
blood of our country. That's what they're doing. They're destroying
our country. They don't like it when I said that
and I never read mind compf They said, oh, Hitler
said that in a much different way.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
They said, oh Hitler said that in a much different way. Well,
if you never read mind comp, how do you know
it was in a much different way. Plus, the denial
is not just I didn't read that Hitler book. It's
I didn't read that Hitler book. And sure I'm saying
(23:04):
the same things Hitler did, but in a much different way.
See now, this is why, sooner or later, every person
who succeeds for a time by being unfiltered or telling
it like it really is, eventually falls off a cliff.
Hitler and I agree, we just say it differently is
(23:25):
not much of a defense. And once again, the last
eight years has taught us that for decades there have
lived among us millions of bigots and sadists and massochists
who were just pretending not to be any of those
things until somebody would come along to liberate them from
(23:47):
you know, self restraint. But like the dictator for a
day thing, Trump is again providing Biden with goldwater, will
drop the bomb on poor little Daisy caliber campaign ads.
I mean five four three?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Why there? These are the stakes and I never read mine?
Camp they said, Oh, Hitler said that in a much
different way.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
We must either love each other or we must die.
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home. Also of interest here,
(24:53):
the plaintiffs and the judge were a little worried Rudy
Giuliani might not have the one hundred and forty eight
million he now owes them on him. So basically the
judge just ordered Rudy to pay up like tomorrow. And
next on that front, Carrie Lake was confident that the
(25:14):
defamation case against her was going to be dismissed by
the judge. Well, Lake has not won a single court
verdict yet, and guess what she ain't about to start
doing so now that's next. This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith oldwoman still to come on. Countdown of
(25:56):
all the people I have kept busy and perhaps driven
crazy in my career, the least publicized. The least reward
did have been the poor station and network publicity guys
who've had to deal with me over the years. While
I understood them and cooperated with them far better than
(26:16):
the average broadcaster, I also pulled them out onto the
tightrope with me far more often than the average broadcaster.
Some were terrible at their jobs. There was one in
Los Angeles at KCBS who was best friends with the
sportscaster at KNBC and used to feed him stories about
me until management caught onto it and fired the whole department.
(26:39):
Some at ESPN were really helpful and sympathetic and friendly
to this day, and two of them are in the news.
Chrys LaPlaca just retired as the head of communications since
length the day they turned the first shovel of dirt,
and he has been succeeded by Josh Krulowitz, who I
have been torturing off and on since the early nineties.
So I thought this was a good time to mention
(27:01):
the day in May nineteen ninety seven, when I finally
ereb coupley and permanently left ESPN and SportsCenter forever, except
for when I returned to ESPN Radio in two thousand
and five, and then I returned to ESPN two in
twenty thirteen, and then I returned to Sports Center in
twenty eighteen. Anyway, the story of the exit coming up
(27:22):
in Things I Promise not to tell first time for
the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in the world,
the Bronze worse Kelly and Conway. I think Democrats wake
up every morning and they look at the calendar on
the iPhone and it says January sixth. The former d
(27:46):
List pundit for when all the smart ones were booked
told Fox Noise that day never changes and when they
get into an electric vehicle and go get an abortion,
every day is January sixth. Kelly and con Job, you're
talking about shelf life and letting go of the past.
(28:08):
That would be way less funny if Kelly Anne wasn't
part of the Christo fascist attempt to take over the country,
which of course has as its roots the life and
death of Jesus Christ two thousand years ago. But we're
worried about three years ago. Shame on us. Also, I
am beginning to become convinced that there is no such
person as Kelly Ann Conway, that she is a satirical
(28:29):
comedy character portrayed by a really dedicated actor, a guy
who's really in there on the bit, the way Dame
Edna Everidge was portrayed by Barry Humphries or whoever is
doing the Kellyanne Conway character is also portraying the satirical
comedy character known as Harris Faulkner Runner Up, where Sir
(28:52):
Charlie Kirk, who proves daily that stupidity and poor reading
comprehension can be extremely profitable. Liberals hate Christianity so much
they want to make it illegal for Chick fil A
to be closed on Sundays to provide employees a day
of rest. I left out paranoia, stupidity and poor reading
comprehension and paranoia. Turns out the story Kirk has warped
(29:15):
into some kind of Democrats versus Jesus thing. It's a
little different than he posits. Chick fil A is bidding
for the right to put its restaurants on the rest
stops on the New York State through Way and keep
the ones that are already there. And there is a
bill in the state legislature that would require all restaurants
at all the rest stops on the New York State
(29:37):
through Way to stay open and serve the customers seven
days a week because they all have semi monopolies. They're
the only things you can get on the through Way,
and part of the price they should pay for that
is you've got to be open when there are travelers.
And there are a lot of people who drive on
Sunday on the through Way, or as it's known where
(30:01):
I grew up, drive on Sunday on the True Way.
But the winner the worst, Carrie Lake. Carrie Lake is
getting rootied. She slandered Stephen Richer, County Recorder of Maricopa, Arizona, Republican.
By the way, of course, she slandered him this year,
(30:21):
claiming he intentionally printed the wrong image on the ballot
on election day so that tabulating machines would invalidate those ballots.
Obviously the ballots would have made Carrie Lake God or
whatever it is she was running for. Quote, these guys
are really really terrible at running elections, but I found
out they're really good at lying. And then Carrie Lake
(30:42):
said Richard profited financially by doing this, so he sued
her for defamation. She filed a demotion to dismiss the
court just denied it. She's going to trial for defamation now. Now,
as you may have heard and Carrie may have heard
but assumed it was just fake news, a jury awarded
Shay Moss and Ruby Freeman one hundred and forty eight
(31:03):
million dollars, and yesterday the judge ordered Rudy to pay
it now because there is every reason to think he's
going to try to avoid paying it ever, or to
hide assets. Carrie, Oh, Carrie Lake, You're next. Carrie. Never ever,
(31:24):
ever trust a fired TV newscaster from Phoenix Lake two
days worst person, including notescasters ever. There is a huge
(31:54):
oral history of ESPN from twenty eleven by Jim Miller,
and most of it is pretty good, but there's one
line in it that triggered this recollection. The executive he's
president of the company in nineteen ninety seven, was named
Howard Katz, and in this ESPN book he was quoted
as saying, I didn't fire Keith, I just chose not
to renew his contract. And then there's a couple of
(32:16):
quotes from guys I never heard of who said no,
we fired him. None of it's true. Howard and I
got along surprisingly well at ESPN and even better since
so I'm just going to assume he misremembered all this,
and he's right, I mean, legally, he chose not to
renew my contract early in nineteen ninety seven, and a
couple of weeks later, instead he offered me a new
(32:37):
four year contract which would have basically doubled my salary.
And even after I had said no thanks and I
signed with NBC, the then president of ABC, Bob Eiger,
whatever happened to him, tried to get me to back
out of the NBC deal, to renege on it, and
then sign a new deal at ESPN. So they offered
me two new deals after they didn't renew my old contract.
(33:00):
See how this works. In ninety six and ninety seven,
it was no secret that my choice was to leave ESPN.
I had come within hours of asking to be let
out of my deal. In the summer of nineteen ninety six,
a radio station in Chicago WMVP had wanted me to
go do the afternoon drive show there a mix of
news and sports, and they were offering me twice the
(33:21):
money I was getting to host SportsCenter, and I was
ready to go. Loved it, had a great week there.
They wined me, they dined me, and everybody offered me
a free beer. Welcome to Chicago, you're from out of town.
And then ownership of the radio station simply pulled the
plug on the station it was in thirty first place
and said they could save a lot more money by
(33:43):
simply rebroadcasting what was on FM radio. And eventually, and
this would have been interesting had I gone to Chicago. Eventually,
the owners sold WMVP to ESPN. Anyway, my ESPN deal
was set to expire on December thirty first, nineteen ninety seven,
but they had the option to extend it for I
(34:05):
can't remember either either for a year after that or
two years. But they had to notify me really early
in ninety seven, and instead, on February eighteenth, nineteen ninety seven,
Howard Katz proposed to my then agent that we tear
up the contract and do a new four year deal
that started at seven hundred thousand dollars a year and
(34:25):
covered a radio show with Dan Patrick and the Sunday
edition of Sports Center and the sp Awards ceremonies and
the Internet and everything else. This was a lot of
money for ESPN in nineteen ninety seven, seven hundred thousand
dollars a year. So we played around with that for
a while. But I didn't really want to go into
(34:45):
radio full time, not then when I still had dark hair.
So on April fourth, nineteen ninety seven, Howard Katz came
back with another offer, three sports centers a week plus
some radio, starting at five hundred and fifty thousand dollars
a year. I noticed that this was less than the
first offer, So two weeks later, we're at the first
ever Jackie Robinson Night at Chase Stadium in New York.
(35:09):
Howard came up to me and asked me, in front
of everybody in our booth, ranging from Chris Berman to
Robin Roberts, to all the producers, and briefly to President
Bill Clinton, he asked me if we were close on
this new deal that he'd offered me. I got angry
at him. He got angry at me for getting angry
at him, and I said, you know, forget it. And
what's more, it makes no sense for me to hang
(35:29):
around here as a lame duck. Howard, Wait, Howard the Duck,
and he calmed down. He said I could look at
other jobs and we'd let things cool off and talk
again about a new deal in a few weeks after
I looked around to see if it was something I'd
rather do than be at ESPN, and if it still
wasn't going anywhere, we would agree on a date early
in the summer and I could leave six months before
(35:49):
the contract officially ended. And then three huge things happened
about this that most people still don't know to this day,
even after all that, When I called Phil Mushnick of
the New York Post and Richard Sandomir of the New
York Times, and I told them I would be leaving ESPN,
and it appeared I would be going to go to
Court TV to be the host and executive producer of
(36:11):
my own sports show, four nights a week. I almost
stayed at ESPN once it got out that I was leaving.
I got a letter from a viewer who told me
that his son, who had autism, had been at his
other son's little league game, and when his brother banged
out a base hit, this kid, who had rarely ever
(36:32):
spoken in his life, suddenly shouted out One of my catchphrases.
This guy said, he hit the ball real hard. Then
there was a flyball and the boy said, it's deep,
and I don't think it's playable. Then they went home,
and this virtually noncommunicative child began to draw illustrations of
(36:55):
my catchphrases. For whatever reason, I had triggered some kind
of blossoming by this child at his brother and his
father sent me a book of the child's illustrations of
my catchphrases. I am not trying to suggest I really
had anything to do with this. It was good fortune
(37:16):
and circumstance and probably something to do with the tone
of my voice, nothing more. But I was very moved
by this, and I remain so and by other things.
People wrote to me or wrote in the press about
how much the show Dan and I did meant to them.
And I went back to Howard Katz and I said, look,
I know I've been impossible. You have to understand that
from my perspective, the company has also been impossible. But
(37:38):
Dan and I created too good a show to let
it die. When I go here to Court TV, I'm
only going to work Monday through Thursday on this new thing.
If you will send a car to take me to
and from Bristol every Sunday and give me some token
sal give me fifty thousand dollars or something. I'll just
do the Sunday night show for you every week. You'll
(37:59):
never see me, I'll never see you. It's the show
that has the highest factor of management control. It's basically
coloring in by numbers, and it reruns all morning on Monday.
So forty percent of the people who see Dan and
I during the week they see this one show. That's it.
If you want some other stuff for me to do,
like radio commentaries, great, we can negotiate that. But we
(38:20):
should not let this die. At least let's have it
on once a week. And Howard Katz said, Okay, let
me think about this. It sounds really good. And he
got back to me the next day and he said
it was the most difficult decision he had ever made
in this business, but he just couldn't do it. It
established too much of a precedent, especially the idea that
(38:41):
somebody could work at ESPN and also at some other
TV operation. He put it very bluntly. If ESPN was
not the sole employer of its people, it could not
control them. By threatening to fire them, and he looked
at me and he said especially you, And in the
same sentence he said, look, we'd love to continue the relationship,
(39:04):
though we see lots of ways you could fit into
ESPN Classic, like once a week or once a month
or whatever, and we'd like to get in on the
bidding for these radio commentaries that you're going to do
on the side. Well, it all ended surprisingly amicably. I
decided to go to MSNBC and NBC Sports instead of
Court TV, and as I signed the contract, I called
(39:26):
the ESPN president, Steve Bornstein and the head of Sports Center,
John Walsh. I called them from the office of the
head of NBC Sports, Dick Eversoll, And in my diary,
I can't tell if that was June nineteenth, nineteen ninety
seven or June twentieth, nineteen ninety seven, but I made
the calls, and it was Ebsall's idea, call them now,
call them right now, it'll matter later. The funniest thing
(39:48):
was the following Monday, June twenty third, I was packing
up my stuff in my house in Connecticut. I am
all set and I am officially beginning my first week
not working for ESPN. And instead working for NBC. And
the phone rings and it's John Waller in Los Angeles
for something, and he has to talk to my agent immediately.
(40:10):
Do you know where she is right now? Howard Katz?
And I have just spoken with Bob Iger, and he
wants to present a primetime proposal to you for ABC
and until you can continue at ESPN. And I laughed,
and I said, John, I signed with NBC last week
the World Series and the news show and super Bowl stuff.
(40:31):
Remember I called you from Dick Ebersol's office. You remember
it was Friday or Thursday, whatever it was. We're having
the news conference today. And he is dead serious, and
he says to me, oh, oh oh, and there's a
long pause. Well, well, I still need to talk to
your agent. Well. I had known Bob Iger, who had
(40:54):
apparently precipitated this phone call, since I was in college
in nineteen seventy nine. He had given me an hour
of his time just for career advice, because I had
interned at the TV station for which is first wife
had been a news producer, Channel five in New York.
I told that story, I think two weeks ago, and
Bob was wonderful to me, so I called Bob and
I explained what had happened, and he said, Steve Bornstein
(41:16):
only told me that you were leaving this morning. I'm
very very sorry. I knew there were contentious negotiations about
a new deal for you, but I had no clue
it was at the point where you might actually leave.
I should have known. That's my fault. That's why I
told John to make the call. He did. Trust me.
If I'd known, would have been totally different. I would
have made it right by you. You would have wanted
to stay. And if it doesn't work at NBC, you
(41:36):
call me directly and I'll bring you back here myself.
I mean, the ending was so unexpectedly and surprisingly pleasant
that even when my new bosses at MSNBC suddenly announced,
I think it was in newsweek that they were going
to call my program The Big Show, which was our
nickname for Sports Center at ESPN, the Big Show. But
(41:57):
they hadn't told anybody at ESPN that we were going
to call our MSNBC show the Big Show. It was
me who got on the phone with Howard and a
couple of other people at ESPN to apologize and to
make sure they were okay with it. So even after
my ESPN career was officially over and all chance of
my returning was dead, we tried to revive it, both
(42:18):
of us, Howard Katz and me in good faith. And
I don't think Bob Eiger was blowing smoke at me.
He had no reason to. And even after all that,
the parting was non nuclear. I think they sent me
a fruit basket for my first night at MSNBC on
October first, and then it all blew up. John Walsh
(42:39):
called the TV sports columnist at USA Today, Rudy Marsky,
and gave him my first set of ratings from MSNBC,
just to try to make me look like I couldn't
succeed without ESPN. Martski told me that direct quote, they
want to punish you publicly. Walsh has been pressuring me
(42:59):
to run the very poor ratings, and he said, I'm
going to finally do it. I just wanted to give
you a little war warning and maybe you have a comment. Well,
that set the tone for the next five years of warfare,
and it was nuclear pretty quickly. But this impression that
ESPN chose to dismiss me, or not renew me, or
not bring me back, its nonsense. Howard did not not
(43:21):
renew me. Instead, he offered to double my salary if
I stayed. If I had signed with NBC, Iiger was
still trying to get me to back out after I
had signed with NBC and stay at ESPN and ABC.
The irony of this minor detail from about nineteen ninety
seven printed in twenty eleven, I think is that I
had already returned to ESPN by the time it was printed.
(43:45):
I took an hour out of my day at MSNBC
to go on with Dan Patrick on his ESPN radio
show from two thousand and five through two thousand and seven.
A year after that book came out with that quote
in it, twenty twelve, I was talking to the executives
at ESPN about going back full time, and a year
later I did to launch a nightly show on esp two,
(44:05):
and that ended when they laid off like one hundred
million dollars worth of talent salaries in twenty fifteen. But
then I went back again in twenty eighteen, and I
did Sports Center, and I did baseball games on radio
and on TV, and I did reports, and I did commentaries.
I did the not top ten plays of the week,
and on and on and on, and finally we parted
happily in the late summer of twenty twenty so I
(44:28):
could return to political coverage and I knew they wouldn't
want that, and I didn't want to put it on ESPN,
and the unlikely result of that my parting happily in
twenty twenty. On the books at Disney, I am listed
as a Disney and ESPN retiree. I get benefits I
(44:51):
retired from ESPN. I mean, they didn't give me a
gold watch or anything, but I'm technically a retiree. And
if you had predicted that in nineteen ninety seven or
twenty eleven, well you know the cliche. I bring all
this up again because I don't know how often I
have thought of that father and his two boys, and
the one who started speaking, but only in my catch phrases.
(45:14):
I would guess it's at least once a month. Those
boys would have to be in their thirties by now
or nearly, and I wonder often of what has become
of them, and I sure hope they are well. I've
(45:43):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. Countdown has come to you from the Vince
Scully Studios at the Olderman Broadcasting Empire in New York.
Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on
the guitars, bass and drums, and mister Shaneale handled orchestration
and keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some
(46:07):
of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the
group No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of
ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by
Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer
today was my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and
(46:29):
Better Call Saul, and everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this the one thousand and eightieth
day since dementia Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the Insurrection
Act against him and them and the fourteenth Amendment and
convict him while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
(46:51):
is tomorrow boltons. As the news warrants still then, I'm
Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
(47:11):
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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