January 5, 2024 • 63 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 102: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN JANUARY 6th WEEKEND EDITION
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: You already know that MY default position when it comes to President Biden is deep respect, deep affection, and love. And having said that, even Iwas stunned by the virtuosity of his pitch-perfect speech about Trump and the threat to democracy he represents, which the President gave near Valley Forge on the eve of the third anniversary of Trump’s Insurrection, in which he hit every note ranging from whispered warning to raging righteousness; in which his emotional ebb and flow went from the astonishment of the moment to anger on behalf of every past president and every dead soldier; in which he roared from clear and unvarnished statement of the danger of Trump and the dictatorship with which he would KILL America, and the still CLEARER and MORE unvarnished delineation of the path by which to defeat it, and Trump, and these fascists, for all time. It was breathtaking. It was honest to God JFK-FDR level oratory. Here are the highlights.
Also, here is Trump's response: to claim that migrants who don't speak "our language" should not be allowed to vote, and to post a video claiming God sent him to rule America. If the cadence of this accompaniment to Dementia J. Trump turning into Deified J. Trump sounds familiar, it should. It was stolen from a 2013 Super Bowl Ad, and itself stolen from a 1978 speech by one of my old bosses.
B-Block (25:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Biden's speech was so good, so sweeping, that I think you should listen to all of it. Carve out half an hour and do so - here it is,
C-Block (59:10) UPDATE: While we're here, there's news on this sports story I mentioned during the week in which Aaron Rodgers, on the Pat McAfee Show, a program for which ESPN just paid its namesake host 85 million dollars to run on its platforms, Rodgers implied that when the Jeffrey Epstein lists were published, Jimmy Kimmel would be mentioned. Rodgers said when that happened, he’d pop open a bottle of something.Kimmel, who like McAfee, and Rodgers – who is under contract TO McAfee to appear on his shows – is employed by Disney. And within hours of the Aaron Rodgers statement, Kimmel tweeted that if Rodgers did not stop, he would sue Rodgers.
The next day McAfee pleaded ignorance. It didn’t take much effort; he’s pretty ignorant. He said he believed there was no cause for any problem because Rodgers was just quote “talking shit.” In fact that’s not really a defense many courts will accept in a defamation suit. A defamation suit by one Disney employee against two other Disney employees in McAfee and Rodgers. Rodgers has not again appeared on the show, nor did McAfee issue a retraction.
What McAfee DID do Friday, though, was to declare war ON ESPN. He accused executives of the company of leaking inaccurate ratings about the program.Actually, what it is, is – professionally – suicidal. Because McAfee named names, and he named the one ESPN executive who has outlasted everybody who has ever worked there, including me, including me the second time, including me the third time when HE personally got me rehired, including me as he supervised the unlikeliest of outcomes to my ESPN career in which of all people I wound up… RETIRING FROM ESPN. I got everything but the gold watch.
The executive’s name is Norby Williamson. And in trashing him, McAfee gave ESPN a way to fire him - for cause - and owe him none of the money in his contract. Or pay him off and silence him, just like Fox did with Tucker Carlson. Because if 32 years with Norby has taught me one thing: he survives - the other guy doesn't.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This
is a January sixth Weekend bullet an edition to the
Countdown podcast. And you already know that my default position
when it comes to President Biden is one of deep respect,
(00:25):
deep affection and love. And having said that, even I
was stunned by the virtuosity of his pitch perfect speech
about Trump and the threat to democracy he represents, which
the President gave at Valley Forge on the eve of
the third anniversary of Trump's insurrection, in which Biden hit
every note ranging from whispered warning to raging righteousness, in
(00:48):
which his emotional ebb and flow went from the astonishment
of the moment to anger on behalf of every past
president and every dead soldier and every loyal American ever,
in which he roared from clear and unvarnished statement of
the danger of Trump and the dictatorship with which he
would kill America, and the still clearer and more unvarnished
(01:14):
delineation of the path by which to defeat it and
Trump and the fascists for all time. It was unexpectedly breathtaking.
It was honest to god JFK FDR level oratory.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all
men and women are created equal.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
It's an idea, it's.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Declared in the Declaration, created in a way that we've
fused everybody's equal and should be treated throughout their lives.
We've never fully lived up to that. We have a
long way to go, but we've never walked away from
the idea. He's never walked away from it. And I
(02:00):
promise you I will not let Donald Trump are the
magga Republicans force.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
They offer own.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
This speech was so extraordinary. It transported me to Roosevelt's
I welcome their hatred from the nineteen thirty six campaign,
and to Kennedy's ask not inaugural address, and forgive me
for getting this syrapy on you. It shocks even me
to do so, to something out of Jimmy Stewart and
mister Smith goes to Washington. The speech was so extraordinary
(02:34):
that I will devote the second block of this bulletin
to replaying it in full, because if you did not
hear it, it is worth your time to do so.
And even if you did hear it, it is worth
your time to hear it again. Hell, I think it
would be worth the President's time to give it again.
But if you don't have time, I want you to
(02:55):
hear these nine clips. And I'm bouncing all over the
place out of order, because all of it as a whole,
or just in standalone segments, was astonishing.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
It's true, the pushing pool of American history is not
a fairy tale. Every stride forward in America is met
with ferocious backlash, many times from those who fear progress
and those who exploit that fear for their own personal gain,
From those who trafficking lines told for power and profit,
(03:27):
for those who are driven by grievance and grift, consumed
by conspiracy and victimhood, from those who seek to bury
history and ban books.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Everything can be in a political event.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Talked about book banning for presidential and the presidential election,
the choice and contest between those forces, those competing forces,
between solidarity and division as perennial, but this time is
so different. You can't have a contest. You can't have
(04:04):
a contest if you see politics as an all out
war instead of a peaceful way to resolve our differences.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
All out wars what Trump wants.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You know what I think of Trump. You know what
I say about him every day, but all out war
is what Trump wants is simpler and truer than anything
I have ever said about him. The real genius of
this speech is something I alluded to at the start.
(04:35):
For literally fifty years, Joe Biden has been told to
stop wandering from tone to tone and from topic to topic,
to simplify both what he is talking about and how
he is talking about it, and in so doing he
has often been talked out of his greatest asset as
a speaker. Life is not one note. Being president is
(04:59):
not one topic. Defending democracy is not one sentence. The
interweaving of the deadly serious and the self deprecatingly comical,
and the simmering personal rage made this speech the epic
that it was, and never more so than when President
Biden talked about Trump's threats against General Mark Millie.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
He's threatened the former chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff,
but the death penalty says he should be put to
death because the chairman put his oath to the Constitution
ahead of his personal loyalty to Trump. He's coming from
a president who called when he visited the cemetery, called
(05:48):
dead soldiers.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Suckers and losers. Remember that.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Sometimes I'm really happy the tires should be can't be seen.
It was right around the time I was at Poe's grave. Tommy,
how dare he? Who in God's name do you think
he is?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
As I have mentioned many times, okay, boasted many times.
The President once took me to lunch to ask how
to better calibrate anger and righteous indignation so he would
seem more the latter and less the former. I do
not think I had a damn thing to do with this,
but he has mastered that rage, laughter, personal pain. And
(06:46):
then who in God's name does he think he is?
In whispered fury exactly? And if that calibration was not
obvious enough to you in that clip, it will be
in this next one. This circles back to the only
flaw in the entire higher speech that incoming heavy snow
(07:07):
forced the speech to be rescheduled from Saturday afternoon, essentially
at the exact minute of the three year anniversary of
Trump's insurrection, to Friday afternoon, because the essence of Biden's
speech was January sixth, twenty twenty one, Trump's Day, Trump's
day that he attacked America. The first day he attacked America.
(07:30):
The other attack on America by Donald Trump is in
progress right now.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Jill and I attended to funeral police officers who died
as a result of the events of that day because
because of Donald Trump's lies. They died because these lies
brought a mom to Washington. He promised it would be wild,
and it was. He told the crowd to fight like hell,
(07:56):
and all hell was unleashed. He promised he would write them,
write them everything they did. He would be side by
side with them. Then, as usual, he left the dirty
work to others. He retreated to the White House. As
America was attacked from within, Donald Trump watched on TV
(08:17):
in the private small dining off off the Oval Office.
The entire nation watch in horror. The whole world watched
in disbelief, and Trump did nothing. Members of his staff,
members of his family, Republican leaders who were under attack
(08:37):
for at that very.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Moment, pled with him act call off the mob.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Imagine how he gone out and said stop, and still
Trump did nothing. Was among the worst derelictions of duty
by a president in American history.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
This speech will be taught in schools unless Trump regains power,
in which case nothing will be taught in schools. Just
as he did not try to massage or soften the
edges of the threat we face. Just as he couched
in terms of what it is a war of defense
against an invasion by the alien anti democracy forces Trump
(09:18):
represents and leads. Resident Biden did not try to pretend
this was not a campaign speech. Quite the opposite.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
The choice is clear.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Donald Trump's campaign is about him, not America, not you.
Donald Trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future.
He's only to sacrifice our democracy put himself in power.
Our campaign is different for me and common. Our campaign
(09:49):
is about America. It's about you, It's about every age
and background that occupy this country. It's about the future.
We're going to continue to build together. And our campaign
is about preserving and strengthening our American democracts.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
As I have gathered my thoughts about this speech, I
have kept starting to write. But the best part was
Maybe this was the best part because it wasn't just
one part of the speech. It was textured throughout the
entire address, just as Joe Biden textured the same thing
throughout his speech at Independence Hall in September of twenty
(10:27):
twenty two. He did not do what he did in
a lot of his earliest speeches, avoid confronting Trump directly
and by name and by crime.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Trump won't do what an American president must do. She
refuses to denounce political violence.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So hear me clearly.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I'll say with Donald Tampont, political violence is never ever
acceptable in the United States.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Politicalsm never, never, never. It has no place in a democracy. None.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
It can't be pro insurrectionist for American exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
The best part of the speak, sorry, the most useful
part of this speech is that almost any of its elements,
any of its dozen two dozen components, could be extracted
and expanded upon and turned into its own twenty minute address.
Because this was not just a speech, This was a schedule.
It was a calendar of what Joe Biden intends to
(11:31):
hit Donald Trump with every day for the next ten
months until election Day. And one of the underrated elements
not just of the speech, but of the dizzying, nauseating
mailstrom of this most corrupt era of American politics in
all of our history, is gaslighting. It is the number
of Republican leaders and their prostitutes at Fox News and
(11:55):
Republican propaganda who decided that since the coup didn't work
and the mob didn't kill them, they could demean themselves
to retain power by slowly and almost imperceptibly backing away
from what they said that day, what they said when
the horror of Trump's terrorist attack of January sixth was
(12:18):
fresh and vivid, and even they called it what it was,
and that valley forge Biden reminded us that in his
campaign he will remind them.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
When the attack on January sixth happened, there was no
doubt about the truth. At the time, even Republican members
of Congress and Fox News commentators publicly and privately condemned
the attack, As one Republican senator said, Trump's behavior was
embarrassing and humiliating for the country. But now that same
(12:53):
senator and those same people have changed their tune as
time has gone gone on politics, fear money all, I'm interview,
And now these maga voices who know the truth about
Trump on January sixth have abandoned the truth and abandoned
the democracy.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
They made the choice.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Now the rest of US Democrats, independence mainstream Republicans, we
have to make our choice.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I know mine, and I believe.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I know Americas will defend the truth, not giving to
the big lie. We'll embrace the constitution of the Declaration,
not abandoned it. Well, honor the sacred cause of democracy,
not walk away from it.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
There is one other element that I hope the President
hits every time he opens his mouth between now and
November fifth. It is a point I hammer here daily again.
I am confident his use of it is coincidental. The
field of this war against Trump and dictatorship and now
Biden has made me think of Teddy Roosevelt and are
(14:04):
met at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord. The
field is littered with weapons to use against Trump, and
the weapons were left there by Trump himself. They are
his own, indefensible, irrational, Unamerican, subhuman words.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
He calls those who are oppose him vermin. He talks
about the blood of America is being poisoned.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
That going the same exact.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Language used in Nazi Germany. He probably posts on social
media the words that best described as twenty twenty four campaign,
quote revenge, quote power, and quote dictatorship. There's no confusion
about who Trump is, what he intends to do.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And my final highlight, some pure red meat, some pure
joy for those of us who you know prefer democracy
to dictatorship. President Joseph Robinett Biden Junior called Trump the
worst thing anyone can ever call Trump. It is something
(15:21):
Joe Biden should call him every day. It is something
you and I should call him every day. It is
something that burns into him and through him like a
thousand atomic bombs. It is the el word, the.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Legal path just to Trump back to the truth.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
That I had won the election and he was a loser,
well loser.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Nothing enrages Trump more than being called loser. As I said.
The full Biden speech follows the upcoming break, and after that,
while we are here, I have an update on this
war at ESPN and how the sleeveless vagrant guy they
hired for eighty five million dollars just gave them a
means to fire him for cause and pay him nothing.
(16:20):
But before we leave the subject of the Biden speech
at Valley Forge, let me provide you with just a
little context and contrast and explanation. First, what was Trump
doing during all this watching a short speech and taking
notes so he could say terrible things? No that would
involve working hard. He was in Iowa talking about immigrants
(16:43):
and saying something startling even for him, about how they
don't speak our language.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I believe now.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
That that's why they're allowing these people to come in,
people that don't speak our language.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
They're signing them up to vote.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And I believe that's why you're having millions of people
pour into our country and it could very well affect
the next election, and I believe that's why they're doing it.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Soon, all there will be in Donald Trump is the hatred.
All he will be able to say is the hatred,
and all those who support him will be able to
do is pretend that they are not also guilty of
the hatred when it is time to prosecute them all. Earlier,
Trump was posting a video that has been around for
(17:30):
a while in various forms that, as if you did
not already get the point, underscores that he is dementia
j Trump, but he is rapidly moving towards deification Jay Trump.
This went up on his social media site as Joe
Biden prepared to eviscerate him at Valley Forge. There is
an amazing backstory to this that I discovered. Very few
(17:52):
people know, so I will tell it. It is farcical.
It makes this ultimate delusion of grandeur, this Trumpian belief
or story that he was sent here by God, even
stupider than it is at face value, this amazing backstory
in a moment, first the audio track.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
And on June fourteenth, nineteen forty six, God looked down
on his planned paradise and said, I need a caretaker.
So God gave us Trump. God said, I need somebody
willing to get up before dawn, fix this country. Work
all day, fight the Marxists each supper, then go to
the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting
(18:36):
of the heads of state.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So God made Trump.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle the
deep state, and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild,
somebody to ruffle the feathers team.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I should have warned you to sit down first, shouldn't I?
If you have stopped seizing up with laughter or horror
or both, that is a parody right down to the
impersonation of the voice of the narrator of what I
will next play you. It was a speech that the
ABC radio news commentator Paul Harvey gave in November of
(19:13):
nineteen seventy eight two The Future Farmers of America. It
is called so God made a farmer. And if it's
beginning to ring a bell, it is because part of
this was rebroadcast in twenty thirteen. Here is the original
basis of sow. God made Trump and on the h there.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
God and looked down on his planned paradise and said,
I need a caretaker. So God made a farmer. God said,
I need somebody willing to get up before dawn milk cows,
work all day in the fields, milk cows again each supper,
then go to town and stay passed midnight at a
meeting of the school board.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
So God made a farmer.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf,
and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody
to call hogs, team, can tankeris machinery? Come home hungry,
have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I think we can agree that of all the things
Trump isn't, the one thing he most isn't is a farmer.
And the reason that the Paul Harvey original may sound
familiar to you is that during the twenty thirteen Super
Bowl broadcast part of that address by my old boss,
(20:40):
the guy for whom I was the official fill in
at ABC Radio for two years, Paul Harvey. So God
made a farmer that was repurposed in twenty thirteen as
part of a Super Bowl commercial for a RAM truck.
Trump's announcement that God made him, juxtaposed against the greatest
(21:04):
speak each Joe Biden has ever given, has yet given.
That Trump thing is stolen down to the guy doing
the bad voice impersonation, stolen from a cheap Super Bowl
truck ad, which is itself stolen from Paul Harvey's cornball
(21:26):
talk to a bunch of high school kids in Kansas
City more than forty five years ago. If this day
was not Trump's imbecility in a nutshell, I don't know
what could be the bizarre twist to the ESPN saga
(21:48):
of Pat McAfee, Aaron Rodgers, Jimmy Kimmel, and now my
old boss Norby Williamson coming up first after this break
the entirety of Joe Biden's speech that's next, This discountdown
now has promised the entirety of President Biden's speech at
(22:11):
Valley Forge Friday afternoon in which he cut Donald Trump
into little, bite sized pieces, a lot of pieces, but
still bite sized. Afterwards a break, then the update on
the Aaron Rodgers, Jimmy Kimmel mess at ESPN and Disney.
I have cut out the preamble from the President's speech,
both the introduction and the chant of four more years,
(22:31):
which the President himself seen both grateful for and in
a hurry to get beyond ladies and gentlemen, the President
of the United States.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
The topic of my speech today is deadly serious, and
I think it needs to be made at the outset
of this campaign. In the Winner of seventeen seventy seven
was harsh and cold.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
As a continental army march to.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Valley Forge, General George Washington knew he faced the most
daunting of tasks, fight and win a war against the
most powerful empire existed in the world at the time.
His mission was clear, liberty not conquest, freedom not domination,
(23:19):
national independence not individual Gloria.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
American made a bob.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Never again would we bow down to a king months ahead.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Would be incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
But General Washington knew something in his bones, something about
the spirit of the troops he was leading, something something
about the soul or the nation he was struggling to
be born. In his general order, he predicted, and I quote,
with one heart and one mind, with fortitude and with patience,
(24:00):
they would overcome.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Every difficulty the troops he was leading. And they did.
They did.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
This army the lack blankets and food, clothes and shoes,
This army whose march left bloody, bare footprints of the snow,
This rag tag army made up of ordinary people. Their mission,
George Washington declared, was nothing less than.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
A sacred cause. That was the phrase he used, A
sacred cause.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Freedom, liberty, democracy, American democracy. I just visited the grounds
of Valley Forge, have been their number of times in
the time I was a boy scout years ago.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
You know, it's the very sight that I.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Think every American should visit because it tells the story
of the pain and the suffering and the troop patriotism
it took to make America. Today, we gather in a
new year, some two hundred and forty six years later,
just one day before January sixth, a day forever shared
(25:06):
our memory, because it was on that day that we
nearly lost America, lost it all.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Today we're here to.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America's
sacred cause?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I mean it. This is not.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Where the democracy is still America's
sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time.
And that's what the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Is all about. Choice is clear.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Donald Trump's campaign is about him, not America, not you.
Donald Trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future.
He's only to sacrifice our democracy put himself in power.
Our campaign is different for me in common, our campaigns
(26:05):
about America.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
It's about you.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's about every age and background that occupied this country.
It's about the future We're going to continue to build together.
And our campaign is about preserving and strengthening our American democracy.
Three years ago tomorrow, we saw their own eyes, the
violent mob storm the United States Capitol. It was almost
(26:31):
in disbelief as you first turned down the television. For
the first time in our history, insurrections had come to
stop the peaceful transfer of power in America, first time,
Smashing windows, shattering doors, attacking the police outside. Gallows were
erected as the Maga crowd chanted hang Mike Pence. Inside,
(26:58):
they hunted for Speaker Pelosi. The house was chanting as
they marched through and smashed when windows, Where's Nancy?
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Over one hundred and forty police officers are injured.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Jill and I attended the funeral police officers who died
as result of the events of that day because Donald
because of Donald Trump's lies.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
They died because these lies brought a mom to Washington.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
He promised it would be wild, and it was. He
told the crowd to fight like hell, and all hell
was unleashed. He promised he would right them, write them
everything they did, He would be side by side with them. Then,
as usual, he left the dirty work to others. He
(27:46):
retreated to the White House. As America was attacked from within,
Donald Trump watched on TV in the private small dining
off off the Oval Office. The entire nation watch in horror.
The whole world watched.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
In disbelief, and Trump did nothing.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Members of his staff, members of his family, Republican leaders
who were under attack at that very moment pled with
him act call off the mob. Imagine how he gone
out and said stop, and still Trump did nothing.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Was among the worst.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Derelictions of duty by a president in American history. An
attempt to overturn a free and fair election by force
and violence.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
A record eighty one million people.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Voted for my candidacy and to end his presidency. Trump
lost the popular vote by seven million. Trump's claims about
the twenty twenty election never could stand up in court.
Trump lost sixty court cases sixty Trump lost the Republican
controlled states. Trump lost before a Trump appointed judge and
(29:04):
then judges, and Trump lost.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Before the United States Supreme Court all the laws.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Trump lost recount after recount after recount, and state after state.
But in desperation and weakness, Trump and his mega followers
went after election officials who ensured your power as a
citizens would be heard. These public service had their lives
forever upended by attacks and death threats for simply doing
(29:38):
their jobs. In Atlanta, Georgia, a brave black mother and
her daughter, Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss were doing their
jobs election workers until Donald Trump and his MAGA followers
targeted and threatened them, forcing them from their homes, unleashing
racist vitriol on them. Trump's personal lawyer ruled Juliana sit
(30:04):
with one hundred and forty eight million dollar judgment for
cruelty and defamation that he inflicted against them. Other state
and local elected officials across the country.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Faced similar personal attacks.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
In addition, Fox News agreed to pay a record eight
seven hundred and eighty seven million dollars for the lies
they told about voter fraud. Let's be clear about the
twenty twenty election. Trump exhausted every legal avenue available to
him to overturn the election. Everyone but the legal path
(30:43):
just took Trump.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Back to the truth.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
That I had won the election and he was a loser. Well, so,
knowing how his mind works now, he had one He
had one knack left, one desperate act available to him,
(31:08):
the violence of January the sixth. Since that day, more
than one thy two hundred people have been.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Charged for their soul in the Capitol.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Only nine hundred of them have been convicted or pled guilty. Collectively,
to date, they have been sentenced to more than eight
hundred and forty years in prison.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
What's Trump done?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Instead of calling him criminals, He's called these these insurrectionist patriots,
their patriots, and he promised to pardon them if he
returns to office. Trump said that there was a lot
of love on January the sixth. The rest of the nation,
(32:00):
including law enforcement, saw a lot of hatelence. One Capitol
police officer called it a medieval battle. That same officer
called vile rate was called vile racers names. He said
he was more afraid in the capital of the United
States of America, in the chambers than when he was
(32:23):
fighting as a soldier in the war in Iraq.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
So it was more.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Afraid inside the halls of Congress than fighting in war
in Iraq. And trying to rewrite the facts of January sixth,
Trump was trying to steal history the same way he
tried to steal the election.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
But we knew the.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Truth because we saw our own eyes. This wasn't like
something a story being told. It was on television repeatedly.
We saw it with our own eyes. Trump's mole wasn't
a peaceful protest. It was a violent assault. They were insurrectionists,
not patriots. They weren't there to uphold the Constitution. They
(33:07):
were there to destroy the Constitution. Trump won't do what
an American president must do. He refuses to denounce political violence.
So hear me clearly, I'll say what Donald Trump won't.
Political violence is never ever acceptable in the United States.
Politicals never never never, It has no price in a democracy, none.
(33:33):
It can't be prove insurrectionist and for American Trump and
his MAGA supporters not only embrace political violence, but they
laugh about it. At is rally, he jokes about an
intruder whipped up by the big Trump lie, taking a
hammer to Paul Pelosi's skull and echoing the very same
(33:57):
words youth on January sixth, Where's Nancy?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
And he thinks that's funny. He laughed about it. What
a sick My god. I think it's despicable.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Seriously, I was just for a present for any person
to say that, but to say it to the whole
world listening.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
When I was overseas.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Anyway, Trump's assault democracy isn't just part of his past.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It's what he's promising for the future. He's been straightforward.
He's not hiding the ball. His first rally for.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
The twenty twenty four campaign opened with a choir of
January sixth insurrectionists singing from prison on cell phone, while
images of the January sixth ride played on a big
screen behind him. At his rally, Can you believe that
this is like something out of a fairy tale? Bad
(35:04):
fairy t you. Trump began his twenty twenty four campaign
by glorifying the failed, violent insurrectionist insurrection at on our capitol.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
A guy who claims law and order sow's lawlessness and disorder.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Trump's not concerned about your future, I promise you. Trump
is now promising a full scale campaign of revenge and
retribution his words for some years to come. They were
his words, not mine. He went on to say he'd
be a dictator on day one. I mean, if I
(35:43):
were writing a book of fiction, I said, an American
president said that, and not in jest. He called in
I quote the termination quote this is quote, the termination
of all the rules, regulation and articles, even those found
in the US Constitution.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Should be terminated. Fitz's will.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
It's really kind of hard to believe even found in
the Constitution he could terminate. He's threatened the former Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, But the death penalty
says he should be put to death because the chairman
put his oath to the Constitution ahead of his personal
(36:32):
loyalty to Trump. This is coming from a president who
called when he visited the cemeteries, called dead soldiers suckers
and losers. Remember that sometimes I'm really happy the Irish
(37:01):
should be can't be seen. It was right around the
time I was at posegrave. Tommy, how dare he?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Who? In God's name do you think he is.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
With former age? Trump plans to invoke the Insurrections to
Act Insurrection Act, but to allow him to deploy It's
not allowed to do an NOORI sections allow him to
deploy US military forces on the streets of America.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
He said it.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
He calls those who oppose him vermin. He talks about
the blood of America's being poisoned. That going the same
exact language used in Nazi Germany.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
He probably posts on social.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Media the words that best described as twenty twenty four
campaign quote, revenge.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Quote, power quote, dictation, leadership.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
There's no confusion about who Trump is what he intends
to do. I placed my hand on our family Bible
and I swore an oath on the very same steps
of the Capitol just fourteen days after the attack on
January the sixth, as I looked out over the capital city,
(38:32):
whose streets were lined with National Guard to prevent another attack,
I saw an American that have been pushed to the brink,
America that had pushed to the brink.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
But I felt enormous pride, not in winning.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I felt enormous pride in America because American democracy had
been tested, American democracy.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Had held together.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
When Trump had seen weakness in our democracy and continued
to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
I saw strength.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Your strength, it's not hyperble, your strength, your integrity, American
strength and integrity. Ordinary citizens, state election officials, the American
judicial system had put the constitution first, and sometimes.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
At their peril, at their peril.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Because of them, Because of you, the will of the
people prevailed, not the anger of the mob or the
appetites of one man. When the attack on January sixth happened, there.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Was no doubt about the truth.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
At the time, even Republican members of Congress and Fox
News commentators publicly and privately condemned the attack, As one
Republican senator said, Trump's behavior was embarrassing and humiliating for
the country. But now that same senator and those same
(40:05):
people have changed their tomb. As time has gone gone on, politics, fear,
money all have intervened, And now these maga voices who
know the truth about Trump on January sixth, have abandoned
the truth of the abandoned the democracy.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
They made their choice.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Now the rest of us Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans, we
have to make our choice. I know mine, and I
believe I know Americas. We'll defend the truth, not giving
to the big lie. We'll embrace the constitution of the Declaration,
not abandoned it will honor the sacred cause of democracy,
(40:52):
not walk away from it. Today I make this sacred
pledge to you, the defense, protection, and preservation democracy would
remain as it has been the central cause of my
presidency America. As we begin the selection year, we must
(41:24):
be clear. Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is
on the ballot. Yes, we'll be voting on many issues.
I'm the freedom to vote and have you vote counted,
the freedom of choice, the freedom of a fair shot,
(41:46):
the freedom from fear.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
And will debate and disagree. Without democracy, no progress is
it possible.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Think about it. The al ternaive democracy is dictatorship, the.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Rule of one, not the rule of we. The people.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Of the soldiers of Valley Fours understood, so's me what
we have to understand as well. We've been blessed so
long with a strong, stable democracy.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
It's easy to forget why.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
So many before us missed their lives and strengthen democracy
what our lives would be without it. Democracy means having
the freedom to speak your mind, to be who you are,
to be, who you want to be. Democracy is about
being able to bring about peaceful change. Democracy. Democracy is
(42:44):
how we've opened the doors of opportunity wider and wider
with these successive generations, notwithstanding our mistakes. But if democracy falls,
we'll lose that freedom, will lose the power of we
the people to shape our destiny.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
If you doubt me, look around the world.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Travel with me as I meet with other heads of
state throughout the world.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Look at the authoritarian leaders and dictators.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Trump says, he admires, He out loud says he admires
the monk.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Go through them all will take too long. Look remember how.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
He first where you have referred to what he calls
love letter exchanges between he and the dictator of North Korea.
Those women and men out there in the audience ever
fought for the American military? Would you ever believe you
hear a president says something like that, his admiration for Putent.
(43:46):
I can go on.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
And look at what these autocrats are.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Doing to limit freedom in their countries, the eliminate freedom
of speed, treated the press, freedom to assemble, women's rights
LGPQW rights.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
People are going to jail so much more.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
It's true, the pushing pull of Themerican history is not
a fairy tale. Every stride forward in America is met
with ferocious backlash, many times from those who fear progress
and those who exploit that fear for their own personal gain,
From those who traffic and lies told for power and profit,
(44:23):
for those who are driven by grievance and grift, consumed
by conspiracy and victimhood. From those who seek to vary
history and ban books. Everything can be in a political
event talked about book banning for presidential and the presidential election.
(44:44):
The choice and contest between those forces, those competing forces,
between solidarity and division is perennial, But this time is
so different. You can't have a contest. You can't have
a contest if you see politics as an all out
war instead of a peaceful way to resolve our differences.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
All out wars with Trump.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Wants, that's why he doesn't understand the most fundamental truth
about this country. Unlike other nations on Earth, America is
not built on ethnicity, religion, geography. We're the only nation
in the history of the world built on an idea,
(45:30):
not hyperbly built on an idea.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
We hold these truths to be self evident.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
That all men and women are created equal. It's an
idea declared and the declaration created in a way that
we've viewed everybody's equal and should be treated ecals throughout
their lives.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
We've never fully lived up to that. We have a
long way to go, but we've never walked away from
the idea. We've never walked away from me.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
And I promise you I will not let Donald Trump
in the maga of republic can force us to walk alone.
Speaker 7 (46:07):
Non We're living in an era where.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
A determined minority is doing everything that his power to
try to destroy our democracy for their own agenda. The
American people know it, and they're standing bravely in the breach.
Remember after twenty twenty January sixth Insurrection, don't do the
election in which more Americans had voted than any other
(46:39):
in American history. Americas saw the threat posed book to
the country. They voted them out in twenty twenty two
historic midterm election and state after state election after election,
the election deniers were defeated. Now in twenty twenty four,
Trump is wanting as the denier in chief, the election
(47:01):
denier in chief once again, He's saying, and he won't honor.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
The results of the election if he loses.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Trump says he doesn't understand well, he still doesn't understand
the basic truth that is, you can't love your country only.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
When you win. You can't love your country only when
you're known.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I'll keep my commitment to be president for all of America,
whether you're voted for me or not. I've done it
for the last three years, and I'll continue to do it. Together,
we can keep proving that America is still a country
that believes in decency, dignity, honesty, honor, truth. We still
(47:49):
believe that no one, not even the presidents, above the law.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
We still believe.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
The vast majority of us still believe that everyone deserves
a fair shot at making it.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
We're still a nation that gives hate no safe harbor.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
I tell you from my experience working with leaders around
the world, and I mean it's sincerely not a joke
that America is still viewed as the beacon of democracy
for the world. I can't tell you how many how
many world leaders and I know all of them, virtually
all of them. Grab my arm in private, say you
(48:31):
can't win. Tell me no, my country will be at risk.
Think of how many countries, Tommy, you know that are
on the edge. Imagine we still believe in we the people.
That includes all of us, not some of us. Let
(48:52):
me close this. I'm a cole winner of seventeen seventy
seven George Washington and his American troops a valley for
his wags, the battle on behalf of a reel lutionary
idea that everyday people like where I come from him,
the vast majority of you, not a king or a dictator,
(49:13):
that everyday people can govern themselves.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Without a king or a dictator.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
In fact, in the rotunda the capital, there was a
giant painting a General George Washington, not President Washington, and
he is resigning his commission as commander in chief the
Continent Army. A European king at the time said, after
they won the revolution, now's the time for to declare
(49:40):
his kingship.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
But instead the mobs.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
That attack the Capitol, waving Trump flags and Confederate flags,
storm right past that portrait that image of George Washington
gave him no pause, but it should have. The artist
to paint that portrait will moralize that moment, because he
said it was quote one of the highest moral.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Less has ever given to the world. End of quote.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
George Washington was the height of his power, having just
defeated the most powerful empire on Earth.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Could have held on the power as long as he wanted.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
He could have made himself not a future president but
a future monarch in effect. And by the way, when
he got elected president, he could have stayed.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
For two, three, four or five terms till he died.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
But that wasn't the American He and the American troops
of Valley forge and fought, and America Genuine leaders, democratic
leaders with a small d don't hold.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
On to power relentlessly.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Our leaders returned power to the people, and they do
it willingly, because that's the Dealal.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
You do your duty, you serve.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Your country, and ours is the country worthy of service.
As many Republican presidents and Democratic presidents have shown over
the years, We're not perfect, but at our.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Best we face on.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
We face head on the good, the bad, the truth
of who we are.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
We look in the mirror and ultimately never from den
we're something we're not. That's what great nations do, and
we're a great nation. We're the greatest nation on the
face of the earth. We really are. That's the America
(51:52):
I see in our future.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
We get up, we carry on. We never bow, we
never been. We speak of possibilities, not carnate. We're not
weighed down by grievances. We don't foster fear. We don't
walk around as victims. We take charge of our destiny.
(52:16):
We get our job done with the people, to help
with the people we find in America who find their
place in the changing world and dream and build a
future that not only they, but all people deserve a
shot at. We don't believe, none of you believe America
is failing. We know America is winning. That's American patriotism.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
It's not winning because of Joe Biden. It's winning.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
This is the first national election since January sixth insurrection
place to dagger at the throat of American democracy. Since
that moment, we all know who Donald Trump is. A
question we have to answer is who are we? That's
what's at state.
Speaker 7 (53:07):
Who are we?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
In your head as you talk to your family, and friends,
cast your balance the powers in your hands. After all
we've been through in our history, from independence to civil war,
to two World wars, to a pandemic to insurrection, I
refuse to believe than in twenty twenty four are we
Americans will choose to walk away from what's made us
(53:33):
the greatest nation in the history of the world. Freedom, liberty,
democracy is still a sacred cause. And there's no country
in the world better position to lead the world than America.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
That's why I've said it many times.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
That's why I've never been more optimistic about our future.
And I've been doing this a hell of a long time.
Speaker 3 (53:58):
Just to remember who we are.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
With patience and fortitude, with one heart, we are the
United States of America, for God's sake.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
I mean it. There's nothing I believe, very frivor there's
nothing beyond our capacity.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
If we act together and decently, we want another nothing, nothing, nothing,
I mean it, with the only nation of the world's
come out a very crisis stronger than we went into
that crisis. That was true yesterday, it is true today,
and I guarantee you will be true tomorrow. God bless
(54:40):
you all to make God protect our truths.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Last week while we are here on a bullet and
basis developments in that sports story I mentioned during the
week in which Aaron Rodgers wants to popular quarterback of
the Green Bay Packers, and more recently, a man who
has talked his way out of the most loyal to
its player's community in all of sports, and who lied
to the National Football League and its fans about whether
or not he got vaccinated, and who admitted to using
(55:18):
a tee laced with a profound hallucinogenic drug, and who
has gradually revealed himself as a seriously stupid sucker for
whichever conspiracy theory is coming down the pike next. Rogers
crossed a line this week, passed on the Pat McAfee Show,
a new program for which ESPN just paid its namesake
(55:40):
host eighty five million dollars to run on its platforms.
Aaron Rodgers implied that when the Jeffrey Epstein lists were published,
Jimmy Kimmel of ABC would be mentioned. Rogers said that
when that happened, he would pop open a bottle of
something he did not rule out hallucinogenic. Ta Kimmel, who
(56:01):
liked McAfee and like Rogers, who is under contract to
McAfee to appear on his shows. They are all employed
by the same company, Disney, and within hours of the
Aaron Rodgers statement, Jimmy Kimmel tweeted that if Rodgers did
not stop this, he would sue Rogers for defamation. The
next day, McAfee pleaded ignorance. It did not take much effort.
(56:23):
He's pretty ignorant. McAfee said he believed there was no
cause for any problem here because Rogers was just quote
talking shit unquote. In fact, lawyers say that's not really
a defense that many courts will accept in a defamation suit.
A defamation suit by one Disney employee against two other
Disney employees McAfee and Rogers. Rodgers has not again appeared
(56:47):
on that show, nor did McAfee issue any kind of retraction.
What McAfee did do Friday, though, was to declare war
on ESPN. He accused executives of the company of leaking
inaccurate ratings about his program, since there had not been
any recent articles about those ratings, and since in fact,
(57:08):
ESPN PR put out a tweet Friday afternoon celebrating the
quote two hundred and ninety eight million views across all
ESPN platforms in December for McAfee's show. McAfee's claim seems
at best paranoid. Actually, what it is professionally is suicidal,
because McAfee named names, and he named the one ESPN
(57:30):
executive who has outlasted everybody who has ever worked there,
including me, including me the second time, including me the
third time when he personally got me rehired, including me
as he supervised the unlikeliest of ultimate outcomes to my
ESPN career, in which of all people who ever worked there,
(57:55):
I wound up retiring from ESPN, I got everything but
the gold Watch. The executive's name is Norby Williamson. This
is from the Pat McAfee show.
Speaker 8 (58:09):
There are some people actively trying to sabotage us from
within ESPN. More specifically, I believe Norby Williamson is the
guy who is attempting to sabotage our program.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
I'm not our hofsent sure.
Speaker 8 (58:22):
That is just seemingly the only human that has information,
and then somehow that information gets leaked and it's wrong,
and then it sets a narrative of what our show is.
And then are we just going to combat that from
a rat every single time I don't know, but like
somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release
with wrong numbers twelve hours beforehand. That's a sabotage attempt.
(58:45):
And it's been happening basically this entire season, from some
people who didn't necessarily love the old edition of the
Pat McFee Show to the ESPN family.
Speaker 3 (58:55):
Sure, there's a lot of those.
Speaker 8 (58:57):
We've heard them anonymously quoted in the Washington Post, in
the New York Post, in the New York Times, in
the La Times, in Wall Street Journal, and they're never like, yeah,
I love the show. This is all always like little
things to try to tear us down. So even with
the enemy within our own camp, somebody that we don't
I don't like that guy. That guy left me in
(59:18):
his office for forty five minutes. No showed me in
twenty eighteen. So this guy has had zero respect for me,
and in return, same thing back to him.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
I have known Norby Williamson since January nineteen ninety two.
He was the original line producer of the eleven PM
edition of SportsCenter, the one Dan Patrick and I co hosted.
You may have heard about it. Norby was the original
line producer of the ESPN two Sports Night Disaster, which
I hosted. You may have also heard about that he
(59:47):
was the head of ESPN Talent when I quit as
an ESPN talent. He was the lynchpin in discussions to
get me back to ESPN in two thousand and two,
two thousand and five, two thousand and seven, twenty twelve,
and finally when it actually happened in twenty thirteen, and
he personally brought me back again in twenty eighteen, personally
(01:00:10):
during a time of chaos at the company. I do
not know how many arguments Norby Williamson and I have
had over the decades, but the number may be in
the thousands. The number of meals we have shared together
is two. Sometimes those arguments came with laughter. Sometimes those
arguments came with screaming and bright red faces and bald
(01:00:32):
up fists. And yet we still text once a week
or so, usually about the New York Mets. And this
is the sum of all of the things I have
learned about Norby Williamson, all of the knowledge I have
gained about him in exactly thirty two years. Here it comes.
(01:00:52):
Norby Williamson always survives. The others they perish. He does
not perish. Also, something I have learned since the day
I brought into broadcasting in the first place, Management protect management.
Pat McAfee, who is a shirtless hobo, went on the
(01:01:15):
air Friday and gave ESPN all it legally needs to
fire him for cause and owe him out of his
eighty five million dollar deal exactly nothing, or it could
take him off the air, pay him the eighty five
million dollars, and prevent him from doing any show anywhere
for roughly the next four and a half years. That's impossible,
(01:01:36):
you say, And I have two words to answer that,
Tucker Karlson. ESPN also Friday issued an apology to and
about Jimmy Kimmel. It was quote a dumb and factually
inaccurate joke, said another vice president named Mike Foss, who
I do not know. It should never have happened. We
all realize that in the moment. Well, if that's true,
(01:01:57):
it's funny that it took McAfee's friends four days to
even offer an apology for something they realized in the moment,
let alone a retract. The retraction it still has not made.
All McAfee's people have done is given ESPN and acts
with which to at minimum make sure Aaron Rodgers never
appears on that show again, and more likely to end
(01:02:17):
McAfee's tenure there outright. To paraphrase the great Burt Lancaster
Tony Curtis film The Sweet Smell of Success, which is
also about media bullies. Your career's dead son, get yourself buried.
(01:02:43):
That's the special bullet and edition of Countdown. I'll be
back Tuesday as planned, barring more all time great speeches
by the President or or something else from this guy McAfee. Hello,
I'm Norby Williamson. Welcome to The Norby Williamson Show, replacing
the Pat McAfee Show. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
(01:03:03):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
(01:03:25):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This
is a January sixth Weekend bullet an edition to the
Countdown podcast. And you already know that my default position
when it comes to President Biden is one of deep respect,
(00:25):
deep affection and love. And having said that, even I
was stunned by the virtuosity of his pitch perfect speech
about Trump and the threat to democracy he represents, which
the President gave at Valley Forge on the eve of
the third anniversary of Trump's insurrection, in which Biden hit
every note ranging from whispered warning to raging righteousness, in
(00:48):
which his emotional ebb and flow went from the astonishment
of the moment to anger on behalf of every past
president and every dead soldier and every loyal American ever,
in which he roared from clear and unvarnished statement of
the danger of Trump and the dictatorship with which he
would kill America, and the still clearer and more unvarnished
(01:14):
delineation of the path by which to defeat it and
Trump and the fascists for all time. It was unexpectedly breathtaking.
It was honest to god JFK FDR level oratory.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all
men and women are created equal.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
It's an idea, it's.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Declared in the Declaration, created in a way that we've
fused everybody's equal and should be treated throughout their lives.
We've never fully lived up to that. We have a
long way to go, but we've never walked away from
the idea. He's never walked away from it. And I
(02:00):
promise you I will not let Donald Trump are the
magga Republicans force.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
They offer own.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
This speech was so extraordinary. It transported me to Roosevelt's
I welcome their hatred from the nineteen thirty six campaign,
and to Kennedy's ask not inaugural address, and forgive me
for getting this syrapy on you. It shocks even me
to do so, to something out of Jimmy Stewart and
mister Smith goes to Washington. The speech was so extraordinary
(02:34):
that I will devote the second block of this bulletin
to replaying it in full, because if you did not
hear it, it is worth your time to do so.
And even if you did hear it, it is worth
your time to hear it again. Hell, I think it
would be worth the President's time to give it again.
But if you don't have time, I want you to
(02:55):
hear these nine clips. And I'm bouncing all over the
place out of order, because all of it as a whole,
or just in standalone segments, was astonishing.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
It's true, the pushing pool of American history is not
a fairy tale. Every stride forward in America is met
with ferocious backlash, many times from those who fear progress
and those who exploit that fear for their own personal gain,
From those who trafficking lines told for power and profit,
(03:27):
for those who are driven by grievance and grift, consumed
by conspiracy and victimhood, from those who seek to bury
history and ban books.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Everything can be in a political event.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Talked about book banning for presidential and the presidential election,
the choice and contest between those forces, those competing forces,
between solidarity and division as perennial, but this time is
so different. You can't have a contest. You can't have
(04:04):
a contest if you see politics as an all out
war instead of a peaceful way to resolve our differences.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
All out wars what Trump wants.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You know what I think of Trump. You know what
I say about him every day, but all out war
is what Trump wants is simpler and truer than anything
I have ever said about him. The real genius of
this speech is something I alluded to at the start.
(04:35):
For literally fifty years, Joe Biden has been told to
stop wandering from tone to tone and from topic to topic,
to simplify both what he is talking about and how
he is talking about it, and in so doing he
has often been talked out of his greatest asset as
a speaker. Life is not one note. Being president is
(04:59):
not one topic. Defending democracy is not one sentence. The
interweaving of the deadly serious and the self deprecatingly comical,
and the simmering personal rage made this speech the epic
that it was, and never more so than when President
Biden talked about Trump's threats against General Mark Millie.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
He's threatened the former chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff,
but the death penalty says he should be put to
death because the chairman put his oath to the Constitution
ahead of his personal loyalty to Trump. He's coming from
a president who called when he visited the cemetery, called
(05:48):
dead soldiers.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Suckers and losers. Remember that.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Sometimes I'm really happy the tires should be can't be seen.
It was right around the time I was at Poe's grave. Tommy,
how dare he? Who in God's name do you think
he is?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
As I have mentioned many times, okay, boasted many times.
The President once took me to lunch to ask how
to better calibrate anger and righteous indignation so he would
seem more the latter and less the former. I do
not think I had a damn thing to do with this,
but he has mastered that rage, laughter, personal pain. And
(06:46):
then who in God's name does he think he is?
In whispered fury exactly? And if that calibration was not
obvious enough to you in that clip, it will be
in this next one. This circles back to the only
flaw in the entire higher speech that incoming heavy snow
(07:07):
forced the speech to be rescheduled from Saturday afternoon, essentially
at the exact minute of the three year anniversary of
Trump's insurrection, to Friday afternoon, because the essence of Biden's
speech was January sixth, twenty twenty one, Trump's Day, Trump's
day that he attacked America. The first day he attacked America.
(07:30):
The other attack on America by Donald Trump is in
progress right now.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Jill and I attended to funeral police officers who died
as a result of the events of that day because
because of Donald Trump's lies. They died because these lies
brought a mom to Washington. He promised it would be wild,
and it was. He told the crowd to fight like hell,
(07:56):
and all hell was unleashed. He promised he would write them,
write them everything they did. He would be side by
side with them. Then, as usual, he left the dirty
work to others. He retreated to the White House. As
America was attacked from within, Donald Trump watched on TV
(08:17):
in the private small dining off off the Oval Office.
The entire nation watch in horror. The whole world watched
in disbelief, and Trump did nothing. Members of his staff,
members of his family, Republican leaders who were under attack
(08:37):
for at that very.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Moment, pled with him act call off the mob.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Imagine how he gone out and said stop, and still
Trump did nothing. Was among the worst derelictions of duty
by a president in American history.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
This speech will be taught in schools unless Trump regains power,
in which case nothing will be taught in schools. Just
as he did not try to massage or soften the
edges of the threat we face. Just as he couched
in terms of what it is a war of defense
against an invasion by the alien anti democracy forces Trump
(09:18):
represents and leads. Resident Biden did not try to pretend
this was not a campaign speech. Quite the opposite.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
The choice is clear.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Donald Trump's campaign is about him, not America, not you.
Donald Trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future.
He's only to sacrifice our democracy put himself in power.
Our campaign is different for me and common. Our campaign
(09:49):
is about America. It's about you, It's about every age
and background that occupy this country. It's about the future.
We're going to continue to build together. And our campaign
is about preserving and strengthening our American democracts.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
As I have gathered my thoughts about this speech, I
have kept starting to write. But the best part was
Maybe this was the best part because it wasn't just
one part of the speech. It was textured throughout the
entire address, just as Joe Biden textured the same thing
throughout his speech at Independence Hall in September of twenty
(10:27):
twenty two. He did not do what he did in
a lot of his earliest speeches, avoid confronting Trump directly
and by name and by crime.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Trump won't do what an American president must do. She
refuses to denounce political violence.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So hear me clearly.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I'll say with Donald Tampont, political violence is never ever
acceptable in the United States.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Politicalsm never, never, never. It has no place in a democracy. None.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
It can't be pro insurrectionist for American exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
The best part of the speak, sorry, the most useful
part of this speech is that almost any of its elements,
any of its dozen two dozen components, could be extracted
and expanded upon and turned into its own twenty minute address.
Because this was not just a speech, This was a schedule.
It was a calendar of what Joe Biden intends to
(11:31):
hit Donald Trump with every day for the next ten
months until election Day. And one of the underrated elements
not just of the speech, but of the dizzying, nauseating
mailstrom of this most corrupt era of American politics in
all of our history, is gaslighting. It is the number
of Republican leaders and their prostitutes at Fox News and
(11:55):
Republican propaganda who decided that since the coup didn't work
and the mob didn't kill them, they could demean themselves
to retain power by slowly and almost imperceptibly backing away
from what they said that day, what they said when
the horror of Trump's terrorist attack of January sixth was
(12:18):
fresh and vivid, and even they called it what it was,
and that valley forge Biden reminded us that in his
campaign he will remind them.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
When the attack on January sixth happened, there was no
doubt about the truth. At the time, even Republican members
of Congress and Fox News commentators publicly and privately condemned
the attack, As one Republican senator said, Trump's behavior was
embarrassing and humiliating for the country. But now that same
(12:53):
senator and those same people have changed their tune as
time has gone gone on politics, fear money all, I'm interview,
And now these maga voices who know the truth about
Trump on January sixth have abandoned the truth and abandoned
the democracy.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
They made the choice.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Now the rest of US Democrats, independence mainstream Republicans, we
have to make our choice.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I know mine, and I believe.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I know Americas will defend the truth, not giving to
the big lie. We'll embrace the constitution of the Declaration,
not abandoned it. Well, honor the sacred cause of democracy,
not walk away from it.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
There is one other element that I hope the President
hits every time he opens his mouth between now and
November fifth. It is a point I hammer here daily again.
I am confident his use of it is coincidental. The
field of this war against Trump and dictatorship and now
Biden has made me think of Teddy Roosevelt and are
(14:04):
met at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord. The
field is littered with weapons to use against Trump, and
the weapons were left there by Trump himself. They are
his own, indefensible, irrational, Unamerican, subhuman words.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
He calls those who are oppose him vermin. He talks
about the blood of America is being poisoned.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
That going the same exact.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Language used in Nazi Germany. He probably posts on social
media the words that best described as twenty twenty four campaign,
quote revenge, quote power, and quote dictatorship. There's no confusion
about who Trump is, what he intends to do.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And my final highlight, some pure red meat, some pure
joy for those of us who you know prefer democracy
to dictatorship. President Joseph Robinett Biden Junior called Trump the
worst thing anyone can ever call Trump. It is something
(15:21):
Joe Biden should call him every day. It is something
you and I should call him every day. It is
something that burns into him and through him like a
thousand atomic bombs. It is the el word, the.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Legal path just to Trump back to the truth.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
That I had won the election and he was a loser,
well loser.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Nothing enrages Trump more than being called loser. As I said.
The full Biden speech follows the upcoming break, and after that,
while we are here, I have an update on this
war at ESPN and how the sleeveless vagrant guy they
hired for eighty five million dollars just gave them a
means to fire him for cause and pay him nothing.
(16:20):
But before we leave the subject of the Biden speech
at Valley Forge, let me provide you with just a
little context and contrast and explanation. First, what was Trump
doing during all this watching a short speech and taking
notes so he could say terrible things? No that would
involve working hard. He was in Iowa talking about immigrants
(16:43):
and saying something startling even for him, about how they
don't speak our language.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I believe now.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
That that's why they're allowing these people to come in,
people that don't speak our language.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
They're signing them up to vote.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And I believe that's why you're having millions of people
pour into our country and it could very well affect
the next election, and I believe that's why they're doing it.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Soon, all there will be in Donald Trump is the hatred.
All he will be able to say is the hatred,
and all those who support him will be able to
do is pretend that they are not also guilty of
the hatred when it is time to prosecute them all. Earlier,
Trump was posting a video that has been around for
(17:30):
a while in various forms that, as if you did
not already get the point, underscores that he is dementia
j Trump, but he is rapidly moving towards deification Jay Trump.
This went up on his social media site as Joe
Biden prepared to eviscerate him at Valley Forge. There is
an amazing backstory to this that I discovered. Very few
(17:52):
people know, so I will tell it. It is farcical.
It makes this ultimate delusion of grandeur, this Trumpian belief
or story that he was sent here by God, even
stupider than it is at face value, this amazing backstory
in a moment, first the audio track.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
And on June fourteenth, nineteen forty six, God looked down
on his planned paradise and said, I need a caretaker.
So God gave us Trump. God said, I need somebody
willing to get up before dawn, fix this country. Work
all day, fight the Marxists each supper, then go to
the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting
(18:36):
of the heads of state.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So God made Trump.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle the
deep state, and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild,
somebody to ruffle the feathers team.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I should have warned you to sit down first, shouldn't I?
If you have stopped seizing up with laughter or horror
or both, that is a parody right down to the
impersonation of the voice of the narrator of what I
will next play you. It was a speech that the
ABC radio news commentator Paul Harvey gave in November of
(19:13):
nineteen seventy eight two The Future Farmers of America. It
is called so God made a farmer. And if it's
beginning to ring a bell, it is because part of
this was rebroadcast in twenty thirteen. Here is the original
basis of sow. God made Trump and on the h there.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
God and looked down on his planned paradise and said,
I need a caretaker. So God made a farmer. God said,
I need somebody willing to get up before dawn milk cows,
work all day in the fields, milk cows again each supper,
then go to town and stay passed midnight at a
meeting of the school board.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
So God made a farmer.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf,
and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody
to call hogs, team, can tankeris machinery? Come home hungry,
have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I think we can agree that of all the things
Trump isn't, the one thing he most isn't is a farmer.
And the reason that the Paul Harvey original may sound
familiar to you is that during the twenty thirteen Super
Bowl broadcast part of that address by my old boss,
(20:40):
the guy for whom I was the official fill in
at ABC Radio for two years, Paul Harvey. So God
made a farmer that was repurposed in twenty thirteen as
part of a Super Bowl commercial for a RAM truck.
Trump's announcement that God made him, juxtaposed against the greatest
(21:04):
speak each Joe Biden has ever given, has yet given.
That Trump thing is stolen down to the guy doing
the bad voice impersonation, stolen from a cheap Super Bowl
truck ad, which is itself stolen from Paul Harvey's cornball
(21:26):
talk to a bunch of high school kids in Kansas
City more than forty five years ago. If this day
was not Trump's imbecility in a nutshell, I don't know
what could be the bizarre twist to the ESPN saga
(21:48):
of Pat McAfee, Aaron Rodgers, Jimmy Kimmel, and now my
old boss Norby Williamson coming up first after this break
the entirety of Joe Biden's speech that's next, This discountdown
now has promised the entirety of President Biden's speech at
(22:11):
Valley Forge Friday afternoon in which he cut Donald Trump
into little, bite sized pieces, a lot of pieces, but
still bite sized. Afterwards a break, then the update on
the Aaron Rodgers, Jimmy Kimmel mess at ESPN and Disney.
I have cut out the preamble from the President's speech,
both the introduction and the chant of four more years,
(22:31):
which the President himself seen both grateful for and in
a hurry to get beyond ladies and gentlemen, the President
of the United States.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
The topic of my speech today is deadly serious, and
I think it needs to be made at the outset
of this campaign. In the Winner of seventeen seventy seven
was harsh and cold.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
As a continental army march to.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Valley Forge, General George Washington knew he faced the most
daunting of tasks, fight and win a war against the
most powerful empire existed in the world at the time.
His mission was clear, liberty not conquest, freedom not domination,
(23:19):
national independence not individual Gloria.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
American made a bob.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Never again would we bow down to a king months ahead.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Would be incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
But General Washington knew something in his bones, something about
the spirit of the troops he was leading, something something
about the soul or the nation he was struggling to
be born. In his general order, he predicted, and I quote,
with one heart and one mind, with fortitude and with patience,
(24:00):
they would overcome.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Every difficulty the troops he was leading. And they did.
They did.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
This army the lack blankets and food, clothes and shoes,
This army whose march left bloody, bare footprints of the snow,
This rag tag army made up of ordinary people. Their mission,
George Washington declared, was nothing less than.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
A sacred cause. That was the phrase he used, A
sacred cause.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Freedom, liberty, democracy, American democracy. I just visited the grounds
of Valley Forge, have been their number of times in
the time I was a boy scout years ago.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
You know, it's the very sight that I.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Think every American should visit because it tells the story
of the pain and the suffering and the troop patriotism
it took to make America. Today, we gather in a
new year, some two hundred and forty six years later,
just one day before January sixth, a day forever shared
(25:06):
our memory, because it was on that day that we
nearly lost America, lost it all.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Today we're here to.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America's
sacred cause?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I mean it. This is not.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Where the democracy is still America's
sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time.
And that's what the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Is all about. Choice is clear.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Donald Trump's campaign is about him, not America, not you.
Donald Trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future.
He's only to sacrifice our democracy put himself in power.
Our campaign is different for me in common, our campaigns
(26:05):
about America.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
It's about you.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's about every age and background that occupied this country.
It's about the future We're going to continue to build together.
And our campaign is about preserving and strengthening our American democracy.
Three years ago tomorrow, we saw their own eyes, the
violent mob storm the United States Capitol. It was almost
(26:31):
in disbelief as you first turned down the television. For
the first time in our history, insurrections had come to
stop the peaceful transfer of power in America, first time,
Smashing windows, shattering doors, attacking the police outside. Gallows were
erected as the Maga crowd chanted hang Mike Pence. Inside,
(26:58):
they hunted for Speaker Pelosi. The house was chanting as
they marched through and smashed when windows, Where's Nancy?
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Over one hundred and forty police officers are injured.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Jill and I attended the funeral police officers who died
as result of the events of that day because Donald
because of Donald Trump's lies.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
They died because these lies brought a mom to Washington.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
He promised it would be wild, and it was. He
told the crowd to fight like hell, and all hell
was unleashed. He promised he would right them, write them
everything they did, He would be side by side with them. Then,
as usual, he left the dirty work to others. He
(27:46):
retreated to the White House. As America was attacked from within,
Donald Trump watched on TV in the private small dining
off off the Oval Office. The entire nation watch in horror.
The whole world watched.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
In disbelief, and Trump did nothing.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Members of his staff, members of his family, Republican leaders
who were under attack at that very moment pled with
him act call off the mob. Imagine how he gone
out and said stop, and still Trump did nothing.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Was among the worst.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Derelictions of duty by a president in American history. An
attempt to overturn a free and fair election by force
and violence.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
A record eighty one million people.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Voted for my candidacy and to end his presidency. Trump
lost the popular vote by seven million. Trump's claims about
the twenty twenty election never could stand up in court.
Trump lost sixty court cases sixty Trump lost the Republican
controlled states. Trump lost before a Trump appointed judge and
(29:04):
then judges, and Trump lost.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Before the United States Supreme Court all the laws.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Trump lost recount after recount after recount, and state after state.
But in desperation and weakness, Trump and his mega followers
went after election officials who ensured your power as a
citizens would be heard. These public service had their lives
forever upended by attacks and death threats for simply doing
(29:38):
their jobs. In Atlanta, Georgia, a brave black mother and
her daughter, Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss were doing their
jobs election workers until Donald Trump and his MAGA followers
targeted and threatened them, forcing them from their homes, unleashing
racist vitriol on them. Trump's personal lawyer ruled Juliana sit
(30:04):
with one hundred and forty eight million dollar judgment for
cruelty and defamation that he inflicted against them. Other state
and local elected officials across the country.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Faced similar personal attacks.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
In addition, Fox News agreed to pay a record eight
seven hundred and eighty seven million dollars for the lies
they told about voter fraud. Let's be clear about the
twenty twenty election. Trump exhausted every legal avenue available to
him to overturn the election. Everyone but the legal path
(30:43):
just took Trump.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Back to the truth.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
That I had won the election and he was a loser. Well, so,
knowing how his mind works now, he had one He
had one knack left, one desperate act available to him,
(31:08):
the violence of January the sixth. Since that day, more
than one thy two hundred people have been.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Charged for their soul in the Capitol.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Only nine hundred of them have been convicted or pled guilty. Collectively,
to date, they have been sentenced to more than eight
hundred and forty years in prison.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
What's Trump done?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Instead of calling him criminals, He's called these these insurrectionist patriots,
their patriots, and he promised to pardon them if he
returns to office. Trump said that there was a lot
of love on January the sixth. The rest of the nation,
(32:00):
including law enforcement, saw a lot of hatelence. One Capitol
police officer called it a medieval battle. That same officer
called vile rate was called vile racers names. He said
he was more afraid in the capital of the United
States of America, in the chambers than when he was
(32:23):
fighting as a soldier in the war in Iraq.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
So it was more.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Afraid inside the halls of Congress than fighting in war
in Iraq. And trying to rewrite the facts of January sixth,
Trump was trying to steal history the same way he
tried to steal the election.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
But we knew the.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Truth because we saw our own eyes. This wasn't like
something a story being told. It was on television repeatedly.
We saw it with our own eyes. Trump's mole wasn't
a peaceful protest. It was a violent assault. They were insurrectionists,
not patriots. They weren't there to uphold the Constitution. They
(33:07):
were there to destroy the Constitution. Trump won't do what
an American president must do. He refuses to denounce political violence.
So hear me clearly, I'll say what Donald Trump won't.
Political violence is never ever acceptable in the United States.
Politicals never never never, It has no price in a democracy, none.
(33:33):
It can't be prove insurrectionist and for American Trump and
his MAGA supporters not only embrace political violence, but they
laugh about it. At is rally, he jokes about an
intruder whipped up by the big Trump lie, taking a
hammer to Paul Pelosi's skull and echoing the very same
(33:57):
words youth on January sixth, Where's Nancy?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
And he thinks that's funny. He laughed about it. What
a sick My god. I think it's despicable.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Seriously, I was just for a present for any person
to say that, but to say it to the whole
world listening.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
When I was overseas.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Anyway, Trump's assault democracy isn't just part of his past.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It's what he's promising for the future. He's been straightforward.
He's not hiding the ball. His first rally for.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
The twenty twenty four campaign opened with a choir of
January sixth insurrectionists singing from prison on cell phone, while
images of the January sixth ride played on a big
screen behind him. At his rally, Can you believe that
this is like something out of a fairy tale? Bad
(35:04):
fairy t you. Trump began his twenty twenty four campaign
by glorifying the failed, violent insurrectionist insurrection at on our capitol.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
A guy who claims law and order sow's lawlessness and disorder.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Trump's not concerned about your future, I promise you. Trump
is now promising a full scale campaign of revenge and
retribution his words for some years to come. They were
his words, not mine. He went on to say he'd
be a dictator on day one. I mean, if I
(35:43):
were writing a book of fiction, I said, an American
president said that, and not in jest. He called in
I quote the termination quote this is quote, the termination
of all the rules, regulation and articles, even those found
in the US Constitution.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Should be terminated. Fitz's will.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
It's really kind of hard to believe even found in
the Constitution he could terminate. He's threatened the former Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, But the death penalty
says he should be put to death because the chairman
put his oath to the Constitution ahead of his personal
(36:32):
loyalty to Trump. This is coming from a president who
called when he visited the cemeteries, called dead soldiers suckers
and losers. Remember that sometimes I'm really happy the Irish
(37:01):
should be can't be seen. It was right around the
time I was at posegrave. Tommy, how dare he?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Who? In God's name do you think he is.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
With former age? Trump plans to invoke the Insurrections to
Act Insurrection Act, but to allow him to deploy It's
not allowed to do an NOORI sections allow him to
deploy US military forces on the streets of America.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
He said it.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
He calls those who oppose him vermin. He talks about
the blood of America's being poisoned. That going the same
exact language used in Nazi Germany.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
He probably posts on social.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Media the words that best described as twenty twenty four
campaign quote, revenge.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Quote, power quote, dictation, leadership.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
There's no confusion about who Trump is what he intends
to do. I placed my hand on our family Bible
and I swore an oath on the very same steps
of the Capitol just fourteen days after the attack on
January the sixth, as I looked out over the capital city,
(38:32):
whose streets were lined with National Guard to prevent another attack,
I saw an American that have been pushed to the brink,
America that had pushed to the brink.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
But I felt enormous pride, not in winning.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I felt enormous pride in America because American democracy had
been tested, American democracy.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Had held together.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
When Trump had seen weakness in our democracy and continued
to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
I saw strength.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Your strength, it's not hyperble, your strength, your integrity, American
strength and integrity. Ordinary citizens, state election officials, the American
judicial system had put the constitution first, and sometimes.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
At their peril, at their peril.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Because of them, Because of you, the will of the
people prevailed, not the anger of the mob or the
appetites of one man. When the attack on January sixth happened, there.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Was no doubt about the truth.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
At the time, even Republican members of Congress and Fox
News commentators publicly and privately condemned the attack, As one
Republican senator said, Trump's behavior was embarrassing and humiliating for
the country. But now that same senator and those same
(40:05):
people have changed their tomb. As time has gone gone on, politics, fear,
money all have intervened, And now these maga voices who
know the truth about Trump on January sixth, have abandoned
the truth of the abandoned the democracy.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
They made their choice.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Now the rest of us Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans, we
have to make our choice. I know mine, and I
believe I know Americas. We'll defend the truth, not giving
to the big lie. We'll embrace the constitution of the Declaration,
not abandoned it will honor the sacred cause of democracy,
(40:52):
not walk away from it. Today I make this sacred
pledge to you, the defense, protection, and preservation democracy would
remain as it has been the central cause of my
presidency America. As we begin the selection year, we must
(41:24):
be clear. Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is
on the ballot. Yes, we'll be voting on many issues.
I'm the freedom to vote and have you vote counted,
the freedom of choice, the freedom of a fair shot,
(41:46):
the freedom from fear.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
And will debate and disagree. Without democracy, no progress is
it possible.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Think about it. The al ternaive democracy is dictatorship, the.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Rule of one, not the rule of we. The people.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Of the soldiers of Valley Fours understood, so's me what
we have to understand as well. We've been blessed so
long with a strong, stable democracy.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
It's easy to forget why.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
So many before us missed their lives and strengthen democracy
what our lives would be without it. Democracy means having
the freedom to speak your mind, to be who you are,
to be, who you want to be. Democracy is about
being able to bring about peaceful change. Democracy. Democracy is
(42:44):
how we've opened the doors of opportunity wider and wider
with these successive generations, notwithstanding our mistakes. But if democracy falls,
we'll lose that freedom, will lose the power of we
the people to shape our destiny.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
If you doubt me, look around the world.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Travel with me as I meet with other heads of
state throughout the world.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Look at the authoritarian leaders and dictators.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Trump says, he admires, He out loud says he admires
the monk.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Go through them all will take too long. Look remember how.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
He first where you have referred to what he calls
love letter exchanges between he and the dictator of North Korea.
Those women and men out there in the audience ever
fought for the American military? Would you ever believe you
hear a president says something like that, his admiration for Putent.
(43:46):
I can go on.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
And look at what these autocrats are.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Doing to limit freedom in their countries, the eliminate freedom
of speed, treated the press, freedom to assemble, women's rights
LGPQW rights.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
People are going to jail so much more.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
It's true, the pushing pull of Themerican history is not
a fairy tale. Every stride forward in America is met
with ferocious backlash, many times from those who fear progress
and those who exploit that fear for their own personal gain,
From those who traffic and lies told for power and profit,
(44:23):
for those who are driven by grievance and grift, consumed
by conspiracy and victimhood. From those who seek to vary
history and ban books. Everything can be in a political
event talked about book banning for presidential and the presidential election.
(44:44):
The choice and contest between those forces, those competing forces,
between solidarity and division is perennial, But this time is
so different. You can't have a contest. You can't have
a contest if you see politics as an all out
war instead of a peaceful way to resolve our differences.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
All out wars with Trump.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Wants, that's why he doesn't understand the most fundamental truth
about this country. Unlike other nations on Earth, America is
not built on ethnicity, religion, geography. We're the only nation
in the history of the world built on an idea,
(45:30):
not hyperbly built on an idea.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
We hold these truths to be self evident.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
That all men and women are created equal. It's an
idea declared and the declaration created in a way that
we've viewed everybody's equal and should be treated ecals throughout
their lives.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
We've never fully lived up to that. We have a
long way to go, but we've never walked away from
the idea. We've never walked away from me.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
And I promise you I will not let Donald Trump
in the maga of republic can force us to walk alone.
Speaker 7 (46:07):
Non We're living in an era where.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
A determined minority is doing everything that his power to
try to destroy our democracy for their own agenda. The
American people know it, and they're standing bravely in the breach.
Remember after twenty twenty January sixth Insurrection, don't do the
election in which more Americans had voted than any other
(46:39):
in American history. Americas saw the threat posed book to
the country. They voted them out in twenty twenty two
historic midterm election and state after state election after election,
the election deniers were defeated. Now in twenty twenty four,
Trump is wanting as the denier in chief, the election
(47:01):
denier in chief once again, He's saying, and he won't honor.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
The results of the election if he loses.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Trump says he doesn't understand well, he still doesn't understand
the basic truth that is, you can't love your country only.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
When you win. You can't love your country only when
you're known.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I'll keep my commitment to be president for all of America,
whether you're voted for me or not. I've done it
for the last three years, and I'll continue to do it. Together,
we can keep proving that America is still a country
that believes in decency, dignity, honesty, honor, truth. We still
(47:49):
believe that no one, not even the presidents, above the law.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
We still believe.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
The vast majority of us still believe that everyone deserves
a fair shot at making it.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
We're still a nation that gives hate no safe harbor.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
I tell you from my experience working with leaders around
the world, and I mean it's sincerely not a joke
that America is still viewed as the beacon of democracy
for the world. I can't tell you how many how
many world leaders and I know all of them, virtually
all of them. Grab my arm in private, say you
(48:31):
can't win. Tell me no, my country will be at risk.
Think of how many countries, Tommy, you know that are
on the edge. Imagine we still believe in we the people.
That includes all of us, not some of us. Let
(48:52):
me close this. I'm a cole winner of seventeen seventy
seven George Washington and his American troops a valley for
his wags, the battle on behalf of a reel lutionary
idea that everyday people like where I come from him,
the vast majority of you, not a king or a dictator,
(49:13):
that everyday people can govern themselves.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Without a king or a dictator.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
In fact, in the rotunda the capital, there was a
giant painting a General George Washington, not President Washington, and
he is resigning his commission as commander in chief the
Continent Army. A European king at the time said, after
they won the revolution, now's the time for to declare
(49:40):
his kingship.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
But instead the mobs.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
That attack the Capitol, waving Trump flags and Confederate flags,
storm right past that portrait that image of George Washington
gave him no pause, but it should have. The artist
to paint that portrait will moralize that moment, because he
said it was quote one of the highest moral.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Less has ever given to the world. End of quote.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
George Washington was the height of his power, having just
defeated the most powerful empire on Earth.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Could have held on the power as long as he wanted.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
He could have made himself not a future president but
a future monarch in effect. And by the way, when
he got elected president, he could have stayed.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
For two, three, four or five terms till he died.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
But that wasn't the American He and the American troops
of Valley forge and fought, and America Genuine leaders, democratic
leaders with a small d don't hold.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
On to power relentlessly.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Our leaders returned power to the people, and they do
it willingly, because that's the Dealal.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
You do your duty, you serve.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Your country, and ours is the country worthy of service.
As many Republican presidents and Democratic presidents have shown over
the years, We're not perfect, but at our.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Best we face on.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
We face head on the good, the bad, the truth
of who we are.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
We look in the mirror and ultimately never from den
we're something we're not. That's what great nations do, and
we're a great nation. We're the greatest nation on the
face of the earth. We really are. That's the America
(51:52):
I see in our future.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
We get up, we carry on. We never bow, we
never been. We speak of possibilities, not carnate. We're not
weighed down by grievances. We don't foster fear. We don't
walk around as victims. We take charge of our destiny.
(52:16):
We get our job done with the people, to help
with the people we find in America who find their
place in the changing world and dream and build a
future that not only they, but all people deserve a
shot at. We don't believe, none of you believe America
is failing. We know America is winning. That's American patriotism.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
It's not winning because of Joe Biden. It's winning.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
This is the first national election since January sixth insurrection
place to dagger at the throat of American democracy. Since
that moment, we all know who Donald Trump is. A
question we have to answer is who are we? That's
what's at state.
Speaker 7 (53:07):
Who are we?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
In your head as you talk to your family, and friends,
cast your balance the powers in your hands. After all
we've been through in our history, from independence to civil war,
to two World wars, to a pandemic to insurrection, I
refuse to believe than in twenty twenty four are we
Americans will choose to walk away from what's made us
(53:33):
the greatest nation in the history of the world. Freedom, liberty,
democracy is still a sacred cause. And there's no country
in the world better position to lead the world than America.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
That's why I've said it many times.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
That's why I've never been more optimistic about our future.
And I've been doing this a hell of a long time.
Speaker 3 (53:58):
Just to remember who we are.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
With patience and fortitude, with one heart, we are the
United States of America, for God's sake.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
I mean it. There's nothing I believe, very frivor there's
nothing beyond our capacity.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
If we act together and decently, we want another nothing, nothing, nothing,
I mean it, with the only nation of the world's
come out a very crisis stronger than we went into
that crisis. That was true yesterday, it is true today,
and I guarantee you will be true tomorrow. God bless
(54:40):
you all to make God protect our truths.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Last week while we are here on a bullet and
basis developments in that sports story I mentioned during the
week in which Aaron Rodgers wants to popular quarterback of
the Green Bay Packers, and more recently, a man who
has talked his way out of the most loyal to
its player's community in all of sports, and who lied
to the National Football League and its fans about whether
or not he got vaccinated, and who admitted to using
(55:18):
a tee laced with a profound hallucinogenic drug, and who
has gradually revealed himself as a seriously stupid sucker for
whichever conspiracy theory is coming down the pike next. Rogers
crossed a line this week, passed on the Pat McAfee Show,
a new program for which ESPN just paid its namesake
(55:40):
host eighty five million dollars to run on its platforms.
Aaron Rodgers implied that when the Jeffrey Epstein lists were published,
Jimmy Kimmel of ABC would be mentioned. Rogers said that
when that happened, he would pop open a bottle of
something he did not rule out hallucinogenic. Ta Kimmel, who
(56:01):
liked McAfee and like Rogers, who is under contract to
McAfee to appear on his shows. They are all employed
by the same company, Disney, and within hours of the
Aaron Rodgers statement, Jimmy Kimmel tweeted that if Rodgers did
not stop this, he would sue Rogers for defamation. The
next day, McAfee pleaded ignorance. It did not take much effort.
(56:23):
He's pretty ignorant. McAfee said he believed there was no
cause for any problem here because Rogers was just quote
talking shit unquote. In fact, lawyers say that's not really
a defense that many courts will accept in a defamation suit.
A defamation suit by one Disney employee against two other
Disney employees McAfee and Rogers. Rodgers has not again appeared
(56:47):
on that show, nor did McAfee issue any kind of retraction.
What McAfee did do Friday, though, was to declare war
on ESPN. He accused executives of the company of leaking
inaccurate ratings about his program, since there had not been
any recent articles about those ratings, and since in fact,
(57:08):
ESPN PR put out a tweet Friday afternoon celebrating the
quote two hundred and ninety eight million views across all
ESPN platforms in December for McAfee's show. McAfee's claim seems
at best paranoid. Actually, what it is professionally is suicidal,
because McAfee named names, and he named the one ESPN
(57:30):
executive who has outlasted everybody who has ever worked there,
including me, including me the second time, including me the
third time when he personally got me rehired, including me
as he supervised the unlikeliest of ultimate outcomes to my
ESPN career, in which of all people who ever worked there,
(57:55):
I wound up retiring from ESPN, I got everything but
the gold Watch. The executive's name is Norby Williamson. This
is from the Pat McAfee show.
Speaker 8 (58:09):
There are some people actively trying to sabotage us from
within ESPN. More specifically, I believe Norby Williamson is the
guy who is attempting to sabotage our program.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
I'm not our hofsent sure.
Speaker 8 (58:22):
That is just seemingly the only human that has information,
and then somehow that information gets leaked and it's wrong,
and then it sets a narrative of what our show is.
And then are we just going to combat that from
a rat every single time I don't know, but like
somebody tried to get ahead of our actual ratings release
with wrong numbers twelve hours beforehand. That's a sabotage attempt.
(58:45):
And it's been happening basically this entire season, from some
people who didn't necessarily love the old edition of the
Pat McFee Show to the ESPN family.
Speaker 3 (58:55):
Sure, there's a lot of those.
Speaker 8 (58:57):
We've heard them anonymously quoted in the Washington Post, in
the New York Post, in the New York Times, in
the La Times, in Wall Street Journal, and they're never like, yeah,
I love the show. This is all always like little
things to try to tear us down. So even with
the enemy within our own camp, somebody that we don't
I don't like that guy. That guy left me in
(59:18):
his office for forty five minutes. No showed me in
twenty eighteen. So this guy has had zero respect for me,
and in return, same thing back to him.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
I have known Norby Williamson since January nineteen ninety two.
He was the original line producer of the eleven PM
edition of SportsCenter, the one Dan Patrick and I co hosted.
You may have heard about it. Norby was the original
line producer of the ESPN two Sports Night Disaster, which
I hosted. You may have also heard about that he
(59:47):
was the head of ESPN Talent when I quit as
an ESPN talent. He was the lynchpin in discussions to
get me back to ESPN in two thousand and two,
two thousand and five, two thousand and seven, twenty twelve,
and finally when it actually happened in twenty thirteen, and
he personally brought me back again in twenty eighteen, personally
(01:00:10):
during a time of chaos at the company. I do
not know how many arguments Norby Williamson and I have
had over the decades, but the number may be in
the thousands. The number of meals we have shared together
is two. Sometimes those arguments came with laughter. Sometimes those
arguments came with screaming and bright red faces and bald
(01:00:32):
up fists. And yet we still text once a week
or so, usually about the New York Mets. And this
is the sum of all of the things I have
learned about Norby Williamson, all of the knowledge I have
gained about him in exactly thirty two years. Here it comes.
(01:00:52):
Norby Williamson always survives. The others they perish. He does
not perish. Also, something I have learned since the day
I brought into broadcasting in the first place, Management protect management.
Pat McAfee, who is a shirtless hobo, went on the
(01:01:15):
air Friday and gave ESPN all it legally needs to
fire him for cause and owe him out of his
eighty five million dollar deal exactly nothing, or it could
take him off the air, pay him the eighty five
million dollars, and prevent him from doing any show anywhere
for roughly the next four and a half years. That's impossible,
(01:01:36):
you say, And I have two words to answer that,
Tucker Karlson. ESPN also Friday issued an apology to and
about Jimmy Kimmel. It was quote a dumb and factually
inaccurate joke, said another vice president named Mike Foss, who
I do not know. It should never have happened. We
all realize that in the moment. Well, if that's true,
(01:01:57):
it's funny that it took McAfee's friends four days to
even offer an apology for something they realized in the moment,
let alone a retract. The retraction it still has not made.
All McAfee's people have done is given ESPN and acts
with which to at minimum make sure Aaron Rodgers never
appears on that show again, and more likely to end
(01:02:17):
McAfee's tenure there outright. To paraphrase the great Burt Lancaster
Tony Curtis film The Sweet Smell of Success, which is
also about media bullies. Your career's dead son, get yourself buried.
(01:02:43):
That's the special bullet and edition of Countdown. I'll be
back Tuesday as planned, barring more all time great speeches
by the President or or something else from this guy McAfee. Hello,
I'm Norby Williamson. Welcome to The Norby Williamson Show, replacing
the Pat McAfee Show. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
(01:03:03):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
(01:03:25):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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