March 17, 2025 • 59 mins
BULLETIN SEASON 3 EPISODE 110: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) BULLETIN: Schumer follows his cowardice towards Trump with cowardice towards Democrats, cancels book tour the day it was to begin.
Insane Dictator Trump decides Biden's pardons are "void, vacant, and of no future force of effect" because he questions Biden's mental awareness, raising three small problems: 1) this puts TRUMP's mental awareness on the table and at the center of all HIS legal decisions going forward; 2) it obviously didn't occur to him but if President 47 can invalidate the pardons of President 46 for any reason, then President 48 can invalidate the pardons of President 47 for any reason - and all those people doing potentially indictable things like Marco Rubio and Tom Homan and Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk can no longer be certain they will avoid legal exposure (DUH) just as Rubio (with the help of countless agents and with Karoline Leavitt joining the plot from the White House podium) add to evidence of a conspiracy to violate the rulings of federal courts; and 3) it means that all the pardons Trump has already issued (like of the January 6th terrorists, or Steve Bannon, or Charles Kushner) or the ones he's about to (like Pete Rose) are in doubt.
Great work, Sparky.
THE REST OF THIS BULLETIN IS A REPRISE OF TODAY'S REGULARLY SCHEDULED PODCAST (17:15) SPECIAL COMMENT: How do you remove a Senate Democratic Leader? CAN you remove a Senate Democratic Leader?
Oh my, yes. You can do it before the top of the hour. Certainly before tomorrow.
I'll lay it out for you.
It can happen provided you note Schumer is having a book event tonight at the Enoch Pratt Central Library in Baltimore at 7 PM. It takes a little guts. Takes angry civilians. Takes the 36 Senate Democrats and one Independent whom Chuck Schumer betrayed to stick their necks out again. Takes the whole lot of them to run the minor risk of fracturing the Senate caucus or the Democratic Party - but why not? It's not like they're doing anything.
Not when TWO new polls suggest Democrats are fed up with this group, that vast majorities demand RESISTANCE to Trump, not bipartisan crap, that the leader who best represents the ideals of the party is AOC (10%) as opposed to Obama (4%) and Schumer (2%) and worst of all - nobody (30%).
We should be talking about resistance, about Trump being twelve points underwater on the economy, about Musk retweeting the claim that Hitler didn't commit the holocaust, his public sector workers did, about Trump beginning to defy court orders to illegally deport people to third-party strongman states.
But we're not - because of Chuck Schumer. Time for him to GO.
B-Block (38:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The world is coming apart and Politico devoted its lead 26 paragraphs to a journalism party. Alina Habba is a moron, Part 9,763. And Marco Rubio and the "president" of El Salvador are mocking American law. See you at the World Court, boys.
C-Block (49:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I'm under the weather and that always flashes me back to the day I was 21 and my doctor since my childhood gave me some muscle relaxants without warning me of the side effects. Hilarity ensued.
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 Countdown bulletin podcast. I'm Keith Olberman and soon
to be former Senate Minority Leader. Chuck Schumer has canceled
(00:25):
at least all of this week stops on his book
tour about ten hours before its first event at the
Enoch Pratz Central Library in Baltimore was to begin Monday evening,
and about twenty four hours after I questioned if this
tour could possibly go on as scheduled. I questioned that
here on Monday's edition of the Countdown podcast. This is
(00:49):
the first good strategic decision by Chuck Schumer in years,
and it reflects his personal courage. If anything could better
explain why Chuck Schumer is the wrong man to be
leading the minority opposition party as the President of the
United States attempts to eliminate democracy and institute an authoritarian regime.
(01:12):
If anything else, underscored what a weasel Chuck Schumer is.
Where he is timeline wise, why he thinks this is
still sometime in the twentieth century, Why he needs to go,
why he needs to resign from the Senate. It's this
he cannot face his own voters and his own protesters
(01:32):
protesting his own cowardice. It's cowardice in the face of cowardice.
In addition to this, of course, the guy who was
going to go with Schumer and be his interlocutor in
this his inquisitor. His interviewer was Congressman Richie Torres, who
had publicly criticized the Democrats, the ten the Quizzlings who
(01:54):
passed the Trump Enabling Act on Friday, the Enabling Act
consisting of the Continuing Resolution to keep the government from
shutting down, which would have been seen as Elon Musk's fault,
which the Republicans are trying to do anyway, And of
course in there the poisoned pill that Schumer happily swallowed
on behalf of America that hides any inquiry from Musk.
(02:15):
Musk cannot be his actions cannot be, The Dodge people
cannot be examined by Congress. That's part of the bill
that Schumer approved. Well, the tour would have been fun Officially,
it has been, according to Schumer's office, canceled due to
consecurity concerns. Senator Schumer's book events are being rescheduled yes
(02:41):
to the year twenty two seventy four. Unofficially, the opposite
of security is, of course, insecurity, and that's Chuck Schumer.
At the moment. Unofficially, Chuck Schumer has no idea how
to proceed now, not only as the Democratic leader in
the Senate, not only as a Senator, but in his
(03:01):
own personal life. He is days away from the end
of his professional career. As I suggested, it's very easily obtained.
Thirty six Democrats and Sanders form their own caucus, because
if you're not going to use forty seven minority votes
in the Senate to try to slow Trump down, what's
the difference If you only have thirty seven votes, You
(03:23):
create your own new Democrats or New Zoo Review or
whatever you want to call it, and then if they
are nice to you, you invite the other nine on
the condition that Chuck Schumer resigns from the Senate. More
on Schumer's cowardice that plan in particular, and the Democrats
plight in a moment. But there are two other breaking
headlines on Monday, the insane idiot dictator Trump with something
(03:47):
absolutely astonishingly dictatorial and nineteen eighty four ish even for him,
which has already blown up in his face because, as usual,
he did not think one step beyond his own ego. Quote.
The pardons that Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of
political thugs and many others are hereby declared void, vacant,
(04:09):
and of no further force or effect because of the
fact that they were done by Auto Penn. In other words,
Joe Biden did not sign them, but more importantly, he
did not know anything about them. The necessary pardoning documents
were not explained to or approved by Biden. He knew
nothing about them, and the people that did may have
committed a crime. Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee who
(04:32):
destroyed and deleted all evidence obtained during their two year
witch hunt of me. As an aside, no evidence was destroyed,
and many other innocent people should fully understand that they
are subject to investigation at the highest level. They aren't
the pardons hold. The fact is they were probably responsible
for the documents that were signed on their behalf without
the knowledge or consent of Biden. Obviously, Trump knows that
(04:55):
Biden did not know anything about these pardons because Trump
can see through other people's minds. This is the degree
of his insanity. He now believes that because he thinks it.
It happened. This has been the guiding force of Trump's life, obviously,
but it is becoming manifest now, and at the present
rate of expansion, this man will be speaking in tongues
(05:15):
before the end of the month. Moreover, on a practical level,
back on this plane of existence as opposed to the
one Trump lives in, there are three immediate problems. He's
blaming this on a president being too mentally incompetent to
know what he's signing, or that he's signing it by
auto pen rather than by hand. Trump really wants the
issue of presidential mental incompetence to be raised, to be
(05:40):
used as a basis for unprecedented law, to be used
as a basis to invalidate a president's actions. He wants
the question of a president's mental competence addressed foremost to
be a deciding factor in legal cases. There seems to
be a flaw there somewhere. I can't quite put my
(06:01):
finger on it. It seems like a bad road for
somebody who is insane to head down himself. Maybe insane
Dictator Trump should ask Schumer for advice on this second
immediate problem. Even if this were valid, Biden is in
fact on the record about these pardons, signing them, and
(06:22):
the need for them. No question that he intended to
sign these, no question that he was going to sign these,
no question that he intended to pardon these people. If
you want to try to memory hole something, as in
George Orwell's nineteen eighty four, you destroy the newspapers first,
then announce it, not announce it, and then destroy all
(06:44):
the old newspapers. Duh. Listen to the press secretary on this.
If you've forgotten who she is this time, her name
is Caroline Levitt, and she makes the previous ones look
like a collection of Rhodes scholars.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
If the president was even consulted about his legally binding
signature being signed onto documents, and so, I think it's
a question that everybody in this room should be looking
into because certainly that would propose perhaps criminal or illegal
behavior if staff members were signing the President of the
United States autograph without his consent. Is on the record
(07:20):
talking about the issuing preemptive pardons to these people, But
was he aware of his signature being used on every
single pardon. That's a question you should ask the bout it.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Is there any evidence on that he wasn't aware of it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
You're a reporter, you should find out.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
A reminder that the press secretary to the President of
the United States is intellectually about eleven years old. Why
don't you go find out? Why don't you find out?
How do you know the moon is not made of cheese?
Which leads us to the third question. A president can
invalidate the previous president's pardons in a tweet in a
(07:56):
social media post, Caroline Levitt may have just set herself
up to need a pardon because she just set herself
up to be charged under a future president who is
not friendly to Trump as part of a criminal conspiracy
to willfully ignore federal court orders led by Trump and
Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseeth and this gestapo like head
(08:19):
of the Trump kidnapping squad, Tom Holman, who Monday said
of these illegal and court stopped kidnappings and illegal extraditions,
We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think,
I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming. This
is a promise to continue to ignore legal and binding
(08:41):
federal court decisions. It is an impeachable offense, and if repeated,
it is a prosecutable offense, and Tom Holman would be
at the top of the list, even further up than Trump.
Levitt's responds to Tom Holman to join the list of
those who could be arrested in a conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Son Fox and he was talking about the defortations, and
he said the following. He said, we're not stopping. I
don't care what the judges think, which seems.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
To me just reading.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
That that you don't care what orders come from the
federal bench.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Is that the case.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Can you clarify that, please?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Well, I think since you just quoted Tom, I'll quote Tom.
He said, I don't care what the judges think, but
I can't assure you that the administration is complying with
the court order. And as I've said repeatedly from this podium,
all of the flights that were subject to the judges
written order departed before the written order, and we are
prepared to make that case in court later this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So she's trying to wink at this, because of course
none of that is true. Just because an airplane is
aloft does not mean that the judge on the ground
has no control over it. There are communications capacities with
aircraft these days, even under this administration's FAA, you can
get a hold of a pilot, even in international space
(10:04):
on the other side of the world, and tell him
to turn the f around. They are winking at this
and trying to have it both ways, and it's going
to wind up someday with an indictment not just of
Tom Holman, not just of Marco Rubio, but of Caroline
Levitt for joining in public this conspiracy. She's winking at this.
(10:25):
It never dawned on Trump. Also, if President number, say
forty seven, just to pick a number at random, can
declare President number forty six's pardons void, vacant, and of
no future force or effect, then President number forty eight
can declare President number forty seven's pardons void, vacant, and
(10:46):
of no future force or effect. Oh right, So, if
you're Tom Holman, you just crapped your pants. Maybe that's
why Trump used the word void. And if you are
Mark go Rubio, who has already done enough just about
(11:07):
this to need a pardon, you've just crapped your pants too,
a familiar experience for Marco, I'm sure, and heg Seth
has just crapped his pants, and Gabbard and Stephen Miller,
and J. D. Vance and Pam Bondi and Russ Vote.
Who am I leaving out? I mean, all of these
people who are doing illegal things now, are doing these things,
(11:29):
these illegal things, on the premise that no matter what happens,
Trump will pardon them, or Trump's successor will pardon them.
And what happens if those, according to Trump, pardons can
be invalidated for any reason, There has never been a
presidential pardon invalidated in the history of this country. That
may be a bad thing, and it may change someday,
(11:49):
but it's not going to be retroactive. And if it
is retroactive, guess who's not going to get one. Rubio Holman,
heg Seth Gabbard, Stephen Miller, Vance, Bondie, Russ Vote, everybody
else in this administration. Oh yeah, all the ones He
already gave pardons to, all the January sixth terrorists, Enrique
(12:12):
Terrio and the ones in his administration, and Mike Flynn
from the last administration. Roger Stone got a pardon, Paul Maniford,
Denesh Desuza, Scooter Libby, Bernie Effing, Carrick, Charles Kushner, Steve Bannon,
these people are all worried now. Susan B. Anthony got
(12:32):
a pardon, and Pete Rose was the next one up.
Somewhere Pete Rose is going well, there goes my bet
on getting a pardon, And I keep thinking I was
leaving somebody else and I couldn't remember who I was
leaving out. In addition to all of these names, who
else from this disastrous Trump nightmare would need a pardon
(12:54):
that Trump just made impossible if his opinion on this
is held valid. I couldn't couldn't remember who, And then
I read something online Elon Musk. My companies make great
products that people I love, and I've never physically hurt anyone,
So why the hate and violence against me? All he's
(13:15):
trying to do is make apartheid great again. Maybe it's
the fact that he's illegally voided American aid worldwide and
that has already led to deaths internationally and will likely
lead to millions of more people dying because he decided
to save money for rich people like him and was
given illegal access to the computers to make that happen.
(13:38):
That he's illegally accessed in the process, the private records
of tens of millions of Americans. And if any of
his companies had done that, the people involved in those
companies and in those interactions with your private records, they
would be facing criminal charges. That he retweeted a guy
who said Hitler didn't commit the Holocaust, but his public
(13:59):
sector employees did, when Musk himself has ide'd himself on
his own side as ten support, which is by definition
a public sector employee. No, Hitler did not commit the Holocaust.
Public sector employees did. Like me. Now, he doesn't need
a pardon. Elon Musk doesn't need a pardon. Elon Musk
(14:21):
doesn't need the pardon system to work. No, he needs
fifty pardons. Now if Trump is right, if he moves
to prosecute Trump, that is, anybody from the January sixth
Committee or anybody else who was pardoned by any previous president.
Pardons are worthless, and Elon Musk under those circumstances would
die in prison. But he'd get to see the rest
(14:44):
of the current Trump administration there with him, would he
It's not just that Trump is an insane dictator, it's
that he's an insane idiot dictator. You or I, or
maybe even Chuck Schumer would before issuing something that said
that pardons are no longer permanent, would think, Hmmm, what
(15:06):
does that mean for me? If I were to pardon
myself and the next guy could simply undo it. But
Trump isn't actually a human being, so he hasn't even
had the foresight that a Chuck Schumer would. The rest
of this bulletin podcast is Monday's regular edition in its entirety.
(15:26):
If you've already heard that, feel free to hit stop now.
If not, the first section of this is at least
worth your time because this is about how practically today
the Democrats can remove Chuck Schumer as Senate Minority leader.
(15:55):
How do you unseat a Senate Democratic leader asking for
a democracy? On the one hand, it is in possible.
On the other hand, it could be done in about
forty eight minutes. There is no process to force the
Democrats to conduct a new Senate leadership vote, even though
by one measure, Chuck Schumer would lose such a vote
(16:18):
thirty seven to ten, which is what he lost the
vote in his own party in his suicidal decision to
enable Musk and Trump to proceed unchecked as they rape
the government and the laws and the budget and the
nation for the next six months. Democratic Party rules only
(16:40):
mandate leadership elections with the start of each new Congress.
The last one was December third, The one before that
was December eighth, twenty twenty two. The next one would
be the third, eighth, or tenth of December twenty twenty six.
The only way there would be a new Democratic Party
leadership election would be if Schumer resigned or is forced two.
(17:02):
On the other hand, if the thirty six Democrats and
the independent who broke with Schumer in this catastrophe were
to simply form their own caucus and elect their own leader,
just to pick a name at random, Chris Murphy of
Connecticut Chuck Schumer would be minority leader in name only.
The risk of this, of course, is a total fracture
(17:23):
of the Democratic Party inside the Senate and out of it,
and the prospect of an idiot like Fetterman or an
invisible senator like Jillibrand actually caucusing with the Republicans. On
the other hand, the only advantage of having forty seven
non Trumpists instead of thirty six non Trumpists or thirty
(17:44):
seven non Trumpists is that you could do things like
stop Klotchure on the six month Musk Indemnification and Continuing
Resolution bill, except your gutless, spineless, useless, clueless minority leader
doesn't do that and instead collaborates with the party of
the insane dictator. If he's not going to do ooz
(18:05):
forty seven votes, what's the difference if he only has
thirty seven votes or if his successor only has thirty
seven votes. Here is the process as I understand it.
Create the new Democrats or Democrats two point zero, or
the new Zoo Review or the new Christy minstrels, doesn't matter.
(18:30):
Just position them as the actual minority in the Senate.
They have the second most votes. Point out to Schumer,
he is now leader of the third party in the Senate,
and if he does not resign as Democratic leader, you
will not let him join your new caucus and you
won't let the other losers in either. Senator Murphy, for one,
(18:53):
is not leading this revolt, not any way at the moment.
On NBC yesterday, do you think that Leader Schumer is
the best person to lead your caucus in this moment,
Senator Murphy, Senator Schumer certainly can lead this caucus, NBC,
would you consider that role Murphy. I don't think anybody's
having that conversation right now, right now, but the American
(19:18):
people certainly aren't having that conversation right now. The Democratic
Party certainly is having that conversation right The f now
CNN poll yesterday, Democrats and Democratic leading Independence now say
fifty seven to forty two percent that Democrats should mainly
work to stop the Trump agenda, not work with the
(19:38):
GOP just to get some of their own ideas into
legislation fifty seven to forty two. The NBC poll asks
the same question in a different way. Should Democrats stick
to their positions, even if that risks sacrificing by partisan progress.
The answer is yes, sixty five to thirty two. Eight
(20:02):
years ago that poll came in No. Fifty nine to
thirty three. It went from thirty three fifty nine to
sixty five thirty two. And these new polls, these landslides,
these are before what Schumer did last Friday. God knows
how bad these numbers are now, but whatever they are,
(20:24):
they actually add up to just one thing. Chuck Schumer
is done if the Democratic Senators want him done, or
if the Democratic Party explains to them that Schumer is done.
If they explain this in public loudly immediately. Discretion is
the better part of valor, or at least fear is
(20:46):
the better part of valor. And all day yesterday I
kept waiting to hear that the start of Chuck Schumer's
book tour tonight in Baltimore had been postponed or canceled
where he had laryngitis, where they had forgotten to ship
the books, or print the books, or write the books.
But if Schumer could actually make a career ending and
(21:08):
maybe a democracy ending decision like he did on the
Musk Indemnification and Continuing Resolution Bill, why wouldn't he be
stupid enough to walk out at the Central Library in
Baltimore tonight so he can get booed off the stage.
Some people one day just run out of smart. Chuck
(21:33):
Schumer Live tonight in Baltimore, Live at Politics and Pros
at sixth and I in DC, Wednesday night, live at
the Weitzman Museum in DC, Thursday afternoon, live at the
Moss Theater in Santa Monica Sunday. Or this event has
been unexpectedly canceled, there will be no Chuck Schumer and
(21:53):
there will be no refunds. I hope now three days
after they each lit themselves on fire, only to discover
it just wasn't enough for insane Dictator Trump. I hope
soon to be former leader one way or the other.
Schumer and Senators Fetterman and Jillibrand and the others who
(22:16):
sold out the democracy and more immediately their colleagues in
the House. And I hope the executives at MSNBC who
remember fired or demoted all the hosts of Color, and
the executives at CNN who thought they could hold insane
Dictator Trump at bay. I hope they have all understood
where we are, and in particular where they are here
(22:39):
is where we are. Donald Trump is insane. There is
only one path through his insanity towards restoring America as
a democracy, as a nation independent of Putin, as a
place not to be ashamed of. It is to destroy
Trump's presidency. Destroy his presidency. Nothing else will stop him.
(23:06):
His last remaining human emotion is vengeance, and nothing you do,
no matter how horrish, pandering, obvious, remorseful, no matter how
much money or ky jelly covered praise it contains, will
register with him. He wants to destroy you. He wants
(23:27):
to destroy the country, but he wants Schumer, MSNBC, CNN,
he wants to destroy you guys first.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
And I believe that CNN and MSDNC, who literally write
ninety seven point six percent bad about mere political arms
of the Democrat Party, And in my opinion, they're really
corrupt and they're illegal.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
What they do is illegal.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
So hey, CNN, how's uh letting that pimp Scott Jennings
take over prime time? Working out for you? Insane dictator?
Trump basically told the d Friday Afternoon arrest CNN, good thing,
Tapper and Bash that you didn't fact check him in
the debate last year. Backstage at the DOJ, Trump probably
(24:18):
mentioned the two of you by name. I'd rather have
a questioning audience, said CNN's Chris Licked two point zero.
He's British. His name is Mark Thompson at an event
on trust in the media on the first of this month.
I think we should draw our eyes about the loss
of traditional trust. Congratulations, Lord Thompson, you have succeeded. Now.
(24:40):
Nobody trusts CNN, not your former audience, not others in
news media, and obviously not Trump and his terrorists. Cell. Actually,
I take that last part back all of us, Trump included,
can trust CNN to do the wrong thing. And as
to Schumer, I really wonder if he will be stupid
(25:01):
enough to go out in public tonight or on the
rest of his tour, because a man in his position
can be that stupid can convince themselves. They won't protest me.
I'm the leader of the party in the Senate. He
can convince themselves. This is just an extreme version of
traditional politics that Trump is enacting, and not a slow
motion replay of January sixth, only with the brute force
(25:26):
added of law enforcement and bureaucracy. People like Schumer can
convince themselves. People may be mad at him, or they
were mad at him last week, but they're not that
mad and they're certainly not that mad at him this week. Chuck,
we are that mad at you. I don't think you
(25:47):
should resign as Senate Democratic leader. I think you should
resign from the Senate and Jillibrand with you. This is war.
It is a non shooting war. God help us, maybe
only for now. And Schumer is clueless, weak, selfish, arrogant,
(26:08):
and worst of all, myopic to try to finesse his
criminally incorrect vote on this to hide the intention of
his vote to be General George B. McClellan. When we
need General ulysses, ask goddamned grant and to sell out
the House Democrats. It's unforgivable. It is literally unforgivable. There
(26:31):
is no path back for Chuck Schumer. Enoch Powell's Central Library,
four hundred Cathedral Street, Baltimore, Maryland, seven pm. Be there, Aloha?
And what did Chuck Schumer get out of this? What
(26:52):
can be carved on his political tombstone? He ended his
career pleasing Trump. Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the
right thing. Took quote guts unquote and courage the big
tax cuts, LA firefix, debt ceiling billin. So much more
is coming. We should all work together on that very
(27:14):
dangerous situation. A non pass would be a country destroyer.
Approval will lead us to new heights again, really good
and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to
something big for the USA, a whole new direction and
beginning exclamation point? Does it worry you at all? Chuck?
Speaker 5 (27:31):
That?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Twenty four hours after that statement, insane, Dictator Trump's lawyers
told a federal court he has an inherent right under
Article two to deport anybody immigrant or otherwise on what
he and he alone says, our national security grounds. And
does it worry you, Chuck that twelve hours before he
(27:55):
praised you for doing the right thing. Twelve hours before that,
Donald Trump decided you are no longer Jewish, and.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Schumer is about as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
You know, he's become a Palestinian.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
He is to be Jewish.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
He's not Jewish anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
He's a Palestinian.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Okay, ah, yeah, but he's never gonna do something like
that again, not as long as he thinks he owns
you because you did something he desperately needed you to do,
and you were the only one who could do it,
and so now he might as well own you or
(28:32):
I don't know, sport you. You know what you do
when somebody says that about you, Chuck, You ask for
a meeting with him, a photo op, and when the
cameras are all rolling, then you kick him in the
balls and you take the consequences. You don't make a
deal with him the next day, selling out the people
who put you in office. Politicos sometimes uses anonymous sources irresponsibly,
(28:58):
but I'm not sure that's the case here. They often
also look through the wrong end of the telescope, and
I'm not sure that's the case here either. Quote. One
Democratic senator granted anonymity to share private discussions, said, conversations
are starting about whether Schumer should be their leader going forward.
There's a lot of concern about the failure to have
a plan and execute on it. The senator said. It's
(29:19):
not like you couldn't figure out that this is what
was going to happen behind closed doors. Even some longtime
Schumer allies are raising the specter that his time has passed. Quote.
Biden is gone, Pelosi is in the background. Schumer is
the last one left from that older generation, said one
New York based donor who is a longtime supporter of
a leader. I do worry that the older generation thinks
(29:40):
twenty twenty four was just about inflation. But no, the
game has changed. It's not left wing or moderate, it's
everyone now saying the game is different now. But he
was set up to battle in two thousand and six,
and we're a long way from two thousand and six. Or,
as the Hollywood writer director Mike Saminek wrote much more succinctly,
(30:01):
I don't want to say the Schumer optics are bad,
but Gavin Newsom just invited him on his podcast. There
(30:35):
are two other polling notes from those polls yesterday. The
CNN one asked Democrats to pick the leader who quote
best reflects the core values of the party. AOC is
at the top at ten percent, Kamala at nine, Bernie
at eight, a King Jeffreys at six, Jasmine Crockett at four,
(30:55):
Obama at four. Oh yeah, Obama, Remember Obama. I'm sure
he'll be dropping a protest playlist any day, soon after
he does his hoops bracket. Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer is
at two percent. No One the choice No One is
(31:15):
at thirty percent. AOC has five times Schumer's support. No
One has fifteen times Schumer's support, and Schumer at two percent,
is tied with Elissa Slotkin. The other poll, Trump's favorability
among all voters is already four points underwater and twelve
(31:38):
underwater on the economy. I mean, how do you f
this up in both directions, Chuck? Just as Trump begins
to drown on the economy, and just as Elon Musk
was retweeting somebody who wrote Stalin Mao and Hitler didn't
murder millions of people, their public sector workers did. And
(32:00):
even in the White House, Musk was seen to be imploding.
And then in response to that imploding, the White House
itself managed to implode and attack the racist Musk by
going even more racist than him. Musk blithely tells Cudlow
Scotchy Scotchy scotch on Fox Business about cutting entitlements. In
(32:22):
her Red Letter newsletter, Tara Palmery writes, even though Trump's
staffers are terrified of Musk, they know that if you
try to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, you die.
Politically speaking, quote, it's no longer simmering resistance. People are
effing furious. Set a source with knowledge of the situation,
(32:44):
and then comes the the coup to lack of grass.
Quote Medicaid is not just for black people in the ghetto.
These are our voters, unquote, set a Republican operative close
to the White House. How is that not the quote
(33:05):
on the lips of every Democrat in this country today?
Medicaid is not just for black people in the ghetto,
said a Republican operative close to the White House. These
are our voters. How is it not the quote on
every Democrat's lip today two words Chuck Schumer, or maybe
(33:29):
the quote from that little torp Marco Rubio, who, like Schumer,
actually thought he could bargain with Trump and instead wound
up having to be the front man for the first
assault on freedom of speech and extra legal extraditions, and
now having to expel the duly appointed South African ambassador
to the United States because Elon wants to make apartheid
(33:49):
great again. Rubio had to call South Africa's ambassador Rasoul
quote a race baiting politician who hates America, who is
no longer welcome here, because Rasoul gave a speech Friday
in which he said Trump was quote mobilizing white supremacy
(34:09):
in the US and abroad as well. So what's your
complain about that, little Marco? Trump is mobilizing white supremacy
in the US, and so is Musk, and so Marco,
are you you complicit? Little shit? And by the way,
a race baiting politician who hates America and is no
longer welcome here, Marco, since that also describes Trump, does
(34:35):
this mean you're going to expel Trump? Because somebody is
damn well gonna have to also of interest here, I'm
under the weather, so this will be kind of short today.
But the worst Person's list is the never ending feast.
And as the world collapses and Trump openly ignores the
(34:57):
courts and starts deporting people illegally. Yesterday, guess what the
lead story was at Politico. The tone of a DC
dinner for reporters, the tone I swear to God, ah,
there's nothing fatally wrong with our media political industrial complex.
(35:21):
Now that's next Ursless countdown. This is countdown with Keith
Olberman still ahead on countdown. When I'm sick, I always
(35:54):
think of my craziest visit to the doctor ever. I
was twenty one ish and the somewhat surprise outcome. So
my face stuck to the side of the train and
they had to help me break free from the window,
like that's never happened to you first, believe it or not.
(36:17):
There's still more new idiots to talk about. The daily
roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens
who constitute today's other worst persons.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Here are the nominees the Bronze Worse Poletiko. I know
I praised them earlier, like Trump, this only lasts three
to four minutes. That's as much time as it's going
to buy you. Illegal deportations, US citizens being locked up
because they were born somewhere else and were a told
(36:53):
JA I was sick. I'm going to leave that in
for evidence, illegal deportations, US citizens being locked up because no,
I really did leave that in because they were born
somewhere else and we're returning to the country. Elon Musk
still eluding the much needed tranquilizing Dart Schumer imploding, and
(37:14):
the lead item in Sunday's Politico Playbook newsletter The grid
Iron Dinner Saturday Night in Washington. The grid Iron Dinner,
despite the name, that's a journalism event. And to be fair,
Politico is about Washington and about journalism about Washington. And
(37:36):
I know that's not always evident from what they write,
especially with the drama constantly surrounding the people who work
there and the new fascist owners from Europe. But do
you think once, just once, you could lead with the
you know, earth shattering news like if Schumer is going
to be deposed, or if there are planes full of
(37:58):
people who have a legal right to be here, who
have been illegally deported by the insane dictator of the
United States, instead of a few words about the effing
Gridirn dinner, twenty six paragraphs about the grid Iron dinner,
the first twenty six paragraphs of your newsletter scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.
(38:20):
I'll get to the news somewhere, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Polit
ago twenty six paragraphs about the grid Iron dinner and
how they didn't toast the president. I will confess I
am sufficiently under the weather that when I first read
they toasted the president, my mood cheered briefly, where's the
(38:41):
photo of that? Holy crap. I also realized that for
a couple of years I have been mistakenly telling people
that it was at the grid Iron dinner that Dick
Cheney as Vice president made that joke about me that
I still love. It wasn't at the grid Iron dinner.
It was at the radio and TV correspondence dinner. And yes,
if it's a Saturday, there is another Journalisimalism dinner in DC.
(39:05):
Since you asked, I'll just well, I was going to
read the way ad we covered it, but you know
the clip is on YouTube, so in case you.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Don't know it Moe's blog is titled Moe Rock of
one to eighty only half as tedious as the regular News.
Among his other credits, Moe used to host a TV
show called Things I Hate About You. I'm sure I've
seen that program only I believe it's now called Countdown
(39:38):
with Keith Overman. Keith not here tonight to savor my company,
but we roared. I'm Jack Turnian.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
There's a joke about Kreith Olderman. Anyway. The point of
this was the first twenty six paragraphs on a dinner
like that, about jokes like that. The first twenty six man,
not the like six paragraphs of headlines, and then twenty
six paragraphs about the Gridiron dinner, but the first twenty
six paragraphs underscoring this fact. The night they finally kidnap
(40:18):
all the reporters off the streets, the last thing every
Washington correspondent will file is a piece about what their
friends were wearing at the time they were disappeared. The
runner up worser Alena Haba official administration nit wit. I've
(40:40):
said it so many times, you can say it with me.
The future and survival of democracy depends less on our
strenuous efforts to preserve it than it does on the
stupidity of those who intend to destroy it. That is
being tested now. But as long as we have the
Secretary of knit wittedness, Alina Habba, I believe we will
(41:00):
prevail after we get rid of Schumerlenahaha, responding to something
or another about about the attempts to stop human extortion
and trafficking. And I don't know if they were claiming.
I don't know who they're claiming the Pope is a trap.
I don't know who they were claiming there was a trafficker.
(41:22):
And Alena Habba writes, thank you, let's pray for the
many victims of human extortion as a result of the
last administration's neglect and failures. And then the prayer emoji
and this note, this community note. Alna Habba supported the
Tate brothers who are under investigation for human trafficking. There's
(41:46):
a reason you go into parking lot law, and that's
because it's a challenge to you. I wanted to stretch
my mind. It went entirely one inch wide. But the
winner is the worst. Marco Rubio and naib Buclei, Kelly.
As you know, a federal court blocked the illegal deportation
(42:09):
of Venezuelans by the insane dictator to a concentration camp
in a third party country. El Salvador planes were in
the air already, and so the administration decided not to
turn the planes around and announced it was not defying
the court, and announced it was defying the court. Marco Rubio,
(42:31):
the Little Shit Secretary of Little Shit, boasted about it,
and the President of Al Salvador, it's just a brand name.
There's not really a president, like we don't really have
a president, we have an insane dictator. Naib Bukel, president
of Al Salvador, screen shoted the headline from the New
York Post about the judge blocking Trump from invoking the
(42:52):
Alien Enemies Act, and President Bukel added quote oopsie too
late and added the crying laughing emoji because somewhere along
the line emoji became fascist. That's president asshole of l Salvador. Yeah,
keep laughing, see you at the World Court at the Hague,
(43:14):
buddy in twenty twenty nine, unless your own people take
care of their problem. Five years ago, this alleged president
wanted approval from the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly for a one
hundred and nine million dollar loan for his Territorial Control Plan.
So to deliver the message, President Bukake or whatever his
name is, set forty soldiers over to the Legislative Assembly
(43:38):
to say hell. In twenty nineteen, President Bukela introduced that plan,
the Territorial Control Plan, to reduce the homicide rate. It
was reduced only actor alleged the US Department of State
bu Kela negotiated with the gangs in El Salvador to
reduce the homicide rate. Hey, do me a solid kill
(43:59):
fewer people, Okay? And you know who alleged that with
the State Department under which presid is it alleged he
did that, Trump's State Department. But now Trump's newhore at
the State Department. Marco's he's Besti's with this guy, Marco
Rubio and alleged President Bucelly of Al Salvador. What happened
(44:20):
to that guy to Turte from the Philippines again? Oh
oh boy, two days worst persons. I can't hit this
high note in the world. Shoe the number one story
(44:45):
on the countdown and things I promised not to tell.
And this is anything but an important career story. But
I was reminded of it recently, and I laughed like hell,
so I thought, maybe you should too. I haven't seen
all of them in this country, but to my mind,
the most underrated of American rivers is the one I
grew up along. The Hudson gets a bad rad because
it's associated with New York City and the deteriorating remnants
(45:09):
of the city's once dominant piers, some of which have
been unused and rotting for half a century now. But
further upstate, literally just past the city line, the Hudson
is a magnificent river just to watch, never mind ride on.
This is particularly true during a stretch in which the
western side of the river is fronted by a series
of sheer cliffs called the Palisades, brownish black and striated,
(45:33):
carved as the river took shape millions of years ago,
but always looking like they had been carefully designed for
esthetic effect. Unfortunately, they are best seen from the commuter
railroad that runs along the Hudson into Westchester County, New York,
instead of a series of parks or even private palaces.
Our forefathers had the presence of mind to build factories
(45:55):
and copper processing plants and other nightmares right on the
Hudson because of the obvious transportation benefits the Hudson provided,
and so the train tracks were laid out next to
the river because that made it even easier to get
stuff to and from the big city. And damn the
views or the ability to appreciate life on the water
or the pollution. Still, if you ever find yourself now
(46:19):
taking a train from Grand Central Station into the western
half of Westchester, get a window seat on the left
side of the trainer. Better yet, when you come back
into New York City, sit on the right side, on
the river side, and you will get fifteen minutes or
more of the most magnificent view imaginable out the big windows. Winter's, spring, summer,
(46:41):
or fall. The palisades provide the Hudson with a magnificent
frame that's almost like a miniature Grand Canyon. I remember
thinking of all this that one day, early in nineteen
eighty I was finally feeling a little better, thanks to
doctor Cecilini. Doctor Cecilini had been my physician since I
was a boy, and he was the school doctor, and
(47:01):
he'd been the town doctor since about teen forty four,
and he always name dropped other patients I'd never heard of.
And as I finished my last growth spurt at the
end of my twentieth year, I had frequent back pain,
no fun at all, and sleeping on the floor helped
a little, but not enough. And finally Cecilini, who had
been a hospital doctor during World War Two and had
(47:22):
seen everything, said hey, just get this prescription filled. Take
one on them every day for the next week. It's
called a muscle relaxing. This will loosen up your back,
always lessen the pain. Well, bet, just don't you know,
don't operate any heavy machinery. Do you operate heavy machinery
when you do those sportscasts? Yars Keith had a patient
(47:45):
try to run a processor at the copper factory while
he took this nineteen fifty seven, we lost three fingers.
Leonardo ben Venuti, you know any of the ben Venuties
used to live on Williams Street. I laughed, this was
him every time, the ben Venuti's on william Street, the
Smiths on Williams Street, the Williams on Smith Street. Anyway,
(48:08):
back to the muscle relaxance. I don't think I had
ever heard of them before, let alone taken one. I
took my barking back to the pharmacy in my hometown
of Hastings On Hudson, New York. I got the prescription filled.
I bought a soda at the pizza parlor across the street,
and I ambled down the tiny village's picturesque business district.
It's three blocks long, past the statue our old neighbor,
(48:30):
Jacques Lipshits donated, and the ultra modern library, and right
into the train station. It was January. It was about
twelve degrees and as I waited for the train to
make its forty minute trip into the city and my
job as a sportscaster for the radio network of United
pres International, I took the pill what were they called again,
muscle muscle relaxance that doctor C had given me and
(48:53):
given his other patient, Rico Rendazzo Or was that some
guy he mentioned in nineteen sixty six to me. I
worked the night shift at UPI, so the train was
almost always empty, and thus I almost always had my
choice of window seats. Midday and midwinter combined to make
the sun glisten with extra sparkle off the magnificent Hudson,
(49:13):
and the sun's angle was such that the palisades behind
them gleamed brightly as well. And I was thinking about
just how gorgeous they were, and how underrated the Hudson was,
and and and I felt myself drifting away. I felt
two hands, one on each shoulder, shaking me violently. Hey buddy, hey, hey, hey,
(49:37):
hey buddy. I fought to open my eyes and to
avoid the bad breath now enveloping my face. As I
finally came around, I realized it was the conductor who
had just taken my ticket. The train wasn't moving. In fact,
only half of the lights were on in the train.
The palisades were long gone, not the Hudson nor the Palisades,
(49:59):
but darkness came in through the windows. I was completely confused.
Am I'd shake it off. You gotta get out of here.
This is as far as we go. Train's going out
of service. You don't get off now, you'll be parked
under thirty seventh straight for the rest of the day.
Through my fog and my haze, I finally began to
understand what had happened and where I was. And I
began to try to stand when a horrifying awareness overtook me.
(50:22):
I could not move the right side of my face.
What was worse, I could barely feel the right side
of my face. Good God, what had happened to me?
Was this? Like that haunting episode of Alfred Hitchcock where
the woman is struggling to wake up and remember the
details of the accident out on San Francisco Bay the
night before, Only as it finally comes back to her,
(50:45):
it turns out the accident had drowned her boyfriend. And
the reason it was so difficult to remember was, as
she realized only when she got up and saw her
reflection in a mirror, that the accident hadn't happened last night,
but it had happened in nineteen oh five, and she'd
been in an insane asylum for half a century. Was
that what had happened to me?
Speaker 5 (51:04):
No?
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Actually, as I discovered when my struggle finally freed my
face from the train window to which it had stuck,
because I had drooled for like thirty five consecutive minutes,
because I had taken the muscle relaxing, because I had
taken an honest empty stomach, because I knew nothing about
muscle relaxance, because I was out cold with my mouth open,
(51:27):
pressed up against the train window on a twelve degree day,
and I had gotten frozen to the glass. Look, it
was not quite half a century in an insane asylum,
but certainly more embarrassing. It seemed like it took me
half a century to pull all of this together. I
stood up wobbly. I apologized to the conductor, and I
(51:50):
mumbled back pain new drug. And as I banked from
one side of the doorway to the other and bounced
out onto the platform, the conductor shouted after me, only
take him at night. Huh that little saga? Yeah, Doc,
my back is better, but I left half the skin
(52:10):
on my right cheek frozen into the one twenty from
Hastings to Grand Central. He'd probably say, yeah, that happened
to another patient of mine, Carlo John Lombardo. That reminded
me of a much later story from doctor Cecilini, and
I don't want to leave the wrong impression here. Edward
Cecilini was a terrific doctor. He practiced into his nineties.
(52:31):
He used to tell me to come visit him at
his practice in his home on Farragut Parkway anytime I
was up from the city visiting my folks. Well, Josh,
shoot the phrase, and he'd tell me about something about
treating Umberto Flambini in the Army hospital in nineteen forty four,
and he'd asked me if I went to school with
Marco Bartolini and then say he had to go. He
was taking a course over at Sony Purchase about the
(52:53):
latest computer aided diagnostic till the man was ninety years old.
He never stopped learning, great man, and did he howl
at the muscle relaxing start. Sorry, sorry, I didn't warn you.
Oh well, I just take him at night. I had
another patient through that nineteen seventeen. It's just all right anyway.
(53:14):
Now it's nineteen ninety five and I'm working at ESPN,
and I'm supposed to fly to Vancouver to do a
cameo in an Adam Sandler golf movie, which I suppose
was Happy Gilmour. And I didn't want to try to
fly to Chicago and then change for Vancouver after going
the two hours from the middle of Connecticut to JFK.
So I came in to my folks house the day
(53:34):
before I took the folks out to dinner. I stayed
over in the spare room to leave from their house
to the airport in the morning, and at some point
in the middle of the night, I began to have
chest pains. Literally the top of my ribs hurt, and
my breathing was constricted, and I couldn't get back to sleep.
And now I'm thinking, I don't know what's wrong, but
something is wrong. So I canceled the trip and I
(53:55):
head up to doctor Cecilmini as soon as he's opened
up shop, and he's eighty five now, and he gives
me the big welcome as usual, and I tell him
this story and he says, oh, yeah, I've tried to
think it notting to worry about, but we we should
get this on the record, just in case your movie
company gets pissy with you about canceling dad. Happened to
another friend of mine, patient Francesco Lulla Bridget. He had
(54:16):
a cameo and Moby Dick in nineteen fifty six. He
had cancel He wanted it soon. How about you get
your dad just drive you up to the hospital, Dobbs Ferry,
I meet you there and oh like half an hour,
hour and a half something like that. Let me just
run a couple of tests on you. When we got
you out. There's no rush whatsoever. What's ther now? He
stares off in his space for a second, and he
looks back at me. He says, I got a I
(54:38):
got an idea A little simpler. I have to go
there later up to drop off some paperwork on some
other guy, Frisco Gaspouci no Frisco. Anyway, Just give me
a second. I'll call him. I'll tell him what's coming up.
I just you just hop in the car with me
and go out in the waiting room, cause I'm gonna
call him about Frisco. And I got to worry about
doctor patient confidentiality, but about Frisco gospooci sa. You know,
(54:59):
I gotta worry about that. So I don't want you
listening to this. So now Ed Cecilini is driving me
to Dobbs Ferry Hospital, and I'm thinking about how much
he defines the idea of a really dedicated doctor, and
how every other patient he's ever mentioned to me, I've
never heard of one of them. And we get to
the hospital, I don't know. We talked about baseball or
my folks or something, and he drives right up to
(55:21):
the er and we walk in like it's nothing, and
he waves to the admitting nurse. Hi, Sheila, how's your son, Shila?
And he points at me. He says, that's the guy,
and he says, like it was absolutely the way they
do it at every hospital. You can go all his
info from him. After we run this little check on,
all right, and we go right into the room and
two nurses are in there and they say hi, and
one of them tells me to take off my shirt.
(55:42):
The other starts shaving places on my chest, and before
I know what's happening, I've got electrodes on me and
they're hooking me up to an EKG and they're drawing blood.
In Cecellini reads the start of the EKJ print out
and he smiles at me. He says, I'm sorry I
scammed you, but the way you described your chest pains,
I thought it was fifty to fifty. He had a
heart attack. Last thing I want to do is tell
you that just in case you had had a heart
(56:03):
attack and then you had another that happened to another
patient of mine, Bernardo Petro Sante. You know Bernardo, Oh,
let me only know this. Ah, you're fine. I'd let
me just wait on the blood gases, double check that
go out there and do the paperwork for shill at
the desk. Guy, I think it's just a muscle problem.
The son of a gun had not only made sure
(56:25):
I didn't know it might be serious, it might be
heart attacks serious, but he conned me into going to
the emergency room without alarming me or even letting me
know that was his plan along. And as I'm brushing
the shaved hairs off my chest and putting my shirt on,
I say thanks, and then it hits me, Hey, another thing,
(56:46):
Doc Bernardo Pietro Sante and Umberto Flambini, and all these
other patients you've mentioned all these years. They don't really exist,
do they? And he says, oh, got me about that.
I learned a long time ago. Make sure your patient
never feels like they're the first idiot to have done
this to themselves. Come on, I'll give you a lift
back to your folks. Might look in and see how
(57:08):
your dad's doing if he's gotten moment, I've done all
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Once again, my apologies for the relative brevity. Not feeling
(57:30):
that great, but you'd never know it from my performance
here today. And you know why that is because I'm
tough also because you can edit out all the bad stuff.
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanel, the musical directors, have
Countdown Arrange, produced and performed most of our music, and
still I'd rather go alive. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
(57:53):
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It
was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
The sports music is the old theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis and Curtesy of ESPN Inc.
Other music arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. My
(58:13):
announcer today is my friend Kenny Main, who does not
appear curtisyvsp Inc. Everything else was, as ever my fault.
That's countdown for today, Just four hundred and six days
until the scheduled end of his lane duck lame brained dictatorship,
unless Musk removes him sooner or the actuarial tables due.
(58:34):
The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Again, We'll see as
always bulletins as the news warrants. Remember impeach Trump. Impeach
Trump won't work now, but it will win the Democrats
the mid terms if there are midterms, and there is
the easy way to get rid of Schumer. You, thirty
six Democrats and Bernie Sanders just create the new Christy
(58:57):
Minstrels Party. Until next time, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(59:28):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This
is a Countdown bulletin podcast. I'm Keith Olberman and soon
to be former Senate Minority Leader. Chuck Schumer has canceled
(00:25):
at least all of this week stops on his book
tour about ten hours before its first event at the
Enoch Pratz Central Library in Baltimore was to begin Monday evening,
and about twenty four hours after I questioned if this
tour could possibly go on as scheduled. I questioned that
here on Monday's edition of the Countdown podcast. This is
(00:49):
the first good strategic decision by Chuck Schumer in years,
and it reflects his personal courage. If anything could better
explain why Chuck Schumer is the wrong man to be
leading the minority opposition party as the President of the
United States attempts to eliminate democracy and institute an authoritarian regime.
(01:12):
If anything else, underscored what a weasel Chuck Schumer is.
Where he is timeline wise, why he thinks this is
still sometime in the twentieth century, Why he needs to go,
why he needs to resign from the Senate. It's this
he cannot face his own voters and his own protesters
(01:32):
protesting his own cowardice. It's cowardice in the face of cowardice.
In addition to this, of course, the guy who was
going to go with Schumer and be his interlocutor in
this his inquisitor. His interviewer was Congressman Richie Torres, who
had publicly criticized the Democrats, the ten the Quizzlings who
(01:54):
passed the Trump Enabling Act on Friday, the Enabling Act
consisting of the Continuing Resolution to keep the government from
shutting down, which would have been seen as Elon Musk's fault,
which the Republicans are trying to do anyway, And of
course in there the poisoned pill that Schumer happily swallowed
on behalf of America that hides any inquiry from Musk.
(02:15):
Musk cannot be his actions cannot be, The Dodge people
cannot be examined by Congress. That's part of the bill
that Schumer approved. Well, the tour would have been fun Officially,
it has been, according to Schumer's office, canceled due to
consecurity concerns. Senator Schumer's book events are being rescheduled yes
(02:41):
to the year twenty two seventy four. Unofficially, the opposite
of security is, of course, insecurity, and that's Chuck Schumer.
At the moment. Unofficially, Chuck Schumer has no idea how
to proceed now, not only as the Democratic leader in
the Senate, not only as a Senator, but in his
(03:01):
own personal life. He is days away from the end
of his professional career. As I suggested, it's very easily obtained.
Thirty six Democrats and Sanders form their own caucus, because
if you're not going to use forty seven minority votes
in the Senate to try to slow Trump down, what's
the difference If you only have thirty seven votes, You
(03:23):
create your own new Democrats or New Zoo Review or
whatever you want to call it, and then if they
are nice to you, you invite the other nine on
the condition that Chuck Schumer resigns from the Senate. More
on Schumer's cowardice that plan in particular, and the Democrats
plight in a moment. But there are two other breaking
headlines on Monday, the insane idiot dictator Trump with something
(03:47):
absolutely astonishingly dictatorial and nineteen eighty four ish even for him,
which has already blown up in his face because, as usual,
he did not think one step beyond his own ego. Quote.
The pardons that Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of
political thugs and many others are hereby declared void, vacant,
(04:09):
and of no further force or effect because of the
fact that they were done by Auto Penn. In other words,
Joe Biden did not sign them, but more importantly, he
did not know anything about them. The necessary pardoning documents
were not explained to or approved by Biden. He knew
nothing about them, and the people that did may have
committed a crime. Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee who
(04:32):
destroyed and deleted all evidence obtained during their two year
witch hunt of me. As an aside, no evidence was destroyed,
and many other innocent people should fully understand that they
are subject to investigation at the highest level. They aren't
the pardons hold. The fact is they were probably responsible
for the documents that were signed on their behalf without
the knowledge or consent of Biden. Obviously, Trump knows that
(04:55):
Biden did not know anything about these pardons because Trump
can see through other people's minds. This is the degree
of his insanity. He now believes that because he thinks it.
It happened. This has been the guiding force of Trump's life, obviously,
but it is becoming manifest now, and at the present
rate of expansion, this man will be speaking in tongues
(05:15):
before the end of the month. Moreover, on a practical level,
back on this plane of existence as opposed to the
one Trump lives in, there are three immediate problems. He's
blaming this on a president being too mentally incompetent to
know what he's signing, or that he's signing it by
auto pen rather than by hand. Trump really wants the
issue of presidential mental incompetence to be raised, to be
(05:40):
used as a basis for unprecedented law, to be used
as a basis to invalidate a president's actions. He wants
the question of a president's mental competence addressed foremost to
be a deciding factor in legal cases. There seems to
be a flaw there somewhere. I can't quite put my
(06:01):
finger on it. It seems like a bad road for
somebody who is insane to head down himself. Maybe insane
Dictator Trump should ask Schumer for advice on this second
immediate problem. Even if this were valid, Biden is in
fact on the record about these pardons, signing them, and
(06:22):
the need for them. No question that he intended to
sign these, no question that he was going to sign these,
no question that he intended to pardon these people. If
you want to try to memory hole something, as in
George Orwell's nineteen eighty four, you destroy the newspapers first,
then announce it, not announce it, and then destroy all
(06:44):
the old newspapers. Duh. Listen to the press secretary on this.
If you've forgotten who she is this time, her name
is Caroline Levitt, and she makes the previous ones look
like a collection of Rhodes scholars.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
If the president was even consulted about his legally binding
signature being signed onto documents, and so, I think it's
a question that everybody in this room should be looking
into because certainly that would propose perhaps criminal or illegal
behavior if staff members were signing the President of the
United States autograph without his consent. Is on the record
(07:20):
talking about the issuing preemptive pardons to these people, But
was he aware of his signature being used on every
single pardon. That's a question you should ask the bout it.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Is there any evidence on that he wasn't aware of it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
You're a reporter, you should find out.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
A reminder that the press secretary to the President of
the United States is intellectually about eleven years old. Why
don't you go find out? Why don't you find out?
How do you know the moon is not made of cheese?
Which leads us to the third question. A president can
invalidate the previous president's pardons in a tweet in a
(07:56):
social media post, Caroline Levitt may have just set herself
up to need a pardon because she just set herself
up to be charged under a future president who is
not friendly to Trump as part of a criminal conspiracy
to willfully ignore federal court orders led by Trump and
Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseeth and this gestapo like head
(08:19):
of the Trump kidnapping squad, Tom Holman, who Monday said
of these illegal and court stopped kidnappings and illegal extraditions,
We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think,
I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming. This
is a promise to continue to ignore legal and binding
(08:41):
federal court decisions. It is an impeachable offense, and if repeated,
it is a prosecutable offense, and Tom Holman would be
at the top of the list, even further up than Trump.
Levitt's responds to Tom Holman to join the list of
those who could be arrested in a conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Son Fox and he was talking about the defortations, and
he said the following. He said, we're not stopping. I
don't care what the judges think, which seems.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
To me just reading.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
That that you don't care what orders come from the
federal bench.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Is that the case.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Can you clarify that, please?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Well, I think since you just quoted Tom, I'll quote Tom.
He said, I don't care what the judges think, but
I can't assure you that the administration is complying with
the court order. And as I've said repeatedly from this podium,
all of the flights that were subject to the judges
written order departed before the written order, and we are
prepared to make that case in court later this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So she's trying to wink at this, because of course
none of that is true. Just because an airplane is
aloft does not mean that the judge on the ground
has no control over it. There are communications capacities with
aircraft these days, even under this administration's FAA, you can
get a hold of a pilot, even in international space
(10:04):
on the other side of the world, and tell him
to turn the f around. They are winking at this
and trying to have it both ways, and it's going
to wind up someday with an indictment not just of
Tom Holman, not just of Marco Rubio, but of Caroline
Levitt for joining in public this conspiracy. She's winking at this.
(10:25):
It never dawned on Trump. Also, if President number, say
forty seven, just to pick a number at random, can
declare President number forty six's pardons void, vacant, and of
no future force or effect, then President number forty eight
can declare President number forty seven's pardons void, vacant, and
(10:46):
of no future force or effect. Oh right, So, if
you're Tom Holman, you just crapped your pants. Maybe that's
why Trump used the word void. And if you are
Mark go Rubio, who has already done enough just about
(11:07):
this to need a pardon, you've just crapped your pants too,
a familiar experience for Marco, I'm sure, and heg Seth
has just crapped his pants, and Gabbard and Stephen Miller,
and J. D. Vance and Pam Bondi and Russ Vote.
Who am I leaving out? I mean, all of these
people who are doing illegal things now, are doing these things,
(11:29):
these illegal things, on the premise that no matter what happens,
Trump will pardon them, or Trump's successor will pardon them.
And what happens if those, according to Trump, pardons can
be invalidated for any reason, There has never been a
presidential pardon invalidated in the history of this country. That
may be a bad thing, and it may change someday,
(11:49):
but it's not going to be retroactive. And if it
is retroactive, guess who's not going to get one. Rubio Holman,
heg Seth Gabbard, Stephen Miller, Vance, Bondie, Russ Vote, everybody
else in this administration. Oh yeah, all the ones He
already gave pardons to, all the January sixth terrorists, Enrique
(12:12):
Terrio and the ones in his administration, and Mike Flynn
from the last administration. Roger Stone got a pardon, Paul Maniford,
Denesh Desuza, Scooter Libby, Bernie Effing, Carrick, Charles Kushner, Steve Bannon,
these people are all worried now. Susan B. Anthony got
(12:32):
a pardon, and Pete Rose was the next one up.
Somewhere Pete Rose is going well, there goes my bet
on getting a pardon, And I keep thinking I was
leaving somebody else and I couldn't remember who I was
leaving out. In addition to all of these names, who
else from this disastrous Trump nightmare would need a pardon
(12:54):
that Trump just made impossible if his opinion on this
is held valid. I couldn't couldn't remember who, And then
I read something online Elon Musk. My companies make great
products that people I love, and I've never physically hurt anyone,
So why the hate and violence against me? All he's
(13:15):
trying to do is make apartheid great again. Maybe it's
the fact that he's illegally voided American aid worldwide and
that has already led to deaths internationally and will likely
lead to millions of more people dying because he decided
to save money for rich people like him and was
given illegal access to the computers to make that happen.
(13:38):
That he's illegally accessed in the process, the private records
of tens of millions of Americans. And if any of
his companies had done that, the people involved in those
companies and in those interactions with your private records, they
would be facing criminal charges. That he retweeted a guy
who said Hitler didn't commit the Holocaust, but his public
(13:59):
sector employees did, when Musk himself has ide'd himself on
his own side as ten support, which is by definition
a public sector employee. No, Hitler did not commit the Holocaust.
Public sector employees did. Like me. Now, he doesn't need
a pardon. Elon Musk doesn't need a pardon. Elon Musk
(14:21):
doesn't need the pardon system to work. No, he needs
fifty pardons. Now if Trump is right, if he moves
to prosecute Trump, that is, anybody from the January sixth
Committee or anybody else who was pardoned by any previous president.
Pardons are worthless, and Elon Musk under those circumstances would
die in prison. But he'd get to see the rest
(14:44):
of the current Trump administration there with him, would he
It's not just that Trump is an insane dictator, it's
that he's an insane idiot dictator. You or I, or
maybe even Chuck Schumer would before issuing something that said
that pardons are no longer permanent, would think, Hmmm, what
(15:06):
does that mean for me? If I were to pardon
myself and the next guy could simply undo it. But
Trump isn't actually a human being, so he hasn't even
had the foresight that a Chuck Schumer would. The rest
of this bulletin podcast is Monday's regular edition in its entirety.
(15:26):
If you've already heard that, feel free to hit stop now.
If not, the first section of this is at least
worth your time because this is about how practically today
the Democrats can remove Chuck Schumer as Senate Minority leader.
(15:55):
How do you unseat a Senate Democratic leader asking for
a democracy? On the one hand, it is in possible.
On the other hand, it could be done in about
forty eight minutes. There is no process to force the
Democrats to conduct a new Senate leadership vote, even though
by one measure, Chuck Schumer would lose such a vote
(16:18):
thirty seven to ten, which is what he lost the
vote in his own party in his suicidal decision to
enable Musk and Trump to proceed unchecked as they rape
the government and the laws and the budget and the
nation for the next six months. Democratic Party rules only
(16:40):
mandate leadership elections with the start of each new Congress.
The last one was December third, The one before that
was December eighth, twenty twenty two. The next one would
be the third, eighth, or tenth of December twenty twenty six.
The only way there would be a new Democratic Party
leadership election would be if Schumer resigned or is forced two.
(17:02):
On the other hand, if the thirty six Democrats and
the independent who broke with Schumer in this catastrophe were
to simply form their own caucus and elect their own leader,
just to pick a name at random, Chris Murphy of
Connecticut Chuck Schumer would be minority leader in name only.
The risk of this, of course, is a total fracture
(17:23):
of the Democratic Party inside the Senate and out of it,
and the prospect of an idiot like Fetterman or an
invisible senator like Jillibrand actually caucusing with the Republicans. On
the other hand, the only advantage of having forty seven
non Trumpists instead of thirty six non Trumpists or thirty
(17:44):
seven non Trumpists is that you could do things like
stop Klotchure on the six month Musk Indemnification and Continuing
Resolution bill, except your gutless, spineless, useless, clueless minority leader
doesn't do that and instead collaborates with the party of
the insane dictator. If he's not going to do ooz
(18:05):
forty seven votes, what's the difference if he only has
thirty seven votes or if his successor only has thirty
seven votes. Here is the process as I understand it.
Create the new Democrats or Democrats two point zero, or
the new Zoo Review or the new Christy minstrels, doesn't matter.
(18:30):
Just position them as the actual minority in the Senate.
They have the second most votes. Point out to Schumer,
he is now leader of the third party in the Senate,
and if he does not resign as Democratic leader, you
will not let him join your new caucus and you
won't let the other losers in either. Senator Murphy, for one,
(18:53):
is not leading this revolt, not any way at the moment.
On NBC yesterday, do you think that Leader Schumer is
the best person to lead your caucus in this moment,
Senator Murphy, Senator Schumer certainly can lead this caucus, NBC,
would you consider that role Murphy. I don't think anybody's
having that conversation right now, right now, but the American
(19:18):
people certainly aren't having that conversation right now. The Democratic
Party certainly is having that conversation right The f now
CNN poll yesterday, Democrats and Democratic leading Independence now say
fifty seven to forty two percent that Democrats should mainly
work to stop the Trump agenda, not work with the
(19:38):
GOP just to get some of their own ideas into
legislation fifty seven to forty two. The NBC poll asks
the same question in a different way. Should Democrats stick
to their positions, even if that risks sacrificing by partisan progress.
The answer is yes, sixty five to thirty two. Eight
(20:02):
years ago that poll came in No. Fifty nine to
thirty three. It went from thirty three fifty nine to
sixty five thirty two. And these new polls, these landslides,
these are before what Schumer did last Friday. God knows
how bad these numbers are now, but whatever they are,
(20:24):
they actually add up to just one thing. Chuck Schumer
is done if the Democratic Senators want him done, or
if the Democratic Party explains to them that Schumer is done.
If they explain this in public loudly immediately. Discretion is
the better part of valor, or at least fear is
(20:46):
the better part of valor. And all day yesterday I
kept waiting to hear that the start of Chuck Schumer's
book tour tonight in Baltimore had been postponed or canceled
where he had laryngitis, where they had forgotten to ship
the books, or print the books, or write the books.
But if Schumer could actually make a career ending and
(21:08):
maybe a democracy ending decision like he did on the
Musk Indemnification and Continuing Resolution Bill, why wouldn't he be
stupid enough to walk out at the Central Library in
Baltimore tonight so he can get booed off the stage.
Some people one day just run out of smart. Chuck
(21:33):
Schumer Live tonight in Baltimore, Live at Politics and Pros
at sixth and I in DC, Wednesday night, live at
the Weitzman Museum in DC, Thursday afternoon, live at the
Moss Theater in Santa Monica Sunday. Or this event has
been unexpectedly canceled, there will be no Chuck Schumer and
(21:53):
there will be no refunds. I hope now three days
after they each lit themselves on fire, only to discover
it just wasn't enough for insane Dictator Trump. I hope
soon to be former leader one way or the other.
Schumer and Senators Fetterman and Jillibrand and the others who
(22:16):
sold out the democracy and more immediately their colleagues in
the House. And I hope the executives at MSNBC who
remember fired or demoted all the hosts of Color, and
the executives at CNN who thought they could hold insane
Dictator Trump at bay. I hope they have all understood
where we are, and in particular where they are here
(22:39):
is where we are. Donald Trump is insane. There is
only one path through his insanity towards restoring America as
a democracy, as a nation independent of Putin, as a
place not to be ashamed of. It is to destroy
Trump's presidency. Destroy his presidency. Nothing else will stop him.
(23:06):
His last remaining human emotion is vengeance, and nothing you do,
no matter how horrish, pandering, obvious, remorseful, no matter how
much money or ky jelly covered praise it contains, will
register with him. He wants to destroy you. He wants
(23:27):
to destroy the country, but he wants Schumer, MSNBC, CNN,
he wants to destroy you guys first.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
And I believe that CNN and MSDNC, who literally write
ninety seven point six percent bad about mere political arms
of the Democrat Party, And in my opinion, they're really
corrupt and they're illegal.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
What they do is illegal.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
So hey, CNN, how's uh letting that pimp Scott Jennings
take over prime time? Working out for you? Insane dictator?
Trump basically told the d Friday Afternoon arrest CNN, good thing,
Tapper and Bash that you didn't fact check him in
the debate last year. Backstage at the DOJ, Trump probably
(24:18):
mentioned the two of you by name. I'd rather have
a questioning audience, said CNN's Chris Licked two point zero.
He's British. His name is Mark Thompson at an event
on trust in the media on the first of this month.
I think we should draw our eyes about the loss
of traditional trust. Congratulations, Lord Thompson, you have succeeded. Now.
(24:40):
Nobody trusts CNN, not your former audience, not others in
news media, and obviously not Trump and his terrorists. Cell. Actually,
I take that last part back all of us, Trump included,
can trust CNN to do the wrong thing. And as
to Schumer, I really wonder if he will be stupid
(25:01):
enough to go out in public tonight or on the
rest of his tour, because a man in his position
can be that stupid can convince themselves. They won't protest me.
I'm the leader of the party in the Senate. He
can convince themselves. This is just an extreme version of
traditional politics that Trump is enacting, and not a slow
motion replay of January sixth, only with the brute force
(25:26):
added of law enforcement and bureaucracy. People like Schumer can
convince themselves. People may be mad at him, or they
were mad at him last week, but they're not that
mad and they're certainly not that mad at him this week. Chuck,
we are that mad at you. I don't think you
(25:47):
should resign as Senate Democratic leader. I think you should
resign from the Senate and Jillibrand with you. This is war.
It is a non shooting war. God help us, maybe
only for now. And Schumer is clueless, weak, selfish, arrogant,
(26:08):
and worst of all, myopic to try to finesse his
criminally incorrect vote on this to hide the intention of
his vote to be General George B. McClellan. When we
need General ulysses, ask goddamned grant and to sell out
the House Democrats. It's unforgivable. It is literally unforgivable. There
(26:31):
is no path back for Chuck Schumer. Enoch Powell's Central Library,
four hundred Cathedral Street, Baltimore, Maryland, seven pm. Be there, Aloha?
And what did Chuck Schumer get out of this? What
(26:52):
can be carved on his political tombstone? He ended his
career pleasing Trump. Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the
right thing. Took quote guts unquote and courage the big
tax cuts, LA firefix, debt ceiling billin. So much more
is coming. We should all work together on that very
(27:14):
dangerous situation. A non pass would be a country destroyer.
Approval will lead us to new heights again, really good
and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to
something big for the USA, a whole new direction and
beginning exclamation point? Does it worry you at all? Chuck?
Speaker 5 (27:31):
That?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Twenty four hours after that statement, insane, Dictator Trump's lawyers
told a federal court he has an inherent right under
Article two to deport anybody immigrant or otherwise on what
he and he alone says, our national security grounds. And
does it worry you, Chuck that twelve hours before he
(27:55):
praised you for doing the right thing. Twelve hours before that,
Donald Trump decided you are no longer Jewish, and.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Schumer is about as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
You know, he's become a Palestinian.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
He is to be Jewish.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
He's not Jewish anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
He's a Palestinian.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Okay, ah, yeah, but he's never gonna do something like
that again, not as long as he thinks he owns
you because you did something he desperately needed you to do,
and you were the only one who could do it,
and so now he might as well own you or
(28:32):
I don't know, sport you. You know what you do
when somebody says that about you, Chuck, You ask for
a meeting with him, a photo op, and when the
cameras are all rolling, then you kick him in the
balls and you take the consequences. You don't make a
deal with him the next day, selling out the people
who put you in office. Politicos sometimes uses anonymous sources irresponsibly,
(28:58):
but I'm not sure that's the case here. They often
also look through the wrong end of the telescope, and
I'm not sure that's the case here either. Quote. One
Democratic senator granted anonymity to share private discussions, said, conversations
are starting about whether Schumer should be their leader going forward.
There's a lot of concern about the failure to have
a plan and execute on it. The senator said. It's
(29:19):
not like you couldn't figure out that this is what
was going to happen behind closed doors. Even some longtime
Schumer allies are raising the specter that his time has passed. Quote.
Biden is gone, Pelosi is in the background. Schumer is
the last one left from that older generation, said one
New York based donor who is a longtime supporter of
a leader. I do worry that the older generation thinks
(29:40):
twenty twenty four was just about inflation. But no, the
game has changed. It's not left wing or moderate, it's
everyone now saying the game is different now. But he
was set up to battle in two thousand and six,
and we're a long way from two thousand and six. Or,
as the Hollywood writer director Mike Saminek wrote much more succinctly,
(30:01):
I don't want to say the Schumer optics are bad,
but Gavin Newsom just invited him on his podcast. There
(30:35):
are two other polling notes from those polls yesterday. The
CNN one asked Democrats to pick the leader who quote
best reflects the core values of the party. AOC is
at the top at ten percent, Kamala at nine, Bernie
at eight, a King Jeffreys at six, Jasmine Crockett at four,
(30:55):
Obama at four. Oh yeah, Obama, Remember Obama. I'm sure
he'll be dropping a protest playlist any day, soon after
he does his hoops bracket. Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer is
at two percent. No One the choice No One is
(31:15):
at thirty percent. AOC has five times Schumer's support. No
One has fifteen times Schumer's support, and Schumer at two percent,
is tied with Elissa Slotkin. The other poll, Trump's favorability
among all voters is already four points underwater and twelve
(31:38):
underwater on the economy. I mean, how do you f
this up in both directions, Chuck? Just as Trump begins
to drown on the economy, and just as Elon Musk
was retweeting somebody who wrote Stalin Mao and Hitler didn't
murder millions of people, their public sector workers did. And
(32:00):
even in the White House, Musk was seen to be imploding.
And then in response to that imploding, the White House
itself managed to implode and attack the racist Musk by
going even more racist than him. Musk blithely tells Cudlow
Scotchy Scotchy scotch on Fox Business about cutting entitlements. In
(32:22):
her Red Letter newsletter, Tara Palmery writes, even though Trump's
staffers are terrified of Musk, they know that if you
try to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, you die.
Politically speaking, quote, it's no longer simmering resistance. People are
effing furious. Set a source with knowledge of the situation,
(32:44):
and then comes the the coup to lack of grass.
Quote Medicaid is not just for black people in the ghetto.
These are our voters, unquote, set a Republican operative close
to the White House. How is that not the quote
(33:05):
on the lips of every Democrat in this country today?
Medicaid is not just for black people in the ghetto,
said a Republican operative close to the White House. These
are our voters. How is it not the quote on
every Democrat's lip today two words Chuck Schumer, or maybe
(33:29):
the quote from that little torp Marco Rubio, who, like Schumer,
actually thought he could bargain with Trump and instead wound
up having to be the front man for the first
assault on freedom of speech and extra legal extraditions, and
now having to expel the duly appointed South African ambassador
to the United States because Elon wants to make apartheid
(33:49):
great again. Rubio had to call South Africa's ambassador Rasoul
quote a race baiting politician who hates America, who is
no longer welcome here, because Rasoul gave a speech Friday
in which he said Trump was quote mobilizing white supremacy
(34:09):
in the US and abroad as well. So what's your
complain about that, little Marco? Trump is mobilizing white supremacy
in the US, and so is Musk, and so Marco,
are you you complicit? Little shit? And by the way,
a race baiting politician who hates America and is no
longer welcome here, Marco, since that also describes Trump, does
(34:35):
this mean you're going to expel Trump? Because somebody is
damn well gonna have to also of interest here, I'm
under the weather, so this will be kind of short today.
But the worst Person's list is the never ending feast.
And as the world collapses and Trump openly ignores the
(34:57):
courts and starts deporting people illegally. Yesterday, guess what the
lead story was at Politico. The tone of a DC
dinner for reporters, the tone I swear to God, ah,
there's nothing fatally wrong with our media political industrial complex.
(35:21):
Now that's next Ursless countdown. This is countdown with Keith
Olberman still ahead on countdown. When I'm sick, I always
(35:54):
think of my craziest visit to the doctor ever. I
was twenty one ish and the somewhat surprise outcome. So
my face stuck to the side of the train and
they had to help me break free from the window,
like that's never happened to you first, believe it or not.
(36:17):
There's still more new idiots to talk about. The daily
roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens
who constitute today's other worst persons.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Here are the nominees the Bronze Worse Poletiko. I know
I praised them earlier, like Trump, this only lasts three
to four minutes. That's as much time as it's going
to buy you. Illegal deportations, US citizens being locked up
because they were born somewhere else and were a told
(36:53):
JA I was sick. I'm going to leave that in
for evidence, illegal deportations, US citizens being locked up because no,
I really did leave that in because they were born
somewhere else and we're returning to the country. Elon Musk
still eluding the much needed tranquilizing Dart Schumer imploding, and
(37:14):
the lead item in Sunday's Politico Playbook newsletter The grid
Iron Dinner Saturday Night in Washington. The grid Iron Dinner,
despite the name, that's a journalism event. And to be fair,
Politico is about Washington and about journalism about Washington. And
(37:36):
I know that's not always evident from what they write,
especially with the drama constantly surrounding the people who work
there and the new fascist owners from Europe. But do
you think once, just once, you could lead with the
you know, earth shattering news like if Schumer is going
to be deposed, or if there are planes full of
(37:58):
people who have a legal right to be here, who
have been illegally deported by the insane dictator of the
United States, instead of a few words about the effing
Gridirn dinner, twenty six paragraphs about the grid Iron dinner,
the first twenty six paragraphs of your newsletter scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.
(38:20):
I'll get to the news somewhere, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Polit
ago twenty six paragraphs about the grid Iron dinner and
how they didn't toast the president. I will confess I
am sufficiently under the weather that when I first read
they toasted the president, my mood cheered briefly, where's the
(38:41):
photo of that? Holy crap. I also realized that for
a couple of years I have been mistakenly telling people
that it was at the grid Iron dinner that Dick
Cheney as Vice president made that joke about me that
I still love. It wasn't at the grid Iron dinner.
It was at the radio and TV correspondence dinner. And yes,
if it's a Saturday, there is another Journalisimalism dinner in DC.
(39:05):
Since you asked, I'll just well, I was going to
read the way ad we covered it, but you know
the clip is on YouTube, so in case you.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Don't know it Moe's blog is titled Moe Rock of
one to eighty only half as tedious as the regular News.
Among his other credits, Moe used to host a TV
show called Things I Hate About You. I'm sure I've
seen that program only I believe it's now called Countdown
(39:38):
with Keith Overman. Keith not here tonight to savor my company,
but we roared. I'm Jack Turnian.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
There's a joke about Kreith Olderman. Anyway. The point of
this was the first twenty six paragraphs on a dinner
like that, about jokes like that. The first twenty six man,
not the like six paragraphs of headlines, and then twenty
six paragraphs about the Gridiron dinner, but the first twenty
six paragraphs underscoring this fact. The night they finally kidnap
(40:18):
all the reporters off the streets, the last thing every
Washington correspondent will file is a piece about what their
friends were wearing at the time they were disappeared. The
runner up worser Alena Haba official administration nit wit. I've
(40:40):
said it so many times, you can say it with me.
The future and survival of democracy depends less on our
strenuous efforts to preserve it than it does on the
stupidity of those who intend to destroy it. That is
being tested now. But as long as we have the
Secretary of knit wittedness, Alina Habba, I believe we will
(41:00):
prevail after we get rid of Schumerlenahaha, responding to something
or another about about the attempts to stop human extortion
and trafficking. And I don't know if they were claiming.
I don't know who they're claiming the Pope is a trap.
I don't know who they were claiming there was a trafficker.
(41:22):
And Alena Habba writes, thank you, let's pray for the
many victims of human extortion as a result of the
last administration's neglect and failures. And then the prayer emoji
and this note, this community note. Alna Habba supported the
Tate brothers who are under investigation for human trafficking. There's
(41:46):
a reason you go into parking lot law, and that's
because it's a challenge to you. I wanted to stretch
my mind. It went entirely one inch wide. But the
winner is the worst. Marco Rubio and naib Buclei, Kelly.
As you know, a federal court blocked the illegal deportation
(42:09):
of Venezuelans by the insane dictator to a concentration camp
in a third party country. El Salvador planes were in
the air already, and so the administration decided not to
turn the planes around and announced it was not defying
the court, and announced it was defying the court. Marco Rubio,
(42:31):
the Little Shit Secretary of Little Shit, boasted about it,
and the President of Al Salvador, it's just a brand name.
There's not really a president, like we don't really have
a president, we have an insane dictator. Naib Bukel, president
of Al Salvador, screen shoted the headline from the New
York Post about the judge blocking Trump from invoking the
(42:52):
Alien Enemies Act, and President Bukel added quote oopsie too
late and added the crying laughing emoji because somewhere along
the line emoji became fascist. That's president asshole of l Salvador. Yeah,
keep laughing, see you at the World Court at the Hague,
(43:14):
buddy in twenty twenty nine, unless your own people take
care of their problem. Five years ago, this alleged president
wanted approval from the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly for a one
hundred and nine million dollar loan for his Territorial Control Plan.
So to deliver the message, President Bukake or whatever his
name is, set forty soldiers over to the Legislative Assembly
(43:38):
to say hell. In twenty nineteen, President Bukela introduced that plan,
the Territorial Control Plan, to reduce the homicide rate. It
was reduced only actor alleged the US Department of State
bu Kela negotiated with the gangs in El Salvador to
reduce the homicide rate. Hey, do me a solid kill
(43:59):
fewer people, Okay? And you know who alleged that with
the State Department under which presid is it alleged he
did that, Trump's State Department. But now Trump's newhore at
the State Department. Marco's he's Besti's with this guy, Marco
Rubio and alleged President Bucelly of Al Salvador. What happened
(44:20):
to that guy to Turte from the Philippines again? Oh
oh boy, two days worst persons. I can't hit this
high note in the world. Shoe the number one story
(44:45):
on the countdown and things I promised not to tell.
And this is anything but an important career story. But
I was reminded of it recently, and I laughed like hell,
so I thought, maybe you should too. I haven't seen
all of them in this country, but to my mind,
the most underrated of American rivers is the one I
grew up along. The Hudson gets a bad rad because
it's associated with New York City and the deteriorating remnants
(45:09):
of the city's once dominant piers, some of which have
been unused and rotting for half a century now. But
further upstate, literally just past the city line, the Hudson
is a magnificent river just to watch, never mind ride on.
This is particularly true during a stretch in which the
western side of the river is fronted by a series
of sheer cliffs called the Palisades, brownish black and striated,
(45:33):
carved as the river took shape millions of years ago,
but always looking like they had been carefully designed for
esthetic effect. Unfortunately, they are best seen from the commuter
railroad that runs along the Hudson into Westchester County, New York,
instead of a series of parks or even private palaces.
Our forefathers had the presence of mind to build factories
(45:55):
and copper processing plants and other nightmares right on the
Hudson because of the obvious transportation benefits the Hudson provided,
and so the train tracks were laid out next to
the river because that made it even easier to get
stuff to and from the big city. And damn the
views or the ability to appreciate life on the water
or the pollution. Still, if you ever find yourself now
(46:19):
taking a train from Grand Central Station into the western
half of Westchester, get a window seat on the left
side of the trainer. Better yet, when you come back
into New York City, sit on the right side, on
the river side, and you will get fifteen minutes or
more of the most magnificent view imaginable out the big windows. Winter's, spring, summer,
(46:41):
or fall. The palisades provide the Hudson with a magnificent
frame that's almost like a miniature Grand Canyon. I remember
thinking of all this that one day, early in nineteen
eighty I was finally feeling a little better, thanks to
doctor Cecilini. Doctor Cecilini had been my physician since I
was a boy, and he was the school doctor, and
(47:01):
he'd been the town doctor since about teen forty four,
and he always name dropped other patients I'd never heard of.
And as I finished my last growth spurt at the
end of my twentieth year, I had frequent back pain,
no fun at all, and sleeping on the floor helped
a little, but not enough. And finally Cecilini, who had
been a hospital doctor during World War Two and had
(47:22):
seen everything, said hey, just get this prescription filled. Take
one on them every day for the next week. It's
called a muscle relaxing. This will loosen up your back,
always lessen the pain. Well, bet, just don't you know,
don't operate any heavy machinery. Do you operate heavy machinery
when you do those sportscasts? Yars Keith had a patient
(47:45):
try to run a processor at the copper factory while
he took this nineteen fifty seven, we lost three fingers.
Leonardo ben Venuti, you know any of the ben Venuties
used to live on Williams Street. I laughed, this was
him every time, the ben Venuti's on william Street, the
Smiths on Williams Street, the Williams on Smith Street. Anyway,
(48:08):
back to the muscle relaxance. I don't think I had
ever heard of them before, let alone taken one. I
took my barking back to the pharmacy in my hometown
of Hastings On Hudson, New York. I got the prescription filled.
I bought a soda at the pizza parlor across the street,
and I ambled down the tiny village's picturesque business district.
It's three blocks long, past the statue our old neighbor,
(48:30):
Jacques Lipshits donated, and the ultra modern library, and right
into the train station. It was January. It was about
twelve degrees and as I waited for the train to
make its forty minute trip into the city and my
job as a sportscaster for the radio network of United
pres International, I took the pill what were they called again,
muscle muscle relaxance that doctor C had given me and
(48:53):
given his other patient, Rico Rendazzo Or was that some
guy he mentioned in nineteen sixty six to me. I
worked the night shift at UPI, so the train was
almost always empty, and thus I almost always had my
choice of window seats. Midday and midwinter combined to make
the sun glisten with extra sparkle off the magnificent Hudson,
(49:13):
and the sun's angle was such that the palisades behind
them gleamed brightly as well. And I was thinking about
just how gorgeous they were, and how underrated the Hudson was,
and and and I felt myself drifting away. I felt
two hands, one on each shoulder, shaking me violently. Hey buddy, hey, hey, hey,
(49:37):
hey buddy. I fought to open my eyes and to
avoid the bad breath now enveloping my face. As I
finally came around, I realized it was the conductor who
had just taken my ticket. The train wasn't moving. In fact,
only half of the lights were on in the train.
The palisades were long gone, not the Hudson nor the Palisades,
(49:59):
but darkness came in through the windows. I was completely confused.
Am I'd shake it off. You gotta get out of here.
This is as far as we go. Train's going out
of service. You don't get off now, you'll be parked
under thirty seventh straight for the rest of the day.
Through my fog and my haze, I finally began to
understand what had happened and where I was. And I
began to try to stand when a horrifying awareness overtook me.
(50:22):
I could not move the right side of my face.
What was worse, I could barely feel the right side
of my face. Good God, what had happened to me?
Was this? Like that haunting episode of Alfred Hitchcock where
the woman is struggling to wake up and remember the
details of the accident out on San Francisco Bay the
night before, Only as it finally comes back to her,
(50:45):
it turns out the accident had drowned her boyfriend. And
the reason it was so difficult to remember was, as
she realized only when she got up and saw her
reflection in a mirror, that the accident hadn't happened last night,
but it had happened in nineteen oh five, and she'd
been in an insane asylum for half a century. Was
that what had happened to me?
Speaker 5 (51:04):
No?
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Actually, as I discovered when my struggle finally freed my
face from the train window to which it had stuck,
because I had drooled for like thirty five consecutive minutes,
because I had taken the muscle relaxing, because I had
taken an honest empty stomach, because I knew nothing about
muscle relaxance, because I was out cold with my mouth open,
(51:27):
pressed up against the train window on a twelve degree day,
and I had gotten frozen to the glass. Look, it
was not quite half a century in an insane asylum,
but certainly more embarrassing. It seemed like it took me
half a century to pull all of this together. I
stood up wobbly. I apologized to the conductor, and I
(51:50):
mumbled back pain new drug. And as I banked from
one side of the doorway to the other and bounced
out onto the platform, the conductor shouted after me, only
take him at night. Huh that little saga? Yeah, Doc,
my back is better, but I left half the skin
(52:10):
on my right cheek frozen into the one twenty from
Hastings to Grand Central. He'd probably say, yeah, that happened
to another patient of mine, Carlo John Lombardo. That reminded
me of a much later story from doctor Cecilini, and
I don't want to leave the wrong impression here. Edward
Cecilini was a terrific doctor. He practiced into his nineties.
(52:31):
He used to tell me to come visit him at
his practice in his home on Farragut Parkway anytime I
was up from the city visiting my folks. Well, Josh,
shoot the phrase, and he'd tell me about something about
treating Umberto Flambini in the Army hospital in nineteen forty four,
and he'd asked me if I went to school with
Marco Bartolini and then say he had to go. He
was taking a course over at Sony Purchase about the
(52:53):
latest computer aided diagnostic till the man was ninety years old.
He never stopped learning, great man, and did he howl
at the muscle relaxing start. Sorry, sorry, I didn't warn you.
Oh well, I just take him at night. I had
another patient through that nineteen seventeen. It's just all right anyway.
(53:14):
Now it's nineteen ninety five and I'm working at ESPN,
and I'm supposed to fly to Vancouver to do a
cameo in an Adam Sandler golf movie, which I suppose
was Happy Gilmour. And I didn't want to try to
fly to Chicago and then change for Vancouver after going
the two hours from the middle of Connecticut to JFK.
So I came in to my folks house the day
(53:34):
before I took the folks out to dinner. I stayed
over in the spare room to leave from their house
to the airport in the morning, and at some point
in the middle of the night, I began to have
chest pains. Literally the top of my ribs hurt, and
my breathing was constricted, and I couldn't get back to sleep.
And now I'm thinking, I don't know what's wrong, but
something is wrong. So I canceled the trip and I
(53:55):
head up to doctor Cecilmini as soon as he's opened
up shop, and he's eighty five now, and he gives
me the big welcome as usual, and I tell him
this story and he says, oh, yeah, I've tried to
think it notting to worry about, but we we should
get this on the record, just in case your movie
company gets pissy with you about canceling dad. Happened to
another friend of mine, patient Francesco Lulla Bridget. He had
(54:16):
a cameo and Moby Dick in nineteen fifty six. He
had cancel He wanted it soon. How about you get
your dad just drive you up to the hospital, Dobbs Ferry,
I meet you there and oh like half an hour,
hour and a half something like that. Let me just
run a couple of tests on you. When we got
you out. There's no rush whatsoever. What's ther now? He
stares off in his space for a second, and he
looks back at me. He says, I got a I
(54:38):
got an idea A little simpler. I have to go
there later up to drop off some paperwork on some
other guy, Frisco Gaspouci no Frisco. Anyway, Just give me
a second. I'll call him. I'll tell him what's coming up.
I just you just hop in the car with me
and go out in the waiting room, cause I'm gonna
call him about Frisco. And I got to worry about
doctor patient confidentiality, but about Frisco gospooci sa. You know,
(54:59):
I gotta worry about that. So I don't want you
listening to this. So now Ed Cecilini is driving me
to Dobbs Ferry Hospital, and I'm thinking about how much
he defines the idea of a really dedicated doctor, and
how every other patient he's ever mentioned to me, I've
never heard of one of them. And we get to
the hospital, I don't know. We talked about baseball or
my folks or something, and he drives right up to
(55:21):
the er and we walk in like it's nothing, and
he waves to the admitting nurse. Hi, Sheila, how's your son, Shila?
And he points at me. He says, that's the guy,
and he says, like it was absolutely the way they
do it at every hospital. You can go all his
info from him. After we run this little check on,
all right, and we go right into the room and
two nurses are in there and they say hi, and
one of them tells me to take off my shirt.
(55:42):
The other starts shaving places on my chest, and before
I know what's happening, I've got electrodes on me and
they're hooking me up to an EKG and they're drawing blood.
In Cecellini reads the start of the EKJ print out
and he smiles at me. He says, I'm sorry I
scammed you, but the way you described your chest pains,
I thought it was fifty to fifty. He had a
heart attack. Last thing I want to do is tell
you that just in case you had had a heart
(56:03):
attack and then you had another that happened to another
patient of mine, Bernardo Petro Sante. You know Bernardo, Oh,
let me only know this. Ah, you're fine. I'd let
me just wait on the blood gases, double check that
go out there and do the paperwork for shill at
the desk. Guy, I think it's just a muscle problem.
The son of a gun had not only made sure
(56:25):
I didn't know it might be serious, it might be
heart attacks serious, but he conned me into going to
the emergency room without alarming me or even letting me
know that was his plan along. And as I'm brushing
the shaved hairs off my chest and putting my shirt on,
I say thanks, and then it hits me, Hey, another thing,
(56:46):
Doc Bernardo Pietro Sante and Umberto Flambini, and all these
other patients you've mentioned all these years. They don't really exist,
do they? And he says, oh, got me about that.
I learned a long time ago. Make sure your patient
never feels like they're the first idiot to have done
this to themselves. Come on, I'll give you a lift
back to your folks. Might look in and see how
(57:08):
your dad's doing if he's gotten moment, I've done all
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Once again, my apologies for the relative brevity. Not feeling
(57:30):
that great, but you'd never know it from my performance
here today. And you know why that is because I'm
tough also because you can edit out all the bad stuff.
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanel, the musical directors, have
Countdown Arrange, produced and performed most of our music, and
still I'd rather go alive. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
(57:53):
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It
was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
The sports music is the old theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis and Curtesy of ESPN Inc.
Other music arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. My
(58:13):
announcer today is my friend Kenny Main, who does not
appear curtisyvsp Inc. Everything else was, as ever my fault.
That's countdown for today, Just four hundred and six days
until the scheduled end of his lane duck lame brained dictatorship,
unless Musk removes him sooner or the actuarial tables due.
(58:34):
The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Again, We'll see as
always bulletins as the news warrants. Remember impeach Trump. Impeach
Trump won't work now, but it will win the Democrats
the mid terms if there are midterms, and there is
the easy way to get rid of Schumer. You, thirty
six Democrats and Bernie Sanders just create the new Christy
(58:57):
Minstrels Party. Until next time, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(59:28):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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