June 26, 2024 • 47 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 200: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT:
With the news that tomorrow night, debate moderators Danna Bash and Jake Tapper will NOT fact-check Trump in real time, CNN has abrogated yet another journalistic imperative at yet another Trump event offering him yet another step towards imposing a dictatorship on this nation.
Oh, ok, says CNN: on the 2020 election, yeah, they’ll push back. But otherwise?The moderators “are not participants in the debate. They are facilitators,” said a CNN spokesman. CNN’s woeful political director David Chalian – largely responsible for the Trump Town Hall debacle last year – told the New York Times that a live debate “is not the ideal arena for live fact-checking”even as that spokesperson who refused to give their NAME to Axios said that there WOULD be SOME fact-checking of major falsehoods and smaller details on secondary CNN platforms. So they’re going to do it, they’re just not going to do it where it matters or when it matters. Just to further confess that the decision to NOT fact check Trump’s firehose of lies as he makes them, WHERE he makes them, is another principle thrown away to make sure Trump shows up or doesn’t batter the network, or both, that SAME spokesman said that Trump's lies about 2020 are “inaccuracies.”
WHAT SHOULD BIDEN DO? When Trump says something crazy – about sharks OR the economy OR anything in between – START by saying “Donald Trump is insane. And he’s wrong. Here’s why.”
This is especially true if Trump tries the “are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Emphasize Trump’s criminal culpability about Covid. The million dead. The bleach. The putting light in your body. The economic collapse. The fact that in February Trump knew it was airborne and lied to the public for months as Americans died. Say it, Mr. President, say it bluntly: Trump killed a million Americans. There are American millions HE killed for whom there is no question – they ain’t better off now than they were four years ago.
AND bluntly say that he killed the economy. That the inflation we are finally stopping now is TRUMP Inflation. It’s TRUMP COVID inflation. That the president with the worst job records since Herbert Hoover was Trump. That violent crime exploded under Trump. That there were two kinds of criminals under Trump: muggers and murderers on the street… and ex-presidents who tried to overthrow the government.
And the most important truth to hit him with – the most important truth to dispel what Brian Beutler dubbed “Trump-Stalgia and Trump-Nesia” – the most important truth to enrage Trump – is the truth that he lost. That he lost the election. That he’s a loser. And that instead of taking it like a man, he had other people try to overthrow the government, he didn’t even have the guts to go to the Capitol during the coup.
B-Block (21:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Troy Nehls has been wearing a combat medal he never deserved. The military took it back. He says it's the establishment trying to punish him. Vivek Ramaswamy praises the Julian Assange deal, rips the Julian Assange deal, blames Biden, even though he was indicted by Trump. And Missouri's Attorney General sues New York State to somehow impact Trump's 34 Felony Convictions here and says there would be no way some rogue D.A. would have taken Abe Lincoln off the campaign trail in South Carolina in 1860 for being anti-slavery when, of course, Abe Lincoln was taken off the BALLOT in South Carolina in 1860 for being anti-slavery.
C-Block (33:44) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I did an interview about my doctor and friend Renée Richards over the weekend so it's time to tell how I met her - and more importantly why - when she treated me after I slammed my head on the front of the 7 Train at Shea Stadium in New York in 1980.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor
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, with
the news that Tomorrow night debate moderators Dana Bash and
(00:25):
Jake Tapper will not fact check Trump's lies in real time.
CNN has abrogated yet another journalistic imperative, and he had
another Trump event offering him he had another step towards
imposing a dictatorship on this nation. Oh okay, says CNN
on the twenty twenty election. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll push back.
(00:45):
But when Trump insists Biden killed two women and he
should go to jail because the alleged actual murderers were
undocumented immigrants, what are they going to do to him?
A customized Dana Bash shrug emoji When Trump insists the
president is on drugs? Is Jake Tapper just going to
stare daggers at Trump? The last time CNN punted on
(01:10):
its responsibilities to this nation, the truth and to just reality,
it gave us the hapless Caitlin Collins Trump Live town
hall in May of twenty twenty three, and as bad
as she proved to be at it, Collins was at
least trying to get a fact in edgewise. The moderators
tomorrow Night quote are not participants in the debate, they
(01:32):
are facilitators, said as CNN spokesman CNN's woeful political director
David Shallion, largely responsible for the Trump debacle last year,
told The New York Times that a live debate is
not the ideal arena for live fact checking, even as
that spokesperson, who refused to give their name to Axios
said that there would be some fact checking of major
(01:55):
falsehoods and smaller details, but only on the secondary CNN
platforms like the digital ones. So they're not going to
do it. Oh no, they're going to do it. They're
just not going to do it where it matters or
when it matters. Just to further confess that the CNN
decision to not fact check Trump's fire hose of lies
(02:18):
as he makes them where he makes them is another
principle thrown away to make sure Trump shows up or
doesn't batter the network or take revengulator or all three.
That same CNN spokesman said that they would fact check
claims that the twenty twenty election was stolen, but the
spokesman described those claims to Axios as inaccuracies. This is
(02:43):
CNN Collins Trump town Hall of May twenty twenty three
did not get the late and very unlamented Chris licked
fired as CNN's chief and relegated to the dust spend
of dereliction of duty. Licks amazingly self loving comments in
the Atlantic magazine article did that, but the town Hall
(03:05):
was his penultimate step off the cliff. You can almost
see a similar fate sharpening into focus for Lickt's successor,
the British print newsman Mark Thompson. Just to make CNN's
pre debate failure seem even more like Homer Simpson falling
down his cliff. Thompson said he expected this to be
quote an absolutely classic debate, and he compared it to
(03:29):
in advance, the first Nixon Kennedy debate from nineteen sixty. Well,
I'm sure they are comparable, sir, since they will both
have been on television. Mister Thompson planted one last rake
to step on, or one last Petard to hoist himself.
(03:50):
With the format of the debate, he actually thinks has
quote been done in a way at least in principle,
that is designed to get as much light as possible
and not to be overwhelmed with heat. Principal, we're talking
about Trump, and you seriously think that principles will somehow
(04:13):
prevail here. This is Trump. The way you kept candidates
in line in nineteen ninety eight or nineteen sixty or
eighteen fifty eight or in the UK may work again
someday if we survive this election, but it is not
going to work with Trump, because this man is literally
running for his life, and thus he is tomorrow night
(04:36):
literally debating for his life. There are no rules here,
there is no truth here, and there is nobody inside
of Trump for you to appeal to. By now it
should no longer be such, yet this truth remains. It
continues to stun me that TV network after TV network,
(04:57):
and soon to be x TV executive after soon to
be x TV executive still thinks his or her vision
of exactly the same idea to contain Trump that didn't
work last time or didn't work the last fifty times,
is going to work this time because well, in Chris
Licht's case, it was because he knew it would work
(05:20):
since he had produced Stephen Colbert, so he was too
cool for anybody to deare ignore him. In Kristin Welker
and Carrie Butdolph Brown's cases, they thought they'd get away
with it at NBC because, after all, they were hiring
Ronald McDaniel and the price would be worth it to
not fact check Trump on Meet the Press. And in
the new CNN guy Mark Thompson's case, I guess he
(05:41):
thinks it'll work because he has dual American and British citizenship,
and he can always go back there and get a
job there after this impending FASCO costs him this job,
or maybe he can go become editor of the Washington Post.
I understand they're hiring, by the way, if you had
(06:05):
not noticed the fascists, maybe not the Republicans, but the
true hallucinators. They believe Trump has already won the debate
and the election. As the first of these looms, the
Trump cult is really pouring gasoline they don't own on
a fire. We intend to prevent them from lighting. There
is today now not only an official Trump hit list,
(06:27):
Schedule F, which would let him fire all government civil
service employees and replace them with I don't know he's
remaining relatives and other brain damage flunkies, but there is
now also an unofficial Trump hit list. The Federalist Society,
and again the solution here is to declare the Federalist
Society a terrorist organization. The Federalist Society has given a
(06:50):
Kentucky guy named Tom Jones with a resume showing he
used to be an aid to fascist Congressman Jim de
Mint and a press photo showing he has eight chins.
The Federalist Society has given him one hundred thousand dollars
to assemble and then publicly post a list of, as
the Associated Press phrases it, quote, one hundred names of
(07:12):
government workers who might be standing in the way of
a second term Trump agenda. On the surface, Jones and
his American Accountability Foundation are scanning backgrounds, social media posts,
other commentary to get people fired from federal departments, especially
Homeland Security. Because if you think Trump wants to use
(07:33):
the Department of Justice as his personal attorneys and he
wants to use the FBI as his personal police, take
a guess what he wants to use Homeland Security for
two letters. It begins with an S and it ends
with another S. But getting them fired by Tom Jones
(07:53):
is just the surface plan. What else do you suppose
might happen to the one hundred people on it. If
some conservative psychopath posted a Trump and Emmy's list on
a website and again ruining the lives of one hundred people,
making examples of one hundred people in order to preempt
(08:15):
further criticism of a Trump dictatorship and the redeployment of DOJ,
the FBI, Homeland and other federal institutions as part of
a fascist state. That's just the first step. Because back
at the official Trump kill list at Project twenty twenty five,
there is Joseph Backhome of the Family Research Council. When
(08:36):
Whoopy Goldberg noted that the move to put up the
Ten Commandments on the walls of every school in Louisiana,
and I mean anywhere in this country outside of Vegas,
where the Ten Commandments, bullshit as they might be, are
violated more frequently than they are in Louisiana. When Whoopy
noted that this was an attempt to turn every school
into a religious school, this, Joseph Backholme of the Family
(08:59):
Research Council and Project twenty twenty five commented, quote, I
think the response there to Whoopee is that public schools
are religious schools, and that's really what this moment requires
us to recognize. Why does Joseph say that, because quote
Pride flags represent a set of religious values about who
(09:20):
is in charge. So there you have it. Opposition to
Trump will be purged from the government and others will
be warned from even trying it as they watch the
lives of those who have already criticized him get their
lives ruined. Schools will be religious schools, and the religion
will prevent the gay And how did we get here?
(09:43):
We got here obviously because of the villainy on the right.
We also got here because for half a century, our secular, fair,
non religious nut job somewhat scrupled politicians formerly in both
major parties, lately just on the left, have bluntly not
beaten the metaphorical shit out of the religious nut job
(10:05):
every time they have surface to crusade. Crusade meant literally
as in, let's go kill people in the Holy Land,
or failing that, we will accept Louisiana as an alternate answer.
They rise and they send their own members out into
the public, and we have not done enough to crush them.
And when that failed, they got behind a psychopath. It
would do anything for them, because the evangelicals do vote
(10:27):
and they do vote in blocks, and if you let
them impose their hallucinations and delusions and superstitions upon the
rest of us, they will let you get away with murder, or,
in Trump's case, they will let him get away with
bum fights. Bum fights, bum fights, having the homeless fight
each other or fight low level professional fighters while the
(10:51):
supposed ordinary good Americans pay money and sit back and laugh.
Got any memory that does bring a distant from two
decades ago. Bum fights back, only this time and even
more hateful version of them, proposed by no less than
the biggest bum of them all. Trump wants to have
(11:12):
immigrants fight American born professionals in mixed martial arts fights.
Trump is like two steps from suggesting building a new
Roman colisseum in West Palm Beach and having them battle
lions there. Trump is like three steps from in the
bitterest of ironies, given the death of my friend Donald
Sutherland last Thursday, the Trump Hunger Games, a title which
(11:34):
itself would be ironic inso much as in the last
three decades, Trump has clearly never let himself be hungry
for more than five minutes at a stretch, and Trump crazy, Trump, sadistic,
Trump living in a dreamlike fugue state, almost Caligula Trump,
He's only like five steps from the worst thing he
could ever ever think of, having immigrants fight sharks. I
(12:01):
have one simple request, and that is to have sharks
with freaking laser beams attached to their heads. Can you
remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw
me a bone here, Sharks with frickin' laser beams that
are solar powered, so they'll short out and electrocute somebody
(12:21):
when they get wet. Because Trump is simultaneously convinced that
green energy fails when it's not windy, or if the
machine gets wet, But the wind powered engine on a
sinking boat would still somehow electrocute him, but it would
not electrocute the shark ten feet away from him. At
as much as this tells us about what terrifies this psychopath.
(12:42):
We're a little deep in the woods here and the
weeds as well, And as Biden prepares for the debate
two nights from now, he should widen out the lens
and underscore the key point in the shark story and
the migrant fighting league story and all the rest of
these violent fantasies, which is that Trump is not only
insane and deteriorating, but that he has the makings of
(13:04):
criminal insanity. Widening out and answering Trump's delusions not with
what you and I do, parsing them to underscore just
how crazy they and he really are. Widening out is
I think Biden's best plan for tomorrow night. He needs
to start where we leave off when Trump says something
(13:25):
crazy about sharks or about the economy or anything in between.
Start by saying Donald Trump is insane, and by the way,
he's wrong and he's lying to you. Here's why this
is especially true if Trump tries the are you better
off now than you were four years ago? Jazz emphasized
Trump's criminal culpability about COVID, emphasized the million dead, the bleach,
(13:49):
the putting light in your body, the economic collapse, the
fact that in February twenty twenty, Trump knew it was
airborne and lied to the public for months as Americans died.
Say it, mister president, say it. Bluntly. Trump killed a
million Americans. There are American millions he killed for whom
there is no question they ain't better off now than
(14:10):
they were four years ago. And bluntly say that he
still managed while doing this to kill the economy. That
the inflation we are finally stopping now is Trump inflation.
It's Trump COVID inflation. That the president with the worst
job record since Herbert Hoover was Trump. That violent crime
(14:31):
exploded under Trump, that there were two kinds of criminals
under Trump, muggers and murderers on the street and ex
presidents who tried to overthrow the government. And the most
important truth to hit him with, the most important truth
to dispel what Brian Bouler beautifully dubbed Trumpstalgia and trump Nisia,
the most important truth to enrage Trump is the truth
(14:54):
that he lost, that he lost the election, that he's
a loser, and that instead of taking it like a man,
he had other pe people tried to overthrow the government
for him. He was such a coward. He didn't even
have the guts to go to the capitol during the coup.
(15:15):
I mean, what is he going to say to that,
I did too have the guts to go to the
capitol during the coup. I really wanted to stay and
go there, but they said, sir, you can't go, it's
not safe. They had tears in their eyes, to which
Biden could reply, it wasn't safe. It was all your supporters,
it was all your people, and it wasn't safe. And
(15:36):
you wanted to go, but they stopped you. Who stopped you,
who made your decisions for you? Donald, you were president
of the United States. I mean you were the worst
weakest president in history. And when you tried for reelection,
you lost. But you let some White House aid or
secret serviceman tell you what you could and couldn't do.
(16:01):
Let me tie this together, bum fights, migrant fighting championships,
the official Trump enemies List, the unofficial Trump enemies List,
mandatory religion in public schools. This is your generation of
politicians who have failed us. President Biden, you all tried
to compromise. We all thought you were right to We
were all wrong. You have to go into this debate
(16:23):
escalating your assessment of what is really at risk. It
is not enough to merely fight Trump in this debate
on behalf of America. You have to think of it
this way, on behalf of humanity and mankind, because the
next five years is the last chance we have to
mitigate a climate disaster. What would you have said, mister President,
(16:44):
knowing what you know today if you were debating not
in twenty twenty four in Atlanta, but in nineteen thirty
two somewhere in Germany against Hitler. Throw some punches, Joe
Summon the old anger, get in there with the plan
(17:05):
on destroying Donald Trump because he might as well be
Hitler or has his national press secretary called him the
other night Hilter back on this planet. As they start Thursday,
we are likely to see both sides claiming their candidate
(17:26):
is leading in the polling. Trump will be lying using
the polling averages from five point thirty eight dot Com,
the Split Ticket political website, put out a graphic showing
what Trump's stormy Daniel's election interference conviction did to his
numbers In the swing states. Biden is only ahead and
by only half a point in only two of them,
(17:47):
Michigan and Wisconsin, but the move towards him in the
polls since Trump's conviction on the thirtieth of May is astonishing.
When reduced to the measurement of the swing. In the
swing states, Biden has gained a point at a tenth
in North Carolina, He's gained a point and one fifth.
In Georgia. He's gained one and three fifths in Michigan.
(18:11):
In three states Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, he's improved by
two and three tenths of a point, and in Nevada
he's three and three tenths points better than he was
a month ago. Overall, in the swing states, he went
from minus one point seven to plus zero point one
in about four weeks. I hit the poll numbers last week,
(18:32):
and at the same time George Conway noted accurately that
we should not focus only on the polls because they
could give a false sense of security. Yes, entirely true,
but they are still of value because if I was
taught one thing by my experience of two thousand and five, six, seven, eight,
when the viewer response to my commentaries was basically thank God,
I thought I was the only person who realized this
(18:53):
was happening. If I was taught one thing by all
that it is never underestimate the value of reminding people
that the gravity has not been turned off in the world,
that cause an effect still exists, that good can beat evil,
particularly when good gets up off its ass. There's nothing
(19:14):
like having somebody, even a polster, even a lot of polsters,
whose numbers are then made into an average say no, no,
you're not alone, and no you're not crazy. And lastly
to that end, and to circle back to advice to Biden,
I think, mister President, you should say repeatedly that Trump
(19:34):
is exactly that crazy, insane, nuts out of his head.
I would go back to ancient history in the Trump
versus Biden stuff, all the way back to nearly two
weeks ago. Joe Bride, this guy Joe Bride. He called
(19:56):
him Joe Bride, and don't forget in March Trump, who'd
also called him. Trump wrote about Joe Biden, and in
writing about him, called him Joe Buden. President should run
with this tomorrow night. Run with it, laugh about it,
(20:17):
shout about it, hell sing about it, yes, sir, sing
about it. Oh. Nancy called him Joe Bride. Trump sprain
is Bride. He once called him pewed and sanity inside
(20:39):
of Trump has due, uh had, Thank you, Nancy Faust.
Also of interest here, I wonder sometimes if there was
an unknown pandemic, say twenty thirty years ago, a pandemic
(20:59):
that made at least a third of our population stupid,
but also convinced them they were genie, some kind of
Dunning Krueger coronavirus, because a congressman who never fought in
combat does not know that he can't wear a medal
that they only gave the combat soldiers. And vive Ramaswamy
doesn't know who prosecuted Assange, and an attorney general of
(21:22):
one of these United States does not know how Lincoln
was kept off the ballot in ten states or in
eighteen sixty, nor why these people are dumb enough that
they could each run CNN. That's next. This is countdown.
This is countdown with Keith Olberman still on this ediative countdown.
(22:05):
It's not quite the anniversary that will come up in August,
but I happened to do an interview over the weekend
about the great tennis player and legendary muscle ophthalmologist and
my friend, doctor Renee Richards, who treated me after I
did this to myself in nineteen eighty, so it's close
enough to the anniversary. It was the day I learned
what mom had met all those years when she used
(22:27):
to say, never run for a train, There'll always be
another one. I found it out by making a loud
clanging sound on the front of a train and using
my own head to do it coming up in things
I promised not to tell, or this time more accurately
things I'm lucky I didn't accidentally maim myself, so I
(22:47):
can still tell you ahead. But first there are still
more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of
the misgrants, morons and dunning krugriffects specimens who constitute two
days worse persons in the world. Clank the bronze, speaking
like he ran into a train once two Congressman Troy
(23:09):
Nells Troy is one way or the other, not right
in the head. He was a civil affairs branch officer
in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, non combat, yet
by some sort of clerical mistake, he was awarded the
combat Infantry badge in two thousand and eight, which he
was not eligible for he was never in combat. In
(23:32):
twenty twenty three, the army corrected its mistake and rescinded
Nells's badge. Somebody noticed and asked him why if he
wasn't eligible for the badge, he was still wearing it
as a congressman, He said, go ask the army. So
a group called not us or notice NTUS did the
Army got back to them and said no, Nells can't
(23:53):
keep it, can't wear it, and nobody in the military
was entitled to give him a pass on the military medal.
He is still weddering even though it isn't justified. Nells says,
this is the establishment going to any lengths to get him.
He did not use the word woke. I'm totally disappointed
the runner up worser Vivic Ramaswami. There are some stupid people.
(24:20):
There is the Dunning Kruger effect. Then there is Viviq Ramaswami,
another potential author of Vivic's Ramaswami's autobiographical history of the World,
unless Trump writes a book by that title first, or
has it written for him first. This accidental rich guy
who thinks he is the smartest person in history is
actually clueless. He seems to be publicly celebrating the Julian
(24:43):
Assange plea deal, but he criticizes the president for making
that plea deal, and he knows nothing about the history
of the prosecution of Essanje I mean just the last
five years of it. Rama l Lama ding Dong writes,
it's great that Julian Assange will finally be released in
what smells like a desperate Biden gunmit for Libertarian votes.
(25:03):
But it's shamed that he had to spend years rotting
in a foreign prison for doing what other reporters do regularly,
while the government employee who leaked to him, Chelsea Manning,
had her sentence commuted by Obama because she's a member
of a favored political class. Transgender Julian Assange deserves a
pardon and its long past overdue to restore one standard
(25:26):
of law again in America. He writes like he talks
without punctuation or intelligence cool. Assange was indicted on May
twenty third, twenty nineteen, by the Department of Justice, and
the Attorney General was Bill Barr. The president was elderly
first offender Trump. Not only did Trump indict Assange, but
(25:50):
this was a superseding indictment. Meeting Trump and Barr and
their DOJ decided the previous indictments of Massage were not
strong enough, so they threw them out and indicted him
some more so. Naturally. Ram Swami thinks it's all Biden's fault,
but our winner. Same hubris. That is the theme today,
same stupidity, different topic. Andrew Bailey another ex military guy
(26:16):
who somehow became Attorney General of Missouri. You may recall
that when they were talking about a ballot initiative of
abortion in his state, ban or non ban, the Missouri
Auditor's office confirmed that though like Bailey, he the auditor
opposed abortion rights in Missouri. No, it would not cost
(26:37):
taxpayers a dime to restore abortion rights in Missouri, and
ending abortion rights in Missouri wouldn't save them a dime.
It had no impact financially whatsoever. But Attorney General Bailey
demanded that the auditor change his finding before the ballot
initiative was voted on. He wanted him to lie and
say that restoring abortion rights would cost Missouri billions of dollars. Anyway,
(27:02):
He's one of those guys. Liar cheat more once used
Little Jimmy O'Keeffe videos as evidence for something, and now
he's back having Missouri sue the state of New York
over the Trump convictions. You know that Trump felony convictions
that make Trump a convicted felon. Bailey joined the Newsmax
Joseph Goebel's memorial channel to explain this nuisance and or
(27:27):
his PTSD from his service in Iraq suit quote. Look,
no one would have tolerated it if in eighteen sixty
a rogue da in South Carolina had prosecuted Lincoln for
speaking out on abolition issues and taken him off the
campaign trail. At some point we substituted the phrase I
(27:48):
was in the military once, for I have the barest
minimum education and experience required to serve in any form
of government anywhere in this country. Attorney General Bailey does
not know that in eighteen sixty Lincoln was not on
the ballot in South Carolina because he was viewed as
an abolitionist. And he wasn't on the ballot in Mississippi,
(28:11):
And he wasn't on the ballot in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tacks, Arkansas, Tennessee,
and North Carolina, and most of Virginia, oh On prosecuting
Americans and American politicians for speaking out on abolition issues.
That was done in the South and in the border states,
in Ohio, in Maryland and oh By the way, what
(28:32):
was the Civil War if not an attempt to prosecute
Lincoln and millions of other Americans for speaking out for
abolition of slavery. Missouri Attorney General Andrew O Buddy Francis
Scott Key prosecuted abolitionists. You really should not have dropped
out in the eighth grade like that, Bailey two days
(28:55):
worst person the world. So finally to our number one
(29:21):
story on the countdown on my favorite topic, Me and
things I promised not to tell, although truth be told,
I have been telling this story now for forty two years.
On Sunday, the twenty fourth of August nineteen eighty, I
learned what Mom meant when she had said, never run
for a train. There will always be another one. Because
(29:42):
I didn't know what it meant, I nearly killed myself.
I permanently altered my health, and I put myself on
a path towards meeting the great doctor Renee Richards. I
was sleeping late in my relatively new and tiny studio
apartment on fifty fifth Street in Manhattan, Apartment ten F,
when above me, eleven F started making noise like pounding
(30:03):
on the floor. And now it's a thirty Sunday morning,
and I'm awake, and I'm not doing my job as
a radio sportscaster until about two, and I think, well,
I'm up. Oh, the Dodgers are playing the Mets at Shay,
I can go to my other job as a semi
professional photographer and go shoot the Dodgers and still make
it to work on time. So I packed my semi
professional emphasis on the semi photographer's bag and drag myself
(30:27):
out on the subway and get to Share stadium around
eleven thirty am. And there's nobody there, No Dodgers players,
no Mets players, nobody but the grounds keepers. And as
the minutes pass, I'm beginning to calculate when I have
to leave in order to not be late to my
job back in Manhattan. Weekend life in New York City
(30:47):
in nineteen eighty might as well have been nineteen ten.
I tell people this. They do not believe me. But
when I worked weekends the next year in Times Square,
I used to call into my newsroom from a payphone
on Fifth Avenue and say, Okay, I'm going to Rby's today.
Who wants what? Or McDonald's or Burger King or wherever.
Because our office was in Times Square and on weekends
(31:10):
there were no restaurants open in Times Square. You could
not get food in Times Square on weekends. Today, the
same four square block area probably has fifty restaurants and
fast food places. So the train back to Manhattan from
Shae Stadium in Queens ran once every half an hour
(31:30):
on that Sunday in August of nineteen eighty. And as
I looked at my watch, I realized I should have
left the field three or four minutes ago. If you
went out the press entrance and exit at Shaye Stadium,
you could see the train approaching the elevated station out
behind right field. And if you had just seen it,
if it had just become visible, and if you then
ran your fastest, you could make it to the viaduct
(31:54):
that crossed the parking lot and led you up towards
the station platform. And if you could get your subway
token out and into the turnstile slot with one fluid
overhead motion, and if you kept running all the time,
you could just make the train. If you didn't, you
would be waiting half an hour, unless maybe the next
train was late or on fire somewhere. Sure Enough, as
(32:19):
I got out of the ballpark, I could see the
Manhattan bound train just appearing at the horizon. I was
twenty one. My knees still worked, and I ran and
I got into the viaduct, and I got the token
out of my pocket, and I got into the slot
like Daryl Dawkins doing a tomahawk slam. And I not
only made the train, but I made it by so
much that I styled, I celebrated, I congratulated myself. I
(32:43):
was guilty of premature jocularity. I could have just slowed
to a triumphant jog and gotten a seat, huffing and sweaty,
but eminently satisfied and on time for work. But no,
I decided to make an exultant, joyful leap. The next
thing I registered was the loudest sound I had ever
(33:06):
or have since ever heard, as if six hundred gongs
had gone off simultaneously, or a dozen church bells, or
every alarm clock that had ever awakened me from the
deepest of sleeps. Something like this, but inside your head, barm.
When it happened was forgetting that I was no longer
(33:28):
six feet tall as I had been even two years before,
but was now just under six ' four. My leap
had ended with me slamming my forehead on the flat
metal bar just above the train doorway an inch higher,
I might have blinded myself. The bar an inch above
the doorway is, in fact, as I found out later,
the thickest piece of metal on a New York City
(33:50):
subway train. As it was, my momentum carried me safely
into the train. I hit the floor. I saw my
sunglasses go flying off and rattling down towards the back
of the train like a plastic rat. I heard the
train doors cl I felt the blood on my head
and in my hair, and I crawled up onto the
plastic bench seating behind me. The mass gong sound continued
(34:12):
in my head, and my first cogent thought was to
see the blood on the train floor and think, Oh,
I have spilled blood all over their train, and I
don't have anything to clean it up with. Similar nonsense
continued to bounce around my concussed size eight noggin for seconds,
maybe minutes. It was beginning to really hurt, and of
(34:34):
more practical import the bleeding had not really stopped. At
this point. An older woman sitting more or less across
from me handed me a small packet. It was a
wet wipe. I mumbled thanks, opened it, dabbed it on
my forehead for a second, and was surprised to find
it instantly inundated with blood. This was the first time
it occurred to me that I might be in real
(34:56):
trouble on the Number seven local train to Grand Central
and Times Square. Apparently this thought occurred simultaneously to the
woman with the wet wipes and to her friend, I
think you're kind of hurt. One of them said to me,
let's get you to the hospital. There's one a couple
blocks from the next stop. Now understand this situation. The
New York of nineteen eighty, and particularly the subways of
(35:18):
nineteen eighty were not nice places. Two years later, I
took a rush hour train to my job at CNN
at the World Trade Center and was annoyed to find
one guy who had sprawled himself over three seats with
a newspaper covering his face. Nine hours later, when I
went home, I got onto a train and saw the
same guy with the same newspaper on the same seats,
(35:41):
because it was the same train, and more importantly, because
he was dead. Anyway, it was now around twelve forty
five of a Sunday afternoon. If it had been night,
or indeed certain other times of the day or on
other train lines, I would have simply been the easiest
mugging victim in New York history. Somebody could have knocked
me over and taken my wallet with next to no effort. Hell,
(36:01):
they could have asked me for my wallet, and I
was so dazed I probably I would have said, sure,
have a nice day, got any wet wipes? Instead, I
met not one, but two good Samaritans who knew where
the hospitals were in a part of town I could
barely find on a map. Sure enough, they helped me
to my feet, walked me down the steps and to
(36:22):
the two blocks or so that separated us from Elmhurst Hospital,
And when I reassured them I was clear headed enough
to get into the emergency room by myself, they wished
me luck, and they would not even accept my offer
of two tokens to get them back on the subway.
There should be a monument to these two women somewhere.
(36:42):
If the New York City subways of nineteen eighty were scary,
the emergency rooms of its hospitals were something out of
a Brian de Palma film. I think there were a
couple of dozen people in the er. I remember one
of them asking me how I got so bloody and
I explained, and he said you should go ahead of me,
and he opened his windbreaker to show a blood covered shirt,
and he added the bullet. Only I know. I waited
(37:06):
about two hours. During that time I had a singular
experience which has informed my understanding of concussions and traumatic
brain injury ever since. The desk nurse asked me for
the name of a contact, preferably a family member. I
gave my father's name, Theodore. Then she asked me for
my full name, and when I went to say it,
(37:27):
I could not remember my middle name. Could not remember
my middle name Keith, I got Olderman, I got that
was it. My middle name is also Theodore. I could
remember Theodore my dad, but not Theodore my middle name.
(37:48):
That is how fragile your brain really is. Think of
that the next time you see somebody get clocked in
a sporting event. There was some comic relief. I called
into my office at United Press International's Audio network and
explained to the news editor a veteran named Ed Kern's
the most dapperman in radio history, who looked like the
actor Ray Collins from Citizen Kane. I told Ed I
(38:10):
had just sort of almost you know, killed myself on
the subway coming in from Queen's, and I really didn't
know when or if I would be at work. About
forty five minutes after that conversation, the desk nurse started
shouting my name, and I thought, Okay, I'm finally going
to be brought in to see a doctor. No, it
was Ed Caron's calling from UPI. My bosses were all
(38:31):
very sorry that I was wounded, he said, but there
was nobody available to fill in for me. So when
could they expect me to be in the office, I explained,
I did not know that since I was technically still
bleeding to death. Forty five minutes more passed, and again
the nurse summoned me and said there was a phone call,
and this time I was sure it was my dad,
Keith ed Karin's again at UPI. He explained that my
(38:54):
boss now said that they would bring in the guy
who was supposed to do the next morning sports cast,
my college friend Peter shack Now, but they expected me
to do his shift starting at four point thirty in
the morning. I explained to Ed that I would try,
but that honestly I didn't know where I was or
what time it was. Now two nice ladies had mentioned
(39:14):
the name of the hospital, but I really wasn't remembering
too well. Plus I was still bleeding to death. Needless
to say, I did not bleed to death. I survived.
It was a severe concussion, but it only took a
stitch and a half to actually close that wound. And
the er doctor and the nurses were outstanding, and they
gave me easy to remember instructions, plus a note indicating
that I should rest for at least forty eight hours
(39:37):
just in case Ed Karins showed up at my apartment.
No offense to Ed. They told me what symptoms to expect,
how to prepare for them, and when they would stop.
And they stopped like one day earlier. It was a
potential disaster that turned into a nothing burger, or so
I thought. Two years later, I was at the original
(39:58):
Louis Armstrong Stadium covering the nineteen eighty two US Tennis open,
on the other side of the same elevated subway station
where I had run into the train going there always
actually made me laugh. Until the afternoon of Saturday, September eleventh,
nineteen eighty two. I was watching the Women's final, covering
it for CNN Chris Everett over Hannah man Lakova, and
(40:20):
swinging my head from side to side, as one does
to follow the tennis action from over here, two over there,
two over here, two over there, as I had swung
my head from side to side for the preceding twelve
days of the tournament. Then I swung to the right,
but my left eye kept looking to the left. The
old Marty Feldman thing reversed crossed eyes that hurt worse
(40:46):
than hitting the train had. I could barely stand any light.
I often had to keep my hand in front of
my eyes. I rushed to my optometris Monday morning and
he started to laugh. This happened to you during the
US Open. I said, yes, Why are you laughing at me?
He said, I'm going to send you to the best
muscle optimist I've ever met. I said, so, why are
(41:07):
you laughing at me? He said, you don't know who
that is? I said, no, I let my knowledge of
the muscle ophthalmology ranking slip. Why are you laughing at me?
He said, The best muscle ophthalmologist I've ever met is
doctor Renee Richards, the transsexual tennis player. I said, I
don't care who you're sending me to. I'm in trouble here.
If they can fix this, I don't care who you're
sending me. My train accident was so far in my
(41:30):
past that when I got in to see doctor Richards
the next morning, I didn't even think to mention it
in my patient history. Didn't matter. Thirty seconds of staring
into my eyes through a wall sized feropter and Renee
Richards said, when exactly did you hit your head August
or September of nineteen eighty. I was stunned. Uh, I
(41:50):
did hit my head in nineteen eighty August twenty fourth.
She made a clicking noise of satisfaction. I've heard of
this before, but I've never seen it. You couldn't do
this again in a million years. The good news is
that muscle problem with the eyes, that's just muscle exhaustion.
We can fix that with a thing that costs to
buck ninety eight. The bad news is when you hit
(42:10):
your head, most of the damage must have been absorbed
by your inner ear. If you want to fix that,
you'll need brain surgery. I don't recommend brain surgery. Doctor
Renee Richards showed me the muscle exercises that cost a
dollar ninety eight that fixed my reverse cross eyes. They
felt better immediately. I still do the exercises I did
(42:31):
them earlier today. Then Renee Richards said, so you're a
sports reporter. It says here, listen, my next patient isn't
due for half an hour. You should rest anyway after
my exam. Let's talk about sports reporting. Renee Richards was
an expert. Her transition had been outed by a sportscaster,
(42:53):
Tucker Carlson's father. If you can believe that, I can
believe it because she had been a man when she
played in the US Open. As a woman, she had
become almost instantaneously the most famous tennis player in the world.
Then she became Martina Navratulova's coach. I learned more from
(43:15):
her in that first half hour of conversation about the
ethics of reporting than I had in all of my
previous life experiences combined. Plus she was a gas. Renee
Richards was hilarious, she was self effacing, She was a
great doctor, and to me, she was the definition of courage.
And she, I am proud to say, is still my friend.
(43:37):
All because I did not know what Mom meant when
she said, don't run for a train, There'll always be
another one. The other phrase I never really understood till
then was breakneck speed. Oh, when there is one more
punchline here. If the name of that hospital that the
two good Samaritans took me to, Elmhurst Hospital sounds vaguely familiar,
(43:58):
it should. It was ground zero when COVID nineteen hit,
when the pandemic had its hand around New York City's throat.
The worst hit community was Elmhurst in Queen's and the
worst hit hospital was Elmhurst Hospital. They were in desperate
need at that point of ventilators, so I knew what
I had to do. You could buy them for cash legally,
(44:20):
so I got two ventilators. I had them delivered, one
for each of the ladies who helped me to get
off the damn train that day. And by the way,
(44:42):
that also hurt for like three weeks. I've done all
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown.
Musical directors Brian Rain, John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced and
performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
bass and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some
of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the
(45:04):
group No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme
from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer was my friend Dennis Leary, and everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
(45:25):
the one hundred and thirty third day until the twenty
twenty four presidential election and the two hundred and sixty
ninth day since convicted fellon Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
July eleventh sentencing hearing, use the mental health system, use
presidential immunity if it happens, Use the debate to stop
(45:47):
him from doing it again while we still can. A
reminder will be live again on YouTube after the debate
Tomorrow night. Join me should be about ten thirty Eastern
unless Trump gas out. They do it anyway. Even if
he does gack out and take your questions about him
(46:08):
gacking out anyway, Send your link to this edition of
the podcast to somebody who does not already listen. Thank
you for doing so. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Bulletins is the news warrants till the next one on
Keith Oldreman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(46:37):
Called him Joe Bride. Trump's brain is pride, he wants,
called him beud in sanity inside of Trump has duh
huh uh. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(46:59):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio, with
the news that Tomorrow night debate moderators Dana Bash and
(00:25):
Jake Tapper will not fact check Trump's lies in real time.
CNN has abrogated yet another journalistic imperative, and he had
another Trump event offering him he had another step towards
imposing a dictatorship on this nation. Oh okay, says CNN
on the twenty twenty election. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll push back.
(00:45):
But when Trump insists Biden killed two women and he
should go to jail because the alleged actual murderers were
undocumented immigrants, what are they going to do to him?
A customized Dana Bash shrug emoji When Trump insists the
president is on drugs? Is Jake Tapper just going to
stare daggers at Trump? The last time CNN punted on
(01:10):
its responsibilities to this nation, the truth and to just reality,
it gave us the hapless Caitlin Collins Trump Live town
hall in May of twenty twenty three, and as bad
as she proved to be at it, Collins was at
least trying to get a fact in edgewise. The moderators
tomorrow Night quote are not participants in the debate, they
(01:32):
are facilitators, said as CNN spokesman CNN's woeful political director
David Shallion, largely responsible for the Trump debacle last year,
told The New York Times that a live debate is
not the ideal arena for live fact checking, even as
that spokesperson, who refused to give their name to Axios
said that there would be some fact checking of major
(01:55):
falsehoods and smaller details, but only on the secondary CNN
platforms like the digital ones. So they're not going to
do it. Oh no, they're going to do it. They're
just not going to do it where it matters or
when it matters. Just to further confess that the CNN
decision to not fact check Trump's fire hose of lies
(02:18):
as he makes them where he makes them is another
principle thrown away to make sure Trump shows up or
doesn't batter the network or take revengulator or all three.
That same CNN spokesman said that they would fact check
claims that the twenty twenty election was stolen, but the
spokesman described those claims to Axios as inaccuracies. This is
(02:43):
CNN Collins Trump town Hall of May twenty twenty three
did not get the late and very unlamented Chris licked
fired as CNN's chief and relegated to the dust spend
of dereliction of duty. Licks amazingly self loving comments in
the Atlantic magazine article did that, but the town Hall
(03:05):
was his penultimate step off the cliff. You can almost
see a similar fate sharpening into focus for Lickt's successor,
the British print newsman Mark Thompson. Just to make CNN's
pre debate failure seem even more like Homer Simpson falling
down his cliff. Thompson said he expected this to be
quote an absolutely classic debate, and he compared it to
(03:29):
in advance, the first Nixon Kennedy debate from nineteen sixty. Well,
I'm sure they are comparable, sir, since they will both
have been on television. Mister Thompson planted one last rake
to step on, or one last Petard to hoist himself.
(03:50):
With the format of the debate, he actually thinks has
quote been done in a way at least in principle,
that is designed to get as much light as possible
and not to be overwhelmed with heat. Principal, we're talking
about Trump, and you seriously think that principles will somehow
(04:13):
prevail here. This is Trump. The way you kept candidates
in line in nineteen ninety eight or nineteen sixty or
eighteen fifty eight or in the UK may work again
someday if we survive this election, but it is not
going to work with Trump, because this man is literally
running for his life, and thus he is tomorrow night
(04:36):
literally debating for his life. There are no rules here,
there is no truth here, and there is nobody inside
of Trump for you to appeal to. By now it
should no longer be such, yet this truth remains. It
continues to stun me that TV network after TV network,
(04:57):
and soon to be x TV executive after soon to
be x TV executive still thinks his or her vision
of exactly the same idea to contain Trump that didn't
work last time or didn't work the last fifty times,
is going to work this time because well, in Chris
Licht's case, it was because he knew it would work
(05:20):
since he had produced Stephen Colbert, so he was too
cool for anybody to deare ignore him. In Kristin Welker
and Carrie Butdolph Brown's cases, they thought they'd get away
with it at NBC because, after all, they were hiring
Ronald McDaniel and the price would be worth it to
not fact check Trump on Meet the Press. And in
the new CNN guy Mark Thompson's case, I guess he
(05:41):
thinks it'll work because he has dual American and British citizenship,
and he can always go back there and get a
job there after this impending FASCO costs him this job,
or maybe he can go become editor of the Washington Post.
I understand they're hiring, by the way, if you had
(06:05):
not noticed the fascists, maybe not the Republicans, but the
true hallucinators. They believe Trump has already won the debate
and the election. As the first of these looms, the
Trump cult is really pouring gasoline they don't own on
a fire. We intend to prevent them from lighting. There
is today now not only an official Trump hit list,
(06:27):
Schedule F, which would let him fire all government civil
service employees and replace them with I don't know he's
remaining relatives and other brain damage flunkies, but there is
now also an unofficial Trump hit list. The Federalist Society,
and again the solution here is to declare the Federalist
Society a terrorist organization. The Federalist Society has given a
(06:50):
Kentucky guy named Tom Jones with a resume showing he
used to be an aid to fascist Congressman Jim de
Mint and a press photo showing he has eight chins.
The Federalist Society has given him one hundred thousand dollars
to assemble and then publicly post a list of, as
the Associated Press phrases it, quote, one hundred names of
(07:12):
government workers who might be standing in the way of
a second term Trump agenda. On the surface, Jones and
his American Accountability Foundation are scanning backgrounds, social media posts,
other commentary to get people fired from federal departments, especially
Homeland Security. Because if you think Trump wants to use
(07:33):
the Department of Justice as his personal attorneys and he
wants to use the FBI as his personal police, take
a guess what he wants to use Homeland Security for
two letters. It begins with an S and it ends
with another S. But getting them fired by Tom Jones
(07:53):
is just the surface plan. What else do you suppose
might happen to the one hundred people on it. If
some conservative psychopath posted a Trump and Emmy's list on
a website and again ruining the lives of one hundred people,
making examples of one hundred people in order to preempt
(08:15):
further criticism of a Trump dictatorship and the redeployment of DOJ,
the FBI, Homeland and other federal institutions as part of
a fascist state. That's just the first step. Because back
at the official Trump kill list at Project twenty twenty five,
there is Joseph Backhome of the Family Research Council. When
(08:36):
Whoopy Goldberg noted that the move to put up the
Ten Commandments on the walls of every school in Louisiana,
and I mean anywhere in this country outside of Vegas,
where the Ten Commandments, bullshit as they might be, are
violated more frequently than they are in Louisiana. When Whoopy
noted that this was an attempt to turn every school
into a religious school, this, Joseph Backholme of the Family
(08:59):
Research Council and Project twenty twenty five commented, quote, I
think the response there to Whoopee is that public schools
are religious schools, and that's really what this moment requires
us to recognize. Why does Joseph say that, because quote
Pride flags represent a set of religious values about who
(09:20):
is in charge. So there you have it. Opposition to
Trump will be purged from the government and others will
be warned from even trying it as they watch the
lives of those who have already criticized him get their
lives ruined. Schools will be religious schools, and the religion
will prevent the gay And how did we get here?
(09:43):
We got here obviously because of the villainy on the right.
We also got here because for half a century, our secular, fair,
non religious nut job somewhat scrupled politicians formerly in both
major parties, lately just on the left, have bluntly not
beaten the metaphorical shit out of the religious nut job
(10:05):
every time they have surface to crusade. Crusade meant literally
as in, let's go kill people in the Holy Land,
or failing that, we will accept Louisiana as an alternate answer.
They rise and they send their own members out into
the public, and we have not done enough to crush them.
And when that failed, they got behind a psychopath. It
would do anything for them, because the evangelicals do vote
(10:27):
and they do vote in blocks, and if you let
them impose their hallucinations and delusions and superstitions upon the
rest of us, they will let you get away with murder, or,
in Trump's case, they will let him get away with
bum fights. Bum fights, bum fights, having the homeless fight
each other or fight low level professional fighters while the
(10:51):
supposed ordinary good Americans pay money and sit back and laugh.
Got any memory that does bring a distant from two
decades ago. Bum fights back, only this time and even
more hateful version of them, proposed by no less than
the biggest bum of them all. Trump wants to have
(11:12):
immigrants fight American born professionals in mixed martial arts fights.
Trump is like two steps from suggesting building a new
Roman colisseum in West Palm Beach and having them battle
lions there. Trump is like three steps from in the
bitterest of ironies, given the death of my friend Donald
Sutherland last Thursday, the Trump Hunger Games, a title which
(11:34):
itself would be ironic inso much as in the last
three decades, Trump has clearly never let himself be hungry
for more than five minutes at a stretch, and Trump crazy, Trump, sadistic,
Trump living in a dreamlike fugue state, almost Caligula Trump,
He's only like five steps from the worst thing he
could ever ever think of, having immigrants fight sharks. I
(12:01):
have one simple request, and that is to have sharks
with freaking laser beams attached to their heads. Can you
remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw
me a bone here, Sharks with frickin' laser beams that
are solar powered, so they'll short out and electrocute somebody
(12:21):
when they get wet. Because Trump is simultaneously convinced that
green energy fails when it's not windy, or if the
machine gets wet, But the wind powered engine on a
sinking boat would still somehow electrocute him, but it would
not electrocute the shark ten feet away from him. At
as much as this tells us about what terrifies this psychopath.
(12:42):
We're a little deep in the woods here and the
weeds as well, And as Biden prepares for the debate
two nights from now, he should widen out the lens
and underscore the key point in the shark story and
the migrant fighting league story and all the rest of
these violent fantasies, which is that Trump is not only
insane and deteriorating, but that he has the makings of
(13:04):
criminal insanity. Widening out and answering Trump's delusions not with
what you and I do, parsing them to underscore just
how crazy they and he really are. Widening out is
I think Biden's best plan for tomorrow night. He needs
to start where we leave off when Trump says something
(13:25):
crazy about sharks or about the economy or anything in between.
Start by saying Donald Trump is insane, and by the way,
he's wrong and he's lying to you. Here's why this
is especially true if Trump tries the are you better
off now than you were four years ago? Jazz emphasized
Trump's criminal culpability about COVID, emphasized the million dead, the bleach,
(13:49):
the putting light in your body, the economic collapse, the
fact that in February twenty twenty, Trump knew it was
airborne and lied to the public for months as Americans died.
Say it, mister president, say it. Bluntly. Trump killed a
million Americans. There are American millions he killed for whom
there is no question they ain't better off now than
(14:10):
they were four years ago. And bluntly say that he
still managed while doing this to kill the economy. That
the inflation we are finally stopping now is Trump inflation.
It's Trump COVID inflation. That the president with the worst
job record since Herbert Hoover was Trump. That violent crime
(14:31):
exploded under Trump, that there were two kinds of criminals
under Trump, muggers and murderers on the street and ex
presidents who tried to overthrow the government. And the most
important truth to hit him with, the most important truth
to dispel what Brian Bouler beautifully dubbed Trumpstalgia and trump Nisia,
the most important truth to enrage Trump is the truth
(14:54):
that he lost, that he lost the election, that he's
a loser, and that instead of taking it like a man,
he had other pe people tried to overthrow the government
for him. He was such a coward. He didn't even
have the guts to go to the capitol during the coup.
(15:15):
I mean, what is he going to say to that,
I did too have the guts to go to the
capitol during the coup. I really wanted to stay and
go there, but they said, sir, you can't go, it's
not safe. They had tears in their eyes, to which
Biden could reply, it wasn't safe. It was all your supporters,
it was all your people, and it wasn't safe. And
(15:36):
you wanted to go, but they stopped you. Who stopped you,
who made your decisions for you? Donald, you were president
of the United States. I mean you were the worst
weakest president in history. And when you tried for reelection,
you lost. But you let some White House aid or
secret serviceman tell you what you could and couldn't do.
(16:01):
Let me tie this together, bum fights, migrant fighting championships,
the official Trump enemies List, the unofficial Trump enemies List,
mandatory religion in public schools. This is your generation of
politicians who have failed us. President Biden, you all tried
to compromise. We all thought you were right to We
were all wrong. You have to go into this debate
(16:23):
escalating your assessment of what is really at risk. It
is not enough to merely fight Trump in this debate
on behalf of America. You have to think of it
this way, on behalf of humanity and mankind, because the
next five years is the last chance we have to
mitigate a climate disaster. What would you have said, mister President,
(16:44):
knowing what you know today if you were debating not
in twenty twenty four in Atlanta, but in nineteen thirty
two somewhere in Germany against Hitler. Throw some punches, Joe
Summon the old anger, get in there with the plan
(17:05):
on destroying Donald Trump because he might as well be
Hitler or has his national press secretary called him the
other night Hilter back on this planet. As they start Thursday,
we are likely to see both sides claiming their candidate
(17:26):
is leading in the polling. Trump will be lying using
the polling averages from five point thirty eight dot Com,
the Split Ticket political website, put out a graphic showing
what Trump's stormy Daniel's election interference conviction did to his
numbers In the swing states. Biden is only ahead and
by only half a point in only two of them,
(17:47):
Michigan and Wisconsin, but the move towards him in the
polls since Trump's conviction on the thirtieth of May is astonishing.
When reduced to the measurement of the swing. In the
swing states, Biden has gained a point at a tenth
in North Carolina, He's gained a point and one fifth.
In Georgia. He's gained one and three fifths in Michigan.
(18:11):
In three states Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, he's improved by
two and three tenths of a point, and in Nevada
he's three and three tenths points better than he was
a month ago. Overall, in the swing states, he went
from minus one point seven to plus zero point one
in about four weeks. I hit the poll numbers last week,
(18:32):
and at the same time George Conway noted accurately that
we should not focus only on the polls because they
could give a false sense of security. Yes, entirely true,
but they are still of value because if I was
taught one thing by my experience of two thousand and five, six, seven, eight,
when the viewer response to my commentaries was basically thank God,
I thought I was the only person who realized this
(18:53):
was happening. If I was taught one thing by all
that it is never underestimate the value of reminding people
that the gravity has not been turned off in the world,
that cause an effect still exists, that good can beat evil,
particularly when good gets up off its ass. There's nothing
(19:14):
like having somebody, even a polster, even a lot of polsters,
whose numbers are then made into an average say no, no,
you're not alone, and no you're not crazy. And lastly
to that end, and to circle back to advice to Biden,
I think, mister President, you should say repeatedly that Trump
(19:34):
is exactly that crazy, insane, nuts out of his head.
I would go back to ancient history in the Trump
versus Biden stuff, all the way back to nearly two
weeks ago. Joe Bride, this guy Joe Bride. He called
(19:56):
him Joe Bride, and don't forget in March Trump, who'd
also called him. Trump wrote about Joe Biden, and in
writing about him, called him Joe Buden. President should run
with this tomorrow night. Run with it, laugh about it,
(20:17):
shout about it, hell sing about it, yes, sir, sing
about it. Oh. Nancy called him Joe Bride. Trump sprain
is Bride. He once called him pewed and sanity inside
(20:39):
of Trump has due, uh had, Thank you, Nancy Faust.
Also of interest here, I wonder sometimes if there was
an unknown pandemic, say twenty thirty years ago, a pandemic
(20:59):
that made at least a third of our population stupid,
but also convinced them they were genie, some kind of
Dunning Krueger coronavirus, because a congressman who never fought in
combat does not know that he can't wear a medal
that they only gave the combat soldiers. And vive Ramaswamy
doesn't know who prosecuted Assange, and an attorney general of
(21:22):
one of these United States does not know how Lincoln
was kept off the ballot in ten states or in
eighteen sixty, nor why these people are dumb enough that
they could each run CNN. That's next. This is countdown.
This is countdown with Keith Olberman still on this ediative countdown.
(22:05):
It's not quite the anniversary that will come up in August,
but I happened to do an interview over the weekend
about the great tennis player and legendary muscle ophthalmologist and
my friend, doctor Renee Richards, who treated me after I
did this to myself in nineteen eighty, so it's close
enough to the anniversary. It was the day I learned
what mom had met all those years when she used
(22:27):
to say, never run for a train, There'll always be
another one. I found it out by making a loud
clanging sound on the front of a train and using
my own head to do it coming up in things
I promised not to tell, or this time more accurately
things I'm lucky I didn't accidentally maim myself, so I
(22:47):
can still tell you ahead. But first there are still
more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of
the misgrants, morons and dunning krugriffects specimens who constitute two
days worse persons in the world. Clank the bronze, speaking
like he ran into a train once two Congressman Troy
(23:09):
Nells Troy is one way or the other, not right
in the head. He was a civil affairs branch officer
in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, non combat, yet
by some sort of clerical mistake, he was awarded the
combat Infantry badge in two thousand and eight, which he
was not eligible for he was never in combat. In
(23:32):
twenty twenty three, the army corrected its mistake and rescinded
Nells's badge. Somebody noticed and asked him why if he
wasn't eligible for the badge, he was still wearing it
as a congressman, He said, go ask the army. So
a group called not us or notice NTUS did the
Army got back to them and said no, Nells can't
(23:53):
keep it, can't wear it, and nobody in the military
was entitled to give him a pass on the military medal.
He is still weddering even though it isn't justified. Nells says,
this is the establishment going to any lengths to get him.
He did not use the word woke. I'm totally disappointed
the runner up worser Vivic Ramaswami. There are some stupid people.
(24:20):
There is the Dunning Kruger effect. Then there is Viviq Ramaswami,
another potential author of Vivic's Ramaswami's autobiographical history of the World,
unless Trump writes a book by that title first, or
has it written for him first. This accidental rich guy
who thinks he is the smartest person in history is
actually clueless. He seems to be publicly celebrating the Julian
(24:43):
Assange plea deal, but he criticizes the president for making
that plea deal, and he knows nothing about the history
of the prosecution of Essanje I mean just the last
five years of it. Rama l Lama ding Dong writes,
it's great that Julian Assange will finally be released in
what smells like a desperate Biden gunmit for Libertarian votes.
(25:03):
But it's shamed that he had to spend years rotting
in a foreign prison for doing what other reporters do regularly,
while the government employee who leaked to him, Chelsea Manning,
had her sentence commuted by Obama because she's a member
of a favored political class. Transgender Julian Assange deserves a
pardon and its long past overdue to restore one standard
(25:26):
of law again in America. He writes like he talks
without punctuation or intelligence cool. Assange was indicted on May
twenty third, twenty nineteen, by the Department of Justice, and
the Attorney General was Bill Barr. The president was elderly
first offender Trump. Not only did Trump indict Assange, but
(25:50):
this was a superseding indictment. Meeting Trump and Barr and
their DOJ decided the previous indictments of Massage were not
strong enough, so they threw them out and indicted him
some more so. Naturally. Ram Swami thinks it's all Biden's fault,
but our winner. Same hubris. That is the theme today,
same stupidity, different topic. Andrew Bailey another ex military guy
(26:16):
who somehow became Attorney General of Missouri. You may recall
that when they were talking about a ballot initiative of
abortion in his state, ban or non ban, the Missouri
Auditor's office confirmed that though like Bailey, he the auditor
opposed abortion rights in Missouri. No, it would not cost
(26:37):
taxpayers a dime to restore abortion rights in Missouri, and
ending abortion rights in Missouri wouldn't save them a dime.
It had no impact financially whatsoever. But Attorney General Bailey
demanded that the auditor change his finding before the ballot
initiative was voted on. He wanted him to lie and
say that restoring abortion rights would cost Missouri billions of dollars. Anyway,
(27:02):
He's one of those guys. Liar cheat more once used
Little Jimmy O'Keeffe videos as evidence for something, and now
he's back having Missouri sue the state of New York
over the Trump convictions. You know that Trump felony convictions
that make Trump a convicted felon. Bailey joined the Newsmax
Joseph Goebel's memorial channel to explain this nuisance and or
(27:27):
his PTSD from his service in Iraq suit quote. Look,
no one would have tolerated it if in eighteen sixty
a rogue da in South Carolina had prosecuted Lincoln for
speaking out on abolition issues and taken him off the
campaign trail. At some point we substituted the phrase I
(27:48):
was in the military once, for I have the barest
minimum education and experience required to serve in any form
of government anywhere in this country. Attorney General Bailey does
not know that in eighteen sixty Lincoln was not on
the ballot in South Carolina because he was viewed as
an abolitionist. And he wasn't on the ballot in Mississippi,
(28:11):
And he wasn't on the ballot in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tacks, Arkansas, Tennessee,
and North Carolina, and most of Virginia, oh On prosecuting
Americans and American politicians for speaking out on abolition issues.
That was done in the South and in the border states,
in Ohio, in Maryland and oh By the way, what
(28:32):
was the Civil War if not an attempt to prosecute
Lincoln and millions of other Americans for speaking out for
abolition of slavery. Missouri Attorney General Andrew O Buddy Francis
Scott Key prosecuted abolitionists. You really should not have dropped
out in the eighth grade like that, Bailey two days
(28:55):
worst person the world. So finally to our number one
(29:21):
story on the countdown on my favorite topic, Me and
things I promised not to tell, although truth be told,
I have been telling this story now for forty two years.
On Sunday, the twenty fourth of August nineteen eighty, I
learned what Mom meant when she had said, never run
for a train. There will always be another one. Because
(29:42):
I didn't know what it meant, I nearly killed myself.
I permanently altered my health, and I put myself on
a path towards meeting the great doctor Renee Richards. I
was sleeping late in my relatively new and tiny studio
apartment on fifty fifth Street in Manhattan, Apartment ten F,
when above me, eleven F started making noise like pounding
(30:03):
on the floor. And now it's a thirty Sunday morning,
and I'm awake, and I'm not doing my job as
a radio sportscaster until about two, and I think, well,
I'm up. Oh, the Dodgers are playing the Mets at Shay,
I can go to my other job as a semi
professional photographer and go shoot the Dodgers and still make
it to work on time. So I packed my semi
professional emphasis on the semi photographer's bag and drag myself
(30:27):
out on the subway and get to Share stadium around
eleven thirty am. And there's nobody there, No Dodgers players,
no Mets players, nobody but the grounds keepers. And as
the minutes pass, I'm beginning to calculate when I have
to leave in order to not be late to my
job back in Manhattan. Weekend life in New York City
(30:47):
in nineteen eighty might as well have been nineteen ten.
I tell people this. They do not believe me. But
when I worked weekends the next year in Times Square,
I used to call into my newsroom from a payphone
on Fifth Avenue and say, Okay, I'm going to Rby's today.
Who wants what? Or McDonald's or Burger King or wherever.
Because our office was in Times Square and on weekends
(31:10):
there were no restaurants open in Times Square. You could
not get food in Times Square on weekends. Today, the
same four square block area probably has fifty restaurants and
fast food places. So the train back to Manhattan from
Shae Stadium in Queens ran once every half an hour
(31:30):
on that Sunday in August of nineteen eighty. And as
I looked at my watch, I realized I should have
left the field three or four minutes ago. If you
went out the press entrance and exit at Shaye Stadium,
you could see the train approaching the elevated station out
behind right field. And if you had just seen it,
if it had just become visible, and if you then
ran your fastest, you could make it to the viaduct
(31:54):
that crossed the parking lot and led you up towards
the station platform. And if you could get your subway
token out and into the turnstile slot with one fluid
overhead motion, and if you kept running all the time,
you could just make the train. If you didn't, you
would be waiting half an hour, unless maybe the next
train was late or on fire somewhere. Sure Enough, as
(32:19):
I got out of the ballpark, I could see the
Manhattan bound train just appearing at the horizon. I was
twenty one. My knees still worked, and I ran and
I got into the viaduct, and I got the token
out of my pocket, and I got into the slot
like Daryl Dawkins doing a tomahawk slam. And I not
only made the train, but I made it by so
much that I styled, I celebrated, I congratulated myself. I
(32:43):
was guilty of premature jocularity. I could have just slowed
to a triumphant jog and gotten a seat, huffing and sweaty,
but eminently satisfied and on time for work. But no,
I decided to make an exultant, joyful leap. The next
thing I registered was the loudest sound I had ever
(33:06):
or have since ever heard, as if six hundred gongs
had gone off simultaneously, or a dozen church bells, or
every alarm clock that had ever awakened me from the
deepest of sleeps. Something like this, but inside your head, barm.
When it happened was forgetting that I was no longer
(33:28):
six feet tall as I had been even two years before,
but was now just under six ' four. My leap
had ended with me slamming my forehead on the flat
metal bar just above the train doorway an inch higher,
I might have blinded myself. The bar an inch above
the doorway is, in fact, as I found out later,
the thickest piece of metal on a New York City
(33:50):
subway train. As it was, my momentum carried me safely
into the train. I hit the floor. I saw my
sunglasses go flying off and rattling down towards the back
of the train like a plastic rat. I heard the
train doors cl I felt the blood on my head
and in my hair, and I crawled up onto the
plastic bench seating behind me. The mass gong sound continued
(34:12):
in my head, and my first cogent thought was to
see the blood on the train floor and think, Oh,
I have spilled blood all over their train, and I
don't have anything to clean it up with. Similar nonsense
continued to bounce around my concussed size eight noggin for seconds,
maybe minutes. It was beginning to really hurt, and of
(34:34):
more practical import the bleeding had not really stopped. At
this point. An older woman sitting more or less across
from me handed me a small packet. It was a
wet wipe. I mumbled thanks, opened it, dabbed it on
my forehead for a second, and was surprised to find
it instantly inundated with blood. This was the first time
it occurred to me that I might be in real
(34:56):
trouble on the Number seven local train to Grand Central
and Times Square. Apparently this thought occurred simultaneously to the
woman with the wet wipes and to her friend, I
think you're kind of hurt. One of them said to me,
let's get you to the hospital. There's one a couple
blocks from the next stop. Now understand this situation. The
New York of nineteen eighty, and particularly the subways of
(35:18):
nineteen eighty were not nice places. Two years later, I
took a rush hour train to my job at CNN
at the World Trade Center and was annoyed to find
one guy who had sprawled himself over three seats with
a newspaper covering his face. Nine hours later, when I
went home, I got onto a train and saw the
same guy with the same newspaper on the same seats,
(35:41):
because it was the same train, and more importantly, because
he was dead. Anyway, it was now around twelve forty
five of a Sunday afternoon. If it had been night,
or indeed certain other times of the day or on
other train lines, I would have simply been the easiest
mugging victim in New York history. Somebody could have knocked
me over and taken my wallet with next to no effort. Hell,
(36:01):
they could have asked me for my wallet, and I
was so dazed I probably I would have said, sure,
have a nice day, got any wet wipes? Instead, I
met not one, but two good Samaritans who knew where
the hospitals were in a part of town I could
barely find on a map. Sure enough, they helped me
to my feet, walked me down the steps and to
(36:22):
the two blocks or so that separated us from Elmhurst Hospital,
And when I reassured them I was clear headed enough
to get into the emergency room by myself, they wished
me luck, and they would not even accept my offer
of two tokens to get them back on the subway.
There should be a monument to these two women somewhere.
(36:42):
If the New York City subways of nineteen eighty were scary,
the emergency rooms of its hospitals were something out of
a Brian de Palma film. I think there were a
couple of dozen people in the er. I remember one
of them asking me how I got so bloody and
I explained, and he said you should go ahead of me,
and he opened his windbreaker to show a blood covered shirt,
and he added the bullet. Only I know. I waited
(37:06):
about two hours. During that time I had a singular
experience which has informed my understanding of concussions and traumatic
brain injury ever since. The desk nurse asked me for
the name of a contact, preferably a family member. I
gave my father's name, Theodore. Then she asked me for
my full name, and when I went to say it,
(37:27):
I could not remember my middle name. Could not remember
my middle name Keith, I got Olderman, I got that
was it. My middle name is also Theodore. I could
remember Theodore my dad, but not Theodore my middle name.
(37:48):
That is how fragile your brain really is. Think of
that the next time you see somebody get clocked in
a sporting event. There was some comic relief. I called
into my office at United Press International's Audio network and
explained to the news editor a veteran named Ed Kern's
the most dapperman in radio history, who looked like the
actor Ray Collins from Citizen Kane. I told Ed I
(38:10):
had just sort of almost you know, killed myself on
the subway coming in from Queen's, and I really didn't
know when or if I would be at work. About
forty five minutes after that conversation, the desk nurse started
shouting my name, and I thought, Okay, I'm finally going
to be brought in to see a doctor. No, it
was Ed Caron's calling from UPI. My bosses were all
(38:31):
very sorry that I was wounded, he said, but there
was nobody available to fill in for me. So when
could they expect me to be in the office, I explained,
I did not know that since I was technically still
bleeding to death. Forty five minutes more passed, and again
the nurse summoned me and said there was a phone call,
and this time I was sure it was my dad,
Keith ed Karin's again at UPI. He explained that my
(38:54):
boss now said that they would bring in the guy
who was supposed to do the next morning sports cast,
my college friend Peter shack Now, but they expected me
to do his shift starting at four point thirty in
the morning. I explained to Ed that I would try,
but that honestly I didn't know where I was or
what time it was. Now two nice ladies had mentioned
(39:14):
the name of the hospital, but I really wasn't remembering
too well. Plus I was still bleeding to death. Needless
to say, I did not bleed to death. I survived.
It was a severe concussion, but it only took a
stitch and a half to actually close that wound. And
the er doctor and the nurses were outstanding, and they
gave me easy to remember instructions, plus a note indicating
that I should rest for at least forty eight hours
(39:37):
just in case Ed Karins showed up at my apartment.
No offense to Ed. They told me what symptoms to expect,
how to prepare for them, and when they would stop.
And they stopped like one day earlier. It was a
potential disaster that turned into a nothing burger, or so
I thought. Two years later, I was at the original
(39:58):
Louis Armstrong Stadium covering the nineteen eighty two US Tennis open,
on the other side of the same elevated subway station
where I had run into the train going there always
actually made me laugh. Until the afternoon of Saturday, September eleventh,
nineteen eighty two. I was watching the Women's final, covering
it for CNN Chris Everett over Hannah man Lakova, and
(40:20):
swinging my head from side to side, as one does
to follow the tennis action from over here, two over there,
two over here, two over there, as I had swung
my head from side to side for the preceding twelve
days of the tournament. Then I swung to the right,
but my left eye kept looking to the left. The
old Marty Feldman thing reversed crossed eyes that hurt worse
(40:46):
than hitting the train had. I could barely stand any light.
I often had to keep my hand in front of
my eyes. I rushed to my optometris Monday morning and
he started to laugh. This happened to you during the
US Open. I said, yes, Why are you laughing at me?
He said, I'm going to send you to the best
muscle optimist I've ever met. I said, so, why are
(41:07):
you laughing at me? He said, you don't know who
that is? I said, no, I let my knowledge of
the muscle ophthalmology ranking slip. Why are you laughing at me?
He said, The best muscle ophthalmologist I've ever met is
doctor Renee Richards, the transsexual tennis player. I said, I
don't care who you're sending me to. I'm in trouble here.
If they can fix this, I don't care who you're
sending me. My train accident was so far in my
(41:30):
past that when I got in to see doctor Richards
the next morning, I didn't even think to mention it
in my patient history. Didn't matter. Thirty seconds of staring
into my eyes through a wall sized feropter and Renee
Richards said, when exactly did you hit your head August
or September of nineteen eighty. I was stunned. Uh, I
(41:50):
did hit my head in nineteen eighty August twenty fourth.
She made a clicking noise of satisfaction. I've heard of
this before, but I've never seen it. You couldn't do
this again in a million years. The good news is
that muscle problem with the eyes, that's just muscle exhaustion.
We can fix that with a thing that costs to
buck ninety eight. The bad news is when you hit
(42:10):
your head, most of the damage must have been absorbed
by your inner ear. If you want to fix that,
you'll need brain surgery. I don't recommend brain surgery. Doctor
Renee Richards showed me the muscle exercises that cost a
dollar ninety eight that fixed my reverse cross eyes. They
felt better immediately. I still do the exercises I did
(42:31):
them earlier today. Then Renee Richards said, so you're a
sports reporter. It says here, listen, my next patient isn't
due for half an hour. You should rest anyway after
my exam. Let's talk about sports reporting. Renee Richards was
an expert. Her transition had been outed by a sportscaster,
(42:53):
Tucker Carlson's father. If you can believe that, I can
believe it because she had been a man when she
played in the US Open. As a woman, she had
become almost instantaneously the most famous tennis player in the world.
Then she became Martina Navratulova's coach. I learned more from
(43:15):
her in that first half hour of conversation about the
ethics of reporting than I had in all of my
previous life experiences combined. Plus she was a gas. Renee
Richards was hilarious, she was self effacing, She was a
great doctor, and to me, she was the definition of courage.
And she, I am proud to say, is still my friend.
(43:37):
All because I did not know what Mom meant when
she said, don't run for a train, There'll always be
another one. The other phrase I never really understood till
then was breakneck speed. Oh, when there is one more
punchline here. If the name of that hospital that the
two good Samaritans took me to, Elmhurst Hospital sounds vaguely familiar,
(43:58):
it should. It was ground zero when COVID nineteen hit,
when the pandemic had its hand around New York City's throat.
The worst hit community was Elmhurst in Queen's and the
worst hit hospital was Elmhurst Hospital. They were in desperate
need at that point of ventilators, so I knew what
I had to do. You could buy them for cash legally,
(44:20):
so I got two ventilators. I had them delivered, one
for each of the ladies who helped me to get
off the damn train that day. And by the way,
(44:42):
that also hurt for like three weeks. I've done all
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown.
Musical directors Brian Rain, John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced and
performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
bass and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some
of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the
(45:04):
group No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme
from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer was my friend Dennis Leary, and everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
(45:25):
the one hundred and thirty third day until the twenty
twenty four presidential election and the two hundred and sixty
ninth day since convicted fellon Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
July eleventh sentencing hearing, use the mental health system, use
presidential immunity if it happens, Use the debate to stop
(45:47):
him from doing it again while we still can. A
reminder will be live again on YouTube after the debate
Tomorrow night. Join me should be about ten thirty Eastern
unless Trump gas out. They do it anyway. Even if
he does gack out and take your questions about him
(46:08):
gacking out anyway, Send your link to this edition of
the podcast to somebody who does not already listen. Thank
you for doing so. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Bulletins is the news warrants till the next one on
Keith Oldreman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(46:37):
Called him Joe Bride. Trump's brain is pride, he wants,
called him beud in sanity inside of Trump has duh
huh uh. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(46:59):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
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Host
Keith Olbermann
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