September 25, 2025 • 59 mins
A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: After perhaps the most hapless 96 hours of his presidency, the worst 96 hours of the worst presidency of ALL TIME, the most FAIL in the shortest span… the mentally-deteriorating, untethered-from-reality Trump… must RESIGN. And take his idiot sycophants with him.
The last 96 hours:
His U.N. speech, sounding like an escapee from a psych ward.
His Tylenol news conference, sounding like an escapee from a psych ward who’s been living on the street for a month.
His suggestion NATO countries shoot down Russian jets.
His sudden embrace of Zelensky, either another stall or a stupid dare to Putin.
MAGA’s RAGE AT his sudden embrace of Zelensky.
The cover of a London right wing daily: his picture and in 72-point type, the word “DERANGED.”
The ICE shooting in Dallas; his sadistic Homeland chief pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees; his idiot simpering Vice President pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees; his corrupt venal FBI director pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees.
His ICE chief not denying he took $50,000 in a paper bag.
His staff THEN denying he took $50,000 in a paper bag.
His cancellation of a meeting with Democrats making sure if there’s a government shutdown it’s all his fault.
His crackpot pal Milei crashing the Venezuelan economy and needing us to bail him out.
His paranoia over the stopped teleprompter at the U-N that was his White House staff’s fault.
His paranoia over the stopped escalator at the U-N that was his own vanity videographer’s fault.
His desire to arrest the U.N. escalator technician or the U-N escalator button pusher.
His desire to arrest the escalator AND James Comey.
The election of Raul Grijalva’s daughter to Congress.
The fact that Adelita Grijalva will be the last Representative needed to force a vote on releasing the Trump Epstein Files.
His self-humiliation at the Kirk Memorial.
ABC reinstating Jimmy Kimmel.
Meaning Disney told him to eff off.
Meaning the National Football League told him to eff off.
Meaning they all told his propagandists at Sinclair to eff off.
Kimmel then shoving him in a locker using only a monologue.
Kimmel getting a record 6 million viewers and 22 more online in the first TWENTY hours.
Kimmel and his show getting new life and maybe a new contract.
His self-owning confession that HE and his goons used threats to get Kimmel cancelled.
The fact that Kimmel, and ABC, and Bob Iger, and Disney, and America told Trump to SHOVE HIS THREATS.
And that’s just since Sunday night.
You lost to an escalator. Resign. Take Vance with you. Take Noem with you. Take Ho-man with you. Take Milei with you.
LEAVE the Epstein Files.
B-Block (32:53) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jason Whitlock says eff everybody, this is Christ-land and he won't be brainwashed any more (no brain, no pain). Derrick Van Orden says Kirk was Jesus and you don't F with the Jesus so defund The Mayo Clinic (he should go there and get CT scanned) and Kristi Noem says a tweet saying she'd have a bad day was terrifying for her. This is a piece of crap who in her spare time murders puppies.
C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The New York Post BS firehose points at a couple of liberals at a time, then it rotates away, but eventually it makes a full circle and comes back to you. For me this has been going on since the mid-1990's and it's just started again. If you'll permit, here's a brief history.
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. After
perhaps the most hapless ninety six hours of his presidency,
(00:29):
the most hapless, worst ninety six hours of the worst
presidency of all time, the most fail in the shortest span,
the mentally deteriorating, untethered from reality, Trump must resign and
take his idiot sick ephants with him. The last ninety
six hours, his un speech sounding like an escape ee
(00:53):
from a psych ward, his tailenol news conference sounding like
an escapee from a psych ward who's been living on
the street for a month. His suggestion NATO country shoot
down Russian jet. His sudden embrace of Zelenski either another
stall or stupid dared putin Maga's rage at his sudden
embrace of Zelenski. The cover of a London right wing daily,
(01:15):
his picture on it in seventy two point type, the
word deranged. The ice shooting in Dallas, His sidistic Homeland
Chief pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees,
His idiots simpering Vice President pretending the victims were agents
when they were detainees. His corrupt, venal, cross eyed FBI
(01:36):
director pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees,
his Ice chief not denying he took fifty thousand dollars
in a paper bag, his staff then denying the man
took fifty thousand dollars in a paper bag. His cancelation
of a meeting with Democrats, making certain that if there
is a government shutdown, it is all his fault. His
(01:57):
crack pot pal melay of the Sideburns, crashing the Venezuelan
economy and needing us to base ail him out. His
paranoia over the stopped teleprompter at the UN that was
the White House staff's fault. His paranoia over the stopped
escalator at the UN that was his own vanity videographer's fault.
(02:18):
His desire to arrest the UN escalator technician or the
UN escalator button pusher, his desire to arrest the escalator
and James Comy. The election of Raoul Grihalva's daughter to Congress,
the fact that Adalita Grihalvo will be the last representative
needed to force a vote on releasing the Trump. Epstein
(02:38):
files his self humiliation at the Kirk Memorial, ABC reinstating
Jimmy Kimmel meaning Disney told him to f off, meaning
the National Football League told him to f off, meaning
they all told his propagandists it Sinclair to f off Kimmel,
then shoving him in a locker using only a monologue.
Kimmel getting a record six million viewers and twenty two
(03:02):
more million online in just the first twenty hours, Kimmel
and his show getting new life and maybe a new contract.
His self owning confession that he and his goons used
threats to get Kimmel canceled, except they didn't get Kimmel canceled.
The fact that Kimmel and ABC and Bob Iger and
Disney at America told Trump to shove his threats up
(03:28):
his ass. And that's just since Sunday night. Resign. Take
Vance with you, Take Nome with you, Take Home Man
with you, Take me Lay with you. Leave the Epstein files.
(03:50):
He lost to a escalator. Let me start with the
biggest surprise of all these things. Remember the South African
pastor who woke up from a dream couple weeks back
and proclaimed there would be a rapture at sunset in Israel,
which would have been eleven thirty six am this Tuesday.
(04:13):
I think there was a rapture because something sure disappeared
into the sky the hours before and after that sunset.
And that's something, was Trump's feeling of invulnerability. That collection
of disasters that's two dozen in four days, is worse
than it seems because they are all self owns, all
(04:34):
of them mistakes, self delusions, obsessions, self indulgences, self destructions,
quicksand that Trump and Trump alone could voluntarily dive into
an average of one every four hours. Kimmel looms above, around,
and behind every one of them, and I'll get to
him in a moment, But cause, to paraphrase the Baseball
(04:56):
Hall of Famer and builder Rube Foster, Kimmel is the ship.
All else is the sea. However, the Zelensky surprise is
the most meaningful because we have yet to hear Putin's reaction,
and the silence lends more credence to the theory that
this is just another new, admittedly novel, way for Trump
(05:16):
to further stall on Putin's behalf. And even if it isn't,
it still included Trump's insistence that any action taken and
any money spent be taken and spent by Europe, including
shooting down Russian planes or drones during incursions over Pole
and Estonia, maybe Denmark, maybe Wherever's next. Nothing for us
to worry about here, of course, because we have an
(05:39):
ocean between us, and as another president wants asked rhetorically,
shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the
ocean and crush us at a blow? Never, all the
armies could not by force take a drink from the
Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in
a trial of one thousand years. Of course, the president
(06:03):
who said that was Lincoln said it in eighteen thirty nine,
and there were no airplanes or rockets, or battleships or
submarines in eighteen thirty nine. And apparently, either Trump has
not yet found out that there are now airplanes and
rockets and battleships and submarines, or more likely Trump still
(06:23):
thinks it's still eighteen thirty nine. The Grijalva election, of course,
will be the most meaningful going forward, because the new
representative is not only the daughter of as quiet and
effective and strategic a progressive as the House has had
in this century, my friend Raoul Grijalva, but she has
said that the day she is sworn in by the Speaker,
(06:46):
she will sign on to the Massy motion to force
a House vote on releasing the Epstein files. Massy has
two hundred and seventeen votes right now he needs two
hundred and eighteen. Atalida Grihava will be number two hundred
and eighteen. And this now means that to stop the
vote and stop putting his pet speaker Mike Johnson in
(07:06):
an untenable position, Trump has only one option then, which
is to force Johnson and House Republicans to actually shut
the government down. Because a government shut down delays swearing
in Adalita Grihalva vote number two hundred and eighteen, and
delaying swearing in Adalita Grihalva may be Trump's last way
(07:27):
out of the Epstein files. And now to the Gettysburg
(07:57):
Address of Late Night Comedy Monologues, The I'm as mad
as hell and I'm not going to take it any
more of Late Night Comedy Monologue, the Ten Commandments of
Late Night Comedy Monologues. I can confess this now. I
really thought even Jimmy Kimmel, who makes my Nate palming
(08:18):
of Bridges look like nothing, was returning to save the
jobs of his staff and the other two hundred people
or so whose livelihoods depend on his show still existing.
I thought he would pull a lot of punches, or
a couple or maybe one, or at minimum, not do
(08:39):
a monologue so searing, so masterful, so declaring of his
ownership of Trump that Jimmy had to take a commercial
break in the middle of it before he even got
to the part about Robert de Niro playing in perfect
form a mafioso version of FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Well,
(09:01):
I got that wrong. Huh If that was done without
Bob Eiger's approval, I'll be just as shocked and just
as wrong. Again, he knew that was coming. Is it
a compromise, Maybe, jim you say whatever you want now
and we'll just shut the show down in a year.
Or is it Eiger waking up to the fact that
(09:22):
the sixteen million dollar settlement bribe with Trump bought him nothing,
nothing but more trouble, nothing but more threats, nothing but
more blackmail. Was it Eiger's realization that he chairs the
leading entertainment company in the country and Trump's true approval
rating is down to around thirty two percent. Here and
(09:43):
even most right wingers realized that if Trump could get
Kimmel fired, President Fritzker or President AOC. We'll be able
to get everybody at Fox News fired and maybe all
of their podcasts canceled. What is Ted Cruz? If there
is no Ted Cruz podcast, He's just an idiot asshole, Senate. Sure,
(10:06):
it doesn't matter which it was, either way or any
other way. This is a landmark moment. This is a
bullying victim coming back and hitting Scott Farcus Trump in
the nuts and better than that. After Trump's long suffering,
perpetual rake stepping Minion spent a week insisting Trump had
(10:29):
nothing to do with it, and Brendan Gebbel's car had
nothing to do with it, and the FCC had nothing
to do with it, nothing to do with Kimmel's sidelining.
Trump then boasted that he and car and the FCC
had not only done it, they thought that ABC had surrendered. Quote.
I can't believe ABC, fake news gave Jimmy Kimmel his
job back. The White House was told by ABC that
(10:53):
his show was canceled. That's a confession. Something happened between
then and now, because his audience is gone and his
talent was never there. Well, he's wrong about that too,
as the numbers will show. Why would they want someone
back who does so poorly? All things considered, more people
watch Kimmel than watch Trump's inauguration this year. Why would
(11:15):
they want something made prob not funny? Puts the network
in jeopardy, but puts the network in jeopardy. What does
he mean? Oh, he is yet another arm of the DNC,
and the best of my knowledge, that would be a
major illegal contribution, illegal campaign contribution. I think we're going
to test ABC out on this. Well, there are no
laws that would allow him to test this out. So
(11:37):
what's the plan. Let's see how we do. Last time
I went after them, they gave me dollars, signed sixteen
million dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true
bunch of losers. Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad ratings. Yo, h,
they didn't have bad ratings. He had four times his
(11:57):
normal ratings. It's one thing if you bully a company
into bribing you because it has business before the f
TC or FCC or any other government agency. You have
perverted it into many pollot bureaus using Trump brand coercion.
It's another, though, if you have convinced yourself that the
bribes these other people paid to shut you up for
(12:19):
ten minutes were in fact something you earned in some way,
or something that a court awarded to you in some way.
Trump should sue ABC over Kimmel, and then Kimmel should
sue the FCC for tortious interference, and ABC should sue
the FCC and Sinclair and Next Star for damages. All right,
they don't have to. I haven't worked in local news
(12:40):
since nineteen ninety one, at a local station since the
end of nineteen ninety one. But guess what, the local
station arrangement hasn't changed all that much. Local stations that
are not owned by the networks used to regularly silence
network shows. The Smothers Brothers used to be preempted. The
ABC evening News wasn't considered good enough for like Zanesville, Ohio,
(13:03):
every late night show of the sixties and seventies. At
some point on February fifth, nineteen sixty nine, Channel five,
the ABC station in Cleveland, allegedly bailed out of the
network's new comedy show Turn On during the first commercial break.
But then, and it turns out, now this comes at
(13:24):
a price if you are an ABC affiliate and you
do not run an ABC show, you have to pay
a postponement fee each time you don't run it. In
Kimmel's case, that's five nights a week. And if you
cancel enough network shows, ABC has the right to cancel
your contract. And the next thing you know, Sinclair stations
aren't running Dancing with the Stars or any sports or
(13:46):
the twenty twenty seven Super Bowl, but non Sinclair stations
in the same cities are. Oh and even before that,
in the short run, if the Sinclair station will not
show Kimmel long term, ABC can offer it to other
stations in those markets for like two dollars an episode.
Don't bring a tweet to a businessman's fight Trump. By
(14:12):
the way, this is how unprepared MAGA was for a
full one hundred percent humiliation and extinction level loss an
ass kicking like Kimmel and ABC utterly destroying Trump as
he did. The attempt to both sides this thing. Steven
Miller's wife, Katie got off of her broom and screamed
that the left didn't scream free speech when Tucker Carlson
(14:35):
was canceled, so there, neglecting obviously that Carlson had a
cable show, and the worst any government could ever do
to a cable show as to threaten the Fox broadcast
station licenses, which wouldn't have done a thing to Fox
News and very little to Rupert Murdoch. So other MAGA
then moved on from Tucker Carlson a losing comp to
(14:56):
asking why the left didn't scream free speech when Lou
Dobbs was fired again Cable, no FCC jurisdiction, Plus Carlson
and Dobbs were fired by Rupert Murdock entirely by surprise,
entirely without government prodding or pushing or posting or podcasts
in which the head of the FCC says, we can
do this easy way, or we can do this the
(15:18):
hard way. That's my impression of Ted Cruz doing an
ethnic accent. Incidentally, Lou Dobbs is dead now, and I
always heard that he'd had enough event at Fox or
events at Fox that they had to act that it
wasn't just editorial. He had an event when I was
at CNN, he had an event in Atlanta involving CNN management.
(15:38):
The head of CNN Sports, my boss, Bill McPhail, took
Dobbs's wife off long form sports anchoring after she walked
off a show in the middle live when she got
irretrievably lost trying to read the script and worse, read
the prompter. Dobbs allegedly then burst into Bill mcphial's office
and told him to stand up and start throwing punches.
(16:02):
Dobbs challenged him to a fistfight. Dobbs was thirty eight
and Bill McPhail was sixty three. Anyway, that's the best
they had, Tucker Carlson and lou Dobbs and Trump confessing
to personally using the government to attack the free press
part of the First Amendment. And then, of course all
(16:26):
of those viewers what twenty two nearly twenty three million
viewers combined for Jimmy Kimmel, and now ABC is thinking
maybe we want to give him a new ten year contract. Also,
who was that who told you Kimmel was coming back
before the end of the month, maybe before the end
(16:49):
of the week. Okay, what before the tile and all idiocy?
Trump and anybody he might have told bought advil stock.
(17:10):
Since that disaster, hours have been spent analyzing Trump and
tailanol and internet rumors being inflated to the level of
a presidential news conference, when the whole thing could have
been summarized by this simple reality. Thailand All was introduced
in nineteen fifty five. Autism was discovered classified defined in
nineteen forty three. Of all the stupid arguments in the world,
(17:34):
to argue tailanol causes autism is stupider even than it
would be to argue that autism caused tailandhol What's more,
that news conference was not what he and pantiless Bobby
Kennedy had reportedly agreed upon. Politico has quoted a series
of White House sources who said Trump overruled even the
(17:57):
quacks that masturbating Bob relied on to go on and
try to make sure that people got sick the way
that Trump made sure people got sick during COVID I'll
quote Politico. The initial plan was to release a literature
review on the state of research into autism causes and
treatment options on September twenty ninth. Thailand All is one
(18:18):
of thirty one hypotheses. Next, they planned an announcement that
working groups would begin new studies next year. They expected
initial findings from those efforts. To their frustration, Trump wanted
to move forward anyway. Politico didn't say that, but of
course moving forward anyway amounted to Trump just standing there yelling,
(18:39):
don't take Dailand, all, don't take tailand all take what
I take. Paint thin A. It is, in retrospect surprising
that Trump didn't declare the makers of tailanhol to be
a domestic terrorist organization. He did that to Antifa, even
though a there is no such organization. It's like declaring
short people to be a terrorist organization, or, to be fair,
(19:03):
declaring tall people to be a terrorist organization, or men
who wear eyeliner to be a terrorist organization. The president
also has new legal right or route to declare anything
a domestic terrorist organization. Congressman Dan Goldman pretty much summed
this up and pretty much stuffed Trump into yet another locker.
(19:25):
He's asking Trump, via social media, quote name one member
of Antifa if it quote explicitly calls for the overthrow
of the US government. Where can I find that statement? Trump,
Goldman says, is trying to suppress opposition by labeling anyone
who dissents as a domestic terrorist. Do not be fooled.
(19:46):
This is lawless and unconstitutional, and of course now Trump
may yet declare building maintenance and teleprompter operations at the
United Nations terrorist organizations. He posted a nice, calm one
thousand word run on paragrap at sunset last night about
(20:06):
arresting somebody for something. I mean, maybe they can charge
Jim Comey with this. I think it actually improves the
story to tell the conclusion first. The reality is reported
by the Associated Press UN correspondent for nush Amiri quote.
A UN official said, the UN understands that someone from
(20:29):
the President's party who ran ahead of him inadvertently triggered
the stop mechanism on the escalator and just says don't
run on escalators or escalator will stop. That's what happened,
she continues. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
the White House was operating the teleprompter for Trump. This,
(20:50):
of course, did not stop the Trump's freak shows of paranoids,
conspiracy theorists, idiots, bullshit artists, and Saint Paul beer girl
press secretaries from insisting the thing with the escalator was
really an assassination attempt. Caroline live it if someone at
(21:13):
the UN intentionally stopped the escalator, as the President and
First Lady we're stepping on. They need to be fire
red and investigated immediately. The Times reported this on Sunday.
To mark Trump's arrival, UN staff members have joked they
may turn off the escalators and elevators and simply tell
(21:34):
him they ran out of money, so he has to
walk up the stairs. Cute, Caroline, and it's nice that
you recognize the word elevator or escalator in there. Except
what they're saying here is that they were going to
turn them all off so he'd have to walk up
from the front door, which as we know, is medically impossible.
They didn't say something about stopping the escalator after he
(21:55):
got on, but those words from Caroline Levitt. It's one
of the rare times when Caroline Levitt does not look
like the biggest asshole in the bunch, the guy Cernovich.
What happened today at the UN was a dry run
for an assassination. Our enemies were able to see the
reaction or lack thereof. Trump was a sitting duck. Extreme
(22:15):
measures will now be taken against the UN, including leaving
the UN totally. Mike Lee, Senator from the Internet. Is
the UN trying to give us a hint by orchestrating
escalator and teleprompter malfunctions, or is this just random coincidence.
Either way, we should defund the UN. Mike also believes
(22:36):
nobody knows he has a comb over Brendan Dilley, who's
an influencer for morons. If we discover that the UN
deliberately turned off the escalator and risk injuring the president
first lady, we should bomb them, all of them. Presume
he means the individual nations in the UN, or or
(22:59):
he means over there to Tutor City in Manhattan, right
across the street from Trump Building. Gotta tell you, one
of the safest places in the city. When Trump finally
loses it and stops starts, you know, blowing things up
in the country, one of the safest places will be
in the UN because it's across the street from the
Trump UN Plaza, Wall Street mav which I believe is
(23:21):
one of those India bots, or it's a guy in
India who's an influencer gets paid for this. Trump's escalator
stopped as soon as he stepped on it, then his
teleprompter goes out right when he starts his speech. No way,
those were accidents. I'd bet UN staff, which wouldn't have
jobs without our taxes, conspired to embarrass President Trump. Now
why would they waste their time doing that when, as
(23:41):
I just mentioned, Trump embarrassed himself twenty four times in
ninety six hours. You do not need to embarrass Donald Trump.
He is self embarrassing a muse poetic justice. Someone thought
it would be funny to break the escalator as soon
as Trump stepped on. Presumably the same people broke his
teleprompter just as he began his fifteen minute speech. Due
(24:02):
to the malfunction, Trump extended his speech is speech an
additional forty minutes. Those who sought to silence him were
awarded with almost an hour of solid gold from the President.
I hope you mean solid gold, actual gold, because there
was none of it in the speech. And of course
the Alexes chime in Alex bruce Witz is either in
(24:27):
the government or is a government adjacent guy. Someone very
clearly tried to sabotage Trump at the un completely unacceptable.
Someone must be held accountable. Yeah, apparently it was one
White House photographer. And whoever runs prompter Alex Jones sabotage
(24:49):
escalator at the un HQ stops abruptly when Trump steps
onto it and teleprompter malfunctions because before he begins speaking,
when you read a whole bunch of conspiracy theorists and
only Alex Jones sticks to the facts or close to
the facts, you know we have a serious problem in
this country. And then lastly, har Meet K. Dillon, the
(25:11):
woman from the West Coast who is I don't know,
Deputy Secretary of not doing anything, simply writes deport the UN.
On Fox, Jesse Waters says, quote, this is an insurrection
and what we need to do is either leave the
(25:31):
UN or we need to bomb them. There is some
evidence that Waters was trying to make a joke there,
but it's hard to confirm because everything that Bill O'Reilly's
former errand boy does is a joke. Besides, if that
were a liberal saying something like that, even in jest,
there there would be an immediate demand that the FBI
or the FCC or the NCAA investigate that threat of violence,
(25:55):
and the demand would come from Jesse Waters. So ultimately,
amid all of this paranorleia, somebody has to say this,
and it might as well be me, boy That escalatord quickly.
(26:16):
Also of interest here, so The New York Post is
making stuff up about me again. This is a ritual
as old as time itself. They've been doing it since
the nineties. The bullshit machine is pointed at a different
liberal every day of the week, or maybe every week
of the year. It's my turn again. And Derek Van
Orden wants to defund No, not the un the Mayo
(26:39):
Clinic because Charlie Kirk, because Charlie Kirk is Jesus, and
you don't f with the Jesus. That's next. This is countdown.
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on this
(27:19):
edition of Countdown. Yes, Brendan Carr of the FCC should
be investigated, impeached, and if possible, prosecuted for threatening ABC,
ABC News, Disney, Jimmy Kimmel, et cetera, and for whatever
quid pro quo existed between him and the next star
Sinclair people that he only revealed in public on a podcast.
(27:41):
But other than that, face it, Kimmel and ABC single
handedly defeated MAGA on this one, and defeated Trump on
this one, and defeated all of their angry, stupid, terrified minions,
especially the ones at Fox News and the other Murdoch
(28:03):
crap shaft, so naturally they need new targets, and I'm
beginning to suspect I've seen these tea leaves before that
it's my turn again to be a Murdoch target. The
New York Post has invented two stories about me this
week alone. They have given somebody named Isabelle Vincent the
(28:25):
task of calling people I used to work with to
talk about me. She's recently been doing mop up operations
trying to whitewash the hate speech of the late Charlie Kirk,
and her bio says she began by covering Pablo Escobar
and the Medaine drug cartel. So poor Iszy must have
really hit the skids if she's being forced to call
(28:47):
people I worked with in two thousand and five, Hey,
you know what, Call the people I worked with at
Fox Sports in ninety nine and two thousand and two
thousand and one. Call them and ask them if if
Murdoch really is still resentful that he had to pay
me nine million dollars in that deal. Anyway, The Post,
(29:10):
for that reason and many others, has been making up
and distorting stuff about me since literally nineteen ninety six.
I think it was when I refuted a story they
made up and distorted about two hockey stars I was
with the night of the sb Awards. I wasn't even mentioned.
They just lied about these two guys. Eric Lindross was
one of them. Every year or so, it's somebody else
(29:34):
from the Post writing something else that isn't true but
isn't legally actionable, except for the time they literally made
up an entire story about me after Tim Russert died
and the Post actually ran away scared under the threat
of lawsuit and published nothing. The saga of the New
York Post and Rupert Murdoch making things up about me
(29:57):
for now thirty years. Next in Things I Promised not
to tell first, Believe it or not, there's still more
new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscreants,
Morons Dunning, Kruegerfect Specimens who constitute two Day's other worst
persons in the world. Theron's Jason Whitlock, who used to
be a sports writer. He had his own vertical at
(30:20):
ESPN dot com if you can believe that, and he
didn't get anything published, and I mean he had months.
I never got this internet. Parts of the Internet, the
idea that you could have months to publish something and
still not get anything done. I mean on the air.
The show starts at eight o'clock. Whether you're ready or not. Well,
(30:44):
I'll be here in eight months. From no eight o'clock.
I'm going to need eight months to prepare the show.
In any event. Jason Whitlock smelled more money in fascism
and got fired from ESPN and everything else in the
real world, and he now writes crap like this quote.
What you're witnessing is Christian nationalism. If you're ashamed of it,
that's your problem, not mine. You've been brainwashed by Marxists.
(31:07):
They all learned a new word, Marxist. You've been brainwashed
by Marxist to believe that wanting government respectful of Jesus
Christ is a bad thing. I've rejected the brainwashing. This
memorial is awesome a correction, Jay Dubb. It's Christo fascism,
not Christian nationalism, and of course you've rejected the brainwashing.
(31:31):
Can't be brainwashed if you have no brain left to wash. Fella.
Runner up Conresson Derek Van Orden of Wisconsin. Same problem.
An HR guy who works somewhere in the vast organization
that is the Mayo Clinic tweeted some of the things
Charlie Kirk actually said. And then after that memorial that
(31:53):
got Jason ol Chubby the Memorial Service and Trump Grievance
show last weekend in Arizona, this guy from the Mayo Clinic,
on a private account, by the way, referred to the
widow as the winner of an acting award. Robbie Starbuck,
one of Kirk's henchmen, then outed the man and demanded
(32:14):
that the Mayo Clinic fire him. Not enough for Derek
Van Orton quote, we will be working to remove every
single penny of federal funding from the Mayo Clinic unless
this is resolved. Well, of course, if you're gonna support
RFK Junior, everybody's gonna be dead anyway. Don't need any
more clinics. One way to cut down on hospitalizations have
(32:36):
everybody follow Robert F. Kennedy Junior right off the FN cliff.
We will be working and remove every single penny of
federal funding from the Mayo Clinic unless this is resolved.
He did not add my head hurts. My head really
hurts when somebody helped me. Van Orden then went on
a radio show that the Mayo Clinic was inciting violence.
(32:58):
Derek Van Orden has so many stories, just the ones
I've covered here of this severe anger management problem that
I say this with actual sincerity. I don't think he
can be trusted with a position of responsibility in a bakery,
let alone a government. But just as sincerely, he's got
(33:18):
PTSD going big time, probably from his service. Maybe it's CTE.
In fact, the only thing he should be doing about
the Mayo Clinic is going to it. But the winner,
speaking of paranoia, Christy Nome. You know her, Christy Nome
(33:40):
is Tom fifty thousand dollars Homan's boss. Gavin Newsom's social
media manager, tweeted that Christy Nome was going to have
a bad day and of course apropos of the Post's
latest crap about me. This is a phrase, She's going
to have a bad day. This is a phrase that
MAGA and Trump and the Trumpsts get to use every
(34:02):
damn day about every liberal and every politician. But if
it's used by others about MAGA or Trump, it's a
death threat. Now I agree, it's bad phrasing. There's no
reason to leave the slightest impression of violence, even when
it's an incorrect impression. I did that myself this week.
I wasn't careful enough. You have to remember it's a
(34:25):
bad time for that. Plus, the great dirty secret of
the right wingers is they are utter snowflakes, holy cow,
and they're looking for things to make a big deal
out of. They always need somebody evil on the other side.
And the idea that their softest church music evidence of that.
(34:45):
Christino her response to Fox about that tweet, the tweet
that foretold she'd have a bad day, which turned out
to be because they knew that Tom Holman story was
about to break. Quoting her, it was cryptic and it
was really menacing. It immediately panicked my family. Unquote, well, Christy,
(35:08):
I'm giving you this. It was cryptic, but hey, you
don't have any friends. B If that's really menacing to you,
you need to get to a convent or somewhere, or
at least I mean, I don't know, a convent sounds
like a good idea. I mean, you'd have a lot
of explaining to do before they let you in the convent.
(35:29):
But they're forgiving people. Even if I was just thinking
of the guy with the Trump campaign that she's her advisor,
her confidant, You need to get into a convent because
you're just not meant for this society. You never know
(35:50):
when someone might come up to you and say you're
going to have a bad day, and then you immediately
go into cardiac seizure or something. But on this part
about it panicked my family and friends. Did it panic
them more or less than the day at your house
when you picked up a shotgun and went hunting for
(36:10):
and then murdered your daughter's puppy, Christy. I kill innocent
animals and then boast about it in my autobiography, probably
in hopes of appealing to Trump and showing him I'm
a sadist gnome two day's other worst person, and you
(36:52):
the number one story on the countdown and my favorite topic,
me and things I promised not to tell. And here
we go again, Rupert Murdoch's quote news outlets unquote shooting
themselves in the groin yet again while they were aiming
at me. A little timeline is required on this one.
April eighteen sixty five, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
(37:15):
was assassinated May twenty twenty, maybe earlier May twenty twenty,
was the earliest I remembered or found. Trump started claiming
he had been treated far worse than Abraham Lincoln had.
March sixteenth, twenty twenty four, Trump said it again. Then
Biden Harris Headquarters tweets the clip, adding Trump says he's
(37:37):
been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated. Also
March sixteenth, twenty twenty four, I retweeted that, adding there's
always the hope. March eighteenth, twenty twenty four, Fox News
publishes a story first headlined Keith Olderman appears to hope
for Trump assassination, but the headline was then changed to
Keith Olderman sparks outrage by hinting at trump assassination with
(38:01):
a blue stripe over my face, reading blue blood bath,
meaning on some level, I am the same as Trump.
To the New York Post and the Fox News and
all the rest of Murdoch's outlets, well, I was tempted
to answer this by saying I was just referring to
the auto industry. In reality, obviously I was and am
(38:25):
hoping that Trump will be right and that he will
be treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, something worse than assassination,
which would be that Trump is convicted and dies in prison.
I don't know how many times I have said this,
maybe more than Trump's ludicrous charge that he's been treated
worse than Lincoln. I may have actually said it more
(38:46):
than he has said that. I think I first said
I hope he dies in prison. I expect he dies
in prison in twenty sixteen. This is because I hope
he dies in prison. But of course the point of
this is Murdoch and Fox, and especially the New York
Post have been doing this to me since about nineteen
(39:08):
ninety six, always always getting it wrong, ever since I
caught the Post in a lie that year about a
couple of hockey players that it claimed had been thrown
out of a New York City bar for knocking over tables,
to the horror of customers, when in fact I was
with them, and they left the place in their own
(39:30):
form of horror, because as one of them, Eric Lindross,
stood up, he almost knocked over the chair he was
sitting in. He said to the other, John Leclair, I
think I've had enough. We got to go home, Johnny,
and they politely left, but not before asking if I
needed a lift. In two thousand and one, The Post
slammed me because I attended a New York Mets game
(39:51):
while wearing cargo shorts. A few years later, the Post
showed a picture somebody had snapped of me leaning against
one of the gates of Central Park here in New
York and said I was alone and depressed. Actually, I
was alone and early to my dental appointment across the street,
and I was trying to talk myself into actually going
(40:12):
into my doctor's office. There was a brief interruption in
the year during the two and a half years or
so that I worked for Murdoch in Sports, a brief
interruption in these constantly hilarious stories before Murdoch personally fired
me after I had reported, with his office's full approval
(40:33):
in advance that he was working behind the scenes to
sell the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, which he was.
Murdoch later boasted about firing me, but he didn't say that.
He didn't boast about it until after he had sold
the LA Dodgers baseball team. The origin of the Post's
quarter century of badly aimed shots at me stems from
(40:55):
that firing. When Murdoch fired me, his minions did it
slowly in stages over the course of a couple of days,
in hopes that they could get me angry and bait
me into attacking Fox and News Corp. In the newspapers
so that then they could fire me for cause that
way they wouldn't owe me the rest of the money
on my contract instead. As I've mentioned here before, given
(41:19):
the choice between waiting eight months to insult someone and
getting a lot of money, or getting no money and
yelling at them right now, I'll always wait the eight months.
I remained quiet for eight lovely months, and Rupert had
to pay me one hundred thousand dollars a month to
do that best job I ever had. So whenever this
(41:46):
happens and somebody says, why don't you sue Murdoch, Go,
sue News Corp? Sue the New York Post, I always say,
what kind of money could I get from them that
could hurt them more than that eight hundred thousand dollars
back in two thousand and one. Also, most of the
stuff they do is so hilariously wrong, like the Worse
than Life story, that it's transparently desperate. But twice they
(42:11):
threatened me with stories that I had to take some
action about once they completely made one up, and once
they ran a story even though the FBI and the
Department of Homeland Security specifically asked them not to run it.
The obligatory reminder before I tell you those two stories,
you should never believe any source story you read in
(42:33):
the New York Post, or indeed on any media outlet
owned by the Murdochs like Fox. They occasionally report real things,
but just as often they make stuff up. Not exaggerate
or get slightly wrong or twist, but utterly fabricate. On
(42:53):
April eleventh, two thousand and five, the New York Post
was to run exactly the kind of story I'm talking about,
only under threat of multiple lawsuits did they actually spike it.
I hadn't told this story before, but I was reminded
of it. I think going through the mechanics of it
will illustrate just how evil an organization News Corp. Actually
Is and more importantly, how unreliable it is as a
(43:17):
source of news. As a New York Post page six
gossip story, this one, though, had everything it attacked MSNBC,
it had quotes from informed sources, and even at one
points it had a witness. Now the witness disappeared during
the evolution of this story, but at one point it
had a witness. It had somebody prominent insulting Peter Jennings,
(43:40):
the newscaster, right after he had revealed he had lung cancer.
And it was constructed in such a way that if
I did not comment on it, they could print the story,
then come back the next day, rehash it and add
that I was still refusing to comment on it. But
there was one overriding problem. It was a complete fabrication,
and thus it was full of events that didn't happen
(44:03):
and people who did not exist. New York Post Page
six contacted MSNBC's then media relations guy Jeremy Gaines on Thursday,
April seventh, two thousand and five, with the following story.
Keith Olderman, a quote frequent critic of President Bush, had
refused to anchor the coverage of the death of Pope
(44:25):
John Paul the Second, pretended to be ill and called
in sick instead. There was, as I suggested earlier, a
major problem here. I had anchored the coverage of the
death of Pope John Paul the Second. I had been
anchoring the primetime coverage four hours each weeknight day after
day leading up to the pottiffs passing. There were viewers
(44:47):
who had seen me. There were studio staffers. Carl Bernstein
was there. He was the in studio papal expert. He
was on the air with me every night for like
six nights in a row. There were video tapes. Joe Tory,
then the manager of the New York Yankees, called me
to compliment me on my reverential coverage of the Pope's illness.
(45:12):
That did not stop. The New York Post in the
first version that page six told us it was going
to print their unnamed source had been on board an
Amtrak Asella train going from Washington, DC to New York,
sitting near my agent as my agent talked to somebody
on a cell phone. This is apparently a very favorite
(45:33):
construction when The New York Post wants to make up
a story about somebody their witness said. My agent complained
that I had had a quote meltdown after quote, calling
in sick. Rather than anchoring the papal coverage, which I anchored,
but there was more quote. Alderman, a frequent critic of
the president's policies, said it was better in sports. They
(45:55):
quoted my agent quoting me into the phone. I'll be
dealing with this all day now. Apart from the fact
that I had anchored the coverage they said I had
not anchored. There was another major flaw in this story.
My agent was not on a train from Washington to
New York on the day in question, or the week
(46:16):
in question, or the month, or in fact, the year
in question. My agent told me she thought she had
once been on a train from Washington to New York
in the year nineteen sixty seven. My agent at that
time lived a top Mount Shasta in California, and so
seldom left there that when she once drove to town
(46:37):
to get the mail, I asked her for the details
of her trip because I jokingly suggested to her we
should lead the newscast with it. So the next day, Friday,
April eighth, two thousand and five, New York Post, page
six came back with a different version of this same story.
They had misheard their source. Of course, it wasn't my
(46:58):
agent on the train from DC to New York. It
was a woman who worked for my agent, a woman
named Susan. A woman named Susan whom I had they
would report already phoned three times that morning, and I
was to meet her urgently at the boat House in
Central Park, presumably because meeting her in the middle of
(47:21):
Penn Station when she got off that train would have
been a little too public. MSNBC's Jeremy Gaines responded again
with some irrefutable refutations. Nobody named Susan worked for my agent.
In fact, nobody at all worked for my agent. She
was independent. She had a working relationship with a small
(47:41):
agency in Los Angeles, and basically they covered her phone
calls when she was on vacation, which she almost never was,
because she never left the top of Mount effing Shasta.
We called that agency and they confirmed that not only
did they not have anybody working for them named Susan,
but nobody from that agency was even on the East
Coast or had been so far that entire year. At
(48:06):
this point I called the television columnist of The New
York Post and off the record, explained to him that
I was kind of furious, and this time I was
actually going to sue, but that NBC was far angrier
than I was, and that they were going to sue
as well, and sue the editor of Page six personally,
I calmly went through the facts of this. This guy,
(48:27):
the TV guy, had a conscience, he sighed. He said
he got those kind of calls more often than I
would believe. And I said, no, I believe it. And
he said he would go to the editor of page
six and explain somebody was lying to him, the editor,
and he was going to get himself sued into bankruptcy
over a really obviously untrue and completely disproved story. Okay,
(48:49):
So now a couple hours later, New York Post Page
six calls again demanding a comment from me on the
third different version of their exhaustive papals scoop. No, the
woman their witness heard, who they first said was my agent,
then said she had gotten it wrong. It was a
woman named Susan who worked for my agent. She had
now become a woman who worked for my agent, whose
(49:10):
name the witness never heard, but she was talking to
somebody else named Susan. And there was an additional quote
now thrown in, I'll be dealing this all day now,
had morphed into I'll be dealing with this all day now.
The same week Peter Jennings makes his announcement about having
lung cancer. This idiot, a frequent critic of President Bush
(49:34):
is sitting around in his pajamas calling me about this.
I'll spare you how I know this was not true.
It has something to do with the fact that I
don't wear pajamas. Years later, a former gossip reporter in
Murdoch's employ explained to me that his celebrity and gossip
people are taught never to back down from a confrontation,
(49:57):
and that if the subject of one of their hit
jobs fires back or tries to refute, or especially threatens
legal action, to keep making story worse and worse for them.
And in the first decade of this century, anyway, you
were supposed to try to work in a defense of
George W. Bush. But there's also what she said, they
called an emergency exit. If there is no question that
(50:20):
the story is nonsensical, if the basic spine of the
story does not line up with provable facts, just abandon it.
Abandon it. Don't tell the subject of your attack that
you are abandoning it. Just don't make any more phone calls,
don't send any more emails about it. Just vanish, just
disappear the story, and then send the name of the
(50:44):
subject of the story that you've just punted. Send it
around to all the other Murdoch operations to see if
they can come up with any dirt on the subject,
to punish them for fighting back against Rupert Murdoch's lies.
So they abandoned the story, and it took the New
York Post a year and ahe half to get me back,
(51:06):
and to get back the Department of Homeland Security and
the FBI. On September twenty sixth, two thousand and six,
I opened an envelope bearing a California postmark at my
home in New York. I shouldn't have done it, but bluntly,
I'll confess to this. I thought it was some baseball
cards I had bought off eBay. Well it wasn't. The
(51:29):
envelope contained a sticky substance looked like draino mixed with
talcum powder, and it fell out, and accompanying notes said
it was anthrax. Now I and other liberals would get
a taste of our own medicine. Even reading those chilling
words and having covered the actual anthrax letters terrorist attacks
(51:50):
of two thousand and one when I was with CNN,
I knew it was an anthrax. The guy who supposedly
sent the actual anthrax in two thousand and one. Was
an expert in the field, and even he masshandled the
stuff so badly that supposed he gave himself anthrax and
died of it. On the other hand, I know the
(52:10):
odds were impossible, but what if I was wrong. My
apartment building was filled with little old ladies who had
lived there since Roosevelt was president. I only assumed that
meant Franklin, not Theodore. The odds were I don't know
one in a billion that it was anthrax. But who
was I to dismiss this one in a billion chance
(52:32):
that these little old ladies were going to get anthrax?
Who was I to make that call? So instead I
made a call. I called the FBI. Well, it was
quite an evening. The cops showed up. The FBI showed up.
They said, of course it's not anthrax, but we have
to act like it is. Welcome to our new world.
The hasmat squad came in. They set up a command
(52:55):
post in the building. They swept my apartment and they said, okay,
now you have to go to the emergency room for tests.
And I said, it's not anthrax. You just said so.
And they said if we have to do this. You
have to do this too, I laughed. Plus, if you don't,
we can arrest you as a threat to public health,
and we could make you go to the hospital. So
out I went into an ambulance dressed in a hazmat
(53:18):
suit one size too small that really cut in the groin.
I spent the night getting checked out. The FBI then
called and said, it's like it's like draino with ivory
soap flakes. But they also said there had been other
letters that had arrived that night and the night before,
(53:40):
sent to people like the chairman of CBS and David
Letterman's office, and Nancy Pelosi and some poor guy who
happened to have the name John Stuart who was not
the John Stuart. And they couldn't make me do this,
but it would really help if I did not report
what happened on my TV show that night, just for
(54:01):
the one day do it tomorrow, because they had a
lead on and the guy who had sent all these letters,
and they didn't want to scare them off, And I said, sure,
I'm a patriot. The next day, while we were still
observing the embargo on the story, my story planning to
run it at eight o'clock at night. New York Post
(54:21):
page six led with a picture of me with the
headline powder puff spooks Keith and making sure to identify
me as Quote, a frequent critic of President Bush's policies.
The New York Post mocked me for not just assuming
it was fake antrax and ignoring it, and claimed I
(54:42):
insisted the cops should take me to the hospital. Quote
whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out
isn't known. By the way, one of the actual anthrax
letters in two thousand and one, one of the letters
with actual anthrax in it that got some people sick
and killed a little old lady, had been mailed to
(55:04):
the New York Post, and one of their staffers had
contracted anthrax. And still this was their attitude towards anthrax threats. Anyway,
as it turned out, there was a guy in California
sending out these threatening letters, each with fake antracks, to
about a dozen people. He sent me four of them. Ultimately,
I soon knew the FBI guys by their first names.
(55:28):
I pointed out to FBI Doug that the last envelope
I received had a bar code on it. Maybe they
could track the guy that way, and he said, oh,
you're right. And the next thing I knew the FBI
had just videotaped the suspect mailing yet another letter to me,
the fifth from his home in Woodland Hills, California. And
I swear to god he actually lived in his mother's
(55:50):
basement at age thirty seven or something. And FBI Doug said,
do we have your permission to pull a letter out
of the mailbox and open it? I said sure, And
the next thing I knew the guy was sentenced to
prison for like eighteen months, but not before FBI Doug said,
by the way, that barcode, you noticed it connected to
(56:12):
the post office here, and that's where we found his address.
And we also found the fact that he purchased a
postal money order for fifteen dollars made out to the
Catherine Harris for Florida Senate campaign, if you remember her
from Gore V. Bush and his online history. We looked
that all up. It's all about how she Katherine Harris
(56:35):
and some woman named Laura something or another. They are
the most beautiful women in history. And I said, Laura,
Laura Ingram, and FBI Doug said, yeah, that's it, Laura Ingraham.
And if that isn't ten years of my life in
(56:57):
one sentence courtesy of the New York effing Post, I
don't know what is. And as I said earlier, the
(57:18):
Post is cooking up something as we speak. It may
be about my evil, evil tweets. I know it's it's
not something you're going to read. It's not something I'm
going to read. It's like that's Saturday Night Live sketch
all those years ago about me and how terrible I was.
(57:39):
I mean, it was so long and not interesting that
I began to look for a hockey game in the
middle of the sketch, and the sketch was about me.
Same thing with the Post. But I mean, it's not
easy to find forty pages of red meat to throw
at Murdoch's idiot readers every day. I understand that. All right,
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
(58:00):
you for listening. Most of our Countdown music was a
range produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillips Ale,
our musical directors have Countdown. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister
Chanel handled orchestration and keyboards. That's them playing now. Our
satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball
stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Old Woman theme from
(58:23):
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Is the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by
the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my
friend Larry David, and everything else was as always my fault.
Sorry for the hoarseness. It was dog grooming day at
the house and so the air is thick with small
(58:47):
doggie hair. I don't think Walter Cronkite ever said that
on his show That's Countdown for Today, Day two hundred
and forty nine of America held hostage just one and
twenty four days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame
duck and lame brain term unless unless he listens and resigns,
(59:08):
unless he is removed sooner by MAGA and Jeffrey Epstein,
or the pavement stuck on his hand, or a stuck
escalator or tail and all, or Jimmy Kimmel the next
schedule count down his Monday until then, I'm Keith Oldraman
good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
(59:49):
with Keith 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. After
perhaps the most hapless ninety six hours of his presidency,
(00:29):
the most hapless, worst ninety six hours of the worst
presidency of all time, the most fail in the shortest span,
the mentally deteriorating, untethered from reality, Trump must resign and
take his idiot sick ephants with him. The last ninety
six hours, his un speech sounding like an escape ee
(00:53):
from a psych ward, his tailenol news conference sounding like
an escapee from a psych ward who's been living on
the street for a month. His suggestion NATO country shoot
down Russian jet. His sudden embrace of Zelenski either another
stall or stupid dared putin Maga's rage at his sudden
embrace of Zelenski. The cover of a London right wing daily,
(01:15):
his picture on it in seventy two point type, the
word deranged. The ice shooting in Dallas, His sidistic Homeland
Chief pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees,
His idiots simpering Vice President pretending the victims were agents
when they were detainees. His corrupt, venal, cross eyed FBI
(01:36):
director pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees,
his Ice chief not denying he took fifty thousand dollars
in a paper bag, his staff then denying the man
took fifty thousand dollars in a paper bag. His cancelation
of a meeting with Democrats, making certain that if there
is a government shutdown, it is all his fault. His
(01:57):
crack pot pal melay of the Sideburns, crashing the Venezuelan
economy and needing us to base ail him out. His
paranoia over the stopped teleprompter at the UN that was
the White House staff's fault. His paranoia over the stopped
escalator at the UN that was his own vanity videographer's fault.
(02:18):
His desire to arrest the UN escalator technician or the
UN escalator button pusher, his desire to arrest the escalator
and James Comy. The election of Raoul Grihalva's daughter to Congress,
the fact that Adalita Grihalvo will be the last representative
needed to force a vote on releasing the Trump. Epstein
(02:38):
files his self humiliation at the Kirk Memorial, ABC reinstating
Jimmy Kimmel meaning Disney told him to f off, meaning
the National Football League told him to f off, meaning
they all told his propagandists it Sinclair to f off Kimmel,
then shoving him in a locker using only a monologue.
Kimmel getting a record six million viewers and twenty two
(03:02):
more million online in just the first twenty hours, Kimmel
and his show getting new life and maybe a new contract.
His self owning confession that he and his goons used
threats to get Kimmel canceled, except they didn't get Kimmel canceled.
The fact that Kimmel and ABC and Bob Iger and
Disney at America told Trump to shove his threats up
(03:28):
his ass. And that's just since Sunday night. Resign. Take
Vance with you, Take Nome with you, Take Home Man
with you, Take me Lay with you. Leave the Epstein files.
(03:50):
He lost to a escalator. Let me start with the
biggest surprise of all these things. Remember the South African
pastor who woke up from a dream couple weeks back
and proclaimed there would be a rapture at sunset in Israel,
which would have been eleven thirty six am this Tuesday.
(04:13):
I think there was a rapture because something sure disappeared
into the sky the hours before and after that sunset.
And that's something, was Trump's feeling of invulnerability. That collection
of disasters that's two dozen in four days, is worse
than it seems because they are all self owns, all
(04:34):
of them mistakes, self delusions, obsessions, self indulgences, self destructions,
quicksand that Trump and Trump alone could voluntarily dive into
an average of one every four hours. Kimmel looms above, around,
and behind every one of them, and I'll get to
him in a moment, But cause, to paraphrase the Baseball
(04:56):
Hall of Famer and builder Rube Foster, Kimmel is the ship.
All else is the sea. However, the Zelensky surprise is
the most meaningful because we have yet to hear Putin's reaction,
and the silence lends more credence to the theory that
this is just another new, admittedly novel, way for Trump
(05:16):
to further stall on Putin's behalf. And even if it isn't,
it still included Trump's insistence that any action taken and
any money spent be taken and spent by Europe, including
shooting down Russian planes or drones during incursions over Pole
and Estonia, maybe Denmark, maybe Wherever's next. Nothing for us
to worry about here, of course, because we have an
(05:39):
ocean between us, and as another president wants asked rhetorically,
shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the
ocean and crush us at a blow? Never, all the
armies could not by force take a drink from the
Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in
a trial of one thousand years. Of course, the president
(06:03):
who said that was Lincoln said it in eighteen thirty nine,
and there were no airplanes or rockets, or battleships or
submarines in eighteen thirty nine. And apparently, either Trump has
not yet found out that there are now airplanes and
rockets and battleships and submarines, or more likely Trump still
(06:23):
thinks it's still eighteen thirty nine. The Grijalva election, of course,
will be the most meaningful going forward, because the new
representative is not only the daughter of as quiet and
effective and strategic a progressive as the House has had
in this century, my friend Raoul Grijalva, but she has
said that the day she is sworn in by the Speaker,
(06:46):
she will sign on to the Massy motion to force
a House vote on releasing the Epstein files. Massy has
two hundred and seventeen votes right now he needs two
hundred and eighteen. Atalida Grihava will be number two hundred
and eighteen. And this now means that to stop the
vote and stop putting his pet speaker Mike Johnson in
(07:06):
an untenable position, Trump has only one option then, which
is to force Johnson and House Republicans to actually shut
the government down. Because a government shut down delays swearing
in Adalita Grihalva vote number two hundred and eighteen, and
delaying swearing in Adalita Grihalva may be Trump's last way
(07:27):
out of the Epstein files. And now to the Gettysburg
(07:57):
Address of Late Night Comedy Monologues, The I'm as mad
as hell and I'm not going to take it any
more of Late Night Comedy Monologue, the Ten Commandments of
Late Night Comedy Monologues. I can confess this now. I
really thought even Jimmy Kimmel, who makes my Nate palming
(08:18):
of Bridges look like nothing, was returning to save the
jobs of his staff and the other two hundred people
or so whose livelihoods depend on his show still existing.
I thought he would pull a lot of punches, or
a couple or maybe one, or at minimum, not do
(08:39):
a monologue so searing, so masterful, so declaring of his
ownership of Trump that Jimmy had to take a commercial
break in the middle of it before he even got
to the part about Robert de Niro playing in perfect
form a mafioso version of FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Well,
(09:01):
I got that wrong. Huh If that was done without
Bob Eiger's approval, I'll be just as shocked and just
as wrong. Again, he knew that was coming. Is it
a compromise, Maybe, jim you say whatever you want now
and we'll just shut the show down in a year.
Or is it Eiger waking up to the fact that
(09:22):
the sixteen million dollar settlement bribe with Trump bought him nothing,
nothing but more trouble, nothing but more threats, nothing but
more blackmail. Was it Eiger's realization that he chairs the
leading entertainment company in the country and Trump's true approval
rating is down to around thirty two percent. Here and
(09:43):
even most right wingers realized that if Trump could get
Kimmel fired, President Fritzker or President AOC. We'll be able
to get everybody at Fox News fired and maybe all
of their podcasts canceled. What is Ted Cruz? If there
is no Ted Cruz podcast, He's just an idiot asshole, Senate. Sure,
(10:06):
it doesn't matter which it was, either way or any
other way. This is a landmark moment. This is a
bullying victim coming back and hitting Scott Farcus Trump in
the nuts and better than that. After Trump's long suffering,
perpetual rake stepping Minion spent a week insisting Trump had
(10:29):
nothing to do with it, and Brendan Gebbel's car had
nothing to do with it, and the FCC had nothing
to do with it, nothing to do with Kimmel's sidelining.
Trump then boasted that he and car and the FCC
had not only done it, they thought that ABC had surrendered. Quote.
I can't believe ABC, fake news gave Jimmy Kimmel his
job back. The White House was told by ABC that
(10:53):
his show was canceled. That's a confession. Something happened between
then and now, because his audience is gone and his
talent was never there. Well, he's wrong about that too,
as the numbers will show. Why would they want someone
back who does so poorly? All things considered, more people
watch Kimmel than watch Trump's inauguration this year. Why would
(11:15):
they want something made prob not funny? Puts the network
in jeopardy, but puts the network in jeopardy. What does
he mean? Oh, he is yet another arm of the DNC,
and the best of my knowledge, that would be a
major illegal contribution, illegal campaign contribution. I think we're going
to test ABC out on this. Well, there are no
laws that would allow him to test this out. So
(11:37):
what's the plan. Let's see how we do. Last time
I went after them, they gave me dollars, signed sixteen
million dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true
bunch of losers. Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad ratings. Yo, h,
they didn't have bad ratings. He had four times his
(11:57):
normal ratings. It's one thing if you bully a company
into bribing you because it has business before the f
TC or FCC or any other government agency. You have
perverted it into many pollot bureaus using Trump brand coercion.
It's another, though, if you have convinced yourself that the
bribes these other people paid to shut you up for
(12:19):
ten minutes were in fact something you earned in some way,
or something that a court awarded to you in some way.
Trump should sue ABC over Kimmel, and then Kimmel should
sue the FCC for tortious interference, and ABC should sue
the FCC and Sinclair and Next Star for damages. All right,
they don't have to. I haven't worked in local news
(12:40):
since nineteen ninety one, at a local station since the
end of nineteen ninety one. But guess what, the local
station arrangement hasn't changed all that much. Local stations that
are not owned by the networks used to regularly silence
network shows. The Smothers Brothers used to be preempted. The
ABC evening News wasn't considered good enough for like Zanesville, Ohio,
(13:03):
every late night show of the sixties and seventies. At
some point on February fifth, nineteen sixty nine, Channel five,
the ABC station in Cleveland, allegedly bailed out of the
network's new comedy show Turn On during the first commercial break.
But then, and it turns out, now this comes at
(13:24):
a price if you are an ABC affiliate and you
do not run an ABC show, you have to pay
a postponement fee each time you don't run it. In
Kimmel's case, that's five nights a week. And if you
cancel enough network shows, ABC has the right to cancel
your contract. And the next thing you know, Sinclair stations
aren't running Dancing with the Stars or any sports or
(13:46):
the twenty twenty seven Super Bowl, but non Sinclair stations
in the same cities are. Oh and even before that,
in the short run, if the Sinclair station will not
show Kimmel long term, ABC can offer it to other
stations in those markets for like two dollars an episode.
Don't bring a tweet to a businessman's fight Trump. By
(14:12):
the way, this is how unprepared MAGA was for a
full one hundred percent humiliation and extinction level loss an
ass kicking like Kimmel and ABC utterly destroying Trump as
he did. The attempt to both sides this thing. Steven
Miller's wife, Katie got off of her broom and screamed
that the left didn't scream free speech when Tucker Carlson
(14:35):
was canceled, so there, neglecting obviously that Carlson had a
cable show, and the worst any government could ever do
to a cable show as to threaten the Fox broadcast
station licenses, which wouldn't have done a thing to Fox
News and very little to Rupert Murdoch. So other MAGA
then moved on from Tucker Carlson a losing comp to
(14:56):
asking why the left didn't scream free speech when Lou
Dobbs was fired again Cable, no FCC jurisdiction, Plus Carlson
and Dobbs were fired by Rupert Murdock entirely by surprise,
entirely without government prodding or pushing or posting or podcasts
in which the head of the FCC says, we can
do this easy way, or we can do this the
(15:18):
hard way. That's my impression of Ted Cruz doing an
ethnic accent. Incidentally, Lou Dobbs is dead now, and I
always heard that he'd had enough event at Fox or
events at Fox that they had to act that it
wasn't just editorial. He had an event when I was
at CNN, he had an event in Atlanta involving CNN management.
(15:38):
The head of CNN Sports, my boss, Bill McPhail, took
Dobbs's wife off long form sports anchoring after she walked
off a show in the middle live when she got
irretrievably lost trying to read the script and worse, read
the prompter. Dobbs allegedly then burst into Bill mcphial's office
and told him to stand up and start throwing punches.
(16:02):
Dobbs challenged him to a fistfight. Dobbs was thirty eight
and Bill McPhail was sixty three. Anyway, that's the best
they had, Tucker Carlson and lou Dobbs and Trump confessing
to personally using the government to attack the free press
part of the First Amendment. And then, of course all
(16:26):
of those viewers what twenty two nearly twenty three million
viewers combined for Jimmy Kimmel, and now ABC is thinking
maybe we want to give him a new ten year contract. Also,
who was that who told you Kimmel was coming back
before the end of the month, maybe before the end
(16:49):
of the week. Okay, what before the tile and all idiocy?
Trump and anybody he might have told bought advil stock.
(17:10):
Since that disaster, hours have been spent analyzing Trump and
tailanol and internet rumors being inflated to the level of
a presidential news conference, when the whole thing could have
been summarized by this simple reality. Thailand All was introduced
in nineteen fifty five. Autism was discovered classified defined in
nineteen forty three. Of all the stupid arguments in the world,
(17:34):
to argue tailanol causes autism is stupider even than it
would be to argue that autism caused tailandhol What's more,
that news conference was not what he and pantiless Bobby
Kennedy had reportedly agreed upon. Politico has quoted a series
of White House sources who said Trump overruled even the
(17:57):
quacks that masturbating Bob relied on to go on and
try to make sure that people got sick the way
that Trump made sure people got sick during COVID I'll
quote Politico. The initial plan was to release a literature
review on the state of research into autism causes and
treatment options on September twenty ninth. Thailand All is one
(18:18):
of thirty one hypotheses. Next, they planned an announcement that
working groups would begin new studies next year. They expected
initial findings from those efforts. To their frustration, Trump wanted
to move forward anyway. Politico didn't say that, but of
course moving forward anyway amounted to Trump just standing there yelling,
(18:39):
don't take Dailand, all, don't take tailand all take what
I take. Paint thin A. It is, in retrospect surprising
that Trump didn't declare the makers of tailanhol to be
a domestic terrorist organization. He did that to Antifa, even
though a there is no such organization. It's like declaring
short people to be a terrorist organization, or, to be fair,
(19:03):
declaring tall people to be a terrorist organization, or men
who wear eyeliner to be a terrorist organization. The president
also has new legal right or route to declare anything
a domestic terrorist organization. Congressman Dan Goldman pretty much summed
this up and pretty much stuffed Trump into yet another locker.
(19:25):
He's asking Trump, via social media, quote name one member
of Antifa if it quote explicitly calls for the overthrow
of the US government. Where can I find that statement? Trump,
Goldman says, is trying to suppress opposition by labeling anyone
who dissents as a domestic terrorist. Do not be fooled.
(19:46):
This is lawless and unconstitutional, and of course now Trump
may yet declare building maintenance and teleprompter operations at the
United Nations terrorist organizations. He posted a nice, calm one
thousand word run on paragrap at sunset last night about
(20:06):
arresting somebody for something. I mean, maybe they can charge
Jim Comey with this. I think it actually improves the
story to tell the conclusion first. The reality is reported
by the Associated Press UN correspondent for nush Amiri quote.
A UN official said, the UN understands that someone from
(20:29):
the President's party who ran ahead of him inadvertently triggered
the stop mechanism on the escalator and just says don't
run on escalators or escalator will stop. That's what happened,
she continues. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
the White House was operating the teleprompter for Trump. This,
(20:50):
of course, did not stop the Trump's freak shows of paranoids,
conspiracy theorists, idiots, bullshit artists, and Saint Paul beer girl
press secretaries from insisting the thing with the escalator was
really an assassination attempt. Caroline live it if someone at
(21:13):
the UN intentionally stopped the escalator, as the President and
First Lady we're stepping on. They need to be fire
red and investigated immediately. The Times reported this on Sunday.
To mark Trump's arrival, UN staff members have joked they
may turn off the escalators and elevators and simply tell
(21:34):
him they ran out of money, so he has to
walk up the stairs. Cute, Caroline, and it's nice that
you recognize the word elevator or escalator in there. Except
what they're saying here is that they were going to
turn them all off so he'd have to walk up
from the front door, which as we know, is medically impossible.
They didn't say something about stopping the escalator after he
(21:55):
got on, but those words from Caroline Levitt. It's one
of the rare times when Caroline Levitt does not look
like the biggest asshole in the bunch, the guy Cernovich.
What happened today at the UN was a dry run
for an assassination. Our enemies were able to see the
reaction or lack thereof. Trump was a sitting duck. Extreme
(22:15):
measures will now be taken against the UN, including leaving
the UN totally. Mike Lee, Senator from the Internet. Is
the UN trying to give us a hint by orchestrating
escalator and teleprompter malfunctions, or is this just random coincidence.
Either way, we should defund the UN. Mike also believes
(22:36):
nobody knows he has a comb over Brendan Dilley, who's
an influencer for morons. If we discover that the UN
deliberately turned off the escalator and risk injuring the president
first lady, we should bomb them, all of them. Presume
he means the individual nations in the UN, or or
(22:59):
he means over there to Tutor City in Manhattan, right
across the street from Trump Building. Gotta tell you, one
of the safest places in the city. When Trump finally
loses it and stops starts, you know, blowing things up
in the country, one of the safest places will be
in the UN because it's across the street from the
Trump UN Plaza, Wall Street mav which I believe is
(23:21):
one of those India bots, or it's a guy in
India who's an influencer gets paid for this. Trump's escalator
stopped as soon as he stepped on it, then his
teleprompter goes out right when he starts his speech. No way,
those were accidents. I'd bet UN staff, which wouldn't have
jobs without our taxes, conspired to embarrass President Trump. Now
why would they waste their time doing that when, as
(23:41):
I just mentioned, Trump embarrassed himself twenty four times in
ninety six hours. You do not need to embarrass Donald Trump.
He is self embarrassing a muse poetic justice. Someone thought
it would be funny to break the escalator as soon
as Trump stepped on. Presumably the same people broke his
teleprompter just as he began his fifteen minute speech. Due
(24:02):
to the malfunction, Trump extended his speech is speech an
additional forty minutes. Those who sought to silence him were
awarded with almost an hour of solid gold from the President.
I hope you mean solid gold, actual gold, because there
was none of it in the speech. And of course
the Alexes chime in Alex bruce Witz is either in
(24:27):
the government or is a government adjacent guy. Someone very
clearly tried to sabotage Trump at the un completely unacceptable.
Someone must be held accountable. Yeah, apparently it was one
White House photographer. And whoever runs prompter Alex Jones sabotage
(24:49):
escalator at the un HQ stops abruptly when Trump steps
onto it and teleprompter malfunctions because before he begins speaking,
when you read a whole bunch of conspiracy theorists and
only Alex Jones sticks to the facts or close to
the facts, you know we have a serious problem in
this country. And then lastly, har Meet K. Dillon, the
(25:11):
woman from the West Coast who is I don't know,
Deputy Secretary of not doing anything, simply writes deport the UN.
On Fox, Jesse Waters says, quote, this is an insurrection
and what we need to do is either leave the
(25:31):
UN or we need to bomb them. There is some
evidence that Waters was trying to make a joke there,
but it's hard to confirm because everything that Bill O'Reilly's
former errand boy does is a joke. Besides, if that
were a liberal saying something like that, even in jest,
there there would be an immediate demand that the FBI
or the FCC or the NCAA investigate that threat of violence,
(25:55):
and the demand would come from Jesse Waters. So ultimately,
amid all of this paranorleia, somebody has to say this,
and it might as well be me, boy That escalatord quickly.
(26:16):
Also of interest here, so The New York Post is
making stuff up about me again. This is a ritual
as old as time itself. They've been doing it since
the nineties. The bullshit machine is pointed at a different
liberal every day of the week, or maybe every week
of the year. It's my turn again. And Derek Van
Orden wants to defund No, not the un the Mayo
(26:39):
Clinic because Charlie Kirk, because Charlie Kirk is Jesus, and
you don't f with the Jesus. That's next. This is countdown.
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on this
(27:19):
edition of Countdown. Yes, Brendan Carr of the FCC should
be investigated, impeached, and if possible, prosecuted for threatening ABC,
ABC News, Disney, Jimmy Kimmel, et cetera, and for whatever
quid pro quo existed between him and the next star
Sinclair people that he only revealed in public on a podcast.
(27:41):
But other than that, face it, Kimmel and ABC single
handedly defeated MAGA on this one, and defeated Trump on
this one, and defeated all of their angry, stupid, terrified minions,
especially the ones at Fox News and the other Murdoch
(28:03):
crap shaft, so naturally they need new targets, and I'm
beginning to suspect I've seen these tea leaves before that
it's my turn again to be a Murdoch target. The
New York Post has invented two stories about me this
week alone. They have given somebody named Isabelle Vincent the
(28:25):
task of calling people I used to work with to
talk about me. She's recently been doing mop up operations
trying to whitewash the hate speech of the late Charlie Kirk,
and her bio says she began by covering Pablo Escobar
and the Medaine drug cartel. So poor Iszy must have
really hit the skids if she's being forced to call
(28:47):
people I worked with in two thousand and five, Hey,
you know what, Call the people I worked with at
Fox Sports in ninety nine and two thousand and two
thousand and one. Call them and ask them if if
Murdoch really is still resentful that he had to pay
me nine million dollars in that deal. Anyway, The Post,
(29:10):
for that reason and many others, has been making up
and distorting stuff about me since literally nineteen ninety six.
I think it was when I refuted a story they
made up and distorted about two hockey stars I was
with the night of the sb Awards. I wasn't even mentioned.
They just lied about these two guys. Eric Lindross was
one of them. Every year or so, it's somebody else
(29:34):
from the Post writing something else that isn't true but
isn't legally actionable, except for the time they literally made
up an entire story about me after Tim Russert died
and the Post actually ran away scared under the threat
of lawsuit and published nothing. The saga of the New
York Post and Rupert Murdoch making things up about me
(29:57):
for now thirty years. Next in Things I Promised not
to tell first, Believe it or not, there's still more
new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscreants,
Morons Dunning, Kruegerfect Specimens who constitute two Day's other worst
persons in the world. Theron's Jason Whitlock, who used to
be a sports writer. He had his own vertical at
(30:20):
ESPN dot com if you can believe that, and he
didn't get anything published, and I mean he had months.
I never got this internet. Parts of the Internet, the
idea that you could have months to publish something and
still not get anything done. I mean on the air.
The show starts at eight o'clock. Whether you're ready or not. Well,
(30:44):
I'll be here in eight months. From no eight o'clock.
I'm going to need eight months to prepare the show.
In any event. Jason Whitlock smelled more money in fascism
and got fired from ESPN and everything else in the
real world, and he now writes crap like this quote.
What you're witnessing is Christian nationalism. If you're ashamed of it,
that's your problem, not mine. You've been brainwashed by Marxists.
(31:07):
They all learned a new word, Marxist. You've been brainwashed
by Marxist to believe that wanting government respectful of Jesus
Christ is a bad thing. I've rejected the brainwashing. This
memorial is awesome a correction, Jay Dubb. It's Christo fascism,
not Christian nationalism, and of course you've rejected the brainwashing.
(31:31):
Can't be brainwashed if you have no brain left to wash. Fella.
Runner up Conresson Derek Van Orden of Wisconsin. Same problem.
An HR guy who works somewhere in the vast organization
that is the Mayo Clinic tweeted some of the things
Charlie Kirk actually said. And then after that memorial that
(31:53):
got Jason ol Chubby the Memorial Service and Trump Grievance
show last weekend in Arizona, this guy from the Mayo Clinic,
on a private account, by the way, referred to the
widow as the winner of an acting award. Robbie Starbuck,
one of Kirk's henchmen, then outed the man and demanded
(32:14):
that the Mayo Clinic fire him. Not enough for Derek
Van Orton quote, we will be working to remove every
single penny of federal funding from the Mayo Clinic unless
this is resolved. Well, of course, if you're gonna support
RFK Junior, everybody's gonna be dead anyway. Don't need any
more clinics. One way to cut down on hospitalizations have
(32:36):
everybody follow Robert F. Kennedy Junior right off the FN cliff.
We will be working and remove every single penny of
federal funding from the Mayo Clinic unless this is resolved.
He did not add my head hurts. My head really
hurts when somebody helped me. Van Orden then went on
a radio show that the Mayo Clinic was inciting violence.
(32:58):
Derek Van Orden has so many stories, just the ones
I've covered here of this severe anger management problem that
I say this with actual sincerity. I don't think he
can be trusted with a position of responsibility in a bakery,
let alone a government. But just as sincerely, he's got
(33:18):
PTSD going big time, probably from his service. Maybe it's CTE.
In fact, the only thing he should be doing about
the Mayo Clinic is going to it. But the winner,
speaking of paranoia, Christy Nome. You know her, Christy Nome
(33:40):
is Tom fifty thousand dollars Homan's boss. Gavin Newsom's social
media manager, tweeted that Christy Nome was going to have
a bad day and of course apropos of the Post's
latest crap about me. This is a phrase, She's going
to have a bad day. This is a phrase that
MAGA and Trump and the Trumpsts get to use every
(34:02):
damn day about every liberal and every politician. But if
it's used by others about MAGA or Trump, it's a
death threat. Now I agree, it's bad phrasing. There's no
reason to leave the slightest impression of violence, even when
it's an incorrect impression. I did that myself this week.
I wasn't careful enough. You have to remember it's a
(34:25):
bad time for that. Plus, the great dirty secret of
the right wingers is they are utter snowflakes, holy cow,
and they're looking for things to make a big deal
out of. They always need somebody evil on the other side.
And the idea that their softest church music evidence of that.
(34:45):
Christino her response to Fox about that tweet, the tweet
that foretold she'd have a bad day, which turned out
to be because they knew that Tom Holman story was
about to break. Quoting her, it was cryptic and it
was really menacing. It immediately panicked my family. Unquote, well, Christy,
(35:08):
I'm giving you this. It was cryptic, but hey, you
don't have any friends. B If that's really menacing to you,
you need to get to a convent or somewhere, or
at least I mean, I don't know, a convent sounds
like a good idea. I mean, you'd have a lot
of explaining to do before they let you in the convent.
(35:29):
But they're forgiving people. Even if I was just thinking
of the guy with the Trump campaign that she's her advisor,
her confidant, You need to get into a convent because
you're just not meant for this society. You never know
(35:50):
when someone might come up to you and say you're
going to have a bad day, and then you immediately
go into cardiac seizure or something. But on this part
about it panicked my family and friends. Did it panic
them more or less than the day at your house
when you picked up a shotgun and went hunting for
(36:10):
and then murdered your daughter's puppy, Christy. I kill innocent
animals and then boast about it in my autobiography, probably
in hopes of appealing to Trump and showing him I'm
a sadist gnome two day's other worst person, and you
(36:52):
the number one story on the countdown and my favorite topic,
me and things I promised not to tell. And here
we go again, Rupert Murdoch's quote news outlets unquote shooting
themselves in the groin yet again while they were aiming
at me. A little timeline is required on this one.
April eighteen sixty five, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
(37:15):
was assassinated May twenty twenty, maybe earlier May twenty twenty,
was the earliest I remembered or found. Trump started claiming
he had been treated far worse than Abraham Lincoln had.
March sixteenth, twenty twenty four, Trump said it again. Then
Biden Harris Headquarters tweets the clip, adding Trump says he's
(37:37):
been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated. Also
March sixteenth, twenty twenty four, I retweeted that, adding there's
always the hope. March eighteenth, twenty twenty four, Fox News
publishes a story first headlined Keith Olderman appears to hope
for Trump assassination, but the headline was then changed to
Keith Olderman sparks outrage by hinting at trump assassination with
(38:01):
a blue stripe over my face, reading blue blood bath,
meaning on some level, I am the same as Trump.
To the New York Post and the Fox News and
all the rest of Murdoch's outlets, well, I was tempted
to answer this by saying I was just referring to
the auto industry. In reality, obviously I was and am
(38:25):
hoping that Trump will be right and that he will
be treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, something worse than assassination,
which would be that Trump is convicted and dies in prison.
I don't know how many times I have said this,
maybe more than Trump's ludicrous charge that he's been treated
worse than Lincoln. I may have actually said it more
(38:46):
than he has said that. I think I first said
I hope he dies in prison. I expect he dies
in prison in twenty sixteen. This is because I hope
he dies in prison. But of course the point of
this is Murdoch and Fox, and especially the New York
Post have been doing this to me since about nineteen
(39:08):
ninety six, always always getting it wrong, ever since I
caught the Post in a lie that year about a
couple of hockey players that it claimed had been thrown
out of a New York City bar for knocking over tables,
to the horror of customers, when in fact I was
with them, and they left the place in their own
(39:30):
form of horror, because as one of them, Eric Lindross,
stood up, he almost knocked over the chair he was
sitting in. He said to the other, John Leclair, I
think I've had enough. We got to go home, Johnny,
and they politely left, but not before asking if I
needed a lift. In two thousand and one, The Post
slammed me because I attended a New York Mets game
(39:51):
while wearing cargo shorts. A few years later, the Post
showed a picture somebody had snapped of me leaning against
one of the gates of Central Park here in New
York and said I was alone and depressed. Actually, I
was alone and early to my dental appointment across the street,
and I was trying to talk myself into actually going
(40:12):
into my doctor's office. There was a brief interruption in
the year during the two and a half years or
so that I worked for Murdoch in Sports, a brief
interruption in these constantly hilarious stories before Murdoch personally fired
me after I had reported, with his office's full approval
(40:33):
in advance that he was working behind the scenes to
sell the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, which he was.
Murdoch later boasted about firing me, but he didn't say that.
He didn't boast about it until after he had sold
the LA Dodgers baseball team. The origin of the Post's
quarter century of badly aimed shots at me stems from
(40:55):
that firing. When Murdoch fired me, his minions did it
slowly in stages over the course of a couple of days,
in hopes that they could get me angry and bait
me into attacking Fox and News Corp. In the newspapers
so that then they could fire me for cause that
way they wouldn't owe me the rest of the money
on my contract instead. As I've mentioned here before, given
(41:19):
the choice between waiting eight months to insult someone and
getting a lot of money, or getting no money and
yelling at them right now, I'll always wait the eight months.
I remained quiet for eight lovely months, and Rupert had
to pay me one hundred thousand dollars a month to
do that best job I ever had. So whenever this
(41:46):
happens and somebody says, why don't you sue Murdoch, Go,
sue News Corp? Sue the New York Post, I always say,
what kind of money could I get from them that
could hurt them more than that eight hundred thousand dollars
back in two thousand and one. Also, most of the
stuff they do is so hilariously wrong, like the Worse
than Life story, that it's transparently desperate. But twice they
(42:11):
threatened me with stories that I had to take some
action about once they completely made one up, and once
they ran a story even though the FBI and the
Department of Homeland Security specifically asked them not to run it.
The obligatory reminder before I tell you those two stories,
you should never believe any source story you read in
(42:33):
the New York Post, or indeed on any media outlet
owned by the Murdochs like Fox. They occasionally report real things,
but just as often they make stuff up. Not exaggerate
or get slightly wrong or twist, but utterly fabricate. On
(42:53):
April eleventh, two thousand and five, the New York Post
was to run exactly the kind of story I'm talking about,
only under threat of multiple lawsuits did they actually spike it.
I hadn't told this story before, but I was reminded
of it. I think going through the mechanics of it
will illustrate just how evil an organization News Corp. Actually
Is and more importantly, how unreliable it is as a
(43:17):
source of news. As a New York Post page six
gossip story, this one, though, had everything it attacked MSNBC,
it had quotes from informed sources, and even at one
points it had a witness. Now the witness disappeared during
the evolution of this story, but at one point it
had a witness. It had somebody prominent insulting Peter Jennings,
(43:40):
the newscaster, right after he had revealed he had lung cancer.
And it was constructed in such a way that if
I did not comment on it, they could print the story,
then come back the next day, rehash it and add
that I was still refusing to comment on it. But
there was one overriding problem. It was a complete fabrication,
and thus it was full of events that didn't happen
(44:03):
and people who did not exist. New York Post Page
six contacted MSNBC's then media relations guy Jeremy Gaines on Thursday,
April seventh, two thousand and five, with the following story.
Keith Olderman, a quote frequent critic of President Bush, had
refused to anchor the coverage of the death of Pope
(44:25):
John Paul the Second, pretended to be ill and called
in sick instead. There was, as I suggested earlier, a
major problem here. I had anchored the coverage of the
death of Pope John Paul the Second. I had been
anchoring the primetime coverage four hours each weeknight day after
day leading up to the pottiffs passing. There were viewers
(44:47):
who had seen me. There were studio staffers. Carl Bernstein
was there. He was the in studio papal expert. He
was on the air with me every night for like
six nights in a row. There were video tapes. Joe Tory,
then the manager of the New York Yankees, called me
to compliment me on my reverential coverage of the Pope's illness.
(45:12):
That did not stop. The New York Post in the
first version that page six told us it was going
to print their unnamed source had been on board an
Amtrak Asella train going from Washington, DC to New York,
sitting near my agent as my agent talked to somebody
on a cell phone. This is apparently a very favorite
(45:33):
construction when The New York Post wants to make up
a story about somebody their witness said. My agent complained
that I had had a quote meltdown after quote, calling
in sick. Rather than anchoring the papal coverage, which I anchored,
but there was more quote. Alderman, a frequent critic of
the president's policies, said it was better in sports. They
(45:55):
quoted my agent quoting me into the phone. I'll be
dealing with this all day now. Apart from the fact
that I had anchored the coverage they said I had
not anchored. There was another major flaw in this story.
My agent was not on a train from Washington to
New York on the day in question, or the week
(46:16):
in question, or the month, or in fact, the year
in question. My agent told me she thought she had
once been on a train from Washington to New York
in the year nineteen sixty seven. My agent at that
time lived a top Mount Shasta in California, and so
seldom left there that when she once drove to town
(46:37):
to get the mail, I asked her for the details
of her trip because I jokingly suggested to her we
should lead the newscast with it. So the next day, Friday,
April eighth, two thousand and five, New York Post, page
six came back with a different version of this same story.
They had misheard their source. Of course, it wasn't my
(46:58):
agent on the train from DC to New York. It
was a woman who worked for my agent, a woman
named Susan. A woman named Susan whom I had they
would report already phoned three times that morning, and I
was to meet her urgently at the boat House in
Central Park, presumably because meeting her in the middle of
(47:21):
Penn Station when she got off that train would have
been a little too public. MSNBC's Jeremy Gaines responded again
with some irrefutable refutations. Nobody named Susan worked for my agent.
In fact, nobody at all worked for my agent. She
was independent. She had a working relationship with a small
(47:41):
agency in Los Angeles, and basically they covered her phone
calls when she was on vacation, which she almost never was,
because she never left the top of Mount effing Shasta.
We called that agency and they confirmed that not only
did they not have anybody working for them named Susan,
but nobody from that agency was even on the East
Coast or had been so far that entire year. At
(48:06):
this point I called the television columnist of The New
York Post and off the record, explained to him that
I was kind of furious, and this time I was
actually going to sue, but that NBC was far angrier
than I was, and that they were going to sue
as well, and sue the editor of Page six personally,
I calmly went through the facts of this. This guy,
(48:27):
the TV guy, had a conscience, he sighed. He said
he got those kind of calls more often than I
would believe. And I said, no, I believe it. And
he said he would go to the editor of page
six and explain somebody was lying to him, the editor,
and he was going to get himself sued into bankruptcy
over a really obviously untrue and completely disproved story. Okay,
(48:49):
So now a couple hours later, New York Post Page
six calls again demanding a comment from me on the
third different version of their exhaustive papals scoop. No, the
woman their witness heard, who they first said was my agent,
then said she had gotten it wrong. It was a
woman named Susan who worked for my agent. She had
now become a woman who worked for my agent, whose
(49:10):
name the witness never heard, but she was talking to
somebody else named Susan. And there was an additional quote
now thrown in, I'll be dealing this all day now,
had morphed into I'll be dealing with this all day now.
The same week Peter Jennings makes his announcement about having
lung cancer. This idiot, a frequent critic of President Bush
(49:34):
is sitting around in his pajamas calling me about this.
I'll spare you how I know this was not true.
It has something to do with the fact that I
don't wear pajamas. Years later, a former gossip reporter in
Murdoch's employ explained to me that his celebrity and gossip
people are taught never to back down from a confrontation,
(49:57):
and that if the subject of one of their hit
jobs fires back or tries to refute, or especially threatens
legal action, to keep making story worse and worse for them.
And in the first decade of this century, anyway, you
were supposed to try to work in a defense of
George W. Bush. But there's also what she said, they
called an emergency exit. If there is no question that
(50:20):
the story is nonsensical, if the basic spine of the
story does not line up with provable facts, just abandon it.
Abandon it. Don't tell the subject of your attack that
you are abandoning it. Just don't make any more phone calls,
don't send any more emails about it. Just vanish, just
disappear the story, and then send the name of the
(50:44):
subject of the story that you've just punted. Send it
around to all the other Murdoch operations to see if
they can come up with any dirt on the subject,
to punish them for fighting back against Rupert Murdoch's lies.
So they abandoned the story, and it took the New
York Post a year and ahe half to get me back,
(51:06):
and to get back the Department of Homeland Security and
the FBI. On September twenty sixth, two thousand and six,
I opened an envelope bearing a California postmark at my
home in New York. I shouldn't have done it, but bluntly,
I'll confess to this. I thought it was some baseball
cards I had bought off eBay. Well it wasn't. The
(51:29):
envelope contained a sticky substance looked like draino mixed with
talcum powder, and it fell out, and accompanying notes said
it was anthrax. Now I and other liberals would get
a taste of our own medicine. Even reading those chilling
words and having covered the actual anthrax letters terrorist attacks
(51:50):
of two thousand and one when I was with CNN,
I knew it was an anthrax. The guy who supposedly
sent the actual anthrax in two thousand and one. Was
an expert in the field, and even he masshandled the
stuff so badly that supposed he gave himself anthrax and
died of it. On the other hand, I know the
(52:10):
odds were impossible, but what if I was wrong. My
apartment building was filled with little old ladies who had
lived there since Roosevelt was president. I only assumed that
meant Franklin, not Theodore. The odds were I don't know
one in a billion that it was anthrax. But who
was I to dismiss this one in a billion chance
(52:32):
that these little old ladies were going to get anthrax?
Who was I to make that call? So instead I
made a call. I called the FBI. Well, it was
quite an evening. The cops showed up. The FBI showed up.
They said, of course it's not anthrax, but we have
to act like it is. Welcome to our new world.
The hasmat squad came in. They set up a command
(52:55):
post in the building. They swept my apartment and they said, okay,
now you have to go to the emergency room for tests.
And I said, it's not anthrax. You just said so.
And they said if we have to do this. You
have to do this too, I laughed. Plus, if you don't,
we can arrest you as a threat to public health,
and we could make you go to the hospital. So
out I went into an ambulance dressed in a hazmat
(53:18):
suit one size too small that really cut in the groin.
I spent the night getting checked out. The FBI then
called and said, it's like it's like draino with ivory
soap flakes. But they also said there had been other
letters that had arrived that night and the night before,
(53:40):
sent to people like the chairman of CBS and David
Letterman's office, and Nancy Pelosi and some poor guy who
happened to have the name John Stuart who was not
the John Stuart. And they couldn't make me do this,
but it would really help if I did not report
what happened on my TV show that night, just for
(54:01):
the one day do it tomorrow, because they had a
lead on and the guy who had sent all these letters,
and they didn't want to scare them off, And I said, sure,
I'm a patriot. The next day, while we were still
observing the embargo on the story, my story planning to
run it at eight o'clock at night. New York Post
(54:21):
page six led with a picture of me with the
headline powder puff spooks Keith and making sure to identify
me as Quote, a frequent critic of President Bush's policies.
The New York Post mocked me for not just assuming
it was fake antrax and ignoring it, and claimed I
(54:42):
insisted the cops should take me to the hospital. Quote
whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out
isn't known. By the way, one of the actual anthrax
letters in two thousand and one, one of the letters
with actual anthrax in it that got some people sick
and killed a little old lady, had been mailed to
(55:04):
the New York Post, and one of their staffers had
contracted anthrax. And still this was their attitude towards anthrax threats. Anyway,
as it turned out, there was a guy in California
sending out these threatening letters, each with fake antracks, to
about a dozen people. He sent me four of them. Ultimately,
I soon knew the FBI guys by their first names.
(55:28):
I pointed out to FBI Doug that the last envelope
I received had a bar code on it. Maybe they
could track the guy that way, and he said, oh,
you're right. And the next thing I knew the FBI
had just videotaped the suspect mailing yet another letter to me,
the fifth from his home in Woodland Hills, California. And
I swear to god he actually lived in his mother's
(55:50):
basement at age thirty seven or something. And FBI Doug said,
do we have your permission to pull a letter out
of the mailbox and open it? I said sure, And
the next thing I knew the guy was sentenced to
prison for like eighteen months, but not before FBI Doug said,
by the way, that barcode, you noticed it connected to
(56:12):
the post office here, and that's where we found his address.
And we also found the fact that he purchased a
postal money order for fifteen dollars made out to the
Catherine Harris for Florida Senate campaign, if you remember her
from Gore V. Bush and his online history. We looked
that all up. It's all about how she Katherine Harris
(56:35):
and some woman named Laura something or another. They are
the most beautiful women in history. And I said, Laura,
Laura Ingram, and FBI Doug said, yeah, that's it, Laura Ingraham.
And if that isn't ten years of my life in
(56:57):
one sentence courtesy of the New York effing Post, I
don't know what is. And as I said earlier, the
(57:18):
Post is cooking up something as we speak. It may
be about my evil, evil tweets. I know it's it's
not something you're going to read. It's not something I'm
going to read. It's like that's Saturday Night Live sketch
all those years ago about me and how terrible I was.
(57:39):
I mean, it was so long and not interesting that
I began to look for a hockey game in the
middle of the sketch, and the sketch was about me.
Same thing with the Post. But I mean, it's not
easy to find forty pages of red meat to throw
at Murdoch's idiot readers every day. I understand that. All right,
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
(58:00):
you for listening. Most of our Countdown music was a
range produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillips Ale,
our musical directors have Countdown. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister
Chanel handled orchestration and keyboards. That's them playing now. Our
satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball
stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Old Woman theme from
(58:23):
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Is the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by
the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my
friend Larry David, and everything else was as always my fault.
Sorry for the hoarseness. It was dog grooming day at
the house and so the air is thick with small
(58:47):
doggie hair. I don't think Walter Cronkite ever said that
on his show That's Countdown for Today, Day two hundred
and forty nine of America held hostage just one and
twenty four days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame
duck and lame brain term unless unless he listens and resigns,
(59:08):
unless he is removed sooner by MAGA and Jeffrey Epstein,
or the pavement stuck on his hand, or a stuck
escalator or tail and all, or Jimmy Kimmel the next
schedule count down his Monday until then, I'm Keith Oldraman
good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
(59:49):
with Keith 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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