December 20, 2022 • 40 mins
EPISODE 99: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The House 1/6 Committee's criminal referrals of Trump are historic and headline-grabbing but they are symbols. The testimony and newly-released text of Hope Hicks, the ubiquity of the obscure Ken Klukowski in at least three tentacles of the coup plot, and the introduction of a whole new line of Obstruction of Justice are the real keys. Because not only are they the evidence the Department of Justice can use, but they also give us the shape of things to come: what the trial of Donald Trump will look like. And he says "what does not kill me makes me stronger"? OK, fella. Deal.
B-Block (16:36) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Buddy (18:04) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: It's not just that the Republicans elected a Congressman in New York whose entire resume is a lie, it's that the lazy, sloppy New York Democrats only found out about it when they read it in The New York Times (23:35) IN SPORTS: No, the NBA is not expanding to Mexico City now, any more than it was expanding there in 1992. And baseball mourns the pitcher who walked out on a World Series game because the baby was on the way - and the team had the play-by-play announcers try to beckon him back.
C-Block (32:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: How is this possible? Probably the two most prominent blackmail stories of this century - and I once worked alongside the blackmailer in the first case, and I once worked alongside the blackmailee in the other!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
The criminal referrals were about Trump, the ethics referrals were
(00:26):
about Biggs, Jordan McCarthy, and Perry. But make no mistake
about at the House nine eleven committee report was about
Hope Hicks, Ken Klukowski and a mystery witness. Because as
historic as the recommendation about indicting Trump, maybe it is meaningless.
It is the evidence the committee produced that not only matters,
(00:48):
but gives us the shape of things to come, a
sense of what the trial of Donald Trump will look like.
With one newly revealed text, Hope Hicks turned January six
into January four, fifth, and sixth. At two nine pm
Eastern during the insurrection, Aid Hogan Gidley reached out to quote, Hey,
(01:10):
I know you're seeing this, but he really should tweet
something about being non violent. Hicks replied, quote, I suggested
it several times Monday and Tuesday, and he refused unquote. Suddenly,
the attempted violent coup of January six is no longer
something that Trump could plausibly, if never convincingly, say just
(01:34):
happened without his planning, participation or fore knowledge, or if
Matt failed claim was the spontaneous outcome of his speech
just before the mob tried to take the capital. You
know what all the Trump thugs have been saying at
their trials, I just got caught up in the moment.
Trump might try to defend himself with his viewpoint of
that same statement, they just got caught up in the moment,
(01:58):
or even that he himself just got caught up in
the moment. It would be a lie, but it might
be enough to make a jury wonder. But that Hicks
text erases all of those lines of defense. She wrote
in real time to another Trump loyalist that the day
before the attempted coup, and two days before the attempted coup,
(02:21):
she suggested to Trump that he should, as Gidley phrased it,
tweets something about being non violent, and, to again quote her,
he refused. Simple, simple enough to overlook in a crime
of such titanic proportions and dimensions, but ultimately damning. It
expands Trump's involvement from one day to three. It underscores
(02:45):
that his delay in saying anything to quell the allowance
was not of the moment on January six itself. It
means that no later than January four, he was planning
a violent nightmare. It goes to motive, it goes to
awareness of guilt, it goes to awareness of the consequences
of his own actions. And if that X text is
(03:05):
somehow insufficient at trial, there is even more evidence also
pertaining to her that Trump was warned early and often
that just his silence would provoke and enable violence. Hicks
on the record telling the committee about her conversation with
Trump's colorful attorney, Eric Hirshman, and what was Mr Hershman's response.
(03:29):
Mr Hershman said that he had made the same recommendation
UM directly to the President UM and that he had
refused to understand. Mr Hersman said that he had already
recommended to the President that the president they a method
that people should people on January six, and the President
(03:49):
had refused to do that. Yes, he refused. To Hicks
and to Hershman, Inciting or assisting an insurrection one of
the committee's criminal referrals expands from a one day crime
him to a three day plot with at least two
attempts to convince him to stop it refused. Now, this
(04:13):
guy Klukowski, he came up before the hearings in June.
He is the zelig of Trump's various coup attempt components.
He stitches at least three of them together, and there
will be nothing more useful at trial than to present
the jurors with one neatly formed web that links the
January six violence with the fake electors scheme, with the
(04:35):
attempt to weaponize the Department of Justice to subvert the
presidential election, with the plan to have Mike Pen's overrule
the Electoral College. Ken Klukowski is central to the second
and third and fourth parts of Trump's attempted coup. He
is in the Justice Department as of December drafting the
letter for the man who was willing to prostitute himself
(04:57):
and sell the country out as a fascist, Attorney General
Jeffrey Clark. This was the letter Clark was to send
on behalf of the do O J to the State
of Georgia, demanding that the Georgia General Assembly be convened
on an emergency basis to conduct a sham hearing that
would throw out the election and send a different slate
(05:18):
of Electoral College voters to support not the winner, Joe Biden,
but the loser, Donald Trump, but before that, the committee
confirmed Klukowski had also been working with John Eastman on
the attempt to decertify election results in other states, and
was proposed to join Eastman to brief Pence about how
(05:38):
his purely ceremonial role in the electoral college process could
be turned into a very real, rebellious role. What the
committee added to this yesterday was that Klukowski had been
working for Trump on the campaign, details not specified. We
already knew that Klukowski had worked for Trump on the
seventeen transition, and we also know that since at least
(06:02):
the end of July, ken Klukowsky has been cooperating with
the Justice Department. And then there is the mystery witness,
or perhaps more correctly mystery witnesses, who may open an
entirely new line of criminal charges against Trump. The committee
was vague and its quotations were anonymous, but it strongly
(06:23):
implied yesterday that at least one witness was tampered with, bribed,
and were threatened by directly or indirectly Trump. In its summary,
the committee implied that one of its witnesses told them
she was lying that one quote lawyer had advised the
witness that the witness could, in certain circumstances, tell the
committee that she did not recall facts when she actually
(06:47):
did recall them. It was also this quote. During a
break in the Select Committee's interview, the witness expressed concerns
to her lawyer that an aspect of her testimony was
not truthful. The lawyer did not advise her to clarify
the specific testimony that the witness believed was not complete
and accurate, and in stead conveyed that quote, they don't
know what you know. They don't know that you can
(07:09):
recall some of these things, So you saying I don't
recall is an entirely acceptable response to this. And Congresswoman
Zoe Lofgren went into detail about an effort with apparently
a different witness to keep them from testifying at all
by giving them a cushy job. Quoting her, we've learned
that a witness was offered potential employment that would make
(07:32):
her quote financially very comfortable as the date of her
testimony approached by entities that were apparently linked to Donald
Trump and his associates. That in turn echoed something Liz
Cheney had said over the summer about a witness who
told the Committee, the Trump inner circle was trying to
control how she testified. Quote. What they said to me is,
(07:52):
as long as I continue to be a team player,
they know that I'm on the team. I'm doing the
right thing. I'm protecting who I need to protect. You know,
I'll continue in good graces in Trump world. Between what
was revealed yesterday about this and the Washington Post report
that Trump's Save America pack had been paying for attorneys
(08:13):
for key witnesses in the Marilago case, like his all
purpose back totum walten Noa, there is an entirely new
line of potential cover up charges that could put Trump
in prison, even if those related directly to the various
tentacles of the coup do not so three day preplanned
violent Trump coup. Thanks to evidence from Hope Picks, Ken Klukowski,
(08:38):
the zelig of the tentacles, cooperating with the Department of Justice,
and new obstruction of justice charges to keep witnesses from
testifying or at least testifying honestly to the January six
Committee and the mari Lago document investigation. There were also
a couple of other laughs from the committee report. I
(08:59):
call them laughs because I refused to call them what
everybody else has called them. Takeaways One committee report summary,
released early in the afternoon in December. Trump's incitement quote
big protest in d C on January six, b there
will be wild, tweeted early in the morning of December two.
(09:23):
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepian had his assistant lock the
big glass door to their office to keep certain people out.
Quote and you know, sure enough, you know, Mayor Giuliani
tried to, you know, get into my office and ordered
her to unlock the door, and she didn't do that
end quote And in my head, I am hearing open
(09:44):
the door. I'm Rudy Giuliani, and I'm not wearing pants. Three.
Mike Pence is the all time and eternal poster boy
for Stockholm syndrome. The referrals come out, and he goes
on Fox and says, I would hope they would not
bring charges against the former president. I think the residents
(10:05):
actions and words on January six were reckless, But I
don't know that it's criminal to take bad advice from lawyers.
Unquote gee whiz Mike, which lawyer told him to try
to get you hanged? How hurt would you have had
to have been to admit that Trump and his mob
tried to kill you losing one limb one I a
(10:29):
little brain damage. What's the threshold, Mike, before you will
act ethically? Four? The Washington Post report about Trump's days
in Mari Lago exile came out contemporaneous with the committee report.
It is essentially a printed summary of the plot of
Citizen Kane. After the Orson Wells lead character is abandoned
(10:54):
by his wife and he spends the end of the
movie just wandering around his castle. Quoting the Post, at
one point in early Trump asked a team of advice
there's if he could summon a press pool for an
event at his Florida club. Quote. We had to explain
to him that he didn't have a group of press
(11:14):
standing around waiting for him anymore unquote. And five. Just
when something like that might make you feel, if not
more sorry for Trump, then at least may be less
enraged and more embarrassed for him. You can always count
on Trump to bring us right back to that same place,
to the collective pursuit of righteous vengeance on behalf of
(11:37):
everyone who has ever lived in the United States of America.
His social media post after the Committee hearing was this quote.
These folks don't get it that when they come after me,
people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me.
What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Unquote what doesn't
(12:02):
kill me makes me strong younger. Mm hmm. Well if
those are your terms, asshole, those are your terms still ahead.
(12:28):
He is the congressman who never was. The New York
Times catches Republican Congressman elect George Santos in a lie, Well,
a few lies, allow about twenty lies, like about his education,
his business experience, his charities, his education, his criminal record,
his employees who were not murdered at the Pulse nightclub.
(12:52):
Santos is response a statement in which his spokesman doesn't
deny any of that, but does end quote as Winston
Churchill famously stated, you have enemies good. It means that
you've stood up for something sometime in life, which Winston
Churchill did not say Victor Hugo did. Of course, they
(13:12):
picked that quote a loss in baseball. The only pitcher
who left the ballpark during a World Series game and
they had to put out an a p B on
him on radio and TV to get him back, has
passed away. And one blackmail David Letterman. The other was
used to blackmail Jeff Bezos, and somehow I worked with
(13:35):
both of them. Things I promised not to tell. Coming up.
That's next. This sis Countdown. This is Countdown. With Keith
Overman still ahead on Countdown. How is it possible that
(13:57):
in two of the highest profile blackmail cases of this century,
I worked with the blackmail ee in one of them
years ago, and I worked with the blackmailer in the
other one years ago. Things I promised not to tell.
Coming up first. In each edition of Countdown, we feature
a dog in need you can help. Every dog has
its day to shrive Port Louisiana at a handsome Australian
(14:20):
cattle dog blue Healer mix named Buddy. Parish Paws Rescue
found him outside an abandoned house, crying in pain, one
side of his face and ear gashed and swollen. Local
animal control had wanted to euthanize Buddy because it was
clear he'd been attacked by another animal and he stank
of infections. Parish Falls got him help, some surgery, a
(14:42):
lot of antibiotics. He's out of the animal hospital already,
but with a lot of help still needed. Parish. Pause
is doing a fundraiser on Cuddly and you can find
Buddy there, or check my Twitter account for dogs Tom
Jumbo Grumbo and you'll find the link to donate there.
I thank you and Buddy thanks you. Post Scripts to
(15:15):
the news, some headlines, some updates, some snark, some predictions.
This is a Lulu dateline glen Cove, New York. Just
how disorganized and slobby the New York State Democratic Party
actually is has now been underscored, as The New York
Times has profiled Congressman elect George Santos of the third
(15:37):
District of New York, one of the richest counties and
congressional areas in the country and the biggest one in
New York. The Republican took the seat even though Joe
Biden had won the third District in ten points. What
The Times has revealed, in short, is that Republican Congressman
Elect George Santos is the proverbial man who never was.
(16:00):
There were a few holes in the Santos campaigns story
about the son of emigres from Brazil, and somehow the
Democrats never found them. Just a few holes, like his
business resume. He ran on being a young gay, conservative,
quote seasoned Wall Street financier and investor who had honed
(16:22):
his skills at City Group, which told The Times Santos
never worked for them. Oh, he was also at Goldman Sachs,
which also told The Times Santos never worked for them.
Santos had fought his way up after a good but
blue collar college experience at n y U, which told
The Times it has no record of Santos ever going there. Oh,
(16:42):
when he graduated from Baruke College in two thousand ten,
Baruke College, which told The Times it has no record
of anyone matching his name and date of birth graduating
that year. The graduation would have been quite the trick,
of course, because The Times did find that in two
thousand and eight, when he was supposedly at Baruke, nineteen
year old George Santos was actually in Brazil, where his
(17:04):
there was a caregiver for an ailing man. Brazilian authorities
charged him with stealing the man's check book and buying
stuff with the checks, including shoes. In two thousand ten,
George Santos confessed to Brazilian authorities, reports The Times. But
George Santos became a successful businessman with his own company
that matched investment funds with rich investors. It was called
(17:27):
the Devolder Organization. It managed eighty million dollars in assets,
and he owned thirteen properties that he rented to people.
So he reported making a salary of seven fifty thousand
dollars a year dividends of more than a million from Devolder.
But his congressional financial disclosure does not list any clients
for the Devolder organization, which is either a huge problem
(17:50):
for him with the Congressional Financial Department, or it means
there are no clients, and The Times reports it may
also be true that there are no properties for which
Santos said he was the landlord, but they did find
records that in two thousand fifteen, a landlord sued Santos
for unpaid rent in a place he was renting for them,
(18:12):
and the landlord one This little detail with his company
goes even further. Santos told a radio interviewer that he
quote lost four employees unquote at the Pulse nightclub shooting
in Orlando, Florida, in June two thousand sixteen. There were
forty nine victims of that nightmare. The Times went through
(18:32):
their biographies and their obituaries and not one of them
ever worked for any of the companies Santos claims to
have owned or been affiliated with. Santos website also claimed
his mother was in her office at the World Trade
Center on nine eleven. And guess what, nobody's proved that
or found information about that either. Besides his orientation, his immigration,
(18:54):
his business experience, those victims at the Pulse who were
not at the Pulse, the nine eleven hook with his mom,
Santos had the human touch. While campaigning, he ran a
tax exempt animal rescue that had saved more than dogs
and cats. Friends of Pets United, the i r S
told The New York Times it has no record of
(19:15):
a registered charity called Friends of Pets United. The Times
did find evidence of a fundraiser held by Friends of
Pets United in two thousand seventeen, and it also found
the intended beneficiary, who says she never got any of
the money that Friends of Pets United had raised for her.
The Democrats and their candidate in the New York Third,
(19:37):
Robert Zimmerman, had found none of this. And of course,
what's especially going about that is this, George Santos did
not pop up out of nowhere. George Santos was also
the Republican nominee also in the third district in so
New York. Democrats had at least two years to just
(19:57):
you know, Google him, and clearly they didn't. So the
demock rats of New York have one set of problems.
What happens to George Santos if that is your real name? Well,
if he doesn't resign or get expelled from Congress, the
answer is obvious. With his skills, he will rise very
(20:19):
quickly in the GOP. This is Sports Center. Wait, check
that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in sports.
(20:45):
If you're hearing stories about the NBA putting an expansion
team in Mexico City or moving an extant franchise there,
you can probably relax about that. Miami beat San Antonio
in Mexico City Saturday, and as usual, there are quotes
about how the city is doing all the things necessary
to demonstrate to the league that ultimately we may be
position to house an NBA team there that as Commissioner
(21:07):
Adam Silver he goes on, there's no doubt we will
be looking seriously at Mexico City over time. Sounds intriguing.
Huh An NBA franchise, a major American sports franchise in
Mexico that's never happened before. Well, as always, sports media
in this country has no institutional memory. What's soever. The
(21:30):
NBA has been looking at Mexico City Arena there over time.
It played its first game there in I should emphasize
that was its first regular season game, the first preseason
game it was in. What the NBA wants her Mexico,
(21:51):
like what the NFL wants for Mexico, Like what Baseball
wants from Mexico is for people there to watch its
games on TV and buy its merchandise. To get this,
it holds out this carrot of possible expansion to Mexico City.
Major League Baseball played its first regular season games in
Mexico in nineteen ninety six. The NFL held its first
(22:13):
game there in two thousand five, but it had put
its toe in the water by putting out a series
of NFL bubblegum cards in Mexico in Spanish in nineteen
seventy seven. Nobody is expanding to Mexico City. Between the
altitude two thousand feet higher than is Denver and the
governmental vagaries, it is not happening. Not anytime soon, not
(22:36):
for decades, but it is necessary to make Mexican sports
fans think it could happen. Meantime, there is sadness in Cincinnati.
One of the most beloved of former Cincinnati Reds players,
Tom Browning, was found dead at his home yesterday at
the age of sixty two. It looks like natural causes.
Browning one a hundred nineteen games for the Reds over
(22:56):
nine full seasons, and he added four more in two
partial seasons, including a perfect game against the soon tob
eight world champion l A Dodgers. But the game they
remembered Tom Browning four in Cincinnati is one he did
not play in. He was in the dugout during the
second game of the World Series October seventeenth of that year,
(23:17):
and his wife, Debbie was in the stands, or so
he thought. In the seventh inning, a clubhouse boy found
Browning on the Reds bench and told him Debbie was
asking if somebody could move a van that had blocked
her car, which was in the players parking lot at
Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium. Browning was due to pitch Game three
of the World Series two nights later in Oakland, so
(23:38):
he figured he should run out and see what was wrong.
What was wrong was Debbie was leaving for St. Elizabeth's hospital.
She was also do She was supposed to give birth
to their third child eight days later on the October.
But guess what, Browning did not hesitate. He put her
in the passenger seat, and he drove her to the
(23:59):
hospital while still wearing his Cincinnati Reds uniform and his
Cincinnati Reds app in the middle of his team's first
World Series games in fourteen years. Debbie had in fact
already gone into labor. Tom joined her in the delivery
room in his uniform with a surgical gown over the uniform.
They made him leave his Red's cap outside, and that's
(24:23):
all there would have been to the story, except the
Reds in the A's were tied four four in the
seventh inning of the second game of the World Series,
and Cincinnati was already on its fourth pitcher of the game,
and back then that was a lot and manager Luke
Pannello of the Red started, Boy, if we go to
extra innings, I may need a starter to pitch the
rest of the night. My best bet is the guy
who's going in Game three. Get Tom Browning ready, He
(24:45):
told his pitching coach Stan Williams. Well, of course Tom
Browning was not in the bullpen working on his delivery.
He was in the hospital working on her delivery. The
pitching coach, Williams, did not know this. The manager, Panella,
did not know this. The clubhouse folks knew only that
he'd left to go to a hospital, which one Panella
(25:07):
followed up with Williams, What about Browning? He's gone, the
coach said, where. The manager said, the hospital. The coach said,
what's going on? The manager said, I don't know. I
never heard of a pitcher leaving a World Series game,
the coach said. Turned out they knew his wife was pregnant,
but nobody on the Reds knew how soon she had
been expected to deliver. Mind you, this is I had
(25:30):
a cell phone. It was the size of my hand
and part of my wrist and maybe up to the elbow.
I didn't know anybody else who had a cell phone,
so there's no way to call Browning, and nobody knew
which hospital he had gone to, So naturally, the team
had the Reds radio play by play man Marty Brennaman
broadcast an appeal during the game for Browning to come
(25:51):
back to the ballpark and pitch in the game in
the World Series. When that didn't work, they slipped a
note into the TV booth and Tim McCarver working the
game on CBS Television and thus on my test station
in l a K CBS, he got on and made
the same plea will Tom Browning please report to the ballpark.
(26:12):
It was one of the damnedest things I ever heard
of in baseball or television for that matter. Browning was
ducking out of the delivery room to watch the game
on the TV in the waiting room at the hospital,
and he heard mccarvery say, the Reds have asked Tom
Browning to return to the ballpark. Tom, are you watching?
I was sweating the picture. Told reporters later. I was scared.
(26:33):
What did I want to do? Be at the birth
or pitch in a World Series game? Happily for everybody,
an obscure utility man of the Reds named Billy Bates
pinch at his single to start a rally off Hall
of Famer Dennis Eckersley of Oakland in the bottom of
the tenth inning and the Reds one at five to four.
Browning's decision had been made for him. Tucker Thomas Browning
(26:55):
was born about half an hour later, and Tom Browning
was there for the birth. Two days later, Tom Browning
pitched six effective innings and got the win as the
Reds took Game three on the way to a stunning
upset in a sweep over the heavily favored Days. To
my knowledge, only two baseball guys predicted that the Reds
(27:16):
might sweep Oakland that year on the record, me and
Tim McCarver in an interview we did on case CBS
before Game one. But of course neither of us could
have predicted the story of Tom Browning and the baby
who apparently wanted to be here while his dad was
going to pitch in the World Series. Our condolences to
(27:36):
him and all the others who loved Tom Browning to
the number one story on the countdown in my favorite topic,
(27:57):
Me and Things I promised not to tell, And I
was reminded on Saturday of two stories about media a
blackmail because it was the anniversary of one of those
stories the day Dave Letterman announced he had been blackmailed,
and they named the guy that they had arrested for
doing it, and I said, oh, him, of course it's him.
I've known him for twenty eight years. And then there
(28:19):
was the bigger blackmail story, and they named the woman
who was one of the victims, and I said, oh, her,
of course it's her. I've known her for twenty years.
That one first, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and
owner of the Washington Post, was being blackmailed by allies
of Crazy Trump, who expected to get positive coverage for
their leader of their cults. What they had on Bezos
(28:41):
was he had a girlfriend. They had pictures. It would
cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Were his wife
to find out, he said, that'll happen. In February two
thousand nineteen, Jeff Bezos went public, said his marriage was
ending anyway. He was sorry about the pain that caused
his wife, but he would now give her all she wanted,
(29:01):
and the National Inquirer blackmailers could shut of it. Amid
everything else, It suggested to me that when you cannot
figure out what happened to the people who once seemed
to have principles, or at least seemed to have enmity
towards Crazy Trump, Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham others, remember that
the odds were amazingly small that the first time Trump's
(29:24):
allies tried to blackmail somebody on his behalf, that they
would find in Jeff Bezos, the one guy who would
say no on the first try. I don't think so.
I have assumed ever since that this process has been
utilized for years on Trump's behalf, in business, inside politics
and at its fringes, and that Bezos was not the
(29:47):
first victim of this, just the first victim who said,
f you, this is why we have f you money.
But beneath all that important stuff where she had another
occasion where my jaw dropped to the floor and I
had to reattach it with Elmer's glue. The woman at
the center of the blackmail, the mean for whom Jeff
Bezos was going to leave his wife, was named Lauren Sanchez,
(30:09):
and like everybody else in this twenty one century America,
I used to work with her. Lauren was a reporter
and sometimes anchor at Fox Sports Net when I got there,
in only sometimes they wrote her a script once that
actually read Roger Clemens E. R. A is one of
the greatest in his era, and she of course read
(30:30):
Roger Clemens Era is one of the greatest in his
e r A. She was much better at interviewing Lakers
players after games, particularly Shaquille O'Neill, even though he was
more than two ft taller than she was, and she
used to insist on interviewing him standing up. These little
visits looked so odd on camera that I remember seeing
(30:51):
one of her stories being fed in from the l
A Forum and I asked the producer, were you actually
putting that on the air? Just onto the gag reel
for Christmas? We did not overlap long there after, she
gave birth to the child of nf L tight end
Tony Gonzalez, long after she had ended her relationship with him.
Lauren Sanchez was hired to anchor the news on Channel thirteen,
(31:12):
which is a station that was apparently created because somebody
would always have to be in last place in the
news ratings, and it might as well be them. I
was back visiting in l A in the spring of
two thousand two and dived in and out of as
many newscasts as I could so I could see what
my two X employers there, and so many of my
old colleagues and rivals were doing. That's when I saw it.
(31:34):
The worst or perhaps the best commercial for a local
television news sweeps series in human history in any language.
SWEEPS series used to be local TVs bread and butter.
During the weeks when the local ratings were tabulated and
used to establish who was number one and thus how
much everybody's commercials would cost, each station would do a
(31:57):
series of special reports within each newscast. They were designed
solely to be advertised to be spy answered and to
be as salacious or silly, or unbelievable or titillating or
just as memorable as possible. When I was in local
news in l A in the eighties and nineties, we
had a series at Channel two with a very good
(32:18):
reporter named Dorothy Lucy, and the series was called The
Search for Slee's. The commercials for the Search for Sleez
showed her riding around in a jacuzzi built into the
back of a stretch Limo with an old guy with
a beard and a couple of bikini models in there too.
That had been, to my knowledge, the low point of
the SWEEPS series. But now, as I watched in my
(32:42):
hotel room in Santa Monica in the spring, of two
thousand two. This is more or less what I heard
the voiceover announcers say. This week special report case O P.
Thirty News anchor Laurence Sanchez brings you how to meet
a baller. Ladies, find out where to meet the athlete
of your dreams. Lakers, Here's King's Dodgers Angels. Do you
(33:05):
want to meet him? Do you want to get to
know him? Do you want to date him? How to
be the baller? This week on the case O P.
Thirteen News, attend with Lauren Sanchez how to meet a Baller.
I'm not certain how they restored me to human form
(33:27):
from the puddle into which I had dissolved. I do
remember calling the desk to ask if it was still Tuesday.
It felt like I had been out called for several weeks.
I was appalled, shocked, chagrined, nauseated, mortified, embarrassed, humiliated, and
then I stopped and as an angelic choir sang in
the background, I changed my mind completely. This was not
(33:49):
Sweeps series madness. This was not a woman debasing herself
by teaching other women how to debase themselves how to
meet dollars. This was, for perhaps the first time, in
sweeps series history, perhaps the first, I mean local television
news history, A true expert lending her panoramic learned comprehensive
(34:11):
knowledge about one subject, requiring subtlety, insight, insider information, and
the selflessness to share it with mere ordinary women viewers.
How do you meet a baller? I would never have
known who to ask. I never would have known to
whom to send my wife or daughter or friend. Not really.
(34:35):
I knew there were experts, there were scholars, there were
fonts of wisdom. But Laurence Sanchez was the Einstein of
meeting ballers. And even in the glimmering light of knowledge
that radiated from her that week on Channel thirteen, Los
Angeles two decades ago, even in the blinding aura of
her brilliance, could she have known that the ultimate target
(34:59):
of the Little Sweep series should have been No mere
Tony Gonzalez? Or do you want to meet him? Do
you want to get to know him? Do you want
to date him? It should have been do you want
to meet him? Do you want to get to know him?
Do you want to date him? How to meet up
bezos in life? You just don't expect people you worked
(35:21):
with for a few weeks like Laurence Sanchez to wind
up as part of modern American history. It just seems unlikely,
not that they could be involved in a blackmail story
like hers and she was a victim, but that you
could have known her. And yet for me this was
the second time. On October one, two thousand nine, it
(35:42):
was the anniversary that reminded me of both of these stories.
My friend David Letterman came out onto the stage of
the CBS Late Night Show and revealed that he had
had a series of consensual relationships with women on his staff.
The studio audience laughed, assuming it was the start of
some bit in which the guys at the Hello Deli
would somehow have a roll of some sort. But Eve
(36:04):
went on and on and on, and finally revealed he
had been the victim of an extortion plot and that
he in the Manhattan d A's office set up a
meeting with the blackmailer, who wanted two million dollars, with
the cover story being that he had written a screenplay
about Letterman that would reveal all the relationships, but he
would sell the quote screenplay unquote two Letterman for two
(36:27):
million dollars. Within hours, Letterman's blackmailer was identified by authorities.
I saw the name pop up on my computer terminal, NBC,
Robert Joel, Joe Halderman, and I looked at it, and
I said, of course, Joe Halderman. He had been the
assignment editor at CNN in New York from the day
I broke into television in August until he left for
(36:50):
CBS News a year later. All television assignment editors had
to deny reporters camera crews. There are invariably scheduling conflicts,
and ultimately there are always two stories to shoot for
every one camera crew available. But Halderman used to enjoy
denying us reporters cruise. He used to like to mock us,
to make us gruvel, and then when you got to
(37:13):
your story with your crew, he would page them and
tell them to go cover something else and leave you
stranded there. And personally he had absolutely no redeeming qualities.
If you could travel back in time to the twenty
two or twenty three year old me and explain who
David Letterman would be and what his fame would be like,
and how I'd be a guest on his show one
(37:35):
night when a presidential candidate canceled at the last minute,
and how somebody I already knew and had worked with
at age two or twenty three would try to blackmail
him over staffers he'd slept with, and could I I
would have interrupted you by that point and said, matter
of factly, oh, it's Joe Halderman, right, of course, Halderman,
total creep. You say he blackmails this letterbox guy. Frankly,
(37:58):
forty year old me probably could have figured out the
whole Laurence Sanchez thing for some time traveling quiz master
as well. Although I will make no comparison between Joe
Halderman and Laurence Sanchez. Lauren was very pleasant and there
is a lesson in that for you. It's not just nostalgia.
It's not a brush with greatness to use a letterman
(38:19):
asked term. Wherever you are in life or in your career,
you may have yet to meet them, or you may
have already met them. But this I know to be true.
You have your own Lauren Sanchez and your own Joe
Halderman already or already in the past. And whatever your
(38:41):
first impressions about them were, or are or will be,
you're damned right they are. And also keep in mind
that thought I mentioned that I had about Bezos and
the blackmail. Do you really think he could have been
the first one they tried to blackmail into supporting Trump,
(39:03):
and the first one turned them down and went public.
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. If you're doing following, we're subscribing to
(39:26):
this podcast, please do so. Here are the credits. Most
of the music, including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Channel There
the Countdown musical directors. All the orchestration and keyboards by
John Philip Shanelle, guitars based and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have
(39:46):
been arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
Our sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two.
It was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was Stevie Band's Aunt. Everything else is
pretty much my halt. So let's countdown for this at
seven four day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against
(40:10):
the democratically elected government of the United States. The criminal
referrals are in arrest him now while we still can
work Countdown tomorrow. Till then, I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith old
(40:30):
Reman is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
The criminal referrals were about Trump, the ethics referrals were
(00:26):
about Biggs, Jordan McCarthy, and Perry. But make no mistake
about at the House nine eleven committee report was about
Hope Hicks, Ken Klukowski and a mystery witness. Because as
historic as the recommendation about indicting Trump, maybe it is meaningless.
It is the evidence the committee produced that not only matters,
(00:48):
but gives us the shape of things to come, a
sense of what the trial of Donald Trump will look like.
With one newly revealed text, Hope Hicks turned January six
into January four, fifth, and sixth. At two nine pm
Eastern during the insurrection, Aid Hogan Gidley reached out to quote, Hey,
(01:10):
I know you're seeing this, but he really should tweet
something about being non violent. Hicks replied, quote, I suggested
it several times Monday and Tuesday, and he refused unquote. Suddenly,
the attempted violent coup of January six is no longer
something that Trump could plausibly, if never convincingly, say just
(01:34):
happened without his planning, participation or fore knowledge, or if
Matt failed claim was the spontaneous outcome of his speech
just before the mob tried to take the capital. You
know what all the Trump thugs have been saying at
their trials, I just got caught up in the moment.
Trump might try to defend himself with his viewpoint of
that same statement, they just got caught up in the moment,
(01:58):
or even that he himself just got caught up in
the moment. It would be a lie, but it might
be enough to make a jury wonder. But that Hicks
text erases all of those lines of defense. She wrote
in real time to another Trump loyalist that the day
before the attempted coup, and two days before the attempted coup,
(02:21):
she suggested to Trump that he should, as Gidley phrased it,
tweets something about being non violent, and, to again quote her,
he refused. Simple, simple enough to overlook in a crime
of such titanic proportions and dimensions, but ultimately damning. It
expands Trump's involvement from one day to three. It underscores
(02:45):
that his delay in saying anything to quell the allowance
was not of the moment on January six itself. It
means that no later than January four, he was planning
a violent nightmare. It goes to motive, it goes to
awareness of guilt, it goes to awareness of the consequences
of his own actions. And if that X text is
(03:05):
somehow insufficient at trial, there is even more evidence also
pertaining to her that Trump was warned early and often
that just his silence would provoke and enable violence. Hicks
on the record telling the committee about her conversation with
Trump's colorful attorney, Eric Hirshman, and what was Mr Hershman's response.
(03:29):
Mr Hershman said that he had made the same recommendation
UM directly to the President UM and that he had
refused to understand. Mr Hersman said that he had already
recommended to the President that the president they a method
that people should people on January six, and the President
(03:49):
had refused to do that. Yes, he refused. To Hicks
and to Hershman, Inciting or assisting an insurrection one of
the committee's criminal referrals expands from a one day crime
him to a three day plot with at least two
attempts to convince him to stop it refused. Now, this
(04:13):
guy Klukowski, he came up before the hearings in June.
He is the zelig of Trump's various coup attempt components.
He stitches at least three of them together, and there
will be nothing more useful at trial than to present
the jurors with one neatly formed web that links the
January six violence with the fake electors scheme, with the
(04:35):
attempt to weaponize the Department of Justice to subvert the
presidential election, with the plan to have Mike Pen's overrule
the Electoral College. Ken Klukowski is central to the second
and third and fourth parts of Trump's attempted coup. He
is in the Justice Department as of December drafting the
letter for the man who was willing to prostitute himself
(04:57):
and sell the country out as a fascist, Attorney General
Jeffrey Clark. This was the letter Clark was to send
on behalf of the do O J to the State
of Georgia, demanding that the Georgia General Assembly be convened
on an emergency basis to conduct a sham hearing that
would throw out the election and send a different slate
(05:18):
of Electoral College voters to support not the winner, Joe Biden,
but the loser, Donald Trump, but before that, the committee
confirmed Klukowski had also been working with John Eastman on
the attempt to decertify election results in other states, and
was proposed to join Eastman to brief Pence about how
(05:38):
his purely ceremonial role in the electoral college process could
be turned into a very real, rebellious role. What the
committee added to this yesterday was that Klukowski had been
working for Trump on the campaign, details not specified. We
already knew that Klukowski had worked for Trump on the
seventeen transition, and we also know that since at least
(06:02):
the end of July, ken Klukowsky has been cooperating with
the Justice Department. And then there is the mystery witness,
or perhaps more correctly mystery witnesses, who may open an
entirely new line of criminal charges against Trump. The committee
was vague and its quotations were anonymous, but it strongly
(06:23):
implied yesterday that at least one witness was tampered with, bribed,
and were threatened by directly or indirectly Trump. In its summary,
the committee implied that one of its witnesses told them
she was lying that one quote lawyer had advised the
witness that the witness could, in certain circumstances, tell the
committee that she did not recall facts when she actually
(06:47):
did recall them. It was also this quote. During a
break in the Select Committee's interview, the witness expressed concerns
to her lawyer that an aspect of her testimony was
not truthful. The lawyer did not advise her to clarify
the specific testimony that the witness believed was not complete
and accurate, and in stead conveyed that quote, they don't
know what you know. They don't know that you can
(07:09):
recall some of these things, So you saying I don't
recall is an entirely acceptable response to this. And Congresswoman
Zoe Lofgren went into detail about an effort with apparently
a different witness to keep them from testifying at all
by giving them a cushy job. Quoting her, we've learned
that a witness was offered potential employment that would make
(07:32):
her quote financially very comfortable as the date of her
testimony approached by entities that were apparently linked to Donald
Trump and his associates. That in turn echoed something Liz
Cheney had said over the summer about a witness who
told the Committee, the Trump inner circle was trying to
control how she testified. Quote. What they said to me is,
(07:52):
as long as I continue to be a team player,
they know that I'm on the team. I'm doing the
right thing. I'm protecting who I need to protect. You know,
I'll continue in good graces in Trump world. Between what
was revealed yesterday about this and the Washington Post report
that Trump's Save America pack had been paying for attorneys
(08:13):
for key witnesses in the Marilago case, like his all
purpose back totum walten Noa, there is an entirely new
line of potential cover up charges that could put Trump
in prison, even if those related directly to the various
tentacles of the coup do not so three day preplanned
violent Trump coup. Thanks to evidence from Hope Picks, Ken Klukowski,
(08:38):
the zelig of the tentacles, cooperating with the Department of Justice,
and new obstruction of justice charges to keep witnesses from
testifying or at least testifying honestly to the January six
Committee and the mari Lago document investigation. There were also
a couple of other laughs from the committee report. I
(08:59):
call them laughs because I refused to call them what
everybody else has called them. Takeaways One committee report summary,
released early in the afternoon in December. Trump's incitement quote
big protest in d C on January six, b there
will be wild, tweeted early in the morning of December two.
(09:23):
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepian had his assistant lock the
big glass door to their office to keep certain people out.
Quote and you know, sure enough, you know, Mayor Giuliani
tried to, you know, get into my office and ordered
her to unlock the door, and she didn't do that
end quote And in my head, I am hearing open
(09:44):
the door. I'm Rudy Giuliani, and I'm not wearing pants. Three.
Mike Pence is the all time and eternal poster boy
for Stockholm syndrome. The referrals come out, and he goes
on Fox and says, I would hope they would not
bring charges against the former president. I think the residents
(10:05):
actions and words on January six were reckless, But I
don't know that it's criminal to take bad advice from lawyers.
Unquote gee whiz Mike, which lawyer told him to try
to get you hanged? How hurt would you have had
to have been to admit that Trump and his mob
tried to kill you losing one limb one I a
(10:29):
little brain damage. What's the threshold, Mike, before you will
act ethically? Four? The Washington Post report about Trump's days
in Mari Lago exile came out contemporaneous with the committee report.
It is essentially a printed summary of the plot of
Citizen Kane. After the Orson Wells lead character is abandoned
(10:54):
by his wife and he spends the end of the
movie just wandering around his castle. Quoting the Post, at
one point in early Trump asked a team of advice
there's if he could summon a press pool for an
event at his Florida club. Quote. We had to explain
to him that he didn't have a group of press
(11:14):
standing around waiting for him anymore unquote. And five. Just
when something like that might make you feel, if not
more sorry for Trump, then at least may be less
enraged and more embarrassed for him. You can always count
on Trump to bring us right back to that same place,
to the collective pursuit of righteous vengeance on behalf of
(11:37):
everyone who has ever lived in the United States of America.
His social media post after the Committee hearing was this quote.
These folks don't get it that when they come after me,
people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me.
What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Unquote what doesn't
(12:02):
kill me makes me strong younger. Mm hmm. Well if
those are your terms, asshole, those are your terms still ahead.
(12:28):
He is the congressman who never was. The New York
Times catches Republican Congressman elect George Santos in a lie, Well,
a few lies, allow about twenty lies, like about his education,
his business experience, his charities, his education, his criminal record,
his employees who were not murdered at the Pulse nightclub.
(12:52):
Santos is response a statement in which his spokesman doesn't
deny any of that, but does end quote as Winston
Churchill famously stated, you have enemies good. It means that
you've stood up for something sometime in life, which Winston
Churchill did not say Victor Hugo did. Of course, they
(13:12):
picked that quote a loss in baseball. The only pitcher
who left the ballpark during a World Series game and
they had to put out an a p B on
him on radio and TV to get him back, has
passed away. And one blackmail David Letterman. The other was
used to blackmail Jeff Bezos, and somehow I worked with
(13:35):
both of them. Things I promised not to tell. Coming up.
That's next. This sis Countdown. This is Countdown. With Keith
Overman still ahead on Countdown. How is it possible that
(13:57):
in two of the highest profile blackmail cases of this century,
I worked with the blackmail ee in one of them
years ago, and I worked with the blackmailer in the
other one years ago. Things I promised not to tell.
Coming up first. In each edition of Countdown, we feature
a dog in need you can help. Every dog has
its day to shrive Port Louisiana at a handsome Australian
(14:20):
cattle dog blue Healer mix named Buddy. Parish Paws Rescue
found him outside an abandoned house, crying in pain, one
side of his face and ear gashed and swollen. Local
animal control had wanted to euthanize Buddy because it was
clear he'd been attacked by another animal and he stank
of infections. Parish Falls got him help, some surgery, a
(14:42):
lot of antibiotics. He's out of the animal hospital already,
but with a lot of help still needed. Parish. Pause
is doing a fundraiser on Cuddly and you can find
Buddy there, or check my Twitter account for dogs Tom
Jumbo Grumbo and you'll find the link to donate there.
I thank you and Buddy thanks you. Post Scripts to
(15:15):
the news, some headlines, some updates, some snark, some predictions.
This is a Lulu dateline glen Cove, New York. Just
how disorganized and slobby the New York State Democratic Party
actually is has now been underscored, as The New York
Times has profiled Congressman elect George Santos of the third
(15:37):
District of New York, one of the richest counties and
congressional areas in the country and the biggest one in
New York. The Republican took the seat even though Joe
Biden had won the third District in ten points. What
The Times has revealed, in short, is that Republican Congressman
Elect George Santos is the proverbial man who never was.
(16:00):
There were a few holes in the Santos campaigns story
about the son of emigres from Brazil, and somehow the
Democrats never found them. Just a few holes, like his
business resume. He ran on being a young gay, conservative,
quote seasoned Wall Street financier and investor who had honed
(16:22):
his skills at City Group, which told The Times Santos
never worked for them. Oh, he was also at Goldman Sachs,
which also told The Times Santos never worked for them.
Santos had fought his way up after a good but
blue collar college experience at n y U, which told
The Times it has no record of Santos ever going there. Oh,
(16:42):
when he graduated from Baruke College in two thousand ten,
Baruke College, which told The Times it has no record
of anyone matching his name and date of birth graduating
that year. The graduation would have been quite the trick,
of course, because The Times did find that in two
thousand and eight, when he was supposedly at Baruke, nineteen
year old George Santos was actually in Brazil, where his
(17:04):
there was a caregiver for an ailing man. Brazilian authorities
charged him with stealing the man's check book and buying
stuff with the checks, including shoes. In two thousand ten,
George Santos confessed to Brazilian authorities, reports The Times. But
George Santos became a successful businessman with his own company
that matched investment funds with rich investors. It was called
(17:27):
the Devolder Organization. It managed eighty million dollars in assets,
and he owned thirteen properties that he rented to people.
So he reported making a salary of seven fifty thousand
dollars a year dividends of more than a million from Devolder.
But his congressional financial disclosure does not list any clients
for the Devolder organization, which is either a huge problem
(17:50):
for him with the Congressional Financial Department, or it means
there are no clients, and The Times reports it may
also be true that there are no properties for which
Santos said he was the landlord, but they did find
records that in two thousand fifteen, a landlord sued Santos
for unpaid rent in a place he was renting for them,
(18:12):
and the landlord one This little detail with his company
goes even further. Santos told a radio interviewer that he
quote lost four employees unquote at the Pulse nightclub shooting
in Orlando, Florida, in June two thousand sixteen. There were
forty nine victims of that nightmare. The Times went through
(18:32):
their biographies and their obituaries and not one of them
ever worked for any of the companies Santos claims to
have owned or been affiliated with. Santos website also claimed
his mother was in her office at the World Trade
Center on nine eleven. And guess what, nobody's proved that
or found information about that either. Besides his orientation, his immigration,
(18:54):
his business experience, those victims at the Pulse who were
not at the Pulse, the nine eleven hook with his mom,
Santos had the human touch. While campaigning, he ran a
tax exempt animal rescue that had saved more than dogs
and cats. Friends of Pets United, the i r S
told The New York Times it has no record of
(19:15):
a registered charity called Friends of Pets United. The Times
did find evidence of a fundraiser held by Friends of
Pets United in two thousand seventeen, and it also found
the intended beneficiary, who says she never got any of
the money that Friends of Pets United had raised for her.
The Democrats and their candidate in the New York Third,
(19:37):
Robert Zimmerman, had found none of this. And of course,
what's especially going about that is this, George Santos did
not pop up out of nowhere. George Santos was also
the Republican nominee also in the third district in so
New York. Democrats had at least two years to just
(19:57):
you know, Google him, and clearly they didn't. So the
demock rats of New York have one set of problems.
What happens to George Santos if that is your real name? Well,
if he doesn't resign or get expelled from Congress, the
answer is obvious. With his skills, he will rise very
(20:19):
quickly in the GOP. This is Sports Center. Wait, check
that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in sports.
(20:45):
If you're hearing stories about the NBA putting an expansion
team in Mexico City or moving an extant franchise there,
you can probably relax about that. Miami beat San Antonio
in Mexico City Saturday, and as usual, there are quotes
about how the city is doing all the things necessary
to demonstrate to the league that ultimately we may be
position to house an NBA team there that as Commissioner
(21:07):
Adam Silver he goes on, there's no doubt we will
be looking seriously at Mexico City over time. Sounds intriguing.
Huh An NBA franchise, a major American sports franchise in
Mexico that's never happened before. Well, as always, sports media
in this country has no institutional memory. What's soever. The
(21:30):
NBA has been looking at Mexico City Arena there over time.
It played its first game there in I should emphasize
that was its first regular season game, the first preseason
game it was in. What the NBA wants her Mexico,
(21:51):
like what the NFL wants for Mexico, Like what Baseball
wants from Mexico is for people there to watch its
games on TV and buy its merchandise. To get this,
it holds out this carrot of possible expansion to Mexico City.
Major League Baseball played its first regular season games in
Mexico in nineteen ninety six. The NFL held its first
(22:13):
game there in two thousand five, but it had put
its toe in the water by putting out a series
of NFL bubblegum cards in Mexico in Spanish in nineteen
seventy seven. Nobody is expanding to Mexico City. Between the
altitude two thousand feet higher than is Denver and the
governmental vagaries, it is not happening. Not anytime soon, not
(22:36):
for decades, but it is necessary to make Mexican sports
fans think it could happen. Meantime, there is sadness in Cincinnati.
One of the most beloved of former Cincinnati Reds players,
Tom Browning, was found dead at his home yesterday at
the age of sixty two. It looks like natural causes.
Browning one a hundred nineteen games for the Reds over
(22:56):
nine full seasons, and he added four more in two
partial seasons, including a perfect game against the soon tob
eight world champion l A Dodgers. But the game they
remembered Tom Browning four in Cincinnati is one he did
not play in. He was in the dugout during the
second game of the World Series October seventeenth of that year,
(23:17):
and his wife, Debbie was in the stands, or so
he thought. In the seventh inning, a clubhouse boy found
Browning on the Reds bench and told him Debbie was
asking if somebody could move a van that had blocked
her car, which was in the players parking lot at
Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium. Browning was due to pitch Game three
of the World Series two nights later in Oakland, so
(23:38):
he figured he should run out and see what was wrong.
What was wrong was Debbie was leaving for St. Elizabeth's hospital.
She was also do She was supposed to give birth
to their third child eight days later on the October.
But guess what, Browning did not hesitate. He put her
in the passenger seat, and he drove her to the
(23:59):
hospital while still wearing his Cincinnati Reds uniform and his
Cincinnati Reds app in the middle of his team's first
World Series games in fourteen years. Debbie had in fact
already gone into labor. Tom joined her in the delivery
room in his uniform with a surgical gown over the uniform.
They made him leave his Red's cap outside, and that's
(24:23):
all there would have been to the story, except the
Reds in the A's were tied four four in the
seventh inning of the second game of the World Series,
and Cincinnati was already on its fourth pitcher of the game,
and back then that was a lot and manager Luke
Pannello of the Red started, Boy, if we go to
extra innings, I may need a starter to pitch the
rest of the night. My best bet is the guy
who's going in Game three. Get Tom Browning ready, He
(24:45):
told his pitching coach Stan Williams. Well, of course Tom
Browning was not in the bullpen working on his delivery.
He was in the hospital working on her delivery. The
pitching coach, Williams, did not know this. The manager, Panella,
did not know this. The clubhouse folks knew only that
he'd left to go to a hospital, which one Panella
(25:07):
followed up with Williams, What about Browning? He's gone, the
coach said, where. The manager said, the hospital. The coach said,
what's going on? The manager said, I don't know. I
never heard of a pitcher leaving a World Series game,
the coach said. Turned out they knew his wife was pregnant,
but nobody on the Reds knew how soon she had
been expected to deliver. Mind you, this is I had
(25:30):
a cell phone. It was the size of my hand
and part of my wrist and maybe up to the elbow.
I didn't know anybody else who had a cell phone,
so there's no way to call Browning, and nobody knew
which hospital he had gone to, So naturally, the team
had the Reds radio play by play man Marty Brennaman
broadcast an appeal during the game for Browning to come
(25:51):
back to the ballpark and pitch in the game in
the World Series. When that didn't work, they slipped a
note into the TV booth and Tim McCarver working the
game on CBS Television and thus on my test station
in l a K CBS, he got on and made
the same plea will Tom Browning please report to the ballpark.
(26:12):
It was one of the damnedest things I ever heard
of in baseball or television for that matter. Browning was
ducking out of the delivery room to watch the game
on the TV in the waiting room at the hospital,
and he heard mccarvery say, the Reds have asked Tom
Browning to return to the ballpark. Tom, are you watching?
I was sweating the picture. Told reporters later. I was scared.
(26:33):
What did I want to do? Be at the birth
or pitch in a World Series game? Happily for everybody,
an obscure utility man of the Reds named Billy Bates
pinch at his single to start a rally off Hall
of Famer Dennis Eckersley of Oakland in the bottom of
the tenth inning and the Reds one at five to four.
Browning's decision had been made for him. Tucker Thomas Browning
(26:55):
was born about half an hour later, and Tom Browning
was there for the birth. Two days later, Tom Browning
pitched six effective innings and got the win as the
Reds took Game three on the way to a stunning
upset in a sweep over the heavily favored Days. To
my knowledge, only two baseball guys predicted that the Reds
(27:16):
might sweep Oakland that year on the record, me and
Tim McCarver in an interview we did on case CBS
before Game one. But of course neither of us could
have predicted the story of Tom Browning and the baby
who apparently wanted to be here while his dad was
going to pitch in the World Series. Our condolences to
(27:36):
him and all the others who loved Tom Browning to
the number one story on the countdown in my favorite topic,
(27:57):
Me and Things I promised not to tell, And I
was reminded on Saturday of two stories about media a
blackmail because it was the anniversary of one of those
stories the day Dave Letterman announced he had been blackmailed,
and they named the guy that they had arrested for
doing it, and I said, oh, him, of course it's him.
I've known him for twenty eight years. And then there
(28:19):
was the bigger blackmail story, and they named the woman
who was one of the victims, and I said, oh, her,
of course it's her. I've known her for twenty years.
That one first, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and
owner of the Washington Post, was being blackmailed by allies
of Crazy Trump, who expected to get positive coverage for
their leader of their cults. What they had on Bezos
(28:41):
was he had a girlfriend. They had pictures. It would
cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Were his wife
to find out, he said, that'll happen. In February two
thousand nineteen, Jeff Bezos went public, said his marriage was
ending anyway. He was sorry about the pain that caused
his wife, but he would now give her all she wanted,
(29:01):
and the National Inquirer blackmailers could shut of it. Amid
everything else, It suggested to me that when you cannot
figure out what happened to the people who once seemed
to have principles, or at least seemed to have enmity
towards Crazy Trump, Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham others, remember that
the odds were amazingly small that the first time Trump's
(29:24):
allies tried to blackmail somebody on his behalf, that they
would find in Jeff Bezos, the one guy who would
say no on the first try. I don't think so.
I have assumed ever since that this process has been
utilized for years on Trump's behalf, in business, inside politics
and at its fringes, and that Bezos was not the
(29:47):
first victim of this, just the first victim who said,
f you, this is why we have f you money.
But beneath all that important stuff where she had another
occasion where my jaw dropped to the floor and I
had to reattach it with Elmer's glue. The woman at
the center of the blackmail, the mean for whom Jeff
Bezos was going to leave his wife, was named Lauren Sanchez,
(30:09):
and like everybody else in this twenty one century America,
I used to work with her. Lauren was a reporter
and sometimes anchor at Fox Sports Net when I got there,
in only sometimes they wrote her a script once that
actually read Roger Clemens E. R. A is one of
the greatest in his era, and she of course read
(30:30):
Roger Clemens Era is one of the greatest in his
e r A. She was much better at interviewing Lakers
players after games, particularly Shaquille O'Neill, even though he was
more than two ft taller than she was, and she
used to insist on interviewing him standing up. These little
visits looked so odd on camera that I remember seeing
(30:51):
one of her stories being fed in from the l
A Forum and I asked the producer, were you actually
putting that on the air? Just onto the gag reel
for Christmas? We did not overlap long there after, she
gave birth to the child of nf L tight end
Tony Gonzalez, long after she had ended her relationship with him.
Lauren Sanchez was hired to anchor the news on Channel thirteen,
(31:12):
which is a station that was apparently created because somebody
would always have to be in last place in the
news ratings, and it might as well be them. I
was back visiting in l A in the spring of
two thousand two and dived in and out of as
many newscasts as I could so I could see what
my two X employers there, and so many of my
old colleagues and rivals were doing. That's when I saw it.
(31:34):
The worst or perhaps the best commercial for a local
television news sweeps series in human history in any language.
SWEEPS series used to be local TVs bread and butter.
During the weeks when the local ratings were tabulated and
used to establish who was number one and thus how
much everybody's commercials would cost, each station would do a
(31:57):
series of special reports within each newscast. They were designed
solely to be advertised to be spy answered and to
be as salacious or silly, or unbelievable or titillating or
just as memorable as possible. When I was in local
news in l A in the eighties and nineties, we
had a series at Channel two with a very good
(32:18):
reporter named Dorothy Lucy, and the series was called The
Search for Slee's. The commercials for the Search for Sleez
showed her riding around in a jacuzzi built into the
back of a stretch Limo with an old guy with
a beard and a couple of bikini models in there too.
That had been, to my knowledge, the low point of
the SWEEPS series. But now, as I watched in my
(32:42):
hotel room in Santa Monica in the spring, of two
thousand two. This is more or less what I heard
the voiceover announcers say. This week special report case O P.
Thirty News anchor Laurence Sanchez brings you how to meet
a baller. Ladies, find out where to meet the athlete
of your dreams. Lakers, Here's King's Dodgers Angels. Do you
(33:05):
want to meet him? Do you want to get to
know him? Do you want to date him? How to
be the baller? This week on the case O P.
Thirteen News, attend with Lauren Sanchez how to meet a Baller.
I'm not certain how they restored me to human form
(33:27):
from the puddle into which I had dissolved. I do
remember calling the desk to ask if it was still Tuesday.
It felt like I had been out called for several weeks.
I was appalled, shocked, chagrined, nauseated, mortified, embarrassed, humiliated, and
then I stopped and as an angelic choir sang in
the background, I changed my mind completely. This was not
(33:49):
Sweeps series madness. This was not a woman debasing herself
by teaching other women how to debase themselves how to
meet dollars. This was, for perhaps the first time, in
sweeps series history, perhaps the first, I mean local television
news history, A true expert lending her panoramic learned comprehensive
(34:11):
knowledge about one subject, requiring subtlety, insight, insider information, and
the selflessness to share it with mere ordinary women viewers.
How do you meet a baller? I would never have
known who to ask. I never would have known to
whom to send my wife or daughter or friend. Not really.
(34:35):
I knew there were experts, there were scholars, there were
fonts of wisdom. But Laurence Sanchez was the Einstein of
meeting ballers. And even in the glimmering light of knowledge
that radiated from her that week on Channel thirteen, Los
Angeles two decades ago, even in the blinding aura of
her brilliance, could she have known that the ultimate target
(34:59):
of the Little Sweep series should have been No mere
Tony Gonzalez? Or do you want to meet him? Do
you want to get to know him? Do you want
to date him? It should have been do you want
to meet him? Do you want to get to know him?
Do you want to date him? How to meet up
bezos in life? You just don't expect people you worked
(35:21):
with for a few weeks like Laurence Sanchez to wind
up as part of modern American history. It just seems unlikely,
not that they could be involved in a blackmail story
like hers and she was a victim, but that you
could have known her. And yet for me this was
the second time. On October one, two thousand nine, it
(35:42):
was the anniversary that reminded me of both of these stories.
My friend David Letterman came out onto the stage of
the CBS Late Night Show and revealed that he had
had a series of consensual relationships with women on his staff.
The studio audience laughed, assuming it was the start of
some bit in which the guys at the Hello Deli
would somehow have a roll of some sort. But Eve
(36:04):
went on and on and on, and finally revealed he
had been the victim of an extortion plot and that
he in the Manhattan d A's office set up a
meeting with the blackmailer, who wanted two million dollars, with
the cover story being that he had written a screenplay
about Letterman that would reveal all the relationships, but he
would sell the quote screenplay unquote two Letterman for two
(36:27):
million dollars. Within hours, Letterman's blackmailer was identified by authorities.
I saw the name pop up on my computer terminal, NBC,
Robert Joel, Joe Halderman, and I looked at it, and
I said, of course, Joe Halderman. He had been the
assignment editor at CNN in New York from the day
I broke into television in August until he left for
(36:50):
CBS News a year later. All television assignment editors had
to deny reporters camera crews. There are invariably scheduling conflicts,
and ultimately there are always two stories to shoot for
every one camera crew available. But Halderman used to enjoy
denying us reporters cruise. He used to like to mock us,
to make us gruvel, and then when you got to
(37:13):
your story with your crew, he would page them and
tell them to go cover something else and leave you
stranded there. And personally he had absolutely no redeeming qualities.
If you could travel back in time to the twenty
two or twenty three year old me and explain who
David Letterman would be and what his fame would be like,
and how I'd be a guest on his show one
(37:35):
night when a presidential candidate canceled at the last minute,
and how somebody I already knew and had worked with
at age two or twenty three would try to blackmail
him over staffers he'd slept with, and could I I
would have interrupted you by that point and said, matter
of factly, oh, it's Joe Halderman, right, of course, Halderman,
total creep. You say he blackmails this letterbox guy. Frankly,
(37:58):
forty year old me probably could have figured out the
whole Laurence Sanchez thing for some time traveling quiz master
as well. Although I will make no comparison between Joe
Halderman and Laurence Sanchez. Lauren was very pleasant and there
is a lesson in that for you. It's not just nostalgia.
It's not a brush with greatness to use a letterman
(38:19):
asked term. Wherever you are in life or in your career,
you may have yet to meet them, or you may
have already met them. But this I know to be true.
You have your own Lauren Sanchez and your own Joe
Halderman already or already in the past. And whatever your
(38:41):
first impressions about them were, or are or will be,
you're damned right they are. And also keep in mind
that thought I mentioned that I had about Bezos and
the blackmail. Do you really think he could have been
the first one they tried to blackmail into supporting Trump,
(39:03):
and the first one turned them down and went public.
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. If you're doing following, we're subscribing to
(39:26):
this podcast, please do so. Here are the credits. Most
of the music, including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Channel There
the Countdown musical directors. All the orchestration and keyboards by
John Philip Shanelle, guitars based and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have
(39:46):
been arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
Our sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two.
It was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was Stevie Band's Aunt. Everything else is
pretty much my halt. So let's countdown for this at
seven four day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against
(40:10):
the democratically elected government of the United States. The criminal
referrals are in arrest him now while we still can
work Countdown tomorrow. Till then, I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith old
(40:30):
Reman is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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