July 2, 2024 • 53 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 204: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: If Joe Biden had been pulling his punches in fighting back against the Trump/Supreme Court conspiracy to subvert democracy, he stopped doing so last night. To my mind he should take the Court's unprecedented decision to transform our form of government into a monarchy by the fabrication of something called 'presidential immunity' by showing how it works, announcing he was adding six seats to the Court by Executive Order, and daring SCOTUS to stop him.
But as a start, Biden took off the gloves, insisting the American people should join him and Justice Sotomayor in dissenting from the Court immunity decision. Biden attacked Trump by name, said that because the Supreme Court had done “a terrible disservice to this nation” by preventing a Trump trial on January 6th before the election, that therefore the people “must decide” on Trump, and acknowledged “there are virtually no limits to what a president can do."
It was a clear declaration of war on the Supreme Court; it was a clear re-positioning of Trump from an unprincipled political opponent to a menace to our form of government. “Any president will be free to ignore the law.”He closed with “may god help preserve our democracy.”
The Supreme Court has thrown out 248 years of American history – more really – at the start of the week in which we CELEBRATE that 248thbirthday. As Sotomayor also noted, Alexander Hamilton was specific about the necessity to have a FORMER president be subject to possible prosecution for any crimes he committed, IN OFFICE, because THAT would be one of the key differences between the new United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain, from which we had to stage a revolution to free ourselves. THEIR king was “sacred and inviolable.” OUR president would be subject to “personal punishment and disgrace.”
As to the nomination uncertainty: the polls continue to be inconclusive and the tightrope just gets longer. I remain agnostic on the outcome (I want whatever wins). But I want to suggest that the logical extension of calling for Biden to drop off the ticket because you don't think he's sharp enough to win re-election and/or serve another term, is to say he's not sharp enough to be president NOW - and should resign. If you're going to be cynical enough to force him out of office later, why not now, when you could still offer new president Kamala Harris as the incumbent on Election Day?
B-Block (31:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ken Dilanian of NBC, Matthew Belloni of Puck, and Ben Smith of Semafor all miss the point of the Biden candidacy story. Ralph Nader blames Hillary for the Chief Justice appointed the president who is Nader's fault. Worst Persons Hall of Famer Bill O'Reilly makes up a story about Biden quitting (but it must be true! It's from the Bill-O'Reilly-Dot-Com-News-Headquarters!)
C-Block (42:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Another 4th of July falling in the middle of another week, just like it did the year I started my professional career in network radio simply because... the 4th of July was falling in the middle of another week and they needed somebody unemployed, cheap, and immediately.
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 iHeartRadio. I Dissent.
President Biden took off the gloves last night, insisted the
(00:27):
American people should dissent from the Supreme Court decision inventing
presidential immunity. Said he agreed with Justice Sotomayora's descent and
that he too dissented. He attacked Trump by name. He said,
because the Supreme Court had done a terrible disservice to
this nation by preventing a Trump trial on January sixth,
before the election, that therefore the people must decide on Trump.
(00:51):
He acknowledged, there are virtually no limits to what a
president can do. It was a clear declaration of war
on the Supreme Court. It was a clear repositioning of
Trump from just an unprincipled political opponent to a genuine
menace to our form of government and our form of life.
Any president will be free to ignore the law, Biden said.
(01:13):
He closed with may God help preserve our democracy. It
was strong, it was good, I believe in the references
to both the Supreme Court and trumpet was unprecedented, and
I hope it was just to start a start of
this president forcefully defending the democracy because it is far
from enough. Whether it knows it or not, the Supreme
(01:35):
Court has handed Joe Biden the same nearly limitless power
it had created for the use of the Trader Trump.
It was nice that he said he would respect the
limitations of the presidency, but bluntly he should not. How
about pointing it a big print out of presidential immunity
and say I'm issuing an executive order establishing six more
(01:59):
seats on the Supreme Court and the mandatory Supreme Court
ethic Code that goes into effect now, and here are
the nominees, and the hearings start tomorrow. And if you
want to make a big deal out of it, mister
Chief Justice, they will be escorted to their chairs at
the Supreme Court by Secret Service or the National Guard
or whoever. But look, I'm not threatening you current justices.
(02:24):
I mean, I don't want any trouble here. I know
mister Alito has his own flag. Why not show what
presidential immunity means? What, as he said last night, Trump
could do with it. But instead of doing the kinds
of things Trump intends to do, doing something only one
(02:47):
millionth as impactful, something intended for the good of the
nation pack the Court put the whorehouse of Alito and
Thomas out of business. I am delighted the President dissents
and is willing to say so now to put dissent
into actions. As to the legal implications, as you know,
(03:34):
I am always a glass half full, upbeat, hopeful kind
of guy. So what I saw in yesterday's corrupt Supreme
Religious Court creating presidential Official Act immunity and transforming a
democratic republic into a monarchy the Kingdom of America, I
(03:54):
saw the problem solving it, promises President Joe Bid. I'm sorry,
King Biden, the first has the s from the debate
last week to deal with a little renomination thingy you
may have heard about, continuing pressure to end his bid
for reelection because maybe he's not sharp enough to beat
Trump or to continue being president. And now this short
(04:17):
and not sweet eye dissent creed decur he gave last night.
He can fix all of this in a couple of
quick steps. If the Court is going to make the
President of the United States omnipotent, Joe run with it.
Just make up a terrorist threat. If you can't think
(04:38):
of one called George W.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Bush.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
He probably still has a few leftover, then officially order
Homeland Security Secretary Majorcus to officially postpone the election. And
as that mock New York Times editorial headline that appeared
yesterday reads, bring in Secretary of Defense Austin and to
serve his country, President Biden should drone strike Donald Trump.
(05:01):
All right, that's harsh. Just detain Trump, no election, no Trump,
no need for a new nominee, no need for any nominee.
To me, that's a win, win win, as long as
it's official. Oh and if King Biden wants to preclude
(05:22):
any further blowback or friction, arrest Chief Justice Roberts and
Justices Alito and Thomas and gorstch Cavanaugh and Barrett and
everybody in the Federalist Society and Kirsten Constitutional Karen Cinema,
who stopped filibuster reform, and the New York Times editorial board.
(05:42):
And what the hell those pods save America bastards. Arrest
those pods, save America bastards. Plenty of seats in the
bus boys. Oh on, cat Turd, Arrest cat Turd. I mean,
who's going to stop him? That's the whole point. Official
(06:03):
means official. I know what you're saying, you're being hyperbolic,
aren't you, Gabby Alderman, am I am? I really? When
the President quote uses his official powers in any way,
under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from
criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy sealed Team six to assassinate
(06:26):
a political rival, Immune organizes a military coup to hold
on to power. Immune takes a bribe in exchange for
a pardon Immune Immune, Immune Immune from as you already know,
Justice Sodomyor's dissent, with which the President agreed, the Supreme
(06:49):
Court has now thrown out two hundred and forty eight
years of American history. More really, and done so at
the start of the week in which we are to
celebrate that two hundred and forty eighth birthday. As Sotomayor
also noted, Alexander Hamilton himself was specific about the necessity
to have a former president all former presidents, be subject
(07:11):
to possible prosecution for any crimes he committed in office,
because that would be one of the key distinctions between
the new United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain,
from which we had to stage a revolution to free ourselves.
Their king was sacred and inviolable, our president would be
(07:32):
subject to personal punishment and disgrace. It's as if Alexander
Hamilton met Trump. But that's all gone now. We are
a monarchy. And if you can't prove that the president
was not acting in an official capacity when he killed
that guy or threatened that Georgia secretary of State, or
(07:55):
lied about how deadly COVID was, you can't prosecute him.
And by the way, if you think that, like seven
eighths of the Supreme Court's corruptly partisan task here was
to stall for Trump, that's true, but it may be
a little low as a figure because they managed to
pack in two further stalls for Trump that could postpone
(08:17):
the election subversion case not only into next year, but
maybe beyond that. The new legal standard for prosecuting him
is no longer can you prove there is reasonable evidence
that he tried to foment an insurrection against the peaceful
transfer of power where he tried to prevent an election counting.
(08:38):
It's whether or not you can prove he thought he
was acting officially, And how will you do that? Well?
Trump can sue over every action that a court declares
was unofficial. Each count based on unofficial conduct. He can
(09:00):
just sue another stall, add months to the delay Trump,
and add months more after that. Because the time bomb
hiding behind that hidden time bomb is the additional finding
by this court that would make the government of Iran blush.
If you do somehow sneak a charge past the giant
rubber that John Roberts just wrapped around Trump's head, if
(09:24):
you do find something unofficial with which to charge him,
you cannot use as evidence anything that he did related
to that charge that was itself part of an official act.
The easiest comp for this is Richard Nixon's strenuous exertions
to get himself a pardon and Gerald Ford's disastrous career
(09:46):
ending stupidity to give him one. They were utterly unnecessary.
The Watergate cover up was based on the lie that
there was a national security element, so the CIA had
to tell the DOJ to drop the investigation. That was
a crime in nineteen seventy two. As of yesterday, it's
not a crime anymore. It's an official act. And then
(10:09):
anything Nixon did to get those departments to stop the investigation,
every part of the cover up, like every meeting he
had with John Dean, all the ones Nixon moronically recorded
for posterity all those times he bugged himself. A prosecutor
could not use any of that as evidence against Nixon,
(10:34):
as John himself posted yesterday, When the president does it,
that means that it is not illegal. Richard Nixon nineteen
seventy four, affirmed US Supreme Court twenty twenty four. The response.
Besides the presidents, the official Senate Judiciary Committee social media
feed sent out three strongly worded posts. And when I
(10:55):
say strongly worded, I mean not strongly worded. Breaking. Yeah.
Justice Thomas and Justice Alito brazenly refuse to accuse themselves
from Donald trump immunity case, despite repeated calls to do so.
Mister Chief Justice, we need an enforceable code of conduct
for all Supreme Court justices. Oh did you send this
(11:19):
out before you finished it? You left out pretty please
while you were begging. Not only does that sound like
it was sent by a eunuch like Judiciary Committee Chair
Dick Durbin, but it was not posted until roughly five
hours after the ruling was posted. There is no easier
(11:39):
dystopian view of the future than to predict the one
in which Trump does what he says he's going to
do if he has returned to power, and about which
the court indemnified him yesterday. Government assassinations of his rivals,
the military on the streets of this country, arresting peaceful
(12:03):
civilian protesters, other arrests of critics, roundups, camps or at
minimum prisons, bribes for pardons. Oh yeah, Guliani said, Trump
already did that last time, and we haven't even started
talking about the deportation of millions of Americans. These crazy, unbelievable, unimaginable,
(12:29):
unretractable things are going to happen now in America, now
in the immediate future. The only remaining details are who
is going to do them and whether they will or
will not be done for the good of the people.
(12:49):
President Biden, they might as well be done by the
good side in order to prevent them from being done
by the bad side. I mean, I wonder what motives
Roberts and Alito and Thomas thought they would be leaving
you to turn over the government to Trump if it
comes to that next January. I mean, if you can
(13:10):
make it sound official, you can do anything anything. Lincoln
violated the Constitution to save it. You should do the same.
If that's where we are, I'd rather have you doing
it than Trump doing it. You heard the Supreme Court,
mister president. When the president does it, that means that
it is not illegal. So long as it's official. You
(13:31):
heard Justice Sodoma or she obviously resonated with you. It's
her read You can right now order Navy Sealed Team
six to assassinate a political rival. Certainly you thought about
that since the debate ended last Thursday. I mean, she
may have said a political rival, but I bet if
(13:51):
you have made her the new Chief Justice and you
got her some extra Yankees tickets, she'd agree. It's an
unlimited number of political rivals. Let's get cracking. Round them up,
keep them dogies rolling, move them on, hit them, uphait
them up, move on. Sealed Team six is going to
have a lot on its plate, and you're going to
(14:12):
need at least six new Supreme Court nominees, the six
additional seats I suggested, and six new ones to replace
the ones who were headed to the Huscal. I mean.
On Sunday, Trump reposted somebody else's graphic with a picture
of her and quote, Elizabeth Lynn Cheney is guilty of
treason read truth if you want televised military tribunals. Hey,
(14:39):
Trump and the fascists want televised military budals, Let's give
him some televised military tribunals anchored by Jake Tapper and
Dana Bash. I'm sure they'd be happy to do it,
as long as you promised to type out on little
index cards what they're supposed to say and when they're
supposed to allowed to say it. Rollin', rollin' rulin. Okay,
(15:13):
I'll stop, and now we have a new king unless
he abdicates and lets the vice King have the nomination.
I remain agnostic about this Biden nomination crisis. Is it
still the lead story after yesterday? I want what wins?
Newest polling from Morning Consult data obtained over the weekend,
(15:36):
the percentage of Democratic voters who believe Joe Biden is
mentally fit is down nine points to sixty eight percent.
They have not polled since last night's speech. I suspect
it would bounce back up again. USA Today and Suffolk
University poll. Forty one percent of Democrats want a different nominee.
Of course, of those who say they're going to vote
(15:57):
for him, thirty seven percent of Democrats want a different nominee.
Nine percent of Democrats are more likely to back a
third party candidate now. And if those numbers don't tell
you everything you need to know about the way things are,
I don't know what could. We may want to replace him,
but we'll vote for him. We are treating him like
(16:19):
the Republicans treat Trump. I believe they consider themselves pragmatic.
The punchline in the USA Today poll, Americans of all
political persuasions want Biden replaced on the ticket fifty four
percent to thirty seven, and they want Trump replaced on
the other ticket fifty one percent to forty six. One
(16:45):
of the more intriguing and under publicized arguments for changing
horses is the idea that Trump has been way too
quiet about Biden since the debate, that you would have
expected him to be pushing for Biden to drop out.
That if the scenario was the way I tend to
see it, that barring new information, Biden remains the strongest opponent.
(17:08):
That if that's true, Trump would be trying to get
a different opponent, trying to get him to drop out.
But there is evidence that while Trump has had the
animal cunning to largely stay out of it and to
let Biden potentially self destruct. So far that Trump has
been veering towards not staying out of it any longer. Firstly,
(17:29):
the Republicans have tried to find some excuse to get
the Democratic nominee to drop out during the presidential campaign,
during every presidential campaign since at least two thousand and eight. Moreover,
on Saturday, Trump himself posted that not only did Biden's
debate performance raise the question whether America can survive four
more years of him, but he added the fact is
(17:52):
I don't know if it can survive five more months.
We are in great danger during what will be a
transition period unquote. That is the typical Trump plausible denial opaqueness.
But obviously he's trying to dure up some kind of
unstoppable demand for if he wins, Biden resigning immediately and
(18:12):
letting Trump take over in November. So no, he's not
actively arguing for Biden to leave the ticket. He's just
actively arguing for Biden to leave the White House before
the end of his term. Which reminds me about a
point I wanted to make yesterday, which I wanted to
make after the live podcast Thursday Night, which I originally
(18:33):
did make in February before the State of the Union. Bluntly,
if you want Joe Biden to quit the ticket, I
cannot help but suggest that you also need to argue
that he should quit the presidency. If the argument is
that the Biden we saw Thursday night actually has appeared
with frequency at moments of great import in the last six, eight,
(18:56):
ten months. And it's bad enough whatever it is to
make a presidential nomination change unprecedented in the history of
our country. If it's that bad, why do you want
somebody so compromised running the country? Additionally, if you are
going to be cold enough and calculating enough to shive
(19:17):
the sitting president of the United States in July one
hundred and twenty seven days before the election, or ask
him to shive himself, actually, and if history proves that
being president already is the easiest way to win a
presidential election, does it not necessarily follow, no matter how
cruelly that If you are going to argue Biden can't
(19:38):
be the nominee because he can't win the election, and
he can't be president next January, he also can't be
president right now. And you have to optimize the advantages
of whoever replaces him on the ticket, since the only
morally justifiable choice is the vice president anyway, and removing
(19:58):
Biden and then removing her would make the Democrats experience
in nineteen sixty eight look like something between a laugh
in and a love in. Don't we need both in
terms of whose safeguards the nation and in terms of
the political advantage of incumbency? Don't we need in this
construction President Kamala Harris immediately, I mean, isn't that the
(20:20):
logical extension of those arguing for Biden to quit the ticket? Yes,
quit the ticket. Oh, oh, by the way, stay on
as a lame duck. So we have a democratic president
of the United States and a would be Democratic president
of the United States who was still his vice president.
(20:42):
In any event, there is still no indication that Biden
has any intent on leaving voluntarily, and there was a
big screw up on the official nomination process reported by
Bloomberg News yesterday that you may have been confused by.
Bloomberg reported that the Democratic National Committee was considering formally
nominating President Biden as early as the middle of this
month to preclude any attempt to remove him from the nomination,
(21:07):
as a flood of DNC folk then pointed out, no,
a game of telephone has obviously been played on the
story of the online nomination of Joe Biden two weeks
ago in order to beat the State of Ohio's deadline,
the ballot deadline there to get your name on the
ballot in Ohio August seventh, the deadline with which Ohio
(21:28):
fascists were trying to knock Biden off the ballot entirely. Lastly,
I promised during Sunday's bulletin, and I had a story
from the Democratic debate that I moderated in two thousand
and seven that seemed relevant to this crisis, though I
will admit I'm not sure exactly how it's relevant. This
(21:50):
was officially not a debate. It was the afl CIO
candidates forum at Soldier Field in Chicago, outdoors in the
middle of August, with temperatures at about two hundred and
six degrees, air conditioning vents placed on the floor shooting
upwards literally between the legs of all eight candidates and
(22:15):
your personable moderator, who, by the way, during a commercial break,
was convinced that his suit had melded with his skin
during that break or another break. Senator Joe Biden, who,
as I have mentioned previously, I had informally counseled about
speaking angry over a delightful lunch months earlier, he came
(22:35):
over to me, and he spoke angry. He felt he
had not gotten the chance to reply to the mischaracterization
by one of the other candidates of his answer to
an earlier question. I said that while I did not
disagree with him, we were going to that commercial break
that we were now in, and there was literally nothing
I could have done about it, and that we had
moved on from the topic and I wasn't coming back
(22:56):
to him on it. He then said that when I
next did ask him something anything, he was going to
go back and bring up where he had been misquoted.
By now, I had already begun to feel like I
was interfering on behalf of one candidate, or maybe against him.
I really couldn't tell either way. I thought I'd better
(23:17):
stop here, but for the sake of the entire debate
and the broadcast, and for the sake of not starting
a war among the candidates. When it was already two
hundred and six degrees out when my only goal in
that entire campaign was getting anybody but John McCain elected president.
I reminded Senator Biden what all the candidates had been
told beforehand, and what I had just teased going into
(23:41):
the commercial break. There had been a terrible mind accident
in West Virginia weeks earlier. This was a union forum.
The AFLCIO sponsored the thing, rented Soldier Field, something like
twenty five thousand union members, sweating it out in the
baking Chicago summer heat. One of the widows of one
(24:03):
of the dead West Virginia mind was going to ask
one of the questions from the audience. Biden knew all this.
The other seven knew this. I felt that it was
bending the rules, but just still barely within my reasonable
discretion to tell him that he was an obvious choice
to be one of the candidates who got to try
(24:24):
to answer her question and interact with her. I mean,
he's from Scranton, that's mine country in Pennsylvania. Who better
to talk about a mining accident to a mining widow
and to address her and then suddenly switch from her
grief to something else about I don't know, terrorism, banking.
(24:45):
That was not going to look good for the party,
for the debate or for Senator Biden. Sure enough we
came back. The woman asked her question, I don't think
it went to Biden first. I don't think I called
upon him first. But I did go to him as
we had planned. He offered her his sincere condolences, and
then he promptly changed the subject back to terrorism or
(25:08):
banking or banking terrorism or whatever it was, and he said,
you'll remember earlier, And it was by that point six seven,
ten to fifteen minutes earlier nobody remembered. He is stubborn,
and when he gets his game face on, something else
happens behind that face, especially at debates. Once it was
(25:31):
him concluding that part of world history in which anybody
took Rudy Giuliani seriously. He was the one who finished
Rudy Giuliani. He was the one who said everything Giuliani
said was a noun a verb in nine to eleven.
One other time it was him basically blowing off the miners' widow,
(25:51):
and one other debate was last Thursday. What it means
in this context, I am again not sure. I did
think whatever it means, it might flesh out your understanding
of him, just at the moment, a moment when he
has a few options on his plate. Make himself a
lame duck, or resign as candidate or resign as president,
(26:14):
or f both of those ideas and fight on. Or,
like I said before, do what increasingly seems like a
pretty good idea, and perhaps a much simpler one. The
Supreme Court says, you can do this. Joe, postpone the election.
Put Trump in military detention somewhere, move them on, hit
him up, hit him up, move on, write him in,
write them out. Problem solved. Also of interest here, ruling, ruling, ruling. Okay,
(26:47):
I give up. The situation is too grim for any
more of my stupid singing today, which is exactly why
I definitely must start singing today.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Oh Nancy, keep rolling, rolling, rolling, the Supreme COURTI you go, swollen,
keep them fascist, rolland Joe, Biden, Neil and Sam and.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Thomas are kissing Trump. He's fatass. They gave the Constitution.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Big words from all these thugs, judicial declar and acts official.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
They're over when you arrest John Roberts being from Rye.
Thank you, Nancy Faust. Also of interest here, so many
people have said so many stupid things about the Biden
and presidential immunity stories that I've had to expand the
(27:48):
worst person's field yet again today starring Ralph Nader and
another fathead at NBC News and no less than the
all time champion of the world of worst Billow himself,
Bill Riley. Right you are, mister Maylhoffer. That's next. This
is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead
(28:37):
of us on this edition of Countdown, A little break
from all this. I always think of this one subject
as the Fourth of July approaches. I got hired. I
had an edge on anybody who might have competed with
me for the network radio job with which I began
my broadcasting career because the week the senior guy quit
(28:57):
that job and the job opened up, the fourth of
July was on a Wednesday, and they needed somebody in
a hurry, and they he needed somebody who was unemployed,
and that was me. The proof of the theory of
being in the right place at the right time from
just forty five years ago. This week coming up in
things I promised not to tell, But first there are
(29:20):
still more new idiots to talk about, and Wow, have
these two stories brought them out of the woodwork. The
daily roundup of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger Effects specimens,
including one all time great returning for continuing honors who
constitute today's worst persons in the world. First dishonorable mention
(29:42):
to Justice and Intelligence reporter Kendalanian of NBC News. He writes,
it's extraordinary that a presidential candidate is running after being
convicted of felonies. It's also extraordinary that the sitting president
reportedly is taking advice about his political future from a
(30:03):
son who has been convicted did a felonies. Oh, you
can't slip anything past Ken, can you? Ken? Delanian long
ago gave up any prechense of being a reporter at NBC.
He is a right wing propagandist.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
There.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I'd just like to note in passing that his may
be the saddest Wikipedia entry I have ever read. Quoting it,
he is a nineteen ninety one graduate of Williams College,
where he majored in Political Silence Science. Should have been
political silence. Let's go in and edit that so it
says he is a nineteen ninety one graduate of Williams College,
(30:40):
where He majored in political silence who likes to edit
Wikipedia pages. Dealanian the actual entry reads played football at
Williams and is credited with a major role in helping
the f Men achieve their first unbeaten and untied season
in a century. Ooh, Where'd you get drafted? Kenny deans
(31:04):
Fir's position after graduating from Williams was at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
According to Delaney, in his first published article at the
Inquirer was a story on a pet funeral. See when
you find what you're good at that early in your career,
you should stick to it. Don't get in over your
head on justice and intelligence, especially not intelligence if you
(31:27):
don't have any. The Bronze Matthew Beloney of Puck News
and editor in chief Ben Smith of Semaphore News. When
you and I worry that the established legacy media in
this country is out of touch and disconnected from reality
and it's lost, we know we can turn to the newcomers,
the digitals, the rule benders, and we get exactly the
(31:49):
same crap from the newcomers, the digitals and the rule benders.
I've written for Beloney and the venue may be new,
but the sentiment is still the disaster. That is, we
know everything about the story, but nothing about what it
means in real life. He has tweeted that he and
Smith were to share a podcast in which they would
discuss the real news in the Joe Biden crisis quote.
(32:11):
It's an election year, but CNN has been in a
ratings free fall. That Joe Biden's situation could finally provide
a story with massive general interest. Listen, Yes, that's what's
important here CNN's ratings. How the Biden story could impact
CNN's ratings, because that's what they've been missing, a good story.
(32:36):
There hasn't been a good story at all during the
prosecution of the former president of the United States in
four different venues. There hasn't been a good story at all.
With climate change, there's been a good They don't have
any good anchors on CNN, and they lurched right words
two years ago. That's why the ratings tanked. But you
know what would be even better for CNN than just
(32:58):
Biden and the nomination issue. That could just shoot their
ratings up to mediocre. Like if there were a really
big asteroid with a ninety nine percent chance of hitting
Earth Man the CNN ratings would just explode. Of course,
we'd never actually see those final CNN ratings because the
planet would have exploded by then too. But think of
(33:19):
the demos. The runner up, Ralph Nader. You remember, Ralph.
You remember two thousand when Bush beat Gore in Florida
by five hundred and thirty seven votes, which led to
the Supreme Court decision that took the election for Bush.
But Ralph's vanity third party campaign earned him ninety seven
(33:41):
thousand votes in Florida, and research, repeated research has suggested
an overwhelming majority of them were drawn from likely Gore voters. Ralph, though,
has apparently forgotten about that or forgotten that he ran
for president in two thousand, because he responded to the
Supreme Court yesterday by blaming a different presidential candidate, not himself.
(34:04):
A dictatorial unelected majority in the Supreme Court has just
rendered America a dictatorial president above the law. Thank you,
Hillary Clinton, whose blundering campaign let the dictatorial Trump become
president and led to a right wing dictatorial majority on
the Supreme Court. Honestly, as Ellie Mistyle pointed out, you know,
(34:30):
the Conservatives have been running the Supreme Court since the
Bush years. Right, at least if Ralph had not run
his useless, cynical, dynamite juggling third party campaign in two thousand.
As Ellie pointed out, maybe Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed
by Bush is not there to write yesterday's swill. Honestly,
(34:54):
this so pisces me off. The unbelievable blaming of Hillary
Clinton for this that I would wish harm on Ralph
for writing that. Bud ninety And you know, since age
is everything these days, Tick tick tick, buddy, But our
winner the worst. And I don't know about you, but
I need this burst of nostalgia Billow the clown. Here's
(35:20):
a Biden update from billoreilly dot com news headquarters. The
decision has been made that the President will quit the
campaign two reasons. Democrat internal polling says he cannot recover
from the debate and fundraising is drying up. So it's
over for Joe, but the White House doesn't yet know
how or when to make the announcement. Stay close, Stay close,
(35:45):
is what he used to say to his producers, the women. Okay,
what are the odds that Billow doesn't realize He's not
on Fox every night anymore? And that he puts on
makeup anyway around seven forty five PM. I mean, look,
I'm not on TV anymore either, but I still don't
make stuff up like a Biden up. From Billoreilly dot
(36:05):
com News headquarters. It's a tent in the yard, except
when we live stream from iHeart headquarters. I do the
Countdown podcast in this converted walk in in my home,
which by the way, has the best acoustics I've ever
gotten to use. And I do not call it Countdown
with Keith Olderman dot comnewsheadquarters because that would be stupid.
(36:29):
It's where I keep a few suits, keep a few
more than I need, largely to improve the sound quality
in here. Since I saw this Bill o Biden update,
I have spent way too much time wondering what the
physical layout is like at Bill Oreilly dot com News headquarters.
(36:50):
I really don't have a good picture in my mind.
But if I refer back to the lawsuit, the testimony
and the Andrea Macris sexual harrissment suit against Billow, I
suspect that whatever the rest of it looks like, Bill
O'Reilly dot com News headquarters is equipped with some falafels
and at least one very well used vibrator.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Bill O'Reilly.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
The crowds may be gone, but the lies linger forever
Today's worst person the loved right job, mister Merrihoffer. On Monday,
(37:44):
July second, nineteen seventy nine, a man named Maury Trumbull
walked into his boss's office at United Press International in
the old Daily News Building in New York and quit.
He had been offered a real job as the sports
director of the NBC Radio network, and he would happily
finish out the next two weeks as this sports director
(38:05):
of UPI's radio network, and then by and Maury's boss
was screwed. Maury's boss had three sportscasters. Trumbull was not
just the boss. He also did the evening sportscasting shift,
like four or five days a week, And just four
months earlier they had moved one of the sportscasters over
to be the new business reporter, and to replace him,
(38:27):
they had to listen to the audition tapes of two
hundred sportscasters from across the country, and not one of
them was really any good, not even as good as
Mary Trumbull, And so they hired the least bad of
them and they were hoping for the best, and suddenly
the new guy was the second senior man on the staff.
(38:48):
And even though you have not heard of UPI's radio
network except when I've mentioned it in this series, it
was a very big deal. On July second, nineteen seventy nine,
there were about one thousand radio stations affiliated with it
in this country, and though few of them were in
the top fifty city and fewer still ran the sports
cast that Mary Trumbull and Sam Rosan and Jack Russell
(39:10):
did in those fifty cities, the smaller the market was,
the bigger the star Moury and Sam and now Jack were.
And what made it worse, of course, was that it
was Monday, July second, which meant the actual Fourth of
July holiday was Wednesday, which meant that nobody, but nobody
would be in the office almost anywhere in American radio
(39:31):
for at least the next few days. And in those
times when the long three day weekend when he had
got Monday off, was just becoming acceptable, this thing July fourth,
in the middle of the week was an excuse for
a four day weekend or a five day weekend, or
I'll just take the whole week off and that meant
(39:52):
whoever would be doing Mary Trumble's UPI sports casts as
of Monday, July sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine. He basically could
not currently have a job because he'd have to quit
because when he quitted, he would have to give two
weeks notice. And even if Maury's boss figured out who
to hire in the next hour and got him approved
(40:14):
by his own boss, there was literally no way the
new guy could start on the sixteenth, and he'd have
to get his boss's approval. Then he didn't know where
his boss was because his boss was taking like an
eight day weekend. So now Maury Trumble's boss was looking
at the new guy starting no sooner than July twenty third,
or he suddenly realized, with a shudder, what if the
new guy had to move to New York from anywhere
(40:37):
further away from them than like Albany or Jersey or something.
So that's when Maury Trumble's boss, well, he thought that
wasn't true anymore. He was Mary Trumble's ex boss, wasn't he.
For all the trouble Maury had just caused him, at
least that part was good news. Maury Trumble's X boss
made his decision. I'll just hire that kid from Westchester.
(41:00):
Stan Sabek said to himself, I don't know how I'll
convince Shortino to take on a kid with absolutely no
full time professional experience, but I'll figure it out. Stan
Sabek was the bureau chief of UPI Audio, and Shortino
was his boss, Frank Shortino the network general manager. And
Frank was already old enough to really dislike anybody much
(41:22):
younger than he was, which is why the youngest person
in the New York headquarters that day was thirty three,
and Schortino didn't really trust her. And suddenly it came
to him, and Stan Sabek smiled. He rolled that phrase
over in his head, no full time professional experience, and
(41:42):
he smiled again. My god, we only have to pay
the kids sixteen thousand a year. We'll save thirty grand
on salary. My mother did not even step out into
the warmth and the bright sunshine of the pre holiday afternoon.
Keith Phone, I was lying there on our very sketchy
front lawn, listening to my home built walkman and working
(42:03):
on my tank, and trying not to think of the
fact that it was now the week of July fourth,
which was the deadline I had given myself for just
sitting around working on my tan after I surprised myself
and my family and my friends, and especially my professors
by actually graduating from Cornell on time in seven semesters,
the last of which contained twenty eight credits in ten
(42:24):
different courses, a juggling act so arduous that I will still,
all these years later have dreams in which it is
graduation morning, May twenty eighth, nineteen seventy nine, and I
suddenly realized I have forgotten an entire course, and I
must read three thousand pages or write five hundred pages
or both before noon, or I will not graduate on time,
and I will have to go back and start all
(42:45):
over again. In well, if it's a really stressful period
of time in my life, I will have to go
back and start all over again in the third grade
as an adult in those chairs, missus Weiner, I'm stuck
in the chair again, possibly because I'm sixty four years old, Keith,
(43:08):
it's Roger Norum. My heart suddenly raced. Roger Norum was
my contact at a radio network i'd basically known nothing
about even three months earlier. It was called UPI Audio
a friend of a friend of a friend of a
friend had referred me to a news editor there named
Art Mcalloon. And I went into the UPI Audio offices
(43:29):
on forty second Street in my best suit, with absolutely
no worry that I'd ever forget a name like Art Mcalloon,
And out came a very quiet man with a kind
face and a big round beard and a big round,
curly head of hair. And he proceeded to explain very
quietly that he was not Art Mcalloon. And Art had quit,
(43:49):
but not before passing me on to him Roger Norum.
Before I knew it, Roger had in turn passed me
on to a sportscaster named Sam Rosen. I have introduced
you to him here before. He made such an impression
on me that my last Cornell English paper was supposed
to be a quick profile of somebody interesting I had
just met, and I chose Sam over somebody else I
(44:11):
had met the same day, and the other guy was
named Bob Iger. Anyway, Sam had been startled at the
tape of my college sports casts and had pronounced it
twice as good as the guy they had just hired,
who was now Stan Sabek's second senior sportscaster. And before
I knew it, Sam had given the tape to Stan,
and Stan had invited me back into New York for
(44:33):
a formal interview. And Stan had said, you will hear
this a lot in this business, but give me a
little time. I think I can guarantee you six seven
weeks of vacation relief this summer, some sports, some news,
if you don't mind doing both. Roger Norm had some
interesting news for me on that phone call. You may
have guessed it was about Mary Trumbull resigning from UPI
(44:55):
and going to NBC. It's the talk of the place
right now. He's already packing. They'll have to move fast,
and then with the holiday, there's no way they can
bring in people for interviews or have a full search
to replace him. You should give him till Thursday the
fifth and then and call Stan unless he calls you first.
I mean, they really loved your tape. Stan told people
about it. He was very excited. It's the old cliche
(45:16):
Keith about being in the right place at the right time.
And by the way, if you can make it over,
you are cordially invited to the annual Norham Family Fourth
of July Bash. We're in Westchester two. I never once
spoke to Roger Norham that he did not invite me
to a Norum bash. He had them for all major holidays,
and I believe for lesser events like the Westminster Dog
(45:38):
Show and Moroccan Independence Day. He was a lovely man,
and while he was a fine newsman, he was far
better at kindness and favor. He's like the one he
was doing me on that July afternoon so long ago.
Needless to say, I was silent and pretty much breathless
for the rest of July second, nineteen seventy nine. As
hard as that might be for you to believe, I
(46:00):
explained to my folks what might be going on, how
just as I was going to make myself start worrying
about actually getting a job, maybe in Atlanta, I might
have just gotten a job a forty minute train ride away.
Based on what Stan Sabeg had said about getting me
vacation relief work. I suspected he would offer me something
(46:21):
on a temporary basis to see if I could actually
do it. But still, if even that actually happened, this
was my chance to break into professional radio. At probably
the peak of professional radio's post war importance and competitiveness
and expansion, and to break in in New York City
at a network. My rivals for every job I would
(46:43):
seek for the next twenty years, or thirty years or
fifty years, would be happy to be breaking in in Keyakok, Iowa.
No offense, Kyokook, and I would be on the network,
they would hear as they arrived to do the morning
shift at four thirty am in Kyokook. I do not
remember sleeping that night, certainly well, still, I am confident
(47:07):
that I remember this correctly. On Tuesday, July third, nineteen
seventy nine, I was back out on the Olderman family
tanning lawn twenty feet from the driveway just afternoon when
the front door opened and Mom said it again, Keith phone,
someone named Stan, Keith Stan Sabek. He laughed, Stan laughed
(47:28):
a lot. Stan and I had a loud fight fourteen
months later that got me fired and then unfired hours later.
Stan laughed in the middle of all that twice tired
of lying around the pool, yet I lied and said, yes,
of course, there was no pool, just my lawn. I
don't know if you've heard. He said it in such
(47:48):
a way that confirmed that he was confident. I had heard,
and noram or Rosen or somebody had called to tell me.
But my sports director quick to go to NBC. I
need a full time sportscaster to replace him. You interested
prepared as I was for the offer of part time work.
I was stunned. On top of stunned. Full time stand
(48:10):
Did you say full time? Stan laughed, yes, sixteen thousand,
No negotiations. Mostly nights, some mornings, some ball games. You
get to cover split days off. You're not going to
have a weekend for a couple of years. Probably. Can
you come in Thursday to fill out the job application
for the job I just hired you for? He laughed again.
(48:32):
Ever since, I have associated the fourth of July with
the start of my career, but especially those years when
the week with the fourth in it is in the
middle of the week, just like that, and makes it
more difficult for employers to hire anybody except the cheap
and the unemployed. Turns out that Wednesday, July fourth calendar
(48:54):
is not a frequent thing. Happened in nineteen seventy nine,
Happened again in nineteen ninety, two thousand and one, two
thousand and seven, twenty eighteen, not scheduled to happen again
until twenty twenty nine, barring major breaking news developments. A
week to the day that stan sebek had called, I
was on the air at UPI. I wasn't supposed to be.
(49:16):
I was just supposed to be watching the morning shift
with Sam Rosen. And then finally he said, so, do
you think you got the hang of it? And I said,
m I guess so. He said, good, because you're on
at nine forty five. I was so scared. I had
an out of body experience. Thirty days after stan Sebic
called on July third, I was on my own on
the night shift, maybe the seventh time, when the Yankee
(49:37):
catcher Thurman Munson was killed when he crashed his private plane,
and I had to call his teammates for interviews and
still do the sports cast every hour. By October, they
had put me on a plane to go cover the
National League playoffs. Six months after he called, Stan and
Sam Rosen and I were covering the nineteen eighty Winter
Olympics for UPI Radio, and our stuff was playing on
(49:58):
radio stations around the world. But all these years later,
none of that compared to the sensation of that phone
call and the realization that my career had really started.
At forty eight hours later, I was walking into UPI's
offices as a pro plus, I got the first shock
(50:19):
of my career. Good news, Stan said and laughed. That's
stringing work you did for UPI. All those Cornell football
games you covered for fifteen dollars a game. The union says,
guess what they count towards your professional experience, So you
won't be starting at just sixteen thousand. You get credited
with experience for all that stringing. You got exactly six
(50:41):
days worth of credit. Congratulations, you'll be starting at sixteen thousand,
twenty five dollars a year, and Stan sabc laughed, I've
(51:06):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips
Chanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister
Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister Shanelle
handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
Another music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music
(51:29):
is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch
Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy
musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium
organist ever, and once again my accompanist. Our announcer was
my friend Larry David. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this the one hundred and twenty
(51:51):
seventh day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the
two hundred and seventy fifth day since convicted felon Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. You the July eleventh sentencing hearing. Use
the mental health system. You've got it now, mister President
(52:11):
hughes presidential immunity to stop Trump from doing it again
while we still.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
Came.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins is the news
warrants until then, I'm Keith old Rimmond. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Keep rolling, rolling, Rolling, the Supreme Courtio swollen, keep them
fascist rolling.
Speaker 2 (52:51):
Joe Biden, Neil and Sam and Thomas are kissing Trump.
He's badass. They gave the constitution big herds from all
these thugs. Judicial declar an axe official. They're over when
you are restaurant Robert theme from Rothyde Countdown with Keith
(53:16):
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. I Dissent.
President Biden took off the gloves last night, insisted the
(00:27):
American people should dissent from the Supreme Court decision inventing
presidential immunity. Said he agreed with Justice Sotomayora's descent and
that he too dissented. He attacked Trump by name. He said,
because the Supreme Court had done a terrible disservice to
this nation by preventing a Trump trial on January sixth,
before the election, that therefore the people must decide on Trump.
(00:51):
He acknowledged, there are virtually no limits to what a
president can do. It was a clear declaration of war
on the Supreme Court. It was a clear repositioning of
Trump from just an unprincipled political opponent to a genuine
menace to our form of government and our form of life.
Any president will be free to ignore the law, Biden said.
(01:13):
He closed with may God help preserve our democracy. It
was strong, it was good, I believe in the references
to both the Supreme Court and trumpet was unprecedented, and
I hope it was just to start a start of
this president forcefully defending the democracy because it is far
from enough. Whether it knows it or not, the Supreme
(01:35):
Court has handed Joe Biden the same nearly limitless power
it had created for the use of the Trader Trump.
It was nice that he said he would respect the
limitations of the presidency, but bluntly he should not. How
about pointing it a big print out of presidential immunity
and say I'm issuing an executive order establishing six more
(01:59):
seats on the Supreme Court and the mandatory Supreme Court
ethic Code that goes into effect now, and here are
the nominees, and the hearings start tomorrow. And if you
want to make a big deal out of it, mister
Chief Justice, they will be escorted to their chairs at
the Supreme Court by Secret Service or the National Guard
or whoever. But look, I'm not threatening you current justices.
(02:24):
I mean, I don't want any trouble here. I know
mister Alito has his own flag. Why not show what
presidential immunity means? What, as he said last night, Trump
could do with it. But instead of doing the kinds
of things Trump intends to do, doing something only one
(02:47):
millionth as impactful, something intended for the good of the
nation pack the Court put the whorehouse of Alito and
Thomas out of business. I am delighted the President dissents
and is willing to say so now to put dissent
into actions. As to the legal implications, as you know,
(03:34):
I am always a glass half full, upbeat, hopeful kind
of guy. So what I saw in yesterday's corrupt Supreme
Religious Court creating presidential Official Act immunity and transforming a
democratic republic into a monarchy the Kingdom of America, I
(03:54):
saw the problem solving it, promises President Joe Bid. I'm sorry,
King Biden, the first has the s from the debate
last week to deal with a little renomination thingy you
may have heard about, continuing pressure to end his bid
for reelection because maybe he's not sharp enough to beat
Trump or to continue being president. And now this short
(04:17):
and not sweet eye dissent creed decur he gave last night.
He can fix all of this in a couple of
quick steps. If the Court is going to make the
President of the United States omnipotent, Joe run with it.
Just make up a terrorist threat. If you can't think
(04:38):
of one called George W.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Bush.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
He probably still has a few leftover, then officially order
Homeland Security Secretary Majorcus to officially postpone the election. And
as that mock New York Times editorial headline that appeared
yesterday reads, bring in Secretary of Defense Austin and to
serve his country, President Biden should drone strike Donald Trump.
(05:01):
All right, that's harsh. Just detain Trump, no election, no Trump,
no need for a new nominee, no need for any nominee.
To me, that's a win, win win, as long as
it's official. Oh and if King Biden wants to preclude
(05:22):
any further blowback or friction, arrest Chief Justice Roberts and
Justices Alito and Thomas and gorstch Cavanaugh and Barrett and
everybody in the Federalist Society and Kirsten Constitutional Karen Cinema,
who stopped filibuster reform, and the New York Times editorial board.
(05:42):
And what the hell those pods save America bastards. Arrest
those pods, save America bastards. Plenty of seats in the
bus boys. Oh on, cat Turd, Arrest cat Turd. I mean,
who's going to stop him? That's the whole point. Official
(06:03):
means official. I know what you're saying, you're being hyperbolic,
aren't you, Gabby Alderman, am I am? I really? When
the President quote uses his official powers in any way,
under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from
criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy sealed Team six to assassinate
(06:26):
a political rival, Immune organizes a military coup to hold
on to power. Immune takes a bribe in exchange for
a pardon Immune Immune, Immune Immune from as you already know,
Justice Sodomyor's dissent, with which the President agreed, the Supreme
(06:49):
Court has now thrown out two hundred and forty eight
years of American history. More really, and done so at
the start of the week in which we are to
celebrate that two hundred and forty eighth birthday. As Sotomayor
also noted, Alexander Hamilton himself was specific about the necessity
to have a former president all former presidents, be subject
(07:11):
to possible prosecution for any crimes he committed in office,
because that would be one of the key distinctions between
the new United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain,
from which we had to stage a revolution to free ourselves.
Their king was sacred and inviolable, our president would be
(07:32):
subject to personal punishment and disgrace. It's as if Alexander
Hamilton met Trump. But that's all gone now. We are
a monarchy. And if you can't prove that the president
was not acting in an official capacity when he killed
that guy or threatened that Georgia secretary of State, or
(07:55):
lied about how deadly COVID was, you can't prosecute him.
And by the way, if you think that, like seven
eighths of the Supreme Court's corruptly partisan task here was
to stall for Trump, that's true, but it may be
a little low as a figure because they managed to
pack in two further stalls for Trump that could postpone
(08:17):
the election subversion case not only into next year, but
maybe beyond that. The new legal standard for prosecuting him
is no longer can you prove there is reasonable evidence
that he tried to foment an insurrection against the peaceful
transfer of power where he tried to prevent an election counting.
(08:38):
It's whether or not you can prove he thought he
was acting officially, And how will you do that? Well?
Trump can sue over every action that a court declares
was unofficial. Each count based on unofficial conduct. He can
(09:00):
just sue another stall, add months to the delay Trump,
and add months more after that. Because the time bomb
hiding behind that hidden time bomb is the additional finding
by this court that would make the government of Iran blush.
If you do somehow sneak a charge past the giant
rubber that John Roberts just wrapped around Trump's head, if
(09:24):
you do find something unofficial with which to charge him,
you cannot use as evidence anything that he did related
to that charge that was itself part of an official act.
The easiest comp for this is Richard Nixon's strenuous exertions
to get himself a pardon and Gerald Ford's disastrous career
(09:46):
ending stupidity to give him one. They were utterly unnecessary.
The Watergate cover up was based on the lie that
there was a national security element, so the CIA had
to tell the DOJ to drop the investigation. That was
a crime in nineteen seventy two. As of yesterday, it's
not a crime anymore. It's an official act. And then
(10:09):
anything Nixon did to get those departments to stop the investigation,
every part of the cover up, like every meeting he
had with John Dean, all the ones Nixon moronically recorded
for posterity all those times he bugged himself. A prosecutor
could not use any of that as evidence against Nixon,
(10:34):
as John himself posted yesterday, When the president does it,
that means that it is not illegal. Richard Nixon nineteen
seventy four, affirmed US Supreme Court twenty twenty four. The response.
Besides the presidents, the official Senate Judiciary Committee social media
feed sent out three strongly worded posts. And when I
(10:55):
say strongly worded, I mean not strongly worded. Breaking. Yeah.
Justice Thomas and Justice Alito brazenly refuse to accuse themselves
from Donald trump immunity case, despite repeated calls to do so.
Mister Chief Justice, we need an enforceable code of conduct
for all Supreme Court justices. Oh did you send this
(11:19):
out before you finished it? You left out pretty please
while you were begging. Not only does that sound like
it was sent by a eunuch like Judiciary Committee Chair
Dick Durbin, but it was not posted until roughly five
hours after the ruling was posted. There is no easier
(11:39):
dystopian view of the future than to predict the one
in which Trump does what he says he's going to
do if he has returned to power, and about which
the court indemnified him yesterday. Government assassinations of his rivals,
the military on the streets of this country, arresting peaceful
(12:03):
civilian protesters, other arrests of critics, roundups, camps or at
minimum prisons, bribes for pardons. Oh yeah, Guliani said, Trump
already did that last time, and we haven't even started
talking about the deportation of millions of Americans. These crazy, unbelievable, unimaginable,
(12:29):
unretractable things are going to happen now in America, now
in the immediate future. The only remaining details are who
is going to do them and whether they will or
will not be done for the good of the people.
(12:49):
President Biden, they might as well be done by the
good side in order to prevent them from being done
by the bad side. I mean, I wonder what motives
Roberts and Alito and Thomas thought they would be leaving
you to turn over the government to Trump if it
comes to that next January. I mean, if you can
(13:10):
make it sound official, you can do anything anything. Lincoln
violated the Constitution to save it. You should do the same.
If that's where we are, I'd rather have you doing
it than Trump doing it. You heard the Supreme Court,
mister president. When the president does it, that means that
it is not illegal. So long as it's official. You
(13:31):
heard Justice Sodoma or she obviously resonated with you. It's
her read You can right now order Navy Sealed Team
six to assassinate a political rival. Certainly you thought about
that since the debate ended last Thursday. I mean, she
may have said a political rival, but I bet if
(13:51):
you have made her the new Chief Justice and you
got her some extra Yankees tickets, she'd agree. It's an
unlimited number of political rivals. Let's get cracking. Round them up,
keep them dogies rolling, move them on, hit them, uphait
them up, move on. Sealed Team six is going to
have a lot on its plate, and you're going to
(14:12):
need at least six new Supreme Court nominees, the six
additional seats I suggested, and six new ones to replace
the ones who were headed to the Huscal. I mean.
On Sunday, Trump reposted somebody else's graphic with a picture
of her and quote, Elizabeth Lynn Cheney is guilty of
treason read truth if you want televised military tribunals. Hey,
(14:39):
Trump and the fascists want televised military budals, Let's give
him some televised military tribunals anchored by Jake Tapper and
Dana Bash. I'm sure they'd be happy to do it,
as long as you promised to type out on little
index cards what they're supposed to say and when they're
supposed to allowed to say it. Rollin', rollin' rulin. Okay,
(15:13):
I'll stop, and now we have a new king unless
he abdicates and lets the vice King have the nomination.
I remain agnostic about this Biden nomination crisis. Is it
still the lead story after yesterday? I want what wins?
Newest polling from Morning Consult data obtained over the weekend,
(15:36):
the percentage of Democratic voters who believe Joe Biden is
mentally fit is down nine points to sixty eight percent.
They have not polled since last night's speech. I suspect
it would bounce back up again. USA Today and Suffolk
University poll. Forty one percent of Democrats want a different nominee.
Of course, of those who say they're going to vote
(15:57):
for him, thirty seven percent of Democrats want a different nominee.
Nine percent of Democrats are more likely to back a
third party candidate now. And if those numbers don't tell
you everything you need to know about the way things are,
I don't know what could. We may want to replace him,
but we'll vote for him. We are treating him like
(16:19):
the Republicans treat Trump. I believe they consider themselves pragmatic.
The punchline in the USA Today poll, Americans of all
political persuasions want Biden replaced on the ticket fifty four
percent to thirty seven, and they want Trump replaced on
the other ticket fifty one percent to forty six. One
(16:45):
of the more intriguing and under publicized arguments for changing
horses is the idea that Trump has been way too
quiet about Biden since the debate, that you would have
expected him to be pushing for Biden to drop out.
That if the scenario was the way I tend to
see it, that barring new information, Biden remains the strongest opponent.
(17:08):
That if that's true, Trump would be trying to get
a different opponent, trying to get him to drop out.
But there is evidence that while Trump has had the
animal cunning to largely stay out of it and to
let Biden potentially self destruct. So far that Trump has
been veering towards not staying out of it any longer. Firstly,
(17:29):
the Republicans have tried to find some excuse to get
the Democratic nominee to drop out during the presidential campaign,
during every presidential campaign since at least two thousand and eight. Moreover,
on Saturday, Trump himself posted that not only did Biden's
debate performance raise the question whether America can survive four
more years of him, but he added the fact is
(17:52):
I don't know if it can survive five more months.
We are in great danger during what will be a
transition period unquote. That is the typical Trump plausible denial opaqueness.
But obviously he's trying to dure up some kind of
unstoppable demand for if he wins, Biden resigning immediately and
(18:12):
letting Trump take over in November. So no, he's not
actively arguing for Biden to leave the ticket. He's just
actively arguing for Biden to leave the White House before
the end of his term. Which reminds me about a
point I wanted to make yesterday, which I wanted to
make after the live podcast Thursday Night, which I originally
(18:33):
did make in February before the State of the Union. Bluntly,
if you want Joe Biden to quit the ticket, I
cannot help but suggest that you also need to argue
that he should quit the presidency. If the argument is
that the Biden we saw Thursday night actually has appeared
with frequency at moments of great import in the last six, eight,
(18:56):
ten months. And it's bad enough whatever it is to
make a presidential nomination change unprecedented in the history of
our country. If it's that bad, why do you want
somebody so compromised running the country? Additionally, if you are
going to be cold enough and calculating enough to shive
(19:17):
the sitting president of the United States in July one
hundred and twenty seven days before the election, or ask
him to shive himself, actually, and if history proves that
being president already is the easiest way to win a
presidential election, does it not necessarily follow, no matter how
cruelly that If you are going to argue Biden can't
(19:38):
be the nominee because he can't win the election, and
he can't be president next January, he also can't be
president right now. And you have to optimize the advantages
of whoever replaces him on the ticket, since the only
morally justifiable choice is the vice president anyway, and removing
(19:58):
Biden and then removing her would make the Democrats experience
in nineteen sixty eight look like something between a laugh
in and a love in. Don't we need both in
terms of whose safeguards the nation and in terms of
the political advantage of incumbency? Don't we need in this
construction President Kamala Harris immediately, I mean, isn't that the
(20:20):
logical extension of those arguing for Biden to quit the ticket? Yes,
quit the ticket. Oh, oh, by the way, stay on
as a lame duck. So we have a democratic president
of the United States and a would be Democratic president
of the United States who was still his vice president.
(20:42):
In any event, there is still no indication that Biden
has any intent on leaving voluntarily, and there was a
big screw up on the official nomination process reported by
Bloomberg News yesterday that you may have been confused by.
Bloomberg reported that the Democratic National Committee was considering formally
nominating President Biden as early as the middle of this
month to preclude any attempt to remove him from the nomination,
(21:07):
as a flood of DNC folk then pointed out, no,
a game of telephone has obviously been played on the
story of the online nomination of Joe Biden two weeks
ago in order to beat the State of Ohio's deadline,
the ballot deadline there to get your name on the
ballot in Ohio August seventh, the deadline with which Ohio
(21:28):
fascists were trying to knock Biden off the ballot entirely. Lastly,
I promised during Sunday's bulletin, and I had a story
from the Democratic debate that I moderated in two thousand
and seven that seemed relevant to this crisis, though I
will admit I'm not sure exactly how it's relevant. This
(21:50):
was officially not a debate. It was the afl CIO
candidates forum at Soldier Field in Chicago, outdoors in the
middle of August, with temperatures at about two hundred and
six degrees, air conditioning vents placed on the floor shooting
upwards literally between the legs of all eight candidates and
(22:15):
your personable moderator, who, by the way, during a commercial break,
was convinced that his suit had melded with his skin
during that break or another break. Senator Joe Biden, who,
as I have mentioned previously, I had informally counseled about
speaking angry over a delightful lunch months earlier, he came
(22:35):
over to me, and he spoke angry. He felt he
had not gotten the chance to reply to the mischaracterization
by one of the other candidates of his answer to
an earlier question. I said that while I did not
disagree with him, we were going to that commercial break
that we were now in, and there was literally nothing
I could have done about it, and that we had
moved on from the topic and I wasn't coming back
(22:56):
to him on it. He then said that when I
next did ask him something anything, he was going to
go back and bring up where he had been misquoted.
By now, I had already begun to feel like I
was interfering on behalf of one candidate, or maybe against him.
I really couldn't tell either way. I thought I'd better
(23:17):
stop here, but for the sake of the entire debate
and the broadcast, and for the sake of not starting
a war among the candidates. When it was already two
hundred and six degrees out when my only goal in
that entire campaign was getting anybody but John McCain elected president.
I reminded Senator Biden what all the candidates had been
told beforehand, and what I had just teased going into
(23:41):
the commercial break. There had been a terrible mind accident
in West Virginia weeks earlier. This was a union forum.
The AFLCIO sponsored the thing, rented Soldier Field, something like
twenty five thousand union members, sweating it out in the
baking Chicago summer heat. One of the widows of one
(24:03):
of the dead West Virginia mind was going to ask
one of the questions from the audience. Biden knew all this.
The other seven knew this. I felt that it was
bending the rules, but just still barely within my reasonable
discretion to tell him that he was an obvious choice
to be one of the candidates who got to try
(24:24):
to answer her question and interact with her. I mean,
he's from Scranton, that's mine country in Pennsylvania. Who better
to talk about a mining accident to a mining widow
and to address her and then suddenly switch from her
grief to something else about I don't know, terrorism, banking.
(24:45):
That was not going to look good for the party,
for the debate or for Senator Biden. Sure enough we
came back. The woman asked her question, I don't think
it went to Biden first. I don't think I called
upon him first. But I did go to him as
we had planned. He offered her his sincere condolences, and
then he promptly changed the subject back to terrorism or
(25:08):
banking or banking terrorism or whatever it was, and he said,
you'll remember earlier, And it was by that point six seven,
ten to fifteen minutes earlier nobody remembered. He is stubborn,
and when he gets his game face on, something else
happens behind that face, especially at debates. Once it was
(25:31):
him concluding that part of world history in which anybody
took Rudy Giuliani seriously. He was the one who finished
Rudy Giuliani. He was the one who said everything Giuliani
said was a noun a verb in nine to eleven.
One other time it was him basically blowing off the miners' widow,
(25:51):
and one other debate was last Thursday. What it means
in this context, I am again not sure. I did
think whatever it means, it might flesh out your understanding
of him, just at the moment, a moment when he
has a few options on his plate. Make himself a
lame duck, or resign as candidate or resign as president,
(26:14):
or f both of those ideas and fight on. Or,
like I said before, do what increasingly seems like a
pretty good idea, and perhaps a much simpler one. The
Supreme Court says, you can do this. Joe, postpone the election.
Put Trump in military detention somewhere, move them on, hit
him up, hit him up, move on, write him in,
write them out. Problem solved. Also of interest here, ruling, ruling, ruling. Okay,
(26:47):
I give up. The situation is too grim for any
more of my stupid singing today, which is exactly why
I definitely must start singing today.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Oh Nancy, keep rolling, rolling, rolling, the Supreme COURTI you go, swollen,
keep them fascist, rolland Joe, Biden, Neil and Sam and.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Thomas are kissing Trump. He's fatass. They gave the Constitution.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Big words from all these thugs, judicial declar and acts official.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
They're over when you arrest John Roberts being from Rye.
Thank you, Nancy Faust. Also of interest here, so many
people have said so many stupid things about the Biden
and presidential immunity stories that I've had to expand the
(27:48):
worst person's field yet again today starring Ralph Nader and
another fathead at NBC News and no less than the
all time champion of the world of worst Billow himself,
Bill Riley. Right you are, mister Maylhoffer. That's next. This
is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead
(28:37):
of us on this edition of Countdown, A little break
from all this. I always think of this one subject
as the Fourth of July approaches. I got hired. I
had an edge on anybody who might have competed with
me for the network radio job with which I began
my broadcasting career because the week the senior guy quit
(28:57):
that job and the job opened up, the fourth of
July was on a Wednesday, and they needed somebody in
a hurry, and they he needed somebody who was unemployed,
and that was me. The proof of the theory of
being in the right place at the right time from
just forty five years ago. This week coming up in
things I promised not to tell, But first there are
(29:20):
still more new idiots to talk about, and Wow, have
these two stories brought them out of the woodwork. The
daily roundup of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger Effects specimens,
including one all time great returning for continuing honors who
constitute today's worst persons in the world. First dishonorable mention
(29:42):
to Justice and Intelligence reporter Kendalanian of NBC News. He writes,
it's extraordinary that a presidential candidate is running after being
convicted of felonies. It's also extraordinary that the sitting president
reportedly is taking advice about his political future from a
(30:03):
son who has been convicted did a felonies. Oh, you
can't slip anything past Ken, can you? Ken? Delanian long
ago gave up any prechense of being a reporter at NBC.
He is a right wing propagandist.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
There.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I'd just like to note in passing that his may
be the saddest Wikipedia entry I have ever read. Quoting it,
he is a nineteen ninety one graduate of Williams College,
where he majored in Political Silence Science. Should have been
political silence. Let's go in and edit that so it
says he is a nineteen ninety one graduate of Williams College,
(30:40):
where He majored in political silence who likes to edit
Wikipedia pages. Dealanian the actual entry reads played football at
Williams and is credited with a major role in helping
the f Men achieve their first unbeaten and untied season
in a century. Ooh, Where'd you get drafted? Kenny deans
(31:04):
Fir's position after graduating from Williams was at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
According to Delaney, in his first published article at the
Inquirer was a story on a pet funeral. See when
you find what you're good at that early in your career,
you should stick to it. Don't get in over your
head on justice and intelligence, especially not intelligence if you
(31:27):
don't have any. The Bronze Matthew Beloney of Puck News
and editor in chief Ben Smith of Semaphore News. When
you and I worry that the established legacy media in
this country is out of touch and disconnected from reality
and it's lost, we know we can turn to the newcomers,
the digitals, the rule benders, and we get exactly the
(31:49):
same crap from the newcomers, the digitals and the rule benders.
I've written for Beloney and the venue may be new,
but the sentiment is still the disaster. That is, we
know everything about the story, but nothing about what it
means in real life. He has tweeted that he and
Smith were to share a podcast in which they would
discuss the real news in the Joe Biden crisis quote.
(32:11):
It's an election year, but CNN has been in a
ratings free fall. That Joe Biden's situation could finally provide
a story with massive general interest. Listen, Yes, that's what's
important here CNN's ratings. How the Biden story could impact
CNN's ratings, because that's what they've been missing, a good story.
(32:36):
There hasn't been a good story at all during the
prosecution of the former president of the United States in
four different venues. There hasn't been a good story at all.
With climate change, there's been a good They don't have
any good anchors on CNN, and they lurched right words
two years ago. That's why the ratings tanked. But you
know what would be even better for CNN than just
(32:58):
Biden and the nomination issue. That could just shoot their
ratings up to mediocre. Like if there were a really
big asteroid with a ninety nine percent chance of hitting
Earth Man the CNN ratings would just explode. Of course,
we'd never actually see those final CNN ratings because the
planet would have exploded by then too. But think of
(33:19):
the demos. The runner up, Ralph Nader. You remember, Ralph.
You remember two thousand when Bush beat Gore in Florida
by five hundred and thirty seven votes, which led to
the Supreme Court decision that took the election for Bush.
But Ralph's vanity third party campaign earned him ninety seven
(33:41):
thousand votes in Florida, and research, repeated research has suggested
an overwhelming majority of them were drawn from likely Gore voters. Ralph, though,
has apparently forgotten about that or forgotten that he ran
for president in two thousand, because he responded to the
Supreme Court yesterday by blaming a different presidential candidate, not himself.
(34:04):
A dictatorial unelected majority in the Supreme Court has just
rendered America a dictatorial president above the law. Thank you,
Hillary Clinton, whose blundering campaign let the dictatorial Trump become
president and led to a right wing dictatorial majority on
the Supreme Court. Honestly, as Ellie Mistyle pointed out, you know,
(34:30):
the Conservatives have been running the Supreme Court since the
Bush years. Right, at least if Ralph had not run
his useless, cynical, dynamite juggling third party campaign in two thousand.
As Ellie pointed out, maybe Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed
by Bush is not there to write yesterday's swill. Honestly,
(34:54):
this so pisces me off. The unbelievable blaming of Hillary
Clinton for this that I would wish harm on Ralph
for writing that. Bud ninety And you know, since age
is everything these days, Tick tick tick, buddy, But our
winner the worst. And I don't know about you, but
I need this burst of nostalgia Billow the clown. Here's
(35:20):
a Biden update from billoreilly dot com news headquarters. The
decision has been made that the President will quit the
campaign two reasons. Democrat internal polling says he cannot recover
from the debate and fundraising is drying up. So it's
over for Joe, but the White House doesn't yet know
how or when to make the announcement. Stay close, Stay close,
(35:45):
is what he used to say to his producers, the women. Okay,
what are the odds that Billow doesn't realize He's not
on Fox every night anymore? And that he puts on
makeup anyway around seven forty five PM. I mean, look,
I'm not on TV anymore either, but I still don't
make stuff up like a Biden up. From Billoreilly dot
(36:05):
com News headquarters. It's a tent in the yard, except
when we live stream from iHeart headquarters. I do the
Countdown podcast in this converted walk in in my home,
which by the way, has the best acoustics I've ever
gotten to use. And I do not call it Countdown
with Keith Olderman dot comnewsheadquarters because that would be stupid.
(36:29):
It's where I keep a few suits, keep a few
more than I need, largely to improve the sound quality
in here. Since I saw this Bill o Biden update,
I have spent way too much time wondering what the
physical layout is like at Bill Oreilly dot com News headquarters.
(36:50):
I really don't have a good picture in my mind.
But if I refer back to the lawsuit, the testimony
and the Andrea Macris sexual harrissment suit against Billow, I
suspect that whatever the rest of it looks like, Bill
O'Reilly dot com News headquarters is equipped with some falafels
and at least one very well used vibrator.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Bill O'Reilly.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
The crowds may be gone, but the lies linger forever
Today's worst person the loved right job, mister Merrihoffer. On Monday,
(37:44):
July second, nineteen seventy nine, a man named Maury Trumbull
walked into his boss's office at United Press International in
the old Daily News Building in New York and quit.
He had been offered a real job as the sports
director of the NBC Radio network, and he would happily
finish out the next two weeks as this sports director
(38:05):
of UPI's radio network, and then by and Maury's boss
was screwed. Maury's boss had three sportscasters. Trumbull was not
just the boss. He also did the evening sportscasting shift,
like four or five days a week, And just four
months earlier they had moved one of the sportscasters over
to be the new business reporter, and to replace him,
(38:27):
they had to listen to the audition tapes of two
hundred sportscasters from across the country, and not one of
them was really any good, not even as good as
Mary Trumbull, And so they hired the least bad of
them and they were hoping for the best, and suddenly
the new guy was the second senior man on the staff.
(38:48):
And even though you have not heard of UPI's radio
network except when I've mentioned it in this series, it
was a very big deal. On July second, nineteen seventy nine,
there were about one thousand radio stations affiliated with it
in this country, and though few of them were in
the top fifty city and fewer still ran the sports
cast that Mary Trumbull and Sam Rosan and Jack Russell
(39:10):
did in those fifty cities, the smaller the market was,
the bigger the star Moury and Sam and now Jack were.
And what made it worse, of course, was that it
was Monday, July second, which meant the actual Fourth of
July holiday was Wednesday, which meant that nobody, but nobody
would be in the office almost anywhere in American radio
(39:31):
for at least the next few days. And in those
times when the long three day weekend when he had
got Monday off, was just becoming acceptable, this thing July fourth,
in the middle of the week was an excuse for
a four day weekend or a five day weekend, or
I'll just take the whole week off and that meant
(39:52):
whoever would be doing Mary Trumble's UPI sports casts as
of Monday, July sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine. He basically could
not currently have a job because he'd have to quit
because when he quitted, he would have to give two
weeks notice. And even if Maury's boss figured out who
to hire in the next hour and got him approved
(40:14):
by his own boss, there was literally no way the
new guy could start on the sixteenth, and he'd have
to get his boss's approval. Then he didn't know where
his boss was because his boss was taking like an
eight day weekend. So now Maury Trumble's boss was looking
at the new guy starting no sooner than July twenty third,
or he suddenly realized, with a shudder, what if the
new guy had to move to New York from anywhere
(40:37):
further away from them than like Albany or Jersey or something.
So that's when Maury Trumble's boss, well, he thought that
wasn't true anymore. He was Mary Trumble's ex boss, wasn't he.
For all the trouble Maury had just caused him, at
least that part was good news. Maury Trumble's X boss
made his decision. I'll just hire that kid from Westchester.
(41:00):
Stan Sabek said to himself, I don't know how I'll
convince Shortino to take on a kid with absolutely no
full time professional experience, but I'll figure it out. Stan
Sabek was the bureau chief of UPI Audio, and Shortino
was his boss, Frank Shortino the network general manager. And
Frank was already old enough to really dislike anybody much
(41:22):
younger than he was, which is why the youngest person
in the New York headquarters that day was thirty three,
and Schortino didn't really trust her. And suddenly it came
to him, and Stan Sabek smiled. He rolled that phrase
over in his head, no full time professional experience, and
(41:42):
he smiled again. My god, we only have to pay
the kids sixteen thousand a year. We'll save thirty grand
on salary. My mother did not even step out into
the warmth and the bright sunshine of the pre holiday afternoon.
Keith Phone, I was lying there on our very sketchy
front lawn, listening to my home built walkman and working
(42:03):
on my tank, and trying not to think of the
fact that it was now the week of July fourth,
which was the deadline I had given myself for just
sitting around working on my tan after I surprised myself
and my family and my friends, and especially my professors
by actually graduating from Cornell on time in seven semesters,
the last of which contained twenty eight credits in ten
(42:24):
different courses, a juggling act so arduous that I will still,
all these years later have dreams in which it is
graduation morning, May twenty eighth, nineteen seventy nine, and I
suddenly realized I have forgotten an entire course, and I
must read three thousand pages or write five hundred pages
or both before noon, or I will not graduate on time,
and I will have to go back and start all
(42:45):
over again. In well, if it's a really stressful period
of time in my life, I will have to go
back and start all over again in the third grade
as an adult in those chairs, missus Weiner, I'm stuck
in the chair again, possibly because I'm sixty four years old, Keith,
(43:08):
it's Roger Norum. My heart suddenly raced. Roger Norum was
my contact at a radio network i'd basically known nothing
about even three months earlier. It was called UPI Audio
a friend of a friend of a friend of a
friend had referred me to a news editor there named
Art Mcalloon. And I went into the UPI Audio offices
(43:29):
on forty second Street in my best suit, with absolutely
no worry that I'd ever forget a name like Art Mcalloon,
And out came a very quiet man with a kind
face and a big round beard and a big round,
curly head of hair. And he proceeded to explain very
quietly that he was not Art Mcalloon. And Art had quit,
(43:49):
but not before passing me on to him Roger Norum.
Before I knew it, Roger had in turn passed me
on to a sportscaster named Sam Rosen. I have introduced
you to him here before. He made such an impression
on me that my last Cornell English paper was supposed
to be a quick profile of somebody interesting I had
just met, and I chose Sam over somebody else I
(44:11):
had met the same day, and the other guy was
named Bob Iger. Anyway, Sam had been startled at the
tape of my college sports casts and had pronounced it
twice as good as the guy they had just hired,
who was now Stan Sabek's second senior sportscaster. And before
I knew it, Sam had given the tape to Stan,
and Stan had invited me back into New York for
(44:33):
a formal interview. And Stan had said, you will hear
this a lot in this business, but give me a
little time. I think I can guarantee you six seven
weeks of vacation relief this summer, some sports, some news,
if you don't mind doing both. Roger Norm had some
interesting news for me on that phone call. You may
have guessed it was about Mary Trumbull resigning from UPI
(44:55):
and going to NBC. It's the talk of the place
right now. He's already packing. They'll have to move fast,
and then with the holiday, there's no way they can
bring in people for interviews or have a full search
to replace him. You should give him till Thursday the
fifth and then and call Stan unless he calls you first.
I mean, they really loved your tape. Stan told people
about it. He was very excited. It's the old cliche
(45:16):
Keith about being in the right place at the right time.
And by the way, if you can make it over,
you are cordially invited to the annual Norham Family Fourth
of July Bash. We're in Westchester two. I never once
spoke to Roger Norham that he did not invite me
to a Norum bash. He had them for all major holidays,
and I believe for lesser events like the Westminster Dog
(45:38):
Show and Moroccan Independence Day. He was a lovely man,
and while he was a fine newsman, he was far
better at kindness and favor. He's like the one he
was doing me on that July afternoon so long ago.
Needless to say, I was silent and pretty much breathless
for the rest of July second, nineteen seventy nine. As
hard as that might be for you to believe, I
(46:00):
explained to my folks what might be going on, how
just as I was going to make myself start worrying
about actually getting a job, maybe in Atlanta, I might
have just gotten a job a forty minute train ride away.
Based on what Stan Sabeg had said about getting me
vacation relief work. I suspected he would offer me something
(46:21):
on a temporary basis to see if I could actually
do it. But still, if even that actually happened, this
was my chance to break into professional radio. At probably
the peak of professional radio's post war importance and competitiveness
and expansion, and to break in in New York City
at a network. My rivals for every job I would
(46:43):
seek for the next twenty years, or thirty years or
fifty years, would be happy to be breaking in in Keyakok, Iowa.
No offense, Kyokook, and I would be on the network,
they would hear as they arrived to do the morning
shift at four thirty am in Kyokook. I do not
remember sleeping that night, certainly well, still, I am confident
(47:07):
that I remember this correctly. On Tuesday, July third, nineteen
seventy nine, I was back out on the Olderman family
tanning lawn twenty feet from the driveway just afternoon when
the front door opened and Mom said it again, Keith phone,
someone named Stan, Keith Stan Sabek. He laughed, Stan laughed
(47:28):
a lot. Stan and I had a loud fight fourteen
months later that got me fired and then unfired hours later.
Stan laughed in the middle of all that twice tired
of lying around the pool, yet I lied and said, yes,
of course, there was no pool, just my lawn. I
don't know if you've heard. He said it in such
(47:48):
a way that confirmed that he was confident. I had heard,
and noram or Rosen or somebody had called to tell me.
But my sports director quick to go to NBC. I
need a full time sportscaster to replace him. You interested
prepared as I was for the offer of part time work.
I was stunned. On top of stunned. Full time stand
(48:10):
Did you say full time? Stan laughed, yes, sixteen thousand,
No negotiations. Mostly nights, some mornings, some ball games. You
get to cover split days off. You're not going to
have a weekend for a couple of years. Probably. Can
you come in Thursday to fill out the job application
for the job I just hired you for? He laughed again.
(48:32):
Ever since, I have associated the fourth of July with
the start of my career, but especially those years when
the week with the fourth in it is in the
middle of the week, just like that, and makes it
more difficult for employers to hire anybody except the cheap
and the unemployed. Turns out that Wednesday, July fourth calendar
(48:54):
is not a frequent thing. Happened in nineteen seventy nine,
Happened again in nineteen ninety, two thousand and one, two
thousand and seven, twenty eighteen, not scheduled to happen again
until twenty twenty nine, barring major breaking news developments. A
week to the day that stan sebek had called, I
was on the air at UPI. I wasn't supposed to be.
(49:16):
I was just supposed to be watching the morning shift
with Sam Rosen. And then finally he said, so, do
you think you got the hang of it? And I said,
m I guess so. He said, good, because you're on
at nine forty five. I was so scared. I had
an out of body experience. Thirty days after stan Sebic
called on July third, I was on my own on
the night shift, maybe the seventh time, when the Yankee
(49:37):
catcher Thurman Munson was killed when he crashed his private plane,
and I had to call his teammates for interviews and
still do the sports cast every hour. By October, they
had put me on a plane to go cover the
National League playoffs. Six months after he called, Stan and
Sam Rosen and I were covering the nineteen eighty Winter
Olympics for UPI Radio, and our stuff was playing on
(49:58):
radio stations around the world. But all these years later,
none of that compared to the sensation of that phone
call and the realization that my career had really started.
At forty eight hours later, I was walking into UPI's
offices as a pro plus, I got the first shock
(50:19):
of my career. Good news, Stan said and laughed. That's
stringing work you did for UPI. All those Cornell football
games you covered for fifteen dollars a game. The union says,
guess what they count towards your professional experience, So you
won't be starting at just sixteen thousand. You get credited
with experience for all that stringing. You got exactly six
(50:41):
days worth of credit. Congratulations, you'll be starting at sixteen thousand,
twenty five dollars a year, and Stan sabc laughed, I've
(51:06):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips
Chanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister
Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister Shanelle
handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
Another music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music
(51:29):
is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch
Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy
musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium
organist ever, and once again my accompanist. Our announcer was
my friend Larry David. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this the one hundred and twenty
(51:51):
seventh day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the
two hundred and seventy fifth day since convicted felon Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. You the July eleventh sentencing hearing. Use
the mental health system. You've got it now, mister President
(52:11):
hughes presidential immunity to stop Trump from doing it again
while we still.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
Came.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins is the news
warrants until then, I'm Keith old Rimmond. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Keep rolling, rolling, Rolling, the Supreme Courtio swollen, keep them
fascist rolling.
Speaker 2 (52:51):
Joe Biden, Neil and Sam and Thomas are kissing Trump.
He's badass. They gave the constitution big herds from all
these thugs. Judicial declar an axe official. They're over when
you are restaurant Robert theme from Rothyde Countdown with Keith
(53:16):
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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