September 7, 2023 • 39 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 29: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Is Jack Smith trying to get the Judge in the Election Subversion Trial to detain Trump or fine Trump or start Trump’s trial early or issue a GAG ORDER against Trump?
In Washington there is a behind-the-scenes courtroom drama playing out under seal, but which SEEMS to be – based on the half-second of light shining on it, the way a midnight thunderstorm illuminates everything and then just as quickly plunges it all back into darkness – which SEEMS to be an attempt by Jack Smith to get Judge Tanya Chutkan to PUNISH Donald Trump for shooting off his big bazoo in speeches and on social media.
And that’s all we know about it.
Smith has made a filing with Judge Chutkan’s court in which he alleges Trump has quote “made daily extrajudicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool.” That’s almost LITERALLY IT. The whole motion is just 345 words. The easy part is to imagine what “daily extrajudicial statements” Smith is reminding Chutkan about because they began in the overnight hours of Sunday and Monday August 14th, not 72 hours after Judge Chutkan warned Trump’s lawyer “I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case” and Trump said he understood and at 12:33 Eastern Daylight Time Trump posted “How dare lowlife prosecutor, deranged Jack Smith, break into my former Twitter account without informing me and indeed trying to completely hide this atrocity from me."
Revoke his bail? Is that what Jack Smith has ASKED her to do? Treat him as the lethal threat he represents and revoke his bail – the terms of which he has obviously violated? Or fine him? Or institute a gag order on him? Or is it that other option?
WHATEVER is going on we will know SOMETHING next week, I think. CNN reports Chutkan has ordered both sides to file additional briefs on whether or not the original Smith brief – which presumably is about or at least TOUCHES on “the defendant’s daily extrajudicial statements” -should be posted on the public record. Trump’s team is to answer by Monday and the Special Counsel must answer by Monday.
There is also all sorts of other bad news for Trump, including his announcement that he's going to testify at his "trial."
Which one?
B-Block (24:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Anderson Cooper has no idea what his job is at CNN; Little Jimmy O'Keefe told Project Veritas "The show must go on - even if our staffer is drowning;" and Rand Paul thinks he's talking about the dead eyes of Mitch McConnell when he actually means the dead eyes of... himself.
C-Block (31:37) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Never go see how the sausage is made and, as I learned 48 years ago this month at my college radio station, never go see how radio or TV or any media is made if you ever want to enjoy it again.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Is
Jack Smith trying to get the judge in the election
(00:25):
subversion trial to detain Trump or find Trump, or start
Trump's trial early, or issue a gag order against Trump.
Don't be distracted, keep your third eye clear. It's not
Hunter Biden indicted. It's not Mike Hawkabe threatening bullets instead
of ballots. It's not even Ejen Carroll extending her winning
(00:46):
streak versus Trump to four and zero. Those are all
fun in their way, but the headline at the moment
is a behind the scenes courtroom drama under seal, but
which seems to be based on the half second of
light shining on it, the way a midnight thunderstorm illuminates
everything and then justice quickly plunges it all back into darkness,
(01:07):
which seems to be an attempt by Smith to get
Judge Tanya Chutkin to punish Donald Trump for shooting off
his big bazoo in speeches and on social media, and
that's all we know about it. Smith has made a
filing with Judge Chutkin's court in which he alleges Trump
(01:28):
has quote made daily extra judicial statements that threaten to
prejudice the jury pool. That's almost literally it. The whole
motion is just three hundred and forty five words, and
that includes the underlined title at the top and Jack
Smith's name and job description at the bottom. It's three
(01:48):
hundred and sixty six words. If you include the names
of his aides, Thomas Wyndham and Molly Gaston, and the
address of their office. That's it. Whatever this is about.
Smith's office filed opposition to a motion to vacate by
Trump's lawyers, and Trump's lawyers demanded three weeks before the
(02:09):
court ruled, and fourteen days before they Trump's lawyers had
to respond to anything under seal, and Smith testily answers quote.
Such a requirement would grind litigation in this case to
a halt, which is particularly infeasible given the pressing matters
before the court, including the defendant's daily extrajudicial statements that
(02:32):
threaten to prejudice the jury pool in this case, as
described in the government's motion ce ECF number four to
seven Dash three unquote. ECF number four seven Dash three
is sealed. We cannot see it yet, and so it
(02:54):
is left to the imagination. And the easy part is
to imagine which daily extra judicial statements Smith is reminding
Judge Chutkin about as they began in the overnight hours
of Sunday and Monday, August fourteenth, not seventy two hours
after Judge Chucken warned Trump's lawyers quote, I caution you
(03:14):
and your client to take special care in your public
statements about this case. And Trump said he understood. And
at twelve thirty three Eastern daylight time, Trump stopped understanding
and posted quote, how dare low life prosecutor deranged Jack
Smith break into my former Twitter account without informing me
and indeed trying to completely hide this atrocity from me unquote,
(03:39):
because the heavens did not immediately strike somebody dead or
whatever it is Trump expects will happen when he issues
his bleatings, which would embarrass a fourth grade bully. Just
forty one minutes later, Trump attacked the bench, referring to
a quote by highly partisan Judge Tanya Chutkin, she obviously
(04:00):
wants me behind bars unquote. Trump starts it as the
midnight suet, That is, his skin liquefied itself and dripped
onto the keypad of his phone, and he basically has
not stopped, since you or I obviously would have jailed
him by now. Because these are the kinds of threats
(04:21):
that perhaps even hard asses like Jack Smith and Tanya
Trutkin and I say that fan boyishly do not fully appreciate.
They are not just insults, and they are not just
designed too to again quote Smith's one second glimpse of
his sealed motion, prejudice the jury pool. In this case,
they are also standard Trump stochastic calls to terrorism by
(04:42):
others acting on his behalf but giving him what the
CIA at its worst used to call plausible deniability. These
are not too complexly coded messages to Trump's stormtroopers to
go attack Jack Smith, or attack Tanya Tchutkin, or attack
any Democrat, or attack any Trump critic. They are threats,
and the judge should treat them as such. So is
(05:05):
that what she's considering doing is that what Jack Smith
has asked her to do under seal. Treat him as
the lethal threats he represents, and revoke his bail, slam
his ass in jail where it belongs, the bail the
terms of which he is obviously violated, or find him
or institute a full gag order on him, or is
(05:29):
it that other option. The day Chutchkin instructed Trump's latest
collection of unqualified ambulance chasers to shut the f up,
she promised a novel response if he did not, quoting
her again from August eleventh. The more a party makes
inflammatory statements about this case which could taint the jury pool,
the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to
(05:50):
trial quickly. There's the same reference the jury pool and
tainting it. Whatever is going on, we will know something
next week. I think CNN is reporting Chutkin has ordered
both sides to while additional briefs on whether or not
the original Smith brief, which presumably is about or at
least touches on the defendant's daily extra judicial statements, should
(06:14):
be posted on the public record. Trump's team is to
answer that question by Monday, and the Special Council must
answer by next Wednesday. Something else about Jack Smith and
Trump that has gotten steamrollered by the Atlanta deliberations and
the other headlines and everything else, and all it is
is evidence that the Jack Smith grand jury is still
(06:37):
hearing evidence against Trump and his co conspirators, and still
hearing evidence about how he raised all that the election
was stolen money, and how much fraud he committed while
raising it and what he did with it after he
raised it, except Smith has gone granular on us on
this front. CNN again reporting quote questions asked if two
(07:00):
recent witnesses indicate Smith is focusing on how money raised
off baseless claims of voter fraud was used to fund
attempts to breach voting equipment in several states won by
Joe Bidenote CNN got the invoices that apparently intrigued Smith
that show Sidney more cracked than crack, and Powell hired
(07:22):
forensic computer firms that eventually got inside voting equipment in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan,
and Pennsylvania, states which you may just remember were all
won by Joe Biden. CNN is not detailing how the
Little Thought Electron jumped from Jack Smith's investigation of Trump
fundraising scams to Sidney Powell's electronic breaking and entering, But
(07:45):
there it is. There could be a fifth set of
federal indictments, or folded into the elections subversion trial in Washington,
a second case in which Donald Trump is reindicted, reinnided,
(08:07):
and it feels so good. Reindided like a spy.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
In Wood's one perfect fit.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Are the country's so excited causes.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Prey, Thank you, Nancy Faust.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Sorry, couldn't resist, nor evidently can Trump resist. Hugh Hewitt,
the man who grew up so poor that his family
could only afford the two syllables with which to try
to build a first and last name out of, asks
Trump if he will testify at his own trial. Oh yes,
(08:52):
he says absolutely, and a mighty roar goes up from
everybody in the Special Council's office. Quote, I'll look forward
to testifying a trial. I'll testify, And cheers go through
the halls. Shay Fanny Willis now again pump the brakes.
Trump said this, It doesn't mean he's gonna do this,
(09:16):
call it the Infrastructure week rule. But wait, there's more.
Poor Hugh Hugh asks him another question if Smith and
Willis and Alvin Bragg said we're willing to drop all
the charges, but you have to leave the presidential race. Quote.
I have no interest, you know me well enough. No interest,
Absolutely no interest. I think they'd make that deal right now,
(09:39):
which means he has interest and I don't know about
them making that deal right now crew just sued, and
the fourteenth Amendment is now so mainstream. I heard about
it right in the middle of the repeating headlines on
the New York all news radio station WIS, right between
the real field temperature of ninety six and traffic on
(10:02):
the FDR and whatever dumb thing Mayor adams Us said.
Why even the Associated Press reported about the fourteenth Amendment.
This is a friendly suit crew suing the Secretary of
State of Colorado on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated voters,
including a conservative Denver Post columnist and former Trump voter,
(10:23):
and separately a former Republican state legislative leader, and they
asked that Trump be disqualified from the ballot. There, the
Secretary of State, Jenna Griswold replies, quote, this case will
provide guidance to election officials on Trump's eligibility as a
candidate for office. You bet it will. Colorado is the
venue because it allows ballot challenges to go straight to
(10:44):
court and it can be wrapped up before the primaries
hit next January. And because and this is fascinating. Eight
years ago, a naturalized American citizen who was born in
Guyana sued over this issue of presidential eligibility. He claimed
the requirement that every candidate be born in the US
(11:06):
was unfair and he wanted to be on the presidential ballot.
He lost his lawsuit, and when it was appealed to
a federal appeals court, the judge there upheld the defeat
because there are constitutional eligibility requirements to be president and
they should be enforced. And the judge who said that
was Neil Gorsuch roight Row calling Leonard Leo, we need
(11:35):
a replacement for Neil Gorstch immediately. What's Jason Whitlock doing now?
The other headlines of Trump and the terrible, horrible, no good,
very bad day he has as good as lost his
second defamation suit to Egen Carroll. Okay, which one of
your geniuses keep scheduling Trump to face Ejen Carroll? She's
four and oh against him? For Christ's sake, the judge
(11:59):
here ruled that Trump is liable for defamatory statements he
made about her when she originally went public about the
rape in twenty nineteen. The trial will now deal only
with how much more, if anything, Trump owes her on
top of the five million he already owes her from
the other defamation suit. Meanwhile, in a different New York
(12:20):
court room, another New York judge threw out Trump's bid
to delay the corporate fraud civil lawsuit filed by New
York State Attorney General Tis James, and he kicked Trump
in the ass as he did it. Trump's arguments in
this case are quote completely without merit. In the Fannie
Willis prosecution in Georgia, prosecutors told to judge they anticipate
(12:43):
a four month trial, a four month trial, or as
we call it here in New York, half a Mets season. Also,
the Ken Cheeseboro and Sidney Powell bids to get their
trials severed from the others, Well, it's going to stay
Cheese and Kraken. They will get the expedited trials they
wanted starting late next month, and they will be together
(13:05):
and the judge will decide shortly. If the other seventeen
defendants Trump included, we'll start on that date or later.
It is just possible, just possible, that Powell and Cheeseboro
lost because, according to prosecutors, each of them cited seven
cases as precedents, except none of the seven cases were
rico charges, and in all seven of the cases, the
(13:28):
defendants did not get their trials separated from the others,
which seems like an excellent strategy if you're trying to lose. Now,
back to Mary A. Lago and the stolen classified documents case.
Not a shock unless you are still shocked by Trump
being so Dunning Krueger that he should change his name
to Donald J. Dunning Krueger Trump. Remember the ex Trump attorney,
(13:51):
Evan Corkoran, the one that prosecutors got a judge to
force to testify against him because he had made audio
memos of every meeting with Trump. ABC News has seen
transcripts of some of those men, and in one Corkoran
memorialized that in May of twenty twenty two May, he
warned Trump face to face that if Trump did not
(14:13):
comply with the new Justice Departments of poena to return
all them classified docs, the FBI might wind up searching
the joint Then, on another Corkoran memo, another attorney warrened
Corkoran that if he pushed Trump to comply, quote, He's
just gonna go ballistic, like that's news or something. Corkoran's
(14:36):
memos show that Trump was by that time May of
last year trying to dictate where the lawyers and the
Feds could and could not look for the documents. They
also showed that every time Corkoran tried to talk about reality,
Trump complained he was the victim, and he was being targeted,
and he was the usual martyrdom stuff, et cetera, et cetera.
But there is one glorious detail. Corcoran and Trump are
(15:00):
in Trump's office, and per ABC, they are quote in
front of a Norman Rockwell style painting depicting Ronald Reagan,
Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, and Trump playing poker unquote. There
is nothing on the Corcoran recordings of how many dozen
(15:21):
aces Trump had up his sleeve in the painting, nor
how he managed to assert that he was entitled to
keep them there. And also from Mary a Lago. I
mean this was obvious by August twenty second, and some
news outlets were still pretending yesterday was breaking news. But
yesterday the mouthpiece that Trump had supplied for his it
guy at Marri a Lago, you Seal Tavares, Stanley Woodward,
(15:45):
who is now U Seal's ex attorney. Stanley Woodward made
it official. Taveres cut a deal with prosecutors and he
will testify against the others, like maybe Trump, like Trump
co defendant Carlos. The boss wants the server deleted de
olivera and he will not be arched. And best of all, Tavaris'
(16:07):
name is you Seal? You make the van time leave me?
You seal? We already counts against me and your plead.
The boss wants Server to lead, it, won't he? You
make the van time leave me? You see think youay?
(16:27):
It's a fast and one last headline. If there is
anything worse than the guy Sean Connery references in The
Untouchables the guy who brings a knife to a gunfight,
there is the other guy who brings a knife to
a gunfight and then boasts about how much trouble the
guy with the gun is in. And lastly, of course,
there's the guy who brings the knife to an atomic war.
(16:51):
And that guy is Mike Huckabee. Before I play you
this clip, I always flash back to Mike Huckabee's extraordinary cowardice.
Chris Matthews and I I were actually sent to Columbia,
South Carolina. First, we went to California for the first debate,
but in May of two thousand and seven, We went
(17:13):
to Columbia, South Carolina to anchor live MSNBC coverage of
the second Republican debate, and we're doing the pregame show
and they bring Huckabee out for a quick interview, and
Matthews rises to greet him, but huck has only got
eyes for me, and he's staring in shock that I
am there. He is frozen, he's got no idea what
(17:36):
to do. He's just standing there and he starts staring
daggers at me, And finally I said, no, don't worry, Governor,
I've got this segment off. You don't have to make
a scene. He later told conservative writers that he had
refused to do the segment if I was on, which
might have been true, but was kind of irrelevant since
I wasn't Huckabee after he blew out of the presidential race.
(17:59):
He actually was a candidate for president. Used to be
on Fox, then he used to be on AB Radio,
that he was on Cumulus. Now he's on the Trinity
Broadcasting Network. And see if this crap from his latest show,
Hawkabee sounds at all familiar.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Do you know how political opponents to those in power
are dealt with in Third World? Dictatorships, the Nana republics,
and communist regimes. Well, it's simple. The people in power
use their police agencies to arrest their opponents for made
up crimes in an attempt to discredit them, bankrupt them,
imprison them, exile them. Are all of the above.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So wait, Mike Cockabee is being critical of Trump and
the Republicans. Oh, he's not, even though Trump's entire campaign
in twenty sixteen was lock her Up, and while President
Trump repeatedly tried to get Hillary Clinton prosecuted and James
Comy prosecuted, and his campaign this time around has been
about how he's going to prosecute everybody who's ever crossed him.
(19:03):
And we're this close to threatening to prosecute the other
owners from the United States Football League who dared to
send out teams to try to defeat his sainted team,
the New Jersey Genitals of nineteen eighty three and eighty four.
We rejoin my Kakabee threatening people will be killed if
Trump is not re elected. Already in progress. Here's the problem.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from
winning or even running in twenty twenty four, it is
going to be the last American election that will be
decided by ballots rather than bullets.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
As always, Republicans introduce something evil, then they attempt the evil.
Then they bluntly surprisingly fail to pull off the evil
because they talk a great game, but they can neither
govern nor strong arm. And then they whine and claim
they are the victims of something the Democrats just invented,
(19:55):
when the Democrats do a legal and morally justifiable version
of the illegal Republican thing. Also, as I always like
to throw in for the edification of Republicans and fascists
and red Staters and other losers who only understand stuff
like this, who is it again? Who has all the tanks?
(20:25):
Also of interest here, I still have the throat infection.
Got a little worse. Actually, I've got a worse person's next,
I've got Rand Paul talking about that quote vacant look
where quote you're sort of basically unconscious with your eyes
open and startlingly. No, he's not looking at his own reflection.
(20:45):
That's next, This discountdown.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Still ahead on countdown. It is the universal warning, if
you want to enjoy sausage, never go see how the
sausage is made. It's not just about how gross sausage
can be behind the scenes. It's also about how peeking
behind any curtain can take the magic out of what's
produced behind the curtain. It's forty eight years since I
(21:29):
was warned, if you want to enjoy radio or TV,
or movies or any kind of media, do not start
working in them. Sadly, I ignored that. The day that
I ignored it coming up in things I promised not to tell.
Plus a singing surprise for you if you stay all
the way through the end. Plus Okay, my E and
(21:50):
T says, I can give you the daily roundup of
the miscreants, morons, and Dunn Kruger effects specimens who constitute
today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze Anderson Cooper
talking about not being able to enjoy broadcasting ever again,
the world's longest running unsuccessful marketing experiment is still making
(22:13):
hay Off the death of his mother and his brother.
Book three on this topic is Coming, got him another
profile in The New York Times. He now has more
profiles in The New York Times than he has viewers.
But if that's the way you want to live your life,
have fun. The latest Times fluff piece didn't question him
once about denigrating his own audience, saying on air they
(22:37):
were quote staying in your silo and only listening to
people you agree with. But it did give him the
chance to really show how little he understands what he
does for a living. The Times Fluffer asked him about
Chris Licked quote, I don't know what Chris Licks analysis was.
I don't have much confidence that I actually know what
he was thinking. Well, welcome to the club. I try
(22:59):
to worry about stuff I actually have my hands on.
For me, it's the show that I work on. That
is my priority, and I do whatever I can to
do that to make that as good as I can.
My sense from Chris was there was not a lot
we needed to hash out because I'm not an opinion host.
I'm talking to people from different sides and trying to
(23:19):
be straight down the middle and represent things fairly and accurately.
Upshot of this is Anderson Cooper thinks he's not an
opinion host and he's trying to be straight down the middle.
And no, the guy did not ask him how that
would jibe with attacking his own audience and ending his
career the way he did the runner up, Little Jimmy O'Keefe.
(23:43):
And I think I first put him on this list
in two thousand and nine, and fourteen years later, you know,
it is kind of nice to know that the only
thing I got wrong about him was how much of
a bozo he was. And he is, And you're thinking, yeah,
I know this story. I know about this. He bankrupted
his little deceptive editing outfit, Project Veritas, by spending all
Project Veritas money on helicopters that he could take to
(24:08):
musicals that he would pay for so he could star
in them. But wait, there's more. The Washington Post got
hold of an internal audit on where all the money
went at Project Kiss my Ass. And I cannot paraphrase
this paragraph any better than Will Summer wrote it, so
I'm just going to quote him verbatim. In September twenty
(24:31):
twenty one, according to the report, Hurricane Ida floodwaters threatened
to destroy the Project Veritas office in Mamaranac, New York.
The staff scrambled to save equipment and their own lives.
One elderly employee was briefly pulled under water and had
to be rescued. By colleagues, but O'Keefe had already left
the scene, asking employees to prioritize his own evacuation so
(24:56):
he could make it to Virginia for a performance of
the musical Oklahoma, in which he had the lead role.
According to staffers cited by the audit Ohklahoma, where the
floodwaters nearly drowned the staffer, but our winner Rand Paul. Now, look,
(25:21):
if Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell were both on fire
and the hydraulic laws of nature were overwhelming me, i'd
hold it in. But Rand Paul's statement about Mitch McConnell's
recent freezes, it's just amazing, and maybe not for the
obvious reason. Rand Paul, who is a board certified ophthalmologist,
(25:44):
only because he created his own board to rival the
real board, and he had his own board certify him.
Rand Paul is not convinced by McConnell's doctor's explanation that
his recent episodes of vapor locke were caused by dehydration.
When you get dehydrated, Rand Paul says, you don't have
moments when you're eyes look in the distance with a
(26:06):
vacant look, and you're sort of basically unconscious with your
eyes open. So you and I need to start a
go fund me to buy Senator Rand Paul a mirror.
Moments when your eyes look in the distance, those are
the only moments Rand Paul has. Vacant look. Rand Paul
(26:30):
owns the vacant look. Sort of basically unconscious with your
eyes open. My God, sort of basically unconscious with your
eyes open is the Rand Paul brand. Rand dead eyed
Dick is not the compliment you may think it is.
Paul two days, Let's see if I can do this
(26:53):
worst person in the world to the number one story
on the Countdown and my favorite topic me and another
edition of Things I Promised not to tell. Earlier this month,
(27:15):
the film director Peter Jackson was on a podcast put
out by The Hollywood Reporter magazine, and he said his
greatest regret about making the Lord of the Rings trilogy
was that he could never actually go see the films.
It is such a regret. Peter Jackson said he had
looked into getting hypnotherapy to make him forget the work
he did on the films, and even to forget the
(27:37):
films themselves, just so he could go see them. Like
the ninety nine point nine to nine nine percent of
the world that did not direct the Hobbit flicks. Quoting
Jackson from the Awards Chatter podcast, it was such a
loss for me not to be able to experience them
like everyone else was that I actually did seriously consider
going to a hypnotherapy guy and to hypnotize me, to
(27:59):
make me forget about the films and forget about the
work I'd done over the last six to seven years,
so I could sit and enjoy them. Just put your
head down here on the taper racing machine and we'll
hit the degaos button and you'll be fine. Pete. I mean,
you won't remember anything since the year twenty fifteen. But
away we go. It didn't happen. Apparently Jackson chickened out,
(28:23):
so no hypnotherapist caused him to forget making The Lord
of the Rings. But one, I guess made me remember
a piece of advice that somebody should have given Peter
Jackson before he made The Lord of the Rings trilogy
forty seven years ago. This week, I arrived at Cornell
University as a sixteen year old freshman. We all got
there on Sunday, August twenty fourth. My folks stayed I
(28:46):
think one night, and before they left, my dad helped
me to find the college radio station WVBR, which turned
out not to really be a college radio station per se.
It wasn't even on the campus. We were driving around
for quite a while until we found it early in
the afternoon of Monday, August twenty fifth, seventy five. This
is the anniversary. The address was two twenty seven Linden Avenue, Ithaca,
(29:09):
New York. I walked into this sprawling, always a little cold,
but nicely converted old gas station and parking garage, and
the first person I saw was a young, not too
tall woman who asked me if she could help me,
and I said, Hi, I'm a freshman. I'd like to
become a sportscaster. And she actually said, sounds like you
(29:29):
already are. Hi. I'm ROBERTA. Haber. I'm the training director,
but we don't really start training until about four weeks
from now. You'll see the flyers in the announcements. It
should be the last Monday in September. I think we'll
be able to find a place for you. She gave
me a quick tour of WBR and then ushered me
the hell out. I checked for those flyers every day,
(29:49):
and finally there they were Monday, September twenty second, at
open house for would be disc jockeys, newspeople, sportscasters, engineers,
eight pm WVBRFM Studios. I got there a little early
and there were already fifth people in the station lounge.
There were still a few open spots on the floor.
The place kept filling out. They cut it off and
(30:12):
started asking people to come back for a second open
house the next night. When it got to be about
one hundred of us sitting there, and when it was
so crowded in the lounge that I could no longer
see the posters on the wall celebrating two of the
most hotly promoted young rock stars of the day, Bruce
Springsteen and Loud and Waynewright the third. Anyway, we finally
(30:32):
got started. That woman who had greeted me Roberta, started
the inevitable passing around of the sign up sheet, and
then she said something that somebody should have told Peter
Jackson before he made those movies. She said, more or less,
this may sound like a joke, but it's not. We
always give this warning on the first night of training.
If you ever want to listen to the radio again
and just enjoy it. Here's the door. Leave now. Several
(30:58):
people laughed. No, I'm serious. Even if you just start
training and then leave, it'll still be too late for
you to ever just enjoy radio again. And the further
you get into it, the more things you have to
cross off your list. It's not that I can't listen
to the radio anymore. I can hear every accent. I
(31:18):
can hear everybody with a mushy s. I can hear
the dead air, I can hear the bad segues from
record to record. Well, that's bad enough. I'm in radio,
but this is my senior year, and I can't just
listen to music anymore. I used to be the music director.
Now I judge every song I hear. Would this be
good on WVBR. I can hear singers mispronounced words. I
(31:40):
can hear notes that aren't perfect. If you want to
enjoy radio or music, here's the door, leave now. Not
so many people laugh this time, and she continued. It
even begins to affect watching TV and movies because radio
gives you an idea of how TV and movies work
as well. There's an old saying, if you like sausage,
(32:01):
never go see how they make sausage. Even if you
like watching to make it, though, you'll still always think,
I wonder if they're making it correctly? What's the recipe here?
So if you want to enjoy radio, or music, or
television or life ever again, leave now. The guy sitting
next to me left. I did not. I wanted to
(32:21):
see how they made the sausage. The inability to just
sit back and flip the radio on and not pay
attention to it was a fair trade off. I had
already been doing that in high school. We had a
high school radio station. It wasn't much, but I used
to then listen to other radio stations, the real ones,
and go, that guy has a really, really bad New
York accent. WVBR turned out to be the best training
(32:42):
ground in the country. In my senior year, we literally
had a twenty nine year old guy from San Francisco
named Al who wanted to become a sportscaster and a
radio commercial salesman, and he moved to Ithaca, New York,
just to train at WVBR. I loved Ithaca, New York,
but I would never move from San Francisco. To Ithaca,
New York. That effect that you will hear every mistake
(33:05):
and reduce every joy to something technical. That actually began
to wear off after twenty years or so. I can
put the radio on now and once out of every
I don't know, three or four, one hundred times, I
won't hear the mistake or the sibilant s, or the
news reporter coming on and his volume in the studio
(33:25):
is too low and he sounds like this. There are
still some periodic flashbacks too, to other things that happened
early in my career. There one day, my clock radio
alarm went off at exactly the right moment that, deeply asleep,
I still heard the newscaster introduce my pre taped morning
sportscast Now as sports Here's Keith Olderman. I sat up
(33:47):
in bed. Immediately I reached for some non existent script
and began to shout indecipherable nonsense. Well you know that
I still do it anyway. They didn't make me go
through the full training program back in nineteen seventy five.
I made it onto the air about ten days later.
A year later, I was the sports director, which was great,
except all ten of those senior sportscasters who were there
(34:10):
had graduated, and the day I got back to Ithaca
in August nineteen seventy six, the program director said, until
you find some more sportscasters, you have to do all
the sportscasts. And while I pretended that that would have
been terrible, I figured eventually I'd probably want to take
a day off from the radio station and I don't know,
maybe go to a class, or go for a meal
(34:30):
or something. So I put up signs in all the
freshman dorums offering a quick training program, and sure enough
I got six or seven guys who wanted to be sportscasters.
And the first thing I said to them was listen,
if you ever want to enjoy radio again, forget this,
because you'll always be thinking about how they make the sausage.
I mean, I don't even enjoy sports as much as
(34:51):
I used to. Well, they all got cleared to go
on the air. One of them wound up as the
general manager of the radio station, and you know what,
all that got me the job as the head of
training for the entire state the next year. I did
that for two years and probably got fifty or sixty
people into the station on the air or whatever, including
(35:12):
one particular engineer, a techie named Ruby. He would never
answer anything else who later invented the iPod for Steve Jobs.
And I told them all the same thing, if you
want to enjoy listening to radio, get out while you
can before we teach you how to do it. Sausage
does not look that good ever again. And years later,
(35:35):
when WVBRFM hit kind of hard times, Ruby John Rubinstein
bought them a new transmitter tower and I paid for
most of the new studio, and I named it after
my dad. In one of my colleagues there, Glenn Cornelius,
I'm only sorry about one thing, which is that I
did not get to Warren Peter Jackson about how if
(35:55):
he wanted to enjoy anything ever again, he should have
gotten out on day one two. I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown
(36:17):
has come to you from our studios high top the
Sports Capsule Building in New York, around the corner from
my various doctors. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Shanel. They are the Countdown Musical directors. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel, guitars, bass and
drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
(36:40):
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two,
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of ESPN, Inc.
And I promise yes we will again someday have a
sports section. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball
stadium organist ever who accompanies me in my many singing
(37:01):
efforts or should those be attempts? I'll announced to day
it was my friend John Deane, and everything else was
pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this, the nine
hundred and seventy fifth day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States,
convict him twice in one day. While we still can Yeah,
I'm upping the ante. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow,
(37:24):
Bolton says, the news warrants, and as my throat infection
permits till then, I'm Keith Olverman. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, good luck. And since you have been good
enough to hear me out and to stick this out
to the end, I'm going to close with the world
premiere of the complete recording session and the unreleased takes
(37:47):
of You picked a fine time to leave me? You
seal wild tracks on you pick to find time to
leave me? Five four three two one.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
You make time to leave me?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
You seal before the counts aginst me and your plea deal.
The boss wants server de leaded? Won't he you make
the fine time to leave me? You see?
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Thank you Nancy Post, you makee come on, You make divine.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Time to leave me. You seal before the countscuse me
and your plead deal. The boss wants server de lead it.
Won't he you make divine time to leave me? You see?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Thinking it's a fast you make the fine time to
leave me.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
You seal before the counts ginst me and your plea deal.
The bas us wants server deleted.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Won't he you mack divine time to leave me?
Speaker 1 (39:09):
You see? Thinking answer fast? One more time, a little deeper.
Can you make the fine tom to leave me? You
see before accounts against me and your pleaded The boss
(39:30):
wants server deleaded, won't he you? Mack the fine time
to leave me?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
You see thinking I Answer Faust.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Is
Jack Smith trying to get the judge in the election
(00:25):
subversion trial to detain Trump or find Trump, or start
Trump's trial early, or issue a gag order against Trump.
Don't be distracted, keep your third eye clear. It's not
Hunter Biden indicted. It's not Mike Hawkabe threatening bullets instead
of ballots. It's not even Ejen Carroll extending her winning
(00:46):
streak versus Trump to four and zero. Those are all
fun in their way, but the headline at the moment
is a behind the scenes courtroom drama under seal, but
which seems to be based on the half second of
light shining on it, the way a midnight thunderstorm illuminates
everything and then justice quickly plunges it all back into darkness,
(01:07):
which seems to be an attempt by Smith to get
Judge Tanya Chutkin to punish Donald Trump for shooting off
his big bazoo in speeches and on social media, and
that's all we know about it. Smith has made a
filing with Judge Chutkin's court in which he alleges Trump
(01:28):
has quote made daily extra judicial statements that threaten to
prejudice the jury pool. That's almost literally it. The whole
motion is just three hundred and forty five words, and
that includes the underlined title at the top and Jack
Smith's name and job description at the bottom. It's three
(01:48):
hundred and sixty six words. If you include the names
of his aides, Thomas Wyndham and Molly Gaston, and the
address of their office. That's it. Whatever this is about.
Smith's office filed opposition to a motion to vacate by
Trump's lawyers, and Trump's lawyers demanded three weeks before the
(02:09):
court ruled, and fourteen days before they Trump's lawyers had
to respond to anything under seal, and Smith testily answers quote.
Such a requirement would grind litigation in this case to
a halt, which is particularly infeasible given the pressing matters
before the court, including the defendant's daily extrajudicial statements that
(02:32):
threaten to prejudice the jury pool in this case, as
described in the government's motion ce ECF number four to
seven Dash three unquote. ECF number four seven Dash three
is sealed. We cannot see it yet, and so it
(02:54):
is left to the imagination. And the easy part is
to imagine which daily extra judicial statements Smith is reminding
Judge Chutkin about as they began in the overnight hours
of Sunday and Monday, August fourteenth, not seventy two hours
after Judge Chucken warned Trump's lawyers quote, I caution you
(03:14):
and your client to take special care in your public
statements about this case. And Trump said he understood. And
at twelve thirty three Eastern daylight time, Trump stopped understanding
and posted quote, how dare low life prosecutor deranged Jack
Smith break into my former Twitter account without informing me
and indeed trying to completely hide this atrocity from me unquote,
(03:39):
because the heavens did not immediately strike somebody dead or
whatever it is Trump expects will happen when he issues
his bleatings, which would embarrass a fourth grade bully. Just
forty one minutes later, Trump attacked the bench, referring to
a quote by highly partisan Judge Tanya Chutkin, she obviously
(04:00):
wants me behind bars unquote. Trump starts it as the
midnight suet, That is, his skin liquefied itself and dripped
onto the keypad of his phone, and he basically has
not stopped, since you or I obviously would have jailed
him by now. Because these are the kinds of threats
(04:21):
that perhaps even hard asses like Jack Smith and Tanya
Trutkin and I say that fan boyishly do not fully appreciate.
They are not just insults, and they are not just
designed too to again quote Smith's one second glimpse of
his sealed motion, prejudice the jury pool. In this case,
they are also standard Trump stochastic calls to terrorism by
(04:42):
others acting on his behalf but giving him what the
CIA at its worst used to call plausible deniability. These
are not too complexly coded messages to Trump's stormtroopers to
go attack Jack Smith, or attack Tanya Tchutkin, or attack
any Democrat, or attack any Trump critic. They are threats,
and the judge should treat them as such. So is
(05:05):
that what she's considering doing is that what Jack Smith
has asked her to do under seal. Treat him as
the lethal threats he represents, and revoke his bail, slam
his ass in jail where it belongs, the bail the
terms of which he is obviously violated, or find him
or institute a full gag order on him, or is
(05:29):
it that other option. The day Chutchkin instructed Trump's latest
collection of unqualified ambulance chasers to shut the f up,
she promised a novel response if he did not, quoting
her again from August eleventh. The more a party makes
inflammatory statements about this case which could taint the jury pool,
the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to
(05:50):
trial quickly. There's the same reference the jury pool and
tainting it. Whatever is going on, we will know something
next week. I think CNN is reporting Chutkin has ordered
both sides to while additional briefs on whether or not
the original Smith brief, which presumably is about or at
least touches on the defendant's daily extra judicial statements, should
(06:14):
be posted on the public record. Trump's team is to
answer that question by Monday, and the Special Council must
answer by next Wednesday. Something else about Jack Smith and
Trump that has gotten steamrollered by the Atlanta deliberations and
the other headlines and everything else, and all it is
is evidence that the Jack Smith grand jury is still
(06:37):
hearing evidence against Trump and his co conspirators, and still
hearing evidence about how he raised all that the election
was stolen money, and how much fraud he committed while
raising it and what he did with it after he
raised it, except Smith has gone granular on us on
this front. CNN again reporting quote questions asked if two
(07:00):
recent witnesses indicate Smith is focusing on how money raised
off baseless claims of voter fraud was used to fund
attempts to breach voting equipment in several states won by
Joe Bidenote CNN got the invoices that apparently intrigued Smith
that show Sidney more cracked than crack, and Powell hired
(07:22):
forensic computer firms that eventually got inside voting equipment in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan,
and Pennsylvania, states which you may just remember were all
won by Joe Biden. CNN is not detailing how the
Little Thought Electron jumped from Jack Smith's investigation of Trump
fundraising scams to Sidney Powell's electronic breaking and entering, But
(07:45):
there it is. There could be a fifth set of
federal indictments, or folded into the elections subversion trial in Washington,
a second case in which Donald Trump is reindicted, reinnided,
(08:07):
and it feels so good. Reindided like a spy.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
In Wood's one perfect fit.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Are the country's so excited causes.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Prey, Thank you, Nancy Faust.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Sorry, couldn't resist, nor evidently can Trump resist. Hugh Hewitt,
the man who grew up so poor that his family
could only afford the two syllables with which to try
to build a first and last name out of, asks
Trump if he will testify at his own trial. Oh yes,
(08:52):
he says absolutely, and a mighty roar goes up from
everybody in the Special Council's office. Quote, I'll look forward
to testifying a trial. I'll testify, And cheers go through
the halls. Shay Fanny Willis now again pump the brakes.
Trump said this, It doesn't mean he's gonna do this,
(09:16):
call it the Infrastructure week rule. But wait, there's more.
Poor Hugh Hugh asks him another question if Smith and
Willis and Alvin Bragg said we're willing to drop all
the charges, but you have to leave the presidential race. Quote.
I have no interest, you know me well enough. No interest,
Absolutely no interest. I think they'd make that deal right now,
(09:39):
which means he has interest and I don't know about
them making that deal right now crew just sued, and
the fourteenth Amendment is now so mainstream. I heard about
it right in the middle of the repeating headlines on
the New York all news radio station WIS, right between
the real field temperature of ninety six and traffic on
(10:02):
the FDR and whatever dumb thing Mayor adams Us said.
Why even the Associated Press reported about the fourteenth Amendment.
This is a friendly suit crew suing the Secretary of
State of Colorado on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated voters,
including a conservative Denver Post columnist and former Trump voter,
(10:23):
and separately a former Republican state legislative leader, and they
asked that Trump be disqualified from the ballot. There, the
Secretary of State, Jenna Griswold replies, quote, this case will
provide guidance to election officials on Trump's eligibility as a
candidate for office. You bet it will. Colorado is the
venue because it allows ballot challenges to go straight to
(10:44):
court and it can be wrapped up before the primaries
hit next January. And because and this is fascinating. Eight
years ago, a naturalized American citizen who was born in
Guyana sued over this issue of presidential eligibility. He claimed
the requirement that every candidate be born in the US
(11:06):
was unfair and he wanted to be on the presidential ballot.
He lost his lawsuit, and when it was appealed to
a federal appeals court, the judge there upheld the defeat
because there are constitutional eligibility requirements to be president and
they should be enforced. And the judge who said that
was Neil Gorsuch roight Row calling Leonard Leo, we need
(11:35):
a replacement for Neil Gorstch immediately. What's Jason Whitlock doing now?
The other headlines of Trump and the terrible, horrible, no good,
very bad day he has as good as lost his
second defamation suit to Egen Carroll. Okay, which one of
your geniuses keep scheduling Trump to face Ejen Carroll? She's
four and oh against him? For Christ's sake, the judge
(11:59):
here ruled that Trump is liable for defamatory statements he
made about her when she originally went public about the
rape in twenty nineteen. The trial will now deal only
with how much more, if anything, Trump owes her on
top of the five million he already owes her from
the other defamation suit. Meanwhile, in a different New York
(12:20):
court room, another New York judge threw out Trump's bid
to delay the corporate fraud civil lawsuit filed by New
York State Attorney General Tis James, and he kicked Trump
in the ass as he did it. Trump's arguments in
this case are quote completely without merit. In the Fannie
Willis prosecution in Georgia, prosecutors told to judge they anticipate
(12:43):
a four month trial, a four month trial, or as
we call it here in New York, half a Mets season. Also,
the Ken Cheeseboro and Sidney Powell bids to get their
trials severed from the others, Well, it's going to stay
Cheese and Kraken. They will get the expedited trials they
wanted starting late next month, and they will be together
(13:05):
and the judge will decide shortly. If the other seventeen
defendants Trump included, we'll start on that date or later.
It is just possible, just possible, that Powell and Cheeseboro
lost because, according to prosecutors, each of them cited seven
cases as precedents, except none of the seven cases were
rico charges, and in all seven of the cases, the
(13:28):
defendants did not get their trials separated from the others,
which seems like an excellent strategy if you're trying to lose. Now,
back to Mary A. Lago and the stolen classified documents case.
Not a shock unless you are still shocked by Trump
being so Dunning Krueger that he should change his name
to Donald J. Dunning Krueger Trump. Remember the ex Trump attorney,
(13:51):
Evan Corkoran, the one that prosecutors got a judge to
force to testify against him because he had made audio
memos of every meeting with Trump. ABC News has seen
transcripts of some of those men, and in one Corkoran
memorialized that in May of twenty twenty two May, he
warned Trump face to face that if Trump did not
(14:13):
comply with the new Justice Departments of poena to return
all them classified docs, the FBI might wind up searching
the joint Then, on another Corkoran memo, another attorney warrened
Corkoran that if he pushed Trump to comply, quote, He's
just gonna go ballistic, like that's news or something. Corkoran's
(14:36):
memos show that Trump was by that time May of
last year trying to dictate where the lawyers and the
Feds could and could not look for the documents. They
also showed that every time Corkoran tried to talk about reality,
Trump complained he was the victim, and he was being targeted,
and he was the usual martyrdom stuff, et cetera, et cetera.
But there is one glorious detail. Corcoran and Trump are
(15:00):
in Trump's office, and per ABC, they are quote in
front of a Norman Rockwell style painting depicting Ronald Reagan,
Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, and Trump playing poker unquote. There
is nothing on the Corcoran recordings of how many dozen
(15:21):
aces Trump had up his sleeve in the painting, nor
how he managed to assert that he was entitled to
keep them there. And also from Mary a Lago. I
mean this was obvious by August twenty second, and some
news outlets were still pretending yesterday was breaking news. But
yesterday the mouthpiece that Trump had supplied for his it
guy at Marri a Lago, you Seal Tavares, Stanley Woodward,
(15:45):
who is now U Seal's ex attorney. Stanley Woodward made
it official. Taveres cut a deal with prosecutors and he
will testify against the others, like maybe Trump, like Trump
co defendant Carlos. The boss wants the server deleted de
olivera and he will not be arched. And best of all, Tavaris'
(16:07):
name is you Seal? You make the van time leave me?
You seal? We already counts against me and your plead.
The boss wants Server to lead, it, won't he? You
make the van time leave me? You see think youay?
(16:27):
It's a fast and one last headline. If there is
anything worse than the guy Sean Connery references in The
Untouchables the guy who brings a knife to a gunfight,
there is the other guy who brings a knife to
a gunfight and then boasts about how much trouble the
guy with the gun is in. And lastly, of course,
there's the guy who brings the knife to an atomic war.
(16:51):
And that guy is Mike Huckabee. Before I play you
this clip, I always flash back to Mike Huckabee's extraordinary cowardice.
Chris Matthews and I I were actually sent to Columbia,
South Carolina. First, we went to California for the first debate,
but in May of two thousand and seven, We went
(17:13):
to Columbia, South Carolina to anchor live MSNBC coverage of
the second Republican debate, and we're doing the pregame show
and they bring Huckabee out for a quick interview, and
Matthews rises to greet him, but huck has only got
eyes for me, and he's staring in shock that I
am there. He is frozen, he's got no idea what
(17:36):
to do. He's just standing there and he starts staring
daggers at me, And finally I said, no, don't worry, Governor,
I've got this segment off. You don't have to make
a scene. He later told conservative writers that he had
refused to do the segment if I was on, which
might have been true, but was kind of irrelevant since
I wasn't Huckabee after he blew out of the presidential race.
(17:59):
He actually was a candidate for president. Used to be
on Fox, then he used to be on AB Radio,
that he was on Cumulus. Now he's on the Trinity
Broadcasting Network. And see if this crap from his latest show,
Hawkabee sounds at all familiar.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Do you know how political opponents to those in power
are dealt with in Third World? Dictatorships, the Nana republics,
and communist regimes. Well, it's simple. The people in power
use their police agencies to arrest their opponents for made
up crimes in an attempt to discredit them, bankrupt them,
imprison them, exile them. Are all of the above.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So wait, Mike Cockabee is being critical of Trump and
the Republicans. Oh, he's not, even though Trump's entire campaign
in twenty sixteen was lock her Up, and while President
Trump repeatedly tried to get Hillary Clinton prosecuted and James
Comy prosecuted, and his campaign this time around has been
about how he's going to prosecute everybody who's ever crossed him.
(19:03):
And we're this close to threatening to prosecute the other
owners from the United States Football League who dared to
send out teams to try to defeat his sainted team,
the New Jersey Genitals of nineteen eighty three and eighty four.
We rejoin my Kakabee threatening people will be killed if
Trump is not re elected. Already in progress. Here's the problem.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from
winning or even running in twenty twenty four, it is
going to be the last American election that will be
decided by ballots rather than bullets.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
As always, Republicans introduce something evil, then they attempt the evil.
Then they bluntly surprisingly fail to pull off the evil
because they talk a great game, but they can neither
govern nor strong arm. And then they whine and claim
they are the victims of something the Democrats just invented,
(19:55):
when the Democrats do a legal and morally justifiable version
of the illegal Republican thing. Also, as I always like
to throw in for the edification of Republicans and fascists
and red Staters and other losers who only understand stuff
like this, who is it again? Who has all the tanks?
(20:25):
Also of interest here, I still have the throat infection.
Got a little worse. Actually, I've got a worse person's next,
I've got Rand Paul talking about that quote vacant look
where quote you're sort of basically unconscious with your eyes
open and startlingly. No, he's not looking at his own reflection.
(20:45):
That's next, This discountdown.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Still ahead on countdown. It is the universal warning, if
you want to enjoy sausage, never go see how the
sausage is made. It's not just about how gross sausage
can be behind the scenes. It's also about how peeking
behind any curtain can take the magic out of what's
produced behind the curtain. It's forty eight years since I
(21:29):
was warned, if you want to enjoy radio or TV,
or movies or any kind of media, do not start
working in them. Sadly, I ignored that. The day that
I ignored it coming up in things I promised not to tell.
Plus a singing surprise for you if you stay all
the way through the end. Plus Okay, my E and
(21:50):
T says, I can give you the daily roundup of
the miscreants, morons, and Dunn Kruger effects specimens who constitute
today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze Anderson Cooper
talking about not being able to enjoy broadcasting ever again,
the world's longest running unsuccessful marketing experiment is still making
(22:13):
hay Off the death of his mother and his brother.
Book three on this topic is Coming, got him another
profile in The New York Times. He now has more
profiles in The New York Times than he has viewers.
But if that's the way you want to live your life,
have fun. The latest Times fluff piece didn't question him
once about denigrating his own audience, saying on air they
(22:37):
were quote staying in your silo and only listening to
people you agree with. But it did give him the
chance to really show how little he understands what he
does for a living. The Times Fluffer asked him about
Chris Licked quote, I don't know what Chris Licks analysis was.
I don't have much confidence that I actually know what
he was thinking. Well, welcome to the club. I try
(22:59):
to worry about stuff I actually have my hands on.
For me, it's the show that I work on. That
is my priority, and I do whatever I can to
do that to make that as good as I can.
My sense from Chris was there was not a lot
we needed to hash out because I'm not an opinion host.
I'm talking to people from different sides and trying to
(23:19):
be straight down the middle and represent things fairly and accurately.
Upshot of this is Anderson Cooper thinks he's not an
opinion host and he's trying to be straight down the middle.
And no, the guy did not ask him how that
would jibe with attacking his own audience and ending his
career the way he did the runner up, Little Jimmy O'Keefe.
(23:43):
And I think I first put him on this list
in two thousand and nine, and fourteen years later, you know,
it is kind of nice to know that the only
thing I got wrong about him was how much of
a bozo he was. And he is, And you're thinking, yeah,
I know this story. I know about this. He bankrupted
his little deceptive editing outfit, Project Veritas, by spending all
Project Veritas money on helicopters that he could take to
(24:08):
musicals that he would pay for so he could star
in them. But wait, there's more. The Washington Post got
hold of an internal audit on where all the money
went at Project Kiss my Ass. And I cannot paraphrase
this paragraph any better than Will Summer wrote it, so
I'm just going to quote him verbatim. In September twenty
(24:31):
twenty one, according to the report, Hurricane Ida floodwaters threatened
to destroy the Project Veritas office in Mamaranac, New York.
The staff scrambled to save equipment and their own lives.
One elderly employee was briefly pulled under water and had
to be rescued. By colleagues, but O'Keefe had already left
the scene, asking employees to prioritize his own evacuation so
(24:56):
he could make it to Virginia for a performance of
the musical Oklahoma, in which he had the lead role.
According to staffers cited by the audit Ohklahoma, where the
floodwaters nearly drowned the staffer, but our winner Rand Paul. Now, look,
(25:21):
if Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell were both on fire
and the hydraulic laws of nature were overwhelming me, i'd
hold it in. But Rand Paul's statement about Mitch McConnell's
recent freezes, it's just amazing, and maybe not for the
obvious reason. Rand Paul, who is a board certified ophthalmologist,
(25:44):
only because he created his own board to rival the
real board, and he had his own board certify him.
Rand Paul is not convinced by McConnell's doctor's explanation that
his recent episodes of vapor locke were caused by dehydration.
When you get dehydrated, Rand Paul says, you don't have
moments when you're eyes look in the distance with a
(26:06):
vacant look, and you're sort of basically unconscious with your
eyes open. So you and I need to start a
go fund me to buy Senator Rand Paul a mirror.
Moments when your eyes look in the distance, those are
the only moments Rand Paul has. Vacant look. Rand Paul
(26:30):
owns the vacant look. Sort of basically unconscious with your
eyes open. My God, sort of basically unconscious with your
eyes open is the Rand Paul brand. Rand dead eyed
Dick is not the compliment you may think it is.
Paul two days, Let's see if I can do this
(26:53):
worst person in the world to the number one story
on the Countdown and my favorite topic me and another
edition of Things I Promised not to tell. Earlier this month,
(27:15):
the film director Peter Jackson was on a podcast put
out by The Hollywood Reporter magazine, and he said his
greatest regret about making the Lord of the Rings trilogy
was that he could never actually go see the films.
It is such a regret. Peter Jackson said he had
looked into getting hypnotherapy to make him forget the work
he did on the films, and even to forget the
(27:37):
films themselves, just so he could go see them. Like
the ninety nine point nine to nine nine percent of
the world that did not direct the Hobbit flicks. Quoting
Jackson from the Awards Chatter podcast, it was such a
loss for me not to be able to experience them
like everyone else was that I actually did seriously consider
going to a hypnotherapy guy and to hypnotize me, to
(27:59):
make me forget about the films and forget about the
work I'd done over the last six to seven years,
so I could sit and enjoy them. Just put your
head down here on the taper racing machine and we'll
hit the degaos button and you'll be fine. Pete. I mean,
you won't remember anything since the year twenty fifteen. But
away we go. It didn't happen. Apparently Jackson chickened out,
(28:23):
so no hypnotherapist caused him to forget making The Lord
of the Rings. But one, I guess made me remember
a piece of advice that somebody should have given Peter
Jackson before he made The Lord of the Rings trilogy
forty seven years ago. This week, I arrived at Cornell
University as a sixteen year old freshman. We all got
there on Sunday, August twenty fourth. My folks stayed I
(28:46):
think one night, and before they left, my dad helped
me to find the college radio station WVBR, which turned
out not to really be a college radio station per se.
It wasn't even on the campus. We were driving around
for quite a while until we found it early in
the afternoon of Monday, August twenty fifth, seventy five. This
is the anniversary. The address was two twenty seven Linden Avenue, Ithaca,
(29:09):
New York. I walked into this sprawling, always a little cold,
but nicely converted old gas station and parking garage, and
the first person I saw was a young, not too
tall woman who asked me if she could help me,
and I said, Hi, I'm a freshman. I'd like to
become a sportscaster. And she actually said, sounds like you
(29:29):
already are. Hi. I'm ROBERTA. Haber. I'm the training director,
but we don't really start training until about four weeks
from now. You'll see the flyers in the announcements. It
should be the last Monday in September. I think we'll
be able to find a place for you. She gave
me a quick tour of WBR and then ushered me
the hell out. I checked for those flyers every day,
(29:49):
and finally there they were Monday, September twenty second, at
open house for would be disc jockeys, newspeople, sportscasters, engineers,
eight pm WVBRFM Studios. I got there a little early
and there were already fifth people in the station lounge.
There were still a few open spots on the floor.
The place kept filling out. They cut it off and
(30:12):
started asking people to come back for a second open
house the next night. When it got to be about
one hundred of us sitting there, and when it was
so crowded in the lounge that I could no longer
see the posters on the wall celebrating two of the
most hotly promoted young rock stars of the day, Bruce
Springsteen and Loud and Waynewright the third. Anyway, we finally
(30:32):
got started. That woman who had greeted me Roberta, started
the inevitable passing around of the sign up sheet, and
then she said something that somebody should have told Peter
Jackson before he made those movies. She said, more or less,
this may sound like a joke, but it's not. We
always give this warning on the first night of training.
If you ever want to listen to the radio again
and just enjoy it. Here's the door. Leave now. Several
(30:58):
people laughed. No, I'm serious. Even if you just start
training and then leave, it'll still be too late for
you to ever just enjoy radio again. And the further
you get into it, the more things you have to
cross off your list. It's not that I can't listen
to the radio anymore. I can hear every accent. I
(31:18):
can hear everybody with a mushy s. I can hear
the dead air, I can hear the bad segues from
record to record. Well, that's bad enough. I'm in radio,
but this is my senior year, and I can't just
listen to music anymore. I used to be the music director.
Now I judge every song I hear. Would this be
good on WVBR. I can hear singers mispronounced words. I
(31:40):
can hear notes that aren't perfect. If you want to
enjoy radio or music, here's the door, leave now. Not
so many people laugh this time, and she continued. It
even begins to affect watching TV and movies because radio
gives you an idea of how TV and movies work
as well. There's an old saying, if you like sausage,
(32:01):
never go see how they make sausage. Even if you
like watching to make it, though, you'll still always think,
I wonder if they're making it correctly? What's the recipe here?
So if you want to enjoy radio, or music, or
television or life ever again, leave now. The guy sitting
next to me left. I did not. I wanted to
(32:21):
see how they made the sausage. The inability to just
sit back and flip the radio on and not pay
attention to it was a fair trade off. I had
already been doing that in high school. We had a
high school radio station. It wasn't much, but I used
to then listen to other radio stations, the real ones,
and go, that guy has a really, really bad New
York accent. WVBR turned out to be the best training
(32:42):
ground in the country. In my senior year, we literally
had a twenty nine year old guy from San Francisco
named Al who wanted to become a sportscaster and a
radio commercial salesman, and he moved to Ithaca, New York,
just to train at WVBR. I loved Ithaca, New York,
but I would never move from San Francisco. To Ithaca,
New York. That effect that you will hear every mistake
(33:05):
and reduce every joy to something technical. That actually began
to wear off after twenty years or so. I can
put the radio on now and once out of every
I don't know, three or four, one hundred times, I
won't hear the mistake or the sibilant s, or the
news reporter coming on and his volume in the studio
(33:25):
is too low and he sounds like this. There are
still some periodic flashbacks too, to other things that happened
early in my career. There one day, my clock radio
alarm went off at exactly the right moment that, deeply asleep,
I still heard the newscaster introduce my pre taped morning
sportscast Now as sports Here's Keith Olderman. I sat up
(33:47):
in bed. Immediately I reached for some non existent script
and began to shout indecipherable nonsense. Well you know that
I still do it anyway. They didn't make me go
through the full training program back in nineteen seventy five.
I made it onto the air about ten days later.
A year later, I was the sports director, which was great,
except all ten of those senior sportscasters who were there
(34:10):
had graduated, and the day I got back to Ithaca
in August nineteen seventy six, the program director said, until
you find some more sportscasters, you have to do all
the sportscasts. And while I pretended that that would have
been terrible, I figured eventually I'd probably want to take
a day off from the radio station and I don't know,
maybe go to a class, or go for a meal
(34:30):
or something. So I put up signs in all the
freshman dorums offering a quick training program, and sure enough
I got six or seven guys who wanted to be sportscasters.
And the first thing I said to them was listen,
if you ever want to enjoy radio again, forget this,
because you'll always be thinking about how they make the sausage.
I mean, I don't even enjoy sports as much as
(34:51):
I used to. Well, they all got cleared to go
on the air. One of them wound up as the
general manager of the radio station, and you know what,
all that got me the job as the head of
training for the entire state the next year. I did
that for two years and probably got fifty or sixty
people into the station on the air or whatever, including
(35:12):
one particular engineer, a techie named Ruby. He would never
answer anything else who later invented the iPod for Steve Jobs.
And I told them all the same thing, if you
want to enjoy listening to radio, get out while you
can before we teach you how to do it. Sausage
does not look that good ever again. And years later,
(35:35):
when WVBRFM hit kind of hard times, Ruby John Rubinstein
bought them a new transmitter tower and I paid for
most of the new studio, and I named it after
my dad. In one of my colleagues there, Glenn Cornelius,
I'm only sorry about one thing, which is that I
did not get to Warren Peter Jackson about how if
(35:55):
he wanted to enjoy anything ever again, he should have
gotten out on day one two. I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown
(36:17):
has come to you from our studios high top the
Sports Capsule Building in New York, around the corner from
my various doctors. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Shanel. They are the Countdown Musical directors. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel, guitars, bass and
drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
(36:40):
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two,
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of ESPN, Inc.
And I promise yes we will again someday have a
sports section. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball
stadium organist ever who accompanies me in my many singing
(37:01):
efforts or should those be attempts? I'll announced to day
it was my friend John Deane, and everything else was
pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this, the nine
hundred and seventy fifth day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States,
convict him twice in one day. While we still can Yeah,
I'm upping the ante. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow,
(37:24):
Bolton says, the news warrants, and as my throat infection
permits till then, I'm Keith Olverman. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, good luck. And since you have been good
enough to hear me out and to stick this out
to the end, I'm going to close with the world
premiere of the complete recording session and the unreleased takes
(37:47):
of You picked a fine time to leave me? You
seal wild tracks on you pick to find time to
leave me? Five four three two one.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
You make time to leave me?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
You seal before the counts aginst me and your plea deal.
The boss wants server de leaded? Won't he you make
the fine time to leave me? You see?
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Thank you Nancy Post, you makee come on, You make divine.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Time to leave me. You seal before the countscuse me
and your plead deal. The boss wants server de lead it.
Won't he you make divine time to leave me? You see?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Thinking it's a fast you make the fine time to
leave me.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
You seal before the counts ginst me and your plea deal.
The bas us wants server deleted.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Won't he you mack divine time to leave me?
Speaker 1 (39:09):
You see? Thinking answer fast? One more time, a little deeper.
Can you make the fine tom to leave me? You
see before accounts against me and your pleaded The boss
(39:30):
wants server deleaded, won't he you? Mack the fine time
to leave me?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
You see thinking I Answer Faust.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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