August 25, 2025 • 55 mins
SEASON 4 EPISODE 7: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: So WTF with Trump's health? Is he dying? Or is he fine?
Clearly, there is a Donald Trump health crisis. What is its exact nature? Is he sick? Is he fine? Is there some acceptable explanation for his swollen face and narrowed eyes last shown publicly on Friday? And what does the enlarged left hand mean? And what does the bruised right one covered in make up MEAN? And are those ballooned engorged ankles as benign as claimed by the latest doctor, Captain Barbabella? Is the president of the United States – whoever he is, whatever we think of him - gravely ill?
Would they tell us if he were?
Would they tell… HIM?
No, no, it’s all just “chronic venous insufficiency." Not serious. When we saw him Friday he looked like he'd just changed out of a hospital gown. And behind these questions – why is the national news media still giving the clear decline in Trump’s appearance and clarity and likely in his physical health less attention than the irrelevancy that is Biden’s cognition level from LAST YEAR?
Lost in the Trumpstein cover-up, the Ghislaine Maxwell hostage video, Trump’s planned terrorism in Chicago, the John Bolton raid – Trump's face was so puffy – even for HIM - that his eyes looked like slits, barely open. Right hand with a contusion, clear tape, what could have been traces of blood near the fingers, running from the thumb through the middle finger and up, under the shirtsleeve, badly covered in make-up. Left hand so swollen it looked like something they’d draw for a cartoon character: the BASE of those fingers 40 or 50 percent larger than the ends and his ability to use the hand clearly impaired enough to make him hesitate. And we didn’t see the ankles this time. We saw them when he was in Alaska with Putin and they were wider than his feet.
Last time he only lied about his health on every topic from getting a colonoscopy to nearly getting intubated for Covid. Before that his personal doctor said everything except 'he's immortal' then confessed Trump dictated the statement. What's going on?
PLUS: Trump’s latest terrorist invasion will be of Chicago is about Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, just like LA was about Gavin Newsom, just like DC was about a Democratic local government, just like New York will be about Zohran Mamdani. And it’s all unconstitutional and more of the Trump dictatorship – unchallenged. And what, the Epstein Files were in John Bolton’s house? So Trump’s cult is going to believe ONE of Ghislaine Maxwell's 750 lies but not the other 749?
B-Block (29:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Live in Washington, Pam Bondi reveals she thinks she's in Miami. A confidante of NYC Mayor Eric Adams gives a reporter cash wrapped up in a potato chip bag. And the Cracker Barrel protestors prove they'll eat anything as long as you call them Crackers.
C-Block (45:30) SPORTSBALLCENTER/THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It is the greatest document ever written in the English language. Well, at least the greatest sports document. It is so amazing that for a long time, historians doubted it was real. It's called "Special Instructions To Players" and they had to read it, sign it, and hand it back because it was about banning them for life for excessive profanity. And there sure is excessive profanity! And I am going to read it to you.
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. What
(00:24):
is the exact nature of Donald Trump's health crisis? Is
he dying? Is he well? Is he sick? Is he fine?
Is there some acceptable explanation for his swollen face and
narrowed eyes, last shown publicly on Friday? And what does
(00:46):
the enlarged left hand mean? And what does the bruised
right hand covered in makeup mean? And are those ballooned
and gorged ankles as benign as claimed by his latest doctor,
Captain Barbarabella. Is the President of the United States, whoever
(01:06):
he is, whatever we think of him, the most important
man in the world. Is the President of the United States?
Gravely ill? Would they tell us if he were? Would
they tell him? No? It's all just chronic veinous insufficiency.
(01:28):
And behind these questions, these literally life and death questions,
why is the national news media still giving the clear decline,
the accelerating decline in Trump's appearance and clarity, and likely
in his physical health, less attention than they are giving
right now to the irrelevancy that is Biden's cognition levels
(01:52):
from last year lost in the Trump's Stein cover up.
The Gallaine Maxwell hostage video, Trump's planned terrorism in Chicago,
the John Bolt raid. Lost in all that, Trump on
Friday looked like he had just changed out of a
hospital gown. Face so puffy even for him, that his
(02:14):
eyes looked like slits, barely open. Right hand with a contusion,
some sort of clear tape on it, but it could
have been traces of blood near the fingers, running from
the thumb through the middle finger and then up under
the shirt sleeve, badly covered in smeared makeup. That was
the right hand. The left hand so swollen it looked
(02:37):
like something they would draw for a cartoon character. The
base of those fingers forty or fifty percent larger than
the ends of those fingers, and his ability to use
that hand clearly impaired enough to make him hesitate as
he turned a photograph around. And we didn't see the
ankles this time. We saw them when he was in
(03:00):
Alaska with Putin, and they were wider than his feet.
It's not like this is something new. Middle of July,
a bruise on his hand, some kind of sticker or
tape on it, makeup atop bat, too much handshaking, the
White House said, knowing that no one from a major
news organization would even imply that this was a ridiculous
(03:23):
and insulting excuse that was more transparent than whatever they
had put on his hand after they detached what must
have been a line for a blood draw or an
ivy or a transfusion or something else in which the
veins on the top of the hand are accessed because
the ones at the inside of the wrist or the
elbow can't be isolated or are insufficient. And then it
(03:47):
was the middle of February, meeting with Emmanuel Macron. Same hand,
same plastic cover up, same makeup, same journalistic indifference. In
his first term, Donald Trump lied about everything health wise
from a COVID infection and serious enough that his physicians
were ready to ventilate him to a routine colonoscopy that
(04:10):
he didn't want revealed so he would not have to
transfer presidential power, even temporarily to Mike Pence. For a
couple of hours, the President of the United States was
unconscious with a rubber hose up his ass. Actually, that's
an improvement. His personal physician before the first election made
(04:34):
a statement insisting that Trump might as well have been immortal.
He later admitted Trump dictated that statement. Trump lies about
everything else. He and those around him lied blatantly and
almost nonchalantly about his health once when his life was imperiled.
We didn't get answered about the shooting last year for hours.
(04:54):
We still haven't gotten most of the answers about the shooting.
So there is a history of deceit on this topic,
and there is also a history of bad health. And
nobody he is asking these questions ahead of all the others.
What is the exact nature of Trump's health crisis? Why
can't he fully open his effing eyes? What is wrong
(05:20):
with him? Is it circulatory? Is it cardiac? Is he
getting enough blood to his brain, or maybe more correctly,
is he getting even less blood to his brain than
he has for the last seventy years? Is he dying?
Is he in fact in heart failure? Is his condition,
whatever it is, manageable or is it debilitating? Is he
(05:42):
debilitated right now? Is whatever going on the cause of
Trump's cognitive loss? Or is that something separate seventy nine
years of age? This could be anything. It could be
chronic venus insufficiency plus something else in one hand and
(06:05):
the need for IVS or blood jaws from the other hand,
and a face swollen enough to forcibly close his eyes.
But anybody who has seen congestive heart failure in a
relative or friend knows that none of this, especially the
swelling at the extremities, is inconsistent with that diagnosis. But
(06:28):
the point is The New York Times tried to break
Joe Biden a year ago because he would not prove
to them he wasn't slowed. Where is the Times musing?
Are Trump's quadruple excised ankles and hands healthy in this
Ohio diner? These cardiologists don't think so. Where's the Washington
(06:49):
Posts sidebar nestled behind? It's now constant praising Trump with
faint damnation about his lower legs, looking like he was
preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Where is the Jake Tapper
instant book? What is the exact nature of the President's
(07:11):
health crisis? Would they tell us? Would they tell him?
Would he believe them? Trump's latest terrorist invasion is now planned.
(07:54):
It is of Chicago, a couple thousand Red State National
guardsmen and or active troops. This is about the Governor
of Illinois, JB. Pritzker, Just like La and Ice and
the illegal usurpation of the California National Guard was about
the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, just like DC was
(08:14):
about an entire democratic government led by a mayor who
responded to the first attack against her and her city
with the stupid assertion that maybe there was a silver lining,
which served only to show Trump her vulnerability. Just like
New York, when it comes, will be about Zoran Mamdani,
either to screw up his election or to give him
(08:35):
a crisis on his first day as mayor. This is
all designed now to dirty up Key Democrats and to
show the fascist cult that he will do it, and
to warn his opponents that he will do it, and
to dare somebody to stop him. And guess what, nobody
is stopping him. Fake a crisis, build a giant, dangerous
(08:59):
photo op out of threats of terrorist violence by the government,
then later say things were so bad in Illinois, I
your savior had to step in. It is the complete
road map on how to turn a democracy into a dictatorship.
Trump using troops and federalizing the National Guard and fabricating
(09:21):
an emergency is unconstitutional. It is a sweeping violation of
the possecommatatis Act, it is not a Title thirty two
exception to section five oh two pertinent to the Possecommatatis Act.
Title thirty two allows a president to let the federal
government pay for the more extensive training of state National
(09:46):
guardsmen so the states don't have to pay. It does
not let him do this, and the insistence that there
is precedent for Trump doing it, that it's a well
established precedence that dates all the way back to twenty twenty,
when Trump gassed protesters outside the White House so he
could pose with the first Bible he had ever held
(10:09):
at a church he'd never been inside. In other words,
building a photo off out of threats of terrorist violence
by the government, and then later saying things were so
bad during the Black Lives protests, I your savior had
to step in. That's what Chicago will be. That's what
the new side threats against Mayor Bowser are. Mayor Muriel
(10:32):
Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime
figures where bad things will happen. What are you gonna do, asshole?
Have her hit by lightning? The response to this none.
The response you must give a creature like Trump, who,
at his peak at his best is a psychonic narcissist.
(10:54):
The response must be hey, old man, f you, and
she still won't do that. So now on Friday he
comes back another threat to quote, get her act straight,
or she won't be mayor very long because we'll take
it over the hell you will. The threats against the
(11:19):
mayor of the nation's capital city are mirrored now by
threats against the state of Colorado. Not the governor, not
a mayor, there everybody in Colorado unless they release from
prison the corrupt county clerk Tina Peters, who let election
deniers have access to the actual Colorado state voting equipment
(11:43):
and got her ass sentenced to nine years in jail.
Trump is now demanding she be freed. Quote. If she
is not released, I am going to take harsh measures again.
He did this the sitting president because a she was
convicted on state charges, so he cannot pardon yet another
(12:04):
in soer directionist. And b because after the election, the
governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, tried to appease Trump, and
as mayor, Bowser just discovered you do not flinch when
he does something like this. If you flinch, he will
be back for more from you. You do not flinch.
You kick him in the nuts. The son of a
(12:25):
bitch threatened the Commissioner of Baseball yesterday, because the Commissioner
of Baseball has not put statutory rapist Pete Rose in
the Hall of Fame yet, and now Trump also wants
Roger Clemens in the Hall of Fame, presumably in the
same wing, even though the Commissioner of Baseball does not
decide who goes into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and
(12:46):
there has not been a Baseball Hall of Fame vote
since Trump made his demand about Pete Rose, but the
Commissioner has not said no to Trump as long as
Trump has been going to games, going to games using
free tickets, I might add, supplied to him by the
New York Yankees, because billionaires can't afford baseball tickets. The
(13:11):
threats Trump carries out are against the individuals and entities
that do not fight back. When I say fight back,
I don't mean destroy him, usurp him. They don't have
to destroy him, they don't have to depose him, they
don't have to damage him. They just have to say no,
and he goes away because it's easier to find somebody
(13:33):
over in the next county who won't say no. The
Pentagon's Internal Intelligence Agency did not say no. It issued
its assessment of Trump's photo op attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
It correctly said those facilities were not obliterated. He criticized them,
they did nothing. He has now purged the head of
(13:53):
the intelligence agency and two other veteran a political military
leaders who did not fight back. That's what the jets
are about. That's why Trump is stalling for Putin on Ukraine.
Change your position one hundred times and give Putin two
weeks to respond to each new position, and two times
(14:16):
to claim four years will pass. Send out your eyeliner
to buffoon JV vance to explain on meet the press
and not be challenged that. Of course, Zelenski has to negotiate.
All wars end in negotiation. World War two ended in negotiation.
Oh you remember that, right, Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo
(14:39):
meeting with FDR and Truman, just before Hitler killed himself
and they burned his body, just before they hung Mussolini
upside down from an s O filling station, and just
before they dropped two nukes on Tojo. Those were negotiations.
(15:02):
That's why they are going to the mats with killmar
Abrado Garcia. First he had to be out of the
country immediately a terrorist threat. Then he had to be
returned to the country immediately to stand trial. Now that
a court has ruled that he cannot be kidnapped and
disappeared to l Salvador and he can go free on bail,
(15:22):
Suddenly they had threatened to deport him again, this time
to Uganda unless he accepts deportation to Costa Rica. And
what happened to the part about how he had to
be returned here immediately to stand trial on all those
things they said he did. They're willing to lie, to
(15:44):
destroy this man, to destroy his family, to destroy the law.
They're willing to change their own story, change it again,
change it a third time, blackmail this man. All because
Trump cannot be wrong, cannot be challenged, cannot be seen
as anything but omniscient and omnipotent, and also can I
(16:04):
be seen as so sick that he can't fully open
his own damned eyes. Trump has become convinced that he
gets to decide everything and that everything you have is
a gift from him. Stock market went up. He did that,
stock market went down Well fears that he wasn't in
(16:27):
sufficient control of the stock market. This is not just
evil and insane and probably exacerbated by serious, profound physical illness.
It is messianic. And a Messianic dictator would start a
nuclear war and destroy everything rather than be found out,
(16:51):
rather than be proved evil by something like whatever is
in the Epstein files, the Epstein files which apparently were
hidden in John Bolton's pants, in John Bolton's house or
(17:19):
John Bolton's house, is that where they're transferring Glaine Maxwell next.
Every step that Trump's criminal conspiracy posing as a government
tries to hide the truth makes his cover up even
more important than whatever it is he is trying to
cover up, and boys he trying to cover it up.
(17:41):
And so you do not have to rank highly knowing
the truth about the organized perversions and crimes of Epstein
and Maxwell and Trump's involvement or non involvement to actually
care about the cover up, but to believe that Trump's
Stein is somehow resolved or Trump's somehow cleared by what
is almost literally a hostage video by Glaine Maxwell, proven liar,
(18:08):
proven child sex trafficker, to believe that she has somehow
cleared him as a corner of MAGA, and nearly all
of the Republican Party now says it does believe. Is
to say, in essence, sure Glene Maxwell is a liar,
and sure I AM going to pick and choose which
of her seven hundred and fifty lies I believe and
(18:32):
which seven hundred and forty nine of them I do
not believe. They believe her when she lies to the
Deputy Attorney General, who eight months ago was still Trump's
personal lawyer, that Trump never did anything wrong in her
presence and was always a gentleman. Do they believe her
when she lies to him that Epstein did not kill
(18:53):
himself in prison? Do they believe her when she lies
to him that there was no client list or black
book or records? Do they believe her when she says
that a picture of herself, Virginia Geffrey, and Prince Andrew
is a fake? Do they believe her after that interview?
That interview with an attorney who either was there solely
(19:15):
to get her to say so unconvincingly that Trump was uninvolved,
or who, since he never asked one pointed question or
one follow up, that lawyer fulfills a variation on George
Carlin's old joke that's somewhere numerically literally somewhere somebody has
to be the worst lawyer in the world, and somebody
(19:38):
else has an appointment to see him in the morning,
and that may be Todd Blanche, because if Lionel Hutts
weren't from the Simpsons cartoon, he'd be Todd Blanche. Do
they believe her in line to the fact that after
that interview she was transferred from a high security Florida
hell hole to a club fed in Texas, even though
(20:02):
you can't transfer a registered sex offender into a light
security facility for nonviolent criminals unless you rescind her sex
offender status. Do they believe her in light of the
fact that two British tabloids are reporting that another inmate
in that Texas facility to which Maxwell was transferred clearly
(20:22):
as a reward. Another inmate there, named Julie Howell, gave
an interview by email in which she said, every inmate
I've heard from is upset Maxwell is here. This facility
is supposed to house non violent offenders. Human trafficking is
a violent crime. Within hours of the publication of those
(20:43):
quotes that inmate says her lawyer was summoned to the
warden's office and told she was being transferred to the
hardcore Houston Federal Detention Center into a windowless cell there.
When did they believe Galane Maxwell? And when do they not?
(21:05):
When do they turn gravity off in the universe? And
when do they turn it back on? And when are
they so desperate that on the subject of forced sex
with children do they turn as their expert to Jim Jordan.
(21:30):
Now Pete Rose is dead. By the way, that first
sliver of Epstein files that Trump is hiding got to
Congress Friday with no coverage, thirty three thousand pages of junk,
nearly all of it already publicly available. No media coverage,
(21:52):
of course, because John Bolton raid, because Glaine Maxwell interview, release,
because is also sending.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Of the Epstein files over to the House Oversite Committee today.
Are you Are you in support of them releasing all
gut it open if they.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Wanted to, people shouldn't be hurt.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
But I'm in support of keeping it totally open. I
couldn't care less. You got a lot of people that
it could be mentioned that of those files that don't
deserve to be people because he knew everybody in Palm Beach.
I don't know anything about that, but I have said
to Pam and everybody else, give them everything you can
give them, because it's a it's a Democrat hoax. It's
just a hoax. The whole Epstein thing is a Democrat hoax.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Glayne Maxwell might as well have claimed Donald Trump is
a virgin the comic Relief. Nancy Mayce held a campaign
rally in Myrtle Beach over the weekend, or was going to.
The attendance was eight one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
(22:56):
eight people, plenty of good seats available. Local news reports
she walked into where the podium, saw the disaster and
kept walking. She didn't even break stride. So also of
interest here in an all new edition of Countdown, it
sounds like another comedy bit, but it's not. A confidant
(23:17):
of the Mayor of New York City tries to give
a local reporter cash wrapped up in a bag of
opened potato chips, sour cream and onion rippled. The friend
says it was just a gift, a gift to friendship,
and says to the reporter, quote, please don't do in
(23:39):
the news. Nothing about me wise words to live by.
That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
Olberman still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown.
(24:18):
I am going to read to you the greatest document
in the history of the English language, well at least
the greatest sports document in the history of the English language,
unsurpassed for now one and twenty seven years, Special Instructions
(24:42):
to Players from eighteen ninety eight, when Major League Baseball
faced a crisis unlike any other in its history before
or since. The ballparks were growing larger, but the seating
was becoming more intimate. The fans were sitting closer to
the field, and thus they could hear the play swearing
(25:07):
and swearing and swearing and swearing at them in a
way that would make two days players blush. It was
so bad that players were threatened with being banned for
life if they did not read these Special Instructions, then
sign a document saying they had read them and would
(25:30):
obey them, and then give the document back Because there
were so many curse words printed in it that technically
the Instructions to Players was considered legally obscene, and anybody
who tried to send it by the US Post Office
would be arrested next as we do a crossover between
(25:51):
Sportsball Center and Things I promised not to tell. I
don't think you'll believe this was real. For a long time,
baseball historians didn't think. So that's how bad it really is.
First believe it or not, there's still more new idiots
to talk about. The roundup of the miscrants, the morons,
(26:14):
and the Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other
worst persons in the effing world. Lebron's worse Blondie, Pam Blondie.
It's not just that she is evil and without morals
(26:35):
and she should be the one being deported to some
other planet. It's not just that she was the backup
choice when they couldn't get that grunge Matt Gates past
the Grunge Magas. It's not just that her previous biggest
case was putting the baseball player Dwight Gooden behind bars
(26:58):
for a couple of weeks. It's not just that she's
incompetent at her job. It's not just that she sounds
like a guy trying to do an impersonation of a woman.
It's not just all of those things it's also that
she is a complete idiot. In one of her occasional
(27:18):
appearances on Fox News, and by occasional iamine, she was
once on something like seventeen consecutive week nights as the
Attorney General of the United States. In one of her
occasional appearances last week, she decided to praise Trump. While
that's a shock. She decided to praise Trump and this occupation,
(27:40):
this illegal terrorism against the residents of the District of Columbia.
And she decided to praise the members of the National
Guard who have been illegally turned into super cops, robocops,
cops with military grade weapons being carried around on the
streets of Washington, which was a city improving in terms
(28:04):
of its criminality and its ordinary downtown issues. And of course,
they didn't send any of the members of the military
to the troublesome areas where all the crimes are committed,
like say, the White House. They sent them to places
where the public and visitors would see who was in
(28:24):
charge in this dictatorship. So Pambondi decided to praise them
on Fox News and she said, quote, the Metro Dade
police are over the moon that they have this help
from the President the Metro Dade Police, and there isn't
(28:44):
really such an outfit, but if there were, they would
be in Metro Dade, in Dade County, which is part
of the municipality we know as Miami. Metro Daid police
would be in Florida, which is where Pambondy used to
be until she became Attorney General of the United States
in January. It is now late August. She should have
(29:07):
some idea where she is. She doesn't. She thinks she's
still in Miami, or possibly she thinks that Miami and Washington,
DC are the same place. That's the Attorney General of
the United States of America. A bozo. Speaking of which
(29:29):
the runner up worser, Winnie Greco, part of the Eric
Adams gang that has been running this city into the
ground since Bill Deblasio finished running this city into the ground. Sure,
bring on Cromo. Now we need somebody worse than the
two of them combined. Ms Greco was at one point
Adam's top advisor and had a city hall job worth
(29:50):
one hundred thousand a year, and then she got fired
or she quit or something and got a new job
at city Hall worth two hundred thousand dollars a year.
She didn't have that anymore, but she remains connected to
Adams's inexplicable campaign to get re elected as a post
to finishing fourth maybe third in the election if he's lucky.
Ms Greco is in trouble again. Now. She is not
(30:14):
the mayor Adams advisor who was indicted and purp walked
last week. That was somebody else. Nor the donors those
were other people. Nor the fundraiser that was somebody else.
This is the Adams confidant accused of seeking cash to
get in to see Adams and also living in a
suite at a hotel that the city was supposed to
(30:35):
be using to help x cons transition back to regular life. No, no, no, no,
you actually have to be a convicted criminal to live here.
Ms Greco is of Asian descent, and that is relevant
only because that's how she explains what the New York
news site The City has reported about her, and what
(30:55):
the city has reported is quote that she attempted to
give money to a reporter from the city following a
campaign event in Harlem last Wednesday. The failed payoff a
wad of cash in a red envelope stuffed inside an
opened bag of Hers sour cream and onion ripple potato chips.
(31:18):
Greco and the reporter, Katie Honan, walked to the Whole
Food's next door. While inside the store, Greco handed Honan
the opened bag of chips with the top crumpled closed. Honan,
thinking it was an offer of a light snack, told
Greko more than once she could not accept the chips,
but Greko insisted that she keep them. The two parted
ways before entering a nearby subway station. Honan opened the
(31:41):
bag and discovered a red envelope inside stuffed with cash,
at least one one hundred dollar bill and several twenty
dollars bills. The reporter then called Greco and told her
she could not accept the money and asked if she
was still nearby so she could give it back. Greco
said she'd left the area. Honan told her she had
to take the money back, and Greco said they could
(32:02):
meet at some point in Chinatown. In an interview later,
the City asked Greco what her intention was in handing
money to the reporter. In response, she said she'd made
a mistake and apologized over and over. I make a mistake,
she said, I'm so sorry. It's a culture thing. I
(32:22):
don't know. I don't understand. I'm so sorry. I feel
so bad right now. I'm so sorry, honey. She then
called the city back, advising that we call her attorney,
Stephen Brill, and adding can we forget about this. I
try to be a good person. Please please, please don't
do in the news nothing about me. I just wanted
(32:46):
to be her friend. Greco added, I just wanted to
have one good friend. It's nothing. Ms Greco claims this
is the Asian way of being friends, giving people money
in envelopes stuffed into bags of hers sounder cream and onion,
rippled potato chips, or less cringy conveyances of food. And
(33:10):
of course, she has coined a new phrase to go
right next to WinCE. Please don't put in the newspaper
that I got it mad quoting it again. Please don't
do in the news nothing about me. But of course
Wint is a comedy writer. Ms Greco is not, we think.
Please don't do nothing in the news about me. I'm
(33:35):
sorry I misquoted it. Please don't do in the news
nothing about me. I actually cleaned the quote up. Please
don't do in the news. Nothing about me sounds like
a song lyric, doesn't it. But the winner is the worst.
Speaking of food, the cracker barrel protesters if you somehow
(33:56):
missed this, congratulations. I was last week years old as
the kids when I discovered that this was not about
craft cracker barrel cheese, which they've been selling since before
I was born, but instead it's about a series of
restaurants founded much later than cracker barrel Cheese, founded in
(34:20):
nineteen sixty nine. And the mag Assholes are self martyring
again because the company changed its logo from an old
white guy in overalls in an old timey chair leaning
against a barrel next to the words cracker barrel. They've
changed that logo to just the words cracker barrel in
the same font and everything. The right wing thinks this
(34:43):
is woke and that the liberals are getting away with
something again like the Genes ad with the actress Sydney
somebody like this is the most important issue in the
world and everybody is concerned about it, and it's like
cracker barrel cheese. Restaurants they sell just cracker barrel cheese.
(35:08):
There's a series of restaurants in the South. I don't know.
I haven't been to one. I'm not in the South.
That's nice. I don't expect you to know the difference
between the f train and the seven Cracker barrel. Holy crap,
the company literally removed the guy and just you have
to visualize the logo. If the barrel in the Cracker
Barrel logo is the barrel, then the guy is, by
(35:32):
process of elimination, the Cracker. I don't know if the
actual Crackers know this, but Cracker has always been a
nickname for stupid white folks from the South. It's not
a compliment. It's so not a compliment that even the
Atlanta baseball team got rid of it as their nickname
(35:55):
before Atlanta got rid of much of its racism, in fact,
before Cracker Barrel Restaurants debuted. So the company, after fifty
six years, removed the part of the logo that was
the white equivalent of a minstrel show guy in blackface.
And the white guys are all kill them about it.
(36:16):
I swear I thought this was about cheese. It's about
their demand that we continue to call them crackers, white
trash o fays honkys. I mean, it's as if somebody
has removed all the mirrors from their world. On the
(36:37):
one hand, this should be a lesson to all food
and food service companies whose clientele tend to be well crackers, maga.
Whatever your product is, don't worry about it. Just change
your name to something that insults them, something that insults
your customers. Literally, waffle House should change its name to
(37:01):
Luftwaffa House or luftwaffle House. Any KFC south of say Kentucky,
don't bother with restoring the Kentucky Fried Chicken name or
the picture of the kernel or anything. Go directly to
Honky Fried Chicken. The waste management corporation you operate in
(37:24):
the South, you must therefore call yourself there White trash Management.
It's so simple. Just adopt a name insulting these people.
Then cut back on the quality of the food you
sell or the service you provide, raise the prices, reduce
the portion size, start making the waffles out of cardboard.
(37:46):
Just use a racist name by cracker, insulting white people,
and put some character out of the background and background
of gone with the Wind in your logo, and your
profits will double overnight because these people's minds are gone.
Hello Food's turble but it says Cracker on the outside.
(38:08):
So we come here, which reminds me there actually was
somebody to get the award for worst person in the
world today. This is a Twitter x count called Florida Possum.
And this I've heard the word but I've never tried
to spell it before. Award vibe is strong enough that
(38:30):
it could belong to Caroline Levitt. That's how dumb this
person is. Are you ready from at Florida Possum? I
have been going to Cracker Barrel for as long as
I can remember, well, that could be last week. Pal,
First you painted over the antique. Look now you've ruined
your logo. As much as I love Cracker Barrel and
(38:53):
as frequently as I have gone, you've ruined your ambulance. Ah,
I'll just cook it home. Farewell, my friend, r Ip,
you've ruined your ambulance. I am hoping they were going
(39:16):
for ambiance. We're given this stupidity. Maybe the guy meant ambient.
Maybe that's the explanation. I'm not knowing the difference between
ambiance and ambulance. And again, the lesson here is clear.
Trump should have taught us. This should have taught every
(39:38):
company in the world should have taught cracker barrel. No, no, no,
no no, don't don't take the cracker out of the
white the cracker barrel logo. Put two of them in
there and rename it white Cracker Barrel. The Rubes don't
care if the food is good, only if it insults
(39:59):
them but recognizes their red neckatude, Florida possum. You ruined
your ambulance account on Twitter x and Elon should change
the name of that again and call it Peckerwood Social
Today's other worst person and the world.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
This is sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Ulberman in sports Ball Center. Well,
this is a combination of sports Ball Center and the
things I promised not to tell. And every once in
a while I like to bring this out and show
(41:20):
to people that this document actually exists, as I referred
to it earlier, the greatest document in the history of
the English language. In I believe the year two thousand
and seven, two of these appeared. Their small white envelope
sized printed messages from it was claimed eighteen ninety five
(41:42):
six seven eight something like that. That were instructions, as
the heading printed in somewhat old timey but not too
old timey type suggests special instructions players. The item was
auctioned off two copies of it, one in basically mint
condition and the other with tape on it, and sold
(42:03):
as the last or perhaps two of the last surviving
copies of a document that was given to each player
in the National League when that was all there was
in baseball, and they were asked to read it and
give it back. And that's why so few copies of
this exist. And it was in part of a dark
(42:25):
corner of baseball and sports history, and more importantly, part
of a dark corner in American history where all the
good stuff fell or was hidden, or was dropped or
was put under a pile of things by somebody who
then died, and it wasn't discovered for another one hundred
and ten years. It is so improbable, it is so
(42:45):
gorgeous in its obscenity, that initially collectors and baseball historians
said it could not be real. It must be a
satire produced at some point after say, nineteen seventy, possibly recently,
and just made to look somewhat aged, and it doesn't
look that old.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
It could have been printed recently and kind of aged up,
dirtied up to look a little bit older. And then
I found in the Spaulding Baseball Guide for the year
eighteen ninety nine, I think a reference to the fact
that there had been special instructions to players produced by
(43:27):
a special committee that had been convened by the National
League to address an extraordinary problem that threatened the future
of baseball. Swearing by players, swearing by players at other players,
at umpires, at owners, and especially at fans. And there
(43:48):
was a story told about what happened to the players
who did this, and how bad it was, and how
many extraordinary things had to be done to stop it.
But I have teased you long enough. I will tell
that part of the story after I read to you
with some words skipped the special instructions to players. This
(44:14):
is legitimate, It has been verified, It actually existed, and
the problem existed. And it is magnificent and brings the
nineteenth century, not just of baseball but of America alive
in a way nothing else does. When I first read this,
(44:35):
the men of the nineteenth century who played baseball became
living figures for me, no longer just ancient yellowed CPA
photographs of players with bats swinging at baseballs that were
hanging from the photographer's ceiling by a string that you
could see. Oh no, they were men of flesh and
(44:59):
blood and a vocabulary of obscenity that would made Andrew
dice Clay rethink his life special instructions to players. In
a contest between two leading clubs during the championship season
(45:22):
of eighteen ninety seven, the stands being crowded with patrons
of the game, a gentleman occupying a seat in the
front row near the player's bench asked one of the
visiting players who was going to pitch for them. The
player made no reply. He then asked a second time.
The gentleman, his wife, who sat with him, and others
(45:45):
of both sexes within hearing distance, were outraged upon hearing
the player reply in a loud, brutal tone, oh go
f yourself. On being remonstrated with by his fellow players,
who told him there were late present, he retorted he
(46:06):
didn't give a damn that they had no business there anyhow.
This shocking indecency was brought to the attention of the
league at the Philadelphia meeting in November eighteen ninety seven,
and a committee was appointed to report upon this baseball crime,
define and suggest for it a remedy. In response to
(46:29):
nearly one hundred communications addressed to umpires, managers, and club
officials soliciting definite, positive and personal knowledge of obscene and
indecent language upon the ball field, the committee received a
deluge of information that was so appalling as to be
(46:51):
almost beyond belief, showing conclusively and beyond contradiction that there
was urgent need for legislative action on the part of
the Lank League. That such brutal language as you blank
sucking son of a bitch, you blank eating bastard, you
(47:13):
blank lapping dog, kiss my blank, you son of a bitch.
A dog must have blanked your mother when she made you.
I blanked your mother, your sister, your wife. I'll make
you blank my blank you blank blanker and many other
(47:35):
revolting terms are used by a limited number of players
to intimidate umpires and opposing players, and are promiscuously used
upon the ballfield. Is vouched for by the almost unanimous
assertion of those invited to speak and who are confident
to speak from personal knowledge, whether it be the language
(47:56):
quoted above or some other indecent and infamous invention of depravity.
The league is pledged to remove it from the ballfield,
whether it necessitates the removal of the offender, for a
day or for all time. Any word, sentence, or expression
(48:19):
unfit for print or for the human ear, whether mentioned
in these instructions or not, is contemplated under the law
and within its intent and meaning, and will be dealt
with without fear or favor when the fact is established
by conclusive proof, signed by order of the Committee, and
(48:47):
then in black bold print parentheses unmailable must be forwarded
by express end parentheses. Special Instructions to players from eighteen
ninety eight. I keep this relic framed. I dust it regularly.
(49:19):
It hangs on my wall high up so no children
could read it. Well. I can't think the last time
there was a kid in this place, and it's it's
the damnedest thing I've ever read. It seems. I understand
the doubting Thomas's and I told them to ogo f
(49:43):
themselves because there was evidence that this existed. And the
reason there are a few copies is a player was
then handed this by the manager of his team. So
visualize a manager, possibly a fellow player, in uniform new York, Chicago, Cincinnati,
wherever the twelve teams of the National League were in
(50:03):
those early days days of eighteen ninety eight, handing this
document to a player who was then supposed to either
sign it or another document saying they had read it,
and give it back to the manager to read it
in the manager's presence. And many of these players barely
could read, and somebody had to read it to them,
and then they would be returned to the National League
(50:25):
office and held for all time. We don't know what
happened to all the signed ones. Two of them stuck
in the back of somebody's I don't know, Spalding Baseball
Guide somewhere. Two of them we know of, still extant
and in my collection. And to me, the quotations, as
(50:47):
I said, bring the eighteen nineties alive in a way
that nothing else possibly could. Those were real men who
could have been standing in the middle of any street
in America an hour ago or an hour from now,
talking that way, despite the fact that there were ladies present.
(51:07):
That could have been almost any woman member of the
Republican Party in Congress today who was then responded to
by the men who say, lady, there are ladies present.
It is, as I suggest, the greatest document ever written
in the English language. You may think there are others.
(51:30):
You might have that Bible thing or Shakespeare. No, I'll
take this. So the last explanation is unmailable must be
forwarded by express. When this was printed in eighteen ninety eight,
the possession of this was not considered a crime. But
if you put it in the mail. And this has
(51:51):
recently come up, of course, with the efforts to prevent
sending abortion medications through the mail, the same law is
still on the books. This was considered obscene material that
could not be sent by the US Mail and had
(52:12):
to be delivered by Express, by Federal Express, by Adams Express,
by a guy driving a team of horses who said, Hi,
I'm here with the stack of special instructions to players.
I wonder what this is about. Holy crap, as I said,
(52:36):
I keep it framed. I keep it up on my wall.
Every once in a while I bring it down and
read it aloud, because nothing, nothing will ever match it.
In terms of the nearness, the almost reach out and grasp,
(53:03):
the nineteenth century quality, this document is as close as
you will ever get to time travel. To time travel
(53:47):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Most of our countdown music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil our
musical directors have Countdown. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister
Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
(54:10):
The Old Woman theme from Me ESPN two, written by
Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is the sports
music you heard earlier in this segment. Other music arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer
today was my friend Kenny Main because sports everything else
was as always my fault. So that's countdown for today,
(54:33):
Day two hundred and eighteen of America held hostage, just
two hundred and forty four days until the scheduled end
of his lame duck and lame brained term unless he
is removed sooner by MAGA and Jeffrey Epstein or whatever
it is with the swelling in his extremities. The next
scheduled countdown is Thursday. Till then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
(54:56):
good afternoon, good night, good luck, and please don't do
in the news Nothing about Me. Countdown with Keith Olderman
(55:29):
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. What
(00:24):
is the exact nature of Donald Trump's health crisis? Is
he dying? Is he well? Is he sick? Is he fine?
Is there some acceptable explanation for his swollen face and
narrowed eyes, last shown publicly on Friday? And what does
(00:46):
the enlarged left hand mean? And what does the bruised
right hand covered in makeup mean? And are those ballooned
and gorged ankles as benign as claimed by his latest doctor,
Captain Barbarabella. Is the President of the United States, whoever
(01:06):
he is, whatever we think of him, the most important
man in the world. Is the President of the United States?
Gravely ill? Would they tell us if he were? Would
they tell him? No? It's all just chronic veinous insufficiency.
(01:28):
And behind these questions, these literally life and death questions,
why is the national news media still giving the clear decline,
the accelerating decline in Trump's appearance and clarity, and likely
in his physical health, less attention than they are giving
right now to the irrelevancy that is Biden's cognition levels
(01:52):
from last year lost in the Trump's Stein cover up.
The Gallaine Maxwell hostage video, Trump's planned terrorism in Chicago,
the John Bolt raid. Lost in all that, Trump on
Friday looked like he had just changed out of a
hospital gown. Face so puffy even for him, that his
(02:14):
eyes looked like slits, barely open. Right hand with a contusion,
some sort of clear tape on it, but it could
have been traces of blood near the fingers, running from
the thumb through the middle finger and then up under
the shirt sleeve, badly covered in smeared makeup. That was
the right hand. The left hand so swollen it looked
(02:37):
like something they would draw for a cartoon character. The
base of those fingers forty or fifty percent larger than
the ends of those fingers, and his ability to use
that hand clearly impaired enough to make him hesitate as
he turned a photograph around. And we didn't see the
ankles this time. We saw them when he was in
(03:00):
Alaska with Putin, and they were wider than his feet.
It's not like this is something new. Middle of July,
a bruise on his hand, some kind of sticker or
tape on it, makeup atop bat, too much handshaking, the
White House said, knowing that no one from a major
news organization would even imply that this was a ridiculous
(03:23):
and insulting excuse that was more transparent than whatever they
had put on his hand after they detached what must
have been a line for a blood draw or an
ivy or a transfusion or something else in which the
veins on the top of the hand are accessed because
the ones at the inside of the wrist or the
elbow can't be isolated or are insufficient. And then it
(03:47):
was the middle of February, meeting with Emmanuel Macron. Same hand,
same plastic cover up, same makeup, same journalistic indifference. In
his first term, Donald Trump lied about everything health wise
from a COVID infection and serious enough that his physicians
were ready to ventilate him to a routine colonoscopy that
(04:10):
he didn't want revealed so he would not have to
transfer presidential power, even temporarily to Mike Pence. For a
couple of hours, the President of the United States was
unconscious with a rubber hose up his ass. Actually, that's
an improvement. His personal physician before the first election made
(04:34):
a statement insisting that Trump might as well have been immortal.
He later admitted Trump dictated that statement. Trump lies about
everything else. He and those around him lied blatantly and
almost nonchalantly about his health once when his life was imperiled.
We didn't get answered about the shooting last year for hours.
(04:54):
We still haven't gotten most of the answers about the shooting.
So there is a history of deceit on this topic,
and there is also a history of bad health. And
nobody he is asking these questions ahead of all the others.
What is the exact nature of Trump's health crisis? Why
can't he fully open his effing eyes? What is wrong
(05:20):
with him? Is it circulatory? Is it cardiac? Is he
getting enough blood to his brain, or maybe more correctly,
is he getting even less blood to his brain than
he has for the last seventy years? Is he dying?
Is he in fact in heart failure? Is his condition,
whatever it is, manageable or is it debilitating? Is he
(05:42):
debilitated right now? Is whatever going on the cause of
Trump's cognitive loss? Or is that something separate seventy nine
years of age? This could be anything. It could be
chronic venus insufficiency plus something else in one hand and
(06:05):
the need for IVS or blood jaws from the other hand,
and a face swollen enough to forcibly close his eyes.
But anybody who has seen congestive heart failure in a
relative or friend knows that none of this, especially the
swelling at the extremities, is inconsistent with that diagnosis. But
(06:28):
the point is The New York Times tried to break
Joe Biden a year ago because he would not prove
to them he wasn't slowed. Where is the Times musing?
Are Trump's quadruple excised ankles and hands healthy in this
Ohio diner? These cardiologists don't think so. Where's the Washington
(06:49):
Posts sidebar nestled behind? It's now constant praising Trump with
faint damnation about his lower legs, looking like he was
preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Where is the Jake Tapper
instant book? What is the exact nature of the President's
(07:11):
health crisis? Would they tell us? Would they tell him?
Would he believe them? Trump's latest terrorist invasion is now planned.
(07:54):
It is of Chicago, a couple thousand Red State National
guardsmen and or active troops. This is about the Governor
of Illinois, JB. Pritzker, Just like La and Ice and
the illegal usurpation of the California National Guard was about
the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, just like DC was
(08:14):
about an entire democratic government led by a mayor who
responded to the first attack against her and her city
with the stupid assertion that maybe there was a silver lining,
which served only to show Trump her vulnerability. Just like
New York, when it comes, will be about Zoran Mamdani,
either to screw up his election or to give him
(08:35):
a crisis on his first day as mayor. This is
all designed now to dirty up Key Democrats and to
show the fascist cult that he will do it, and
to warn his opponents that he will do it, and
to dare somebody to stop him. And guess what, nobody
is stopping him. Fake a crisis, build a giant, dangerous
(08:59):
photo op out of threats of terrorist violence by the government,
then later say things were so bad in Illinois, I
your savior had to step in. It is the complete
road map on how to turn a democracy into a dictatorship.
Trump using troops and federalizing the National Guard and fabricating
(09:21):
an emergency is unconstitutional. It is a sweeping violation of
the possecommatatis Act, it is not a Title thirty two
exception to section five oh two pertinent to the Possecommatatis Act.
Title thirty two allows a president to let the federal
government pay for the more extensive training of state National
(09:46):
guardsmen so the states don't have to pay. It does
not let him do this, and the insistence that there
is precedent for Trump doing it, that it's a well
established precedence that dates all the way back to twenty twenty,
when Trump gassed protesters outside the White House so he
could pose with the first Bible he had ever held
(10:09):
at a church he'd never been inside. In other words,
building a photo off out of threats of terrorist violence
by the government, and then later saying things were so
bad during the Black Lives protests, I your savior had
to step in. That's what Chicago will be. That's what
the new side threats against Mayor Bowser are. Mayor Muriel
(10:32):
Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime
figures where bad things will happen. What are you gonna do, asshole?
Have her hit by lightning? The response to this none.
The response you must give a creature like Trump, who,
at his peak at his best is a psychonic narcissist.
(10:54):
The response must be hey, old man, f you, and
she still won't do that. So now on Friday he
comes back another threat to quote, get her act straight,
or she won't be mayor very long because we'll take
it over the hell you will. The threats against the
(11:19):
mayor of the nation's capital city are mirrored now by
threats against the state of Colorado. Not the governor, not
a mayor, there everybody in Colorado unless they release from
prison the corrupt county clerk Tina Peters, who let election
deniers have access to the actual Colorado state voting equipment
(11:43):
and got her ass sentenced to nine years in jail.
Trump is now demanding she be freed. Quote. If she
is not released, I am going to take harsh measures again.
He did this the sitting president because a she was
convicted on state charges, so he cannot pardon yet another
(12:04):
in soer directionist. And b because after the election, the
governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, tried to appease Trump, and
as mayor, Bowser just discovered you do not flinch when
he does something like this. If you flinch, he will
be back for more from you. You do not flinch.
You kick him in the nuts. The son of a
(12:25):
bitch threatened the Commissioner of Baseball yesterday, because the Commissioner
of Baseball has not put statutory rapist Pete Rose in
the Hall of Fame yet, and now Trump also wants
Roger Clemens in the Hall of Fame, presumably in the
same wing, even though the Commissioner of Baseball does not
decide who goes into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and
(12:46):
there has not been a Baseball Hall of Fame vote
since Trump made his demand about Pete Rose, but the
Commissioner has not said no to Trump as long as
Trump has been going to games, going to games using
free tickets, I might add, supplied to him by the
New York Yankees, because billionaires can't afford baseball tickets. The
(13:11):
threats Trump carries out are against the individuals and entities
that do not fight back. When I say fight back,
I don't mean destroy him, usurp him. They don't have
to destroy him, they don't have to depose him, they
don't have to damage him. They just have to say no,
and he goes away because it's easier to find somebody
(13:33):
over in the next county who won't say no. The
Pentagon's Internal Intelligence Agency did not say no. It issued
its assessment of Trump's photo op attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
It correctly said those facilities were not obliterated. He criticized them,
they did nothing. He has now purged the head of
(13:53):
the intelligence agency and two other veteran a political military
leaders who did not fight back. That's what the jets
are about. That's why Trump is stalling for Putin on Ukraine.
Change your position one hundred times and give Putin two
weeks to respond to each new position, and two times
(14:16):
to claim four years will pass. Send out your eyeliner
to buffoon JV vance to explain on meet the press
and not be challenged that. Of course, Zelenski has to negotiate.
All wars end in negotiation. World War two ended in negotiation.
Oh you remember that, right, Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo
(14:39):
meeting with FDR and Truman, just before Hitler killed himself
and they burned his body, just before they hung Mussolini
upside down from an s O filling station, and just
before they dropped two nukes on Tojo. Those were negotiations.
(15:02):
That's why they are going to the mats with killmar
Abrado Garcia. First he had to be out of the
country immediately a terrorist threat. Then he had to be
returned to the country immediately to stand trial. Now that
a court has ruled that he cannot be kidnapped and
disappeared to l Salvador and he can go free on bail,
(15:22):
Suddenly they had threatened to deport him again, this time
to Uganda unless he accepts deportation to Costa Rica. And
what happened to the part about how he had to
be returned here immediately to stand trial on all those
things they said he did. They're willing to lie, to
(15:44):
destroy this man, to destroy his family, to destroy the law.
They're willing to change their own story, change it again,
change it a third time, blackmail this man. All because
Trump cannot be wrong, cannot be challenged, cannot be seen
as anything but omniscient and omnipotent, and also can I
(16:04):
be seen as so sick that he can't fully open
his own damned eyes. Trump has become convinced that he
gets to decide everything and that everything you have is
a gift from him. Stock market went up. He did that,
stock market went down Well fears that he wasn't in
(16:27):
sufficient control of the stock market. This is not just
evil and insane and probably exacerbated by serious, profound physical illness.
It is messianic. And a Messianic dictator would start a
nuclear war and destroy everything rather than be found out,
(16:51):
rather than be proved evil by something like whatever is
in the Epstein files, the Epstein files which apparently were
hidden in John Bolton's pants, in John Bolton's house or
(17:19):
John Bolton's house, is that where they're transferring Glaine Maxwell next.
Every step that Trump's criminal conspiracy posing as a government
tries to hide the truth makes his cover up even
more important than whatever it is he is trying to
cover up, and boys he trying to cover it up.
(17:41):
And so you do not have to rank highly knowing
the truth about the organized perversions and crimes of Epstein
and Maxwell and Trump's involvement or non involvement to actually
care about the cover up, but to believe that Trump's
Stein is somehow resolved or Trump's somehow cleared by what
is almost literally a hostage video by Glaine Maxwell, proven liar,
(18:08):
proven child sex trafficker, to believe that she has somehow
cleared him as a corner of MAGA, and nearly all
of the Republican Party now says it does believe. Is
to say, in essence, sure Glene Maxwell is a liar,
and sure I AM going to pick and choose which
of her seven hundred and fifty lies I believe and
(18:32):
which seven hundred and forty nine of them I do
not believe. They believe her when she lies to the
Deputy Attorney General, who eight months ago was still Trump's
personal lawyer, that Trump never did anything wrong in her
presence and was always a gentleman. Do they believe her
when she lies to him that Epstein did not kill
(18:53):
himself in prison? Do they believe her when she lies
to him that there was no client list or black
book or records? Do they believe her when she says
that a picture of herself, Virginia Geffrey, and Prince Andrew
is a fake? Do they believe her after that interview?
That interview with an attorney who either was there solely
(19:15):
to get her to say so unconvincingly that Trump was uninvolved,
or who, since he never asked one pointed question or
one follow up, that lawyer fulfills a variation on George
Carlin's old joke that's somewhere numerically literally somewhere somebody has
to be the worst lawyer in the world, and somebody
(19:38):
else has an appointment to see him in the morning,
and that may be Todd Blanche, because if Lionel Hutts
weren't from the Simpsons cartoon, he'd be Todd Blanche. Do
they believe her in line to the fact that after
that interview she was transferred from a high security Florida
hell hole to a club fed in Texas, even though
(20:02):
you can't transfer a registered sex offender into a light
security facility for nonviolent criminals unless you rescind her sex
offender status. Do they believe her in light of the
fact that two British tabloids are reporting that another inmate
in that Texas facility to which Maxwell was transferred clearly
(20:22):
as a reward. Another inmate there, named Julie Howell, gave
an interview by email in which she said, every inmate
I've heard from is upset Maxwell is here. This facility
is supposed to house non violent offenders. Human trafficking is
a violent crime. Within hours of the publication of those
(20:43):
quotes that inmate says her lawyer was summoned to the
warden's office and told she was being transferred to the
hardcore Houston Federal Detention Center into a windowless cell there.
When did they believe Galane Maxwell? And when do they not?
(21:05):
When do they turn gravity off in the universe? And
when do they turn it back on? And when are
they so desperate that on the subject of forced sex
with children do they turn as their expert to Jim Jordan.
(21:30):
Now Pete Rose is dead. By the way, that first
sliver of Epstein files that Trump is hiding got to
Congress Friday with no coverage, thirty three thousand pages of junk,
nearly all of it already publicly available. No media coverage,
(21:52):
of course, because John Bolton raid, because Glaine Maxwell interview, release,
because is also sending.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Of the Epstein files over to the House Oversite Committee today.
Are you Are you in support of them releasing all
gut it open if they.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Wanted to, people shouldn't be hurt.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
But I'm in support of keeping it totally open. I
couldn't care less. You got a lot of people that
it could be mentioned that of those files that don't
deserve to be people because he knew everybody in Palm Beach.
I don't know anything about that, but I have said
to Pam and everybody else, give them everything you can
give them, because it's a it's a Democrat hoax. It's
just a hoax. The whole Epstein thing is a Democrat hoax.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Glayne Maxwell might as well have claimed Donald Trump is
a virgin the comic Relief. Nancy Mayce held a campaign
rally in Myrtle Beach over the weekend, or was going to.
The attendance was eight one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
(22:56):
eight people, plenty of good seats available. Local news reports
she walked into where the podium, saw the disaster and
kept walking. She didn't even break stride. So also of
interest here in an all new edition of Countdown, it
sounds like another comedy bit, but it's not. A confidant
(23:17):
of the Mayor of New York City tries to give
a local reporter cash wrapped up in a bag of
opened potato chips, sour cream and onion rippled. The friend
says it was just a gift, a gift to friendship,
and says to the reporter, quote, please don't do in
(23:39):
the news. Nothing about me wise words to live by.
That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
Olberman still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown.
(24:18):
I am going to read to you the greatest document
in the history of the English language, well at least
the greatest sports document in the history of the English language,
unsurpassed for now one and twenty seven years, Special Instructions
(24:42):
to Players from eighteen ninety eight, when Major League Baseball
faced a crisis unlike any other in its history before
or since. The ballparks were growing larger, but the seating
was becoming more intimate. The fans were sitting closer to
the field, and thus they could hear the play swearing
(25:07):
and swearing and swearing and swearing at them in a
way that would make two days players blush. It was
so bad that players were threatened with being banned for
life if they did not read these Special Instructions, then
sign a document saying they had read them and would
(25:30):
obey them, and then give the document back Because there
were so many curse words printed in it that technically
the Instructions to Players was considered legally obscene, and anybody
who tried to send it by the US Post Office
would be arrested next as we do a crossover between
(25:51):
Sportsball Center and Things I promised not to tell. I
don't think you'll believe this was real. For a long time,
baseball historians didn't think. So that's how bad it really is.
First believe it or not, there's still more new idiots
to talk about. The roundup of the miscrants, the morons,
(26:14):
and the Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other
worst persons in the effing world. Lebron's worse Blondie, Pam Blondie.
It's not just that she is evil and without morals
(26:35):
and she should be the one being deported to some
other planet. It's not just that she was the backup
choice when they couldn't get that grunge Matt Gates past
the Grunge Magas. It's not just that her previous biggest
case was putting the baseball player Dwight Gooden behind bars
(26:58):
for a couple of weeks. It's not just that she's
incompetent at her job. It's not just that she sounds
like a guy trying to do an impersonation of a woman.
It's not just all of those things it's also that
she is a complete idiot. In one of her occasional
(27:18):
appearances on Fox News, and by occasional iamine, she was
once on something like seventeen consecutive week nights as the
Attorney General of the United States. In one of her
occasional appearances last week, she decided to praise Trump. While
that's a shock. She decided to praise Trump and this occupation,
(27:40):
this illegal terrorism against the residents of the District of Columbia.
And she decided to praise the members of the National
Guard who have been illegally turned into super cops, robocops,
cops with military grade weapons being carried around on the
streets of Washington, which was a city improving in terms
(28:04):
of its criminality and its ordinary downtown issues. And of course,
they didn't send any of the members of the military
to the troublesome areas where all the crimes are committed,
like say, the White House. They sent them to places
where the public and visitors would see who was in
(28:24):
charge in this dictatorship. So Pambondi decided to praise them
on Fox News and she said, quote, the Metro Dade
police are over the moon that they have this help
from the President the Metro Dade Police, and there isn't
(28:44):
really such an outfit, but if there were, they would
be in Metro Dade, in Dade County, which is part
of the municipality we know as Miami. Metro Daid police
would be in Florida, which is where Pambondy used to
be until she became Attorney General of the United States
in January. It is now late August. She should have
(29:07):
some idea where she is. She doesn't. She thinks she's
still in Miami, or possibly she thinks that Miami and Washington,
DC are the same place. That's the Attorney General of
the United States of America. A bozo. Speaking of which
(29:29):
the runner up worser, Winnie Greco, part of the Eric
Adams gang that has been running this city into the
ground since Bill Deblasio finished running this city into the ground. Sure,
bring on Cromo. Now we need somebody worse than the
two of them combined. Ms Greco was at one point
Adam's top advisor and had a city hall job worth
(29:50):
one hundred thousand a year, and then she got fired
or she quit or something and got a new job
at city Hall worth two hundred thousand dollars a year.
She didn't have that anymore, but she remains connected to
Adams's inexplicable campaign to get re elected as a post
to finishing fourth maybe third in the election if he's lucky.
Ms Greco is in trouble again. Now. She is not
(30:14):
the mayor Adams advisor who was indicted and purp walked
last week. That was somebody else. Nor the donors those
were other people. Nor the fundraiser that was somebody else.
This is the Adams confidant accused of seeking cash to
get in to see Adams and also living in a
suite at a hotel that the city was supposed to
(30:35):
be using to help x cons transition back to regular life. No, no, no, no,
you actually have to be a convicted criminal to live here.
Ms Greco is of Asian descent, and that is relevant
only because that's how she explains what the New York
news site The City has reported about her, and what
(30:55):
the city has reported is quote that she attempted to
give money to a reporter from the city following a
campaign event in Harlem last Wednesday. The failed payoff a
wad of cash in a red envelope stuffed inside an
opened bag of Hers sour cream and onion ripple potato chips.
(31:18):
Greco and the reporter, Katie Honan, walked to the Whole
Food's next door. While inside the store, Greco handed Honan
the opened bag of chips with the top crumpled closed. Honan,
thinking it was an offer of a light snack, told
Greko more than once she could not accept the chips,
but Greko insisted that she keep them. The two parted
ways before entering a nearby subway station. Honan opened the
(31:41):
bag and discovered a red envelope inside stuffed with cash,
at least one one hundred dollar bill and several twenty
dollars bills. The reporter then called Greco and told her
she could not accept the money and asked if she
was still nearby so she could give it back. Greco
said she'd left the area. Honan told her she had
to take the money back, and Greco said they could
(32:02):
meet at some point in Chinatown. In an interview later,
the City asked Greco what her intention was in handing
money to the reporter. In response, she said she'd made
a mistake and apologized over and over. I make a mistake,
she said, I'm so sorry. It's a culture thing. I
(32:22):
don't know. I don't understand. I'm so sorry. I feel
so bad right now. I'm so sorry, honey. She then
called the city back, advising that we call her attorney,
Stephen Brill, and adding can we forget about this. I
try to be a good person. Please please, please don't
do in the news nothing about me. I just wanted
(32:46):
to be her friend. Greco added, I just wanted to
have one good friend. It's nothing. Ms Greco claims this
is the Asian way of being friends, giving people money
in envelopes stuffed into bags of hers sounder cream and onion,
rippled potato chips, or less cringy conveyances of food. And
(33:10):
of course, she has coined a new phrase to go
right next to WinCE. Please don't put in the newspaper
that I got it mad quoting it again. Please don't
do in the news nothing about me. But of course
Wint is a comedy writer. Ms Greco is not, we think.
Please don't do nothing in the news about me. I'm
(33:35):
sorry I misquoted it. Please don't do in the news
nothing about me. I actually cleaned the quote up. Please
don't do in the news. Nothing about me sounds like
a song lyric, doesn't it. But the winner is the worst.
Speaking of food, the cracker barrel protesters if you somehow
(33:56):
missed this, congratulations. I was last week years old as
the kids when I discovered that this was not about
craft cracker barrel cheese, which they've been selling since before
I was born, but instead it's about a series of
restaurants founded much later than cracker barrel Cheese, founded in
(34:20):
nineteen sixty nine. And the mag Assholes are self martyring
again because the company changed its logo from an old
white guy in overalls in an old timey chair leaning
against a barrel next to the words cracker barrel. They've
changed that logo to just the words cracker barrel in
the same font and everything. The right wing thinks this
(34:43):
is woke and that the liberals are getting away with
something again like the Genes ad with the actress Sydney
somebody like this is the most important issue in the
world and everybody is concerned about it, and it's like
cracker barrel cheese. Restaurants they sell just cracker barrel cheese.
(35:08):
There's a series of restaurants in the South. I don't know.
I haven't been to one. I'm not in the South.
That's nice. I don't expect you to know the difference
between the f train and the seven Cracker barrel. Holy crap,
the company literally removed the guy and just you have
to visualize the logo. If the barrel in the Cracker
Barrel logo is the barrel, then the guy is, by
(35:32):
process of elimination, the Cracker. I don't know if the
actual Crackers know this, but Cracker has always been a
nickname for stupid white folks from the South. It's not
a compliment. It's so not a compliment that even the
Atlanta baseball team got rid of it as their nickname
(35:55):
before Atlanta got rid of much of its racism, in fact,
before Cracker Barrel Restaurants debuted. So the company, after fifty
six years, removed the part of the logo that was
the white equivalent of a minstrel show guy in blackface.
And the white guys are all kill them about it.
(36:16):
I swear I thought this was about cheese. It's about
their demand that we continue to call them crackers, white
trash o fays honkys. I mean, it's as if somebody
has removed all the mirrors from their world. On the
(36:37):
one hand, this should be a lesson to all food
and food service companies whose clientele tend to be well crackers, maga.
Whatever your product is, don't worry about it. Just change
your name to something that insults them, something that insults
your customers. Literally, waffle House should change its name to
(37:01):
Luftwaffa House or luftwaffle House. Any KFC south of say Kentucky,
don't bother with restoring the Kentucky Fried Chicken name or
the picture of the kernel or anything. Go directly to
Honky Fried Chicken. The waste management corporation you operate in
(37:24):
the South, you must therefore call yourself there White trash Management.
It's so simple. Just adopt a name insulting these people.
Then cut back on the quality of the food you
sell or the service you provide, raise the prices, reduce
the portion size, start making the waffles out of cardboard.
(37:46):
Just use a racist name by cracker, insulting white people,
and put some character out of the background and background
of gone with the Wind in your logo, and your
profits will double overnight because these people's minds are gone.
Hello Food's turble but it says Cracker on the outside.
(38:08):
So we come here, which reminds me there actually was
somebody to get the award for worst person in the
world today. This is a Twitter x count called Florida Possum.
And this I've heard the word but I've never tried
to spell it before. Award vibe is strong enough that
(38:30):
it could belong to Caroline Levitt. That's how dumb this
person is. Are you ready from at Florida Possum? I
have been going to Cracker Barrel for as long as
I can remember, well, that could be last week. Pal,
First you painted over the antique. Look now you've ruined
your logo. As much as I love Cracker Barrel and
(38:53):
as frequently as I have gone, you've ruined your ambulance. Ah,
I'll just cook it home. Farewell, my friend, r Ip,
you've ruined your ambulance. I am hoping they were going
(39:16):
for ambiance. We're given this stupidity. Maybe the guy meant ambient.
Maybe that's the explanation. I'm not knowing the difference between
ambiance and ambulance. And again, the lesson here is clear.
Trump should have taught us. This should have taught every
(39:38):
company in the world should have taught cracker barrel. No, no, no,
no no, don't don't take the cracker out of the
white the cracker barrel logo. Put two of them in
there and rename it white Cracker Barrel. The Rubes don't
care if the food is good, only if it insults
(39:59):
them but recognizes their red neckatude, Florida possum. You ruined
your ambulance account on Twitter x and Elon should change
the name of that again and call it Peckerwood Social
Today's other worst person and the world.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
This is sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Ulberman in sports Ball Center. Well,
this is a combination of sports Ball Center and the
things I promised not to tell. And every once in
a while I like to bring this out and show
(41:20):
to people that this document actually exists, as I referred
to it earlier, the greatest document in the history of
the English language. In I believe the year two thousand
and seven, two of these appeared. Their small white envelope
sized printed messages from it was claimed eighteen ninety five
(41:42):
six seven eight something like that. That were instructions, as
the heading printed in somewhat old timey but not too
old timey type suggests special instructions players. The item was
auctioned off two copies of it, one in basically mint
condition and the other with tape on it, and sold
(42:03):
as the last or perhaps two of the last surviving
copies of a document that was given to each player
in the National League when that was all there was
in baseball, and they were asked to read it and
give it back. And that's why so few copies of
this exist. And it was in part of a dark
(42:25):
corner of baseball and sports history, and more importantly, part
of a dark corner in American history where all the
good stuff fell or was hidden, or was dropped or
was put under a pile of things by somebody who
then died, and it wasn't discovered for another one hundred
and ten years. It is so improbable, it is so
(42:45):
gorgeous in its obscenity, that initially collectors and baseball historians
said it could not be real. It must be a
satire produced at some point after say, nineteen seventy, possibly recently,
and just made to look somewhat aged, and it doesn't
look that old.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
It could have been printed recently and kind of aged up,
dirtied up to look a little bit older. And then
I found in the Spaulding Baseball Guide for the year
eighteen ninety nine, I think a reference to the fact
that there had been special instructions to players produced by
(43:27):
a special committee that had been convened by the National
League to address an extraordinary problem that threatened the future
of baseball. Swearing by players, swearing by players at other players,
at umpires, at owners, and especially at fans. And there
(43:48):
was a story told about what happened to the players
who did this, and how bad it was, and how
many extraordinary things had to be done to stop it.
But I have teased you long enough. I will tell
that part of the story after I read to you
with some words skipped the special instructions to players. This
(44:14):
is legitimate, It has been verified, It actually existed, and
the problem existed. And it is magnificent and brings the
nineteenth century, not just of baseball but of America alive
in a way nothing else does. When I first read this,
(44:35):
the men of the nineteenth century who played baseball became
living figures for me, no longer just ancient yellowed CPA
photographs of players with bats swinging at baseballs that were
hanging from the photographer's ceiling by a string that you
could see. Oh no, they were men of flesh and
(44:59):
blood and a vocabulary of obscenity that would made Andrew
dice Clay rethink his life special instructions to players. In
a contest between two leading clubs during the championship season
(45:22):
of eighteen ninety seven, the stands being crowded with patrons
of the game, a gentleman occupying a seat in the
front row near the player's bench asked one of the
visiting players who was going to pitch for them. The
player made no reply. He then asked a second time.
The gentleman, his wife, who sat with him, and others
(45:45):
of both sexes within hearing distance, were outraged upon hearing
the player reply in a loud, brutal tone, oh go
f yourself. On being remonstrated with by his fellow players,
who told him there were late present, he retorted he
(46:06):
didn't give a damn that they had no business there anyhow.
This shocking indecency was brought to the attention of the
league at the Philadelphia meeting in November eighteen ninety seven,
and a committee was appointed to report upon this baseball crime,
define and suggest for it a remedy. In response to
(46:29):
nearly one hundred communications addressed to umpires, managers, and club
officials soliciting definite, positive and personal knowledge of obscene and
indecent language upon the ball field, the committee received a
deluge of information that was so appalling as to be
(46:51):
almost beyond belief, showing conclusively and beyond contradiction that there
was urgent need for legislative action on the part of
the Lank League. That such brutal language as you blank
sucking son of a bitch, you blank eating bastard, you
(47:13):
blank lapping dog, kiss my blank, you son of a bitch.
A dog must have blanked your mother when she made you.
I blanked your mother, your sister, your wife. I'll make
you blank my blank you blank blanker and many other
(47:35):
revolting terms are used by a limited number of players
to intimidate umpires and opposing players, and are promiscuously used
upon the ballfield. Is vouched for by the almost unanimous
assertion of those invited to speak and who are confident
to speak from personal knowledge, whether it be the language
(47:56):
quoted above or some other indecent and infamous invention of depravity.
The league is pledged to remove it from the ballfield,
whether it necessitates the removal of the offender, for a
day or for all time. Any word, sentence, or expression
(48:19):
unfit for print or for the human ear, whether mentioned
in these instructions or not, is contemplated under the law
and within its intent and meaning, and will be dealt
with without fear or favor when the fact is established
by conclusive proof, signed by order of the Committee, and
(48:47):
then in black bold print parentheses unmailable must be forwarded
by express end parentheses. Special Instructions to players from eighteen
ninety eight. I keep this relic framed. I dust it regularly.
(49:19):
It hangs on my wall high up so no children
could read it. Well. I can't think the last time
there was a kid in this place, and it's it's
the damnedest thing I've ever read. It seems. I understand
the doubting Thomas's and I told them to ogo f
(49:43):
themselves because there was evidence that this existed. And the
reason there are a few copies is a player was
then handed this by the manager of his team. So
visualize a manager, possibly a fellow player, in uniform new York, Chicago, Cincinnati,
wherever the twelve teams of the National League were in
(50:03):
those early days days of eighteen ninety eight, handing this
document to a player who was then supposed to either
sign it or another document saying they had read it,
and give it back to the manager to read it
in the manager's presence. And many of these players barely
could read, and somebody had to read it to them,
and then they would be returned to the National League
(50:25):
office and held for all time. We don't know what
happened to all the signed ones. Two of them stuck
in the back of somebody's I don't know, Spalding Baseball
Guide somewhere. Two of them we know of, still extant
and in my collection. And to me, the quotations, as
(50:47):
I said, bring the eighteen nineties alive in a way
that nothing else possibly could. Those were real men who
could have been standing in the middle of any street
in America an hour ago or an hour from now,
talking that way, despite the fact that there were ladies present.
(51:07):
That could have been almost any woman member of the
Republican Party in Congress today who was then responded to
by the men who say, lady, there are ladies present.
It is, as I suggest, the greatest document ever written
in the English language. You may think there are others.
(51:30):
You might have that Bible thing or Shakespeare. No, I'll
take this. So the last explanation is unmailable must be
forwarded by express. When this was printed in eighteen ninety eight,
the possession of this was not considered a crime. But
if you put it in the mail. And this has
(51:51):
recently come up, of course, with the efforts to prevent
sending abortion medications through the mail, the same law is
still on the books. This was considered obscene material that
could not be sent by the US Mail and had
(52:12):
to be delivered by Express, by Federal Express, by Adams Express,
by a guy driving a team of horses who said, Hi,
I'm here with the stack of special instructions to players.
I wonder what this is about. Holy crap, as I said,
(52:36):
I keep it framed. I keep it up on my wall.
Every once in a while I bring it down and
read it aloud, because nothing, nothing will ever match it.
In terms of the nearness, the almost reach out and grasp,
(53:03):
the nineteenth century quality, this document is as close as
you will ever get to time travel. To time travel
(53:47):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Most of our countdown music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil our
musical directors have Countdown. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister
Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
(54:10):
The Old Woman theme from Me ESPN two, written by
Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is the sports
music you heard earlier in this segment. Other music arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer
today was my friend Kenny Main because sports everything else
was as always my fault. So that's countdown for today,
(54:33):
Day two hundred and eighteen of America held hostage, just
two hundred and forty four days until the scheduled end
of his lame duck and lame brained term unless he
is removed sooner by MAGA and Jeffrey Epstein or whatever
it is with the swelling in his extremities. The next
scheduled countdown is Thursday. Till then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
(54:56):
good afternoon, good night, good luck, and please don't do
in the news Nothing about Me. Countdown with Keith Olderman
(55:29):
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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