December 7, 2023 • 52 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 86: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The seven justices of the Supreme Court have given no indication HOW they will rule on Trump’s disqualification under the 14th Amendment and they have given no indication WHEN they will rule but here’s a bigger issue: They have no RIGHT to rule. The 14th Amendment clearly, unquestionably, inarguably, and ETERNALLY states that an insurrectionist can’t serve in an elected federal or state office, or a lot of other offices, and it doesn’t allow anybody to overrule the Constitution because the 14th Amendment already HAS a means for disqualified traitors to appeal – the drafters OF the 14thAmendment BUILT THAT REMEDY IN - and they have already designated two bodies to overrule disqualification under special circumstances, and those bodies are the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate and if they each vote by two-thirds to let Trump back on the ballot, he’s back on the ballot. That is, for all practical purposes, IN the Constitution! And if they DON’T, he's not. That is also, for all practical purposes, in the Constitution!
And we KNOW this because it was written, principally, by Congressman John Bingham, a Radical Republican who not only was one of the House Managers for the IMPEACHMENT of President Johnson, but earlier Bingham had been the Assistant Judge Advocate General during the trial of the accomplices of the man who murdered Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth. And if John Bingham’s attitude towards insurrectionists wasn’t clear enough from the 14thAmendment and the completely justified slow roasting of President Andrew Johnson – just a reminder: the eight co-conspirators charged in the Lincoln Assassination that the co-author of the 14th Amendment PROSECUTED included Mrs. Mary Surratt who ran the boarding house where the conspirators met, and the stagehand at Ford’s Theater who did nothing more than hold Booth’s horse while he went in and murdered the president. They HANGED half of the defendants – including the woman who ran the boarding house. Three of the other four were given life sentences. The guy who held the horse got six years at hard labor. They DID make a concession to Mrs. Surratt. While they were preparing to hang her and the others they let her sit in a chair.
The authors of the 14th Amendment weren’t EFFING AROUND.
Plus: I've GOT it. I've GOT President Biden's version of the famous only-ran-once only-needed-to-run once Lyndon Johnson 1964 "Daisy" commercial. YOU'RE WELCOME.
B-Block (24:46) IN SPORTS: After just 5-1/2 years of rumors: Juan Soto to the Yankees? The White Sox to Nashville? And why, yes, I did sell a 1914 Babe Ruth Baltimore Orioles rookie card for seven figures - why do you ask? (33:56) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: NYC Mayor Adams (appointed, he says, by God) has an approval rating of 28%. RFK Jr confesses to flying on Jeffrey Epstein's jet. Musk lets Carlson re-platform Jones on Twitter.
C-Block (38:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The fanciness of the British accent trips me up on my way to interviewing Mickey Mantle. Also the guy WITH the woman with the fancy British accent was wearing a CAPE.
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. The
seven justices of the Colorado Supreme Court have given no
(00:25):
indication how they will rule on Trump's disqualification under the
fourteenth Amendment, and they have given no indication when they
will rule. But here is a bigger issue. They have
no right to rule. The fourteenth Amendment clearly, unquestionably, inarguably,
and eternally states that an insurrectionist cannot serve in an
(00:48):
elected federal or state office, or a lot of other offices.
And it does not allow Chief Justice vote Right or
Justice Birkencotter, or Justice Gabriel or Justice Hard or Justice
Hood or Justice Marquez or Justice Samour, or for that matter,
Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Soda mayor or anybody else
on that court to overrule the Constitution. Because the Fourteenth
(01:12):
Amendment already has a means by which disqualified traders may appeal.
The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment built that remedy in
and they have already designated two bodies to overrule disqualification
under special circumstances. And those bodies are the United States
(01:33):
House of Representatives and the United States Senate. And if
they each vote by two thirds to let Trump back
on the ballot. He is back on the ballot, that
is for all practical purposes in the Constitution. And if
they don't vote by two thirds, he's not on the ballot,
and that is also for all practical purposes in the Constitution.
(01:54):
The entirety of the Trump and Fascist Party arguments against
disqualification under the fourteenth Amendment are two fictions unsupported by
the Constitution, or by the Amendment, or by the history
of this country, or by the history of the men
who wrote the goddamn fourteenth Amendment as they were still
(02:16):
wiping up the blood from the floor of this country
after the First Civil War. The fictions are that this
has to go through the courts. It does not, It
has to go through the Congress. But the other one,
even before that, the legal whore representing Trump in front
(02:36):
of the Colorado State Supreme Court, this gas bag, Scott Gessler,
the ex Colorado Secretary of State who lost that job
after he was found guilty of ethics violations. Gessler has
manufactured out of thin air this hallucination that the president
was not a mere officer of the United States like
(02:59):
senators or congressmen or state office holders. Then that the
authors of the fourteenth mend phrase the disqualification clause in
such a way as to clearly and deliberately exclude would
be presidents because they were more important and their selection
represented the true will of the American people. Bullshit. When
(03:26):
the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, the President of the United
States was a lesser figure than the average senator or
the average congressman. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July ninth,
eighteen sixty eight, and at that point the President of
the United States was Andrew Johnson, and the Senate had
(03:48):
just spent eighteen months trying to neoter Andrew Johnson, and
they took away his right to readmit the Southern States,
and they passed legislation denying him the right to fire
cabinet members, specifically Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, And when
he to do it anyway, the House passed eleven articles
(04:09):
of impeachment against Andrew Johnson, and the Senate acquitted him
on May sixteenth, eighteen sixty eight, and by only one vote,
and that senator and others had been bribed to vote
to acquit the president. They wrote the Fourteenth Amendment over
the objections of President Andrew Johnson, and the clause that
(04:32):
disqualified all insurrectionists for all time, but gave Congress the
right to vote to overrule that by a two thirds
vote was written that way because they wanted to emphasize
that it was Congress that would make that choice and
not the president, and especially not that president. We forget,
(04:56):
but skipping Lincoln, the preceding nine presidents of the United
States had been going backwards from the day the fourteenth
mend was passed. Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore,
Zachary Taylor, James K. Polk, John Tyler, William Henry Harrison,
(05:20):
and Martin Van Buren, and not one of them had
been re elected. We changed presidents ten times in thirty years,
and only Lincoln got a second chance. The presidency was
not imperial, and it was not more important, and it
was not exalted. But it's more than just that. The
(05:44):
fourteenth Amendment, the one disqualifying insurrectionists from office in this
country forever, was principally conceived and written by two committees,
one of the House, one in the Senate on Reconstruction,
the one in the Senate included Thaddeus Stevens, who wanted
(06:05):
to take all the money from all the insurrectionists in
the South and give it to the freed slaves. And
it contained Senator Roscoe Conkling, so respected as a lawyer,
as a jurist, as a constitutional scholar, that two presidents
asked him to serve on the Supreme Court, and he
said no, thanks. But it was written principally by Congressman
(06:30):
John Bingham of Ohio. John Bingham was a radical Republican
who not only was one of the House Managers for
the impeachment of President Johnson, but earlier, John Bingham had
been the assistant judge Advocate general during the trial of
the accomplices of the man who murdered Abraham Lincoln, John
(06:51):
Wilkes Booth. And if John Bingham's attitude towards insurrectionists was
not clear enough from what is written in the fourteenth
Amendment and what he did completely justifiably slow roasting President
Andrew Johnson. Just a reminder about the trial of the conspirators.
(07:13):
The eight co conspirators charged in the Lincoln assassination that
the co author of the Fourteenth Amendment prosecuted included missus
Mary Surrat, who ran the boarding house where the conspirators met,
and it included Spangler, the stage hand at Ford's Theater,
(07:33):
who did nothing more than hold Booth's horse while Booth
went in and murdered the president. They hanged half of
the defendants, including the woman who ran the boarding house.
Three of the other four defendants were given life sentences.
The guy who held the horse got six years at
(07:55):
hard labor. They did make a concession to Missus Surratt
while they were preparing to hang her and the others,
they let her sit in a chair. The authors of
the fourteenth Amendment were not effing around about insurrectionists. So
(08:17):
the idea that this legal whore taking money from Trump
can walk into the Colorado Supreme Court and say with
a straight face that the intent of the fourteenth Amendment
was to disqualify insurrectionist, but not a president. You can't
disqualify a president. A president is too big a deal,
(08:39):
and that the justice could sit there without finding him
in contempt of American history. It's a pathetic joke. Senator
Stevens and especially Congressman Yeah Hang Missus Surrat to Bingham
were not excluding presidents from their Amendment to the Constitution.
(09:03):
They were not making sure that Jefferson Davis or Alexander Stevens,
or Nathan Bedford Forrest or Robert E. Lee or Donald
Trump could still run for president after they tried to
overthrow the goddamned government. It's not just nonsense. It is
literally an insult to every American who died in the
Civil War defending the Union, and to the sanctity of
(09:25):
the elections. It is an insult to Lincoln. It is
an insult to this country. And so is this nonsensical
idea that the state courts have to rule on whether
or not Trump or any other insurrectionist, scumbag and craze
violent revolutionary should be on the ballot for anything from
(09:48):
president to dog catcher. Thaddeus Stevens and John Bingham's fourteenth
Amendment is clearly self executing. It is clearly automatic. It
is the def position. If it were not self executing,
(10:09):
why would they have attached the actual key words to
the third clause, the disqualification clause. Why would they have
attached the final fourteen words of the damn thing? Congress
may buy a vote of two thirds of each House
remove such disqualification If the Fourteenth Amendment was not automatic,
(10:32):
why would you need a PostScript permitting the House and
the Senate to override it under special circumstances. If everybody
seemingly disqualified under it for trying to overthrow our government
was to be judged separately and individually based on which
office he was running for and how menacingly he tried
to overthrow the government. If it was up to a
(10:54):
judge or a court or the Supreme Court, you wouldn't
need a Senate and House override, and that would not
be written into the Amendment. Simply put, the States do
not have the right to put Donald Trump or any
of the other January sixth insurrectionists and insurrectionist plotters on
(11:15):
their ballot. The Constitution is explicit. There is already a
mechanism by which Trump could be put on the ballot.
And there is only one mechanism and only one action
by only one group by which Trump can override the
fourteenth Amendment to be put on the ballot. And it
is exactly what Thatdeus Stevens and the others and John
(11:36):
Bingham wrote in eighteen sixty six. Congress may by a
vote of two thirds in each House the Colorado Supreme
Court hearing is regardless of the outcome a farce, there
is due process available, even to Trump. It is right
(12:00):
there in the Constitution. You know the Constitution, the thing
Trump has vowed and promised to terminate. He is ineligible.
I suspect if Thaddeus Stevens and John Bingham came back
to life today and we're briefed on this, their response
(12:21):
would be to chase Trump with their canes. Oh and
if this farce were not stupid enough, if it were
not unconstitutional enough, this disgraced ex State Secretary of State,
Trump's stooge Gessler, who seems to have gotten his law
(12:42):
degree as a prize in a box of cracker jacks,
is also an idiot.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
What if we narrat it to say, prevent the peaceful
transfer of.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Power of the United States government, would that be an insurrection.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
To prevent the peaceful transfer? I don't think so, and
I'm not sure you're honor.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Look.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I mean, if you look at historically and the context
of how insurrection was used, I mean, it has to
be for a substantial duration, not three hours.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
An insurrection has to last more than three hours. Gotcha,
if your insurrection lasts more than three hours, see your
doctor immediately, because you, mister Gessler, appropriately enough, are a dick.
(13:32):
My rage about the fourteenth Amendment. Notwithstanding, sometimes the unimportant
things make the most important impact. I didn't even flinch
when Hannity tried to get the would be dictator Trump
to take advantage of a chance to lie and say
he would not be a dictator. But Trump was too
(13:53):
stupid to take it. But a whole lot of other
people flinched big time. The symbolism of this enemy of
the United States of America making a big joke about
how he'd only be a dictator from the instant he
regained power, but he'd stop after one day. That may
(14:13):
have actually cut through the noise.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Under no circumstances. You are promising America tonight you would
never abuse power as retribution against anybody.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Except the day one, except he's gone to for except
the day one.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
He says you're not going to be a dictator.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I said, no, no, no other than day one.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Once again, they have people paid to do this. But there,
President Biden, my old friend is your reelection campaign commercial.
There are millions of people in America who not only
don't know who the president is. They don't know who
the president was, and they don't know who the next
(14:53):
president might be. They are the ones who need to
hear him saying that because refusing to even lie and
to sure your most loyal anti democracy propagandist that you
aren't going to be a dictator and saying yeah, I am,
but just for a day, that can cut through. Take
(15:17):
the tape, Write one strong opening line like Donald Trump
is running for dictator of America, and get some voiceover
guy to kill the read. Then you run the clip.
Then you get the president to say I'm Joe Biden
and I approved this message, and you're done. It'll make
Lyndon Johnson's daisy commercial look like a public service announcement
(15:40):
on c SPAN. Wait, you know that Lyndon Johnson daisy
commercial right after Barry Goldwater mused about using nuclear weapons.
The daisy commercial ran once middle of the NBC Monday
Night Movie on September seventh, nineteen sixty four. Once this
(16:04):
ran once.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
Play far five seven, six six eight nine.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
Nine five four three.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Why there.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
These are the stakes to make a world in which
all of God's children can live. Are to go into
the dark. We must either love each other, or we
must die.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Vote for President Johnson on November third. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home. Once were and once,
Let's try it again. Let's update it, shall we?
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Six?
Speaker 7 (17:13):
No?
Speaker 6 (17:21):
Five? Four three wore?
Speaker 7 (17:30):
These are the stakes?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Who would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Except the day one? Except the work he's going to
christ except the day one. He says, You're not going
to be a dictator?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Are you?
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I said no, No, no other than day one.
Speaker 7 (17:45):
We must either love each other or we must die.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home. Any questions. Yeah,
by the way, I'll do the read for that one
for free. A couple of more headlines. All of the
(18:16):
Trump fake electors in Wisconsin flipped yesterday. They had been
sued civilly, and as part of the settlement they promised
never to do it again and to cooperate with the
federal prosecutors. Meanwhile, the six fake electors in Nevada were
all indicted by that state. Among them is the state
National Republican Committee man Jim Degraff and red and Nevada
(18:39):
GOP chair Michael McDonald, who did not have a three
way with the co founder of Moms or a Liberty,
Bridget Zegler, and the Florida GOP chair Christian Zealer, speaking
of if you're thinking of Nicky Haley as some kind
of viable option last night at debate number I don't know,
As the old SNL joke goes, welcome to the fourth
(19:00):
or fifth Republican debate Nicky Haley last night tis Tis
DeSantis by saying his don't say gay bill did not
go far enough. Well, obviously it did not go far
enough for mister missus Ziegler, did it. Kevin McCarthy is
going to quit Congress. So now, if a Democrat wins
(19:21):
the vacant George Santo's seat, almost to certainty, the GOP
margin in the House will be down to two votes,
the margin becoming reduced to two hundred and twenty to
two hundred and fourteen. Well, how in the hell is
a margin of six just two votes? New math? Because
a tie in the House, it's not like the Senate.
(19:44):
There's no tie breaking vote. A tie in the House
is a no. You have to get two hundred and
eighteen votes to pass anything. Speaker Johnson will only have
two hundred and twenty votes to play with, and now
literally any two House Republicans can stop anything they personally
don't like. Bon chance, mikey and you may have heard,
(20:09):
Mike Pence has been added to the potential witness list
in Georgia by Fannie Willis. It's way bigger than just that.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution saw the entire expanded witness list,
and sure it's Pence and Bill Barr and Jeffrey Rosen
and Richard Donahue from Justice and Steve Bannon and Congressman
Scott Perry, who, by the way, is also ineligible under
(20:30):
the fourteenth Amendment, and also on the witness list Georgia
officials like Governor Brian Kemp, former Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan,
Attorney General Chris Carr, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger,
all of whom are not ineligible under the fourteenth Amendment.
And don't effing make me dig up Thaddeus Stevens to
(20:52):
prove this, because he would be in a really really
bad mood. Also of interest here, oh, great Elon Musk.
Just let Tucker Carlson put Alex Jones back on Twitter,
and why yes, I did sell a nineteen fourteen Babe
(21:17):
Ruth Baltimore Orioles rookie baseball card for seven figures. Why
do you ask that's next? This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith Alberman.
Speaker 8 (21:44):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Alberman in Sports Dateline, New York. He reached Major League
Baseball on May twentieth eighteen, and the rumors that he
would wind up with the New York Yankees began on
May twentieth, twenty eighteen. It reportedly came true last night.
Juan Soto reportedly traded from the San Diego Padres to
(22:18):
the Yankees along with outfielder Trent Grisham for young pitchers
Michael King, Randy Vasquez and Johnny Brido, top pitching prospect
Drew Thorpe, and the catcher Kyle Higashioka. Soto is an
offensive juggernaut who also gets walked an average of one
hundred and thirty three times a season. On the other hand,
the Washington Nationals did not hesitate to dump him for
(22:40):
salary reasons at age twenty three, and San Diego, which
needed fifty million dollars in September in a loane just
to meet payroll has now dumped him for salary reasons
at age twenty five, And all the Yankee fans who
are proclaiming themselves the twenty twenty four World champions have
already forgotten. They said exactly the same thing when they
traded for John Carlos stanton On. The Yankees have won
(23:03):
one World Series since the year two thousand, which is
the longest drought in franchise history. Dateline Nashville, Tennessee. Three
months after, he got angry at reporters who suggested he
was thinking of moving the Chicago White Sox out of
Chicago after one hundred and twenty three seasons there, and
(23:24):
then said, you know, his lease is up in six years,
so quote, we've got to decide what the future is
going to be. Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Rhinsdorf the
biggest clown in sports, Bigger even than hal Steinbrenner of
the Yankees, more of a clown than two hal Steinbrenners.
Jerry Reinsdorf has reportedly met with the mayor of Nashville,
(23:46):
Tennessee that city is pushing hard for a major league
franchise of any kind. It can get Rhinsdorf previously blackmailed
the state of Illinois into a new ballpark by agreeing
to move the White Sox to Tampa Bay in nineteen
eighty eight. Then he backed out of that deal. Now
he's not happy with the new stadium I gave him,
but moved to Nashville. I mean, nice city, but in
(24:12):
terms of DMAs designated market areas how you make your
money in sports, Nashville is twenty ninth in this country.
TV household population is one million, eleven thousand people. Chicago,
by that same measure, is third. The population is three
times that size. So even if you were only to
get thirty five percent of the Chicago baseball market, you'll
(24:36):
be getting more people than you would get in Nashville.
Nashville is also a smaller market than Portland, Orlando, Charlotte,
and Indianapolis. But go ahead, move to Nashville from Chicago, Jerry,
because that's the kind of thinking that has brought the
White Sox one championship since nineteen oh six. Thank you,
(25:27):
Nancy Faust. Actually you're welcome. Nancy Faust, Dateline, Baltimore. So
I got asked again last night that Babe Ruth baseball card,
his rookie card from nineteen fourteen, when he had just
started his professional career as a pitcher with the then
minor league Baltimore Orioles, before he was sold to the
(25:49):
Red Sox. Let alone sold to the Yankees. You know
the card that sold at auction for seven million, two
hundred thousand dollars. No, it was not mine. I had one.
I sold mine early in twenty twenty for one million dollars,
And no, I'm not sorry. I did this one graded
very good, a three on a scale of one to ten.
(26:09):
The one I sold for for one seventh the price.
It looked nicer on the front, but half of the
back is missing. I think it's been graded authentic, which
means it's not even considered poor. If I auctioned it
off now, I might get more for it, maybe fifty
percent more, maybe twice as much. I mean, the guy
who lost that auction was clearly willing to go like
(26:32):
seven million flat for that one. So if you have
one at home, sell it. There are that many of
the Babe Ruth nineteen fourteen cards, and they are spectacular
artifacts of baseball history. They're almost religious iconography. Ruth is
shown skinny young just after the Truants home, but that
devilish smile and broad face are beginning to be recognizable.
(26:54):
It is some baseball card, but I sold mine for
a couple of reasons. One, it was the beginning of
twenty twenty, and you might remember there was that pandemic
just underway, and nobody really knew how that was going
to turn out. I thought, hey, you know, maybe now
is the time to have that cash, not the card. Plus,
I bought it either in nineteen ninety nine or two thousand,
(27:16):
for only about twenty twenty five thousand, fifty thousand. Maybe
I don't know. If a profit of forty nine hundred
percent on a baseball card is not enough for you,
well not enough for me. It's time to get a
full physical, including a mental health test. More importantly, I'm
a set collector. I bought the Ruth because it was cool,
(27:38):
and I hope to complete the set produced by the
Baltimore News newspaper, showing both the minor league Baltimore Orioles
and the old Baltimore Terrapins of the long defunct Federal League.
But the set is really scarce, not just the Ruth card.
I have only seen about six of the other cards
from the set, let alone other Babe Ruths turn up
(28:00):
in all these years. My collection of nineteen fourteen Baltimore
News cards with twenty years trying consisted of two cards,
the Babe Ruth and the Gus Gleischmann. So I had
two and I still needed twenty two to complete the set.
I don't like that I have the famous nineteen oh
nine Honis Wagner, and in fact I have an even
(28:20):
rarer proof version of the same card, which Honnes Wagner
himself used to own. And I wanted to get a
Honess Wagner when I was eleven years old and I
started collecting the set. He's in American Tobacco T two
o six they call it, when I was eleven years old.
But if I didn't collect American Tobacco T two o six,
I wouldn't have gotten a Wagner. But I do, so
(28:41):
I did. You have to have it to complete your set.
That and all the other five hundred and twenty three
cards in the set, and hundreds of different color variations,
and a bunch of proof cards of players who wound
up being dropped from the set. And they're really cool
because I'm a set collector. I'm an anal retentive. As
I think Diane Keaton said of Woody Allen in one
of his films, that's the nice term for what you are.
(29:05):
So I don't have the nineteen fourteen Babe Ruth card anymore.
I do like my Babe Ruth collection. When he hit
his five hundredth home running nineteen twenty nine, the year
my folks were born. My dad would have been thirteen
days old when Babe Ruth hit his five hundredth home run.
My mom would have been just shive two months old.
Babe Ruth bought it from the fan who ran down
(29:27):
the home run in Cleveland as it bounced around past
the outfield wall, a guy named Jake Geyser. He gave
Jake Geyser twenty bucks for it in nineteen twenty nine,
and then he gave the baseball to his pal, one
of the earliest of the true baseball collectors, the comedian
Joe E. Brown. He inscribed it to Joe Brown and
everything in. Brown put a screw into the bottom of
(29:50):
the ball and displayed it on a little marble pedestal.
And guess where Babe Ruth's five hundredth home run is
right now, including the pedestal yep, right in there behind
the studio wall. So I'll keep that. Of course, if
you want to make me an offer, I might listen.
(30:30):
Still ahead of us on countdown. I was just talking
to another woman with another charming British accent, and she
said another word that I mistook because of the accent,
for a different word, and that flashed me back to
this time of year in nineteen eighty five. I would
have sworn to you on my life that that British
woman had said her name last name was Carleton. It
(30:53):
is some story because her name was not Carlton, and
it's coming up in things I promised not to tell.
By the way, when I tapped on the door to
the studio, the door opened, oops first time for the
daily roundup of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effect specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world.
Wors Mayor Eric Adams of New York. Actually, this is
(31:15):
good news. This is a positive sign that my fellow
residents and Dennison's here of fun City are paying attention.
Quinnipiac polling Gotham on its opinion of its mayors since
nineteen ninety six is out with the first poll on Adams,
and his approval rating is thirty five percent among Democrats,
(31:38):
it's twenty eight percent among all New Yorkers. They would
compare it to one of the other turds we've had recently,
Giuliani de Blasio. But this is the worst they have
ever polled for a New York mayor since they started
in nineteen ninety six. But don't worry. Mayor Adams is
unfazed after all, As he once said, I thank god
(31:59):
I'm the mayor right now. Get him out of here,
Get him out of here. Just get him out of here.
I don't care how you get them, just get him
out of here. Worser, speaking of get him out of here,
Robert F. Kennedy Junior, you know the Qanons and half
the Republicans want the death penalty for anybody who was
ever on the plane owned by Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein. Well,
(32:19):
guess what, Jesse Waters, Little Jesse. If Fox News asked
rfk Junior you were an ever on Jeffrey Epstein's jat
where are you? And Robert F. Kennedy Junior answered, I
was on Jeffrey Epstein's jat two times, my wife had
some kind of relationship with Kallaine Maxwell. Wait what two
(32:42):
times and your wife had a relationship with Khlain Maxwell.
So RFK Junior has to be military tribunaled right Republicans,
but the winner the worst. Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk
and Alex Jones. Remember Tucker Carlson, Remember Elon Musk, Remember
(33:03):
Alex Joe Ones. When Musk bought Twitter even he had
the self respect and self awareness to continue the ban
on the psychopath and Sandy Hook Denier Alex Jones, Well,
guess who he's platforming now in a video by Tucker
Carlson Alex Jones, a video in which Carlson says Jones
(33:27):
predicted nine to eleven, he didn't, and that nine to
eleven was an inside job. It wasn't. Oh, and this
comes on the same day as Republicans in the Senate
blocked a new assault weapons ban. Alex Jones, Sandy Hook Denier,
and there was another mass shooting at the University of
Nevada at Las Vegas. Alex Jones, Sandy Hook Denier platformed
by Elon Musk. Nice work, Musk here's an idea. The
(33:49):
next rocket you send up, make it self driving like
your incendiary cars, and make sure you and Tucker and
Alex Jones are on it with you. Scumbag Carlson insane,
Jones insane, Musk insane. Two days worst Arsendens. And now
(34:29):
to the number one story on the Countdown and my
favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell,
and I swear I thought I heard her say, Carleton.
This was also December in nineteen eighty five in Los Angeles.
And if you've never spent Christmas in a warm metropolitan
area for the first time in your life, you do
(34:49):
not know what disorientation really is. I had just completed
three months in my new job as the sports director
of Channel five in LA. I had spent most of
November adjusting not only to it not getting cold, but
to the fact that almost nobody else noticed that it
was not getting cold, except one of our production assistants,
who sprinted through the parking lot and up the stairs
(35:11):
into the little bungalow on the KTLA lot in Hollywood,
then housed our sports department. He shivered like a dog,
shaking himself awake, and announced, my God, it's bitter out there. Bitter.
I checked it was forty nine degrees. So December nineteen
eighty five was already weird enough. I was doing well
in LA, being three thousand miles away from everyone and
(35:33):
everything I knew had been surprisingly helpful, and there was
no ramp up time for my work. I'd already won
a couple of best Sportscaster awards, and then the top
all news radio station was asking me to come over
every afternoon and split the afternoon drive sportscasting shift with
a guy who'd been on the air there literally for
thirty years, who's one of the voices in the background
and the Godfather Part two. And now somehow, my producer,
(35:58):
Ron Greulnick, and I were headed to the Beverly Wilshire
Hotel to go interview Mickey Mantle. For the average LA
sportscaster here, there really wasn't much reason to interview Mickey Mantle,
which is why all of them at the bigger three
network stations had turned down the offer of a sit
down interview. But I was a New Yorker and had
(36:19):
been three months earlier, and thus Mickey Mantle was my idol.
And moreover, when I became a baseball fan. In nineteen
sixty seven. My folks bought tickets specifically behind first base
at Yankee Stadium because they had just moved Mantle there
from the outfield. And as my dad said, when you
are an old man, you will say, the greatest thing
you ever saw in baseball was Mickey Mantle, so you
(36:42):
might as well see as much of him as you can. Well,
I'm an old man now, and my dad was exactly right.
Mantle was on a tour publicizing some kind of hitting video,
and he would do one exclusive interview with an LA
station at like exactly five pm on that night in
December nineteen eighty five, and to get it you had
to agree to give the video exactly one plug and
(37:03):
ask him one quot questioned about it. But otherwise you
could ask whatever you wanted. He had fifteen minutes then
he was going out to dinner. Yeah, yeah, that was it. Dinner.
So Ron and I pulled up to the Beverly Wilshire
in his car, and I had never been in, but
I had walked past it a dozen times and I
knew there was a new wing and an old wing.
(37:24):
And as Ron tried to park, I tried to find
the room where Mantle would be waiting for us, so
I could be there to meet the camera crew that
was joining us from some other shoot somewhere, and also
because he was Mickey Mantle. I had met him before,
I had even interviewed him briefly for CNN, but nothing
like this, nothing like a sit down interview, just me
and him. The room number was something like eight ninety seven,
(37:50):
could have been five ninety seven, could have been twelve
ninety seven, but it was basically the highest number there
could be on a given hotel floor. And I saw
the elevator just pass the registration desk and up. I
went to the eighth floor, and it was a deserted labyrinth,
turn after turn and nobody there. And then suddenly I
turned to corner, and walking towards me was the most
(38:11):
elegantly dressed older couple I had ever seen to that
point or since. She was wearing a mink stole atop
a beautiful gown, and she had a diamond necklace big
enough to induce cramps. She had a piercing, glistening set
of deep brown eyes. She looked to be in her
(38:33):
mid to late fifties, but might have been older. He
was older, maybe eighty, but with a full head of
thick and wiry hair. He was tall, thin, extraordinarily elegant
in a perfect tuxedo. But all of this was overwhelmed,
almost erased, by one fact that startles me still thirty
seven years later. This man was wearing a cape. I'm
(39:01):
pretty confident that I had never seen a man wearing
a cape before. I know, I have not seen one
since I have been looking. And yet it looked so
good on him that I can recall briefly thinking, Keith,
maybe you should buy a cape. This couple was perfect.
We seem to be the only people on the floor.
(39:23):
The hallway wasn't all that wide. I said good evening
as I passed. She said good evening, and in so
doing revealed a British accent. And he mumbled at evening
and revealed what sounded like the lingering, minor aftermaths of
a minor stroke. They walked their way, I walked mine,
and my focus returned to finding Mickey Mantle in room
eight ninety seven. The numbers of the rooms I was
(39:45):
passing were like eight eleven and eight fourteen, and after
a few more turns of the labyrinth. That dawned on
me that I must be in the old wing of
the Beverly Wilshire, and the high numbers like eight ninety
seven must have been in the new wing of the
Beverly Wilshire. I also noticed that I had not passed
a doorway or a vestibule or some kind of connecting
brick to the new wing, so I had better make
(40:07):
it back to the elevator and the lobby before Ron
or the camera crew made the same mistake I had.
Because Mickey Mantle was waiting my reversed course, I began
to trot. After three or four more of these labyrinthine turns,
I found, to my shock that the perfectly elegant older
couple he was wearing a cape, was standing exactly where
(40:30):
I had left them. She laughed, she mentioned something about
the higher numbers being in the new wing, and everybody
made that mistake. I thanked her, and then she said,
you're the young man who does the spots on the television,
aren't you. And I had gotten pretty popular pretty fast there,
but being recognized was still very surprising and pleasantly so.
And I said that, and I introduced myself. So nice
(40:51):
to meet you, She said, I'm Patricia Carlton, and this,
she pointed to the guy in the cape is my husband.
He slowly extended a hand but shook mine vigorously, and
I'm Joseph Carlton. Missus Carleton was very excited. You know,
Joe and I, we really are not fans of the sports,
but whenever we're at home in Palm Springs, we make
(41:12):
sure we stay up until the end of the ten
o'clock news so we can watch you. Joe nodded and
smiled in the cape. You know, so clearly enjoying yourself
that we find ourselves enjoying it too. That's really quite remarkable.
I was genuinely touched and remain so I explained my dilemma.
I treated them as you were supposed to treat viewers,
gratefully and solicitously, and I asked them if they were
(41:34):
going to the lobby, and if I might walk with them,
so I didn't get any further lost. We'd be delighted.
I must ask you, mister fishman, who does the news
on your program? Is that his real hair? She saw
my shock at the question. Joe and I have often
worn wigs, and we can't be certain. That means if
it is a wig, it's a good one. We reached
(41:57):
the elevator bank and I pushed down. He was walking slowly.
He must have had a stroke. Still, he was an
imposing figure of a man, and not just because he
was wearing a cape. As I steered them away from
the subject of our anchorman's to pay and talked instead
about my Mickey Mantle interview, I realized he looked extremely familiar,
(42:18):
like I knew him. Joseph Carleton kept rolling the name
over in my mind. And Patricia Carlton, who are they?
The elevator light went off and a very loud bell sounded.
The doors opened, and there was my producer, Ron and
the two man camera crew and the reporter who had
(42:38):
been with them on the previous story, Sam chu Lynn,
who had stayed with him because he wanted to meet
Mickey Mantle. And as I joked to my new friends
Joe and Patricia Carlton, oh look, here's my camera crew.
It's four members made no motion to even leave the elevator.
They all looked dumb struck. Sam chu Lynn's eyes looked
like they were about to pop out of his head.
(42:59):
I assumed this was because my new friend Joe was
wearing a cape. Finally I got the crew to move.
I held the door open so Joe and Patricia could
get into the elevator. I actually said, such a pleasure
to meet you, and of course, thank you so much
for watching Channel five News at ten, and she smiled warmly,
and he managed to quick wave and the doors closed.
(43:21):
And only at that exact moment did it dawn on
me where I knew him from the blood now drained
from my face. As I turned to talk to the
camera crew and Ron and Sam. Uh, you guys knew
who those two people were, right, Sam laughed at me.
(43:42):
Of course I did, didn't you? And I sighed, oh
my god. She said her name was Patricia Carleton and
that was her husband, Joseph Carleton, and she said it
that way because she's British, and that's how if you're
British you would say the name Cotton. She's Patricia Cotton
and he's Joseph Cotton, who was in Citizen Kane. I
(44:07):
remember actually put my hand on the wall on my
face in my other hand. I just met Joseph Cotton,
and I didn't recognize him, and the cameraman Martin Klancy,
who also often said things like this, said pretty stupid
of you, huh, And I said, you know you have
no idea how stupid? I mean, obviously I know who
Joseph Cotton is. And Sam Chulinn said are you sure
(44:30):
about that? I gave him a dirty look and I said, no,
it's worse than this. In nineteen forty eight, the president
of the International Joseph Cotton Fan Club was my mother.
There is a picture of that man with my mother
from like thirty seven years ago at the Stork Club.
(44:53):
They all laughed. Then Sam Chulin said in that photo,
is he wearing that cape? My gaff did serve to
relax me a little for the interview with Mantle. My gaff.
When I get over it, i'll let you know. So anyway,
(45:13):
we all reached room eight ninety seven or whatever it
was in the new Wing the Beverly Wilshire, and as
the crew set up, I managed to tell the story
of the Cottons to Mickey Mantle and he said, yeah,
I saw them in the lobby a couple hours ago.
He's a great actor. I met him in New York,
must be thirty years ago. Did you say hi?
Speaker 7 (45:31):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (45:31):
Right?
Speaker 1 (45:31):
You just told me you didn't recognize him. Mickey Mantle
was busting my chops, as I said. I had met
him before, even interviewed him before, but this was our
first sit down. And he was in a good mood,
even expansive and playful. And at one point he stunned me.
I said, I know you only have a couple of
minutes left, so forgive me if I'm bringing up something
that takes more than a couple of minutes. And he interrupted,
(45:53):
and he said, take as much time as you need.
I'm enjoying us talking. So I asked him about this
one subject, how he felt about what he did in
his career, considering how injured he was when he retired.
Mickey Mantle was third all time in homers. He hit
three hundred and ten times. He played in twelve World
Series on one bad knee and one worse knee. Mantell
(46:16):
got very reflective and self critical. We use this sound
bite at the end of his obituary that I would
do for ESPN a decade later if I'd known I
was going to live so long, he told me, I
would have taken better care of myself and done better.
I said, well, he'd done pretty good. I could have
done better, I thanked him. Then, as the cameraman moved
(46:41):
to get the shots of me nodding and repeating a
question or two, Mickey Mantle said that was really good.
I flushed. I got to ask you something. Can you
give me some pointers? I suddenly had no idea what
the word pointers meant? Pointers? What are pointers? Mantle said
he was going to do some Yankee games the next
(47:02):
year on cable with Mel Allen doing interviews after games.
I'm no damn good at interviews. Just now, you were
moving from topics to topics so smooth. How you keep
all the questions in your head? Now? I laughed. I
didn't keep them in my head. Didn't you see my
cheat card? And he laughed and he said no, and
I showed it to him. I said, it's just a
business card with like seven keywords written on the back.
(47:25):
If I think i might freeze up because I'm nervous
because I'm interviewing Mickey Mantle, or I just met Joseph
Cotton and I didn't recognize him, I make one of
these cards. I hide it in the palm of my hand,
and if I get stuck, I could just look down
quickly and see one of the words, and I've got
the question. I've got this card to remind me. Mickey
Mantle's eyes glowed. But wait, he said, we're using these mics,
(47:49):
and he pointed to the clip on on his shirt,
so you don't have to hold mike. What do you
do if you have to hold the mic like I'll
have to in an interview after a ballgame, What if
the card would fall out or you have to shake
hands with the player. And I said, well, just write
the words on your hand whichever hand is holding the mic,
like below the thumb. Mickey Mantle looked at me as
(48:11):
if I had just given him the secret of eternal life. Wow,
he said, that's great. I'm gonna write this down. Thanks,
and we were packed up, and he actually walked me
to the hotel room door and gave me a double
handed handshake. So it had been a big day, even
if I didn't realize it was Joseph Cotton. Mickey Mantle
(48:32):
had asked me for advice about anything. Somehow I had
thought of something to tell him, and he was really
happy about the advice, and of course this provided a punchline.
The following spring, we were in the studios at KTLA,
watching on the satellite feed as the Yankees first cable
telecast of the nineteen eighty six season ended, And sure enough,
(48:52):
they threw it down to Mickey Mantle on the field
interviewing some player, and one of our producers said, oh,
let's see if he remembers the lesson you gave him,
and another one said, here's your student, Mickey Mantle. And
sure enough, after the first answer, Mickey Mantle pauses, and
I know he can't remember what he wanted to ask next,
And sure enough I see him cheat his look down
slightly towards the head holding the microphone, and the next
(49:13):
thing I see he's kind of tilted the microphone sideways
and he's asking the question, but you can barely hear
him because the mic is pointing off at a forty
five degree angle, because he has written his key reminder
words not below the thumb on the outside part of
(49:34):
his hand, but on the palm side of his hand,
and he's had to move the mic out of the
way to read the words on the palm of his hand.
And the producer says, ha ha, Well, now Mickey Mantle
hates you. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(50:03):
Thank you for listening. Count And it has come to
you from the Vin Scully Studios at the El Roman
Broadcasting Empire in New York. My mother when I called
her that day to tell her that I had met
Joseph Cotton and not recognized him until the exact last
minute that the elevator doors closed, my mother said, you know,
he was not very talkative. Back at the Stork Club
in nineteen forty seven, Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and
(50:26):
John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on
the guitars, bass and drums, produced by Tko Brothers. It
explained at least, although it does underscore the fact that
my mother held a grudge. Now and again. There it
was a photo. I saw it. I don't know where
(50:46):
it is. I've looked for it. It's a photo of
my mother at the Stork Club with Joseph Cotton, nineteen
forty seven fan club meeting of some sort, and Joseph
Cotton looks bored and my mother looks even more bored.
I would I'd pay somebody in my family to find
that photo for me. You guys are listening, go ahead.
(51:09):
Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and
performed by No horns allowed. The sports music courtesy ESPN, Inc.
Written by Mitch Warren Davis. We call it the Olderman
theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today is my friend John Dean. Everything else
(51:30):
pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this, the
one thy sixty sixth day since dementia Jay Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the Insurrection Act against him and them while we
still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolletin's as
the news warrants till then on Keith Olderman, good morning,
(51:51):
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
Speaker 9 (51:57):
Foh, there these are the stakes who.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?
Speaker 4 (52:23):
Except the day one, except the walk He's going to Chris,
except the day one. He says, You're not going to
be a dictator, are you? I said no, no, no
other than day one.
Speaker 7 (52:32):
We must either love each other or we must die.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home. 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. The
seven justices of the Colorado Supreme Court have given no
(00:25):
indication how they will rule on Trump's disqualification under the
fourteenth Amendment, and they have given no indication when they
will rule. But here is a bigger issue. They have
no right to rule. The fourteenth Amendment clearly, unquestionably, inarguably,
and eternally states that an insurrectionist cannot serve in an
(00:48):
elected federal or state office, or a lot of other offices.
And it does not allow Chief Justice vote Right or
Justice Birkencotter, or Justice Gabriel or Justice Hard or Justice
Hood or Justice Marquez or Justice Samour, or for that matter,
Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Soda mayor or anybody else
on that court to overrule the Constitution. Because the Fourteenth
(01:12):
Amendment already has a means by which disqualified traders may appeal.
The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment built that remedy in
and they have already designated two bodies to overrule disqualification
under special circumstances. And those bodies are the United States
(01:33):
House of Representatives and the United States Senate. And if
they each vote by two thirds to let Trump back
on the ballot. He is back on the ballot, that
is for all practical purposes in the Constitution. And if
they don't vote by two thirds, he's not on the ballot,
and that is also for all practical purposes in the Constitution.
(01:54):
The entirety of the Trump and Fascist Party arguments against
disqualification under the fourteenth Amendment are two fictions unsupported by
the Constitution, or by the Amendment, or by the history
of this country, or by the history of the men
who wrote the goddamn fourteenth Amendment as they were still
(02:16):
wiping up the blood from the floor of this country
after the First Civil War. The fictions are that this
has to go through the courts. It does not, It
has to go through the Congress. But the other one,
even before that, the legal whore representing Trump in front
(02:36):
of the Colorado State Supreme Court, this gas bag, Scott Gessler,
the ex Colorado Secretary of State who lost that job
after he was found guilty of ethics violations. Gessler has
manufactured out of thin air this hallucination that the president
was not a mere officer of the United States like
(02:59):
senators or congressmen or state office holders. Then that the
authors of the fourteenth mend phrase the disqualification clause in
such a way as to clearly and deliberately exclude would
be presidents because they were more important and their selection
represented the true will of the American people. Bullshit. When
(03:26):
the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, the President of the United
States was a lesser figure than the average senator or
the average congressman. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July ninth,
eighteen sixty eight, and at that point the President of
the United States was Andrew Johnson, and the Senate had
(03:48):
just spent eighteen months trying to neoter Andrew Johnson, and
they took away his right to readmit the Southern States,
and they passed legislation denying him the right to fire
cabinet members, specifically Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, And when
he to do it anyway, the House passed eleven articles
(04:09):
of impeachment against Andrew Johnson, and the Senate acquitted him
on May sixteenth, eighteen sixty eight, and by only one vote,
and that senator and others had been bribed to vote
to acquit the president. They wrote the Fourteenth Amendment over
the objections of President Andrew Johnson, and the clause that
(04:32):
disqualified all insurrectionists for all time, but gave Congress the
right to vote to overrule that by a two thirds
vote was written that way because they wanted to emphasize
that it was Congress that would make that choice and
not the president, and especially not that president. We forget,
(04:56):
but skipping Lincoln, the preceding nine presidents of the United
States had been going backwards from the day the fourteenth
mend was passed. Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore,
Zachary Taylor, James K. Polk, John Tyler, William Henry Harrison,
(05:20):
and Martin Van Buren, and not one of them had
been re elected. We changed presidents ten times in thirty years,
and only Lincoln got a second chance. The presidency was
not imperial, and it was not more important, and it
was not exalted. But it's more than just that. The
(05:44):
fourteenth Amendment, the one disqualifying insurrectionists from office in this
country forever, was principally conceived and written by two committees,
one of the House, one in the Senate on Reconstruction,
the one in the Senate included Thaddeus Stevens, who wanted
(06:05):
to take all the money from all the insurrectionists in
the South and give it to the freed slaves. And
it contained Senator Roscoe Conkling, so respected as a lawyer,
as a jurist, as a constitutional scholar, that two presidents
asked him to serve on the Supreme Court, and he
said no, thanks. But it was written principally by Congressman
(06:30):
John Bingham of Ohio. John Bingham was a radical Republican
who not only was one of the House Managers for
the impeachment of President Johnson, but earlier, John Bingham had
been the assistant judge Advocate general during the trial of
the accomplices of the man who murdered Abraham Lincoln, John
(06:51):
Wilkes Booth. And if John Bingham's attitude towards insurrectionists was
not clear enough from what is written in the fourteenth
Amendment and what he did completely justifiably slow roasting President
Andrew Johnson. Just a reminder about the trial of the conspirators.
(07:13):
The eight co conspirators charged in the Lincoln assassination that
the co author of the Fourteenth Amendment prosecuted included missus
Mary Surrat, who ran the boarding house where the conspirators met,
and it included Spangler, the stage hand at Ford's Theater,
(07:33):
who did nothing more than hold Booth's horse while Booth
went in and murdered the president. They hanged half of
the defendants, including the woman who ran the boarding house.
Three of the other four defendants were given life sentences.
The guy who held the horse got six years at
(07:55):
hard labor. They did make a concession to Missus Surratt
while they were preparing to hang her and the others,
they let her sit in a chair. The authors of
the fourteenth Amendment were not effing around about insurrectionists. So
(08:17):
the idea that this legal whore taking money from Trump
can walk into the Colorado Supreme Court and say with
a straight face that the intent of the fourteenth Amendment
was to disqualify insurrectionist, but not a president. You can't
disqualify a president. A president is too big a deal,
(08:39):
and that the justice could sit there without finding him
in contempt of American history. It's a pathetic joke. Senator
Stevens and especially Congressman Yeah Hang Missus Surrat to Bingham
were not excluding presidents from their Amendment to the Constitution.
(09:03):
They were not making sure that Jefferson Davis or Alexander Stevens,
or Nathan Bedford Forrest or Robert E. Lee or Donald
Trump could still run for president after they tried to
overthrow the goddamned government. It's not just nonsense. It is
literally an insult to every American who died in the
Civil War defending the Union, and to the sanctity of
(09:25):
the elections. It is an insult to Lincoln. It is
an insult to this country. And so is this nonsensical
idea that the state courts have to rule on whether
or not Trump or any other insurrectionist, scumbag and craze
violent revolutionary should be on the ballot for anything from
(09:48):
president to dog catcher. Thaddeus Stevens and John Bingham's fourteenth
Amendment is clearly self executing. It is clearly automatic. It
is the def position. If it were not self executing,
(10:09):
why would they have attached the actual key words to
the third clause, the disqualification clause. Why would they have
attached the final fourteen words of the damn thing? Congress
may buy a vote of two thirds of each House
remove such disqualification If the Fourteenth Amendment was not automatic,
(10:32):
why would you need a PostScript permitting the House and
the Senate to override it under special circumstances. If everybody
seemingly disqualified under it for trying to overthrow our government
was to be judged separately and individually based on which
office he was running for and how menacingly he tried
to overthrow the government. If it was up to a
(10:54):
judge or a court or the Supreme Court, you wouldn't
need a Senate and House override, and that would not
be written into the Amendment. Simply put, the States do
not have the right to put Donald Trump or any
of the other January sixth insurrectionists and insurrectionist plotters on
(11:15):
their ballot. The Constitution is explicit. There is already a
mechanism by which Trump could be put on the ballot.
And there is only one mechanism and only one action
by only one group by which Trump can override the
fourteenth Amendment to be put on the ballot. And it
is exactly what Thatdeus Stevens and the others and John
(11:36):
Bingham wrote in eighteen sixty six. Congress may by a
vote of two thirds in each House the Colorado Supreme
Court hearing is regardless of the outcome a farce, there
is due process available, even to Trump. It is right
(12:00):
there in the Constitution. You know the Constitution, the thing
Trump has vowed and promised to terminate. He is ineligible.
I suspect if Thaddeus Stevens and John Bingham came back
to life today and we're briefed on this, their response
(12:21):
would be to chase Trump with their canes. Oh and
if this farce were not stupid enough, if it were
not unconstitutional enough, this disgraced ex State Secretary of State,
Trump's stooge Gessler, who seems to have gotten his law
(12:42):
degree as a prize in a box of cracker jacks,
is also an idiot.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
What if we narrat it to say, prevent the peaceful
transfer of.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Power of the United States government, would that be an insurrection.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
To prevent the peaceful transfer? I don't think so, and
I'm not sure you're honor.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Look.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I mean, if you look at historically and the context
of how insurrection was used, I mean, it has to
be for a substantial duration, not three hours.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
An insurrection has to last more than three hours. Gotcha,
if your insurrection lasts more than three hours, see your
doctor immediately, because you, mister Gessler, appropriately enough, are a dick.
(13:32):
My rage about the fourteenth Amendment. Notwithstanding, sometimes the unimportant
things make the most important impact. I didn't even flinch
when Hannity tried to get the would be dictator Trump
to take advantage of a chance to lie and say
he would not be a dictator. But Trump was too
(13:53):
stupid to take it. But a whole lot of other
people flinched big time. The symbolism of this enemy of
the United States of America making a big joke about
how he'd only be a dictator from the instant he
regained power, but he'd stop after one day. That may
(14:13):
have actually cut through the noise.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Under no circumstances. You are promising America tonight you would
never abuse power as retribution against anybody.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Except the day one, except he's gone to for except
the day one.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
He says you're not going to be a dictator.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I said, no, no, no other than day one.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Once again, they have people paid to do this. But there,
President Biden, my old friend is your reelection campaign commercial.
There are millions of people in America who not only
don't know who the president is. They don't know who
the president was, and they don't know who the next
(14:53):
president might be. They are the ones who need to
hear him saying that because refusing to even lie and
to sure your most loyal anti democracy propagandist that you
aren't going to be a dictator and saying yeah, I am,
but just for a day, that can cut through. Take
(15:17):
the tape, Write one strong opening line like Donald Trump
is running for dictator of America, and get some voiceover
guy to kill the read. Then you run the clip.
Then you get the president to say I'm Joe Biden
and I approved this message, and you're done. It'll make
Lyndon Johnson's daisy commercial look like a public service announcement
(15:40):
on c SPAN. Wait, you know that Lyndon Johnson daisy
commercial right after Barry Goldwater mused about using nuclear weapons.
The daisy commercial ran once middle of the NBC Monday
Night Movie on September seventh, nineteen sixty four. Once this
(16:04):
ran once.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
Play far five seven, six six eight nine.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
Nine five four three.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Why there.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
These are the stakes to make a world in which
all of God's children can live. Are to go into
the dark. We must either love each other, or we
must die.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Vote for President Johnson on November third. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home. Once were and once,
Let's try it again. Let's update it, shall we?
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Six?
Speaker 7 (17:13):
No?
Speaker 6 (17:21):
Five? Four three wore?
Speaker 7 (17:30):
These are the stakes?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Who would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Except the day one? Except the work he's going to
christ except the day one. He says, You're not going
to be a dictator?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Are you?
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I said no, No, no other than day one.
Speaker 7 (17:45):
We must either love each other or we must die.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home. Any questions. Yeah,
by the way, I'll do the read for that one
for free. A couple of more headlines. All of the
(18:16):
Trump fake electors in Wisconsin flipped yesterday. They had been
sued civilly, and as part of the settlement they promised
never to do it again and to cooperate with the
federal prosecutors. Meanwhile, the six fake electors in Nevada were
all indicted by that state. Among them is the state
National Republican Committee man Jim Degraff and red and Nevada
(18:39):
GOP chair Michael McDonald, who did not have a three
way with the co founder of Moms or a Liberty,
Bridget Zegler, and the Florida GOP chair Christian Zealer, speaking
of if you're thinking of Nicky Haley as some kind
of viable option last night at debate number I don't know,
As the old SNL joke goes, welcome to the fourth
(19:00):
or fifth Republican debate Nicky Haley last night tis Tis
DeSantis by saying his don't say gay bill did not
go far enough. Well, obviously it did not go far
enough for mister missus Ziegler, did it. Kevin McCarthy is
going to quit Congress. So now, if a Democrat wins
(19:21):
the vacant George Santo's seat, almost to certainty, the GOP
margin in the House will be down to two votes,
the margin becoming reduced to two hundred and twenty to
two hundred and fourteen. Well, how in the hell is
a margin of six just two votes? New math? Because
a tie in the House, it's not like the Senate.
(19:44):
There's no tie breaking vote. A tie in the House
is a no. You have to get two hundred and
eighteen votes to pass anything. Speaker Johnson will only have
two hundred and twenty votes to play with, and now
literally any two House Republicans can stop anything they personally
don't like. Bon chance, mikey and you may have heard,
(20:09):
Mike Pence has been added to the potential witness list
in Georgia by Fannie Willis. It's way bigger than just that.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution saw the entire expanded witness list,
and sure it's Pence and Bill Barr and Jeffrey Rosen
and Richard Donahue from Justice and Steve Bannon and Congressman
Scott Perry, who, by the way, is also ineligible under
(20:30):
the fourteenth Amendment, and also on the witness list Georgia
officials like Governor Brian Kemp, former Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan,
Attorney General Chris Carr, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger,
all of whom are not ineligible under the fourteenth Amendment.
And don't effing make me dig up Thaddeus Stevens to
(20:52):
prove this, because he would be in a really really
bad mood. Also of interest here, oh, great Elon Musk.
Just let Tucker Carlson put Alex Jones back on Twitter,
and why yes, I did sell a nineteen fourteen Babe
(21:17):
Ruth Baltimore Orioles rookie baseball card for seven figures. Why
do you ask that's next? This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith Alberman.
Speaker 8 (21:44):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Alberman in Sports Dateline, New York. He reached Major League
Baseball on May twentieth eighteen, and the rumors that he
would wind up with the New York Yankees began on
May twentieth, twenty eighteen. It reportedly came true last night.
Juan Soto reportedly traded from the San Diego Padres to
(22:18):
the Yankees along with outfielder Trent Grisham for young pitchers
Michael King, Randy Vasquez and Johnny Brido, top pitching prospect
Drew Thorpe, and the catcher Kyle Higashioka. Soto is an
offensive juggernaut who also gets walked an average of one
hundred and thirty three times a season. On the other hand,
the Washington Nationals did not hesitate to dump him for
(22:40):
salary reasons at age twenty three, and San Diego, which
needed fifty million dollars in September in a loane just
to meet payroll has now dumped him for salary reasons
at age twenty five, And all the Yankee fans who
are proclaiming themselves the twenty twenty four World champions have
already forgotten. They said exactly the same thing when they
traded for John Carlos stanton On. The Yankees have won
(23:03):
one World Series since the year two thousand, which is
the longest drought in franchise history. Dateline Nashville, Tennessee. Three
months after, he got angry at reporters who suggested he
was thinking of moving the Chicago White Sox out of
Chicago after one hundred and twenty three seasons there, and
(23:24):
then said, you know, his lease is up in six years,
so quote, we've got to decide what the future is
going to be. Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Rhinsdorf the
biggest clown in sports, Bigger even than hal Steinbrenner of
the Yankees, more of a clown than two hal Steinbrenners.
Jerry Reinsdorf has reportedly met with the mayor of Nashville,
(23:46):
Tennessee that city is pushing hard for a major league
franchise of any kind. It can get Rhinsdorf previously blackmailed
the state of Illinois into a new ballpark by agreeing
to move the White Sox to Tampa Bay in nineteen
eighty eight. Then he backed out of that deal. Now
he's not happy with the new stadium I gave him,
but moved to Nashville. I mean, nice city, but in
(24:12):
terms of DMAs designated market areas how you make your
money in sports, Nashville is twenty ninth in this country.
TV household population is one million, eleven thousand people. Chicago,
by that same measure, is third. The population is three
times that size. So even if you were only to
get thirty five percent of the Chicago baseball market, you'll
(24:36):
be getting more people than you would get in Nashville.
Nashville is also a smaller market than Portland, Orlando, Charlotte,
and Indianapolis. But go ahead, move to Nashville from Chicago, Jerry,
because that's the kind of thinking that has brought the
White Sox one championship since nineteen oh six. Thank you,
(25:27):
Nancy Faust. Actually you're welcome. Nancy Faust, Dateline, Baltimore. So
I got asked again last night that Babe Ruth baseball card,
his rookie card from nineteen fourteen, when he had just
started his professional career as a pitcher with the then
minor league Baltimore Orioles, before he was sold to the
(25:49):
Red Sox. Let alone sold to the Yankees. You know
the card that sold at auction for seven million, two
hundred thousand dollars. No, it was not mine. I had one.
I sold mine early in twenty twenty for one million dollars,
And no, I'm not sorry. I did this one graded
very good, a three on a scale of one to ten.
(26:09):
The one I sold for for one seventh the price.
It looked nicer on the front, but half of the
back is missing. I think it's been graded authentic, which
means it's not even considered poor. If I auctioned it
off now, I might get more for it, maybe fifty
percent more, maybe twice as much. I mean, the guy
who lost that auction was clearly willing to go like
(26:32):
seven million flat for that one. So if you have
one at home, sell it. There are that many of
the Babe Ruth nineteen fourteen cards, and they are spectacular
artifacts of baseball history. They're almost religious iconography. Ruth is
shown skinny young just after the Truants home, but that
devilish smile and broad face are beginning to be recognizable.
(26:54):
It is some baseball card, but I sold mine for
a couple of reasons. One, it was the beginning of
twenty twenty, and you might remember there was that pandemic
just underway, and nobody really knew how that was going
to turn out. I thought, hey, you know, maybe now
is the time to have that cash, not the card. Plus,
I bought it either in nineteen ninety nine or two thousand,
(27:16):
for only about twenty twenty five thousand, fifty thousand. Maybe
I don't know. If a profit of forty nine hundred
percent on a baseball card is not enough for you,
well not enough for me. It's time to get a
full physical, including a mental health test. More importantly, I'm
a set collector. I bought the Ruth because it was cool,
(27:38):
and I hope to complete the set produced by the
Baltimore News newspaper, showing both the minor league Baltimore Orioles
and the old Baltimore Terrapins of the long defunct Federal League.
But the set is really scarce, not just the Ruth card.
I have only seen about six of the other cards
from the set, let alone other Babe Ruths turn up
(28:00):
in all these years. My collection of nineteen fourteen Baltimore
News cards with twenty years trying consisted of two cards,
the Babe Ruth and the Gus Gleischmann. So I had
two and I still needed twenty two to complete the set.
I don't like that I have the famous nineteen oh
nine Honis Wagner, and in fact I have an even
(28:20):
rarer proof version of the same card, which Honnes Wagner
himself used to own. And I wanted to get a
Honess Wagner when I was eleven years old and I
started collecting the set. He's in American Tobacco T two
o six they call it, when I was eleven years old.
But if I didn't collect American Tobacco T two o six,
I wouldn't have gotten a Wagner. But I do, so
(28:41):
I did. You have to have it to complete your set.
That and all the other five hundred and twenty three
cards in the set, and hundreds of different color variations,
and a bunch of proof cards of players who wound
up being dropped from the set. And they're really cool
because I'm a set collector. I'm an anal retentive. As
I think Diane Keaton said of Woody Allen in one
of his films, that's the nice term for what you are.
(29:05):
So I don't have the nineteen fourteen Babe Ruth card anymore.
I do like my Babe Ruth collection. When he hit
his five hundredth home running nineteen twenty nine, the year
my folks were born. My dad would have been thirteen
days old when Babe Ruth hit his five hundredth home run.
My mom would have been just shive two months old.
Babe Ruth bought it from the fan who ran down
(29:27):
the home run in Cleveland as it bounced around past
the outfield wall, a guy named Jake Geyser. He gave
Jake Geyser twenty bucks for it in nineteen twenty nine,
and then he gave the baseball to his pal, one
of the earliest of the true baseball collectors, the comedian
Joe E. Brown. He inscribed it to Joe Brown and
everything in. Brown put a screw into the bottom of
(29:50):
the ball and displayed it on a little marble pedestal.
And guess where Babe Ruth's five hundredth home run is
right now, including the pedestal yep, right in there behind
the studio wall. So I'll keep that. Of course, if
you want to make me an offer, I might listen.
(30:30):
Still ahead of us on countdown. I was just talking
to another woman with another charming British accent, and she
said another word that I mistook because of the accent,
for a different word, and that flashed me back to
this time of year in nineteen eighty five. I would
have sworn to you on my life that that British
woman had said her name last name was Carleton. It
(30:53):
is some story because her name was not Carlton, and
it's coming up in things I promised not to tell.
By the way, when I tapped on the door to
the studio, the door opened, oops first time for the
daily roundup of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effect specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world.
Wors Mayor Eric Adams of New York. Actually, this is
(31:15):
good news. This is a positive sign that my fellow
residents and Dennison's here of fun City are paying attention.
Quinnipiac polling Gotham on its opinion of its mayors since
nineteen ninety six is out with the first poll on Adams,
and his approval rating is thirty five percent among Democrats,
(31:38):
it's twenty eight percent among all New Yorkers. They would
compare it to one of the other turds we've had recently,
Giuliani de Blasio. But this is the worst they have
ever polled for a New York mayor since they started
in nineteen ninety six. But don't worry. Mayor Adams is
unfazed after all, As he once said, I thank god
(31:59):
I'm the mayor right now. Get him out of here,
Get him out of here. Just get him out of here.
I don't care how you get them, just get him
out of here. Worser, speaking of get him out of here,
Robert F. Kennedy Junior, you know the Qanons and half
the Republicans want the death penalty for anybody who was
ever on the plane owned by Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein. Well,
(32:19):
guess what, Jesse Waters, Little Jesse. If Fox News asked
rfk Junior you were an ever on Jeffrey Epstein's jat
where are you? And Robert F. Kennedy Junior answered, I
was on Jeffrey Epstein's jat two times, my wife had
some kind of relationship with Kallaine Maxwell. Wait what two
(32:42):
times and your wife had a relationship with Khlain Maxwell.
So RFK Junior has to be military tribunaled right Republicans,
but the winner the worst. Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk
and Alex Jones. Remember Tucker Carlson, Remember Elon Musk, Remember
(33:03):
Alex Joe Ones. When Musk bought Twitter even he had
the self respect and self awareness to continue the ban
on the psychopath and Sandy Hook Denier Alex Jones, Well,
guess who he's platforming now in a video by Tucker
Carlson Alex Jones, a video in which Carlson says Jones
(33:27):
predicted nine to eleven, he didn't, and that nine to
eleven was an inside job. It wasn't. Oh, and this
comes on the same day as Republicans in the Senate
blocked a new assault weapons ban. Alex Jones, Sandy Hook Denier,
and there was another mass shooting at the University of
Nevada at Las Vegas. Alex Jones, Sandy Hook Denier platformed
by Elon Musk. Nice work, Musk here's an idea. The
(33:49):
next rocket you send up, make it self driving like
your incendiary cars, and make sure you and Tucker and
Alex Jones are on it with you. Scumbag Carlson insane,
Jones insane, Musk insane. Two days worst Arsendens. And now
(34:29):
to the number one story on the Countdown and my
favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell,
and I swear I thought I heard her say, Carleton.
This was also December in nineteen eighty five in Los Angeles.
And if you've never spent Christmas in a warm metropolitan
area for the first time in your life, you do
(34:49):
not know what disorientation really is. I had just completed
three months in my new job as the sports director
of Channel five in LA. I had spent most of
November adjusting not only to it not getting cold, but
to the fact that almost nobody else noticed that it
was not getting cold, except one of our production assistants,
who sprinted through the parking lot and up the stairs
(35:11):
into the little bungalow on the KTLA lot in Hollywood,
then housed our sports department. He shivered like a dog,
shaking himself awake, and announced, my God, it's bitter out there. Bitter.
I checked it was forty nine degrees. So December nineteen
eighty five was already weird enough. I was doing well
in LA, being three thousand miles away from everyone and
(35:33):
everything I knew had been surprisingly helpful, and there was
no ramp up time for my work. I'd already won
a couple of best Sportscaster awards, and then the top
all news radio station was asking me to come over
every afternoon and split the afternoon drive sportscasting shift with
a guy who'd been on the air there literally for
thirty years, who's one of the voices in the background
and the Godfather Part two. And now somehow, my producer,
(35:58):
Ron Greulnick, and I were headed to the Beverly Wilshire
Hotel to go interview Mickey Mantle. For the average LA
sportscaster here, there really wasn't much reason to interview Mickey Mantle,
which is why all of them at the bigger three
network stations had turned down the offer of a sit
down interview. But I was a New Yorker and had
(36:19):
been three months earlier, and thus Mickey Mantle was my idol.
And moreover, when I became a baseball fan. In nineteen
sixty seven. My folks bought tickets specifically behind first base
at Yankee Stadium because they had just moved Mantle there
from the outfield. And as my dad said, when you
are an old man, you will say, the greatest thing
you ever saw in baseball was Mickey Mantle, so you
(36:42):
might as well see as much of him as you can. Well,
I'm an old man now, and my dad was exactly right.
Mantle was on a tour publicizing some kind of hitting video,
and he would do one exclusive interview with an LA
station at like exactly five pm on that night in
December nineteen eighty five, and to get it you had
to agree to give the video exactly one plug and
(37:03):
ask him one quot questioned about it. But otherwise you
could ask whatever you wanted. He had fifteen minutes then
he was going out to dinner. Yeah, yeah, that was it. Dinner.
So Ron and I pulled up to the Beverly Wilshire
in his car, and I had never been in, but
I had walked past it a dozen times and I
knew there was a new wing and an old wing.
(37:24):
And as Ron tried to park, I tried to find
the room where Mantle would be waiting for us, so
I could be there to meet the camera crew that
was joining us from some other shoot somewhere, and also
because he was Mickey Mantle. I had met him before,
I had even interviewed him briefly for CNN, but nothing
like this, nothing like a sit down interview, just me
and him. The room number was something like eight ninety seven,
(37:50):
could have been five ninety seven, could have been twelve
ninety seven, but it was basically the highest number there
could be on a given hotel floor. And I saw
the elevator just pass the registration desk and up. I
went to the eighth floor, and it was a deserted labyrinth,
turn after turn and nobody there. And then suddenly I
turned to corner, and walking towards me was the most
(38:11):
elegantly dressed older couple I had ever seen to that
point or since. She was wearing a mink stole atop
a beautiful gown, and she had a diamond necklace big
enough to induce cramps. She had a piercing, glistening set
of deep brown eyes. She looked to be in her
(38:33):
mid to late fifties, but might have been older. He
was older, maybe eighty, but with a full head of
thick and wiry hair. He was tall, thin, extraordinarily elegant
in a perfect tuxedo. But all of this was overwhelmed,
almost erased, by one fact that startles me still thirty
seven years later. This man was wearing a cape. I'm
(39:01):
pretty confident that I had never seen a man wearing
a cape before. I know, I have not seen one
since I have been looking. And yet it looked so
good on him that I can recall briefly thinking, Keith,
maybe you should buy a cape. This couple was perfect.
We seem to be the only people on the floor.
(39:23):
The hallway wasn't all that wide. I said good evening
as I passed. She said good evening, and in so
doing revealed a British accent. And he mumbled at evening
and revealed what sounded like the lingering, minor aftermaths of
a minor stroke. They walked their way, I walked mine,
and my focus returned to finding Mickey Mantle in room
eight ninety seven. The numbers of the rooms I was
(39:45):
passing were like eight eleven and eight fourteen, and after
a few more turns of the labyrinth. That dawned on
me that I must be in the old wing of
the Beverly Wilshire, and the high numbers like eight ninety
seven must have been in the new wing of the
Beverly Wilshire. I also noticed that I had not passed
a doorway or a vestibule or some kind of connecting
brick to the new wing, so I had better make
(40:07):
it back to the elevator and the lobby before Ron
or the camera crew made the same mistake I had.
Because Mickey Mantle was waiting my reversed course, I began
to trot. After three or four more of these labyrinthine turns,
I found, to my shock that the perfectly elegant older
couple he was wearing a cape, was standing exactly where
(40:30):
I had left them. She laughed, she mentioned something about
the higher numbers being in the new wing, and everybody
made that mistake. I thanked her, and then she said,
you're the young man who does the spots on the television,
aren't you. And I had gotten pretty popular pretty fast there,
but being recognized was still very surprising and pleasantly so.
And I said that, and I introduced myself. So nice
(40:51):
to meet you, She said, I'm Patricia Carlton, and this,
she pointed to the guy in the cape is my husband.
He slowly extended a hand but shook mine vigorously, and
I'm Joseph Carlton. Missus Carleton was very excited. You know,
Joe and I, we really are not fans of the sports,
but whenever we're at home in Palm Springs, we make
(41:12):
sure we stay up until the end of the ten
o'clock news so we can watch you. Joe nodded and
smiled in the cape. You know, so clearly enjoying yourself
that we find ourselves enjoying it too. That's really quite remarkable.
I was genuinely touched and remain so I explained my dilemma.
I treated them as you were supposed to treat viewers,
gratefully and solicitously, and I asked them if they were
(41:34):
going to the lobby, and if I might walk with them,
so I didn't get any further lost. We'd be delighted.
I must ask you, mister fishman, who does the news
on your program? Is that his real hair? She saw
my shock at the question. Joe and I have often
worn wigs, and we can't be certain. That means if
it is a wig, it's a good one. We reached
(41:57):
the elevator bank and I pushed down. He was walking slowly.
He must have had a stroke. Still, he was an
imposing figure of a man, and not just because he
was wearing a cape. As I steered them away from
the subject of our anchorman's to pay and talked instead
about my Mickey Mantle interview, I realized he looked extremely familiar,
(42:18):
like I knew him. Joseph Carleton kept rolling the name
over in my mind. And Patricia Carlton, who are they?
The elevator light went off and a very loud bell sounded.
The doors opened, and there was my producer, Ron and
the two man camera crew and the reporter who had
(42:38):
been with them on the previous story, Sam chu Lynn,
who had stayed with him because he wanted to meet
Mickey Mantle. And as I joked to my new friends
Joe and Patricia Carlton, oh look, here's my camera crew.
It's four members made no motion to even leave the elevator.
They all looked dumb struck. Sam chu Lynn's eyes looked
like they were about to pop out of his head.
(42:59):
I assumed this was because my new friend Joe was
wearing a cape. Finally I got the crew to move.
I held the door open so Joe and Patricia could
get into the elevator. I actually said, such a pleasure
to meet you, and of course, thank you so much
for watching Channel five News at ten, and she smiled warmly,
and he managed to quick wave and the doors closed.
(43:21):
And only at that exact moment did it dawn on
me where I knew him from the blood now drained
from my face. As I turned to talk to the
camera crew and Ron and Sam. Uh, you guys knew
who those two people were, right, Sam laughed at me.
(43:42):
Of course I did, didn't you? And I sighed, oh
my god. She said her name was Patricia Carleton and
that was her husband, Joseph Carleton, and she said it
that way because she's British, and that's how if you're
British you would say the name Cotton. She's Patricia Cotton
and he's Joseph Cotton, who was in Citizen Kane. I
(44:07):
remember actually put my hand on the wall on my
face in my other hand. I just met Joseph Cotton,
and I didn't recognize him, and the cameraman Martin Klancy,
who also often said things like this, said pretty stupid
of you, huh, And I said, you know you have
no idea how stupid? I mean, obviously I know who
Joseph Cotton is. And Sam Chulinn said are you sure
(44:30):
about that? I gave him a dirty look and I said, no,
it's worse than this. In nineteen forty eight, the president
of the International Joseph Cotton Fan Club was my mother.
There is a picture of that man with my mother
from like thirty seven years ago at the Stork Club.
(44:53):
They all laughed. Then Sam Chulin said in that photo,
is he wearing that cape? My gaff did serve to
relax me a little for the interview with Mantle. My gaff.
When I get over it, i'll let you know. So anyway,
(45:13):
we all reached room eight ninety seven or whatever it
was in the new Wing the Beverly Wilshire, and as
the crew set up, I managed to tell the story
of the Cottons to Mickey Mantle and he said, yeah,
I saw them in the lobby a couple hours ago.
He's a great actor. I met him in New York,
must be thirty years ago. Did you say hi?
Speaker 7 (45:31):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (45:31):
Right?
Speaker 1 (45:31):
You just told me you didn't recognize him. Mickey Mantle
was busting my chops, as I said. I had met
him before, even interviewed him before, but this was our
first sit down. And he was in a good mood,
even expansive and playful. And at one point he stunned me.
I said, I know you only have a couple of
minutes left, so forgive me if I'm bringing up something
that takes more than a couple of minutes. And he interrupted,
(45:53):
and he said, take as much time as you need.
I'm enjoying us talking. So I asked him about this
one subject, how he felt about what he did in
his career, considering how injured he was when he retired.
Mickey Mantle was third all time in homers. He hit
three hundred and ten times. He played in twelve World
Series on one bad knee and one worse knee. Mantell
(46:16):
got very reflective and self critical. We use this sound
bite at the end of his obituary that I would
do for ESPN a decade later if I'd known I
was going to live so long, he told me, I
would have taken better care of myself and done better.
I said, well, he'd done pretty good. I could have
done better, I thanked him. Then, as the cameraman moved
(46:41):
to get the shots of me nodding and repeating a
question or two, Mickey Mantle said that was really good.
I flushed. I got to ask you something. Can you
give me some pointers? I suddenly had no idea what
the word pointers meant? Pointers? What are pointers? Mantle said
he was going to do some Yankee games the next
(47:02):
year on cable with Mel Allen doing interviews after games.
I'm no damn good at interviews. Just now, you were
moving from topics to topics so smooth. How you keep
all the questions in your head? Now? I laughed. I
didn't keep them in my head. Didn't you see my
cheat card? And he laughed and he said no, and
I showed it to him. I said, it's just a
business card with like seven keywords written on the back.
(47:25):
If I think i might freeze up because I'm nervous
because I'm interviewing Mickey Mantle, or I just met Joseph
Cotton and I didn't recognize him, I make one of
these cards. I hide it in the palm of my hand,
and if I get stuck, I could just look down
quickly and see one of the words, and I've got
the question. I've got this card to remind me. Mickey
Mantle's eyes glowed. But wait, he said, we're using these mics,
(47:49):
and he pointed to the clip on on his shirt,
so you don't have to hold mike. What do you
do if you have to hold the mic like I'll
have to in an interview after a ballgame, What if
the card would fall out or you have to shake
hands with the player. And I said, well, just write
the words on your hand whichever hand is holding the mic,
like below the thumb. Mickey Mantle looked at me as
(48:11):
if I had just given him the secret of eternal life. Wow,
he said, that's great. I'm gonna write this down. Thanks,
and we were packed up, and he actually walked me
to the hotel room door and gave me a double
handed handshake. So it had been a big day, even
if I didn't realize it was Joseph Cotton. Mickey Mantle
(48:32):
had asked me for advice about anything. Somehow I had
thought of something to tell him, and he was really
happy about the advice, and of course this provided a punchline.
The following spring, we were in the studios at KTLA,
watching on the satellite feed as the Yankees first cable
telecast of the nineteen eighty six season ended, And sure enough,
(48:52):
they threw it down to Mickey Mantle on the field
interviewing some player, and one of our producers said, oh,
let's see if he remembers the lesson you gave him,
and another one said, here's your student, Mickey Mantle. And
sure enough, after the first answer, Mickey Mantle pauses, and
I know he can't remember what he wanted to ask next,
And sure enough I see him cheat his look down
slightly towards the head holding the microphone, and the next
(49:13):
thing I see he's kind of tilted the microphone sideways
and he's asking the question, but you can barely hear
him because the mic is pointing off at a forty
five degree angle, because he has written his key reminder
words not below the thumb on the outside part of
(49:34):
his hand, but on the palm side of his hand,
and he's had to move the mic out of the
way to read the words on the palm of his hand.
And the producer says, ha ha, Well, now Mickey Mantle
hates you. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(50:03):
Thank you for listening. Count And it has come to
you from the Vin Scully Studios at the El Roman
Broadcasting Empire in New York. My mother when I called
her that day to tell her that I had met
Joseph Cotton and not recognized him until the exact last
minute that the elevator doors closed, my mother said, you know,
he was not very talkative. Back at the Stork Club
in nineteen forty seven, Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and
(50:26):
John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on
the guitars, bass and drums, produced by Tko Brothers. It
explained at least, although it does underscore the fact that
my mother held a grudge. Now and again. There it
was a photo. I saw it. I don't know where
(50:46):
it is. I've looked for it. It's a photo of
my mother at the Stork Club with Joseph Cotton, nineteen
forty seven fan club meeting of some sort, and Joseph
Cotton looks bored and my mother looks even more bored.
I would I'd pay somebody in my family to find
that photo for me. You guys are listening, go ahead.
(51:09):
Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and
performed by No horns allowed. The sports music courtesy ESPN, Inc.
Written by Mitch Warren Davis. We call it the Olderman
theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today is my friend John Dean. Everything else
(51:30):
pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this, the
one thy sixty sixth day since dementia Jay Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the Insurrection Act against him and them while we
still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolletin's as
the news warrants till then on Keith Olderman, good morning,
(51:51):
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
Speaker 9 (51:57):
Foh, there these are the stakes who.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?
Speaker 4 (52:23):
Except the day one, except the walk He's going to Chris,
except the day one. He says, You're not going to
be a dictator, are you? I said no, no, no
other than day one.
Speaker 7 (52:32):
We must either love each other or we must die.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home. 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.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.