June 26, 2023 • 42 mins
EPISODE 235: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT:
While we wait to see if Yevgeny Prigozhin accidentally falls out Vladimir Putin’s window in a month, or Vladimir Putin accidentally falls out Yevgeny Prigozhin’s window in a month, it is clear that Jack Smith is again in the End Game for more Trump Indictments – about Fake Electors – and he and his team are also really shockingly confident that they will get a quick conviction of Trump in the documents case.It was obscured because television news and even most big-time newspapers exceeded the number of big stories they can effectively cover simultaneously – ONE – and we had Russia and the Titanic Sub – but Jack Smith has obtained the testimony of two Nevada Fakes and may have already bought the testimony of the guy who was the Trump Campaign’s Director of, in essence, Fake Electors. Smith is also locking in testimony and he is clearly coming down the stretch towards indictments. Almost certainly that will include the deplorable Justice Department hatchet-man Jeff “Can I Put My Pants On” Clark and Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and with any luck Jenna Ellis and Boris Epshteyn too and probably Trump as well. The key is: Smith is reportedly close to a deal for the testimony of the Trump Campaign's clearing officer for the entire Electoral Slate conspiracy: Michael Roman.
All the while: Trump keeps confessing to the Documents charges, and one national security attorney reads the latest DOJ motion and determines that the Special Counsel believes that trial WILL occur this year and won't last long.
B-Block (19:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: I can see Russia from my house and if you think that conflict "ended" Saturday, think again. RFK's PAC is reportedly run by MAGA PAC. CNN got rid of Chris Licht's graphics. Did they also get rid of Licht's new primetime star? (24:31) IN SPORTS: Baseball congratulates itself on another pointless trip to play regular season games in England. The first such trip was 149 years ago. Seriously. Is Aaron Judge sprained or torn or both? And why run differential makes no difference. (28:28) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Meghan McCain, Lance Armstrong, and Nikki Haley were too obvious so I went with Chuck Todd, Greg Abbott and Stew Peters.
C-Block (34:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It happened on a Sunday night and last night was a Sunday night so sure enough I was reminded of it. There's no surprise quite like the one you get when you look out your apartment window and notice the building is en Fuego.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. While
we wait to see if if any Progosian accidentally falls
(00:24):
out Vladimir Putin's window in a month, or if Vladimir
Putin accidentally falls out Afganny Progosian's window in a month,
it is clear that Jack Smith is again in the
end game for more Trump indictments, this time about the
fake electors, and that he and his team are also
really shockingly confident that they will get a quick conviction
(00:46):
of Trump in the document's case. First the fake Electors.
It was obscured because TV News and even most big
time newspapers exceeded the number of big stories they can
effectively cover simultaneously one and we had Russia and the
Titanic sub But Jack Smith has bought the testimony of
two Nevada fakes, and may have already bought the testimony
(01:08):
of the guy who was the Trump campaign's director of
in essence fake Electors. Smith is also locking in testimony,
and he is clearly coming down the stretch towards indictments
almost certainly that will include the deplorable Justice Department hatchetman
Jeff Can I put my pants on Clark and Rudy
Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and with any luck Jenna Ellis
(01:30):
and Boris Epstein too, and probably Trump as well. It
seems evident they will not be indicting Michael Roman, or
at least not seriously indicting him. The New York Times
quotes an unnamed familiar who says Roman was in discussions
with Smith last week for some kind of immunity. Roman's
official title with the defendant's twenty twenty campaign was Director
(01:54):
of Election Day Operations, but he was clearly the in
house assignment desk for the plan to send alternate electoral
college slates in from swing states and to artificially manufacture
the kind of chaos that happened organically after the eighteen
seventy six presidential election, and to a lesser degree actor
Bush v. Gore in two thousand. As the Times phrases it, quote,
(02:18):
mister Roman did much of the legwork in putting together
the fake elector plan and in finding ways to challenge
Trump's losses in several key battleground states. According to emails
reviewed by the Times, Roman was in constant contact with
Jenna Ellis and Boris Epstein and he had his fingers
in the effort to put together fake slates from, among others, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan,
(02:42):
and Nevada. The lid on the Nevada scheme has clearly
already blown off. While The Times was talking about Michael
Roman potentially flipping, it was CNN reporting that the Special
Council had forced the testimony of the Nevada GOP chairman
Michael McDonald and Nevada GOP National Committee member Jim Degraffenreid.
(03:03):
They were both actual fake electors. They were both forced
to testify in exchange for limited immunity. They were both
seen at the DC Grand jury the very day Trump
was being indicted in Miami. The CNN reporting offered a
procedural detail that's just as interesting as the flipping of
two principles in the Nevada scam, a quote parade of
(03:25):
related witnesses being told to appear before the grand jury
with no chance for delay. Prosecutors have played hardball with
some of the witnesses in recent weeks, demanding they testify
before the end of this month. Unquote. CNN's has at
least six witnesses testified last week and the week before
and two others previously. CNN and The Times agree that
(03:48):
one of those eight witnesses is Michael Roman's deputy in
the Trump campaign election day office, quoting again Gary Michael Brown,
who had told campaign staff he delivered fake elector votes
for Trump to Congress from battleground states. The Time says
this Brown testified last Thursday. Brown could be pivotal because
(04:09):
when the House January sixth committee reached out to him,
he vanished. He ain't vanished no more. He's done testified.
And again, where this is leading cnn' sources duplicate those
of the Times. It's leading to Rudy Giuliani and Sidney
Powell and Jeff can I put my pants on Clark,
(04:29):
and they are in a world of hurt. As we
know from the sexual abuse lawsuit against him, Giuliani is
alleged to be too strung out on booze and viagra
to understand the danger approaching him full on. Clark has
that wonderful combination of arrogance and stupidity that will keep
him convinced he's not going to jail until the moment
the cell door locks behind him. And Sidney Powell is
(04:53):
not of this earth. This could lead to a scenario
in which the fake elector lawyer most likely to flip
on Trump is Jenna Ellis. Past March, Jenna Ellis was
disciplined by the Colorado bar and, in a deal that
saved her from losing her license, she admitted she had
(05:13):
knowingly misrepresented facts about the twenty twenty election, mostly on Fox,
and claimed the Trump gang had evidence of voter fraud
that never happened in at least ten different public statements.
Ellis then tried to lie her way out of her
own admission by saying her admission did not mean she
had admitted to lying, and that her admission was to
(05:37):
quote dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation. As snotty as that was,
it made it very clear and very evident that they
can break Jenna Ellis pretty easily whenever they need to.
Back to the Michael Roman part of this story and
one vignette from the Times that underscores how helpfully stupid
(06:00):
these people really were. Michael Roman emailed Giuliani endless details
of the fake elector schemes in various states in December
twenty twenty. One of the Trump lawyers in Arizona, a
man named Jack Willnchick was good enough to write to
Boris Epstein. According to The Times, quote we would just
be sending in quote fake unquote electoral votes to Pence,
(06:24):
so that quote someone unquote in Congress can make an
objection when they start counting votes and start arguing that
the quote fake unquote votes should be counted unquote. That's
how the Times quotes Willnchick's email to Boris Epstein. As
if that did not hang a big enough indicte me
(06:45):
sign around everybody's neck, the Time says, Willnchik wrote a
follow up email clarifying that they should probably refer to
them as quote allternate electors rather than quote fake electors,
and he added us Miley face emoji. And if you
(07:08):
do a Google image search for him, you will see
he not only looks like he's twelve years old, but
he looks like he's twelve years old and has just
been smacked in the face with a shovel. Will Enchik,
that's wil En c Hik. Willenchick is an employment and
business lawyer, which will presumably help him in whatever employment
(07:28):
he finds in his next business. The sum total of
the fake electors. Thing is, who besides Michael Roman and
the two Nevada electors are now likely to get out
of it with their liberties intact, and who is going
to get indicted? That's unclear. But Jack Smith picked up
(07:49):
the pace here since early June with almost exactly the
same speed as he picked up the pace in the
two weeks before the document's indictments on that prong of
the Trump prosecution, and the Trump prosecution is fast, and
I think you and I and Trump and his supporters,
all of us forget just how vast this really is
(08:11):
and how many prongs three four five there could be
on the document's prong. National security lawyer Brandon Van Grack
wrote after the Special Council's motions last Friday that it
is clear to him that the quote DOJ doesn't believe
this case is that complex, and thus thinks the trial
(08:31):
should happen this year unquote, which will still be quite
a trick, since Justice moved to postpone the start of
the trial until December eleventh. The delay is to allow
Trump's lawyers to get clearance to see the documents in question,
and Van Grack says it'll only take a couple of
days for them to be clear to see nearly all
(08:52):
of the documents, but, again quoting him, a small number
of docs are so sensitive and restricted that it will
take forty five to sixty days for Council to receive
the appropriate clearance. That is highly unusual, he writes. Doj
also notes some of these restricted docks are not even
(09:13):
the ones charged in the indictment. That lengthy delay, he writes,
for a clearance confirms the sensitivity of these docks, the
potential harm to national security, and how much the intelligence
community supports the prosecution that it is even willing to
consider providing them to defense counsel. Quote to translate, Jack
(09:35):
Smith's team thinks it has such a damning case against
the defendant that showing Trump's lawyers some of the documents
he stole and he revealed will make them gasp. Meanwhile,
the defendant continues to confess in public at every opportunity.
(09:56):
The only way he could do it more frequently or
more damningly would be if he were to go door
to door or to stop passers by in the street.
Trump gave a speech to a bunch of religious nutbags
Saturday night. They cheered wildly when he said quote, I
was indicted for you because there's nothing they like better
(10:17):
than a good, fake martyrdom story. That quote obviously grabbed
the headlines, so did that bizarre noise Trump made during
the speech, which I will not play here. But it's
this quote that shows the hold that the feedback loop
has on dementia j Trump's tiny little mind. Trump has
been told three different stories here, presumably by this idiot
(10:41):
Tom Fitton, who is not a lawyer but plays one
on Trump's TV, the one that only Trump can see.
But all Trump has heard in these three different stories
are the magic words of course, you're not guilty, and
one image that he can grab hold of and sell
to those who are even more gullible than himself. And
that image. That word is socks.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
It has something to do with sucks and taking things
out in your socks.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
After leaving the White House, Bill Clinton kept seventy nine
audio tapes in his socks and his sock draw so
he put them in his sock. I didn't. I put
mine in boxes outside of the White House, and the
GSA picked.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Them up and delivered them where they were supposed to
be delivered.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Socks by the way, there is photographic evidence that as
Trump gave that speech, Mike Huckabee up on the dais
dozed off, which means Mike Huckabee ain't woke anyway. Trump's
illness makes it impossible for him to actually hear all
of anything that anybody else has ever said to him,
(11:49):
unless it relates to words that are about how wonderful
he is or when he is getting more money. Trump's
attention span is literally half a sentence. One Trump recognizes
the name sock Es as the name of Bill Clinton's
late cat. Two. Trump has been told the actual story
(12:11):
of Bill Clinton's National security advisor, Sandy Berger, going into
the archives two years after the Clinton presidency had ended
and stealing all the copies of one document and stuffing
them into his socks, and then leaving the archives. Three.
Trump has been told the story of Clinton's sock drawer.
(12:31):
There were tapes recorded for a biographer of Clinton's memories
of his presidency. They were kept in a drawer. Eleven
years later, this maroon Fitten sued to have the tapes
declared presidential records, which would then have allowed him to
claim that Clinton had committed a crime by keeping them.
The judge threw the case out, saying there was no
legal process so many years after the fact to declare
(12:54):
them presidential records, even if they were presidential records, and
she didn't think they were presidential records.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Four.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Fitten explained to Trump not that the judge's verdict meant
that he he Fitten had screwed up and it had
nothing to do with presidential records. Fitten instead told Trump
that because he Fitten had failed to get the tapes
declared presidential records, that meant that nothing of any kind
could ever be declared presidential records, that everything was of
(13:23):
president's personal property. Of course, he lost. Fitten, in essence,
explained no one could win this, ever, which means you're
not guilty. So they said all that to Trump, and
he heard Clinton socks, you're not guilty. The rest of
it was the voice of Charlie Brown's teacher. I'm now
(13:46):
beginning to believe Tom Fitton is a Democratic plant. Occasionally
I think Kevin McCarthy is one. Two. Marjorie Taylor Green
now so toxic that the ironically named House Freedom Calaucus
is working on expelling her. Marjorie Taylor Barney rubble White
(14:08):
supremacist Karen Green and a least Stephanic who sold her
soul to the devil. They are proposing a non binding
resolution to expunge Trump's impeachments quote as if such articles
of impeachment had never passed the full House of Representatives.
McCarthy says he supports the measure, whether it gets buried
(14:30):
in committee or not. Let's see how far this two bit,
tiny town politician from Bakersfield with the dead look in
his eyes wants to follow Trump down this drain. Because
if the House can pass a non binding resolution that
expunges Trump's impeachments, then the next Democratic House can pass
(14:51):
a non binding resolution that expunges any record of Kevin
McCarthy ever being speaker, and for that matter, a Democratic
House and Senate could certainly combine to vote to expunge
any record of Trump ever being president. Also of interest here,
(15:13):
this expunging thing seems to be a theme throughout society.
They are trying to pretend none of that whole mutiny
and treason speech thingy happened in Russia over the weekend.
But I'm not convinced that we've seen the last shoe drop,
nor for that matter the last Russian drop and stop
(15:38):
stop He's already dead. First CNN fired pasteboy, Chris licked.
But now they are erasing all trace of his signature there.
I mean that literally, no more signature, no longer will
it say that's next? This is countdown. This is countdown
(16:01):
with Keith Alberman. Postscripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,
some snarks, some predictions. Dateline Moscow. The BBC's infeccable correspondent there,
Steve Rosenberg, summed it up with a photo of the
car driving ahead of him on a Moscow street yesterday.
(16:22):
On the back windshield, big white letters in English quote,
wtf is going on? I claim no particular Russian insight
other than what my Ukrainian great grandmother supposedly said all
the time. You can't fix Russian. But I think I
know what happened there. The Wagner group faced the deadline
(16:43):
of July first to sign up as Russian Army regulars.
Pregosian was fed up with the deal in Ukraine as
it was. He convoyed towards Moscow. He hoped for units
of the Russian Army to peel off and join him.
None did back at the ranch, Prutin remembered nearly all
of his army is in Ukraine, and while he could
probably hold off a military coup, maybe he could. They
(17:05):
had each left themselves a back door, and they each
took it. And I don't know what's next. But if
you think Progosian has happily retired to beautiful downtown Belarus,
that anybody happily retires to Belarus, or that Putin will
be happy to have him nearby after having his invulnerability
erased over the span of just forty eight hours, You're crazy.
(17:27):
This isn't over. It is barely begun. Thank you, Nancy
(17:58):
Faust Dateline, Georgia Rolling Stone reporting that the creators of
the Heel the Divide super Packed, backing that Trojan Horse
candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Junior Quote, have a deeply
pro Trump bent, including ties to arch MAGA officials such
as Marjorie Taylor Green, George Santos, and Herschel Walker. Rolling
(18:20):
Stone notes several overlaps between the Kennedy Superpack and Maga
Pack Quote. A mistake on the group's website gives away
its origins. The site's terms of service appear to have
been copied and pasted from Maga Pack a Trump superpack,
and incorrectly refers to the Heel Divide site as magapack
(18:41):
dot com. Plus Kennedy is to speak at the annual
summit of Moms for Liberty this week. Moms for Liberty
are the ones who favorably quoted Hitler about owning kids
in the first issue of one of their newsletters. Now
it turns out they had used the exact same Hitler
quote at a presentation in Florida two years ago. So
(19:02):
just remember it's easy to do it using our friend
the acronym that's Robert F. Kennedy Junior Trader.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Just remember r fk j R MA GA.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Rfk j R MAGA. Sometimes I like the field, goofy.
Thank you again, Nancy Faust and Dateline, CNN Headquarters, Hudson Yards,
New York. By the way, did I ever mention that
(19:43):
my studios for Countdown on Current TV in twenty eleven
in twenty twelve were at Hudson Yards in New York
only before it was built up nice and it was
just you know, yards with trains in them. When I
say studio, it wasn't really a studio. It was more
a portal to hell with studio lights occasionally with studio lights. AnyWho,
(20:05):
CNN has really come around to the point I made
here for nearly a year about Chris Licked. Not only
did they fire him, but Puck News is reporting that
the big change he promised that would redefine news, a
different set of on air graphics, will be eliminated starting today.
You know the ones that look like they were not
exactly photoshop, they weren't quite that good, but that they
(20:28):
were done by you or me using our iPhone photo
editing textbox, And they'll go back to the ones Chris
Licked got rid of. Now all they have to do
is on fire don Lemon and put him back on.
In the evenings at Erase all copies of the Trump
town hall, put the word silo back in Anderson Cooper's mouth,
and of course not roll out that Caitlyn Collins primetime
(20:50):
show at nine pm this June is licked. A Hey,
wait a minute, this June. This is this June. What
you guys thought we wouldn't notice that you stop talking
about the new Caitln Collins primetime show and it's postponed
or cancer or something. Huh huh. Well. To be honest,
(21:14):
I didn't notice till just now.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
This is Sports Senate. Wait check that, not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith Ulberman.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
In Sports Baseball. Cardinals beat the Cubs seven to five yesterday,
after the Cubs beat the Cardinals nine to one Saturday,
thus splitting their two game series in London, not London, Ontario,
London in England. Once again, baseball is congratulating itself on
playing games on another continent. Because I'll wait. All I
(22:05):
see is fans who already can't watch their team on
TV on the Baseball app because the rules about blackouts
and coverage areas were written in the year three seventy nine.
BC fans who can't watch their team on TV because
that game, I'm sorry, it's been shifted to streaming service
A or over to streaming service B two hundred and
(22:28):
thirty seven on Sunday mornings. They now can't go to
two of their team's home games because they were moved
from Saint Louis, Missouri, to freaking London, where baseball is
just as popular now as it was the first time.
Major League executives thought a British tour would be a
gold mine. That was in eighteen seventy four. No, seriously,
(22:52):
the Boston Red Stockings and the Philadelphia Athletics missed nearly
two months of the eighteen seventy four National Association season
so they could get on a boat for two weeks
to go to England, play some games that nobody went to,
and then come back on a boat for another two weeks.
It didn't work then, and it's not working now. Baseball
(23:14):
took the occasion of this latest successful failure to announce
next year's London Series, which will wipe off two Mets
home games from the schedule. Back here, the New York
Yankees tried to walk back home run record setter Aaron
judges revelation about his injured big right tow. Of course,
they can't walk it back because it's an injured big
right tow. Saturday, Judge said suddenly he had torn a
(23:36):
ligament in it. The Yankees yesterday insisted they were not
lying when they called it a sprain, since all sprains
are just in complete tears. After all, it's the same thing.
Nobody knows if Aaron Judge will play again this season.
And one more baseball note, Lots of baseball people even
the really statistically with it. Modern metrics types rely on
(23:57):
one particular stat, run differential. A team that has scored
one hundred runs more than its opponent is dominant and
likely for postseason success, except if that stat gets warped
by blowout wins. Because you can win one hundred games
by one run each, and that would be a run
differential of one hundred. I'm oversimplifying, obviously. Or you could
(24:20):
win thirty three games and lose all the others by
like three runs each, and that would be a run
differential of two hundred and ninety seven. You get my point.
Or you could do what the Colorado Rockies did over
the weekend, get yourselves outscored by the Los Angeles Angels
thirty two to twelve. I'll repeat that thirty two to
twelve over three games, which gives you Colorado a run
(24:42):
differential of minus twenty and you still wind up winning
two of the three games. That's because the one Colorado
loss they lost twenty five to one. Run differential is
as useless as pitchers victories. Remember pitchers victories still ahead.
(25:14):
There are all kinds of surprises in life, but none
quite has the staying power of looking out your apartment
window and noticing the ten floors below you your building
is on fire. Surprise. It's nearly forty three years now,
and I still remember every moment. I will recite them
all to you. Next, first, the daily roundup of the misgrants,
(25:37):
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. And I am declaring Nicky Hayley
ineligible after her tweet about how everything was perfect when
you were a kid, so please remember to be a
kid again, and she'd be everybody's fascist mommy because everybody
already ended her career for her because of that tweet.
And I'm declaring Megan McCain ineligible for calling Hunter Biden
(26:00):
a NEPO baby, and Lance Armstrong ineligible for question whether
trans athletes are cheating because clearly neither of them owns
a mirror. So here are our winners, the bronze Chuck Todd, Chuck,
how can we miss you if you won't go away?
He's a lame duck on Meet the Press, but they're
(26:21):
still sending him out there to do a show called
Meet the Press now on a streaming service. I just
found out NBC has called NBC News Now NBC News Now,
News Now Now News Friday, Chuck's still as gullible as
ever signed on to the Hunter Biden conspiracy, noting two
credible IRS whistleblowers claiming misconduct by the Department of Justice.
(26:44):
According to transcripts released by the Republican led House and
Ways and Means Committee, House and Ways and means Chuck,
House and Ways and means House send Ways and means
chicks and ducks and geese. Batter Scarry when I take
(27:05):
you out in the Surrey. When I take you that's
the chuckles. I know they runner up. Texas Governor Greg
Abbot just not bright. You'd think that when Antonio Spato
Junior got caught retweeting a tweet bashing Garth Brooks, which
cited an article in the quote Dunning Krueger Times, other
(27:27):
people would be on the lookout for other Dunning Krueger
Times stories. No, not so much. Abbot linked to this one.
Garth Brooks booed off stage at one hundred and twenty
third Annual Texas County Jamboree. Go Woke, go broke, Good
job Texas. There is no Texas County Country Jamboree. There
(27:51):
is no Dunning Kruger Times sadly though, there is a governor,
Greg Abbot. But the winner the really out there fascist
streamer Stuve Peters, the whole Titanic substory. I mean, did
you do you see this, see anything about this in
the news. I didn't see a lot of coverage of
it in the news. Did they cover it at all?
Did they do anything on it at all? Any of
(28:13):
the networks, any of the newspapers. Well, this guy Peters
has an explanation as to what happened. It's the Jews,
because the Jews did the Titanic too. You understand the
graphic on his little screaming show read Titanic disaster enabled
creation of corrupt Federal Reserve, missing submarine wroth Child funded.
(28:35):
And you know what Rothschild means. It means sorrows. Here
we go. Here's what Stu Peters said. What if all
this is actually a ploy to keep people from visiting
the Titanic wreckage. But if that's the goal, why maybe
because if people explore the Titanic too much, they would
discover that it wasn't an iceberg that sank the Titanic.
(28:56):
There's a lot of alternative theories about how that sinking occurred,
that it was intentionally sunk as part of an elaborate
insurance scam, and even that it was sunk by a
newly created federal reserve unquote. What if? What if your
life was like this? Around every corner, there's another plot
against you by omnipotent crews who can sink passenger liners
(29:22):
and cause stories like the Titanic Submersible to happen, just
to eclipse your bullcrap Hunter Biden smear that only fooled
Chuck Todd. How these people even get out of bed
in the morning. I'd be afraid to put on my
shoes before they blew up. Stu Peters, you want a
real conspiracy, please remember the first two syllables of the
(29:44):
name Stu Peters form the sound Stu Pete. Two days
worse person and the to the number one story on
(30:10):
the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I
promised not to tell and circumstances the other day took
me past my first New York City apartment. I stopped
and stood and stared, and I shook my head, and
again I saw in my mind the flames and the
glow and the blackened lobby because one night somebody threw
(30:32):
a Molotov cocktail into the building in which I had
my first New York City apartment. While I was in
my first New York City apartment, the address was it
is two hundred and forty East fifty fifth Street, Apartment
ten F. It was two doors west of Second Avenue,
south side of the street. It was the center apartment
(30:53):
on the street side of the building, and I was
directly above the front entrance and above the only thing
of note in the whole place, a full fledged old
fashioned New York City apartment building canopy. You could get
out of a cab and a rain storm and under
that canopy in like a second and a half and
pretty much not get wet. No doorman, no amenities, rather
(31:14):
dubious live in super but it had that canopy. I
moved in on June seventeenth, nineteen eighty. It was a
big studio apartment. The view was of a big video
warehouse across the street, though if you leaned out the
westernmost window you could see the City Corps Center, which
was always an impressive sight on a foggy night. The
(31:34):
neighborhood and the building were safe and quiet, at least
I thought they were safe. It was a fifteen minute
walk from my first job, and then a twenty five
minute walk from my second job. And when I first
rented there, it was are you ready four hundred and
eighty three dollars a month, which sounds unbelievable except that
was about a third of my salary. And I think
(31:55):
when I moved out in nineteen eighty four the rent
had gone up to five hundred and ten dollars a month,
And that low price might have had something to do
with the fact that one night somebody threw them all
a tough cocktail into the building. You know how, once
you've been in any place for any length of time,
you get used to the physics of it, the feel
of it. Not just someplace you live, any place you
(32:20):
spend a lot of time in an office, a classroom,
a theater, or an apartment. You know what it sounds like.
You know what it feels like in the summer or
how it feels differently in the winter. You know what
it looks like, the building, noise, the smells, if it's
too hot, if it's too cold, and especially and think
about this for a second, especially what the light looks
(32:43):
like at every hour of the day. I don't know
if there was a day when I could have said,
this is what the light looks like in Apartment ten
f two forty East fifty fifth Street during a snowstorm,
or what the light looks like coming in through the
shades at eight in the morning or eight at night.
But it probably didn't take long. June nineteen eighty was
(33:04):
when I moved in. I bet I knew the various
lights of the place by September, so by New Years
of nineteen eighty three, I knew it all instinctively, exactly, reflexingly, boringly.
I would go to my bed in the southeast corner
of my studio apartment. I'd get in sleeping north south,
but with my head at the south end, and as
(33:24):
I lay on my back, I could look out the
windows and see the faint orangey glow from a couple
of street lights that shone through the four windows that
opened to on either side of a kind of small
picture window in the middle. The light would be brightest
from the window on the farthest right, which was the
one closest to Second Avenue and the closest to one
of those street lights. So on Sunday, January ninth, nineteen
(33:47):
eighty three, as that night turned into Monday, January tenth,
nineteen eighty three, I hit the sack around midnight because
I actually had one of those rare nine to five
jobs in television as a field reporter for CNN. I
shut off the light on my nightstand. I laid down
on my back. I stared at my right hand window,
and immediately I thought, boy, the light is slightly more
(34:10):
orange than it should be. What the hell's wrong? I'm
guessing it was no more than five or ten percent
different from usual. But as I've gone to such lengths
to point out, if you see the same light through
the same window in all conceivable conditions almost every night
for more than two years, five or ten percent difference
(34:31):
is a lot. I think. I lay there trying to
figure it out for a minute or so when I
realized it was now ten or fifteen percent different. Cleverly,
I got up and went to the window and rolled
up the shade and looked down to that canopy ten
floors below, and I must say, to my credit, I
quickly discerned that the canopy was on fire. I reacted
(34:56):
as almost everybody does, matter of factly thinking, maybe even
saying out loud, hey, the canopy is on fire, and
then registering the fact that the fire had already burned
through the building end of that canopy, and it was
moving quickly outwards towards the street, suggesting again, I must say,
I figured this out for myself, suggesting that there was
(35:20):
probably a fire in the lobby. I put a robe
on over my pajamas, I put on some shoes. I
grabbed my wallet and my keys, and I ventured into
the hallway. No smell of smoke, which I took again intelligently,
is a good sign. Two elevators were staring me in
the face, but I knew better than to try them.
I was, after all, the grandson of a firefighter. So
(35:42):
I opened the stairwell and then I smelled the smoke. Faint,
but it was there. I went down two floors, and
every step I took the smell got a little stronger.
I went back up. I went back into my apartment.
I did not really know what I was going to do.
Needless to say, ten floors is not jumpable. There was
(36:04):
no outdoor fire escape, like in many of the New
York city, older apartment buildings, and even if I went
down the elevator or the stairs or the side of
the damned building, I would wind up right in the
middle of the fire. For a few seconds, I really
didn't know what to do next. Me, the grandson of
the man who was not only a firefighter but who
drove the hook and ladder irony also fire. That's when
(36:30):
the sound of the fire engines broke me out of
self absorption and cheered me, I must say considerably. They
parked right near where that convenient canopy used to be,
but was now pretty much a charred hunk of the
metal framing in a little burned fabric. I'm sure you've
seen a fire. Maybe you've seen firefighters arrive at one
(36:51):
and get going with their amazing speed. But there is
something different in seeing it from the vantage point of
being above the fire. First there is an extraordinary amount
of water, then a lot of then an almost unstoppable
instinct to say cool. And then you go and check
the stairwell again and joyfully inhale the smell of stuff
(37:13):
that had been on fire but was now no longer
on fire and just inundated with water. Hallelujah. I waited
until after they left before I decided to go back
to my bed. I did not feel the need to
add to whatever loud chaos was going on in the
lobby or what had been the lobby, nor to get
any details about the fire other than the key one,
(37:34):
which was it's out. But in the morning, since I
had to go to work anyway, I saw the elevator
door open onto the little linoleum covered landing in the lobby,
and saw that everything else but it in the lobby
was jet black. They were still hosing some of it down.
They were already pulling up burned carpet, installing new windows
(37:58):
and doors, and carting away what was left of the canopy.
And it was evident that as thorough a job as
had been done there, nothing else in the building had burned. Nothing.
In the days and weeks to come, the other residents,
knowing I worked in news, clued me in on the
rumors and asked me to check them out. There was
(38:19):
a dispute, somebody said, involving the owner. There was something
about a woman. No, there was nothing about a woman.
But all of them, every story, every rumor, included the
obvious that was no boating accident. Somebody had thrown a
mile't off cocktail into or against our front door. And
then there was the best of the stories, born out
(38:41):
or at least lent plausibility by the rapidity with which
the firefighters arrived, which thinking back on it was no
more than three or four minutes after I first saw
the extra orange glow. The best rumor was that the
fire department had been called by somebody before anybody in
the building had called. The implication was was somebody called
(39:06):
in a fire and then started the fire. For forty
years plus I have been unable to find the truth.
The fire, doing superficial but ultimately not serious damage did
not make the New York newspapers. Hell that year, I
took a subway to work in the morning and there
was a guy sprawled over three seats. And when I
(39:27):
went home that night, I happened to get on the
exact same train car and there was the exact same
guy sprawled over the exact same three seats because he
was dead. And that didn't make the New York newspapers
of nineteen eighty three either. We old timey New Yorkers,
we lived on the edge. Baby. All I know is
(39:47):
that Within weeks, a doorman was hired. His name was
Jane and he had a strong Irish accent, and he
was still there as of two thousand and two. And
then the building suddenly went co op. All of us
renters were suddenly offered the chance to buy our apartments.
But I didn't want to take out a loan, and
I expected to be moving to Boston in the near future,
(40:09):
and I kept thinking about that Molotov cocktail. So I
turned down that apartment at the price of are you
lying down? Thirty six five hundred dollars. Turned it down
because yeah, there was the fire and the loan and Boston.
(40:29):
But ultimately I turned it down, even just to keep
as a a storage unit. I turned that apartment down
because when it comes to investments, I'm a moron, you know.
(40:55):
And it still shows up in my dream sometimes too,
not often, though, I'm sure I'll be over it anytime.
Now it's only been forty two and a half years.
I've done all the damage I can do. Here. Thank
you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Chanel. They are the countdown musical directors. Guitars
based and drums by Brian ray All, Orchestration and keyboards
(41:18):
by John Phillip Chanel. The producers Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two.
It was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine, and everything
(41:39):
else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for
this the nine hundred and second day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
United States. Arrest him again while we still can you
think Jack Smith listens to this podcast because he sure
has been busy arresting him while he still can. Thank you, Jack.
(42:01):
The next Tedital Countdown is tomorrow. Till then. I'm Keith Olberman.
Good Morning, afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with
Keith Oldman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
(42:24):
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts,
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. While
we wait to see if if any Progosian accidentally falls
(00:24):
out Vladimir Putin's window in a month, or if Vladimir
Putin accidentally falls out Afganny Progosian's window in a month,
it is clear that Jack Smith is again in the
end game for more Trump indictments, this time about the
fake electors, and that he and his team are also
really shockingly confident that they will get a quick conviction
(00:46):
of Trump in the document's case. First the fake Electors.
It was obscured because TV News and even most big
time newspapers exceeded the number of big stories they can
effectively cover simultaneously one and we had Russia and the
Titanic sub But Jack Smith has bought the testimony of
two Nevada fakes, and may have already bought the testimony
(01:08):
of the guy who was the Trump campaign's director of
in essence fake Electors. Smith is also locking in testimony,
and he is clearly coming down the stretch towards indictments
almost certainly that will include the deplorable Justice Department hatchetman
Jeff Can I put my pants on Clark and Rudy
Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and with any luck Jenna Ellis
(01:30):
and Boris Epstein too, and probably Trump as well. It
seems evident they will not be indicting Michael Roman, or
at least not seriously indicting him. The New York Times
quotes an unnamed familiar who says Roman was in discussions
with Smith last week for some kind of immunity. Roman's
official title with the defendant's twenty twenty campaign was Director
(01:54):
of Election Day Operations, but he was clearly the in
house assignment desk for the plan to send alternate electoral
college slates in from swing states and to artificially manufacture
the kind of chaos that happened organically after the eighteen
seventy six presidential election, and to a lesser degree actor
Bush v. Gore in two thousand. As the Times phrases it, quote,
(02:18):
mister Roman did much of the legwork in putting together
the fake elector plan and in finding ways to challenge
Trump's losses in several key battleground states. According to emails
reviewed by the Times, Roman was in constant contact with
Jenna Ellis and Boris Epstein and he had his fingers
in the effort to put together fake slates from, among others, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan,
(02:42):
and Nevada. The lid on the Nevada scheme has clearly
already blown off. While The Times was talking about Michael
Roman potentially flipping, it was CNN reporting that the Special
Council had forced the testimony of the Nevada GOP chairman
Michael McDonald and Nevada GOP National Committee member Jim Degraffenreid.
(03:03):
They were both actual fake electors. They were both forced
to testify in exchange for limited immunity. They were both
seen at the DC Grand jury the very day Trump
was being indicted in Miami. The CNN reporting offered a
procedural detail that's just as interesting as the flipping of
two principles in the Nevada scam, a quote parade of
(03:25):
related witnesses being told to appear before the grand jury
with no chance for delay. Prosecutors have played hardball with
some of the witnesses in recent weeks, demanding they testify
before the end of this month. Unquote. CNN's has at
least six witnesses testified last week and the week before
and two others previously. CNN and The Times agree that
(03:48):
one of those eight witnesses is Michael Roman's deputy in
the Trump campaign election day office, quoting again Gary Michael Brown,
who had told campaign staff he delivered fake elector votes
for Trump to Congress from battleground states. The Time says
this Brown testified last Thursday. Brown could be pivotal because
(04:09):
when the House January sixth committee reached out to him,
he vanished. He ain't vanished no more. He's done testified.
And again, where this is leading cnn' sources duplicate those
of the Times. It's leading to Rudy Giuliani and Sidney
Powell and Jeff can I put my pants on Clark,
(04:29):
and they are in a world of hurt. As we
know from the sexual abuse lawsuit against him, Giuliani is
alleged to be too strung out on booze and viagra
to understand the danger approaching him full on. Clark has
that wonderful combination of arrogance and stupidity that will keep
him convinced he's not going to jail until the moment
the cell door locks behind him. And Sidney Powell is
(04:53):
not of this earth. This could lead to a scenario
in which the fake elector lawyer most likely to flip
on Trump is Jenna Ellis. Past March, Jenna Ellis was
disciplined by the Colorado bar and, in a deal that
saved her from losing her license, she admitted she had
(05:13):
knowingly misrepresented facts about the twenty twenty election, mostly on Fox,
and claimed the Trump gang had evidence of voter fraud
that never happened in at least ten different public statements.
Ellis then tried to lie her way out of her
own admission by saying her admission did not mean she
had admitted to lying, and that her admission was to
(05:37):
quote dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation. As snotty as that was,
it made it very clear and very evident that they
can break Jenna Ellis pretty easily whenever they need to.
Back to the Michael Roman part of this story and
one vignette from the Times that underscores how helpfully stupid
(06:00):
these people really were. Michael Roman emailed Giuliani endless details
of the fake elector schemes in various states in December
twenty twenty. One of the Trump lawyers in Arizona, a
man named Jack Willnchick was good enough to write to
Boris Epstein. According to The Times, quote we would just
be sending in quote fake unquote electoral votes to Pence,
(06:24):
so that quote someone unquote in Congress can make an
objection when they start counting votes and start arguing that
the quote fake unquote votes should be counted unquote. That's
how the Times quotes Willnchick's email to Boris Epstein. As
if that did not hang a big enough indicte me
(06:45):
sign around everybody's neck, the Time says, Willnchik wrote a
follow up email clarifying that they should probably refer to
them as quote allternate electors rather than quote fake electors,
and he added us Miley face emoji. And if you
(07:08):
do a Google image search for him, you will see
he not only looks like he's twelve years old, but
he looks like he's twelve years old and has just
been smacked in the face with a shovel. Will Enchik,
that's wil En c Hik. Willenchick is an employment and
business lawyer, which will presumably help him in whatever employment
(07:28):
he finds in his next business. The sum total of
the fake electors. Thing is, who besides Michael Roman and
the two Nevada electors are now likely to get out
of it with their liberties intact, and who is going
to get indicted? That's unclear. But Jack Smith picked up
(07:49):
the pace here since early June with almost exactly the
same speed as he picked up the pace in the
two weeks before the document's indictments on that prong of
the Trump prosecution, and the Trump prosecution is fast, and
I think you and I and Trump and his supporters,
all of us forget just how vast this really is
(08:11):
and how many prongs three four five there could be
on the document's prong. National security lawyer Brandon Van Grack
wrote after the Special Council's motions last Friday that it
is clear to him that the quote DOJ doesn't believe
this case is that complex, and thus thinks the trial
(08:31):
should happen this year unquote, which will still be quite
a trick, since Justice moved to postpone the start of
the trial until December eleventh. The delay is to allow
Trump's lawyers to get clearance to see the documents in question,
and Van Grack says it'll only take a couple of
days for them to be clear to see nearly all
(08:52):
of the documents, but, again quoting him, a small number
of docs are so sensitive and restricted that it will
take forty five to sixty days for Council to receive
the appropriate clearance. That is highly unusual, he writes. Doj
also notes some of these restricted docks are not even
(09:13):
the ones charged in the indictment. That lengthy delay, he writes,
for a clearance confirms the sensitivity of these docks, the
potential harm to national security, and how much the intelligence
community supports the prosecution that it is even willing to
consider providing them to defense counsel. Quote to translate, Jack
(09:35):
Smith's team thinks it has such a damning case against
the defendant that showing Trump's lawyers some of the documents
he stole and he revealed will make them gasp. Meanwhile,
the defendant continues to confess in public at every opportunity.
(09:56):
The only way he could do it more frequently or
more damningly would be if he were to go door
to door or to stop passers by in the street.
Trump gave a speech to a bunch of religious nutbags
Saturday night. They cheered wildly when he said quote, I
was indicted for you because there's nothing they like better
(10:17):
than a good, fake martyrdom story. That quote obviously grabbed
the headlines, so did that bizarre noise Trump made during
the speech, which I will not play here. But it's
this quote that shows the hold that the feedback loop
has on dementia j Trump's tiny little mind. Trump has
been told three different stories here, presumably by this idiot
(10:41):
Tom Fitton, who is not a lawyer but plays one
on Trump's TV, the one that only Trump can see.
But all Trump has heard in these three different stories
are the magic words of course, you're not guilty, and
one image that he can grab hold of and sell
to those who are even more gullible than himself. And
that image. That word is socks.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
It has something to do with sucks and taking things
out in your socks.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
After leaving the White House, Bill Clinton kept seventy nine
audio tapes in his socks and his sock draw so
he put them in his sock. I didn't. I put
mine in boxes outside of the White House, and the
GSA picked.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Them up and delivered them where they were supposed to
be delivered.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Socks by the way, there is photographic evidence that as
Trump gave that speech, Mike Huckabee up on the dais
dozed off, which means Mike Huckabee ain't woke anyway. Trump's
illness makes it impossible for him to actually hear all
of anything that anybody else has ever said to him,
(11:49):
unless it relates to words that are about how wonderful
he is or when he is getting more money. Trump's
attention span is literally half a sentence. One Trump recognizes
the name sock Es as the name of Bill Clinton's
late cat. Two. Trump has been told the actual story
(12:11):
of Bill Clinton's National security advisor, Sandy Berger, going into
the archives two years after the Clinton presidency had ended
and stealing all the copies of one document and stuffing
them into his socks, and then leaving the archives. Three.
Trump has been told the story of Clinton's sock drawer.
(12:31):
There were tapes recorded for a biographer of Clinton's memories
of his presidency. They were kept in a drawer. Eleven
years later, this maroon Fitten sued to have the tapes
declared presidential records, which would then have allowed him to
claim that Clinton had committed a crime by keeping them.
The judge threw the case out, saying there was no
legal process so many years after the fact to declare
(12:54):
them presidential records, even if they were presidential records, and
she didn't think they were presidential records.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Four.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Fitten explained to Trump not that the judge's verdict meant
that he he Fitten had screwed up and it had
nothing to do with presidential records. Fitten instead told Trump
that because he Fitten had failed to get the tapes
declared presidential records, that meant that nothing of any kind
could ever be declared presidential records, that everything was of
(13:23):
president's personal property. Of course, he lost. Fitten, in essence,
explained no one could win this, ever, which means you're
not guilty. So they said all that to Trump, and
he heard Clinton socks, you're not guilty. The rest of
it was the voice of Charlie Brown's teacher. I'm now
(13:46):
beginning to believe Tom Fitton is a Democratic plant. Occasionally
I think Kevin McCarthy is one. Two. Marjorie Taylor Green
now so toxic that the ironically named House Freedom Calaucus
is working on expelling her. Marjorie Taylor Barney rubble White
(14:08):
supremacist Karen Green and a least Stephanic who sold her
soul to the devil. They are proposing a non binding
resolution to expunge Trump's impeachments quote as if such articles
of impeachment had never passed the full House of Representatives.
McCarthy says he supports the measure, whether it gets buried
(14:30):
in committee or not. Let's see how far this two bit,
tiny town politician from Bakersfield with the dead look in
his eyes wants to follow Trump down this drain. Because
if the House can pass a non binding resolution that
expunges Trump's impeachments, then the next Democratic House can pass
(14:51):
a non binding resolution that expunges any record of Kevin
McCarthy ever being speaker, and for that matter, a Democratic
House and Senate could certainly combine to vote to expunge
any record of Trump ever being president. Also of interest here,
(15:13):
this expunging thing seems to be a theme throughout society.
They are trying to pretend none of that whole mutiny
and treason speech thingy happened in Russia over the weekend.
But I'm not convinced that we've seen the last shoe drop,
nor for that matter the last Russian drop and stop
(15:38):
stop He's already dead. First CNN fired pasteboy, Chris licked.
But now they are erasing all trace of his signature there.
I mean that literally, no more signature, no longer will
it say that's next? This is countdown. This is countdown
(16:01):
with Keith Alberman. Postscripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,
some snarks, some predictions. Dateline Moscow. The BBC's infeccable correspondent there,
Steve Rosenberg, summed it up with a photo of the
car driving ahead of him on a Moscow street yesterday.
(16:22):
On the back windshield, big white letters in English quote,
wtf is going on? I claim no particular Russian insight
other than what my Ukrainian great grandmother supposedly said all
the time. You can't fix Russian. But I think I
know what happened there. The Wagner group faced the deadline
(16:43):
of July first to sign up as Russian Army regulars.
Pregosian was fed up with the deal in Ukraine as
it was. He convoyed towards Moscow. He hoped for units
of the Russian Army to peel off and join him.
None did back at the ranch, Prutin remembered nearly all
of his army is in Ukraine, and while he could
probably hold off a military coup, maybe he could. They
(17:05):
had each left themselves a back door, and they each
took it. And I don't know what's next. But if
you think Progosian has happily retired to beautiful downtown Belarus,
that anybody happily retires to Belarus, or that Putin will
be happy to have him nearby after having his invulnerability
erased over the span of just forty eight hours, You're crazy.
(17:27):
This isn't over. It is barely begun. Thank you, Nancy
(17:58):
Faust Dateline, Georgia Rolling Stone reporting that the creators of
the Heel the Divide super Packed, backing that Trojan Horse
candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Junior Quote, have a deeply
pro Trump bent, including ties to arch MAGA officials such
as Marjorie Taylor Green, George Santos, and Herschel Walker. Rolling
(18:20):
Stone notes several overlaps between the Kennedy Superpack and Maga
Pack Quote. A mistake on the group's website gives away
its origins. The site's terms of service appear to have
been copied and pasted from Maga Pack a Trump superpack,
and incorrectly refers to the Heel Divide site as magapack
(18:41):
dot com. Plus Kennedy is to speak at the annual
summit of Moms for Liberty this week. Moms for Liberty
are the ones who favorably quoted Hitler about owning kids
in the first issue of one of their newsletters. Now
it turns out they had used the exact same Hitler
quote at a presentation in Florida two years ago. So
(19:02):
just remember it's easy to do it using our friend
the acronym that's Robert F. Kennedy Junior Trader.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Just remember r fk j R MA GA.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Rfk j R MAGA. Sometimes I like the field, goofy.
Thank you again, Nancy Faust and Dateline, CNN Headquarters, Hudson Yards,
New York. By the way, did I ever mention that
(19:43):
my studios for Countdown on Current TV in twenty eleven
in twenty twelve were at Hudson Yards in New York
only before it was built up nice and it was
just you know, yards with trains in them. When I
say studio, it wasn't really a studio. It was more
a portal to hell with studio lights occasionally with studio lights. AnyWho,
(20:05):
CNN has really come around to the point I made
here for nearly a year about Chris Licked. Not only
did they fire him, but Puck News is reporting that
the big change he promised that would redefine news, a
different set of on air graphics, will be eliminated starting today.
You know the ones that look like they were not
exactly photoshop, they weren't quite that good, but that they
(20:28):
were done by you or me using our iPhone photo
editing textbox, And they'll go back to the ones Chris
Licked got rid of. Now all they have to do
is on fire don Lemon and put him back on.
In the evenings at Erase all copies of the Trump
town hall, put the word silo back in Anderson Cooper's mouth,
and of course not roll out that Caitlyn Collins primetime
(20:50):
show at nine pm this June is licked. A Hey,
wait a minute, this June. This is this June. What
you guys thought we wouldn't notice that you stop talking
about the new Caitln Collins primetime show and it's postponed
or cancer or something. Huh huh. Well. To be honest,
(21:14):
I didn't notice till just now.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
This is Sports Senate. Wait check that, not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith Ulberman.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
In Sports Baseball. Cardinals beat the Cubs seven to five yesterday,
after the Cubs beat the Cardinals nine to one Saturday,
thus splitting their two game series in London, not London, Ontario,
London in England. Once again, baseball is congratulating itself on
playing games on another continent. Because I'll wait. All I
(22:05):
see is fans who already can't watch their team on
TV on the Baseball app because the rules about blackouts
and coverage areas were written in the year three seventy nine.
BC fans who can't watch their team on TV because
that game, I'm sorry, it's been shifted to streaming service
A or over to streaming service B two hundred and
(22:28):
thirty seven on Sunday mornings. They now can't go to
two of their team's home games because they were moved
from Saint Louis, Missouri, to freaking London, where baseball is
just as popular now as it was the first time.
Major League executives thought a British tour would be a
gold mine. That was in eighteen seventy four. No, seriously,
(22:52):
the Boston Red Stockings and the Philadelphia Athletics missed nearly
two months of the eighteen seventy four National Association season
so they could get on a boat for two weeks
to go to England, play some games that nobody went to,
and then come back on a boat for another two weeks.
It didn't work then, and it's not working now. Baseball
(23:14):
took the occasion of this latest successful failure to announce
next year's London Series, which will wipe off two Mets
home games from the schedule. Back here, the New York
Yankees tried to walk back home run record setter Aaron
judges revelation about his injured big right tow. Of course,
they can't walk it back because it's an injured big
right tow. Saturday, Judge said suddenly he had torn a
(23:36):
ligament in it. The Yankees yesterday insisted they were not
lying when they called it a sprain, since all sprains
are just in complete tears. After all, it's the same thing.
Nobody knows if Aaron Judge will play again this season.
And one more baseball note, Lots of baseball people even
the really statistically with it. Modern metrics types rely on
(23:57):
one particular stat, run differential. A team that has scored
one hundred runs more than its opponent is dominant and
likely for postseason success, except if that stat gets warped
by blowout wins. Because you can win one hundred games
by one run each, and that would be a run
differential of one hundred. I'm oversimplifying, obviously. Or you could
(24:20):
win thirty three games and lose all the others by
like three runs each, and that would be a run
differential of two hundred and ninety seven. You get my point.
Or you could do what the Colorado Rockies did over
the weekend, get yourselves outscored by the Los Angeles Angels
thirty two to twelve. I'll repeat that thirty two to
twelve over three games, which gives you Colorado a run
(24:42):
differential of minus twenty and you still wind up winning
two of the three games. That's because the one Colorado
loss they lost twenty five to one. Run differential is
as useless as pitchers victories. Remember pitchers victories still ahead.
(25:14):
There are all kinds of surprises in life, but none
quite has the staying power of looking out your apartment
window and noticing the ten floors below you your building
is on fire. Surprise. It's nearly forty three years now,
and I still remember every moment. I will recite them
all to you. Next, first, the daily roundup of the misgrants,
(25:37):
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. And I am declaring Nicky Hayley
ineligible after her tweet about how everything was perfect when
you were a kid, so please remember to be a
kid again, and she'd be everybody's fascist mommy because everybody
already ended her career for her because of that tweet.
And I'm declaring Megan McCain ineligible for calling Hunter Biden
(26:00):
a NEPO baby, and Lance Armstrong ineligible for question whether
trans athletes are cheating because clearly neither of them owns
a mirror. So here are our winners, the bronze Chuck Todd, Chuck,
how can we miss you if you won't go away?
He's a lame duck on Meet the Press, but they're
(26:21):
still sending him out there to do a show called
Meet the Press now on a streaming service. I just
found out NBC has called NBC News Now NBC News Now,
News Now Now News Friday, Chuck's still as gullible as
ever signed on to the Hunter Biden conspiracy, noting two
credible IRS whistleblowers claiming misconduct by the Department of Justice.
(26:44):
According to transcripts released by the Republican led House and
Ways and Means Committee, House and Ways and means Chuck,
House and Ways and means House send Ways and means
chicks and ducks and geese. Batter Scarry when I take
(27:05):
you out in the Surrey. When I take you that's
the chuckles. I know they runner up. Texas Governor Greg
Abbot just not bright. You'd think that when Antonio Spato
Junior got caught retweeting a tweet bashing Garth Brooks, which
cited an article in the quote Dunning Krueger Times, other
(27:27):
people would be on the lookout for other Dunning Krueger
Times stories. No, not so much. Abbot linked to this one.
Garth Brooks booed off stage at one hundred and twenty
third Annual Texas County Jamboree. Go Woke, go broke, Good
job Texas. There is no Texas County Country Jamboree. There
(27:51):
is no Dunning Kruger Times sadly though, there is a governor,
Greg Abbot. But the winner the really out there fascist
streamer Stuve Peters, the whole Titanic substory. I mean, did
you do you see this, see anything about this in
the news. I didn't see a lot of coverage of
it in the news. Did they cover it at all?
Did they do anything on it at all? Any of
(28:13):
the networks, any of the newspapers. Well, this guy Peters
has an explanation as to what happened. It's the Jews,
because the Jews did the Titanic too. You understand the
graphic on his little screaming show read Titanic disaster enabled
creation of corrupt Federal Reserve, missing submarine wroth Child funded.
(28:35):
And you know what Rothschild means. It means sorrows. Here
we go. Here's what Stu Peters said. What if all
this is actually a ploy to keep people from visiting
the Titanic wreckage. But if that's the goal, why maybe
because if people explore the Titanic too much, they would
discover that it wasn't an iceberg that sank the Titanic.
(28:56):
There's a lot of alternative theories about how that sinking occurred,
that it was intentionally sunk as part of an elaborate
insurance scam, and even that it was sunk by a
newly created federal reserve unquote. What if? What if your
life was like this? Around every corner, there's another plot
against you by omnipotent crews who can sink passenger liners
(29:22):
and cause stories like the Titanic Submersible to happen, just
to eclipse your bullcrap Hunter Biden smear that only fooled
Chuck Todd. How these people even get out of bed
in the morning. I'd be afraid to put on my
shoes before they blew up. Stu Peters, you want a
real conspiracy, please remember the first two syllables of the
(29:44):
name Stu Peters form the sound Stu Pete. Two days
worse person and the to the number one story on
(30:10):
the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I
promised not to tell and circumstances the other day took
me past my first New York City apartment. I stopped
and stood and stared, and I shook my head, and
again I saw in my mind the flames and the
glow and the blackened lobby because one night somebody threw
(30:32):
a Molotov cocktail into the building in which I had
my first New York City apartment. While I was in
my first New York City apartment, the address was it
is two hundred and forty East fifty fifth Street, Apartment
ten F. It was two doors west of Second Avenue,
south side of the street. It was the center apartment
(30:53):
on the street side of the building, and I was
directly above the front entrance and above the only thing
of note in the whole place, a full fledged old
fashioned New York City apartment building canopy. You could get
out of a cab and a rain storm and under
that canopy in like a second and a half and
pretty much not get wet. No doorman, no amenities, rather
(31:14):
dubious live in super but it had that canopy. I
moved in on June seventeenth, nineteen eighty. It was a
big studio apartment. The view was of a big video
warehouse across the street, though if you leaned out the
westernmost window you could see the City Corps Center, which
was always an impressive sight on a foggy night. The
(31:34):
neighborhood and the building were safe and quiet, at least
I thought they were safe. It was a fifteen minute
walk from my first job, and then a twenty five
minute walk from my second job. And when I first
rented there, it was are you ready four hundred and
eighty three dollars a month, which sounds unbelievable except that
was about a third of my salary. And I think
(31:55):
when I moved out in nineteen eighty four the rent
had gone up to five hundred and ten dollars a month,
And that low price might have had something to do
with the fact that one night somebody threw them all
a tough cocktail into the building. You know how, once
you've been in any place for any length of time,
you get used to the physics of it, the feel
of it. Not just someplace you live, any place you
(32:20):
spend a lot of time in an office, a classroom,
a theater, or an apartment. You know what it sounds like.
You know what it feels like in the summer or
how it feels differently in the winter. You know what
it looks like, the building, noise, the smells, if it's
too hot, if it's too cold, and especially and think
about this for a second, especially what the light looks
(32:43):
like at every hour of the day. I don't know
if there was a day when I could have said,
this is what the light looks like in Apartment ten
f two forty East fifty fifth Street during a snowstorm,
or what the light looks like coming in through the
shades at eight in the morning or eight at night.
But it probably didn't take long. June nineteen eighty was
(33:04):
when I moved in. I bet I knew the various
lights of the place by September, so by New Years
of nineteen eighty three, I knew it all instinctively, exactly, reflexingly, boringly.
I would go to my bed in the southeast corner
of my studio apartment. I'd get in sleeping north south,
but with my head at the south end, and as
(33:24):
I lay on my back, I could look out the
windows and see the faint orangey glow from a couple
of street lights that shone through the four windows that
opened to on either side of a kind of small
picture window in the middle. The light would be brightest
from the window on the farthest right, which was the
one closest to Second Avenue and the closest to one
of those street lights. So on Sunday, January ninth, nineteen
(33:47):
eighty three, as that night turned into Monday, January tenth,
nineteen eighty three, I hit the sack around midnight because
I actually had one of those rare nine to five
jobs in television as a field reporter for CNN. I
shut off the light on my nightstand. I laid down
on my back. I stared at my right hand window,
and immediately I thought, boy, the light is slightly more
(34:10):
orange than it should be. What the hell's wrong? I'm
guessing it was no more than five or ten percent
different from usual. But as I've gone to such lengths
to point out, if you see the same light through
the same window in all conceivable conditions almost every night
for more than two years, five or ten percent difference
(34:31):
is a lot. I think. I lay there trying to
figure it out for a minute or so when I
realized it was now ten or fifteen percent different. Cleverly,
I got up and went to the window and rolled
up the shade and looked down to that canopy ten
floors below, and I must say, to my credit, I
quickly discerned that the canopy was on fire. I reacted
(34:56):
as almost everybody does, matter of factly thinking, maybe even
saying out loud, hey, the canopy is on fire, and
then registering the fact that the fire had already burned
through the building end of that canopy, and it was
moving quickly outwards towards the street, suggesting again, I must say,
I figured this out for myself, suggesting that there was
(35:20):
probably a fire in the lobby. I put a robe
on over my pajamas, I put on some shoes. I
grabbed my wallet and my keys, and I ventured into
the hallway. No smell of smoke, which I took again intelligently,
is a good sign. Two elevators were staring me in
the face, but I knew better than to try them.
I was, after all, the grandson of a firefighter. So
(35:42):
I opened the stairwell and then I smelled the smoke. Faint,
but it was there. I went down two floors, and
every step I took the smell got a little stronger.
I went back up. I went back into my apartment.
I did not really know what I was going to do.
Needless to say, ten floors is not jumpable. There was
(36:04):
no outdoor fire escape, like in many of the New
York city, older apartment buildings, and even if I went
down the elevator or the stairs or the side of
the damned building, I would wind up right in the
middle of the fire. For a few seconds, I really
didn't know what to do next. Me, the grandson of
the man who was not only a firefighter but who
drove the hook and ladder irony also fire. That's when
(36:30):
the sound of the fire engines broke me out of
self absorption and cheered me, I must say considerably. They
parked right near where that convenient canopy used to be,
but was now pretty much a charred hunk of the
metal framing in a little burned fabric. I'm sure you've
seen a fire. Maybe you've seen firefighters arrive at one
(36:51):
and get going with their amazing speed. But there is
something different in seeing it from the vantage point of
being above the fire. First there is an extraordinary amount
of water, then a lot of then an almost unstoppable
instinct to say cool. And then you go and check
the stairwell again and joyfully inhale the smell of stuff
(37:13):
that had been on fire but was now no longer
on fire and just inundated with water. Hallelujah. I waited
until after they left before I decided to go back
to my bed. I did not feel the need to
add to whatever loud chaos was going on in the
lobby or what had been the lobby, nor to get
any details about the fire other than the key one,
(37:34):
which was it's out. But in the morning, since I
had to go to work anyway, I saw the elevator
door open onto the little linoleum covered landing in the lobby,
and saw that everything else but it in the lobby
was jet black. They were still hosing some of it down.
They were already pulling up burned carpet, installing new windows
(37:58):
and doors, and carting away what was left of the canopy.
And it was evident that as thorough a job as
had been done there, nothing else in the building had burned. Nothing.
In the days and weeks to come, the other residents,
knowing I worked in news, clued me in on the
rumors and asked me to check them out. There was
(38:19):
a dispute, somebody said, involving the owner. There was something
about a woman. No, there was nothing about a woman.
But all of them, every story, every rumor, included the
obvious that was no boating accident. Somebody had thrown a
mile't off cocktail into or against our front door. And
then there was the best of the stories, born out
(38:41):
or at least lent plausibility by the rapidity with which
the firefighters arrived, which thinking back on it was no
more than three or four minutes after I first saw
the extra orange glow. The best rumor was that the
fire department had been called by somebody before anybody in
the building had called. The implication was was somebody called
(39:06):
in a fire and then started the fire. For forty
years plus I have been unable to find the truth.
The fire, doing superficial but ultimately not serious damage did
not make the New York newspapers. Hell that year, I
took a subway to work in the morning and there
was a guy sprawled over three seats. And when I
(39:27):
went home that night, I happened to get on the
exact same train car and there was the exact same
guy sprawled over the exact same three seats because he
was dead. And that didn't make the New York newspapers
of nineteen eighty three either. We old timey New Yorkers,
we lived on the edge. Baby. All I know is
(39:47):
that Within weeks, a doorman was hired. His name was
Jane and he had a strong Irish accent, and he
was still there as of two thousand and two. And
then the building suddenly went co op. All of us
renters were suddenly offered the chance to buy our apartments.
But I didn't want to take out a loan, and
I expected to be moving to Boston in the near future,
(40:09):
and I kept thinking about that Molotov cocktail. So I
turned down that apartment at the price of are you
lying down? Thirty six five hundred dollars. Turned it down
because yeah, there was the fire and the loan and Boston.
(40:29):
But ultimately I turned it down, even just to keep
as a a storage unit. I turned that apartment down
because when it comes to investments, I'm a moron, you know.
(40:55):
And it still shows up in my dream sometimes too,
not often, though, I'm sure I'll be over it anytime.
Now it's only been forty two and a half years.
I've done all the damage I can do. Here. Thank
you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Chanel. They are the countdown musical directors. Guitars
based and drums by Brian ray All, Orchestration and keyboards
(41:18):
by John Phillip Chanel. The producers Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two.
It was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine, and everything
(41:39):
else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for
this the nine hundred and second day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
United States. Arrest him again while we still can you
think Jack Smith listens to this podcast because he sure
has been busy arresting him while he still can. Thank you, Jack.
(42:01):
The next Tedital Countdown is tomorrow. Till then. I'm Keith Olberman.
Good Morning, afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with
Keith Oldman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
(42:24):
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts,
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