JUDGE: "DOJ MOVES IN A FEW MONTHS I SUSPECT" AGAINST TRUMP - 4.12.23

EPISODE 176: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: As he sentenced the 1/6 defendant, the Federal Judge spoke clearly and on the record: "There are still people who believe the election was rigged. There are still people who support Donald Trump, though not many showed up at the court in Manhattan. We'll see what happens here at THIS COURT WHEN THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MOVES IN A FEW MONTHS, I SUSPECT."

What the...heck?

Was Judge Paul L. Friedman ruminating? Surmising? Telling us things maybe he knows that we don't? His comments were a warning that we are now in a time when January 6 Trumpian violence could easily be repeated with an eye towards 2024. Whatever they meant, they are the most intriguing yet made about Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation of Trump.

Also Stephen Miller testified to Smith's Grand Jury again (even though it was daytime), and Alvin Bragg clapped back at Jim Jordan and Trump's other henchmen by suing to quash their subpoena for his records and his testimony. 

And maybe best of all, Trump told a credulous Tucker Carlson that as he was being arrested and processed last week "They signed me in and I'll tell you people were crying. People that work there. Professionally work there, that have no problems putting in murderers and they see everybody. It's a tough, tough place and they were crying. They were actually crying. They said 'I'm sorry.'"

Well, look, it's POSSIBLE. I mean if you or I had to listen to him in person, we'd probably burst into tears as well.

B-Block (14:30) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Justin Jones and Justin Pearson may have done more than they know: the governor moves to tighten gun background checks. Defund Clarence Thomas! The Fox-Dominion trial begins. How to use Trump to sink all GOP candidates. And the speech I once gave outdoors - and literally heard crickets. (20:32) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Fox contributors who think Dan Bongino should be FBI Director and the 2020 Election was rigged but Biden won anyway. The Wisconsin congressman who says his Wisconsin people think New York is too dangerous even though apparently Milwaukee is three times as dangerous as NYC. And the winner: on 3/8 Texas State Rep Bryan Slaton introduced a bill banning Drag Shows because they were "grooming events" for "the sexualization of our children." On 3/31, per a new reported complaint to the Legislature, he allegedly invited a female intern to his home and gave her alcohol even though she wasn't old enough to legally drink. OOPS.

C-Block (27:04) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Sammy, dumped by his family in December, is on the kill list tomorrow (28:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I basically have done no drinking since July 25, 1982, because that was the day I had as many as 40 beers in ONE DAY and still showed up on the air at radio at 5:30 the following morning and at CNN at 9:30. Do not try this at home, or anywhere else. It's called "Functional Alcoholism."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. A
senior Federal District judge has hinted he believes the Justice

(00:25):
Department will quote move unquote against Trump quote in a
few months. I suspect, unquote, this is the most intriguing
comment yet about the Special Council's investigation of Donald J. Trump.
Judge Paul L. Friedman, on the record in his courtroom
in Washington, in his thirtieth year on the bench, as

(00:45):
he sentences a January sixth defendant to fifty two months
in prison, says, quote, there are still people who believe
the election was rigged. There are still people who support
Donald Trump, though not many showed up at the court
in Manhattan. We'll see what happens here at this court
when the Justice Department moves in a few months. I

(01:06):
suspect was Judge Freedman ruminating, calculating, or was he revealing
things to come? This is not some novice who does
not understand the meaning of his words and the meaning
of the venue in which he said them. And as
he put Robert Sandford in prison for four years and
four months for being an ex firefighter who threw a

(01:26):
fire extinguisher at cops during the coup. Judge Friedman warned
of the upcoming danger of further such violent acts on
Trump's behalf, and he said, we'll see what happens here
at this court that would be the US District Court
for the District of Columbia. Quote, when the Justice Department
moves in a few months. I suspect even if that

(01:49):
is not Judge Freedman giving us a forecast, but just
an informed guess, a rumination, it is an extraordinary thing
for him to say, and it needs to be literally parsed,
as if we were diagramming sentences back in eighth grade
English grammar position class. This is, after all, the judge
responsible for the continuing supervision of the would be assassin

(02:11):
of President Reagan, John David Hinckley. This is the judge
who is the secretary of the American Law Institute. And
this is a judge who has spoken out previously against
Trump for Trump's incendiary attacks on judges, hinting at violence,
essentially threatening it. On the surface, the judge was telling
the defendant, his lawyers and prosecutors that cases like the

(02:33):
fire extinguisher throwing firefighter are no longer just about the
January sixth we have already had. They are now also
about preventing the next January sixth. The pivotal sentence applies
to that subject. Clearly. It is about how Trump's goons
might respond quote at this court, the DC District Court
quote when the Justice Department moves. That's certainly clear. Freedman

(02:58):
is guessing or revealing or warning that the Justice Department
is going to move against Trump quote in a few months.
I suspect. Now the I suspect addendam throws uncertainty and
judgment into either the idea that the DOJ will move
or that the DOJ will move in a few months,

(03:18):
or both. So that could be when the Justice Department
moves pause in a few months, I suspect, or when
the Justice Department moves in a few months, I suspect.
But either way, regardless of exactly which phrase modifies and
lessons which other phrase. Eyebrows went up at the sentencing

(03:40):
yesterday afternoon, and they have remained up in the same town,
in the same justice system. Trump's nosferatu, Stephen Miller the Undead,
went back before the Grand jury hearing the evidence in
Special Council Smith's investigation of January sixth of the Marilago
classified documents Trump stole of Trump's attempts at fraudily changing

(04:00):
the election outcomes in Georgia and elsewhere. Miller was one
of the Trump head jaman denied executive privilege, and several
sources said he was going to be asked about in
his second trip before this grand jury what he and
Trump discussed in the moments before Trump sent the assemblage
of insurrectionists from the Ellipse to the Capitol to try
to end American representative government. We know Trump and Miller

(04:22):
were on the phone literally minutes before Trump took that stage.
Stephen Miller said nothing two reporters who spotted him going
into the courthouse yesterday, and that is of course understandable
because it presumably takes all his strength just to survive
in daylight, and as if one were needed. The Daily
Beast has produced an extraordinary link between the special councils

(04:44):
for suit of the defendant soon I think, and the
Manhattan District Attorney's arrest of the defendant last week. If
I remember, there were two first year attorneys who worked
together in the so called Rookie Class of nineteen ninety
four in the office of the legendary Manhattan District Attorney
Robert Margenthal. One was less than the special counsel Jack Smith,

(05:07):
and the other was Juan Meershaun, now the justice at
the New York Supreme Court, the one who presided over
the arraignment last week and is expected to hear the
Trump Stormy Daniels David Pecker case when it goes to
trial in New York. I believe I have suggested four
or five times here that what the current Manhattan DA

(05:27):
Alvin Bragg was saying in his responses to Jim Jordan
and Trump's other henchmen in the House as they threatened
to subpoena him for records and testimony and dirty him
up to make Trump look better, and then they scheduled
a field hearing to look into quote violence in New York,
even though the violence is worse in all the places
the Trump henchmen are from. What Bragg was saying to

(05:48):
them was keep this crap up, and I'm going to
hit you with obstruction of justice. Well, yesterday Da Bragg
hit them with a preface to obstruction of justice. He
has sued in federal court in the Southern District of
New York, accusing gym Jim of a quote reason and
unconstitutional attack, a transparent campaign to intimidate and attack the

(06:11):
DA quoting again, rather than allowing the criminal process to
proceed in the ordinary course, Chairman Jordan and the committee
are participating in a campaign of intimidation, retaliation, and obstruction.
There's that word obstruction again. Bragg is getting a court
to rule that he does not have to testify and

(06:31):
that Jordan should stfu. I like this play by Bragg.
He will not just ignore the subpoena from Jordan, nor
wait to have the DOJ ignore Jordan's attempt to hit
him with contempt of Congress. Bragg will tie Jordan up
and his committee up in court. Then guess who's going
to be better at that? A fifth rate Congressman from Lima,

(06:52):
Ohio or the DA of funds. City Democrats in Congress
turn out to have a play as well. Jerry Nadler
and city officials will be holding a news conference just
before the Republicans field hearing next Monday. Now nobody is
saying this, but the city should also run the standard
reaction to anybody who shows up here trying to show

(07:12):
us up. Oh yeah, your car legally parked? Can't you read?
Sign says begin no parking here Wednesdays, October Sunny days
three pm to four fifteen, two am to three thirty pm,
excepts no removable evacuation roots, no standing. It's over an
impound lot by the river. You can have it back
in the year twenty five, twenty five. And lastly, on

(07:36):
this point, there may or may not be crying in
say baseball, but if the defendant is to be believed,
there was crying in the Manhattan Criminal courthouse. Understand there
are millions of people who are going to take this
story seriously. Tucker Carlson did one of his famous flatulent
lap sitting interviews with the defendant last night. It is

(07:57):
good they pay Tuck that much for these things. I'm
sure the cash will come in handy for him in hell.
In this interview, well, it's not an interview, it's not.
In practice, the hallucinating abnormal would be dictator. The defendant
laid on all the schmaltz he could in recounting his arrest,
arrangement and release here last week and how the staff

(08:18):
at one hundred Center Street in Manhattan treated him it
has everything but the words sir in it. Quote. They
were incredible when I went to the courthouse, which is
also a prison in a sense. They signed me in,
and I'll tell you, people were crying. Unquote. People always
cry in front of Trump, at least Trump says they do,

(08:39):
or thinks they do, or lies that they do. Quoting again,
people that work there, professionally work there, that have no
problems putting in murderers, and they see everybody. It's a tough,
tough place. And they were crying. They were actually crying.
They said, I'm sorry. People were crying. They were crying.

(09:00):
They were actually crying. They said, I'm sorry. On this
quote Parsing edition Countdown podcast, think about what the construction
sounds like in that pathetic statement, or more correctly, who
it sounds like. Quote. There was this icicle and it
felled off the garage and it hit me in the
eye and hit my cheek and it broke my glasses.

(09:23):
Little Ralphie in a Christmas story written by Jean Shepherd,
Lee Brown Bob Clark nineteen eighty three. Little Ralphie is
in the third grade. They sign me in, and I'll
tell you, people were crying. People that worked there, professionally
worked there, that have no problems putting in murders, and
they see everybody. It's a tough, tough place, and they

(09:44):
were crying. They were actually crying. They said, I'm sorry.
You know, maybe they actually were crying. Listening to that
clip and reading that Trump quote. If I had to
stand in front of him and hear him say that shit,
I'd start crying too. Still ahead on this edition of

(10:15):
Countdown and Boys, there are a lot of news to
do postscripts on as the vote to put Justin Pearson
back into the Tennessee State House awaits an impact of
the protest he and Justin Jones led that nobody saw coming.
I didn't see this coming. The Republican governor of that
state actually took a step, a small one, to try

(10:37):
to mitigate gun madness. The latest on the really pressing
need we must defund Clarence Thomas. The Democrats picked their
venue for their convention next year, Chicago. Well, Democrats in Chicago.
The Democrats in Chicago again, what could possibly go wrong?

(10:57):
And in things I promised not to tell talk about
things going wrong just because twenty three year old Keith
could have four beers in one day does not mean
the twenty three year old Keith should have had forty
beers in one day. A harrowing tale in which I
still don't quite understand how I not only survived, but
was at work on the air on radio at five

(11:19):
thirty the following morning. That's next. This is an all
new edition of Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith old Woman.
Post Scripts to the news, some updates, some insights, some snarks,

(11:41):
some predictions. Date Line Nashville yesterday, on the eve of
a vote to appoint Justin Pierson to serve as interim
replacement for expelled Tennessee state rep himself. A surprise from
Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Lee. After the Covenants School mass shooting,
Lee proposed legislation that cynically dealt only with hardening schools,

(12:03):
more locks, more guard it's more guns, turned schools into prisons. Yesterday,
the governor seemed to respond tentatively insufficiently but materially against
the Republican playbook and towards the protests in his state.
Lee issued an executive order designed to strengthen background checks
for firearm purchases, and they asked lawmakers to pass an

(12:25):
order protection law which will make it easier to keep
people who have committed crimes from getting guns. It may
be working, Stateline, Washington. The battle over the unfortunate fact
that the Republican activist and megadonor Harlan Crowe is the
sole owner and operator of Clarence Thomas has taken a
turn for the stupid. First, it was an opinion piece

(12:48):
in The Hill written by a biographer of Clarence Thomas,
who wrote that the Thomas corruption issue should have been
dropped once Jinny Thomas told the January sixth Commission she
and her husband never discussed her efforts to overthrow the
government that should have led it. The title of Scott
Douglas Gerber's piece Supreme Court justices are allowed to have friends, friends, yes,

(13:14):
owners no. Unfortunately, the piece was then answered in The
New Republic by Michael Tomaski. His article was titled the
Democrats need to destroy Clarence Thomas's reputation, which, while true,
ignores the fact that Clarence Thomas has already destroyed Clarence
Thomas's reputation, and anyway, the best title for a Clarence
Thomas op ed would be titled defund Clarence Thomas. All

(13:39):
these questions about Thomas center on one thing. Can you
have a duet with a guy like Harlan Crowe? And
the answer is no, Thank Q Nancy Faust Dateline, Wilmington, Delaware.

(14:07):
Jury selections set to begin tomorrow in the one point
six billion dollar defamation suit against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems.
Judge Eric Davis of Delaware Superior Court has narrowed what
each side can bring up about the other. Dominion cannot
raise the issue of January sixth. Fox cannot argue that
it televised its lies about Dominion on the idea that,

(14:28):
regardless of whether they were true, they were newsworthy. That
is the exact premise of how Fox has operated since
nineteen ninety six. We're not saying it's true, We're just
saying it happened. Dateline, Chicago, That is where the twenty
twenty fourth Democratic National Convention will occur. August nineteenth to
twenty fourth used to be a regular thing for both

(14:49):
parties to convene in Chicago. The Republicans met there fourteen times,
but not since nineteen sixty. The Democrats went ten times,
ending in nineteen fifty six. It's not hard to figure why.
When travel was mostly or exclusively by train, Chicago was
basically the midpoint of the country. Then came the airplane
and the Democratic Convention of nineteen sixty eight and the

(15:12):
police riot against anti war protesters. There has been only
one convention by either party there since the Dems in
nineteen ninety six, when Bill Clinton was a lock for renomination.
Date Line, Washington. How will the Democrats approach Trump as
a campaign issue, whether or not he is the nominee
by the time they get to Chicago. The David Brock

(15:33):
Democratic group Facts First USA says that Trump's arrest has
clarified what the Democrats should do, that it gives the
party quote a perfect opportunity to further tie House Republicans
to the MAGA extremists of their party. The Trump indictments
ultimately stand as an indictment of House Republicans and their

(15:55):
efforts to shield Trump and other lawbreakers unquote. I think
David Brock has it nailed when he says that a
key to the campaign at the national, local and state
level is to play Republicans who defended Trump or tried
to stay silent as quote siding with criminals siding with criminals,

(16:16):
and said caveat. David Brock once paid me to give
a fire and brimstone speech to one of his fundraising
meetings as an aside. This was the speech I gave
outdoors in Florida on the eve of the twenty seventeen inauguration.
The speech actually earned me a standing oh and some converts.
But this is the literal truth. I was apparently so

(16:37):
radical and not what they expected that at certain moments
early on in the speech, when I paused, the audience
was so shocked by some of my suggestions about the
need for metaphorical war against the GOP and Trump that
the audience was completely silent. And since we were outside,
I could literally hear crickets. You do not really know

(17:01):
what the phrase you could hear crickets means until you
are giving a speech and you literally here crickets, stell

(17:24):
ahead on countdown. Don't drink. When I say don't drink,
I mean yeah, you can drink one or two a
week is not going to affect you either way. Forty
forty in one day. Let me tell you from bitter
personal experience from nineteen eighty two that'll affect you first
time for the daily roundup of the miscrants, morons, and
Donning Kruger effects specimens other than myself in nineteen eighty two,

(17:45):
who constitute today's worst persons in the world tie for
the bronze. Leo Terrell and Clay Travis, two guests on
Fox quote news unquote, they are different. I believe the
correct polite term is they are challenged. Leo Terrell is
angry about the FBI, which apparently used one agent to

(18:06):
see if a Virginia Catholic church had been infiltrated by
a dangerous excreamist. The right is reacting to this kind
of like it's the Crucifixion, and as if you know
there aren't right wing fake Christians at every level of
domestic terrorism anyway. This Terrell is demanding that FBI Director
Christopher Ray be fired for this and be replaced by

(18:30):
It's right here in front of me, and I don't
believe I'm seeing this. Let me quote him. This is
why we need a guy like Dan Bongino to be
the next FBI director. And I'm dead serious about that.
Dan Bongino is the ex New York cop who is
over three running for Congress and who draws his hair on. Meanwhile,
this Travis guy is nominally a sports commentator, only he

(18:53):
doesn't understand anything about sports either, But since he's a
reliable redneck, Fox has him on to talk politics, quoting him,
Joe Biden is an accidental president. They hit him in
his basement. He did virtually nothing, and only one by
twenty thousand votes after they rigged the entire election, after
they hit everything associated with Hunter Biden, with the big tech,

(19:13):
with the big media, with the big Democrat party collusion
that all worked in his favor. Okay, glad they've learned
something from the dominion suit. Let me do a callback
and read that quote again from Clay Travis. They hit
him in his basement, and he did virtually nothing, and
he only won by twenty thousand votes after they rigged
the entire election, after they hit everything associated with Hunter Biden,

(19:35):
with the big tech, with the big media, with the
big Democrat party collusion, that all worked in his favor. Okay, Moron.
Clay Travis moron runner up Congressman Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin,
who told Maua Botawomo on Fox Business that New York
is some sort of hellscape and he used to be great,
but now they've got I don't know. I guess he

(19:56):
thinks they've got like dinosaurs or something on the streets here. Quote.
I hear from people regularly out here in Wisconsin. They
were like, I don't know if I want to go
to New York City right now, because it's not safe.
Tiffany represents basically the Wasaw Chippewa Falls metro plequx. But
it is noteworthy that the website best places dot net

(20:17):
has a complicated index of all crime statistics gives you
one round number, where the lower the score the better.
New York City's violent crime score is twenty eight, which
is slightly worse than average. Milwaukee's violent crime score out Darren,
Wisconsin is seventy three, which is really bad, but our winner.

(20:39):
Texas State Republican Representative Brian Slayton of Austin. On March
eighth of this year, Brian Slayton introduced legislation to ban
any drag show of any kind that has kids in
the audience. He called drag shows quote grooming events that
were only about quote the sexualization of our children. That
was on March eighth. On March thirty first, according to

(21:02):
a complaint reported we just filed with the TECH. This
legislature Representative Slayton invited a female intern to his home
late on a weekend night, and he plied her with
alcohol even though she's under twenty one and not yet
old enough to drink legally. And then he made up
fake emails that he showed her that suggested somebody had
found out about him inviting this underaged girl who was

(21:24):
asked to fly her with alcohol, so he made her
pledge not to tell anybody. He denies all this, by
the way that Bill Brian Slayton had introduced twenty three
days before drinks over at Brie's house. In his press
release announcing it, Representative Slayton had said, quote, the state
has a duty to protect kids from being sexually exploited. Yes,

(21:46):
yes it does, Texas State Representative Brian. But I wasn't
wearing a dress, so hat could I have groomed her?
Slayton two days worst person and still ahead on countdown. Sure,

(22:15):
forty beers in one day from like two pm to
ten pm sounds like a lot. On the other hand,
I came from a long line of functioning alcoholics, and
this was nineteen eighty two. So a harrowing story I
hope you learn from I sure did, and things I
promised not to tell. Next. First, in each tradition of Countdown,
we feature a dog in need you can help. Every

(22:37):
dog has its day to New York and Sammy, a
seventy pound, ten and blond guy who is on the
kill list at the City Pound. He was a loyal
family dog here for four years. Loved the kids in
this family, loved when they took him out running in
the fields, loved showing off his ability to sit, shake, spin,
role play with them. And then in December they took

(22:58):
him out of the house and dumped him at the shelter.
He was fine at first, all those new human friends.
After four months, he understands he's been abandoned. He's now
acting out with other dogs and they're going to kill
him for it. Jesus, when do we stop killing people animals?
The animal who is the surest sign of a benevolent god, dogs,

(23:20):
Sammy needs our pledges to help a rescue pull him
out and save him. Look for Sammy and my Twitter feeds.
I thank you and Sammy thanks you. To the number
one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic me
and how I learned not to drink anybody over the

(23:44):
age of twenty seven, and the number may actually be
way lower than that can look back in genuine horror
at a day on which they did something alarming or
potentially physically injurious or fatal at a much younger age.
For me, since the day I turned three and a

(24:05):
half on July twenty seventh, nineteen eighty two. That day
was July twenty fifth, nineteen eighty two, and I remember
on my twenty third and a half birthday being kind
of surprised that I had made it through the previous
three days. July twenty fifth, nineteen eighty two is one
of those timeless, airless, stultifying summer sundays in New York

(24:26):
that can arrive and sit on your head and do
its best to smother you. It can get there anytime
from the end of May until the middle of September.
I was invited to a party on Long Island, Saiosset maybe,
where nine college friends were already having a great time drinking.
My friend Peter rented a duplex there and shared it

(24:48):
with some radio colleagues of his, including impossibly the former
New York Rangers hockey player Pete Stemkowski. My friend Glenn Cornelius,
who we would lose when he turned thirty nine and
whose name is on the studios of our Cornell radio
station's new facility, along with my dads, was there. He
was in charge of g the Burghers, and his wife
was there. Then my friend Peter's parents, and a pal

(25:09):
who used to be Pat Lyons in a T shirt
but is now Patrick Jay Lyons of the Foreign desk
of the New York Times thank you in a beard
and a three piece suit that makes him look like
Britain's ambassador to this country in eighteen ninety seven. I
mentioned all this because it is in my diary for
the next day. I don't actually remember it, and I
don't actually remember it because it was so damn hot

(25:31):
that I would not leave Peter's well air conditioned living room,
even to go grab a burger that Glenn Cornelius was
fixing with expert precision. I just sat there. I just
sat there and drank beer. Mind you, I didn't drink
a lot in college or thereafter. I was never once
carded in my life. I think I got my first

(25:51):
bar beer at the age of thirteen. But as of
that day in nineteen eighty two, I don't believe I
had ever had something to drink on three consecutive days,
and I probably hadn't had anything to drink on two
consecutive days more than four or five times in my life.
But that day was so oppressive, so unpleasant, that I

(26:12):
just kept drinking beer, and I did not stop. From
my arrival at two or three pm until my departure
just before ten, I had a beer in my hand
for seven eight hours without interruption. In those days, if
I stuck to one kind of beverage, I would neither

(26:33):
stay obviously drunk, nor would I get a hangover. I
do not know how many beers I had that stultifying
afternoon and evening. If I only got a new beer
every fifteen minutes, that would still be twenty eight or
thirty beers. Might have been less, might have been more.
My guess is it was more closer to forty. I

(26:55):
recall having the presence of mind to ask my friends Peter,
Pat and Glen not merely to take me to the
train station so I could get back to my apartment
in the city, but to stay with me on the
platform make sure I got on the train rather than
falling in front of it. I also remember them going
so far as to make sure not just that I
got on, but then I sat down, and I recall

(27:15):
being overjoyed at the train's air conditioning, considering that at
ten PM that night at the train station it was
still ninety degrees out. I'm pretty sure I splurged, and
it was a splurge in those days for a cab
back from Penn Station to my home on the other
side of town, even though my salary as the national
sports correspondent for CNN was twenty six thousand dollars a year.

(27:38):
And never once in all of this boozy time did
I forget that not only was I due in at
CNN at nine thirty the following morning, but that I
was also due in at my part time job as
the backup sportscaster on a New York radio station w
n W at four the next morning. It was past

(27:59):
eleven PM when I got into my apartment, whose air
conditioner was poorly designed for the purpose and did little
bit blow air around. Though still wobbly from drink twenty
eight beers thirty forty, I immediately set two alarms for
three am, four hours hence, I got a huge block
of ice out of my freezer. I put it in
the tub in front of my giant room fan. I

(28:21):
took a delightful shower. I did not dry off. I
simply wrapped myself in my bed sheet, and I fell asleep.
I woke up to the alarms three and a half
hours later, slightly less drunk, but not much less drunk.
I showered again, shaved and still drunk, put on a suit,
shirt and tie, checked the temperature, which had cooled all
the way down to a balmy eighty eight, and still drunk.

(28:45):
I walked in the middle of the night through the
risky New York of nineteen eighty two to the radio
station fourteen blocks downtown. But of course it was morning
and mourning. Whether you are drunk or not, still drunk
means breakfast, so I stopped at the best all night
diner among several that were open along the route, and

(29:08):
I got something to go, eggs, bacon and sausage, little
French toast, orange juice, coffee, and of course two pieces
of pastry. And I carried it, and I was still
drunk into WAW Radio Metromedia Radio in New York I greeted,
still drunk, the newscasters and producers. I grabbed the role

(29:29):
of sports wire copy still drunk that had been churning
out since about six pm the night before, and still drunk,
found the stories I needed, and still drunk while I
ate my breakfast that with today sustained me for three
and a half weeks. I wrote my first sportscast, who
air at five thirty am. I finished it. I looked
at the clock. It was four thirty AM. So since

(29:51):
the sports stories rarely changed on the morning shift, I
still drunk wrote the six thirty sportscast as well, and
then the seven thirty, and still drunk, and it's still
being only five ten am. I wrote the last of
the sportscast, the eight thirty. In point of fact, drunk,
I was working faster than I normally did. A perusal

(30:12):
of world history suggests that the stories of the morning
included the Yankees losing six to four of the Angels,
with x Yankee Reggie Jackson going one for three in
front of fifty one, five hundred and sixty one sweating
fans at Yankee Stadium, that Dave Kingman made two unassisted
double plays at first base for the Mets as they
lost three to two, with the victorious Padres placing the

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tragic second baseman Alan Wiggins on the disabled list because
he had been arrested for cocaine possession, and that goalie
Hubert Birkenheimer starred as the New York Cosmos won their
fifth straight game eleventh straight at home over the San
Diego Soccers. An ill fated Olympic sort of thing called
the National Sports Festival was well underway in Indianapolis. It

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was as boring then as it sounds now, no matter
how drunk your sportscaster happened to be. At thirty am,
I went on the air, still drunk and read my
script flawlessly. By six thirty I was beginning to sober up.
At seven thirty I was a little headachy. At eight thirty,

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I was now one not drunk. I said goodbye to
all of my radio colleagues. I checked the temperature, now
back up to ninety three degrees, and I went out
and walked one block to the downtown subway train that
would take me to the World Trade Center and the
eight hour day that awaited me as a reporter out
in the field with a camera crew, and oh, by
the way, in nineteen eighty two, that particular subway line

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did not have air conditioning. My diary entry leaves out
the story that I covered that day for CNN, but
it does note that I made a tape of the
drunken radio sportscasts and listened that evening and enjoined them
immensely because I had no memory of researching, composing, writing,
or reading them whatsoever. My diary also says I made

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dinner plans with a girl at ANW who I was dating,
and I flirted with another woman at CNN who said
that my new publicity photos had made me look like
a puppy dog. She and I also made dinner plans.
This is like a month and a half of life
for me today, or even at the age of thirty three,

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let alone twenty three. I remember, either that day or
the next, possibly as I listened to the sportscast I
had done while I'm still drunken autopilot, that it was
very impressive to me that I had managed to do
all this without swearing on radio or fainting while standing
up and holding a CNN microphone out in the ninety
three degree heat, or getting unwell in front of either

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of those girls, that I could, in the parlance of
those just post madmen years, hold my alcohol. And then
I also remember that, just as quickly, I remembered in
nineteen eighty two the names of some of my father's
uncles and some of my mother's cousins who they had

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told me had all died around the age of forty
forty five, because bluntly, they could also hold their alcohol.
Where I got the phrase, I don't know, but I
did think of it that night. It's not you are
holding your alcohol. It's called functional alcoholism. And functional alcoholism
will allow you to drink forty beers one night and

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then work from four am to six pm the next.
Then later it'll come back and you know, kill you.
Since that episode in July nineteen eighty two, the number
of times I have had double digit drinks on one
day is one. I was thirty seven. I was going
to a party celebrating what everybody else was believing was

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me joining their Chicago radio station, but which I alone
new management had instead decided to close that radio station
and fire all of them. And before I left my hotel,
I took a bunch of the hotel business cards with
me because I wasn't sure I'd still be able to
speak later that night. I wanted a card so I
could just head to the cab driver. And that is
exactly what happened. And legitimately, I do not believe that

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in all the years since then, and that's nineteen ninety six,
I have ever had anything to drink two days in
a row. And that street probably goes back to nineteen
eighty two as well, never have anything to drink two
days in a row. And not to preach, but may
I suggest that you shouldn't either. I've done all the

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damage I can do here. Lord knows what I did
in my brain that day. Thank you for listening. Here
the credits. Most of the music was arranged, produced and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are
the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John
Philip Chanelle. Guitars based on draw by Brian Ray, produced
by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and

(35:09):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, and it was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical
comments from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever,
and our announcer today was Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad.
Everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown
for this, the eight hundred and twenty seventh day since

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Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
of the United States. Don't forget to keep arresting him
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Until then, I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production

(35:56):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you at your podcasts