November 21, 2023 • 43 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 78: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The democracy will certainly not survive Donald Trump but I am now wondering if it has any chance of surviving Sarah Wallace, Patricia Millett, Cornelia Pillard, and Brad Garcia and if you don’t know who they are, they are the latest people on the latest list of supposed liberals and supposed officers of the court who could get us all KILLED.
Millett seems to be the most clueless of the three DC Appeals Court dilettantes who first STAYED the gag order issued against Trump in the Election Subversion case and then yesterday conducted the in-person hearing and all but announced that they WILL significantly limit the order because apparently when Trump starts ignoring laws he doesn’t like and jailing judges he doesn’t like, these idiots somehow think they will be immune because they were so fair to him back there in November 2023. Judge Millett seemed to base her nitwitted reaction to the two hours of oral arguments on the impact of the gag order on…presidential debates. “He has to speak ‘Miss Manners’ while everyone else is throwing targets at him? It would be really hard in a debate, when everyone else is going at you full bore. Your attorneys would have to have scripted little things you can say.”
Miss Manners. Trump has to speak ‘Miss Manners.’ Do you get the same feeling I do that Judge Millette has no earthly clue WHO Dementia J. Trump is? Do you get the OTHER same feeling that I do that it has not occurred to, and will NEVER occur to, Judge Millette that so far there have been THREE presidential debates in the Republican primary and Trump hasn’t shown up to any of them and there is no reason to expect he’d have the guts to show up to one in the general election.
And THEN there is Judge Sarah Wallace and I’m not sure she didn’t even harm the country MORE than Judge “Miss Manners” and Judge “I Would Assume” did. Judge Wallace heard the 14th Amendment disqualification case and at the same time that she ruled quote “that Trump incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021, and therefore ‘engaged’ in insurrection within the meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment” she then superseded the Amendment itself in as remarkable an act of judicial cowardice as I’ve ever seen. “After considering the arguments on both sides,” wrote Judge Wallace, “the Court is persuaded that ‘officers of the United States’ did not include the PRESIDENT of the United States. It appears to the Court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section 3 did not intend to include a person who had only taken the Presidential Oath,” unquote. So she ordered him onto the Colorado primary ballot instead of saying “Yeah, I’m thinking they meant to include PRESIDENTS because otherwise having just survived the Civil War they decided to make sure Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest could NOT run for anything EXCEPT President of the United States rather than showing some guts, Judge Wallace folded.
The people who could DO something and they actually divide into two categories and two categories ONLY: Judges who are too effete to do anything and judges who are too scared to do anything.
B-Block (22:20) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: How did Argentina elect as its new president Jason Bateman playing Wolverine? The late great Joss Ackland. And the newest housing requisite: Built-in Dog Showers? (26:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Just a Fox News typo, no doubt: "Osama Biden Laden"; Moms For Liberty's Philly chief is a registered sex offender; Senator Mike Lee launches the worst January 6th gaslighting ever.
C-Block (32:20) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Milo in Tennessee (33:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I anchored the telecast of the 1992 Baseball Expansion draft, 31 years ago this week. Star analyst Joe Morgan really didn't want to be there. REALLY didn't.
See omnystudio.c
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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. The
Democracy will certainly not survive Donald Trump Round two, but
(00:25):
I am now wondering if it has any chance of
surviving Sarah Wallace, of surviving Patricia Molett, of surviving Cornelia Pillard,
of surviving Brad Garcia. And if you don't know who
they are, they are the latest people on the latest
list of supposed liberals and supposed officers of the court
who could get us all killed. They are four supposedly
(00:50):
liberal judges who have evidently spent the last eight years
living at a resort in the Bahamas, or in a
cave or somewhere else where they have been able to
devote themselves full time to perfecting legal hair splitting, and
who are absolutely determined to give Trump every last opportunity
to get Special Counsel Jack Smith or somebody else killed
(01:14):
by proxy, and to make every last grasp at denying
democracy any chance of making it until the first of
February twenty twenty five. Judge Garcia is the Biden appointee,
and Mallette and Pillard the Obama appointees to the District
Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. And if I'm contributing three
(01:37):
cents a year to their salaries, I want my goddamned
money back. Millet seems to be the most clueless of
these dilettants, who first stayed the gag order issued against
Trump in the election subversion case, and then yesterday conducted
the in person hearing and all but announced that they
(01:57):
will significantly limit the order because apparently, when Trump starts
ignoring laws he doesn't like and jailing judges he doesn't like,
these idiots somehow think they will be immune because they
were so fair to him back there. In November of
twenty twenty three, Judge Mallette seemed to base her nit
(02:18):
witted reaction to the two and a half hours of
oral arguments on the impact of the gag order on
presidential debates. He has to speak mismanners while everyone else
is throwing targets at him. It would be really hard
in a debate when everyone else is going at you
full bore. Your attorneys would have to have scripted little things.
(02:42):
You can say, this is a judge, and yes, this
is a vital legal issue here, slightly proscribing the number
of stochastic death threats Trump can make during a debate
an essence to preserving the sanctity of the Constitution and
(03:04):
our laws protecting Trump from being forced to speak quote
mismanners unquote. What part of denying him the chance to
call the Special Council deranged is the Missmanners part? Judge,
(03:25):
not from this earth, Missmanners, Trump has to speak mismanners.
Do you get the same feeling I do? Judge Mlette
has no earthly clue who Donald J. Trump is? Do
you get the other same feeling that I do? That
it has not occurred to and will never occur to
(03:46):
Judge Mallett that so far there have been three presidential
debates in the Republican primary, and Trump has not shown
up to any of them, and there is no reason
to expect he would have the guts to show up
to the one in the general election, when the only
possible result would be to show his culpt that President
Biden is not only not enfeebled nor slow, oh, but
just as in twenty twenty, he's twice as sharp as
(04:09):
Trump is. Miss Manners, wad it gets worse. Millette suggested
that when her court rules and none of the lawyers,
and none of the participants, and none of the judges
either know when they will rule or will say when
(04:32):
they will rule. Could be days, could be weeks, could
be months, and even then it could then be appealed
to the Supreme Court, during all of which time Trump
will be able to threaten Judge Chutkin and Jack Smith
and all the witnesses, as he's already threatened Bill Barr
and Mark Meadows. This Appeals Court pretty much gave away
the story. It will reinstate some of the gag order
(04:54):
while stripping away the mismanners part. We have to use
a careful scalpel here, said Millette, And don't forget your
honor to keep the pinky raised away from the hand
as a sign of good breeding and complete disconnection from
the real world, in which the future of America as
(05:16):
a free nation hangs in the balance and could be
lost forever by the application of your careful scalpel. Judge
Mallet may epitomize the old observation that the higher up
you go in the judiciary, the more the judges are
like the old New York City planner Robert Moses, who
(05:38):
vivisected and destroyed neighborhood after neighborhood so he could build
thirteen bridges and four hundred and sixteen miles of highway,
even though he could not drive a car himself. But
as great an example as Mallet may be of this,
her fellow judge, Nina Pillard gave her a run for
(06:01):
her money. Reporters in the courtroom set that on at
least five occasions, Pillard said that Judge Chutkin had overreached
by barring Trump from making comments hostile to public figures
who might be witnesses in the case. How could he
really impact the testimony of bar Or Meadows, or Mike
(06:22):
Pence or General Millie even if they were threatened, Pillard
had the nerve to conclude, quote, I would assume that
their testimony would not be affected unquote. Guess what, Judge,
If Trump incites his cult to kill one of them,
their testimony it will be affected. The read from legal
(06:44):
experts and reporters seems to be that the likeliest outcome
is a new gag order that denies Trump the right
to attack the judge or ordinary witnesses, but gives him
the freedom to threaten the prosecutor and the name witnesses
at least like Mike Pence. I guess on the premise
that when Trump tried to get Pence killed by remote
control two and a half years ago, he failed, so
(07:07):
that protecting Pence is therefore unnecessary. This whole thing is nuts.
The judges are lost in a sea of self importance
and in that pleasant fantasy land in which the most
important part of a law is understanding what it really
means to you, not how you actually apply it, or
(07:32):
what it's supposed to prevent or disencourage, or making sure
it is not perverted and twisted and manipulated by a
madman who wants us to live in a world in
which he makes all the laws and we have to
abide by them. We judge Millette, We judge Pillard. Trump's concierge,
(07:54):
Judge Eileen Cannon, is all but suggesting new ways to
stall the Florida trial sometime into the thirty third century.
And we can't even get the Buyid and Obama appointees
to look realistically at the threat to everything that Trump represents.
It just get them to even hurry up and do
whatever damage they plan to do so we can compensate
(08:16):
for this latest failure of an American institution to protect
the nation from a would be dictator? Could you have
ruled yesterday? WHOA? What about Thanksgiving? And then there is
Judge Sarah Wallace, and I am not sure she did
not harm the country even more than Judge Mismanners and
(08:38):
Judge I would assume did. Judge Wallace is the one
who heard the Fourteenth Amendment disqualification case in Colorado, and
at the same time that she ruled quote that Trump
incited an insurrection on January sixth, twenty twenty one, and
therefore engaged in insurrection within the meeting of section three
of the fourteenth Amendment, she then superseded the Amendment itself
(09:03):
in as remarkable an act of judicial cowardice as I
have ever heard of. Trump's lawyers are hiding his girth
behind an extraordinary legal argument that the authors of the
disqualification clause deliberately excluded all presidents from being disqualified just
(09:26):
because they might have engaged in a little insurrection, some
minor treason. And they did so vaguely, inexactly, opaquely, and
they wrote it in a way that made sure that
everybody would have left guessing for a century and a
half by writing that their amendment applies only to quote
officers of the United States, those who took oaths as
(09:49):
officers of the United States quote. After considering the arguments
on both sides, wrote Judge Wallace, like, we didn't know.
That's what a judge does. The Court is persuaded that
quote officers of the United States did not include the
President of the United States. It appears to the Court that,
(10:09):
for whatever reason, the drafters of section three did not
intend to include a person who had only taken the
presidential oath unquote. So she has ordered that Trump can
be on the Colorado primary ballot. Now, this is some
(10:30):
serious bullshit right here. Bullshit they keep underglass with red
letters on the glass saying for use in emergencies where
the how many angels can dance on the head of
a pin bullshit is insufficient. Yes, that's right, Judge Wallace.
Judge Wallace, who has been a judge for exactly three
(10:51):
hundred and thirteen days, makes Eileen Cannon look like Oliver
Wendell freaking Holmes. And Judge Wallace, who one has to assume.
And if Judge Pillard can assume Mike Pence won't be
scared off by a second attempt to get him hanged,
I can assume this one has to assume she was
looking for an emergency exit here, rather than having to
(11:13):
summon up the courage to be the one who says, yeah, sure,
looks like the fourteenth Amendment is self executing. That's probably
why they put that clause in there about letting Congress
overrule it by a two thirds vote, because if it
has to be litigated, if it has to be voted
on in the first place, why do you need an
(11:36):
override clause rather than being the one who says that
or the one who says yeah, I'm thinking they meant
to include presidents because otherwise, having just survived the Civil War,
these guys who wrote the fourteenth Amendment, they decided to
make sure to make sure that Jefferson Davis and Robert E.
(11:56):
Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest could not run for anything
except president of the United States. Rather than showing guts
and some concern for the future of the country she
happens to live in, Judge Wallace folded, and now she
(12:17):
won't get the death threats, which takes us back to
Judge Pillard in DC, who would assume death threats won't
affect Pantser bar or Millie or meadows, especially if somebody
carries through on them. As I said last week, quoting
from the pre Nazi invasion French film Rules of the Game,
(12:37):
the awful thing about life is this. Everybody has their reasons.
Everybody has their reasons, Judge Wallace, everybody has their reasons,
Judge Pillard, everybody has their reasons. Judge Millette worms the
people who could do something, and they actually divide in
(12:59):
this country at this moment into two categories, and two
categories only judges who are too defeat and disconnected to
do anything just by enforcing the law, and judges who
are too scared to do anything just by enforcing the law.
(13:20):
Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot
hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold mere.
Anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood dimmed, tide
is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full
(13:46):
of passionate intensity. Oh, by the way, Judge Wallace, Judge Molett,
Judge Pillard, Judge Garcia, you ain't the best. Also, by
the way, Trump wants to turn the position of Attorney
(14:06):
general into which finder general. And they aren't even bothering
to hide it now, as evidenced by the ex dilemma,
they want to jail journalists who expose people like Elon
Musk memo to Kristin Welker and Andrea Mitchell and my
(14:29):
ex mis Turr and Maggie Haberman and Josh Dawzy and
David Shalian of CNN, pretty much everybody except George Stephanopoulos.
You are journalists. You are the ones Trump and his
minions want to jail. The stage manager will not be
(14:50):
able to protect you from the Attorney General Mike Davis
or Attorney General Andrew Bailey, or Attorney General Jeff Clark
or Attorney General Stephen Miller when they decide to prosecute
you for fraud for having created extra Twitter accounts to
verify that Disney ads and Apple ads and NBC ads
(15:13):
and CNN ads and Lionsgate ads and IBM ads and
CBS ads and some virtual reality company ads were being
placed next to Nazi posts And how dare you tell
Disney and Apple and NBC and CNN and Lionsgate and
IBM and CBS and the virtual reality guys, because now
(15:34):
they've all canceled their ads. And that's that's think of
something quick, what is it? That's that's that's that's fraud.
That's what that is. And first thing Monday, X Corp.
Will be filing a thermore nuclear lawsuit that thermonuclear loss
out against media matters, even though in the same announcement
(15:56):
must admitted, Yeah, there are mainstream advertisers placed adjacent to nazis,
just not that many of them. And before you could
turn around the leading evidence that there really are undead
among us. The Trump henchman Stephen Miller wrote, fraud is
both a civil and criminal violation. There are two dozen
(16:18):
plus conservative state attorney's general and Musk replies interesting both
sybil and criminal, and the Attorney General of Missouri this
Bailey clown writes, my team is looking into this matter.
They want to put reporters in jail for reporting the truth.
(16:43):
Memo Kristen Andrea, Katie, Maggie, Josh David, pretty much everybody
except George. They want to put you in jail for
reporting the truth. How much more obvious do you need
them to make it? Whether you are active against Trump
(17:05):
or you aren't. These lunatics are going to treat you
as if you have been active against Trump, you are
already guilty. There is no way back. You might as
well get some shots in in self defense. Before this,
Mike Davis fulfills his promise to stuff all of Trump's
(17:27):
quote enemies unquote into GITMO. Don't anybody notice this? I
feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Also of interest here
Biden polls. No, not that one, this one, the Harris
(17:47):
Pole with Harvard. Biden was at forty two percent approval
in this one in September, then it was forty four
in October. This month it's forty five. Biden handling of
the economy forty one percent last month, forty four percent
this month. Look, polls are vague extrapolations of reality, and
(18:10):
we live in a time in which the President of
the United States exist largely for people to blame. But
if those two numbers are actually growing a point and
a half per month for Joe Biden, by March, his
approval rating will be fifty one percent, And then where
(18:32):
will all the pundits be also? Biden pardons Trump. Oh,
I'm sorry, I misread that. Sorry, Biden pardons Thanksgiving Turkey,
and once again democracy has survived to this point not
by the efforts of those of us who are trying
(18:54):
to preserve it, but from the stupidity of those trying
to destroy it and BUYO BYO boy is Senator Mike
Lee of Utah stupid. He's got a new January sixth
gas lighting going. But in this one, just as in
Mike's brain, the pilot light is turned off. That's next.
(19:17):
This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Open postscripts
to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snark, some predictions.
(19:40):
Eight line Buenos Aires. I'd like to congratulate Argentina on
electing a far right libertarian economist and TV personality as president.
Hobbier Mila has promised to take a chainsaw to government
there and wants to eliminate the national Central Bank and abortion,
increase guns, and eliminate the national currency and replace it with,
of all things, the American dollar. Why not bubblegum the
(20:03):
American dollar? You want to rely on the American dollar.
Also in the Great Trump Boris Johnson tradition, he has
not had a good haircut this century. In fact, it
looks like he's already used a chainsaw on that, but
he also has enormous mutton chop sideburns that make him
look like well wolverine. Well done, Argentina, you've elected Wolverine,
(20:24):
an aged wolverine Wolverine as if he were being played
by my long lost friend Jason Bateman, only later in
life aged Wolverine Dateline Devon in England, one of the
great actors has died. Unless you are British, you may
not have known his name, but you'd recognize his face.
(20:45):
He was Joss Ackland Sidney Edmund Jocelyn Ackland, to be precise,
and he was in Everything Impeccable as the dim but
earnest sportswriter and British secret agent Jerry Westerby in the
Alec Guinness version of Tinker Taylor's Soldier Spy. He was
also the Russian Ambassador and The Hunt for Red October.
And he was also in The Mighty Ducks and Bill
(21:08):
and Ted's Bogus Journey, and a memorable Sherlock Holmes with
Jeremy Brent, and countless stage plays. He explained once to
an interviewer he was a workaholic. He was an actor
since nineteen forty five. Joss Acklin died at home at
the age of ninety five, and dateline Wherever your fur
Babies Are. The National Association of Real Tours reports that
(21:31):
approximately won in five recent home buyers have said that
in choosing a neighborhood to buy a home in, they
have factored in proximity to parks and the office of
the veterinarian. Moreover, one search on Pinterest has jumped one
hundred and thirty two percent year to year since October
(21:51):
twenty twenty two. The pintererist searches for pet bedroom similar
searches for do it yourself cat patios, ballpits, private dog parks,
and built in dog showers. I'd tell you more about this,
but I'd have to I'd have to do it in
a whisper because while I sold my last place because
(22:15):
it was in a Trump branded building, I chose my
new place because it's across the street from the park,
but it doesn't have a built in dog shower. I
feel great shame still ahead of us on countdown the
(22:53):
nineteen ninety two baseball Expansion Draft, how I anchored it
all day, and how a Baseball Hall of Famer working
the show with us on ESPN skipped the day before
final rundown meeting, I pretending he thought the meeting started
at nine pm instead of nine am, and he pretended
to be at a golf course hours away, even though
it was thirty degrees out and he was calling telling
(23:14):
us that from his room in the hotel. Next in
things I promised not to tell first time for the
daily round up of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in the world
Worse Fox News. For the longest time, we all thought
that the error ridden graphics department was just made up
of the proverbial monkeys pounding away on the proverbial typewriters
(23:37):
for the proverbial million years. After twenty five years, though,
I'm beginning to suspect otherwise. During a report on Special
Operations members killed in a recent crash, the on screen
banner at the bottom of the screen read that they
were quote in elite unit that helped kill Osama Biden
Ladden Osama Biden Ladden. I don't think that was a
(23:58):
typo kid, by the way, Yes, it could have been worse,
far worse. Fox could have typed in unit that helped
kill Obama Biden lawden worser Moms for Hitler Liberty, the
group that quoted Hitler to rationalize its own attempt to
harass an and endanger librarians and teachers around the country
on behalf of vigilante fascism. From the Philadelphia Inquirer, the
(24:21):
Moms for Hitler Liberty faith based outreach coordinator for the
Philadelphia chapter is a registered sex offender. Philip Fisher, Junior
insists he did nothing wrong, which is why he pleaded
guilty to one of twelve charges filed against him in
twenty twelve for felony aggravated sexual abuse of a fourteen
year old boy in Chicago. He's a Republican ward leader
(24:44):
and he works for Moms for Hitler Liberty and the
Coup de Gras. He's a pastor, Pastor Fisher, I don't
think that's what they mean by outreach. But our winner,
Senator Mike Lee of Utah, Mike's fascist, and if he's
not an insurrectionist, he's an insurrectionist sympathizer. The good news is,
as always, Mike Lee is not very smart. The actual
(25:05):
insurrectionist Derek Evans, the former West Virginia House Republican, who
is one of the January sixth thugs, posted a still
from some of the cherry picked video they think they
can completely gaslight America with. It's of a guy in
the halls of Congress during the coup attempt that he's
got a Maga hat on and something in his left hand,
and Evans is convinced he knows what it is. Quote
is this person flashing a badge? If so, this would
(25:28):
prove there we were undercover federal agents disguised as Maga Unquote?
First off, no, it wouldn't. I have a badge too.
It was my grandfather's New York City firefighter's badge. Doesn't
make me a federal agent or a firefatter or a
firefighter incidentally, maybe a fatter firefighter anything further father. Incidentally,
(25:50):
I think somewhere I still own my deputy dog badge
that I got for my birthday when I was four.
Does that make me deputy dog? Secondly, okay, walk me
through why and undercover agent time trying to set off
a fake insurrection would blow his cover by flashing his
badge in the middle of it. None of this occurred
to Senator Mike Lee moron. He retweeted the image and added,
(26:12):
I can't wait to ask FBI Director Christopher Ray about
this at our next oversight hearing. I predict that it,
as always, his answers will be ninety seven percent information free.
Then it turned out that the guy holding the quote
badge unquote had long since been identified. His name is
Kevin Lyons, and he's from Chicago, and we could ask
him about the quote badge unquote that Mike Lee thinks
(26:33):
he's flashing. Except Kevin's in the big house right at
the moment. Sentenced Lash July to fifty one months in
prison for stealing cash and a framed photo of John
Lewis from Nancy Pelosi's office during the coup attempt, oh
In filming himself doing it, and the badge Kevin Lyons
is shown flashing it throughout the video on January sixth, inside, outside,
(26:56):
all over the place. It's not a badge, it's a
vape pen. He was vaping, which means he was a
secret undercover agent for Big Tobacco. You picked a winner
for your conspiracy theory, Senator Lee, Please please ask FBI
director about this one. Please. I'm begging you to ask him,
(27:17):
Mike Lee, the esteemed senator representing the great state of Denial,
today's worst person. And now just to hand things I
(27:48):
promised not to tell and Joe Morgan really did not
want to be covering the Baseball Expansion draft on ESPN
that created the Marlins and the Rockies thirty one years ago.
This week Things I promised not to tell? Coming up first,
I'm to feature another great dog in need that you
can help. Every dog has its day. Milo, a young,
(28:10):
ordinary looking white mutt with a big brown patch who
was found on the streets of spring Hill, Tennessee by
the folks at House of Strays. There was a grotesque tumor.
It was bleeding. It's cancerous, and the first thought was euthanasia.
But he's a sweet dog. He was eating like crazy.
He wants to live. Early chemo results have been excellent, promising.
(28:32):
Now House of Strays needs the money to keep them going.
As somebody who has had a dog survive cancer, those
early results are usually the story. Let's invest in Milo.
Make a contribution to him if you can at Cuddy
dot com or have I tweeted the link on my
regular and dog accounts on Twitter. Retweeting can help him.
Milo thanks you, and I thank you. See the number
(29:10):
one story on the countdown on my favorite topic, me
and things I promised not to tell. And I get
nostalgic for this extraordinary week every time mid November rolls
around on the weather on QE gets really cold, as
it just did over the weekend, or for that matter,
I'm reminded of it every time somebody mentions the Colorado
Rockies or the Florida now Miami Marlins, because this was
(29:34):
the time of year when they were born thirty one
years ago this week. The exact date was November seventeenth,
nineteen ninety two Baseball's Colorado Rockies and Florida now Miami
Marlins in the first real expansion draft that was televised,
the first expansion draft of any kind in twenty one
years in New York. I always think of Joe Morgan,
(29:56):
the late Hall of Fame second baseman and ESPN Sunday
Night Baseball and NBC Baseball analyst, with whom I worked
for many years and was great to me most of
the time, but who was so angry that ESPN forced
a clause in his contract and made him come to
New York for this in the middle of November, the
morning of the final run through, which was November sixteenth,
(30:19):
I guess. The phone rings at nine am, and the
executive producer, Jed Drake answers it, and we thirty of
us or so in the room waiting for Joe to
show up. Hear this. Hi Joe, Oh no really, no, no, no,
the final meeting started at nine am, not PM. That's right.
It was a morning meeting. That's what it says. It's
(30:41):
the morning rundown meeting. It's right now. We're waiting for you.
Oh no, kidding in New Jersey. You say you're in
New Jersey playing golf. Nice morning for it. Huh. It's
like thirty degrees out. We'll dress up warm. Yeah. So
you're near the Pennsylvania border and you'll be happy to
(31:03):
come back. Well, no, I suppose not, Joe. Now, it
doesn't make sense for you to drive back two hours.
We'll probably be done before then. You're right, Yeah, the
broadcast starts at ten tomorrow, ten am, right, Joe? Yeah, yeah,
I'll give everybody your best. Thanks Joe. He put the
(31:23):
phone down and the room erupted in laughter, and then
Jed said, by the way, the phone id the caller
id that call came from Joe's room in the hotel.
The room erupted in laughter. Somebody shouted the call came
from inside the house. The room erupted in laughter again. Anyway,
(31:45):
the next day was the actual expansion draft. The Rockies
and the Marlins and Joe Morgan and let's see, John
Miller was there, and Dave Campbell and Chris Myers and
Peter Gammon's and right there were like twenty of us
covering this. I think we had more announcers than there
were players. And Joe made it and I anchored it,
(32:08):
and I anchored it all day, and before it started,
I was able to figure out who the first pick
was going to be, and I wasn't proud of it.
Then how I confirmed the story, but I did it.
It wasn't planned, it didn't do any real harm. And
then what followed it was one of the weirdest things
I've ever experienced in broadcasting. The draft and our interminable broadcast.
(32:34):
I got on the set before it was light and
left after it got dark. Took place in the Marriott
Marquee Hotel in Times Square in New York on November seventeenth,
nineteen ninety two. And not only were we on the air,
Peter Gammons and Ray Knight and me at the anchor
desk from like ten in the morning until ten at night,
but the three of us plus dozens of staffers had
(32:54):
been sequestered to prepare in that hotel for almost the
entirety of the previous week. They didn't even want us
leaving the hotel. Moreover, Gammons and I and others had
been meeting for an hour or so every Tuesday since
August to go over the thousands of possibilities of who
would be eligible for this draft, who would not, and
(33:15):
who would likely to be taken. Our preparation was like
a real life version of the apocryphal story of the
ancient king assembling scholars to study for years to find
him one phrase that was true and usable in any circumstance. Well,
by the time November rolled around, we had had so
many of these meetings that I was dreaming the names
(33:35):
of one hundred possible minor leaguers they might draft off
the New York Mets. Future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman
was selected in that draft. We talked about him, so
were later Yankees and Phillies manager Joe Girardi and two
other future major league managers, Brad Ausmas and Eric Wedge.
Then it's a pretty quick fall off to the Ryan
(33:56):
Hall Blitzels and Andre's barre Men's who were selected in
the draft. Anyway, maybe on the Sunday before the draft,
which was on a Tuesday that year, Peter Gammons found
out that the guy the Florida Marlins really wanted was
a minor league outfielder who had been left exposed by
the Toronto Blue Jays named Nigel Wilson. But the number
(34:18):
one pick by the Colorado Rockies was still uncertain. Since August,
we had figured the Rockies would take the best pitcher available,
and that that would be whichever one of three or
four guys the Atlanta Braves did not protect then, as
now they had a lot of good young pitchers. The
two likeliest possibilities that they were going to have to
expose were named Kent Merker and David Nead. So early
(34:43):
on Monday, somebody I knew in the Rockies organization confirmed
to me off the record that their franchise had decided
on taking the Atlanta pitcher. And when I said which one,
he laughed and said, scap for it, which was something
we used to say on the playground when I was
a kid, when we wanted the other kid to have
to search for something like a dropped coin or marble
(35:05):
or the homework answers. Then another source told me that
the Braves in deciding on the Atlanta pitcher, well, they
had chosen to protect Kent Mrker, but not to protect
David Need. And so I asked our researcher at the draft,
Vinnie Vassallo, Vinnie the statman who I mentioned ten days
ago after he passed away. I asked Vinnie to see
(35:27):
if there was some way he could find the phone
number for David Need's family in Texas I think it was,
And of course Vinnie found the number, and I knew
the Rockies were going to have to have whoever they
were going to pick first in New York with us
for the announcement on Tuesday morning. So if David Need
(35:48):
was still at his parents' home in Texas or wherever
it was at five pm Monday local time, he was
really unlikely to be in New York before ten am Tuesday,
they would not cut it that close. So I took
the phone number Vinnie got for me, and I called,
and a young voice answered, his younger sister, maybe maybe
(36:10):
a tween ten eleven, something like that, And I asked,
is David there? And she said no, he's not. Can
I take a message? And that's when it came to
me some kind of evil repertorial instinct which made me say, oh,
I'm sorry I missed him. Did he already get on
the plane for New York? And she said yes. Before
(36:31):
I had finished thanking her, I began to feel a
guilt that I have retained to this day. Still, A
scoop is a scoop. We were there to cover the
expansion draft, and I sure had covered it. A Rocky
source said they were taking the Atlanta pitcher, and Atlanta
source said the Braves had not protected David Need. A
Need family source had said he was already on the
(36:53):
plane to New York. At the last big staff meeting
in a conference room in the hotel just before dinner
on Monday, we all agreed ESPN had learned that David
Need would be the first player chosen in the nineteen
ninety two expansion draft and Nigel Wilson would be the second,
And this being thirty years ago. We sat on all
(37:14):
that there was no Internet. There was no value in
putting it on the eleven PM Sports Center because the
only suspense we had for the actual broadcast of the
draft the next day was letting people wonder if maybe
some of the wilder rumors were correct and the first
guy chosen in the draft the next day wouldn't be
some obscure prospect like David Need, but would be a
big name like Eddie Murray or Lee Smith or some
(37:36):
other high priced guy. It is hard to believe, but
we kept these two scoops to ourselves for sixteen hours.
Nobody knew until we signed on the next morning. That
used to happen all the time. I confirmed the trade
of Wayne Gretzky to the La Kings in August nineteen
(37:57):
eighty eight at about five PM Pacific time. It was
still a breaking news exclusive when we led with it
on the Channel five News at ten. However, there was
a fairly new ESPN correspondent who was with us in
the New York hotel representing ESPN Radio, and I think
she is still with the company, so I will leave
her name out of it because I really think in
(38:18):
retrospect She just had no idea. This wasn't what all
of ESPN management had wanted her to do. And she
listened very carefully to Gammon's reporting to the group that
he'd figured out and figured out and was going to
report that Nigel Wilson was the first choice of the Marlins,
and me reporting to the group that I'd figured out
(38:39):
and had figured out was going to report by deceiving
David Need's kid's sister. And then she said, this reporter
did excuse me. I don't want to just walk out
of the room, but I'm just leaving to go back
to my room and phone all this into ESPN Radio
so we can put it on the air right away,
as in a movie. Several dozen heads turned towards her,
(39:02):
each with a look of astonishment on it, except for
one or two guys who just assumed she was kidding.
They laughed. I laughed. I was one of the hosts
song ESPN Radio. Hell I was one of the founding
hosts of ESPN Radio. So I said, what do you
mean we're embargoing this. We're not even running it on
Sports Center. We're going to lead the draft coverage with
(39:24):
it tomorrow. And she smiled pleasantly and said, well, that
might be what they told you to do, but I
was told to report any breaking news immediately, and this
is breaking news. At this point. Peter Gammon's got very red.
The hell you are, he said, and she said pleasantly, yes,
the hell I am, and she got up and left.
(39:47):
I wasn't quite as mad as Peter, or as our
executive producer, or as any of the other dozen producers
or anybody else in the room, because, as I said,
I worked for ESPN Radio two. I knew something the
others in the room did not, And more importantly, I
knew something the reporter who had just left the room
inten need to scoop us and her own employers did not.
(40:08):
But I had to make sure. As the producers began
to say things like follow her and stop her and
fire her, I said, just wait. Let me call the
general manager of the radio network first. I did. He
was in the hotel. He never missed an opportunity like that.
I explained the situation to him. I'll talk to her,
(40:31):
he sighed, she's just being overly enthusiastic. I didn't tell
her to do that. Nobody told her to do that.
And I asked him if there were any special reports
or anything that she could be filing somewhere. In other words,
she went back to her room to call this in
to go on the ESPN Radio network and report it
before we could Nope, said the general manager, Same schedule
(40:53):
as ever, We're dark until tomorrow afternoon's extra point commentary
at five. Well, there was now ugly murmuring in the room,
and I told them all to real what had just
been confirmed by the general manager of the radio network,
which had only been on the air for ten months
and was anything but full time, was that there was
(41:13):
nothing on ESPN Radio right now. There was no place
for their reporter to scoop us on ESPN Radio was
off the air, literally silent, until four pm the following afternoon.
I know people at ESPN who still hold grudges against
her for this, though I've done all the damage I
(41:48):
can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has come
to you from the Vin Scully Studios at the Elberman
Broadcasting Empire in New York. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray
and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
was on guitars, bass, and drums. He was produced by
Tko Brothers. Other music, including other Beethoven, was arranged and
(42:11):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music,
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Was written by Mitch Warren Davis.
We call it the Olberman theme from ESPN two. Our
satirical and pithy music comments are by Nancy Fauss. The
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today is my
friend Larry David. Everything else is pretty much my fault.
That's countdown for this the one thy forty ninth day
(42:32):
since dementia J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Convict him now while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins
as the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(43:01):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. More podcasts from iHeartRadio
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
Democracy will certainly not survive Donald Trump Round two, but
(00:25):
I am now wondering if it has any chance of
surviving Sarah Wallace, of surviving Patricia Molett, of surviving Cornelia Pillard,
of surviving Brad Garcia. And if you don't know who
they are, they are the latest people on the latest
list of supposed liberals and supposed officers of the court
who could get us all killed. They are four supposedly
(00:50):
liberal judges who have evidently spent the last eight years
living at a resort in the Bahamas, or in a
cave or somewhere else where they have been able to
devote themselves full time to perfecting legal hair splitting, and
who are absolutely determined to give Trump every last opportunity
to get Special Counsel Jack Smith or somebody else killed
(01:14):
by proxy, and to make every last grasp at denying
democracy any chance of making it until the first of
February twenty twenty five. Judge Garcia is the Biden appointee,
and Mallette and Pillard the Obama appointees to the District
Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. And if I'm contributing three
(01:37):
cents a year to their salaries, I want my goddamned
money back. Millet seems to be the most clueless of
these dilettants, who first stayed the gag order issued against
Trump in the election subversion case, and then yesterday conducted
the in person hearing and all but announced that they
(01:57):
will significantly limit the order because apparently, when Trump starts
ignoring laws he doesn't like and jailing judges he doesn't like,
these idiots somehow think they will be immune because they
were so fair to him back there. In November of
twenty twenty three, Judge Mallette seemed to base her nit
(02:18):
witted reaction to the two and a half hours of
oral arguments on the impact of the gag order on
presidential debates. He has to speak mismanners while everyone else
is throwing targets at him. It would be really hard
in a debate when everyone else is going at you
full bore. Your attorneys would have to have scripted little things.
(02:42):
You can say, this is a judge, and yes, this
is a vital legal issue here, slightly proscribing the number
of stochastic death threats Trump can make during a debate
an essence to preserving the sanctity of the Constitution and
(03:04):
our laws protecting Trump from being forced to speak quote
mismanners unquote. What part of denying him the chance to
call the Special Council deranged is the Missmanners part? Judge,
(03:25):
not from this earth, Missmanners, Trump has to speak mismanners.
Do you get the same feeling I do? Judge Mlette
has no earthly clue who Donald J. Trump is? Do
you get the other same feeling that I do? That
it has not occurred to and will never occur to
(03:46):
Judge Mallett that so far there have been three presidential
debates in the Republican primary, and Trump has not shown
up to any of them, and there is no reason
to expect he would have the guts to show up
to the one in the general election, when the only
possible result would be to show his culpt that President
Biden is not only not enfeebled nor slow, oh, but
just as in twenty twenty, he's twice as sharp as
(04:09):
Trump is. Miss Manners, wad it gets worse. Millette suggested
that when her court rules and none of the lawyers,
and none of the participants, and none of the judges
either know when they will rule or will say when
(04:32):
they will rule. Could be days, could be weeks, could
be months, and even then it could then be appealed
to the Supreme Court, during all of which time Trump
will be able to threaten Judge Chutkin and Jack Smith
and all the witnesses, as he's already threatened Bill Barr
and Mark Meadows. This Appeals Court pretty much gave away
the story. It will reinstate some of the gag order
(04:54):
while stripping away the mismanners part. We have to use
a careful scalpel here, said Millette, And don't forget your
honor to keep the pinky raised away from the hand
as a sign of good breeding and complete disconnection from
the real world, in which the future of America as
(05:16):
a free nation hangs in the balance and could be
lost forever by the application of your careful scalpel. Judge
Mallet may epitomize the old observation that the higher up
you go in the judiciary, the more the judges are
like the old New York City planner Robert Moses, who
(05:38):
vivisected and destroyed neighborhood after neighborhood so he could build
thirteen bridges and four hundred and sixteen miles of highway,
even though he could not drive a car himself. But
as great an example as Mallet may be of this,
her fellow judge, Nina Pillard gave her a run for
(06:01):
her money. Reporters in the courtroom set that on at
least five occasions, Pillard said that Judge Chutkin had overreached
by barring Trump from making comments hostile to public figures
who might be witnesses in the case. How could he
really impact the testimony of bar Or Meadows, or Mike
(06:22):
Pence or General Millie even if they were threatened, Pillard
had the nerve to conclude, quote, I would assume that
their testimony would not be affected unquote. Guess what, Judge,
If Trump incites his cult to kill one of them,
their testimony it will be affected. The read from legal
(06:44):
experts and reporters seems to be that the likeliest outcome
is a new gag order that denies Trump the right
to attack the judge or ordinary witnesses, but gives him
the freedom to threaten the prosecutor and the name witnesses
at least like Mike Pence. I guess on the premise
that when Trump tried to get Pence killed by remote
control two and a half years ago, he failed, so
(07:07):
that protecting Pence is therefore unnecessary. This whole thing is nuts.
The judges are lost in a sea of self importance
and in that pleasant fantasy land in which the most
important part of a law is understanding what it really
means to you, not how you actually apply it, or
(07:32):
what it's supposed to prevent or disencourage, or making sure
it is not perverted and twisted and manipulated by a
madman who wants us to live in a world in
which he makes all the laws and we have to
abide by them. We judge Millette, We judge Pillard. Trump's concierge,
(07:54):
Judge Eileen Cannon, is all but suggesting new ways to
stall the Florida trial sometime into the thirty third century.
And we can't even get the Buyid and Obama appointees
to look realistically at the threat to everything that Trump represents.
It just get them to even hurry up and do
whatever damage they plan to do so we can compensate
(08:16):
for this latest failure of an American institution to protect
the nation from a would be dictator? Could you have
ruled yesterday? WHOA? What about Thanksgiving? And then there is
Judge Sarah Wallace, and I am not sure she did
not harm the country even more than Judge Mismanners and
(08:38):
Judge I would assume did. Judge Wallace is the one
who heard the Fourteenth Amendment disqualification case in Colorado, and
at the same time that she ruled quote that Trump
incited an insurrection on January sixth, twenty twenty one, and
therefore engaged in insurrection within the meeting of section three
of the fourteenth Amendment, she then superseded the Amendment itself
(09:03):
in as remarkable an act of judicial cowardice as I
have ever heard of. Trump's lawyers are hiding his girth
behind an extraordinary legal argument that the authors of the
disqualification clause deliberately excluded all presidents from being disqualified just
(09:26):
because they might have engaged in a little insurrection, some
minor treason. And they did so vaguely, inexactly, opaquely, and
they wrote it in a way that made sure that
everybody would have left guessing for a century and a
half by writing that their amendment applies only to quote
officers of the United States, those who took oaths as
(09:49):
officers of the United States quote. After considering the arguments
on both sides, wrote Judge Wallace, like, we didn't know.
That's what a judge does. The Court is persuaded that
quote officers of the United States did not include the
President of the United States. It appears to the Court that,
(10:09):
for whatever reason, the drafters of section three did not
intend to include a person who had only taken the
presidential oath unquote. So she has ordered that Trump can
be on the Colorado primary ballot. Now, this is some
(10:30):
serious bullshit right here. Bullshit they keep underglass with red
letters on the glass saying for use in emergencies where
the how many angels can dance on the head of
a pin bullshit is insufficient. Yes, that's right, Judge Wallace.
Judge Wallace, who has been a judge for exactly three
(10:51):
hundred and thirteen days, makes Eileen Cannon look like Oliver
Wendell freaking Holmes. And Judge Wallace, who one has to assume.
And if Judge Pillard can assume Mike Pence won't be
scared off by a second attempt to get him hanged,
I can assume this one has to assume she was
looking for an emergency exit here, rather than having to
(11:13):
summon up the courage to be the one who says, yeah, sure,
looks like the fourteenth Amendment is self executing. That's probably
why they put that clause in there about letting Congress
overrule it by a two thirds vote, because if it
has to be litigated, if it has to be voted
on in the first place, why do you need an
(11:36):
override clause rather than being the one who says that
or the one who says yeah, I'm thinking they meant
to include presidents because otherwise, having just survived the Civil War,
these guys who wrote the fourteenth Amendment, they decided to
make sure to make sure that Jefferson Davis and Robert E.
(11:56):
Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest could not run for anything
except president of the United States. Rather than showing guts
and some concern for the future of the country she
happens to live in, Judge Wallace folded, and now she
(12:17):
won't get the death threats, which takes us back to
Judge Pillard in DC, who would assume death threats won't
affect Pantser bar or Millie or meadows, especially if somebody
carries through on them. As I said last week, quoting
from the pre Nazi invasion French film Rules of the Game,
(12:37):
the awful thing about life is this. Everybody has their reasons.
Everybody has their reasons, Judge Wallace, everybody has their reasons,
Judge Pillard, everybody has their reasons. Judge Millette worms the
people who could do something, and they actually divide in
(12:59):
this country at this moment into two categories, and two
categories only judges who are too defeat and disconnected to
do anything just by enforcing the law, and judges who
are too scared to do anything just by enforcing the law.
(13:20):
Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot
hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold mere.
Anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood dimmed, tide
is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full
(13:46):
of passionate intensity. Oh, by the way, Judge Wallace, Judge Molett,
Judge Pillard, Judge Garcia, you ain't the best. Also, by
the way, Trump wants to turn the position of Attorney
(14:06):
general into which finder general. And they aren't even bothering
to hide it now, as evidenced by the ex dilemma,
they want to jail journalists who expose people like Elon
Musk memo to Kristin Welker and Andrea Mitchell and my
(14:29):
ex mis Turr and Maggie Haberman and Josh Dawzy and
David Shalian of CNN, pretty much everybody except George Stephanopoulos.
You are journalists. You are the ones Trump and his
minions want to jail. The stage manager will not be
(14:50):
able to protect you from the Attorney General Mike Davis
or Attorney General Andrew Bailey, or Attorney General Jeff Clark
or Attorney General Stephen Miller when they decide to prosecute
you for fraud for having created extra Twitter accounts to
verify that Disney ads and Apple ads and NBC ads
(15:13):
and CNN ads and Lionsgate ads and IBM ads and
CBS ads and some virtual reality company ads were being
placed next to Nazi posts And how dare you tell
Disney and Apple and NBC and CNN and Lionsgate and
IBM and CBS and the virtual reality guys, because now
(15:34):
they've all canceled their ads. And that's that's think of
something quick, what is it? That's that's that's that's fraud.
That's what that is. And first thing Monday, X Corp.
Will be filing a thermore nuclear lawsuit that thermonuclear loss
out against media matters, even though in the same announcement
(15:56):
must admitted, Yeah, there are mainstream advertisers placed adjacent to nazis,
just not that many of them. And before you could
turn around the leading evidence that there really are undead
among us. The Trump henchman Stephen Miller wrote, fraud is
both a civil and criminal violation. There are two dozen
(16:18):
plus conservative state attorney's general and Musk replies interesting both
sybil and criminal, and the Attorney General of Missouri this
Bailey clown writes, my team is looking into this matter.
They want to put reporters in jail for reporting the truth.
(16:43):
Memo Kristen Andrea, Katie, Maggie, Josh David, pretty much everybody
except George. They want to put you in jail for
reporting the truth. How much more obvious do you need
them to make it? Whether you are active against Trump
(17:05):
or you aren't. These lunatics are going to treat you
as if you have been active against Trump, you are
already guilty. There is no way back. You might as
well get some shots in in self defense. Before this,
Mike Davis fulfills his promise to stuff all of Trump's
(17:27):
quote enemies unquote into GITMO. Don't anybody notice this? I
feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Also of interest here
Biden polls. No, not that one, this one, the Harris
(17:47):
Pole with Harvard. Biden was at forty two percent approval
in this one in September, then it was forty four
in October. This month it's forty five. Biden handling of
the economy forty one percent last month, forty four percent
this month. Look, polls are vague extrapolations of reality, and
(18:10):
we live in a time in which the President of
the United States exist largely for people to blame. But
if those two numbers are actually growing a point and
a half per month for Joe Biden, by March, his
approval rating will be fifty one percent, And then where
(18:32):
will all the pundits be also? Biden pardons Trump. Oh,
I'm sorry, I misread that. Sorry, Biden pardons Thanksgiving Turkey,
and once again democracy has survived to this point not
by the efforts of those of us who are trying
(18:54):
to preserve it, but from the stupidity of those trying
to destroy it and BUYO BYO boy is Senator Mike
Lee of Utah stupid. He's got a new January sixth
gas lighting going. But in this one, just as in
Mike's brain, the pilot light is turned off. That's next.
(19:17):
This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Open postscripts
to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snark, some predictions.
(19:40):
Eight line Buenos Aires. I'd like to congratulate Argentina on
electing a far right libertarian economist and TV personality as president.
Hobbier Mila has promised to take a chainsaw to government
there and wants to eliminate the national Central Bank and abortion,
increase guns, and eliminate the national currency and replace it with,
of all things, the American dollar. Why not bubblegum the
(20:03):
American dollar? You want to rely on the American dollar.
Also in the Great Trump Boris Johnson tradition, he has
not had a good haircut this century. In fact, it
looks like he's already used a chainsaw on that, but
he also has enormous mutton chop sideburns that make him
look like well wolverine. Well done, Argentina, you've elected Wolverine,
(20:24):
an aged wolverine Wolverine as if he were being played
by my long lost friend Jason Bateman, only later in
life aged Wolverine Dateline Devon in England, one of the
great actors has died. Unless you are British, you may
not have known his name, but you'd recognize his face.
(20:45):
He was Joss Ackland Sidney Edmund Jocelyn Ackland, to be precise,
and he was in Everything Impeccable as the dim but
earnest sportswriter and British secret agent Jerry Westerby in the
Alec Guinness version of Tinker Taylor's Soldier Spy. He was
also the Russian Ambassador and The Hunt for Red October.
And he was also in The Mighty Ducks and Bill
(21:08):
and Ted's Bogus Journey, and a memorable Sherlock Holmes with
Jeremy Brent, and countless stage plays. He explained once to
an interviewer he was a workaholic. He was an actor
since nineteen forty five. Joss Acklin died at home at
the age of ninety five, and dateline Wherever your fur
Babies Are. The National Association of Real Tours reports that
(21:31):
approximately won in five recent home buyers have said that
in choosing a neighborhood to buy a home in, they
have factored in proximity to parks and the office of
the veterinarian. Moreover, one search on Pinterest has jumped one
hundred and thirty two percent year to year since October
(21:51):
twenty twenty two. The pintererist searches for pet bedroom similar
searches for do it yourself cat patios, ballpits, private dog parks,
and built in dog showers. I'd tell you more about this,
but I'd have to I'd have to do it in
a whisper because while I sold my last place because
(22:15):
it was in a Trump branded building, I chose my
new place because it's across the street from the park,
but it doesn't have a built in dog shower. I
feel great shame still ahead of us on countdown the
(22:53):
nineteen ninety two baseball Expansion Draft, how I anchored it
all day, and how a Baseball Hall of Famer working
the show with us on ESPN skipped the day before
final rundown meeting, I pretending he thought the meeting started
at nine pm instead of nine am, and he pretended
to be at a golf course hours away, even though
it was thirty degrees out and he was calling telling
(23:14):
us that from his room in the hotel. Next in
things I promised not to tell first time for the
daily round up of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in the world
Worse Fox News. For the longest time, we all thought
that the error ridden graphics department was just made up
of the proverbial monkeys pounding away on the proverbial typewriters
(23:37):
for the proverbial million years. After twenty five years, though,
I'm beginning to suspect otherwise. During a report on Special
Operations members killed in a recent crash, the on screen
banner at the bottom of the screen read that they
were quote in elite unit that helped kill Osama Biden
Ladden Osama Biden Ladden. I don't think that was a
(23:58):
typo kid, by the way, Yes, it could have been worse,
far worse. Fox could have typed in unit that helped
kill Obama Biden lawden worser Moms for Hitler Liberty, the
group that quoted Hitler to rationalize its own attempt to
harass an and endanger librarians and teachers around the country
on behalf of vigilante fascism. From the Philadelphia Inquirer, the
(24:21):
Moms for Hitler Liberty faith based outreach coordinator for the
Philadelphia chapter is a registered sex offender. Philip Fisher, Junior
insists he did nothing wrong, which is why he pleaded
guilty to one of twelve charges filed against him in
twenty twelve for felony aggravated sexual abuse of a fourteen
year old boy in Chicago. He's a Republican ward leader
(24:44):
and he works for Moms for Hitler Liberty and the
Coup de Gras. He's a pastor, Pastor Fisher, I don't
think that's what they mean by outreach. But our winner,
Senator Mike Lee of Utah, Mike's fascist, and if he's
not an insurrectionist, he's an insurrectionist sympathizer. The good news is,
as always, Mike Lee is not very smart. The actual
(25:05):
insurrectionist Derek Evans, the former West Virginia House Republican, who
is one of the January sixth thugs, posted a still
from some of the cherry picked video they think they
can completely gaslight America with. It's of a guy in
the halls of Congress during the coup attempt that he's
got a Maga hat on and something in his left hand,
and Evans is convinced he knows what it is. Quote
is this person flashing a badge? If so, this would
(25:28):
prove there we were undercover federal agents disguised as Maga Unquote?
First off, no, it wouldn't. I have a badge too.
It was my grandfather's New York City firefighter's badge. Doesn't
make me a federal agent or a firefatter or a
firefighter incidentally, maybe a fatter firefighter anything further father. Incidentally,
(25:50):
I think somewhere I still own my deputy dog badge
that I got for my birthday when I was four.
Does that make me deputy dog? Secondly, okay, walk me
through why and undercover agent time trying to set off
a fake insurrection would blow his cover by flashing his
badge in the middle of it. None of this occurred
to Senator Mike Lee moron. He retweeted the image and added,
(26:12):
I can't wait to ask FBI Director Christopher Ray about
this at our next oversight hearing. I predict that it,
as always, his answers will be ninety seven percent information free.
Then it turned out that the guy holding the quote
badge unquote had long since been identified. His name is
Kevin Lyons, and he's from Chicago, and we could ask
him about the quote badge unquote that Mike Lee thinks
(26:33):
he's flashing. Except Kevin's in the big house right at
the moment. Sentenced Lash July to fifty one months in
prison for stealing cash and a framed photo of John
Lewis from Nancy Pelosi's office during the coup attempt, oh
In filming himself doing it, and the badge Kevin Lyons
is shown flashing it throughout the video on January sixth, inside, outside,
(26:56):
all over the place. It's not a badge, it's a
vape pen. He was vaping, which means he was a
secret undercover agent for Big Tobacco. You picked a winner
for your conspiracy theory, Senator Lee, Please please ask FBI
director about this one. Please. I'm begging you to ask him,
(27:17):
Mike Lee, the esteemed senator representing the great state of Denial,
today's worst person. And now just to hand things I
(27:48):
promised not to tell and Joe Morgan really did not
want to be covering the Baseball Expansion draft on ESPN
that created the Marlins and the Rockies thirty one years ago.
This week Things I promised not to tell? Coming up first,
I'm to feature another great dog in need that you
can help. Every dog has its day. Milo, a young,
(28:10):
ordinary looking white mutt with a big brown patch who
was found on the streets of spring Hill, Tennessee by
the folks at House of Strays. There was a grotesque tumor.
It was bleeding. It's cancerous, and the first thought was euthanasia.
But he's a sweet dog. He was eating like crazy.
He wants to live. Early chemo results have been excellent, promising.
(28:32):
Now House of Strays needs the money to keep them going.
As somebody who has had a dog survive cancer, those
early results are usually the story. Let's invest in Milo.
Make a contribution to him if you can at Cuddy
dot com or have I tweeted the link on my
regular and dog accounts on Twitter. Retweeting can help him.
Milo thanks you, and I thank you. See the number
(29:10):
one story on the countdown on my favorite topic, me
and things I promised not to tell. And I get
nostalgic for this extraordinary week every time mid November rolls
around on the weather on QE gets really cold, as
it just did over the weekend, or for that matter,
I'm reminded of it every time somebody mentions the Colorado
Rockies or the Florida now Miami Marlins, because this was
(29:34):
the time of year when they were born thirty one
years ago this week. The exact date was November seventeenth,
nineteen ninety two Baseball's Colorado Rockies and Florida now Miami
Marlins in the first real expansion draft that was televised,
the first expansion draft of any kind in twenty one
years in New York. I always think of Joe Morgan,
(29:56):
the late Hall of Fame second baseman and ESPN Sunday
Night Baseball and NBC Baseball analyst, with whom I worked
for many years and was great to me most of
the time, but who was so angry that ESPN forced
a clause in his contract and made him come to
New York for this in the middle of November, the
morning of the final run through, which was November sixteenth,
(30:19):
I guess. The phone rings at nine am, and the
executive producer, Jed Drake answers it, and we thirty of
us or so in the room waiting for Joe to
show up. Hear this. Hi Joe, Oh no really, no, no, no,
the final meeting started at nine am, not PM. That's right.
It was a morning meeting. That's what it says. It's
(30:41):
the morning rundown meeting. It's right now. We're waiting for you.
Oh no, kidding in New Jersey. You say you're in
New Jersey playing golf. Nice morning for it. Huh. It's
like thirty degrees out. We'll dress up warm. Yeah. So
you're near the Pennsylvania border and you'll be happy to
(31:03):
come back. Well, no, I suppose not, Joe. Now, it
doesn't make sense for you to drive back two hours.
We'll probably be done before then. You're right, Yeah, the
broadcast starts at ten tomorrow, ten am, right, Joe? Yeah, yeah,
I'll give everybody your best. Thanks Joe. He put the
(31:23):
phone down and the room erupted in laughter, and then
Jed said, by the way, the phone id the caller
id that call came from Joe's room in the hotel.
The room erupted in laughter. Somebody shouted the call came
from inside the house. The room erupted in laughter again. Anyway,
(31:45):
the next day was the actual expansion draft. The Rockies
and the Marlins and Joe Morgan and let's see, John
Miller was there, and Dave Campbell and Chris Myers and
Peter Gammon's and right there were like twenty of us
covering this. I think we had more announcers than there
were players. And Joe made it and I anchored it,
(32:08):
and I anchored it all day, and before it started,
I was able to figure out who the first pick
was going to be, and I wasn't proud of it.
Then how I confirmed the story, but I did it.
It wasn't planned, it didn't do any real harm. And
then what followed it was one of the weirdest things
I've ever experienced in broadcasting. The draft and our interminable broadcast.
(32:34):
I got on the set before it was light and
left after it got dark. Took place in the Marriott
Marquee Hotel in Times Square in New York on November seventeenth,
nineteen ninety two. And not only were we on the air,
Peter Gammons and Ray Knight and me at the anchor
desk from like ten in the morning until ten at night,
but the three of us plus dozens of staffers had
(32:54):
been sequestered to prepare in that hotel for almost the
entirety of the previous week. They didn't even want us
leaving the hotel. Moreover, Gammons and I and others had
been meeting for an hour or so every Tuesday since
August to go over the thousands of possibilities of who
would be eligible for this draft, who would not, and
(33:15):
who would likely to be taken. Our preparation was like
a real life version of the apocryphal story of the
ancient king assembling scholars to study for years to find
him one phrase that was true and usable in any circumstance. Well,
by the time November rolled around, we had had so
many of these meetings that I was dreaming the names
(33:35):
of one hundred possible minor leaguers they might draft off
the New York Mets. Future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman
was selected in that draft. We talked about him, so
were later Yankees and Phillies manager Joe Girardi and two
other future major league managers, Brad Ausmas and Eric Wedge.
Then it's a pretty quick fall off to the Ryan
(33:56):
Hall Blitzels and Andre's barre Men's who were selected in
the draft. Anyway, maybe on the Sunday before the draft,
which was on a Tuesday that year, Peter Gammons found
out that the guy the Florida Marlins really wanted was
a minor league outfielder who had been left exposed by
the Toronto Blue Jays named Nigel Wilson. But the number
(34:18):
one pick by the Colorado Rockies was still uncertain. Since August,
we had figured the Rockies would take the best pitcher available,
and that that would be whichever one of three or
four guys the Atlanta Braves did not protect then, as
now they had a lot of good young pitchers. The
two likeliest possibilities that they were going to have to
expose were named Kent Merker and David Nead. So early
(34:43):
on Monday, somebody I knew in the Rockies organization confirmed
to me off the record that their franchise had decided
on taking the Atlanta pitcher. And when I said which one,
he laughed and said, scap for it, which was something
we used to say on the playground when I was
a kid, when we wanted the other kid to have
to search for something like a dropped coin or marble
(35:05):
or the homework answers. Then another source told me that
the Braves in deciding on the Atlanta pitcher, well, they
had chosen to protect Kent Mrker, but not to protect
David Need. And so I asked our researcher at the draft,
Vinnie Vassallo, Vinnie the statman who I mentioned ten days
ago after he passed away. I asked Vinnie to see
(35:27):
if there was some way he could find the phone
number for David Need's family in Texas I think it was,
And of course Vinnie found the number, and I knew
the Rockies were going to have to have whoever they
were going to pick first in New York with us
for the announcement on Tuesday morning. So if David Need
(35:48):
was still at his parents' home in Texas or wherever
it was at five pm Monday local time, he was
really unlikely to be in New York before ten am Tuesday,
they would not cut it that close. So I took
the phone number Vinnie got for me, and I called,
and a young voice answered, his younger sister, maybe maybe
(36:10):
a tween ten eleven, something like that, And I asked,
is David there? And she said no, he's not. Can
I take a message? And that's when it came to
me some kind of evil repertorial instinct which made me say, oh,
I'm sorry I missed him. Did he already get on
the plane for New York? And she said yes. Before
(36:31):
I had finished thanking her, I began to feel a
guilt that I have retained to this day. Still, A
scoop is a scoop. We were there to cover the
expansion draft, and I sure had covered it. A Rocky
source said they were taking the Atlanta pitcher, and Atlanta
source said the Braves had not protected David Need. A
Need family source had said he was already on the
(36:53):
plane to New York. At the last big staff meeting
in a conference room in the hotel just before dinner
on Monday, we all agreed ESPN had learned that David
Need would be the first player chosen in the nineteen
ninety two expansion draft and Nigel Wilson would be the second,
And this being thirty years ago. We sat on all
(37:14):
that there was no Internet. There was no value in
putting it on the eleven PM Sports Center because the
only suspense we had for the actual broadcast of the
draft the next day was letting people wonder if maybe
some of the wilder rumors were correct and the first
guy chosen in the draft the next day wouldn't be
some obscure prospect like David Need, but would be a
big name like Eddie Murray or Lee Smith or some
(37:36):
other high priced guy. It is hard to believe, but
we kept these two scoops to ourselves for sixteen hours.
Nobody knew until we signed on the next morning. That
used to happen all the time. I confirmed the trade
of Wayne Gretzky to the La Kings in August nineteen
(37:57):
eighty eight at about five PM Pacific time. It was
still a breaking news exclusive when we led with it
on the Channel five News at ten. However, there was
a fairly new ESPN correspondent who was with us in
the New York hotel representing ESPN Radio, and I think
she is still with the company, so I will leave
her name out of it because I really think in
(38:18):
retrospect She just had no idea. This wasn't what all
of ESPN management had wanted her to do. And she
listened very carefully to Gammon's reporting to the group that
he'd figured out and figured out and was going to
report that Nigel Wilson was the first choice of the Marlins,
and me reporting to the group that I'd figured out
(38:39):
and had figured out was going to report by deceiving
David Need's kid's sister. And then she said, this reporter
did excuse me. I don't want to just walk out
of the room, but I'm just leaving to go back
to my room and phone all this into ESPN Radio
so we can put it on the air right away,
as in a movie. Several dozen heads turned towards her,
(39:02):
each with a look of astonishment on it, except for
one or two guys who just assumed she was kidding.
They laughed. I laughed. I was one of the hosts
song ESPN Radio. Hell I was one of the founding
hosts of ESPN Radio. So I said, what do you
mean we're embargoing this. We're not even running it on
Sports Center. We're going to lead the draft coverage with
(39:24):
it tomorrow. And she smiled pleasantly and said, well, that
might be what they told you to do, but I
was told to report any breaking news immediately, and this
is breaking news. At this point. Peter Gammon's got very red.
The hell you are, he said, and she said pleasantly, yes,
the hell I am, and she got up and left.
(39:47):
I wasn't quite as mad as Peter, or as our
executive producer, or as any of the other dozen producers
or anybody else in the room, because, as I said,
I worked for ESPN Radio two. I knew something the
others in the room did not, And more importantly, I
knew something the reporter who had just left the room
inten need to scoop us and her own employers did not.
(40:08):
But I had to make sure. As the producers began
to say things like follow her and stop her and
fire her, I said, just wait. Let me call the
general manager of the radio network first. I did. He
was in the hotel. He never missed an opportunity like that.
I explained the situation to him. I'll talk to her,
(40:31):
he sighed, she's just being overly enthusiastic. I didn't tell
her to do that. Nobody told her to do that.
And I asked him if there were any special reports
or anything that she could be filing somewhere. In other words,
she went back to her room to call this in
to go on the ESPN Radio network and report it
before we could Nope, said the general manager, Same schedule
(40:53):
as ever, We're dark until tomorrow afternoon's extra point commentary
at five. Well, there was now ugly murmuring in the room,
and I told them all to real what had just
been confirmed by the general manager of the radio network,
which had only been on the air for ten months
and was anything but full time, was that there was
(41:13):
nothing on ESPN Radio right now. There was no place
for their reporter to scoop us on ESPN Radio was
off the air, literally silent, until four pm the following afternoon.
I know people at ESPN who still hold grudges against
her for this, though I've done all the damage I
(41:48):
can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has come
to you from the Vin Scully Studios at the Elberman
Broadcasting Empire in New York. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray
and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
was on guitars, bass, and drums. He was produced by
Tko Brothers. Other music, including other Beethoven, was arranged and
(42:11):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music,
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Was written by Mitch Warren Davis.
We call it the Olberman theme from ESPN two. Our
satirical and pithy music comments are by Nancy Fauss. The
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today is my
friend Larry David. Everything else is pretty much my fault.
That's countdown for this the one thy forty ninth day
(42:32):
since dementia J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Convict him now while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins
as the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(43:01):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. More podcasts from iHeartRadio
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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Keith Olbermann
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