July 24, 2024 • 53 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 218: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) I have been thinking for awhile now that there will come a point, this year, this election, maybe this MONTH, where we will all be saying “Can you believe we came THIS CLOSE to not making Vice President Harris the nominee?”
You have heard about THE poll: Ipsos for Reuters (Harris 42 Trump 38 Kennedy 8 third-party race; Harris 44 Trump 42 head-to-head) that's a four point shift TO Kamala Harris… in a week. But have you heard the OTHER polls? Marist for NPR and the PBS News Hour? Harris 42 Trump 42 Kennedy 7 / Trump 46 Harris 45.YouGov for Yahoo News? Harris 46 Trump 46. These numbers are from the FIRST FULL DAY of the Harris campaign and she is already in a statistical tie. Harris's favorables are at a net -2, sounds meh. Biden's? A net -18. Trump's? Net -19.
More jaw-dropping still? The top Republican internal pollster in Georgia has Harris starting off there, trailing just 48-47. And best of all: Do you agree or disagree: at 78 years old Trump is too old to work in government? Agree – 53%. Disagree – 43%. Trump's pollster issued a panicked memo lowering the bar just as the Reuters poll was coming out. Funny he never mentioned the age issue!
Polling, polling, polling.
Plus it's hard to tell what the Fascists are freaking out about the most: the polls, Kamala declaring war on their suddenly oldest-ever candidate, or their leadership's insistence that they can't call her "colored" (like Sebastian Gorka did a week ago) or use racial epithets and especially not call her "DEI." Which, of course, is what they immediately called her.
Or maybe it's J.D. Vance. There's instant buyers' remorse because he's so bad on stage that they can't tell if he's inflated or stuffed - or both.
B-Block (35:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Colombian emigre Valentina Gomez is running for Secretary of State in Missouri on an anti-immigration platform and now she's illegally used the balcony of the Speaker of the House on which to film an ad. An Ohio State Senator becomes the last Republican to threaten Civil War, and the New York Post and Senator Mike Lee both fall for the worst fake announcement of the fake death of the fake Jimmy Carter on fake stationery imaginable.
C-Block (47:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I mentioned Aaron Sorkin yesterday. Time to explain the story of the day I was watching one of his TV shows and suddenly my father's favorite saying was coming out of the mouth of Aaron's lead character because Aaron had gotten in the habit of borrowing my life.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
have been thinking this since no later than Sunday afternoon.
(00:26):
I have been thinking that there will come a point
this year, this election, maybe this month, where we will
all be standing here saying, can you believe we came
this close to not making Vice President Harris the nominee.
You have heard the poll ipsos for Reuters Harris forty
(00:50):
two Trump thirty h Kennedy h in the three party race,
and Harris forty four Trump forty two head to head,
a four point shift to Kamala Harris in one week.
But have you heard the other polls Maris for NPR
and the PBS News Hour Harris forty two, Trump forty two,
(01:13):
Kennedy seven Trump forty six, Harris forty five. You Gov
for Yahoo News Harris forty six, Trump forty six. These
numbers are from at the latest, the first full day
of the Harris campaign. There are voters who do not
know she is going to be the Democratic nominee for president.
(01:35):
Could be a million of them, could be twenty million
of them. It is hard to say. And she is
already in a statistical tie. And yet the most jaw
dropping poll is none of these. It is from a
state and I had to look up the pollster, whereupon
(01:55):
my jaw dropped a second time in the same poll
Georgia conducted Monday, Trump forty eight Harris forty seven by
Landmark Communications, And who in the hell is Landmark Communications?
Oh my god, it's a Republican internal pollster in Georgia.
From its website. Mark Rowntree is president of Landmark Communications,
(02:16):
which he founded in nineteen ninety one. He's been professionally
engaged as run more than two thousand different Georgia elections,
including statewide, congressional, legislative and local campaigns and elections magazine
I Let my subscription lapse. Campaign and Elections magazine has
recognized Mark as one of Georgia's five top influencers, as
(02:37):
well as quote the go to man for GOP legislative candidates.
Landmark regularly polls Georgia and is rated in an A
minus grade by five thirty eight dot com. Sweet Jesus
on hockey skates, Kamala Harris trails Trump in Georgia by
one according to the leading Republican pollster. The last Trump
(03:01):
Biden polled there earlier this month. Trump by five, four
June Trump by five, January Trump by eight. Also back
to the National Poll's marist, what is your impression of
Kamala Harris registered voters Monday? Favorable forty four, unfavorable forty six.
So she's two points underwater. That sounds meh. Trump is
(03:25):
nineteen points underwater nineteen. Joe Biden is eighteen points underwater.
Kamala Harris minus two. We joined the Trump campaign in
full fledged pole panic, frantically lowering the bar already in progress.
A memo at midday yesterday from Tony Fabrizio, Trump polster
(03:48):
who now works at MAGA Inc. Even though Trump tried
to stiff him for seven hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars,
it owed him from polling during the twenty sixteen campaign.
Part of his memo quote, many of you have heard
me refer to the upcoming Harris honeymoon that I expect
to see in the public polling over the next couple
of weeks, he wrote an hour before it began. As
(04:11):
I've explained, the honeymoon will be a manifestation of the
wall to wall coverage Harris receives from the MSM. The
coverage will be largely positive and will certainly energize Democrats
and some other parts of their coalition, at least in
the short term. That means we will start to see
public polling, particularly national public polls, where Harris is gaining
(04:33):
on or even leading Trump. Obviously, the situation we find
ourselves in today is totally uncharted territory and has no
modern historical parallel, but there are some things that haven't
changed due to the events of the past two weeks,
including our highly successful convention. Did you see the speech Tony?
President Trump has seen a bump in his numbers in
(04:56):
a number of recent public polls, not surprising given that
most candidates historically receive some type of bump. Given what
has happened over the past last couple of days and
her impending VP choice, there is no question that Harris
will get her bump earlier than the Democrats convention, and
that bump is likely to start showing itself over the
next few days. Tick tick ticket forty five minutes later
(05:18):
and will last a while until the race settles back down.
The Democrats and the MSM Fabrizio Rights will try and
tout these polls as proof that the race has changed,
but the fundamentals of the race stay the same. The
Democrats deposing one nominee for another does not change voter's
(05:38):
discontent over the economy, inflation, crime, the open border housing costs,
not to mention concern over two foreign wars. Before long,
Harris's honeymoon will end and voters will refocus on her
role as Biden's partner and co pilot. Copilot is the
funniest word I've ever heard used as an attempt to
(05:58):
slur somebody. So Trump's convention bump and the so somebody
nearly shot him with a paper clip. No, no bullet bump.
They're already baked in here. But it's Harris who has
the honeymoon at the moment. Here's the graveyard, and right
next to it, here's Team Trump whistling past it. Because
(06:21):
there's one little thing Tony left out of his memo.
Did you notice one small detail that we can now
stop wasting so much of our energy, devoting so much
of this campaign to denying and finessing and finding the
very real silver linings while trying to deprioritize the equally
(06:41):
real thunderstorm clouds that contain them. Nowhere in the Trump
internal polling memo is a reference to that pesky little
age thing. I wonder did anybody pull the new campaign
between Trump and Harris on the age thing? Oh oh,
(07:05):
look here it is. It's Ipsos for routers. Thank you
God for ipsos for routers Monday and some yesterday. Do
you agree or disagree? At seventy eight years old, Trump
is too old to work in government. Agree fifty three percent,
disagree forty three percent. But wait, there's more? Do you
(07:27):
agree or disagree? Kamala Harris is mentally sharp and able
to deal with challenges. Agree fifty six percent, disagree thirty
seven percent. Check plays now, polls change, and Tony the
unpaid Trump pollster is right about honeymoons and bumps and fundamentals,
(07:50):
And though he didn't mention it in the memo, the
fact that you always should get Trump to pay you
up front. But the reason I began to say that
we would soon be saying, can you believe we came
this close to not making vice president Harris? The nominee
was not about those which blunt we are unforeseeably great
bump or no bumps and honeymoons or no honeymoons. Now,
(08:13):
this is about something else. I actually first felt a
version of this question before the debate, the same time
I heard, for the first time, perhaps a year, Vice
President Harris give a speech. I had stopped listening to
her speeches, and I'll explain why in a moment. But first,
(08:34):
this is the candidate yesterday throwing out the opening pitch
on opening day in Milwaukee.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I was like the United States senator. I was elected
attorney General of the state of California, and I was
a courtroom prosecutor before then. And in those roles, I
took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women,
fraudsters who ripped off, cheaters who broke the rules for
(09:10):
their own game. So hear me when I say I
know Donald Trump's tight.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Not in my lifetime have I heard a public speaker
improve that much that late, relatively in their career. Where
she was tentative and even diffident, Kamala Harris is now
excited to get to the punchline, and now she knows
(09:49):
how to throw the punch when she gets there. And
one small but significant technical improvement. She used to click.
There used to be a little mouth noise clicking sound
during her pauses as often as every ten seconds or so,
just enough to drive you crazy within minutes. I heard
(10:12):
it during the twenty nineteen twenty twenty primary season, and
I thought she could never get elected. The click, in
short order becomes all you can hear. The click is gone.
I don't know what she did. I don't know if
it was conscious. I don't know if they worked on
it for two years. It's gone. The click is gone,
(10:34):
and honestly, I think so are Trump's chances. Famous last words,
I know these poll numbers could be a honeymoon, though,
tell me when was the last American political honeymoon? Maybe Obama? Maybe,
I mean in the late primaries. It could be just
(10:56):
a bump. Or it could be this other thing that
we tended to discount much of this year. It could
be the voters who have been screaming at everybody. We
told you we didn't want either of them. We told
you we wanted somebody younger, almost anybody younger. Oh thanks,
there's somebody younger. If that's what this is, this could
(11:18):
be a democratic landslide. Can you believe we came this
close to not making Vice President Harris the nominee? By
the way, A PostScript I think the polls that Nancy
showed President Biden Nancy Pelosi. That is sure. There were
(11:42):
the polls about how he was losing all the swing
states and creating new swing states, and the national polls.
I think she also showed him ones that we have
not yet seen that look like those hypotheticals I quoted
last week in which we go from Biden down five
in the swing states to somebody else up seven. Only
(12:03):
it's not some tiononary somebody else in the ones I
think Pelosi showed Biden. It's Kamala somebody else Harris who's
up by seven in the Swing states, or can be Ohwen.
She probably also showed Joe Biden fundraising expectations, and my god,
(12:23):
it just keeps coming. Plus now there are Harris jokes,
good Harris jokes about Harris fundraising. I don't see an
official update as I record this. I expect that the
two hundred and twenty three thousand dollars a minute clip
will have leveled off somewhat. But we did get this
in the inbox quote over one hundred million dollars raised
(12:44):
for Kamala that was sent by JD Vance. Thanks JD
by the way, that was one hundred million dollars as
of our thirty six. The fundraising jokes too. I wanted
to mention from the comedian Paul Rudnick. Kamala raises any
more money, Millennia marry her good from Heather Thomas. Kamala
(13:10):
Harris has raised so much money, Clarence Thomas wants to
vacation with her. We had another example of the media
being too stupid for words talk about jokes. A debate
A Harris Trump debate. The headline at the website The Hill,
(13:33):
Trump commits to debating Harris, would be willing to do
more than one. In point of fact, as the story reveals,
Trump was uncommitting from the scheduled debate against Harris on
ABC in September and committing to other hypothetical ones, but
only on his terms. In other words, they got the
(13:55):
story entirely incorrect. Quote I have at least equals say,
and I don't like the idea of ABC, Trump told
reporters on a press call, I would be willing to
do more than one debate, actually, but he added that
he had not agreed to anything as far as to
a debate with Harris. I agreed to a debate with
Joe Biden. Why don't you go do that? Maybe they'll
(14:18):
put it on radio. I agreed to a debate with
Joe Biden, but I want to debate her. They have
the same policies. I think debating is important for a
presidential race. I'm only seventy eight and a half years old.
My name is Elmer j FID millionaire. I own a
mansion in a yacht I was suggested to this crazy
old man that he take whatever terms he can get
(14:39):
in a debate, because it may shortly be clear, even
to him in his adult state of mind, that his
only chance is if she bothers to debate him. Now
happily in the background, it's not like the Republican rank
and file is panicking or anything. From Politico. House Republican
(15:03):
leaders told law makers to focus on criticizing Harris's record
without reference to her race and gender, following caustic remarks
from some Republicans attacking her on the basis of identity.
One hundred percent is some right. During a closed door
meeting yesterday, chair of the House GOP campaign arm Richard
(15:26):
Hudson and others issued the warning after a series of
comments by their members that focused on Harris's race, as
well as claims she is a quote DEI pick. According
to two people in the room, Speaker of the House
Mike Johnson, who is really dumb. This should not be
about personalities. It should be about policy. And we have
(15:48):
a record to compare DEI. You're trying to get them
to not say DEI. I mean, what is it. It's
a week since the Trump crony Sebastian Gorka called Kamala
Harris quote colored unquote, and you're trying to stop them
from saying DEI. You are telling your collection of white
(16:10):
supremacist morons not to call her DEI. Well, guess what,
here's a shock. They're not listening to you, Richard Hudson,
Mike Johnson. They're listening to Sebastian Gorka. This is Harriet Hageman,
who primaried and beat Liz Cheney and who is as
widely noted. Well, maybe also George Santos. When George Santos
(16:41):
is dressed up as Katara Ravasche dead ringers, they're dead
ringers for one another. Also, as you listen to Harriet
George Katara Ravasch Santos Hagman to get the full flavor
of the thing of what she means. Imagine at the
end that she does not say DEI, but what she
(17:02):
and the others really want to say, that she's saying
the N word.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Well, I think she's one of the weakest candidates I've
ever seen in the history of our country. I mean, intellectually,
just really kind of the bottom of the barrel. I
think she was a DEI higher and I think that
that's what we're seeing. And I just don't think that
they have anybody else. I just think that they're in
real disarray.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Whoo, one of them is going to do it. I
predicted it yesterday, before the end of the month. Somebody's
going to use an actual racial epithet. They're not going
to stop at DEI. We can't call her DEI? Oh
how about this other word here that starts with it? No? No, no, no, no, no.
How about these initials JD? Can we call her a JD? Oh?
(17:44):
My goodness, is there JD? Vance Buyer's remorse on the
Republican side of the ball. I can't tell if he's
inflated or stuffed or both. He's not making a good impression. Also,
there's the little matter of CNN breaking the story that
he repeatedly indicated in twenty sixteen that he believed Donald
Trump had committed sexual assault. CNN reported that Vance appeared
(18:08):
on an MSNBC segment in October that year on Trump's
alleged misconduct sexual misconduct, in which an interview with Jessica Leads,
who accused Trump of groping and forcibly kissing her during
a flight in the nineteen seventies. The tape was played,
Vance said it was hard to believe Trump's denials. Quote
at a fundamental level, this is sort of a he said,
(18:30):
She said, right, And at the end of the day,
Trump's vice presidential nominee JD. Vance said, do you believe
Donald Trump, who always tells the truth just kidding? Or
do you believe that woman on the tape? Can they
have another convention since that last convention went so so
well for them and picked somebody else? Anybody else? Anybody
(18:54):
know where Mike Pence is at the moment. Hello, I'm
(19:21):
Vice President Mike Pence for the Trump Pence twenty twenty
four campaign. I know, I know you're asking why one
more item here? Trump and the Magic Bullet this is
finally sneaking into the mainstream again. A CNN piece not
on the air on the website, Sanjay Gupta writes, although
(19:43):
the images we've seen of Trump since his attempted assassination
have been those of a person who was barely injured
and is now in high spirits, what we've been told
by the campaign offers very little insight into the former
president's condition, what kind of care he received, or how
his medical team will monitor him in the days and
weeks ahead. Oh really, I hadn't noticed this. A full
(20:05):
public assessment of Trump's injuries is necessary for both the
former president's own health yeah okay, and the clarity it
can provide for voters about the recovery of the man
who could become president of the United States once again.
The concern is that gunshot blasts near the head can
cause injuries that aren't immediably noticeable, such as bleeding in
or on the brain, damage to the inner ear, or
(20:28):
even psychological trauma. His head is not big enough to
contain any more psychological trauma. This has to be it.
He is already the craziest man in public discourse in
the United States, certainly North America, probably the entire hemisphere. Oh,
he might have a little bit more psychological trauma. Well,
(20:50):
then he'll be an axe murderer by the end of
the week. As a trauma neurosurgeon, I have seen how
a thorough evaluation after any kind of gunshot wound can
provide a complete picture and lead to a speedier recovery.
Sonjay's spoiler alert, it wasn't a bullet, bottle cap, piece
(21:13):
of plastic, possibly a very old hard gum ball. Why
are they keeping this a secret because they can't face
the idea one particular aspect apart from the martyrdom, apart
from the he can stop a bullet with his bare ear,
apart from the he took a bullet from democracy, all
(21:36):
of these lines that would instantly vanish if there were
in fact, open proof that he was hit by some
sort of debris, even though to you and I they
tried to kill him and he got hit by something
and it opened up a wound on his ear, and
if he just played it straight, we couldn't have said
anything about it. We couldn't have mocked him for it.
We couldn't have accused him of exaggerating it. We couldn't
(21:57):
have used it against him, And here he has created
this entire situation simply by not telling the truth. If
people shoot at you and you are running for president
of the United States, and other people get killed and
wounded because of those bullets, and you get hit by
some sort of essentially improvised shrapnel, that counts. That was
an assassination attempt. That was an assassination attempt by gun.
(22:24):
That counts. But they can't let it happen that way
because of one line that would result the idea that
when Trump dived under that podium, he was diving to
get out of the way of a bottle cap. They
cannot face the idea that Trump would have had to
(22:44):
dive under the podium unless it was a bullet. What
if it wasn't a lethal threat to him? What if
it had hit him in the back of the head,
whatever it was, and it wasn't a bullet. Even if
the other bullet in that photograph whizzed right past him
and didn't strike him, and he got hit by some
sort of debris struck somewhere along the way, buy that
(23:05):
bullet or some other bullet. We don't see the difference.
They are living and dying over it. It could become
something that would do as much damage to the Trump
campaign as Kamala Harris is doing to the Trump campaign.
And I'll explain to you again from my personal experience
where this comes from, in this kind of reptile mind
(23:27):
that is at the back of every Republican candidate and voter.
In September of two thousand and six, I received a
package of fake anthrax in my mail at home. From
the beginning, it was obvious it was fake anthrax, except
what if it wasn't. I knew, because I happened to
(23:49):
be at that moment on antibiotics, that I was not
going to get anthrax, let alone die from it. But
the building was full of ninety three year old ladies.
What if the one in a billion chants were true
that it was anthrax, and so somehow somebody dealing with
anthrax who did not kill themselves while dealing with anthrax,
(24:09):
managed to put anthrax in the mail to me. What
if that happened and the ninety three year old ladies
all got it and died, which is exactly the scenario
that took place in the actual anthrax attacks. After nine
to eleven in the early winter of two thousand and one,
including one at the Rupert Murdoch paper the New York Post,
(24:32):
but because it was not actually anthrax, and when I
called the Department of Homeland Security, and a wonderful exhibition
of your tax dollars in action was played out in
front of me as has Matt suit after has Matt's
suit marched through my apartment and the departments adjoining, and
they finally ordered me into the ambulance at threat of arrest,
(24:55):
to spend the night being checked for anthrax just in case,
on the same premise that I had called them just
in case. After that was leaked the New York Post,
when the FBI asked me not to report it so
they could get a head start on finding the guy
who did it, and ultimately they did. As I have
described here in previous episodes, this fake anthrax attack was
(25:18):
very much a terrorist act, and the man who did
it and sent similar packages to others and ultimately sent
me four different packages of fake anthrax went to prison.
I believe it was for three years. I think he
still has a parole officer or at least a probation officer,
and he literally lived in his mother's basement in southern
California and thought the two most beautiful women in the
(25:39):
world were Laura Ingram and culture. But what was the
reaction to this? This was exactly what The New York Post,
when it was leaked to them wrote, MSNBC. Oh the
headline powder puff spooks Keith, not something about how taking
precaution here MSNBC loudmouth Keith Alderman flipped out when he
(26:03):
opened his home yesterday. The acerbic cob was terrified when
he opened a suspicious looking letter with a California postmark
and a batch of white powder poured out a note inside.
Warrened Olderman, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies,
that it was payback for some of his on air stick.
The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called nine to one
(26:27):
one at about twelve thirty am. Sources told the post's
Philip Messing himself? Is that Philip Messing? That's Philip Messing himself.
An NYPD has Matt Unit rushed to Olberman's pad, but
preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However,
that wasn't enough to satisfy Olberman, who insisted on a checkup,
(26:50):
as I pointed out, no, I said, why do you
have to Why do I have to go to the
hospital all night just in case? Okay, what if I don't,
we'll arrest you under public health charges. He asked to
be taken to Saint Luke's Hospital, where looked him over
and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop
on the way out is it known? Alderman had no comment.
(27:11):
Imagine the right wing media having to deal with the
reality that Donald Trump was not hit by a bullet,
but was hit by I don't know, fake anthrax, harmless
soap powder, a lollipop, debris from an assassin's bullet is
not to them the same as an assassin's bullet. Ultimately,
(27:37):
this christ like act by Trump taking a bullet for
democracy suddenly that turns into powder puff spooks Trump and
that's why they are doing this and why Trump continues
to hide the real story of how his ear got
(28:03):
nearly fail scratched. Don't you say it wasn't real. Don't
you say it wasn't a real bullet. He didn't just
he didn't dive and hide under that lectern because he
(28:23):
was a bullet he was almost dead. In fact, his
head came off. I saw him put his head back on.
He stitched it himself. He's Jesus. But let us not
get lost in the conservative weeds. Kamala Harris, first full
day on the camp. For first full day on the campaign,
thrown in at the last minute. The award winning actor
(28:48):
can't perform. You have to go on. A star is born,
starring Kamala Harris, first day out of the box with
an epic speech, a declaration of war on Trump in
said speech, millions more in don nations and of course
ahead in the Reuter's poll, a point back in the
(29:09):
Georgia poll. Approval poll number is seventeen points better than Trump.
To start with, polling, polling, polling, polling pole Oh wait, wait, wait,
wait wait, oh, Nancy, the same melody, different lyrics, polland
(29:32):
polland poll in. Keep those numbers rolling, get them margin swollen,
vice press day three ONSU already kicking drop. He wants
to see the manager and soon two points the top
of the match up. Now make sure he don't catch up.
(29:53):
Remember don vote for the old guy. I can Nancy
fast theme from ra Hind also of interest here. So
another Republican elected official has threatened civil war, only this
one tried to take it back, and he says we
(30:15):
all need to watch our words. Dude, you said that
if you didn't get your way and the Republicans did
not win the election, you would start a civil war
with your little guns. The government has all the tanks
and the jets, and the government the governments. The government's
(30:40):
run by Democrats. We all need to watch our words. Bullshit, dude,
you need to watch your words. That's next. This is countdown.
This is countdown, with Keith Olberman still ahead of us.
(31:18):
On this edition of Countdown, I slammed Aaron Sorkin yesterday
for his classic and perfectly timed New York Times op
ed Sunday morning that yes, Joe Biden should step aside
to be replaced by Mitt Romney. I mentioned that Aaron
Sorkin had, over the years, gone from being a friend
(31:38):
who I admired and who apparently admired me, to a
guy who admired me too much and started borrowing stuff
from me, like my career, all the stories in it
for free. If you don't know that story, let me
tell you of the day I heard my own father's
favorite phrase come out of the mouth of Aaron Sorkin's
(32:01):
lead character in Things I Promised Not to Tell First.
There are still more new idiots to talk about. The
daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today worst persons in the world.
The Bronze Valentina Gomez, the twenty five year old Colombian
(32:24):
born anti immigration candidate for Secretary of State in Missouri.
Anti immigration because of course she is. She's here already.
Why do we need other immigrants? Valentina does videos, usually
with weapons, and she's often seen wearing a size seven
Maga hat, even though her head seems to be about
(32:45):
a four. Recently, this Gomez attacked Missouri State Senator Barbara Pheiffer,
who has a trans grandchild. As they reported, the tension
escalated when Gomez launched a personal attack on Pfeiffer via
social media. You have a trans grandchild, she wrote, that
means you raised a r you failed your children, and
(33:06):
they failed your grandchildren. Also, you're irrelevant and you belong
in a nursing home. Pfeiffer is and has been for
forty years, a Methodist minister. Her response it's concerning anytime
a person attacks a child. Attacks on children have no
place anywhere on anything. Miss Gomez has not been listening.
(33:29):
There's another video of her burning LGBTQ themed books with
a flamethrower. There's another one in which she urged voters
not to be quote weak and gay. And now she
has filmed a campaign ad on the balcony of the
Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Capitol in Washington,
where campaign politics is explicitly prohibited by law and by custom.
(33:55):
In it, she says something. Miss Gomez has a fairly
standard Colombian sibilant s. So all I ever hear is
I'm Valentina and I'm seeking the office of Secretary of State.
She's not likely to be in trouble, even though the
video boasts about how they don't like her on the
(34:16):
speaker's balcony and says she's on the speaker's balcony, and
then she shows a picture of herself with an AR fifteen.
Of course, but if somebody wants to file an ethics
complaint about Speaker Mike Johnson for letting his speaker's balcony
be used illegally, well, you know, try to find him,
(34:37):
you should first look in a church where he will
be pretending to pray. Above that new video shot on
the speaker's balcony, Miss Gomez claims she's quote on fire
with the truth. Now I'm going to need to see
that video to confirm that optimistic statement. Run her up.
(34:59):
And once again, if you think National Republicans are idiots
and psychotics, you really haven't taken a good look at
the people they have elected at the state and even
the city level. The runner up worser George Lang, Ohio
state Senator, who now says he regrets the divisive remarks
he made in the excitement of the moment on stage,
(35:22):
especially in light of the assassination attempt of President Trump
last week, We should all be mindful of what is
said at political events. Myself included what did he say?
I'll play it for you in a moment. First, I'd
like to point out that he's an Ohio State senator.
He got the office, he was appointed to it. His
background he was on the zoning board for Westchester Township
(35:46):
and he was a trustee there for fourteen years. And
he used to work at Procter and Gamble. And it
says quote Lang is a member of the Boy Scouts
of America. What did he say own nothing at a
JD Vance rally. He simply threatened civil war if he
doesn't get what he and the other white folk want.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Trump and Butler County's JD vans are the last chance
to save our country politically. I'm afraid if we lose
this one, it's going to take a civil war to
save the country.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
And it will be saved.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
It's the greatest experiment in the history of mankind.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And if we come down.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
To a civil war, I'm glad we got people like
Schmidy and the Bikers for Trump on our side.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I regret the divisive remarks I made in it. We
should all be mindful, dude. You should be mindful of
the fact that if you try to start a civil war,
you guys keep forgetting who has all the tanks and bombs.
I'm a glad an AR fifteen. Anybody see it. Yeah,
it's over there in that pile of AR fifteen from
(36:54):
all the guys who were captured. But I but my
Second Amendment rights you going to jail for the rest
of your life now. Also, you lost Civil War two.
It took an hour and a half and it was
entirely confined to Westchester, Ohio. But our winners the New
York Post and Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who led
(37:17):
the charge yesterday, the attempt to kill former President Jimmy
Carter yesterday. This is a screenshot, apparently of a Google
search of an article that The New York Post posted
and then quickly got rid of. And it has the
Post logo. We believe it's accurate, and it has the
headline former President Jimmy Carter dead at ninety nine New
(37:37):
York Post, which isn't true. He's not dead, but the
synopsis reads today Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who
became the thirty ninth President of the United States during
a time of gas shortages, Cold War drama and ellipses.
That's as much as they could get into the Google search.
Then they killed it. The New York Posts post it first,
(37:59):
try to find out if it's real later or not
at all. New York Post, which, if it were required
to make a profit rather than simply massage Rupert Murdoch's ego,
i e. His balls, it would have gone out of
business in nineteen ninety four. Rupert Murdoch and The New
York Post. If you ever read something in The New
(38:21):
York Post it sounds too good to be true, or
too bad to be true, or simply badly written, you
know it's not the truth because it's in the New
York Post. And all the good people who work for
the New York Posts say, in the sports department, you
are contributing to Rupert Murdoch's attempt to destroy the United
States of America. I got into a long argument once
(38:41):
with a Post sports writer who says, you're harming my business,
and I said, your business is predicated on putting the
United States out of business. It's not my department. It
doesn't matter if it's not your department. The line for
you to get into hell with the other Rupert Murdoch
employees is not going to discriminate between those who worked
(39:04):
in sports and those who worked in killing Jimmy Carter
in the paper. And by the way, the Post is
not the worst. It's only tied for the worst because
the worst is Mike Lee, possibly the dumbest man ever
to serve in government, including that Lang guy from Ohio.
The reason the Post posted what it apparently did, and
(39:24):
what Mike Lee posted was there was a letter with
a faked heading on it office of Jimmy Carter, dated
yesterday's date, and Mike Lee simply copied it, pasted it,
and posted it on Twitter X. Mike Lee at based
Mike Lee former President Jimmy Carter has died. Mike Lee said, well,
(39:47):
if Mike Lee says it, you know it's not true.
It's not true. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
I'll mention this in the Reuter's article about this disaster
by Mike Lee and The New York Post. In response
to a request for comment, the owner of the account
took credit for creating the fake Jimmy Carter letter, telling
(40:09):
Reuters in a direct message, I created it last that
would be Monday night. The amount of misinformation which spread
throughout the weekend surrounding the state of President Biden's health
was maddening. I wanted to prove that many people on
X often spread sensationalist news and headlines without fact checking
or double checking the source content. You think the rest
(40:33):
of this stuff After the initial former President Jimmy Carter
James Earl of Carter Junior aka passionate, champion of human rights, democracy,
World War Two, veteran blah blah blah. With family by
his side, President Carter did this foreign policy ecomma. That's
the second paragraph, third of a Domestically President carter achievement
included installing solar panels on the White House blah blah
blah blah blah the fourth one. Despite these successes as president,
(40:57):
now you think you would have read some of this,
or somebody would have read some of this. No, he's
Mike Lee. He has the IQ of a fish and
not a brightfish. Despite these successes as president all his life,
President Carter considered his marriage to former First Lady Rosalind
Carter his life's greatest achievement. At her passing last November,
(41:19):
President Carter said Roseland was a battie. Jill Milania, even
throat goat Nancy Reagan had nothing on Rosalind. She was
the original brat. She gave me wise, guidance and encouragement
when I needed it. As long as Rosalind was in
the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.
(41:41):
They were married for seventy seven years. That the question
of the quote in here about calling her a baddie
or referring to Nancy Reagan as throat goat. That didn't
get anybody's attention, That didn't send up a red flag.
What was trueth in nineteen ninety nine is trueth today?
(42:03):
No one hath read it the link, No one clickth,
no one readeth the New York Post. It's Murdoch, of
course it's wrong, and Mike, but the quoted here from
Carter's scholar, Oh wah tunas I am. That means it's true,
right Lee, two days worse persons, Jimmy Carter is not
(42:28):
dead in the world. Finally our number one story in
the countdown things I promised not to tell And back
to my favorite topic me. I heard Jeff Daniels say
(42:52):
the words, and in the next minute my cell phone rang.
It was an ex girlfriend. While we were talking, an
email arrived from another ex girlfriend, and then in came
a text from the current girlfriend at her folks house,
and two more emails, and before I was off the
phone to voicemails, and then regular friends started to contact me.
This is just over ten years ago now. It was Sunday,
(43:14):
August fifth, twenty twelve. Jeff Daniels was playing the controversial
newscaster and commentator on Aaron Sorkin's HBO series Newsroom, which
was based structurally on Me and Countdown. And I know
this because Aaron Sorkin told me so before he filmed
any of it. And I know this because he asked
(43:35):
me if he could base the pilot episode on what
happened to me at MSNBC in the spring and summer
of twenty ten. And I know this because he came
in and shadowed the staff of Countdown for two days
to get the feel for the place. And I know
this because he wound up basing one character, Maggie Jordan,
on my assistant, Margaret Judson, and then hiring Margaret Judson
(43:57):
as a consultant, and then hiring her as an actress
to play a part that wasn't supposed to be her.
And I know this because he was He's furious when
I would not fly to Denver. I think it was
to do a cameo in the pilot. And I know
this because he said he was hiring me as a consultant.
And I know this because I never saw a dime
out of it. This was the second time Aaron Sorkin
(44:19):
had based one of his TV series on one of
my TV series. The other was called Sports Night, and
Esquire magazine once asked me to interview Sorkin about Sports Night,
and I asked him the real tough question, what was
the origin of Sports Night? And his answer was, quote,
you are the origin. So when The New York Times
(44:40):
had called me about Newsroom, I lightheartedly said it was
nice to know in advance this time that Aaron Sorkin
was making a TV series about me. Sorkin did not
like this at all, and he told all his actors
to tell all their interviewers that this was not true.
And I know that because Jeff Daniels told me that
that was what Sorkin had told him. Sorkin is interesting.
(45:03):
I had known him him for about ten or twelve
years when he came in to countdown to see what
it looked and felt like, and he was twenty minutes late.
And my assistant Margaret after whom he named Maggie Jordan,
whom he then hired away from me, and whom he
finally hired as an actress to play Tess Weston, and
she was great. By the way. Margaret brings him in
and he apologizes for being late, and he says, he's
(45:25):
staying in a hotel two blocks away and he should
have just walked, but instead he got in a car,
and the next thing he knew, he was six blocks away,
caught in traffic caused by the complete shutdown of one
of the crosstown streets for midday construction. And I laughed,
and I said, well, like my late father, the architect,
used to say, New York, it'll be a great town
(45:45):
whenever they finish it. And he laughed, and I laughed.
And two years later, in the seventh episode of the
HBO Newsroom series, first aired on August fifth, twenty twelve,
and re aired throughout the week, Jeff Daniels as the anchorman,
Will McAvoy, who wasn't me but actually kind of was me,
is late to his newsroom because he gets caught in
(46:07):
Manhattan traffic caused by Sunday night street construction, and he
says to his exasperated producer, new York, it'll be a
great town whenever they finish it. That's when my phone
and email blew up. And the then girlfriend, and like
forty percent of all of my exes ever, all had
the same question, New York, It'll be a great town
(46:29):
whenever they finish it. Isn't that what your dad used
to say? Even the ones who never met my dad
knew this because I used to quote him constantly, because
the real humor in the quote is the fact that
my dad was an architect and construction was his business.
New York, It'll be a great town whenever they finish it.
And then one of the last of the exes reached out.
(46:51):
She waited until the show was over. Now, I don't
think any of us is proud of this, but she
had also dated Sorkin once or twice, and since she
had written celebrity stories for a New York newspaper, he
had later asked her by email what the world of
gossip reporting was like, and she told him by email.
And what she now told me made Aaron Sorkin's use
(47:14):
of my dad's quote and other parts of my life
seem like possible coincidences. She said she was watching the third,
maybe fourth episode of Newsroom and in walked a new character,
a gossip columnist, a woman, and the first sentence the
character said was my friend, and X said word for
word something she had sent to Sorkin in one of
(47:36):
the emails about the gossip business. She said when she
heard it, her face started to get read, and it
would keep getting reader. The gossip columnist character's second line
had also been cut and pasted from my ex's email,
then her long speech, then all of her dialogue. She
said in her second scene. My ex actually managed to
record that episode and to find her own email to
(47:57):
Sorkin and to compare them, and she said, other than
changing a couple of tenses, he had used her answers verbatim.
I met the actor Josh Charles during the two thousand
World Series. I was there anchoring it for Fox Sports.
Josh was there promoting his new show on Fox. Josh
had played Dan Rydell on Sorkin's Sports Night series, and
(48:19):
even Sorkin and I agree, dan Rydell is just me
with a different haircut. I was walking up Sixth Avenue
one day in October two thousand and from several blocks away,
I saw Josh Charles walking towards me, so I had
several minutes to prepare what I could say to him.
This was not spontaneous, sadly, but after our eyes met
(48:41):
and I smiled, and he gave me that, yes, I'm
on TV, look that I recognize and have myself deployed.
He switched suddenly to shock and even a little apprehension,
and I said the line I had been rehearsing in
my head for several minutes. Excuse me. You don't get
to say this often in life, But didn't you use
to play me on TV? Right there on sixth? That
(49:04):
and you? Josh told me about the ordeal of working
with and for Aaron Sorkin, and I thought he just
meant for actors, but I later found out because New York,
it'll be a great time whenever they finish it. Josh
and I are still friends. We've gone to ballgames together.
We were in a fantasy baseball league together. And one
night on my ESPN two show, we came back from commercial,
(49:25):
giving the audience no warning or explanation, and we simply
started co anchoring the show and calling it Sports Night
and making references to the program and to newsroom. And
then he said, why did we keep reading this? And
I said, I don't know. I just assumed Sorkin had
run out of new ideas. The mutual laughter that followed
was sincere. There is one more punchline to the newsroom
(49:49):
Sorkin story because I was like his seventh guest ever.
When Stephen Colbert wrapped up the Colbert Report on Comedy Central,
I was invited to be on the final farewell episode,
me and like ninety nine other people. There were so
many of us, ranging from Barrymanilow to Brian Cranston to
Big Bird, that they had like nine green rooms in
(50:12):
the Comedy Central building. And I get there and they
send me to the green room I would be sharing
with several other people, and I'd trudge up a bunch
of stairs to the top floor and in this big
room there is only one other performer there yet it's
Jeff Daniels. Without saying hello, he says, now, wait, let
me explain. Sorkin told me, and I explained, and then
(50:33):
he explained, and then I explained some more, and Jeff said,
oh a lot, and once he said oops, and Sorkin
didn't tell me that. And after about three minutes he said,
so I owe you an apology, and I said, no,
you don't, it's not your fault. And he smiled and
he said, well great, I'm glad. So can we take
(50:55):
a picture together that I can put out on Twitter,
and I said, yeah, absolutely, but only if you capture
it New York. It'll be a great town. Whenever they
finish it. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(51:20):
Thank you for listening. Count On musical directors Brian Ray
and John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums,
and mister Shanale handled the orchestration and the keyboards, and
it was produced by Tko Brothers. Another music, including some
of the Beethoven, arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Alderman theme from
(51:42):
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc.
At this rate, I should just play it for you
so you remember what it sounds like. Our satirical and
pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball
stadium organist ever and now my accompany ist. My announcer
today was my friend Larry David, who does not accompany
(52:03):
me anywhere. Everything else was freeing launch my fault. That's
countdown for this the one hundred and fifth day until
the twenty twenty four presidential election. The two hundred and
ninety fourth day since convicted fellon Donald J. Trump. I
want to see the manager's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the September
(52:25):
eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the mental health system. You've got it,
President Biden. Use presidential immunity to stop him from doing
it again while we still can. And Republicans please stop
shooting at Trump. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins
(52:46):
as the news requires. Till then, I'm Keith Oldroman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Poll in Poland, Poland,
(53:07):
keep those numbers rolling, get them margin swollen, Vice press
day three on the stuff already kicking jump. He wants
to see the manager and soon two points atop the matchup.
Now make sure he don't catch up. Remember, don't vote
(53:28):
for the old guy. Fink. A Nancy Faust Countdown with
Keith Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
have been thinking this since no later than Sunday afternoon.
(00:26):
I have been thinking that there will come a point
this year, this election, maybe this month, where we will
all be standing here saying, can you believe we came
this close to not making Vice President Harris the nominee.
You have heard the poll ipsos for Reuters Harris forty
(00:50):
two Trump thirty h Kennedy h in the three party race,
and Harris forty four Trump forty two head to head,
a four point shift to Kamala Harris in one week.
But have you heard the other polls Maris for NPR
and the PBS News Hour Harris forty two, Trump forty two,
(01:13):
Kennedy seven Trump forty six, Harris forty five. You Gov
for Yahoo News Harris forty six, Trump forty six. These
numbers are from at the latest, the first full day
of the Harris campaign. There are voters who do not
know she is going to be the Democratic nominee for president.
(01:35):
Could be a million of them, could be twenty million
of them. It is hard to say. And she is
already in a statistical tie. And yet the most jaw
dropping poll is none of these. It is from a
state and I had to look up the pollster, whereupon
(01:55):
my jaw dropped a second time in the same poll
Georgia conducted Monday, Trump forty eight Harris forty seven by
Landmark Communications, And who in the hell is Landmark Communications?
Oh my god, it's a Republican internal pollster in Georgia.
From its website. Mark Rowntree is president of Landmark Communications,
(02:16):
which he founded in nineteen ninety one. He's been professionally
engaged as run more than two thousand different Georgia elections,
including statewide, congressional, legislative and local campaigns and elections magazine
I Let my subscription lapse. Campaign and Elections magazine has
recognized Mark as one of Georgia's five top influencers, as
(02:37):
well as quote the go to man for GOP legislative candidates.
Landmark regularly polls Georgia and is rated in an A
minus grade by five thirty eight dot com. Sweet Jesus
on hockey skates, Kamala Harris trails Trump in Georgia by
one according to the leading Republican pollster. The last Trump
(03:01):
Biden polled there earlier this month. Trump by five, four
June Trump by five, January Trump by eight. Also back
to the National Poll's marist, what is your impression of
Kamala Harris registered voters Monday? Favorable forty four, unfavorable forty six.
So she's two points underwater. That sounds meh. Trump is
(03:25):
nineteen points underwater nineteen. Joe Biden is eighteen points underwater.
Kamala Harris minus two. We joined the Trump campaign in
full fledged pole panic, frantically lowering the bar already in progress.
A memo at midday yesterday from Tony Fabrizio, Trump polster
(03:48):
who now works at MAGA Inc. Even though Trump tried
to stiff him for seven hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars,
it owed him from polling during the twenty sixteen campaign.
Part of his memo quote, many of you have heard
me refer to the upcoming Harris honeymoon that I expect
to see in the public polling over the next couple
of weeks, he wrote an hour before it began. As
(04:11):
I've explained, the honeymoon will be a manifestation of the
wall to wall coverage Harris receives from the MSM. The
coverage will be largely positive and will certainly energize Democrats
and some other parts of their coalition, at least in
the short term. That means we will start to see
public polling, particularly national public polls, where Harris is gaining
(04:33):
on or even leading Trump. Obviously, the situation we find
ourselves in today is totally uncharted territory and has no
modern historical parallel, but there are some things that haven't
changed due to the events of the past two weeks,
including our highly successful convention. Did you see the speech Tony?
President Trump has seen a bump in his numbers in
(04:56):
a number of recent public polls, not surprising given that
most candidates historically receive some type of bump. Given what
has happened over the past last couple of days and
her impending VP choice, there is no question that Harris
will get her bump earlier than the Democrats convention, and
that bump is likely to start showing itself over the
next few days. Tick tick ticket forty five minutes later
(05:18):
and will last a while until the race settles back down.
The Democrats and the MSM Fabrizio Rights will try and
tout these polls as proof that the race has changed,
but the fundamentals of the race stay the same. The
Democrats deposing one nominee for another does not change voter's
(05:38):
discontent over the economy, inflation, crime, the open border housing costs,
not to mention concern over two foreign wars. Before long,
Harris's honeymoon will end and voters will refocus on her
role as Biden's partner and co pilot. Copilot is the
funniest word I've ever heard used as an attempt to
(05:58):
slur somebody. So Trump's convention bump and the so somebody
nearly shot him with a paper clip. No, no bullet bump.
They're already baked in here. But it's Harris who has
the honeymoon at the moment. Here's the graveyard, and right
next to it, here's Team Trump whistling past it. Because
(06:21):
there's one little thing Tony left out of his memo.
Did you notice one small detail that we can now
stop wasting so much of our energy, devoting so much
of this campaign to denying and finessing and finding the
very real silver linings while trying to deprioritize the equally
(06:41):
real thunderstorm clouds that contain them. Nowhere in the Trump
internal polling memo is a reference to that pesky little
age thing. I wonder did anybody pull the new campaign
between Trump and Harris on the age thing? Oh oh,
(07:05):
look here it is. It's Ipsos for routers. Thank you
God for ipsos for routers Monday and some yesterday. Do
you agree or disagree? At seventy eight years old, Trump
is too old to work in government. Agree fifty three percent,
disagree forty three percent. But wait, there's more? Do you
(07:27):
agree or disagree? Kamala Harris is mentally sharp and able
to deal with challenges. Agree fifty six percent, disagree thirty
seven percent. Check plays now, polls change, and Tony the
unpaid Trump pollster is right about honeymoons and bumps and fundamentals,
(07:50):
And though he didn't mention it in the memo, the
fact that you always should get Trump to pay you
up front. But the reason I began to say that
we would soon be saying, can you believe we came
this close to not making vice president Harris? The nominee
was not about those which blunt we are unforeseeably great
bump or no bumps and honeymoons or no honeymoons. Now,
(08:13):
this is about something else. I actually first felt a
version of this question before the debate, the same time
I heard, for the first time, perhaps a year, Vice
President Harris give a speech. I had stopped listening to
her speeches, and I'll explain why in a moment. But first,
(08:34):
this is the candidate yesterday throwing out the opening pitch
on opening day in Milwaukee.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I was like the United States senator. I was elected
attorney General of the state of California, and I was
a courtroom prosecutor before then. And in those roles, I
took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women,
fraudsters who ripped off, cheaters who broke the rules for
(09:10):
their own game. So hear me when I say I
know Donald Trump's tight.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Not in my lifetime have I heard a public speaker
improve that much that late, relatively in their career. Where
she was tentative and even diffident, Kamala Harris is now
excited to get to the punchline, and now she knows
(09:49):
how to throw the punch when she gets there. And
one small but significant technical improvement. She used to click.
There used to be a little mouth noise clicking sound
during her pauses as often as every ten seconds or so,
just enough to drive you crazy within minutes. I heard
(10:12):
it during the twenty nineteen twenty twenty primary season, and
I thought she could never get elected. The click, in
short order becomes all you can hear. The click is gone.
I don't know what she did. I don't know if
it was conscious. I don't know if they worked on
it for two years. It's gone. The click is gone,
(10:34):
and honestly, I think so are Trump's chances. Famous last words,
I know these poll numbers could be a honeymoon, though,
tell me when was the last American political honeymoon? Maybe Obama? Maybe,
I mean in the late primaries. It could be just
(10:56):
a bump. Or it could be this other thing that
we tended to discount much of this year. It could
be the voters who have been screaming at everybody. We
told you we didn't want either of them. We told
you we wanted somebody younger, almost anybody younger. Oh thanks,
there's somebody younger. If that's what this is, this could
(11:18):
be a democratic landslide. Can you believe we came this
close to not making Vice President Harris the nominee? By
the way, A PostScript I think the polls that Nancy
showed President Biden Nancy Pelosi. That is sure. There were
(11:42):
the polls about how he was losing all the swing
states and creating new swing states, and the national polls.
I think she also showed him ones that we have
not yet seen that look like those hypotheticals I quoted
last week in which we go from Biden down five
in the swing states to somebody else up seven. Only
(12:03):
it's not some tiononary somebody else in the ones I
think Pelosi showed Biden. It's Kamala somebody else Harris who's
up by seven in the Swing states, or can be Ohwen.
She probably also showed Joe Biden fundraising expectations, and my god,
(12:23):
it just keeps coming. Plus now there are Harris jokes,
good Harris jokes about Harris fundraising. I don't see an
official update as I record this. I expect that the
two hundred and twenty three thousand dollars a minute clip
will have leveled off somewhat. But we did get this
in the inbox quote over one hundred million dollars raised
(12:44):
for Kamala that was sent by JD Vance. Thanks JD
by the way, that was one hundred million dollars as
of our thirty six. The fundraising jokes too. I wanted
to mention from the comedian Paul Rudnick. Kamala raises any
more money, Millennia marry her good from Heather Thomas. Kamala
(13:10):
Harris has raised so much money, Clarence Thomas wants to
vacation with her. We had another example of the media
being too stupid for words talk about jokes. A debate
A Harris Trump debate. The headline at the website The Hill,
(13:33):
Trump commits to debating Harris, would be willing to do
more than one. In point of fact, as the story reveals,
Trump was uncommitting from the scheduled debate against Harris on
ABC in September and committing to other hypothetical ones, but
only on his terms. In other words, they got the
(13:55):
story entirely incorrect. Quote I have at least equals say,
and I don't like the idea of ABC, Trump told
reporters on a press call, I would be willing to
do more than one debate, actually, but he added that
he had not agreed to anything as far as to
a debate with Harris. I agreed to a debate with
Joe Biden. Why don't you go do that? Maybe they'll
(14:18):
put it on radio. I agreed to a debate with
Joe Biden, but I want to debate her. They have
the same policies. I think debating is important for a
presidential race. I'm only seventy eight and a half years old.
My name is Elmer j FID millionaire. I own a
mansion in a yacht I was suggested to this crazy
old man that he take whatever terms he can get
(14:39):
in a debate, because it may shortly be clear, even
to him in his adult state of mind, that his
only chance is if she bothers to debate him. Now
happily in the background, it's not like the Republican rank
and file is panicking or anything. From Politico. House Republican
(15:03):
leaders told law makers to focus on criticizing Harris's record
without reference to her race and gender, following caustic remarks
from some Republicans attacking her on the basis of identity.
One hundred percent is some right. During a closed door
meeting yesterday, chair of the House GOP campaign arm Richard
(15:26):
Hudson and others issued the warning after a series of
comments by their members that focused on Harris's race, as
well as claims she is a quote DEI pick. According
to two people in the room, Speaker of the House
Mike Johnson, who is really dumb. This should not be
about personalities. It should be about policy. And we have
(15:48):
a record to compare DEI. You're trying to get them
to not say DEI. I mean, what is it. It's
a week since the Trump crony Sebastian Gorka called Kamala
Harris quote colored unquote, and you're trying to stop them
from saying DEI. You are telling your collection of white
(16:10):
supremacist morons not to call her DEI. Well, guess what,
here's a shock. They're not listening to you, Richard Hudson,
Mike Johnson. They're listening to Sebastian Gorka. This is Harriet Hageman,
who primaried and beat Liz Cheney and who is as
widely noted. Well, maybe also George Santos. When George Santos
(16:41):
is dressed up as Katara Ravasche dead ringers, they're dead
ringers for one another. Also, as you listen to Harriet
George Katara Ravasch Santos Hagman to get the full flavor
of the thing of what she means. Imagine at the
end that she does not say DEI, but what she
(17:02):
and the others really want to say, that she's saying
the N word.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Well, I think she's one of the weakest candidates I've
ever seen in the history of our country. I mean, intellectually,
just really kind of the bottom of the barrel. I
think she was a DEI higher and I think that
that's what we're seeing. And I just don't think that
they have anybody else. I just think that they're in
real disarray.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Whoo, one of them is going to do it. I
predicted it yesterday, before the end of the month. Somebody's
going to use an actual racial epithet. They're not going
to stop at DEI. We can't call her DEI? Oh
how about this other word here that starts with it? No? No, no, no, no, no.
How about these initials JD? Can we call her a JD? Oh?
(17:44):
My goodness, is there JD? Vance Buyer's remorse on the
Republican side of the ball. I can't tell if he's
inflated or stuffed or both. He's not making a good impression. Also,
there's the little matter of CNN breaking the story that
he repeatedly indicated in twenty sixteen that he believed Donald
Trump had committed sexual assault. CNN reported that Vance appeared
(18:08):
on an MSNBC segment in October that year on Trump's
alleged misconduct sexual misconduct, in which an interview with Jessica Leads,
who accused Trump of groping and forcibly kissing her during
a flight in the nineteen seventies. The tape was played,
Vance said it was hard to believe Trump's denials. Quote
at a fundamental level, this is sort of a he said,
(18:30):
She said, right, And at the end of the day,
Trump's vice presidential nominee JD. Vance said, do you believe
Donald Trump, who always tells the truth just kidding? Or
do you believe that woman on the tape? Can they
have another convention since that last convention went so so
well for them and picked somebody else? Anybody else? Anybody
(18:54):
know where Mike Pence is at the moment. Hello, I'm
(19:21):
Vice President Mike Pence for the Trump Pence twenty twenty
four campaign. I know, I know you're asking why one
more item here? Trump and the Magic Bullet this is
finally sneaking into the mainstream again. A CNN piece not
on the air on the website, Sanjay Gupta writes, although
(19:43):
the images we've seen of Trump since his attempted assassination
have been those of a person who was barely injured
and is now in high spirits, what we've been told
by the campaign offers very little insight into the former
president's condition, what kind of care he received, or how
his medical team will monitor him in the days and
weeks ahead. Oh really, I hadn't noticed this. A full
(20:05):
public assessment of Trump's injuries is necessary for both the
former president's own health yeah okay, and the clarity it
can provide for voters about the recovery of the man
who could become president of the United States once again.
The concern is that gunshot blasts near the head can
cause injuries that aren't immediably noticeable, such as bleeding in
or on the brain, damage to the inner ear, or
(20:28):
even psychological trauma. His head is not big enough to
contain any more psychological trauma. This has to be it.
He is already the craziest man in public discourse in
the United States, certainly North America, probably the entire hemisphere. Oh,
he might have a little bit more psychological trauma. Well,
(20:50):
then he'll be an axe murderer by the end of
the week. As a trauma neurosurgeon, I have seen how
a thorough evaluation after any kind of gunshot wound can
provide a complete picture and lead to a speedier recovery.
Sonjay's spoiler alert, it wasn't a bullet, bottle cap, piece
(21:13):
of plastic, possibly a very old hard gum ball. Why
are they keeping this a secret because they can't face
the idea one particular aspect apart from the martyrdom, apart
from the he can stop a bullet with his bare ear,
apart from the he took a bullet from democracy, all
(21:36):
of these lines that would instantly vanish if there were
in fact, open proof that he was hit by some
sort of debris, even though to you and I they
tried to kill him and he got hit by something
and it opened up a wound on his ear, and
if he just played it straight, we couldn't have said
anything about it. We couldn't have mocked him for it.
We couldn't have accused him of exaggerating it. We couldn't
(21:57):
have used it against him, And here he has created
this entire situation simply by not telling the truth. If
people shoot at you and you are running for president
of the United States, and other people get killed and
wounded because of those bullets, and you get hit by
some sort of essentially improvised shrapnel, that counts. That was
an assassination attempt. That was an assassination attempt by gun.
(22:24):
That counts. But they can't let it happen that way
because of one line that would result the idea that
when Trump dived under that podium, he was diving to
get out of the way of a bottle cap. They
cannot face the idea that Trump would have had to
(22:44):
dive under the podium unless it was a bullet. What
if it wasn't a lethal threat to him? What if
it had hit him in the back of the head,
whatever it was, and it wasn't a bullet. Even if
the other bullet in that photograph whizzed right past him
and didn't strike him, and he got hit by some
sort of debris struck somewhere along the way, buy that
(23:05):
bullet or some other bullet. We don't see the difference.
They are living and dying over it. It could become
something that would do as much damage to the Trump
campaign as Kamala Harris is doing to the Trump campaign.
And I'll explain to you again from my personal experience
where this comes from, in this kind of reptile mind
(23:27):
that is at the back of every Republican candidate and voter.
In September of two thousand and six, I received a
package of fake anthrax in my mail at home. From
the beginning, it was obvious it was fake anthrax, except
what if it wasn't. I knew, because I happened to
(23:49):
be at that moment on antibiotics, that I was not
going to get anthrax, let alone die from it. But
the building was full of ninety three year old ladies.
What if the one in a billion chants were true
that it was anthrax, and so somehow somebody dealing with
anthrax who did not kill themselves while dealing with anthrax,
(24:09):
managed to put anthrax in the mail to me. What
if that happened and the ninety three year old ladies
all got it and died, which is exactly the scenario
that took place in the actual anthrax attacks. After nine
to eleven in the early winter of two thousand and one,
including one at the Rupert Murdoch paper the New York Post,
(24:32):
but because it was not actually anthrax, and when I
called the Department of Homeland Security, and a wonderful exhibition
of your tax dollars in action was played out in
front of me as has Matt suit after has Matt's
suit marched through my apartment and the departments adjoining, and
they finally ordered me into the ambulance at threat of arrest,
(24:55):
to spend the night being checked for anthrax just in case,
on the same premise that I had called them just
in case. After that was leaked the New York Post,
when the FBI asked me not to report it so
they could get a head start on finding the guy
who did it, and ultimately they did. As I have
described here in previous episodes, this fake anthrax attack was
(25:18):
very much a terrorist act, and the man who did
it and sent similar packages to others and ultimately sent
me four different packages of fake anthrax went to prison.
I believe it was for three years. I think he
still has a parole officer or at least a probation officer,
and he literally lived in his mother's basement in southern
California and thought the two most beautiful women in the
(25:39):
world were Laura Ingram and culture. But what was the
reaction to this? This was exactly what The New York Post,
when it was leaked to them wrote, MSNBC. Oh the
headline powder puff spooks Keith, not something about how taking
precaution here MSNBC loudmouth Keith Alderman flipped out when he
(26:03):
opened his home yesterday. The acerbic cob was terrified when
he opened a suspicious looking letter with a California postmark
and a batch of white powder poured out a note inside.
Warrened Olderman, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies,
that it was payback for some of his on air stick.
The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called nine to one
(26:27):
one at about twelve thirty am. Sources told the post's
Philip Messing himself? Is that Philip Messing? That's Philip Messing himself.
An NYPD has Matt Unit rushed to Olberman's pad, but
preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However,
that wasn't enough to satisfy Olberman, who insisted on a checkup,
(26:50):
as I pointed out, no, I said, why do you
have to Why do I have to go to the
hospital all night just in case? Okay, what if I don't,
we'll arrest you under public health charges. He asked to
be taken to Saint Luke's Hospital, where looked him over
and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop
on the way out is it known? Alderman had no comment.
(27:11):
Imagine the right wing media having to deal with the
reality that Donald Trump was not hit by a bullet,
but was hit by I don't know, fake anthrax, harmless
soap powder, a lollipop, debris from an assassin's bullet is
not to them the same as an assassin's bullet. Ultimately,
(27:37):
this christ like act by Trump taking a bullet for
democracy suddenly that turns into powder puff spooks Trump and
that's why they are doing this and why Trump continues
to hide the real story of how his ear got
(28:03):
nearly fail scratched. Don't you say it wasn't real. Don't
you say it wasn't a real bullet. He didn't just
he didn't dive and hide under that lectern because he
(28:23):
was a bullet he was almost dead. In fact, his
head came off. I saw him put his head back on.
He stitched it himself. He's Jesus. But let us not
get lost in the conservative weeds. Kamala Harris, first full
day on the camp. For first full day on the campaign,
thrown in at the last minute. The award winning actor
(28:48):
can't perform. You have to go on. A star is born,
starring Kamala Harris, first day out of the box with
an epic speech, a declaration of war on Trump in
said speech, millions more in don nations and of course
ahead in the Reuter's poll, a point back in the
(29:09):
Georgia poll. Approval poll number is seventeen points better than Trump.
To start with, polling, polling, polling, polling pole Oh wait, wait, wait,
wait wait, oh, Nancy, the same melody, different lyrics, polland
(29:32):
polland poll in. Keep those numbers rolling, get them margin swollen,
vice press day three ONSU already kicking drop. He wants
to see the manager and soon two points the top
of the match up. Now make sure he don't catch up.
(29:53):
Remember don vote for the old guy. I can Nancy
fast theme from ra Hind also of interest here. So
another Republican elected official has threatened civil war, only this
one tried to take it back, and he says we
(30:15):
all need to watch our words. Dude, you said that
if you didn't get your way and the Republicans did
not win the election, you would start a civil war
with your little guns. The government has all the tanks
and the jets, and the government the governments. The government's
(30:40):
run by Democrats. We all need to watch our words. Bullshit, dude,
you need to watch your words. That's next. This is countdown.
This is countdown, with Keith Olberman still ahead of us.
(31:18):
On this edition of Countdown, I slammed Aaron Sorkin yesterday
for his classic and perfectly timed New York Times op
ed Sunday morning that yes, Joe Biden should step aside
to be replaced by Mitt Romney. I mentioned that Aaron
Sorkin had, over the years, gone from being a friend
(31:38):
who I admired and who apparently admired me, to a
guy who admired me too much and started borrowing stuff
from me, like my career, all the stories in it
for free. If you don't know that story, let me
tell you of the day I heard my own father's
favorite phrase come out of the mouth of Aaron Sorkin's
(32:01):
lead character in Things I Promised Not to Tell First.
There are still more new idiots to talk about. The
daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today worst persons in the world.
The Bronze Valentina Gomez, the twenty five year old Colombian
(32:24):
born anti immigration candidate for Secretary of State in Missouri.
Anti immigration because of course she is. She's here already.
Why do we need other immigrants? Valentina does videos, usually
with weapons, and she's often seen wearing a size seven
Maga hat, even though her head seems to be about
(32:45):
a four. Recently, this Gomez attacked Missouri State Senator Barbara Pheiffer,
who has a trans grandchild. As they reported, the tension
escalated when Gomez launched a personal attack on Pfeiffer via
social media. You have a trans grandchild, she wrote, that
means you raised a r you failed your children, and
(33:06):
they failed your grandchildren. Also, you're irrelevant and you belong
in a nursing home. Pfeiffer is and has been for
forty years, a Methodist minister. Her response it's concerning anytime
a person attacks a child. Attacks on children have no
place anywhere on anything. Miss Gomez has not been listening.
(33:29):
There's another video of her burning LGBTQ themed books with
a flamethrower. There's another one in which she urged voters
not to be quote weak and gay. And now she
has filmed a campaign ad on the balcony of the
Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Capitol in Washington,
where campaign politics is explicitly prohibited by law and by custom.
(33:55):
In it, she says something. Miss Gomez has a fairly
standard Colombian sibilant s. So all I ever hear is
I'm Valentina and I'm seeking the office of Secretary of State.
She's not likely to be in trouble, even though the
video boasts about how they don't like her on the
(34:16):
speaker's balcony and says she's on the speaker's balcony, and
then she shows a picture of herself with an AR fifteen.
Of course, but if somebody wants to file an ethics
complaint about Speaker Mike Johnson for letting his speaker's balcony
be used illegally, well, you know, try to find him,
(34:37):
you should first look in a church where he will
be pretending to pray. Above that new video shot on
the speaker's balcony, Miss Gomez claims she's quote on fire
with the truth. Now I'm going to need to see
that video to confirm that optimistic statement. Run her up.
(34:59):
And once again, if you think National Republicans are idiots
and psychotics, you really haven't taken a good look at
the people they have elected at the state and even
the city level. The runner up worser George Lang, Ohio
state Senator, who now says he regrets the divisive remarks
he made in the excitement of the moment on stage,
(35:22):
especially in light of the assassination attempt of President Trump
last week, We should all be mindful of what is
said at political events. Myself included what did he say?
I'll play it for you in a moment. First, I'd
like to point out that he's an Ohio State senator.
He got the office, he was appointed to it. His
background he was on the zoning board for Westchester Township
(35:46):
and he was a trustee there for fourteen years. And
he used to work at Procter and Gamble. And it
says quote Lang is a member of the Boy Scouts
of America. What did he say own nothing at a
JD Vance rally. He simply threatened civil war if he
doesn't get what he and the other white folk want.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Trump and Butler County's JD vans are the last chance
to save our country politically. I'm afraid if we lose
this one, it's going to take a civil war to
save the country.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
And it will be saved.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
It's the greatest experiment in the history of mankind.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And if we come down.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
To a civil war, I'm glad we got people like
Schmidy and the Bikers for Trump on our side.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I regret the divisive remarks I made in it. We
should all be mindful, dude. You should be mindful of
the fact that if you try to start a civil war,
you guys keep forgetting who has all the tanks and bombs.
I'm a glad an AR fifteen. Anybody see it. Yeah,
it's over there in that pile of AR fifteen from
(36:54):
all the guys who were captured. But I but my
Second Amendment rights you going to jail for the rest
of your life now. Also, you lost Civil War two.
It took an hour and a half and it was
entirely confined to Westchester, Ohio. But our winners the New
York Post and Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who led
(37:17):
the charge yesterday, the attempt to kill former President Jimmy
Carter yesterday. This is a screenshot, apparently of a Google
search of an article that The New York Post posted
and then quickly got rid of. And it has the
Post logo. We believe it's accurate, and it has the
headline former President Jimmy Carter dead at ninety nine New
(37:37):
York Post, which isn't true. He's not dead, but the
synopsis reads today Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who
became the thirty ninth President of the United States during
a time of gas shortages, Cold War drama and ellipses.
That's as much as they could get into the Google search.
Then they killed it. The New York Posts post it first,
(37:59):
try to find out if it's real later or not
at all. New York Post, which, if it were required
to make a profit rather than simply massage Rupert Murdoch's ego,
i e. His balls, it would have gone out of
business in nineteen ninety four. Rupert Murdoch and The New
York Post. If you ever read something in The New
(38:21):
York Post it sounds too good to be true, or
too bad to be true, or simply badly written, you
know it's not the truth because it's in the New
York Post. And all the good people who work for
the New York Posts say, in the sports department, you
are contributing to Rupert Murdoch's attempt to destroy the United
States of America. I got into a long argument once
(38:41):
with a Post sports writer who says, you're harming my business,
and I said, your business is predicated on putting the
United States out of business. It's not my department. It
doesn't matter if it's not your department. The line for
you to get into hell with the other Rupert Murdoch
employees is not going to discriminate between those who worked
(39:04):
in sports and those who worked in killing Jimmy Carter
in the paper. And by the way, the Post is
not the worst. It's only tied for the worst because
the worst is Mike Lee, possibly the dumbest man ever
to serve in government, including that Lang guy from Ohio.
The reason the Post posted what it apparently did, and
(39:24):
what Mike Lee posted was there was a letter with
a faked heading on it office of Jimmy Carter, dated
yesterday's date, and Mike Lee simply copied it, pasted it,
and posted it on Twitter X. Mike Lee at based
Mike Lee former President Jimmy Carter has died. Mike Lee said, well,
(39:47):
if Mike Lee says it, you know it's not true.
It's not true. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
I'll mention this in the Reuter's article about this disaster
by Mike Lee and The New York Post. In response
to a request for comment, the owner of the account
took credit for creating the fake Jimmy Carter letter, telling
(40:09):
Reuters in a direct message, I created it last that
would be Monday night. The amount of misinformation which spread
throughout the weekend surrounding the state of President Biden's health
was maddening. I wanted to prove that many people on
X often spread sensationalist news and headlines without fact checking
or double checking the source content. You think the rest
(40:33):
of this stuff After the initial former President Jimmy Carter
James Earl of Carter Junior aka passionate, champion of human rights, democracy,
World War Two, veteran blah blah blah. With family by
his side, President Carter did this foreign policy ecomma. That's
the second paragraph, third of a Domestically President carter achievement
included installing solar panels on the White House blah blah
blah blah blah the fourth one. Despite these successes as president,
(40:57):
now you think you would have read some of this,
or somebody would have read some of this. No, he's
Mike Lee. He has the IQ of a fish and
not a brightfish. Despite these successes as president all his life,
President Carter considered his marriage to former First Lady Rosalind
Carter his life's greatest achievement. At her passing last November,
(41:19):
President Carter said Roseland was a battie. Jill Milania, even
throat goat Nancy Reagan had nothing on Rosalind. She was
the original brat. She gave me wise, guidance and encouragement
when I needed it. As long as Rosalind was in
the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.
(41:41):
They were married for seventy seven years. That the question
of the quote in here about calling her a baddie
or referring to Nancy Reagan as throat goat. That didn't
get anybody's attention, That didn't send up a red flag.
What was trueth in nineteen ninety nine is trueth today?
(42:03):
No one hath read it the link, No one clickth,
no one readeth the New York Post. It's Murdoch, of
course it's wrong, and Mike, but the quoted here from
Carter's scholar, Oh wah tunas I am. That means it's true,
right Lee, two days worse persons, Jimmy Carter is not
(42:28):
dead in the world. Finally our number one story in
the countdown things I promised not to tell And back
to my favorite topic me. I heard Jeff Daniels say
(42:52):
the words, and in the next minute my cell phone rang.
It was an ex girlfriend. While we were talking, an
email arrived from another ex girlfriend, and then in came
a text from the current girlfriend at her folks house,
and two more emails, and before I was off the
phone to voicemails, and then regular friends started to contact me.
This is just over ten years ago now. It was Sunday,
(43:14):
August fifth, twenty twelve. Jeff Daniels was playing the controversial
newscaster and commentator on Aaron Sorkin's HBO series Newsroom, which
was based structurally on Me and Countdown. And I know
this because Aaron Sorkin told me so before he filmed
any of it. And I know this because he asked
(43:35):
me if he could base the pilot episode on what
happened to me at MSNBC in the spring and summer
of twenty ten. And I know this because he came
in and shadowed the staff of Countdown for two days
to get the feel for the place. And I know
this because he wound up basing one character, Maggie Jordan,
on my assistant, Margaret Judson, and then hiring Margaret Judson
(43:57):
as a consultant, and then hiring her as an actress
to play a part that wasn't supposed to be her.
And I know this because he was He's furious when
I would not fly to Denver. I think it was
to do a cameo in the pilot. And I know
this because he said he was hiring me as a consultant.
And I know this because I never saw a dime
out of it. This was the second time Aaron Sorkin
(44:19):
had based one of his TV series on one of
my TV series. The other was called Sports Night, and
Esquire magazine once asked me to interview Sorkin about Sports Night,
and I asked him the real tough question, what was
the origin of Sports Night? And his answer was, quote,
you are the origin. So when The New York Times
(44:40):
had called me about Newsroom, I lightheartedly said it was
nice to know in advance this time that Aaron Sorkin
was making a TV series about me. Sorkin did not
like this at all, and he told all his actors
to tell all their interviewers that this was not true.
And I know that because Jeff Daniels told me that
that was what Sorkin had told him. Sorkin is interesting.
(45:03):
I had known him him for about ten or twelve
years when he came in to countdown to see what
it looked and felt like, and he was twenty minutes late.
And my assistant Margaret after whom he named Maggie Jordan,
whom he then hired away from me, and whom he
finally hired as an actress to play Tess Weston, and
she was great. By the way. Margaret brings him in
and he apologizes for being late, and he says, he's
(45:25):
staying in a hotel two blocks away and he should
have just walked, but instead he got in a car,
and the next thing he knew, he was six blocks away,
caught in traffic caused by the complete shutdown of one
of the crosstown streets for midday construction. And I laughed,
and I said, well, like my late father, the architect,
used to say, New York, it'll be a great town
(45:45):
whenever they finish it. And he laughed, and I laughed.
And two years later, in the seventh episode of the
HBO Newsroom series, first aired on August fifth, twenty twelve,
and re aired throughout the week, Jeff Daniels as the anchorman,
Will McAvoy, who wasn't me but actually kind of was me,
is late to his newsroom because he gets caught in
(46:07):
Manhattan traffic caused by Sunday night street construction, and he
says to his exasperated producer, new York, it'll be a
great town whenever they finish it. That's when my phone
and email blew up. And the then girlfriend, and like
forty percent of all of my exes ever, all had
the same question, New York, It'll be a great town
(46:29):
whenever they finish it. Isn't that what your dad used
to say? Even the ones who never met my dad
knew this because I used to quote him constantly, because
the real humor in the quote is the fact that
my dad was an architect and construction was his business.
New York, It'll be a great town whenever they finish it.
And then one of the last of the exes reached out.
(46:51):
She waited until the show was over. Now, I don't
think any of us is proud of this, but she
had also dated Sorkin once or twice, and since she
had written celebrity stories for a New York newspaper, he
had later asked her by email what the world of
gossip reporting was like, and she told him by email.
And what she now told me made Aaron Sorkin's use
(47:14):
of my dad's quote and other parts of my life
seem like possible coincidences. She said she was watching the third,
maybe fourth episode of Newsroom and in walked a new character,
a gossip columnist, a woman, and the first sentence the
character said was my friend, and X said word for
word something she had sent to Sorkin in one of
(47:36):
the emails about the gossip business. She said when she
heard it, her face started to get read, and it
would keep getting reader. The gossip columnist character's second line
had also been cut and pasted from my ex's email,
then her long speech, then all of her dialogue. She
said in her second scene. My ex actually managed to
record that episode and to find her own email to
(47:57):
Sorkin and to compare them, and she said, other than
changing a couple of tenses, he had used her answers verbatim.
I met the actor Josh Charles during the two thousand
World Series. I was there anchoring it for Fox Sports.
Josh was there promoting his new show on Fox. Josh
had played Dan Rydell on Sorkin's Sports Night series, and
(48:19):
even Sorkin and I agree, dan Rydell is just me
with a different haircut. I was walking up Sixth Avenue
one day in October two thousand and from several blocks away,
I saw Josh Charles walking towards me, so I had
several minutes to prepare what I could say to him.
This was not spontaneous, sadly, but after our eyes met
(48:41):
and I smiled, and he gave me that, yes, I'm
on TV, look that I recognize and have myself deployed.
He switched suddenly to shock and even a little apprehension,
and I said the line I had been rehearsing in
my head for several minutes. Excuse me. You don't get
to say this often in life, But didn't you use
to play me on TV? Right there on sixth? That
(49:04):
and you? Josh told me about the ordeal of working
with and for Aaron Sorkin, and I thought he just
meant for actors, but I later found out because New York,
it'll be a great time whenever they finish it. Josh
and I are still friends. We've gone to ballgames together.
We were in a fantasy baseball league together. And one
night on my ESPN two show, we came back from commercial,
(49:25):
giving the audience no warning or explanation, and we simply
started co anchoring the show and calling it Sports Night
and making references to the program and to newsroom. And
then he said, why did we keep reading this? And
I said, I don't know. I just assumed Sorkin had
run out of new ideas. The mutual laughter that followed
was sincere. There is one more punchline to the newsroom
(49:49):
Sorkin story because I was like his seventh guest ever.
When Stephen Colbert wrapped up the Colbert Report on Comedy Central,
I was invited to be on the final farewell episode,
me and like ninety nine other people. There were so
many of us, ranging from Barrymanilow to Brian Cranston to
Big Bird, that they had like nine green rooms in
(50:12):
the Comedy Central building. And I get there and they
send me to the green room I would be sharing
with several other people, and I'd trudge up a bunch
of stairs to the top floor and in this big
room there is only one other performer there yet it's
Jeff Daniels. Without saying hello, he says, now, wait, let
me explain. Sorkin told me, and I explained, and then
(50:33):
he explained, and then I explained some more, and Jeff said,
oh a lot, and once he said oops, and Sorkin
didn't tell me that. And after about three minutes he said,
so I owe you an apology, and I said, no,
you don't, it's not your fault. And he smiled and
he said, well great, I'm glad. So can we take
(50:55):
a picture together that I can put out on Twitter,
and I said, yeah, absolutely, but only if you capture
it New York. It'll be a great town. Whenever they
finish it. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(51:20):
Thank you for listening. Count On musical directors Brian Ray
and John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums,
and mister Shanale handled the orchestration and the keyboards, and
it was produced by Tko Brothers. Another music, including some
of the Beethoven, arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Alderman theme from
(51:42):
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc.
At this rate, I should just play it for you
so you remember what it sounds like. Our satirical and
pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball
stadium organist ever and now my accompany ist. My announcer
today was my friend Larry David, who does not accompany
(52:03):
me anywhere. Everything else was freeing launch my fault. That's
countdown for this the one hundred and fifth day until
the twenty twenty four presidential election. The two hundred and
ninety fourth day since convicted fellon Donald J. Trump. I
want to see the manager's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the September
(52:25):
eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the mental health system. You've got it,
President Biden. Use presidential immunity to stop him from doing
it again while we still can. And Republicans please stop
shooting at Trump. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins
(52:46):
as the news requires. Till then, I'm Keith Oldroman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Poll in Poland, Poland,
(53:07):
keep those numbers rolling, get them margin swollen, Vice press
day three on the stuff already kicking jump. He wants
to see the manager and soon two points atop the matchup.
Now make sure he don't catch up. Remember, don't vote
(53:28):
for the old guy. Fink. A Nancy Faust Countdown with
Keith Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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