August 7, 2023 • 46 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 7: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: If she won't revoke his pre-trial release, Judge Upadhyaya must at least bring Donald Trump into court and issue a gag order against him on social media and in public and warn him that if he threatens the judges again, or the prosecutors again, or witnesses again, or the court again, or the department of justice again, or the president again - or as he has done in the three days after she warned him to do none of those things, threaten ALL of them - she will incarcerate him. Nothing else will make the point to him, and whatever the results are, that's fine. Scott Adams hinting at civil war and sharpening 50,000 sketch pencils is fine. These blood-lusting fascists forget who owns all the tanks at the moment. Also: of COURSE Trump has hired another idiot as a lawyer. His defense for the January 6th indictments is that he was idiotically following the idiot advice of an idiot lawyer in John Eastman. Naturally he's going to bring in a new guy who said something so stupid yesterday he invoked Jeffrey Tambor in "Arrested Development" saying he might have committed some light treason.
B-Block (20:48) IN SPORTS: USA-hating conservatives exult in Soccer team's loss in World Cup because...they are lost souls. For the first time all year the words "Tim Anderson" and "Hit" are used in the same sentence. And Robin Ventura is now the happiest man in sports. And the Mets are going to run the table, aren't they? O-57, right? (28:44) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: New York Times continues to think it can gain conservative readers by pandering; Vivek Ramaswamy was for Juneteenth before he was against it, and you'll never believe who didn't show up for the House Committee's interview with Hunter Biden's old biz partner.
C-Block (35:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: ESPN Radio will now by run by non-ESPN people, which flashes me back to the day we launched it in 1992 and THAT flashes me back to WHY I happened to meet the wonderful actress Elizabeth Montgomery.
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. Lock
him up, or at least bring him downtown. Go big.
(00:27):
Judge Maxilla Appa DII, get Trump's legal team's response to
the government demand for evidentiary protection after this weekend orgy
of Trump attacks. Say that response is insufficient. Announce you
need an in person hearing with Trump rule the defendant
clearly did not understand the terms of his release, and
(00:48):
drag him back into court tomorrow, saying you need to
state these terms to him again, warn him explicitly. Any
more of this, One more social media post, one more
reference in a speech, and you, sir, will find that
your liberty is at an end. Do it. Do it now,
(01:10):
because this is not somehow just going to end here.
Since the judge released him and warned him, he has
attacked the judge. He has attacked the prosecutor. He has
attacked at least one of the witnesses. He has attacked
the venue. He has attacked the government. He has attacked
the US World Cup soccer team. This took only the
(01:32):
three days after the judge warned him not to do
any of that, except the soccer part. When Trump's latest
I was only relying on the bad advice of bad
counsel submits his response to the government's demand for an
order protecting the evidence from Trump's compulsion to violate all
laws and intimidate all authority. When she gets that response,
(01:55):
which was due by five pm Eastern Monday, Judge Appadi
should not only grant the motion, she needs to jump
right to the inevitable end of this process. Donald Trump
is a menace to everyone involved in this his newest indictment.
He is a clear and present danger to everyone in
(02:16):
the United States, and based on the wounded, dying animal
look that was so unmistakable in his eyes during his
speech at Montgomery Saturday night, he might even be a
danger to himself and those around him. He is testing
the judge to see how much he can get away with,
and the answer to that should be nothing. Lock him up,
(02:43):
revoke his pre trial release, or come within an inch
of it. Trump has never been stopped in his tracks
before and is not automatically capable of understanding the concept
of a warning. To him, a warning is weakness, vulnerability,
and invitation to push harder in the same spot or
find a new spot to put. This is a psychopath
(03:07):
who docksed his predecessor as president. In the full bloom
of his madness, he is now dancing along the precipice
of issuing more and more calls for violence with less
and less subtlety and more and more directness to them.
The look in his eyes in Alabama implied that perhaps
(03:28):
he already feels he has no reason not to test
just the judge's limits right now, but to test America's.
There is in fact a theory abroad. And though I
have covered this madness virtually every day for eight years,
I still find myself shocked to even contemplate saying this.
That the attacks that began at four sixteen pm Friday
(03:49):
with if you go after me, I'm coming after you,
are not just the continuation of his messianic insanity that
began frankly in nineteen forty six, but a deliberate attempt
to get his pre trial release revoked and get himself
detained in some way so as to trigger his cult
(04:09):
into actual violence. It's useful for Democrats to understand that
if Trump spends a minute in jail on bullshit charges,
writes the racist cartoonist Scott Adams, all the rules are suspended.
We're a safer country. With that clear understanding, that sentence
(04:31):
might define the genuine menace of the fascist dream of insurrection.
Oh no, Dilbert is going to draw a civil war,
And it may underscore that their years of fantasized bloodshed
neglects the reality that maybe they are all armed, but
they have forgotten who is in control of all the
(04:51):
tanks and soldiers at the moment. There can be no
doubt that Trump ultimately does expect his America to again
rise up violently in his defense at some point it
did before. The questions are if this is that point,
and if it is, if he could really think so
strategically as to trap a judge into lighting the fuse
(05:15):
for him that only increases the number of middlemen in
this process. Just when you are inclined to think there
might finally be such a method to his madness, he
follows up a weekend of thinly veiled threats by blaming
the US loss in the World Cup on Joe Biden
and writes, nice shot, Meghan. And unless Meghan Rapino is
(05:38):
a witness against him, you are forced to remember Occam's
razor and how it applies even to Donald Trump. Sure
this is what you might do if you wanted to
definitely position others to cry havoc and let slip the
dogs of war. But this is also what you would
do if you were one hundred percent bat guano insane
(05:58):
like Donald Trump. Because whatever the explanation and whether or
not Scott Adams as an arsenal ready of fifty thousand
sketch pencils sharpened to spear like points in all colors,
Trump has still made those threats and they must be
dealt with severely and immediately. In the I'm coming after
(06:22):
you post, he threatened everybody, from his critics to Joe Biden.
In the Alabama speech, he told Republicans they could not
allow this to go on and they had to quote
fight fire with fire. In South Carolina and on social media,
he called Special Counsel Smith deranged and a sick man. Again.
On Sunday morning, he repeated the Smith attack on social
(06:44):
media and misspelled Joe Biden's name in the process. Ten
minutes later, he not only attacked Judge Chutkin by posting
that she was incapable of presiding over a fair trial,
but also alleged that she will knowingly preside over that trial,
even though she knows she cannot be fair. And just
to top it off, he declared Washington a filthy and
(07:06):
crime ridden embarrassment to our nation, even though crime has
dropped because he left town. And in the same sentence,
he declared that he should get a change of venue
because he has declared it a filthy and crime ridden embarrassment,
with the implication that everybody there is now mad at him.
Were this defendant anybody else in this country, he would
(07:30):
have been in jail before Saturday morning. A Twitch streamer
named Kai Sinnat promised his followers video consoles. On Friday,
they swarmed New York's Union Square several thousand. They damaged
some property, they threw some things, but practically speaking, the
worst thing that happened was that a lot of subway
trains skipped the stop and the Friday commute home was disturbed. Sinnat,
(07:56):
a twenty one year old moron, was immediately charged with
first degree felony, rioting, inciting a riot, and unlawful assembled,
and he now faces ten years in prison. He is
actually in more trouble right now than he is Donald Trump,
and the comparison of their crimes is not arbitrary. Trump
(08:16):
committed more offenses than kay Sinnat did this weekend, just
in New York City, as was the case when Judge
APADII let him walk out of the Prettyman court House
last Thursday. When Judge Juan Marshan let Trump walk out
of the New York City Courthouse in April with the
understanding that he must not commit any new crimes, yet
(08:37):
he spent the weekend criminally threatening everybody involved in the
federal case except the courtroom sketch artists. Moreover, Judge Mayrshan
asked Trump to quote refrain from making comments or engaging
in conduct that has the potential to incite violence, create
civil unrest, or jeopardize the safety or well being of
(09:00):
any individuals, and to not engage in words or conduct
which jeopardized this is the rule of law. Judge Marshan
was adamant that this was a request and not an order,
and Justice adamant that if Trump ignored the request, he
the judge would take a closer look at making it
an order. Exactly, how is if you go after me,
(09:21):
I'm coming after you, not words or conduct which jeopardizes
the rule of law. As such, it is incumbent on
Judge Marchan to at least do what he warned Trump
he would do and go for a move to order
Trump's silence. And so Judge Appadilla needs to go further
even than Jacksmith's office has requested, if she will not
(09:43):
detain Trump, and regrettably I can't imagine she actually would.
Nobody seems to be willing to draw the line in
the sand anywhere here. Everybody, even Smith, seems to believe
Trump is capable of processing a warning, which he is not.
If the judge will not put him away for observing
the pre trial release for exactly twenty four and then
(10:05):
devising as many ways humanly possible to violate it, at minimum,
she must set stringent restrictions on Trump in person, a
gag order, a no social media order, some extraordinary measure
against Trump that carries with it that explicit warning. The
one loophole in Trump's release on recognissance last Thursday was
(10:27):
that it did not carry an advisory that even a
five year old child or a Donald Trump could understand. Ideally,
whatever the judge does now, she should demand Trump's personal
appearance at any hearing in whatever way she chooses to
warn him. It should be something conveying that this is
(10:48):
his final warning. If you do it again, you will
be going to jail. Do you understand me, I'll ask
it again. Do you understand you will go to jail.
You need something like a big sign to hang around
his lawyer and his neck, reading this is your final warning.
(11:11):
If you do it again, you will be going to jail.
Make the sign that cheap gold spray paint color he loves.
He seems to recognize that he covers his buildings with
it and his hair. A note about Trump's lawyers, Bill
(11:36):
Barr said yesterday that of course he'd testify against Trump,
and it would seem inescapable. If your defense for insurrection
and an extra constitutional assault on democracy is John Eastman
did it. I'm guilty of nothing. I was acting on
the advice of counsel. I had the worst counsel in
(11:57):
the world. I am an idiot. If that's your defense,
then the next time you hire a lawyer, if you
are planning head, you are going to hire the next
worst council in the world. And I'd like to sincerely
congratulate Trump on finding him last Thursday night. This John
Laurow went on Newsmax, and not only confessed on his
(12:20):
client's behalf confessed Trump did ask Mike Pence to cause
the electoral vote count to be paused for ten days,
which is one of the charges against Trump under eighteen
US Code one five one two obstructing an official proceeding.
But yesterday John Lauraw went on NBC and said the
only thing Trump did before January sixth was quote, a
(12:42):
technical violation of the constitution, and that a technical violation
of the constitution quote is not a violation of criminal law.
The joke occurred to a lot of us simultaneously, my
friend Jeffrey Tambour saying in arrested development, there's a good
chance I may have committed some light tree and Trump's
(13:07):
light treason was all fine, according to John Laurrow, even
though at the time he committed these acts that his
attorney confessed to on national television, Trump was the government
official most responsible to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.
This was all fine because, as mister Laurow added, what
he didn't do is, you know, send in the tanks. Wow,
(13:30):
thanks mean, Donald. John Laurow is already a legal legend.
It requires a kind of robotic mindlessness, the likes of
which we may never have seen before to do what
he did on Saturday and Sunday. By six pm Friday,
less than two hours after the if you go after me,
I'm coming after you, post, Jack Smith's office had alerted
(13:52):
Judge opah DII and requested that evidentiary protection order. The
judge notified Trump's attorneys they had till five pm Monday
to respond, and Laurow actually had the nerve to ask
that the deadline be pushed to Thursday, and then he
did the proverbial Ginsburg yesterday. So he claimed he did
not have the time to reply to the government's motion,
(14:15):
but he did have the time to go on five
different Sunday morning chat shows. This is a Trump lawyer,
all right. And for some much needed comic relief. Besides
mister Laurel, I bring you Ron DeSantis and the rather
(14:38):
startling realization that he's not quite dead yet, all the
anti Trump movement within the GOP actually needs to get
going to have a chance is for Trump to be
upset or just to squeak by. In one of the
early Republican primaries and the New York Times siena poll
(14:59):
of The earliest primary came out on Friday, just about
the same time. The if you go after me, I'm
coming after you post came out Iowa January fifteenth, and
it's Trump forty three, DeSantis twenty. And that's neither an
upset nor a squeaker, but it does reflect an amazing reality.
Trump's lead in the first primary is about half what
(15:23):
it is nationwide over DeSantis. Moreover, while Trump is seen
as more electable than DeSantis, it's my only nine percent,
and all the favorability rankings in Iowa favored DeSantis. DeSantis
is considered more likable and more moral. And yes, we
(15:45):
are asking people with a death wish if they would
prefer hemlock or cyanide. It's a different world out there
among Iowa Republicans, but there it is in Iowa. Anyway.
Ron DeSantis ain't quite dead. I have no idea why.
I mean, just listen to this this well, the only
(16:10):
word is crap.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I mean I had a guy tell me, like, you know,
in San Francisco, you know, they'll just defecate on the sidewalk,
they use drugs out in public, no problem. And I'm like, really, well,
I happen to be in San Francisco a month or
two ago, and within ten minutes of me being in
the city, I see some guy relieving himself on the
sidewalk with number two. And I mean, it's just I've
never seen things like this before.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
That's called cause and effect, Ron, because you do scare
the number two out of people. Imagine a grown man,
even in high heeled boots, saying number two. Also of
(16:54):
interest here, what if they gave a Devon Archer transcribed
interview and nobody showed up the latest whistle blowing event
in the endless, useless, resultless Republican of Hunter, and thus
Joe Biden turns out like all the others to be
all blow and no whistle. But this one has a
truly unforeseen twist. Guests who didn't bother to even attend
(17:18):
the Devon Archer transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee.
I mean I had to read this three times before
I believed it. That's next, this discountdown. This is countdown
with Keith Olberman. This is sports Senate. Wait, check that
(17:51):
not anymore. This is countdown with Keith Olberman in sports.
Nowhere is the difference between real patriotism and the conditional
kind more easily seen. And then when an American player
or team contends for an international championship, do you remember
anybody rooting against the conservative Bruce Jenner now trumpist bigot
(18:15):
Caitlyn Jenner during the decathlon at the nineteen seventy six Olympics,
Or if you're too young, you ever heard of anybody
having done that? Or against the USA team in the
twenty thirteen World Baseball Classic because conservative Joe Tory was
the manager. Hell, Joe Tory has been one of my
best friends in sports since literally the day I started
in television. And yeah, we've talked politics, liberals. In fact,
(18:40):
most sports fans couldn't give a rats backside about the
political leanings of athletes. Nearly all of us would root
for an American team in the lawnmowing Olympics. But when
the American team was eliminated by Sweden early Sunday morning
in the round of sixteen at the Women's World Cup
of Soccer in Australia, it was a zero zero tie
(19:01):
followed by seven excruciating rounds of penalty kicks which the
US lost five to four, sealed when a Swedish shot
literally crossed the goal line by the absolute minimum amount
required for it to count as a score. Republicans, conservatives,
and other bigots immediately christened it the woke Choke. They
(19:22):
blamed Megan Rapino because American players, per international custom, had
the choice of singing the anthem at the games of
the Cup or standing there respectfully, and Repino stood there
respectfully because well, no, really, because she's gay and has
purple hair, and she missed a penalty kick, as did
(19:44):
two other American players. Therefore, this is all Megan Rapino's fault.
And the Conservatives are gleeful wrapping themselves in the American flag,
except here when they exalted in an American sports defeat.
USA loses, they cheer, And of course, if Americans had won,
(20:05):
the Conservatives would have somehow claimed credit for the victory.
Because they are not Patriots. They are lost. Happiest person
in sports after this past weekend Robin Ventura, the former
star third baseman later manager of the Chicago White Sox,
who only Friday had had to suffer through the thirtieth
anniversary celebrations of the worst decision he ever made in
(20:28):
his life when, on August fourth, nineteen ninety three, the
then forty six year old future Hall of Famer Nolan
Ryan knocked Ventura down with a pitch. Robin charged the mound,
and Nolan Ryan did what pitchers never ever think to do,
which is to stay on the mound and take advantage
of the extra ten inches of height the mound gives you.
(20:52):
Nolan Ryan just stood there, waited for Ventura to climb
the hill. He put Ventura in a headlock and hit
him with a couple of light punches and then let
him go. That video has been shown more than anything
else Robin Venturrea ever did, and it's been shown as
much as anything else Nolan Ryan ever did. Nolan Ryan
threw seven no hitters. So why is Robin Ventura happy today?
(21:15):
Because a day after the thirtieth celebration of that damn
thing Saturday, Robin Ventura was replaced on the list of
the dumbest fight decisions in baseball history, and by another
member of the Chicago White Sox. No less as I
record this, we are still waiting for the discipline on
this one from Major League Baseball. But on Saturday night,
(21:36):
Jose Ramirez of the Cleveland Guardians slid into second base
and into Tim Anderson of the White Sox. No real collision,
no injury, no blood. But when all the Guardians had
been mad at Anderson for rough player around the bag
over two games, and Ramirez reached up his hand, expecting
Anderson to maybe help him to his feet, tim Anderson refused.
(21:58):
Ramirez then stood up, and Anderson promptly dropped his fielders
glove and squared off in a boxing stone an actual
two fists up by your chin boxing stance. Anderson threw
two punches at Ramirez. They both missed. Ramirez took one
swing at Anderson and seemed to hit him kind of
mildly on the cheek, and Anderson dropped like a stone
(22:19):
like Sonny Liston and his one punch lost to Muhammad
Ali in Lewiston, Maine, in nineteen sixty five, and no
one was certain what would happen next. A punch that
was seemingly so light that ever since many have argued
Muhammad Ali never hit Sonny Liston, and Liston had thrown
the fight at the earliest possible opportunity. That's how bad
it looked. Or as Tom Hamilton, the play by play
(22:43):
man of the Cleveland Clinic Guardians Radio Network put it
in an instant classic of a radio call and another
hustole double right over the bag at first. Now useykin
Anderson's square off. They're fighting, they're swinging.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Don't go Sanderson, don't go Sanderson.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Ye, Tom Hamilton on the Cleveland Clinic Guardians Radio Network,
and that clip is going to be installed at the
Hall of Fame at Cooperstown two on a loop. Four
years ago. Tim Anderson, who we think is conscious by now,
was the American League batting champion, and to this day
he is considered one of the faces of the game.
He appears in baseball promos trying to sell baseball to kids,
(23:29):
even though he has so vanished. He's hitting two forty
four that the punch he took from Ramirez seemed like
the first time this year that the name Tim Anderson
had been mentioned in the same sentence as the word hit.
Plus all the no hitter jokes that followed on Sunday
and early today. To make it worse, Tim Anderson did
not play in Sunday's game and was not seen by
(23:52):
the media and did not talk to the media, which
might have been for the better, because if somebody asked
him a tough question about that fight, he would probably
have collapsed to the ground again. Thank you, Nancy Faust.
(24:22):
One more note, can a team lose fifty seven games
in a row? Baltimore Orioles seven New York Mets three
Since the trade deadline win, the team with a three
hundred and sixty five million dollar payroll, offloaded six of
its veteran players, including future Hall of famers Max Scherzer
and Justin Berlander. The New York Mets have lost all
six games they have played, twice by shutout. They have
(24:44):
scored only fourteen runs, they have given up thirty nine,
and frankly, they have not looked as good as those
numbers would suggest. And they have fifty one more games
to play this year, and there is no hope whatsoever
(25:12):
still ahead on countdown turns out, ESPN has turned over
operations of the ESPN Radio Network and all its affiliated
organizations to an outside company, sales I guess, editorial control.
This has made me sad because I was one of
the guys who put ESPN Radio on the air in
nineteen ninety two, But remembering that made me happy because
(25:36):
it reminded me unexpectedly of Elizabeth Montgomery and her role
in that memorable launch. So I want to explain to
you what that has to do with the other thing,
and tell you about my sudden and eternal friend Lizzie
coming up in things I promised not to tell first
time for the daily round up of the miss Grants,
Moron's Dunning, Kruger Effet specimens who constitute today's worst persons
(25:57):
in the world? The Bronze, The New York Times. This
is the Fox News effect. It's upper right corner banner
headline about Trump's indictment. Allies prepare for fight over free
speech after indictment calls out lies. Now the Times put
single quotation marks, which is how in print you show
(26:18):
you're not really convinced the word works or is true.
That's just what somebody else is calling it. The Times
wanted to qualify one word in that headline, Allies prepare
for fight over free speech after indictment calls out lies. Now,
you and I would put the quotes around free speech
because Trump's crimes have got nothing to do with free speech,
(26:39):
and his apologists claim is nonsensical in both constitutional and
legal ways. It's got nothing to do with free speech.
Put free speech in quotes, but no, The Times put
the dubious quotes around the word lies, as if Trump's lies,
you know, weren't lies, As if The Times doesn't want
to commit to that much shameful both sides is garbage
(27:04):
andr for the course, For the Times lately convinced somehow
they are going to sell more copies of the newspaper
to right wingers who want to burn their building down,
The Times needs to fire its decision makers and pronto.
Speaking of which, the runner up, Vivek Ramaswami, what the
hell is wrong with this guy? If you want to
tell the crowd at Vail, Iowa over the weekend that
(27:25):
we should quote cancel June teenth or one of the
other useless ones we made up about holidays, and then
when NBC asks you, if you think it is a
useless holiday, go ahead, I guess say uh huh, which
is what he did. I mean, if this guy doesn't
understand he's trying to run for the nomination of a
party at least half of whose members would identify him
(27:45):
as having the kind of ethnic origin their party is against.
It's his money he's wasting. But on Juneteenth, which is
only like six seven weeks ago, this moron Ramaswami put
out a fake, sincere video extolling the holiday, praising June
seenth Juneteenth. There's a new holiday, he said. It needn't
(28:07):
be about grievance and self logging. Let it be a
celebration of the American dream itself, which I guess he
thinks is also useless. He was four junenteenth before he
was against it. Aramaswami can't keep his policy decisions straight
about holidays. A master strategist, this is not but our
winner again. Speaking of that, James Comer Jamie, chairman of
(28:33):
the House Subcommittee on Making Up Headlines for Conservative media,
when his low rent version of the House on American
Activities Committee finally got its transcribed interview with Hunter Biden's
old business associate, Devon Archer. The interview so lackluster and
so exonerating of the president that even the Wall Street
Journal editorial board admitted Joe Biden had nothing to do
(28:53):
with any of this. Comber still called the Archer interview
a quote bombshale. In fact, Greg Kelly, who if you're
not familiar with his work, is the animal mascot of
Newsmax Television. Greg Kelly interviewed Comber and said, quote, you
were in the room. Are these guys recognizing that this
is beyond their control now? And Comer answered, the walls
(29:15):
are closing in. Unfortunately, Comer wouldn't have known anything about
the walls or the walls in the room, or anything
about the interview or the interview in the room, because
it turned out he didn't go to it. He skipped
the Archer interview, he didn't attend, he blew it off,
he didn't even zoom in, he didn't even literally phone
(29:35):
it in. In fact, it appears all but two Republican
members of the committee didn't bother to show up even remotely.
So if you see the whole Devon Archer, Barisma Ukraine,
Hunter Biden influenced Pedlink thing disappear from the GOP playbook
in the days and weeks to come. Remember this was
(29:57):
the first sign they have punted. Because there is no
there there, Chairman James. Maybe we can connect Jill Baden
calling herself doctor t Ukraine than Calmer, Today's worse person and.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
The world.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
To the number one story on the Countdown and my
favorite subject me and things I promised not to tell.
I have found myself telling her story three times in
the last ten days. I just bought a new copy
of the movie in question, and so I thought I
would tell you the story now. Plus I find she
made her Broadway debut sixty nine years ago this Thursday.
(30:50):
Do you know her name? Elizabeth Montgomery, one of the
most famous actresses of the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies,
star of the TV series Bewitched, daughter of a famous actor,
Robert Montgomery, and my friend early on the morning of
January fourteenth, nineteen ninety two, until she died in the
spring of nineteen ninety five. Our friendship happened only because
(31:14):
of one thing. My sister had given me a book
about one of our favorite topics, the never to be
solved mystery of Lizzie Borden and the Borden family axe
murders of eighteen ninety two in Fall River, Massachusetts. Yes,
We're weird, and also the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery had
played Lizzie Borden in a TV movie. So on January fourteenth,
(31:35):
nineteen ninety two, as I sat waiting for our flight
to leave ICJFK Airport in New York from my then
home in Los Angeles, then I began to read from
my airplane seat, my sister's gift from the aisle. From
the last one to board, I hear the voice of
Elizabeth Montgomery saying to me, ooh, Keith, you're reading about me.
(31:57):
She was a gas my brief but eternal friendship with
Lizzie Montgomery and the eternal lesson she toaught me in
one moment, Please while I first explained what I was
doing on that flight. A month or two earlier, I
had agreed to join ESPN to co host Sports Center
with Dan Patrick starting in late March nineteen ninety two.
(32:18):
I had just finished up three financially rewarding but souls
sucking years at Channel two in Los Angeles, and I
was going to go to Hawaii for three months and
just live air until I felt better. On Monday, December thirtieth,
nineteen ninety one, I had literally just opened my address
book to find the number of a travel agent I
knew to make the Hawaii arrangements. I was reaching for
(32:38):
the phone when the phone rang. It was my business agent,
who had just gotten off the phone with my new
ESPN boss, John Walsh. He and they were launching a
new radio network in five days. I found this interesting
but not particularly relevant. ESPN was one thing. Then it
was one TV network, no magazine, no radio, no ESPN,
(32:59):
the OHO. So this was their first big move outwards.
The network would start with only two seven hour shows
on Saturday and Sunday nights. And Walsh explained to my
agent that everything was going great and they were right
on target, and they had great guests lined up for
the first weekend, like Ronald Reagan, and they only had
one tiny problem. They needed three hosts, and they had
two terrific hosts, just terrific hosts, one Keith worked with
(33:22):
named Tony Bruno, and another terrific, just terrific host from
Providence named Chuck Wilson. And they tried this guy as
the third host, and that guy, and this guy and
that guy, and all told forty different people had tried
out to be hosts. They had nobody, nobody to be
the third host who was any good. Keith just come
here just for the first weekend, just to get it
off the ground. Then he can go back to LA
and come back here in March takeover sports and it.
Please please please get Keith, help us, please, because if
(33:42):
he Canada, what on earth they're going to do it, please, please, please,
As I said to my agent, well, all right, I
suppose at least way, at least a ESPN will always
think of me as a team player. So instead of
going to Hawaii in January, I go to We're still
(34:05):
Connecticut in January, and I go stay at my folks
house outside New York City, and a friend I had
recommended to help ESPN launch their radio network offers me
a ride up to ESPN for the weekend. And it's
like twenty degrees and we get out of his car
and his parking lot, and three spots over getting out
of his car in the parking lot is Chris Berman,
who I went to high school with, and already in
(34:26):
January nineteen ninety two, when I'm not quite thirty three
years old, I already know Chris for twenty years. And
before I can say hey, he screams, listen, we have
a good thing going here, don't f it up. And
I say, good to see you too, Chris, and I
remind myself it's only till Monday. And I meet the
(34:49):
gang and then I go to the hotel and the
hotel is beige. The walls are beige, the carpets are paige,
the guests are beige, the food is beige. The only
thing that isn't beige is the six inches of snow
that falls overnight, and remind myself it's only till Monday.
The launch of the network on Saturday goes well. They
have me interview Ronald Reagan about something in football. The
Sunday Night show is going well too, and we're trying
(35:11):
to figure out where the big baseball free agent of
that winner, Danny Tartable, is going to sign. And we're
interviewing Bobby Valentine, who was the manager of the Texas Rangers,
and they were one of the team's rumored to be
a likely landing for Tartable. And I asked Valentine, he says, no,
not anymore. They just canceled their trip. I was supposed
to go meet them at the airport tonight. I think
he signed with somebody else. And the alarm bells go
(35:31):
off in my head and I tell the producer, let's
call everybody we know in baseball and put them on
and figure out where Danny Tartable is going. I have
a source who knows his agent. Let me call him.
We'll go story chasing. So we spend four hours following
the story in real time, and it's great radio, and
we're coming up on the last hour and our guests
have helped us eliminate like thirty teams out of twenty eight,
(35:54):
but we're not sure where Tartable is going still, and
the producer says, if only we had his home phone number.
And I look at the producer and go, oh, crap, sorry,
and I grab my address book explain he was my
co host. Tartabule was on some of our baseball postgame
shows in La Lash. I'm sorry, I forgot I had
his number all this time. Hang on. So I called
(36:16):
Danny Tartabule, and just as our last hour on Sunday
Night is starting, he calls me back and I say
to him, look, we know you've decided it's all over baseball.
It's got to be the Phillies, the Mets, or the Yankees.
And he's saying, correctly, I can't tell you. And I said,
give me one guess and just tell me if I'm wrong,
and I will call you a source close to the negotiations,
that's all. And he says okay, And I say, is
(36:38):
it a team that wears pin stripes? And of course
the Phillies, the Mets, and the Yankees all wear pinstripes.
So he laughs and he says yes, And I say,
is it the team I grew up a fan of?
And he says, what team did you grow up a
fan of? And by the way, the phone call is
taking place with me on the floor of the studio
in which the other two hosts are live on the
new radio network. So I whispered, as Tartable, if I
(37:01):
say it to the Yankees, am I wrong? And he says,
I can't tell you and starts whispering. But off the record,
the press conference is Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. Is that
enough for you, you bastard? And of course I said, no,
come on the show and tell us come on and
he laughs and says I'll see you Wednesday and hangs up.
And I get up and I sit in the vacant
chair and I can say breaking news. ESPN report now
(37:23):
that the free agent olfield er Danny Tartable has agreed
to a multi year deal with the New York Yankees.
Sources close to the negotiations say there will be a
press conference Wednesday at Yankee Stadium and the other hosts
are trying not to crack up because they know I've
just been talking too Tardable from the phone in the
same room with them. Well, this story explodes way more
(37:45):
than it deserved. It's a dull Sunday night. It's still
early enough in the evening that the story makes all
the Monday newspapers and it's attributed not to ESPN or
to Sports Center, but to the brand new ESPN Radio
Network on its second day in business, and it's on
the front page of USA Today and the New York Times.
ESPN Radio Network makes splash with tartabules scoop the next morning,
(38:08):
and I can't tell you how big a deal that
was back then in nineteen ninety two. So now, instead
of going back to la on Monday and maybe to
Hawaii on Tuesday, as I had planned, I have to
go to the press conference at Yankee Stadium to say
hi to Tartable on Wednesday and sort of thank him
for the scoop. And on Tuesday, this guy, John Walsh
from ESPN calls me and my agent says, look, we
(38:30):
have to take advantage of this. It's the best possible
start we could have hoped for for the radio network,
Keith has to stay with us for the next three months.
Why doesn't he stay in and do this weekend and
then go back to LA and pack up his apartment
and then come back here the weekend after that. And
and I say again to my agent, well, at least
ESPN will always think of me as a team player
(38:52):
if I do this. So I am not in Hawaii
and instead I am on board this flight. When Elizabeth
Montgomery walks down the aisle and sees my Bordon book
given to me by my sister and says, ooh, Keith,
you're reading about me. Hi, I'm Lizzie Montgomery. I'm a
big fan of yours. Is that seat taken? And I say,
(39:13):
the hell, if I care, sit down? And the only
time we're not talking for the next six hours is
when we are drinking. I believe, if I remember this correctly,
they had to send up a champagne refueling flight halfway
to LA. And she's a huge sports fan. Her father
was a founder of one of the southern California horse
racing tracks, and she loves the Lakers, and she thinks
(39:34):
she was related to Lizzie Borden. Did I ever see
the European version of her Lizzie Bordon film where they
show the wide shots where they make it look like
she's nude, and I say, I'm absolutely certain I have not.
And her son and her driver and her rolls Royce
meet us at Lax and she wants me to see
her house, and then her driver and her rolls Royce
will give me a lyft home. And oh, by the way,
she's flying back to New York in a week, should
(39:55):
we become flying buddies. On that trip, our flight gets
canceled and we have to find a new one, and
I'm hand carrying a lot of more more valuable baseball cards,
including like five hundred different from the year nineteen oh nine,
and she wants to see them, and she wants me
to tell her something about each player while we drink again.
And we land and she says, how you getting to
(40:17):
your folks house? And I say, well, I'm going to
get a car here or something, and she says, no,
you're not. I'll give you a lift in my limo
going right past your house. And sure enough we get there,
and as Lizzie Montgomery's limo is taking me to my
folks house at ten o'clock at night, She says, will
they still be up? Her folks want to play a
practical joke on them. So two minutes later, I knock
(40:39):
on the door of my childhood home and my father
opens it instead of seeing me. It's her in the doorway,
and she says, Hi, mister oldman, I'm Lizzie. I'm a
friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play? And
my dad goes silent for the only time I a
in my life, And now my mother appears, so Lizzie
can pull the same routine on her. Hi, missus olverman,
(40:59):
I'm Lizzie. I'm a friend of Keith. Can he come
out and play? And now my mother is silent for
the only time in my life, I might add. I
thought Lizzie looked fabulous, and I looked her up in
Hallowell's Film Guide and I saw she was forty eight,
and I thought, boy, she looks fabulous for forty eight,
And then I realized my math is wrong. She was
fifty eight, and she was a joy. We talked my
(41:20):
phone every couple of weeks after that, and she died
three years later of colon cancer. But she is with
me always, and not just as the proverbial force of nature.
Within minutes of that day we met January fourteenth, nineteen
ninety two, she bestowed upon me a lesson, an eternal lesson.
We were a little late taking off, and since she
(41:42):
had just loudly introduced herself to me like I didn't
know who she was, anybody on the plane who wasn't
sure it was her was now sure. As we waited
to taxi, every man on that plane came over and
did the same thing. Oh hi, miss Montgomery, excuse me,
and they give me some sort of nodding acknowledgment, like hey,
how you doing? As they lean in past me. I
(42:04):
was a big fan of Bewitched. I know you must
get asked this a million times a day, but is
there any I'm so sorry to ask? Could you do
that little nose twitch you used to do in the show?
And she would say, of course, and then she'd do it,
and these men age twenty two one hundred all then
giggle like schoolboys. After the thirtieth or thirty first time
this happened, I say to her, Lizzie, I don't know you,
(42:26):
but I like you a lot already, and your attitude
towards your fans, and the nose twitch is wonderful. And
I have to tell you, I certainly hope that was
the last of them, because the next one who comes over,
I'm going to have to strangle him with my bare
hands because I can't take it anymore. And for the
only minutes of all the time I knew her, Elizabeth
(42:47):
Montgomery got very serious and said, oh, no, Keith, that
is not the attitude you must have about this. Remind
me what year did Bewitched go off the air. I
had to guess, nineteen seventy two, and she said, exactly, good, correct,
twenty years ago. And the these people have remembered that
nose twitch for twenty years at least Bewitched. Keith is
(43:11):
not Hamlet, it is not Arthur Miller, it is not
the Godfather, but they remembered it. This is why you
and I both do what we do for a living.
We have transcended time with what we do for a living,
something artistic, something creative, no matter how small that we
have done. They have remembered it. People do it with you,
(43:31):
I'm sure, and I'm sure they'll continue to. And what
you do then is you say thank you for remembering,
as if they were the only one who ever remembered,
because that's why we do this, because they remembered me
from twenty years ago for a stupid little nose twitch.
(43:51):
Duly chastised, I apologized, and the huge welcoming, conspiratorial, permanent
friendship sexy smile of Elizabeth Montgomery broke across her face
like the sunrise, and she whispered either that Keith or
they saw Bewitched on cable last week, which means Lizzie
(44:14):
gets another check next week, and she twitched her nose
at me and I will always love her. I've done
(44:37):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music arrange produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel, who
are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by
John Phillip Shanelle, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
(44:57):
music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis. Courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical
comments by Nancy Fauss the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. Special thank you to you
for last week. With the addition of the YouTube option
for listening to and or watching this podcast, our audience
(45:20):
total was last week more than eight hundred thousand, which
used to be a pretty good month. Thanks tell the others.
That's countdown for this the nine hundred and forty third
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Arrest him again while
we still can. Lord knows there is more there where
(45:42):
that came from. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin
says the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman
(46:03):
is a production of iHeart 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. Lock
him up, or at least bring him downtown. Go big.
(00:27):
Judge Maxilla Appa DII, get Trump's legal team's response to
the government demand for evidentiary protection after this weekend orgy
of Trump attacks. Say that response is insufficient. Announce you
need an in person hearing with Trump rule the defendant
clearly did not understand the terms of his release, and
(00:48):
drag him back into court tomorrow, saying you need to
state these terms to him again, warn him explicitly. Any
more of this, One more social media post, one more
reference in a speech, and you, sir, will find that
your liberty is at an end. Do it. Do it now,
(01:10):
because this is not somehow just going to end here.
Since the judge released him and warned him, he has
attacked the judge. He has attacked the prosecutor. He has
attacked at least one of the witnesses. He has attacked
the venue. He has attacked the government. He has attacked
the US World Cup soccer team. This took only the
(01:32):
three days after the judge warned him not to do
any of that, except the soccer part. When Trump's latest
I was only relying on the bad advice of bad
counsel submits his response to the government's demand for an
order protecting the evidence from Trump's compulsion to violate all
laws and intimidate all authority. When she gets that response,
(01:55):
which was due by five pm Eastern Monday, Judge Appadi
should not only grant the motion, she needs to jump
right to the inevitable end of this process. Donald Trump
is a menace to everyone involved in this his newest indictment.
He is a clear and present danger to everyone in
(02:16):
the United States, and based on the wounded, dying animal
look that was so unmistakable in his eyes during his
speech at Montgomery Saturday night, he might even be a
danger to himself and those around him. He is testing
the judge to see how much he can get away with,
and the answer to that should be nothing. Lock him up,
(02:43):
revoke his pre trial release, or come within an inch
of it. Trump has never been stopped in his tracks
before and is not automatically capable of understanding the concept
of a warning. To him, a warning is weakness, vulnerability,
and invitation to push harder in the same spot or
find a new spot to put. This is a psychopath
(03:07):
who docksed his predecessor as president. In the full bloom
of his madness, he is now dancing along the precipice
of issuing more and more calls for violence with less
and less subtlety and more and more directness to them.
The look in his eyes in Alabama implied that perhaps
(03:28):
he already feels he has no reason not to test
just the judge's limits right now, but to test America's.
There is in fact a theory abroad. And though I
have covered this madness virtually every day for eight years,
I still find myself shocked to even contemplate saying this.
That the attacks that began at four sixteen pm Friday
(03:49):
with if you go after me, I'm coming after you,
are not just the continuation of his messianic insanity that
began frankly in nineteen forty six, but a deliberate attempt
to get his pre trial release revoked and get himself
detained in some way so as to trigger his cult
(04:09):
into actual violence. It's useful for Democrats to understand that
if Trump spends a minute in jail on bullshit charges,
writes the racist cartoonist Scott Adams, all the rules are suspended.
We're a safer country. With that clear understanding, that sentence
(04:31):
might define the genuine menace of the fascist dream of insurrection.
Oh no, Dilbert is going to draw a civil war,
And it may underscore that their years of fantasized bloodshed
neglects the reality that maybe they are all armed, but
they have forgotten who is in control of all the
(04:51):
tanks and soldiers at the moment. There can be no
doubt that Trump ultimately does expect his America to again
rise up violently in his defense at some point it
did before. The questions are if this is that point,
and if it is, if he could really think so
strategically as to trap a judge into lighting the fuse
(05:15):
for him that only increases the number of middlemen in
this process. Just when you are inclined to think there
might finally be such a method to his madness, he
follows up a weekend of thinly veiled threats by blaming
the US loss in the World Cup on Joe Biden
and writes, nice shot, Meghan. And unless Meghan Rapino is
(05:38):
a witness against him, you are forced to remember Occam's
razor and how it applies even to Donald Trump. Sure
this is what you might do if you wanted to
definitely position others to cry havoc and let slip the
dogs of war. But this is also what you would
do if you were one hundred percent bat guano insane
(05:58):
like Donald Trump. Because whatever the explanation and whether or
not Scott Adams as an arsenal ready of fifty thousand
sketch pencils sharpened to spear like points in all colors,
Trump has still made those threats and they must be
dealt with severely and immediately. In the I'm coming after
(06:22):
you post, he threatened everybody, from his critics to Joe Biden.
In the Alabama speech, he told Republicans they could not
allow this to go on and they had to quote
fight fire with fire. In South Carolina and on social media,
he called Special Counsel Smith deranged and a sick man. Again.
On Sunday morning, he repeated the Smith attack on social
(06:44):
media and misspelled Joe Biden's name in the process. Ten
minutes later, he not only attacked Judge Chutkin by posting
that she was incapable of presiding over a fair trial,
but also alleged that she will knowingly preside over that trial,
even though she knows she cannot be fair. And just
to top it off, he declared Washington a filthy and
(07:06):
crime ridden embarrassment to our nation, even though crime has
dropped because he left town. And in the same sentence,
he declared that he should get a change of venue
because he has declared it a filthy and crime ridden embarrassment,
with the implication that everybody there is now mad at him.
Were this defendant anybody else in this country, he would
(07:30):
have been in jail before Saturday morning. A Twitch streamer
named Kai Sinnat promised his followers video consoles. On Friday,
they swarmed New York's Union Square several thousand. They damaged
some property, they threw some things, but practically speaking, the
worst thing that happened was that a lot of subway
trains skipped the stop and the Friday commute home was disturbed. Sinnat,
(07:56):
a twenty one year old moron, was immediately charged with
first degree felony, rioting, inciting a riot, and unlawful assembled,
and he now faces ten years in prison. He is
actually in more trouble right now than he is Donald Trump,
and the comparison of their crimes is not arbitrary. Trump
(08:16):
committed more offenses than kay Sinnat did this weekend, just
in New York City, as was the case when Judge
APADII let him walk out of the Prettyman court House
last Thursday. When Judge Juan Marshan let Trump walk out
of the New York City Courthouse in April with the
understanding that he must not commit any new crimes, yet
(08:37):
he spent the weekend criminally threatening everybody involved in the
federal case except the courtroom sketch artists. Moreover, Judge Mayrshan
asked Trump to quote refrain from making comments or engaging
in conduct that has the potential to incite violence, create
civil unrest, or jeopardize the safety or well being of
(09:00):
any individuals, and to not engage in words or conduct
which jeopardized this is the rule of law. Judge Marshan
was adamant that this was a request and not an order,
and Justice adamant that if Trump ignored the request, he
the judge would take a closer look at making it
an order. Exactly, how is if you go after me,
(09:21):
I'm coming after you, not words or conduct which jeopardizes
the rule of law. As such, it is incumbent on
Judge Marchan to at least do what he warned Trump
he would do and go for a move to order
Trump's silence. And so Judge Appadilla needs to go further
even than Jacksmith's office has requested, if she will not
(09:43):
detain Trump, and regrettably I can't imagine she actually would.
Nobody seems to be willing to draw the line in
the sand anywhere here. Everybody, even Smith, seems to believe
Trump is capable of processing a warning, which he is not.
If the judge will not put him away for observing
the pre trial release for exactly twenty four and then
(10:05):
devising as many ways humanly possible to violate it, at minimum,
she must set stringent restrictions on Trump in person, a
gag order, a no social media order, some extraordinary measure
against Trump that carries with it that explicit warning. The
one loophole in Trump's release on recognissance last Thursday was
(10:27):
that it did not carry an advisory that even a
five year old child or a Donald Trump could understand. Ideally,
whatever the judge does now, she should demand Trump's personal
appearance at any hearing in whatever way she chooses to
warn him. It should be something conveying that this is
(10:48):
his final warning. If you do it again, you will
be going to jail. Do you understand me, I'll ask
it again. Do you understand you will go to jail.
You need something like a big sign to hang around
his lawyer and his neck, reading this is your final warning.
(11:11):
If you do it again, you will be going to jail.
Make the sign that cheap gold spray paint color he loves.
He seems to recognize that he covers his buildings with
it and his hair. A note about Trump's lawyers, Bill
(11:36):
Barr said yesterday that of course he'd testify against Trump,
and it would seem inescapable. If your defense for insurrection
and an extra constitutional assault on democracy is John Eastman
did it. I'm guilty of nothing. I was acting on
the advice of counsel. I had the worst counsel in
(11:57):
the world. I am an idiot. If that's your defense,
then the next time you hire a lawyer, if you
are planning head, you are going to hire the next
worst council in the world. And I'd like to sincerely
congratulate Trump on finding him last Thursday night. This John
Laurow went on Newsmax, and not only confessed on his
(12:20):
client's behalf confessed Trump did ask Mike Pence to cause
the electoral vote count to be paused for ten days,
which is one of the charges against Trump under eighteen
US Code one five one two obstructing an official proceeding.
But yesterday John Lauraw went on NBC and said the
only thing Trump did before January sixth was quote, a
(12:42):
technical violation of the constitution, and that a technical violation
of the constitution quote is not a violation of criminal law.
The joke occurred to a lot of us simultaneously, my
friend Jeffrey Tambour saying in arrested development, there's a good
chance I may have committed some light tree and Trump's
(13:07):
light treason was all fine, according to John Laurrow, even
though at the time he committed these acts that his
attorney confessed to on national television, Trump was the government
official most responsible to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.
This was all fine because, as mister Laurow added, what
he didn't do is, you know, send in the tanks. Wow,
(13:30):
thanks mean, Donald. John Laurow is already a legal legend.
It requires a kind of robotic mindlessness, the likes of
which we may never have seen before to do what
he did on Saturday and Sunday. By six pm Friday,
less than two hours after the if you go after me,
I'm coming after you, post, Jack Smith's office had alerted
(13:52):
Judge opah DII and requested that evidentiary protection order. The
judge notified Trump's attorneys they had till five pm Monday
to respond, and Laurow actually had the nerve to ask
that the deadline be pushed to Thursday, and then he
did the proverbial Ginsburg yesterday. So he claimed he did
not have the time to reply to the government's motion,
(14:15):
but he did have the time to go on five
different Sunday morning chat shows. This is a Trump lawyer,
all right. And for some much needed comic relief. Besides
mister Laurel, I bring you Ron DeSantis and the rather
(14:38):
startling realization that he's not quite dead yet, all the
anti Trump movement within the GOP actually needs to get
going to have a chance is for Trump to be
upset or just to squeak by. In one of the
early Republican primaries and the New York Times siena poll
(14:59):
of The earliest primary came out on Friday, just about
the same time. The if you go after me, I'm
coming after you post came out Iowa January fifteenth, and
it's Trump forty three, DeSantis twenty. And that's neither an
upset nor a squeaker, but it does reflect an amazing reality.
Trump's lead in the first primary is about half what
(15:23):
it is nationwide over DeSantis. Moreover, while Trump is seen
as more electable than DeSantis, it's my only nine percent,
and all the favorability rankings in Iowa favored DeSantis. DeSantis
is considered more likable and more moral. And yes, we
(15:45):
are asking people with a death wish if they would
prefer hemlock or cyanide. It's a different world out there
among Iowa Republicans, but there it is in Iowa. Anyway.
Ron DeSantis ain't quite dead. I have no idea why.
I mean, just listen to this this well, the only
(16:10):
word is crap.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I mean I had a guy tell me, like, you know,
in San Francisco, you know, they'll just defecate on the sidewalk,
they use drugs out in public, no problem. And I'm like, really, well,
I happen to be in San Francisco a month or
two ago, and within ten minutes of me being in
the city, I see some guy relieving himself on the
sidewalk with number two. And I mean, it's just I've
never seen things like this before.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
That's called cause and effect, Ron, because you do scare
the number two out of people. Imagine a grown man,
even in high heeled boots, saying number two. Also of
(16:54):
interest here, what if they gave a Devon Archer transcribed
interview and nobody showed up the latest whistle blowing event
in the endless, useless, resultless Republican of Hunter, and thus
Joe Biden turns out like all the others to be
all blow and no whistle. But this one has a
truly unforeseen twist. Guests who didn't bother to even attend
(17:18):
the Devon Archer transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee.
I mean I had to read this three times before
I believed it. That's next, this discountdown. This is countdown
with Keith Olberman. This is sports Senate. Wait, check that
(17:51):
not anymore. This is countdown with Keith Olberman in sports.
Nowhere is the difference between real patriotism and the conditional
kind more easily seen. And then when an American player
or team contends for an international championship, do you remember
anybody rooting against the conservative Bruce Jenner now trumpist bigot
(18:15):
Caitlyn Jenner during the decathlon at the nineteen seventy six Olympics,
Or if you're too young, you ever heard of anybody
having done that? Or against the USA team in the
twenty thirteen World Baseball Classic because conservative Joe Tory was
the manager. Hell, Joe Tory has been one of my
best friends in sports since literally the day I started
in television. And yeah, we've talked politics, liberals. In fact,
(18:40):
most sports fans couldn't give a rats backside about the
political leanings of athletes. Nearly all of us would root
for an American team in the lawnmowing Olympics. But when
the American team was eliminated by Sweden early Sunday morning
in the round of sixteen at the Women's World Cup
of Soccer in Australia, it was a zero zero tie
(19:01):
followed by seven excruciating rounds of penalty kicks which the
US lost five to four, sealed when a Swedish shot
literally crossed the goal line by the absolute minimum amount
required for it to count as a score. Republicans, conservatives,
and other bigots immediately christened it the woke Choke. They
(19:22):
blamed Megan Rapino because American players, per international custom, had
the choice of singing the anthem at the games of
the Cup or standing there respectfully, and Repino stood there
respectfully because well, no, really, because she's gay and has
purple hair, and she missed a penalty kick, as did
(19:44):
two other American players. Therefore, this is all Megan Rapino's fault.
And the Conservatives are gleeful wrapping themselves in the American flag,
except here when they exalted in an American sports defeat.
USA loses, they cheer, And of course, if Americans had won,
(20:05):
the Conservatives would have somehow claimed credit for the victory.
Because they are not Patriots. They are lost. Happiest person
in sports after this past weekend Robin Ventura, the former
star third baseman later manager of the Chicago White Sox,
who only Friday had had to suffer through the thirtieth
anniversary celebrations of the worst decision he ever made in
(20:28):
his life when, on August fourth, nineteen ninety three, the
then forty six year old future Hall of Famer Nolan
Ryan knocked Ventura down with a pitch. Robin charged the mound,
and Nolan Ryan did what pitchers never ever think to do,
which is to stay on the mound and take advantage
of the extra ten inches of height the mound gives you.
(20:52):
Nolan Ryan just stood there, waited for Ventura to climb
the hill. He put Ventura in a headlock and hit
him with a couple of light punches and then let
him go. That video has been shown more than anything
else Robin Venturrea ever did, and it's been shown as
much as anything else Nolan Ryan ever did. Nolan Ryan
threw seven no hitters. So why is Robin Ventura happy today?
(21:15):
Because a day after the thirtieth celebration of that damn
thing Saturday, Robin Ventura was replaced on the list of
the dumbest fight decisions in baseball history, and by another
member of the Chicago White Sox. No less as I
record this, we are still waiting for the discipline on
this one from Major League Baseball. But on Saturday night,
(21:36):
Jose Ramirez of the Cleveland Guardians slid into second base
and into Tim Anderson of the White Sox. No real collision,
no injury, no blood. But when all the Guardians had
been mad at Anderson for rough player around the bag
over two games, and Ramirez reached up his hand, expecting
Anderson to maybe help him to his feet, tim Anderson refused.
(21:58):
Ramirez then stood up, and Anderson promptly dropped his fielders
glove and squared off in a boxing stone an actual
two fists up by your chin boxing stance. Anderson threw
two punches at Ramirez. They both missed. Ramirez took one
swing at Anderson and seemed to hit him kind of
mildly on the cheek, and Anderson dropped like a stone
(22:19):
like Sonny Liston and his one punch lost to Muhammad
Ali in Lewiston, Maine, in nineteen sixty five, and no
one was certain what would happen next. A punch that
was seemingly so light that ever since many have argued
Muhammad Ali never hit Sonny Liston, and Liston had thrown
the fight at the earliest possible opportunity. That's how bad
it looked. Or as Tom Hamilton, the play by play
(22:43):
man of the Cleveland Clinic Guardians Radio Network put it
in an instant classic of a radio call and another
hustole double right over the bag at first. Now useykin
Anderson's square off. They're fighting, they're swinging.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Don't go Sanderson, don't go Sanderson.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Ye, Tom Hamilton on the Cleveland Clinic Guardians Radio Network,
and that clip is going to be installed at the
Hall of Fame at Cooperstown two on a loop. Four
years ago. Tim Anderson, who we think is conscious by now,
was the American League batting champion, and to this day
he is considered one of the faces of the game.
He appears in baseball promos trying to sell baseball to kids,
(23:29):
even though he has so vanished. He's hitting two forty
four that the punch he took from Ramirez seemed like
the first time this year that the name Tim Anderson
had been mentioned in the same sentence as the word hit.
Plus all the no hitter jokes that followed on Sunday
and early today. To make it worse, Tim Anderson did
not play in Sunday's game and was not seen by
(23:52):
the media and did not talk to the media, which
might have been for the better, because if somebody asked
him a tough question about that fight, he would probably
have collapsed to the ground again. Thank you, Nancy Faust.
(24:22):
One more note, can a team lose fifty seven games
in a row? Baltimore Orioles seven New York Mets three
Since the trade deadline win, the team with a three
hundred and sixty five million dollar payroll, offloaded six of
its veteran players, including future Hall of famers Max Scherzer
and Justin Berlander. The New York Mets have lost all
six games they have played, twice by shutout. They have
(24:44):
scored only fourteen runs, they have given up thirty nine,
and frankly, they have not looked as good as those
numbers would suggest. And they have fifty one more games
to play this year, and there is no hope whatsoever
(25:12):
still ahead on countdown turns out, ESPN has turned over
operations of the ESPN Radio Network and all its affiliated
organizations to an outside company, sales I guess, editorial control.
This has made me sad because I was one of
the guys who put ESPN Radio on the air in
nineteen ninety two, But remembering that made me happy because
(25:36):
it reminded me unexpectedly of Elizabeth Montgomery and her role
in that memorable launch. So I want to explain to
you what that has to do with the other thing,
and tell you about my sudden and eternal friend Lizzie
coming up in things I promised not to tell first
time for the daily round up of the miss Grants,
Moron's Dunning, Kruger Effet specimens who constitute today's worst persons
(25:57):
in the world? The Bronze, The New York Times. This
is the Fox News effect. It's upper right corner banner
headline about Trump's indictment. Allies prepare for fight over free
speech after indictment calls out lies. Now the Times put
single quotation marks, which is how in print you show
(26:18):
you're not really convinced the word works or is true.
That's just what somebody else is calling it. The Times
wanted to qualify one word in that headline, Allies prepare
for fight over free speech after indictment calls out lies. Now,
you and I would put the quotes around free speech
because Trump's crimes have got nothing to do with free speech,
(26:39):
and his apologists claim is nonsensical in both constitutional and
legal ways. It's got nothing to do with free speech.
Put free speech in quotes, but no, The Times put
the dubious quotes around the word lies, as if Trump's lies,
you know, weren't lies, As if The Times doesn't want
to commit to that much shameful both sides is garbage
(27:04):
andr for the course, For the Times lately convinced somehow
they are going to sell more copies of the newspaper
to right wingers who want to burn their building down,
The Times needs to fire its decision makers and pronto.
Speaking of which, the runner up, Vivek Ramaswami, what the
hell is wrong with this guy? If you want to
tell the crowd at Vail, Iowa over the weekend that
(27:25):
we should quote cancel June teenth or one of the
other useless ones we made up about holidays, and then
when NBC asks you, if you think it is a
useless holiday, go ahead, I guess say uh huh, which
is what he did. I mean, if this guy doesn't
understand he's trying to run for the nomination of a
party at least half of whose members would identify him
(27:45):
as having the kind of ethnic origin their party is against.
It's his money he's wasting. But on Juneteenth, which is
only like six seven weeks ago, this moron Ramaswami put
out a fake, sincere video extolling the holiday, praising June
seenth Juneteenth. There's a new holiday, he said. It needn't
(28:07):
be about grievance and self logging. Let it be a
celebration of the American dream itself, which I guess he
thinks is also useless. He was four junenteenth before he
was against it. Aramaswami can't keep his policy decisions straight
about holidays. A master strategist, this is not but our
winner again. Speaking of that, James Comer Jamie, chairman of
(28:33):
the House Subcommittee on Making Up Headlines for Conservative media,
when his low rent version of the House on American
Activities Committee finally got its transcribed interview with Hunter Biden's
old business associate, Devon Archer. The interview so lackluster and
so exonerating of the president that even the Wall Street
Journal editorial board admitted Joe Biden had nothing to do
(28:53):
with any of this. Comber still called the Archer interview
a quote bombshale. In fact, Greg Kelly, who if you're
not familiar with his work, is the animal mascot of
Newsmax Television. Greg Kelly interviewed Comber and said, quote, you
were in the room. Are these guys recognizing that this
is beyond their control now? And Comer answered, the walls
(29:15):
are closing in. Unfortunately, Comer wouldn't have known anything about
the walls or the walls in the room, or anything
about the interview or the interview in the room, because
it turned out he didn't go to it. He skipped
the Archer interview, he didn't attend, he blew it off,
he didn't even zoom in, he didn't even literally phone
(29:35):
it in. In fact, it appears all but two Republican
members of the committee didn't bother to show up even remotely.
So if you see the whole Devon Archer, Barisma Ukraine,
Hunter Biden influenced Pedlink thing disappear from the GOP playbook
in the days and weeks to come. Remember this was
(29:57):
the first sign they have punted. Because there is no
there there, Chairman James. Maybe we can connect Jill Baden
calling herself doctor t Ukraine than Calmer, Today's worse person and.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
The world.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
To the number one story on the Countdown and my
favorite subject me and things I promised not to tell.
I have found myself telling her story three times in
the last ten days. I just bought a new copy
of the movie in question, and so I thought I
would tell you the story now. Plus I find she
made her Broadway debut sixty nine years ago this Thursday.
(30:50):
Do you know her name? Elizabeth Montgomery, one of the
most famous actresses of the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies,
star of the TV series Bewitched, daughter of a famous actor,
Robert Montgomery, and my friend early on the morning of
January fourteenth, nineteen ninety two, until she died in the
spring of nineteen ninety five. Our friendship happened only because
(31:14):
of one thing. My sister had given me a book
about one of our favorite topics, the never to be
solved mystery of Lizzie Borden and the Borden family axe
murders of eighteen ninety two in Fall River, Massachusetts. Yes,
We're weird, and also the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery had
played Lizzie Borden in a TV movie. So on January fourteenth,
(31:35):
nineteen ninety two, as I sat waiting for our flight
to leave ICJFK Airport in New York from my then
home in Los Angeles, then I began to read from
my airplane seat, my sister's gift from the aisle. From
the last one to board, I hear the voice of
Elizabeth Montgomery saying to me, ooh, Keith, you're reading about me.
(31:57):
She was a gas my brief but eternal friendship with
Lizzie Montgomery and the eternal lesson she toaught me in
one moment, Please while I first explained what I was
doing on that flight. A month or two earlier, I
had agreed to join ESPN to co host Sports Center
with Dan Patrick starting in late March nineteen ninety two.
(32:18):
I had just finished up three financially rewarding but souls
sucking years at Channel two in Los Angeles, and I
was going to go to Hawaii for three months and
just live air until I felt better. On Monday, December thirtieth,
nineteen ninety one, I had literally just opened my address
book to find the number of a travel agent I
knew to make the Hawaii arrangements. I was reaching for
(32:38):
the phone when the phone rang. It was my business agent,
who had just gotten off the phone with my new
ESPN boss, John Walsh. He and they were launching a
new radio network in five days. I found this interesting
but not particularly relevant. ESPN was one thing. Then it
was one TV network, no magazine, no radio, no ESPN,
(32:59):
the OHO. So this was their first big move outwards.
The network would start with only two seven hour shows
on Saturday and Sunday nights. And Walsh explained to my
agent that everything was going great and they were right
on target, and they had great guests lined up for
the first weekend, like Ronald Reagan, and they only had
one tiny problem. They needed three hosts, and they had
two terrific hosts, just terrific hosts, one Keith worked with
(33:22):
named Tony Bruno, and another terrific, just terrific host from
Providence named Chuck Wilson. And they tried this guy as
the third host, and that guy, and this guy and
that guy, and all told forty different people had tried
out to be hosts. They had nobody, nobody to be
the third host who was any good. Keith just come
here just for the first weekend, just to get it
off the ground. Then he can go back to LA
and come back here in March takeover sports and it.
Please please please get Keith, help us, please, because if
(33:42):
he Canada, what on earth they're going to do it, please, please, please,
As I said to my agent, well, all right, I
suppose at least way, at least a ESPN will always
think of me as a team player. So instead of
going to Hawaii in January, I go to We're still
(34:05):
Connecticut in January, and I go stay at my folks
house outside New York City, and a friend I had
recommended to help ESPN launch their radio network offers me
a ride up to ESPN for the weekend. And it's
like twenty degrees and we get out of his car
and his parking lot, and three spots over getting out
of his car in the parking lot is Chris Berman,
who I went to high school with, and already in
(34:26):
January nineteen ninety two, when I'm not quite thirty three
years old, I already know Chris for twenty years. And
before I can say hey, he screams, listen, we have
a good thing going here, don't f it up. And
I say, good to see you too, Chris, and I
remind myself it's only till Monday. And I meet the
(34:49):
gang and then I go to the hotel and the
hotel is beige. The walls are beige, the carpets are paige,
the guests are beige, the food is beige. The only
thing that isn't beige is the six inches of snow
that falls overnight, and remind myself it's only till Monday.
The launch of the network on Saturday goes well. They
have me interview Ronald Reagan about something in football. The
Sunday Night show is going well too, and we're trying
(35:11):
to figure out where the big baseball free agent of
that winner, Danny Tartable, is going to sign. And we're
interviewing Bobby Valentine, who was the manager of the Texas Rangers,
and they were one of the team's rumored to be
a likely landing for Tartable. And I asked Valentine, he says, no,
not anymore. They just canceled their trip. I was supposed
to go meet them at the airport tonight. I think
he signed with somebody else. And the alarm bells go
(35:31):
off in my head and I tell the producer, let's
call everybody we know in baseball and put them on
and figure out where Danny Tartable is going. I have
a source who knows his agent. Let me call him.
We'll go story chasing. So we spend four hours following
the story in real time, and it's great radio, and
we're coming up on the last hour and our guests
have helped us eliminate like thirty teams out of twenty eight,
(35:54):
but we're not sure where Tartable is going still, and
the producer says, if only we had his home phone number.
And I look at the producer and go, oh, crap, sorry,
and I grab my address book explain he was my
co host. Tartabule was on some of our baseball postgame
shows in La Lash. I'm sorry, I forgot I had
his number all this time. Hang on. So I called
(36:16):
Danny Tartabule, and just as our last hour on Sunday
Night is starting, he calls me back and I say
to him, look, we know you've decided it's all over baseball.
It's got to be the Phillies, the Mets, or the Yankees.
And he's saying, correctly, I can't tell you. And I said,
give me one guess and just tell me if I'm wrong,
and I will call you a source close to the negotiations,
that's all. And he says okay, And I say, is
(36:38):
it a team that wears pin stripes? And of course
the Phillies, the Mets, and the Yankees all wear pinstripes.
So he laughs and he says yes, And I say,
is it the team I grew up a fan of?
And he says, what team did you grow up a
fan of? And by the way, the phone call is
taking place with me on the floor of the studio
in which the other two hosts are live on the
new radio network. So I whispered, as Tartable, if I
(37:01):
say it to the Yankees, am I wrong? And he says,
I can't tell you and starts whispering. But off the record,
the press conference is Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. Is that
enough for you, you bastard? And of course I said, no,
come on the show and tell us come on and
he laughs and says I'll see you Wednesday and hangs up.
And I get up and I sit in the vacant
chair and I can say breaking news. ESPN report now
(37:23):
that the free agent olfield er Danny Tartable has agreed
to a multi year deal with the New York Yankees.
Sources close to the negotiations say there will be a
press conference Wednesday at Yankee Stadium and the other hosts
are trying not to crack up because they know I've
just been talking too Tardable from the phone in the
same room with them. Well, this story explodes way more
(37:45):
than it deserved. It's a dull Sunday night. It's still
early enough in the evening that the story makes all
the Monday newspapers and it's attributed not to ESPN or
to Sports Center, but to the brand new ESPN Radio
Network on its second day in business, and it's on
the front page of USA Today and the New York Times.
ESPN Radio Network makes splash with tartabules scoop the next morning,
(38:08):
and I can't tell you how big a deal that
was back then in nineteen ninety two. So now, instead
of going back to la on Monday and maybe to
Hawaii on Tuesday, as I had planned, I have to
go to the press conference at Yankee Stadium to say
hi to Tartable on Wednesday and sort of thank him
for the scoop. And on Tuesday, this guy, John Walsh
from ESPN calls me and my agent says, look, we
(38:30):
have to take advantage of this. It's the best possible
start we could have hoped for for the radio network,
Keith has to stay with us for the next three months.
Why doesn't he stay in and do this weekend and
then go back to LA and pack up his apartment
and then come back here the weekend after that. And
and I say again to my agent, well, at least
ESPN will always think of me as a team player
(38:52):
if I do this. So I am not in Hawaii
and instead I am on board this flight. When Elizabeth
Montgomery walks down the aisle and sees my Bordon book
given to me by my sister and says, ooh, Keith,
you're reading about me. Hi, I'm Lizzie Montgomery. I'm a
big fan of yours. Is that seat taken? And I say,
(39:13):
the hell, if I care, sit down? And the only
time we're not talking for the next six hours is
when we are drinking. I believe, if I remember this correctly,
they had to send up a champagne refueling flight halfway
to LA. And she's a huge sports fan. Her father
was a founder of one of the southern California horse
racing tracks, and she loves the Lakers, and she thinks
(39:34):
she was related to Lizzie Borden. Did I ever see
the European version of her Lizzie Bordon film where they
show the wide shots where they make it look like
she's nude, and I say, I'm absolutely certain I have not.
And her son and her driver and her rolls Royce
meet us at Lax and she wants me to see
her house, and then her driver and her rolls Royce
will give me a lyft home. And oh, by the way,
she's flying back to New York in a week, should
(39:55):
we become flying buddies. On that trip, our flight gets
canceled and we have to find a new one, and
I'm hand carrying a lot of more more valuable baseball cards,
including like five hundred different from the year nineteen oh nine,
and she wants to see them, and she wants me
to tell her something about each player while we drink again.
And we land and she says, how you getting to
(40:17):
your folks house? And I say, well, I'm going to
get a car here or something, and she says, no,
you're not. I'll give you a lift in my limo
going right past your house. And sure enough we get there,
and as Lizzie Montgomery's limo is taking me to my
folks house at ten o'clock at night, She says, will
they still be up? Her folks want to play a
practical joke on them. So two minutes later, I knock
(40:39):
on the door of my childhood home and my father
opens it instead of seeing me. It's her in the doorway,
and she says, Hi, mister oldman, I'm Lizzie. I'm a
friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play? And
my dad goes silent for the only time I a
in my life, And now my mother appears, so Lizzie
can pull the same routine on her. Hi, missus olverman,
(40:59):
I'm Lizzie. I'm a friend of Keith. Can he come
out and play? And now my mother is silent for
the only time in my life, I might add. I
thought Lizzie looked fabulous, and I looked her up in
Hallowell's Film Guide and I saw she was forty eight,
and I thought, boy, she looks fabulous for forty eight,
And then I realized my math is wrong. She was
fifty eight, and she was a joy. We talked my
(41:20):
phone every couple of weeks after that, and she died
three years later of colon cancer. But she is with
me always, and not just as the proverbial force of nature.
Within minutes of that day we met January fourteenth, nineteen
ninety two, she bestowed upon me a lesson, an eternal lesson.
We were a little late taking off, and since she
(41:42):
had just loudly introduced herself to me like I didn't
know who she was, anybody on the plane who wasn't
sure it was her was now sure. As we waited
to taxi, every man on that plane came over and
did the same thing. Oh hi, miss Montgomery, excuse me,
and they give me some sort of nodding acknowledgment, like hey,
how you doing? As they lean in past me. I
(42:04):
was a big fan of Bewitched. I know you must
get asked this a million times a day, but is
there any I'm so sorry to ask? Could you do
that little nose twitch you used to do in the show?
And she would say, of course, and then she'd do it,
and these men age twenty two one hundred all then
giggle like schoolboys. After the thirtieth or thirty first time
this happened, I say to her, Lizzie, I don't know you,
(42:26):
but I like you a lot already, and your attitude
towards your fans, and the nose twitch is wonderful. And
I have to tell you, I certainly hope that was
the last of them, because the next one who comes over,
I'm going to have to strangle him with my bare
hands because I can't take it anymore. And for the
only minutes of all the time I knew her, Elizabeth
(42:47):
Montgomery got very serious and said, oh, no, Keith, that
is not the attitude you must have about this. Remind
me what year did Bewitched go off the air. I
had to guess, nineteen seventy two, and she said, exactly, good, correct,
twenty years ago. And the these people have remembered that
nose twitch for twenty years at least Bewitched. Keith is
(43:11):
not Hamlet, it is not Arthur Miller, it is not
the Godfather, but they remembered it. This is why you
and I both do what we do for a living.
We have transcended time with what we do for a living,
something artistic, something creative, no matter how small that we
have done. They have remembered it. People do it with you,
(43:31):
I'm sure, and I'm sure they'll continue to. And what
you do then is you say thank you for remembering,
as if they were the only one who ever remembered,
because that's why we do this, because they remembered me
from twenty years ago for a stupid little nose twitch.
(43:51):
Duly chastised, I apologized, and the huge welcoming, conspiratorial, permanent
friendship sexy smile of Elizabeth Montgomery broke across her face
like the sunrise, and she whispered either that Keith or
they saw Bewitched on cable last week, which means Lizzie
(44:14):
gets another check next week, and she twitched her nose
at me and I will always love her. I've done
(44:37):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music arrange produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel, who
are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by
John Phillip Shanelle, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
(44:57):
music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis. Courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical
comments by Nancy Fauss the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. Special thank you to you
for last week. With the addition of the YouTube option
for listening to and or watching this podcast, our audience
(45:20):
total was last week more than eight hundred thousand, which
used to be a pretty good month. Thanks tell the others.
That's countdown for this the nine hundred and forty third
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Arrest him again while
we still can. Lord knows there is more there where
(45:42):
that came from. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin
says the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman
(46:03):
is a production of iHeart For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
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