October 25, 2023 • 45 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 60: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Five months ago today this podcast was titled “Did Mark Meadows Flip?” Now, ABC reports and Bloomberg and The Guardian report – Mark Meadows has flipped. How much he said and how willingly he said it is unclear, but there’s no doubt that he testified under oath and with immunity to Jack Smith’s Grand Jury and would do the same in the Election Subversion Trial of Donald Trump.
What Meadows told prosecutors and grand jurors is damning. He never found any evidence of election corruption. He repeatedly told Trump that. He felt Trump was being “dishonest” when he claimed victory on election night. When the Supreme Court ruled against Trump on December 11, 2020, Trump told Meadows “something to the effect of ‘then that’s the end’ or ‘so that’s it.’ Yet a week later came Trump’s “Will be Wild” tweet, 22 days later came the phone call to Georgia, 26 days later came the insurrection. And what Meadows testified underscores that at each of these traitorous moments, Trump knew he was lying – the essence of Smith’s case.
There’s a run on the Plea Deal bank because Jenna Ellis became the third ex-Trump lawyer to flip in Georgia. She tearfully said if she’d known then what she knows now blah blah blah. Most of her testimony will sink Rudy Giuliani and as unlikely as this sounds, the next most logical candidate to flip is Giuliani himself. He’s out of money and Trump has abandoned him.
MEANWHILE BACK AT TRUMP PLANTATION: House Republicans selected their third choice for Speaker, Tom Emmer. Trump vetoed him. The slaves threw Emmer overboard in just over four hours. Last night they selected their fourth choice, insurrectionist Mike Johnson, while Kevin McCarthy maneuvered behind the scenes to get back. Somewhere there must be six GOP members ready to retire rather than keep this lousy job, and who want revenge. They could dictate a name to the Democrats and between them get him elected and Trump could do NOTHING about it. Instead, pressed by a reporter about Johnson's role in the attempt to install Trump as dictator, the treason caucus shouted the questioner down.
B-Block (19:23) IN SPORTS: Oh boy, just the dramatic World Series match-up we all wanted: the 4th best team in the American League (the Texas Rangers) versus the 6th best team in the National League (the Arizona Diamondbacks, who finished exactly three games over .500). This madness will be reflected in the ratings. Good news: NHL reversed its pride stick tape ban after a player used it anyway and dared Appeasement Commissioner Gary Bettman to do anything about it. (24:39) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The New York Post writer who thought she was bashing liberals over Sidney Powell but actually proved Jack Smith’s case; Kyrsten Sinema’s delusions of grandeur; and Ted Cruz – senator from Texas – does not know the name of the Texas team that is going to the World Series. Even though it’s FROM Texas and NAMED Texas.
C-Block (30:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: A special request. Remember my hospice puppy Mishu? I’m now trying to help a Maltese girl, abandoned by a puppy mill and then hit by a car, with a broken leg and a broken pelvis, and named… MISHA. This one’s personal. The link is here: https://www.givinggrid.com/Hit-And-Run-Misha-Needs-Surgery/?ublast=407378 (32:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The “co-speaker” story reminded me of the “co-presidency” idea Gerald Ford pitched to Ronald Reagan in 1980. It fell through, but hours later the most talented newscaster I ever worked with, zonked out of his head, went on the air and read old copy that indicated it was a done deal. It helped to get him fired. He was a brilliant and tragic figure. Please meet Will Spens.
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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. Mark
(00:28):
Meadows reportedly flipped and took a plea deal, and we'll
testify against Trump until the jury. Trump said, then that's
the end. As early as December eleventh, twenty twenty, Jenna
Ellis flipped and took a plea deal, and we'll testify
against Juliani. Sidney Powell flipped and took a plea deal.
Kenneth cheesbro flipped and took a plea deal. Don't look now,
but there's something funny going on over there at the bank.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Jarge.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I've never really seen one, but that's got all the
air marks of being a run next. Unbelievable as this sounds,
Rudy Giuliani now has to flip. He may literally have
no other choice, has no money, MAGA has stopped funding him.
Jenna Ellis's principal value as a witness is against him,
(01:11):
and she literally signed a you must testify agreement. Kenny
the Cheese confess to doing what Giuliani told him to
do on the fake elector's filings in Georgia. Meadows just
reportedly told Jack Smith's prosecutors that he told Trump in
the middle of December of twenty twenty that Giuliani had
produced only allegations, no evidence, And now Meadows has to
(01:32):
testify in the federal case, and he's still really liable
in the Georgia case, and if he pleads out there,
he'll obviously give them Rudy there. Trump has not ridden
to Rudy's financial rescue. Rudy is screwed. Rudy needs to flip.
And while the John Eastmans of this world are fanatics
and still not only believe they will be vindicated, but
(01:54):
believe they will avenge themselves against the prosecutors and be
named Attorney General chief crusader something, the only thing Rudy
Giuliani is a fanatic about is Rudy Giuliani. At some
point soon he is going to snap out of his
Scotch and Viagra hayes and realize that Trump sold him out,
(02:18):
and Meadows and Ellis and Cheesbro are ready to send
him to the big house, and time is running out
on the lifeboat because it really is a run on
the Plea Deal Bank. Obviously, Rudy is not the target here,
and not why Jack Smith granted Mark Meadow's immunity to
testify to the Washington Grand jury. As ABC reports, Trump
(02:41):
is the target that has been obvious since the spring.
The May twenty fifth edition of this series, five months
ago today, was titled did Meadows Flip? And I pointed
out that there were three bombshell news reports about the
investigation of Trump coming out at that time, including the
claim that quote some of Trump's close associates are bracing
(03:03):
for his indictment, and the bizarre footnote to a CNN
story down in paragraph fourteen, read quote a source close
to Trump's legal team said Trump's lawyers have had no
contact with Meadows and his team and are in the
dark on what Meadows is doing in the investigation, which
(03:24):
was phrased in such a way that it made it
sound like Trump's legal team knew that Meadows was doing
something in the investigation, they just didn't know what. And
again quoting that CNN story fueling speculation about whether Meadows
is cooperating with the Special Counsel's probe or if Meadows
himself is a target of the investigation. Well, now we
(03:47):
know how well founded their speculation was. Meadows played this adroitly.
The law firm representing him got nine hundred grand from
the Trump political action committee Save America last winter. Meadows
got five hundred thousand more from a pro Trump think
tank in the spring, and then Meadows apparently got a
play deal from Jack Smith in the summer. He got
(04:08):
the hush money, and he didn't even hush. So the
news of the Meadows flip from ABC might have been
a shock, but it was not a surprise. The bullet
points of their story. Meadows met with Smith's team at
least three times this year, once with the grand jury present.
He's already testified under oath that he repeatedly told Trump
after the election that the allegations of voting fraud were
(04:30):
false and that he has never seen any evidence of
fraud in the twenty twenty campaign, and Meadows told prosecutors
that when Trump claimed victory early on election night, he
was being quote dishonest unquote with the public. He told
Smith's team quote, obviously we didn't win. But he continued
to maintain Trump's big lie throughout twenty twenty one and
(04:54):
in his autobiographical story of the Trump administration, and while
Meadows insisted Trump never told him I know I lost,
he has reportedly he testified that after the Supreme Court
rejected Trump's last challenge. December eleventh, twenty twenty, Trump said
to him, quote something to the effect of, then that's
(05:15):
the end, or so that's it. The Georgia eleven, seven
hundred and eighty votes call was still twenty two days away,
and the coup attempt twenty six days away, But that
December eleventh quote could be key to the essence of
Smith's prosecution of Trump, that all of what Trump did
(05:37):
was nothing close to an honest attempt to investigate a
compromised election, and that Trump knew that he had lost
and knew that he was lying every time he insisted otherwise.
Dementia Jay Trump is ft that he was eft even
before the Meadows flip broke, and was later confirmed by
Bloomberg News yesterday morning. Well, I believe that phrase is
(06:03):
cry more.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Thank you, Arnor for the opportunity to address the court
as an attorney who is also a Christian. I take
my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously, and I endeavored
to be a person of sound, moral and ethical character
in all of my dealings. I believe in and I
value election integrity. If I knew then what I know now,
(06:27):
I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these
post election challenges.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
If only I knew then what I did know then
but lied about, we should have seen this one coming.
Throughout the second half of August, Jenna Ellis repeatedly tweeted
questions about why Trump and MAGA were not paying for
the legal fees of all of those who were indicted
with him in Atlanta, especially her. On September fourteenth, that's
(06:54):
a month and change ago, Jenna Ellis tweeted over two
hundred thousand dollars raised for my defense fund. Thank you
to everyone who is helping me fight a weaponized government
and the criminalization of the practice of law. Unquote Jenna,
that criminalization of the practice of law? Were you for
it or against it? The good news about what turns
(07:17):
out to be two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars raised
for Jenna Ellis is that A it didn't come from
anybody we like, and B ten thousand dollars of it
was supposedly donated by Denesh De'suza. He'll be asking for
that back. As noted before, the Ellis flip in Georgia
(07:37):
differs from the ones by Kenneth Chesbro and Sidney Powell.
It is a so called full cooperation agreement, further meetings
with the DA, further statements, testimony, especially about Rudy, against
whom Jenna Ellis will finally get her revenge for farting
on her. Meanwhile, back at the Ranch House, Republicans continue
(08:06):
to live under a Trump dictatorship, and their nominees for
Speaker continue to have a shelf life that approximates that
of the drummers. From spinal tap number four, Tom Emmer
had an elapsed time from nomination by the GOP Caucus
to withdrawing from consideration of four hours and nine minutes.
(08:29):
Nominated at twelve fifteen Eastern. Audio of him from twenty
seventeen wondering if Trump were weak minded emerges at twelve
fifty six Eastern. Trump calls him a globalist rhino at
two eleven Eastern. Trump's team texts a screenshot of that
to every Republican in the House at two thirty five Eastern,
and Emmer spontaneously combusts at four to twenty four Eastern.
(08:52):
His crime, of course, was that he had voted to
certify the twenty twenty election. Tom Emmer's Goddardammerung, or in
this case god Demerrung as usual, being incapable of doing
whatever the rules and history call for, namely what the
other one hundred and seventeen congresses have done in peace,
(09:15):
in war, in civil war, during Whig congresses, during Democratic
Party congresses, during Republican Party congresses, during the original Democratic
Republican Party congresses. The Republicans floated yet another made up,
unconstitutional ideal last night, a co speakership with Kevin McCarthy
back as official speaker and Jim Jordan as deputy speaker.
(09:38):
This was proposed by Kevin McCarthy. It A serves as
a reminder that as they deposed him, I told you
he'd be back, and b serves as a reminder that
Ronald Reagan was this close to getting former President Gerald
Ford to run as his vice president in nineteen eighty
until Ford blew the thing by insisting that after they
(10:01):
got elected, they would really be co presidents. So McCarthy
gets this idea across the finish line somehow. Just remember
that the first business under a new McCarthy Jordan's speakership
duet would be either for McCarthy to bump off Jordan,
or for Jordan to bump off McCarthy. The GOP caucus
(10:23):
met again last night and opted for another insurrectionist, Congressman,
Mike Johnson as Speaker designe. And if you tell me
his name is actually John Mikeson, I'll believe you. On
the third ballot last night, he got one hundred and
twenty eight votes, which is a scant eighty eight short
of losing the actual election for speaker by one vote.
(10:45):
The conference then held a roll call vote to see
how many of them would support him on the floor.
They did not ask and for how many hours? The
(11:08):
idiot booing that question last night is the North Carolina
Witch Virginia Fox. They booed the reporter and told her
to shut up when she asked about the insurrection that
they largely supported, and Johnson led, there is nobody in
that group. Johnson was at the podium, Scalisee was there, Stephanic.
(11:30):
Nobody in that group is a loyal American. They are fascists.
They are fascist bastards who must be exercised from our nation.
The side story to last night's caucus Tennessee Congressman Chuck
Fleischman texting somebody close to Trump what was going on
in real time, and Trump promptly posting screenshots of his texts,
(11:55):
I'm in speaker race now please tell President Trump thanks
five left voting now all candidates now one percent Trump
all five. I preached Trump in my speech. The only
thing Representative Fleischman left out was please tell him not
to kill me. Apart from the obvious point that every
(12:17):
Republican in the House is in fact, in reality, nothing
more than a slave on the Trump plantation, there is
the reality that in the last three weeks the Congressional
Party has destroyed what little credibility it had, not with
Trump or the Maga cult, or with you or with me,
but the credibility it needs for showdowns with the Democrats
(12:40):
or the Senate or the White House. You got trouble
with the new speaker, Speaker number five, five, Speaker number five.
If you're Hunter Biden, or you're the President, or you're
Alejandro Majorcas, or you're just a lobbyist trying to throw
his weight around and you don't get the answer you
want from the House Republicans, you just park your hips
(13:01):
on the nearest bus bench and you say, hey, can
you tell me what time the next speaker will be
coming through. It's ludicrous and it's pathetic, and I almost
feel sorry for those few dozen Republicans who must have
to drink themselves to sleep every night in a desperate
bid to stop feeling like the whores they are. And
(13:22):
I cannot shake the idea that there have to be
six or eight or ten of them who have seen
one of several different lights and at least in their
minds have a plan B. It could be the light
of I need to regain my self respect. I'm not
running for reelection. I'm going to go work at a
sewage treatment facility. Or it could be the light of
I like Congress, but I don't belong to an organized
(13:44):
political party. I'm a Republican. I need to change that.
It could be the light of I liked McCarthy and
or Scalise and or Jordan and or Tom Emmer and
or whoever, and or being a congressman, and so I
want revenge. Whatever light they the response might be to
(14:07):
quit the party, continue to serve as independents caucus with
the Democrats. At least done this one thing, and just
six of them could elect a blue dog Democrat or
one of their own as the new Speaker, and Trump
couldn't do a damn thing about it. Part of the
(14:28):
future of American democracy could be resolved almost fatally to
Trump by six Republicans with some kind of spine or
at least some kind of vendetta. Or they can stay
where they are in the kind of blissful stupidity of
(14:49):
Marjorie Taylor Green, who, for all her braggadocio, is clearly
a massochist. Politico reports that during the candidate forum, the
one Monday, not the one last night, not the one
over the weekend, not the one last week, the one Monday,
Green's entire line of questioning was to ask who would
investigate MAJORCIS and Attorney General Garland the hardest. Politico quotes
(15:14):
her as saying, I want to know which one of
you have the balls to hold them accountable, which leads
me to the observation that her rival, Lauren Bobert would
have just gotten her hands dirty and found that out
for herself. Also of interest, here, oh Boy, World Series
(15:37):
time fourth best team in the American League versus the
twelfth sixteenth best team in the National League, just the
way Abner Doubleday didn't draw it up. Kirsten Cinema thinks
she's been a success. And I have a special request
from me to you. And every dog has its day,
I'd like you to help me save a little Maltese
(15:59):
abandoned in California by a puppy mill and then hit
by a car. This is countdown.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman. This is Sports Senate.
Wait check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith
(16:32):
Olberman in sports Woooo. The Dream World Series.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Matchup the fourth best team in the American League, the
Texas Rangers, versus the sixth best team in the National League,
the Arizona Diamondbacks, who finished three games over five hundred
in the regular season, raising the question why do they
still play the regular season. To their credit, the Snakes
(16:59):
did rally to come back from down three games to
two to beat the Phillies in the National League Championship Series.
The score was four to two in Game seven last night,
and Game six and seven were on the road, so
they won on the road, just as the Texas Rangers
rallied to win on the road against the Houston Astros.
Reliever Kevin Ginkel of Arizona came in with one out
(17:20):
in the bottom of the seventh inning, his team up
by two, the tying runs for the Phillies on base,
he got Trey Turner and Bryce Harper to fly out.
Then in the eighth Ginkel struck out Alec Bohm, he
struck out Bryson Stott, and he struck out j t
real Muto. As impressive a relief appearance as the playoffs
have seen in years now. The Rangers Diamondbacks World Series,
(17:43):
which I suspect, as I've suggested before, will not draw
an average of ten million a night in TV ratings,
a sidebark to the outcome, though in a positive one.
MLB network host and ESPN screamer Chris Russo said Monday
that if the Diamondbacks went into Philadelphia and beat the
Phillies in Games six and seven to reach the series, quote,
(18:05):
I will retire on the spot. Enjoy your retirement. I
have mentioned before Russo is a very nice man and
pretty good at the business of media, and he has
forged a long and lucrative career, and I think he
is one of the most unbearable broadcasters I have ever
heard in any language. The first time I heard him
(18:27):
and Mike Francesa on WFAN radio in New York. While
I was vacationing back home in the late nineteen eighties,
I literally assumed that the after Union had gone on
strike and two guys from building maintenance were doing their show.
I have never understood one word either of them has said.
(18:49):
Never Once. Russo talks. All I hear is oa. Also
Russo screams a lot. But now our long national nightmare
is over. Christopher Russo has retired. Thank you and God
bless you, Arizona Diamondbacks. Also congratulations to the National Hockey League,
(19:14):
which has steered out of its latest self inflicted disaster
and reversed its ruling that its players could not use
Pride colored tape on their sticks, because, of course, that
would contradict the league's decision to appease homophobic interests by
canceling all the Pride Night jerseys and player involvement on
Pride Night. One player, Travis Dermott of Arizona ignored the rule,
(19:39):
used the tape in a game the other day, and
the league caved. The league caved because that's what commissioner
Gary Bettman is good at caving. Everybody has a skill. Now,
the NHL can step on another rake it has left there,
which I see will occur. Check's notes tonight. The league
(20:03):
thought having all of its thirty two teams play last
night would be a great promotional stunt, provided that each
game began at a slightly different time, because that's cool. Huh. No, okay,
(20:23):
we tried. The second half of the National Hockey League
disaster is the sixteen NHL games last night. We're up
against game seven of the Phillies Diamondbacks series and opening
night of the NBA. Tonight there is no baseball and
the NHL has one game scheduled. You know, if two
teams just show up at a rink somewhere and play anyway,
(20:47):
Commissioner Bettman will probably just have to cave to that too.
(21:13):
Still ahead on countdown, Something in that co speaker idea
and the co president idea from nineteen eighty that it
invoked also reminded me of the most talented newscaster I
ever worked with. He got fired because he went on
the air and said, looks like it'll be Reagan and Bush.
And he said this about seven hours after the Reagan
(21:34):
and Bush deal collapsed. His copy was old and he
didn't know it. Oops. The tragic story of the Great
Will Spence coming up first time for the daily roundup
of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens
who constitute two days worst persons in the world. The
bronze Miranda Divine of The New York Post, who has
(21:57):
written a lengthy column explaining how the Left got snookeered
by Sydney Powell. The headline is Trump and Giuliani never
fell for Sidney Powell's twenty twenty election cracking, but the
Left sure did. Miranda Divine's article goes on to explain
that Trump and Rudy knew that Powell's election fraud claims
(22:18):
were nonsense and lies, and they fired her three different times,
and aren't they smart? The article never once remembers that
the gist of Jack Smith's case is that Trump and
Rudy knew the election fraud claims were nonsense and lies.
And her column means Trump knew that the election fraud
claims were nonsense and lies. So thanks Miranda Divine. They
(22:43):
runner up good old Senator Kirsten Cinema. Did I mention
I went out on a couple of dates with her
before she went crazy? Completely crazy?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
The new McKay Coppin's book on Mitt Romney as Romney
recounting a conversation with Cinema on her prospects for reelection
next year, where right now she's at No. Nineteen percent
and is in third place as a sitting US Senator,
behind Carrie Lake and the front runner, Ruben Diego. All
(23:15):
of this matters not according to what she told Mitt,
quoting Coppins quoting Mitt quoting her, I don't care. I
can go on any board I want to. I can
be a college president. I can do anything. I saved
the Senate filibusterio by myself. I saved the Senate by myself.
That's good enough for me. As I said, I went
out with her before she went crazy. But those I
(23:36):
saved the Senate. I can be a college president now.
Delusions of grandeur, they were already in the works in
twy ten. In twenty eleven, I believe in this quote.
But our winner is Texas Senator Ted Cruz. There are
a thousand political and governmental ways I could prove to
you he is an utter fraud. But we don't need
(23:57):
to get that serious. Just rely on this. After the
Texas Rangers' that's Texas As in the state he represents
in the Senate. After the Texas Rangers beat the Houston
Astros Monday night to reach the World Series, Cruise tweeted,
now one more reminder, the name of the team is
the Texas Rangers. Cruise Rights. Congrats to the Rangers. I'm
(24:23):
a lifelong Astros fans. Tough night, but Dallas won it
with a fantastic performance in Game seven. They earned it,
and we have a Texas team in the World Series.
So go Rangers. Unquote the Rangers. The team the senator
from Texas thinks is called the Dallas Rangers, even though
(24:43):
they've always been called the Texas Rangers ever since the
franchise moved in from Washington, d C. And it didn't
move in the other day. This happened in nineteen seventy two, Ted,
I guess they don't broadcast Texas Rangers games in Cancun.
Cruise two days. Worst person in the World Series just
(25:19):
ahead the idea that Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan could
be co speakers, invoking Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, who
are going to be co presidents. That one, as I
mentioned earlier, blew up at eight pm one night in
nineteen eighty, but the newscaster at my radio station in
New York at five am did not know it had
blown up, and that helped to get him fired. The
(25:43):
most talented and tragic broadcaster I ever worked with, Will
Spence in things I promised not to tell. Next first
time to feature a very special dog in need you
can help. Every dog has its day, and I've told
you before about my late brave, lovable pop Meshu. Meshu
was the one with the heart condition that was so
(26:04):
bad it claimed him at the age of five and
a half months two long years ago. Next month. Imagine
my surprise the other day when my friends at AMAR
American Maltese Association Rescue asked for my help on a
Maltese hit by a car in Sacramento, left to die
by the side of the road after earlier clearly having
(26:25):
been abandoned by a puppy mill. It was ephemeral fracture.
They were pelvic fractures. The original idea was it's going
to cost fourteen thousand dollars to repair her completely. That's
a lot of money, about ten thousand for the pelvis
that needs to be done to save her life four
thousand for the compromised leg, So why not take the
(26:46):
easier route, amputate that bad leg and just fix the pelvis?
And I said, uh no, not on my watch. I'll
raise the four thousand for the leg, or I'll donate
it myself. So Amar said great, and I said great.
I said, send me her name a photo and I'll
put it on the podcast. And two hours later, my
(27:07):
friend there reported through tears that the injured Maltese girl's
name is Misha. I'm full up here in the house,
or I'd adopt her myself. So this one's personal. I'm
basically going to match donations up to four thousand dollars.
So if you can donate to Misha, she's on giving
(27:29):
grid right now. Plus I'll send out the link on
my Twitter feeds. Anything you give will make a difference. Misha,
thanks you, I thank you, and Mishu thanks you. Howser
(28:05):
will have more to say and we'll answer the question
how hot was it at Yankee Stadium? Yesterday? On the
Sports reported about a thirty.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Five and that man's name is Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Now how hot was it at Yankee Stadium? Bob Harris
got a figure about I once worked with a newscaster,
the most talented person I have ever worked with, and
he not only made an unbelievable blooper and one of
the big radio stations in New York, but after he
did that, they warned him that if he ever did
something like that again, they would fire him. And he
did it again and they fired him. His name was
(28:36):
will Spence, and by the time he was eighteen years old,
he was the news director of a radio station in Connecticut,
and he was a substitute anchor at the age of
eighteen on the top all news radio station in the
COUNTRYCBS in New York eighteen. Not long after that, he
went to NBC and was the original newsman on Don
Imus's radio show. He jumped right from that to being
(28:58):
a TV reporter on the NBC station in New York
age twenty four twenty five, and the sky was the limit,
and he was simply a genius and fitting the best
definition of that word, someone who could do something with
ease that nobody else would even attempt. Will Spence was
reporting for the NBC station Channel four in New York
(29:18):
on New York's fiscal crisis of the late seventies and
he had scooped the competition and gotten details of a
complicated rescue plan with debt transference and algorithms and adjusted
interest rates, and not one moment of his important scoop
was on camera. The people who gave him that story
would not permit themselves to be recorded or even quoted.
(29:42):
So Will simply had his cameraman set up at the
foot of the steps of New York City Hall and
said to him, follow me, stop at Park Row and
then three to two one, and then Will began to walk.
The cameraman was next to him, and he began to walk,
and for two and a half minutes, with impeccable sentence
structure and diction and complete accuracy, Will Spence took this
(30:04):
extra xu ordinarily complicated rescue plan for New York's hemorrhaging
finances with algorithms and explained it calmly, succinctly, expertly, simply
a little touch of snark in his voice. And he
kept walking and kept walking, and kept walking, and kept
looking to the cameraman by his side, and then away
into the ground, and then back to the cameraman, and
(30:26):
then he stopped on the sidewalk of Park Row, where
he was perfectly framed by the Brooklyn Bridge Will Spence
News Center for at City Hall. I couldn't do that
in a million years, and I'm okay with doing stuff
like that, to be fair. That was take two. On
take one, Will had misstimed what he wanted to say
(30:49):
and where he wanted to walk, and instead of he
and the cameraman stopping on the sidewalk of the street,
Park Row, the cameraman stopped, but Will had not yet finished,
so Will kept walking into the street itself, and the
video then showed him diving out of the way as
a garbage truck barreled toward him on Park Row at
about forty five miles an hour. And that was the
(31:11):
other side of Will Spence. For every act of genius,
there was a garbage truck heading towards him with his
name on it. I don't know what happened at Channel four,
but I do know he got fired. I know that.
When I met him in nineteen eighty, when I was
twenty one and he was thirty, I was convinced he
was closer to forty. And on the morning shift of
the New York radio station where we both worked, Will
(31:33):
had a little trouble with his own schedule. He was
supposed to be there at three point fifteen am and
on the air for his first newscast at five am.
The station was WNW, and it's decades old news sound
was the Bonga bongas that sound, bangabanga, bangabonga, repeating endlessly.
(31:54):
I saw Will Spence walk in one morning, pale as
a sheet in his raincoat, gesticulating wildly with his left
hand for a news desk assistant to hand him a
script and script at exactly five am, no, actually a
few seconds after five am, so late that the dish
jockey was already playing the WAW news sound. And we
(32:14):
were at about the eighth or ninth Bonga bonga, And
I saw him a small stack of copy jammed into
his left hand by the desk assistant, a stack of
copy he had not even looked at, with his raincoats
still on, sit down, throw his microphone toggle open and say, falllessly,
(32:35):
wet you run at w News. It's eighty three degrees
in reigning at five o'clock. I'm Will Spence, mayor Cutch.
We'll meet this morning with representatives of the United Editions
to discuss like he had been there for hours and
written the copy himself and practiced it aloud for three
or four times. From the standpoint of the viewer or
the listener. Will could sound perfect when he had crafted
(32:56):
a thing of genius, like the walking stand up on
the fiscal crisis. But he could also sound perfect when
he had just staggered into the booth having successfully found
the location of the radio station on the eighth or
ninth Bonga. And unfortunately that skill was his undoing. On
the night of Wednesday, July sixteenth, nineteen eighty, Republican presidential
(33:18):
nominee Ronald Reagan was in deep discussions with former president
former Vice President Gerald Ford about Ford running with him
as Reagan's vice president. It was unprecedented in American history.
It led all the newscasts that night. It was the
featured story on all the wire services. Books have been
written about this evening and those discussions, and they all
(33:41):
fell apart about eleven PM because Ford made it clear
to Reagan that whoever was president, whoever was vice president,
Ford expected them to be more or less co presidents.
Before the calendar had turned to Thursday, July seventeenth, nineteen eighty,
the deal was dead. Reagan had selected George H. W.
Bush as his running mate, and our timeline was irrevocably altered.
(34:04):
Dare you sir? At About five hours later, and about
twelve bongas into the five o'clock newscast on Thursday July seventeenth,
in walked Will Spence, this time simply grabbing the first
stack of copy he saw, falling into the announced booth,
opening up his mic and starting to read. Unfortunately, what
he had grabbed was the previous night's nine pm newscast
(34:27):
script WN news. It's eighty three degrees in reigning at
five o'clock. I'm Will Spence. It seems certain that American
history being made. A man will run for president. Denie's
running mate will be a former president, the Republican nineteen
eighty ticket, Regan and Ford. Those who were there in
the newsroom told me they were startled by how many
(34:49):
people were actually listening to the five am news and
were willing to call in and complain and call Will
Spence an idiot. Upper management wanted to call him something
else fired, But he had a guardian angel at WN
in the news director Sam Hall, who had also been
his boss in the imus days and Sam gave him
(35:09):
another chance, but said do it again and you're gone.
I really don't know what was wrong with Will. He
told me he smoked a lot of weed. He said
he was hypoglycemic. Somebody at WNBC said he used to
sit at his desk, pressing his hands to his skull
and mumbling tumors. I can feel them growing tumors. He
(35:32):
was sometimes charming. He gave extraordinarily good career advice, sometimes constructively,
and sometimes advice that was designed to leave you bleeding.
During a commercial break preceding one of my short sportscasts,
I sat down in the booth with him, and as
an aggressively cheerful ad for a bank played in the background,
Will let loose on me? So I heard him and
(35:58):
this commercial for the bank mixed together juxtaposed like this.
You have potential overman, but you have to change your
entire delivery. We're the friendly bank. You can go up
to Yankee Stadium, interview every player and every fan, and
play all the little cuts you want on the radio.
But you got nowhere if you can't read the script
like a man. We're the bank that cares about you
(36:19):
your nasal. You sound constipated, you get nowhere in this business.
On the other hand, I could read the phone book
on the air and make it sound like the Bible.
Come in and see our friendly tellers today. Shape up
or you're fired, and by the way, fix your damned eyebrows.
Manhattan Bank member FDI see now with sports, Good morning teeth, Olberman.
(36:44):
I said nothing. For a second, maybe more. I contemplated
using a falsetto, and I finally stammered through my thirty seconds,
got up to leave, and as Spence through to the
weather man. Spence said, and that sucked too. I was
the only person left at WNW who liked it, and
(37:05):
I was beginning to hate him. He would take me
aside sometimes and tell me that his first wife and
her divorce lawyer were up in the blimp following him
around the city. Sometimes he claimed they were working in
cahoots with the news director Sam Hall to destroy him,
when in fact Hall was the only thing standing between
him and unemployment. Somebody once made a mild joke about
(37:29):
him and his age in the newsroom and he threw
a stapler at them. He complained one of the women
there was stalking him. In fact, he was stalking her
and inevitably on October third, nineteen eighty, he either made
an impossibly unlucky grab for an old script during the
seventeenth Bonga or something, or more likely, somebody in the
(37:50):
newsroom set him up. Nobody needs. It's fifty five degrees
in raining at five o'clock. I'm Will Spence. The whoop.
John Paul the Second made history arriving in our city
yesterday and today it took her tape parade, and then
he will address the faithful at Madison Square Garden coverage
of the Pope all day, Andreo to know your news
that had happened on October third, nineteen seventy nine. This
(38:14):
was now October third, nineteen eighty. Will Spence was reading
literally year old news. As I recall, they fired him
before his shift ended, maybe before the next newscast year
old news. Months later, I was working at the RKO
(38:36):
radio network for my boss, Charlie Steiner, one of the
voices of the Dodgers. Now when RKO expanded and started
a second network, and they brought in to run it,
Sam Hall. Sam Hall hired a bunch of guys with
great pipes, and he hired Will Spence. Oh Man, I say,
it took my advice. Look at this. Something whizzed past
me and stuck in a box of wire copy. It's
(38:57):
a Brazilian throwing dagger. I have a collection. At RKO.
On the night of the Grammy Will interweaved a clip
of every winning song into his script live on the air,
throwing cartridges left and right. As he did it. The
next hour he updated it with the latest winner. The
next hour he updated it with the latest winter. After
(39:18):
that it was utter unqualified genius. And he also told
me at RKO there was a woman stalking him, who
in fact he was stalking. And he addressed everybody by
their job title, Taype editor, come here. And once they
postponed a nine am staff meeting until three pm and
didn't tell him before he drove in from his house
(39:39):
in Connecticut. So he simply went to his Manhattan studio
apartment and, as he told me, smoked pot for six hours.
And then he came back and insulted literally every member
of the forty person staff, went from one to the
other to the other, saying as nasty a thing as
he could think of about them. When our nicest, sweetest
news editor stood up on her desk and screamed, Spence,
(40:03):
get the f out of he before I kill you,
before we all kill you. He was genuinely shocked ashen.
He came over to me. A lot of the bravada
was gone, Olderman, for God's sakes, help me, help me,
Keith Well, I heard his life story. It took two hours.
(40:24):
We went into Steiner's office. We stole two of Charlie's
cigars and smoked them. It was the living embodiment of
the phrase just because you're paranoid, it does not mean
they are not out to get you. I was trying
to think how to help him when days later news
came that he had been hired as a TV reporter
by another New York TV station, WABC. I witnessed news
(40:48):
and then over there. On his first day, he was
bitten by a dog and he wanted to go to
the hospital to get checked out. They made him go
out on another story instead. Dogs, garbage trucks. They all
had Will's name on them. A decade later, Bill wound
up in LA where I had made my mark by
then as a local TV sportscaster. He had been hired
(41:10):
by a rival station and still did those incredible intricate
walking stand ups now live every night, usually from a
crime scene on the eleven o'clock news. One night, his
own crew managed to not just sabotage him, but knock
him down with a slow moving car, live on the
air while he was declaiming into the camera. His last
(41:33):
job at yet another LA station, he got because the
aging woman anchor there, fifteen years his senior, had taken
a fancy to him. She got fired, He got fired,
And one day the phone rang at MSNBC, maybe two
thousand and six. It was Will Spence. The Pope had
sent a hit squad to kill him. He said the
(41:56):
whole Catholic Church was involved. Did I have the number
of the woman who used to stalk him? It was
far more awful than its sounds. I think somebody sent
me an email. Early in April two thousand and eight,
I'm pretty sure that's how I found out Will Spence
had driven his car at high speed into a bridge
(42:16):
abutment in Ventura County, outside LA. There was a story
that he had had heart problems and had just seen
his doctor and gotten bad news, but we'll never know
for sure. I went to put together a little tribute
to him, that night on Countdown and online I could
not find a single photo of him, nor any form
of biography. Even now, there is one photo accompanying a
(42:41):
sad tribute to him, published a couple weeks later in
one of the newspapers in Ventura County. It was a
tribute not unlike this one. What a wasted life? How
much you wanted to hate him and couldn't. And on
YouTube there is a tape of one Will Spence TV
report from November eighteenth, nineteen eighty one Channel seven in
(43:05):
New York. This talent who could decipher the plan to
save New York City from bankruptcy and recite it as
he walked, exists forever for two minutes and forty six
seconds of his report on the marriage of Luke and
Laura from ABC's General Hospital. And by the way, even
(43:27):
it is brilliant. It looks like to be Reagan and Ford.
Will Spence, what a tragedy. I've done all the damage
(43:50):
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has
come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at the
Elderman Broadcasting Empire here in New York Countown. Musical directors
Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Shanelle handling orchestration and keyboards,
Mister Ray on the guitars, bass and drums, and it
was all produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including other
(44:12):
Beethoven music, arranged and performed by No Horns allowed. The
sports music courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It was written by
Mitch Warren Davis. We call it the Old Woman theme
from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our
announcer today was my friend Dennis Leary. Everything else is
pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this the
(44:34):
oney twenty third day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict
him now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news warrants till then, I'm
Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(45:06):
Countdown with Keith Olderman 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. Mark
(00:28):
Meadows reportedly flipped and took a plea deal, and we'll
testify against Trump until the jury. Trump said, then that's
the end. As early as December eleventh, twenty twenty, Jenna
Ellis flipped and took a plea deal, and we'll testify
against Juliani. Sidney Powell flipped and took a plea deal.
Kenneth cheesbro flipped and took a plea deal. Don't look now,
but there's something funny going on over there at the bank.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Jarge.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I've never really seen one, but that's got all the
air marks of being a run next. Unbelievable as this sounds,
Rudy Giuliani now has to flip. He may literally have
no other choice, has no money, MAGA has stopped funding him.
Jenna Ellis's principal value as a witness is against him,
(01:11):
and she literally signed a you must testify agreement. Kenny
the Cheese confess to doing what Giuliani told him to
do on the fake elector's filings in Georgia. Meadows just
reportedly told Jack Smith's prosecutors that he told Trump in
the middle of December of twenty twenty that Giuliani had
produced only allegations, no evidence, And now Meadows has to
(01:32):
testify in the federal case, and he's still really liable
in the Georgia case, and if he pleads out there,
he'll obviously give them Rudy there. Trump has not ridden
to Rudy's financial rescue. Rudy is screwed. Rudy needs to flip.
And while the John Eastmans of this world are fanatics
and still not only believe they will be vindicated, but
(01:54):
believe they will avenge themselves against the prosecutors and be
named Attorney General chief crusader something, the only thing Rudy
Giuliani is a fanatic about is Rudy Giuliani. At some
point soon he is going to snap out of his
Scotch and Viagra hayes and realize that Trump sold him out,
(02:18):
and Meadows and Ellis and Cheesbro are ready to send
him to the big house, and time is running out
on the lifeboat because it really is a run on
the Plea Deal Bank. Obviously, Rudy is not the target here,
and not why Jack Smith granted Mark Meadow's immunity to
testify to the Washington Grand jury. As ABC reports, Trump
(02:41):
is the target that has been obvious since the spring.
The May twenty fifth edition of this series, five months
ago today, was titled did Meadows Flip? And I pointed
out that there were three bombshell news reports about the
investigation of Trump coming out at that time, including the
claim that quote some of Trump's close associates are bracing
(03:03):
for his indictment, and the bizarre footnote to a CNN
story down in paragraph fourteen, read quote a source close
to Trump's legal team said Trump's lawyers have had no
contact with Meadows and his team and are in the
dark on what Meadows is doing in the investigation, which
(03:24):
was phrased in such a way that it made it
sound like Trump's legal team knew that Meadows was doing
something in the investigation, they just didn't know what. And
again quoting that CNN story fueling speculation about whether Meadows
is cooperating with the Special Counsel's probe or if Meadows
himself is a target of the investigation. Well, now we
(03:47):
know how well founded their speculation was. Meadows played this adroitly.
The law firm representing him got nine hundred grand from
the Trump political action committee Save America last winter. Meadows
got five hundred thousand more from a pro Trump think
tank in the spring, and then Meadows apparently got a
play deal from Jack Smith in the summer. He got
(04:08):
the hush money, and he didn't even hush. So the
news of the Meadows flip from ABC might have been
a shock, but it was not a surprise. The bullet
points of their story. Meadows met with Smith's team at
least three times this year, once with the grand jury present.
He's already testified under oath that he repeatedly told Trump
after the election that the allegations of voting fraud were
(04:30):
false and that he has never seen any evidence of
fraud in the twenty twenty campaign, and Meadows told prosecutors
that when Trump claimed victory early on election night, he
was being quote dishonest unquote with the public. He told
Smith's team quote, obviously we didn't win. But he continued
to maintain Trump's big lie throughout twenty twenty one and
(04:54):
in his autobiographical story of the Trump administration, and while
Meadows insisted Trump never told him I know I lost,
he has reportedly he testified that after the Supreme Court
rejected Trump's last challenge. December eleventh, twenty twenty, Trump said
to him, quote something to the effect of, then that's
(05:15):
the end, or so that's it. The Georgia eleven, seven
hundred and eighty votes call was still twenty two days away,
and the coup attempt twenty six days away, But that
December eleventh quote could be key to the essence of
Smith's prosecution of Trump, that all of what Trump did
(05:37):
was nothing close to an honest attempt to investigate a
compromised election, and that Trump knew that he had lost
and knew that he was lying every time he insisted otherwise.
Dementia Jay Trump is ft that he was eft even
before the Meadows flip broke, and was later confirmed by
Bloomberg News yesterday morning. Well, I believe that phrase is
(06:03):
cry more.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Thank you, Arnor for the opportunity to address the court
as an attorney who is also a Christian. I take
my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously, and I endeavored
to be a person of sound, moral and ethical character
in all of my dealings. I believe in and I
value election integrity. If I knew then what I know now,
(06:27):
I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these
post election challenges.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
If only I knew then what I did know then
but lied about, we should have seen this one coming.
Throughout the second half of August, Jenna Ellis repeatedly tweeted
questions about why Trump and MAGA were not paying for
the legal fees of all of those who were indicted
with him in Atlanta, especially her. On September fourteenth, that's
(06:54):
a month and change ago, Jenna Ellis tweeted over two
hundred thousand dollars raised for my defense fund. Thank you
to everyone who is helping me fight a weaponized government
and the criminalization of the practice of law. Unquote Jenna,
that criminalization of the practice of law? Were you for
it or against it? The good news about what turns
(07:17):
out to be two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars raised
for Jenna Ellis is that A it didn't come from
anybody we like, and B ten thousand dollars of it
was supposedly donated by Denesh De'suza. He'll be asking for
that back. As noted before, the Ellis flip in Georgia
(07:37):
differs from the ones by Kenneth Chesbro and Sidney Powell.
It is a so called full cooperation agreement, further meetings
with the DA, further statements, testimony, especially about Rudy, against
whom Jenna Ellis will finally get her revenge for farting
on her. Meanwhile, back at the Ranch House, Republicans continue
(08:06):
to live under a Trump dictatorship, and their nominees for
Speaker continue to have a shelf life that approximates that
of the drummers. From spinal tap number four, Tom Emmer
had an elapsed time from nomination by the GOP Caucus
to withdrawing from consideration of four hours and nine minutes.
(08:29):
Nominated at twelve fifteen Eastern. Audio of him from twenty
seventeen wondering if Trump were weak minded emerges at twelve
fifty six Eastern. Trump calls him a globalist rhino at
two eleven Eastern. Trump's team texts a screenshot of that
to every Republican in the House at two thirty five Eastern,
and Emmer spontaneously combusts at four to twenty four Eastern.
(08:52):
His crime, of course, was that he had voted to
certify the twenty twenty election. Tom Emmer's Goddardammerung, or in
this case god Demerrung as usual, being incapable of doing
whatever the rules and history call for, namely what the
other one hundred and seventeen congresses have done in peace,
(09:15):
in war, in civil war, during Whig congresses, during Democratic
Party congresses, during Republican Party congresses, during the original Democratic
Republican Party congresses. The Republicans floated yet another made up,
unconstitutional ideal last night, a co speakership with Kevin McCarthy
back as official speaker and Jim Jordan as deputy speaker.
(09:38):
This was proposed by Kevin McCarthy. It A serves as
a reminder that as they deposed him, I told you
he'd be back, and b serves as a reminder that
Ronald Reagan was this close to getting former President Gerald
Ford to run as his vice president in nineteen eighty
until Ford blew the thing by insisting that after they
(10:01):
got elected, they would really be co presidents. So McCarthy
gets this idea across the finish line somehow. Just remember
that the first business under a new McCarthy Jordan's speakership
duet would be either for McCarthy to bump off Jordan,
or for Jordan to bump off McCarthy. The GOP caucus
(10:23):
met again last night and opted for another insurrectionist, Congressman,
Mike Johnson as Speaker designe. And if you tell me
his name is actually John Mikeson, I'll believe you. On
the third ballot last night, he got one hundred and
twenty eight votes, which is a scant eighty eight short
of losing the actual election for speaker by one vote.
(10:45):
The conference then held a roll call vote to see
how many of them would support him on the floor.
They did not ask and for how many hours? The
(11:08):
idiot booing that question last night is the North Carolina
Witch Virginia Fox. They booed the reporter and told her
to shut up when she asked about the insurrection that
they largely supported, and Johnson led, there is nobody in
that group. Johnson was at the podium, Scalisee was there, Stephanic.
(11:30):
Nobody in that group is a loyal American. They are fascists.
They are fascist bastards who must be exercised from our nation.
The side story to last night's caucus Tennessee Congressman Chuck
Fleischman texting somebody close to Trump what was going on
in real time, and Trump promptly posting screenshots of his texts,
(11:55):
I'm in speaker race now please tell President Trump thanks
five left voting now all candidates now one percent Trump
all five. I preached Trump in my speech. The only
thing Representative Fleischman left out was please tell him not
to kill me. Apart from the obvious point that every
(12:17):
Republican in the House is in fact, in reality, nothing
more than a slave on the Trump plantation, there is
the reality that in the last three weeks the Congressional
Party has destroyed what little credibility it had, not with
Trump or the Maga cult, or with you or with me,
but the credibility it needs for showdowns with the Democrats
(12:40):
or the Senate or the White House. You got trouble
with the new speaker, Speaker number five, five, Speaker number five.
If you're Hunter Biden, or you're the President, or you're
Alejandro Majorcas, or you're just a lobbyist trying to throw
his weight around and you don't get the answer you
want from the House Republicans, you just park your hips
(13:01):
on the nearest bus bench and you say, hey, can
you tell me what time the next speaker will be
coming through. It's ludicrous and it's pathetic, and I almost
feel sorry for those few dozen Republicans who must have
to drink themselves to sleep every night in a desperate
bid to stop feeling like the whores they are. And
(13:22):
I cannot shake the idea that there have to be
six or eight or ten of them who have seen
one of several different lights and at least in their
minds have a plan B. It could be the light
of I need to regain my self respect. I'm not
running for reelection. I'm going to go work at a
sewage treatment facility. Or it could be the light of
I like Congress, but I don't belong to an organized
(13:44):
political party. I'm a Republican. I need to change that.
It could be the light of I liked McCarthy and
or Scalise and or Jordan and or Tom Emmer and
or whoever, and or being a congressman, and so I
want revenge. Whatever light they the response might be to
(14:07):
quit the party, continue to serve as independents caucus with
the Democrats. At least done this one thing, and just
six of them could elect a blue dog Democrat or
one of their own as the new Speaker, and Trump
couldn't do a damn thing about it. Part of the
(14:28):
future of American democracy could be resolved almost fatally to
Trump by six Republicans with some kind of spine or
at least some kind of vendetta. Or they can stay
where they are in the kind of blissful stupidity of
(14:49):
Marjorie Taylor Green, who, for all her braggadocio, is clearly
a massochist. Politico reports that during the candidate forum, the
one Monday, not the one last night, not the one
over the weekend, not the one last week, the one Monday,
Green's entire line of questioning was to ask who would
investigate MAJORCIS and Attorney General Garland the hardest. Politico quotes
(15:14):
her as saying, I want to know which one of
you have the balls to hold them accountable, which leads
me to the observation that her rival, Lauren Bobert would
have just gotten her hands dirty and found that out
for herself. Also of interest, here, oh Boy, World Series
(15:37):
time fourth best team in the American League versus the
twelfth sixteenth best team in the National League, just the
way Abner Doubleday didn't draw it up. Kirsten Cinema thinks
she's been a success. And I have a special request
from me to you. And every dog has its day,
I'd like you to help me save a little Maltese
(15:59):
abandoned in California by a puppy mill and then hit
by a car. This is countdown.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman. This is Sports Senate.
Wait check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith
(16:32):
Olberman in sports Woooo. The Dream World Series.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Matchup the fourth best team in the American League, the
Texas Rangers, versus the sixth best team in the National League,
the Arizona Diamondbacks, who finished three games over five hundred
in the regular season, raising the question why do they
still play the regular season. To their credit, the Snakes
(16:59):
did rally to come back from down three games to
two to beat the Phillies in the National League Championship Series.
The score was four to two in Game seven last night,
and Game six and seven were on the road, so
they won on the road, just as the Texas Rangers
rallied to win on the road against the Houston Astros.
Reliever Kevin Ginkel of Arizona came in with one out
(17:20):
in the bottom of the seventh inning, his team up
by two, the tying runs for the Phillies on base,
he got Trey Turner and Bryce Harper to fly out.
Then in the eighth Ginkel struck out Alec Bohm, he
struck out Bryson Stott, and he struck out j t
real Muto. As impressive a relief appearance as the playoffs
have seen in years now. The Rangers Diamondbacks World Series,
(17:43):
which I suspect, as I've suggested before, will not draw
an average of ten million a night in TV ratings,
a sidebark to the outcome, though in a positive one.
MLB network host and ESPN screamer Chris Russo said Monday
that if the Diamondbacks went into Philadelphia and beat the
Phillies in Games six and seven to reach the series, quote,
(18:05):
I will retire on the spot. Enjoy your retirement. I
have mentioned before Russo is a very nice man and
pretty good at the business of media, and he has
forged a long and lucrative career, and I think he
is one of the most unbearable broadcasters I have ever
heard in any language. The first time I heard him
(18:27):
and Mike Francesa on WFAN radio in New York. While
I was vacationing back home in the late nineteen eighties,
I literally assumed that the after Union had gone on
strike and two guys from building maintenance were doing their show.
I have never understood one word either of them has said.
(18:49):
Never Once. Russo talks. All I hear is oa. Also
Russo screams a lot. But now our long national nightmare
is over. Christopher Russo has retired. Thank you and God
bless you, Arizona Diamondbacks. Also congratulations to the National Hockey League,
(19:14):
which has steered out of its latest self inflicted disaster
and reversed its ruling that its players could not use
Pride colored tape on their sticks, because, of course, that
would contradict the league's decision to appease homophobic interests by
canceling all the Pride Night jerseys and player involvement on
Pride Night. One player, Travis Dermott of Arizona ignored the rule,
(19:39):
used the tape in a game the other day, and
the league caved. The league caved because that's what commissioner
Gary Bettman is good at caving. Everybody has a skill. Now,
the NHL can step on another rake it has left there,
which I see will occur. Check's notes tonight. The league
(20:03):
thought having all of its thirty two teams play last
night would be a great promotional stunt, provided that each
game began at a slightly different time, because that's cool. Huh. No, okay,
(20:23):
we tried. The second half of the National Hockey League
disaster is the sixteen NHL games last night. We're up
against game seven of the Phillies Diamondbacks series and opening
night of the NBA. Tonight there is no baseball and
the NHL has one game scheduled. You know, if two
teams just show up at a rink somewhere and play anyway,
(20:47):
Commissioner Bettman will probably just have to cave to that too.
(21:13):
Still ahead on countdown, Something in that co speaker idea
and the co president idea from nineteen eighty that it
invoked also reminded me of the most talented newscaster I
ever worked with. He got fired because he went on
the air and said, looks like it'll be Reagan and Bush.
And he said this about seven hours after the Reagan
(21:34):
and Bush deal collapsed. His copy was old and he
didn't know it. Oops. The tragic story of the Great
Will Spence coming up first time for the daily roundup
of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens
who constitute two days worst persons in the world. The
bronze Miranda Divine of The New York Post, who has
(21:57):
written a lengthy column explaining how the Left got snookeered
by Sydney Powell. The headline is Trump and Giuliani never
fell for Sidney Powell's twenty twenty election cracking, but the
Left sure did. Miranda Divine's article goes on to explain
that Trump and Rudy knew that Powell's election fraud claims
(22:18):
were nonsense and lies, and they fired her three different times,
and aren't they smart? The article never once remembers that
the gist of Jack Smith's case is that Trump and
Rudy knew the election fraud claims were nonsense and lies.
And her column means Trump knew that the election fraud
claims were nonsense and lies. So thanks Miranda Divine. They
(22:43):
runner up good old Senator Kirsten Cinema. Did I mention
I went out on a couple of dates with her
before she went crazy? Completely crazy?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
The new McKay Coppin's book on Mitt Romney as Romney
recounting a conversation with Cinema on her prospects for reelection
next year, where right now she's at No. Nineteen percent
and is in third place as a sitting US Senator,
behind Carrie Lake and the front runner, Ruben Diego. All
(23:15):
of this matters not according to what she told Mitt,
quoting Coppins quoting Mitt quoting her, I don't care. I
can go on any board I want to. I can
be a college president. I can do anything. I saved
the Senate filibusterio by myself. I saved the Senate by myself.
That's good enough for me. As I said, I went
out with her before she went crazy. But those I
(23:36):
saved the Senate. I can be a college president now.
Delusions of grandeur, they were already in the works in
twy ten. In twenty eleven, I believe in this quote.
But our winner is Texas Senator Ted Cruz. There are
a thousand political and governmental ways I could prove to
you he is an utter fraud. But we don't need
(23:57):
to get that serious. Just rely on this. After the
Texas Rangers' that's Texas As in the state he represents
in the Senate. After the Texas Rangers beat the Houston
Astros Monday night to reach the World Series, Cruise tweeted,
now one more reminder, the name of the team is
the Texas Rangers. Cruise Rights. Congrats to the Rangers. I'm
(24:23):
a lifelong Astros fans. Tough night, but Dallas won it
with a fantastic performance in Game seven. They earned it,
and we have a Texas team in the World Series.
So go Rangers. Unquote the Rangers. The team the senator
from Texas thinks is called the Dallas Rangers, even though
(24:43):
they've always been called the Texas Rangers ever since the
franchise moved in from Washington, d C. And it didn't
move in the other day. This happened in nineteen seventy two, Ted,
I guess they don't broadcast Texas Rangers games in Cancun.
Cruise two days. Worst person in the World Series just
(25:19):
ahead the idea that Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan could
be co speakers, invoking Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, who
are going to be co presidents. That one, as I
mentioned earlier, blew up at eight pm one night in
nineteen eighty, but the newscaster at my radio station in
New York at five am did not know it had
blown up, and that helped to get him fired. The
(25:43):
most talented and tragic broadcaster I ever worked with, Will
Spence in things I promised not to tell. Next first
time to feature a very special dog in need you
can help. Every dog has its day, and I've told
you before about my late brave, lovable pop Meshu. Meshu
was the one with the heart condition that was so
(26:04):
bad it claimed him at the age of five and
a half months two long years ago. Next month. Imagine
my surprise the other day when my friends at AMAR
American Maltese Association Rescue asked for my help on a
Maltese hit by a car in Sacramento, left to die
by the side of the road after earlier clearly having
(26:25):
been abandoned by a puppy mill. It was ephemeral fracture.
They were pelvic fractures. The original idea was it's going
to cost fourteen thousand dollars to repair her completely. That's
a lot of money, about ten thousand for the pelvis
that needs to be done to save her life four
thousand for the compromised leg, So why not take the
(26:46):
easier route, amputate that bad leg and just fix the pelvis?
And I said, uh no, not on my watch. I'll
raise the four thousand for the leg, or I'll donate
it myself. So Amar said great, and I said great.
I said, send me her name a photo and I'll
put it on the podcast. And two hours later, my
(27:07):
friend there reported through tears that the injured Maltese girl's
name is Misha. I'm full up here in the house,
or I'd adopt her myself. So this one's personal. I'm
basically going to match donations up to four thousand dollars.
So if you can donate to Misha, she's on giving
(27:29):
grid right now. Plus I'll send out the link on
my Twitter feeds. Anything you give will make a difference. Misha,
thanks you, I thank you, and Mishu thanks you. Howser
(28:05):
will have more to say and we'll answer the question
how hot was it at Yankee Stadium? Yesterday? On the
Sports reported about a thirty.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Five and that man's name is Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Now how hot was it at Yankee Stadium? Bob Harris
got a figure about I once worked with a newscaster,
the most talented person I have ever worked with, and
he not only made an unbelievable blooper and one of
the big radio stations in New York, but after he
did that, they warned him that if he ever did
something like that again, they would fire him. And he
did it again and they fired him. His name was
(28:36):
will Spence, and by the time he was eighteen years old,
he was the news director of a radio station in Connecticut,
and he was a substitute anchor at the age of
eighteen on the top all news radio station in the
COUNTRYCBS in New York eighteen. Not long after that, he
went to NBC and was the original newsman on Don
Imus's radio show. He jumped right from that to being
(28:58):
a TV reporter on the NBC station in New York
age twenty four twenty five, and the sky was the limit,
and he was simply a genius and fitting the best
definition of that word, someone who could do something with
ease that nobody else would even attempt. Will Spence was
reporting for the NBC station Channel four in New York
(29:18):
on New York's fiscal crisis of the late seventies and
he had scooped the competition and gotten details of a
complicated rescue plan with debt transference and algorithms and adjusted
interest rates, and not one moment of his important scoop
was on camera. The people who gave him that story
would not permit themselves to be recorded or even quoted.
(29:42):
So Will simply had his cameraman set up at the
foot of the steps of New York City Hall and
said to him, follow me, stop at Park Row and
then three to two one, and then Will began to walk.
The cameraman was next to him, and he began to walk,
and for two and a half minutes, with impeccable sentence
structure and diction and complete accuracy, Will Spence took this
(30:04):
extra xu ordinarily complicated rescue plan for New York's hemorrhaging
finances with algorithms and explained it calmly, succinctly, expertly, simply
a little touch of snark in his voice. And he
kept walking and kept walking, and kept walking, and kept
looking to the cameraman by his side, and then away
into the ground, and then back to the cameraman, and
(30:26):
then he stopped on the sidewalk of Park Row, where
he was perfectly framed by the Brooklyn Bridge Will Spence
News Center for at City Hall. I couldn't do that
in a million years, and I'm okay with doing stuff
like that, to be fair. That was take two. On
take one, Will had misstimed what he wanted to say
(30:49):
and where he wanted to walk, and instead of he
and the cameraman stopping on the sidewalk of the street,
Park Row, the cameraman stopped, but Will had not yet finished,
so Will kept walking into the street itself, and the
video then showed him diving out of the way as
a garbage truck barreled toward him on Park Row at
about forty five miles an hour. And that was the
(31:11):
other side of Will Spence. For every act of genius,
there was a garbage truck heading towards him with his
name on it. I don't know what happened at Channel four,
but I do know he got fired. I know that.
When I met him in nineteen eighty, when I was
twenty one and he was thirty, I was convinced he
was closer to forty. And on the morning shift of
the New York radio station where we both worked, Will
(31:33):
had a little trouble with his own schedule. He was
supposed to be there at three point fifteen am and
on the air for his first newscast at five am.
The station was WNW, and it's decades old news sound
was the Bonga bongas that sound, bangabanga, bangabonga, repeating endlessly.
(31:54):
I saw Will Spence walk in one morning, pale as
a sheet in his raincoat, gesticulating wildly with his left
hand for a news desk assistant to hand him a
script and script at exactly five am, no, actually a
few seconds after five am, so late that the dish
jockey was already playing the WAW news sound. And we
(32:14):
were at about the eighth or ninth Bonga bonga, And
I saw him a small stack of copy jammed into
his left hand by the desk assistant, a stack of
copy he had not even looked at, with his raincoats
still on, sit down, throw his microphone toggle open and say, falllessly,
(32:35):
wet you run at w News. It's eighty three degrees
in reigning at five o'clock. I'm Will Spence, mayor Cutch.
We'll meet this morning with representatives of the United Editions
to discuss like he had been there for hours and
written the copy himself and practiced it aloud for three
or four times. From the standpoint of the viewer or
the listener. Will could sound perfect when he had crafted
(32:56):
a thing of genius, like the walking stand up on
the fiscal crisis. But he could also sound perfect when
he had just staggered into the booth having successfully found
the location of the radio station on the eighth or
ninth Bonga. And unfortunately that skill was his undoing. On
the night of Wednesday, July sixteenth, nineteen eighty, Republican presidential
(33:18):
nominee Ronald Reagan was in deep discussions with former president
former Vice President Gerald Ford about Ford running with him
as Reagan's vice president. It was unprecedented in American history.
It led all the newscasts that night. It was the
featured story on all the wire services. Books have been
written about this evening and those discussions, and they all
(33:41):
fell apart about eleven PM because Ford made it clear
to Reagan that whoever was president, whoever was vice president,
Ford expected them to be more or less co presidents.
Before the calendar had turned to Thursday, July seventeenth, nineteen eighty,
the deal was dead. Reagan had selected George H. W.
Bush as his running mate, and our timeline was irrevocably altered.
(34:04):
Dare you sir? At About five hours later, and about
twelve bongas into the five o'clock newscast on Thursday July seventeenth,
in walked Will Spence, this time simply grabbing the first
stack of copy he saw, falling into the announced booth,
opening up his mic and starting to read. Unfortunately, what
he had grabbed was the previous night's nine pm newscast
(34:27):
script WN news. It's eighty three degrees in reigning at
five o'clock. I'm Will Spence. It seems certain that American
history being made. A man will run for president. Denie's
running mate will be a former president, the Republican nineteen
eighty ticket, Regan and Ford. Those who were there in
the newsroom told me they were startled by how many
(34:49):
people were actually listening to the five am news and
were willing to call in and complain and call Will
Spence an idiot. Upper management wanted to call him something
else fired, But he had a guardian angel at WN
in the news director Sam Hall, who had also been
his boss in the imus days and Sam gave him
(35:09):
another chance, but said do it again and you're gone.
I really don't know what was wrong with Will. He
told me he smoked a lot of weed. He said
he was hypoglycemic. Somebody at WNBC said he used to
sit at his desk, pressing his hands to his skull
and mumbling tumors. I can feel them growing tumors. He
(35:32):
was sometimes charming. He gave extraordinarily good career advice, sometimes constructively,
and sometimes advice that was designed to leave you bleeding.
During a commercial break preceding one of my short sportscasts,
I sat down in the booth with him, and as
an aggressively cheerful ad for a bank played in the background,
Will let loose on me? So I heard him and
(35:58):
this commercial for the bank mixed together juxtaposed like this.
You have potential overman, but you have to change your
entire delivery. We're the friendly bank. You can go up
to Yankee Stadium, interview every player and every fan, and
play all the little cuts you want on the radio.
But you got nowhere if you can't read the script
like a man. We're the bank that cares about you
(36:19):
your nasal. You sound constipated, you get nowhere in this business.
On the other hand, I could read the phone book
on the air and make it sound like the Bible.
Come in and see our friendly tellers today. Shape up
or you're fired, and by the way, fix your damned eyebrows.
Manhattan Bank member FDI see now with sports, Good morning teeth, Olberman.
(36:44):
I said nothing. For a second, maybe more. I contemplated
using a falsetto, and I finally stammered through my thirty seconds,
got up to leave, and as Spence through to the
weather man. Spence said, and that sucked too. I was
the only person left at WNW who liked it, and
(37:05):
I was beginning to hate him. He would take me
aside sometimes and tell me that his first wife and
her divorce lawyer were up in the blimp following him
around the city. Sometimes he claimed they were working in
cahoots with the news director Sam Hall to destroy him,
when in fact Hall was the only thing standing between
him and unemployment. Somebody once made a mild joke about
(37:29):
him and his age in the newsroom and he threw
a stapler at them. He complained one of the women
there was stalking him. In fact, he was stalking her
and inevitably on October third, nineteen eighty, he either made
an impossibly unlucky grab for an old script during the
seventeenth Bonga or something, or more likely, somebody in the
(37:50):
newsroom set him up. Nobody needs. It's fifty five degrees
in raining at five o'clock. I'm Will Spence. The whoop.
John Paul the Second made history arriving in our city
yesterday and today it took her tape parade, and then
he will address the faithful at Madison Square Garden coverage
of the Pope all day, Andreo to know your news
that had happened on October third, nineteen seventy nine. This
(38:14):
was now October third, nineteen eighty. Will Spence was reading
literally year old news. As I recall, they fired him
before his shift ended, maybe before the next newscast year
old news. Months later, I was working at the RKO
(38:36):
radio network for my boss, Charlie Steiner, one of the
voices of the Dodgers. Now when RKO expanded and started
a second network, and they brought in to run it,
Sam Hall. Sam Hall hired a bunch of guys with
great pipes, and he hired Will Spence. Oh Man, I say,
it took my advice. Look at this. Something whizzed past
me and stuck in a box of wire copy. It's
(38:57):
a Brazilian throwing dagger. I have a collection. At RKO.
On the night of the Grammy Will interweaved a clip
of every winning song into his script live on the air,
throwing cartridges left and right. As he did it. The
next hour he updated it with the latest winner. The
next hour he updated it with the latest winter. After
(39:18):
that it was utter unqualified genius. And he also told
me at RKO there was a woman stalking him, who
in fact he was stalking. And he addressed everybody by
their job title, Taype editor, come here. And once they
postponed a nine am staff meeting until three pm and
didn't tell him before he drove in from his house
(39:39):
in Connecticut. So he simply went to his Manhattan studio
apartment and, as he told me, smoked pot for six hours.
And then he came back and insulted literally every member
of the forty person staff, went from one to the
other to the other, saying as nasty a thing as
he could think of about them. When our nicest, sweetest
news editor stood up on her desk and screamed, Spence,
(40:03):
get the f out of he before I kill you,
before we all kill you. He was genuinely shocked ashen.
He came over to me. A lot of the bravada
was gone, Olderman, for God's sakes, help me, help me,
Keith Well, I heard his life story. It took two hours.
(40:24):
We went into Steiner's office. We stole two of Charlie's
cigars and smoked them. It was the living embodiment of
the phrase just because you're paranoid, it does not mean
they are not out to get you. I was trying
to think how to help him when days later news
came that he had been hired as a TV reporter
by another New York TV station, WABC. I witnessed news
(40:48):
and then over there. On his first day, he was
bitten by a dog and he wanted to go to
the hospital to get checked out. They made him go
out on another story instead. Dogs, garbage trucks. They all
had Will's name on them. A decade later, Bill wound
up in LA where I had made my mark by
then as a local TV sportscaster. He had been hired
(41:10):
by a rival station and still did those incredible intricate
walking stand ups now live every night, usually from a
crime scene on the eleven o'clock news. One night, his
own crew managed to not just sabotage him, but knock
him down with a slow moving car, live on the
air while he was declaiming into the camera. His last
(41:33):
job at yet another LA station, he got because the
aging woman anchor there, fifteen years his senior, had taken
a fancy to him. She got fired, He got fired,
And one day the phone rang at MSNBC, maybe two
thousand and six. It was Will Spence. The Pope had
sent a hit squad to kill him. He said the
(41:56):
whole Catholic Church was involved. Did I have the number
of the woman who used to stalk him? It was
far more awful than its sounds. I think somebody sent
me an email. Early in April two thousand and eight,
I'm pretty sure that's how I found out Will Spence
had driven his car at high speed into a bridge
(42:16):
abutment in Ventura County, outside LA. There was a story
that he had had heart problems and had just seen
his doctor and gotten bad news, but we'll never know
for sure. I went to put together a little tribute
to him, that night on Countdown and online I could
not find a single photo of him, nor any form
of biography. Even now, there is one photo accompanying a
(42:41):
sad tribute to him, published a couple weeks later in
one of the newspapers in Ventura County. It was a
tribute not unlike this one. What a wasted life? How
much you wanted to hate him and couldn't. And on
YouTube there is a tape of one Will Spence TV
report from November eighteenth, nineteen eighty one Channel seven in
(43:05):
New York. This talent who could decipher the plan to
save New York City from bankruptcy and recite it as
he walked, exists forever for two minutes and forty six
seconds of his report on the marriage of Luke and
Laura from ABC's General Hospital. And by the way, even
(43:27):
it is brilliant. It looks like to be Reagan and Ford.
Will Spence, what a tragedy. I've done all the damage
(43:50):
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has
come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at the
Elderman Broadcasting Empire here in New York Countown. Musical directors
Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Shanelle handling orchestration and keyboards,
Mister Ray on the guitars, bass and drums, and it
was all produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including other
(44:12):
Beethoven music, arranged and performed by No Horns allowed. The
sports music courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It was written by
Mitch Warren Davis. We call it the Old Woman theme
from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our
announcer today was my friend Dennis Leary. Everything else is
pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this the
(44:34):
oney twenty third day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict
him now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news warrants till then, I'm
Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(45:06):
Countdown with Keith Olderman 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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