November 9, 2023 • 42 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 71: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: We are so goddamned afraid of OFFENDING somebody by DEFENDING democracy. The Minnesota State Supreme Court, whose Chief Justice is a pioneer and the daughter of a pioneer (the first African-American football coach at a predominantly white college in modern times) managed to find a way to NOT rule for OR against the bid to disqualify Trump from the ballot there via the 14th Amendment.
The 14th Amendment IS self-executing. You ARE presumed guilty until you are proven innocent. It was designed by Americans who had survived the Civil War and didn't want us to have to go through that. If there are extenuating circumstances, there's an override mechanism: Congress can vote by 2/3 to waive application of the clause. Otherwise - you're out.
Yet the Minnesota court has chosen the escape route, the way to shirk responsibility for fear of blowback or appeal or who knows what. Everybody placed in the position in which they can risk a little to defend freedom and the constitution rather than waiting until freedom and the constitution are DEAD and millions have to risk everything to restore them, seems to want to get out of it.
Kristen Welker got out of it last night. That buffoon Vivek Ramaswamy, so loathsome that even Nikki Haley called him "scum" during the debate, pointed at Welker and demanded that she explain NBC's coverage of the Trump-Russia conspiracy. "Was that real or was that Hilary Clinton made-up misinformation." And instead of realizing he had just gifted her the chance to DO something for democracy - to speak to an audience consuming its first "mainstream media" in a decade and tell them the truth, whether they accepted it or not - she just smiled moronically at him.
There’s an extraordinary French film, La Regle du Jeu, The Rules Of The Game. It premiered on July 7th, 1939…354 days before France fell to the Nazis. It was written and directed by Jean Renoir and in it he plays the hero’s buddy Octave and at one point Octave says something about the corruption and lack of morals and just plain lack of effort to stand up for what’s right, and it’s a quote that has come to symbolize the France that folded like a card table to the Hitler onslaught and the Vichy France full of more collaborators than the Germans believed possible. “You see, in this world, there is one awful thing,” Octave says, seemingly fighting back, and then gives up with a shrug, “and that is… that everyone has his REASONS.” We may be the 21st Century version of Pre-Hitler France. We all have our reasons to just shrug, or smile idiotically at hallucinating psychopaths who seem to believe more in (and are willing to fight more for) their delusions than we do about our reality.
B-Block (24:42) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Lauren Boebert discovers that being in Congress means if it's a spending bill you have to talk about spending in the bill, courtesy Professor Steny Hoyer. I'm sure she'll eventually get a grip on it. For a day, Twitter's "NY Times Pitchbot" predicted it and finally Nate Cohn did it: the story explaining why Tuesday's Democratic ass-kicking of MAGA was bad news for Joe Biden. And remember Cygnal? The right wing pollster I praised here yesterday for reporting, though it defied their side's narrative, that Biden's "image" had jumped five points in just one month and voters ranking inflation as the key issue had dropped six points in just two months? They've responded by attacking me. For...quoting their press release hyping their own poll. When you are strangled by slavery to your own ideology...
C-Block (34:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is moving to Florida to be closer to his partner Lauren Sanchez. And as I've mentioned before, I used to work with her and she has now achieved her life goal. Just as I used to work with the guy who would eventually try to blackmail David Letterman and yeah, I think that might've been HIS life goal too.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. We
are so goddamned afraid of offending somebody by defending democracy.
(00:27):
The first Fourteenth Amendment case against Trump is decided, and
the Minnesota State Supreme Court wriggled out of both disqualifying
him from the ballot and wriggled out of not disqualifying
him from the ballot. Chief Justice Natalie E. Hudson says
the court will not bar Trump from the Minnesota ballot now,
because hey, we're still in the primary stage. No, seriously,
(00:53):
Chief Justice Hudson writes, there is quote no state statute
that prohibits a major political party from placing on the
presidential nomination primary ballot or sending delegates to the National
can supporting a candidate who is ineligible to hold office.
That's what the Supreme Court of Minnesota decided this on.
(01:14):
Not the exact dimensions of Trump's role in the insurrection,
not the applicability of Clause three of the Fourteenth Amendment,
not the analysis of the deliberations leading to the passage
of the fourteenth Amendment. That it is self executing, and
if you were part of a rebellion, you start ineligible
to hold office, and you can only become eligible to
(01:36):
hold office if two thirds of Congress votes to waive
your ineligibility, which is what the goddamn fourteenth Amendment actually says. No,
the Minnesota Supreme Court decided this based on the oh look,
a technicality which allows us to not rule and not
anger anybody and not cause of fus not have to
(01:59):
deal with threats or get this kicked up to the
US Supreme Court. It's so messy, the escape clause that
seems to be the universal goal of everyone placed in
a position in which they can risk a little to
defend freedom and the Constitution, rather than waiting until freedom
and the Constitution are dead and millions will have to
(02:20):
risk everything to restore them. Basically, Chief Justice Hudson says,
with seeming relief that she can sidestep this controversial but
completely constitutional and virtually unavoidable action because there ain't no
law against the Republicans nominating Trump or Putin or Jankyuger
(02:42):
or a very smart giraffe. Hey, that's their problem. What
are we the candidate police? Actually you are you are
the candidate police. Chief Justice Hudson sadly is the finest
personification of the political and cultural diversity that our clunky, unwieldy,
(03:04):
sometimes brutal, swift as molasses nation has somehow produced over
two hundred and forty seven years. She's African American. Her
dad was the first African American football coach at a
predominantly white college in modern history. She fought her way
up the Minnesota legal system for twenty years, and then
(03:26):
she was made a judge by a governor from the
Independence Party, and then put on the Supreme Court by
another governor from the Farmer Labor Party, and then named
Chief Justice by yet another governor from the Farmer Labor Party.
And when it came time to defend the Constitution, she said, nah,
I don't have to. And she said nothing about Trump's crimes,
(03:48):
and she presumably left the door open to try the
Fourteenth again when he becomes the nominee. Unless the Republicans
go with the giraffe. It's heartbreaking. The Fourteenth Amendment provides
a mechanism for override its automatic disqualification for traders and
insurrectionists like Jefferson Davis and Dementia J. Trump. If it
(04:14):
was not automatic, it would not have an overriding mechanism,
because if it was not automatic, if it was not
guilty until proved innocent, it wouldn't need an overriding mechanism.
And Justice Hudson and the Minnesota State Supreme Court punted.
They punched a pail full of water, absolutely no result whatsoever. Well, yeah,
(04:42):
that's not entirely true, is it, because naturally she did
hand Trump another lump of raw meat to throat to
his cult. The Fourteenth Amendment challenges, said a Trump henchman
within minutes of the announcement, are quote, nothing more than
strategic unconstitutional, unconstitutional hyphenated in the statement incorrectly by the way,
(05:05):
strategic unconstitutional attempts to interfere with the election unquote. And
then dementia Jay, in his role as the most insecure
man in the world, posted ridiculous Fourteenth Amendment lawsuit just
thrown out by Minnesota Supreme Court without merit unconstitutional. Congratulations
to all who fought this hoax Fourteenth Amendment and the Constitution,
(05:30):
and for that matter, what our predecessors who survived the
Civil War so carefully crafted so it could never happen again,
All of them dismissed as a hoax by the most
despicable criminal this nation has ever produced. Thank you, Justice Hudson,
Thanks for going out on a limb for the nation.
(05:55):
Status of the other Fourteenth Amendment cases well, Trump's legal
team rested its case Friday, having now added a constitutional
expert from the Federalists Society, So I'm assuming he was
an expert on our constitution, not that of Weimar Germany's.
Their other Colorado witnesses included the retiring Congressman Ken Buck
(06:16):
the day after Trump had trashed him online, Cash Patel,
Katrina Pearson, a Trump operative who insisted that it was
Antifa that did it. Another Trump operative who explained that
there was no insurrection on January sixth. So there's a
chance Trump is deliberately throwing this case final. Colorado arguments
(06:36):
are weak from yesterday, and then it will go to
a jury of six four Republicans and two independents. The
status of the efforts to preclude Schedule F, the means
by which Trump, upon returning to power, could fire virtually
any government employee he wanted to for whatever reason he wanted,
meaning that you would have to be or maybe even
(06:58):
have to swear personal loyalty to Trump. Has that gone well?
The Biden White House Office of Personnel Management promulgated a
proposed rule two months ago aimed at hamstringing schedule F
and it's still marked proposed. And anyway, take a guess
what the easiest thing for one White House is to repeal, yes,
(07:23):
another White House's rule as to something in Congress to
protect the civil service, to prevent a personal loyalty oath
signed in blood by every federal employee. Nothing crickets. But anyway,
how are you going to get it past House Republicans,
for whom Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan just were not
(07:45):
doctrinaire enough measures to stop what the Washington Post reported
Sunday about officially politicizing the Department of Justice and shoehorning
the Federal Trade Commission, or or say the Federal Reserve,
just taking them into some White House department so that
Trump would be directly in charge of them. Nothing has
any been proposed so far so that even if House
(08:08):
fascists killed it, you could use that as a campaign
issue next year. Hasn't even been proposed by House Democrats
or Senate Democrats. We are so goddamned afraid of offending
somebody by defending democracy that we are going to bend
over backwards and fall directly into fascism. There's an extraordinary
(08:36):
French film, La Regle dujeu The Rules of the Game.
It premiered on July seventh, nineteen thirty nine, three hundred
and fifty four, days before France fell to the Nazis.
It was written and directed by Jean Renoir, and in
it he plays the hero's buddy, Actav, and at one point,
(08:58):
Octav says something about the corruption and the lack of
morals and the just plain lack of effort to stand
up for what's right, which is what the movie is about.
And this quote from Octav, the point of Jean Renoir's movie,
is the quote that has come to symbolize the France
(09:20):
that folded like a card table in front of the
Hitler onslaught and the vshi France full of more collaborators
than the Germans had believed possible. You see, in this world,
there is one awful thing, Octav says, seemingly fighting back
for a moment and then he gives up with a shrug,
(09:42):
and that is that everyone has his reasons. You see,
in this world, there is one awful thing and that
is that everyone has his reasons. We may be the
(10:02):
twenty first century version of pre Hitler France. We all
have our reasons to just shrug or to smirk first
and cash a big paycheck later, which is what the
impossibly over her head Kristin Welker did last night at
(10:25):
the Republican Debate, which NBC and she and Lester Holt
prostituted their journalistic reputations to participate in and carry. Because
if there's gonna be a vs. America, goddamn it, NBC
Universal Comcast is going to survive and guarantee its investors
a prophet over all the dead bodies. Vivek Ramaswami, who
(10:48):
is absolutely batshit crazy, decided that the best way to
try to be the top feces on that pile was
to confront Kristin Welker, and he went into one of
his high speed rants that would make Trump Junior wonder
what is that guy on? About the Trump Russia conspiracy
(11:09):
story as NBC covered it from twenty sixteen onwards, and
Ramswami demanded that Kristin Welker answer this question, was that
real or was that Hillary Clinton made up disinformation? And
he pointed at her and said go and she just
smiled at him. And when she didn't say anything or
(11:31):
defend NBC News, or defend the news media, or defend reality,
he went on to insist that the media had rigged
the twenty twenty election. The media had rigged the twenty
twenty election, and it had rigged the twenty sixteen election.
That's right, kid, the media rigged the twenty sixteen election
(11:54):
for Trump. We were all in the bag for fascism,
v vake. What should have happened was Kristin Welker should
have taken that moment to recognize and almost anybody watching
NBC for the Republican debate last night as a Trumpist
or a Republican and therefore hadn't watched NBC and like,
(12:16):
who shoot, when did I go back there? Two thousand
and three, and is unlikely ever to watch it again,
and probably nearly all of them believe that the twenty
twenty election was rigged and or JFK. Junior has come
back from the dead, and or QAnon his reality or
all of the above. She should have recognized that, and
(12:38):
she should have taken the extraordinary opportunity that she and
she alone had just been gifted by Vivek Ramaswami to
expose the viewers, however briefly, to reality, to what has
actually happened, not in Trump's addle mind nor on Fox News,
but in the actual world, even if only a hundred
(13:02):
of them registered what it was. She should have summarized
what Robert Muller actually said in his report about Russia,
that there was contact between Russian entities and the Trump campaign,
and that in no way was he clearing Trump. And
she should have said what Attorney General Barr did to
cover up the report and the contact between Trump and Russia.
(13:23):
And she should have said that any fair analysis of
the actual events of twenty sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen would
confirm that there was a conspiracy between the Trump campaign
and later the Trump administration and elements controlled by Vladimir
Putin and the Russian government. So to answer your question,
mister Ramaswami, Yes, and by the way, mister Ramaswami, your
batshit crazy, I mean hell. Ramaswami called Vladimir Zelenski a
(13:49):
Nazi last night, and even Nikki Hayley called Ramaswami scum
over a debate about TikTok then he is scum. Mister Ramaswami.
Welker should have said you're wrong and your scum. And
then here's Lester Holt with the weather. Lester, I mean, honestly,
(14:12):
what would have happened next? Would a crowd full of
Republicans have suddenly begun to hate her? They hate her? Now?
Would a crowd full of Republicans have demanded NBC News
fire her? They are demanding NBC News fires her now?
Would NBC News have fired her now? What after they
just fired the last guy. I would have carried her
(14:38):
into work every day on my back if she wanted that,
if she had done something like that, But she just
smiled because well, because everybody has his or her reasons
(14:59):
on the subject of the Republican horse race. Horses ass race,
that's not even that real, is it. I have been
turning this subject over in my mind for three days
now and I cannot figure something out. I don't have
a starting point. Why did the Governor of Iowa, Kim
Reynolds endorse DeSantis? Now it's like chasing after the Titanic
(15:25):
in the fastest ship of nineteen twelve and getting up
next to her as the lifeboats are going into the
water and getting off your ship and boarding her and saying, gee,
look at all this room I have on board the Titanic.
I mean, Governor Reynolds is my age. And she did
not get a degree from any of the five colleges
(15:46):
she attended until the year twenty sixteen, and she had
a couple drunk driving arrests at the turn of the century.
But she's not a total idiot, is she? Or does
she know something we don't about this race that will
make her the only one who winds up in the lifeboat.
I hope that's the case, But I'm trying to analyze Republicans'
(16:12):
turn my hair gray. On the last day of testimony
at the Trump civil fraud trial, here Girl Junior testified blankly,
having apparently sustained severe memory loss. Her presence was clearly
just the mechanism by which the prosecution could thereby introduce
a series of key emails from twenty eleven in which
Deutsche Bank was trying to establish Trump's actual net worth
(16:34):
as being at least three billion, when he said it
was four billion, the state now says it was one
and a half billion, and Ebanca helpfully tried to negotiate
it down to two billion, which is kind of like saying,
what's the patient's temperature and the nurse says one hundred
and one, doctor, and he says that's too high to operate.
She says, well, then, how about ninety nine point five?
(16:57):
Following up on Tuesday's democratic kicking of maga ass one
result not widely reported on that night, the fascist librarian
prosecuting cult moms for Hitler's Liberty lost control of the
school board in Penridge, Pennsylvania, ground zero on all the
school board stuff. Voters there elected five Democrats and they
(17:18):
now rest control of the board back from the book banners.
Similar results in school boards elsewhere. Trump did his usual
thing in the post Boredom he pretends and his cult
believes that he has a switch that controls gravity. Turned
it on, turn it off. He did the full and
total endorsement thing of Daniel Cameron for governor of Kentucky
(17:39):
and Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi for reelection, and Reeves
cake walked, so he took credit for that, and Cameron
got landslided on. So Trump blamed Mitch McConnell. Not a
mention of Virginia out of Trump, by the way, which
is fine because it is clear the Republicans have decided
on the scapegoat for losing both houses to the Democrats.
(18:03):
Guess who All that is left of him is his
fast Do you wonder about the RNC? Do we have
the right people running the show because we were not
doing something right? I think that's very obvious.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I think Rob, I think you're right in a
lot of places. I would say these state level races,
RNC doesn't really play a role in voter turnout. That's
run by the team on the ground, and that in
Virginia's led by Glenn Youngkin.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
That was Ken Kochinelli, one of the real sleeze bags
of Virginia politics on Newsmax. But the young Kin donut
was not limited to the fringes. On Fox Blonde number
thirty seven said that was really a loss for the governor,
and then Brian Kilmead said, what an epic failure by
(18:53):
Governor Youngkin. By Felicia. One more electoral note. In two
thousand and three, Kentucky elected its first Republican governor in
thirty two years, Ernie Fletcher. A year later, George W.
Bush was re elected president in two thousand and seven,
Kentucky threw out Ernie Fletcher and elected the Democrat Steve Basheer.
(19:17):
A year later, Barack Obama was elected president in twenty eleven.
Basher was reelected in twenty twelve. Obama was reelected in
twenty fifteen. With Basher term limited, it elected the Republican
Matt Beben. A year later, Trump was elected in twenty nineteen.
Beban was edged by Democrat Basher's Democrat son. A year later,
(19:39):
Democrat Joe Biden was elected president. I'm sensing a pattern here.
Tuesday night, the Democrat was re elected in Kentucky. Also
of interest here, you remember yesterday when I complimented the
(20:00):
work of a right wing polling outlet that showed Biden
had improved his image his approval disapproval number by five
points in just one month, and that the number of
voters who ranked his greatest liability, inflation as their key
issue to vote on that had dropped six points in
two months. Remember that when I saluted their work and
(20:22):
their independence, Well, they've responded by attacking me for quoting
their poll accurately. That's next. This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith Olberman. Still ahead of us on countdown.
(21:01):
You saw this story about Jeff Bezos moving per minutely
from Seattle to Florida so he can be closer to
his parents and his partner, Lauren Sanchez. I used to
work with Lauren Sanchez twenty five years ago, and while
all of us at Fox liked her, we used to
cringe at the way she never did one interview with
(21:23):
an athlete without flirting with him, and then she had
one of her interviewees babies. AnyWho, the Bezos story reminded
me of Sanchez, and that reminded me of both of
them getting blackmailed by a Trump flunky, And that reminded
me of David Letterman getting blackmailed by a former CNN
assignment editor I worked with forty years ago, and that
(21:44):
reminded me to tell you their stories in things I
promised not to tell first time for the daily roundup
of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens
who constitute two days worse persons in the world worse. Wow.
This is an audio daily double. This is Lauren Bobert
at the exit moment yesterday when she apparently realized for
(22:07):
the first time that being in Congress. Even if you
are a right wing hand sorry right wing nut job,
and you get up to talk about a spending bill,
you have to talk about the spending in the spending bill.
The lesson was taught to her by Congressman Stenny Hoyer
of Maryland. And guess what debate club Karen got a
(22:31):
D minus.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
I'm asking if you will you.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
For a question. Sure, ask your question.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
What funds in this bill are used for the purposes
you uh can are opposed to? Oh?
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Sorry, I couldn't hear the gentlemen. I was getting clarification.
This is precautionary.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Precautionary from what I'm assure.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Sanctuary city policies.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Yes, I understand.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I understand.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
What are that are in place that are allowing the
refuge of illegal aliens in these cities, and there is
an influx in crime and drugs, I understand in these cities.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
And there's no there's no way for these folks to
even report what is taking place because they are protected
under this fake policy that has been created that is
subduing the actual rule of law that we have in
the Constitution of the United States.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I understand that, But what you said is none of
the funds in this bill can be spent for that objective,
and that is precuption. What's funds are in this bill
to be spent for that objective.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
I have seen this administration use all sorts of funds
and checked illegal aliens.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
We're claiming my time, sure that it will not be
We're claiming my time. There are no funds in this
bill to do that. So this is just an opportunity
for you to stand and perhaps speak about an important subject.
I understand that, but there are no funds in this
bill to accomplish that objective.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Not to worry, I'm sure after that disaster, Lauren Bobert
will soon be getting a grip on it. In public
worser Nate Cohne of The New York Times, I fully
expect to one day be announcing that The New York
Times has merged with the Twitter account New York Times
pitch bot, because they are now overlapping at least once
a month. Tuesday night, with the first good news for
(24:27):
the Democrats, Andy Basheer's reelection in Kentucky, the pitch bot
tweeted at seven thirty six pm, Here's why that's bad
news for Joe Biden. At ten thirty three, the pitchot tweeted,
Democrats did well in today's elections, but if the narrative
is they did badly, that could be a problem for Biden.
At four to twelve am, he tweeted, did Democrats do
(24:49):
too well in Yesterday's elections? At five point fifty nine am,
he tweeted, Glenn Youngkin's push to take the Virginia Legislature
failed in both chambers. So why does it feel like
Biden is the one who suffered a humiliating defeat? All
perfect parodies of The Times at its most clueless, both
(25:09):
sizest tone, deafness. And then at twelve thirty pm yesterday,
the tweet came, there's really zero contradiction between the Biden
polling and the results last night, complete with a link
to an actual Times article headlined Tuesday was great for Democrats.
It doesn't change the outlook for twenty twenty four. Oh,
(25:29):
another perfect satirizing of The Times unyielding, snobbery and shallowness.
Except that was not the Times pitchpot that sent out
that tweet. It was the Times itself. It was its
chief political analyst, Nate Cone. As predictable as the sunrise
data guys and or polsters screw it up like nine
(25:52):
times out of ten and inevitably insists, no, no, we didn't.
Here are more numbers to prove it. See there's a
three and over, here's a six. We're right, you're wrong.
All we know about the guy behind New York Times
pitchpot is that he identifies as Doug J. Balloon, and
he once came out of character briefly to reveal he
(26:14):
is a college professor somewhere. All we know about the
New York Times is that Doug Jay Balloon could write
at least the headlines to all of the Times political
coverage every day, and he could also write the lead
paragraph to all of Maureen Dowd's columns every week, leading
us to the worst signal polling and two of its principles,
(26:35):
Brent Buchanan and John Rogers. You may recall that in
yesterday's edition, I reported on their most recent poll, which
presented two striking and sudden positives for Biden, a five
point improvement in his approval disapproval is so called image
in the last month, and a six point drop in
voters who think inflation is their key issue in the
(26:57):
last two months, nearly ten points in the last eleven months.
I complimented Signal Polling on its record on having posted
this stuff, even though it is identified as a center
right publisher, and this is unmistakably good news for Biden.
Then I complimented them on Twitter and other social media,
and I pointed out those two results while slamming Nate
(27:19):
Comb for like the CNN idiot David Shaleen, treating his
own poll like it was the only poll. In short,
I introduced Signal and these guys to you as professionals.
Silly me. It is amazing to me that after twenty
six years of covering this crap, that anything could surprise
(27:41):
me anymore. But you know what Signal's response was to
my spotlighting and complimenting them. The two guys, Rogers and
Buchanan attacked me, defended David Axelrod's paniced analysis of the
New York Times poll, and somehow dragged that whiny little
transvobe Riley Gains into this, honest to effing God, Riley
(28:05):
effing Gains Jesus suffering f in the middle of the
thing about polls and Biden. They also said I didn't
know what I was talking about, and I was desperate
to find something positive about Biden, and they mocked the
idea that Biden's image had noticeably improved since last month
by five points, which turned this whole thing into farce,
(28:28):
because when I wrote and said that, I was quoting
their own analysis of and press release for their own poll. Quote.
Take away three, Joe Biden's image noticeably improved since last
month by five points. That Signal Polling. Remember they'll deny
(28:50):
tomorrow the poll they sold you yesterday. And John Rogers
and Brent Buchanan of Signal Polling such slaves to their
own nit witted ideology that they have to fight back
against compliments. Two days, worst persons in the pollsters in disarray,
(29:27):
to the number one story on the countdown and my
favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell.
And I was reminded on Saturday of two stories about
media blackmail because it was the anniversary of one of
those stories, the day Dave Letterman announced he had been blackmailed,
and they named the guy that they had arrested for
doing it, and I said, oh, him, of course it's him.
(29:49):
I've known him for twenty eight years. And then there
was the bigger blackmail story. And they named the woman
who was one of the victims, and I said, oh, her,
of course it's her. I've known her for twenty years.
That one first, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and
owner of the Washington Post, was being blackmailed by allies
of Crazy Trump, who expected to get positive coverage for
(30:10):
their leader of their cult. What they had on Bezos
was he had a girlfriend. They had pictures. It would
cost him hundreds of millions of dollars were his wife
to find out, He said, that'll happen. In February twenty nineteen,
Jeff Bezos went public, said his marriage was ending anyway.
He was sorry about the pain this caused his wife,
(30:31):
but he would now give her all she wanted, and
the National Inquirer blackmailers could shove it amid everything else.
It suggested to me that when you cannot figure out
what happened to the people who once seemed to have principles,
or at least seemed to have enmity towards Crazy Trump,
Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, others, remember that the odds were
(30:53):
amazingly small that the first time Trump's allies tried to
blackmail somebody on his behalf that they would find in
Jeff Bezos the one guy who would say no on
the first try. I don't think so. I have assumed
ever since that this process has been utilized for years
on Trump's behalf, in business, inside politics and at its fringes,
(31:18):
and that Bezos was not the first victim of this,
just the first victim who said, f you, this is
why we have fu money. But beneath all that important
stuff was yet another occasion where my jaw dropped to
the floor and I had to reattach it with Elmer's glue.
The woman at the center of the blackmail, the woman
for whom Jeff Bezos was going to leave his wife,
(31:39):
was named Lauren Sanchez, and like everybody else in this
twenty first century America, I used to work with her.
Lauren was a reporter and sometimes anchor at Fox Sportsnet
when I got there in nineteen ninety eight. Only sometimes
they wrote her a script once that actually read Roger
Clemens era is one of the greatest in his era,
(32:01):
and she, of course read Roger Clemens Era is one
of the greatest in his er. She was much better
at interviewing Lakers players after games, particularly Shaquille O'Neil, even
though he was more than two feet taller than she was,
and she used to insist on interviewing him standing up.
These little visits looked so odd on camera that I
(32:23):
remember seeing one of her stories being fed in from
the LA Forum and I asked the producer, were we
actually putting that on the air or just onto the
gag reel for Christmas? We did not overlap long there after,
she gave birth to the child of NFL tight end
Tony Gonzales, long after she had ended her relationship with him.
Lauren Sanchez was hired to anchor the news on Channel thirteen,
(32:45):
which is a station that was apparently created because somebody
would always have to be in last place in the
news ratings, and it might as well be them. I
was back visiting in LA in the spring of two
thousand and two and dived in and out of as
many newscasts as I could so I could see what
my two ex employers there and so many of my
old colleagues and rivals were doing. That's when I saw it.
(33:07):
The worst or perhaps the best commercial for a local
television news sweeps series in human history in any language.
SWEEPS series used to be local TVs bread and Butter.
During the weeks when the local ratings were tabulated and
used to establish who was number one and thus how
much everybody's commercials would cost, each station would do a
(33:30):
series of special reports within each newscast. They were designed
solely to be advertised, to be sponsored, and to be
as salacious or silly, or unbelievable or titillating or just
as memorable as possible. When I was in local news
in LA in the eighties and nineties, we had a
series at Channel two with a very good reporter named
(33:51):
Dorothy Lucy, and the series was called The Search for Slees.
The commercials for the Search for Slees showed her riding
around in a jacuzzi built into the back of a
stretch Limo with an old guy with a beard and
a couple of bikini models in there too. That had been,
to my knowledge, the low point of the Sweeps series.
(34:12):
But now, as I watched in my hotel room in
Santa Monica in the spring of two thousand and two,
this is more or less what I heard the voiceover
announcer say this week a special report CACOP thirteen News
anchor Lauren Sanchez brings you how to meet a baller. Ladies,
(34:32):
find out where to meet the athlete of your dreams Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Dodgers, Angels.
Do you want to meet him? Do you want to
get to know him? Do you want to date him?
How to beat a Baller? This week on the CACOP
thirteen News at ten with Lauren Sanchez, How to Meet
(34:53):
a Baller. I'm not certain how they restored me to
human form from the puddle into which I had dissolved.
I do remember calling the desk to ask if it
was still Tuesday. It felt like I had been out
called for several weeks. I was appalled, shocked, chagrined, nauseated, mortified, embarrassed, humiliated,
(35:14):
And then I stopped and as an angelic choir saying
in the background, I changed my mind completely. This was
not Sweep's series madness. This was not a woman debasing
herself by teaching other women how to debase themselves how
to meet dollars. This was, for perhaps the first time
in Sweeps series history, perhaps the first time in local
(35:37):
television news history, a true expert lending her panoramic learned
comprehensive knowledge about one subject, requiring subtlety, insight, insider information,
and the selflessness to share it with mere ordinary women viewers.
How do you meet a baller? I would never have
(35:58):
known who to ask. I never would have known to
whom to send my wife or daughter or friend. Not really.
I knew there were experts, there were scholars, there were
fonts of wisdom. But Lauren Sanchez was the Einstein of
meeting ballers. And even in the glimmering light of knowledge
(36:21):
that radiated from her that week on Channel thirteen, Los Angeles,
two decades ago, even in the blinding aura of her brilliance,
could she have known that the ultimate target of the
Little Sweep series should have been No, mere Tony Gonzalez?
Or do you want to meet him? Do you want
to get to know him? Do you want to date him?
(36:42):
It should have been do you want to meet him?
Do you want to get to know him? Do you
want to date him? How to meet a bezos? In life?
You just don't expect people you worked with for a
few weeks, like Lauren Sanchez, to wind up as part
of modern American history. It just seems unlikely, not that
(37:02):
they could be involved in a blackmail story like hers,
and she was a victim, but that you could have
known her. And yet for me this was the second time.
On October first, two thousand and nine, it was the
anniversary that reminded me of both of these stories, my
friend David Letterman came out onto the stage of the
CBS Late Night Show and revealed that he had had
(37:22):
a series of consensual relationships with women on his staff.
The studio audience laughed, assuming it was the start of
some bit in which the guys at the Hello Deli
would somehow of a roll of some sort. But Dave
went on and on and on, and finally revealed he
had been the victim of an extortion plot and that
(37:44):
he and the Manhattan DA's office set up a meeting
with the blackmailer, who wanted two million dollars, with the
cover story being that he had written a screenplay about
Letterman that would reveal all the relationships, but he would
sell the quote screenplay unquote two Letterman for two million dollars.
Within hours, Letterman's blackmail or was identified by authorities. I
(38:06):
saw the name pop up on my computer terminal. NBC,
Robert Joel, Joe Halderman, and I looked at it, and
I said, of course, Joe Halderman. He had been the
assignment editor at CNN in New York from the day
I broke into television in August nineteen eighty one until
he left for CBS News a year later. All television
(38:26):
assignment editors have to deny reporters camera crews. There are
invariably scheduling conflicts, and ultimately there are always two stories
to shoot for every one camera crew available. But Halderman
used to enjoy denying us reporters crewise. He used to
like to mock us, to make us grovel, and then
when you got to your story with your crew, he
(38:47):
would page them and tell them to go cover something
else and leave you stranded there. And personally he had
absolutely no redeeming qualities. If you could travel back in
time to the twenty two or twenty three year old
me and explain who David Letterman would be and what
his fame would be like, and how I'd be a
guest on his show one night when a presidential candidate
(39:09):
canceled at the last minute, and how somebody I already
knew and had worked with at age twenty two or
twenty three would try to blackmail him over staffers he'd
slept with, and could I I would have interrupted you
by that point, said, matter of factly, Oh, it's Joe Halderman, right,
of course, Halderman total creep. You say he blackmails this
letterbox guy. Frankly, forty year old me probably could have
(39:33):
figured out the whole Lauren Sanchez thing for some time
traveling quiz master as well. Although I will make no
comparison between Joe Halderman and Lauren Sanchez, Lauren was very
pleasant and there is a lesson in that for you.
It's not just nostalgia. It's not a brush with greatness,
to use a lettermanesque term. Wherever you are in life
(39:54):
or in your career, you may have yet to meet them,
or you may have already met them. But this I
know to be true. You have your own Lauren Sanchez
and your own Joe Halderman already or already in the past.
And whatever your first impressions about them were, or are
(40:16):
or will be, you're damned right they are. And also
keep in mind that thought I mentioned that I had
about Bezos and the blackmail. Do you really think he
could have been the first one they tried to blackmail
into supporting Trump, and the first one turned them down
(40:40):
and went public. I don't think so. I've done all
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Countdown has come to you from the Vin Scully Studios
(41:01):
at the headquarters of the Olderman Broadcasting Empire in New York.
Joe Halderman, Oh my God. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray
and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled the orchestration and the keyboards.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Another music, including other
(41:24):
Beethoven tunes, arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is courtesy of ESPN Incorporated. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis. It is called the Olderman
Theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today is my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else
(41:45):
is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this
The one thousand and thirty eighth day since dementia j
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Convict him now while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolton says, the news
warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
(42:06):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldman is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
(42:28):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. We
are so goddamned afraid of offending somebody by defending democracy.
(00:27):
The first Fourteenth Amendment case against Trump is decided, and
the Minnesota State Supreme Court wriggled out of both disqualifying
him from the ballot and wriggled out of not disqualifying
him from the ballot. Chief Justice Natalie E. Hudson says
the court will not bar Trump from the Minnesota ballot now,
because hey, we're still in the primary stage. No, seriously,
(00:53):
Chief Justice Hudson writes, there is quote no state statute
that prohibits a major political party from placing on the
presidential nomination primary ballot or sending delegates to the National
can supporting a candidate who is ineligible to hold office.
That's what the Supreme Court of Minnesota decided this on.
(01:14):
Not the exact dimensions of Trump's role in the insurrection,
not the applicability of Clause three of the Fourteenth Amendment,
not the analysis of the deliberations leading to the passage
of the fourteenth Amendment. That it is self executing, and
if you were part of a rebellion, you start ineligible
to hold office, and you can only become eligible to
(01:36):
hold office if two thirds of Congress votes to waive
your ineligibility, which is what the goddamn fourteenth Amendment actually says. No,
the Minnesota Supreme Court decided this based on the oh look,
a technicality which allows us to not rule and not
anger anybody and not cause of fus not have to
(01:59):
deal with threats or get this kicked up to the
US Supreme Court. It's so messy, the escape clause that
seems to be the universal goal of everyone placed in
a position in which they can risk a little to
defend freedom and the Constitution, rather than waiting until freedom
and the Constitution are dead and millions will have to
(02:20):
risk everything to restore them. Basically, Chief Justice Hudson says,
with seeming relief that she can sidestep this controversial but
completely constitutional and virtually unavoidable action because there ain't no
law against the Republicans nominating Trump or Putin or Jankyuger
(02:42):
or a very smart giraffe. Hey, that's their problem. What
are we the candidate police? Actually you are you are
the candidate police. Chief Justice Hudson sadly is the finest
personification of the political and cultural diversity that our clunky, unwieldy,
(03:04):
sometimes brutal, swift as molasses nation has somehow produced over
two hundred and forty seven years. She's African American. Her
dad was the first African American football coach at a
predominantly white college in modern history. She fought her way
up the Minnesota legal system for twenty years, and then
(03:26):
she was made a judge by a governor from the
Independence Party, and then put on the Supreme Court by
another governor from the Farmer Labor Party, and then named
Chief Justice by yet another governor from the Farmer Labor Party.
And when it came time to defend the Constitution, she said, nah,
I don't have to. And she said nothing about Trump's crimes,
(03:48):
and she presumably left the door open to try the
Fourteenth again when he becomes the nominee. Unless the Republicans
go with the giraffe. It's heartbreaking. The Fourteenth Amendment provides
a mechanism for override its automatic disqualification for traders and
insurrectionists like Jefferson Davis and Dementia J. Trump. If it
(04:14):
was not automatic, it would not have an overriding mechanism,
because if it was not automatic, if it was not
guilty until proved innocent, it wouldn't need an overriding mechanism.
And Justice Hudson and the Minnesota State Supreme Court punted.
They punched a pail full of water, absolutely no result whatsoever. Well, yeah,
(04:42):
that's not entirely true, is it, because naturally she did
hand Trump another lump of raw meat to throat to
his cult. The Fourteenth Amendment challenges, said a Trump henchman
within minutes of the announcement, are quote, nothing more than
strategic unconstitutional, unconstitutional hyphenated in the statement incorrectly by the way,
(05:05):
strategic unconstitutional attempts to interfere with the election unquote. And
then dementia Jay, in his role as the most insecure
man in the world, posted ridiculous Fourteenth Amendment lawsuit just
thrown out by Minnesota Supreme Court without merit unconstitutional. Congratulations
to all who fought this hoax Fourteenth Amendment and the Constitution,
(05:30):
and for that matter, what our predecessors who survived the
Civil War so carefully crafted so it could never happen again,
All of them dismissed as a hoax by the most
despicable criminal this nation has ever produced. Thank you, Justice Hudson,
Thanks for going out on a limb for the nation.
(05:55):
Status of the other Fourteenth Amendment cases well, Trump's legal
team rested its case Friday, having now added a constitutional
expert from the Federalists Society, So I'm assuming he was
an expert on our constitution, not that of Weimar Germany's.
Their other Colorado witnesses included the retiring Congressman Ken Buck
(06:16):
the day after Trump had trashed him online, Cash Patel,
Katrina Pearson, a Trump operative who insisted that it was
Antifa that did it. Another Trump operative who explained that
there was no insurrection on January sixth. So there's a
chance Trump is deliberately throwing this case final. Colorado arguments
(06:36):
are weak from yesterday, and then it will go to
a jury of six four Republicans and two independents. The
status of the efforts to preclude Schedule F, the means
by which Trump, upon returning to power, could fire virtually
any government employee he wanted to for whatever reason he wanted,
meaning that you would have to be or maybe even
(06:58):
have to swear personal loyalty to Trump. Has that gone well?
The Biden White House Office of Personnel Management promulgated a
proposed rule two months ago aimed at hamstringing schedule F
and it's still marked proposed. And anyway, take a guess
what the easiest thing for one White House is to repeal, yes,
(07:23):
another White House's rule as to something in Congress to
protect the civil service, to prevent a personal loyalty oath
signed in blood by every federal employee. Nothing crickets. But anyway,
how are you going to get it past House Republicans,
for whom Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan just were not
(07:45):
doctrinaire enough measures to stop what the Washington Post reported
Sunday about officially politicizing the Department of Justice and shoehorning
the Federal Trade Commission, or or say the Federal Reserve,
just taking them into some White House department so that
Trump would be directly in charge of them. Nothing has
any been proposed so far so that even if House
(08:08):
fascists killed it, you could use that as a campaign
issue next year. Hasn't even been proposed by House Democrats
or Senate Democrats. We are so goddamned afraid of offending
somebody by defending democracy that we are going to bend
over backwards and fall directly into fascism. There's an extraordinary
(08:36):
French film, La Regle dujeu The Rules of the Game.
It premiered on July seventh, nineteen thirty nine, three hundred
and fifty four, days before France fell to the Nazis.
It was written and directed by Jean Renoir, and in
it he plays the hero's buddy, Actav, and at one point,
(08:58):
Octav says something about the corruption and the lack of
morals and the just plain lack of effort to stand
up for what's right, which is what the movie is about.
And this quote from Octav, the point of Jean Renoir's movie,
is the quote that has come to symbolize the France
(09:20):
that folded like a card table in front of the
Hitler onslaught and the vshi France full of more collaborators
than the Germans had believed possible. You see, in this world,
there is one awful thing, Octav says, seemingly fighting back
for a moment and then he gives up with a shrug,
(09:42):
and that is that everyone has his reasons. You see,
in this world, there is one awful thing and that
is that everyone has his reasons. We may be the
(10:02):
twenty first century version of pre Hitler France. We all
have our reasons to just shrug or to smirk first
and cash a big paycheck later, which is what the
impossibly over her head Kristin Welker did last night at
(10:25):
the Republican Debate, which NBC and she and Lester Holt
prostituted their journalistic reputations to participate in and carry. Because
if there's gonna be a vs. America, goddamn it, NBC
Universal Comcast is going to survive and guarantee its investors
a prophet over all the dead bodies. Vivek Ramaswami, who
(10:48):
is absolutely batshit crazy, decided that the best way to
try to be the top feces on that pile was
to confront Kristin Welker, and he went into one of
his high speed rants that would make Trump Junior wonder
what is that guy on? About the Trump Russia conspiracy
(11:09):
story as NBC covered it from twenty sixteen onwards, and
Ramswami demanded that Kristin Welker answer this question, was that
real or was that Hillary Clinton made up disinformation? And
he pointed at her and said go and she just
smiled at him. And when she didn't say anything or
(11:31):
defend NBC News, or defend the news media, or defend reality,
he went on to insist that the media had rigged
the twenty twenty election. The media had rigged the twenty
twenty election, and it had rigged the twenty sixteen election.
That's right, kid, the media rigged the twenty sixteen election
(11:54):
for Trump. We were all in the bag for fascism,
v vake. What should have happened was Kristin Welker should
have taken that moment to recognize and almost anybody watching
NBC for the Republican debate last night as a Trumpist
or a Republican and therefore hadn't watched NBC and like,
(12:16):
who shoot, when did I go back there? Two thousand
and three, and is unlikely ever to watch it again,
and probably nearly all of them believe that the twenty
twenty election was rigged and or JFK. Junior has come
back from the dead, and or QAnon his reality or
all of the above. She should have recognized that, and
(12:38):
she should have taken the extraordinary opportunity that she and
she alone had just been gifted by Vivek Ramaswami to
expose the viewers, however briefly, to reality, to what has
actually happened, not in Trump's addle mind nor on Fox News,
but in the actual world, even if only a hundred
(13:02):
of them registered what it was. She should have summarized
what Robert Muller actually said in his report about Russia,
that there was contact between Russian entities and the Trump campaign,
and that in no way was he clearing Trump. And
she should have said what Attorney General Barr did to
cover up the report and the contact between Trump and Russia.
(13:23):
And she should have said that any fair analysis of
the actual events of twenty sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen would
confirm that there was a conspiracy between the Trump campaign
and later the Trump administration and elements controlled by Vladimir
Putin and the Russian government. So to answer your question,
mister Ramaswami, Yes, and by the way, mister Ramaswami, your
batshit crazy, I mean hell. Ramaswami called Vladimir Zelenski a
(13:49):
Nazi last night, and even Nikki Hayley called Ramaswami scum
over a debate about TikTok then he is scum. Mister Ramaswami.
Welker should have said you're wrong and your scum. And
then here's Lester Holt with the weather. Lester, I mean, honestly,
(14:12):
what would have happened next? Would a crowd full of
Republicans have suddenly begun to hate her? They hate her? Now?
Would a crowd full of Republicans have demanded NBC News
fire her? They are demanding NBC News fires her now?
Would NBC News have fired her now? What after they
just fired the last guy. I would have carried her
(14:38):
into work every day on my back if she wanted that,
if she had done something like that, But she just
smiled because well, because everybody has his or her reasons
(14:59):
on the subject of the Republican horse race. Horses ass race,
that's not even that real, is it. I have been
turning this subject over in my mind for three days
now and I cannot figure something out. I don't have
a starting point. Why did the Governor of Iowa, Kim
Reynolds endorse DeSantis? Now it's like chasing after the Titanic
(15:25):
in the fastest ship of nineteen twelve and getting up
next to her as the lifeboats are going into the
water and getting off your ship and boarding her and saying, gee,
look at all this room I have on board the Titanic.
I mean, Governor Reynolds is my age. And she did
not get a degree from any of the five colleges
(15:46):
she attended until the year twenty sixteen, and she had
a couple drunk driving arrests at the turn of the century.
But she's not a total idiot, is she? Or does
she know something we don't about this race that will
make her the only one who winds up in the lifeboat.
I hope that's the case, But I'm trying to analyze Republicans'
(16:12):
turn my hair gray. On the last day of testimony
at the Trump civil fraud trial, here Girl Junior testified blankly,
having apparently sustained severe memory loss. Her presence was clearly
just the mechanism by which the prosecution could thereby introduce
a series of key emails from twenty eleven in which
Deutsche Bank was trying to establish Trump's actual net worth
(16:34):
as being at least three billion, when he said it
was four billion, the state now says it was one
and a half billion, and Ebanca helpfully tried to negotiate
it down to two billion, which is kind of like saying,
what's the patient's temperature and the nurse says one hundred
and one, doctor, and he says that's too high to operate.
She says, well, then, how about ninety nine point five?
(16:57):
Following up on Tuesday's democratic kicking of maga ass one
result not widely reported on that night, the fascist librarian
prosecuting cult moms for Hitler's Liberty lost control of the
school board in Penridge, Pennsylvania, ground zero on all the
school board stuff. Voters there elected five Democrats and they
(17:18):
now rest control of the board back from the book banners.
Similar results in school boards elsewhere. Trump did his usual
thing in the post Boredom he pretends and his cult
believes that he has a switch that controls gravity. Turned
it on, turn it off. He did the full and
total endorsement thing of Daniel Cameron for governor of Kentucky
(17:39):
and Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi for reelection, and Reeves
cake walked, so he took credit for that, and Cameron
got landslided on. So Trump blamed Mitch McConnell. Not a
mention of Virginia out of Trump, by the way, which
is fine because it is clear the Republicans have decided
on the scapegoat for losing both houses to the Democrats.
(18:03):
Guess who All that is left of him is his
fast Do you wonder about the RNC? Do we have
the right people running the show because we were not
doing something right? I think that's very obvious.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I think Rob, I think you're right in a
lot of places. I would say these state level races,
RNC doesn't really play a role in voter turnout. That's
run by the team on the ground, and that in
Virginia's led by Glenn Youngkin.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
That was Ken Kochinelli, one of the real sleeze bags
of Virginia politics on Newsmax. But the young Kin donut
was not limited to the fringes. On Fox Blonde number
thirty seven said that was really a loss for the governor,
and then Brian Kilmead said, what an epic failure by
(18:53):
Governor Youngkin. By Felicia. One more electoral note. In two
thousand and three, Kentucky elected its first Republican governor in
thirty two years, Ernie Fletcher. A year later, George W.
Bush was re elected president in two thousand and seven,
Kentucky threw out Ernie Fletcher and elected the Democrat Steve Basheer.
(19:17):
A year later, Barack Obama was elected president in twenty eleven.
Basher was reelected in twenty twelve. Obama was reelected in
twenty fifteen. With Basher term limited, it elected the Republican
Matt Beben. A year later, Trump was elected in twenty nineteen.
Beban was edged by Democrat Basher's Democrat son. A year later,
(19:39):
Democrat Joe Biden was elected president. I'm sensing a pattern here.
Tuesday night, the Democrat was re elected in Kentucky. Also
of interest here, you remember yesterday when I complimented the
(20:00):
work of a right wing polling outlet that showed Biden
had improved his image his approval disapproval number by five
points in just one month, and that the number of
voters who ranked his greatest liability, inflation as their key
issue to vote on that had dropped six points in
two months. Remember that when I saluted their work and
(20:22):
their independence, Well, they've responded by attacking me for quoting
their poll accurately. That's next. This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith Olberman. Still ahead of us on countdown.
(21:01):
You saw this story about Jeff Bezos moving per minutely
from Seattle to Florida so he can be closer to
his parents and his partner, Lauren Sanchez. I used to
work with Lauren Sanchez twenty five years ago, and while
all of us at Fox liked her, we used to
cringe at the way she never did one interview with
(21:23):
an athlete without flirting with him, and then she had
one of her interviewees babies. AnyWho, the Bezos story reminded
me of Sanchez, and that reminded me of both of
them getting blackmailed by a Trump flunky, And that reminded
me of David Letterman getting blackmailed by a former CNN
assignment editor I worked with forty years ago, and that
(21:44):
reminded me to tell you their stories in things I
promised not to tell first time for the daily roundup
of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens
who constitute two days worse persons in the world worse. Wow.
This is an audio daily double. This is Lauren Bobert
at the exit moment yesterday when she apparently realized for
(22:07):
the first time that being in Congress. Even if you
are a right wing hand sorry right wing nut job,
and you get up to talk about a spending bill,
you have to talk about the spending in the spending bill.
The lesson was taught to her by Congressman Stenny Hoyer
of Maryland. And guess what debate club Karen got a
(22:31):
D minus.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
I'm asking if you will you.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
For a question. Sure, ask your question.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
What funds in this bill are used for the purposes
you uh can are opposed to? Oh?
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Sorry, I couldn't hear the gentlemen. I was getting clarification.
This is precautionary.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Precautionary from what I'm assure.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Sanctuary city policies.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Yes, I understand.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I understand.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
What are that are in place that are allowing the
refuge of illegal aliens in these cities, and there is
an influx in crime and drugs, I understand in these cities.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
And there's no there's no way for these folks to
even report what is taking place because they are protected
under this fake policy that has been created that is
subduing the actual rule of law that we have in
the Constitution of the United States.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I understand that, But what you said is none of
the funds in this bill can be spent for that objective,
and that is precuption. What's funds are in this bill
to be spent for that objective.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
I have seen this administration use all sorts of funds
and checked illegal aliens.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
We're claiming my time, sure that it will not be
We're claiming my time. There are no funds in this
bill to do that. So this is just an opportunity
for you to stand and perhaps speak about an important subject.
I understand that, but there are no funds in this
bill to accomplish that objective.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Not to worry, I'm sure after that disaster, Lauren Bobert
will soon be getting a grip on it. In public
worser Nate Cohne of The New York Times, I fully
expect to one day be announcing that The New York
Times has merged with the Twitter account New York Times
pitch bot, because they are now overlapping at least once
a month. Tuesday night, with the first good news for
(24:27):
the Democrats, Andy Basheer's reelection in Kentucky, the pitch bot
tweeted at seven thirty six pm, Here's why that's bad
news for Joe Biden. At ten thirty three, the pitchot tweeted,
Democrats did well in today's elections, but if the narrative
is they did badly, that could be a problem for Biden.
At four to twelve am, he tweeted, did Democrats do
(24:49):
too well in Yesterday's elections? At five point fifty nine am,
he tweeted, Glenn Youngkin's push to take the Virginia Legislature
failed in both chambers. So why does it feel like
Biden is the one who suffered a humiliating defeat? All
perfect parodies of The Times at its most clueless, both
(25:09):
sizest tone, deafness. And then at twelve thirty pm yesterday,
the tweet came, there's really zero contradiction between the Biden
polling and the results last night, complete with a link
to an actual Times article headlined Tuesday was great for Democrats.
It doesn't change the outlook for twenty twenty four. Oh,
(25:29):
another perfect satirizing of The Times unyielding, snobbery and shallowness.
Except that was not the Times pitchpot that sent out
that tweet. It was the Times itself. It was its
chief political analyst, Nate Cone. As predictable as the sunrise
data guys and or polsters screw it up like nine
(25:52):
times out of ten and inevitably insists, no, no, we didn't.
Here are more numbers to prove it. See there's a
three and over, here's a six. We're right, you're wrong.
All we know about the guy behind New York Times
pitchpot is that he identifies as Doug J. Balloon, and
he once came out of character briefly to reveal he
(26:14):
is a college professor somewhere. All we know about the
New York Times is that Doug Jay Balloon could write
at least the headlines to all of the Times political
coverage every day, and he could also write the lead
paragraph to all of Maureen Dowd's columns every week, leading
us to the worst signal polling and two of its principles,
(26:35):
Brent Buchanan and John Rogers. You may recall that in
yesterday's edition, I reported on their most recent poll, which
presented two striking and sudden positives for Biden, a five
point improvement in his approval disapproval is so called image
in the last month, and a six point drop in
voters who think inflation is their key issue in the
(26:57):
last two months, nearly ten points in the last eleven months.
I complimented Signal Polling on its record on having posted
this stuff, even though it is identified as a center
right publisher, and this is unmistakably good news for Biden.
Then I complimented them on Twitter and other social media,
and I pointed out those two results while slamming Nate
(27:19):
Comb for like the CNN idiot David Shaleen, treating his
own poll like it was the only poll. In short,
I introduced Signal and these guys to you as professionals.
Silly me. It is amazing to me that after twenty
six years of covering this crap, that anything could surprise
(27:41):
me anymore. But you know what Signal's response was to
my spotlighting and complimenting them. The two guys, Rogers and
Buchanan attacked me, defended David Axelrod's paniced analysis of the
New York Times poll, and somehow dragged that whiny little
transvobe Riley Gains into this, honest to effing God, Riley
(28:05):
effing Gains Jesus suffering f in the middle of the
thing about polls and Biden. They also said I didn't
know what I was talking about, and I was desperate
to find something positive about Biden, and they mocked the
idea that Biden's image had noticeably improved since last month
by five points, which turned this whole thing into farce,
(28:28):
because when I wrote and said that, I was quoting
their own analysis of and press release for their own poll. Quote.
Take away three, Joe Biden's image noticeably improved since last
month by five points. That Signal Polling. Remember they'll deny
(28:50):
tomorrow the poll they sold you yesterday. And John Rogers
and Brent Buchanan of Signal Polling such slaves to their
own nit witted ideology that they have to fight back
against compliments. Two days, worst persons in the pollsters in disarray,
(29:27):
to the number one story on the countdown and my
favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell.
And I was reminded on Saturday of two stories about
media blackmail because it was the anniversary of one of
those stories, the day Dave Letterman announced he had been blackmailed,
and they named the guy that they had arrested for
doing it, and I said, oh, him, of course it's him.
(29:49):
I've known him for twenty eight years. And then there
was the bigger blackmail story. And they named the woman
who was one of the victims, and I said, oh, her,
of course it's her. I've known her for twenty years.
That one first, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and
owner of the Washington Post, was being blackmailed by allies
of Crazy Trump, who expected to get positive coverage for
(30:10):
their leader of their cult. What they had on Bezos
was he had a girlfriend. They had pictures. It would
cost him hundreds of millions of dollars were his wife
to find out, He said, that'll happen. In February twenty nineteen,
Jeff Bezos went public, said his marriage was ending anyway.
He was sorry about the pain this caused his wife,
(30:31):
but he would now give her all she wanted, and
the National Inquirer blackmailers could shove it amid everything else.
It suggested to me that when you cannot figure out
what happened to the people who once seemed to have principles,
or at least seemed to have enmity towards Crazy Trump,
Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, others, remember that the odds were
(30:53):
amazingly small that the first time Trump's allies tried to
blackmail somebody on his behalf that they would find in
Jeff Bezos the one guy who would say no on
the first try. I don't think so. I have assumed
ever since that this process has been utilized for years
on Trump's behalf, in business, inside politics and at its fringes,
(31:18):
and that Bezos was not the first victim of this,
just the first victim who said, f you, this is
why we have fu money. But beneath all that important
stuff was yet another occasion where my jaw dropped to
the floor and I had to reattach it with Elmer's glue.
The woman at the center of the blackmail, the woman
for whom Jeff Bezos was going to leave his wife,
(31:39):
was named Lauren Sanchez, and like everybody else in this
twenty first century America, I used to work with her.
Lauren was a reporter and sometimes anchor at Fox Sportsnet
when I got there in nineteen ninety eight. Only sometimes
they wrote her a script once that actually read Roger
Clemens era is one of the greatest in his era,
(32:01):
and she, of course read Roger Clemens Era is one
of the greatest in his er. She was much better
at interviewing Lakers players after games, particularly Shaquille O'Neil, even
though he was more than two feet taller than she was,
and she used to insist on interviewing him standing up.
These little visits looked so odd on camera that I
(32:23):
remember seeing one of her stories being fed in from
the LA Forum and I asked the producer, were we
actually putting that on the air or just onto the
gag reel for Christmas? We did not overlap long there after,
she gave birth to the child of NFL tight end
Tony Gonzales, long after she had ended her relationship with him.
Lauren Sanchez was hired to anchor the news on Channel thirteen,
(32:45):
which is a station that was apparently created because somebody
would always have to be in last place in the
news ratings, and it might as well be them. I
was back visiting in LA in the spring of two
thousand and two and dived in and out of as
many newscasts as I could so I could see what
my two ex employers there and so many of my
old colleagues and rivals were doing. That's when I saw it.
(33:07):
The worst or perhaps the best commercial for a local
television news sweeps series in human history in any language.
SWEEPS series used to be local TVs bread and Butter.
During the weeks when the local ratings were tabulated and
used to establish who was number one and thus how
much everybody's commercials would cost, each station would do a
(33:30):
series of special reports within each newscast. They were designed
solely to be advertised, to be sponsored, and to be
as salacious or silly, or unbelievable or titillating or just
as memorable as possible. When I was in local news
in LA in the eighties and nineties, we had a
series at Channel two with a very good reporter named
(33:51):
Dorothy Lucy, and the series was called The Search for Slees.
The commercials for the Search for Slees showed her riding
around in a jacuzzi built into the back of a
stretch Limo with an old guy with a beard and
a couple of bikini models in there too. That had been,
to my knowledge, the low point of the Sweeps series.
(34:12):
But now, as I watched in my hotel room in
Santa Monica in the spring of two thousand and two,
this is more or less what I heard the voiceover
announcer say this week a special report CACOP thirteen News
anchor Lauren Sanchez brings you how to meet a baller. Ladies,
(34:32):
find out where to meet the athlete of your dreams Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Dodgers, Angels.
Do you want to meet him? Do you want to
get to know him? Do you want to date him?
How to beat a Baller? This week on the CACOP
thirteen News at ten with Lauren Sanchez, How to Meet
(34:53):
a Baller. I'm not certain how they restored me to
human form from the puddle into which I had dissolved.
I do remember calling the desk to ask if it
was still Tuesday. It felt like I had been out
called for several weeks. I was appalled, shocked, chagrined, nauseated, mortified, embarrassed, humiliated,
(35:14):
And then I stopped and as an angelic choir saying
in the background, I changed my mind completely. This was
not Sweep's series madness. This was not a woman debasing
herself by teaching other women how to debase themselves how
to meet dollars. This was, for perhaps the first time
in Sweeps series history, perhaps the first time in local
(35:37):
television news history, a true expert lending her panoramic learned
comprehensive knowledge about one subject, requiring subtlety, insight, insider information,
and the selflessness to share it with mere ordinary women viewers.
How do you meet a baller? I would never have
(35:58):
known who to ask. I never would have known to
whom to send my wife or daughter or friend. Not really.
I knew there were experts, there were scholars, there were
fonts of wisdom. But Lauren Sanchez was the Einstein of
meeting ballers. And even in the glimmering light of knowledge
(36:21):
that radiated from her that week on Channel thirteen, Los Angeles,
two decades ago, even in the blinding aura of her brilliance,
could she have known that the ultimate target of the
Little Sweep series should have been No, mere Tony Gonzalez?
Or do you want to meet him? Do you want
to get to know him? Do you want to date him?
(36:42):
It should have been do you want to meet him?
Do you want to get to know him? Do you
want to date him? How to meet a bezos? In life?
You just don't expect people you worked with for a
few weeks, like Lauren Sanchez, to wind up as part
of modern American history. It just seems unlikely, not that
(37:02):
they could be involved in a blackmail story like hers,
and she was a victim, but that you could have
known her. And yet for me this was the second time.
On October first, two thousand and nine, it was the
anniversary that reminded me of both of these stories, my
friend David Letterman came out onto the stage of the
CBS Late Night Show and revealed that he had had
(37:22):
a series of consensual relationships with women on his staff.
The studio audience laughed, assuming it was the start of
some bit in which the guys at the Hello Deli
would somehow of a roll of some sort. But Dave
went on and on and on, and finally revealed he
had been the victim of an extortion plot and that
(37:44):
he and the Manhattan DA's office set up a meeting
with the blackmailer, who wanted two million dollars, with the
cover story being that he had written a screenplay about
Letterman that would reveal all the relationships, but he would
sell the quote screenplay unquote two Letterman for two million dollars.
Within hours, Letterman's blackmail or was identified by authorities. I
(38:06):
saw the name pop up on my computer terminal. NBC,
Robert Joel, Joe Halderman, and I looked at it, and
I said, of course, Joe Halderman. He had been the
assignment editor at CNN in New York from the day
I broke into television in August nineteen eighty one until
he left for CBS News a year later. All television
(38:26):
assignment editors have to deny reporters camera crews. There are
invariably scheduling conflicts, and ultimately there are always two stories
to shoot for every one camera crew available. But Halderman
used to enjoy denying us reporters crewise. He used to
like to mock us, to make us grovel, and then
when you got to your story with your crew, he
(38:47):
would page them and tell them to go cover something
else and leave you stranded there. And personally he had
absolutely no redeeming qualities. If you could travel back in
time to the twenty two or twenty three year old
me and explain who David Letterman would be and what
his fame would be like, and how I'd be a
guest on his show one night when a presidential candidate
(39:09):
canceled at the last minute, and how somebody I already
knew and had worked with at age twenty two or
twenty three would try to blackmail him over staffers he'd
slept with, and could I I would have interrupted you
by that point, said, matter of factly, Oh, it's Joe Halderman, right,
of course, Halderman total creep. You say he blackmails this
letterbox guy. Frankly, forty year old me probably could have
(39:33):
figured out the whole Lauren Sanchez thing for some time
traveling quiz master as well. Although I will make no
comparison between Joe Halderman and Lauren Sanchez, Lauren was very
pleasant and there is a lesson in that for you.
It's not just nostalgia. It's not a brush with greatness,
to use a lettermanesque term. Wherever you are in life
(39:54):
or in your career, you may have yet to meet them,
or you may have already met them. But this I
know to be true. You have your own Lauren Sanchez
and your own Joe Halderman already or already in the past.
And whatever your first impressions about them were, or are
(40:16):
or will be, you're damned right they are. And also
keep in mind that thought I mentioned that I had
about Bezos and the blackmail. Do you really think he
could have been the first one they tried to blackmail
into supporting Trump, and the first one turned them down
(40:40):
and went public. I don't think so. I've done all
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Countdown has come to you from the Vin Scully Studios
(41:01):
at the headquarters of the Olderman Broadcasting Empire in New York.
Joe Halderman, Oh my God. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray
and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled the orchestration and the keyboards.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Another music, including other
(41:24):
Beethoven tunes, arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is courtesy of ESPN Incorporated. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis. It is called the Olderman
Theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today is my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else
(41:45):
is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this
The one thousand and thirty eighth day since dementia j
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Convict him now while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolton says, the news
warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
(42:06):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldman is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
(42:28):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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