June 2, 2025 • 67 mins
SEASON 3 EPISODE 131: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump believes Biden was cloned and executed. Five years ago.
He sent this out on his social media account Saturday night:"There is no Joe Biden – executed in 2020. Biden clones doubles and robotic engineered soulless mindless entities are what you see…” If you hear or read that this was Trump RE-posting something that some OTHER lunatic wrote on Trump’s social media site, or that this was Trump TROLLING, or owning the libs - this is incorrect and minimizes the severity of Trump’s accelerating complete mental breakdown. Unlike the original, TRUMP’S version also includes a photo HE has added.
No matter what YOUR explanation for this is, or mine, or Fox’s, or his enablers, this country cannot have a president who promulgates theories that his predecessor was a clone, or a body double, or a robot. The dynamic tension keeping someone this damaged and disturbed from deciding now’s the time to nuke the world because don’t worry the people HE likes won’t be affected, is the same as the dynamic tension keeping a badly built bridge upright. It can hold for years or decades and then one day it just collapses and kills everybody.
MEANWHILE, MUSK INCONTINENCE STORY LEAKS: Elon Musk was reportedly peeing his pants non-stop during the election? Afterwards? I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean… peeing his pants. New York Times about Musk in May, 2024: “Around that time, Mr. Musk told people that his ketamine use was causing bladder issues, according to people familiar with the conversations... The Food and Drug Administration (warns) chronic use can lead to addiction and problems with bladder pain and control."
Where is the Jake Tapper book about THIS? Between THIS and Trump’s revelation that Biden wasn’t cognitively challenged last year and that instead he was dead and cloned and a robot - what does Jake Tapper do now?
B-Block (33:14) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Con writer Kurt Schlichter thinks somebody else is "Two clever by half" never realizing...he isn't. Andrew Cuomo's excuse for breaking NYC traffic laws? He thought the reporters waiting to ask him questions about running for mayor were protestors. And Jake Tapper is losing roughly two viewers for every Biden book he sells.
C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL/SPORTSBALL CENTER: Baseball's annual commemorations of Lou Gehrig have begun. It's the right time to remind you that when "The Iron Horse" was stricken by ALS, plenty of America's top sports authorities were convinced he was either faking it or not deserving of sympathy.
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. Trump
(00:25):
believes Biden was cloned and then executed five years ago.
Get out the guys with the butterfly, and that's the
President's brain has finally jumped the shark quote. There is
no Joe Biden executed in twenty twenty. Biden clones, doubles,
and robotic engineered, soulless, mindless entities are what you see.
(00:51):
If you hear or read that this was Trump reposting
something that some other lunatic wrote on Trump's social media site,
or that this was Trump trolling, or this was Trump
owning the libs, this is incorrect, and more importantly, it
minimizes the severity of Trump's accelerating complete mental breakdown. He
(01:14):
believes this, or at least he believed it when he
posted it shortly after ten pm Eastern Saturday night, Because
if you parse this post of his on his social
media site, a dangerous exercise in the best of circumstances,
it is clear he did not simply repost something put
(01:36):
out earlier in the day by another lunatic with the
handle llijh. Most accounts and even Fox News and The
New York post had no choice but to write up
this disqualifying bout of madness. Most accounts suggest Trump himself
added no comment to the original this is incorrect. Unlike
(01:59):
the original, Trump's version of this includes a photo he
has added. The photo is the avatar from the original
Lligh account, a retouched black and white shot of Trump
with his current head and its overtone of melting plastic,
(02:20):
but with what his eyes looked like forty or fifty
years ago. He is also shown giving a V signal
with two fingers. The photo in the original post. It's
the same photo, but it's in a tiny circular thumbnail,
maybe half an inch in diameter. The photo on Trump's
version is square and full sized. Trump added to the
(02:45):
original post added a photo. If you repost something on
Trump's site, the avatar does not automatically blow up to
full size like this. This was deliberate. This was done
at Trump's end of the equation. Trump did this. It's
not just somebody calling themselves l LJH so lost in
(03:07):
the quicksand that is the lunatic right that they added
to their fever dream of clones and doubles and robots,
seventy hashtags and forty five different account handles, including the
hashtags sports and MSNBC. This is not somebody else's work.
(03:29):
This is Trump seeing somebody else's work and adding his
own photo to it, with his fingers raised in what
could be a victory signal. Trump's inability to separate fantasy
and wish fulfillment and lies and all the rest from
reality comes in all possible forms and flavors, and runs
(03:52):
on parallel tracks twenty four hours a day. There are
things about which he is always crazy, and things about
which he is only periodically crazy, and things he can
be crazy about one minute and then forget the next,
and things he's crazy enough to not actually believe himself
but wants others to believe. This tends to diminish the
(04:14):
fact that all of it is like Trump himself crazy.
No matter what your explanation for this is, or mine,
or Foxes or his enablers, this country cannot have a
president who promulgates theories that his predecessor or anybody else
was a clone, or a body double or a robot.
(04:39):
The dynamic tension keeping someone this damaged and disturbed from deciding, Hey,
now's the right moment to nuke the world, because don't worry,
the people I like won't be affected. That dynamic tension
is the same as the dynamic tension keeping a badly
built bridge upright. It can hold in place for years
(05:02):
or decades, and then one minute it collapses and kills everybody.
And do not assume Trump couldn't possibly actually firmly believe
these QAnon theories that he so happily pedals and profits off.
Hell this creature. Trump reportedly actually believed Elon Musk when
(05:23):
Musk promised to slash one trillion dollars from government spending.
The Wall Street Journal now quotes unnamed administration officials who,
as they all finally succeeded in chasing the unstable Musk
out of the White House, who heard Trump ask about
Musk's promises, quote, was it all bullshit? Of course, it
(05:44):
was all bullshit. Musk is bullshit for a moment. Put
aside the Biden clone body double robot posts. If a
president is lost enough to have actually believed Elon Musk's
promises weren't bullshit, he is not fit for office nor
(06:09):
for being out in public, except if he is on
a leash or in a cage. There is another telling
excerpt from this subtle verification by The Wall Street Journal
that even it knows Trump is nuts. I will quote
the paragraph Trump disliked how critical Musk was toward cabinet
secretaries and his public attacks on Trade advisor Peter Navarro,
(06:33):
who Must called a moron and said was dumber than
a sack of bricks. White House officials said Trump was
surprised at how nasty Musk was in one cabinet meeting
toward other members of his administration. Again, if you don't
(06:53):
recognize Musk's default state bullshit. If you are surprised he's nasty,
you are crazier than he is. The issue then becomes
whether you are also more incontinent than he is. Musk
(07:14):
was reportedly peeing his pants NonStop during the election campaign.
I don't mean metaphorically, I mean peeing his pants. The
story has leaked out. Let me quote the New York
Times from Friday about a text Musk reportedly sent a
(07:34):
close friend a year ago, last month, May twenty twenty four. Quote.
Around that time, mister Musk told people that his ketamin
use was causing bladder issues, According to people familiar with
the conversations, where's the goddamn Jake Tapper book about this.
(07:54):
Between this and Trump's revelation that Biden wasn't cognitively challenged
last year, he was dead and cloned and a robot.
What does Jake Tapper do now? Bladder issues last may
maybe not just last maybe maybe not just last year,
maybe not just on the campaign, the Department of Government
Efficiency or the Department of Government p efficiency? Am I
(08:18):
right to again quote The Times? Mister Musk's drug consumption
went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was
taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was
affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. Now
(08:40):
what kind of effect could it have on somebody's bladder?
I think your bladder's on the fritz. Elon, please point
yourself in the other direction. We know from the Wall
Street Journal article from January twenty twenty four that the
Tesla board had been worried about well, to paraphrase The Times,
(09:03):
Musk being high as a kite. The menu, the Journal
recounted seventeen months ago now included not just ketamine, but
also mushrooms, cocaine, ecstasy, and LSD onping and peeing and
peeing and being to again quote The Times, the Food
and Drug Administration has formally approved the use of ketamine
(09:23):
only as an anesthetic in medical procedures. The drug has
psychedelic properties and can cause dissociation from reality. Chronic use
can lead to addiction and problems with bladder pain and control.
A quick thought experiment for you, say this is in
(09:45):
the New York Times about anybody close to Biden or
to Kamala Harris, anybody ron Klain, John Podesta, especially John Podesta,
or broaden the scope, famous people vaguely connected to Biden,
far less than Musk is connected to Trump, who are
(10:06):
suddenly declared three times in one article in The New
York Times as being so strung out they wet their diapers.
Think of this as being about Taylor Swift after she
endorsed Kamala Springsteen, de Niro, Cuban, Mark Cuban. There's a
near comp with Musk. I mean anybody connected to them, anybody, me, anybody.
(10:32):
The thought experiment, that story breaks about Biden or Harris
and anybody. What happens next? It depends.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Now.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
The question is when did the Fox News News Max
Bench Buro, Joe Rogan Tucker Carlson NonStop coverage. And the
answer is it didn't. It's still going. It's going now,
It'll be going on for weeks. I should probably stop
saying going. Moreover, whenever it did stop, it would only
be a pause. This story about a Democrat would resurface
(11:05):
before the midterms, and then as the twenty twenty eight
Democratic hopefuls emerged, it would start again. An urgent, burning,
uncontrollable need to go connect the urinary distress of somebody
who is not the president or would be president to
the president or would be president, and make it into
a story about the judgment of the president or would
(11:27):
be president. In short, top Democratic advisor pease his pants
all the time. Back to the real story, which is
not treated in that way. Top Trump advisor pees his pants?
Why did Trump select him? What's wrong with Trump? Quote?
(11:50):
Musk traveled with a daily medication box that held about
twenty pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant
adderall according to a photo of the box and people
who have seen it. It is unclear whether mister Musk
fifty three, was taking drugs when he became a fixture
at the White House this year and was handed the
(12:11):
power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited
erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and
garbling his answers in a staged interview. And that's gesturing
like a Nazi with the arm rigid as a you know, salute,
(12:35):
and the fingers of the right hand held together, not
like Corey Booker, whom the right is trying to claim
did the same thing over the weekend. Booker's fingers were
spread apart and his arm was bent at the elbow.
This is what scientists using technical jargon call a quote
(12:56):
wave goodbye unquote. Moreover, the Democrats correctly Joe Biden out
of running for reelection in July for far less serious issues,
certainly far less self induced issues than anything in this
Elon Musk revelation. And now the Republicans want to stage
(13:17):
investigations of the Democrats for not doing it fast enough.
And they have seized upon the auto pen as if
the auto pen were something alive out of Harry Potter
that had a life of its own and just hopped
out of a box and started signing Biden's name without
(13:40):
his knowledge. And is the autopen a clone two Trump.
None of the top Trump advisor piece his pants story
has yet stained the Trump presidency, none of it. Because
(14:03):
we have somehow reached a point in this country where
if you are crazy all the time and drugged up
all the time and losing control of your eliminatory functions
all the time, it's not news anymore, is it. Trump
is so gone mentally, and God knows about his bladder.
(14:24):
The diaper rumors have stunk up the White House for years.
The whole thing could in fact bring an entirely different
meaning to the phrase pe tape. Anyway, Trump is so
gone mentally and physically that NBC could report that in
part of the my God, he's really this nuts collision
with reality that others like Dan Bongino have encountered. Trump's
(14:45):
national I have no discernible intelligence Director Telsey Gabbard has
realized Trump cannot read, won't read, cannot focus long enough
to read. Has taken in so far just fourteen of
the president's daily briefings. You know, the pdbs, the things
(15:08):
that would have told Bush about bin Laden months before
nine to eleven. But Push also didn't read, and he
knew everything anyway, And three thousand Americans died because of
that from NBC. Gabbard has solicited ideas from current and
former intelligence officials about steps she could take to tailor
the briefing to Trump's policy interests and habits. One idea
(15:33):
that's been discussed is possibly creating a video version of
the PDB that's made to look and feel like a
Fox News broadcast. Four of the people with direct knowledge
of the discussion said, how much is it supposed to
look and feel like Fox News? I mean, is it
going to be true or like Fox News? Is it
(15:57):
going to be full of shit? Is it going to
be presented to him as a Fox News broadcast? Are
they gonna get Hannity to read it? Maybe David Assman?
Will there be a weather segment? Here's today's weather? If
you're president? Will he sit there going? Or Fox News? Er?
(16:22):
He can't process anything not delivered, not just by TV,
but not by Fox News liars. He can't process it.
And his top advisories, at least one of them pee
their pants. And Biden is a robot, but I guess
(16:42):
robot Biden's acuity is the story for twenty twenty eight?
Gotcha one more Trump story to quote from Politico Magazine
by Michael Cruz quote, I'm supposed to be dead, Donald
Trump said the day after he got shot at his
rally last summer in Butler, Pennsylvania. I'm not supposed to
be here, he said. Four days after that, but something
(17:03):
very special happened. Let's face it, something happened, he said.
Two days after that. It's an act of God, he
said the month after that. God spared my life for
a reason. He said in his victory speech at Mary
Lago in November. I was saved by God to make
America great again, he said in his inaugural address at
the Capitol in January. It changed something in me, he
said in his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast at
the Washington Hilton in February. I feel even stronger. The
(17:27):
title of the political article is, does Trump actually think
He's God? Quoting again. Over the last ten or so
months since Butler, however, and especially since his re election
and the start of his second administration, Trump's outlook has shifted.
His rhetoric has gone from borderline nihilistic to messianic. It's
(17:52):
worth asking does Trump think He's God? Okay, he almost
certainly doesn't think he's God. But does he think he's
God likely sanctioned or inspired or empowered? Does he think
he's somehow imbued with some special sacred purpose for some
special sacred reason, or did he just see and sees
(18:15):
an opportunity to stamp his world upending agenda with the
ultimate justification, a mandate from God. The peace goes on
longer than God, longer than Musk pees his pants, longer
(18:36):
than Biden has been a dead clone, Yet it misses
the essential starting point. Trump has always thought he's God,
certainly as opposed to thinking he's just another person. He's
about genetics and what you're born with, and how he's
the best at everything, and this thing is the greatest
(18:57):
ever and he alone can save and fix and he
and he he he he he he. But tell me
again about Biden's acuity, which the Democrats, however, late went
in and fixed, while the Republicans will today go in
(19:17):
and sit in a room with Donald Trump and reassure
him he is in effect infallible and godlike to say
nothing of what these same Republicans are still telling Elon Musk,
besides telling him the men's room is second on the
(19:40):
left bro A couple more headlines quote. I was new
(20:11):
to Washington, and it was suggested that I use the
Federalist Society as a recommending source on judges. I did
so openly and freely, but then realized that they were
under the thumb of a real sleezebag named Leonard Leo,
a bad person who in his own way probably hates
America and obviously has his own separate ambitions. I cannot
(20:34):
convey to you what good news there is in this
relatively anyway, what good news there is in Trump's surprise
attack and an echoing condemnation of Leonard Leo by Stephen
Miller on Leonard Leo, the owner and operator of sam
Alito and Clarence Thomas, and especially Gorsach and Cavanaugh surprise
(20:57):
attack to us anyway, I was unaware that one of
the lawsuits against Trump's tariffs was by a group funded
by Leonard Leo. As an aside, that's Leonard Leo, Cornell
eighty six, Cornell Law eighty nine, and Cornell's Student Federalist
Society eighty nine. And you thought I suffered because of
(21:20):
Ann Coulter eighty four. Back to the main point, simply
the Trump versus Leo, not the Pope. The Trump versus
Leo thing is good news because, as Ellie Misstyle points out,
Leo and the Federalist Society envision Supreme Court justices like
fifty two year old James C. Ho, the Taiwan born
(21:43):
fascist with the completely accurate last name, and forty six
year old Andrew Oldham, whom George will adores. But left
to his own devices, without the influence of Leonard Leo
and the Federalist Society, Trump would probably pick Justice Eileen
I used to cover Flamenco for the Miami Nuevo Old
(22:05):
Cannon and best of all, Justice Janine I turned seventy
four tomorrow, Tutz. But now that wine comes in boxes,
you just never know, do Yeah. The Trump May Day
(22:28):
in June parade a week from Saturday. He thinks he's
being sneaky and nobody realizes he scheduled it for his
own birthday, will not only do per the military's own estimate,
sixteen million dollars worth of damage to the streets of Washington.
Three million of that goes to metal plates that have
(22:50):
to be installed, or the tanks trying to make right
turns onto DuPont Circle or wherever will go right through
the dam pavement. Trump's masturbatory parade will not only do
that sixteen million dollars worth of structural damage to the
streets that have to be repaired, but it will also
(23:11):
give him yet another chance to abuse those who actually
served in Vietnam. The Vietnam Vet's Memorial Fund has held
an in Memory ceremony in DC since nineteen ninety three.
For more than a decade, it has been held on
the day before Father's Day. It has always been held
(23:33):
at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which has slowly, unexpectedly, but
unmistakably become one of the most moving and unforgettable such
places in the world. Twenty twenty five in Memory ceremony
was and remains scheduled four June fourteenth. It will be
(23:55):
held at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia,
because the Vietnam No Memorial is on June fourteenth off
limits because of Trump's jerk off parade. Two events most
(24:21):
in the news have not connected yet. Ukraine's drone attack
on Russian air bases destroyed at least forty Russian bomber aircraft,
a total surprise planned according to President Zelenski for at
least a year. And it turns out second half of
this equation the United States did not know about this
attack in advance, and you know why it worked because
(24:43):
the United States did not know about it in advance.
The timing also means that one of the reasons Zelensky
was able to maintain his cool in the White House
rather than you know, doing what you or I would
have done, and at least headbudded that foppish imbecile JV.
Vance as he and immune headmon she made Trump brow
(25:06):
beat him about not having any cards. One of the
reasons he was able to hold his cool was he
was probably thinking about the drone plan. And speaking of drones,
you've already heard the Senator Jonie Ernst We're all going
to die town hall clip and then her follow up
insult to every human whose death she has personally hastened
(25:28):
because she is a lying holier than thou fascist. I
would like to play only the part at the end
of that second clip when she invites people interested in
not dying to join her savior.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
For those that would like to see eternal and everlasting live,
I encourage you to embrace my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Three notes this would ring less hollow if there had
been anything in her life that suggested Ernst had actually
read the words of Christ. Two, if the words of
Christ and those of any religion more or less are correct, Ms.
Ernst is going to hell because no, I'm sorry. Faith
(26:20):
is not supposed to be about membership in a particular brand.
It's supposed to be about selflessness and humanity. And three,
if Christ heard what you have said this past week,
Senator Ernst, he would kick you in the face. A
(26:43):
programming note here, there will be an episode of Countdown
tomorrow Tuesday, the third kind of compact headlines driven edition short.
I want to see if, what with the new TV
sports responsibilities I have, I can still add a third
(27:05):
edition every week and not lose even more of my mind.
Please listen tomorrow, because there is every chance it will
be the only Tuesday edition I ever do. It's an
experiment also of interest here when you call somebody too
(27:25):
clever by half, but you misspell the word two and
anybody's seen Jake. No, Biden's cognition is the real story here,
not Trump's belief that Biden is a robot. Tappers Show lately.
Anybody seen Jake Tapper and the lead recently? The answer
is according to the ratings, not really. No, that's next.
(27:50):
This is Countdown. This his countdown with Keith Oberman. Oberman
(28:20):
still ahead on this edition of Countdown in Baseball, this
is Lou Garrig Day, making Larry's impression of the longtime
Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard entirely appropriate. Chronologically,
Lou Garrig Day, the somber remembrance of the baseball immortal
of the New York Yankees, cut down with frightening rapidity
(28:43):
eighty six years ago today. He was Baseball's iron Man.
Eighty four years ago today he died the first time
this nation knew about als and buried. Over the decades
since the disturbingly large percentage of sports writers of nineteen
thirty nine and nineteen forty who just assumed Garrig had
(29:07):
infected his teammates or was faking the illness to gain sympathy,
he did not deserve the sadder side of the pride
of the Yankees. Next in things I promised not to
tell first, Believe it or not, there's still more new
idiots to talk about the roundup of the miss Grants,
(29:28):
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other
Weststmas persons in the world the bronze. Kurt Sicktor of
town hall dot com Kurt isn't bright. This is about
(29:53):
tariffs versus taxes. Someone wrote, if tariffs were taxes, why
would we have a different word called tariffs? Our educational
system not only failed about FI fifty years ago, it
went bankrupt. Dan McLaughlin, who operates as at Baseball crank
(30:14):
and is I don't know about the baseball part, but
he's very much a crank, a very cranky conservative. I
think most normal people, as opposed to people in think
tank land, grasp that only Congress is supposed to be
able to raise taxes and that it is weird for
the president to be raising and lowering them on a
daily basis. This is an arch conservative. This is a
(30:37):
salute and wear shiny boots conservative complaining about what Trump
is doing, to which Kurt Slocktor of town Hall writes, quote,
A tariff is a tax is a too clever by
half formulation that ignores the fact that a tariff is
not a tax. It's a tariff two clever by half,
(31:01):
Kurt says, only he spelled it too two, like the
number it's to t ooh. That's the point of the phrase,
too clever by half. It's not a numerical assessment. It's
saying you're being way too smart, way too smart, too
(31:25):
clever by half something. Mister Kurt Schlichter has never been
accused of runner up worser Andrew Cuomo, having had to
resign in disgrace, in fact multiple disgrace, in fact disgrace
of your choice as governor of New York, now running
for Mayor of New York to avoid reporters who want
(31:45):
to ask him about I don't know scandal one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten or eleven. To avoid reporters. The other day he
held a press event. A press event in Cuomo Land
is we want you to show up and give us
free publicity, but don't dare ask any questions of the case.
(32:06):
He wanted to avoid the reporters who wanted to ask
him questions, so he ran out as soon as it
was over, got into his car, avoided the reporters waiting
outside on the street, squealed away in a vehicle to
the degree that his vehicle made an illegal right turn
on red in New York City. The news site The
(32:26):
City and Why quotes a Cuomo flak rich as a
party who wasn't there telling another local and good news source,
Hellgate New York. They thought reporters the former governor knows
and who were also wearing press passes were protesters. Plus
Cuomo staffers Kevin Elkins New York and Esther Jensen were
(32:48):
there and had just seen us upstairs. In other words,
their excuse for avoiding the reporters and making the illegal
turn is they didn't know those were reporters. They thought
those were protesters, and they wanted to get away from them,
because trying to avoid the public when it doesn't want
you to, Mayor, is somehow better than trying to avoid reporters.
(33:09):
I am beginning to think I might prefer another term
of this idiot, Eric Adams than ten minutes of Mayor
Andrew Cuomo, the guy I like largely because he's different
than all the other guys who have run for this job.
It's like why I like the garbage sanitation commissioner last time.
What is there to learn about New York that you
(33:30):
cannot learn from working in the sanitation department. My grandpa
worked in the sanitation department. That's where New York really
lives and dies. She would have been a great mayor.
She knew where all the crap was and how to
get rid of it. The guy this time is an outsider,
(33:50):
a councilman named Zoran Mamdani. I have never done an
actual endorsement before in nearly three years of this podcast.
I mean it's usually obvious, but I am endorsing Zoran
Mamdani for mayor. In fact, I am endorsing the idea
that the other Democrats in the race should drop out
and endorse him themselves, because this city will not survive
(34:13):
ten minutes of Mayor Andrew Cuomo. I thought all those
guys with TV cameras were protesters. Yeah, it's possible that
he's that stupid the winner though, speaking of that stupid
worst Jake Tapper, this is how far this has gotten,
(34:33):
and this is how far Jake Tapper has plummeted and
continues to plummet. James Comer on Fox News, a man
who looks and sounds like he has sustained a serious
concussion every day of his life, Joe Biden wasn't a
(34:55):
melonly fit to make these decisions. More and more evidence
coming out from Jake Tapper, the other whistle blowers in
in the administration, and then Comer went off into a
rant about acuity, as if he'd ever had any acuity
or knew what it actually meant. The current president thinks
(35:18):
the phrase political asylum means you were in a nuthouse
in another country. He thinks he aced a mental test
that is given to determine whether or not people should
be detained against their will because they were a danger
to themselves and others if they were allowed outside the
front door of the hospital. But he aced it. He
(35:40):
thinks he's a stable genius and it's all genetics, and
because he had an uncle who taught at MIT or something,
that means he's a genius. That's the current guy and
the people around him covering up for the fact that
he's a moron. But instead we're talking about the last guy,
(36:01):
who primarily is no longer president, at whose acuity has
never at its lowest point dipped down as far as
Trump's highest point. But this is what Jake Tapper is
fixated on. This is what Jake Tapper is trying to
make blood money off of This results in Jake Tapper
(36:24):
being quoted by James fing comer, do you see what
you've done? Tapper? You fraud? America sees the lead with
Jake Tapper his show on CNN. I know it's a surprise.
CNN is still on the lead with Jake Tapper averaged
(36:46):
five hundred and twenty five thousand total viewers from April
twenty eight through May twenty fifth. That is one quarter
down from the CNN audience in that time slot last year,
admittedly at perhaps the peak of the entire Biden's story,
but that itself should be an indicator of how few
(37:07):
people give up f about the Biden story today. It
is not today's news and it has no relevance going forward.
At the same time, Fox News has somehow managed to
maintain an audience at five o'clock. I believe that's the
hour of three point three million, sixty eight percent of
the cable news audience. Not a surprise, but certainly the
(37:27):
percentage is a surprise. MSNBC, flailing about in its own way,
is at a little over one million viewers, twenty one
percent of the audience. And Tapper is now down to
eleven percent. It is not just his book that has
done this to Jake Tapper. CNN has been in a
death spiral for three years now since its new owners,
(37:50):
Warner Bros. Discovery of fascism threw CNN into reverse and
took it from a news organization ready and willing at
all times to accurately criticize and analyze the madness of
Donald Trump and the Republican Party and its efforts to
eliminate democracy in this country. Threw it into reverse and
(38:12):
made it increasingly into a platform in which people on
it hoared themselves out for fascism and Trump. First they
hired Chris Lickt, then a bunch of foreigners who had
had to flee England after they failed in TV news there.
Then they platformed the likes of Scott Jennings mugging to camera,
(38:33):
setting up a series of scream fests at night, the
kind of yelling shows that went out of vogue in
cable news when John Stewart clotheslined Tucker Carlson on CNN
in the year two thousand and two, and most notably,
the descent of CNN accelerated last year when Jake Tapper
(38:55):
refused to fact check Trump as Trump lied his way
through the debate with Biden. That was the shark moment.
Jake Tapper has been self destructing for a long time.
The book is just the newest thing on the list.
Like when he compared the Biden story to Watergate, Like
(39:15):
when he apologized to Lara Trump, Like every time he
held the book up and sold it like he was
Bill O'Reilly trying to read you and sell you the
story of how they killed Bill O'Reilly's career, whatever his
latest book is called. Like when Jake went on Meghan
Kelly's Nazi cast appalling, apparently unauthorized by his employers. This
(39:41):
has happened before in this business. People have betrayed their
own ethics and standards, and by the time it shows
up in the ratings a one quarter loss in one year,
they're professionally dead. Jake. By the way, CNN, if Jake
Tapper really went on Meghan Kelly's show without your CNN approval,
you know it says in his contract, like it says
(40:02):
in everybody else's contract, can't make media appearances without authorization.
If he did it without authorization, you can fire him.
For cause and not owe him a dime. Tapper just
saying today's other worst person, and the world. The further
(40:34):
we have gotten from Tuesday, July fourth, nineteen thirty nine,
the further it has been evident that this was probably
the most poignant day in the history of American sports,
and one of the most poignant days in the history
of America. That day was when sixty one, eight hundred
and eight people crowded into Yankee Stadium in New York
(40:57):
to hear lou Garrigg say goodbye. He had been stricken
by als, and as much as everybody tried to pretend
it was not a death sentence, or at least not
likely to be a death sentence, it is in retrospect
clear that nearly all the fans knew. It was in
fact so clear at the time that the Yankees and
(41:20):
even officials of the city of New York were insistent
that during the ceremonies between games of that day's doubleheader,
that Lou Geig should not make a speech. They literally
believed that the amount of grief in the ballpark among
the fans and the employees and the players would somehow
(41:43):
be too much for at minimum the mental health of
everybody there. They did not know how that much sadness
could be handled in public. Of course, lou gereg spoke anyway,
and all he did was give one of the bravest
and most moving speeches in human history, one that is
(42:04):
repeat word for word in ballparks and elsewhere every year
on its anniversary, July fourth. So we view that July fourth,
nineteen thirty nine as a day of grief and sorrow
and love and of that rarest of emotions, of our
shared awareness of the implacability of death, and that our
(42:27):
victories over death must be temporary and symbolic. We see
through hindsight lou Garrig Day Yankee Stadium, the Bronx, New York, Tuesday,
July fourth, nineteen thirty nine, as a unanimous gathering bathed
in sympathy and empathy, representing the sympathy and empathy of
(42:48):
a nation. And we do that because the baseball world
and the media have spent the intervening decades burying the
work of those in its ranks in nineteen thirty nine
who approached lou Garrigg's illness as either prepare yourself as
either a fraud or a conspiracy. I am going to
(43:14):
read you in full two articles about lou Gereg that
must be tied for the all time worst pieces written
in American media history and on the list of the
worst things ever written for publication in the English language.
The second article is actually not from nineteen thirty nine.
(43:35):
It's from August nineteen forty, and in it, the sports
editor of the New York Daily News all but accuses
lou Gereg of being what we would now call a
super spreader and speculates that Gereg has infected all the
other Yankee players with his disease. The first article actually
(43:56):
ran in hundreds of American newspapers on the night of Monday,
July third, nineteen thirty nine, but mostly the morning of July.
It was in a column distributed by United Press, the
precursors to United Press International, where I made my full
time professional debut forty years later, almost to the day,
in July of nineteen seventy nine. When I worked there,
(44:20):
I had never heard about this article. Throughout the bulk
of my career, I had never heard about this article.
I did not know of this article until the microfilm
files of newspapers migrated onto the Internet in the late nineties,
and to this day I have never found any indication
that the writer ever apologized or ever admitted his stupidity
(44:44):
and coarseness and insensitivity and awfully timed glibness. The writer's
name was Jack Cuddy, Jack Cutty c Uddy. He began
as a news reporter for the Milwaukee Journal. After World
War One, he worked for newspapers in Chicago, Miami, New Orleans,
and then joined United Press in nineteen twenty six. He
(45:06):
was a news reporter. He helped cover Lindbergh's solo flight
over the Atlantic in nineteen twenty seven, and then in
nineteen thirty two they made him their primary boxing reporter,
and they also assigned him to write columns about all
sports that would sent out on the up wire to
all of the newspapers that subscribed. We don't know how
(45:27):
many of them ran this. Their sports editors probably found
out just how many of their readers actually read it,
because by the time Jack Cutty wrote this, he had
been a national sports reporter for seven years and a
journalist a hard news reporter for about fifteen before that.
(45:50):
This still is what untold readers of papers that carried
the work of United Press read just hours before lou
Garrig gave his Luckiest man on the Face of the
Earth speech In this corner, Jack Cutty rights on the
(46:13):
retirement of lou Gereg by Jack Cutdy, New York. There's
only one thing I see wrong about the celebration of
the fourth of July, and that's the national shedding of
tears about a husky named lou Gereg, which will be
climaxed with a low Garreg Appreciation Day during the doubleheader
(46:35):
between the Yanks and Washington at Yankee Stadium. The play
rights for this Garreg business at the stadium are making
the affair so touching. I understand that even the little
boys and gals of our vast land will be unable
to set off firecrackers and things because of the tears
that trickle down upon their matches and punks. The whole
(46:59):
business seems goofy and uncalled for. To me, I see
no res and for pulling a pall over a holiday
when everyone should be having lots of fun and peanuts
popcorn cracker Jackson hot dogs. Particularly, I see no reason
for pulling this Yankee publicity stunt about Gerreg, who was
the last man in the world who would go for it,
(47:21):
unless the Yankee brass Hats and New York Baseball Riders
snaffled him and forced him into it. Gerrek knows, and
so should everyone else connected with baseball, that the thirty
six year old first basement of the Yanks was through
with top flight play just as soon as he showed
up at the Yanks training camp at Saint Pete. But
because lou was the Iron Horse, the man who had
(47:44):
written into the records that all time mark of two
one hundred and thirty consecutive championship games, his fade out
had to be different from that of the ordinary player. Accordingly,
Greg was sent to a nationally known center of health
investigation to see what was wrong with him. I'll guarantee
(48:04):
that if ninety percent of the men, women, and children
in America were sent to that particular spot, we would
learn that each and all had something wrong with them,
even if it were only halatosis, athletes, foot warts, or
bo I've forgotten exactly what they said was wrong with Greg. Oh, yes,
(48:26):
I do recall that the first hospital report indicated infantile
paralysis of a very vague breed, but later the experts
explained it wasn't infantile paralysis at all, it was something else.
The ailment had one of those high falutin names that
only people with plenty of dough or prestige can have. Personally,
(48:50):
i don't care what Grek has got, but I'd like
to exchange my body for his during the next forty
or fifty years, let us say, And I'm pretty sure
I'd do all right. Regardless of the experts argument over
the last or Greek declensions of what lariping Loo may
or may not have, it seems to me that greg
(49:12):
was merely getting too old to play hell for leather baseball,
and that the scientists of ailments or advertising gave him
a graceful exit. But what really brings water to my
eyes on this particular fourth of July is the plight
of Monty Stratton, a lad who was right in his prime,
only twenty five years old, a lad who never had
(49:33):
the chance to amass the fortune that must be Garrick's
gerreg too old for championship Baseball will be out there
tomorrow with his mysterious ailment, able to get about as
actively as any one of his piano leg build should
at thirty six. But poor Monty Stratton is hobbling about
the coaches box of the Chicago White Sox with an
(49:57):
artificial leg, clinking about where his own right leg should be.
There is no question about what happened to Stratton. He
shot himself in the leg accidentally while hunting down Texas
Way last November, and the right leg had to be
amputated at the knee. At the time this accident happened,
(50:17):
Stratton stood out as one of the best right handed
flingers in the American League. They gave him a Stratton
Day in Chicago this season and he got about twenty
grand out of it, about the same as his salary
for a year. Gerrig has been named non playing captain
for the All Star Interleague Game at Yankee Stadium a
(50:38):
week from Tuesday, along with tomorrow's Garreg Day. But it
seems to me that poor Monty Stratton could have been
appointed batting practice pitcher at least for the All Star Game.
And if we've got to shed tears tomorrow for some
afflicted ballplayer, let's give them off for poor Monty instead
(50:59):
of for lucky lou Jack Cutty everybody. Twenty three months later,
lou gereg was dead. Monty Stratton, the innocent bystander in
this hindenburg of a sports column who had been on
a possible Hall of Fame trajectory, actually made a comeback
(51:22):
on one leg, and seven years later in the low
minor leagues, he won eighteen games pitching for the Sherman
Twins of the East Texas League. He pitched sporadically thereafter
until the age of forty one. By then a film
version based on his life had been made. It starred
Jimmy Stewart. Monty Stratton died in nineteen eighty two, seven
(51:44):
years and one week after the writer, Jack Cutty died.
Jack Cutty had himself died thirty four years after Lou
Garrig died, and thirty six years after he had offered
to trade bodies with Lou Gereg. Not only did mister
Cutty never apparently correct the Garreg article, but United Press
apparently did not punish him in any way for having
(52:04):
written it. He continued to cover boxing for UP and
UPI for another twenty five years, and his obituary appeared
in the New York Times. It did not mention his
column about Lou Garrick, but a man named Jimmy Powers
died in February of nineteen ninety five. He too got
an oh bit in The Times, and it too did
(52:26):
not mention his Lou Garrick article, which is, believe it
or not, probably much worse than Jack Cutties. Jimmy Powers
article appeared on Sunday, August eighteenth, nineteen forty. It covered
much of two pages in the New York Daily News.
Powers was sports editor there from nineteen thirty six until
(52:47):
his retirement in nineteen fifty nine. He would eventually grudgingly,
sparingly apologize for this uneducated dreck that he wrote. But
I worked with people at the start of my career
who had worked with him. It was only about twenty
years between us, they said, was clear that he continued
to believe that it was likely that he was right,
(53:10):
and that Greg had somehow infected his Yankee teammates with
some kind of milder version of als that cost them
the nineteen forty American League pennant No, I am not
kidding The New York Daily News, August eighteenth, nineteen forty.
(53:32):
The headline read, has Polio hit the Yankees? The Yankees, who,
for the past four years have been one of the
greatest baseball machines in history and almost universally selected to
win the pennet again have collapsed. Why has the mysterious
(53:53):
polio germ which felled lou Geig also struck his former teammates,
turning a once great team into a floundering non contender.
According to overwhelming opinion of the medical profession, poliomylitis, similar
to infantile paralysis, is communicable. The Yanks were exposed to
(54:17):
it at its most acute stage. They played ball with
the afflicted Garrig, dressed and undressed in the locker room
with him, traveled, played cards and ate with him. Isn't
it possible some of them also became infected. It's hard
to believe mere coincidence can explain away the wholesale failure
(54:42):
of the individuals. In Gerrig's case, one of the most
prominent symptoms was loss of muscular power. The same symptom
can be found in many of the Yanks today. So far,
no one has been able to advance a satisfactory reason
for it, not without precedent. The possibility of wholesale team
(55:07):
infection is not entirely without precedent. Last fall, the Loyola
University football team was faced with the same menace from
infantile paralysis, a greatly similar disease communicated in the same manner.
A player collapsed in the dressing room was rushed to
a hospital where it was determined he had developed paralysis.
The entire squad was quarantined and examined. Two other players
(55:31):
were discovered bearing the germ caught from their unfortunate teammate. Luckily,
the infection was detected at the earliest stage. Injections killed
the germ and brought complete recovery. In the Textbook of
Nervous Disorders by Robert Bing, professor of neurology at the
University of Basel in Switzerland, are found the following pertinent facts. One,
(55:56):
the disease appears in a majority of cases between the
ages of thirty and fifty five. Most of the players
with the anksor in their thirties, with the exception of Gordon,
the others are close to them. Two. Among causes found
for the disease are over exposure to cold and exhausting
(56:16):
disease or capital letters over exertion. Ballplayers certainly are called
upon for more than normal exertion, as were the Yanks
at a time when they were exposed to the germ. Three,
Regarding the effect on the legs, where it probably would
be most noticeable in ballplayers for a comparatively long period
(56:39):
of time, the lower extremities remain normal, except for marked
exaggeration of their reflexes. Atrophy of the leg muscles may
not occur until the late stages of the disease. Thus
a player might be able to run and move as
well as ever while the germ was sapping his strength
(56:59):
in less noticeable parts such as hands, arms, and shoulders.
Club players worried. Club officials and players have been worried
that such a general infection existed. They took special precautionary
measures to prevent it. Individual drinking cups were provided. Each
(57:20):
player took care to use only his own towel. Special
provisions were made for laundering uniforms and underclothing among the players.
Bill Dickey last winter made a special trip to the
Mayo Brothers Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for a thorough physical checkup.
(57:41):
This coming winter Atlee, Donald rad Ralph and several others
are considering similar checkups. The fear of the disease had
a psychological effect. It preyed on the minds of the
athletes exaggerated minor aches, pains, and ailments which ordinarily they
would have ignored. Practically, the entire club had noticed Garrig's symptoms,
(58:02):
became aware of, and worried about nerve and muscular reactions
they had never been conscious of previously. Club officials believe
they have finally defeated this psychological sword of damocles. These
nervous and muscular reactions could always be traced to an injury,
a slight bump or bruise. This apparently was the savior
(58:24):
for in Greg's case, no injury could be traced down
to explain his early symptoms. However, the shadow of doubt
must still linger, for in the same volume by Professor
Byng is this quote, I have described a case of
traumatic median neuritis which later developed into a typical lateral
(58:49):
ammiothrophic sclerosis. The note the latter is the medical term
for Gareg's ailment and indicates that the particular form of
paralysis which afflicted Gareg might develop from neritis. Alderman note no,
not quite. Doctor Robert F. Walsh, Yank physician and surgeon,
(59:15):
and Earl V. Painter, Yank trainer, each nationally famous in
his profession are the men closest to the physical well
being of the players. They answer emphatically that no such
condition exists on the club. Here is doctor Walsh's opinion quote.
Though at first there was a very definite possibility of
the entire team becoming afflicted, there is now no indication
(59:37):
of it. Had the disease stricken, there would have been
a noticeable change in the physical appearance of those to
whom the disease had been communicated. There would not be
the slightest doubt remaining that the stricken individual or individuals
were infected. Unquote. Medics support Walsh. Doctor Walsh's statement is
(59:58):
supported by the current medical belief that the infection will
reveal itself within six weeks of the time of contact. However,
with the medical profession admitting a meager knowledge of the disease,
there is the possibility a lingering means of infection exists,
that the disease may be communicated in a different form,
(01:00:18):
and that it may be chronic as well as acute,
as in Gerrig's case. Thus, the possibility that the Yanks
are so infected still exists. Doc Painter, in an equally
definite denial takes a different slant. He says, quote, in
view of the circumstances, I can understand how one might
(01:00:38):
be led to a plausible hypothesis that the team has
been stricken with this disease. However, I have absolutely no
belief in it. There is no similarity between the symptoms
of these individual cases and Garrigs Lou suffered from deterioration
of the nervous system. The trouble with these other boys
is something entirely different. To point out one example, Ralph
(01:01:02):
suffers from a blood rather than an nervous disorder. Are
Yanks infected? Nevertheless, there is another point to be remembered.
Gerg slipped perceptibly as a ballplayer about mid season in
nineteen thirty eight. Almost a year later, when he reported
for spring training, there was still no suspicion he was
(01:01:25):
afflicted by this disease. In fact, not until June, when
he visited the Mayo clinic was his ailment definitely determined.
All of which apparently leaves a complete and final answer
still to be made. Something has happened to the Yanks
if Greg passed through a stage in which the cause
of his ineffectiveness was undetermined isn't it possible? Such is
(01:01:50):
also the case with many of the Yanks today. Jimmy
Powers article August nineteen forty, accompanying that, by the way,
which I have spared you, was a sidebar, a two
or three line analysis of the underperformances of ten specific
(01:02:14):
Yankee players, ending in bold faced print with this final
word from Jimmy Powers. Can coincidence explain these simultaneous ailments?
Couldn't the polio germ be the common cause? No? It couldn't.
(01:02:36):
You idiot that morning that that was published, lou Gegg
who did not have polio, who did not have the
other disease described by doctor Bing. Lou Gereg had amiotropic
lateral sclerosis, and he had two hundred and eighty nine
(01:02:59):
more days to live. Jimmy Powers was not suspended by
the New York Daily News, not demoted, not fired, not
branded with a scarlet letter a for asshole or anything else.
In fact, he became one of the first sportswriters to
move into television as a commentator on NBC's Friday Night
Fights in the fifties. I did not read you these
(01:03:23):
to spoil your July fourth, nor any other of your days,
nor to darken the commemorations and remembrances of lou Garrick.
I read them just to provide a little perspective on
media and opinion and the strongest, most unstoppable force in
the world, a journalist who thinks he's right even though
everybody else around him begs him to realize that he's wrong. Occasionally,
(01:03:50):
that motivation gives us things like Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein and Watergate reporting. Occasionally it gives us Bob Woodward
sitting on tapes of Trump admitting as it began that
COVID would be airborne and a disaster, sitting on those
tapes until Wodward could get himself a book deal. And
occasionally it gives us Jack Cuddy implying lou Gegg has
(01:04:11):
a cold, and Jimmy Powers insisting lou Gereg had irresponsibly
infected his teammates with the disease he didn't have, but
Powers thought he did because part of the original diagnosis
included a reference to another disease with the word polio
(01:04:32):
in it. June two, lou Garrig Day, just a reminder
that people like Cutty in Powers have always been with us,
(01:04:53):
only now they're called Jake Tapper. I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Most
of our Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillipson, our musical directors of Countdown.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Ray on the guitars,
bass and drums, mister Shanel handling, orchestration and keyboards. Our
(01:05:14):
satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball
stadium organist ever now back and in business, Nancy Faust
of Your Chicago Vatican City White Sox. The Olderman theme
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Is our sports music. Other music arranged and performed by
(01:05:36):
the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my
friend Larry David. Everything else was as ever my fault.
That's countdown for today, Day one hundred and thirty four
of America held hostage just one three hundred and twenty
nine days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck
and lame brained term unless Putin removes him sooner or
(01:05:59):
the actuarial tables do or we do. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow. That's right, Tomorrow, Tuesday, that's right. An
experimental Headlines edition could be the only one ever, could
have an opening segment of seven minutes. We'll see, could
be mostly features you wanted more. I'm gonna give it
(01:06:23):
a shot. Might be that I come back to to
next week. We'll see how I feel about it. I
have a second job now. It's getting kind of busy here.
Any who, Enough about me. As always bulletins as the
news warrants. Remember Trump is laying the groundwork now to
(01:06:44):
not leave office later. He must be stopped. He must
leave office sooner till tomorrow. I'm Keith Olverman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
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. Trump
(00:25):
believes Biden was cloned and then executed five years ago.
Get out the guys with the butterfly, and that's the
President's brain has finally jumped the shark quote. There is
no Joe Biden executed in twenty twenty. Biden clones, doubles,
and robotic engineered, soulless, mindless entities are what you see.
(00:51):
If you hear or read that this was Trump reposting
something that some other lunatic wrote on Trump's social media site,
or that this was Trump trolling, or this was Trump
owning the libs, this is incorrect, and more importantly, it
minimizes the severity of Trump's accelerating complete mental breakdown. He
(01:14):
believes this, or at least he believed it when he
posted it shortly after ten pm Eastern Saturday night, Because
if you parse this post of his on his social
media site, a dangerous exercise in the best of circumstances,
it is clear he did not simply repost something put
(01:36):
out earlier in the day by another lunatic with the
handle llijh. Most accounts and even Fox News and The
New York post had no choice but to write up
this disqualifying bout of madness. Most accounts suggest Trump himself
added no comment to the original this is incorrect. Unlike
(01:59):
the original, Trump's version of this includes a photo he
has added. The photo is the avatar from the original
Lligh account, a retouched black and white shot of Trump
with his current head and its overtone of melting plastic,
(02:20):
but with what his eyes looked like forty or fifty
years ago. He is also shown giving a V signal
with two fingers. The photo in the original post. It's
the same photo, but it's in a tiny circular thumbnail,
maybe half an inch in diameter. The photo on Trump's
version is square and full sized. Trump added to the
(02:45):
original post added a photo. If you repost something on
Trump's site, the avatar does not automatically blow up to
full size like this. This was deliberate. This was done
at Trump's end of the equation. Trump did this. It's
not just somebody calling themselves l LJH so lost in
(03:07):
the quicksand that is the lunatic right that they added
to their fever dream of clones and doubles and robots,
seventy hashtags and forty five different account handles, including the
hashtags sports and MSNBC. This is not somebody else's work.
(03:29):
This is Trump seeing somebody else's work and adding his
own photo to it, with his fingers raised in what
could be a victory signal. Trump's inability to separate fantasy
and wish fulfillment and lies and all the rest from
reality comes in all possible forms and flavors, and runs
(03:52):
on parallel tracks twenty four hours a day. There are
things about which he is always crazy, and things about
which he is only periodically crazy, and things he can
be crazy about one minute and then forget the next,
and things he's crazy enough to not actually believe himself
but wants others to believe. This tends to diminish the
(04:14):
fact that all of it is like Trump himself crazy.
No matter what your explanation for this is, or mine,
or Foxes or his enablers, this country cannot have a
president who promulgates theories that his predecessor or anybody else
was a clone, or a body double or a robot.
(04:39):
The dynamic tension keeping someone this damaged and disturbed from deciding, Hey,
now's the right moment to nuke the world, because don't worry,
the people I like won't be affected. That dynamic tension
is the same as the dynamic tension keeping a badly
built bridge upright. It can hold in place for years
(05:02):
or decades, and then one minute it collapses and kills everybody.
And do not assume Trump couldn't possibly actually firmly believe
these QAnon theories that he so happily pedals and profits off.
Hell this creature. Trump reportedly actually believed Elon Musk when
(05:23):
Musk promised to slash one trillion dollars from government spending.
The Wall Street Journal now quotes unnamed administration officials who,
as they all finally succeeded in chasing the unstable Musk
out of the White House, who heard Trump ask about
Musk's promises, quote, was it all bullshit? Of course, it
(05:44):
was all bullshit. Musk is bullshit for a moment. Put
aside the Biden clone body double robot posts. If a
president is lost enough to have actually believed Elon Musk's
promises weren't bullshit, he is not fit for office nor
(06:09):
for being out in public, except if he is on
a leash or in a cage. There is another telling
excerpt from this subtle verification by The Wall Street Journal
that even it knows Trump is nuts. I will quote
the paragraph Trump disliked how critical Musk was toward cabinet
secretaries and his public attacks on Trade advisor Peter Navarro,
(06:33):
who Must called a moron and said was dumber than
a sack of bricks. White House officials said Trump was
surprised at how nasty Musk was in one cabinet meeting
toward other members of his administration. Again, if you don't
(06:53):
recognize Musk's default state bullshit. If you are surprised he's nasty,
you are crazier than he is. The issue then becomes
whether you are also more incontinent than he is. Musk
(07:14):
was reportedly peeing his pants NonStop during the election campaign.
I don't mean metaphorically, I mean peeing his pants. The
story has leaked out. Let me quote the New York
Times from Friday about a text Musk reportedly sent a
(07:34):
close friend a year ago, last month, May twenty twenty four. Quote.
Around that time, mister Musk told people that his ketamin
use was causing bladder issues, According to people familiar with
the conversations, where's the goddamn Jake Tapper book about this.
(07:54):
Between this and Trump's revelation that Biden wasn't cognitively challenged
last year, he was dead and cloned and a robot.
What does Jake Tapper do now? Bladder issues last may
maybe not just last maybe maybe not just last year,
maybe not just on the campaign, the Department of Government
Efficiency or the Department of Government p efficiency? Am I
(08:18):
right to again quote The Times? Mister Musk's drug consumption
went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was
taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was
affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. Now
(08:40):
what kind of effect could it have on somebody's bladder?
I think your bladder's on the fritz. Elon, please point
yourself in the other direction. We know from the Wall
Street Journal article from January twenty twenty four that the
Tesla board had been worried about well, to paraphrase The Times,
(09:03):
Musk being high as a kite. The menu, the Journal
recounted seventeen months ago now included not just ketamine, but
also mushrooms, cocaine, ecstasy, and LSD onping and peeing and
peeing and being to again quote The Times, the Food
and Drug Administration has formally approved the use of ketamine
(09:23):
only as an anesthetic in medical procedures. The drug has
psychedelic properties and can cause dissociation from reality. Chronic use
can lead to addiction and problems with bladder pain and control.
A quick thought experiment for you, say this is in
(09:45):
the New York Times about anybody close to Biden or
to Kamala Harris, anybody ron Klain, John Podesta, especially John Podesta,
or broaden the scope, famous people vaguely connected to Biden,
far less than Musk is connected to Trump, who are
(10:06):
suddenly declared three times in one article in The New
York Times as being so strung out they wet their diapers.
Think of this as being about Taylor Swift after she
endorsed Kamala Springsteen, de Niro, Cuban, Mark Cuban. There's a
near comp with Musk. I mean anybody connected to them, anybody, me, anybody.
(10:32):
The thought experiment, that story breaks about Biden or Harris
and anybody. What happens next? It depends.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Now.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
The question is when did the Fox News News Max
Bench Buro, Joe Rogan Tucker Carlson NonStop coverage. And the
answer is it didn't. It's still going. It's going now,
It'll be going on for weeks. I should probably stop
saying going. Moreover, whenever it did stop, it would only
be a pause. This story about a Democrat would resurface
(11:05):
before the midterms, and then as the twenty twenty eight
Democratic hopefuls emerged, it would start again. An urgent, burning,
uncontrollable need to go connect the urinary distress of somebody
who is not the president or would be president to
the president or would be president, and make it into
a story about the judgment of the president or would
(11:27):
be president. In short, top Democratic advisor pease his pants
all the time. Back to the real story, which is
not treated in that way. Top Trump advisor pees his pants?
Why did Trump select him? What's wrong with Trump? Quote?
(11:50):
Musk traveled with a daily medication box that held about
twenty pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant
adderall according to a photo of the box and people
who have seen it. It is unclear whether mister Musk
fifty three, was taking drugs when he became a fixture
at the White House this year and was handed the
(12:11):
power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited
erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and
garbling his answers in a staged interview. And that's gesturing
like a Nazi with the arm rigid as a you know, salute,
(12:35):
and the fingers of the right hand held together, not
like Corey Booker, whom the right is trying to claim
did the same thing over the weekend. Booker's fingers were
spread apart and his arm was bent at the elbow.
This is what scientists using technical jargon call a quote
(12:56):
wave goodbye unquote. Moreover, the Democrats correctly Joe Biden out
of running for reelection in July for far less serious issues,
certainly far less self induced issues than anything in this
Elon Musk revelation. And now the Republicans want to stage
(13:17):
investigations of the Democrats for not doing it fast enough.
And they have seized upon the auto pen as if
the auto pen were something alive out of Harry Potter
that had a life of its own and just hopped
out of a box and started signing Biden's name without
(13:40):
his knowledge. And is the autopen a clone two Trump.
None of the top Trump advisor piece his pants story
has yet stained the Trump presidency, none of it. Because
(14:03):
we have somehow reached a point in this country where
if you are crazy all the time and drugged up
all the time and losing control of your eliminatory functions
all the time, it's not news anymore, is it. Trump
is so gone mentally, and God knows about his bladder.
(14:24):
The diaper rumors have stunk up the White House for years.
The whole thing could in fact bring an entirely different
meaning to the phrase pe tape. Anyway, Trump is so
gone mentally and physically that NBC could report that in
part of the my God, he's really this nuts collision
with reality that others like Dan Bongino have encountered. Trump's
(14:45):
national I have no discernible intelligence Director Telsey Gabbard has
realized Trump cannot read, won't read, cannot focus long enough
to read. Has taken in so far just fourteen of
the president's daily briefings. You know, the pdbs, the things
(15:08):
that would have told Bush about bin Laden months before
nine to eleven. But Push also didn't read, and he
knew everything anyway, And three thousand Americans died because of
that from NBC. Gabbard has solicited ideas from current and
former intelligence officials about steps she could take to tailor
the briefing to Trump's policy interests and habits. One idea
(15:33):
that's been discussed is possibly creating a video version of
the PDB that's made to look and feel like a
Fox News broadcast. Four of the people with direct knowledge
of the discussion said, how much is it supposed to
look and feel like Fox News? I mean, is it
going to be true or like Fox News? Is it
(15:57):
going to be full of shit? Is it going to
be presented to him as a Fox News broadcast? Are
they gonna get Hannity to read it? Maybe David Assman?
Will there be a weather segment? Here's today's weather? If
you're president? Will he sit there going? Or Fox News? Er?
(16:22):
He can't process anything not delivered, not just by TV,
but not by Fox News liars. He can't process it.
And his top advisories, at least one of them pee
their pants. And Biden is a robot, but I guess
(16:42):
robot Biden's acuity is the story for twenty twenty eight?
Gotcha one more Trump story to quote from Politico Magazine
by Michael Cruz quote, I'm supposed to be dead, Donald
Trump said the day after he got shot at his
rally last summer in Butler, Pennsylvania. I'm not supposed to
be here, he said. Four days after that, but something
(17:03):
very special happened. Let's face it, something happened, he said.
Two days after that. It's an act of God, he
said the month after that. God spared my life for
a reason. He said in his victory speech at Mary
Lago in November. I was saved by God to make
America great again, he said in his inaugural address at
the Capitol in January. It changed something in me, he
said in his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast at
the Washington Hilton in February. I feel even stronger. The
(17:27):
title of the political article is, does Trump actually think
He's God? Quoting again. Over the last ten or so
months since Butler, however, and especially since his re election
and the start of his second administration, Trump's outlook has shifted.
His rhetoric has gone from borderline nihilistic to messianic. It's
(17:52):
worth asking does Trump think He's God? Okay, he almost
certainly doesn't think he's God. But does he think he's
God likely sanctioned or inspired or empowered? Does he think
he's somehow imbued with some special sacred purpose for some
special sacred reason, or did he just see and sees
(18:15):
an opportunity to stamp his world upending agenda with the
ultimate justification, a mandate from God. The peace goes on
longer than God, longer than Musk pees his pants, longer
(18:36):
than Biden has been a dead clone, Yet it misses
the essential starting point. Trump has always thought he's God,
certainly as opposed to thinking he's just another person. He's
about genetics and what you're born with, and how he's
the best at everything, and this thing is the greatest
(18:57):
ever and he alone can save and fix and he
and he he he he he he. But tell me
again about Biden's acuity, which the Democrats, however, late went
in and fixed, while the Republicans will today go in
(19:17):
and sit in a room with Donald Trump and reassure
him he is in effect infallible and godlike to say
nothing of what these same Republicans are still telling Elon Musk,
besides telling him the men's room is second on the
(19:40):
left bro A couple more headlines quote. I was new
(20:11):
to Washington, and it was suggested that I use the
Federalist Society as a recommending source on judges. I did
so openly and freely, but then realized that they were
under the thumb of a real sleezebag named Leonard Leo,
a bad person who in his own way probably hates
America and obviously has his own separate ambitions. I cannot
(20:34):
convey to you what good news there is in this
relatively anyway, what good news there is in Trump's surprise
attack and an echoing condemnation of Leonard Leo by Stephen
Miller on Leonard Leo, the owner and operator of sam
Alito and Clarence Thomas, and especially Gorsach and Cavanaugh surprise
(20:57):
attack to us anyway, I was unaware that one of
the lawsuits against Trump's tariffs was by a group funded
by Leonard Leo. As an aside, that's Leonard Leo, Cornell
eighty six, Cornell Law eighty nine, and Cornell's Student Federalist
Society eighty nine. And you thought I suffered because of
(21:20):
Ann Coulter eighty four. Back to the main point, simply
the Trump versus Leo, not the Pope. The Trump versus
Leo thing is good news because, as Ellie Misstyle points out,
Leo and the Federalist Society envision Supreme Court justices like
fifty two year old James C. Ho, the Taiwan born
(21:43):
fascist with the completely accurate last name, and forty six
year old Andrew Oldham, whom George will adores. But left
to his own devices, without the influence of Leonard Leo
and the Federalist Society, Trump would probably pick Justice Eileen
I used to cover Flamenco for the Miami Nuevo Old
(22:05):
Cannon and best of all, Justice Janine I turned seventy
four tomorrow, Tutz. But now that wine comes in boxes,
you just never know, do Yeah. The Trump May Day
(22:28):
in June parade a week from Saturday. He thinks he's
being sneaky and nobody realizes he scheduled it for his
own birthday, will not only do per the military's own estimate,
sixteen million dollars worth of damage to the streets of Washington.
Three million of that goes to metal plates that have
(22:50):
to be installed, or the tanks trying to make right
turns onto DuPont Circle or wherever will go right through
the dam pavement. Trump's masturbatory parade will not only do
that sixteen million dollars worth of structural damage to the
streets that have to be repaired, but it will also
(23:11):
give him yet another chance to abuse those who actually
served in Vietnam. The Vietnam Vet's Memorial Fund has held
an in Memory ceremony in DC since nineteen ninety three.
For more than a decade, it has been held on
the day before Father's Day. It has always been held
(23:33):
at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which has slowly, unexpectedly, but
unmistakably become one of the most moving and unforgettable such
places in the world. Twenty twenty five in Memory ceremony
was and remains scheduled four June fourteenth. It will be
(23:55):
held at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia,
because the Vietnam No Memorial is on June fourteenth off
limits because of Trump's jerk off parade. Two events most
(24:21):
in the news have not connected yet. Ukraine's drone attack
on Russian air bases destroyed at least forty Russian bomber aircraft,
a total surprise planned according to President Zelenski for at
least a year. And it turns out second half of
this equation the United States did not know about this
attack in advance, and you know why it worked because
(24:43):
the United States did not know about it in advance.
The timing also means that one of the reasons Zelensky
was able to maintain his cool in the White House
rather than you know, doing what you or I would
have done, and at least headbudded that foppish imbecile JV.
Vance as he and immune headmon she made Trump brow
(25:06):
beat him about not having any cards. One of the
reasons he was able to hold his cool was he
was probably thinking about the drone plan. And speaking of drones,
you've already heard the Senator Jonie Ernst We're all going
to die town hall clip and then her follow up
insult to every human whose death she has personally hastened
(25:28):
because she is a lying holier than thou fascist. I
would like to play only the part at the end
of that second clip when she invites people interested in
not dying to join her savior.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
For those that would like to see eternal and everlasting live,
I encourage you to embrace my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Three notes this would ring less hollow if there had
been anything in her life that suggested Ernst had actually
read the words of Christ. Two, if the words of
Christ and those of any religion more or less are correct, Ms.
Ernst is going to hell because no, I'm sorry. Faith
(26:20):
is not supposed to be about membership in a particular brand.
It's supposed to be about selflessness and humanity. And three,
if Christ heard what you have said this past week,
Senator Ernst, he would kick you in the face. A
(26:43):
programming note here, there will be an episode of Countdown
tomorrow Tuesday, the third kind of compact headlines driven edition short.
I want to see if, what with the new TV
sports responsibilities I have, I can still add a third
(27:05):
edition every week and not lose even more of my mind.
Please listen tomorrow, because there is every chance it will
be the only Tuesday edition I ever do. It's an
experiment also of interest here when you call somebody too
(27:25):
clever by half, but you misspell the word two and
anybody's seen Jake. No, Biden's cognition is the real story here,
not Trump's belief that Biden is a robot. Tappers Show lately.
Anybody seen Jake Tapper and the lead recently? The answer
is according to the ratings, not really. No, that's next.
(27:50):
This is Countdown. This his countdown with Keith Oberman. Oberman
(28:20):
still ahead on this edition of Countdown in Baseball, this
is Lou Garrig Day, making Larry's impression of the longtime
Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard entirely appropriate. Chronologically,
Lou Garrig Day, the somber remembrance of the baseball immortal
of the New York Yankees, cut down with frightening rapidity
(28:43):
eighty six years ago today. He was Baseball's iron Man.
Eighty four years ago today he died the first time
this nation knew about als and buried. Over the decades
since the disturbingly large percentage of sports writers of nineteen
thirty nine and nineteen forty who just assumed Garrig had
(29:07):
infected his teammates or was faking the illness to gain sympathy,
he did not deserve the sadder side of the pride
of the Yankees. Next in things I promised not to
tell first, Believe it or not, there's still more new
idiots to talk about the roundup of the miss Grants,
(29:28):
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other
Weststmas persons in the world the bronze. Kurt Sicktor of
town hall dot com Kurt isn't bright. This is about
(29:53):
tariffs versus taxes. Someone wrote, if tariffs were taxes, why
would we have a different word called tariffs? Our educational
system not only failed about FI fifty years ago, it
went bankrupt. Dan McLaughlin, who operates as at Baseball crank
(30:14):
and is I don't know about the baseball part, but
he's very much a crank, a very cranky conservative. I
think most normal people, as opposed to people in think
tank land, grasp that only Congress is supposed to be
able to raise taxes and that it is weird for
the president to be raising and lowering them on a
daily basis. This is an arch conservative. This is a
(30:37):
salute and wear shiny boots conservative complaining about what Trump
is doing, to which Kurt Slocktor of town Hall writes, quote,
A tariff is a tax is a too clever by
half formulation that ignores the fact that a tariff is
not a tax. It's a tariff two clever by half,
(31:01):
Kurt says, only he spelled it too two, like the
number it's to t ooh. That's the point of the phrase,
too clever by half. It's not a numerical assessment. It's
saying you're being way too smart, way too smart, too
(31:25):
clever by half something. Mister Kurt Schlichter has never been
accused of runner up worser Andrew Cuomo, having had to
resign in disgrace, in fact multiple disgrace, in fact disgrace
of your choice as governor of New York, now running
for Mayor of New York to avoid reporters who want
(31:45):
to ask him about I don't know scandal one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten or eleven. To avoid reporters. The other day he
held a press event. A press event in Cuomo Land
is we want you to show up and give us
free publicity, but don't dare ask any questions of the case.
(32:06):
He wanted to avoid the reporters who wanted to ask
him questions, so he ran out as soon as it
was over, got into his car, avoided the reporters waiting
outside on the street, squealed away in a vehicle to
the degree that his vehicle made an illegal right turn
on red in New York City. The news site The
(32:26):
City and Why quotes a Cuomo flak rich as a
party who wasn't there telling another local and good news source,
Hellgate New York. They thought reporters the former governor knows
and who were also wearing press passes were protesters. Plus
Cuomo staffers Kevin Elkins New York and Esther Jensen were
(32:48):
there and had just seen us upstairs. In other words,
their excuse for avoiding the reporters and making the illegal
turn is they didn't know those were reporters. They thought
those were protesters, and they wanted to get away from them,
because trying to avoid the public when it doesn't want
you to, Mayor, is somehow better than trying to avoid reporters.
(33:09):
I am beginning to think I might prefer another term
of this idiot, Eric Adams than ten minutes of Mayor
Andrew Cuomo, the guy I like largely because he's different
than all the other guys who have run for this job.
It's like why I like the garbage sanitation commissioner last time.
What is there to learn about New York that you
(33:30):
cannot learn from working in the sanitation department. My grandpa
worked in the sanitation department. That's where New York really
lives and dies. She would have been a great mayor.
She knew where all the crap was and how to
get rid of it. The guy this time is an outsider,
(33:50):
a councilman named Zoran Mamdani. I have never done an
actual endorsement before in nearly three years of this podcast.
I mean it's usually obvious, but I am endorsing Zoran
Mamdani for mayor. In fact, I am endorsing the idea
that the other Democrats in the race should drop out
and endorse him themselves, because this city will not survive
(34:13):
ten minutes of Mayor Andrew Cuomo. I thought all those
guys with TV cameras were protesters. Yeah, it's possible that
he's that stupid the winner though, speaking of that stupid
worst Jake Tapper, this is how far this has gotten,
(34:33):
and this is how far Jake Tapper has plummeted and
continues to plummet. James Comer on Fox News, a man
who looks and sounds like he has sustained a serious
concussion every day of his life, Joe Biden wasn't a
(34:55):
melonly fit to make these decisions. More and more evidence
coming out from Jake Tapper, the other whistle blowers in
in the administration, and then Comer went off into a
rant about acuity, as if he'd ever had any acuity
or knew what it actually meant. The current president thinks
(35:18):
the phrase political asylum means you were in a nuthouse
in another country. He thinks he aced a mental test
that is given to determine whether or not people should
be detained against their will because they were a danger
to themselves and others if they were allowed outside the
front door of the hospital. But he aced it. He
(35:40):
thinks he's a stable genius and it's all genetics, and
because he had an uncle who taught at MIT or something,
that means he's a genius. That's the current guy and
the people around him covering up for the fact that
he's a moron. But instead we're talking about the last guy,
(36:01):
who primarily is no longer president, at whose acuity has
never at its lowest point dipped down as far as
Trump's highest point. But this is what Jake Tapper is
fixated on. This is what Jake Tapper is trying to
make blood money off of This results in Jake Tapper
(36:24):
being quoted by James fing comer, do you see what
you've done? Tapper? You fraud? America sees the lead with
Jake Tapper his show on CNN. I know it's a surprise.
CNN is still on the lead with Jake Tapper averaged
(36:46):
five hundred and twenty five thousand total viewers from April
twenty eight through May twenty fifth. That is one quarter
down from the CNN audience in that time slot last year,
admittedly at perhaps the peak of the entire Biden's story,
but that itself should be an indicator of how few
(37:07):
people give up f about the Biden story today. It
is not today's news and it has no relevance going forward.
At the same time, Fox News has somehow managed to
maintain an audience at five o'clock. I believe that's the
hour of three point three million, sixty eight percent of
the cable news audience. Not a surprise, but certainly the
(37:27):
percentage is a surprise. MSNBC, flailing about in its own way,
is at a little over one million viewers, twenty one
percent of the audience. And Tapper is now down to
eleven percent. It is not just his book that has
done this to Jake Tapper. CNN has been in a
death spiral for three years now since its new owners,
(37:50):
Warner Bros. Discovery of fascism threw CNN into reverse and
took it from a news organization ready and willing at
all times to accurately criticize and analyze the madness of
Donald Trump and the Republican Party and its efforts to
eliminate democracy in this country. Threw it into reverse and
(38:12):
made it increasingly into a platform in which people on
it hoared themselves out for fascism and Trump. First they
hired Chris Lickt, then a bunch of foreigners who had
had to flee England after they failed in TV news there.
Then they platformed the likes of Scott Jennings mugging to camera,
(38:33):
setting up a series of scream fests at night, the
kind of yelling shows that went out of vogue in
cable news when John Stewart clotheslined Tucker Carlson on CNN
in the year two thousand and two, and most notably,
the descent of CNN accelerated last year when Jake Tapper
(38:55):
refused to fact check Trump as Trump lied his way
through the debate with Biden. That was the shark moment.
Jake Tapper has been self destructing for a long time.
The book is just the newest thing on the list.
Like when he compared the Biden story to Watergate, Like
(39:15):
when he apologized to Lara Trump, Like every time he
held the book up and sold it like he was
Bill O'Reilly trying to read you and sell you the
story of how they killed Bill O'Reilly's career, whatever his
latest book is called. Like when Jake went on Meghan
Kelly's Nazi cast appalling, apparently unauthorized by his employers. This
(39:41):
has happened before in this business. People have betrayed their
own ethics and standards, and by the time it shows
up in the ratings a one quarter loss in one year,
they're professionally dead. Jake. By the way, CNN, if Jake
Tapper really went on Meghan Kelly's show without your CNN approval,
you know it says in his contract, like it says
(40:02):
in everybody else's contract, can't make media appearances without authorization.
If he did it without authorization, you can fire him.
For cause and not owe him a dime. Tapper just
saying today's other worst person, and the world. The further
(40:34):
we have gotten from Tuesday, July fourth, nineteen thirty nine,
the further it has been evident that this was probably
the most poignant day in the history of American sports,
and one of the most poignant days in the history
of America. That day was when sixty one, eight hundred
and eight people crowded into Yankee Stadium in New York
(40:57):
to hear lou Garrigg say goodbye. He had been stricken
by als, and as much as everybody tried to pretend
it was not a death sentence, or at least not
likely to be a death sentence, it is in retrospect
clear that nearly all the fans knew. It was in
fact so clear at the time that the Yankees and
(41:20):
even officials of the city of New York were insistent
that during the ceremonies between games of that day's doubleheader,
that Lou Geig should not make a speech. They literally
believed that the amount of grief in the ballpark among
the fans and the employees and the players would somehow
(41:43):
be too much for at minimum the mental health of
everybody there. They did not know how that much sadness
could be handled in public. Of course, lou gereg spoke anyway,
and all he did was give one of the bravest
and most moving speeches in human history, one that is
(42:04):
repeat word for word in ballparks and elsewhere every year
on its anniversary, July fourth. So we view that July fourth,
nineteen thirty nine as a day of grief and sorrow
and love and of that rarest of emotions, of our
shared awareness of the implacability of death, and that our
(42:27):
victories over death must be temporary and symbolic. We see
through hindsight lou Garrig Day Yankee Stadium, the Bronx, New York, Tuesday,
July fourth, nineteen thirty nine, as a unanimous gathering bathed
in sympathy and empathy, representing the sympathy and empathy of
(42:48):
a nation. And we do that because the baseball world
and the media have spent the intervening decades burying the
work of those in its ranks in nineteen thirty nine
who approached lou Garrigg's illness as either prepare yourself as
either a fraud or a conspiracy. I am going to
(43:14):
read you in full two articles about lou Gereg that
must be tied for the all time worst pieces written
in American media history and on the list of the
worst things ever written for publication in the English language.
The second article is actually not from nineteen thirty nine.
(43:35):
It's from August nineteen forty, and in it, the sports
editor of the New York Daily News all but accuses
lou Gereg of being what we would now call a
super spreader and speculates that Gereg has infected all the
other Yankee players with his disease. The first article actually
(43:56):
ran in hundreds of American newspapers on the night of Monday,
July third, nineteen thirty nine, but mostly the morning of July.
It was in a column distributed by United Press, the
precursors to United Press International, where I made my full
time professional debut forty years later, almost to the day,
in July of nineteen seventy nine. When I worked there,
(44:20):
I had never heard about this article. Throughout the bulk
of my career, I had never heard about this article.
I did not know of this article until the microfilm
files of newspapers migrated onto the Internet in the late nineties,
and to this day I have never found any indication
that the writer ever apologized or ever admitted his stupidity
(44:44):
and coarseness and insensitivity and awfully timed glibness. The writer's
name was Jack Cuddy, Jack Cutty c Uddy. He began
as a news reporter for the Milwaukee Journal. After World
War One, he worked for newspapers in Chicago, Miami, New Orleans,
and then joined United Press in nineteen twenty six. He
(45:06):
was a news reporter. He helped cover Lindbergh's solo flight
over the Atlantic in nineteen twenty seven, and then in
nineteen thirty two they made him their primary boxing reporter,
and they also assigned him to write columns about all
sports that would sent out on the up wire to
all of the newspapers that subscribed. We don't know how
(45:27):
many of them ran this. Their sports editors probably found
out just how many of their readers actually read it,
because by the time Jack Cutty wrote this, he had
been a national sports reporter for seven years and a
journalist a hard news reporter for about fifteen before that.
(45:50):
This still is what untold readers of papers that carried
the work of United Press read just hours before lou
Garrig gave his Luckiest man on the Face of the
Earth speech In this corner, Jack Cutty rights on the
(46:13):
retirement of lou Gereg by Jack Cutdy, New York. There's
only one thing I see wrong about the celebration of
the fourth of July, and that's the national shedding of
tears about a husky named lou Gereg, which will be
climaxed with a low Garreg Appreciation Day during the doubleheader
(46:35):
between the Yanks and Washington at Yankee Stadium. The play
rights for this Garreg business at the stadium are making
the affair so touching. I understand that even the little
boys and gals of our vast land will be unable
to set off firecrackers and things because of the tears
that trickle down upon their matches and punks. The whole
(46:59):
business seems goofy and uncalled for. To me, I see
no res and for pulling a pall over a holiday
when everyone should be having lots of fun and peanuts
popcorn cracker Jackson hot dogs. Particularly, I see no reason
for pulling this Yankee publicity stunt about Gerreg, who was
the last man in the world who would go for it,
(47:21):
unless the Yankee brass Hats and New York Baseball Riders
snaffled him and forced him into it. Gerrek knows, and
so should everyone else connected with baseball, that the thirty
six year old first basement of the Yanks was through
with top flight play just as soon as he showed
up at the Yanks training camp at Saint Pete. But
because lou was the Iron Horse, the man who had
(47:44):
written into the records that all time mark of two
one hundred and thirty consecutive championship games, his fade out
had to be different from that of the ordinary player. Accordingly,
Greg was sent to a nationally known center of health
investigation to see what was wrong with him. I'll guarantee
(48:04):
that if ninety percent of the men, women, and children
in America were sent to that particular spot, we would
learn that each and all had something wrong with them,
even if it were only halatosis, athletes, foot warts, or
bo I've forgotten exactly what they said was wrong with Greg. Oh, yes,
(48:26):
I do recall that the first hospital report indicated infantile
paralysis of a very vague breed, but later the experts
explained it wasn't infantile paralysis at all, it was something else.
The ailment had one of those high falutin names that
only people with plenty of dough or prestige can have. Personally,
(48:50):
i don't care what Grek has got, but I'd like
to exchange my body for his during the next forty
or fifty years, let us say, And I'm pretty sure
I'd do all right. Regardless of the experts argument over
the last or Greek declensions of what lariping Loo may
or may not have, it seems to me that greg
(49:12):
was merely getting too old to play hell for leather baseball,
and that the scientists of ailments or advertising gave him
a graceful exit. But what really brings water to my
eyes on this particular fourth of July is the plight
of Monty Stratton, a lad who was right in his prime,
only twenty five years old, a lad who never had
(49:33):
the chance to amass the fortune that must be Garrick's
gerreg too old for championship Baseball will be out there
tomorrow with his mysterious ailment, able to get about as
actively as any one of his piano leg build should
at thirty six. But poor Monty Stratton is hobbling about
the coaches box of the Chicago White Sox with an
(49:57):
artificial leg, clinking about where his own right leg should be.
There is no question about what happened to Stratton. He
shot himself in the leg accidentally while hunting down Texas
Way last November, and the right leg had to be
amputated at the knee. At the time this accident happened,
(50:17):
Stratton stood out as one of the best right handed
flingers in the American League. They gave him a Stratton
Day in Chicago this season and he got about twenty
grand out of it, about the same as his salary
for a year. Gerrig has been named non playing captain
for the All Star Interleague Game at Yankee Stadium a
(50:38):
week from Tuesday, along with tomorrow's Garreg Day. But it
seems to me that poor Monty Stratton could have been
appointed batting practice pitcher at least for the All Star Game.
And if we've got to shed tears tomorrow for some
afflicted ballplayer, let's give them off for poor Monty instead
(50:59):
of for lucky lou Jack Cutty everybody. Twenty three months later,
lou gereg was dead. Monty Stratton, the innocent bystander in
this hindenburg of a sports column who had been on
a possible Hall of Fame trajectory, actually made a comeback
(51:22):
on one leg, and seven years later in the low
minor leagues, he won eighteen games pitching for the Sherman
Twins of the East Texas League. He pitched sporadically thereafter
until the age of forty one. By then a film
version based on his life had been made. It starred
Jimmy Stewart. Monty Stratton died in nineteen eighty two, seven
(51:44):
years and one week after the writer, Jack Cutty died.
Jack Cutty had himself died thirty four years after Lou
Garrig died, and thirty six years after he had offered
to trade bodies with Lou Gereg. Not only did mister
Cutty never apparently correct the Garreg article, but United Press
apparently did not punish him in any way for having
(52:04):
written it. He continued to cover boxing for UP and
UPI for another twenty five years, and his obituary appeared
in the New York Times. It did not mention his
column about Lou Garrick, but a man named Jimmy Powers
died in February of nineteen ninety five. He too got
an oh bit in The Times, and it too did
(52:26):
not mention his Lou Garrick article, which is, believe it
or not, probably much worse than Jack Cutties. Jimmy Powers
article appeared on Sunday, August eighteenth, nineteen forty. It covered
much of two pages in the New York Daily News.
Powers was sports editor there from nineteen thirty six until
(52:47):
his retirement in nineteen fifty nine. He would eventually grudgingly,
sparingly apologize for this uneducated dreck that he wrote. But
I worked with people at the start of my career
who had worked with him. It was only about twenty
years between us, they said, was clear that he continued
to believe that it was likely that he was right,
(53:10):
and that Greg had somehow infected his Yankee teammates with
some kind of milder version of als that cost them
the nineteen forty American League pennant No, I am not
kidding The New York Daily News, August eighteenth, nineteen forty.
(53:32):
The headline read, has Polio hit the Yankees? The Yankees, who,
for the past four years have been one of the
greatest baseball machines in history and almost universally selected to
win the pennet again have collapsed. Why has the mysterious
(53:53):
polio germ which felled lou Geig also struck his former teammates,
turning a once great team into a floundering non contender.
According to overwhelming opinion of the medical profession, poliomylitis, similar
to infantile paralysis, is communicable. The Yanks were exposed to
(54:17):
it at its most acute stage. They played ball with
the afflicted Garrig, dressed and undressed in the locker room
with him, traveled, played cards and ate with him. Isn't
it possible some of them also became infected. It's hard
to believe mere coincidence can explain away the wholesale failure
(54:42):
of the individuals. In Gerrig's case, one of the most
prominent symptoms was loss of muscular power. The same symptom
can be found in many of the Yanks today. So far,
no one has been able to advance a satisfactory reason
for it, not without precedent. The possibility of wholesale team
(55:07):
infection is not entirely without precedent. Last fall, the Loyola
University football team was faced with the same menace from
infantile paralysis, a greatly similar disease communicated in the same manner.
A player collapsed in the dressing room was rushed to
a hospital where it was determined he had developed paralysis.
The entire squad was quarantined and examined. Two other players
(55:31):
were discovered bearing the germ caught from their unfortunate teammate. Luckily,
the infection was detected at the earliest stage. Injections killed
the germ and brought complete recovery. In the Textbook of
Nervous Disorders by Robert Bing, professor of neurology at the
University of Basel in Switzerland, are found the following pertinent facts. One,
(55:56):
the disease appears in a majority of cases between the
ages of thirty and fifty five. Most of the players
with the anksor in their thirties, with the exception of Gordon,
the others are close to them. Two. Among causes found
for the disease are over exposure to cold and exhausting
(56:16):
disease or capital letters over exertion. Ballplayers certainly are called
upon for more than normal exertion, as were the Yanks
at a time when they were exposed to the germ. Three,
Regarding the effect on the legs, where it probably would
be most noticeable in ballplayers for a comparatively long period
(56:39):
of time, the lower extremities remain normal, except for marked
exaggeration of their reflexes. Atrophy of the leg muscles may
not occur until the late stages of the disease. Thus
a player might be able to run and move as
well as ever while the germ was sapping his strength
(56:59):
in less noticeable parts such as hands, arms, and shoulders.
Club players worried. Club officials and players have been worried
that such a general infection existed. They took special precautionary
measures to prevent it. Individual drinking cups were provided. Each
(57:20):
player took care to use only his own towel. Special
provisions were made for laundering uniforms and underclothing among the players.
Bill Dickey last winter made a special trip to the
Mayo Brothers Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for a thorough physical checkup.
(57:41):
This coming winter Atlee, Donald rad Ralph and several others
are considering similar checkups. The fear of the disease had
a psychological effect. It preyed on the minds of the
athletes exaggerated minor aches, pains, and ailments which ordinarily they
would have ignored. Practically, the entire club had noticed Garrig's symptoms,
(58:02):
became aware of, and worried about nerve and muscular reactions
they had never been conscious of previously. Club officials believe
they have finally defeated this psychological sword of damocles. These
nervous and muscular reactions could always be traced to an injury,
a slight bump or bruise. This apparently was the savior
(58:24):
for in Greg's case, no injury could be traced down
to explain his early symptoms. However, the shadow of doubt
must still linger, for in the same volume by Professor
Byng is this quote, I have described a case of
traumatic median neuritis which later developed into a typical lateral
(58:49):
ammiothrophic sclerosis. The note the latter is the medical term
for Gareg's ailment and indicates that the particular form of
paralysis which afflicted Gareg might develop from neritis. Alderman note no,
not quite. Doctor Robert F. Walsh, Yank physician and surgeon,
(59:15):
and Earl V. Painter, Yank trainer, each nationally famous in
his profession are the men closest to the physical well
being of the players. They answer emphatically that no such
condition exists on the club. Here is doctor Walsh's opinion quote.
Though at first there was a very definite possibility of
the entire team becoming afflicted, there is now no indication
(59:37):
of it. Had the disease stricken, there would have been
a noticeable change in the physical appearance of those to
whom the disease had been communicated. There would not be
the slightest doubt remaining that the stricken individual or individuals
were infected. Unquote. Medics support Walsh. Doctor Walsh's statement is
(59:58):
supported by the current medical belief that the infection will
reveal itself within six weeks of the time of contact. However,
with the medical profession admitting a meager knowledge of the disease,
there is the possibility a lingering means of infection exists,
that the disease may be communicated in a different form,
(01:00:18):
and that it may be chronic as well as acute,
as in Gerrig's case. Thus, the possibility that the Yanks
are so infected still exists. Doc Painter, in an equally
definite denial takes a different slant. He says, quote, in
view of the circumstances, I can understand how one might
(01:00:38):
be led to a plausible hypothesis that the team has
been stricken with this disease. However, I have absolutely no
belief in it. There is no similarity between the symptoms
of these individual cases and Garrigs Lou suffered from deterioration
of the nervous system. The trouble with these other boys
is something entirely different. To point out one example, Ralph
(01:01:02):
suffers from a blood rather than an nervous disorder. Are
Yanks infected? Nevertheless, there is another point to be remembered.
Gerg slipped perceptibly as a ballplayer about mid season in
nineteen thirty eight. Almost a year later, when he reported
for spring training, there was still no suspicion he was
(01:01:25):
afflicted by this disease. In fact, not until June, when
he visited the Mayo clinic was his ailment definitely determined.
All of which apparently leaves a complete and final answer
still to be made. Something has happened to the Yanks
if Greg passed through a stage in which the cause
of his ineffectiveness was undetermined isn't it possible? Such is
(01:01:50):
also the case with many of the Yanks today. Jimmy
Powers article August nineteen forty, accompanying that, by the way,
which I have spared you, was a sidebar, a two
or three line analysis of the underperformances of ten specific
(01:02:14):
Yankee players, ending in bold faced print with this final
word from Jimmy Powers. Can coincidence explain these simultaneous ailments?
Couldn't the polio germ be the common cause? No? It couldn't.
(01:02:36):
You idiot that morning that that was published, lou Gegg
who did not have polio, who did not have the
other disease described by doctor Bing. Lou Gereg had amiotropic
lateral sclerosis, and he had two hundred and eighty nine
(01:02:59):
more days to live. Jimmy Powers was not suspended by
the New York Daily News, not demoted, not fired, not
branded with a scarlet letter a for asshole or anything else.
In fact, he became one of the first sportswriters to
move into television as a commentator on NBC's Friday Night
Fights in the fifties. I did not read you these
(01:03:23):
to spoil your July fourth, nor any other of your days,
nor to darken the commemorations and remembrances of lou Garrick.
I read them just to provide a little perspective on
media and opinion and the strongest, most unstoppable force in
the world, a journalist who thinks he's right even though
everybody else around him begs him to realize that he's wrong. Occasionally,
(01:03:50):
that motivation gives us things like Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein and Watergate reporting. Occasionally it gives us Bob Woodward
sitting on tapes of Trump admitting as it began that
COVID would be airborne and a disaster, sitting on those
tapes until Wodward could get himself a book deal. And
occasionally it gives us Jack Cuddy implying lou Gegg has
(01:04:11):
a cold, and Jimmy Powers insisting lou Gereg had irresponsibly
infected his teammates with the disease he didn't have, but
Powers thought he did because part of the original diagnosis
included a reference to another disease with the word polio
(01:04:32):
in it. June two, lou Garrig Day, just a reminder
that people like Cutty in Powers have always been with us,
(01:04:53):
only now they're called Jake Tapper. I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Most
of our Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillipson, our musical directors of Countdown.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Ray on the guitars,
bass and drums, mister Shanel handling, orchestration and keyboards. Our
(01:05:14):
satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball
stadium organist ever now back and in business, Nancy Faust
of Your Chicago Vatican City White Sox. The Olderman theme
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Is our sports music. Other music arranged and performed by
(01:05:36):
the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my
friend Larry David. Everything else was as ever my fault.
That's countdown for today, Day one hundred and thirty four
of America held hostage just one three hundred and twenty
nine days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck
and lame brained term unless Putin removes him sooner or
(01:05:59):
the actuarial tables do or we do. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow. That's right, Tomorrow, Tuesday, that's right. An
experimental Headlines edition could be the only one ever, could
have an opening segment of seven minutes. We'll see, could
be mostly features you wanted more. I'm gonna give it
(01:06:23):
a shot. Might be that I come back to to
next week. We'll see how I feel about it. I
have a second job now. It's getting kind of busy here.
Any who, Enough about me. As always bulletins as the
news warrants. Remember Trump is laying the groundwork now to
(01:06:44):
not leave office later. He must be stopped. He must
leave office sooner till tomorrow. I'm Keith Olverman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
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