September 11, 2023 • 51 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 31: SPECIAL COMMENT
A-Block (1:43) Breaking: one-legged Trump invites rivals to an ass-kicking contest: “I hereby challenge Rupert Murdoch and sons, Biden, WSJ heads, to acuity tests!” Today, impossibly, infuriatingly, embarrassingly, we have now circled back to what – with the benefit of hindsight – appears to be the saddest possible thing: THE highlight of his presidency – July 2020 or perhaps earlier, when he was told to memorize an endless string of complicated, unconnected, ill-defined words and then not just remember them, but remember them… in the exact order: PERSON. WOMAN. MAN. CAMERA. TV.
“I proved I was all there,” Trump said proudly, horrifyingly, again and again and again, to every interviewer, at every campaign speech, to everybody who would hold still long enough, beaming like a toddler who managed to poop in the potty chair. Mostly. “I aced it. I aced the test.” We thought those were the most humiliating things he could ever say about himself and that test, which on the mental or intellectual soundness scale is slightly above ‘put a mirror under his nose to see if he’s still breathing.’ We were wrong. For last night, somebody told him about a Wall Street Journal poll showing 73 percent of registered voters believed Joe Biden is too old to run for president – a not unexpected number given that the poll was run by… a former TRUMP pollster. But in that context the second number was shocking. FORTY-SEVEN percent of registered voters in the pro-Trump poll think TRUMP is too old to run. And after a typo in the first sentence of his rage-post last night he got right to it. “A few years ago I was the only one to agree to a mental acuity test and ACED IT” (aced it, is in caps) “Well I hereby challenge Rupert Murdoch and sons, Biden, WSJ heads, to acuity tests! I will name the place and the test, and it will be a tough one. Nobody will come even close to me!”
He trashed the Journal. He called it globalist. Damaged goods. Phony and rigged. He is enraged again. And that was just the start. It devolved into his claim that the true test of NON-MENTAL strength… is golf. Quote: “We can also throw some physical activity into it. I just won the Senior Club Championship at a big golf club,” (as an aside, he means his own, he said so, earlier; he cheats at all golf courses; he cheats at HIS golf courses with impunity; he cheats, literally, over his wife’s dead body). “I just won the Senior Club Championship at a big golf club, with many very good players. To do so you need strength, accuracy, touch and above all, mental toughness. Ask Bret Baier (Fox) a very good golfer.” Yeah that’s who I’m going to, to decide mental and physical competence.“The Wall Street Journal and Fox are damaged goods and their failed DeSanctimonious push and stupid $780 million settlement.” And the final thrust of this intellectual argument that would make Einstein weep – all in caps – “MORONS!!!"
Plus, oh, just confirmation that Clarence and Ginni Thomas and Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow and Cleta Mitchell should all be in jail for life.
B-Block (23:33) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: And now he belongs to the ages. Chuck Todd leaves "Meet The Press" thoroughly convinced he did a great job. Don't let BOTH SIDES OF THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE ASS ON THE WAY OUT Chuck. (29:10) IN SPORTS: Embattled Spanish soccer boss quits after forced kiss. Michigan State football coach beats it after harassment and abuse charge. And we have to start rescheduling the tennis tournaments: it'll be 147 degrees at the Aussie by 2050. (32:13) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sean Spicer's amazing Freudian slip about GOP candidates. Elon Musk says his Neuralinks don't kill monkeys. They only kill terminally ILL monkeys. And Greg Gutfeld demands doxing of all leftist protestors.
C-Block (38:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 22 years after 9/11 and the names I remember: Tomas Reyes, Mike Tanner, so many others. And what is finally becoming clear and horrible: the straight flashing line from that awful day to this awful day and the rise of hateful, blind fascism personified by Trump.
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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 Breaking News.
One legged Trump challenges Biden and others to ask kicking
(00:27):
contest quote. I hereby challenge Rupert Murdoch and sons Biden,
Wall Street Journal heads two acuity tests. Today, impossibly, infuriatingly embarrassingly,
we have now circled back to what, with the benefit
(00:48):
of hindsight, appears to be the saddest possible thing, the
highlight of the Trump presidency in the mixed mind of
Donald Trump July twenty twenty, or perhaps earlier, when he
was told to memorize an endless strain of complicated, unconnected,
ill defined words, possibly from other languages, and then not
(01:10):
just to remember them, but to remember them in the
exact order person, woman, man, camera, t the I proved
I was all there, Trump said, proudly, horrifyingly, again and
(01:31):
again and again, to every interviewer at every campaign speech,
to everybody who would hold still long enough to listen,
beaming like a toddler who had managed to poop in
the potty chair. Mostly anyway, I aced it. I aced
the test. We thought those were the most humiliating things
(01:52):
he could ever say about himself. And that test, which
on the mental or intellectual soundness scale is slightly above
They put a mirror under his nose to see if
he's still breathing. We were wrong for last night. Somebody
evidently told Trump about the Wall Street Journal poll showing
seventy three percent of registered voters believe Joe Biden is
(02:13):
too old to run for president. The not unexpected number
given that the Wall Street Journal poll was run by
a former Trump pollster, But in that context, the second
number was actually shocking. Forty seven percent of registered voters
in the pro Trump poll run by a pro Trump
ex Trump polster, forty seven percent think Trump is too
(02:36):
old to run. And after a typo in his first
sentence of his rage post last night, he got right
to it. Quote a few years ago, I was the
only one to agree to a mental acuity test. And
asd it haste is of course in caps well, I
hereby challenged Rupert Murdoch and sons Biden wsj heads to
(03:00):
acuity tests. I will name the place and the test,
and did will be a tough one. Nobody will come
even close to me. Unquote. He trashed the journal. He
called it globalist, damaged goods phony and rigged. He is
enraged again over this one issue over which he cannot
(03:20):
possibly control himself, the reality that he is not a
sane or intelligent man. And that was just the start
of it. It devolved from there. It devolved into his
claim that the true test of non mental strength is golf. Quote.
We can also throw some physical activity into it. I
(03:43):
just won the senior club championship at a big golf club.
As an aside, he means his own golf club. He
said so earlier. He cheats at all golf courses. There
are hundreds of witnesses. He cheats at his golf courses
with impunity. He cheats literally in New Jersey over his
wife's dead body. Quoting again, I just won the senior
(04:06):
club championship at a big golf club with many very
good players. To do so, you need strength, accuracy, touch,
and above all, mental toughness. Ask Brett Behar Fox, a
very good golfer. Yeah, that's who I'm going to to
decide mental and physical confidence in a seventy seven year old,
insane megalomaniac Brett Freaking Bear. The Wall Street Journal and
(04:32):
Fox are damaged goods and their failed de sanctimonious push
and stupid seven hundred and eighty million dollar settlement. Where's
the rest of that sentence? There isn't one, And the
final thrust of this intellectual argument proving he is the
smartest man in the world, an intellectual argument that would
make Einstein wheap and run away. All in caps, neurons,
(04:58):
exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. I met Donald Trump
on Thursday, December fifteenth, nineteen eighty three, at a breakfast
symposium here in New York City featuring the owners of
four New York area sports franchises. The CNN cameraman and
(05:19):
the deck operator and I left the hotel having interviewed
each of them in silence. As we got to the van,
I finally broke that silence. Well, I said to the cameraman,
what the f is wrong with that guy? The other
two burst into laughter. Little did we know that was
(05:42):
his mental high point. That was nearly forty years of
Trumpion mental deterioration ago. And every time I think we
have hit rock bottom, Trump finds a new high in low.
And yet even at this possible bottom of the bottomless pit,
(06:04):
he still seems slightly aware that he is in danger.
It's not enough to challenge the Murdochs and Biden and
the journal editors to acuity tests. They must be acuity
tests that Trump selects and locates Parson, woman Man, Camera
(06:29):
TV and geez Burgers. There I run rings around geologically, Joe,
you old poopy pants. If I'm Joe Biden or Rupert
Murdoch or anybody else named Murdoch or the journal hanchos,
(06:51):
I take Trump up on this offer immediately, and I
see how quickly he forgets that offer. And then I
start bringing it up daily, and I start bringing it
up hourly, bring it up, Keep bringing it up, President Biden,
this is your magic Wand where is Trump's acuity test?
(07:13):
Where is our acuity showdown? And maybe somebody will say
to Trump mat Biden and the Murdocks remembered this phrase
ECF number forty seven dash three. Because ECF number forty
seven dash three, that could be the most important phrase
(07:34):
this week in trump Land, because something will happen today
involving ECF number forty seven Dash three, which could lead
to a gag order being imposed on Trump by the
end of the week or the beginning of next week,
or maybe it's sanctions or maybe it is a speeded
up Washington Trials start date. Unfortunately, barring the most unlikely
(07:56):
of circumstances, we will not know what it is today
nor which outcome it will produce. But today is when
the Trump legal team has to tell Judge Tanya Chutkin
whyat does not want made public. Whatever is the background
to this filing by Jack Smith last week, I'll quote
it again. Such a requirement would grind litigation in this
(08:19):
case to a halt, which is particularly infeasible given the
pressing matters before the court, including the defendant's daily extra
judicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool in
this case, as described in the government's motion c ECF
number forty seven Dash three person woman, man, camera, dB
(08:48):
cheezburgers and if you have a copy of ECF number
forty seven, Dash three, give me a ring, because I don't.
Nobody outside the court is supposed to. It's under seal.
But it is clearly about Trump's statements and or revelations,
And it could be about his threats to the judge
(09:09):
and the prosecutors and the world. And it could be
about some piece of evidence he alluded to that didn't
really register with you or me or anybody following this
stuff even more closely than we are, but which caused
a couple of garbage cans inside the Special Council's office
to spontaneously burst into flames last week. Trump's ambulance chasers
(09:29):
were to respond to Judge Chutkin unless they were able
to find a way to delay it or that nice
miss Habba misplaced her brain again. Smith is to respond
on Wednesday, although one thing we already know about Smith
is that he will be ready to respond exactly eleven
minutes and forty seven seconds after he reads whatever the
Trump lawyer's write today, because that's who he is, and
(09:49):
that's why he's in this job, and that's why he
could actually play beat the clock and win and save democracy.
Could the defendant's daily extra judicial statements that threatened to
prejudice the jury pool in in this case, as described
in the government's motion cecf. Number forty seven, Dash three,
What I would give to know the rest of that. Now.
(10:14):
What we do know today that is new is that
Trump or those operating on his behalf appear to have
broken more laws regarding presidential records and their storage and
their pilferage. There is a second Trump document stash in
Greater West Palm Beach, Florida, besides the Mari Lago crapshack,
with the boxes of top secret documents kept securely next
(10:35):
to the commode. As we slowly see developing, what will
happen to Trump if he doesn't seize power again and
he doesn't go to jail, and instead he becomes one
of those hoarders who cannot really make it from his
bed to the front door because his way is blocked
by one hundred and sixteen thousand stacked fake copies of
Time magazine proclaiming him Golfer of the Year for nineteen
(10:58):
eighty seven. NBC News reports that ten minutes away from
Mayor on North Flagler Drive, the quintessential Florida address North
Flagler Drive, one floor before the headquarters for the Trump
Secret Service detail in Florida, there is an unmarked post
(11:19):
presidential office paid for by the United States government. No,
the real one, not Trump's pretend one. And that while
the presumption is there are no secret documents there now,
that does not mean there weren't lots before or might
not be some now. NBC reports that Trump's lawyers ordered
a private firm to search the office for just such
(11:41):
secret materials, and at least one box of classified stuff
was reportedly moved from marri A Lago to North Flaggler
and then apparently back to mari Lago. Boxes everywhere, says
an NBC source, the state of that office is generally cluttered,
like going inside Trump's brain. Don't wear your good shoes
(12:05):
piled against walls, boxes piled not against walls. Current and
recent ex employees of Trump political action committees like Bo Harrison,
Molly Michael, and Desiree Thompson and Thompson still works for
Save America Pack have had access, and while that is
not a crime, you can do both. If those Trump
(12:25):
political employees are doing political stuff in the government paid
for office on North Flagler, they are violating five US
Codes seven three two four political activities on duty. This
will not send any of them to jail, but it
should send Department of Justice investigators to North Flagler immediately.
(12:46):
The maddening part of this, of course, is that as
Trump never managed to establish any kind of line dividing
politics and corruption and what passed for his actual job
in the White House, he also never managed to establish
any kind of line dividing politics and corruption and sheer
in confidence and con fusion. NBC went to the menacing
(13:08):
lumpy Trump spokesman Stephen Chung for comment about the North
Flagler office, and Chung's response quote, I've never heard of
a North Flagler office, unquote, leaving the astonishing possibility that
somebody in the Trump camp for the first time might
accidentally be telling the truth. The next story is simple.
(13:37):
Jenny Thomas and Leonard Leo must be indicted on corruption charges,
and Clarence Thomas must be indicted for influence peddling and
the leaking of Supreme Court decisions in advance, and we're
probably profiteering off insider knowledge of what those decisions were
to be. And he must be removed from the court
immediately by any legal means, including arrests. And until all
(13:58):
this happens, the Supreme Court of the United States is
illegitimate and its jurisdiction over the laws and people of
this nation is no more valid than person, woman, man
camera TV. If you missed Politico's Breakthrough report yesterday, find
it and read it. Months before the infamous Citizens United decision,
in which supposed First Amendment defender and hero Floyd Abrams
(14:22):
helped a bunch of goons led by David Bossi sell
out democracy in this country. Clarence Thomas's wife and Leonard
Leo and the Thomases. Oh, I'm just a friend who
likes to give the Thomas' money. Friend Harland Crowe organized
exactly the kind of limitless, boundless political slush fund in
which corporations could funnel any amount of money they chose
(14:45):
to buy limitless political advertising and influence on behalf of
an issue or a candidate, provided the money did not
go directly to the candidate. Leo and Jinny Thomas had
it ready to go before Jinny Thomas's husband helped make
it happen. Politico offered a damning timeline of events in
(15:09):
addition to the Great Article in Brief September nine, two
thousand and nine, the oral arguments concluded in Citizens United.
Two months later, Cleta Mitchell, now where do we know
that name from? Filed an application with the IRS to
create an organization called Liberty Central, Inc. On behalf of
Jenny Thomas. December thirty one, two thousand and nine. Jenny
(15:30):
Thomas signs the incorporation paperwork, Leonard Leo is listed as
a director, and in the following week's half a million
in seed money is donated by Harlan Crowe. January fourteenth,
twenty ten, Virginia approves the request by Jenny Thomas to
incorporate Liberty Central, Inc. One week later, Citizens United is
handed down by the Supreme Court. February Jenny Thomas tells
(15:54):
Seapack She's been called to the front lines, out of
the cult and into the front lines, and on and
on and on and on. At the time, I called
Citizens United a worse decision by the Court than even
dread Scott and the fascists mocked me. This damning political
(16:16):
timeline goes on for more than a dozen more dates,
but one more stands out symbolically. October ninth, twenty ten,
Jenny Thomas leaves a voicemail demanding an apology from Anita Hill.
They are scum. Jenny Thomas is scum. Clarence Thomas is scum,
(16:39):
Leonard Leo is scum. Harlan Crow is scum. Cleta Mitchell
is scum. Finally, I guess this is comic relief. It
used to ring in the furthest reaches of my mind,
(17:02):
and now I hear it weekly, daily, hourly, and always
it's a little louder than it was last time. The
theory that this country is just a contiguous group of
regional tribes that once were sort of held together by
nothing more solid than the fact that there were only
three television networks, so that the odds were great, that
(17:23):
despite the fundamental and unsolvable differences, statistically, at least we
all shared some basic cultural element. Oh yeah, I saw
petticoat Junction the other night too, and that new Bobby
Joe is a dish or Artie Johnson is funny, or hey, look,
(17:44):
ABC just changed newscasters again. That's sixteen times this year. Now,
those long gone gossamer bonds are a distant memory. And
we have people born and raised in this country, the
children of countless generations here, and they are speaking a
(18:05):
language which they think is English, and which the other
native born speakers around them think is English. But it's
not English. We take you to rapid cities South Dakota.
This woman is a grandmother, presumably someone whom the thin
veneer of civilization and education has at least brushed over
(18:27):
once or twice across the decades. She owns clothes, she's
wearing them in the correct position. She has jewelry, she
was wearing a pleasant summer hat, fetching almost She's nearly
in tears as she talks about Trump. I too would
be in tears if I was feeling and saying what
(18:48):
she was feeling and saying. Because she's not actually speaking English,
but she does not know this. She is yearning for
what she believes Trump brings, and what Trump brings, in
her words, is stabability. Yeah, I'm very excited and helpful.
It gives me hope of security and just stabability. I
(19:11):
like what you said. I mean, that's a very authentic answer.
Alas we are lost. We cannot possibly educate these people
in time. They do not know they need help. They
would never accept that they need help. They would never
admit that they are stupid. They would never accept the
idea that the word stabability came to them in a dream.
(19:34):
They would shoot you rather than accept your correction. Besides, Madam,
I believe that the word you actually meant there in
terms of Trump was stabability. Also of interest here voice, okay,
(19:55):
a little scratchy, not too much stamina, Bear with me.
Stabability or instabability. Some slight marble size chunk of it
has returned to the universe. The great day has come.
Behold the age is closed. This is January first, in
the year one ac after Chuck. We are free from
(20:19):
one of the countless destructive factors in our land. Chuck
Todd is gone as the host of Meet the Press.
On the other hand, his final words were in essence,
I did a great job, and I made America smarter.
And no, he didn't seem to be stoned. That's next.
This is an all new edition of Countdown. This is
(20:43):
Countdown with Keith Alberman. Postscripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snarks, some predictions, dateline Washington, and now
he belongs to the ages. Chuck Todd signed off as
the host of NBC's Meet the Press, and he left
(21:05):
as he started, with his head completely up his ass
quote on my first day on the job of Meet
the Press, I was handed an audience survey of Sunday
show viewers, and the number one reason folks said they
tuned in was not because the person was behind the
chair or the guests. It was simply to get educated.
(21:27):
So for nearly a decade, I've had the honor of
helping to explain America to Washington and Washington to America.
Can you imagine, at any point in your life being
that divorced from reality to think that you explained anything
(21:51):
to anybody other than how not to do television, how
not to report the news, how not to interview people,
how not to represent truth, and most importantly, how not
to represent the urgent needs of the nation in which
(22:12):
you live. I have always said that someday the American
Psychiatric Association would officially declare that the compulsive need to
be on television is a full fledged mental illness requiring treatment.
I am genuinely surprised that that day was not yesterday
(22:34):
after Chuck Todd said that and added, quote, it's that
education piece that I'm hanging my hat on for the
rest of my professional life. Unquote. I have known Chuck
Todd since the year two thousand and five. He does
not own a hat, He does not have a professional life. Chuck,
(22:58):
do not let the door hit you in the ass
on the way out, or, to be more precise, Chuck,
do not let both sides of the door hit you
in the ass on the way out. Oh and if
you think it's going to get better under his replacement,
Kristin Welker, It's not. Let me remind you of this
(23:19):
from my podcast of August twenty fourth, Three Trump hoodlums
led by Jason Miller were, according to Politico, whining and
dining a dozen of the top national political reporters at
a steakhouse called Rare in Milwaukee. The point was to
let Trump be there yet remain personally in absentia, and
(23:42):
to continue taking his shots at Ron DeSantis by remote control.
Jason Miller and Chris Lasovita and Stephen Chung handed these
dozen reporters packs of putting snacks that would be a
shot at DeSantis, and they handed them DeSantis debate bingo cards,
which called DeSantis de sanctimonious and invoked his varying nunciations
(24:05):
of his names. How many times he would say woke
and Ron DeSantis can melt in the hot sun for
all I care. Because the issue is not which fascist
politicians thugs were doing the insulting and which fascist politicians
thugs were on the receiving end, it's who was there.
Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post was there. Dana Bash
of CNN was there, I wish I was surprised by
(24:27):
that name. An NBC reporter named Dasha Burns, the chief
election correspondent of CBS News, Robert Costa, a producer there
named Finn Gomez, Rachel Scott, Senior congressional correspondent ABC, Shane Goldmacher,
New York Times, Rob Crilly UK's Daily Mail. He was
the one who started the whole Biden no comment on
Hawaii right wing feeding frenzy. He was the Pool reporter.
(24:51):
He never heard Biden say no comment, but he and
some other people thought they could read his lips at
a great distance, so they attributed that quote to him,
and it still attributed to him. And also at the
merriment with Jason Miller and Steve Evan Chung before the
first Republican debate, eating their food and participating in their
slimming of another candidate and laughing along with them. Kristen Welker,
(25:15):
the new pre corrupted host of NBC's Meet the Press,
And as a PostScript, if you want to feel even
worse about the media and the coverage of politics in
this country, the lead item in the Politico Daily newsletter yesterday,
the Jenny Thomas Scotis scandal. No Chuck Todd's farewell speech
(25:43):
after his firing, then Jenny Thomas because Politico also could
not tell the difference between the relative whereabouts of the
ass and the elbow. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that,
(26:13):
not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman in sports.
The embattled president of the Spanish Football Association, Luis Rubialis,
who forced to kiss on the mouth of star player
Jenny Hermoso after Spain's World Cup title win, has told
interviewer Pierce Morgan he will finally resign, possibly just to
(26:38):
get Pierce Morgan to shut up for two seconds. Michigan
State Football has suspended its head coach Mel Tucker, possibly
as a precursor to firing him. This came hours after
USA Today reported that after months of working with survivor
Brenda Tracy to raise awareness with his athletes about sexual
abuse and rape e harrassment, she alleges coach Tucker got
(27:01):
on the phone with her last year and made sexual
comments and began to masturbate mel Tucker. Mel Mother Tucker
now suspended without pay indefinitely. I wonder how he's gonna
spend all that spare time. Thank you, Nancy Baust and
(27:30):
it may be time to start rescheduling the major tennis tournaments.
One fan collapsed during the US Open here in New
York last week. Men's third seed Daniel Medvedev said into
a court side camera quote one player is gonna die
and they're going to see. And climate protesters interrupted a
match last week, one of them gluing his own feet
to the stadium floor. The Associated Press reports that in
(27:51):
the last forty five years, temperatures at the Grand Slam
tennis events are up an average of five degrees and
that by twenty fifty the Australian Open, according to one calculation,
will have an average real feel at mid court of
one and forty seven. This underscore is the unlikeliest truth
of the coming climate catastrophe and maybe our best hope.
(28:14):
There are two areas in which the average human and
the average denier will get the message first. And they
are not scientific and they are not political. They are insurance.
The big insurers are already dropping out of markets like
Florida and sports. Outdoor sports schedules, especially tournaments, especially tennis tournaments,
will be destroyed as summers like this one become the norm.
(28:38):
Someday soon you will not have to be a protester
to get glued in place at the US Tennis Open.
That will not be glue. That will be your outer
layer of skin, which has melted and stuck you to
your seat, still ahead on countdown nine to eleven. Twenty
(29:08):
two years later, the story of Thomas Reyis and the
story of what is now the bright, straight clear line
from the nightmare of that day to the nightmare of
Trump and American fascism. First, the daily round up of
the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze Shawn
(29:30):
Spicer speaking of Trump and fascism. There somebody from ground zero,
former Trump pressler and now host of The Shawn Spicer Show,
whose Twitter account has one hundred and fifty two followers
one hundred and fifty two, possibly because he does stuff
like this a poll quote yes or no? Do you
(29:52):
think every single GOP presidential candidate could be Joe Biden?
In twenty twenty four, it remained on his feed like that.
B I think he meant beat, but who knows? Could
every single GOP presidential candidate could be Joe Biden in
twenty twenty four. It remained on his feed uncorrected like
(30:13):
that for the following three days. The runner up Elon Musk,
How many shovels can one man own? Because all he
does is keep digging. Somebody posted that fifteen of the
twenty three monkeys in whom Musks mad scientists implanted neuralinks
have reportedly died. Well, Musk had to answer that, of
course he is compulsive. Quote no monkey has died as
(30:36):
a result of a neuralink implant. First, our early implants
to minimize risk to healthy monkeys, we chose terminal moneies
close to death already unquote. We'll skip the Freudians slip
where he wrote monies instead of monkeys and just concentrate
on the fact that Elon Musk took a bunch of
(30:57):
dying monkeys and turned their last days on this earth
into tortuous surgery and the implanting of Musk brand machines
that promptly killed them. Elon, who's getting the first human neuralink?
Are you volunteering the winner? For sheer unawareness of his
(31:19):
own world? Though? Is Greg Guttersnipe of Fox News complaining
about a protest blocking a pregnant woman's access to healthcare. Now,
just think about that for a second. I mean, that's
Chuck Todd level of self unawareness. We can't block a
pregnant woman's access to healthcare. It's way too complicated an
(31:39):
irony for Greg to comprehend. So let it pass. Let
it pass. But his response after that was amazing. We
deserve that right as well. And I think that we
should be posting their exact names and addresses online on
social on websites, so if you desire to make their
lives extra difficult, you have the right too. They do
a group protest, what's wrong with a personal protest? Connect
(32:01):
the cost to the actions docs the people who are
destroying other people poll's experiences. Gutfeld is an extraordinarily stupid man,
convinced he is an extraordinarily brilliant man. In ten thousand lifetimes,
it will never occur to him that what the deranged
man who live streamed himself approaching the home of Barack
Obama looking for access tunnels so he could go hunt Obama?
(32:25):
That he was doing that using information supplied in a
social media post made by Donald Trump. A doxing by
Donald Trump, He'll never understand that. To be Gutfeld, to
be on Fox, to be a fascist, to be a
Republican is to believe you can never do wrong and
(32:45):
no rules apply to you, and no one else can
ever be right. I will not suggest doxing Greg Guttfeld.
I mean, who would want to see where he lives. Also,
more importantly, I have been the victim of doxing done
by a viewer of the Fox News channel. I would
(33:07):
not even wish it on hosts of Fox News. After all,
if there is a hell, they already have a studio
set up there that will suffice Greg. Oh wait, Trump
dalks somebody. I'm going to tell got film Today's worst,
I said, And hell, finally to the number one story
(33:47):
on the Countdown, And it's happened. In preparing this script
for this edition, and to be fair, still a little
hazy from my illness, I had to carefully calculate the
dates on each page based on the last show, which
was September eighth last week, And I typed out today's
date and it did not immediately shock me or strike
(34:09):
me as anything significant. I just typed nine eleven, twenty
twenty three. Well, it's understandable. It's twenty two years. I
mention it to young people, and I get the looks
I must have given to my folks. Twenty two years
after Pearl Harbor, or twenty two years after the end
(34:30):
of World War Two, nothing of importance happened to me
on September eleventh, two thousand and one. I mean, against
statistical probability. I had friends acquaintances in each of the
two towers and three out of the four planes, and
I only learned of the death of one of them
(34:51):
from the missing posters. I rather unexpectedly became a street
news reporter for old friends, one who ran an LATV
station and one who ran an LA all news radio station.
I felt more keenly that day than any other in
my life that I was the descendant of countless New
York cops and firefighters. My grandfather, my mother's father, drove
(35:11):
a hook and ladder in the Bronx. I have his badge.
I was taken by cops for a series of harrowing
behind the police line walks behind ground zero. I can
still hear in my head the matter of factness of
a dispatcher's voice coming across one of the radios saying
body parts found on fourteenth floor of the World Financial Center,
and another equally weary and broken voice repeating it body
(35:35):
parts found on fourteenth floor of World Financial Center. I
didn't see the attacks my apartment then only faced uptown.
When I woke up that morning, all I saw was
as beautiful a sky as I had ever seen before
and to this day, have ever seen since. By the
time I got down to the street, there were already
(35:55):
people with glazed eyes and dust covered shoes and pants
who were just reaching my neighborhood from their walk from
the Trade Center. The Trade Center was seventy five blocks
south of where I lived. I was the witness who
didn't see anything. However, I had already been on the
(36:16):
radio in La three times, and I was on my
way to Times Square for a television shot when I
realized it was now hours later, and I had ne eaten,
and I was just passing one of my places, a
restaurant called Red Eye Grill, and unbelievably it was open,
half a dozen waiters, familiar faces, hugs, tears. They made
me my regular meal, they didn't charge me for it,
(36:38):
and then I went to the restroom to wash up, and
there was an attendant in there, and I recognized him too,
And after I was finished being even more embarrassed than
usual at the whole process of somebody handing me a
washcloth in a bathroom, I reached to give him a tip,
and I found exactly three quarters in my pocket and
a fifty dollars bill in my wallet. And the attendant said, oh,
I'll take those quarters. I can't use the payphone with
(36:59):
a fifty. And I didn't understand what he meant, so
I asked him, what do you mean. He introduced himself.
His name was Thomas Reyis, he explained. Two weeks earlier,
Thomas Reyess said he had been laid off by an
investment firm that he had worked for downtown. They liked him,
he liked them, But jobs like his came and went,
(37:19):
and he was out fired on August twenty fourth, two
thousand and one. But he said they told him that
if he wanted to, he could keep his desk for
a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. He could
come in and use their computer and call around looking
for work, maybe even pick up a shift at the
firm here and there freelance. But to that point in
large part because labor Day had been the previous Monday,
(37:42):
and in New York you leave for labor Day a
week before and you come back a week after. There
were no openings yet for him in the investment business
or anything else that he could find. But years before
he had worked odd jobs at that place, the Red
Eye Grill, including as the attendant in the men's room,
and this was the only place where they had offered
(38:04):
him a paycheck to do anything. He was still going
to his old job and his old desk every day
except when Red Eye called and said they needed him
in the men's room. He had been on Wall Street.
He was now not just the men's room attendant. He
was the backup men's room attendant at a restaurant in Midtown.
(38:27):
And that morning, seven am, seven point thirty, he was
going out the door to his desk in the investment
firm to work the phones again when his cell phone rang.
The guy doing the mid day shift in the men's
room at Red Eye Grill on Seventh Avenue had called
in sick. He had, if he wanted it, eight hours
(38:48):
of work coming to him sixty bucks seventy five with
tips if he wanted it, and so that was how
Thomas Reyis was in the men's room at the Red
Eye Grill at fifty seventh Street on sixth Avenue, handing
out very few towels to very few customers on September eleven,
two thousand and one, rather than sitting at his desk
(39:09):
in the World Trade Center. And that is also why
he wanted my quarters and not my fifty dollars bill,
because he was trying to use the restaurant payphone to
call his friends who still worked at the investment firm's office,
which was on floors one hundred and one, one hundred
and two, one hundred three, one hundred four and one
hundred five of World Trade Center Building number one, because
(39:33):
his old firm was Canter Fitzgerald, and he was not
there that day only because the full time men's room
attendant at the restaurant had called in sick, and I
wished him luck with his phone calls, and I got
out of there as quickly as I could, because I
had seen the video and he clearly had not seen
the video. They were all dead at Canter Fitzgerald, including
(39:54):
two classmates of mine from college, Amon mcaaney Mike Tanner.
They were dead in the pyre of the building in
which I had started my television career twenty years and
a mo month before. The brother of another friend of
mine was in the other tower. I had a friend,
one of my cameramen on my show at Fox Sports,
who I'd worked with literally three months before, Tom Peccarelli.
(40:17):
He was on one plane, the former MSNBC guest Barbara
Olson was on another. A hockey acquaintance of mine, Garnet
Ace Bailey, was on a third plane. I went to
the bar at the Red Eye Grill and I asked
the bartender to change the fifty for me and to
give me all the coins he could spare. It was
probably five dollars worth, and I kept two tens for
(40:39):
myself just in case. And I went back to the
men's room and I gave the rest and all the
coins to Thomas Reyes for his phone calls. Apparently the
battery was gone on his cell, and I hope I
did a good job not letting him know that none
of his friends would be answering. I mentioned Mike Tanner.
I did not know he was dead until much later
(41:01):
September twenty fourth. About Amon Mcananey. I knew right away
that morning. He had been one of the heroes of
the nineteen ninety three attack on the Trade Center. On
that day, he had guided a human chain of survivors
down one hundred flights of smoky stairwells. He worked on
one of the uppermost floors. But this time, in two
(41:21):
thousand and one, there were no chains for him to lead,
though no one who knew him has ever had a
seconds doubt that he tried. Mike Tanner was the starting
quarterback and Amon Mcananey the starting wide receiver. In the
first sporting event I ever covered for money fifteen dollars
from United Press International to cover a Cornell football game
(41:42):
in nineteen seventy six, And wouldn't you know, the only
thing that happened all day was Amon dropping a punt
setting up the other guy's field goal. Cornell loses three
to nothing, and I'm supposed to write two hundred words
about it and telling this story as methodically as possible.
I only summon up about one hundred and ten words,
(42:02):
and the UPI man in all beneath taking in my
story says, no, that's okay. You don't have to pad
it out with ninety words. On the early fall weather.
We'll still send you the fifteen bucks kid. And I
found out about Mike Tanner the way too many people
found out about loved ones, or friends, or fellow alumni,
or just anonymous to them, smiling faces who suddenly counted
(42:24):
every bit as much as those we knew in that
horrible month. Mike's face and name were on a missing
poster on Canal Street in Manhattan. I stopped and stared
at it for five minutes. I missed a report I
was supposed to file for KFWB Radio in Los Angeles.
Somehow the circumstances of finding out that way foretold accurately
(42:48):
how much shock and pain there was yet to come.
But the point is I had a nine to eleven story,
and you did too, probably even at remote distances, even
friend of a friend of a friend. Some lucky, very
ones don't. Some went through their entire lives and go
through their entire lives still unaffected by nine to eleven.
(43:11):
And now with time, more and more people think of
it like Pearl Harbor, like World War Two, like the
assassination of Lincoln. Then it has to be that way,
or we would never survive. But for those of us
who still have the stories. Democrats have them, and Republicans
have them, and those who thought the Iraq War made
(43:31):
sense have them, and those who knew it for what
it was have them. We were all in that sad
thing together, and we always will be. But unfortunately, as
the anniversaries of nine to eleven began, President Bush and
the Republicans were making it clear that somehow their part
of this enforced tragic togetherness was more important than the
(43:56):
part of their critics. The only positive of nine eleven
and the days and weeks and years that so slowly
and painfully followed it, it was the unanimous humanity here in
New York and throughout the country. The government, the President
in particular, was given every possible measure of support. Those
who did not belong to the President's party tabled that reality.
(44:22):
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election the year
before ignored that those who wondered about his qualifications forgot
that nearly unanimous support of his government was granted. And
that is something that cannot be taken away from that
government by its critics. It can only be squandered by
(44:44):
those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds,
but to take political advantage of them. Terrorists did not
come and steal our newly regained sense of being American
first and political fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats, nor did
the media, nor did the people. The president and those
(45:05):
around him and those who followed him in his party,
they did that. They promised bipartisanship and then showed that
to them bipartisanship meant that their party would rule and
the rest of us would follow or be branded with
ever escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers,
(45:27):
as those who, in Vice President Cheney's words, validate the
strategy of the terrorists. These men promised protection and then
showed that to them protection meant going to war against
the despot whose hand they had once shaken, who did
not have WMD, who did not have a damn thing
(45:49):
to do with nine to eleven, against whom plans had
been laid many years before nine to eleven. The polite
phrase for how so many of us were duped into
supporting a war, or at least acquiescing to it, on
the false premise that it had something to do with
nine to eleven, is lying by inference the impolite phrase
(46:14):
is war crime. The america we live in now, in
which one party believes its hatred is love, its fascism
is freedom, its depravity is purity. That began as the
nine to eleven anniversaries began to follow one upon the other,
after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and the love
(46:36):
and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after
monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion, and turning that
fear into the campaign slogan of election after election, we
arrived in a world in which when Trump enacted the
worst imaginable cliche wrapping himself in a flag, wrapping himself
(46:59):
in an American flag, the morons thought that proved he
loved America. So two have they succeeded in this and
are still succeeding, and still, although they don't call it that,
this government, well, the government of Trump, the government in
(47:22):
waiting of Trump, uses nine to eleven, uses the hatreds
of nine to eleven as a wedge to pit Americans
against Americans. This is an odd point at which site
a television program, especially one from March nineteen sixty but
long ago a series called The Twilight Zone broadcast a
(47:43):
riveting episode called The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.
In brief, a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by
extraterrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out in a neighborhood.
One neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his lights and only
the lights in his house, go back on. Someone therefore
(48:06):
suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's car
starts suddenly as charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street,
guns are inevitably produced, an alien is shot. He turns
out to be just another neighbor who was returning from
(48:27):
going for help. The camera then pulls back to a
nearby hill where two extraterrestrials are seen manipulating a small
device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice
that there's no need to actually attack, you just turn
off a few of the human machines, and then quote,
(48:47):
they picked the most dangerous enemy they can find, and
it's themselves. And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing,
Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience,
given where we have found ourselves in ever increasing measures
since September eleventh, two thousand and one. The tools of
(49:08):
conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout.
There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to
be found only in the minds of men. For the record,
prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless,
(49:32):
frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its
own for the children, and the children yet unborn. I've
(49:55):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. Countdown has come to you from our studios
in New York. Here are the credits. Most of the
music arrange produced and performed by Brian raym John Phillip, Shaneale,
who are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards
by John Phillip Schanel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
(50:16):
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Ulberman theme from ESPN two. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis. Courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical
Comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Richard Lewis. Everything else
is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
the nine and seventy ninth day since Donald Trump's first
(50:38):
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Convict him now while we still can. The next schedule
countdown is tomorrow boltons, as the news warrants and as
this continuing throat infection permits till then. I'm Keith Olberman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Gives
(51:01):
me hope, a security and just stapability. 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 Breaking News.
One legged Trump challenges Biden and others to ask kicking
(00:27):
contest quote. I hereby challenge Rupert Murdoch and sons Biden,
Wall Street Journal heads two acuity tests. Today, impossibly, infuriatingly embarrassingly,
we have now circled back to what, with the benefit
(00:48):
of hindsight, appears to be the saddest possible thing, the
highlight of the Trump presidency in the mixed mind of
Donald Trump July twenty twenty, or perhaps earlier, when he
was told to memorize an endless strain of complicated, unconnected,
ill defined words, possibly from other languages, and then not
(01:10):
just to remember them, but to remember them in the
exact order person, woman, man, camera, t the I proved
I was all there, Trump said, proudly, horrifyingly, again and
(01:31):
again and again, to every interviewer at every campaign speech,
to everybody who would hold still long enough to listen,
beaming like a toddler who had managed to poop in
the potty chair. Mostly anyway, I aced it. I aced
the test. We thought those were the most humiliating things
(01:52):
he could ever say about himself. And that test, which
on the mental or intellectual soundness scale is slightly above
They put a mirror under his nose to see if
he's still breathing. We were wrong for last night. Somebody
evidently told Trump about the Wall Street Journal poll showing
seventy three percent of registered voters believe Joe Biden is
(02:13):
too old to run for president. The not unexpected number
given that the Wall Street Journal poll was run by
a former Trump pollster, But in that context, the second
number was actually shocking. Forty seven percent of registered voters
in the pro Trump poll run by a pro Trump
ex Trump polster, forty seven percent think Trump is too
(02:36):
old to run. And after a typo in his first
sentence of his rage post last night, he got right
to it. Quote a few years ago, I was the
only one to agree to a mental acuity test. And
asd it haste is of course in caps well, I
hereby challenged Rupert Murdoch and sons Biden wsj heads to
(03:00):
acuity tests. I will name the place and the test,
and did will be a tough one. Nobody will come
even close to me. Unquote. He trashed the journal. He
called it globalist, damaged goods phony and rigged. He is
enraged again over this one issue over which he cannot
(03:20):
possibly control himself, the reality that he is not a
sane or intelligent man. And that was just the start
of it. It devolved from there. It devolved into his
claim that the true test of non mental strength is golf. Quote.
We can also throw some physical activity into it. I
(03:43):
just won the senior club championship at a big golf club.
As an aside, he means his own golf club. He
said so earlier. He cheats at all golf courses. There
are hundreds of witnesses. He cheats at his golf courses
with impunity. He cheats literally in New Jersey over his
wife's dead body. Quoting again, I just won the senior
(04:06):
club championship at a big golf club with many very
good players. To do so, you need strength, accuracy, touch,
and above all, mental toughness. Ask Brett Behar Fox, a
very good golfer. Yeah, that's who I'm going to to
decide mental and physical confidence in a seventy seven year old,
insane megalomaniac Brett Freaking Bear. The Wall Street Journal and
(04:32):
Fox are damaged goods and their failed de sanctimonious push
and stupid seven hundred and eighty million dollar settlement. Where's
the rest of that sentence? There isn't one, And the
final thrust of this intellectual argument proving he is the
smartest man in the world, an intellectual argument that would
make Einstein wheap and run away. All in caps, neurons,
(04:58):
exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. I met Donald Trump
on Thursday, December fifteenth, nineteen eighty three, at a breakfast
symposium here in New York City featuring the owners of
four New York area sports franchises. The CNN cameraman and
(05:19):
the deck operator and I left the hotel having interviewed
each of them in silence. As we got to the van,
I finally broke that silence. Well, I said to the cameraman,
what the f is wrong with that guy? The other
two burst into laughter. Little did we know that was
(05:42):
his mental high point. That was nearly forty years of
Trumpion mental deterioration ago. And every time I think we
have hit rock bottom, Trump finds a new high in low.
And yet even at this possible bottom of the bottomless pit,
(06:04):
he still seems slightly aware that he is in danger.
It's not enough to challenge the Murdochs and Biden and
the journal editors to acuity tests. They must be acuity
tests that Trump selects and locates Parson, woman Man, Camera
(06:29):
TV and geez Burgers. There I run rings around geologically, Joe,
you old poopy pants. If I'm Joe Biden or Rupert
Murdoch or anybody else named Murdoch or the journal hanchos,
(06:51):
I take Trump up on this offer immediately, and I
see how quickly he forgets that offer. And then I
start bringing it up daily, and I start bringing it
up hourly, bring it up, Keep bringing it up, President Biden,
this is your magic Wand where is Trump's acuity test?
(07:13):
Where is our acuity showdown? And maybe somebody will say
to Trump mat Biden and the Murdocks remembered this phrase
ECF number forty seven dash three. Because ECF number forty
seven dash three, that could be the most important phrase
(07:34):
this week in trump Land, because something will happen today
involving ECF number forty seven Dash three, which could lead
to a gag order being imposed on Trump by the
end of the week or the beginning of next week,
or maybe it's sanctions or maybe it is a speeded
up Washington Trials start date. Unfortunately, barring the most unlikely
(07:56):
of circumstances, we will not know what it is today
nor which outcome it will produce. But today is when
the Trump legal team has to tell Judge Tanya Chutkin
whyat does not want made public. Whatever is the background
to this filing by Jack Smith last week, I'll quote
it again. Such a requirement would grind litigation in this
(08:19):
case to a halt, which is particularly infeasible given the
pressing matters before the court, including the defendant's daily extra
judicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool in
this case, as described in the government's motion c ECF
number forty seven Dash three person woman, man, camera, dB
(08:48):
cheezburgers and if you have a copy of ECF number
forty seven, Dash three, give me a ring, because I don't.
Nobody outside the court is supposed to. It's under seal.
But it is clearly about Trump's statements and or revelations,
And it could be about his threats to the judge
(09:09):
and the prosecutors and the world. And it could be
about some piece of evidence he alluded to that didn't
really register with you or me or anybody following this
stuff even more closely than we are, but which caused
a couple of garbage cans inside the Special Council's office
to spontaneously burst into flames last week. Trump's ambulance chasers
(09:29):
were to respond to Judge Chutkin unless they were able
to find a way to delay it or that nice
miss Habba misplaced her brain again. Smith is to respond
on Wednesday, although one thing we already know about Smith
is that he will be ready to respond exactly eleven
minutes and forty seven seconds after he reads whatever the
Trump lawyer's write today, because that's who he is, and
(09:49):
that's why he's in this job, and that's why he
could actually play beat the clock and win and save democracy.
Could the defendant's daily extra judicial statements that threatened to
prejudice the jury pool in in this case, as described
in the government's motion cecf. Number forty seven, Dash three,
What I would give to know the rest of that. Now.
(10:14):
What we do know today that is new is that
Trump or those operating on his behalf appear to have
broken more laws regarding presidential records and their storage and
their pilferage. There is a second Trump document stash in
Greater West Palm Beach, Florida, besides the Mari Lago crapshack,
with the boxes of top secret documents kept securely next
(10:35):
to the commode. As we slowly see developing, what will
happen to Trump if he doesn't seize power again and
he doesn't go to jail, and instead he becomes one
of those hoarders who cannot really make it from his
bed to the front door because his way is blocked
by one hundred and sixteen thousand stacked fake copies of
Time magazine proclaiming him Golfer of the Year for nineteen
(10:58):
eighty seven. NBC News reports that ten minutes away from
Mayor on North Flagler Drive, the quintessential Florida address North
Flagler Drive, one floor before the headquarters for the Trump
Secret Service detail in Florida, there is an unmarked post
(11:19):
presidential office paid for by the United States government. No,
the real one, not Trump's pretend one. And that while
the presumption is there are no secret documents there now,
that does not mean there weren't lots before or might
not be some now. NBC reports that Trump's lawyers ordered
a private firm to search the office for just such
(11:41):
secret materials, and at least one box of classified stuff
was reportedly moved from marri A Lago to North Flaggler
and then apparently back to mari Lago. Boxes everywhere, says
an NBC source, the state of that office is generally cluttered,
like going inside Trump's brain. Don't wear your good shoes
(12:05):
piled against walls, boxes piled not against walls. Current and
recent ex employees of Trump political action committees like Bo Harrison,
Molly Michael, and Desiree Thompson and Thompson still works for
Save America Pack have had access, and while that is
not a crime, you can do both. If those Trump
(12:25):
political employees are doing political stuff in the government paid
for office on North Flagler, they are violating five US
Codes seven three two four political activities on duty. This
will not send any of them to jail, but it
should send Department of Justice investigators to North Flagler immediately.
(12:46):
The maddening part of this, of course, is that as
Trump never managed to establish any kind of line dividing
politics and corruption and what passed for his actual job
in the White House, he also never managed to establish
any kind of line dividing politics and corruption and sheer
in confidence and con fusion. NBC went to the menacing
(13:08):
lumpy Trump spokesman Stephen Chung for comment about the North
Flagler office, and Chung's response quote, I've never heard of
a North Flagler office, unquote, leaving the astonishing possibility that
somebody in the Trump camp for the first time might
accidentally be telling the truth. The next story is simple.
(13:37):
Jenny Thomas and Leonard Leo must be indicted on corruption charges,
and Clarence Thomas must be indicted for influence peddling and
the leaking of Supreme Court decisions in advance, and we're
probably profiteering off insider knowledge of what those decisions were
to be. And he must be removed from the court
immediately by any legal means, including arrests. And until all
(13:58):
this happens, the Supreme Court of the United States is
illegitimate and its jurisdiction over the laws and people of
this nation is no more valid than person, woman, man
camera TV. If you missed Politico's Breakthrough report yesterday, find
it and read it. Months before the infamous Citizens United decision,
in which supposed First Amendment defender and hero Floyd Abrams
(14:22):
helped a bunch of goons led by David Bossi sell
out democracy in this country. Clarence Thomas's wife and Leonard
Leo and the Thomases. Oh, I'm just a friend who
likes to give the Thomas' money. Friend Harland Crowe organized
exactly the kind of limitless, boundless political slush fund in
which corporations could funnel any amount of money they chose
(14:45):
to buy limitless political advertising and influence on behalf of
an issue or a candidate, provided the money did not
go directly to the candidate. Leo and Jinny Thomas had
it ready to go before Jinny Thomas's husband helped make
it happen. Politico offered a damning timeline of events in
(15:09):
addition to the Great Article in Brief September nine, two
thousand and nine, the oral arguments concluded in Citizens United.
Two months later, Cleta Mitchell, now where do we know
that name from? Filed an application with the IRS to
create an organization called Liberty Central, Inc. On behalf of
Jenny Thomas. December thirty one, two thousand and nine. Jenny
(15:30):
Thomas signs the incorporation paperwork, Leonard Leo is listed as
a director, and in the following week's half a million
in seed money is donated by Harlan Crowe. January fourteenth,
twenty ten, Virginia approves the request by Jenny Thomas to
incorporate Liberty Central, Inc. One week later, Citizens United is
handed down by the Supreme Court. February Jenny Thomas tells
(15:54):
Seapack She's been called to the front lines, out of
the cult and into the front lines, and on and
on and on and on. At the time, I called
Citizens United a worse decision by the Court than even
dread Scott and the fascists mocked me. This damning political
(16:16):
timeline goes on for more than a dozen more dates,
but one more stands out symbolically. October ninth, twenty ten,
Jenny Thomas leaves a voicemail demanding an apology from Anita Hill.
They are scum. Jenny Thomas is scum. Clarence Thomas is scum,
(16:39):
Leonard Leo is scum. Harlan Crow is scum. Cleta Mitchell
is scum. Finally, I guess this is comic relief. It
used to ring in the furthest reaches of my mind,
(17:02):
and now I hear it weekly, daily, hourly, and always
it's a little louder than it was last time. The
theory that this country is just a contiguous group of
regional tribes that once were sort of held together by
nothing more solid than the fact that there were only
three television networks, so that the odds were great, that
(17:23):
despite the fundamental and unsolvable differences, statistically, at least we
all shared some basic cultural element. Oh yeah, I saw
petticoat Junction the other night too, and that new Bobby
Joe is a dish or Artie Johnson is funny, or hey, look,
(17:44):
ABC just changed newscasters again. That's sixteen times this year. Now,
those long gone gossamer bonds are a distant memory. And
we have people born and raised in this country, the
children of countless generations here, and they are speaking a
(18:05):
language which they think is English, and which the other
native born speakers around them think is English. But it's
not English. We take you to rapid cities South Dakota.
This woman is a grandmother, presumably someone whom the thin
veneer of civilization and education has at least brushed over
(18:27):
once or twice across the decades. She owns clothes, she's
wearing them in the correct position. She has jewelry, she
was wearing a pleasant summer hat, fetching almost She's nearly
in tears as she talks about Trump. I too would
be in tears if I was feeling and saying what
(18:48):
she was feeling and saying. Because she's not actually speaking English,
but she does not know this. She is yearning for
what she believes Trump brings, and what Trump brings, in
her words, is stabability. Yeah, I'm very excited and helpful.
It gives me hope of security and just stabability. I
(19:11):
like what you said. I mean, that's a very authentic answer.
Alas we are lost. We cannot possibly educate these people
in time. They do not know they need help. They
would never accept that they need help. They would never
admit that they are stupid. They would never accept the
idea that the word stabability came to them in a dream.
(19:34):
They would shoot you rather than accept your correction. Besides, Madam,
I believe that the word you actually meant there in
terms of Trump was stabability. Also of interest here voice, okay,
(19:55):
a little scratchy, not too much stamina, Bear with me.
Stabability or instabability. Some slight marble size chunk of it
has returned to the universe. The great day has come.
Behold the age is closed. This is January first, in
the year one ac after Chuck. We are free from
(20:19):
one of the countless destructive factors in our land. Chuck
Todd is gone as the host of Meet the Press.
On the other hand, his final words were in essence,
I did a great job, and I made America smarter.
And no, he didn't seem to be stoned. That's next.
This is an all new edition of Countdown. This is
(20:43):
Countdown with Keith Alberman. Postscripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snarks, some predictions, dateline Washington, and now
he belongs to the ages. Chuck Todd signed off as
the host of NBC's Meet the Press, and he left
(21:05):
as he started, with his head completely up his ass
quote on my first day on the job of Meet
the Press, I was handed an audience survey of Sunday
show viewers, and the number one reason folks said they
tuned in was not because the person was behind the
chair or the guests. It was simply to get educated.
(21:27):
So for nearly a decade, I've had the honor of
helping to explain America to Washington and Washington to America.
Can you imagine, at any point in your life being
that divorced from reality to think that you explained anything
(21:51):
to anybody other than how not to do television, how
not to report the news, how not to interview people,
how not to represent truth, and most importantly, how not
to represent the urgent needs of the nation in which
(22:12):
you live. I have always said that someday the American
Psychiatric Association would officially declare that the compulsive need to
be on television is a full fledged mental illness requiring treatment.
I am genuinely surprised that that day was not yesterday
(22:34):
after Chuck Todd said that and added, quote, it's that
education piece that I'm hanging my hat on for the
rest of my professional life. Unquote. I have known Chuck
Todd since the year two thousand and five. He does
not own a hat, He does not have a professional life. Chuck,
(22:58):
do not let the door hit you in the ass
on the way out, or, to be more precise, Chuck,
do not let both sides of the door hit you
in the ass on the way out. Oh and if
you think it's going to get better under his replacement,
Kristin Welker, It's not. Let me remind you of this
(23:19):
from my podcast of August twenty fourth, Three Trump hoodlums
led by Jason Miller were, according to Politico, whining and
dining a dozen of the top national political reporters at
a steakhouse called Rare in Milwaukee. The point was to
let Trump be there yet remain personally in absentia, and
(23:42):
to continue taking his shots at Ron DeSantis by remote control.
Jason Miller and Chris Lasovita and Stephen Chung handed these
dozen reporters packs of putting snacks that would be a
shot at DeSantis, and they handed them DeSantis debate bingo cards,
which called DeSantis de sanctimonious and invoked his varying nunciations
(24:05):
of his names. How many times he would say woke
and Ron DeSantis can melt in the hot sun for
all I care. Because the issue is not which fascist
politicians thugs were doing the insulting and which fascist politicians
thugs were on the receiving end, it's who was there.
Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post was there. Dana Bash
of CNN was there, I wish I was surprised by
(24:27):
that name. An NBC reporter named Dasha Burns, the chief
election correspondent of CBS News, Robert Costa, a producer there
named Finn Gomez, Rachel Scott, Senior congressional correspondent ABC, Shane Goldmacher,
New York Times, Rob Crilly UK's Daily Mail. He was
the one who started the whole Biden no comment on
Hawaii right wing feeding frenzy. He was the Pool reporter.
(24:51):
He never heard Biden say no comment, but he and
some other people thought they could read his lips at
a great distance, so they attributed that quote to him,
and it still attributed to him. And also at the
merriment with Jason Miller and Steve Evan Chung before the
first Republican debate, eating their food and participating in their
slimming of another candidate and laughing along with them. Kristen Welker,
(25:15):
the new pre corrupted host of NBC's Meet the Press,
And as a PostScript, if you want to feel even
worse about the media and the coverage of politics in
this country, the lead item in the Politico Daily newsletter yesterday,
the Jenny Thomas Scotis scandal. No Chuck Todd's farewell speech
(25:43):
after his firing, then Jenny Thomas because Politico also could
not tell the difference between the relative whereabouts of the
ass and the elbow. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that,
(26:13):
not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman in sports.
The embattled president of the Spanish Football Association, Luis Rubialis,
who forced to kiss on the mouth of star player
Jenny Hermoso after Spain's World Cup title win, has told
interviewer Pierce Morgan he will finally resign, possibly just to
(26:38):
get Pierce Morgan to shut up for two seconds. Michigan
State Football has suspended its head coach Mel Tucker, possibly
as a precursor to firing him. This came hours after
USA Today reported that after months of working with survivor
Brenda Tracy to raise awareness with his athletes about sexual
abuse and rape e harrassment, she alleges coach Tucker got
(27:01):
on the phone with her last year and made sexual
comments and began to masturbate mel Tucker. Mel Mother Tucker
now suspended without pay indefinitely. I wonder how he's gonna
spend all that spare time. Thank you, Nancy Baust and
(27:30):
it may be time to start rescheduling the major tennis tournaments.
One fan collapsed during the US Open here in New
York last week. Men's third seed Daniel Medvedev said into
a court side camera quote one player is gonna die
and they're going to see. And climate protesters interrupted a
match last week, one of them gluing his own feet
to the stadium floor. The Associated Press reports that in
(27:51):
the last forty five years, temperatures at the Grand Slam
tennis events are up an average of five degrees and
that by twenty fifty the Australian Open, according to one calculation,
will have an average real feel at mid court of
one and forty seven. This underscore is the unlikeliest truth
of the coming climate catastrophe and maybe our best hope.
(28:14):
There are two areas in which the average human and
the average denier will get the message first. And they
are not scientific and they are not political. They are insurance.
The big insurers are already dropping out of markets like
Florida and sports. Outdoor sports schedules, especially tournaments, especially tennis tournaments,
will be destroyed as summers like this one become the norm.
(28:38):
Someday soon you will not have to be a protester
to get glued in place at the US Tennis Open.
That will not be glue. That will be your outer
layer of skin, which has melted and stuck you to
your seat, still ahead on countdown nine to eleven. Twenty
(29:08):
two years later, the story of Thomas Reyis and the
story of what is now the bright, straight clear line
from the nightmare of that day to the nightmare of
Trump and American fascism. First, the daily round up of
the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze Shawn
(29:30):
Spicer speaking of Trump and fascism. There somebody from ground zero,
former Trump pressler and now host of The Shawn Spicer Show,
whose Twitter account has one hundred and fifty two followers
one hundred and fifty two, possibly because he does stuff
like this a poll quote yes or no? Do you
(29:52):
think every single GOP presidential candidate could be Joe Biden?
In twenty twenty four, it remained on his feed like that.
B I think he meant beat, but who knows? Could
every single GOP presidential candidate could be Joe Biden in
twenty twenty four. It remained on his feed uncorrected like
(30:13):
that for the following three days. The runner up Elon Musk,
How many shovels can one man own? Because all he
does is keep digging. Somebody posted that fifteen of the
twenty three monkeys in whom Musks mad scientists implanted neuralinks
have reportedly died. Well, Musk had to answer that, of
course he is compulsive. Quote no monkey has died as
(30:36):
a result of a neuralink implant. First, our early implants
to minimize risk to healthy monkeys, we chose terminal moneies
close to death already unquote. We'll skip the Freudians slip
where he wrote monies instead of monkeys and just concentrate
on the fact that Elon Musk took a bunch of
(30:57):
dying monkeys and turned their last days on this earth
into tortuous surgery and the implanting of Musk brand machines
that promptly killed them. Elon, who's getting the first human neuralink?
Are you volunteering the winner? For sheer unawareness of his
(31:19):
own world? Though? Is Greg Guttersnipe of Fox News complaining
about a protest blocking a pregnant woman's access to healthcare. Now,
just think about that for a second. I mean, that's
Chuck Todd level of self unawareness. We can't block a
pregnant woman's access to healthcare. It's way too complicated an
(31:39):
irony for Greg to comprehend. So let it pass. Let
it pass. But his response after that was amazing. We
deserve that right as well. And I think that we
should be posting their exact names and addresses online on
social on websites, so if you desire to make their
lives extra difficult, you have the right too. They do
a group protest, what's wrong with a personal protest? Connect
(32:01):
the cost to the actions docs the people who are
destroying other people poll's experiences. Gutfeld is an extraordinarily stupid man,
convinced he is an extraordinarily brilliant man. In ten thousand lifetimes,
it will never occur to him that what the deranged
man who live streamed himself approaching the home of Barack
Obama looking for access tunnels so he could go hunt Obama?
(32:25):
That he was doing that using information supplied in a
social media post made by Donald Trump. A doxing by
Donald Trump, He'll never understand that. To be Gutfeld, to
be on Fox, to be a fascist, to be a
Republican is to believe you can never do wrong and
(32:45):
no rules apply to you, and no one else can
ever be right. I will not suggest doxing Greg Guttfeld.
I mean, who would want to see where he lives. Also,
more importantly, I have been the victim of doxing done
by a viewer of the Fox News channel. I would
(33:07):
not even wish it on hosts of Fox News. After all,
if there is a hell, they already have a studio
set up there that will suffice Greg. Oh wait, Trump
dalks somebody. I'm going to tell got film Today's worst,
I said, And hell, finally to the number one story
(33:47):
on the Countdown, And it's happened. In preparing this script
for this edition, and to be fair, still a little
hazy from my illness, I had to carefully calculate the
dates on each page based on the last show, which
was September eighth last week, And I typed out today's
date and it did not immediately shock me or strike
(34:09):
me as anything significant. I just typed nine eleven, twenty
twenty three. Well, it's understandable. It's twenty two years. I
mention it to young people, and I get the looks
I must have given to my folks. Twenty two years
after Pearl Harbor, or twenty two years after the end
(34:30):
of World War Two, nothing of importance happened to me
on September eleventh, two thousand and one. I mean, against
statistical probability. I had friends acquaintances in each of the
two towers and three out of the four planes, and
I only learned of the death of one of them
(34:51):
from the missing posters. I rather unexpectedly became a street
news reporter for old friends, one who ran an LATV
station and one who ran an LA all news radio station.
I felt more keenly that day than any other in
my life that I was the descendant of countless New
York cops and firefighters. My grandfather, my mother's father, drove
(35:11):
a hook and ladder in the Bronx. I have his badge.
I was taken by cops for a series of harrowing
behind the police line walks behind ground zero. I can
still hear in my head the matter of factness of
a dispatcher's voice coming across one of the radios saying
body parts found on fourteenth floor of the World Financial Center,
and another equally weary and broken voice repeating it body
(35:35):
parts found on fourteenth floor of World Financial Center. I
didn't see the attacks my apartment then only faced uptown.
When I woke up that morning, all I saw was
as beautiful a sky as I had ever seen before
and to this day, have ever seen since. By the
time I got down to the street, there were already
(35:55):
people with glazed eyes and dust covered shoes and pants
who were just reaching my neighborhood from their walk from
the Trade Center. The Trade Center was seventy five blocks
south of where I lived. I was the witness who
didn't see anything. However, I had already been on the
(36:16):
radio in La three times, and I was on my
way to Times Square for a television shot when I
realized it was now hours later, and I had ne eaten,
and I was just passing one of my places, a
restaurant called Red Eye Grill, and unbelievably it was open,
half a dozen waiters, familiar faces, hugs, tears. They made
me my regular meal, they didn't charge me for it,
(36:38):
and then I went to the restroom to wash up, and
there was an attendant in there, and I recognized him too,
And after I was finished being even more embarrassed than
usual at the whole process of somebody handing me a
washcloth in a bathroom, I reached to give him a tip,
and I found exactly three quarters in my pocket and
a fifty dollars bill in my wallet. And the attendant said, oh,
I'll take those quarters. I can't use the payphone with
(36:59):
a fifty. And I didn't understand what he meant, so
I asked him, what do you mean. He introduced himself.
His name was Thomas Reyis, he explained. Two weeks earlier,
Thomas Reyess said he had been laid off by an
investment firm that he had worked for downtown. They liked him,
he liked them, But jobs like his came and went,
(37:19):
and he was out fired on August twenty fourth, two
thousand and one. But he said they told him that
if he wanted to, he could keep his desk for
a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. He could
come in and use their computer and call around looking
for work, maybe even pick up a shift at the
firm here and there freelance. But to that point in
large part because labor Day had been the previous Monday,
(37:42):
and in New York you leave for labor Day a
week before and you come back a week after. There
were no openings yet for him in the investment business
or anything else that he could find. But years before
he had worked odd jobs at that place, the Red
Eye Grill, including as the attendant in the men's room,
and this was the only place where they had offered
(38:04):
him a paycheck to do anything. He was still going
to his old job and his old desk every day
except when Red Eye called and said they needed him
in the men's room. He had been on Wall Street.
He was now not just the men's room attendant. He
was the backup men's room attendant at a restaurant in Midtown.
(38:27):
And that morning, seven am, seven point thirty, he was
going out the door to his desk in the investment
firm to work the phones again when his cell phone rang.
The guy doing the mid day shift in the men's
room at Red Eye Grill on Seventh Avenue had called
in sick. He had, if he wanted it, eight hours
(38:48):
of work coming to him sixty bucks seventy five with
tips if he wanted it, and so that was how
Thomas Reyis was in the men's room at the Red
Eye Grill at fifty seventh Street on sixth Avenue, handing
out very few towels to very few customers on September eleven,
two thousand and one, rather than sitting at his desk
(39:09):
in the World Trade Center. And that is also why
he wanted my quarters and not my fifty dollars bill,
because he was trying to use the restaurant payphone to
call his friends who still worked at the investment firm's office,
which was on floors one hundred and one, one hundred
and two, one hundred three, one hundred four and one
hundred five of World Trade Center Building number one, because
(39:33):
his old firm was Canter Fitzgerald, and he was not
there that day only because the full time men's room
attendant at the restaurant had called in sick, and I
wished him luck with his phone calls, and I got
out of there as quickly as I could, because I
had seen the video and he clearly had not seen
the video. They were all dead at Canter Fitzgerald, including
(39:54):
two classmates of mine from college, Amon mcaaney Mike Tanner.
They were dead in the pyre of the building in
which I had started my television career twenty years and
a mo month before. The brother of another friend of
mine was in the other tower. I had a friend,
one of my cameramen on my show at Fox Sports,
who I'd worked with literally three months before, Tom Peccarelli.
(40:17):
He was on one plane, the former MSNBC guest Barbara
Olson was on another. A hockey acquaintance of mine, Garnet
Ace Bailey, was on a third plane. I went to
the bar at the Red Eye Grill and I asked
the bartender to change the fifty for me and to
give me all the coins he could spare. It was
probably five dollars worth, and I kept two tens for
(40:39):
myself just in case. And I went back to the
men's room and I gave the rest and all the
coins to Thomas Reyes for his phone calls. Apparently the
battery was gone on his cell, and I hope I
did a good job not letting him know that none
of his friends would be answering. I mentioned Mike Tanner.
I did not know he was dead until much later
(41:01):
September twenty fourth. About Amon Mcananey. I knew right away
that morning. He had been one of the heroes of
the nineteen ninety three attack on the Trade Center. On
that day, he had guided a human chain of survivors
down one hundred flights of smoky stairwells. He worked on
one of the uppermost floors. But this time, in two
(41:21):
thousand and one, there were no chains for him to lead,
though no one who knew him has ever had a
seconds doubt that he tried. Mike Tanner was the starting
quarterback and Amon Mcananey the starting wide receiver. In the
first sporting event I ever covered for money fifteen dollars
from United Press International to cover a Cornell football game
(41:42):
in nineteen seventy six, And wouldn't you know, the only
thing that happened all day was Amon dropping a punt
setting up the other guy's field goal. Cornell loses three
to nothing, and I'm supposed to write two hundred words
about it and telling this story as methodically as possible.
I only summon up about one hundred and ten words,
(42:02):
and the UPI man in all beneath taking in my
story says, no, that's okay. You don't have to pad
it out with ninety words. On the early fall weather.
We'll still send you the fifteen bucks kid. And I
found out about Mike Tanner the way too many people
found out about loved ones, or friends, or fellow alumni,
or just anonymous to them, smiling faces who suddenly counted
(42:24):
every bit as much as those we knew in that
horrible month. Mike's face and name were on a missing
poster on Canal Street in Manhattan. I stopped and stared
at it for five minutes. I missed a report I
was supposed to file for KFWB Radio in Los Angeles.
Somehow the circumstances of finding out that way foretold accurately
(42:48):
how much shock and pain there was yet to come.
But the point is I had a nine to eleven story,
and you did too, probably even at remote distances, even
friend of a friend of a friend. Some lucky, very
ones don't. Some went through their entire lives and go
through their entire lives still unaffected by nine to eleven.
(43:11):
And now with time, more and more people think of
it like Pearl Harbor, like World War Two, like the
assassination of Lincoln. Then it has to be that way,
or we would never survive. But for those of us
who still have the stories. Democrats have them, and Republicans
have them, and those who thought the Iraq War made
(43:31):
sense have them, and those who knew it for what
it was have them. We were all in that sad
thing together, and we always will be. But unfortunately, as
the anniversaries of nine to eleven began, President Bush and
the Republicans were making it clear that somehow their part
of this enforced tragic togetherness was more important than the
(43:56):
part of their critics. The only positive of nine eleven
and the days and weeks and years that so slowly
and painfully followed it, it was the unanimous humanity here in
New York and throughout the country. The government, the President
in particular, was given every possible measure of support. Those
who did not belong to the President's party tabled that reality.
(44:22):
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election the year
before ignored that those who wondered about his qualifications forgot
that nearly unanimous support of his government was granted. And
that is something that cannot be taken away from that
government by its critics. It can only be squandered by
(44:44):
those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds,
but to take political advantage of them. Terrorists did not
come and steal our newly regained sense of being American
first and political fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats, nor did
the media, nor did the people. The president and those
(45:05):
around him and those who followed him in his party,
they did that. They promised bipartisanship and then showed that
to them bipartisanship meant that their party would rule and
the rest of us would follow or be branded with
ever escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers,
(45:27):
as those who, in Vice President Cheney's words, validate the
strategy of the terrorists. These men promised protection and then
showed that to them protection meant going to war against
the despot whose hand they had once shaken, who did
not have WMD, who did not have a damn thing
(45:49):
to do with nine to eleven, against whom plans had
been laid many years before nine to eleven. The polite
phrase for how so many of us were duped into
supporting a war, or at least acquiescing to it, on
the false premise that it had something to do with
nine to eleven, is lying by inference the impolite phrase
(46:14):
is war crime. The america we live in now, in
which one party believes its hatred is love, its fascism
is freedom, its depravity is purity. That began as the
nine to eleven anniversaries began to follow one upon the other,
after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and the love
(46:36):
and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after
monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion, and turning that
fear into the campaign slogan of election after election, we
arrived in a world in which when Trump enacted the
worst imaginable cliche wrapping himself in a flag, wrapping himself
(46:59):
in an American flag, the morons thought that proved he
loved America. So two have they succeeded in this and
are still succeeding, and still, although they don't call it that,
this government, well, the government of Trump, the government in
(47:22):
waiting of Trump, uses nine to eleven, uses the hatreds
of nine to eleven as a wedge to pit Americans
against Americans. This is an odd point at which site
a television program, especially one from March nineteen sixty but
long ago a series called The Twilight Zone broadcast a
(47:43):
riveting episode called The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.
In brief, a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by
extraterrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out in a neighborhood.
One neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his lights and only
the lights in his house, go back on. Someone therefore
(48:06):
suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's car
starts suddenly as charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street,
guns are inevitably produced, an alien is shot. He turns
out to be just another neighbor who was returning from
(48:27):
going for help. The camera then pulls back to a
nearby hill where two extraterrestrials are seen manipulating a small
device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice
that there's no need to actually attack, you just turn
off a few of the human machines, and then quote,
(48:47):
they picked the most dangerous enemy they can find, and
it's themselves. And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing,
Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience,
given where we have found ourselves in ever increasing measures
since September eleventh, two thousand and one. The tools of
(49:08):
conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout.
There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to
be found only in the minds of men. For the record,
prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless,
(49:32):
frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its
own for the children, and the children yet unborn. I've
(49:55):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. Countdown has come to you from our studios
in New York. Here are the credits. Most of the
music arrange produced and performed by Brian raym John Phillip, Shaneale,
who are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards
by John Phillip Schanel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
(50:16):
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Ulberman theme from ESPN two. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis. Courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical
Comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Richard Lewis. Everything else
is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
the nine and seventy ninth day since Donald Trump's first
(50:38):
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Convict him now while we still can. The next schedule
countdown is tomorrow boltons, as the news warrants and as
this continuing throat infection permits till then. I'm Keith Olberman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Gives
(51:01):
me hope, a security and just stapability. Countdown with Keith
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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