October 31, 2023 • 46 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 64: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Biden Campaign slogan should literally be “MY OLD MAN CAN BEAT UP YOUR OLD MAN.”
It is the most remarkable, unexpected, startling, counter-intuitive polling data I have ever seen: The future of democracy. The future of the prosecution of Trump. The future of the nation. The future of planetary climate. It may depend on convincing voters NOT that Joe Biden is somehow NOT TOO old but on convincing voters that he and Trump are BOTH TOO OLD. New polling shows 43 percent of Americans BELIEVE they’re BOTH too old and they plan to vote as follows:
Biden 61% Trump 13%
In Pennsylvania it’s Biden 66% Trump 11%! If they’re BOTH too old – Biden wins in a landslide. Just growing the percentage IN Pennsylvania who believe they’re both too old by FIVE percent would flip 110-thousand Trump votes TO BIDEN. And helpfully Trump is not only acting old, he’s acting demented. In the last 48 hours he hasn’t known WHERE he was, nor what YEAR it was, and even The New York Times is writing about it.
Meanwhile, in a Washington courtroom, we had what one observer called a "proxy battle" for what might happen when Trump truly violates the newly-reinstated gag order. A J6 defendant freed while awaiting sentencing began to send violent, racist, homophobic, antisemitic texts to an FBI agent involved in his case, AND threatened to doxx him. The Judge had no problem cancelling his release and sending him directly to jail to await sentencing (the problem arose when he tried to resist the handcuffs and nearly took down four security officers).
B-BLOCK (28:44) IN SPORTS: What if they gave a World Series and nobody watched? Texas survived the by-now traditional early departure of Max Scherzer to pull ahead of Arizona (on the road of course) in last night's 3rd Game. But the bad TV ratings and lack of national interest among baseball fans was far worse than even I had expected. In fact, they were record-setting worse. Plus the first star of the Texas franchise, Frank Howard, died yesterday. (31:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Boris Johnson goes into TV news, possibly for the free hairstyling. Tim Scott says it's Iowa or bust. And why are the Philadelphia Eagles advertisements appearing next to videos of lunatic Stew Peters spewing hate and giving voice to calls for violence against organizations like Catholic Charities? And why isn't the team or the NFL doing anything about it?
C-BLOCK (37:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: October was the birthday month of one of my favorite humans of all-time. I met him only once but it was so memorable, so warm, so funny that a decade later when he died, I was stunned when I heard the news and broke into tears.
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 Dementia.
Jay Trump's dementia is so obvious now that, in one
(00:26):
of the most remarkable, unexpected, startling, counterintuitive pieces of polling data,
I have ever seen, the future of democracy, the future
of the nation, the future of planetary climate may depend
on convincing as many voters as possible. As unbelievable as
(00:46):
this sounds, it may all depend on convincing as many
voters as possible, not that Joe Biden isn't too old,
but convincing as many voters as possible that Biden and
Trump are both too old. In other words, the Biden
campaign slogan should literally be my old man can beat
(01:11):
up your old man. Because, buried in the New York
Times article the first one there to acknowledge that Trump's
cheese whiz is actually rapidly and alarmingly sliding off his
cracker and now down a flight of stairs, there is
polling that indicates that forty three percent of American voters
(01:32):
believe they are both too old. Yet those people who
believe they are both too old intend to vote for
Joe Biden in a landslide. I will give you the background,
including the fact that Trump has just shown he doesn't
(01:53):
know where he is nor when it is. Plus the
by itself startling realization that dementia j Trump's dementia is
now so obvious that even The Times has sat up
and taken notice. And I will explain how a proxy
court battle over what is likely to happen to Trump
when he really violates the newly reinstated chut Can gag
order has ended in in court violence and the immediate
(02:17):
jailing of the defendant, and how that is also terrible
news for Trump. But first, this mind blowing polling. It
is in paragraph fourteen, in a watershed moment in the
Times herculean eight year effort to maintain the both sides,
This nonsense that Trump's brain isn't defective, that false narrative
(02:42):
has apparently actually lost in some kind of mono amano
combat inside the Times newsroom against its both sides, this
decree that if it writes about Biden in age and
mental alacrity, the Times of damn well better rite about Trump's.
And that's when the Times found out that the Associated
(03:02):
Press conducted a national poll in August but did not
report this result, and The Times piece is apparently the
first time this poll has seen the light of day.
How many American voters feel both Biden and Trump are
quote too old to effectively serve another four year term
as president. According to this August AP poll, forty three percent.
(03:27):
And what are they going to do about that? Among
this huge swath of the voting public that thinks they
are both too old, sixty one percent said they planned
to vote for Biden. Thirteen percent said they planned to
vote for Trump. I hate the cliche, let that sink in,
but for God's sake, let that sink in sixty one
(03:49):
to thirteen. Biden leads Trump sixty one to thirteen among
those who think they are both too old. Biden is
winning the too old vote. Biden is cleaning Trump's stopped
claw in the too old vote. Biden's age is not
only not a negative, it is in the context of
(04:11):
people who think they are both too old and absolute
unmistakable asset. It could be the decisive issue in the election.
The more people who believe both Biden and Trump are
too old, the likelier a Biden win. The closer it
gets to fifty percent, sixty percent, one hundred percent, the
(04:32):
likelier a Biden landslide, because this is not the first
time this almost unbelievable conclusion has shown up in polling.
The Franklin and Marshall poll last week had Biden and
Trump tied in Pennsylvania. But the number of voters in
Pennsylvania who think they're both too old is the same
(04:54):
as the number in the AP national poll forty three percent.
And in Pennsylvania it's the same damn thing, only more so.
Sixty six percent of the both too old voters are
going Biden, eleven percent going Trump. The insight here the
advice the shaping of strategy, again counterintuitive though it might be,
(05:17):
It's not exactly complicated. If you can get the they
are both to old number in Pennsylvania, just in Pennsylvania,
to go from forty three percent to forty four percent,
you have just converted one percent of the vote. And
I know statistically it's not this simple, but this is
still somewhat valid. You have just converted one percent of
(05:42):
the vote from a fifty to fifty split two at
minimum sixty six thirty four Biden. Now bear with me
a little on the back of the envelope. Math here
the twenty twenty presidential vote total in Pennsylvania was six million,
nine hundred and fifteen, two hundred and eighty three votes.
One percent of that is sixty nine thousand, one hundred
(06:04):
and fifty three votes. Right now. There is some group
totally one percent of all Pennsylvanians that is going at
this point thirty four thousand, five hundred and seventy six
for Biden thirty four thousand, five hundred and seventy six
for Trump. If you can convince that one percent that
(06:25):
they're both too old, all of a sudden how they
will vote will change. They become instead a minimum of
forty five thousand, six hundred and forty for Biden and
a maximum twenty three thousand, five hundred and thirteen for Trump.
You just moved twenty two thousand votes from Trump to Biden.
(06:47):
If you could get the percentage of people in Pennsylvania
who believe they are both too old from forty three
percent to just forty eight percent, if you could grow
it by just that five percent, you would swing a
minimum of one hundred and ten thousand votes from Trump
to Biden. In twenty twenty, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by
(07:11):
eighty thousand votes. This is worth one hundred and ten thousand.
It is literally true that the reelection of the president
of the United States, and thus the preservation of American democracy,
and thus the continued criminal prosecution of Trump and his cult,
and thus the potential saving of the planet because the
(07:33):
critical climate decisions would be made not by a madman
like Trump but by Biden. All of that could rest
on simply convincing as little as five percent of American voters.
Not that Joe Biden is miraculously younger than he seems,
(07:56):
not that he's fit as a fiddle, not that eighty
one is the new sixty one, but simply that both
Biden and Trump are too The entire Biden age issue
is irrelevant. It's the Biden and Trump age issue, and
therefore the Trump age issue that is decisive, and that
(08:18):
target is moving rapidly for dementia j Trump, albeit off
a cliff because it is fair to ask if Trump
could still understand any of this, since in the last
forty eight hours he has literally not known where he
is nor what year this is. We begin in Sue City, Iowa.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Very big, hello to a place where we've done very well.
Sue Falls, Thank you very much, Sue Fallesome, thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Oh it's so Sue City. Did you hear it? Did
you hear the guy whispering you're in Sue City? He
could have told him he was in Sue Sue studio.
That's Trump not knowing where he is. This is him
(09:14):
not knowing when. It is twelve forty two am Eastern yesterday.
Why didn't they file the lawsuits and indictments against me
three years ago seven thirty two am Eastern yesterday, as
if he'd forgotten the one seven hours earlier? Why didn't
they start the indictment in court cases three parentheses three
years ago seven thirty nine am Eastern yesterday, as if
(09:35):
he'd forgotten the one he'd written seven minutes earlier, and
if they started the highly political indictments three years ago?
Three years ago was October thirty first, twenty twenty. It
was a Saturday. The nearest holiday was Halloween later that day.
The president was anybody remember who the president was? Three
(09:57):
years ago? Today? Trump? The election, which Trump could still
legitimate he claim he had not yet lost, was three
days away. The inauguration was eighty two days away. And
Trump either does not know when all that was, or
he does not know when today is, or he can
(10:21):
no longer handle big math problems like two twenty three
minus three equals what Donald or all of the above,
and this finally is no longer just wishful thinking on
(10:41):
our part. Whatever threshold the Sioux City mess crossed, it
opened the spigot at The New York Times quote it
was strikingly similar to a fictional scene that mister Trump
acted out earlier this month, pretending to be mister Biden,
mistaking Iowa for Idaho and needing an aid to straighten
(11:03):
him out. Yeah, except this one actually happened. The Times
then went on to empty its Trump gaff file. It
has actually cited Trump telling his voters not to bother
to vote, and Trump twice claiming he won election over Obama,
and Trump praising Hesballah and Trump slamming Israel, and Trump
(11:25):
saying we were on the verge of World War II,
and Trump claiming he was leading Obama in the twenty
twenty four polls, and Trump not only praising Hungarian dictator
Orbon but claiming he was Turkish dictator Orbon, and all
the times Trump's called humas hummus. Times left out the
(11:45):
speech in which Trump forgot why FDR gave his speeches
sitting down, and when he concluded he was the first
person to realize that the letters you and S could
spell us or us. But the Times put pretty much
everything else in there. And I read it, and for
(12:06):
a second I felt like crying and saying I reported
all that too. I thought I was alone. I'm not alone.
In a little too late gesture, The Times also let
his gradually vanishing Republican rivals have shots at the gaff
pinata into which Trump is rapidly transforming. It quoted DeSantis,
(12:29):
It quoted Nicky Haley. Let me remind you, with all
due respect, I don't get confused. Having met her, I
would not put money on that, but you get the point. So, now,
what to do with this momentum towards the realization that
Trump is falling apart faster than a three four, one
hundred and twenty nine dollars suit, relief that you not
(12:52):
only don't have to try to bury the fact that
Joe Biden does turn eighty one three weeks from yesterday,
and the discovery that this entire issue is yours, not theirs,
and then the the cake or the whipped cream on
the jello. There already is somebody out there on the
(13:14):
campaign trail emphasizing the point that Trump is rapidly unraveling,
somebody already trying to drive home what is now the
message Democracy craves, the message that they are both too old.
(13:34):
The messenger of this gospel is this guy. Colleges and
universities will purge the anti Semitism and pro terroritism. What
you're doing the terrorism, you know, now that I think
of it. My old man can beat up your old
(13:55):
man is the absolute goddamned best campaign slogan Joe Biden
could ever have this year. And you ought to grab
it and run with it. And if you know anybody
in the White House, or on the campaign or in
the hierarchy of the Democratic Party, you ought to call
(14:16):
or email them about this polling and about my old
man can beat up your old man today, cause frankly,
I'm not getting any younger over here. Back to Trump,
(14:36):
and with Tanya Chutkins, gag order reinstated the possibility that
when dementia Jay blatantly violates it, the judge will actually
put him in jail. What the impeccable Scott McFarland, CBS
News aptly describes as a proxy battle on the gag
order itself has now played out before Judge Paul Friedman
of the US District Court in DC, and they evidently
(14:57):
came this close to having to use a taser on
the guy who in the analogy is standing in for Trump.
Former Galladet University student Vitally gosh Zankowski had been found
guilty on several counts of assaulting police officers during the
January sixth coup attempt, and even using a taser or
(15:19):
similar electrical device on those officers. He was out on
bail while he awaited sentencing, and then two weeks ago
this guy began to start sending threatening and anti semitic
text messages with racist chasers, and just to push it
to eleven, a series of doxing threats to the cell
(15:40):
phone of one of the FBI men involved in his prosecution,
something approaching a dozen of these really horrific and I
might add horrifically written texts. Judge Friedman called Gostzankowski's texts
extremely troubling and dangerous, and in the first direct link
to what Trump could face. The judge added that rarely
(16:03):
is it quote people in public life themselves who pose
the threats to agents or prosecutors or judges, but quote
their followers. He then ordered Goshzankowski to jail, and Goshchenkowski,
who has profound hearing loss, began in response to emit
guttural moaning noises, and when a court officer went to
(16:27):
cuff him and lead him away, Goshchenkowski managed to push
the officer around, knock over a computer, topple a table. Eventually,
at least four other officers came in to subdue him.
A crowd finally got him under control, and it is
unclear if he will face additional charges for what he
did in the courtroom. Now, it would seem unlikely that
(16:49):
Trump would go public with the kind of anti Semitic
and racist terms mixed with threats of rape that this
scumbagg follower did. Also, if there's an altercation in court,
I don't know that it's going to take four people
to subdue Trump. However, as noted above, he is deteriorating,
(17:10):
and though in the immediate wake of the reinstatement of
the gag order, at dinnertime Sunday, he seemed to reel
his madness back in Briefly, it did not last long.
Yesterday morning, he called Judge Chutkin a true Trump hater,
incapable of giving me a fair trial, and quote diagnosed
with a major and incurable case of something that Trump
calls Trump derangement syndrome. A quick additional note to the
(17:37):
Biden campaign, I think he can do something with this phrase,
Trump derangement syndrome, like Trump is deranged syndrome. Trump, of
course added a stochastic PostScript, as he always does, quote
this will not stand. And Trump also threatened President Biden
about prosecution, quote you're setting a bad precedent for yourself, Joe,
(17:59):
the same can happen to you, and called the President
my sleezebag opponent. Saturday night, Trump had attacked another likely
witness in the case, former Attorney General Barr, although the
gag order was not in effect at that moment. It
seems unbelievable that Trump could restrain himself from repeating those taunts,
or the ones against Mark Meadows, although this might provide
(18:22):
less fodder for jailing Trump than for boosting the They're
both too old number. The New York Post quoted Bars
saying that Trump's quote verbal skills are very limited, and
Trump promptly retorted since the New York Post went bad
on Trump, their numbers have fallen, and of course Trump
misspelled there. Truly, a sea of troubles is also rising
(18:47):
around Trump. Judge Chutkin will also have to decide now
in a long shot suit by several media outlets to
televise the elections subversion trial, the solicitation of opinions from
each side in this case is itself a procrustian bed
for Trump, his ego could not find possibly let him
absolutely oppose the prospect of being shown on all channels
(19:10):
all the time for weeks in the middle of the
campaign for free, especially while he is being persecuted and
martyred and whatever else he has convinced himself is really happening.
On the other hand, even Trump or somebody close enough
(19:31):
to put a symbolic gag order around him, we'll be
able to recognize that there is one fatal flaw in
pushing for a new TV crossover between The Apprentice and
America's most wanted The flaw is Trump would not control
the cameras. The Fourteenth Amendment disqualification trial is underway in Denver.
(19:55):
Day one was mostly preamble. The plaintiffs presented Congressman Eric Swalwell,
who was there and an officer injured on January sixth,
and not just video from the coup, but Trump's own words.
Trump's attorneys apparently decided that the best defense is a
good mockery. Quote. I don't even know where to begin
on this one, said Trump attorney Scott Gessler. How do
(20:18):
we cross examine any of this evidence that contains speculation
and opinion? This characterizes or exemplifies the very worst aspects
of the January sixth commission. The Guardian reports from the
Fannie Willis trial in Atlanta that while Jenna Ellis and
Sidney Powell and Kenny the Cheese got plea deals, and
as many as seven more co defendants, including Michael Roman,
(20:39):
may have been offered them, Mark Meadows, John Eastman Rudy
Giuliani have not been offered plea deals. On Capitol Hill,
everything's going great in the dirtying up of Joe Biden.
Chairman Jamie Flobe, comer of the House Subcommittee on Obstructing Justice,
is so happy with how his impeachment of Biden is going.
(21:01):
That quote, I don't know that I want to hold
any hearings, to be honest with you, Good call, FATS.
A twenty sixteen SoundBite from a then obscure congressman resurfaced
last night a Shreveport radio host. He cried that quote,
we have two morally bankrupt people, one of whom will
(21:21):
be our next president, to which the guest agreed, quote,
we do. The congressman who confirmed that Donald Trump was
morally bankrupt is now Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Surprise.
And lastly, and I think tying all this together is
(21:42):
the reality that from here on in Trump will have
to deal with one uncontrollable factor, one unceasing Biden asset,
Trump's own worst campaign enemy. Trump just as Rolling Stone
was reporting that Trump has insisted to his advisors that
(22:04):
if he again sees his power, he will fulfill his
promise of seven and eight years ago to pull this
country out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to ineffect
kill NATO, Trump was speaking in Iowa, and in between
getting proper names wrong and geography wrong, he was reminding
(22:25):
us that whether paid or planted, we're just a volunteer.
He is a Russian agent. And remember the head of
a country stood up said, does that mean that of
Russia attacks my country, you will not be there? That's right,
That's what it means. I will not protect you. I'm
telling you, Biden Harris twenty twenty four, my old man
(22:47):
can beat up your old man. Also of interest here,
why are advertisements for the National Football League Philadelphia Eagles
appearing alongside videos of lunatic Stu Peters who have just
insisted that everybody from Catholic charities should be shot? And
(23:11):
speaking of spots, who told you that the World Series
was not going to draw ten million TV viewers?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
That's next? This discountdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman.
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
(23:48):
is countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Alberman in sports. Despite a baseball tradition as old as
time itself, ace pitcher Max Scherzer leaving early because part
of him stiffened up or got sore or fell off
or something. The Texas Rangers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks three
to one last night to go up two to one
in the twenty twenty three World Series. Corey Seegers two
(24:13):
run homer key to three run Texas third and after
Scherzer's back tightness, the Texas bullpen pitched six innings of
four hit ball. The Rangers have now won eight straight
road games, which is a very impressive streak, but which
also makes for really dispiriting ball games because obviously the
crowds are silenced early. This is all likely to be
(24:36):
news to you right now, because despite my dire predictions
about the TV audience and how it would not respond
to how Baseball had reduced the World Series from a
bitter grudge match between the champions of two rival leagues
that had hated each other since nineteen oh one, had
they taken that and reduced it to the end of
a byzantine playoff structure that manages to eliminate ten of
(25:01):
the best eleven teams in the sport, now pitting the
Texas Rangers with the seventh best record during the regular
season against the Arizona Diamondbacks with the twelfth best regular
season record, and still calling it the World Series. For
some reason, Even with that, I was overly optimistic about
(25:23):
how well it would do on the tube. The twenty
twenty three World Series has turned out to have the
least watched first game in history, just nine million, one
hundred and seventy two thousand viewers a rating of four
point six. The Spanish broadcast only got an additional one
(25:43):
hundred and eighty two thousand viewers, and Friday's game was
genuinely terrific and gripping and entertaining and back and forth
and dramatic, and even if the teams aren't really the
champions of anything, the third game last night was up
against Monday Night Football, so there's no hope of a
great rating there. The only hope for this being the
(26:04):
first World Series to not average fewer than ten million
viewers per game is for the series to go six
or seven games, and for that to happen that means
breaking that Texas eight game road winning streak in Phoenix
tonight or tomorrow. Thank you, Nancy Faust. If baseball feels
(26:43):
like somebody's watching it, it's pure paranoia, and in a
sad irony of timing, the first superstar in the history
of those Texas Rangers died yesterday. In an age of
lots of players six foot five or taller, it is
hard to imagine just how big Frank Howard seemed as
he roamed the outfield for the Dodgers and the Senators,
(27:04):
the Rangers and the Tigers in the sixties and the seventies.
Maybe the best image you want is one that I
always see in my mind about him. It was in
the year nineteen eighty three when he was a coach
and then the manager of the New York Mets, and
he used to frequently talk to on the field standing
alongside his fellow coach, Jim Fry. Frank Howard was six
(27:27):
foot seven inches and at least two hundred and fifty
five pounds. Jim Fry was five foot nine, maybe at
about one hundred and seventy pounds, and in those days,
Jim Fry was closer to average human size, as nice
and even as silly as he was towering. Frank Howard
(27:47):
hit three hundred and eighty two career home runs, eighty
of them in the two years of the Pitcher in
nineteen sixty seven and nineteen sixty eight before they lowered
the mound, and he had one hundred and sixteen home
runs in seven seasons at RFK Stadium in Washington, a
place where, particularly in the sixties, nobody hit home runs.
(28:09):
A basketball star at Ohio State before he went into baseball.
Frank Howard was eighty seven years old, still ahead on
(28:37):
countdown before we close out October. October is the birthday
month of one of my favorite people who ever lived.
I met him only once, but that one time was
so profound, so memorable, that when he died I shocked
myself by bursting into tears. His story ahead in things
I promised not to tell first time for the daily
(29:00):
roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects
specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world worse.
Boris Johnson, the first fascist since Oswald Moseley to get
a real foothold in British politics. The one time journalist,
one time Mayor of London, one time Prime Minister of
(29:20):
the UK, one time lame duck Prime Minister of the
UK after they voted him out of office, has a
new job anchor and commentator for Britain's gb News, which
is like their version of Fox, only the nineteen ninety
six ninety seven Fox where they were still pretending to
be news, and they were pretending they were not trying
(29:40):
to destroy their country by sewing division and racism and homophobia.
So why is Boris Johnson, famously known for a quoff
that looks like he did it with a leaf blower,
lowering himself to returning to the media. I mean it's
like George W. Bush reading sports scores on Fox Sports
one or something. Well, the answer is obvious. GB News
(30:05):
has its own full time hair stylist worser. South Carolina
Senator Tim Scott. Did you know he's running for the
Republican nomination for president? It's true. Tim went on the
Hugh Hewitt radio show. Hugh Hewitt, you know the man
whose family was too poor to afford three different syllables,
(30:28):
and Scott said, never mind the polls showing him in
fourth place. Quote, we have made the decision that it's
Iowa or Bust for us, and I'm looking forward to
being there. So, to paraphrase the sketch by Stephen Frye
and Hugh Laurie, Bust, double bust, and an extra pint
(30:50):
of bust for the weekend. Also, Tim Scott, he comes
from a town full of secrets and worst the Philadelphia
Eagles and the National Football along with Elon Musk and
Twitter X and the lunatic fascist commentator Stu Peters. You
(31:11):
know Stu pete Ers Stu pete Ers, whose only possible
excuse for his commentary on Rumble and Online would be tumors.
At a live event Saturday, Peter said that the outfit
Catholic Charities helps to quote coach illegals on how to
get admitted here. He went on to say, we need
(31:32):
troops on the border that will shoot people that are
trying to invade our country. That'd be a good first step,
but you know what a better second step would be
shooting everyone involved with these fake charities unquote. So this
psychotic Stu Peters is calling for the mass murder of
(31:52):
people who work for Catholic charities. Well, what's that got
to do with the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL. Well,
the watchdog group Media Matters reports that Musks twitter x,
which gave Peters a blue check mark. Again, that's Peters
who's advocating murdering Catholic Charities workers shooting them. A couple
(32:17):
of days after a mass shooting, and next to one
of his posts in which Stut Peters calls for violence
on video, Elon Musk has placed an ad for the
Philadelphia Eagles and the National Football League. The team and
the league has so far done nothing about that juxtaposition,
and it easily can stop advertising with Elon effing Musk
(32:43):
break him so until the Eagles disassociate themselves from Stu
Peters and twitter x and Elon Musk, it's Stu Peters
calling for murdering Catholic Charities workers sponsored by your Philadelphia Eagles.
Two days worst Parsons in the world. Finally, the number
(33:21):
one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic me
and things for my career and my life. And it
is to me amazing, even after all this time, that
you could meet somebody just once in your life, but
years later be moved to tears upon learning of their death.
Then again, the man in question was named Walter Mathowl,
and if he was not the most popular American comedic
(33:44):
actor of the last half of the twentieth century, he
was close to it. And maybe more importantly, he was
the most skilled, minimal touch American actor of the last
half of the twentieth century. In other words, he was
the man who, on stage or on cameras, seemed to
be doing the least amount of actual acting while still
keeping you utterly convinced that the guy you saw in
(34:04):
this Green, was not Walter Mathow, but was Oscar Madison,
and was not Walter Mathow but was Max Goldman, and
was not Walter Mathow but was Willie Gingrich and was
not Walter Mathow but was mel Miller. Even though mel
Miller had a Southern accent, smoked a pipe, had horn
rim glasses, and supposedly went to Vanderbilt. We all knew
(34:24):
Walter Mathow. It felt like we knew him personally, because
he managed a miracle. Every time he performed, it was
all him up there, and yet at the same time
it was not him at all anyway. October first was
his birthday, which is what brought this extraordinary man to
the front of my mind again. I will get to
my meeting with him first. Walter Mathow's best friends as
(34:47):
an adult were his partner in half a dozen films,
Jack Lemon, and my dear friend Norman Lloyd, the one
man history of Hollywood, who he lost in twenty twenty
one at the age of one hundred and six. Norman
loved Walter, and Norman loved talking about Walter, and there
was an amazing amount of things to talk about about Walter.
Norman told me that on the last of the Grumpy
(35:08):
Old Men movies that he and Lemon made together. I
think it was called Grumpy Old Men. Were doing this
for the money. Mathow wanted to wrap up one day
of shooting quickly. He was scheduled to film a scene
and a water slide made up to look like a
sewer through which his character was escaping. As the lunch
break was called, he said to Lemon, come on, Jack,
let's go rehearse the water slide thing. This way. We
(35:30):
can do it in one take. Get the hell out
of here anyway. Don't you have to wait an hour
after eating before you can shoot through a sewer. They
went to the sewer water slide set. Walter Mathow grabbed
the raft he was supposed to ride, and he jumped in.
As he went through it, he studied all the corners
and where the cameras would be, so he knew where
to make his faces, and seconds later he was shooting
(35:52):
out the far end of the water slide onto the
giant inflatable twelve foot square air mattress placed there to
break his fall. Or he would have been doing that,
except it was lunch and the teamsters had deflated the
mattress and moved it away because the set was on
lunch break. So Walter Mathow, then seventy three years old,
came flying out of the water slide onto the pavement.
(36:15):
He broke his collar bone, which is just about as
painful a thing as you can break. No, Walter Mathow screamed.
Jack Lemon raced over to him, Walter, Walter, are you
all right? No, I'm not, Jack? Call nine one one
ow ow Lemon panicked. Can I help you, Walter? Can I?
Can I get you something? Walter? Yes, Jack, get me
(36:35):
nine one one ow oh. Lemon continued to panic but
till they come. Are you okay, Walter? Are you comfortable?
Walter Mathow was in sheer agony, but he realized through
the fog of pain that one of the oldest jokes
in show business was actually happening to him. Finally, in
(36:56):
real life, Am I comfortable? I make a nice living?
Jack ow? Oh. My friend Norman Lloyd used to go
hiking with Walter Mathou in the Hollywood Hills, and he
told me that one day Walter was unusually quiet. The
two had gone a mile or so, and Mathou suddenly
stopped and grabbed Norman by the arm. Normy, did you
(37:19):
know at the end Beethoven was so deaf he thought
he was painting. Norman smiled, snorted, and started to say
that it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. But
halfway through Norman's sentence, Mathow had already turned away from
him and was back walking again. Another mile passed in silence,
and now Mathou slowed down and faced his friend Normany,
(37:40):
this is important. I have something to tell you, Norman said.
His heart skipped. He thought there was something wrong. What
is it, Walter? Did you know at the end Beethoven
was so deaf he thought he was painting? Now, Norman
just shook his head. As they completed their five mile
hike through the hills, Mathou stopped roughly once every mile
and repeated the same line, did you know at the
(38:02):
end Beethoven was so deaf he thought he was painting?
Norman told me it totally unnerved me. When we got
back to where we parked our cars, I felt like
I had to avenge myself somehow, so I bleted out
to him, Walt, did you know at the end Beethoven
was so deaf he thought he was painting? Norman said,
Mathow looked at him, screwing his great craggy face into
(38:25):
a resentful sneer as he did, what the hell are
you talking about? Thought he was painting. That's the dumbest
thing I ever heard, as I said. I met Walter
Mathow once when I was a local sportscaster in Los Angeles.
I was invited to host a charity event at the
Hollywood Park racetrack. I ordinarily did not do these things
(38:47):
because to do them I would have to take the
day off. But when the organizer said, oh, and Walter
Mathow will be there, I just asked for directions. First
time I had ever imagined what it was like to
be a sports writer or to be a sports broadcaster.
It was when I was nine years old and I
saw Walter Mathow portray Oscar Madison in the movie The
(39:09):
Odd Couple. It was exactly what I wanted to be
and where I wanted to live and how I wanted
to eat. And I wanted to get a chance to
tell him that. So at the charity dinner, I screwed
up my courage, I introduced myself. I told him all
that and he replied, I hate you. I was so
(39:29):
crushed I almost passed out, and clearly Walter Mathow recognized this. No, no, no,
I don't hate your work. I watch you every night
on Channel two Action News, you and Jim Lampley and
Breed Lampley and Jim Lampley. But I hate the fact
that you don't have an accent of any kind. Where
are you raised? Iowa? I did not know where this
(39:51):
conversation was going. I said, I was from the Bronx originally,
Is that right? I'm from Brooklyn? Could you tell the
hell kind of speech teacher? Did you have? You sound like?
Iowa explained, My father had said that if I wanted
to go into broad casting, I could not talk quote
like the rest of us. Walter looked away from me
and then back, and he said, very wise words. Your
(40:11):
father was a speech teacher. No, I said, architect. His
eyes flared, How in the hell does that work? I
started to explain when it suddenly dawned on me that
we were discussing this only because he said he hated
the fact that I did not have an accent. I
asked him why, no accent means I can't do an
(40:34):
impression of you? Well? This caused me to pause impressions.
This is nineteen ninety one. In nineteen ninety one, Walter
Mathow was one of the top five most impersonated voices
in America. Anybody who did impressions, good or bad, professional
(40:55):
or amateur, anybody did a Walter Mathow. You did your
Sammy Davis, your Howard Cosell, your Walter Mathow. Wait. I
said to him, you do impressions of sportscasters? Yes, he said, proudly.
Would you like to hear them? I said, I'll pay cash.
(41:16):
Don't normally do these, but seeing you are in the business,
I will just for you. I practiced these a lot.
By the way, twenty years later, Norman Lloyd confirmed for
me Mathout did do sportscaster impressions. He did practice them
a lot. This was not some sort of bit. Now.
Back in nineteen ninety one, Mathow cleared his throat, he
(41:38):
shook his shoulders. Let's start with the best, and it
sounds something like this, Hello, everybody, this is Vin Scully
at Dodger Stadium. What do you think? It sounded exactly
like Walter Mathow. Didn't sound like Vin Scully. It didn't
even sound like a bad impression of Vin Scully. It
(41:58):
didn't even sound like a bad impression of Walter Mathow.
It was just Walter Mathow talking. Thinking quickly, I said, uncanny,
mister Mathow, thank you. I work on Vinnie especially had
He's my favorite. Now the big mouth. Hello again, This
is Howard co Sell at ringside. How about that one?
I think I got most of the inflection. Goodness, mister Mathow.
(42:19):
It's like he's in the room with us. This went
on for many minutes. Kurt Goudie, Chick, hern Al Michaels,
several local LA radio announcers. I cursed myself for not
having brought a tape recorder with me. Walter Mathow did
impressions of sportscasters and they were all terrible, but he
(42:41):
said he couldn't do one of me because I had
no accent. I was complimented and crushed after a very
nice event, saluting his friend and neighbor in the front
row seats at the Laker Games, doctor Robert Curlin. We
called it an evening, and as everybody got up to leave,
I asked Walter Mathow to autograph my program from the
dinner my pleasure. He said, nice work tonight, but I
(43:04):
still don't get how your father the architect was also
a speech teacher, but never mind. In the program, he
wrote this, listen, Keith quit kidding around, No, don't, Walter Mathow.
It was lovely. And then he did something that took
my breath away, something I have tried to do anytime
(43:26):
circumstances permitted me to. He picked up his program, he
handed it to me, and he said, now you sign mine.
Can you believe that I only met him the one time,
but that gesture stayed with me to such a degree
(43:48):
that this happened nine years later. I woke up at
the crack of dawn to go host the baseball Game
of the Week at Fox Studios in LA It was
Saturday morning, July first, two thousand. It was nine years
and about two weeks after I met Walter Mathow, and
on the all news radio station, there was one big
(44:08):
story that morning in Los Angeles. Overnight the great actor
Walter Mathow had died heart attack, aged seventy nine. I
burst into tears. Since we're talking Walter Mathow and his impressions.
(44:38):
My impression of Walter Mathow my favorite line from the
movie The Odd Couple from the first day I saw it,
eight years old, and I started saying this in school?
You ready, Why doesn't he hear me? I know I'm talking.
I recognize my voice. Done all the damage I can
do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has come to
(44:59):
you from the Vin Scully Studios at the Old Women
Broadcasting Empire in New York work Vin and Walter Mathou
were good friends. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Schanale handled the orchestration and the keyboards. Mister Ray
was on guitars, bass and drums, and it was all
(45:21):
produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including other Beethoven tunes,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The
sports music is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It was written
by Mitch Warren Davis. We call it the Olberman theme
from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium morganist ever. My
(45:42):
announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else was
pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this the
oney twenty ninth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict
him now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news warrants. Till then, I'm
(46:03):
Keith Olderman, good more, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(46:28):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio Dementia.
Jay Trump's dementia is so obvious now that, in one
(00:26):
of the most remarkable, unexpected, startling, counterintuitive pieces of polling data,
I have ever seen, the future of democracy, the future
of the nation, the future of planetary climate may depend
on convincing as many voters as possible. As unbelievable as
(00:46):
this sounds, it may all depend on convincing as many
voters as possible, not that Joe Biden isn't too old,
but convincing as many voters as possible that Biden and
Trump are both too old. In other words, the Biden
campaign slogan should literally be my old man can beat
(01:11):
up your old man. Because, buried in the New York
Times article the first one there to acknowledge that Trump's
cheese whiz is actually rapidly and alarmingly sliding off his
cracker and now down a flight of stairs, there is
polling that indicates that forty three percent of American voters
(01:32):
believe they are both too old. Yet those people who
believe they are both too old intend to vote for
Joe Biden in a landslide. I will give you the background,
including the fact that Trump has just shown he doesn't
(01:53):
know where he is nor when it is. Plus the
by itself startling realization that dementia j Trump's dementia is
now so obvious that even The Times has sat up
and taken notice. And I will explain how a proxy
court battle over what is likely to happen to Trump
when he really violates the newly reinstated chut Can gag
order has ended in in court violence and the immediate
(02:17):
jailing of the defendant, and how that is also terrible
news for Trump. But first, this mind blowing polling. It
is in paragraph fourteen, in a watershed moment in the
Times herculean eight year effort to maintain the both sides,
This nonsense that Trump's brain isn't defective, that false narrative
(02:42):
has apparently actually lost in some kind of mono amano
combat inside the Times newsroom against its both sides, this
decree that if it writes about Biden in age and
mental alacrity, the Times of damn well better rite about Trump's.
And that's when the Times found out that the Associated
(03:02):
Press conducted a national poll in August but did not
report this result, and The Times piece is apparently the
first time this poll has seen the light of day.
How many American voters feel both Biden and Trump are
quote too old to effectively serve another four year term
as president. According to this August AP poll, forty three percent.
(03:27):
And what are they going to do about that? Among
this huge swath of the voting public that thinks they
are both too old, sixty one percent said they planned
to vote for Biden. Thirteen percent said they planned to
vote for Trump. I hate the cliche, let that sink in,
but for God's sake, let that sink in sixty one
(03:49):
to thirteen. Biden leads Trump sixty one to thirteen among
those who think they are both too old. Biden is
winning the too old vote. Biden is cleaning Trump's stopped
claw in the too old vote. Biden's age is not
only not a negative, it is in the context of
(04:11):
people who think they are both too old and absolute
unmistakable asset. It could be the decisive issue in the election.
The more people who believe both Biden and Trump are
too old, the likelier a Biden win. The closer it
gets to fifty percent, sixty percent, one hundred percent, the
(04:32):
likelier a Biden landslide, because this is not the first
time this almost unbelievable conclusion has shown up in polling.
The Franklin and Marshall poll last week had Biden and
Trump tied in Pennsylvania. But the number of voters in
Pennsylvania who think they're both too old is the same
(04:54):
as the number in the AP national poll forty three percent.
And in Pennsylvania it's the same damn thing, only more so.
Sixty six percent of the both too old voters are
going Biden, eleven percent going Trump. The insight here the
advice the shaping of strategy, again counterintuitive though it might be,
(05:17):
It's not exactly complicated. If you can get the they
are both to old number in Pennsylvania, just in Pennsylvania,
to go from forty three percent to forty four percent,
you have just converted one percent of the vote. And
I know statistically it's not this simple, but this is
still somewhat valid. You have just converted one percent of
(05:42):
the vote from a fifty to fifty split two at
minimum sixty six thirty four Biden. Now bear with me
a little on the back of the envelope. Math here
the twenty twenty presidential vote total in Pennsylvania was six million,
nine hundred and fifteen, two hundred and eighty three votes.
One percent of that is sixty nine thousand, one hundred
(06:04):
and fifty three votes. Right now. There is some group
totally one percent of all Pennsylvanians that is going at
this point thirty four thousand, five hundred and seventy six
for Biden thirty four thousand, five hundred and seventy six
for Trump. If you can convince that one percent that
(06:25):
they're both too old, all of a sudden how they
will vote will change. They become instead a minimum of
forty five thousand, six hundred and forty for Biden and
a maximum twenty three thousand, five hundred and thirteen for Trump.
You just moved twenty two thousand votes from Trump to Biden.
(06:47):
If you could get the percentage of people in Pennsylvania
who believe they are both too old from forty three
percent to just forty eight percent, if you could grow
it by just that five percent, you would swing a
minimum of one hundred and ten thousand votes from Trump
to Biden. In twenty twenty, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by
(07:11):
eighty thousand votes. This is worth one hundred and ten thousand.
It is literally true that the reelection of the president
of the United States, and thus the preservation of American democracy,
and thus the continued criminal prosecution of Trump and his cult,
and thus the potential saving of the planet because the
(07:33):
critical climate decisions would be made not by a madman
like Trump but by Biden. All of that could rest
on simply convincing as little as five percent of American voters.
Not that Joe Biden is miraculously younger than he seems,
(07:56):
not that he's fit as a fiddle, not that eighty
one is the new sixty one, but simply that both
Biden and Trump are too The entire Biden age issue
is irrelevant. It's the Biden and Trump age issue, and
therefore the Trump age issue that is decisive, and that
(08:18):
target is moving rapidly for dementia j Trump, albeit off
a cliff because it is fair to ask if Trump
could still understand any of this, since in the last
forty eight hours he has literally not known where he
is nor what year this is. We begin in Sue City, Iowa.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Very big, hello to a place where we've done very well.
Sue Falls, Thank you very much, Sue Fallesome, thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Oh it's so Sue City. Did you hear it? Did
you hear the guy whispering you're in Sue City? He
could have told him he was in Sue Sue studio.
That's Trump not knowing where he is. This is him
(09:14):
not knowing when. It is twelve forty two am Eastern yesterday.
Why didn't they file the lawsuits and indictments against me
three years ago seven thirty two am Eastern yesterday, as
if he'd forgotten the one seven hours earlier? Why didn't
they start the indictment in court cases three parentheses three
years ago seven thirty nine am Eastern yesterday, as if
(09:35):
he'd forgotten the one he'd written seven minutes earlier, and
if they started the highly political indictments three years ago?
Three years ago was October thirty first, twenty twenty. It
was a Saturday. The nearest holiday was Halloween later that day.
The president was anybody remember who the president was? Three
(09:57):
years ago? Today? Trump? The election, which Trump could still
legitimate he claim he had not yet lost, was three
days away. The inauguration was eighty two days away. And
Trump either does not know when all that was, or
he does not know when today is, or he can
(10:21):
no longer handle big math problems like two twenty three
minus three equals what Donald or all of the above,
and this finally is no longer just wishful thinking on
(10:41):
our part. Whatever threshold the Sioux City mess crossed, it
opened the spigot at The New York Times quote it
was strikingly similar to a fictional scene that mister Trump
acted out earlier this month, pretending to be mister Biden,
mistaking Iowa for Idaho and needing an aid to straighten
(11:03):
him out. Yeah, except this one actually happened. The Times
then went on to empty its Trump gaff file. It
has actually cited Trump telling his voters not to bother
to vote, and Trump twice claiming he won election over Obama,
and Trump praising Hesballah and Trump slamming Israel, and Trump
(11:25):
saying we were on the verge of World War II,
and Trump claiming he was leading Obama in the twenty
twenty four polls, and Trump not only praising Hungarian dictator
Orbon but claiming he was Turkish dictator Orbon, and all
the times Trump's called humas hummus. Times left out the
(11:45):
speech in which Trump forgot why FDR gave his speeches
sitting down, and when he concluded he was the first
person to realize that the letters you and S could
spell us or us. But the Times put pretty much
everything else in there. And I read it, and for
(12:06):
a second I felt like crying and saying I reported
all that too. I thought I was alone. I'm not alone.
In a little too late gesture, The Times also let
his gradually vanishing Republican rivals have shots at the gaff
pinata into which Trump is rapidly transforming. It quoted DeSantis,
(12:29):
It quoted Nicky Haley. Let me remind you, with all
due respect, I don't get confused. Having met her, I
would not put money on that, but you get the point. So, now,
what to do with this momentum towards the realization that
Trump is falling apart faster than a three four, one
hundred and twenty nine dollars suit, relief that you not
(12:52):
only don't have to try to bury the fact that
Joe Biden does turn eighty one three weeks from yesterday,
and the discovery that this entire issue is yours, not theirs,
and then the the cake or the whipped cream on
the jello. There already is somebody out there on the
(13:14):
campaign trail emphasizing the point that Trump is rapidly unraveling,
somebody already trying to drive home what is now the
message Democracy craves, the message that they are both too old.
(13:34):
The messenger of this gospel is this guy. Colleges and
universities will purge the anti Semitism and pro terroritism. What
you're doing the terrorism, you know, now that I think
of it. My old man can beat up your old
(13:55):
man is the absolute goddamned best campaign slogan Joe Biden
could ever have this year. And you ought to grab
it and run with it. And if you know anybody
in the White House, or on the campaign or in
the hierarchy of the Democratic Party, you ought to call
(14:16):
or email them about this polling and about my old
man can beat up your old man today, cause frankly,
I'm not getting any younger over here. Back to Trump,
(14:36):
and with Tanya Chutkins, gag order reinstated the possibility that
when dementia Jay blatantly violates it, the judge will actually
put him in jail. What the impeccable Scott McFarland, CBS
News aptly describes as a proxy battle on the gag
order itself has now played out before Judge Paul Friedman
of the US District Court in DC, and they evidently
(14:57):
came this close to having to use a taser on
the guy who in the analogy is standing in for Trump.
Former Galladet University student Vitally gosh Zankowski had been found
guilty on several counts of assaulting police officers during the
January sixth coup attempt, and even using a taser or
(15:19):
similar electrical device on those officers. He was out on
bail while he awaited sentencing, and then two weeks ago
this guy began to start sending threatening and anti semitic
text messages with racist chasers, and just to push it
to eleven, a series of doxing threats to the cell
(15:40):
phone of one of the FBI men involved in his prosecution,
something approaching a dozen of these really horrific and I
might add horrifically written texts. Judge Friedman called Gostzankowski's texts
extremely troubling and dangerous, and in the first direct link
to what Trump could face. The judge added that rarely
(16:03):
is it quote people in public life themselves who pose
the threats to agents or prosecutors or judges, but quote
their followers. He then ordered Goshzankowski to jail, and Goshchenkowski,
who has profound hearing loss, began in response to emit
guttural moaning noises, and when a court officer went to
(16:27):
cuff him and lead him away, Goshchenkowski managed to push
the officer around, knock over a computer, topple a table. Eventually,
at least four other officers came in to subdue him.
A crowd finally got him under control, and it is
unclear if he will face additional charges for what he
did in the courtroom. Now, it would seem unlikely that
(16:49):
Trump would go public with the kind of anti Semitic
and racist terms mixed with threats of rape that this
scumbagg follower did. Also, if there's an altercation in court,
I don't know that it's going to take four people
to subdue Trump. However, as noted above, he is deteriorating,
(17:10):
and though in the immediate wake of the reinstatement of
the gag order, at dinnertime Sunday, he seemed to reel
his madness back in Briefly, it did not last long.
Yesterday morning, he called Judge Chutkin a true Trump hater,
incapable of giving me a fair trial, and quote diagnosed
with a major and incurable case of something that Trump
calls Trump derangement syndrome. A quick additional note to the
(17:37):
Biden campaign, I think he can do something with this phrase,
Trump derangement syndrome, like Trump is deranged syndrome. Trump, of
course added a stochastic PostScript, as he always does, quote
this will not stand. And Trump also threatened President Biden
about prosecution, quote you're setting a bad precedent for yourself, Joe,
(17:59):
the same can happen to you, and called the President
my sleezebag opponent. Saturday night, Trump had attacked another likely
witness in the case, former Attorney General Barr, although the
gag order was not in effect at that moment. It
seems unbelievable that Trump could restrain himself from repeating those taunts,
or the ones against Mark Meadows, although this might provide
(18:22):
less fodder for jailing Trump than for boosting the They're
both too old number. The New York Post quoted Bars
saying that Trump's quote verbal skills are very limited, and
Trump promptly retorted since the New York Post went bad
on Trump, their numbers have fallen, and of course Trump
misspelled there. Truly, a sea of troubles is also rising
(18:47):
around Trump. Judge Chutkin will also have to decide now
in a long shot suit by several media outlets to
televise the elections subversion trial, the solicitation of opinions from
each side in this case is itself a procrustian bed
for Trump, his ego could not find possibly let him
absolutely oppose the prospect of being shown on all channels
(19:10):
all the time for weeks in the middle of the
campaign for free, especially while he is being persecuted and
martyred and whatever else he has convinced himself is really happening.
On the other hand, even Trump or somebody close enough
(19:31):
to put a symbolic gag order around him, we'll be
able to recognize that there is one fatal flaw in
pushing for a new TV crossover between The Apprentice and
America's most wanted The flaw is Trump would not control
the cameras. The Fourteenth Amendment disqualification trial is underway in Denver.
(19:55):
Day one was mostly preamble. The plaintiffs presented Congressman Eric Swalwell,
who was there and an officer injured on January sixth,
and not just video from the coup, but Trump's own words.
Trump's attorneys apparently decided that the best defense is a
good mockery. Quote. I don't even know where to begin
on this one, said Trump attorney Scott Gessler. How do
(20:18):
we cross examine any of this evidence that contains speculation
and opinion? This characterizes or exemplifies the very worst aspects
of the January sixth commission. The Guardian reports from the
Fannie Willis trial in Atlanta that while Jenna Ellis and
Sidney Powell and Kenny the Cheese got plea deals, and
as many as seven more co defendants, including Michael Roman,
(20:39):
may have been offered them, Mark Meadows, John Eastman Rudy
Giuliani have not been offered plea deals. On Capitol Hill,
everything's going great in the dirtying up of Joe Biden.
Chairman Jamie Flobe, comer of the House Subcommittee on Obstructing Justice,
is so happy with how his impeachment of Biden is going.
(21:01):
That quote, I don't know that I want to hold
any hearings, to be honest with you, Good call, FATS.
A twenty sixteen SoundBite from a then obscure congressman resurfaced
last night a Shreveport radio host. He cried that quote,
we have two morally bankrupt people, one of whom will
(21:21):
be our next president, to which the guest agreed, quote,
we do. The congressman who confirmed that Donald Trump was
morally bankrupt is now Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Surprise.
And lastly, and I think tying all this together is
(21:42):
the reality that from here on in Trump will have
to deal with one uncontrollable factor, one unceasing Biden asset,
Trump's own worst campaign enemy. Trump just as Rolling Stone
was reporting that Trump has insisted to his advisors that
(22:04):
if he again sees his power, he will fulfill his
promise of seven and eight years ago to pull this
country out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to ineffect
kill NATO, Trump was speaking in Iowa, and in between
getting proper names wrong and geography wrong, he was reminding
(22:25):
us that whether paid or planted, we're just a volunteer.
He is a Russian agent. And remember the head of
a country stood up said, does that mean that of
Russia attacks my country, you will not be there? That's right,
That's what it means. I will not protect you. I'm
telling you, Biden Harris twenty twenty four, my old man
(22:47):
can beat up your old man. Also of interest here,
why are advertisements for the National Football League Philadelphia Eagles
appearing alongside videos of lunatic Stu Peters who have just
insisted that everybody from Catholic charities should be shot? And
(23:11):
speaking of spots, who told you that the World Series
was not going to draw ten million TV viewers?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
That's next? This discountdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman.
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
(23:48):
is countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Alberman in sports. Despite a baseball tradition as old as
time itself, ace pitcher Max Scherzer leaving early because part
of him stiffened up or got sore or fell off
or something. The Texas Rangers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks three
to one last night to go up two to one
in the twenty twenty three World Series. Corey Seegers two
(24:13):
run homer key to three run Texas third and after
Scherzer's back tightness, the Texas bullpen pitched six innings of
four hit ball. The Rangers have now won eight straight
road games, which is a very impressive streak, but which
also makes for really dispiriting ball games because obviously the
crowds are silenced early. This is all likely to be
(24:36):
news to you right now, because despite my dire predictions
about the TV audience and how it would not respond
to how Baseball had reduced the World Series from a
bitter grudge match between the champions of two rival leagues
that had hated each other since nineteen oh one, had
they taken that and reduced it to the end of
a byzantine playoff structure that manages to eliminate ten of
(25:01):
the best eleven teams in the sport, now pitting the
Texas Rangers with the seventh best record during the regular
season against the Arizona Diamondbacks with the twelfth best regular
season record, and still calling it the World Series. For
some reason, Even with that, I was overly optimistic about
(25:23):
how well it would do on the tube. The twenty
twenty three World Series has turned out to have the
least watched first game in history, just nine million, one
hundred and seventy two thousand viewers a rating of four
point six. The Spanish broadcast only got an additional one
(25:43):
hundred and eighty two thousand viewers, and Friday's game was
genuinely terrific and gripping and entertaining and back and forth
and dramatic, and even if the teams aren't really the
champions of anything, the third game last night was up
against Monday Night Football, so there's no hope of a
great rating there. The only hope for this being the
(26:04):
first World Series to not average fewer than ten million
viewers per game is for the series to go six
or seven games, and for that to happen that means
breaking that Texas eight game road winning streak in Phoenix
tonight or tomorrow. Thank you, Nancy Faust. If baseball feels
(26:43):
like somebody's watching it, it's pure paranoia, and in a
sad irony of timing, the first superstar in the history
of those Texas Rangers died yesterday. In an age of
lots of players six foot five or taller, it is
hard to imagine just how big Frank Howard seemed as
he roamed the outfield for the Dodgers and the Senators,
(27:04):
the Rangers and the Tigers in the sixties and the seventies.
Maybe the best image you want is one that I
always see in my mind about him. It was in
the year nineteen eighty three when he was a coach
and then the manager of the New York Mets, and
he used to frequently talk to on the field standing
alongside his fellow coach, Jim Fry. Frank Howard was six
(27:27):
foot seven inches and at least two hundred and fifty
five pounds. Jim Fry was five foot nine, maybe at
about one hundred and seventy pounds, and in those days,
Jim Fry was closer to average human size, as nice
and even as silly as he was towering. Frank Howard
(27:47):
hit three hundred and eighty two career home runs, eighty
of them in the two years of the Pitcher in
nineteen sixty seven and nineteen sixty eight before they lowered
the mound, and he had one hundred and sixteen home
runs in seven seasons at RFK Stadium in Washington, a
place where, particularly in the sixties, nobody hit home runs.
(28:09):
A basketball star at Ohio State before he went into baseball.
Frank Howard was eighty seven years old, still ahead on
(28:37):
countdown before we close out October. October is the birthday
month of one of my favorite people who ever lived.
I met him only once, but that one time was
so profound, so memorable, that when he died I shocked
myself by bursting into tears. His story ahead in things
I promised not to tell first time for the daily
(29:00):
roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects
specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world worse.
Boris Johnson, the first fascist since Oswald Moseley to get
a real foothold in British politics. The one time journalist,
one time Mayor of London, one time Prime Minister of
(29:20):
the UK, one time lame duck Prime Minister of the
UK after they voted him out of office, has a
new job anchor and commentator for Britain's gb News, which
is like their version of Fox, only the nineteen ninety
six ninety seven Fox where they were still pretending to
be news, and they were pretending they were not trying
(29:40):
to destroy their country by sewing division and racism and homophobia.
So why is Boris Johnson, famously known for a quoff
that looks like he did it with a leaf blower,
lowering himself to returning to the media. I mean it's
like George W. Bush reading sports scores on Fox Sports
one or something. Well, the answer is obvious. GB News
(30:05):
has its own full time hair stylist worser. South Carolina
Senator Tim Scott. Did you know he's running for the
Republican nomination for president? It's true. Tim went on the
Hugh Hewitt radio show. Hugh Hewitt, you know the man
whose family was too poor to afford three different syllables,
(30:28):
and Scott said, never mind the polls showing him in
fourth place. Quote, we have made the decision that it's
Iowa or Bust for us, and I'm looking forward to
being there. So, to paraphrase the sketch by Stephen Frye
and Hugh Laurie, Bust, double bust, and an extra pint
(30:50):
of bust for the weekend. Also, Tim Scott, he comes
from a town full of secrets and worst the Philadelphia
Eagles and the National Football along with Elon Musk and
Twitter X and the lunatic fascist commentator Stu Peters. You
(31:11):
know Stu pete Ers Stu pete Ers, whose only possible
excuse for his commentary on Rumble and Online would be tumors.
At a live event Saturday, Peter said that the outfit
Catholic Charities helps to quote coach illegals on how to
get admitted here. He went on to say, we need
(31:32):
troops on the border that will shoot people that are
trying to invade our country. That'd be a good first step,
but you know what a better second step would be
shooting everyone involved with these fake charities unquote. So this
psychotic Stu Peters is calling for the mass murder of
(31:52):
people who work for Catholic charities. Well, what's that got
to do with the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL. Well,
the watchdog group Media Matters reports that Musks twitter x,
which gave Peters a blue check mark. Again, that's Peters
who's advocating murdering Catholic Charities workers shooting them. A couple
(32:17):
of days after a mass shooting, and next to one
of his posts in which Stut Peters calls for violence
on video, Elon Musk has placed an ad for the
Philadelphia Eagles and the National Football League. The team and
the league has so far done nothing about that juxtaposition,
and it easily can stop advertising with Elon effing Musk
(32:43):
break him so until the Eagles disassociate themselves from Stu
Peters and twitter x and Elon Musk, it's Stu Peters
calling for murdering Catholic Charities workers sponsored by your Philadelphia Eagles.
Two days worst Parsons in the world. Finally, the number
(33:21):
one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic me
and things for my career and my life. And it
is to me amazing, even after all this time, that
you could meet somebody just once in your life, but
years later be moved to tears upon learning of their death.
Then again, the man in question was named Walter Mathowl,
and if he was not the most popular American comedic
(33:44):
actor of the last half of the twentieth century, he
was close to it. And maybe more importantly, he was
the most skilled, minimal touch American actor of the last
half of the twentieth century. In other words, he was
the man who, on stage or on cameras, seemed to
be doing the least amount of actual acting while still
keeping you utterly convinced that the guy you saw in
(34:04):
this Green, was not Walter Mathow, but was Oscar Madison,
and was not Walter Mathow but was Max Goldman, and
was not Walter Mathow but was Willie Gingrich and was
not Walter Mathow but was mel Miller. Even though mel
Miller had a Southern accent, smoked a pipe, had horn
rim glasses, and supposedly went to Vanderbilt. We all knew
(34:24):
Walter Mathow. It felt like we knew him personally, because
he managed a miracle. Every time he performed, it was
all him up there, and yet at the same time
it was not him at all anyway. October first was
his birthday, which is what brought this extraordinary man to
the front of my mind again. I will get to
my meeting with him first. Walter Mathow's best friends as
(34:47):
an adult were his partner in half a dozen films,
Jack Lemon, and my dear friend Norman Lloyd, the one
man history of Hollywood, who he lost in twenty twenty
one at the age of one hundred and six. Norman
loved Walter, and Norman loved talking about Walter, and there
was an amazing amount of things to talk about about Walter.
Norman told me that on the last of the Grumpy
(35:08):
Old Men movies that he and Lemon made together. I
think it was called Grumpy Old Men. Were doing this
for the money. Mathow wanted to wrap up one day
of shooting quickly. He was scheduled to film a scene
and a water slide made up to look like a
sewer through which his character was escaping. As the lunch
break was called, he said to Lemon, come on, Jack,
let's go rehearse the water slide thing. This way. We
(35:30):
can do it in one take. Get the hell out
of here anyway. Don't you have to wait an hour
after eating before you can shoot through a sewer. They
went to the sewer water slide set. Walter Mathow grabbed
the raft he was supposed to ride, and he jumped in.
As he went through it, he studied all the corners
and where the cameras would be, so he knew where
to make his faces, and seconds later he was shooting
(35:52):
out the far end of the water slide onto the
giant inflatable twelve foot square air mattress placed there to
break his fall. Or he would have been doing that,
except it was lunch and the teamsters had deflated the
mattress and moved it away because the set was on
lunch break. So Walter Mathow, then seventy three years old,
came flying out of the water slide onto the pavement.
(36:15):
He broke his collar bone, which is just about as
painful a thing as you can break. No, Walter Mathow screamed.
Jack Lemon raced over to him, Walter, Walter, are you
all right? No, I'm not, Jack? Call nine one one
ow ow Lemon panicked. Can I help you, Walter? Can I?
Can I get you something? Walter? Yes, Jack, get me
(36:35):
nine one one ow oh. Lemon continued to panic but
till they come. Are you okay, Walter? Are you comfortable?
Walter Mathow was in sheer agony, but he realized through
the fog of pain that one of the oldest jokes
in show business was actually happening to him. Finally, in
(36:56):
real life, Am I comfortable? I make a nice living?
Jack ow? Oh. My friend Norman Lloyd used to go
hiking with Walter Mathou in the Hollywood Hills, and he
told me that one day Walter was unusually quiet. The
two had gone a mile or so, and Mathou suddenly
stopped and grabbed Norman by the arm. Normy, did you
(37:19):
know at the end Beethoven was so deaf he thought
he was painting. Norman smiled, snorted, and started to say
that it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. But
halfway through Norman's sentence, Mathow had already turned away from
him and was back walking again. Another mile passed in silence,
and now Mathou slowed down and faced his friend Normany,
(37:40):
this is important. I have something to tell you, Norman said.
His heart skipped. He thought there was something wrong. What
is it, Walter? Did you know at the end Beethoven
was so deaf he thought he was painting? Now, Norman
just shook his head. As they completed their five mile
hike through the hills, Mathou stopped roughly once every mile
and repeated the same line, did you know at the
(38:02):
end Beethoven was so deaf he thought he was painting?
Norman told me it totally unnerved me. When we got
back to where we parked our cars, I felt like
I had to avenge myself somehow, so I bleted out
to him, Walt, did you know at the end Beethoven
was so deaf he thought he was painting? Norman said,
Mathow looked at him, screwing his great craggy face into
(38:25):
a resentful sneer as he did, what the hell are
you talking about? Thought he was painting. That's the dumbest
thing I ever heard, as I said. I met Walter
Mathow once when I was a local sportscaster in Los Angeles.
I was invited to host a charity event at the
Hollywood Park racetrack. I ordinarily did not do these things
(38:47):
because to do them I would have to take the
day off. But when the organizer said, oh, and Walter
Mathow will be there, I just asked for directions. First
time I had ever imagined what it was like to
be a sports writer or to be a sports broadcaster.
It was when I was nine years old and I
saw Walter Mathow portray Oscar Madison in the movie The
(39:09):
Odd Couple. It was exactly what I wanted to be
and where I wanted to live and how I wanted
to eat. And I wanted to get a chance to
tell him that. So at the charity dinner, I screwed
up my courage, I introduced myself. I told him all
that and he replied, I hate you. I was so
(39:29):
crushed I almost passed out, and clearly Walter Mathow recognized this. No, no, no,
I don't hate your work. I watch you every night
on Channel two Action News, you and Jim Lampley and
Breed Lampley and Jim Lampley. But I hate the fact
that you don't have an accent of any kind. Where
are you raised? Iowa? I did not know where this
(39:51):
conversation was going. I said, I was from the Bronx originally,
Is that right? I'm from Brooklyn? Could you tell the
hell kind of speech teacher? Did you have? You sound like?
Iowa explained, My father had said that if I wanted
to go into broad casting, I could not talk quote
like the rest of us. Walter looked away from me
and then back, and he said, very wise words. Your
(40:11):
father was a speech teacher. No, I said, architect. His
eyes flared, How in the hell does that work? I
started to explain when it suddenly dawned on me that
we were discussing this only because he said he hated
the fact that I did not have an accent. I
asked him why, no accent means I can't do an
(40:34):
impression of you? Well? This caused me to pause impressions.
This is nineteen ninety one. In nineteen ninety one, Walter
Mathow was one of the top five most impersonated voices
in America. Anybody who did impressions, good or bad, professional
(40:55):
or amateur, anybody did a Walter Mathow. You did your
Sammy Davis, your Howard Cosell, your Walter Mathow. Wait. I
said to him, you do impressions of sportscasters? Yes, he said, proudly.
Would you like to hear them? I said, I'll pay cash.
(41:16):
Don't normally do these, but seeing you are in the business,
I will just for you. I practiced these a lot.
By the way, twenty years later, Norman Lloyd confirmed for
me Mathout did do sportscaster impressions. He did practice them
a lot. This was not some sort of bit. Now.
Back in nineteen ninety one, Mathow cleared his throat, he
(41:38):
shook his shoulders. Let's start with the best, and it
sounds something like this, Hello, everybody, this is Vin Scully
at Dodger Stadium. What do you think? It sounded exactly
like Walter Mathow. Didn't sound like Vin Scully. It didn't
even sound like a bad impression of Vin Scully. It
(41:58):
didn't even sound like a bad impression of Walter Mathow.
It was just Walter Mathow talking. Thinking quickly, I said, uncanny,
mister Mathow, thank you. I work on Vinnie especially had
He's my favorite. Now the big mouth. Hello again, This
is Howard co Sell at ringside. How about that one?
I think I got most of the inflection. Goodness, mister Mathow.
(42:19):
It's like he's in the room with us. This went
on for many minutes. Kurt Goudie, Chick, hern Al Michaels,
several local LA radio announcers. I cursed myself for not
having brought a tape recorder with me. Walter Mathow did
impressions of sportscasters and they were all terrible, but he
(42:41):
said he couldn't do one of me because I had
no accent. I was complimented and crushed after a very
nice event, saluting his friend and neighbor in the front
row seats at the Laker Games, doctor Robert Curlin. We
called it an evening, and as everybody got up to leave,
I asked Walter Mathow to autograph my program from the
dinner my pleasure. He said, nice work tonight, but I
(43:04):
still don't get how your father the architect was also
a speech teacher, but never mind. In the program, he
wrote this, listen, Keith quit kidding around, No, don't, Walter Mathow.
It was lovely. And then he did something that took
my breath away, something I have tried to do anytime
(43:26):
circumstances permitted me to. He picked up his program, he
handed it to me, and he said, now you sign mine.
Can you believe that I only met him the one time,
but that gesture stayed with me to such a degree
(43:48):
that this happened nine years later. I woke up at
the crack of dawn to go host the baseball Game
of the Week at Fox Studios in LA It was
Saturday morning, July first, two thousand. It was nine years
and about two weeks after I met Walter Mathow, and
on the all news radio station, there was one big
(44:08):
story that morning in Los Angeles. Overnight the great actor
Walter Mathow had died heart attack, aged seventy nine. I
burst into tears. Since we're talking Walter Mathow and his impressions.
(44:38):
My impression of Walter Mathow my favorite line from the
movie The Odd Couple from the first day I saw it,
eight years old, and I started saying this in school?
You ready, Why doesn't he hear me? I know I'm talking.
I recognize my voice. Done all the damage I can
do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has come to
(44:59):
you from the Vin Scully Studios at the Old Women
Broadcasting Empire in New York work Vin and Walter Mathou
were good friends. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Schanale handled the orchestration and the keyboards. Mister Ray
was on guitars, bass and drums, and it was all
(45:21):
produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including other Beethoven tunes,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The
sports music is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It was written
by Mitch Warren Davis. We call it the Olberman theme
from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium morganist ever. My
(45:42):
announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else was
pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this the
oney twenty ninth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict
him now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news warrants. Till then, I'm
(46:03):
Keith Olderman, good more, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(46:28):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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