March 6, 2024 • 45 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 135: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
Haley was winning Vermont, Uncommitted was doing ok but Biden’s worst margin was about 60 points, and once again Super Tuesday is just a brand name.
But the HEADLINE is: the Supreme Court actually HAS left the door open to disqualify Trump from becoming president again. Seriously.
Turns out that many Constitutional Scholars and even some sitting members of the House, think that in its haste to make sure their pimp Trump got on to the ballot yesterday in Colorado, the Court ALSO left the door open to Democrats and disaffected Republicans challenging the validity of a Trump election if god forbid it plays out like that. There is now a debate over the consequences of the court ruling that the Constitution gives ENFORCEMENT of the 14th Amendment “to Congress.”
Practically speaking: Trump wins the electoral college, the Democrats hold the Senate (slightly unlikely) and take the House (very likely), and they are suddenly going to pass new legislation saying Trump is ineligible because he engaged in insurrection in 2021? Well they don’t HAVE to pass new legislation. They already did that, according to this reading, in 2022. It was “The Electoral Count Reform And Presidential Transition Act” designed to clarify the 1887 legislation through whose loopholes Trump tried to run his coup.
The 2022 clarification closed nearly all of those loopholes, limiting what kinds of challenges lawmakers could make to electoral slates already certified by the states. But they left two grounds for objections challenges and one of them reads “the vote of one or more electors has not been regularly given.” THAT phrase was in the 19th Century legislation and it means, any suspicion that an elector was BRIBED to vote, or was like kidnapped and the guy casting the vote wasn’t the REAL elector, or voted on the wrong day, or… the elector voted for somebody who wasn’t eligible.
Oops. Voted… for somebody who wasn’t elllllligggggggible, you say?
It’s not just a can of worms. It’s a FAMILY SIZED can of worms. Thank you Sam Alito!
ALSO: Trump just publicly contradicted his court filing in New York that he didn’t have the $465 million he owes. Asked about coming up with it on Fox, he answered: “I have a lot of money. I can do what I want to do…I don’t worry about money.”
MEANWHILE: It’s mortifying but it may be a quick fix. A Democratic pollster has analyzed the field of potential Biden voters in three swing states and figured out that only 31% of them had even heard Trump’s top ten worst statements about vermin and deportation and dictatorship, because voters are not immersed in politics and people do move on with their lives. The good news is that the moment they HEAR all of them, Trump’s unfavorable score jumps by five points and individual deficits grow from five to nine points. Solution? More ads reminding people Trump is an anti-dictatorial son of a bitch. Like, you know, one in every commercial break on every television channel and streamer every day until the election.
Oh – and emphasizing it in tomorrow’s State of the Union wouldn’t hurt. Did I mention I’ll be on, live, after it, for our Countdown post-game show, on YouTube and Twitch?
B-Block (23:14) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Roger Stone thinks Facebook conspired to stop his astroturf. Axios still hasn’t fixed its LOLworthy story about Trump pivoting. And the appointment of a Hong Kong native here legally on a pre-citizenship visa to the San Francisco Election Commission to help with translating voting materials into other languages has deranged a bunch of fascists who are treating this as if Mao Tse Dong was just named to the Supreme Court. Maria Bartiromo thinks the San Francisco Election Commission is also the Federal Election Commission. And Michigan House candidate Anthony Hudson says we must have laws saying if you don’t speak English you can’t vote. Which’ll be a problem for Anthony because he can barely SPELL English.
C-Block (33:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: We had a president of MSNBC, he had been the president of CNN, and among other things he didn’t have cable in his home and apparently hadn’t watched any night-time show on MSNBC for at least a year. He also lied about his height, and he was – legitimately – 6’4”. Who the hell DOES that?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Super
Tuesday is a brand name, and anyway, the big story
(00:26):
is the Supreme Court inadvertently having created a means to
disqualify Trump after the election, but to do the primary
results briefly. At recording time, it sure looked like Nikki
Haley was going to beat Trump in Vermont by a
point and a half or more, but as to the
chance she might also be competitive in Massachusetts, she actually
(00:47):
slid from the last poll there where she was down
by seventeen to losing by around twenty five. The non
Trump vote in Minnesota and Virginia looked like it would
come in at thirty five percent or better, and that
will only delay, not deterred Trump's nomination, but it is
not an erotion relevant weakness. And in North Carolina, where
it was about Trump seventy five Haley twenty two exit
(01:11):
polls produced more firing rotating sirens, small firing rotating sirens,
but they're still firing. Two thirds of Haley voters said
Trump was neither physically nor mentally fit to be president.
More than eighty percent of her voters said they are
not automatic votes for Trump. Oh and Trump won in Colorado,
(01:33):
where before the Supreme Court intervened he was not actually
on the ballot as to the president. In Minnesota, he
was winning by fifty eight points, and that looked to
be Joe Biden's worst margin of the night. That's seventy
three to fifteen fifteen for uncommitted and about nine for
Minnesota's own Dean Phillips, who had said that if his
(01:53):
campaign were not viable after March fifth, he would bow
out and campaign as hard for Biden as he had
for himself. Well teen exactly how would that help Biden
on uncommitted was coming in at about fifteen percent there,
ten percent in Massachusetts, seven percent in Colorado, and it's
nothing to sneeze at, but bluntly, as in Michigan, the
(02:14):
protest vote was respectable, honorable, but this is not exactly
LBJ nineteen sixty eight. Also of note, Republican primary voters
in North Carolina have nominated one of the nation's leading
scumbags for governor. Mark Robinson has denied and mocked the Holocaust,
wants a total abortion ban, defend at Harvey Weinstein and
(02:38):
Bill Cosby, mocked school shooting victims, is a homophobe has
urged the arrest of transsexuals. He also says God created
him to fight against LGBTQ wrights. If true, the given
that God also made him somewhere around two hundred pounds overweight,
perhaps the heavenly Father will be deciding he just can't
(02:59):
go on without him and calls him home soon and
the last electoral heath head line, Senator Kirsten Cinema will
not seek reelection in Arizona. Sadly, like the rest of
her once genuinely promising political career, nobody will notice she's gone.
In a three way race, polling last month showed Democratic
(03:21):
congress and Reuben Diego leading Crazy Carrie Lake thirty four
to thirty one, with my ex at twenty three without Cinema,
it's Diego forty seven, Lake thirty seven in one poll,
Diego forty six thirty nine in another. And as to Cinema, yes,
this is the first time she's ever walked out of
(03:43):
a three way. Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, the Supreme
(04:20):
Court actually has left the door open to disqualify Trump
from becoming president again. No, seriously, I noted here yesterday
that in it soon to be eternally infamous decision to
erase the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment because amy
Cony Barrett thinks it's too hot in here, the Court
was giving Joe Biden a kind of specific, informal immunity
(04:43):
from prosecution in case he wanted to do what Trump
did in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. It turns
out that many constitutional scholars and even some sitting members
of the House think that, in its haste to make
sure their pimp, Trump got onto the ballot yesterday in Colorado,
the Court also left the door open to Democrats and
(05:06):
maybe disaffected Republicans challenging the validity of a Trump election
this fall. If God forbid, it plays out like that.
The director of Election Law at Ohio State Ned Foley,
says the Court was quote trying to avoid all this.
They were trying to foreclose an effort to disqualify Trump
after he wins, but they didn't do it clearly enough.
(05:29):
There is now debate. Professor Foley told Politico over the
consequences of the court ruling that the Constitution gives enforcement
of the Fourteenth Amendment exclusively to Congress. So what practically speaking,
Trump wins the Electoral College, the Democrats hold the Senate,
(05:50):
the Democrats take the House, and then the Democrats are
suddenly going to pass legislation saying Trump is ineligible because
he engaged in insurrection in twenty twenty one. Ah, but
they may not have to pass any legislation. That's the
point those like this Professor Foley at Osu, who think
(06:11):
that all the Supreme Court did was to make the
Fourteenth Amendment can of worms into a family sized can
of worms. They say that Congress has already passed the
necessary legislation two years ago. The Electoral count Reform and
Presidential Transition Act was intended to clarify and close up
(06:31):
the loopholes in the original eighteen eighty seven legislation that
Trump and his minions were trying to stretch out into
a rationalization to throw out the Biden twenty twenty electors
and rerun the twenty twenty election, or get the state
legislators to appoint pro Trump electors, you know, the coup.
The twenty twenty two clarification closed nearly all of those loopholes,
(06:54):
limiting what kinds of challenges lawmakers can now make to
electoral slates. Already certified by their states. But they left
to two two grounds for objections challenges, and one of
them reads, the vote of one or more electors has
not been regularly given regularly given that phrase was in
(07:22):
the nineteenth century legislation, and it means any suspicion that
an elector was bribed to vote one way or the other,
or the elector was kidnapped and the guy casting the
vote wasn't the real elector, or he voted on the
wrong day, or the elector voted for somebody who wasn't eligible,
(07:47):
voted for somebody who wasn't elligible. Say so. Yesterday the
Supreme Court said the House and Senate were the only
bodies allowed to enforce the fourteenth Amendment determining that somebody
isn't eligible to be president. And at the end of
(08:08):
December twenty twenty two, the House in the Senate passed
a bill that said you could challenge an electoral vote
cast for somebody who isn't eligible to be president. Politico,
which I always slam and its reporters Kyle Cheney and
Josh Gerstein, did a really good job on this story.
They followed up with a couple of members of the
(08:31):
January sixth Committee fitting Representative Zoe Lofgren of California said, nah,
she thinks there'd have to be a new law that
specifically spells out the process of implementing the fourteenth Amendment,
but quoting the reporters, Lofgren added that she is continuing
to review the ruling and hopes to hear from legal
(08:52):
experts on Congress's role. Congressman Jamie Raskin says his first
read of the decision suggests that Representative Lofgren is right quote,
but I am not certain of that and we want
to to explore it. Hey, Now, basically, this is what
would have to happen. The Democrats would have to take
(09:13):
the House eight months out. That's considered likely, and the
Democrats would have to retain the Senate. That's iffy, but
it's not considered likely. If Trump then won with Democrats
in the majority, they could say, you know, we did
pass this act on December twenty eighth, twenty twenty two,
(09:33):
and it says we can object to electoral votes not
regularly given. And one of the ways an electoral vote
is not regularly given is if the elector voted for
somebody who isn't eligible to be president. So guess what.
Since the Supreme Court already ruled last year that we
(09:54):
have the exclusive right here in the Senate, in the
House to enforce the insurrection disqualification clause in the fourteenth Amendment,
we're going to do that. Now Donald Trump is here
by vote ineligible. All the electoral votes cast for him
are declared, not regularly given, and the House now gets
to decide who's president. Guess who we're voting for. See,
(10:17):
now that's outstanding. No, I'm not saying I am advocating
for that. It sounds a little bit too much like
the Eastman plan. But once again, let's take this away
from the theoretical. Let's take the idea that a Trump
(10:38):
dictatorship is imminent. Yesterday I suggested if the Supreme Court said, okay,
presidents are immune from any prosecution, that means Joe Biden
is instantly an absolute monarch, and a re elected Trump
would become an absolute monarch. And if you have a
choice of kings or monarchs or imperial presidents or dictators,
(11:02):
which one you're gonna choose, especially if you sitting President
Biden or you twenty twenty five democratic majorities in the
House and Senate. You are the ones doing the choosing.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Let's see, I'm going to live in something other than
a democracy for a while. Who do we want in
charge with nobody to control him? Joe Biden or Donald Trump? Why?
That's a really tough choice. I don't know. Pr Wise,
it might look really bad if we, you know, didn't
go with Trump. You know, I so, but I don't know.
Let's have a caucus. Okay, let's get some pulling in
on this.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Anyway, the possibility exists.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Thanks Sam Alito, Thanks Amy Coney, Karen Barrett, not regularly given.
Thanks for the petard. Ha ha ha. There's a more
(12:09):
immediate and more expensive and expensive legal problem for Trump.
Of course, he has just contradicted his own filing in
the New York State business fraud case, you know, the
one from I don't know twelve thirteen cases ago, where
he was fined four hundred and sixty five million dollars
with interest, and his lawyers offered just one hundred million
(12:31):
dollars in a bond, and they insisted in court that
without a stay and without the bond, he would have
to raise capital under exigent circumstances. In other words, Trump
could not get whatever say Trump Tower is actually worth,
because all potential buyers would know he really needed the
money immediately, irreparable harm, forced sales, no way to recover
(12:54):
even if the decision were eventually overturned. Ahem. Brian Kilmead quote,
you have to come up with four hundred million dollars?
How close are you to secure during the bond? Elmer J.
Fudd Trump quote, I have a lot of money. I
can do what I want to do. Brian Kilmead quote,
(13:14):
So you're not worried about the money? Aphasia Jay Trump quote,
I don't worry about money.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Oh boy.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
One more quote Attorney General Letitia James. Probably we only
take cash, no checks. One of the subtexts to the
State of the Union tomorrow night. By the way, did
I mention we are live on YouTube and Twitch with
(13:44):
a postgame show after the State of the Union? I did?
Would be the last time. One of the subtexts is
whether or maybe how much President Biden will mention Trump
and insurrection and dictatorship and concentration camps and all that.
Based on two stories, one anecdotal and one based the
(14:05):
answer is he can't mention it too often. He can't
overmention it. He can't say it too frequently because America
is beginning to forget January sixth and everything else. The
New York Times riffed off its own polling showing that
ten percent of Biden's twenty twenty voters now say they
(14:27):
support Trump. It notes that more than four million first
time voters this fall were when Trump was elected in
middle school, and they somehow think, among other things, Trump
will be better for Palestinians than Biden, which means they
didn't learn a damn thing in middle school, did they. Hell?
(14:48):
They were what high school freshmen or eighth graders when
Trump tried to overthrow the government, They don't remember it,
and like a lot of us who marvel that our
hair has been able to stay on fire since January sixth,
twenty twenty one, and they have been saying the Biden
campaign should make sure everybody in this country remembers something
(15:10):
every day about Trump threatening democracy then, now and in
the future, like we say about that. Polling done for
the group Save My Country by a veteran Democratic poster
named Jeff Garren is in a Greg Sergeant piece in
The New Republic. Garren polled four hundred voters in Arizona,
four hundred more in Michigan, four hundred in Pennsylvania. He
(15:33):
then waited them in proportion to the state electoral college
vote total. They threw out twenty twenty Trump voters. They
threw out anybody who said Biden didn't win in twenty
twenty eight. Short, this was designed to find out what
people who might easily vote for Joe Biden thought and knew.
And the pollsters asked them about ten of Trump's most
(15:55):
authoritarian statements, like immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country,
and I'm going to pardon the January six ers, and
I'm going to prosecute the Biden fan family, and I'm
going after the vermin who opposed me. You know, all
the hits. The percentage of these gettable Biden votes who said, uh, yeah, yeah,
I heard about Trump saying all that, the percentage who
(16:17):
had heard it thirty one percent, thirty one less than
a third. Two thirds of potential Biden voters have not
heard about Trump saying he'll be a dictator on day one,
or about mass deportations, or about the concentration camps. They
(16:37):
haven't heard, the pollster told Greg's sergeant quote. Trump's negatives
are not baked into the cake at all time to
order a new cake. Now, wait before you flee for
the cakes of Ecuador. The good news is this may
be an easy fix. When presented with those top ten
(16:58):
worst Trump dictatorship quotes, these voters are immediately impacted. The
number of them who say Trump is out for revenge
after they hear those quotes jumps by five points, the
number of them who see him as a dictator jumps
by seven points, the number who see him as dangerous
jumps by nine and the big number those who view
(17:19):
Trump unfavorably goes from fifty three percent to fifty eight percent. So,
Biden campaign Headquarters, all that ad time, you've bought those
hundreds of millions of dollars worth of spots, I'm just saying.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Sees, Wow, these are the stakes.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Who would never abuse power as retribution against anybody except.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
The day one he's.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Going to face, Except the day one he says you're
not going to be a dictator.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I said, no, no, no other than day one.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
We must either love each other or we must die.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home no charge, mister President.
You can even use my voice there for free. And also,
as to the other great replacement theory, the big scoop
from Crystal Carson, director of communications for the political figure
(18:39):
in question. Quote, as former First Lady Michelle Obama has
expressed several times over the years she will not be
running for president. Missus Obama supports President Joe Biden and
Vice President Kamala Harris's re election campaign. Unquote, she tells
NBC News or or, as we may hear NBC's Christen
(19:01):
Welker phrase at Sunday on Meet the pressson, Lady Michelle
Obama has left the door open to replace Joe Biden
on the Democratic ticket. She says she's not running. She
says she supports the Biden Harris reelection campaign. Allegedly.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Also of interest here, a San Francisco woman born in
Hong Kong, still pre citizenship and on a legal visa,
A graduate of Tufts, for God's Sake, is named to
a non paying job on the City Elections Commission in
San Francisco to work on improving translating of ballots and
local election materials into other languages, including several Chinese languages,
(19:47):
and she's doing it for free and for the fascists.
This might as well be Chairman Mao putting up his
unwashed feat on the White House stairwells. Their panic and
racism has led to a campaign that is that you
can only vote if you speak English, and it is
(20:11):
led by two Republicans who who who really don't speak English,
and one of them is Maria Bartiromo. That's next. This
is Countdown.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
This is Countdown with Keith Overman.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown. As
I prepare for tomorrow night's live State of the Union
postgame show, have I mentioned that at all? I have
been flashed back to the first time I ever did
the State of the Union in nineteen ninety eight at MSNBC,
and also to that a later president of that network
decided to not have me cover any politics at all
(21:09):
because he thought I should just do the newscast and
he did not think election nights were news or something
like that. And I say something like that because he
also did not have cable in his own home and
we were a cable network. The story of the day
I found out he had not actually watched MSNBC in
a year next on things I promised not to tell. First, Yes,
(21:32):
there are still more idiots to talk about. The daily
roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects
specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world,
the bronze worse Roger Stone, whose continuing life as yet
another indication that the simulation has glitched. He posted this
(21:52):
on Trump's vanity social media site yesterday, and it's amazingly
panoramically stupid. Quote Facebook and Instagram, two of the most
powerful communications tools for grassroots politics in America, suddenly stop
working on Super Tuesday, while all of Haley's ads in print,
radio and television remain intact. How convenient. Now, there's a
(22:16):
lot of stupid in here to unpack, let's try. Firstly,
it does not occur to Roger that the first thing
people would say in response to him rogering, is doesn't
your boy Aphasia Jay Trump have all the money in
the world to buy fifty ads in print, radio and
television for everyone Haley has bought? Did you guys screw
(22:37):
up there? Roger? Secondly, Stone is emphasizing how important Facebook
is to Trump's grass roots thing, which might remind folks
about how Stone and his cohorts and his WikiLeaks pals
and Russia used Facebook to astro turf all that grassroots
stuff on Facebook for Trump in twenty sixteen, and maybe
(23:01):
most importantly, Stone posted this on Trump's social media site,
complaining that the other social media sites that Trump says
his site is better than are actually much better than
Trump's site. You know that hat that Roger Stone got
and wears, the one he got from the prop department
(23:22):
at the Batman TV Show. I think it's too tight
for his head, and his wig is too tight for
his head too. The runner up worser remember Sophia cal
and Axios mentioned them yesterday five am Monday, they publish
her nonsense story about Trump pivoting and no longer abusing
(23:42):
opponents and not saying the twenty twenty election was rigged
and just saying a bad thing happened, like he wet
his pants or something. And then hours later he gives
a speech in which he repeatedly uses the rigged word
and abuses all his opponents. The Axios tweet promoting Sophia
Col's piece that might as well have insisted.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
There is two Santa Claus.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It got community noted and Axios apparently deleted it, but
the article it is still on the Axio site. Hey,
what's that smell if you go to the piece at
Axios and then you lean in real close to your laptop,
your tablet or your smartphone, like put your nose right
(24:26):
up against it. Ah, that's what that smell is Sophia
Col's piece. But our winner the worst, Anthony Hudson, would
be Republican nominee for Michigan's eighth congressional district. When I
tell you he owns a trucking company and he is
running on a platform of you're in America, now speak English,
(24:50):
you can already picture him baseball cap, sport code over
a T shirt, both SIZEXXXXXXXL, pair of glasses from the
nineteen ninety two collection. Head wider at the chin than
at the point on the top of his head, whitebeard,
age forty six, looks age sixty four. And then there's
(25:11):
his platform that speak English part that's not a gratuitous
insult on my part. Heartlandsignal dot com dug up candidate
Hudson's video in which he reacts to the appointment of
a Hong Kong native to the San Francisco Elections Committee
and demands new laws taking away the vote from anybody
who does not speak English.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
She's not a legal citizen of this country, and by law,
you must be a legal citizen to vote in the
United States of America. But Kelly Wong, who is an
illegal immigrant, she is not a legal citizen, has now
been appointed to write or push election legislation in the
(25:56):
state of California. And what she wants to.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
Do is spend taxpayer dollars to translate the ballots in Chinese,
Cantonese and other foreign languages and try to encourage other
illegals to come here and vote in their language so
(26:19):
that they can understand it.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
Nah, I don't agree with that one bit. You see,
this is America and we speak English. If you're not
a citizen, you don't vote. And if you are an
American citizen, you need to be able to speak English
to be able to vote.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Okay, who's going to tell them? Who's going to tell
Anthony that we've been translating ballots into other languages here
in this country since the nineteenth century, and that the
woman he refers to as an illegal alien as a
visa is here legally went to Tufts, does not vote,
but has dedicated herself to getting new citizens intimidated by
(27:01):
bad translations to vote, which is their right because they're citizens.
And most importantly, who's going to tell him if he
gets his new proof you speak English tests at all
the polling places, he's never going to get to vote again.
As a ps. You know who's on mister Hudson's side
on all this, Maria Badawomo, who thinks the woman on
(27:24):
the city elections board in San Francisco is in fact
on the Federal Elections Commission.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
So then why is a Chinese national on the board
of the Federal Elections Commission? Wright you are?
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You know, the more I think about it, the more
this speak English or you don't get to vote may
be worth looking into, because if Maria there and this
third grade drop out Hudson in Michigan are typical, we
might be able to disenfranchise like seventy five percent of
all MAGA voters on the spot to say nothing, up
(28:00):
to a quarter of the people who anchor on Fox,
and we would run Marjorie Taylor Green out of Congress
before the end of the week. Anthony, you don't not
speak English, No good Hudson, the future congressman from the
Michigan eighth and candidate for Speaker of the House. Two
days wors Parson and uh, what's this word? War rebun
(28:30):
free bad f blun Finally to the number one story
on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things
I promised not to tell. And tomorrow is seventeen years
(28:52):
since this former MSNBC president, Rick Kaplan, the guy who
once chased me around the studios threatening to kill me
because he was squeamish and I had mentioned blood on
the air, blew any incredibility he had with us because
he didn't know what was live and what was on delay. However,
this story starts in the men's room at MSNBC. It
(29:15):
is February seventeenth, two thousand and four, at one of
those moronic corporate speak town halls. The bosses have just
introduced Rick Kaplan as the new president of the network.
Kaplan speaks for an hour without interruption or breath. He
does not mention that he was the president of CNN
when it's nineteen year streak at number one in the
cable news ratings came to a crashing end. He does, however,
(29:39):
mention that he is six feet seven inches tall, but
he does not seem to be six feet seven inches tall.
As this nonsense ends, I rush into the men's room
and find, to my amusement, Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Jesse Ventura,
Lester Holt, and one unoccupied urinoal As I moved to
(30:02):
occupy it, it dawns on me that Venture sure, the
former professional wrestler is the shortest man in the bathroom,
at six feet two. All five of us are silent. Finally,
Matthews says it helen hell, can he say he's six
foot seven? He's barely taller than I am, and I'm
six four Oldron, are you slightly taller than me? You're
(30:22):
slightly shorter than me? How is he six seven? Everybody
keeps looking forward, of course, into the wall in front
of us. I'm six three and a half. Lester, he's
your height. I saw you standing with him, you tour
even What are you six ' five? Lester says, uh
huh and flushes. Scarborough chimes in, I'm just over sixty four.
(30:44):
We're almost dyed. Aye, he's not six seven. Finally, Ventura speaks,
I've been thrown around a ring by guys who were
six seven. This guy's not six seven. From the sink
Lester Holt now says, have any of you known anybody
our height who lies and says they're taller? Matthews again,
(31:05):
who lies about their height? Eye flush? This guy does, gentlemen,
we are in trouble here for the presidency of Rick
Kaplan at MSNBC. That might have been sorry, I can't
resist it the high water mark. Later, on Friday, March fifth,
two thousand and four, Kaplan, who had been there three weeks,
(31:26):
assembled the hosts and producers of the primetime shows on
the network that would have been me, Scarborough, Dan Abrams,
our staffs, the new Jersey staff of Chris Matthews Show,
and he told us that the next day was going
to be Monday. Somebody from Scarborough's staff helpfully corrected him
and mister Kaplan, I'm sorry, tomorrow is Saturday. Kaplan sternly
(31:47):
explained he was now president of this network and we
all sucked, and if he said today was Friday and
tomorrow was Monday, then today was Friday and tomorrow was Monday.
He wanted to see us react to sudden changes in
our plans. We were being told we were being called
into work a sixth day tomorrow for no reason. Kaplin
(32:08):
then started yelling at us, you guys don't get it.
You're all working tomorrow. Anybody who doesn't come in is fired.
We are going to do the whole pro primetime lineup.
Your breaking news is today's breaking news, the guilty verdict
in the Martha Stewart case. Start booking your guests, because
tomorrow is Monday, not Saturday. Just on my staff, Saturday
(32:30):
was supposed to be my reporter's engagement party, a surprise
party thrown by one of my producers for his wife's birthday,
and the day another producer was closing on buying a house.
I have a vague memory of what we put on
the air. I have a stronger memory of the new
president of MSNBC losing the staffs of all four of
(32:51):
his primetime shows on his fifth day on the job
and never ever getting them back. Kaplan then went to
a corkboard on our office wall on which our show
rundown was displayed. He ordered producers to move segments around,
and he berated me for not having anticipated his whims,
and at one point he screamed, stop what the hell
(33:11):
are you doing? And he got up and he grabbed
the pushpin, which held up an index card bearing the
name of a guest.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
You don't use green pins with yellow index cards.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
You use yellow pins with yellow index cards. What kind
of a newsman are you. I can't imagine how this
guy choked away CNN's monopoly on cable news ratings. I
was reminded recently that later, on December eighth, two thousand
and five, seventeen years ago tomorrow, he did one of
the most unintentionally funniest things I have ever witnessed. A
(33:47):
plane slid off the runway at Midway Airport in Chicago.
Nothing funny about that, obviously, but Kaplan called into our
control room demanding we changed something about our live coverage
that he didn't like. We promptly made the change. He
was right. Five minutes later he called in and started
swim at one of our producers. I told you to
change that if you you're fired, and the producer said,
(34:11):
we changed it five minutes ago. When you called in, silence, Rick,
are you watching the network on some sort of delay?
Are you watching on TVO or something? Silence again. Finally
he said, okay, good work, see you tomorrow and hung up.
He didn't know he was watching it on a delay.
(34:32):
Kaplan was also one of these forget the mean thing
I said yesterday. God knows I have kind of guys.
By Monday, he had heard people laughing at some of
my on air jokes and his front runner instincts took over.
He called me and the producer in for a meeting.
I have only one criticism of your show. Which of
these stories will you be talking about? Thing is genius?
(34:53):
The fifth story, the fourth story, then the third story.
It's original and fresh. I hesitated. I almost said to him, yeah,
this old counting thing we just invented that. The music
is genius, the graphics are genius. You're a genius, but
you're missing something obvious, something genius. After each one of
these stories, after you thank your guests, you should do
(35:14):
a list of the things you didn't tell us about
those stories. So like after the fifth story, you should say,
now here are the other five things we didn't tell
you about the fifth story, get it a full screen
graphic and you telling people, And then four things for
the fourth story and three for the third. I thought
for a moment, and I said, Okay, Well, what happens
if we make those graphics up, and then a minute beforehand,
(35:35):
the guest brings up one of those things we claim
we didn't tell you. When he just told you, we
had lost Rick Caplan's attention by that point. Hmmm, he grunted.
For a second. I thought his eyes were pointing outwards
in different directions. But he snapped himself back into this reality. Huh,
(35:55):
could happen? You'll figure it out anyway, too late to
do it today, figure it out and do it tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
The producer, and I had to then explain to the
staff of Countdown that from now on, for every story
they had to deliberately leave out one or two or
three or four or five facts or details, something interesting
enough to be made into a full screen graphic, but
not interesting enough to be included in their scripts or
the interviews with the guests. Suddenly I thought a lot
(36:23):
of people's eyes were pointing outwards in different directions. The
line producer, Greg Kordick, who was in charge not of
content but of timing things and making sure things like
graphics got made, said, matter of factly, this will add
five hours to everybody's workday, and so it did. After
the next day's show when we listed the top five
(36:44):
things we didn't tell you about today's fifth story and
the top four things we didn't tell you about today's
fourth story, etc. And we had to shorten all the
scripts and shorten each interview just to make room for
all of this extraneous crap. Greg the producer said people
here will be quitting by Thursday and dying by Monday.
And I said, you're right. Plus it ruins the interviews
and it weakens the show. Don't do it tomorrow, Aaplin yells,
(37:05):
I'll take the eight. So now it's Wednesday. And not
only don't I hear anything from Kaplan about the Tuesday
show and his the top five things we didn't tell
you about today's fifth story, Jazz, but after the Wednesday
show when we don't do it, I'm sitting there waiting
for an enraged phone call because we didn't. Thursday morning
at home, I'm waiting for an enraged email. Thursday afternoon,
(37:27):
I'm waiting for an enraged Kaplin in person. Nothing. He
never said a word. The week passes nothing, a month,
two months, it's summer.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
The rest of two thousand and four flies by nothing.
We did it once, we never did it again, and
then he never said anything. It is now January two
thousand and five, and he still hasn't said anything. And
I'm told by Phil Griffin, my first producer in television
sports and sixteen years later, my first producer in television news,
(38:03):
who has since become the vice president of MSNBC, that
Kaplain wants to see us in his office. It's not
a big deal. Phil says, he's in a good mood.
He just wants to make us feel like we have
input into his decisions. This is a what do you
think meeting? Now, I have to ask you to carefully
picture the layout of Rick Kaplan's office at MSNBC in
the year two thousand and five. Envision a long, narrow room.
(38:27):
Baseball's MLB network now operates there, and they have cleverly
turned Kaplan's office into a wardrobe room, perfect since it
was really just a long closet. Anyways, Rick Kaplan, who
was six foot five but lied and said he was
six foot seven, sat at the very back of this room.
So you come in the front door, you turn to
your right, and maybe thirty thirty five forty feet away
(38:51):
from you, in the farthest corner, facing his computer on
his desk. Flush against the left hand wall is the
president of MSNBC. A few feet into the room is
where you sit. Halfway between these two points. Against the
right hand wall is where another executive can sit. So
Phil Griffin sits there. I'm just inside the door. He
(39:14):
is fifteen feet ahead of me to the right. Rick
Kaplan is thirty feet or forty feet ahead of me
to the left. Picture this carefully, the way these chairs
and desks are arranged. If you're me and Phil Griffin
is looking at you, Rick Kaplan can only see the
back of Phil Griffin's head and not his face. If
they are both looking at you, they cannot see each other. Weird,
(39:39):
seemingly trivial turned out to be essential. We begin this
meaningless meeting and talk about guests and graphics, fonts, and
Kaplan talks about how much the ratings have gone up
in his year as president. And finally, I say, I
do have one suggestion. I think the show is going
to be very successful, and I think if we want
to make any changes, we should make them now before
(39:59):
it becomes successful. And I say, I have never heard
anybody they like the fifth story, fourth story third story stuff.
If you want to continue the name countdown because people
know it by now, that's great, I guess. But the
five four three two one numbering is a conceit and
it's a lot of extra work for everybody, and I
(40:20):
think we should kill it now. Kaplan is aghast, he
is pale. He is not angry, he is just stunned.
But you can't do that. Five four three two one
is part of the reasons. And the ratings went up.
The ratings went up when I came up with the
(40:41):
idea of the top five things we didn't tell you
about today's top five stories, and the top four things
we didn't tell you about today's number four story, et cetera.
We can't stop that. That's why people watch My idea.
Took me a split second to even remember what the
hell it was he was talking about. I had forgotten
(41:02):
the whole five things we didn't tell you Albert Tross.
Weeks after the one show we did it, and then
the staff rebelled and I said, screw it, and I'll
take the heat. And I was about to say this
out loud when I suddenly realized that Phil Griffin, fifteen
feet away on the right his face turned to me
and thus invisible to Kaplan, thirty feet away on the left,
was making his eyes as wide as possible, and Phil
(41:24):
was looking right at me and silently mouthing the word no, no, no, no, no,
all the while keeping his head completely still, so Kaplan
didn't know he was talking to me silently. I got
Phil's message. I dropped the subject. I didn't say it.
The meeting ended maybe two minutes later, with Kaplan saying
(41:46):
keep up the good work, and ushering us out by saying,
and keep up with the top five things we didn't
tell you about today's five fifth story. Oh that's what's
making it really cook. When we were out of earshot
of Rick Kaplan, Griffin thanked me for being able to
read his panicked lips. I used an oath to liven
up my question. What the blank was that all about?
(42:08):
And Griffin said, now you know what every day of
my life has become. It's not worth it to try
to correct him. He believes what he believes, and he
won't be checked or contradicted. And I said, we only
did the five things we didn't tell you a thing once,
only once. It's like a year later, how in the hell.
Could he possibly think we're still doing it? Griffin laughed
(42:33):
like a soldier on a World War One battlefield who
has just run out of bullets. See that's the problem, buddy.
He only watches MSNBC here in the office, the place
he's renting it doesn't have cable. President of MSNBC doesn't
have cable at home. On June sixth, two thousand and six,
(42:56):
they fired Rick Caplan as the president of MSNBC. They
let him resign. They also let him keep his secret,
the darkest of secrets for him and for MSNBC, that,
for his two years on the throne, the president of
an all news cable channel did not have cable. I've
(43:28):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. I swear to God all that is true.
He lied about his height, and he made us think
that he had cable, and he didn't. And he was
the president of two different cable news networks. Thanks for listening. Countdown.
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced,
(43:48):
and performed most of our music. Mister Ray on guitars,
bass and drums. Mister Chanale handled orchestration and keyboards. Produced
by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The
sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical
(44:10):
and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best
baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend
Howard Feineman, and everything else was pretty much my fault.
So let's countdown for this two hundred and forty fifth
day before the twenty twenty fourth presidential election, the one
and fifty fifth day since dementia Jay Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
(44:34):
Use the Fourteenth Amendment, the Insurrection Act, the justice system,
and the mental health system to stop him from doing
it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. Don't forget our live YouTube special after the
State of the Union tomorrow night, my warm up act.
He begins at nine Eastern. That'd be the President. We
(44:55):
will be on about ten bulletins is the news warrants
till then on Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
(45:15):
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. Super
Tuesday is a brand name, and anyway, the big story
(00:26):
is the Supreme Court inadvertently having created a means to
disqualify Trump after the election, but to do the primary
results briefly. At recording time, it sure looked like Nikki
Haley was going to beat Trump in Vermont by a
point and a half or more, but as to the
chance she might also be competitive in Massachusetts, she actually
(00:47):
slid from the last poll there where she was down
by seventeen to losing by around twenty five. The non
Trump vote in Minnesota and Virginia looked like it would
come in at thirty five percent or better, and that
will only delay, not deterred Trump's nomination, but it is
not an erotion relevant weakness. And in North Carolina, where
it was about Trump seventy five Haley twenty two exit
(01:11):
polls produced more firing rotating sirens, small firing rotating sirens,
but they're still firing. Two thirds of Haley voters said
Trump was neither physically nor mentally fit to be president.
More than eighty percent of her voters said they are
not automatic votes for Trump. Oh and Trump won in Colorado,
(01:33):
where before the Supreme Court intervened he was not actually
on the ballot as to the president. In Minnesota, he
was winning by fifty eight points, and that looked to
be Joe Biden's worst margin of the night. That's seventy
three to fifteen fifteen for uncommitted and about nine for
Minnesota's own Dean Phillips, who had said that if his
(01:53):
campaign were not viable after March fifth, he would bow
out and campaign as hard for Biden as he had
for himself. Well teen exactly how would that help Biden
on uncommitted was coming in at about fifteen percent there,
ten percent in Massachusetts, seven percent in Colorado, and it's
nothing to sneeze at, but bluntly, as in Michigan, the
(02:14):
protest vote was respectable, honorable, but this is not exactly
LBJ nineteen sixty eight. Also of note, Republican primary voters
in North Carolina have nominated one of the nation's leading
scumbags for governor. Mark Robinson has denied and mocked the Holocaust,
wants a total abortion ban, defend at Harvey Weinstein and
(02:38):
Bill Cosby, mocked school shooting victims, is a homophobe has
urged the arrest of transsexuals. He also says God created
him to fight against LGBTQ wrights. If true, the given
that God also made him somewhere around two hundred pounds overweight,
perhaps the heavenly Father will be deciding he just can't
(02:59):
go on without him and calls him home soon and
the last electoral heath head line, Senator Kirsten Cinema will
not seek reelection in Arizona. Sadly, like the rest of
her once genuinely promising political career, nobody will notice she's gone.
In a three way race, polling last month showed Democratic
(03:21):
congress and Reuben Diego leading Crazy Carrie Lake thirty four
to thirty one, with my ex at twenty three without Cinema,
it's Diego forty seven, Lake thirty seven in one poll,
Diego forty six thirty nine in another. And as to Cinema, yes,
this is the first time she's ever walked out of
(03:43):
a three way. Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, the Supreme
(04:20):
Court actually has left the door open to disqualify Trump
from becoming president again. No, seriously, I noted here yesterday
that in it soon to be eternally infamous decision to
erase the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment because amy
Cony Barrett thinks it's too hot in here, the Court
was giving Joe Biden a kind of specific, informal immunity
(04:43):
from prosecution in case he wanted to do what Trump
did in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. It turns
out that many constitutional scholars and even some sitting members
of the House think that, in its haste to make
sure their pimp, Trump got onto the ballot yesterday in Colorado,
the Court also left the door open to Democrats and
(05:06):
maybe disaffected Republicans challenging the validity of a Trump election
this fall. If God forbid, it plays out like that.
The director of Election Law at Ohio State Ned Foley,
says the Court was quote trying to avoid all this.
They were trying to foreclose an effort to disqualify Trump
after he wins, but they didn't do it clearly enough.
(05:29):
There is now debate. Professor Foley told Politico over the
consequences of the court ruling that the Constitution gives enforcement
of the Fourteenth Amendment exclusively to Congress. So what practically speaking,
Trump wins the Electoral College, the Democrats hold the Senate,
(05:50):
the Democrats take the House, and then the Democrats are
suddenly going to pass legislation saying Trump is ineligible because
he engaged in insurrection in twenty twenty one. Ah, but
they may not have to pass any legislation. That's the
point those like this Professor Foley at Osu, who think
(06:11):
that all the Supreme Court did was to make the
Fourteenth Amendment can of worms into a family sized can
of worms. They say that Congress has already passed the
necessary legislation two years ago. The Electoral count Reform and
Presidential Transition Act was intended to clarify and close up
(06:31):
the loopholes in the original eighteen eighty seven legislation that
Trump and his minions were trying to stretch out into
a rationalization to throw out the Biden twenty twenty electors
and rerun the twenty twenty election, or get the state
legislators to appoint pro Trump electors, you know, the coup.
The twenty twenty two clarification closed nearly all of those loopholes,
(06:54):
limiting what kinds of challenges lawmakers can now make to
electoral slates. Already certified by their states. But they left
to two two grounds for objections challenges, and one of
them reads, the vote of one or more electors has
not been regularly given regularly given that phrase was in
(07:22):
the nineteenth century legislation, and it means any suspicion that
an elector was bribed to vote one way or the other,
or the elector was kidnapped and the guy casting the
vote wasn't the real elector, or he voted on the
wrong day, or the elector voted for somebody who wasn't eligible,
(07:47):
voted for somebody who wasn't elligible. Say so. Yesterday the
Supreme Court said the House and Senate were the only
bodies allowed to enforce the fourteenth Amendment determining that somebody
isn't eligible to be president. And at the end of
(08:08):
December twenty twenty two, the House in the Senate passed
a bill that said you could challenge an electoral vote
cast for somebody who isn't eligible to be president. Politico,
which I always slam and its reporters Kyle Cheney and
Josh Gerstein, did a really good job on this story.
They followed up with a couple of members of the
(08:31):
January sixth Committee fitting Representative Zoe Lofgren of California said, nah,
she thinks there'd have to be a new law that
specifically spells out the process of implementing the fourteenth Amendment,
but quoting the reporters, Lofgren added that she is continuing
to review the ruling and hopes to hear from legal
(08:52):
experts on Congress's role. Congressman Jamie Raskin says his first
read of the decision suggests that Representative Lofgren is right quote,
but I am not certain of that and we want
to to explore it. Hey, Now, basically, this is what
would have to happen. The Democrats would have to take
(09:13):
the House eight months out. That's considered likely, and the
Democrats would have to retain the Senate. That's iffy, but
it's not considered likely. If Trump then won with Democrats
in the majority, they could say, you know, we did
pass this act on December twenty eighth, twenty twenty two,
(09:33):
and it says we can object to electoral votes not
regularly given. And one of the ways an electoral vote
is not regularly given is if the elector voted for
somebody who isn't eligible to be president. So guess what.
Since the Supreme Court already ruled last year that we
(09:54):
have the exclusive right here in the Senate, in the
House to enforce the insurrection disqualification clause in the fourteenth Amendment,
we're going to do that. Now Donald Trump is here
by vote ineligible. All the electoral votes cast for him
are declared, not regularly given, and the House now gets
to decide who's president. Guess who we're voting for. See,
(10:17):
now that's outstanding. No, I'm not saying I am advocating
for that. It sounds a little bit too much like
the Eastman plan. But once again, let's take this away
from the theoretical. Let's take the idea that a Trump
(10:38):
dictatorship is imminent. Yesterday I suggested if the Supreme Court said, okay,
presidents are immune from any prosecution, that means Joe Biden
is instantly an absolute monarch, and a re elected Trump
would become an absolute monarch. And if you have a
choice of kings or monarchs or imperial presidents or dictators,
(11:02):
which one you're gonna choose, especially if you sitting President
Biden or you twenty twenty five democratic majorities in the
House and Senate. You are the ones doing the choosing.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Let's see, I'm going to live in something other than
a democracy for a while. Who do we want in
charge with nobody to control him? Joe Biden or Donald Trump? Why?
That's a really tough choice. I don't know. Pr Wise,
it might look really bad if we, you know, didn't
go with Trump. You know, I so, but I don't know.
Let's have a caucus. Okay, let's get some pulling in
on this.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Anyway, the possibility exists.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Thanks Sam Alito, Thanks Amy Coney, Karen Barrett, not regularly given.
Thanks for the petard. Ha ha ha. There's a more
(12:09):
immediate and more expensive and expensive legal problem for Trump.
Of course, he has just contradicted his own filing in
the New York State business fraud case, you know, the
one from I don't know twelve thirteen cases ago, where
he was fined four hundred and sixty five million dollars
with interest, and his lawyers offered just one hundred million
(12:31):
dollars in a bond, and they insisted in court that
without a stay and without the bond, he would have
to raise capital under exigent circumstances. In other words, Trump
could not get whatever say Trump Tower is actually worth,
because all potential buyers would know he really needed the
money immediately, irreparable harm, forced sales, no way to recover
(12:54):
even if the decision were eventually overturned. Ahem. Brian Kilmead quote,
you have to come up with four hundred million dollars?
How close are you to secure during the bond? Elmer J.
Fudd Trump quote, I have a lot of money. I
can do what I want to do. Brian Kilmead quote,
(13:14):
So you're not worried about the money? Aphasia Jay Trump quote,
I don't worry about money.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Oh boy.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
One more quote Attorney General Letitia James. Probably we only
take cash, no checks. One of the subtexts to the
State of the Union tomorrow night. By the way, did
I mention we are live on YouTube and Twitch with
(13:44):
a postgame show after the State of the Union? I did?
Would be the last time. One of the subtexts is
whether or maybe how much President Biden will mention Trump
and insurrection and dictatorship and concentration camps and all that.
Based on two stories, one anecdotal and one based the
(14:05):
answer is he can't mention it too often. He can't
overmention it. He can't say it too frequently because America
is beginning to forget January sixth and everything else. The
New York Times riffed off its own polling showing that
ten percent of Biden's twenty twenty voters now say they
(14:27):
support Trump. It notes that more than four million first
time voters this fall were when Trump was elected in
middle school, and they somehow think, among other things, Trump
will be better for Palestinians than Biden, which means they
didn't learn a damn thing in middle school, did they. Hell?
(14:48):
They were what high school freshmen or eighth graders when
Trump tried to overthrow the government, They don't remember it,
and like a lot of us who marvel that our
hair has been able to stay on fire since January sixth,
twenty twenty one, and they have been saying the Biden
campaign should make sure everybody in this country remembers something
(15:10):
every day about Trump threatening democracy then, now and in
the future, like we say about that. Polling done for
the group Save My Country by a veteran Democratic poster
named Jeff Garren is in a Greg Sergeant piece in
The New Republic. Garren polled four hundred voters in Arizona,
four hundred more in Michigan, four hundred in Pennsylvania. He
(15:33):
then waited them in proportion to the state electoral college
vote total. They threw out twenty twenty Trump voters. They
threw out anybody who said Biden didn't win in twenty
twenty eight. Short, this was designed to find out what
people who might easily vote for Joe Biden thought and knew.
And the pollsters asked them about ten of Trump's most
(15:55):
authoritarian statements, like immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country,
and I'm going to pardon the January six ers, and
I'm going to prosecute the Biden fan family, and I'm
going after the vermin who opposed me. You know, all
the hits. The percentage of these gettable Biden votes who said, uh, yeah, yeah,
I heard about Trump saying all that, the percentage who
(16:17):
had heard it thirty one percent, thirty one less than
a third. Two thirds of potential Biden voters have not
heard about Trump saying he'll be a dictator on day one,
or about mass deportations, or about the concentration camps. They
(16:37):
haven't heard, the pollster told Greg's sergeant quote. Trump's negatives
are not baked into the cake at all time to
order a new cake. Now, wait before you flee for
the cakes of Ecuador. The good news is this may
be an easy fix. When presented with those top ten
(16:58):
worst Trump dictatorship quotes, these voters are immediately impacted. The
number of them who say Trump is out for revenge
after they hear those quotes jumps by five points, the
number of them who see him as a dictator jumps
by seven points, the number who see him as dangerous
jumps by nine and the big number those who view
(17:19):
Trump unfavorably goes from fifty three percent to fifty eight percent. So,
Biden campaign Headquarters, all that ad time, you've bought those
hundreds of millions of dollars worth of spots, I'm just saying.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Sees, Wow, these are the stakes.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Who would never abuse power as retribution against anybody except.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
The day one he's.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Going to face, Except the day one he says you're
not going to be a dictator.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I said, no, no, no other than day one.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
We must either love each other or we must die.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Vote for President Biden on November fifth. The stakes are
too high for you to stay home no charge, mister President.
You can even use my voice there for free. And also,
as to the other great replacement theory, the big scoop
from Crystal Carson, director of communications for the political figure
(18:39):
in question. Quote, as former First Lady Michelle Obama has
expressed several times over the years she will not be
running for president. Missus Obama supports President Joe Biden and
Vice President Kamala Harris's re election campaign. Unquote, she tells
NBC News or or, as we may hear NBC's Christen
(19:01):
Welker phrase at Sunday on Meet the pressson, Lady Michelle
Obama has left the door open to replace Joe Biden
on the Democratic ticket. She says she's not running. She
says she supports the Biden Harris reelection campaign. Allegedly.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Also of interest here, a San Francisco woman born in
Hong Kong, still pre citizenship and on a legal visa,
A graduate of Tufts, for God's Sake, is named to
a non paying job on the City Elections Commission in
San Francisco to work on improving translating of ballots and
local election materials into other languages, including several Chinese languages,
(19:47):
and she's doing it for free and for the fascists.
This might as well be Chairman Mao putting up his
unwashed feat on the White House stairwells. Their panic and
racism has led to a campaign that is that you
can only vote if you speak English, and it is
(20:11):
led by two Republicans who who who really don't speak English,
and one of them is Maria Bartiromo. That's next. This
is Countdown.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
This is Countdown with Keith Overman.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown. As
I prepare for tomorrow night's live State of the Union
postgame show, have I mentioned that at all? I have
been flashed back to the first time I ever did
the State of the Union in nineteen ninety eight at MSNBC,
and also to that a later president of that network
decided to not have me cover any politics at all
(21:09):
because he thought I should just do the newscast and
he did not think election nights were news or something
like that. And I say something like that because he
also did not have cable in his own home and
we were a cable network. The story of the day
I found out he had not actually watched MSNBC in
a year next on things I promised not to tell. First, Yes,
(21:32):
there are still more idiots to talk about. The daily
roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects
specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world,
the bronze worse Roger Stone, whose continuing life as yet
another indication that the simulation has glitched. He posted this
(21:52):
on Trump's vanity social media site yesterday, and it's amazingly
panoramically stupid. Quote Facebook and Instagram, two of the most
powerful communications tools for grassroots politics in America, suddenly stop
working on Super Tuesday, while all of Haley's ads in print,
radio and television remain intact. How convenient. Now, there's a
(22:16):
lot of stupid in here to unpack, let's try. Firstly,
it does not occur to Roger that the first thing
people would say in response to him rogering, is doesn't
your boy Aphasia Jay Trump have all the money in
the world to buy fifty ads in print, radio and
television for everyone Haley has bought? Did you guys screw
(22:37):
up there? Roger? Secondly, Stone is emphasizing how important Facebook
is to Trump's grass roots thing, which might remind folks
about how Stone and his cohorts and his WikiLeaks pals
and Russia used Facebook to astro turf all that grassroots
stuff on Facebook for Trump in twenty sixteen, and maybe
(23:01):
most importantly, Stone posted this on Trump's social media site,
complaining that the other social media sites that Trump says
his site is better than are actually much better than
Trump's site. You know that hat that Roger Stone got
and wears, the one he got from the prop department
(23:22):
at the Batman TV Show. I think it's too tight
for his head, and his wig is too tight for
his head too. The runner up worser remember Sophia cal
and Axios mentioned them yesterday five am Monday, they publish
her nonsense story about Trump pivoting and no longer abusing
(23:42):
opponents and not saying the twenty twenty election was rigged
and just saying a bad thing happened, like he wet
his pants or something. And then hours later he gives
a speech in which he repeatedly uses the rigged word
and abuses all his opponents. The Axios tweet promoting Sophia
Col's piece that might as well have insisted.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
There is two Santa Claus.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It got community noted and Axios apparently deleted it, but
the article it is still on the Axio site. Hey,
what's that smell if you go to the piece at
Axios and then you lean in real close to your laptop,
your tablet or your smartphone, like put your nose right
(24:26):
up against it. Ah, that's what that smell is Sophia
Col's piece. But our winner the worst, Anthony Hudson, would
be Republican nominee for Michigan's eighth congressional district. When I
tell you he owns a trucking company and he is
running on a platform of you're in America, now speak English,
(24:50):
you can already picture him baseball cap, sport code over
a T shirt, both SIZEXXXXXXXL, pair of glasses from the
nineteen ninety two collection. Head wider at the chin than
at the point on the top of his head, whitebeard,
age forty six, looks age sixty four. And then there's
(25:11):
his platform that speak English part that's not a gratuitous
insult on my part. Heartlandsignal dot com dug up candidate
Hudson's video in which he reacts to the appointment of
a Hong Kong native to the San Francisco Elections Committee
and demands new laws taking away the vote from anybody
who does not speak English.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
She's not a legal citizen of this country, and by law,
you must be a legal citizen to vote in the
United States of America. But Kelly Wong, who is an
illegal immigrant, she is not a legal citizen, has now
been appointed to write or push election legislation in the
(25:56):
state of California. And what she wants to.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
Do is spend taxpayer dollars to translate the ballots in Chinese,
Cantonese and other foreign languages and try to encourage other
illegals to come here and vote in their language so
(26:19):
that they can understand it.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
Nah, I don't agree with that one bit. You see,
this is America and we speak English. If you're not
a citizen, you don't vote. And if you are an
American citizen, you need to be able to speak English
to be able to vote.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Okay, who's going to tell them? Who's going to tell
Anthony that we've been translating ballots into other languages here
in this country since the nineteenth century, and that the
woman he refers to as an illegal alien as a
visa is here legally went to Tufts, does not vote,
but has dedicated herself to getting new citizens intimidated by
(27:01):
bad translations to vote, which is their right because they're citizens.
And most importantly, who's going to tell him if he
gets his new proof you speak English tests at all
the polling places, he's never going to get to vote again.
As a ps. You know who's on mister Hudson's side
on all this, Maria Badawomo, who thinks the woman on
(27:24):
the city elections board in San Francisco is in fact
on the Federal Elections Commission.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
So then why is a Chinese national on the board
of the Federal Elections Commission? Wright you are?
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You know, the more I think about it, the more
this speak English or you don't get to vote may
be worth looking into, because if Maria there and this
third grade drop out Hudson in Michigan are typical, we
might be able to disenfranchise like seventy five percent of
all MAGA voters on the spot to say nothing, up
(28:00):
to a quarter of the people who anchor on Fox,
and we would run Marjorie Taylor Green out of Congress
before the end of the week. Anthony, you don't not
speak English, No good Hudson, the future congressman from the
Michigan eighth and candidate for Speaker of the House. Two
days wors Parson and uh, what's this word? War rebun
(28:30):
free bad f blun Finally to the number one story
on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things
I promised not to tell. And tomorrow is seventeen years
(28:52):
since this former MSNBC president, Rick Kaplan, the guy who
once chased me around the studios threatening to kill me
because he was squeamish and I had mentioned blood on
the air, blew any incredibility he had with us because
he didn't know what was live and what was on delay. However,
this story starts in the men's room at MSNBC. It
(29:15):
is February seventeenth, two thousand and four, at one of
those moronic corporate speak town halls. The bosses have just
introduced Rick Kaplan as the new president of the network.
Kaplan speaks for an hour without interruption or breath. He
does not mention that he was the president of CNN
when it's nineteen year streak at number one in the
cable news ratings came to a crashing end. He does, however,
(29:39):
mention that he is six feet seven inches tall, but
he does not seem to be six feet seven inches tall.
As this nonsense ends, I rush into the men's room
and find, to my amusement, Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Jesse Ventura,
Lester Holt, and one unoccupied urinoal As I moved to
(30:02):
occupy it, it dawns on me that Venture sure, the
former professional wrestler is the shortest man in the bathroom,
at six feet two. All five of us are silent. Finally,
Matthews says it helen hell, can he say he's six
foot seven? He's barely taller than I am, and I'm
six four Oldron, are you slightly taller than me? You're
(30:22):
slightly shorter than me? How is he six seven? Everybody
keeps looking forward, of course, into the wall in front
of us. I'm six three and a half. Lester, he's
your height. I saw you standing with him, you tour
even What are you six ' five? Lester says, uh
huh and flushes. Scarborough chimes in, I'm just over sixty four.
(30:44):
We're almost dyed. Aye, he's not six seven. Finally, Ventura speaks,
I've been thrown around a ring by guys who were
six seven. This guy's not six seven. From the sink
Lester Holt now says, have any of you known anybody
our height who lies and says they're taller? Matthews again,
(31:05):
who lies about their height? Eye flush? This guy does, gentlemen,
we are in trouble here for the presidency of Rick
Kaplan at MSNBC. That might have been sorry, I can't
resist it the high water mark. Later, on Friday, March fifth,
two thousand and four, Kaplan, who had been there three weeks,
(31:26):
assembled the hosts and producers of the primetime shows on
the network that would have been me, Scarborough, Dan Abrams,
our staffs, the new Jersey staff of Chris Matthews Show,
and he told us that the next day was going
to be Monday. Somebody from Scarborough's staff helpfully corrected him
and mister Kaplan, I'm sorry, tomorrow is Saturday. Kaplan sternly
(31:47):
explained he was now president of this network and we
all sucked, and if he said today was Friday and
tomorrow was Monday, then today was Friday and tomorrow was Monday.
He wanted to see us react to sudden changes in
our plans. We were being told we were being called
into work a sixth day tomorrow for no reason. Kaplin
(32:08):
then started yelling at us, you guys don't get it.
You're all working tomorrow. Anybody who doesn't come in is fired.
We are going to do the whole pro primetime lineup.
Your breaking news is today's breaking news, the guilty verdict
in the Martha Stewart case. Start booking your guests, because
tomorrow is Monday, not Saturday. Just on my staff, Saturday
(32:30):
was supposed to be my reporter's engagement party, a surprise
party thrown by one of my producers for his wife's birthday,
and the day another producer was closing on buying a house.
I have a vague memory of what we put on
the air. I have a stronger memory of the new
president of MSNBC losing the staffs of all four of
(32:51):
his primetime shows on his fifth day on the job
and never ever getting them back. Kaplan then went to
a corkboard on our office wall on which our show
rundown was displayed. He ordered producers to move segments around,
and he berated me for not having anticipated his whims,
and at one point he screamed, stop what the hell
(33:11):
are you doing? And he got up and he grabbed
the pushpin, which held up an index card bearing the
name of a guest.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
You don't use green pins with yellow index cards.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
You use yellow pins with yellow index cards. What kind
of a newsman are you. I can't imagine how this
guy choked away CNN's monopoly on cable news ratings. I
was reminded recently that later, on December eighth, two thousand
and five, seventeen years ago tomorrow, he did one of
the most unintentionally funniest things I have ever witnessed. A
(33:47):
plane slid off the runway at Midway Airport in Chicago.
Nothing funny about that, obviously, but Kaplan called into our
control room demanding we changed something about our live coverage
that he didn't like. We promptly made the change. He
was right. Five minutes later he called in and started
swim at one of our producers. I told you to
change that if you you're fired, and the producer said,
(34:11):
we changed it five minutes ago. When you called in, silence, Rick,
are you watching the network on some sort of delay?
Are you watching on TVO or something? Silence again. Finally
he said, okay, good work, see you tomorrow and hung up.
He didn't know he was watching it on a delay.
(34:32):
Kaplan was also one of these forget the mean thing
I said yesterday. God knows I have kind of guys.
By Monday, he had heard people laughing at some of
my on air jokes and his front runner instincts took over.
He called me and the producer in for a meeting.
I have only one criticism of your show. Which of
these stories will you be talking about? Thing is genius?
(34:53):
The fifth story, the fourth story, then the third story.
It's original and fresh. I hesitated. I almost said to him, yeah,
this old counting thing we just invented that. The music
is genius, the graphics are genius. You're a genius, but
you're missing something obvious, something genius. After each one of
these stories, after you thank your guests, you should do
(35:14):
a list of the things you didn't tell us about
those stories. So like after the fifth story, you should say,
now here are the other five things we didn't tell
you about the fifth story, get it a full screen
graphic and you telling people, And then four things for
the fourth story and three for the third. I thought
for a moment, and I said, Okay, Well, what happens
if we make those graphics up, and then a minute beforehand,
(35:35):
the guest brings up one of those things we claim
we didn't tell you. When he just told you, we
had lost Rick Caplan's attention by that point. Hmmm, he grunted.
For a second. I thought his eyes were pointing outwards
in different directions. But he snapped himself back into this reality. Huh,
(35:55):
could happen? You'll figure it out anyway, too late to
do it today, figure it out and do it tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
The producer, and I had to then explain to the
staff of Countdown that from now on, for every story
they had to deliberately leave out one or two or
three or four or five facts or details, something interesting
enough to be made into a full screen graphic, but
not interesting enough to be included in their scripts or
the interviews with the guests. Suddenly I thought a lot
(36:23):
of people's eyes were pointing outwards in different directions. The
line producer, Greg Kordick, who was in charge not of
content but of timing things and making sure things like
graphics got made, said, matter of factly, this will add
five hours to everybody's workday, and so it did. After
the next day's show when we listed the top five
(36:44):
things we didn't tell you about today's fifth story and
the top four things we didn't tell you about today's
fourth story, etc. And we had to shorten all the
scripts and shorten each interview just to make room for
all of this extraneous crap. Greg the producer said people
here will be quitting by Thursday and dying by Monday.
And I said, you're right. Plus it ruins the interviews
and it weakens the show. Don't do it tomorrow, Aaplin yells,
(37:05):
I'll take the eight. So now it's Wednesday. And not
only don't I hear anything from Kaplan about the Tuesday
show and his the top five things we didn't tell
you about today's fifth story, Jazz, but after the Wednesday
show when we don't do it, I'm sitting there waiting
for an enraged phone call because we didn't. Thursday morning
at home, I'm waiting for an enraged email. Thursday afternoon,
(37:27):
I'm waiting for an enraged Kaplin in person. Nothing. He
never said a word. The week passes nothing, a month,
two months, it's summer.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
The rest of two thousand and four flies by nothing.
We did it once, we never did it again, and
then he never said anything. It is now January two
thousand and five, and he still hasn't said anything. And
I'm told by Phil Griffin, my first producer in television
sports and sixteen years later, my first producer in television news,
(38:03):
who has since become the vice president of MSNBC, that
Kaplain wants to see us in his office. It's not
a big deal. Phil says, he's in a good mood.
He just wants to make us feel like we have
input into his decisions. This is a what do you
think meeting? Now, I have to ask you to carefully
picture the layout of Rick Kaplan's office at MSNBC in
the year two thousand and five. Envision a long, narrow room.
(38:27):
Baseball's MLB network now operates there, and they have cleverly
turned Kaplan's office into a wardrobe room, perfect since it
was really just a long closet. Anyways, Rick Kaplan, who
was six foot five but lied and said he was
six foot seven, sat at the very back of this room.
So you come in the front door, you turn to
your right, and maybe thirty thirty five forty feet away
(38:51):
from you, in the farthest corner, facing his computer on
his desk. Flush against the left hand wall is the
president of MSNBC. A few feet into the room is
where you sit. Halfway between these two points. Against the
right hand wall is where another executive can sit. So
Phil Griffin sits there. I'm just inside the door. He
(39:14):
is fifteen feet ahead of me to the right. Rick
Kaplan is thirty feet or forty feet ahead of me
to the left. Picture this carefully, the way these chairs
and desks are arranged. If you're me and Phil Griffin
is looking at you, Rick Kaplan can only see the
back of Phil Griffin's head and not his face. If
they are both looking at you, they cannot see each other. Weird,
(39:39):
seemingly trivial turned out to be essential. We begin this
meaningless meeting and talk about guests and graphics, fonts, and
Kaplan talks about how much the ratings have gone up
in his year as president. And finally, I say, I
do have one suggestion. I think the show is going
to be very successful, and I think if we want
to make any changes, we should make them now before
(39:59):
it becomes successful. And I say, I have never heard
anybody they like the fifth story, fourth story third story stuff.
If you want to continue the name countdown because people
know it by now, that's great, I guess. But the
five four three two one numbering is a conceit and
it's a lot of extra work for everybody, and I
(40:20):
think we should kill it now. Kaplan is aghast, he
is pale. He is not angry, he is just stunned.
But you can't do that. Five four three two one
is part of the reasons. And the ratings went up.
The ratings went up when I came up with the
(40:41):
idea of the top five things we didn't tell you
about today's top five stories, and the top four things
we didn't tell you about today's number four story, et cetera.
We can't stop that. That's why people watch My idea.
Took me a split second to even remember what the
hell it was he was talking about. I had forgotten
(41:02):
the whole five things we didn't tell you Albert Tross.
Weeks after the one show we did it, and then
the staff rebelled and I said, screw it, and I'll
take the heat. And I was about to say this
out loud when I suddenly realized that Phil Griffin, fifteen
feet away on the right his face turned to me
and thus invisible to Kaplan, thirty feet away on the left,
was making his eyes as wide as possible, and Phil
(41:24):
was looking right at me and silently mouthing the word no, no, no, no, no,
all the while keeping his head completely still, so Kaplan
didn't know he was talking to me silently. I got
Phil's message. I dropped the subject. I didn't say it.
The meeting ended maybe two minutes later, with Kaplan saying
(41:46):
keep up the good work, and ushering us out by saying,
and keep up with the top five things we didn't
tell you about today's five fifth story. Oh that's what's
making it really cook. When we were out of earshot
of Rick Kaplan, Griffin thanked me for being able to
read his panicked lips. I used an oath to liven
up my question. What the blank was that all about?
(42:08):
And Griffin said, now you know what every day of
my life has become. It's not worth it to try
to correct him. He believes what he believes, and he
won't be checked or contradicted. And I said, we only
did the five things we didn't tell you a thing once,
only once. It's like a year later, how in the hell.
Could he possibly think we're still doing it? Griffin laughed
(42:33):
like a soldier on a World War One battlefield who
has just run out of bullets. See that's the problem, buddy.
He only watches MSNBC here in the office, the place
he's renting it doesn't have cable. President of MSNBC doesn't
have cable at home. On June sixth, two thousand and six,
(42:56):
they fired Rick Caplan as the president of MSNBC. They
let him resign. They also let him keep his secret,
the darkest of secrets for him and for MSNBC, that,
for his two years on the throne, the president of
an all news cable channel did not have cable. I've
(43:28):
done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
for listening. I swear to God all that is true.
He lied about his height, and he made us think
that he had cable, and he didn't. And he was
the president of two different cable news networks. Thanks for listening. Countdown.
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced,
(43:48):
and performed most of our music. Mister Ray on guitars,
bass and drums. Mister Chanale handled orchestration and keyboards. Produced
by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The
sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical
(44:10):
and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best
baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend
Howard Feineman, and everything else was pretty much my fault.
So let's countdown for this two hundred and forty fifth
day before the twenty twenty fourth presidential election, the one
and fifty fifth day since dementia Jay Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
(44:34):
Use the Fourteenth Amendment, the Insurrection Act, the justice system,
and the mental health system to stop him from doing
it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. Don't forget our live YouTube special after the
State of the Union tomorrow night, my warm up act.
He begins at nine Eastern. That'd be the President. We
(44:55):
will be on about ten bulletins is the news warrants
till then on Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
(45:15):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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