May 31, 2023 • 45 mins
EPISODE 215: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) BULLETIN: It's the Smoking Gun.
Trump is on tape, not just ADMITTING that after he left office he KEPT classified top secret MILITARY plans for an American war on IRAN but BOASTING he kept them, AND describing the details of the American attack strategy, AND attributing the document to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND describing it to at least four people none of whom had the requisite security clearance to even know the document existed, let alone hear any of the details, AND saying he would like to share those details with them, AND then acknowledging he couldn’t because even an ex-president can’t just declassify whatever he wants, AND acting as if he is holding the top secret document in his hands as he’s talking about it, AND the conversation took place not at Mar-a-Lago but at his golf course in Bedminster New Jersey, AND the recorded conversation took place in July 2021 before Trump returned ANY of the documents he stole, AND two of the other people were there working on the autobiography of Mark Meadows, AND one of the others was his former White House press aide Margo Martin, AND Trump knew he was being recorded, AND the story of the meeting appears IN the Meadows Autobiography, AND this may be the tip of the Trump Tapes iceberg. Quoting CNN’s exclusive: “During the summer of 2021, sources say multiple people were making recordings of Trump as he held conversations with journalists and biographers.”
And this tape is in the hands of… Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Apply every cliche you can think of: this is a Smoking Gun inside a weapons depot filled with nothing BUT Smoking Guns. And that bit about tapes is just the tip of the iceberg because this isn't just "The" Trump Tape. It's The FIRST Trump Tape.
B-Block (18:52) IN SPORTS: The Dodger disaster continues. They folded to the pressure of "The Catholic League" (which is one loud guy named Bill) and uninvited a Nun Drag group supported by actual Catholic Nuns. Since? Dodgers rightly attacked by LGBTQ community and local fans, so they reversed and RE-invited. Now they've been attacked by a pitcher for The Washington Nationals who has called for fans to boycott the Dodgers, and their own star twirler has announced a Christian Night at Dodger Stadium - evidently BEFORE the team was ready to. (26:52) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Someone claiming to be the wife of a serving marine says the president needs to be "executed publicly." Elon Musk paid $44B for twitter. One of his co-investors now says it's worth $15B. And disgraced disloyal ex-General Mike Flynn has found a new calling: SELLING SPERM.
C-Block (32:40) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Bentley was rescued by a clueless group which stuck him in a luxury kennel and he has to be ransomed! (33:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I never wanted to do politics. Then one day I went from interviewing Chris Kattan on MSNBC to anchoring the 1998 State of the Union Address
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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. The
Smoking Gun. Donald Trump is on tape not just admitting
(00:28):
that after he left office he kept classified top secret
military plans for an American attack on Iran for war
against Iran, not just admitting he kept those, but boasting
he kept those and describing the details of the American
attack strategy on Iran and attributing the document and the
(00:50):
plans to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and describing the document to at least four people, none
of whom had the requisite security clearance to even know
that the document existed, let alone hear any of the details,
and saying he would like to share those details with them,
and then acknowledging he couldn't share those details with them,
(01:13):
because even an ex president can't just declassify whatever he
wants and acting as if he is holding the top
secret documents in his hands and he is talking about them.
And this happened in a conversation that took place not
at Mari Lago, but at his other golf course in Bedminster,
New Jersey, And the recorded conversation took place in July
(01:36):
twenty twenty one before Trump had returned any of the
documents he stole, and two of the other people were
there working on the autobiography of his former chief of staff,
Mark Meadows, and one of the others was Trump's former
White House press aide, Margo Martin. And Trump knew he
(01:57):
was being recorded, and there is some indication now that
Trump demanded that he be recorded, And the story of
this met appears in the Mark Meadows autobiography. And this
may only be the tip of the Trump tapes. Iceberg,
quoting CNN's exclusive during the summer of twenty twenty one,
(02:20):
sources say multiple people were making recordings of Trump as
he held conversations with journalists and biographers unquote. And this
tape is in the hands of Special Counsel Jack Smith,
and Trump's lawyers should be meeting with Smith now and
(02:41):
asking for a plea deal now, because on this tape,
Trump not only confesses to repeated violations of the Espionage
Act worth ten years in jail per violation, but maybe
even more importantly than the galling thought of this thug,
Trump stealing our military plans for attacking Iran and keeping
(03:03):
them at some cheesy golf course in New Jersey. More
galling than that. Trump, in his own words on his
own tape, also erases the pillar of his specious defense
that a president can declassify anything he wants to just
by thinking about it or saying it or it's automatic.
(03:26):
He is, in one two minute span, literally committing one crime,
confessing to other crimes, disavowing his only possible defense for
committing any of the crimes, admitting he knew in real
time that sharing classified information was itself a crime, and
expanding the scope of where he illegally kept classified documents
(03:48):
not just in mar Lago but in New Jersey. The
smoking gun and with that little throwaway line about multiple
people making recordings of Trump in twenty twenty one, not
just the smoking gun, but very likely a smoking gun
(04:10):
in a weapons depot full of nothing but smoking guns.
Ask Jack Smith for a plea deal. Hell, Trump should
just cut to the chase and ask President Biden for
a pardon deal, because if you have not had enough
crime cliches yet, in the smoking guns and the tips
of icebergs, there is also the inevitable can of worms,
(04:34):
because apart from the crimes on the Trump tape, the
ones we already know about, the ones there is already
hard evidence of In his own voice on the Trump Tape,
the first Trump Tape, Trump was willing to break the
law and reveal the existence of an ultra secret, classified
(04:58):
military war document about bombing Iran for the purpose of
trying to to make Mark Milli look bad after a
series of articles had just come out two years ago
in which it was revealed Milli had gone above and
beyond the call of duty to put obstacles in the
way of Trump launching a preemptive attack on Iran in
(05:18):
the waning days of his administration kind of international Reichstag
fire as a pretext for Trump to declare state of
emergency in this country, yet another prong of Trump's multifaceted
coup attempt. Trump was waving around the Iran Plan or
papers he implied were the Iran Plan in order to
(05:39):
refute Milli, to show that Milli was just as ready
to bomb Iran as he was. Trump was willing to
break these laws, willing to share our war plans on
how if we had to to bomb Iran and subvert
the entire necessary security structures of this country to make
(06:02):
himself look better. On one or two pages on one
of the hundreds of books about his damnable administration. He
was willing to do it with, not necessarily Mark Meadows.
We have no indication that Mark Meadows was at this meeting.
He was willing to do it with two researchers who
(06:23):
helped Meadows with the book and didn't even get credited
on the cover or the jacket. And Hugo Lowell in
the Guardian now ads this document was classified quote secret, unquote,
and that the Trump aid Margot Martin, was asked about
this milli Iran document in front of the Grand Jury
(06:46):
in March, and she also had her laptop and her
electronic devices imaged by the Department of Justice. And also
that it was Trump who wanted the meeting with the
Meadows people recorded because he doesn't trust journalists. But now
come the question, if he was willing to tell them
(07:07):
about this, who else was he willing to confirm to
the existence of this document or willing to read it to,
or show it to or sell it to. Would another
government in the Middle East want to hear about American
plans to bomb Iran with Israel? What Saudi Arabia? Saudi
(07:31):
Arabia with whom Trump has had a series of intricate
business deals for decades, including the promotion of this sportswashing
Saudi Live Golf tour. Just last week, The New York
Times reported the Jacksmith's office had issued subpoenas to all
the Trump companies for all business dealings since twenty seventeen
with seven specific countries, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE Kuwait.
(07:58):
All of it based on a theory that the documents
he stole may have found their way into the those
Trump business dealings with those countries. Is the milli Iran
Plan document. One of those documents. Did it go to
the Saudis? If it did, here we are back again
(08:23):
in eighteen US Code seven ninety four. Gathering or delivering
defense information to aid foreign government, giving a foreign government
our defense information and a plan promulgated by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff for starting a war and bombing Iran.
You know that would fall under the definition of defense information.
(08:46):
Anybody guilty of doing that quote shall be punished by
death or by imprisonment for any term of years or
for life, except that the sentence of death shall not
be imposed unless the jury further finds that the offense
resulted in the identification by foreign power of an individual
(09:07):
acting as an agent of the United States, and consequently
the death of that individual or it directly concerned nuclear weaponry,
military spacecraft or satellites, early warning systems, or other means
of defense or retaliation against large scale attack, semi colon
war plans, semi colon communications intelligence or cryptographic information semi colon,
(09:33):
or any other major weapons system or major element or
defense strategy. How many of those did he do? In
this five six seven, I have moved away from what
(09:53):
we have just learned on this watershed day to what
might be out there yet to learn. And even I
don't really think that anybody would try to prosecute a
death penalty case against Donald Trump. But we sure as
hell have not moved that far away from what we
(10:14):
already do know. And it is already serious enough that
we are not far from quote shall be punished by
death or by the imprisonment for any term of years
or for life. And just listen to this quotation that
is almost certainly drawn from the meeting at which Trump
(10:35):
seemed to brandish the Millie memo as it is described
in the Meadows Book. And sorry, I'm not buying the
whole book to read the whole excerpt. I'm not given
Mark Meadows my checks Amazon for price of book six
dollars and sixty five cents. Trump Meadows or ghostwriters writes.
(10:58):
Quote recalls a four page report typed up by Mark
Millie himself. It contained the general his own plan to
attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged
President Trump to do more than once during his presidency.
Enquote In the Meadows autobiography version of the meeting, Jack
(11:20):
Smith has this recording of Trump revealed enough that just
repeating all that in that loan quote or more to
the Saudis or to anybody else, to the Canadians, that
is eighteen US Code seven ninety four gathering or delivering
defense information to aid foreign government espionage prison. There are
(11:46):
four other very relevant points here. Who gave Jack Smith
the tape gave or gave up? I mentioned that. Nowhere
in the CNN piece is there anything indicating that Mark
Meadows was at the Smoking Gun meeting that was recorded.
But there's certainly nothing indicating that the tape, which was
(12:08):
recording an interview conducted for meadows Own autobiography, would not
belong to Meadows or at minimum to his publisher, or
then there is this alternate theory that perhaps this is
the Margo Martin tape, and Meadows is obviously not the
only possible source for the tape, but he is one
of the possibilities, probably the lead possibility, and that in
(12:30):
turn again raises the possibility that Mark Meadows has flipped
on Donald Trump. It's only last Wednesday that CNN put
out a story reading quote a source close to Trump's
legal team said Trump's lawyers have had no contact with
Meadows and his team and are in the dark on
what Meadows is doing in the investigation. It also quoted
(12:51):
one Trump advisor as saying, we've all heard the same rumors.
No one really knows what he's doing. Though sounds like
what Mark Meadows was doing was doing a thorough inventory
of every damn thing Trump said on damn tapes. Second
(13:13):
additional point, we know from CNN and other reporting that
Smith's team has asked General Milly about the document about
the Trump tape. First Trump tape. It seems that was
not in front of the grand jury, but in an interview,
but it's weirdly phrased in the CNN piece. Others have
clearly been asked about it on the record in front
(13:34):
of the jurors, including Margot Martin of Trump's staff. Third
additional point. Up until this story, almost everything leaking out
of the Special Council's Office has been about Trump committing
obstruction of justice, hiding documents, hiding documents from his own attorney,
having a box mover who was caught on security tape,
(13:55):
who knows nothing about anything or subpoenas, but is somehow
clever enough to suddenly go ask the Marri Lago it
guy how long before mister phelps this tape will self destructed?
But this story is about the meat of an underlying crime,
the theft of secret war plans. Not of obstruction, not
(14:19):
of destruction of evidence, but of stealing a classified document,
sharing knowledge of his existence with people who are not
supposed to know of its existence, including book researchers, for
Christ's sakes, pining to read it to them, making veiled
references to its contents, but aware guilty for knowledge, aware
that he is prevented by law from doing so and
(14:41):
could not just declassify stuff at will. This is the meal,
and the obstruction is just the dessert. Federal prosecutors occasionally
prosecute just the dessert, but they are much more likely
to prosecute obstruction if there is something substantial behind the
obstruction and if the perpetrator knew he would be committing
(15:03):
a crime. If he commit a crime and then he
goes and commits the crime, that's pretty substantial. Plus the document.
As the former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb said on CNN
about the Special Council's Office right now, quote, I think
they have their foot on Trump's neck. And the fourth
(15:26):
and final additional point Bedminster. This happened at Bedminster, not
at Mari Lago. And if for some reason the Special
Council's Office has not yet done an inch by inch
search there, it needs to be out there by sunrise.
Where is this document now? Is it still at Bedminster?
(15:52):
Should we go and get it? And it moves an
incident at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster from
the macabre and the silly and the category of a
great joke. But I must tell Muffy, let's go get
to Martini to the category of is this possible? I
mean what follows is I hope pure political science fiction
(16:17):
and the product of having read every single Sherlock Holmes
story and seeing way too much Monty Python. I hope
this is as crazy as it might sound, But all
of a sudden, I'm not sure anymore. You are Trump.
You have this ultra secret military national defense document, and
(16:38):
one of your attorneys finds out and he tells you
in twenty twenty one or twenty twenty two that if
they find it here, they can prosecute you, and if
they convict you, they could put you in jail for
the rest of your life or worse. You must return
this document immediately and hope they let it go. But
you're Trump. Of course you will not return it. You're Trump,
(17:00):
You're immortal, You're guilty of nothing. You do what somebody
tells you too. That's for suckers. But the Iran document
could be damning somehow. You know this through the haze
of your own ego. You know you have to get
rid of it. What do you do with it? You
can't destroy it, you can't burn it. What if you
(17:24):
somehow leave evidence that you did that? Now there would
be two charges against you. What do you do with
that document? Stolen war plans at Bedminster? Where could you
put it? Where they'll not only never find it, but
never think to look for it. Moreover, where they would
never have the audacity to search for it. On Wednesday,
(17:51):
July twentieth, twenty twenty two, at the Bedminster Golf Course
in Bedminster, New Jersey, between the first Tea and the
magnificent Main Golf Clubhouse, the body of Ivanna Marie is
on each a Trump, first wife of the forty fifth
President of the United States, was laid to rest in
a beautiful private ceremony, buried quote in a rose gold
(18:16):
hwed casket unquote very large rose goldhwed casket. Never mind,
lock her up, dig her up. Okay. The rest of
(18:41):
this podcast is the original episode from Wednesday, May thirty first,
So if you've heard it already, no need to listen
again to how the LA Dodgers screwed up Pride Night
beyond all recognition, or how Mike Flynn is now selling sperm.
I will not take it personally if you hit stop
right now. I hope to update this for a new Thursday,
June first edition. But there's one more complication. Turns out
(19:05):
I may have walking pneumonia, just walking pneumonia. No boogie
woogie flu I've actually been off and on woozy the
last few weeks. The voice is beginning to go, finally
getting it looked at, and I have the stamina of
This is how not good I feel. I don't feel
good enough to come up with another simile. Sorry, Keith
(19:28):
at his doctors. That's next. This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith Oberman.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith Olberman in sports. How could it
possibly go more wrong for the Los Angeles Dodgers. First,
they invited a satirical fundraising drag group called the Sisters
(20:12):
of Perpetual Indulgence to Pride Night at Dodger Stadium. Then,
when the infamous Catholic League, which is actually just one
obnoxious guy named Bill, came after them for doing that,
they disinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from Pride Night. Then,
after blowback, including support for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
(20:33):
from actual Catholic nuns, the Dodgers reinvited them. On Monday,
relief pitcher Anthony Bass of the Toronto Blue Jays posted
a video from some guy calling for boycotts of Target
and Bud happily leaving the Dodgers out of it. This
is evil, This is demonic, said the video that Bass posted. Yesterday,
(20:53):
Bass issued a stiff, thirty second apology that looked like
a very well rehearsed live hostage video. A baseball blogger
named Tyrone Palmer noted Anthony Bass is calling for a
boycott of Target. Judging by his four point five zero
er and four walks per nine innings, it looks like
he's been boycotting Targets all season long. Almost simultaneous to
(21:18):
Bass's forced apology, another mediocre pitcher named Trevor Williams of
the Washington Nationals posted a two screenshot screed in which
he said he was quote deeply troubled that the Dodgers
were inviting the Sisters, claimed the decision was a quote
violation of the Dodgers' discrimination policy, and encouraged his quote
(21:41):
fellow Catholics to reconsider their support of an organization that
allows this kind of mockery of its fans to occur.
Williams is not quite as bad as Bass, but if
he disappeared from baseball tomorrow, you probably would not notice.
And he might because while he might not be as
bad as Bass. Bass also did not attack another team,
(22:04):
the La Dodgers, no less, had encouraged fans to boycott them.
You're in the same business, pal, or at least you were.
The whole thing just keeps getting worse and worse because
of one decision. This Catholic League, which convinced the Dodgers
to uninvite these crazy drag nuns, is actually just one
(22:25):
guy named Bill Donahue, a loud mouthed homophobe and bully.
All the cable networks figured him out in the nineties
and stopped putting him on. When the Dodgers finally figured
that out, they reversed course and reinvited the Sisters. But
then last week, the Dodgers team leader, the veteran pitcher
Clayton Kershaw, personally announced that the Dodgers would also be
(22:47):
staging Christian Faith and Family Day after an interruption that
began with the pandemic. Now it becomes evident that Kershaw
decided to announce this himself. Quote, I think we were
always going to do Christian Faith Day this year, but
I think the timing of our announcement was bet up.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Kershaw told the La Times, Yes, It was in response
to the highlighting of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence by
the Dodgers, so Kershaw announced his team was going to
hold a Christian event, boxing the Dodgers into holding the
Christian event, the team will not comment about its own
(23:25):
star and just complicate this more. Kershaw has always participated
in Pride Night, quoting him again, this has nothing to
do with the LGBTQ community or Pride or anything like that.
This is simply a group that was making fun of
a religion that I don't agree with. Moral When Bill
Donahue of the Catholic quote league unquote calls, whatever bad
(23:48):
thing you think he's try to make happen, there is
really only one bad thing that can happen, and that
is this. You can forget that. When Bill Donahue calls,
you must immediately hang up on him. Another moment of
Baseball fund At least this one's between the lines sort of. First,
the Houston Astros mocked the fans of the Oakland A's,
(24:08):
the moribund, lame duct team that's probably moving to Las
Vegas after ownership basically starved the franchise to death over
the last five years. The Astros tweeted a video of
their offensive explosion in Oakland recently with this caption ten
runs in front of tens of fans. This was retweeted
(24:28):
forty six hundred times. It got seventeen thousand likes and
seven million views, and then, amid the criticism, the Astros
deleted the tweets, thereby making it twice as bad and
the beginning of the end of TV sports as we
know it is underway or something like that. The terminology
(24:49):
here gets kind of confusing. The Sports Business Journal reports
that Diamond Sports Group, which runs the Bally Sports regional networks,
which carried dozens of local team broadcasts in many sports
and which went bankrupt in March, has for the first
time forfeited its rights to one of those teams games.
It has told the San Diego Padres it will not
be making its next payment to them on the twenty
(25:12):
year one point two billion dollar deal, and so the
TV rights for the Padres revert back to the Padres.
And I guess now the announceries will just have to
go door to door every morning asking if anybody wants
to watch that night's game and how much they'd be
willing to pay for it. Thank you, Nancy Faust. And
(25:51):
if you're wondering where tennis gets its reputation for disconnection
from reality. At the French Open, Marta Costiac lost to
number two women's seed Arena Sabelenka. Costiuc refused to shake
Sabolenka's hand after the math. She never shakes Sabolenka's hand
after the match, and they always play and yes, it
is because Costiuk is from Ukraine and Sabolenka is from Belarus,
(26:15):
which supports Russia's terrorism in Ukraine. And Costiuk will not
shake her hand and did not shake her hand, and
the French Open crowd at Roland Garo Stadium promptly booed
the Ukrainian for not shaking her hand. And this is
how stupid that is. Costiuc of Ukraine said she was
(26:37):
embarrassed for the French crowd for booing her, But then
Sabolenka of Belarus said even she was amazed that the
French crowd had bowed COSTYUK. When both players in this
dynamic say you've screwed up, you've screwed up. Coming up
(27:07):
one day, I was the mild mannered host of a
mild mannered news magazine on MSNBC that led the show
with stories like, oh, the new edition of the Farmer's
Almanac is out, let's go live to the publisher, or
tonight we devote the hour to Saturday Night Live's newest
breakout star, Chris Catan. And then the next day I
was anchoring the State of the Union broadcast and getting
(27:29):
quoted by politicians as I was yesterday by Chip. Next, first,
the daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning
Kruger Effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world.
The Bronze. Kayleie Campbell Layton, posting on Facebook identifying as
the wife of Ryan Layton, a marine based in twenty
nine Palms, California, quote, Biden left many military service dogs
(27:53):
to die in cobble after the evacuation. I'm calling for
public execution of this old man, and you can't change
my mind now. I'm a dog lover, and the fate
of the service dogs in Afghanistan grieves me, as any
dog at risk grieves me. And this woman has also
done the military is racist against white people, posts and
(28:16):
videos about target and she should have been arrested already
for this threat against the president and her husband needs
to be thrown out of the Marines and directly into well.
I'm assuming congress Ryan chip Layton runner up Elon Musk
shot and Chaser time shot. We all told him so,
(28:36):
We told him the blue checks are not status symbols,
they're ID cards. But he didn't listen because he's a
super genius. Yesterday, an account called aoc Press began impersonating
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortes, and it had a blue check mark,
and some of its tweets included wild policy statements, and
(28:59):
thus the new cognizantity of Twitter. Those with grilled cheese
for brains, who also paid ninety six dollars a year
for a blue check mark that's bigger than their private parts,
they began to believe it really was the congresswoman saying
these stupid things. And that's when Musk replied to one
of the fake accounts tweets thereby amplifying it no pain,
(29:20):
no gain, also no brain, no pain, and no brain
no shame. If that's the shot, here's the chaser yesterday.
Fidelity Investments, which put money in when Musk bought Twitter
wrote down the value of its share of the company
and his He bought it for forty four billion. Fidelity
says it is now worth fifteen billion. Elon bought it
(29:44):
all right, but the winner. Michael Flynn, Yeah, that one,
not the whole treason and overthrowing the government start. This
is his new venture. He is described as a founding
partner of for the Pure, which is one stop shopping
for the vaxer crowd. Quote an online community of health
conscious COVID nineteen on vaccinated people, where health conscious individuals
(30:07):
who have rejected the vaccine can connect and find everything
they need. Friendships, dating, curated news, service providers, doctors, blood donors,
fertility options, jobs, shopping events, etc. Wait what was that
last one? Blood donors? No, no, no, before that, doctors,
(30:28):
blood donors, fertility options, fertility options. You mean you mean
it's an unvaccinated sperm bank. Michael Flynn is now selling
unvaccinated sperm. Michael Well selling sperm is I guess better
(30:48):
than selling out the country? Flynn two days worst person
in the sperm world. Still ahead on countdown. Chip Roy
(31:12):
is not the first to invoke my name, happily or
otherwise in Congress or the Senate or whatnot. Dick Cheney
and John McCain both muttered angry jokes in my direction
within days of each other. And then there was the
night I anchored the nineteen ninety eight State of the Union,
when two weeks earlier I was not even a political correspondent,
not even close. That's saga. Next. First, in each tradition
(31:33):
of countdown, we feature a dog. Indeed, you can help.
Every dog has its day. This is about Bentley. Bentley
is a big black dog with big ears, and he's
pretty calm and pretty happy, and somebody in Fullerton, California,
rescued him from a pound and clearly did not quite
get the whole what do we do next part and
simply took Bentley to a dog boarding place, a kennel,
(31:54):
an upscale kennel that calls itself a pet lodge, and
it got him a space, and it left him there
for two hundred and eighteen nights at thirty eight dollars
a night, two hundred and eighty four dollars to board
one healthy dog. My friend Alana Rizzo from MLB Network
and her rescue Gidri's guardian is contributing to ransoming Bentley
(32:14):
and she could use your financial help. You can find
her on Twitter at Gidresguardian dot org or on my
Twitter feeds. I thank you, and Bentley thanks you from
the Dog Hotel in California, where you can check out
but you can never leave. Now to the number one
story on the Countdown and things I promised not to
(32:36):
tell and the state of the Union nineteen ninety eight.
When I left ESPN and signed with MSNBC the first
time in nineteen ninety seven, it was not to become
a political commentator nor even anchor. I went there to
do what the president of NBC News America needed most,
a live, hour long news magazine show from Secaucus, New Jersey.
(33:00):
So unfocused that on consecutive nights we led with the
threat of a terrorist group called al Qaeda, and then
the next night we led with the publication of the
Farmer's Almanac. I mean, this was the news at eight pm,
the lead story that published the Farmers Almanac. Again, here's
our live guest, the publisher. Here's a gun rain next year.
(33:25):
I had regrets. Anyway, the good part of the job
was sports. I hosted baseball in the World Series and
even did some Super Bowl stuff. For NBC, and in
mid January of nineteen ninety eight, I flew to the
West Coast to work on that and do this magazine show,
The Big Show on MSNBC from entertainment venues in LA,
(33:48):
most of them associated with NBC. On the afternoon of Tuesday,
January twentieth, nineteen ninety eight, we were on the set
of Third Rock from the Sun preparing to interview at
Star John Liskow when my producer Phil Griffins sidled over, you,
my little friend, are about to become a political host.
The President got caught with some chippy in the White
(34:08):
House chippy, oh not sex. Sex looks like just you know,
and then he lied about it in the Deposition Saturday.
I asked him how to the hell anybody knew about
what the deposition said when it was just four days
after he gave the deposition and those things they're supposed
to be you know, secret preach me. Drudge put it
(34:28):
out yesterday, and I asked him if credible news organizations
like NBC were actually quoting an internet guy best known
for his hat about what was a potentially impeachable offense.
A lot of people were close on this story. Griffin said,
we were close. Lisa Myers almost had it Sunday night.
Newsweek finally put out a more detailed version about ninety
(34:50):
minutes ago. It was their scoop Drudge just stole it
from them. I think it was Isakov who wrote it.
You'll have to interview Tim Russer to lead the show.
The president may resign. We'll do it from right here.
Back that up. What was that you said, we'll do
it from right here, No part about the president resigning. Oh, yeah,
the president might resign. Thus, half an hour later, I
(35:11):
was hooked up by satellite with Tim Russert from the
Washington Bureau, listening to him outline the possibilities that the
president might resign before sunrise. I nodded with as much
gravitas as I could fake, despite the elements of farce
that were apparently obvious only to me in the story
and in where I was seated. In the background of
(35:32):
my close up stood the refrigerator from the kitchen set
of Lithgo's show Third Rock from the Sun, and on
the refrigerator complete with its decorative magnets speaking their silent
and suddenly completely hip gag. The magnets were a banana
surrounded on either side by a strawberry Phil. I said
to Phil, as we tried to plan a smooth transition
(35:54):
from that taped Russert interview about the possible impeachment and
resignation of the president, to a taped interview with John Lithgow,
and then back to the live speculations of a couple
of political writers for the rest of the hour. We're
not going to have to do this every day, are we,
Griffin laughed, Of course not. What do you think this
is the end of the world. He was right. We
(36:14):
did not do it every day. We did it for
two hundred and eighteen consecutive shows, starting that night with
the banana and the strawberry magnets over my shoulder, our
ratings kept doubling. Following Tuesday, my thirty eighth birthday, I
was back in New York hosting a roundtable of political
heavyweights in the hour leading up to Bill Clinton State
(36:36):
of the Union address That night, Andy Lack of NBC
News and Phil Griffin had decided that I should host
a second live report once the NBC network guys Russert,
Tom Brokaw a couple of others had wrapped up their analysis,
which we were also carrying on MSNBC, so I would
come on at eleven o'clock after Brokaw and Russert two hours.
My little friend, this is our nightline. I was doing
(37:00):
my best to keep a straight face when during a
commercial break at maybe eleven four, maybe midnight, halfway through
my wrap up show, Griffin materialized next to my anchor desk.
He had this stunned but not unhappy look, like when
he used to smoke a lot of dope when we
worked together in the eighties. We have the preliminary ratings,
my little friend, I hope you're sitting down, I pointed
(37:23):
at myself, seated in the chair. The pregame show that
did a one point one. Our average rating at MSNBC
before this presidential stuff came up had been an ozero
point three. This was now four times the previous ratings.
In the past week, it had surged to an zero
point six, and Griffin had insisted to me that Andy
(37:43):
Lack was so happy he had wet his pants. But
this is the kicker here, buddy. We have the immediate
since the president finally stopped talking, speech did an eight.
Broke on Russer. The wrap up did an six. Since
eleven o'clock you've been doing a one point seven. You
have had three times the audience of Tom Brokaw, three
times the audience of the old man himself. This isn't
(38:06):
just people crossing over from NBC to watch more. This
is people watching the speech, turning off the old man,
then turning back at eleven to watch you. I tried
to assimilate what he was telling me. For the first
time in my life, my ego refused to cooperate. The
stage manager barked his queue of thirty seconds until the
(38:26):
end of the commercial break. Phil Griffin shook my hand. Oh,
and by the way, that thing you said at the
start of the hour about it, it was as if
the Intern had opened the door to the chamber and said,
mister speaker, the President of the United States. That's already
included in the Associated Press story one point seven, My
little friend, don't f it up. Actually you can't f
(38:47):
it up. We're in for the long haul now, revel
in it. Me quoted about the Clinton Lewinsky story in
the main coverage of the State of the Union address
on the Associated Press wire. Eight months after I stopped
giving the scores of the Greater stuttgard Our Invitational tennis
tournament on ESPN. I had this sudden, horrible feeling that
(39:11):
the usually slow to decide American viewing public had instantly
concluded that, for some reason elusive even to me, they
really like to hear me talk about the whereabouts of
the president's penis. If I could have figured out how
to f up the rest of the hour, I would
have done it right then I didn't. The next day
(39:35):
it got worse. The ratings were so great last night, buddy.
They want us to go live every night at eight
and eleven only about the President. The eleven is going
to be called Crisis in Washington. Finally we get what
we want. Phil Griffin was dancing around, it'll be our nightline.
Since joining MSNBC, I had not taken any time off,
and I actually had a vacation booked in Hawaii the
(39:57):
next week with a young lady. Uh yeah about that.
Phil finally announced, well, that's when we have to talk
about Keith. They want you to commit to this for
at least six weeks, so it's this or Hawaii. I
explained Hawaii to Phil. Lack said he'd probably pay for
you to go do that. Whenever this is over. I said,
(40:18):
in my opinion, that probably would not be good enough,
and Griffin said neither did he, but that it was
just for openers, and Lack told him that I could
have three wishes, and I could anchor NBC Nightly News
at least on the weekends and a couple of times
during the week Just personally, I'd recommend you do it.
I got the impression that the show's going to happen
(40:38):
whether we agree to it or not, Griffin said. He
mentioned something about Brian Williams or maybe John Gibson being
poor second choices, but viable ones. He said, viable ones.
I told Phil I had some calls to make. Griffin
suggested Lack needed a decision within the hour, that he
wanted White House and Crisis on the air that night. Wait,
(40:59):
that didn't sound like what he'd called it before, Phil.
Is it white House in Crisis or in Washington? Phil?
Griffin seemed introspective for a moment then and got in
touch with the news executive within what's the difference, it's
going to be our nightline. I almost suggested to him
that that should be the title MSNBC presents. It's going
(41:22):
to be our Nightline, on and on. This went for
weeks four months. I mocked the story. The ratings went up.
I tried to quit the show, the ratings went up.
I gave a speech insulting the network for covering the story.
Twenty four to seven. The ratings went up. Fox Sports
approached me and offered me five times when NBC was
(41:45):
paying me to go out to LA to do their
sportscast LA, which was kind of near Hawaii, nowhere near
the Clinton Lewinski story. And the ratings went up, and
I was debating all this and the fact that I
had a contract and I had agreed to do it.
And then one night in early spring, I got home
after another night of this crap. I put my feet up,
was half watching something on NBC while really just staring
(42:08):
off into the distance, wondering what I had done to
deserve this, mulling my own future, when the snare drum
and the violent string section of an NBC news promo
interrupted me. Wednesday, on a very special edition of Nightline,
Jane Paully and the former Miss America, there she was
for a second, had tilted her look grave, journalistic, even scholarly.
(42:29):
Jane Paully the ten year host of NBC's landmark Today Show,
the one who had then switched to primetime because the
journalism had slowly ebbed out of morning television and she
couldn't do it anymore. She was sitting there in a
two shot with a Miss America from too many Miss
Americas ago, the former brunette, former redhead, now former blonde,
(42:49):
whose jet black hair made her look a little frightening.
Why the hell was Jane Paully interviewing her on the
signature albeit superficial NBC thrice weekly magazine show Nightline No
less Well, in a split second, the promo gave me
my answer. Jane, did you have sex with the President
of the United States? Ex Miss America? Yes, Yes I did,
(43:11):
announcer That's Wednesday on a very special edition to Nightline
only on NBC America's news source. With genuine terror, I screamed,
I shouted aloud to no one, check please, and I
called my agent to talk about Fox. I've done all
(43:42):
the damage I can do. Here Here are the credits.
Most of the music was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel. You are the Countdown
musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Chanel, guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
(44:05):
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer was my friend Stevie van zandt everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
the eight hundred and seventy sixth day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
United States. Don't forget to keep arresting him while we
(44:27):
still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Till then,
I'm the ever Important policy Genius Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
The ever important policy Genius Keith Olberman. Biden has still
kicked McCarthy's.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
But Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
Smoking Gun. Donald Trump is on tape not just admitting
(00:28):
that after he left office he kept classified top secret
military plans for an American attack on Iran for war
against Iran, not just admitting he kept those, but boasting
he kept those and describing the details of the American
attack strategy on Iran and attributing the document and the
(00:50):
plans to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and describing the document to at least four people, none
of whom had the requisite security clearance to even know
that the document existed, let alone hear any of the details,
and saying he would like to share those details with them,
and then acknowledging he couldn't share those details with them,
(01:13):
because even an ex president can't just declassify whatever he
wants and acting as if he is holding the top
secret documents in his hands and he is talking about them.
And this happened in a conversation that took place not
at Mari Lago, but at his other golf course in Bedminster,
New Jersey, And the recorded conversation took place in July
(01:36):
twenty twenty one before Trump had returned any of the
documents he stole, and two of the other people were
there working on the autobiography of his former chief of staff,
Mark Meadows, and one of the others was Trump's former
White House press aide, Margo Martin. And Trump knew he
(01:57):
was being recorded, and there is some indication now that
Trump demanded that he be recorded, And the story of
this met appears in the Mark Meadows autobiography. And this
may only be the tip of the Trump tapes. Iceberg,
quoting CNN's exclusive during the summer of twenty twenty one,
(02:20):
sources say multiple people were making recordings of Trump as
he held conversations with journalists and biographers unquote. And this
tape is in the hands of Special Counsel Jack Smith,
and Trump's lawyers should be meeting with Smith now and
(02:41):
asking for a plea deal now, because on this tape,
Trump not only confesses to repeated violations of the Espionage
Act worth ten years in jail per violation, but maybe
even more importantly than the galling thought of this thug,
Trump stealing our military plans for attacking Iran and keeping
(03:03):
them at some cheesy golf course in New Jersey. More
galling than that. Trump, in his own words on his
own tape, also erases the pillar of his specious defense
that a president can declassify anything he wants to just
by thinking about it or saying it or it's automatic.
(03:26):
He is, in one two minute span, literally committing one crime,
confessing to other crimes, disavowing his only possible defense for
committing any of the crimes, admitting he knew in real
time that sharing classified information was itself a crime, and
expanding the scope of where he illegally kept classified documents
(03:48):
not just in mar Lago but in New Jersey. The
smoking gun and with that little throwaway line about multiple
people making recordings of Trump in twenty twenty one, not
just the smoking gun, but very likely a smoking gun
(04:10):
in a weapons depot full of nothing but smoking guns.
Ask Jack Smith for a plea deal. Hell, Trump should
just cut to the chase and ask President Biden for
a pardon deal, because if you have not had enough
crime cliches yet, in the smoking guns and the tips
of icebergs, there is also the inevitable can of worms,
(04:34):
because apart from the crimes on the Trump tape, the
ones we already know about, the ones there is already
hard evidence of In his own voice on the Trump Tape,
the first Trump Tape, Trump was willing to break the
law and reveal the existence of an ultra secret, classified
(04:58):
military war document about bombing Iran for the purpose of
trying to to make Mark Milli look bad after a
series of articles had just come out two years ago
in which it was revealed Milli had gone above and
beyond the call of duty to put obstacles in the
way of Trump launching a preemptive attack on Iran in
(05:18):
the waning days of his administration kind of international Reichstag
fire as a pretext for Trump to declare state of
emergency in this country, yet another prong of Trump's multifaceted
coup attempt. Trump was waving around the Iran Plan or
papers he implied were the Iran Plan in order to
(05:39):
refute Milli, to show that Milli was just as ready
to bomb Iran as he was. Trump was willing to
break these laws, willing to share our war plans on
how if we had to to bomb Iran and subvert
the entire necessary security structures of this country to make
(06:02):
himself look better. On one or two pages on one
of the hundreds of books about his damnable administration. He
was willing to do it with, not necessarily Mark Meadows.
We have no indication that Mark Meadows was at this meeting.
He was willing to do it with two researchers who
(06:23):
helped Meadows with the book and didn't even get credited
on the cover or the jacket. And Hugo Lowell in
the Guardian now ads this document was classified quote secret, unquote,
and that the Trump aid Margot Martin, was asked about
this milli Iran document in front of the Grand Jury
(06:46):
in March, and she also had her laptop and her
electronic devices imaged by the Department of Justice. And also
that it was Trump who wanted the meeting with the
Meadows people recorded because he doesn't trust journalists. But now
come the question, if he was willing to tell them
(07:07):
about this, who else was he willing to confirm to
the existence of this document or willing to read it to,
or show it to or sell it to. Would another
government in the Middle East want to hear about American
plans to bomb Iran with Israel? What Saudi Arabia? Saudi
(07:31):
Arabia with whom Trump has had a series of intricate
business deals for decades, including the promotion of this sportswashing
Saudi Live Golf tour. Just last week, The New York
Times reported the Jacksmith's office had issued subpoenas to all
the Trump companies for all business dealings since twenty seventeen
with seven specific countries, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE Kuwait.
(07:58):
All of it based on a theory that the documents
he stole may have found their way into the those
Trump business dealings with those countries. Is the milli Iran
Plan document. One of those documents. Did it go to
the Saudis? If it did, here we are back again
(08:23):
in eighteen US Code seven ninety four. Gathering or delivering
defense information to aid foreign government, giving a foreign government
our defense information and a plan promulgated by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff for starting a war and bombing Iran.
You know that would fall under the definition of defense information.
(08:46):
Anybody guilty of doing that quote shall be punished by
death or by imprisonment for any term of years or
for life, except that the sentence of death shall not
be imposed unless the jury further finds that the offense
resulted in the identification by foreign power of an individual
(09:07):
acting as an agent of the United States, and consequently
the death of that individual or it directly concerned nuclear weaponry,
military spacecraft or satellites, early warning systems, or other means
of defense or retaliation against large scale attack, semi colon
war plans, semi colon communications intelligence or cryptographic information semi colon,
(09:33):
or any other major weapons system or major element or
defense strategy. How many of those did he do? In
this five six seven, I have moved away from what
(09:53):
we have just learned on this watershed day to what
might be out there yet to learn. And even I
don't really think that anybody would try to prosecute a
death penalty case against Donald Trump. But we sure as
hell have not moved that far away from what we
(10:14):
already do know. And it is already serious enough that
we are not far from quote shall be punished by
death or by the imprisonment for any term of years
or for life. And just listen to this quotation that
is almost certainly drawn from the meeting at which Trump
(10:35):
seemed to brandish the Millie memo as it is described
in the Meadows Book. And sorry, I'm not buying the
whole book to read the whole excerpt. I'm not given
Mark Meadows my checks Amazon for price of book six
dollars and sixty five cents. Trump Meadows or ghostwriters writes.
(10:58):
Quote recalls a four page report typed up by Mark
Millie himself. It contained the general his own plan to
attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged
President Trump to do more than once during his presidency.
Enquote In the Meadows autobiography version of the meeting, Jack
(11:20):
Smith has this recording of Trump revealed enough that just
repeating all that in that loan quote or more to
the Saudis or to anybody else, to the Canadians, that
is eighteen US Code seven ninety four gathering or delivering
defense information to aid foreign government espionage prison. There are
(11:46):
four other very relevant points here. Who gave Jack Smith
the tape gave or gave up? I mentioned that. Nowhere
in the CNN piece is there anything indicating that Mark
Meadows was at the Smoking Gun meeting that was recorded.
But there's certainly nothing indicating that the tape, which was
(12:08):
recording an interview conducted for meadows Own autobiography, would not
belong to Meadows or at minimum to his publisher, or
then there is this alternate theory that perhaps this is
the Margo Martin tape, and Meadows is obviously not the
only possible source for the tape, but he is one
of the possibilities, probably the lead possibility, and that in
(12:30):
turn again raises the possibility that Mark Meadows has flipped
on Donald Trump. It's only last Wednesday that CNN put
out a story reading quote a source close to Trump's
legal team said Trump's lawyers have had no contact with
Meadows and his team and are in the dark on
what Meadows is doing in the investigation. It also quoted
(12:51):
one Trump advisor as saying, we've all heard the same rumors.
No one really knows what he's doing. Though sounds like
what Mark Meadows was doing was doing a thorough inventory
of every damn thing Trump said on damn tapes. Second
(13:13):
additional point, we know from CNN and other reporting that
Smith's team has asked General Milly about the document about
the Trump tape. First Trump tape. It seems that was
not in front of the grand jury, but in an interview,
but it's weirdly phrased in the CNN piece. Others have
clearly been asked about it on the record in front
(13:34):
of the jurors, including Margot Martin of Trump's staff. Third
additional point. Up until this story, almost everything leaking out
of the Special Council's Office has been about Trump committing
obstruction of justice, hiding documents, hiding documents from his own attorney,
having a box mover who was caught on security tape,
(13:55):
who knows nothing about anything or subpoenas, but is somehow
clever enough to suddenly go ask the Marri Lago it
guy how long before mister phelps this tape will self destructed?
But this story is about the meat of an underlying crime,
the theft of secret war plans. Not of obstruction, not
(14:19):
of destruction of evidence, but of stealing a classified document,
sharing knowledge of his existence with people who are not
supposed to know of its existence, including book researchers, for
Christ's sakes, pining to read it to them, making veiled
references to its contents, but aware guilty for knowledge, aware
that he is prevented by law from doing so and
(14:41):
could not just declassify stuff at will. This is the meal,
and the obstruction is just the dessert. Federal prosecutors occasionally
prosecute just the dessert, but they are much more likely
to prosecute obstruction if there is something substantial behind the
obstruction and if the perpetrator knew he would be committing
(15:03):
a crime. If he commit a crime and then he
goes and commits the crime, that's pretty substantial. Plus the document.
As the former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb said on CNN
about the Special Council's Office right now, quote, I think
they have their foot on Trump's neck. And the fourth
(15:26):
and final additional point Bedminster. This happened at Bedminster, not
at Mari Lago. And if for some reason the Special
Council's Office has not yet done an inch by inch
search there, it needs to be out there by sunrise.
Where is this document now? Is it still at Bedminster?
(15:52):
Should we go and get it? And it moves an
incident at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster from
the macabre and the silly and the category of a
great joke. But I must tell Muffy, let's go get
to Martini to the category of is this possible? I
mean what follows is I hope pure political science fiction
(16:17):
and the product of having read every single Sherlock Holmes
story and seeing way too much Monty Python. I hope
this is as crazy as it might sound, But all
of a sudden, I'm not sure anymore. You are Trump.
You have this ultra secret military national defense document, and
(16:38):
one of your attorneys finds out and he tells you
in twenty twenty one or twenty twenty two that if
they find it here, they can prosecute you, and if
they convict you, they could put you in jail for
the rest of your life or worse. You must return
this document immediately and hope they let it go. But
you're Trump. Of course you will not return it. You're Trump,
(17:00):
You're immortal, You're guilty of nothing. You do what somebody
tells you too. That's for suckers. But the Iran document
could be damning somehow. You know this through the haze
of your own ego. You know you have to get
rid of it. What do you do with it? You
can't destroy it, you can't burn it. What if you
(17:24):
somehow leave evidence that you did that? Now there would
be two charges against you. What do you do with
that document? Stolen war plans at Bedminster? Where could you
put it? Where they'll not only never find it, but
never think to look for it. Moreover, where they would
never have the audacity to search for it. On Wednesday,
(17:51):
July twentieth, twenty twenty two, at the Bedminster Golf Course
in Bedminster, New Jersey, between the first Tea and the
magnificent Main Golf Clubhouse, the body of Ivanna Marie is
on each a Trump, first wife of the forty fifth
President of the United States, was laid to rest in
a beautiful private ceremony, buried quote in a rose gold
(18:16):
hwed casket unquote very large rose goldhwed casket. Never mind,
lock her up, dig her up. Okay. The rest of
(18:41):
this podcast is the original episode from Wednesday, May thirty first,
So if you've heard it already, no need to listen
again to how the LA Dodgers screwed up Pride Night
beyond all recognition, or how Mike Flynn is now selling sperm.
I will not take it personally if you hit stop
right now. I hope to update this for a new Thursday,
June first edition. But there's one more complication. Turns out
(19:05):
I may have walking pneumonia, just walking pneumonia. No boogie
woogie flu I've actually been off and on woozy the
last few weeks. The voice is beginning to go, finally
getting it looked at, and I have the stamina of
This is how not good I feel. I don't feel
good enough to come up with another simile. Sorry, Keith
(19:28):
at his doctors. That's next. This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith Oberman.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith Olberman in sports. How could it
possibly go more wrong for the Los Angeles Dodgers. First,
they invited a satirical fundraising drag group called the Sisters
(20:12):
of Perpetual Indulgence to Pride Night at Dodger Stadium. Then,
when the infamous Catholic League, which is actually just one
obnoxious guy named Bill, came after them for doing that,
they disinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from Pride Night. Then,
after blowback, including support for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
(20:33):
from actual Catholic nuns, the Dodgers reinvited them. On Monday,
relief pitcher Anthony Bass of the Toronto Blue Jays posted
a video from some guy calling for boycotts of Target
and Bud happily leaving the Dodgers out of it. This
is evil, This is demonic, said the video that Bass posted. Yesterday,
(20:53):
Bass issued a stiff, thirty second apology that looked like
a very well rehearsed live hostage video. A baseball blogger
named Tyrone Palmer noted Anthony Bass is calling for a
boycott of Target. Judging by his four point five zero
er and four walks per nine innings, it looks like
he's been boycotting Targets all season long. Almost simultaneous to
(21:18):
Bass's forced apology, another mediocre pitcher named Trevor Williams of
the Washington Nationals posted a two screenshot screed in which
he said he was quote deeply troubled that the Dodgers
were inviting the Sisters, claimed the decision was a quote
violation of the Dodgers' discrimination policy, and encouraged his quote
(21:41):
fellow Catholics to reconsider their support of an organization that
allows this kind of mockery of its fans to occur.
Williams is not quite as bad as Bass, but if
he disappeared from baseball tomorrow, you probably would not notice.
And he might because while he might not be as
bad as Bass. Bass also did not attack another team,
(22:04):
the La Dodgers, no less, had encouraged fans to boycott them.
You're in the same business, pal, or at least you were.
The whole thing just keeps getting worse and worse because
of one decision. This Catholic League, which convinced the Dodgers
to uninvite these crazy drag nuns, is actually just one
(22:25):
guy named Bill Donahue, a loud mouthed homophobe and bully.
All the cable networks figured him out in the nineties
and stopped putting him on. When the Dodgers finally figured
that out, they reversed course and reinvited the Sisters. But
then last week, the Dodgers team leader, the veteran pitcher
Clayton Kershaw, personally announced that the Dodgers would also be
(22:47):
staging Christian Faith and Family Day after an interruption that
began with the pandemic. Now it becomes evident that Kershaw
decided to announce this himself. Quote, I think we were
always going to do Christian Faith Day this year, but
I think the timing of our announcement was bet up.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Kershaw told the La Times, Yes, It was in response
to the highlighting of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence by
the Dodgers, so Kershaw announced his team was going to
hold a Christian event, boxing the Dodgers into holding the
Christian event, the team will not comment about its own
(23:25):
star and just complicate this more. Kershaw has always participated
in Pride Night, quoting him again, this has nothing to
do with the LGBTQ community or Pride or anything like that.
This is simply a group that was making fun of
a religion that I don't agree with. Moral When Bill
Donahue of the Catholic quote league unquote calls, whatever bad
(23:48):
thing you think he's try to make happen, there is
really only one bad thing that can happen, and that
is this. You can forget that. When Bill Donahue calls,
you must immediately hang up on him. Another moment of
Baseball fund At least this one's between the lines sort of. First,
the Houston Astros mocked the fans of the Oakland A's,
(24:08):
the moribund, lame duct team that's probably moving to Las
Vegas after ownership basically starved the franchise to death over
the last five years. The Astros tweeted a video of
their offensive explosion in Oakland recently with this caption ten
runs in front of tens of fans. This was retweeted
(24:28):
forty six hundred times. It got seventeen thousand likes and
seven million views, and then, amid the criticism, the Astros
deleted the tweets, thereby making it twice as bad and
the beginning of the end of TV sports as we
know it is underway or something like that. The terminology
(24:49):
here gets kind of confusing. The Sports Business Journal reports
that Diamond Sports Group, which runs the Bally Sports regional networks,
which carried dozens of local team broadcasts in many sports
and which went bankrupt in March, has for the first
time forfeited its rights to one of those teams games.
It has told the San Diego Padres it will not
be making its next payment to them on the twenty
(25:12):
year one point two billion dollar deal, and so the
TV rights for the Padres revert back to the Padres.
And I guess now the announceries will just have to
go door to door every morning asking if anybody wants
to watch that night's game and how much they'd be
willing to pay for it. Thank you, Nancy Faust. And
(25:51):
if you're wondering where tennis gets its reputation for disconnection
from reality. At the French Open, Marta Costiac lost to
number two women's seed Arena Sabelenka. Costiuc refused to shake
Sabolenka's hand after the math. She never shakes Sabolenka's hand
after the match, and they always play and yes, it
is because Costiuk is from Ukraine and Sabolenka is from Belarus,
(26:15):
which supports Russia's terrorism in Ukraine. And Costiuk will not
shake her hand and did not shake her hand, and
the French Open crowd at Roland Garo Stadium promptly booed
the Ukrainian for not shaking her hand. And this is
how stupid that is. Costiuc of Ukraine said she was
(26:37):
embarrassed for the French crowd for booing her, But then
Sabolenka of Belarus said even she was amazed that the
French crowd had bowed COSTYUK. When both players in this
dynamic say you've screwed up, you've screwed up. Coming up
(27:07):
one day, I was the mild mannered host of a
mild mannered news magazine on MSNBC that led the show
with stories like, oh, the new edition of the Farmer's
Almanac is out, let's go live to the publisher, or
tonight we devote the hour to Saturday Night Live's newest
breakout star, Chris Catan. And then the next day I
was anchoring the State of the Union broadcast and getting
(27:29):
quoted by politicians as I was yesterday by Chip. Next, first,
the daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning
Kruger Effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world.
The Bronze. Kayleie Campbell Layton, posting on Facebook identifying as
the wife of Ryan Layton, a marine based in twenty
nine Palms, California, quote, Biden left many military service dogs
(27:53):
to die in cobble after the evacuation. I'm calling for
public execution of this old man, and you can't change
my mind now. I'm a dog lover, and the fate
of the service dogs in Afghanistan grieves me, as any
dog at risk grieves me. And this woman has also
done the military is racist against white people, posts and
(28:16):
videos about target and she should have been arrested already
for this threat against the president and her husband needs
to be thrown out of the Marines and directly into well.
I'm assuming congress Ryan chip Layton runner up Elon Musk
shot and Chaser time shot. We all told him so,
(28:36):
We told him the blue checks are not status symbols,
they're ID cards. But he didn't listen because he's a
super genius. Yesterday, an account called aoc Press began impersonating
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortes, and it had a blue check mark,
and some of its tweets included wild policy statements, and
(28:59):
thus the new cognizantity of Twitter. Those with grilled cheese
for brains, who also paid ninety six dollars a year
for a blue check mark that's bigger than their private parts,
they began to believe it really was the congresswoman saying
these stupid things. And that's when Musk replied to one
of the fake accounts tweets thereby amplifying it no pain,
(29:20):
no gain, also no brain, no pain, and no brain
no shame. If that's the shot, here's the chaser yesterday.
Fidelity Investments, which put money in when Musk bought Twitter
wrote down the value of its share of the company
and his He bought it for forty four billion. Fidelity
says it is now worth fifteen billion. Elon bought it
(29:44):
all right, but the winner. Michael Flynn, Yeah, that one,
not the whole treason and overthrowing the government start. This
is his new venture. He is described as a founding
partner of for the Pure, which is one stop shopping
for the vaxer crowd. Quote an online community of health
conscious COVID nineteen on vaccinated people, where health conscious individuals
(30:07):
who have rejected the vaccine can connect and find everything
they need. Friendships, dating, curated news, service providers, doctors, blood donors,
fertility options, jobs, shopping events, etc. Wait what was that
last one? Blood donors? No, no, no, before that, doctors,
(30:28):
blood donors, fertility options, fertility options. You mean you mean
it's an unvaccinated sperm bank. Michael Flynn is now selling
unvaccinated sperm. Michael Well selling sperm is I guess better
(30:48):
than selling out the country? Flynn two days worst person
in the sperm world. Still ahead on countdown. Chip Roy
(31:12):
is not the first to invoke my name, happily or
otherwise in Congress or the Senate or whatnot. Dick Cheney
and John McCain both muttered angry jokes in my direction
within days of each other. And then there was the
night I anchored the nineteen ninety eight State of the Union,
when two weeks earlier I was not even a political correspondent,
not even close. That's saga. Next. First, in each tradition
(31:33):
of countdown, we feature a dog. Indeed, you can help.
Every dog has its day. This is about Bentley. Bentley
is a big black dog with big ears, and he's
pretty calm and pretty happy, and somebody in Fullerton, California,
rescued him from a pound and clearly did not quite
get the whole what do we do next part and
simply took Bentley to a dog boarding place, a kennel,
(31:54):
an upscale kennel that calls itself a pet lodge, and
it got him a space, and it left him there
for two hundred and eighteen nights at thirty eight dollars
a night, two hundred and eighty four dollars to board
one healthy dog. My friend Alana Rizzo from MLB Network
and her rescue Gidri's guardian is contributing to ransoming Bentley
(32:14):
and she could use your financial help. You can find
her on Twitter at Gidresguardian dot org or on my
Twitter feeds. I thank you, and Bentley thanks you from
the Dog Hotel in California, where you can check out
but you can never leave. Now to the number one
story on the Countdown and things I promised not to
(32:36):
tell and the state of the Union nineteen ninety eight.
When I left ESPN and signed with MSNBC the first
time in nineteen ninety seven, it was not to become
a political commentator nor even anchor. I went there to
do what the president of NBC News America needed most,
a live, hour long news magazine show from Secaucus, New Jersey.
(33:00):
So unfocused that on consecutive nights we led with the
threat of a terrorist group called al Qaeda, and then
the next night we led with the publication of the
Farmer's Almanac. I mean, this was the news at eight pm,
the lead story that published the Farmers Almanac. Again, here's
our live guest, the publisher. Here's a gun rain next year.
(33:25):
I had regrets. Anyway, the good part of the job
was sports. I hosted baseball in the World Series and
even did some Super Bowl stuff. For NBC, and in
mid January of nineteen ninety eight, I flew to the
West Coast to work on that and do this magazine show,
The Big Show on MSNBC from entertainment venues in LA,
(33:48):
most of them associated with NBC. On the afternoon of Tuesday,
January twentieth, nineteen ninety eight, we were on the set
of Third Rock from the Sun preparing to interview at
Star John Liskow when my producer Phil Griffins sidled over, you,
my little friend, are about to become a political host.
The President got caught with some chippy in the White
(34:08):
House chippy, oh not sex. Sex looks like just you know,
and then he lied about it in the Deposition Saturday.
I asked him how to the hell anybody knew about
what the deposition said when it was just four days
after he gave the deposition and those things they're supposed
to be you know, secret preach me. Drudge put it
(34:28):
out yesterday, and I asked him if credible news organizations
like NBC were actually quoting an internet guy best known
for his hat about what was a potentially impeachable offense.
A lot of people were close on this story. Griffin said,
we were close. Lisa Myers almost had it Sunday night.
Newsweek finally put out a more detailed version about ninety
(34:50):
minutes ago. It was their scoop Drudge just stole it
from them. I think it was Isakov who wrote it.
You'll have to interview Tim Russer to lead the show.
The president may resign. We'll do it from right here.
Back that up. What was that you said, we'll do
it from right here, No part about the president resigning. Oh, yeah,
the president might resign. Thus, half an hour later, I
(35:11):
was hooked up by satellite with Tim Russert from the
Washington Bureau, listening to him outline the possibilities that the
president might resign before sunrise. I nodded with as much
gravitas as I could fake, despite the elements of farce
that were apparently obvious only to me in the story
and in where I was seated. In the background of
(35:32):
my close up stood the refrigerator from the kitchen set
of Lithgo's show Third Rock from the Sun, and on
the refrigerator complete with its decorative magnets speaking their silent
and suddenly completely hip gag. The magnets were a banana
surrounded on either side by a strawberry Phil. I said
to Phil, as we tried to plan a smooth transition
(35:54):
from that taped Russert interview about the possible impeachment and
resignation of the president, to a taped interview with John Lithgow,
and then back to the live speculations of a couple
of political writers for the rest of the hour. We're
not going to have to do this every day, are we,
Griffin laughed, Of course not. What do you think this
is the end of the world. He was right. We
(36:14):
did not do it every day. We did it for
two hundred and eighteen consecutive shows, starting that night with
the banana and the strawberry magnets over my shoulder, our
ratings kept doubling. Following Tuesday, my thirty eighth birthday, I
was back in New York hosting a roundtable of political
heavyweights in the hour leading up to Bill Clinton State
(36:36):
of the Union address That night, Andy Lack of NBC
News and Phil Griffin had decided that I should host
a second live report once the NBC network guys Russert,
Tom Brokaw a couple of others had wrapped up their analysis,
which we were also carrying on MSNBC, so I would
come on at eleven o'clock after Brokaw and Russert two hours.
My little friend, this is our nightline. I was doing
(37:00):
my best to keep a straight face when during a
commercial break at maybe eleven four, maybe midnight, halfway through
my wrap up show, Griffin materialized next to my anchor desk.
He had this stunned but not unhappy look, like when
he used to smoke a lot of dope when we
worked together in the eighties. We have the preliminary ratings,
my little friend, I hope you're sitting down, I pointed
(37:23):
at myself, seated in the chair. The pregame show that
did a one point one. Our average rating at MSNBC
before this presidential stuff came up had been an ozero
point three. This was now four times the previous ratings.
In the past week, it had surged to an zero
point six, and Griffin had insisted to me that Andy
(37:43):
Lack was so happy he had wet his pants. But
this is the kicker here, buddy. We have the immediate
since the president finally stopped talking, speech did an eight.
Broke on Russer. The wrap up did an six. Since
eleven o'clock you've been doing a one point seven. You
have had three times the audience of Tom Brokaw, three
times the audience of the old man himself. This isn't
(38:06):
just people crossing over from NBC to watch more. This
is people watching the speech, turning off the old man,
then turning back at eleven to watch you. I tried
to assimilate what he was telling me. For the first
time in my life, my ego refused to cooperate. The
stage manager barked his queue of thirty seconds until the
(38:26):
end of the commercial break. Phil Griffin shook my hand. Oh,
and by the way, that thing you said at the
start of the hour about it, it was as if
the Intern had opened the door to the chamber and said,
mister speaker, the President of the United States. That's already
included in the Associated Press story one point seven, My
little friend, don't f it up. Actually you can't f
(38:47):
it up. We're in for the long haul now, revel
in it. Me quoted about the Clinton Lewinsky story in
the main coverage of the State of the Union address
on the Associated Press wire. Eight months after I stopped
giving the scores of the Greater stuttgard Our Invitational tennis
tournament on ESPN. I had this sudden, horrible feeling that
(39:11):
the usually slow to decide American viewing public had instantly
concluded that, for some reason elusive even to me, they
really like to hear me talk about the whereabouts of
the president's penis. If I could have figured out how
to f up the rest of the hour, I would
have done it right then I didn't. The next day
(39:35):
it got worse. The ratings were so great last night, buddy.
They want us to go live every night at eight
and eleven only about the President. The eleven is going
to be called Crisis in Washington. Finally we get what
we want. Phil Griffin was dancing around, it'll be our nightline.
Since joining MSNBC, I had not taken any time off,
and I actually had a vacation booked in Hawaii the
(39:57):
next week with a young lady. Uh yeah about that.
Phil finally announced, well, that's when we have to talk
about Keith. They want you to commit to this for
at least six weeks, so it's this or Hawaii. I
explained Hawaii to Phil. Lack said he'd probably pay for
you to go do that. Whenever this is over. I said,
(40:18):
in my opinion, that probably would not be good enough,
and Griffin said neither did he, but that it was
just for openers, and Lack told him that I could
have three wishes, and I could anchor NBC Nightly News
at least on the weekends and a couple of times
during the week Just personally, I'd recommend you do it.
I got the impression that the show's going to happen
(40:38):
whether we agree to it or not, Griffin said. He
mentioned something about Brian Williams or maybe John Gibson being
poor second choices, but viable ones. He said, viable ones.
I told Phil I had some calls to make. Griffin
suggested Lack needed a decision within the hour, that he
wanted White House and Crisis on the air that night. Wait,
(40:59):
that didn't sound like what he'd called it before, Phil.
Is it white House in Crisis or in Washington? Phil?
Griffin seemed introspective for a moment then and got in
touch with the news executive within what's the difference, it's
going to be our nightline. I almost suggested to him
that that should be the title MSNBC presents. It's going
(41:22):
to be our Nightline, on and on. This went for
weeks four months. I mocked the story. The ratings went up.
I tried to quit the show, the ratings went up.
I gave a speech insulting the network for covering the story.
Twenty four to seven. The ratings went up. Fox Sports
approached me and offered me five times when NBC was
(41:45):
paying me to go out to LA to do their
sportscast LA, which was kind of near Hawaii, nowhere near
the Clinton Lewinski story. And the ratings went up, and
I was debating all this and the fact that I
had a contract and I had agreed to do it.
And then one night in early spring, I got home
after another night of this crap. I put my feet up,
was half watching something on NBC while really just staring
(42:08):
off into the distance, wondering what I had done to
deserve this, mulling my own future, when the snare drum
and the violent string section of an NBC news promo
interrupted me. Wednesday, on a very special edition of Nightline,
Jane Paully and the former Miss America, there she was
for a second, had tilted her look grave, journalistic, even scholarly.
(42:29):
Jane Paully the ten year host of NBC's landmark Today Show,
the one who had then switched to primetime because the
journalism had slowly ebbed out of morning television and she
couldn't do it anymore. She was sitting there in a
two shot with a Miss America from too many Miss
Americas ago, the former brunette, former redhead, now former blonde,
(42:49):
whose jet black hair made her look a little frightening.
Why the hell was Jane Paully interviewing her on the
signature albeit superficial NBC thrice weekly magazine show Nightline No
less Well, in a split second, the promo gave me
my answer. Jane, did you have sex with the President
of the United States? Ex Miss America? Yes, Yes I did,
(43:11):
announcer That's Wednesday on a very special edition to Nightline
only on NBC America's news source. With genuine terror, I screamed,
I shouted aloud to no one, check please, and I
called my agent to talk about Fox. I've done all
(43:42):
the damage I can do. Here Here are the credits.
Most of the music was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel. You are the Countdown
musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Chanel, guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
(44:05):
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer was my friend Stevie van zandt everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
the eight hundred and seventy sixth day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
United States. Don't forget to keep arresting him while we
(44:27):
still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Till then,
I'm the ever Important policy Genius Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
The ever important policy Genius Keith Olberman. Biden has still
kicked McCarthy's.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
But Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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