August 23, 2024 • 49 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 15: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The special guest was the next President of the United States.
Kamala Harris nailed the speech. It could not have been better. Not a sour note, not a space for complaint, not an issue avoided.
Plus: Harris has cut Trump’s lead from nine points to five points… in TEXAS. Harris is now AHEAD in North Carolina by a point.
There is the RFK Junior thing coming today.
There is leaked audio of Trump pledging fealty to the families of the January 6th traitors and hosting an event for them two weeks from now, and more blatant Trump antisemitism hinting at a nightmare scenario in which he merges the streams: where the conspiracy theories about rigged elections and immigrant voting gets fully crossed with racism and anti-semitism (and the advanced kind, where there are “good” Trump-supporting Jewish people, and “bad” Trump-hating Jewish people.
There is also the increasing evidence that Trump is, at least accidentally, giving up on winning the election and instead trying to raise the temperature so much among his fascists that they can run a coup from behind in the legislatures and the House and try to force a Contingent Election. Again from Yale historian Timothy Snyder via The New York Times: “Trump is in the classic dictatorial position: He needs to die in bed holding all executive power to stay out of prison. This means that he will do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power will do all that he can to never let it go. This is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent with democracy.”
And time to make the donuts: JV Vance actually manages to fail at the simple buy-food photo-op.
B-Block (24:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Megyn Kelly’s stupidity mixes with her racism: she doesn’t realize HBCU’s exist because so many black students were excluded from other colleges. And Trumpsucker Mike Crispi and the one famous Cornell alumna whom the university does not recognize tie for pure inhumanity when it comes to Tim Walz’s son Gus.
C-Block (37:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: For everybody who’s ever asked “Olbermann? Did you hit your HEAD or something?” the answer is yes and the 45th anniversary is tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’ll be getting better any day now.
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. Harris
has cut Trump's lead from nine points to five points
(00:26):
in Texas. Harris is now ahead in North Carolina by
one point. There is leaked audio of Trump pledging fealty
to the families of the January sixth Traders and hosting
an event for them, and more blatant Trump anti Semitism.
There is the RFK Junior thing. There is the increasing
evidence that Trump is at least accidentally giving up on
(00:49):
winning the election and instead focusing on raising the temperature
so much among his fascists that they can run a
coup from behind in the legislatures and in the House.
And none of that, at least for a few hours today,
is gonna top this.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Bellow Americans, this election is not only the most important
of our lives, it is one of the most important
in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald
(01:29):
Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences, but the
consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House
are extremely serious. Consider consider not only the chaos and
(01:52):
calamity when he was in office, but also the gravity
of what has happened since he lost the last election,
Donald Trump tried to throw your votes. When he failed,
he sent an armed mob to the United States Capital,
(02:13):
where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his
own party begged him to call off the mob and
send help, he did the opposite. He fanned the flames.
And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he
(02:38):
was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans,
and separately and separately found liable for committing sexual abuse.
And consider consider what he intends to do if we
give him power again. Consider his explicit intent to set
(03:05):
free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at
the Capitol, His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents,
and anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent
(03:25):
to deploy our active duty military against our own citizens.
Consider consider the power he will have, especially after the
United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be
immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails,
(03:58):
and how he would use the immense powers of the
presidency of the United States, not to improve your life,
not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the
only client he has ever had himself and understand he
(04:25):
is not done. As a part of his agenda, he
and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban
medication abortion, and enact a nationwide abortion ban, with or
without Congress. And get this, get this, he plans to
(04:49):
create a national anti abortion coordinator and force states to
report on women's miscarriages and abortions. Simply put, they are
out of their minds. We must be worthy of this moment.
(05:14):
It is now our turn to do what generations before
us have done, guided by optimism and faith, to fight
for this country we love, to fight for the ideals
we cherish, and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes
(05:43):
with the greatest privilege on earth, the privilege and pride
of being an American.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So let's get out there, Let's fight for it.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Let's get out there, let's vote for it, and together
let us write the next great chapter in the most
extraordinary story ever told.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Thank you, let's see in the bus the United.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
States of America.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Thank you of the non convention news. The Texas thing
(06:52):
really is the most astonishing. In June, the University of
Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs had Trump beating Biden
in Texas by just under nine points. In its first
poll since the chain, it has Trump's lead in Texas
down to five points. More importantly, perhaps in June, Texas
women were backing Trump by just under a point. It
(07:14):
is now women by six for Harris in Texas, and
then the biggest number of them all. In June, Trump
led among Texas independents by twenty four points. The new
Hobby poll has Trump ahead of Independence by two. She
has cut his lead among Texas independents by ninety two percent.
(07:37):
The Harris campaign is still not invested in a full
campaign in Texas, not officially, there is reason to believe
that even if a Trump squeaker is the best to
be hoped for there, a minor investment could help down
ballot Democrats in Texas. It might even knock out Ted Cruz,
who is just two points ahead of the Democrat Colin Allred.
The North Carolina number continues to indicate that that state
(08:00):
has officially become a toss up Harris by one. In
Survey US, the Nate Silver model has her favored by
fifty two point seven to forty six point nine. It
predicts a two hundred and seventy seven to two hundred
and sixty Harris win in the electoral college. A Civics
poll has the newest net favorability scores. Walls is a
(08:24):
plus three, Harris is a minus four. Trump is minus thirteen.
Vance is minus fifteen. And now back to the question
that I raised yesterday, and I am hardly the first
who have done so, is it possible that Trump is
now deliberately or inadvertently trying to lose with method to
(08:49):
his madness, which I will circle back to shortly. Presumably
you have heard about his crazy rant on Fox News
yesterday where he twice refused to let even the supplicant
Fox hosts interrupt him. Presumably U I seen the video
of JV Vance failing to successfully order donuts in Georgia.
(09:10):
It wouldn't do it justice to play just the audio here,
Go and watch it if you have it already. It
ends with an unfortunate worker refusing to let them use
her face on the video, and then when he explains
his name is JD. Vance and he's running for vice president,
she answers okay, in a way in which the okay
comes out sounding like are you sure about that? Well,
(09:34):
all right, here's the audio anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I'm sorry she had a ordveal film guys to just
cut her.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Out of anything.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Appreciate that man, Okadie Danser.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I watch President see it. So Vance's net favorability was
what did it say here? Minus fifteen? Did it go
to minus sixteen just from that video at the donut shop?
Have another donut? Okay? So so those are the funny parts.
Now here's the not funny part, which is, of course,
(10:09):
the threat by Trump to sabotage the elections. On the
same day, leaked video appears from last year showing Trump
at his golf crap shack at a gathering of families
of those convicted, in some cases convicted after plea deals
and confessions of participating in his first attempt to overthrow
(10:32):
the government. Hours later comes this You are invited to
the J six Awards gala. This is in gold printed
on black, Thursday, September fifth, six pm Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster,
and then it gives the address. The address is Lamington Road.
(10:55):
By the way, attendees will get a chance to win
a justice for all Donald J. Trump and J six
Prison Choir J six number one Music chart at plaque.
The invited guest speakers, Rudy Giuliani, Donald J. Trump and
it says invited, and Anthony Raymundi and I don't know
(11:17):
who Anthony is, but he couldn't afford to tie. This
is two weeks from yesterday at Bedminster. If you're there,
please don't step directly on Ivana's grave. Thank you for
your understanding. At the same time, the same day come
these videos out of nowhere from last year's Patriot Freedom
Project August twenty second of last year at Bedminster. It
(11:42):
is what he has said so often, this inversion of reality,
in which the scum that he sent marching into the
Capitol to kill congressmen and kill senators and kill his
own vice president and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power
are now heroes to be celebrated and pardoned.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
So I just want to let you know I'm with
you to do something. You're not going to let this happen.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
This is a outrageous situation.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Nobody's ever seen anything like it.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So we're going to be working with all of you,
and we're gonna first we have to get elected. We
get elected, Yes, we're.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Gonna see me a little be treated very fairly again,
because we're living in a fascist country. This is almost
like a fashion.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You're even a good word. Almost is a good word.
But this has very become a country a little bit
like you and I have never seen before. This is
not our country. And he will do it again on
September fifth, to again put front of mind to his
own cult two months before election day, the idea of
having to overthrow the government by force. At the same time,
(12:54):
Trump is going full racism and full anti semitism, and
it is anything but difficult to imagine that he is
ready to cross the streams here, as it were, to
insist if the current political trends continue and Harris's three
to four point national lead expands still further, and if
more and more swing states and independent voters reject Trump,
(13:15):
to insist that his gangs and his militias be ready
to take over the country by force or by legislative
deceit because the last piece of the puzzle, it's the
minorities who have rigged the election against him and them
that is the final inflection point. And who knows what
(13:38):
large percentage of his cultists are already there. There is
no question he would turn to it. Hitler turned to
it desperate despots in countless nations have turned to it,
and to violence, and to ethnic cleansing, and to nightmares untold,
there is no question he would turn to it. There
(13:58):
is only the question of whether or not he will.
Again from Yale historian Timothy Snyder, I have the New
York Times. I quoted it yesterday. I may quote it
every edition of this program between now and the election. Quote.
Trump is in the classic dictatorial position. He needs to
die in bed holding all executive power to stay out
(14:20):
of prison. This means that he will do whatever he
can to gain power, and once in power, will do
all that he can to never let it go. This
is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else. It
is entirely inconsistent with democracy. Trump and his cult will
(14:43):
accept any inconsistency because they agree to no rules, and
after nine years of this nation letting him and them
run unchecked through our norms and laws and guard rails
and collective goodness, that has convinced them they can get
away with anything. And one day Trump is insisting the
(15:03):
Democrats are anti Semitic because they chose Governor Walls and
not Governor Shapiro to be vice president, and the next day,
Trump is insisting that Governor Shapiro is a bad jew
To quote Trump, shortly after midnight on Wednesday night, Thursday morning,
the highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
(15:27):
Josh Shapiro, made a really bad and poorly delivered speech
talking about freedom and fighting for Comrade Kamala Harris for president.
Yet she hates Israel and will do nothing but make
its journey through the complexities of survival as difficult as possible,
hoping in the end that it will fail. Judge only
by her actions. Yet Shapiro, for strictly political reasons, refuse
(15:51):
to acknowledge that I am the best friend that Israel
and the Jewish people ever had. I have done more
for Israel than any president, and frankly, I have done
more for Israel than any person, and it's not even close.
Shapiro has done nothing for Israel. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Israel is in big trouble. So what that is setting
(16:16):
up is not defense of the Jewish people from anti Semitism.
It is a refining of the Hitler plan or the
plan of any other anti Semitic purges in human history.
If and when Trump finally activates a base that is
more than happy to attack the Jews, there will be
(16:38):
good Trump Jews and bad Trump Jews, as there are
already good Trump people of color and bad Trump people
of color depend upon it. And why on earth would
you ever do this? Not Trump? Why would he ever
do that? Professor Snyder's simple reminder is that it's win
(17:00):
or die in jail for Trump. There are no other options.
Why on earth, though, would those around him ever do that?
Because if there is no electoral path for him, there
are no jobs for them. And we live in a
time in which people think the only thing that matters
is money. Not the people throughout our American history who
(17:20):
have been corrupted by the idea that money is the
most important thing. The people around Trump believe that money
is the only measure of life. If there is no
electoral path for Trump, there is only pure insurrection or
the promise of the contingent election. I hope when I
(17:43):
extensively quote somebody here that you will at least go
to their site. I do it the quoting that is
because they have expressed something more compactly and more starkly
than I ever could, and usually with less rage. I
find myself doing this often with Brian Boutler, who was
once a contributor to the current TV edition of this
(18:04):
news outlet. Brian Buler has the premise of the contingent
election down and what President Biden should do about it,
and what Democratic congressional leaders should be preparing to do
about it and preparing now. I now steal three hundred
of Brian's words, and I urge you to go subscribe
to his newsletter. Quote. Trump loyalists don't necessarily need Trump
(18:29):
loyal judges to validate their baseless allegations of impropriety. They
just need to run out the clock. Brian writes. They
would be perfectly happy to see liberal voters take to
the streets in say Atlanta, only for the results in
Georgia or elsewhere to remain uncertified as of the constitutional deadline.
(18:53):
At that juncture, with no candidate having received at least
two hundred and seventy electoral votes, the question of who
becomes president can only be answered by a contingent election
in the US House, where each state delegation gets one vote.
Many times over the past decades, Democrats have controlled the
(19:15):
House itself while holding majorities in fewer than twenty five
state delegations. If Republicans still control more state delegations than
Democrats on January sixth, they can hand the election to
the loser, even if Democrats control the Chamber and the
House Speaker is a keem. Jeffries I. Brian Boiler writes
(19:37):
would like to see Democrats taking steps to preempt that outcome.
The starting point would probably be high profile Senate hearings
with local elections officials willing to sound the alarm about
their MAGA colleagues's dark intentions. Then advancing legislation to impose
federal criminal penalties on elections officials who take results hostage.
(20:02):
Make Senate Republicans filibuster it challenge House Republicans to hold
a vote, but more radical action may be necessary, he writes.
If Democrats win the House, they should be prepared to
exploit ambiguities in precedent and refuse to seat Republicans from
states or counties where MAGA election officials have blocked statewide
(20:26):
certification of the presidential election result. After all, if the
top of the ticket is suspect, why should the rest
of the ballot get a rubber stamp? If that's not
enough to assure that a contingent election will deliver the
presidency to the true winner. President Biden should contemplate convening
(20:46):
then adjourning the House and Senate pursuant to his Article two,
Section three powers until Maga relents. It is harrowing. It
is perhaps an accurate picture of the future, the immediate future.
(21:08):
The Trump wins by losing future. And it is also
a fulfillment of the old hackneyed phrase forewarned is forearmed boiler.
Brian Bouler b e ut l e R. Also of
(21:31):
interest here, I think for the first time ever there
is a three way time for worst persons in the world,
and I goddamn mean it this time. The worst persons
in the world. They are Meghan Kelly and two people
who have publicly attacked Governor Tim Wallas's seventeen year old
challenged son for having cried as his dad was being nominated.
They are a Trump sucker and Delegate Mike Crispy and
(21:53):
Coulter Geist herself. And they are scum. That's next. This
is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead
(22:24):
of us on this edition of Countdown breaking format on
a Friday, because for everybody who's ever asked, hey, pal,
did you hit your head or something when you were
a kid, the answer is why, Yes, yes I did.
And the forty fifth anniversary of it is tomorrow. Don't worry,
(22:45):
I'll be getting better any day now. Next in Things
I promised not to tell first, there are still more
new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the misgrants,
morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. And ordinarily, although maybe it doesn't
seem like this, every time there is an element of
humor to the worst person in the world segment, there
(23:07):
is some attempt to mock them, at least to if
we can't laugh with them, at least we can laugh
at them. Not so today, these are three of the
genuinely worst persons in the world, people who have been
so turned from probably unpleasant, stupid, narrow minded, arrogant individuals
(23:29):
into monsters because of the Republican Party and the conservative
movement and Fox News and the right wing echo sphere.
They all fit this category. They are all legitimately the
worst persons in the world, and so we have a
three way tie Number one is Megan Kelly. Megan Kelly
(23:50):
is the woman who used to be with Fox, used
to be with NBC, used to be with Lawyer, and
lost all three of those gigs who once went on
and suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris slept her way
to the top. And you should have heard the rumors
at Fox News. Megan Kelly wrote this Lafonza Butler speaking
(24:12):
she filled Feinstein's seat at the DNC this is happening,
celebrating that she and Harris both graduated from historically black colleges.
Imagine the white person up there. I'm proud to tell
you I went to a mostly white university. Quote. It
seems to have never occurred to Megan Kelly, and why
should it. She's a white woman with blonde hair. At
(24:36):
least that's its color. Now she's a blonde woman with
white hair, or a white woman with blonde hair, or
she's just pasty white. And it's never occurred to her
once because she's never been the victim of any kind
of discrimination whatsoever. Possibly something was held against her because
she was a woman. That happens, That still happens. I
(24:57):
don't know if it's happened in her case, she got
into television with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever and got a
huge contract from NBC, And her qualification for that was
they had a news chief who was in decline, who
had begun to hire and promote people who looked like
women who looked like his wife did at various stages
of her life. I swear, in any event, it has
(25:21):
never seemingly occurred, based on this tweet by Megan Kelly,
it has never occurred to her that the reason there
are historically black colleges is that, for you know, all
of American history, it's been tougher for black people to
get into historically white colleges. That there are historically white colleges.
(25:41):
I went to a mostly white university. You bet your ass,
Megan Kelly, and you all look good in your hoods there.
The idea of affirmative action was not to somehow benefit
people at the expense of others, but to stop that
from happening. That there were historically white universities, That there
(26:04):
were college that did not admit black people, That there
were golf courses like the one where they play the
Masters tournament every year that did not admit black members.
Well into the what was it nineteen nineties. Racism is
alive and well in this country. And if you need
to find out where, follow Megan Kelly on Twitter X.
(26:25):
As I said, it's a three way tie. They are worse, worser,
and worse. This is from a guy named Mike Crispy,
who we saw last as a man claiming that the
Democrats are biased against Italian Americans, that Italian Americans are
suffering racism at the hands of the Democrats. He was, apparently,
(26:48):
if I remember correctly, a congressional candidate who finished like
two hundred and forty third. He lists himself as a
twenty twenty four Trump delegate, So he's stupid and corrupt.
Chairman of the America First Republicans of New Jersey. So
he's stupid and corrupt and has a really stupid sounding accent,
and he's a podcaster on Rumble, which means he has
no ethics whatsoever. This is what Mike Crispy wrote about
(27:11):
Gus Walls as we saw Gus Walls during his father's
speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night accepting
the vice presidential nomination. This is what Mike Crispy wrote
with a picture of Mike Crispy rather of Gus Walls
and his mother. The video of this taken, ironically enough,
from MSNBC. Mike Crispy wrote, Tim Walls's stupid crying son.
(27:37):
Isn't the flex the left thinks it is. You raised
your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats? Does
Baron Trump cry Nope? Does he love his father? Of course,
That's the type of values I want leading the country.
Mike Crispy called Gus Walls a puffy beta male, a
(27:59):
stupid crying son. I'll just mention this Schwallz is neuro divergent.
He has ADHD, anxiety and a nonverbal learning disorder, and
it is not surprising that at the age of seventeen,
under those circumstances he would have trouble regulating his emotions
(28:20):
in social settings. I would argue that if Mike Crispy
had some sort of normal human relationship with anybody else
in the world, and that person was being nominated for
Vice President of the United States, Mike Crispy, who looks
like he's about fifty six fifty seven years old and
pretending to be much younger, Mike Crispy might not fully
(28:40):
control his emotions while that person who was important to
him was being nominated for vice president. He has the
nerve to call this kid a seventeen year old, the
nerve to call him your stupid, crying son, your kid
to be a puffy beta male, and to compare him
to Baron Trump. Baron Trump, who, by the way, I
(29:02):
will assert, is the smartest of all the Trump males.
He has never said a word in public. I don't
care why he's the smart one. The other ones are
all assholes. Mike Crispy, he should be fired from wherever
he works. He should not have a job. He should
not have an income. He should not have a family,
he should not have a future. He should not have
(29:24):
a meal today. Mike Crispy Crispi on Rumble Chairman America,
First Republicans of New Jersey. I'd like to say he
knows where all the bodies are buried, but we already
know the answer to that if Anna is on the
first t. But there's somebody who is actually tied with
(29:46):
Mike Crispy. It's hard to believe that anybody could compete
with Mike Crispy, or Megan Kelly for that matter, But
competing with Mike crispy on the subject of Tim Walls
and his son Gus, because of her reach, because of
her experience, because of her number of followers, still ill,
because of the familiarity one has with her words, and
(30:08):
the fact that they have been for now thirty years
inhuman unkind to a degree almost is immeasurable. Somebody who
made Rush Limbaugh look good. And Culture who finally got
so disgusting that she was turned away by the Republican Party.
(30:31):
And Culture with a picture of Gus Walls with his
hand on his chest, his eyes closed, crying and pointing
that's my dad. An extraordinary moment. But and Coulter, who
is as disgusting a human being as I've ever heard,
who went to my college, Cornell University, and once called
(30:54):
me an elitist because I mentioned it on the air
that I went to Cornell University, and then said, I
did not really go to Cornell University because I graduated
from the Agriculture School and that was a partial state school.
But she went to the Arts college. She was Ivy
League Cornell. I was cow College Cornell, and I was
an elitist. And culture has now stepped down into what
(31:19):
we used to clean out of the stables at the
Agriculture College the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at
Cornell University, the university, by the way, which does not
list and Culture among its famed alumni, because years ago
it decided it needed to separate itself from one of
its own alumni or alumni. And Culture runs this picture
(31:41):
of Tim Walls in the middle of an extraordinary emotional
moment for him and wrote, simply talk about weird and culture.
May the next time I see you you be face
down in the stables at the Cornell Agriculture and Life
Sciences College. Horse manure pile, Mike Crispy, Megan Kelly, and
(32:08):
Colter two day's worst persons, and I mean it in
the world. On Sunday, the twenty fourth of August nineteen eighty,
(32:36):
I learned what Mom meant when she had said, never
run for a train. There'll always be another one. Because
I didn't know what it meant, I nearly killed myself.
I permanently altered my health, and I put myself on
a path towards meeting the great doctor Renee Richards. I
was sleeping late in my relatively new and tiny studio
apartment on fifty Fifth Street in Manhattan, apartment ten F,
(32:59):
when above me eleven F started making noise like pounding
on the floor. And now it's eight thirty Sunday morning,
and I'm awake, and I'm not doing my job as
a radio sportscaster until about two, and I think, well,
I'm a oh, the Dodgers are playing the Mets at Shay.
I can go to my other job as a semi
professional photographer and go shoot the Dodgers and still make
(33:20):
it to work on time. So I packed my semi
professional emphasis on the semi photographer's bag and drag myself
out on the subway and get to share stadium around
eleven thirty am. And there's nobody there. No Dodgers players,
no Mets players, nobody but the grounds keepers. And as
the minutes pass, I'm beginning to calculate when I have
(33:40):
to leave in order to not be late to my
job back in Manhattan. Weekend life in New York City
in nineteen eighty might as well have been nineteen ten.
I tell people this, they do not believe me. But
when I worked weekends the next year in Times Square,
I used to call into my newsroom from a payphone
on Fifth Avenue and say, okay, I'm going to Arby's today.
(34:04):
Who wants one? But or McDonald's or Burger King or wherever.
Because our office was in Times Square and on weekends
there were no restaurants open in Times Square. You could
not get food in Times Square on weekends. Today, the
same four square block area probably has fifty restaurants and
(34:24):
fast food places. So the train back to Manhattan from
Shaye Stadium in Queens ran once every half an hour
on that Sunday in August of nineteen eighty, And as
I looked at my watch, I realized I should have
left the field three or four minutes ago. If you
went out the press entrance and exit at Shaye Stadium,
you could see the train approaching the elevated station out
(34:45):
behind right field, And if you had just seen it,
if it had just become visible, and if you then
ran your fastest, you could make it to the viaduct
that crossed the parking lot and led you up towards
the station platform. And if you could get your subway
token out and into the turnstile slot with one fluid
overhead motion, and if you kept running all time, you
could just make the train if you didn't, you would
(35:10):
be waiting half an hour, unless maybe the next train
was late or on fire somewhere. Sure enough, as I
got out of the ballpark, I could see the Manhattan
bound train just appearing at the horizon. I was twenty one.
My knees still worked, and I ran, and I got
into the viaduct, and I got the token out of
(35:31):
my pocket, and I got into the slot like Darryl
Dawkins doing a Tomahawk slam. And I not only made
the train, but I made it by so much that
I styled, I celebrated, I congratulated myself. I was guilty
of premature jocularity. I could have just slowed to a
triumphant jog and gotten a seat, huffing and sweaty, but
(35:54):
eminently satisfied and on time for work. But no, I
decided to make an exultant, joyful leap. The next thing
I registered. It was the loudest sound I had ever
or have since ever heard, as if six hundred gongs
had gone off simultaneously, or a dozen church bells, or
(36:15):
every alarm clock that had ever awakened me from the
deepest of sleeps. Something like this, but inside your head
barm when it happened was forgetting that I was no
longer six feet tall as I had been even two
years before, but was now just under six y four.
My leap had ended with me slamming my forehead on
(36:37):
the flat metal bar just above the train doorway an
inch higher, I might have blinded myself. The bar an
inch above the doorway is, in fact, as I found
out later, the thickest piece of metal on a New
York City subway train. As it was, my momentum carried
me safely into the train. I hit the floor. I
(36:57):
saw my sunglasses go flying off and rattling down towards
the back of the train like a plastic rat. I
heard the train doors close, I felt the blood on
my head and in my hair, and I crawled up
onto the plastic bench seating behind me. The mass gong
sound continued in my head, and my first cogent thought
was to see the blood on the train floor and think, Oh,
(37:19):
I have spilled blood all over their train, and I
don't have anything to clean it up with. Similar nonsense
continued to bounce around my concussed size eight noggin for seconds,
maybe minutes. It was beginning to really hurt, and of
more practical import the bleeding had not really stopped. At
this point, an older woman sitting more or less across
(37:41):
from me handed me a small packet. It was a
wet wipe. I mumbled thanks, opened it, dabbed it on
my forehead for a second, and was surprised to find
it instantly inundated with blood. This was the first time
it occurred to me that I might be in real trouble.
On the number seven local train to Grand Central and
Times Square. Apparently this thought occurred simultaneously to the woman
(38:04):
with the wet wipe and to her friend, I think
you're kind of hurt. One of them said to me,
let's get you to the hospital. There's one a couple
blocks from the next stop. Now understand this situation. The
New York of nineteen eighty, and particularly the subways of
nineteen eighty were not nice places. Two years later, I
took a rush hour train to my job at CNN
(38:25):
at the World Trade Center and was annoyed to find
one guy who had sprawled himself over three seats with
a newspaper covering his face. Nine hours later, when I
went home, I got onto a train and saw the
same guy with the same newspaper on the same seats,
because it was the same train, and more importantly, because
he was dead anyway, it was now around twelve forty
(38:49):
five of a Sunday afternoon. If it had been night,
or indeed certain other times of the day or on
other train lines, I would have simply been the easiest
mugging victim in New York history. Somebody could have knocked
me over and taken my wallet with next to no effort. Hell,
they could have asked me for my wallet, and I
was so I probably would have said, sure, have a
nice day, got any wet wipes? Instead, I met not one,
(39:11):
but two good Samaritans who knew where the hospitals were
in a part of town I could barely find on
a map. Sure enough, they helped me to my feet,
walked me down the steps and to the two blocks
or so that separated us from Elmhurst Hospital, And when
I reassured them I was clear headed enough to get
into the emergency room by myself, they wished me luck,
(39:33):
and they would not even accept my offer of two
tokens to get them back on the subway. There should
be a monument to these two women somewhere. If the
New York City subways of nineteen eighty were scary, the
emergency rooms of its hospitals were something out of a
Brian De Palma film. I think there were a couple
of dozen people in the er. I remember one of
(39:55):
them asking me how I got so bloody, and I explained,
and he said you should go ahead of me. And
he opened his windbreaker to show a blood covered shirt,
and he added the bullet only crazed me. I know.
I waited about two hours. During that time I had
a singular experience which has informed my understanding of concussions
and traumatic brain injury ever since. The desk nurse asked
(40:19):
me for the name of a contact, preferably a family member.
I gave my father's name, Theodore. Then she asked me
for my full name, and when I went to say it,
I could not remember my middle name. Could not remember
my middle name Keith I got Olderman, I got that
was it. My middle name is also Theodore. I could
(40:41):
remember Theodore my dad, but not Theodore my middle name.
That is how fragile your brain really is. Think of
that the next time you see somebody get clocked in
a sporting event, there was some comic relief. I called
into my office at United Press International's Audio network and
(41:02):
explained to the news editor a veteran named Ed Caerans,
the most dapperman in radio history, who looked like the
actor Ray Collins from Citizen Kane. I told Ed, I
had just sort of almost you know, killed myself on
the subway coming in from Queen's, and I really didn't
know when or if I would be at work. About
forty five minutes after that conversation, the desk nurse started
(41:23):
shouting my name, and I thought, Okay, I'm finally going
to be brought in to see a doctor. No, it
was Ed Caron's calling from UPI. My bosses were all
very sorry that I was wounded, he said, but there
was nobody available to fill in for me. So when
could they expect me to be in the office, I explained,
I did not know that since I was technically still
bleeding to death. Forty five minutes more passed, and again
(41:47):
the nurse summoned me and said there was a phone call,
and this time I was sure it was my dad,
Keith ed Karin's again at UPI. He explained that my
boss now said that they would bring in the guy
who was supposed to do the next morning sports cast,
my college friend Peter shack Now, but they expected me
to do it his shift starting at four point thirty
in the morning. I explained to Ed that I would try,
(42:09):
but that honestly I didn't know where I was or
what time it was. Now two nice ladies had mentioned
the name of the hospital, but I really wasn't remembering
too well. Plus I was still bleeding to death. Needless
to say, I did not bleed to death. I survived.
It was a severe concussion, but it only took a
stitch and a half to actually close that wound, and
the er doctor and the nurses were outstanding, and they
(42:31):
gave me easy to remember instructions, plus a note indicating
that I should rest for at least forty eight hours
just in case ED Karen showed up at my apartment.
No offense to ED. They told me what symptoms to expect,
how to prepare for them, and when they would stop.
And they stopped like one day earlier. It was a
potential disaster that turned into a nothing burger, or so
(42:55):
I thought. Two years later, I was at the original
Louis Armstrong Stadium covering the nineteen eighty two US Tennis Open,
on the other side of the same elevated subway station
where I had run into the train going there. Always
actually made me laugh. Until the afternoon of Saturday, September eleventh,
nineteen eighty two. I was watching the Women's final, covering
(43:17):
it for CNN Chris Evert over Hannah Mandlakova and swinging
my head from side to side as one does to
follow the tennis action from over here, two over there,
two over here, two over there, as I had swung
my head from side to side for the preceding twelve
days of the tournament. Then I swung to the right,
but my left eye kept looking to the left, the
(43:40):
old Marty Feldman thing reversed crossed eyes that hurt worse
than hitting the train had. I could barely stand any light.
I often had to keep my hand in front of
my eyes. I rushed to my optometris Monday morning and
he started to laugh. This happened to you during the
US Open. I said, yes, why are you laughing at me?
(44:02):
He said, I'm going to send you to the best
muscle ophthalmologist I've ever met. I said, so, why are
you laughing at me? He said, you don't know who
that is? I said, no, I let my knowledge of
the muscle ophthalmology ranking slip. Why are you laughing at me?
He said? The best muscle ophthalmologist I've ever met is
doctor Renee Richards, the transsexual tennis player. I said, I
(44:23):
don't care who you're sending me to. I'm in trouble here.
If they can fix this, I don't care who you're
sending me. My train accident was so far in my
past that when I got in to see doctor Richards
the next morning, I didn't even think to mention it
in my patient history. It didn't matter. Thirty seconds of
staring into my eyes through a wall sized feropter and
Renee Richards said, when exactly did you hit your head
(44:45):
August or September of nineteen eighty. I was stunned. I
did hit my head in nineteen eighty August twenty fourth.
She made a clicking noise of satisfaction. I've heard of
this before, but I've never seen it. You couldn't do
this again in a million years. The good news is
that muscle with the eyes, that's just muscle exhaustion. We
(45:07):
can fix that with a thing that costs to buck
ninety eight. The bad news is when you hit your head,
most of the damage must have been absorbed by your
inner ear. If you want to fix that, you'll need
brain surgery. I don't recommend brain surgery. Doctor Renee Richards
showed me the muscle exercises that cost a dollar ninety
eight that fixed my reverse crossed eyes. They felt better immediately.
(45:29):
I still do the exercises I did them earlier today.
Then Renee Richards said, so you're a sports reporter. It
says here, listen, my next patient isn't due for half
an hour. You should rest anyway after my exam. Let's
talk about sports reporting. Renee Richards was an expert. Her
(45:50):
transition had been outed by a sportscaster, Tucker Carlson's father.
If you can believe that, I can believe it, because
she had been a man when she played in the
US Open. As a woman, she had become almost instantaneously
the most famous tennis player in the world. Then she
became Martina Navratilova's coach. I learned more from her in
(46:16):
that first half hour of conversation about the ethics of
reporting than I had in all of my previous life
experiences combined. Plus she was a gas Renee. Richards was hilarious,
she was self effacing, She was a great doctor, and
to me, she was the definition of courage. And she,
I am proud to say, is still my friend, all
(46:38):
because I did not know what Mom meant when she said,
don't run for a train. There'll always be another one.
The other phrase I never really understood till then was
break neck speed. Oh, when there is one more punchline here.
If the name of that hospital that the two good
Samaritans took me to, Elmhurst Hospital, sounds vaguely familiar, it should.
(46:59):
It was ground zero when COVID nineteen hit, when the
pandemic had its hand around New York City's throat. The
worst hit community was Elmhurst in Queens, and the worst
hit hospital was Elmhurst Hospital. They were in desperate need
at that point of ventilators, so I knew what I
had to do. You could buy them for cash legally,
(47:20):
So I got two ventilators. I had them delivered, one
for each of the ladies who helped me to get
off the damn train that day. I've done all the
(47:42):
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Please
share this podcast with somebody who does not listen. Brian
Ray and John Phillips Chanel, the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled the
orchestration and the keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
the bass, and the drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best
(48:04):
baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. Sports music is the
Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by
the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my
friend Kenny Main. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
That's countdown for this the seventy fifth day until the
(48:24):
twenty twenty four presidential election, and they three hundred and
twenty fourth day since convicted felon Donald J. Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing. If it happens, use
the mental health system. You've got it. President Biden used
presidential immunity. If you need to get out the troops
(48:46):
and stop him from doing it again while we still can,
and anti Semitic, anti immigration, gun nut Republicans, please stop
shooting at Trump. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins
as the news requires. Until the next one of these,
I'm Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
(49:07):
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(49:30):
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. Harris
has cut Trump's lead from nine points to five points
(00:26):
in Texas. Harris is now ahead in North Carolina by
one point. There is leaked audio of Trump pledging fealty
to the families of the January sixth Traders and hosting
an event for them, and more blatant Trump anti Semitism.
There is the RFK Junior thing. There is the increasing
evidence that Trump is at least accidentally giving up on
(00:49):
winning the election and instead focusing on raising the temperature
so much among his fascists that they can run a
coup from behind in the legislatures and in the House.
And none of that, at least for a few hours today,
is gonna top this.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Bellow Americans, this election is not only the most important
of our lives, it is one of the most important
in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald
(01:29):
Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences, but the
consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House
are extremely serious. Consider consider not only the chaos and
(01:52):
calamity when he was in office, but also the gravity
of what has happened since he lost the last election,
Donald Trump tried to throw your votes. When he failed,
he sent an armed mob to the United States Capital,
(02:13):
where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his
own party begged him to call off the mob and
send help, he did the opposite. He fanned the flames.
And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he
(02:38):
was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans,
and separately and separately found liable for committing sexual abuse.
And consider consider what he intends to do if we
give him power again. Consider his explicit intent to set
(03:05):
free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at
the Capitol, His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents,
and anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent
(03:25):
to deploy our active duty military against our own citizens.
Consider consider the power he will have, especially after the
United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be
immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails,
(03:58):
and how he would use the immense powers of the
presidency of the United States, not to improve your life,
not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the
only client he has ever had himself and understand he
(04:25):
is not done. As a part of his agenda, he
and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban
medication abortion, and enact a nationwide abortion ban, with or
without Congress. And get this, get this, he plans to
(04:49):
create a national anti abortion coordinator and force states to
report on women's miscarriages and abortions. Simply put, they are
out of their minds. We must be worthy of this moment.
(05:14):
It is now our turn to do what generations before
us have done, guided by optimism and faith, to fight
for this country we love, to fight for the ideals
we cherish, and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes
(05:43):
with the greatest privilege on earth, the privilege and pride
of being an American.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So let's get out there, Let's fight for it.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Let's get out there, let's vote for it, and together
let us write the next great chapter in the most
extraordinary story ever told.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Thank you, let's see in the bus the United.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
States of America.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Thank you of the non convention news. The Texas thing
(06:52):
really is the most astonishing. In June, the University of
Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs had Trump beating Biden
in Texas by just under nine points. In its first
poll since the chain, it has Trump's lead in Texas
down to five points. More importantly, perhaps in June, Texas
women were backing Trump by just under a point. It
(07:14):
is now women by six for Harris in Texas, and
then the biggest number of them all. In June, Trump
led among Texas independents by twenty four points. The new
Hobby poll has Trump ahead of Independence by two. She
has cut his lead among Texas independents by ninety two percent.
(07:37):
The Harris campaign is still not invested in a full
campaign in Texas, not officially, there is reason to believe
that even if a Trump squeaker is the best to
be hoped for there, a minor investment could help down
ballot Democrats in Texas. It might even knock out Ted Cruz,
who is just two points ahead of the Democrat Colin Allred.
The North Carolina number continues to indicate that that state
(08:00):
has officially become a toss up Harris by one. In
Survey US, the Nate Silver model has her favored by
fifty two point seven to forty six point nine. It
predicts a two hundred and seventy seven to two hundred
and sixty Harris win in the electoral college. A Civics
poll has the newest net favorability scores. Walls is a
(08:24):
plus three, Harris is a minus four. Trump is minus thirteen.
Vance is minus fifteen. And now back to the question
that I raised yesterday, and I am hardly the first
who have done so, is it possible that Trump is
now deliberately or inadvertently trying to lose with method to
(08:49):
his madness, which I will circle back to shortly. Presumably
you have heard about his crazy rant on Fox News
yesterday where he twice refused to let even the supplicant
Fox hosts interrupt him. Presumably U I seen the video
of JV Vance failing to successfully order donuts in Georgia.
(09:10):
It wouldn't do it justice to play just the audio here,
Go and watch it if you have it already. It
ends with an unfortunate worker refusing to let them use
her face on the video, and then when he explains
his name is JD. Vance and he's running for vice president,
she answers okay, in a way in which the okay
comes out sounding like are you sure about that? Well,
(09:34):
all right, here's the audio anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I'm sorry she had a ordveal film guys to just
cut her.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Out of anything.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Appreciate that man, Okadie Danser.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I watch President see it. So Vance's net favorability was
what did it say here? Minus fifteen? Did it go
to minus sixteen just from that video at the donut shop?
Have another donut? Okay? So so those are the funny parts.
Now here's the not funny part, which is, of course,
(10:09):
the threat by Trump to sabotage the elections. On the
same day, leaked video appears from last year showing Trump
at his golf crap shack at a gathering of families
of those convicted, in some cases convicted after plea deals
and confessions of participating in his first attempt to overthrow
(10:32):
the government. Hours later comes this You are invited to
the J six Awards gala. This is in gold printed
on black, Thursday, September fifth, six pm Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster,
and then it gives the address. The address is Lamington Road.
(10:55):
By the way, attendees will get a chance to win
a justice for all Donald J. Trump and J six
Prison Choir J six number one Music chart at plaque.
The invited guest speakers, Rudy Giuliani, Donald J. Trump and
it says invited, and Anthony Raymundi and I don't know
(11:17):
who Anthony is, but he couldn't afford to tie. This
is two weeks from yesterday at Bedminster. If you're there,
please don't step directly on Ivana's grave. Thank you for
your understanding. At the same time, the same day come
these videos out of nowhere from last year's Patriot Freedom
Project August twenty second of last year at Bedminster. It
(11:42):
is what he has said so often, this inversion of reality,
in which the scum that he sent marching into the
Capitol to kill congressmen and kill senators and kill his
own vice president and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power
are now heroes to be celebrated and pardoned.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
So I just want to let you know I'm with
you to do something. You're not going to let this happen.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
This is a outrageous situation.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Nobody's ever seen anything like it.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So we're going to be working with all of you,
and we're gonna first we have to get elected. We
get elected, Yes, we're.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Gonna see me a little be treated very fairly again,
because we're living in a fascist country. This is almost
like a fashion.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You're even a good word. Almost is a good word.
But this has very become a country a little bit
like you and I have never seen before. This is
not our country. And he will do it again on
September fifth, to again put front of mind to his
own cult two months before election day, the idea of
having to overthrow the government by force. At the same time,
(12:54):
Trump is going full racism and full anti semitism, and
it is anything but difficult to imagine that he is
ready to cross the streams here, as it were, to
insist if the current political trends continue and Harris's three
to four point national lead expands still further, and if
more and more swing states and independent voters reject Trump,
(13:15):
to insist that his gangs and his militias be ready
to take over the country by force or by legislative
deceit because the last piece of the puzzle, it's the
minorities who have rigged the election against him and them
that is the final inflection point. And who knows what
(13:38):
large percentage of his cultists are already there. There is
no question he would turn to it. Hitler turned to
it desperate despots in countless nations have turned to it,
and to violence, and to ethnic cleansing, and to nightmares untold,
there is no question he would turn to it. There
(13:58):
is only the question of whether or not he will.
Again from Yale historian Timothy Snyder, I have the New
York Times. I quoted it yesterday. I may quote it
every edition of this program between now and the election. Quote.
Trump is in the classic dictatorial position. He needs to
die in bed holding all executive power to stay out
(14:20):
of prison. This means that he will do whatever he
can to gain power, and once in power, will do
all that he can to never let it go. This
is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else. It
is entirely inconsistent with democracy. Trump and his cult will
(14:43):
accept any inconsistency because they agree to no rules, and
after nine years of this nation letting him and them
run unchecked through our norms and laws and guard rails
and collective goodness, that has convinced them they can get
away with anything. And one day Trump is insisting the
(15:03):
Democrats are anti Semitic because they chose Governor Walls and
not Governor Shapiro to be vice president, and the next day,
Trump is insisting that Governor Shapiro is a bad jew
To quote Trump, shortly after midnight on Wednesday night, Thursday morning,
the highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
(15:27):
Josh Shapiro, made a really bad and poorly delivered speech
talking about freedom and fighting for Comrade Kamala Harris for president.
Yet she hates Israel and will do nothing but make
its journey through the complexities of survival as difficult as possible,
hoping in the end that it will fail. Judge only
by her actions. Yet Shapiro, for strictly political reasons, refuse
(15:51):
to acknowledge that I am the best friend that Israel
and the Jewish people ever had. I have done more
for Israel than any president, and frankly, I have done
more for Israel than any person, and it's not even close.
Shapiro has done nothing for Israel. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Israel is in big trouble. So what that is setting
(16:16):
up is not defense of the Jewish people from anti Semitism.
It is a refining of the Hitler plan or the
plan of any other anti Semitic purges in human history.
If and when Trump finally activates a base that is
more than happy to attack the Jews, there will be
(16:38):
good Trump Jews and bad Trump Jews, as there are
already good Trump people of color and bad Trump people
of color depend upon it. And why on earth would
you ever do this? Not Trump? Why would he ever
do that? Professor Snyder's simple reminder is that it's win
(17:00):
or die in jail for Trump. There are no other options.
Why on earth, though, would those around him ever do that?
Because if there is no electoral path for him, there
are no jobs for them. And we live in a
time in which people think the only thing that matters
is money. Not the people throughout our American history who
(17:20):
have been corrupted by the idea that money is the
most important thing. The people around Trump believe that money
is the only measure of life. If there is no
electoral path for Trump, there is only pure insurrection or
the promise of the contingent election. I hope when I
(17:43):
extensively quote somebody here that you will at least go
to their site. I do it the quoting that is
because they have expressed something more compactly and more starkly
than I ever could, and usually with less rage. I
find myself doing this often with Brian Boutler, who was
once a contributor to the current TV edition of this
(18:04):
news outlet. Brian Buler has the premise of the contingent
election down and what President Biden should do about it,
and what Democratic congressional leaders should be preparing to do
about it and preparing now. I now steal three hundred
of Brian's words, and I urge you to go subscribe
to his newsletter. Quote. Trump loyalists don't necessarily need Trump
(18:29):
loyal judges to validate their baseless allegations of impropriety. They
just need to run out the clock. Brian writes. They
would be perfectly happy to see liberal voters take to
the streets in say Atlanta, only for the results in
Georgia or elsewhere to remain uncertified as of the constitutional deadline.
(18:53):
At that juncture, with no candidate having received at least
two hundred and seventy electoral votes, the question of who
becomes president can only be answered by a contingent election
in the US House, where each state delegation gets one vote.
Many times over the past decades, Democrats have controlled the
(19:15):
House itself while holding majorities in fewer than twenty five
state delegations. If Republicans still control more state delegations than
Democrats on January sixth, they can hand the election to
the loser, even if Democrats control the Chamber and the
House Speaker is a keem. Jeffries I. Brian Boiler writes
(19:37):
would like to see Democrats taking steps to preempt that outcome.
The starting point would probably be high profile Senate hearings
with local elections officials willing to sound the alarm about
their MAGA colleagues's dark intentions. Then advancing legislation to impose
federal criminal penalties on elections officials who take results hostage.
(20:02):
Make Senate Republicans filibuster it challenge House Republicans to hold
a vote, but more radical action may be necessary, he writes.
If Democrats win the House, they should be prepared to
exploit ambiguities in precedent and refuse to seat Republicans from
states or counties where MAGA election officials have blocked statewide
(20:26):
certification of the presidential election result. After all, if the
top of the ticket is suspect, why should the rest
of the ballot get a rubber stamp? If that's not
enough to assure that a contingent election will deliver the
presidency to the true winner. President Biden should contemplate convening
(20:46):
then adjourning the House and Senate pursuant to his Article two,
Section three powers until Maga relents. It is harrowing. It
is perhaps an accurate picture of the future, the immediate future.
(21:08):
The Trump wins by losing future. And it is also
a fulfillment of the old hackneyed phrase forewarned is forearmed boiler.
Brian Bouler b e ut l e R. Also of
(21:31):
interest here, I think for the first time ever there
is a three way time for worst persons in the world,
and I goddamn mean it this time. The worst persons
in the world. They are Meghan Kelly and two people
who have publicly attacked Governor Tim Wallas's seventeen year old
challenged son for having cried as his dad was being nominated.
They are a Trump sucker and Delegate Mike Crispy and
(21:53):
Coulter Geist herself. And they are scum. That's next. This
is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead
(22:24):
of us on this edition of Countdown breaking format on
a Friday, because for everybody who's ever asked, hey, pal,
did you hit your head or something when you were
a kid, the answer is why, Yes, yes I did.
And the forty fifth anniversary of it is tomorrow. Don't worry,
(22:45):
I'll be getting better any day now. Next in Things
I promised not to tell first, there are still more
new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the misgrants,
morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. And ordinarily, although maybe it doesn't
seem like this, every time there is an element of
humor to the worst person in the world segment, there
(23:07):
is some attempt to mock them, at least to if
we can't laugh with them, at least we can laugh
at them. Not so today, these are three of the
genuinely worst persons in the world, people who have been
so turned from probably unpleasant, stupid, narrow minded, arrogant individuals
(23:29):
into monsters because of the Republican Party and the conservative
movement and Fox News and the right wing echo sphere.
They all fit this category. They are all legitimately the
worst persons in the world, and so we have a
three way tie Number one is Megan Kelly. Megan Kelly
(23:50):
is the woman who used to be with Fox, used
to be with NBC, used to be with Lawyer, and
lost all three of those gigs who once went on
and suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris slept her way
to the top. And you should have heard the rumors
at Fox News. Megan Kelly wrote this Lafonza Butler speaking
(24:12):
she filled Feinstein's seat at the DNC this is happening,
celebrating that she and Harris both graduated from historically black colleges.
Imagine the white person up there. I'm proud to tell
you I went to a mostly white university. Quote. It
seems to have never occurred to Megan Kelly, and why
should it. She's a white woman with blonde hair. At
(24:36):
least that's its color. Now she's a blonde woman with
white hair, or a white woman with blonde hair, or
she's just pasty white. And it's never occurred to her
once because she's never been the victim of any kind
of discrimination whatsoever. Possibly something was held against her because
she was a woman. That happens, That still happens. I
(24:57):
don't know if it's happened in her case, she got
into television with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever and got a
huge contract from NBC, And her qualification for that was
they had a news chief who was in decline, who
had begun to hire and promote people who looked like
women who looked like his wife did at various stages
of her life. I swear, in any event, it has
(25:21):
never seemingly occurred, based on this tweet by Megan Kelly,
it has never occurred to her that the reason there
are historically black colleges is that, for you know, all
of American history, it's been tougher for black people to
get into historically white colleges. That there are historically white colleges.
(25:41):
I went to a mostly white university. You bet your ass,
Megan Kelly, and you all look good in your hoods there.
The idea of affirmative action was not to somehow benefit
people at the expense of others, but to stop that
from happening. That there were historically white universities, That there
(26:04):
were college that did not admit black people, That there
were golf courses like the one where they play the
Masters tournament every year that did not admit black members.
Well into the what was it nineteen nineties. Racism is
alive and well in this country. And if you need
to find out where, follow Megan Kelly on Twitter X.
(26:25):
As I said, it's a three way tie. They are worse, worser,
and worse. This is from a guy named Mike Crispy,
who we saw last as a man claiming that the
Democrats are biased against Italian Americans, that Italian Americans are
suffering racism at the hands of the Democrats. He was, apparently,
(26:48):
if I remember correctly, a congressional candidate who finished like
two hundred and forty third. He lists himself as a
twenty twenty four Trump delegate, So he's stupid and corrupt.
Chairman of the America First Republicans of New Jersey. So
he's stupid and corrupt and has a really stupid sounding accent,
and he's a podcaster on Rumble, which means he has
no ethics whatsoever. This is what Mike Crispy wrote about
(27:11):
Gus Walls as we saw Gus Walls during his father's
speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night accepting
the vice presidential nomination. This is what Mike Crispy wrote
with a picture of Mike Crispy rather of Gus Walls
and his mother. The video of this taken, ironically enough,
from MSNBC. Mike Crispy wrote, Tim Walls's stupid crying son.
(27:37):
Isn't the flex the left thinks it is. You raised
your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats? Does
Baron Trump cry Nope? Does he love his father? Of course,
That's the type of values I want leading the country.
Mike Crispy called Gus Walls a puffy beta male, a
(27:59):
stupid crying son. I'll just mention this Schwallz is neuro divergent.
He has ADHD, anxiety and a nonverbal learning disorder, and
it is not surprising that at the age of seventeen,
under those circumstances he would have trouble regulating his emotions
(28:20):
in social settings. I would argue that if Mike Crispy
had some sort of normal human relationship with anybody else
in the world, and that person was being nominated for
Vice President of the United States, Mike Crispy, who looks
like he's about fifty six fifty seven years old and
pretending to be much younger, Mike Crispy might not fully
(28:40):
control his emotions while that person who was important to
him was being nominated for vice president. He has the
nerve to call this kid a seventeen year old, the
nerve to call him your stupid, crying son, your kid
to be a puffy beta male, and to compare him
to Baron Trump. Baron Trump, who, by the way, I
(29:02):
will assert, is the smartest of all the Trump males.
He has never said a word in public. I don't
care why he's the smart one. The other ones are
all assholes. Mike Crispy, he should be fired from wherever
he works. He should not have a job. He should
not have an income. He should not have a family,
he should not have a future. He should not have
(29:24):
a meal today. Mike Crispy Crispi on Rumble Chairman America,
First Republicans of New Jersey. I'd like to say he
knows where all the bodies are buried, but we already
know the answer to that if Anna is on the
first t. But there's somebody who is actually tied with
(29:46):
Mike Crispy. It's hard to believe that anybody could compete
with Mike Crispy, or Megan Kelly for that matter, But
competing with Mike crispy on the subject of Tim Walls
and his son Gus, because of her reach, because of
her experience, because of her number of followers, still ill,
because of the familiarity one has with her words, and
(30:08):
the fact that they have been for now thirty years
inhuman unkind to a degree almost is immeasurable. Somebody who
made Rush Limbaugh look good. And Culture who finally got
so disgusting that she was turned away by the Republican Party.
(30:31):
And Culture with a picture of Gus Walls with his
hand on his chest, his eyes closed, crying and pointing
that's my dad. An extraordinary moment. But and Coulter, who
is as disgusting a human being as I've ever heard,
who went to my college, Cornell University, and once called
(30:54):
me an elitist because I mentioned it on the air
that I went to Cornell University, and then said, I
did not really go to Cornell University because I graduated
from the Agriculture School and that was a partial state school.
But she went to the Arts college. She was Ivy
League Cornell. I was cow College Cornell, and I was
an elitist. And culture has now stepped down into what
(31:19):
we used to clean out of the stables at the
Agriculture College the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at
Cornell University, the university, by the way, which does not
list and Culture among its famed alumni, because years ago
it decided it needed to separate itself from one of
its own alumni or alumni. And Culture runs this picture
(31:41):
of Tim Walls in the middle of an extraordinary emotional
moment for him and wrote, simply talk about weird and culture.
May the next time I see you you be face
down in the stables at the Cornell Agriculture and Life
Sciences College. Horse manure pile, Mike Crispy, Megan Kelly, and
(32:08):
Colter two day's worst persons, and I mean it in
the world. On Sunday, the twenty fourth of August nineteen eighty,
(32:36):
I learned what Mom meant when she had said, never
run for a train. There'll always be another one. Because
I didn't know what it meant, I nearly killed myself.
I permanently altered my health, and I put myself on
a path towards meeting the great doctor Renee Richards. I
was sleeping late in my relatively new and tiny studio
apartment on fifty Fifth Street in Manhattan, apartment ten F,
(32:59):
when above me eleven F started making noise like pounding
on the floor. And now it's eight thirty Sunday morning,
and I'm awake, and I'm not doing my job as
a radio sportscaster until about two, and I think, well,
I'm a oh, the Dodgers are playing the Mets at Shay.
I can go to my other job as a semi
professional photographer and go shoot the Dodgers and still make
(33:20):
it to work on time. So I packed my semi
professional emphasis on the semi photographer's bag and drag myself
out on the subway and get to share stadium around
eleven thirty am. And there's nobody there. No Dodgers players,
no Mets players, nobody but the grounds keepers. And as
the minutes pass, I'm beginning to calculate when I have
(33:40):
to leave in order to not be late to my
job back in Manhattan. Weekend life in New York City
in nineteen eighty might as well have been nineteen ten.
I tell people this, they do not believe me. But
when I worked weekends the next year in Times Square,
I used to call into my newsroom from a payphone
on Fifth Avenue and say, okay, I'm going to Arby's today.
(34:04):
Who wants one? But or McDonald's or Burger King or wherever.
Because our office was in Times Square and on weekends
there were no restaurants open in Times Square. You could
not get food in Times Square on weekends. Today, the
same four square block area probably has fifty restaurants and
(34:24):
fast food places. So the train back to Manhattan from
Shaye Stadium in Queens ran once every half an hour
on that Sunday in August of nineteen eighty, And as
I looked at my watch, I realized I should have
left the field three or four minutes ago. If you
went out the press entrance and exit at Shaye Stadium,
you could see the train approaching the elevated station out
(34:45):
behind right field, And if you had just seen it,
if it had just become visible, and if you then
ran your fastest, you could make it to the viaduct
that crossed the parking lot and led you up towards
the station platform. And if you could get your subway
token out and into the turnstile slot with one fluid
overhead motion, and if you kept running all time, you
could just make the train if you didn't, you would
(35:10):
be waiting half an hour, unless maybe the next train
was late or on fire somewhere. Sure enough, as I
got out of the ballpark, I could see the Manhattan
bound train just appearing at the horizon. I was twenty one.
My knees still worked, and I ran, and I got
into the viaduct, and I got the token out of
(35:31):
my pocket, and I got into the slot like Darryl
Dawkins doing a Tomahawk slam. And I not only made
the train, but I made it by so much that
I styled, I celebrated, I congratulated myself. I was guilty
of premature jocularity. I could have just slowed to a
triumphant jog and gotten a seat, huffing and sweaty, but
(35:54):
eminently satisfied and on time for work. But no, I
decided to make an exultant, joyful leap. The next thing
I registered. It was the loudest sound I had ever
or have since ever heard, as if six hundred gongs
had gone off simultaneously, or a dozen church bells, or
(36:15):
every alarm clock that had ever awakened me from the
deepest of sleeps. Something like this, but inside your head
barm when it happened was forgetting that I was no
longer six feet tall as I had been even two
years before, but was now just under six y four.
My leap had ended with me slamming my forehead on
(36:37):
the flat metal bar just above the train doorway an
inch higher, I might have blinded myself. The bar an
inch above the doorway is, in fact, as I found
out later, the thickest piece of metal on a New
York City subway train. As it was, my momentum carried
me safely into the train. I hit the floor. I
(36:57):
saw my sunglasses go flying off and rattling down towards
the back of the train like a plastic rat. I
heard the train doors close, I felt the blood on
my head and in my hair, and I crawled up
onto the plastic bench seating behind me. The mass gong
sound continued in my head, and my first cogent thought
was to see the blood on the train floor and think, Oh,
(37:19):
I have spilled blood all over their train, and I
don't have anything to clean it up with. Similar nonsense
continued to bounce around my concussed size eight noggin for seconds,
maybe minutes. It was beginning to really hurt, and of
more practical import the bleeding had not really stopped. At
this point, an older woman sitting more or less across
(37:41):
from me handed me a small packet. It was a
wet wipe. I mumbled thanks, opened it, dabbed it on
my forehead for a second, and was surprised to find
it instantly inundated with blood. This was the first time
it occurred to me that I might be in real trouble.
On the number seven local train to Grand Central and
Times Square. Apparently this thought occurred simultaneously to the woman
(38:04):
with the wet wipe and to her friend, I think
you're kind of hurt. One of them said to me,
let's get you to the hospital. There's one a couple
blocks from the next stop. Now understand this situation. The
New York of nineteen eighty, and particularly the subways of
nineteen eighty were not nice places. Two years later, I
took a rush hour train to my job at CNN
(38:25):
at the World Trade Center and was annoyed to find
one guy who had sprawled himself over three seats with
a newspaper covering his face. Nine hours later, when I
went home, I got onto a train and saw the
same guy with the same newspaper on the same seats,
because it was the same train, and more importantly, because
he was dead anyway, it was now around twelve forty
(38:49):
five of a Sunday afternoon. If it had been night,
or indeed certain other times of the day or on
other train lines, I would have simply been the easiest
mugging victim in New York history. Somebody could have knocked
me over and taken my wallet with next to no effort. Hell,
they could have asked me for my wallet, and I
was so I probably would have said, sure, have a
nice day, got any wet wipes? Instead, I met not one,
(39:11):
but two good Samaritans who knew where the hospitals were
in a part of town I could barely find on
a map. Sure enough, they helped me to my feet,
walked me down the steps and to the two blocks
or so that separated us from Elmhurst Hospital, And when
I reassured them I was clear headed enough to get
into the emergency room by myself, they wished me luck,
(39:33):
and they would not even accept my offer of two
tokens to get them back on the subway. There should
be a monument to these two women somewhere. If the
New York City subways of nineteen eighty were scary, the
emergency rooms of its hospitals were something out of a
Brian De Palma film. I think there were a couple
of dozen people in the er. I remember one of
(39:55):
them asking me how I got so bloody, and I explained,
and he said you should go ahead of me. And
he opened his windbreaker to show a blood covered shirt,
and he added the bullet only crazed me. I know.
I waited about two hours. During that time I had
a singular experience which has informed my understanding of concussions
and traumatic brain injury ever since. The desk nurse asked
(40:19):
me for the name of a contact, preferably a family member.
I gave my father's name, Theodore. Then she asked me
for my full name, and when I went to say it,
I could not remember my middle name. Could not remember
my middle name Keith I got Olderman, I got that
was it. My middle name is also Theodore. I could
(40:41):
remember Theodore my dad, but not Theodore my middle name.
That is how fragile your brain really is. Think of
that the next time you see somebody get clocked in
a sporting event, there was some comic relief. I called
into my office at United Press International's Audio network and
(41:02):
explained to the news editor a veteran named Ed Caerans,
the most dapperman in radio history, who looked like the
actor Ray Collins from Citizen Kane. I told Ed, I
had just sort of almost you know, killed myself on
the subway coming in from Queen's, and I really didn't
know when or if I would be at work. About
forty five minutes after that conversation, the desk nurse started
(41:23):
shouting my name, and I thought, Okay, I'm finally going
to be brought in to see a doctor. No, it
was Ed Caron's calling from UPI. My bosses were all
very sorry that I was wounded, he said, but there
was nobody available to fill in for me. So when
could they expect me to be in the office, I explained,
I did not know that since I was technically still
bleeding to death. Forty five minutes more passed, and again
(41:47):
the nurse summoned me and said there was a phone call,
and this time I was sure it was my dad,
Keith ed Karin's again at UPI. He explained that my
boss now said that they would bring in the guy
who was supposed to do the next morning sports cast,
my college friend Peter shack Now, but they expected me
to do it his shift starting at four point thirty
in the morning. I explained to Ed that I would try,
(42:09):
but that honestly I didn't know where I was or
what time it was. Now two nice ladies had mentioned
the name of the hospital, but I really wasn't remembering
too well. Plus I was still bleeding to death. Needless
to say, I did not bleed to death. I survived.
It was a severe concussion, but it only took a
stitch and a half to actually close that wound, and
the er doctor and the nurses were outstanding, and they
(42:31):
gave me easy to remember instructions, plus a note indicating
that I should rest for at least forty eight hours
just in case ED Karen showed up at my apartment.
No offense to ED. They told me what symptoms to expect,
how to prepare for them, and when they would stop.
And they stopped like one day earlier. It was a
potential disaster that turned into a nothing burger, or so
(42:55):
I thought. Two years later, I was at the original
Louis Armstrong Stadium covering the nineteen eighty two US Tennis Open,
on the other side of the same elevated subway station
where I had run into the train going there. Always
actually made me laugh. Until the afternoon of Saturday, September eleventh,
nineteen eighty two. I was watching the Women's final, covering
(43:17):
it for CNN Chris Evert over Hannah Mandlakova and swinging
my head from side to side as one does to
follow the tennis action from over here, two over there,
two over here, two over there, as I had swung
my head from side to side for the preceding twelve
days of the tournament. Then I swung to the right,
but my left eye kept looking to the left, the
(43:40):
old Marty Feldman thing reversed crossed eyes that hurt worse
than hitting the train had. I could barely stand any light.
I often had to keep my hand in front of
my eyes. I rushed to my optometris Monday morning and
he started to laugh. This happened to you during the
US Open. I said, yes, why are you laughing at me?
(44:02):
He said, I'm going to send you to the best
muscle ophthalmologist I've ever met. I said, so, why are
you laughing at me? He said, you don't know who
that is? I said, no, I let my knowledge of
the muscle ophthalmology ranking slip. Why are you laughing at me?
He said? The best muscle ophthalmologist I've ever met is
doctor Renee Richards, the transsexual tennis player. I said, I
(44:23):
don't care who you're sending me to. I'm in trouble here.
If they can fix this, I don't care who you're
sending me. My train accident was so far in my
past that when I got in to see doctor Richards
the next morning, I didn't even think to mention it
in my patient history. It didn't matter. Thirty seconds of
staring into my eyes through a wall sized feropter and
Renee Richards said, when exactly did you hit your head
(44:45):
August or September of nineteen eighty. I was stunned. I
did hit my head in nineteen eighty August twenty fourth.
She made a clicking noise of satisfaction. I've heard of
this before, but I've never seen it. You couldn't do
this again in a million years. The good news is
that muscle with the eyes, that's just muscle exhaustion. We
(45:07):
can fix that with a thing that costs to buck
ninety eight. The bad news is when you hit your head,
most of the damage must have been absorbed by your
inner ear. If you want to fix that, you'll need
brain surgery. I don't recommend brain surgery. Doctor Renee Richards
showed me the muscle exercises that cost a dollar ninety
eight that fixed my reverse crossed eyes. They felt better immediately.
(45:29):
I still do the exercises I did them earlier today.
Then Renee Richards said, so you're a sports reporter. It
says here, listen, my next patient isn't due for half
an hour. You should rest anyway after my exam. Let's
talk about sports reporting. Renee Richards was an expert. Her
(45:50):
transition had been outed by a sportscaster, Tucker Carlson's father.
If you can believe that, I can believe it, because
she had been a man when she played in the
US Open. As a woman, she had become almost instantaneously
the most famous tennis player in the world. Then she
became Martina Navratilova's coach. I learned more from her in
(46:16):
that first half hour of conversation about the ethics of
reporting than I had in all of my previous life
experiences combined. Plus she was a gas Renee. Richards was hilarious,
she was self effacing, She was a great doctor, and
to me, she was the definition of courage. And she,
I am proud to say, is still my friend, all
(46:38):
because I did not know what Mom meant when she said,
don't run for a train. There'll always be another one.
The other phrase I never really understood till then was
break neck speed. Oh, when there is one more punchline here.
If the name of that hospital that the two good
Samaritans took me to, Elmhurst Hospital, sounds vaguely familiar, it should.
(46:59):
It was ground zero when COVID nineteen hit, when the
pandemic had its hand around New York City's throat. The
worst hit community was Elmhurst in Queens, and the worst
hit hospital was Elmhurst Hospital. They were in desperate need
at that point of ventilators, so I knew what I
had to do. You could buy them for cash legally,
(47:20):
So I got two ventilators. I had them delivered, one
for each of the ladies who helped me to get
off the damn train that day. I've done all the
(47:42):
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Please
share this podcast with somebody who does not listen. Brian
Ray and John Phillips Chanel, the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled the
orchestration and the keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
the bass, and the drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best
(48:04):
baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. Sports music is the
Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by
the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my
friend Kenny Main. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
That's countdown for this the seventy fifth day until the
(48:24):
twenty twenty four presidential election, and they three hundred and
twenty fourth day since convicted felon Donald J. Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing. If it happens, use
the mental health system. You've got it. President Biden used
presidential immunity. If you need to get out the troops
(48:46):
and stop him from doing it again while we still can,
and anti Semitic, anti immigration, gun nut Republicans, please stop
shooting at Trump. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins
as the news requires. Until the next one of these,
I'm Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
(49:07):
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(49:30):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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