January 17, 2023 • 41 mins
EPISODE 113: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Now that George Santos has been tied financially to the cousin of a sanctioned Russian Oil Oligarch, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy has confirmed he won't move to oust him, the Democrats have to run with the gift the Republicans have given them. Whatever the issue, whatever the question, whatever the talking points, every Democrat, every time, must answer: "George Santos." GOP tries to blame Biden for the looming debt ceiling crisis? "You sound like George Santos!" McCarthy asks about the documents? "Why isn't the Speaker as angry at George Santos?" CNN writes another Bothsidesist article about documents? "Why isn't CNN probing George Santos and the Russian Oligarch?" Everybody insists nobody needs to investigates his ex-girlfriend's allegations of violence against Rep. James Comer? "Speaker McCarthy? In Comer, are you worried you've got another George Santos on your hands?"
B-Block (16:33) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Waffles (17:31) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: If she's secretly governor why would she run for Governor? And what do the Biden documents make Ronny Jackson think of? Drugs and hookers! Of course EVERYTHING makes Ronny think of drugs and hookers. (19:36) IN SPORTS: The LIV Golf tournament, formally tied to Prince MBS and Trump; why would baseball expand, especially to Nashville? And 1962 Met Frank Thomas dies, and leaves a troubling legacy on race and teammates and Dick Allen. (26:32) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jordan Peterson runs a climate change denial chart that ends in 1885; Germany needs a new Defense Minister (to say nothing of 5000 new helmets), and Tucker Carlson needs you to explain candy to him.
C-Block (31:02) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: CNN's Chris Licht reportedly wants to hire a comedian to do a nightly newscast you can laugh at (intentionally, this time). He and others at Clicks Not News think this is a great, brand new idea. In fact, it's a lousy old one. It was first proposed at CNN...in 2001! I know: I was in the room. And it was THE SAME COMEDIAN!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Protect George Santos at all costs. I have said it
(00:26):
before and I'll say it again. Congressman George santos Republican
campaign now shown to have been largely supported by the
cousin of a sanctioned Russian oil oligarch. Not resigning, not answering,
not apologizing, and not anything less than the best asset
the Democratic Party and President Biden have at the moment
(00:49):
now more than ever, with the Republicans threatening to run
the world economy off the cliff, with the simple minded
American political media intending to keep pushing the Biden document
story until it and they also go off the cliff.
With nobody willing to investigate the charges of Congressman James
Comber's girlfriend, nor the curious timing of the Department of
(01:11):
Justice leak about Biden, the Democrats need to do everything
they can to make for the next few months, at
least the fulcrum and the center of American politics George Santos,
and god knows George is doing his best on this.
(01:33):
Democrats are not good at exploiting gifts from the universe,
especially the simple ones. That seem too good to be true, or,
in the case of George Santos, too good to be false.
He's lied about everything, and while even some Republicans have
tried to get rid of him, the new Speaker of
the House has covered up. George Santos is lies protected
(01:58):
George Santos. Kevin McCarthy personally is keeping George Santos in Congress.
George santos national security risk belongs to Kevin McCarthy. George
Santos belongs to every Republican. I do not want to
hear a Democrat until, like Spring mentioned Kevin McCarthy without
(02:20):
immediately also mentioning George Santos on the debt limit. The
Speaker is about his truthful here as his guy, George Santos.
It's easy to do if this idiot from Virginia Representative
Bob Good tries to turn the debt limit reality inside
out again and blame the Democrats for the world financial crisis.
(02:44):
The Republicans are willing to risk, and Good says as
he did yesterday, quote, I hope the President and the
Senate would not risk a government shutdown or some kind
of a government default by recklessly rejecting spending cuts. I
want several Democrats to answer seriously, Bob Good, you are
(03:05):
threatening the jobs of millions of Americans. You want to
create a world financial panic. You want a stock market crash.
And that's your explanation. Who do you think you are?
George Santos. George Santos is easy to use, can be
applied wet or dry, can be taken with or without food,
(03:26):
requires no assembly, can be used without any training, and
is now available without a prescription. When the speaker talks
about these documents, I wonder why he's not as angry
at George Santos. And as evidenced by yesterday's jaw dropper
from the Washington Post, we have finally moved on to
that part of the movie where we begin to understand
(03:48):
that we have only scratched the dishonest surface the money.
Somebody found a compulsive liar, willing to having to say anything.
They bankrolled him, and they got him elected to Congress.
He is a national security risk if you missed it
the Post mind the filings at the Federal Election Committee
(04:11):
and also the recording of a zoom meeting, and they
dug up this stark reality. There is a Russian oligarch,
He is huge in Russian gas and energy. His cousin
is named Andrew Intrader, I mean in traitor, traitor, unlike
George Santos. You can't make this stuff up. And Andrew
(04:31):
in Trader and his wife both maxed out there in
Trader campaign donations to George Santos, and the in Traders
gave tens of thousands of dollars to committees linked to
George Santos, and George Santos boasted that in Trader's company
was his client, his in traitor client. Like the lines
(04:57):
of George Santos, this is also easily digested Russian oil,
Russian oligarch, Russian money, George san Tos and whatever comes
next in reality. Right now, this iceberg has a whole
Manchurian candidate feel to it. Why did you lie? Wow,
it looks like money. What kind of money looks like
Russian money? What was that name? Again? S A. N
(05:21):
t Os. Santos makes the very best bull little crap. Also,
the other guy's name has Trader in it. CNN and
that now stands for clicks not news. CNN clicks not
News is not going to give up on the document story.
(05:41):
Either they ran a news alert yesterday about new details,
when in point of fact, it was just a timeline
of what was already known, but with a new time
stamp and headline clicks. Not news is going to run
something about the Biden documents every day. And the answer
(06:02):
to that is funny that CNN isn't probing George Santos
and the Russian oligarch. Why are they covering up for
George Santos? Why is CNN helping Kevin McCarthy cover up
for George Santos and this guy what's his name? Trader.
We are also not going to get anybody to start
asking about the Department of Justice league that fueled the
(06:23):
document story, or the fact that the CBS correspondent is
based in Chicago, and the guy that hapless Merrick Garland,
that's his name, h Merrick Garland, the ages for Hapless,
the guy that Hapless Merrick Garland first put in charge
of it, who was also based in Chicago, like the correspondent,
or the timing of it that allowed it to come
out just hours after the Republicans took the investigative gabbles
(06:45):
in the House. We're not it's too complicated. These are
news people you're asking to do this? And the answer
thus to this is the Republicans are all lying about this. Yeah,
they're lying like they are Come on, come on, come on,
They're lying like they're George Santos. We are also not
(07:06):
going to get enough people to pick up the unresolved
accusations of violence and death threats made by his college
girlfriend against the oversight Chairman, James the Inquisitor Comber. We're
not so. When Comber demands visitors logs to the president's
home in Delaware, the answer is not, well, there are
no visitors logs to his private home, because that only
(07:28):
leads to the question, ah ha, who ordered that? Who
failed to keep visitors logs at the home of the president.
The answer is why is James Comer lying about Maryland
Thomas his college girlfriend. He's beginning to sound like George Santos.
Shouldn't Kevin McCarthy be asking if with Congressman Comber, he's
(07:49):
got another George Santos on his hands. It is possible
that in the just thirty days since the first New
York Times story, George Santos has become the most easily
understood metaphor, the most easily digested metaphor. In the last
twenty five years of American politics, he has lied about everything.
(08:13):
He is deceit in human form. He's Leo DiCaprio as
Frank abg Nail. He's John Lovett's Tommy Flanagan. He's Rachel Dolazal.
He's Anna Serocan. He's Barry Breman, the guy who used
to sneak onto the field at sporting events dressed as
a player or referee. He's He's He's Elizabeth Holmes. No,
(08:36):
he's not only he's simpler than any one of them.
That's not his name, that's not his religion, that's not
his school, that's not his job, that's not his other job.
That's not his home. That's not his race, that's not
his nationality, that's not his volleyball, his volleyball. They are
(08:57):
easy to understand lies, and they are not stopping. He
is not leaving. He is not going to be forced out.
He is a big metaphorical baseball bat. And every morning,
as the sun rises in Washington, the Republicans hand him
to every Democrat and they say, go ahead, keep hitting us.
(09:20):
We'll just stand here. Is nothing we can do if
McCarthy's backing him. Have you ever seen a pinata well
where the pinata only no matter how many times you
hit us, we then close right back up again, so
you can come back tomorrow smashes again. We are the
groundhogs day of pinatas. Here's the bat. The Democratic answer
(09:47):
to every question is George Santos. And oh, by the way,
you probably did see the Posts thing yesterday about him
and the cousin of the Russian oligarch Mr. In Trader.
You probably did not see New York Magazine's thing about
him Sunday where they traced him to January one, and
(10:09):
they stopped the Steel rally in d C. When he
got up and said, quote, for fourteen days, I was
congressman elect of the third Congressional District of New York,
the first ever biggest upset for a Republican in New
York City. And what did they do when they were
too busy printing two d and eighty thousand ballots in
my district and shipping them to Pennsylvania, they sneaked in
(10:31):
a few for my opponent. And then George Santos said
one other thing that assures that if and when the
Democrats ever run out of opportunity or need to use
George Santos as the ultimate defensive weapon, they can try
him out on offense on target zero. Quoting George Santos,
(10:53):
January five. They did to me what they did to
Donald J. Trump. They stole my election. And when George
Santos said that dressed in a beautiful camel's hair coat
and an expensive Burberry scarf, his roommate at the time says,
(11:15):
that was my scarf. George Santos stole it from me.
You can't make this stuff up because he already has
(11:40):
still ahead. Speaking of which, Carrie Lake running for Senate
against Kirsten Cinema, Well, how can she do that if
she's governor already? The resignation of the German defense minister
who said she was showing her commitment to Ukraine by
sending the country five thousand hats worse persons. Great graph
showing the lack of climate change, Jordan Peterson, did you
(12:01):
happen to notice your graph ends in the year eighteen five?
Why would baseball expand to some small markets if every
time it expands to a small market, it just creates
another perennial doormat looking at you, Nashville, And the latest
brilliant new idea from Chris Lickt of CNN Clicks not News.
(12:22):
The man who when we were at MSNBC we thought
used to eat paste do a prime time CNN show
anchored by a comedian like John Stewart. Not only is
it another disaster waiting to happen, but what Chris licked
does not know is CNN first proposed a John Stewart
(12:42):
comedy newscast in two thousand one. That's five CNN presidents ago.
I was there things I promised not to tell. That's next.
This is a completely all new I'm over my sinus
infection edition of Countdown. Yeah, this is Countdown with Keith.
(13:15):
Thank you, Larry David still ahead on Countdown. Well. First
of all, please notice this is an all new edition
of this podcast. After finally listening to the doctor shutting
up for a while, the sinus infection is gone. I think,
thank you for your patients. Also, CNN wants to hire
somebody you can laugh at while they read the news,
(13:37):
I mean, besides Aaron Burnett. First, in each edition of Countdown,
we feature a dog in need you can help. Every
dog has its day to Marana, Arizona at our second
dog in need in a week, named Waffles. Cherished Tales
Senior Sanctuary saved Waffles and got her diagnosed with a
(13:58):
blood vessel in her heart that does not close properly.
If they don't fix it, it it will kill her within
six months. Lowly and awfully, she's a tiny Chihuahua senior,
six pounds. Maybe my puppy Ted had a bad valve
that they thought was going to kill him before he
was ten months old. Amazingly, canine cardiac surgery is very advanced,
very effective. They fixed him. He's now four and a half.
(14:21):
They can fix Waffles two and she will be almost
instantaneously better. There's a fundraiser for Waffles on Cuddly. You
can find her there or on my Twitter feeds. Anything
you can give will help. I thank you, and Waffles
thanks you. Postcripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,
(14:43):
some snarks, some predictions. Dateline while we're still in Arizona,
CNN reporting Carrie Lake is considering running for Senate in
against Kirsten Cinema. Well, but why would she do that?
Since Carrie is secretly them opener I understand. Dateline Jefferson City, Missouri.
Republicans have changed the rule is in the state legislature
(15:05):
there and now require that women wimbers wear jackets, not
sleeveless dresses. So no right to bear arms, not even sweaters,
just jackets, jackets, jackets, jackets, next Burkas dateline, Washington, what
about is him and both sides? Is Him hits? The
Washington Posts weather report quote Monday was as cold as
(15:30):
Sunday but also warmer. Read the headline over the Martin
Wiles story and then, like so much it had cold
parts and warm parts in this foggy bottom diner. Dateline
Texas Congressional District and the irreplaceable Twitter feed of ron Philipkowski,
Trump's former White House position and loser of the Trump
(15:53):
annual Guess My Weight contest, The now congressman of dubious sobriety,
doctor Ronnie Jackson had a think yesterday about the Biden documents.
Can you imagine how many how many good drugs and
how many uh you know, hookers and and in in
you know, sweet monthly paychecks those documents could have bought
(16:16):
good drugs and hookers. No, but Congressman, clearly you have
This is Sports Center wait, check that not anymore. This
(16:41):
is countdown with Keith in sports, the connection between Trump
and the Saudi sponsored live golf tourney, the Live Blood
Money Golf Tourney, has got a little worse. Live was
attacked by several families of nine eleven victims because of
the Saudi connection in its turf war with the p
G A tour. The PGA's publicity firm now says Live
(17:04):
of has responded by quote brazenly hiring a firm in
the United States to track and monitor the activities of
these nine eleven victims and families, even if they have
nothing to do with live golf or golfers. As to Trump, Dawn,
the organization Democracy for the Modern Arab World now reports
(17:24):
that lives connection to the infamous Saudi Prince MBS was
inadvertently confirmed in a recent court case a fund controlled
by MBS owns of Live Golf, quoting them. The revelation
that a fund controlled by Crown Prince MBS actually owns
almost all of Live Golf means that MBS has been
paying Donald Trump unknown millions for the past two years
(17:48):
via their mutual corporate covers. The national security implications of
payments from a grotesquely abusive foreign dictator to a president
of the United States who provided extraordinary favors to him
are as dangerous as they are shocking. End quote. Baseball
another year, another controversy in Cincinnati or the son of
the owner of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team has said
something stupid again. Last year, Phil Castellini said that Reds
(18:13):
fans should stop complaining about their team because where would
they go see baseball in Cincinnati if he and his
father got fed up and moved to another city. This
time at a Red's Rooters event over the weekend, Castellini
complained about having to eat the guaranteed contract of a
player the Reds had signed and recently dropped because he
(18:33):
wasn't any good anymore. His rhetorical question quote, is anybody
here paid to not do their job? Well? Golly, the
Reds last won the World Series in nineteen nine, so
one might answer Mr Castellini, Well, yeah, apparently everybody in
the Reds ownership in front office is paid, you know,
(18:54):
not to do their job. Thank you. Nancy Faust group,
(19:16):
trying to get an expansion team for Nashville, Tennessee, has
hired former Yankee star Don Mattingly as a consultant. Mattingly
once played there as a minor leaguer. It is also
being asked how Mattingly can consult for the group while
he's still the bench coach or the Toronto Blue Jays.
So what my question is, why is baseball considering expansion.
(19:37):
This is not a sport that can equalize market size
by using a salary cap or total revenue sharing. New
teams in small markets with small TV prices turned out
to be perennial doormats. I mean, look at Cincinnati, and
no matter how much Nashville might be growing, it is
still only the thirty fifth largest market in the country.
(19:58):
There are nine metropolitan areas without baseball teams with larger populations.
San Antonio is thirty percent larger than Nashville, Virginia Beach,
Virginia Beach and Norfolk are nearly as big as Nashville.
The last time a team in a metropolitan area smaller
than Kansas City won the World Series was the Milwaukee
(20:19):
Braves in nineteen fifty seven. It is a recipe for disaster,
and while baseball rightly Moreen's popular, ninety three year old
Frank Thomas an outfielder who played with all but three
of the National League teams that existed during his career,
and the first hitting star of the original amazing nineteen
sixty two Mets forty wins and twenty losses. The obituaries
(20:42):
have largely ignored the fact that Frank Thomas probably kept
a later teammate of his out of Baseball's Hall of Fame.
In nineteen sixty five, as the city of Philadelphia recovered
from race riots the year before, it had a second
year African American star named Dick Allen, then known as
Richie Allen, who was as good as any hitter of
his era or of most eras on July three, Allen
(21:07):
was leading the National League with a three forty one
batting average, and Frank Thomas was needling him during batting
practice on a road trip. A week before. Frank Thomas
had jokingly he said, asked Allan quote, hey boy, can
you carry my bags to the lobby? Then on July
two that Frank Thomas failed to get a bunt down
and the Phillies lost a game. And on the third
(21:28):
during BP, Thomas successfully bunted and somebody, and it might
have been Allen, needled back twenty four hours too late.
Thomas then turned to Alan and said, you're running your
mouth like Cashius Clay, although some witnesses thought he said
you're running your mouth like Malcolm X. There was an altercation.
Frank Thomas contended for fifty years that Dick Allen quote
(21:51):
sucker punched him. Alan denied that, but he said he
did hit him. Nobody denied what happened after that, Frank
Thomas swung his bat at Alan and hit him in
the shoulder. Within minutes, the Phillies had intervened on Dick
Allen's behalf and cut Frank Thomas from their team, and
the Philly fans and media sided with Frank Thomas. They
(22:13):
made the life of Dick Allen, probably the greatest hitter
in Phillies history, to this day, a living hell. The
Phillies refused to trade Alan until seventy and while he
was the American League m VP in nineteen seventy two,
he never became the unquestionable Hall of Famer that his
talent seemed to demand. This is not to dismiss the
morning of those who loved Frank Thomas, but after hitting
(22:36):
Alan with a bat, he went on radio in Philadelphia
and said Alan should have been punished too, and when
interviewed later for a documentary, he insisted, you know, if
you're going to punish one, you've got to punish the other.
That later interview was in two thousand eight, forty three
years later after the racial insults or jokes and hitting
(22:57):
him with a bat, it still had not occurred to
Frank Thomas by that time that, in fact, they had
punished the quote. Other still ahead, CNN Clips not News
(23:23):
is reportedly pondering hiring a comedian to do an hour
of news every night. They think it's a brilliant, brand
new idea. In fact, it's allows the old idea. They
first proposed this in two thousand one. I was in
the room and it was the same comedian first the
daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and dunning Krueger effect
(23:43):
specimens who constitute today's most persons in the world. Lebronze
Christine Lambrecht, who has now resigned as Defense Minister in
the government of German Chancellor all Off Schultz. It was
Minister Lambrech who greeted the imminent war in Ukraini a
year ago by saying she was sending President Zelinsky quote
(24:04):
very clear signal that we stand by your side. What
Minister Lambrek sent Ukraine was five thousand helmets, not five
thousand guys named helmet. Five thousand helmets. You bring your
own bullets the bronze. To Jordan Peterson, Canadian conman, climate
(24:27):
change denier, and Joe Rogan stooge, Peterson tweeted out a
chart that purports to indicate world temperatures have been dropping
irregularly but consistently since about eleven seventy seven BC. He asked, simply,
anyone object to this chart? One small problem with the chart.
The charts supposedly proving there's no climate change. It ends
(24:49):
in the year eighteen eighty five, stops at eighteen eighty five.
All things have been going great recently, once recently eighty five.
So the answer to your question is, yeah, everybody objects
to this chart except the morons who listened to you.
But our winner, identity thief and the chief Jimminy Glick,
(25:10):
impersonator of Fox News Tucker Carlson. He led the charge
on the rights second attempt to sexualize Eminem's Imagine how
many drugs have to have been consumed on the far
right for them to actually try to sexualize chocolate candy
tucks and complained about various eminem's and then added, there's
(25:31):
also a plus size obese purple eminem. Yeah, that's a
that's a peanut eminem. It's shaped that way because it's
got a peanut in it. It's not obese, Stucker, it's
it's a it's a peanut. Seeing they're not actually living
creatures there, Candy. Some of them have peanuts in them. Tucker,
(25:52):
I've got that look again, like I was a dog
who was just shown a card trick. I don't understand.
Explain candy to me, Carlson, Today's worst person. Uh, I'm
(26:26):
through the number one story on the countdown and my
favorite topic me and things I promised not to tell.
And if you do not believe in time travel, I
may have a surprise for you. It's a little Marcel
Proust for the average person. But still, the new news
site Semaphore published something about CNN that's CNN clicks not news,
and it's about clicks not news. Chairman Chris lick to
(26:49):
who when we were at MSNBC together we used to
think eight paste and how he is quoting Semaphore, considering
hiring a comedian to host one of CNN's prime time
shows to fill the prime time nine to eleven PM
hours with a non traditional version of the news, five
people with planning said CNN executives have floated names including
(27:11):
Bill Maher, Trevor Noah Our, Cineo Hall, and John Stewart
and have looked at other comedic focused talk shows for inspiration.
And as I read it, I found myself transported back
in time to the office of another president of CNN
named Walter Isaacson. On Friday August three, two thousand and one, Walter,
(27:36):
his big office near Madison Square Garden filled with the
brilliant summer sun, said he had what he thought was
a great idea, and he wanted my thoughts. What if
we took an hour in prime time and instead of
being deadly serious CNN or conversational CNN or even point
counterpoint CNN, what if we were funny CNN. I rolled
(28:00):
my eyes because I had pitched this exact idea to
Walter's boss is not a month before, and I was
trying to get in to get a meeting with him.
I had done a version after all of funny for
CNN in my sports reporting when I started in TV
two decades before there, and then I raised it something
higher and more of a proven success at ESPN, I
(28:23):
was back with CNN as a scheduled freelancer filling in
on the show Jeff Greenfield hosted at ten thirty every night,
and my agent was negotiating to get me the CNN
eight pm hour they were going to give to somebody
not currently on the network. I had said, obviously, you
could not have a comedian do the news, but you
could have a newscaster with a decent sense of comedy
(28:45):
and humor or satire to bring a humorous starting point
to it when appropriate. And not only was I qualified,
but as I said to Walter, right then I can
do the key thing. That is the only way you
could get away with this idea. I can be the
guy on the air doing the slightly funny news when
a bridge collapse or Ronald Reagan dies, or there's a
(29:07):
terrorist attack, and I can swerve back into serious coverage
before the network crashes because it had a comedy show on.
When the world began to end, Walter nodded politely, what
do you think of John Stewart. Do you think the
audience would buy Jon Stewart on CNN. I think he's great,
don't you, I said, frankly, Walter, No, for the reason
(29:30):
I just outlined, if Jon Stewart he's doing your funny news,
and then there's unfunny news your and then I said
a word that rhymed with klucked. I also said that
I didn't know him well, but everybody I knew who
did said John Stewart was insufferable, impossible to work with,
a dreadful and dreary person, and notorious for stealing other
(29:53):
people's ideas and then pretending they were his. I said,
his point of view was far closer to my own,
but that, frankly, the closest personality comp in cable news
to do on Stewart was Bill O'Reilly, and Walter Isaacson said,
do you think he'll do it? To be fair? I
don't think they ever asked him. Twenty two years ago
(30:16):
the last time a CNN president thought of this idea
and mistakenly believed he was saying, let's have John Stewart
to the news, when in fact he was saying, let's
have Jon Stewart's ratings between nine and ten every night,
because that's what Chris Licked is thinking and immediately moving
the idea from impossible crash and burn to well, this
is feasible. Let's call our cineo hall. Is he busy?
(30:41):
The longest a comedy news hybrid show can be is
about thirty minutes, one can argue based on audience retention
for the John Stewart Daily Show and the Colbert Rapport.
It's actually closer to about ten fifteen minutes, as Chris
Licked must remember from his days running Colbert's amazingly unfunny
(31:03):
CBS program. No late night comedy show that dabbled in
news in a monologue or even multiple desk segments has
ever done more than about ten minutes of news a night.
And I mean the superstars limited themselves to ten minutes
of it a night. David Letterman, Johnny Carson, even Jay
Leno others have tried ten minutes and were never heard
(31:24):
from again. And if you doubt me, ask yourself if
you remember the Pat say Jack Show on CBS or
Comedy Central's The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, or Frankly,
the third incarnation of the Daily Show with Trevor Noah,
who kept the franchise alive after John Stewart retired. But
my god, just barely and Chris licked of the We
(31:47):
thought they were paced eaters. Lickts supposedly brought up Trevor
Noah and did bring up Jon Stewart in an interview
with The New York Times last year. And then there's
my old college colleague, Bill Maher, As Semapore noted, Mars
potentially a more realistic pro spect. The host of HBO's
long running weekly show that bears his name is already
(32:08):
in house at Warner Brothers Discovery, CNN's parent company. Puck
News reported this week that CNN is in talks to
begin airing some of mars weekly extra HBO segments. Well,
maybe that would work, but there are several problems with
Mar doing his own show. For twenty five years, Bill
Maher has been abhorred by conservatives. They got him canceled
(32:32):
from what was his original nightly show on ABC called
Politically Incorrect after he said something after nine eleven. And
that's fine. Conservatives are not going to watch CNN no
matter what Chris Licked and his fascist boss John Malone do.
But the issue here is Bill Maher has also gradually
wasted nearly all of his reputation with liberals as well.
(32:53):
They may not abhor him the way the conservatives do,
but he stopped being appointment viewing for liberals perhaps as
long as a decade ago. Also, if the quality of
the humor and he's once a week HBO show is
an indicator, putting him on nightly on CNN starting say,
next Monday, would mean he would be out of material
(33:14):
by next Thursday, maybe next Wednesday. I also know Bill
for literally forty five years, and I used to be
on his HBO show often, and he invariably told me
that the best thing that ever happened to him was
getting canceled on ABC, getting away from having to do
a TV show daily. That six days of prep for
one show was a tough enough ratio for him. And lastly,
(33:39):
while it is assumed that people actually watch Bill maher show,
there's no proof of this. HBO does not produce ratings
for the programs it puts on TV. It is not
in the ratings business. It is in the subscription business.
As I suggested just now, we don't know how many
people watch mar We know there aren't any conservatives. We
don't know if there's still any liberals, And that, of course,
(34:02):
is the other fundamental flaw here. Even if Bill Maher
wanted to do it and was really funny and everybody
wanted him to, the cover story for Chris Lick's actual job,
which is, as you know, slowly torturing the CNN audience
to death while using the last few months of CNN
credibility to push ultra right wing talking points out as
if they were balanced a political news. The cover story
(34:25):
for that is, it's balanced a political news. Quick, name
me the last a political news comedian or satirist. I'll wait.
Even if you think the foppish guy they have on Fox, Blowfeld,
whatever his name is, it's blow Feld, right, Even if
(34:47):
you think Blowfeld is actually funny, is he a political?
Does blow Feld klim to be a political? Dave Letterman
was actually kind of a political, Yet most of his
political stuff wound up mocking Republicans anyway, because they do
things that are easier to laugh at and they have
no sense of humor about themselves. When Stephen Colbert, who
is far more conservative than he wants you to know,
(35:09):
could cover up his intent by pretending to you that
he was just pretending to be conservative. When he was
on Comedy Central, he was far more successful than he
is now. And it needs to be remembered that until
Trump's ascension gave him something to talk about, CBS, with
Chris Licked in charge of that department, was about to
swap Colbert and James Gordon and relegate Colbert to twelve
(35:32):
thirty at night. And even if you disagree with my
comedy analysis, the bottom line is you can't do comedy
about news without being political. And you can't put a
comedian in the driver's seat of a real newscast because
one day soon or late, he will have to segue
into live coverage of the massive explosion down at the
(35:53):
Goiter clinic. If you really wanted to do an hour
or just half an hour of comedy news, it would
have to be political, and it would have to be
hosted by somebody able to turn on a don him
from the Chuckle Hut to dead ex presidents. You're talking
Al Franken or maybe maybe me, and CNN is not
(36:13):
gonna hire Al Franken, and it's definitely definitely not gonna
hire me. So back I travel in time, to Walter
Isaacson's two thousand one office at two thousand one CNN,
and he was the president after Rheese Schonfeld and Burt
ryan Hardt who I worked for, and Tom Johnson who
I worked for for like one day, and Rick Kaplan
who I worked for later, and Walter was the one
(36:35):
before John Klein who tried to bring me back to
CNN in two thousand six but got overruled by Jim Walton,
who I had worked with because he had been the
backup Chiron guy on my CNN sportscast in Night three,
and Jim was also president then, and then Jim fired John,
and then somebody fired Jim, and then they brought in
Jeff Zucker, who I worked for, and he tried to
bring me back in two thousand sixteen, and then they
(36:56):
fired him. And now it's Chris Licked. And we don't
know when they're gonna fire Chris Licked, only that you
know someday they're gonna I can't recall how long I
was in Walter Isaacson's office that summer day, so long ago.
He had a lot of questions he wanted to ask me,
and he continually referred to my experience mixing humor and
(37:16):
serious coverage at ESPN, and even right then and when
I was filling in for Jeff Greenfield, and the longer
I was in there, the more it seemed like he
was leading up to asking me if I wanted to
try it. Of course I would have, and he never asked.
And what made that even crazier was not long after
CNN offered me the job of lead anchor and managing
(37:37):
editor at its CNN s I Sports network, and then
it offered me a different contract as a full time
salaried host and essayist on news and sports for CNN itself,
and a third contract, a holding contract, which would really
just be a pre negotiation in case they had chosen
me from the finalists for their eight pm newscast. As
(37:59):
it turned out, a month later they shuddered CNN s
I the sports operation, but we did proceed on the
anchor essayist contract. But for the eight o'clock show, they
never executed my contract because they gave that show to
Connie Chung and then canceled her show one year later
when it turned out she could no longer do live television.
(38:19):
Walter Isaacson left CNN in January two thousand three, and
a month later I returned to MSNBC and we started Countdown.
A month after that. Politics and commentary gradually squeezed out
the time I would devote to the humor and the satire.
But originally Countdown was as much satire as it was controversy,
and almost every night we had a comedian on as
(38:41):
the last guest. Robert Klein was on Countdown, mar was
on all the time. Famously, George Carlin came on and
said it was the best newscast you'd ever seen. And
one day in two thousand five, the phone rang in
my office, Keith, It's Walter Isaacson. I've been meaning to
call for a couple of months. I don't know if
you remember this fact. I kind of hope you don't.
But in two thousand one, I asked you about doing
(39:02):
a newscast with a comedy element to it, and I
must ask you about Jon Stewart and everybody like John Stewart,
and I just wanted to say I watched Countdown every night,
and every night I say to myself, that's exactly the
show I wanted. And the guy was sitting on the
other side of my goddamn desk, and I didn't even
see him because I was looking at it backwards. And
what Walter Isaacson said next should be a lesson to
(39:24):
Chris Licked or whoever succeeds him, or anybody else who
wants to try Walter Isaacson's idea from two thousand one
and claim it is their idea in two thousand three.
You don't get a comedian to do funny news, Walter said,
you get a newsman who's kind of funny to do
(39:45):
news that's kind of funny. Countdown has come to you
from the Student Yeos of Older and Broadcasting Empire World
(40:07):
Headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York. Thanks
for listening. If you're not subscribed, please do so. I
have an ego the size of Manitowac, Wisconsin. Thus we
can never have enough subscribers. Here are the credits. Most
of the music, including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip s Chanelle,
who are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards
(40:30):
by John Philip Chanelle. Guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray.
Produced by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have
been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, and it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments from Nacy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
(40:51):
Our announcer today was Larry David. Everything else was pretty
much my fault. So that's countdown for this, the seven
hundred and forty second day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
(41:12):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
(41:32):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Protect George Santos at all costs. I have said it
(00:26):
before and I'll say it again. Congressman George santos Republican
campaign now shown to have been largely supported by the
cousin of a sanctioned Russian oil oligarch. Not resigning, not answering,
not apologizing, and not anything less than the best asset
the Democratic Party and President Biden have at the moment
(00:49):
now more than ever, with the Republicans threatening to run
the world economy off the cliff, with the simple minded
American political media intending to keep pushing the Biden document
story until it and they also go off the cliff.
With nobody willing to investigate the charges of Congressman James
Comber's girlfriend, nor the curious timing of the Department of
(01:11):
Justice leak about Biden, the Democrats need to do everything
they can to make for the next few months, at
least the fulcrum and the center of American politics George Santos,
and god knows George is doing his best on this.
(01:33):
Democrats are not good at exploiting gifts from the universe,
especially the simple ones. That seem too good to be true, or,
in the case of George Santos, too good to be false.
He's lied about everything, and while even some Republicans have
tried to get rid of him, the new Speaker of
the House has covered up. George Santos is lies protected
(01:58):
George Santos. Kevin McCarthy personally is keeping George Santos in Congress.
George santos national security risk belongs to Kevin McCarthy. George
Santos belongs to every Republican. I do not want to
hear a Democrat until, like Spring mentioned Kevin McCarthy without
(02:20):
immediately also mentioning George Santos on the debt limit. The
Speaker is about his truthful here as his guy, George Santos.
It's easy to do if this idiot from Virginia Representative
Bob Good tries to turn the debt limit reality inside
out again and blame the Democrats for the world financial crisis.
(02:44):
The Republicans are willing to risk, and Good says as
he did yesterday, quote, I hope the President and the
Senate would not risk a government shutdown or some kind
of a government default by recklessly rejecting spending cuts. I
want several Democrats to answer seriously, Bob Good, you are
(03:05):
threatening the jobs of millions of Americans. You want to
create a world financial panic. You want a stock market crash.
And that's your explanation. Who do you think you are?
George Santos. George Santos is easy to use, can be
applied wet or dry, can be taken with or without food,
(03:26):
requires no assembly, can be used without any training, and
is now available without a prescription. When the speaker talks
about these documents, I wonder why he's not as angry
at George Santos. And as evidenced by yesterday's jaw dropper
from the Washington Post, we have finally moved on to
that part of the movie where we begin to understand
(03:48):
that we have only scratched the dishonest surface the money.
Somebody found a compulsive liar, willing to having to say anything.
They bankrolled him, and they got him elected to Congress.
He is a national security risk if you missed it
the Post mind the filings at the Federal Election Committee
(04:11):
and also the recording of a zoom meeting, and they
dug up this stark reality. There is a Russian oligarch,
He is huge in Russian gas and energy. His cousin
is named Andrew Intrader, I mean in traitor, traitor, unlike
George Santos. You can't make this stuff up. And Andrew
(04:31):
in Trader and his wife both maxed out there in
Trader campaign donations to George Santos, and the in Traders
gave tens of thousands of dollars to committees linked to
George Santos, and George Santos boasted that in Trader's company
was his client, his in traitor client. Like the lines
(04:57):
of George Santos, this is also easily digested Russian oil,
Russian oligarch, Russian money, George san Tos and whatever comes
next in reality. Right now, this iceberg has a whole
Manchurian candidate feel to it. Why did you lie? Wow,
it looks like money. What kind of money looks like
Russian money? What was that name? Again? S A. N
(05:21):
t Os. Santos makes the very best bull little crap. Also,
the other guy's name has Trader in it. CNN and
that now stands for clicks not news. CNN clicks not
News is not going to give up on the document story.
(05:41):
Either they ran a news alert yesterday about new details,
when in point of fact, it was just a timeline
of what was already known, but with a new time
stamp and headline clicks. Not news is going to run
something about the Biden documents every day. And the answer
(06:02):
to that is funny that CNN isn't probing George Santos
and the Russian oligarch. Why are they covering up for
George Santos? Why is CNN helping Kevin McCarthy cover up
for George Santos and this guy what's his name? Trader.
We are also not going to get anybody to start
asking about the Department of Justice league that fueled the
(06:23):
document story, or the fact that the CBS correspondent is
based in Chicago, and the guy that hapless Merrick Garland,
that's his name, h Merrick Garland, the ages for Hapless,
the guy that Hapless Merrick Garland first put in charge
of it, who was also based in Chicago, like the correspondent,
or the timing of it that allowed it to come
out just hours after the Republicans took the investigative gabbles
(06:45):
in the House. We're not it's too complicated. These are
news people you're asking to do this? And the answer
thus to this is the Republicans are all lying about this. Yeah,
they're lying like they are Come on, come on, come on,
They're lying like they're George Santos. We are also not
(07:06):
going to get enough people to pick up the unresolved
accusations of violence and death threats made by his college
girlfriend against the oversight Chairman, James the Inquisitor Comber. We're
not so. When Comber demands visitors logs to the president's
home in Delaware, the answer is not, well, there are
no visitors logs to his private home, because that only
(07:28):
leads to the question, ah ha, who ordered that? Who
failed to keep visitors logs at the home of the president.
The answer is why is James Comer lying about Maryland
Thomas his college girlfriend. He's beginning to sound like George Santos.
Shouldn't Kevin McCarthy be asking if with Congressman Comber, he's
(07:49):
got another George Santos on his hands. It is possible
that in the just thirty days since the first New
York Times story, George Santos has become the most easily
understood metaphor, the most easily digested metaphor. In the last
twenty five years of American politics, he has lied about everything.
(08:13):
He is deceit in human form. He's Leo DiCaprio as
Frank abg Nail. He's John Lovett's Tommy Flanagan. He's Rachel Dolazal.
He's Anna Serocan. He's Barry Breman, the guy who used
to sneak onto the field at sporting events dressed as
a player or referee. He's He's He's Elizabeth Holmes. No,
(08:36):
he's not only he's simpler than any one of them.
That's not his name, that's not his religion, that's not
his school, that's not his job, that's not his other job.
That's not his home. That's not his race, that's not
his nationality, that's not his volleyball, his volleyball. They are
(08:57):
easy to understand lies, and they are not stopping. He
is not leaving. He is not going to be forced out.
He is a big metaphorical baseball bat. And every morning,
as the sun rises in Washington, the Republicans hand him
to every Democrat and they say, go ahead, keep hitting us.
(09:20):
We'll just stand here. Is nothing we can do if
McCarthy's backing him. Have you ever seen a pinata well
where the pinata only no matter how many times you
hit us, we then close right back up again, so
you can come back tomorrow smashes again. We are the
groundhogs day of pinatas. Here's the bat. The Democratic answer
(09:47):
to every question is George Santos. And oh, by the way,
you probably did see the Posts thing yesterday about him
and the cousin of the Russian oligarch Mr. In Trader.
You probably did not see New York Magazine's thing about
him Sunday where they traced him to January one, and
(10:09):
they stopped the Steel rally in d C. When he
got up and said, quote, for fourteen days, I was
congressman elect of the third Congressional District of New York,
the first ever biggest upset for a Republican in New
York City. And what did they do when they were
too busy printing two d and eighty thousand ballots in
my district and shipping them to Pennsylvania, they sneaked in
(10:31):
a few for my opponent. And then George Santos said
one other thing that assures that if and when the
Democrats ever run out of opportunity or need to use
George Santos as the ultimate defensive weapon, they can try
him out on offense on target zero. Quoting George Santos,
(10:53):
January five. They did to me what they did to
Donald J. Trump. They stole my election. And when George
Santos said that dressed in a beautiful camel's hair coat
and an expensive Burberry scarf, his roommate at the time says,
(11:15):
that was my scarf. George Santos stole it from me.
You can't make this stuff up because he already has
(11:40):
still ahead. Speaking of which, Carrie Lake running for Senate
against Kirsten Cinema, Well, how can she do that if
she's governor already? The resignation of the German defense minister
who said she was showing her commitment to Ukraine by
sending the country five thousand hats worse persons. Great graph
showing the lack of climate change, Jordan Peterson, did you
(12:01):
happen to notice your graph ends in the year eighteen five?
Why would baseball expand to some small markets if every
time it expands to a small market, it just creates
another perennial doormat looking at you, Nashville, And the latest
brilliant new idea from Chris Lickt of CNN Clicks not News.
(12:22):
The man who when we were at MSNBC we thought
used to eat paste do a prime time CNN show
anchored by a comedian like John Stewart. Not only is
it another disaster waiting to happen, but what Chris licked
does not know is CNN first proposed a John Stewart
(12:42):
comedy newscast in two thousand one. That's five CNN presidents ago.
I was there things I promised not to tell. That's next.
This is a completely all new I'm over my sinus
infection edition of Countdown. Yeah, this is Countdown with Keith.
(13:15):
Thank you, Larry David still ahead on Countdown. Well. First
of all, please notice this is an all new edition
of this podcast. After finally listening to the doctor shutting
up for a while, the sinus infection is gone. I think,
thank you for your patients. Also, CNN wants to hire
somebody you can laugh at while they read the news,
(13:37):
I mean, besides Aaron Burnett. First, in each edition of Countdown,
we feature a dog in need you can help. Every
dog has its day to Marana, Arizona at our second
dog in need in a week, named Waffles. Cherished Tales
Senior Sanctuary saved Waffles and got her diagnosed with a
(13:58):
blood vessel in her heart that does not close properly.
If they don't fix it, it it will kill her within
six months. Lowly and awfully, she's a tiny Chihuahua senior,
six pounds. Maybe my puppy Ted had a bad valve
that they thought was going to kill him before he
was ten months old. Amazingly, canine cardiac surgery is very advanced,
very effective. They fixed him. He's now four and a half.
(14:21):
They can fix Waffles two and she will be almost
instantaneously better. There's a fundraiser for Waffles on Cuddly. You
can find her there or on my Twitter feeds. Anything
you can give will help. I thank you, and Waffles
thanks you. Postcripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,
(14:43):
some snarks, some predictions. Dateline while we're still in Arizona,
CNN reporting Carrie Lake is considering running for Senate in
against Kirsten Cinema. Well, but why would she do that?
Since Carrie is secretly them opener I understand. Dateline Jefferson City, Missouri.
Republicans have changed the rule is in the state legislature
(15:05):
there and now require that women wimbers wear jackets, not
sleeveless dresses. So no right to bear arms, not even sweaters,
just jackets, jackets, jackets, jackets, next Burkas dateline, Washington, what
about is him and both sides? Is Him hits? The
Washington Posts weather report quote Monday was as cold as
(15:30):
Sunday but also warmer. Read the headline over the Martin
Wiles story and then, like so much it had cold
parts and warm parts in this foggy bottom diner. Dateline
Texas Congressional District and the irreplaceable Twitter feed of ron Philipkowski,
Trump's former White House position and loser of the Trump
(15:53):
annual Guess My Weight contest, The now congressman of dubious sobriety,
doctor Ronnie Jackson had a think yesterday about the Biden documents.
Can you imagine how many how many good drugs and
how many uh you know, hookers and and in in
you know, sweet monthly paychecks those documents could have bought
(16:16):
good drugs and hookers. No, but Congressman, clearly you have
This is Sports Center wait, check that not anymore. This
(16:41):
is countdown with Keith in sports, the connection between Trump
and the Saudi sponsored live golf tourney, the Live Blood
Money Golf Tourney, has got a little worse. Live was
attacked by several families of nine eleven victims because of
the Saudi connection in its turf war with the p
G A tour. The PGA's publicity firm now says Live
(17:04):
of has responded by quote brazenly hiring a firm in
the United States to track and monitor the activities of
these nine eleven victims and families, even if they have
nothing to do with live golf or golfers. As to Trump, Dawn,
the organization Democracy for the Modern Arab World now reports
(17:24):
that lives connection to the infamous Saudi Prince MBS was
inadvertently confirmed in a recent court case a fund controlled
by MBS owns of Live Golf, quoting them. The revelation
that a fund controlled by Crown Prince MBS actually owns
almost all of Live Golf means that MBS has been
paying Donald Trump unknown millions for the past two years
(17:48):
via their mutual corporate covers. The national security implications of
payments from a grotesquely abusive foreign dictator to a president
of the United States who provided extraordinary favors to him
are as dangerous as they are shocking. End quote. Baseball
another year, another controversy in Cincinnati or the son of
the owner of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team has said
something stupid again. Last year, Phil Castellini said that Reds
(18:13):
fans should stop complaining about their team because where would
they go see baseball in Cincinnati if he and his
father got fed up and moved to another city. This
time at a Red's Rooters event over the weekend, Castellini
complained about having to eat the guaranteed contract of a
player the Reds had signed and recently dropped because he
(18:33):
wasn't any good anymore. His rhetorical question quote, is anybody
here paid to not do their job? Well? Golly, the
Reds last won the World Series in nineteen nine, so
one might answer Mr Castellini, Well, yeah, apparently everybody in
the Reds ownership in front office is paid, you know,
(18:54):
not to do their job. Thank you. Nancy Faust group,
(19:16):
trying to get an expansion team for Nashville, Tennessee, has
hired former Yankee star Don Mattingly as a consultant. Mattingly
once played there as a minor leaguer. It is also
being asked how Mattingly can consult for the group while
he's still the bench coach or the Toronto Blue Jays.
So what my question is, why is baseball considering expansion.
(19:37):
This is not a sport that can equalize market size
by using a salary cap or total revenue sharing. New
teams in small markets with small TV prices turned out
to be perennial doormats. I mean, look at Cincinnati, and
no matter how much Nashville might be growing, it is
still only the thirty fifth largest market in the country.
(19:58):
There are nine metropolitan areas without baseball teams with larger populations.
San Antonio is thirty percent larger than Nashville, Virginia Beach,
Virginia Beach and Norfolk are nearly as big as Nashville.
The last time a team in a metropolitan area smaller
than Kansas City won the World Series was the Milwaukee
(20:19):
Braves in nineteen fifty seven. It is a recipe for disaster,
and while baseball rightly Moreen's popular, ninety three year old
Frank Thomas an outfielder who played with all but three
of the National League teams that existed during his career,
and the first hitting star of the original amazing nineteen
sixty two Mets forty wins and twenty losses. The obituaries
(20:42):
have largely ignored the fact that Frank Thomas probably kept
a later teammate of his out of Baseball's Hall of Fame.
In nineteen sixty five, as the city of Philadelphia recovered
from race riots the year before, it had a second
year African American star named Dick Allen, then known as
Richie Allen, who was as good as any hitter of
his era or of most eras on July three, Allen
(21:07):
was leading the National League with a three forty one
batting average, and Frank Thomas was needling him during batting
practice on a road trip. A week before. Frank Thomas
had jokingly he said, asked Allan quote, hey boy, can
you carry my bags to the lobby? Then on July
two that Frank Thomas failed to get a bunt down
and the Phillies lost a game. And on the third
(21:28):
during BP, Thomas successfully bunted and somebody, and it might
have been Allen, needled back twenty four hours too late.
Thomas then turned to Alan and said, you're running your
mouth like Cashius Clay, although some witnesses thought he said
you're running your mouth like Malcolm X. There was an altercation.
Frank Thomas contended for fifty years that Dick Allen quote
(21:51):
sucker punched him. Alan denied that, but he said he
did hit him. Nobody denied what happened after that, Frank
Thomas swung his bat at Alan and hit him in
the shoulder. Within minutes, the Phillies had intervened on Dick
Allen's behalf and cut Frank Thomas from their team, and
the Philly fans and media sided with Frank Thomas. They
(22:13):
made the life of Dick Allen, probably the greatest hitter
in Phillies history, to this day, a living hell. The
Phillies refused to trade Alan until seventy and while he
was the American League m VP in nineteen seventy two,
he never became the unquestionable Hall of Famer that his
talent seemed to demand. This is not to dismiss the
morning of those who loved Frank Thomas, but after hitting
(22:36):
Alan with a bat, he went on radio in Philadelphia
and said Alan should have been punished too, and when
interviewed later for a documentary, he insisted, you know, if
you're going to punish one, you've got to punish the other.
That later interview was in two thousand eight, forty three
years later after the racial insults or jokes and hitting
(22:57):
him with a bat, it still had not occurred to
Frank Thomas by that time that, in fact, they had
punished the quote. Other still ahead, CNN Clips not News
(23:23):
is reportedly pondering hiring a comedian to do an hour
of news every night. They think it's a brilliant, brand
new idea. In fact, it's allows the old idea. They
first proposed this in two thousand one. I was in
the room and it was the same comedian first the
daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and dunning Krueger effect
(23:43):
specimens who constitute today's most persons in the world. Lebronze
Christine Lambrecht, who has now resigned as Defense Minister in
the government of German Chancellor all Off Schultz. It was
Minister Lambrech who greeted the imminent war in Ukraini a
year ago by saying she was sending President Zelinsky quote
(24:04):
very clear signal that we stand by your side. What
Minister Lambrek sent Ukraine was five thousand helmets, not five
thousand guys named helmet. Five thousand helmets. You bring your
own bullets the bronze. To Jordan Peterson, Canadian conman, climate
(24:27):
change denier, and Joe Rogan stooge, Peterson tweeted out a
chart that purports to indicate world temperatures have been dropping
irregularly but consistently since about eleven seventy seven BC. He asked, simply,
anyone object to this chart? One small problem with the chart.
The charts supposedly proving there's no climate change. It ends
(24:49):
in the year eighteen eighty five, stops at eighteen eighty five.
All things have been going great recently, once recently eighty five.
So the answer to your question is, yeah, everybody objects
to this chart except the morons who listened to you.
But our winner, identity thief and the chief Jimminy Glick,
(25:10):
impersonator of Fox News Tucker Carlson. He led the charge
on the rights second attempt to sexualize Eminem's Imagine how
many drugs have to have been consumed on the far
right for them to actually try to sexualize chocolate candy
tucks and complained about various eminem's and then added, there's
(25:31):
also a plus size obese purple eminem. Yeah, that's a
that's a peanut eminem. It's shaped that way because it's
got a peanut in it. It's not obese, Stucker, it's
it's a it's a peanut. Seeing they're not actually living
creatures there, Candy. Some of them have peanuts in them. Tucker,
(25:52):
I've got that look again, like I was a dog
who was just shown a card trick. I don't understand.
Explain candy to me, Carlson, Today's worst person. Uh, I'm
(26:26):
through the number one story on the countdown and my
favorite topic me and things I promised not to tell.
And if you do not believe in time travel, I
may have a surprise for you. It's a little Marcel
Proust for the average person. But still, the new news
site Semaphore published something about CNN that's CNN clicks not news,
and it's about clicks not news. Chairman Chris lick to
(26:49):
who when we were at MSNBC together we used to
think eight paste and how he is quoting Semaphore, considering
hiring a comedian to host one of CNN's prime time
shows to fill the prime time nine to eleven PM
hours with a non traditional version of the news, five
people with planning said CNN executives have floated names including
(27:11):
Bill Maher, Trevor Noah Our, Cineo Hall, and John Stewart
and have looked at other comedic focused talk shows for inspiration.
And as I read it, I found myself transported back
in time to the office of another president of CNN
named Walter Isaacson. On Friday August three, two thousand and one, Walter,
(27:36):
his big office near Madison Square Garden filled with the
brilliant summer sun, said he had what he thought was
a great idea, and he wanted my thoughts. What if
we took an hour in prime time and instead of
being deadly serious CNN or conversational CNN or even point
counterpoint CNN, what if we were funny CNN. I rolled
(28:00):
my eyes because I had pitched this exact idea to
Walter's boss is not a month before, and I was
trying to get in to get a meeting with him.
I had done a version after all of funny for
CNN in my sports reporting when I started in TV
two decades before there, and then I raised it something
higher and more of a proven success at ESPN, I
(28:23):
was back with CNN as a scheduled freelancer filling in
on the show Jeff Greenfield hosted at ten thirty every night,
and my agent was negotiating to get me the CNN
eight pm hour they were going to give to somebody
not currently on the network. I had said, obviously, you
could not have a comedian do the news, but you
could have a newscaster with a decent sense of comedy
(28:45):
and humor or satire to bring a humorous starting point
to it when appropriate. And not only was I qualified,
but as I said to Walter, right then I can
do the key thing. That is the only way you
could get away with this idea. I can be the
guy on the air doing the slightly funny news when
a bridge collapse or Ronald Reagan dies, or there's a
(29:07):
terrorist attack, and I can swerve back into serious coverage
before the network crashes because it had a comedy show on.
When the world began to end, Walter nodded politely, what
do you think of John Stewart. Do you think the
audience would buy Jon Stewart on CNN. I think he's great,
don't you, I said, frankly, Walter, No, for the reason
(29:30):
I just outlined, if Jon Stewart he's doing your funny news,
and then there's unfunny news your and then I said
a word that rhymed with klucked. I also said that
I didn't know him well, but everybody I knew who
did said John Stewart was insufferable, impossible to work with,
a dreadful and dreary person, and notorious for stealing other
(29:53):
people's ideas and then pretending they were his. I said,
his point of view was far closer to my own,
but that, frankly, the closest personality comp in cable news
to do on Stewart was Bill O'Reilly, and Walter Isaacson said,
do you think he'll do it? To be fair? I
don't think they ever asked him. Twenty two years ago
(30:16):
the last time a CNN president thought of this idea
and mistakenly believed he was saying, let's have John Stewart
to the news, when in fact he was saying, let's
have Jon Stewart's ratings between nine and ten every night,
because that's what Chris Licked is thinking and immediately moving
the idea from impossible crash and burn to well, this
is feasible. Let's call our cineo hall. Is he busy?
(30:41):
The longest a comedy news hybrid show can be is
about thirty minutes, one can argue based on audience retention
for the John Stewart Daily Show and the Colbert Rapport.
It's actually closer to about ten fifteen minutes, as Chris
Licked must remember from his days running Colbert's amazingly unfunny
(31:03):
CBS program. No late night comedy show that dabbled in
news in a monologue or even multiple desk segments has
ever done more than about ten minutes of news a night.
And I mean the superstars limited themselves to ten minutes
of it a night. David Letterman, Johnny Carson, even Jay
Leno others have tried ten minutes and were never heard
(31:24):
from again. And if you doubt me, ask yourself if
you remember the Pat say Jack Show on CBS or
Comedy Central's The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, or Frankly,
the third incarnation of the Daily Show with Trevor Noah,
who kept the franchise alive after John Stewart retired. But
my god, just barely and Chris licked of the We
(31:47):
thought they were paced eaters. Lickts supposedly brought up Trevor
Noah and did bring up Jon Stewart in an interview
with The New York Times last year. And then there's
my old college colleague, Bill Maher, As Semapore noted, Mars
potentially a more realistic pro spect. The host of HBO's
long running weekly show that bears his name is already
(32:08):
in house at Warner Brothers Discovery, CNN's parent company. Puck
News reported this week that CNN is in talks to
begin airing some of mars weekly extra HBO segments. Well,
maybe that would work, but there are several problems with
Mar doing his own show. For twenty five years, Bill
Maher has been abhorred by conservatives. They got him canceled
(32:32):
from what was his original nightly show on ABC called
Politically Incorrect after he said something after nine eleven. And
that's fine. Conservatives are not going to watch CNN no
matter what Chris Licked and his fascist boss John Malone do.
But the issue here is Bill Maher has also gradually
wasted nearly all of his reputation with liberals as well.
(32:53):
They may not abhor him the way the conservatives do,
but he stopped being appointment viewing for liberals perhaps as
long as a decade ago. Also, if the quality of
the humor and he's once a week HBO show is
an indicator, putting him on nightly on CNN starting say,
next Monday, would mean he would be out of material
(33:14):
by next Thursday, maybe next Wednesday. I also know Bill
for literally forty five years, and I used to be
on his HBO show often, and he invariably told me
that the best thing that ever happened to him was
getting canceled on ABC, getting away from having to do
a TV show daily. That six days of prep for
one show was a tough enough ratio for him. And lastly,
(33:39):
while it is assumed that people actually watch Bill maher show,
there's no proof of this. HBO does not produce ratings
for the programs it puts on TV. It is not
in the ratings business. It is in the subscription business.
As I suggested just now, we don't know how many
people watch mar We know there aren't any conservatives. We
don't know if there's still any liberals, And that, of course,
(34:02):
is the other fundamental flaw here. Even if Bill Maher
wanted to do it and was really funny and everybody
wanted him to, the cover story for Chris Lick's actual job,
which is, as you know, slowly torturing the CNN audience
to death while using the last few months of CNN
credibility to push ultra right wing talking points out as
if they were balanced a political news. The cover story
(34:25):
for that is, it's balanced a political news. Quick, name
me the last a political news comedian or satirist. I'll wait.
Even if you think the foppish guy they have on Fox, Blowfeld,
whatever his name is, it's blow Feld, right, Even if
(34:47):
you think Blowfeld is actually funny, is he a political?
Does blow Feld klim to be a political? Dave Letterman
was actually kind of a political, Yet most of his
political stuff wound up mocking Republicans anyway, because they do
things that are easier to laugh at and they have
no sense of humor about themselves. When Stephen Colbert, who
is far more conservative than he wants you to know,
(35:09):
could cover up his intent by pretending to you that
he was just pretending to be conservative. When he was
on Comedy Central, he was far more successful than he
is now. And it needs to be remembered that until
Trump's ascension gave him something to talk about, CBS, with
Chris Licked in charge of that department, was about to
swap Colbert and James Gordon and relegate Colbert to twelve
(35:32):
thirty at night. And even if you disagree with my
comedy analysis, the bottom line is you can't do comedy
about news without being political. And you can't put a
comedian in the driver's seat of a real newscast because
one day soon or late, he will have to segue
into live coverage of the massive explosion down at the
(35:53):
Goiter clinic. If you really wanted to do an hour
or just half an hour of comedy news, it would
have to be political, and it would have to be
hosted by somebody able to turn on a don him
from the Chuckle Hut to dead ex presidents. You're talking
Al Franken or maybe maybe me, and CNN is not
(36:13):
gonna hire Al Franken, and it's definitely definitely not gonna
hire me. So back I travel in time, to Walter
Isaacson's two thousand one office at two thousand one CNN,
and he was the president after Rheese Schonfeld and Burt
ryan Hardt who I worked for, and Tom Johnson who
I worked for for like one day, and Rick Kaplan
who I worked for later, and Walter was the one
(36:35):
before John Klein who tried to bring me back to
CNN in two thousand six but got overruled by Jim Walton,
who I had worked with because he had been the
backup Chiron guy on my CNN sportscast in Night three,
and Jim was also president then, and then Jim fired John,
and then somebody fired Jim, and then they brought in
Jeff Zucker, who I worked for, and he tried to
bring me back in two thousand sixteen, and then they
(36:56):
fired him. And now it's Chris Licked. And we don't
know when they're gonna fire Chris Licked, only that you
know someday they're gonna I can't recall how long I
was in Walter Isaacson's office that summer day, so long ago.
He had a lot of questions he wanted to ask me,
and he continually referred to my experience mixing humor and
(37:16):
serious coverage at ESPN, and even right then and when
I was filling in for Jeff Greenfield, and the longer
I was in there, the more it seemed like he
was leading up to asking me if I wanted to
try it. Of course I would have, and he never asked.
And what made that even crazier was not long after
CNN offered me the job of lead anchor and managing
(37:37):
editor at its CNN s I Sports network, and then
it offered me a different contract as a full time
salaried host and essayist on news and sports for CNN itself,
and a third contract, a holding contract, which would really
just be a pre negotiation in case they had chosen
me from the finalists for their eight pm newscast. As
(37:59):
it turned out, a month later they shuddered CNN s
I the sports operation, but we did proceed on the
anchor essayist contract. But for the eight o'clock show, they
never executed my contract because they gave that show to
Connie Chung and then canceled her show one year later
when it turned out she could no longer do live television.
(38:19):
Walter Isaacson left CNN in January two thousand three, and
a month later I returned to MSNBC and we started Countdown.
A month after that. Politics and commentary gradually squeezed out
the time I would devote to the humor and the satire.
But originally Countdown was as much satire as it was controversy,
and almost every night we had a comedian on as
(38:41):
the last guest. Robert Klein was on Countdown, mar was
on all the time. Famously, George Carlin came on and
said it was the best newscast you'd ever seen. And
one day in two thousand five, the phone rang in
my office, Keith, It's Walter Isaacson. I've been meaning to
call for a couple of months. I don't know if
you remember this fact. I kind of hope you don't.
But in two thousand one, I asked you about doing
(39:02):
a newscast with a comedy element to it, and I
must ask you about Jon Stewart and everybody like John Stewart,
and I just wanted to say I watched Countdown every night,
and every night I say to myself, that's exactly the
show I wanted. And the guy was sitting on the
other side of my goddamn desk, and I didn't even
see him because I was looking at it backwards. And
what Walter Isaacson said next should be a lesson to
(39:24):
Chris Licked or whoever succeeds him, or anybody else who
wants to try Walter Isaacson's idea from two thousand one
and claim it is their idea in two thousand three.
You don't get a comedian to do funny news, Walter said,
you get a newsman who's kind of funny to do
(39:45):
news that's kind of funny. Countdown has come to you
from the Student Yeos of Older and Broadcasting Empire World
(40:07):
Headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York. Thanks
for listening. If you're not subscribed, please do so. I
have an ego the size of Manitowac, Wisconsin. Thus we
can never have enough subscribers. Here are the credits. Most
of the music, including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip s Chanelle,
who are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards
(40:30):
by John Philip Chanelle. Guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray.
Produced by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have
been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, and it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments from Nacy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
(40:51):
Our announcer today was Larry David. Everything else was pretty
much my fault. So that's countdown for this, the seven
hundred and forty second day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
(41:12):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
(41:32):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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