August 1, 2024 • 43 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 1: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: After his demented, prejudiced paroxysm at the National Association of Black Journalists, as he signaled the start of his full-on, hateful, disgusting, apartheid-and-slavery-level-appalling campaign of birtherism and racism, Donald Trump must withdraw from the presidential election and commit to psychiatric institutionalization.
There is no longer any room in the political discourse of the United States of America for anyone both so deeply disturbed AND so deeply possessed by a hate of people of color that it reaches the levels of insanity and prejudice Trump not only DISPLAYED in Chicago yesterday but gloried in. More over, there is no room in American SOCIETY for anyone with such an immeasurably dysfunctional and dangerous mental illness as that which Trump showed again and again at the NABJ event.
This country is not safe if Donald Trump is free to walk on its streets. This country is not safe if those who have mistaken him for sane, or rational, or patriotic, or just American, are not shown in no uncertain terms that what he radiated yesterday on that stage is a disease
At the National Association of Black Journalists event in Chicago he went full birther, again. He went full racist, again. He not only questioned the ethnic history of the Vice President of the United States, but he accused her of either CHANGING that history or changing her STATEMENTS ABOUT that history – Trump’s insanity permitted him to be vague even in his apartheid-level racist accusation. As he did so his stooges like Jesse Watters were going on Fox claiming Vice President Harris is quote “not African-American, technically” and Laura Loomer was disseminating a Harris birth certificate and the gutter trash congresswoman from Colorado Lauren Boebert wrote quote “she switched” and the Trump parking lot attorney Alina Habba said quote “Unlike you Kamala, I know who my roots are and where I come from."
Not again. We must - using the law and the ballot box - destroy this man's evil and metaphorically bury his campaign and those who support under the rubble of birtherism.
B-BLOCK (24:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Mar-a-Lago insiders selling info to supplicants about when Trump is in a good mood. Musk and Ramaswamy say America needs more people (but not immigrants like their own parents) and the Oklahoma school nazi wants to fire any teacher who wasn't worried enough about Trump's ear-piercing.
C-BLOCK (35:38) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Ah for the simpler times of 46 years ago when the big issue was: will I get my seersucker suit dirty on the subway as I travel up to my internship at Channel 5 News. The story of Keith The Intern and Bill Mazer,
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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. After
his demented, prejudiced heroxism at the National Association of Black
(00:27):
Journalists event in Chicago yesterday, as he signaled the start
of his full on, hateful, disgusting, apartheid and slavery level
appalling campaign of birtherism and racism, Donald Trump must withdraw
from the presidential election and be committed for psychiatric institutionalization,
(00:49):
or be compelled to. There is no longer any room
in the political discourse of the United States of America
for anyone both so deeply disturbed and so deeply possessed
by a hate of people of color that it reaches
the levels of insanity and prejudice Trump not only displayed
(01:11):
yesterday in Chicago, but gloried in Moreover, there is no
room in American society for anyone with such an immeasurably
dysfunctional and dangerous mental illness as that which Trump showed
again and again and again at the NABJ event. If
(01:32):
he will not seek hospitalization for his countless psychoses and
delusions and persecution complexes, he must be forced to. This
country is not safe if Donald Trump is free to
walk on its streets. This country is not safe if
(01:52):
those who have mistaken him for sane or rational, or
patriotic or merely American are not shown in no uncertain
terms that what he raise yesterday on that stage is
a disease, and it is unacceptable to this nation. Psychiatric
(02:16):
experts may be able to help Trump, they may not. Frankly,
I no longer care. Literally, almost every day since I
wrote could Trump Pass a Sanity Test? For Vanity Fair
Magazine in twenty sixteen, I have been repeating that apart
from his neanderthal policies, apart from his inability to grasp
that he is not intelligent, apart from his simpleton's perception
(02:39):
of the world, there is a baseline danger that we
cannot assess that clearly from which advisors or party leaders
or generals cannot save him or save us. And that
is this. He is manifestly broken. His brain does not
(03:01):
work correctly, and thus what we see now may ultimately
be only the tip of an unstable iceberg. The risk
the world is at is not just the Trump we
see failing every test of that which makes one human
every day of his life. It is the risk that
(03:24):
from here he will get worse. Yesterday here I criticize
the National Association of Black Journalists for platforming Trump, and
I would like to retract that criticism, apologize for it,
and bless that organization for arranging. However, it was arranged
(03:45):
to put the Trump you and I already know on
display for at least some people who had not seen
it or would not believe it was true. It was
Trump's first genuinely unfriendly, not passive interview in years, revealed
both his madness and the madness of his beliefs, and
(04:09):
his racial animus, and his willingness to invent any excuse
to suppress anybody who is not a white man of
European heritage. He went full birther again, and now his
campaign is full birther again. He went full racist again,
(04:31):
and now his campaign is full racist again. He not
only questioned the ethnic history and heritage of the Vice
President of the United States, but he accused her of
either changing that history or changing her statements about her
(04:52):
own heritage. Trump's insanity permits him to be vague even
in his apartheid level racist accusations. One hundred and sixty
three years ago, this nation took up arms to silence
and disempower hateful, deranged creatures like Donald Trump. We now
think seven hundred and fifty thousand Americans died to stop
(05:14):
what Donald Trump believes in today, with as many more
wounded and or captured. That we continue to tolerate Donald Trump,
that we continue to normalize Donald Trump, that we continue
to let Donald Trump lead a national political party and
serve as its presidential nominee. Is among the top two
(05:37):
or three failures in the history of the United States
of America that an American news organization could summarize in
its daily news round up, the disaster that was Donald
Trump in Chicago yesterday, the existential threat to all of
our lives that is Donald Trump every day, to summarize
it in two hundred and thirty four words, headlined Trump
(06:01):
questions Harris's race, as if that were a legitimate question
in a society that is not itself deeply disturbed, and
then move on from that to its off lead story,
Taco Bell to test AI drive throughs that suggests that
we are all stunningly comfortable lying here with our next
(06:22):
on the railroad tracks that we have reached if we
had not reached it before the point Patty Chayevsky described
in the mad as Hell speech Peter Finch recites in
the movie Network, we sit watching our TVs while some
newscast here plays clips of this asshole Trump accusing the
Vice President of the United States of changing her color
(06:45):
at the exact moment his minions begin full on bertherism,
as if that's the way it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Aaron Rupar.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Of the website Public Notice, whose newsletter you should sign
up for, produced a super cut of the disqualifying Trump
attacks on Harris on black people on his hosts on America,
which I have edited down here only slightly for time,
and I would add that as Aaron posted this to
(07:19):
social media, the Trump stooge Jesse Waters was going on
Fox and claiming Vice President Harris's quote not African American technically,
and the Trump fabricator and liar Laura Lumer was disseminating
a falsified harris birth certificate, and the gutter trash congresswoman
from Colorado Lauren Bobert wrote quote she switched, and the
(07:44):
Trump parking lot attorney Alina Habas said quote, unlike you, Kamala,
I know who my roots are and where I come
from and Trump's pet Fox host Harris Faulkner, who was
on stage as this unfolded in Chicago yesterday, dismissed the
events there as things got chippy. As you listen to this,
(08:08):
remember that this from Trump is not hyperbole, not politics,
not even the standard Trump hatred and insanity that the
cowardice of the media has allowed him to get away
with for nine disastrous years. This is the start of
his presidential campaign in which the psychopathic fascist Republican who
(08:30):
hates black people and has always hated black people and
will suppress black people, will insist that he is the
real victim here because he will also insist the vice
president of the United States is lying about being a
black person. Or, as Mother Jones put it in its
headline far more succinctly, white man tells black journalists that
(08:53):
his black opponent is not Black people.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Did not think it was appropriate for you to be
here today. You have pushed false claims about some of
your from Nicki Hayley to former President Barack Obama, saying
that they were not born in the United States, which
is not true. You have told four congressmen women of
color who are American citizens, to go back to where
they came from. You have used words like animal and
(09:19):
rabbit to describe black district attorneys. You've attacked black journalists,
calling them a loser, saying the questions that they ask
are quote stupid and racist. You've had dinner with a
white supremacist at your maraologue resort. So my question, sir,
now that you are asking black supporters to vote for you,
why should black voters trust you after you have used
(09:41):
language like that.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, first of all, I don't think I've ever been
asked a question so in such a horrible manner. A
first question, you don't even say, hello, how are you?
Are you with ABC? Because I think they're a fake
news network a terrible level. And I think it's disgraceful
that I can aim here in good spirit. I love
(10:08):
the black population of this country. I've done so much
for the black population of this country. I think it's
a very rude introduction. I don't know exactly why you
would do something like that. And let me go a
step further. I was invited here, and I was told
my opponent, whether it was Biden or Kamala, I was
told my opponent was going to be here. It turned
(10:31):
out my opponent isn't here. You invited me under false pretense,
and then you said you can't do it with zoom.
Well you know where's zoom. She's going to do it
with zoom and she's not coming. And then you were
half an hour a Just so we understand, I have
too much respect for you to be late. They couldn't
get their equipment work in or something I would. I
think it's a very nasty question. I have answered the question.
(10:55):
I have been the best president for the black population
since Abraham Lincoln. That is my answer, only President Johnston's.
I'm voting right now. Ask you to start off a
question and answer period, especially when you're thirty five minutes
late because you couldn't get your equipment to work in
such a hostile manner. I think it's a disgrace. I
really do it.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Let me just ask upond to other questions here. Some
of your own supporters, including Republicans on Capitol Hill, have
labeled Vice President Kamala Harris, who was the first black
and Asian American woman to serve as vice president and
be on a major party ticket, as a DEI hire.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Is that acceptable language to you?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
And will you tell those Republicans and those supporters to
stop it.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
How do you how do you define DEI? Go ahead?
How do you define diversity?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Equity inclusion?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Okay, yeah, go ahead? Is that what your definition? That is?
Speaker 4 (11:45):
That?
Speaker 5 (11:45):
That is?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Give me a definition? Then would you give me a definition? Yeah? Yeah,
give me a definition.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Soar' I'm asking you, am are you had to direct.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Find it, define the define it for me if I
just defined it? Sir?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is only
on the ticket because she is a black woman?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Well, I can say no. I think it's maybe a
little bit different. So I've known a long time, indirectly,
not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage,
and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know
she was black until a number of years ago when
she happened to turn black. And now she wants to
(12:19):
be known as black. So I don't know is she
Indian or is she black? She is always I respect
other black college. I respect either one, but she obviously
doesn't because she was Indian all the way, and then
all of a sudden she made a turn and she
went she became a black part just to be clear,
I think somebody should look into that too. When you
(12:39):
ask a continue in a very hostile, nasty town, why
come here?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
What is your message today?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
My message is to stop people from invading our country
that are taking frankly, a lot of problems with it.
But one of the big problems and a lot of
the journalists in this room I know, and I have
great respect for a lot of the journalists in this
room are black. I will tell you that coming from
(13:08):
the border are millions and millions of people that happen
to be taking black jobs. You had the.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Best what exactly the black job, sir?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
A black job is anybody that has a job. How
do you turn it around? What's your plan for the
black community when it comes to Monchy? So, first of all,
it's very hard to hear for whatever reason, because of
the fact that they have bad equipment, because I guess
you know, this woman was unable to get the right equipment.
But it's very hard for me to hear you, but
I can hear every other word. It's very difficult, actually,
(13:39):
But so I don't know if they can fix it
or do something with it, but I'll do the best
I can with it. If I came onto a stage
like this and I got treated so rudely, is this
woman true? My goodness? And I'm fine with it because
she it does it. She was very rude, sir, very rude.
That was a nasty That wasn't a question. She hadn't
asked me a question. She gave a statement that wasn't a question. Actually,
(14:04):
you and you wait, you would absolutely if I thought
that I was failing in some way, I want people
to be shopping. I'll go a step further. I want
anybody running for president to take an aptitude test, to
take a cognitive test. I think it's a great idea.
And I took two of them, and I aced them.
I took two of them. But let me ask you,
(14:25):
I would like to have what's going to happen to
those people? What's going to happen to the people in
Portland that destroyed?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
My question is on those going to happen my people
ride those assault officers.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You have to you what's going to happen?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Absolutely, I would. You would run. If they're innocent, I
would pardon them. Be' been convicted by the way the
Supreme Court just under well, they were convicted by a very,
very tough system they were. How come the people that
tried to burn down Minneapolis, how come the Purple that
took over a large percentage of Seattle? How come nothing
(15:01):
happened to them? How come to.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
People talking about people that were seen, we're talking about
Laurel Fields dragging them down the stairs they're on Have
you seen that videos?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Early?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Well they parted those you a pardon those rioters.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
They shot a young lady in the face who was protesting.
They shot her. The You know, nobody died that day,
you do know that. But people died in Seattle. Nobody died,
But people died in the opposite You know, people died.
They're taking your jobs. These people coming in are taking
your job.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
I think we have to leave it there, Bible Team,
all right, so leave it well.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
That is the last word, And that, of course, was
prelude from Chicago. Trump went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and spoke
last night after the NABJ event.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
The contrast could not be more stark. On the one hand,
you have a radical left puppet candidate who is fake, fake, fake,
and on the other hand, you have a president who.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Fight fight fight is their betting? Yet is there betting
on when Trump calls her the N word or something
awfully close to it. I mean, his henchman Sebastian Gorka
already called her the C word. She's a DEI higher right,
She's a woman, She's colored.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Therefore she's got to be good.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
As a PostScript, as a reminder, as an incentive to
fight this creature Trump and his movement of hatred and
deceit and gaslighting and pure unadulterated biblical evil, As a
reminder that he will say anything at any time and
contradict reality or a past version of his own self
(16:48):
to any degree he finds necessary. Two points. A spokesperson,
an advisor named Lynn Patten now says that in Chicago,
Trump quote continually said that, unlike Kamala Harrison, Joe Biden,
he's running to be present for all Americans, and if
you're running to unite the entire country, you have to
(17:10):
back it up with action like he did today unquote, Yes,
unite all Americans. Unite them just like they were united
when we all had slavery, or just as Trump has
always thought. The united in United States means united under
(17:31):
a Trump dictatorship, and maybe more startlingly. There is also
this Four years ago, next week, August eleventh, twenty twenty,
actor Joe Biden had selected Kamala Harris as his vice
presidential running mate, and Trump and his team of scumbag
(17:53):
rivals unrolled the standard attacks on women of color who
have not shown sufficient deference to the white men like
Brett Kavanaugh, unrolled all the insanity tropes about black women,
called Harris quote a mad woman, quote, a nasty woman quote,
seriously ill. After that, Trump's spokesperson Katrina Pearson defended him
(18:18):
against charges that he was being racist and anti black
about Kamala Harris, confirming that when Harris ran for attorney
general in California, Trump and his daughter Ivanka donated to
her campaign eight thousand dollars in total from the Trumps
(18:38):
to the Harris for Attorney General campaign. I'll note, miss Pearson, said,
Miss Pearson being African American and now a Trumpist candidate
for the Texas State House. Miss Pearson told a media
conference call, I'll note that Kamala Harris is a black
woman and he donated to her campaign, So I hope
(19:02):
we can squash this racism argument. Now. We are fighting evil,
evil for whom reality and justice and even their own
past versions of themselves do not exist if they are inconvenient.
(19:25):
At the present moment, we are fighting evil that is
centered around a manifestly insane, dangerous, delusional, committable madman. We must,
by the law, by the ballot box by both destroy
him and everything he stands for, or we, the United
(19:49):
States of America, we will surely be destroyed instead. As
Trump unleashes Birtherism, I we must metaphorically bury him and
his movement under its rubble.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Well, Donald, I do hope you'll reconsider to meet me
on the debate stage, because, as the saying goes, if
(20:33):
you've got something to say.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
This is countdown.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
With Keith Oberman still ahead of us on this edition
(21:07):
of Countdown. I need a break from this crap. Friend
of mine asked me yesterday, for the thousandth time this year,
how I deal with this every day? And I said, well,
whenever I can, I try to go to my past
and live there for a few minutes and visit the
simpler times when all I worried about was things like
(21:28):
whether or not my brand new seersucker suit would get
dirty while I took the subway up to my internship
at Channel five News here in New York, and somebody
else yesterday mentioned the name of the sportscaster I happened
to work for at that very internship, and so come
with me now for a few minutes to the far
(21:49):
less thrilling days of yesteryear. In things I promised not
to tell Keith the intern First, there are still more
new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the
miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects, bestmans who constitute
two days worst persons in the world, Lebrons, the Trump factotum,
(22:12):
Dan Scabino, the media guy. This is from New York
Magazine and it's a story about funding Trump media. I'm
just going to read part of this. The most promising
person they reached was Patrick Orlando, former Deutsche Bank derivatives
trader who had started an investment firm called Benisseri Capital.
(22:32):
For Trump's birthday in June, New York Magazine writes, Orlando
wrote a letter appealing to his ego. I was unaware
of the extent of your brilliance, he wrote, According to
the post on your birthday, my only wish is that
you realize how proud we are of your success is
to date. Mister Moss and mister Litinsky, other funders of
this outfit, persuaded Orlando not to send this in part
(22:56):
because the sycophancy was over the top, even by Trump standards.
I just want to protest for a second, and suggests
that there is no such point that sycophancy cannot be
over the top when it comes to Trump. However, the
real issue is included in the next phrase. The sycofancy
(23:18):
was over the top even by Trump's standards, and in
part because they knew Trump hated the idea of getting older.
He did not wish to be reminded of his birthday. Also,
New York Magazine writes, and here's the Scavino part. Marri
Lago has a microeconomy in which such intel is sold
(23:40):
to supplicants by people with proximity to Trump. The truth
Social executives paid fifteen thousand dollars to Will Russell, a
Trump bodyman whose name came up in the Florida Documents investigation,
and twenty thousand dollars to Dan Scavino, Trump's social media director,
who were in a position to find out things like
(24:02):
his mood when he'd be coming off the golf course
and when was the best time to call Dan Scavino corrupt?
Maitre d the runners up two of our favorite people online,
the utter frauds, Vivek Ramaswami and Elon Musk. And Elon
(24:23):
Musk is gone yet another day without overdosing. Congratulations Elon.
America's declining birth rate, Vivek Ramaswami wrote, is a far
greater risk to our future than say climate change. Well,
of course that's not true. But why would Vivek know
that he has an IQ of seven He believes he
has an IQ of seven hundred, Yet most politicians are
(24:45):
too scared to talk about it, and now it's apparently taboo.
It's neither too scary nor taboo. It's just stupid. But
here are the facts. Our nation's birth rate is now
down to one point six to two berths per woman,
the lowest in history, and well below replacement rate. I
could make a joke here about baseball and replacement level offspring,
(25:07):
but I won't. It's not even that people don't want kids.
In fact, American women on average have fewer children than
they say they'd hoped for. The graining of America means
an overloaded healthcare system and eventually higher taxes for all.
Today they're only about three workers for every retireel blah
blah blah blah blah blah, on and on and on.
The birth rate crisis is a symptom of a deeper
(25:28):
economic malaise. The right answer is simple. Slash the oppressive
regulatory stage. Drill frack, end dumb occupational licensing laws and
restrictions on new housing to unleash the supply of everything.
What part of that is about having kids? Fracking? Somebody
has to explain to Vivet Gramaswami the difference between fracking
(25:49):
and the other effing word. Musk's reply to this is priceless.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
A declining birth rate happens towards the end of every
civilization and is a function of extended prosperity caesochiede and
to succeeded, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
You mean Sid Caesar. It's just too bad that this
problem that both of them perceive that there are not
enough new working age and youthful Americans kids, that there
aren't more of them here. It's too bad this could
not be addressed in some other way than say, eliminating abortion,
forcing women to have children, trying to marginalize those who
(26:31):
do not have children, and actually run an idiot for
vice president who's made a career out of mocking people
who don't have kids when his own sexuality is in question.
It's just too bad. There isn't some sort of alternate
to that, an alternate to a declining birth rate. I
don't know. Are there other people in overcrowded parts of
(26:52):
the country in the world who would want to come
here to the United States? Has anybody ever come here?
Wasn't born here? I don't know. I mean, I don't
know of anybody like that. I mean, I just don't
Could we have horror working people, you know, just to
pick a phrase out of the air, yearning to breathe free,
come here and fill those roles that Ramaswami is so
(27:14):
worried about. And Elon Musk says it's the end of
civilization because there aren't enough young people here. Could we
bring them in from other countries to help us out?
Other people too? What's the word immigrate here or if
you like, the other version of the verb immigrate here?
You know, like the parents of Elon Musk and vivek
(27:34):
Ramaswami and Trump's grandparents. It will never surprise me, never
stop surprising me. I should say that these people, the
children of immigrants, have already forgotten that they are the
children of immigrants. The first Olderman arrived here in the
(27:54):
year eighteen forty seven, and I think of myself as
the child of an immigrant, and I have great pride
in it. There aren't enough people here, now, why are
you stopping them from coming here? But our winner one
of the people we should have stopped from coming here.
Ryan Walters, Superintendent of Schools of the State of Oklahoma,
(28:16):
religious nut bastard. Ryan Walters announces he is using libs
of TikTok, the hateful prejudiced website account, to hunt down
Oklahoma school employees who made jokes about the fact that
(28:37):
Trump's ear got nicked, so that they can be fired
from the Oklahoma State and City school systems. Quote. We
cannot allow these individuals to continue to teach in the
state of Oklahoma. I want to thank Chaia Rachik. That's
the libs of TikTok, which who brought this first to
(28:59):
my attention of what she found online to show this hateful,
nasty rhetoric. He then said he would fire them all
using her data. And of course Raychik has been connected
via libs of TikTok to more than twenty bomb threats
across the country because whoever she targets, somebody threatens to kill.
There is a simple solution to this and this idiot
(29:20):
Ryan Walters and this behavior in Oklahoma. Boycott all products
from Oklahoma. They export six billion, one hundred million dollars
every year in stuff, mostly aircraft parts. I know neither
you nor I are buying any aircraft parts in the
immediate future. Major companies are stop buying them from Oklahoma.
(29:43):
Oh and the other thing. And this is legitimately the
number one agricultural export in the state of Oklahoma, pork.
One in fifty jobs in Oklahoma is supported by the
pork industry. I would discuss briefly with you the merits
of not eating pork, of how much healthier you will
(30:06):
be and how much greater your conscience will thrive if
you don't do it, particularly if any of the religions
like this religious not Ryan Walters, are correct. And how
you treat the weakest and most troubled of the beings
of this planet determines whether or not you get some
(30:28):
sort of reward afterward. If that's true, guess who is
not getting a reward afterwards. That's right State Superintendent of Schools,
Ryan Walters of Oklahoma, who we already know. We're not
sure exactly how smart pigs are compared to human beings,
maybe three year olds, four year olds, but we do
know that every single pig on this planet is smarter
(30:51):
than Ryan Walters, two days worse person and the world why,
God don't know how. And now to the number one
(31:14):
story on the countdown. And I was literally asked about
him the other day by somebody who did not know
I knew him, and basically I had one of those
instantaneous moments that proved that Marcel Proust was right. If
you try to remember something or someone from your youth,
good luck, you might get a vague image. It might
(31:35):
be right, it might be wrong. But if you are
unexpectedly reminded of the moment or the person, you can,
for at least a brief instant be transported back to
them and to that time, as certainly as if you
had a time machine. The man's name was spoken, and
suddenly I was nineteen years old, again in a brand
(31:57):
new seersucker suit, stepping in from the always broiling midday
sun of midtown Manhattan before the subways had air conditioners,
and into the seductive cool of a television newsroom, seven
long hours before the broadcast was to begin, when all
the elements are in place except the panic and the
(32:17):
rushing and the shouting, when you can still quietly discuss
which story should be the lead on the newscast, rather
than threatening to kill somebody who tried to stop you
from going with the fire, instead of a boating accident,
when the film hasn't even been shot, let alone developed yet.
(32:38):
And yes, in nineteen seventy eight, it was still film.
They were just making the conversion from film to videotape,
and they were using both, and half the stories could
be instantly assembled videotape, but the other half were maddeningly
delayed until the kid ran the film to the lab
in the basement and waited for it to be developed.
And yeah, I was often that kid, And I think
(33:00):
I might be the youngest person in this country who
can say he ran the new the news film to
the lab to be developed. Anyway, the man whose name
was mentioned to me, was the first to succeed on
radio in a big city in this country by simply
talking sports with listeners who phoned in. This was in Buffalo,
(33:21):
New York in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties and
nineteen sixties, though he was not from there, born in Kiev,
emigrated to Brooklyn as an infant pre med at Michigan,
a quick radio stint in Grand Rapids and the apt
decision to not go by his given name of Morris Maser,
then to the war, then to Buffalo and the role
(33:41):
of the sportscaster in town on TV, on radio, on
the newscasts of the original Buffalo Bills of the Minor
League Baseball Buffalo Bisons and the Minor League Hockey Buffalo Bisons.
Bill not Morris Bill Maser. Bill Maser came home to
New York City in the early sixties, and whether you
like it or hate it, sports talk started with him,
(34:05):
and it did not get much better than him. And
what he did was not what you see now, where
people like Steven A. Smith and Chris Russo are paid
to kill as much time as possible, where people like
Skip Bayliss are paid to turn anything into a controversy,
and anything good into something bad. Bill Maser talked to
people knowledgeably, pleasantly, rarely raising his voice. He talked to athletes,
(34:32):
other reporters, fans, and he had a singular advantage. Before Internet,
before the sports history industry, hell, before the first edition
of the Baseball Encyclopedia came out, Bill Maser knew everything.
This was largely because he had a virtually photographic memory.
Bill could of an instant tell you who won the
(34:53):
one hundred meter dash at the nineteen thirty two Olympics
in Los Angeles, because he knew how all six finishers
did that. It was Eddie Tolan, then Ralph Metcalf, then
Jonath of Germany, then George Simps, and then Danny Joubert,
and then the Japanese Yoshioka. And then he mentioned that
Eddie Tolan's cousin was the outfielder Bobby Tolan of the
Cincinnati Reds. And before you knew it, he was asking
(35:13):
you who had the greatest outfield arm ever? And I
mentioned this because I can remember parts of the conversation
I had with him that followed that question about the
nineteen thirty two Olympic one hundred meters Bill Maser saw
the list of finishers once and remembered it for the
rest of his life. Bill also did television network stuff.
(35:37):
He worked NFL football for CBS, sidelines in the studio,
and the scoreboard shows. He did hockey, He did color
he did play by play, did local games of the
New York Rangers. He did the network broadcast on CBS.
He did the Knicks, the Rangers, the Nets, the Islanders,
the local sports on Channel five here. And he had
interns and in the summer of nineteen seventy eight at
(35:58):
Channel five in my seersucker suit, I was one of them.
Did he take me on his wing? Nah, that wasn't
his style. Did he let me essentially produce his show,
choose the highlights for him, Watch as he showed me
tricks on how to narrate those highlights. Ask me why
(36:21):
he was including some stories and not others. Explain that
it was okay to make a mistake as long as
you corrected yourself as soon as you found out. Nod
with amusement but approval. When the actual producer said that
one night that Bill was going to take off, they
should let me fill in for him. Yes to all
that he treated his interns like equals. And then there
(36:45):
was that memory thing. He used to ask him a
trivia question on the air every night, a question sent
in by a viewer Stump the Amazing Maser in the
commercial before the sports on the ten o'clock news on
Channel five, And usually he'd start to actually answer it reflexively,
and the news anchor John Rowland would say, what are
you doing. We want them to stay through the commercial
to find out if you know the answer, and they'd
(37:06):
both laugh, and it was obvious that Bill had started
to answer so that nobody would ever think he was
dashing off during the commercial to find the answer in
a book somewhere. The newscaster Roland even mocked the whole
thing one night. This is from Eddie Spaghetti of Sheepshead
Bay Amazing. On Sunday, April twenty second, nineteen seventy nine,
the Rangers defeated the Philadelphia Flyers six nothing at the
(37:28):
Garden behind John Davidson shutout to take a commanding three
games to one lead in the Stanley Cup Semifinals. By
this point Bill looked somewhere between amused and be mused.
The question included the key details, what on earth could
the question be John Rowland resumed seventeen thousand, three hundred
and eighty fans were at Madison Square Garden that night.
(37:51):
Give their names and addresses. Bill Mazer did not even laugh.
Aaron Albert A. One hundred and twenty five Bedford Avenue,
Apartment four L, Brooklyn, New York. Aaron Albert's see seventeen
Golf Course Way, Nutley, New Jersey. Aaron Albert V. The
director faded to black. I saw him last around two
(38:16):
thousand and eight in the old Yankee Stadium. He was
alone in the clubhouse and shaking his head slowly. I
went up and said, hello, my god, Keith. He said,
very quietly, other than Jeter, I don't know anybody here anymore.
I told him the hell he didn't, he knew me.
We talked for half an hour. I was his intern
(38:39):
one summer, and the next July I was covering the
same games and press conferences he was, And not once
did he claim he discovered me. He introduced me to
everybody I did not know. I had the good fortune
to have this young man as my intern last year.
I'm very proud of him. It was always like that,
that conversation about the nineteen thirty two Olympic one hundred meters.
That was at his desk in the seductively cool newsroom
(39:02):
at Channel five one evening when I was his intern,
And it ended with me saying Dwight Evans of the
Boston Red Sox had as good an outfield arm as
I had ever seen, for whatever that was worth. And
Bill said that was a good choice, but he didn't
quite measure up to Meryl Hogue. Meryl Hogue in the
thirties with the Yankees, I added, and the Browns, No,
(39:26):
corrected Bill, just the Yankees. He played only for the Yankees.
I was in a pickle. Bill Mazer was wrong, I
stated my evidence, Bill, I have a nineteen forty baseball
card of Merril Hogue with the Saint Louis Browns. Bill
Maser's side must be a misprint, he said quietly. He
(39:48):
then rose dramatically from his chair, cleared his throat, and
as he reached to unlock the drawer that contained his
copy of the finally published Baseball Encyclopedia. He was always
an early adopter of new tech, he said to one
of the producers. It's always like this with these kids.
He thumbed through the book Hogue. Here it is nineteen
(40:10):
thirty six, Yankees, nineteen thirty seven, Yankees, nineteen thirty eight,
Yankees nineteen thirty nine Browns. Bill went silent. He replaced
his copy of the Baseball Encyclopedia and sat down, slowly
and silently. He did not look at me, but rather
at the news producer Stanley Pinsley was his name, and
(40:33):
as he had taught me, Bill corrected himself this in turn.
He finally said, this one is almost as good as me.
That's all I really wanted. I had unintentionally stumped the
amazing Maser. Bill Maser died at Danbury, Connecticut, in October
(40:56):
of twenty thirteen, at the age of ninety two, and
people are still asking me about him. Congratulations Bill, and
thank you. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(41:22):
Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and
John Phillip Chanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, Mister
Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by
Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(41:43):
The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two.
It was written by Mitch Warren Davis and a Peers
courtesy of ESPN. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. My
announcer today was my friend Larry David. Everything else was
pretty much my fault as usual. So that's countdown for
(42:03):
this the ninety seventh day until the twenty twenty four
presidential election. They three second day since convicted feldon Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing, use
the mental health system and involuntary commitment. You've got it,
(42:25):
President Biden. Use presidential immunity to stop him from doing
it again while we still can. And anti Semitic, anti
immigration Republicans, please stop shooting at Trump. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news requires till the
next one. I'm Keith Oldraman good morning, good afternoon, good night,
(42:49):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. After
his demented, prejudiced heroxism at the National Association of Black
(00:27):
Journalists event in Chicago yesterday, as he signaled the start
of his full on, hateful, disgusting, apartheid and slavery level
appalling campaign of birtherism and racism, Donald Trump must withdraw
from the presidential election and be committed for psychiatric institutionalization,
(00:49):
or be compelled to. There is no longer any room
in the political discourse of the United States of America
for anyone both so deeply disturbed and so deeply possessed
by a hate of people of color that it reaches
the levels of insanity and prejudice Trump not only displayed
(01:11):
yesterday in Chicago, but gloried in Moreover, there is no
room in American society for anyone with such an immeasurably
dysfunctional and dangerous mental illness as that which Trump showed
again and again and again at the NABJ event. If
(01:32):
he will not seek hospitalization for his countless psychoses and
delusions and persecution complexes, he must be forced to. This
country is not safe if Donald Trump is free to
walk on its streets. This country is not safe if
(01:52):
those who have mistaken him for sane or rational, or
patriotic or merely American are not shown in no uncertain
terms that what he raise yesterday on that stage is
a disease, and it is unacceptable to this nation. Psychiatric
(02:16):
experts may be able to help Trump, they may not. Frankly,
I no longer care. Literally, almost every day since I
wrote could Trump Pass a Sanity Test? For Vanity Fair
Magazine in twenty sixteen, I have been repeating that apart
from his neanderthal policies, apart from his inability to grasp
that he is not intelligent, apart from his simpleton's perception
(02:39):
of the world, there is a baseline danger that we
cannot assess that clearly from which advisors or party leaders
or generals cannot save him or save us. And that
is this. He is manifestly broken. His brain does not
(03:01):
work correctly, and thus what we see now may ultimately
be only the tip of an unstable iceberg. The risk
the world is at is not just the Trump we
see failing every test of that which makes one human
every day of his life. It is the risk that
(03:24):
from here he will get worse. Yesterday here I criticize
the National Association of Black Journalists for platforming Trump, and
I would like to retract that criticism, apologize for it,
and bless that organization for arranging. However, it was arranged
(03:45):
to put the Trump you and I already know on
display for at least some people who had not seen
it or would not believe it was true. It was
Trump's first genuinely unfriendly, not passive interview in years, revealed
both his madness and the madness of his beliefs, and
(04:09):
his racial animus, and his willingness to invent any excuse
to suppress anybody who is not a white man of
European heritage. He went full birther again, and now his
campaign is full birther again. He went full racist again,
(04:31):
and now his campaign is full racist again. He not
only questioned the ethnic history and heritage of the Vice
President of the United States, but he accused her of
either changing that history or changing her statements about her
(04:52):
own heritage. Trump's insanity permits him to be vague even
in his apartheid level racist accusations. One hundred and sixty
three years ago, this nation took up arms to silence
and disempower hateful, deranged creatures like Donald Trump. We now
think seven hundred and fifty thousand Americans died to stop
(05:14):
what Donald Trump believes in today, with as many more
wounded and or captured. That we continue to tolerate Donald Trump,
that we continue to normalize Donald Trump, that we continue
to let Donald Trump lead a national political party and
serve as its presidential nominee. Is among the top two
(05:37):
or three failures in the history of the United States
of America that an American news organization could summarize in
its daily news round up, the disaster that was Donald
Trump in Chicago yesterday, the existential threat to all of
our lives that is Donald Trump every day, to summarize
it in two hundred and thirty four words, headlined Trump
(06:01):
questions Harris's race, as if that were a legitimate question
in a society that is not itself deeply disturbed, and
then move on from that to its off lead story,
Taco Bell to test AI drive throughs that suggests that
we are all stunningly comfortable lying here with our next
(06:22):
on the railroad tracks that we have reached if we
had not reached it before the point Patty Chayevsky described
in the mad as Hell speech Peter Finch recites in
the movie Network, we sit watching our TVs while some
newscast here plays clips of this asshole Trump accusing the
Vice President of the United States of changing her color
(06:45):
at the exact moment his minions begin full on bertherism,
as if that's the way it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Aaron Rupar.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Of the website Public Notice, whose newsletter you should sign
up for, produced a super cut of the disqualifying Trump
attacks on Harris on black people on his hosts on America,
which I have edited down here only slightly for time,
and I would add that as Aaron posted this to
(07:19):
social media, the Trump stooge Jesse Waters was going on
Fox and claiming Vice President Harris's quote not African American technically,
and the Trump fabricator and liar Laura Lumer was disseminating
a falsified harris birth certificate, and the gutter trash congresswoman
from Colorado Lauren Bobert wrote quote she switched, and the
(07:44):
Trump parking lot attorney Alina Habas said quote, unlike you, Kamala,
I know who my roots are and where I come
from and Trump's pet Fox host Harris Faulkner, who was
on stage as this unfolded in Chicago yesterday, dismissed the
events there as things got chippy. As you listen to this,
(08:08):
remember that this from Trump is not hyperbole, not politics,
not even the standard Trump hatred and insanity that the
cowardice of the media has allowed him to get away
with for nine disastrous years. This is the start of
his presidential campaign in which the psychopathic fascist Republican who
(08:30):
hates black people and has always hated black people and
will suppress black people, will insist that he is the
real victim here because he will also insist the vice
president of the United States is lying about being a
black person. Or, as Mother Jones put it in its
headline far more succinctly, white man tells black journalists that
(08:53):
his black opponent is not Black people.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Did not think it was appropriate for you to be
here today. You have pushed false claims about some of
your from Nicki Hayley to former President Barack Obama, saying
that they were not born in the United States, which
is not true. You have told four congressmen women of
color who are American citizens, to go back to where
they came from. You have used words like animal and
(09:19):
rabbit to describe black district attorneys. You've attacked black journalists,
calling them a loser, saying the questions that they ask
are quote stupid and racist. You've had dinner with a
white supremacist at your maraologue resort. So my question, sir,
now that you are asking black supporters to vote for you,
why should black voters trust you after you have used
(09:41):
language like that.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, first of all, I don't think I've ever been
asked a question so in such a horrible manner. A
first question, you don't even say, hello, how are you?
Are you with ABC? Because I think they're a fake
news network a terrible level. And I think it's disgraceful
that I can aim here in good spirit. I love
(10:08):
the black population of this country. I've done so much
for the black population of this country. I think it's
a very rude introduction. I don't know exactly why you
would do something like that. And let me go a
step further. I was invited here, and I was told
my opponent, whether it was Biden or Kamala, I was
told my opponent was going to be here. It turned
(10:31):
out my opponent isn't here. You invited me under false pretense,
and then you said you can't do it with zoom.
Well you know where's zoom. She's going to do it
with zoom and she's not coming. And then you were
half an hour a Just so we understand, I have
too much respect for you to be late. They couldn't
get their equipment work in or something I would. I
think it's a very nasty question. I have answered the question.
(10:55):
I have been the best president for the black population
since Abraham Lincoln. That is my answer, only President Johnston's.
I'm voting right now. Ask you to start off a
question and answer period, especially when you're thirty five minutes
late because you couldn't get your equipment to work in
such a hostile manner. I think it's a disgrace. I
really do it.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Let me just ask upond to other questions here. Some
of your own supporters, including Republicans on Capitol Hill, have
labeled Vice President Kamala Harris, who was the first black
and Asian American woman to serve as vice president and
be on a major party ticket, as a DEI hire.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Is that acceptable language to you?
Speaker 3 (11:33):
And will you tell those Republicans and those supporters to
stop it.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
How do you how do you define DEI? Go ahead?
How do you define diversity?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Equity inclusion?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Okay, yeah, go ahead? Is that what your definition? That is?
Speaker 4 (11:45):
That?
Speaker 5 (11:45):
That is?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Give me a definition? Then would you give me a definition? Yeah? Yeah,
give me a definition.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Soar' I'm asking you, am are you had to direct.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Find it, define the define it for me if I
just defined it? Sir?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is only
on the ticket because she is a black woman?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Well, I can say no. I think it's maybe a
little bit different. So I've known a long time, indirectly,
not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage,
and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know
she was black until a number of years ago when
she happened to turn black. And now she wants to
(12:19):
be known as black. So I don't know is she
Indian or is she black? She is always I respect
other black college. I respect either one, but she obviously
doesn't because she was Indian all the way, and then
all of a sudden she made a turn and she
went she became a black part just to be clear,
I think somebody should look into that too. When you
(12:39):
ask a continue in a very hostile, nasty town, why
come here?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
What is your message today?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
My message is to stop people from invading our country
that are taking frankly, a lot of problems with it.
But one of the big problems and a lot of
the journalists in this room I know, and I have
great respect for a lot of the journalists in this
room are black. I will tell you that coming from
(13:08):
the border are millions and millions of people that happen
to be taking black jobs. You had the.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Best what exactly the black job, sir?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
A black job is anybody that has a job. How
do you turn it around? What's your plan for the
black community when it comes to Monchy? So, first of all,
it's very hard to hear for whatever reason, because of
the fact that they have bad equipment, because I guess
you know, this woman was unable to get the right equipment.
But it's very hard for me to hear you, but
I can hear every other word. It's very difficult, actually,
(13:39):
But so I don't know if they can fix it
or do something with it, but I'll do the best
I can with it. If I came onto a stage
like this and I got treated so rudely, is this
woman true? My goodness? And I'm fine with it because
she it does it. She was very rude, sir, very rude.
That was a nasty That wasn't a question. She hadn't
asked me a question. She gave a statement that wasn't a question. Actually,
(14:04):
you and you wait, you would absolutely if I thought
that I was failing in some way, I want people
to be shopping. I'll go a step further. I want
anybody running for president to take an aptitude test, to
take a cognitive test. I think it's a great idea.
And I took two of them, and I aced them.
I took two of them. But let me ask you,
(14:25):
I would like to have what's going to happen to
those people? What's going to happen to the people in
Portland that destroyed?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
My question is on those going to happen my people
ride those assault officers.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You have to you what's going to happen?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Absolutely, I would. You would run. If they're innocent, I
would pardon them. Be' been convicted by the way the
Supreme Court just under well, they were convicted by a very,
very tough system they were. How come the people that
tried to burn down Minneapolis, how come the Purple that
took over a large percentage of Seattle? How come nothing
(15:01):
happened to them? How come to.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
People talking about people that were seen, we're talking about
Laurel Fields dragging them down the stairs they're on Have
you seen that videos?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Early?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Well they parted those you a pardon those rioters.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
They shot a young lady in the face who was protesting.
They shot her. The You know, nobody died that day,
you do know that. But people died in Seattle. Nobody died,
But people died in the opposite You know, people died.
They're taking your jobs. These people coming in are taking
your job.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
I think we have to leave it there, Bible Team,
all right, so leave it well.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
That is the last word, And that, of course, was
prelude from Chicago. Trump went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and spoke
last night after the NABJ event.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
The contrast could not be more stark. On the one hand,
you have a radical left puppet candidate who is fake, fake, fake,
and on the other hand, you have a president who.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Fight fight fight is their betting? Yet is there betting
on when Trump calls her the N word or something
awfully close to it. I mean, his henchman Sebastian Gorka
already called her the C word. She's a DEI higher right,
She's a woman, She's colored.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Therefore she's got to be good.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
As a PostScript, as a reminder, as an incentive to
fight this creature Trump and his movement of hatred and
deceit and gaslighting and pure unadulterated biblical evil, As a
reminder that he will say anything at any time and
contradict reality or a past version of his own self
(16:48):
to any degree he finds necessary. Two points. A spokesperson,
an advisor named Lynn Patten now says that in Chicago,
Trump quote continually said that, unlike Kamala Harrison, Joe Biden,
he's running to be present for all Americans, and if
you're running to unite the entire country, you have to
(17:10):
back it up with action like he did today unquote, Yes,
unite all Americans. Unite them just like they were united
when we all had slavery, or just as Trump has
always thought. The united in United States means united under
(17:31):
a Trump dictatorship, and maybe more startlingly. There is also
this Four years ago, next week, August eleventh, twenty twenty,
actor Joe Biden had selected Kamala Harris as his vice
presidential running mate, and Trump and his team of scumbag
(17:53):
rivals unrolled the standard attacks on women of color who
have not shown sufficient deference to the white men like
Brett Kavanaugh, unrolled all the insanity tropes about black women,
called Harris quote a mad woman, quote, a nasty woman quote,
seriously ill. After that, Trump's spokesperson Katrina Pearson defended him
(18:18):
against charges that he was being racist and anti black
about Kamala Harris, confirming that when Harris ran for attorney
general in California, Trump and his daughter Ivanka donated to
her campaign eight thousand dollars in total from the Trumps
(18:38):
to the Harris for Attorney General campaign. I'll note, miss Pearson, said,
Miss Pearson being African American and now a Trumpist candidate
for the Texas State House. Miss Pearson told a media
conference call, I'll note that Kamala Harris is a black
woman and he donated to her campaign, So I hope
(19:02):
we can squash this racism argument. Now. We are fighting evil,
evil for whom reality and justice and even their own
past versions of themselves do not exist if they are inconvenient.
(19:25):
At the present moment, we are fighting evil that is
centered around a manifestly insane, dangerous, delusional, committable madman. We must,
by the law, by the ballot box by both destroy
him and everything he stands for, or we, the United
(19:49):
States of America, we will surely be destroyed instead. As
Trump unleashes Birtherism, I we must metaphorically bury him and
his movement under its rubble.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Well, Donald, I do hope you'll reconsider to meet me
on the debate stage, because, as the saying goes, if
(20:33):
you've got something to say.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
This is countdown.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
With Keith Oberman still ahead of us on this edition
(21:07):
of Countdown. I need a break from this crap. Friend
of mine asked me yesterday, for the thousandth time this year,
how I deal with this every day? And I said, well,
whenever I can, I try to go to my past
and live there for a few minutes and visit the
simpler times when all I worried about was things like
(21:28):
whether or not my brand new seersucker suit would get
dirty while I took the subway up to my internship
at Channel five News here in New York, and somebody
else yesterday mentioned the name of the sportscaster I happened
to work for at that very internship, and so come
with me now for a few minutes to the far
(21:49):
less thrilling days of yesteryear. In things I promised not
to tell Keith the intern First, there are still more
new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the
miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects, bestmans who constitute
two days worst persons in the world, Lebrons, the Trump factotum,
(22:12):
Dan Scabino, the media guy. This is from New York
Magazine and it's a story about funding Trump media. I'm
just going to read part of this. The most promising
person they reached was Patrick Orlando, former Deutsche Bank derivatives
trader who had started an investment firm called Benisseri Capital.
(22:32):
For Trump's birthday in June, New York Magazine writes, Orlando
wrote a letter appealing to his ego. I was unaware
of the extent of your brilliance, he wrote, According to
the post on your birthday, my only wish is that
you realize how proud we are of your success is
to date. Mister Moss and mister Litinsky, other funders of
this outfit, persuaded Orlando not to send this in part
(22:56):
because the sycophancy was over the top, even by Trump standards.
I just want to protest for a second, and suggests
that there is no such point that sycophancy cannot be
over the top when it comes to Trump. However, the
real issue is included in the next phrase. The sycofancy
(23:18):
was over the top even by Trump's standards, and in
part because they knew Trump hated the idea of getting older.
He did not wish to be reminded of his birthday. Also,
New York Magazine writes, and here's the Scavino part. Marri
Lago has a microeconomy in which such intel is sold
(23:40):
to supplicants by people with proximity to Trump. The truth
Social executives paid fifteen thousand dollars to Will Russell, a
Trump bodyman whose name came up in the Florida Documents investigation,
and twenty thousand dollars to Dan Scavino, Trump's social media director,
who were in a position to find out things like
(24:02):
his mood when he'd be coming off the golf course
and when was the best time to call Dan Scavino corrupt?
Maitre d the runners up two of our favorite people online,
the utter frauds, Vivek Ramaswami and Elon Musk. And Elon
(24:23):
Musk is gone yet another day without overdosing. Congratulations Elon.
America's declining birth rate, Vivek Ramaswami wrote, is a far
greater risk to our future than say climate change. Well,
of course that's not true. But why would Vivek know
that he has an IQ of seven He believes he
has an IQ of seven hundred, Yet most politicians are
(24:45):
too scared to talk about it, and now it's apparently taboo.
It's neither too scary nor taboo. It's just stupid. But
here are the facts. Our nation's birth rate is now
down to one point six to two berths per woman,
the lowest in history, and well below replacement rate. I
could make a joke here about baseball and replacement level offspring,
(25:07):
but I won't. It's not even that people don't want kids.
In fact, American women on average have fewer children than
they say they'd hoped for. The graining of America means
an overloaded healthcare system and eventually higher taxes for all.
Today they're only about three workers for every retireel blah
blah blah blah blah blah, on and on and on.
The birth rate crisis is a symptom of a deeper
(25:28):
economic malaise. The right answer is simple. Slash the oppressive
regulatory stage. Drill frack, end dumb occupational licensing laws and
restrictions on new housing to unleash the supply of everything.
What part of that is about having kids? Fracking? Somebody
has to explain to Vivet Gramaswami the difference between fracking
(25:49):
and the other effing word. Musk's reply to this is priceless.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
A declining birth rate happens towards the end of every
civilization and is a function of extended prosperity caesochiede and
to succeeded, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
You mean Sid Caesar. It's just too bad that this
problem that both of them perceive that there are not
enough new working age and youthful Americans kids, that there
aren't more of them here. It's too bad this could
not be addressed in some other way than say, eliminating abortion,
forcing women to have children, trying to marginalize those who
(26:31):
do not have children, and actually run an idiot for
vice president who's made a career out of mocking people
who don't have kids when his own sexuality is in question.
It's just too bad. There isn't some sort of alternate
to that, an alternate to a declining birth rate. I
don't know. Are there other people in overcrowded parts of
(26:52):
the country in the world who would want to come
here to the United States? Has anybody ever come here?
Wasn't born here? I don't know. I mean, I don't
know of anybody like that. I mean, I just don't
Could we have horror working people, you know, just to
pick a phrase out of the air, yearning to breathe free,
come here and fill those roles that Ramaswami is so
(27:14):
worried about. And Elon Musk says it's the end of
civilization because there aren't enough young people here. Could we
bring them in from other countries to help us out?
Other people too? What's the word immigrate here or if
you like, the other version of the verb immigrate here?
You know, like the parents of Elon Musk and vivek
(27:34):
Ramaswami and Trump's grandparents. It will never surprise me, never
stop surprising me. I should say that these people, the
children of immigrants, have already forgotten that they are the
children of immigrants. The first Olderman arrived here in the
(27:54):
year eighteen forty seven, and I think of myself as
the child of an immigrant, and I have great pride
in it. There aren't enough people here, now, why are
you stopping them from coming here? But our winner one
of the people we should have stopped from coming here.
Ryan Walters, Superintendent of Schools of the State of Oklahoma,
(28:16):
religious nut bastard. Ryan Walters announces he is using libs
of TikTok, the hateful prejudiced website account, to hunt down
Oklahoma school employees who made jokes about the fact that
(28:37):
Trump's ear got nicked, so that they can be fired
from the Oklahoma State and City school systems. Quote. We
cannot allow these individuals to continue to teach in the
state of Oklahoma. I want to thank Chaia Rachik. That's
the libs of TikTok, which who brought this first to
(28:59):
my attention of what she found online to show this hateful,
nasty rhetoric. He then said he would fire them all
using her data. And of course Raychik has been connected
via libs of TikTok to more than twenty bomb threats
across the country because whoever she targets, somebody threatens to kill.
There is a simple solution to this and this idiot
(29:20):
Ryan Walters and this behavior in Oklahoma. Boycott all products
from Oklahoma. They export six billion, one hundred million dollars
every year in stuff, mostly aircraft parts. I know neither
you nor I are buying any aircraft parts in the
immediate future. Major companies are stop buying them from Oklahoma.
(29:43):
Oh and the other thing. And this is legitimately the
number one agricultural export in the state of Oklahoma, pork.
One in fifty jobs in Oklahoma is supported by the
pork industry. I would discuss briefly with you the merits
of not eating pork, of how much healthier you will
(30:06):
be and how much greater your conscience will thrive if
you don't do it, particularly if any of the religions
like this religious not Ryan Walters, are correct. And how
you treat the weakest and most troubled of the beings
of this planet determines whether or not you get some
(30:28):
sort of reward afterward. If that's true, guess who is
not getting a reward afterwards. That's right State Superintendent of Schools,
Ryan Walters of Oklahoma, who we already know. We're not
sure exactly how smart pigs are compared to human beings,
maybe three year olds, four year olds, but we do
know that every single pig on this planet is smarter
(30:51):
than Ryan Walters, two days worse person and the world why,
God don't know how. And now to the number one
(31:14):
story on the countdown. And I was literally asked about
him the other day by somebody who did not know
I knew him, and basically I had one of those
instantaneous moments that proved that Marcel Proust was right. If
you try to remember something or someone from your youth,
good luck, you might get a vague image. It might
(31:35):
be right, it might be wrong. But if you are
unexpectedly reminded of the moment or the person, you can,
for at least a brief instant be transported back to
them and to that time, as certainly as if you
had a time machine. The man's name was spoken, and
suddenly I was nineteen years old, again in a brand
(31:57):
new seersucker suit, stepping in from the always broiling midday
sun of midtown Manhattan before the subways had air conditioners,
and into the seductive cool of a television newsroom, seven
long hours before the broadcast was to begin, when all
the elements are in place except the panic and the
(32:17):
rushing and the shouting, when you can still quietly discuss
which story should be the lead on the newscast, rather
than threatening to kill somebody who tried to stop you
from going with the fire, instead of a boating accident,
when the film hasn't even been shot, let alone developed yet.
(32:38):
And yes, in nineteen seventy eight, it was still film.
They were just making the conversion from film to videotape,
and they were using both, and half the stories could
be instantly assembled videotape, but the other half were maddeningly
delayed until the kid ran the film to the lab
in the basement and waited for it to be developed.
And yeah, I was often that kid, And I think
(33:00):
I might be the youngest person in this country who
can say he ran the new the news film to
the lab to be developed. Anyway, the man whose name
was mentioned to me, was the first to succeed on
radio in a big city in this country by simply
talking sports with listeners who phoned in. This was in Buffalo,
(33:21):
New York in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties and
nineteen sixties, though he was not from there, born in Kiev,
emigrated to Brooklyn as an infant pre med at Michigan,
a quick radio stint in Grand Rapids and the apt
decision to not go by his given name of Morris Maser,
then to the war, then to Buffalo and the role
(33:41):
of the sportscaster in town on TV, on radio, on
the newscasts of the original Buffalo Bills of the Minor
League Baseball Buffalo Bisons and the Minor League Hockey Buffalo Bisons.
Bill not Morris Bill Maser. Bill Maser came home to
New York City in the early sixties, and whether you
like it or hate it, sports talk started with him,
(34:05):
and it did not get much better than him. And
what he did was not what you see now, where
people like Steven A. Smith and Chris Russo are paid
to kill as much time as possible, where people like
Skip Bayliss are paid to turn anything into a controversy,
and anything good into something bad. Bill Maser talked to
people knowledgeably, pleasantly, rarely raising his voice. He talked to athletes,
(34:32):
other reporters, fans, and he had a singular advantage. Before Internet,
before the sports history industry, hell, before the first edition
of the Baseball Encyclopedia came out, Bill Maser knew everything.
This was largely because he had a virtually photographic memory.
Bill could of an instant tell you who won the
(34:53):
one hundred meter dash at the nineteen thirty two Olympics
in Los Angeles, because he knew how all six finishers
did that. It was Eddie Tolan, then Ralph Metcalf, then
Jonath of Germany, then George Simps, and then Danny Joubert,
and then the Japanese Yoshioka. And then he mentioned that
Eddie Tolan's cousin was the outfielder Bobby Tolan of the
Cincinnati Reds. And before you knew it, he was asking
(35:13):
you who had the greatest outfield arm ever? And I
mentioned this because I can remember parts of the conversation
I had with him that followed that question about the
nineteen thirty two Olympic one hundred meters Bill Maser saw
the list of finishers once and remembered it for the
rest of his life. Bill also did television network stuff.
(35:37):
He worked NFL football for CBS, sidelines in the studio,
and the scoreboard shows. He did hockey, He did color
he did play by play, did local games of the
New York Rangers. He did the network broadcast on CBS.
He did the Knicks, the Rangers, the Nets, the Islanders,
the local sports on Channel five here. And he had
interns and in the summer of nineteen seventy eight at
(35:58):
Channel five in my seersucker suit, I was one of them.
Did he take me on his wing? Nah, that wasn't
his style. Did he let me essentially produce his show,
choose the highlights for him, Watch as he showed me
tricks on how to narrate those highlights. Ask me why
(36:21):
he was including some stories and not others. Explain that
it was okay to make a mistake as long as
you corrected yourself as soon as you found out. Nod
with amusement but approval. When the actual producer said that
one night that Bill was going to take off, they
should let me fill in for him. Yes to all
that he treated his interns like equals. And then there
(36:45):
was that memory thing. He used to ask him a
trivia question on the air every night, a question sent
in by a viewer Stump the Amazing Maser in the
commercial before the sports on the ten o'clock news on
Channel five, And usually he'd start to actually answer it reflexively,
and the news anchor John Rowland would say, what are
you doing. We want them to stay through the commercial
to find out if you know the answer, and they'd
(37:06):
both laugh, and it was obvious that Bill had started
to answer so that nobody would ever think he was
dashing off during the commercial to find the answer in
a book somewhere. The newscaster Roland even mocked the whole
thing one night. This is from Eddie Spaghetti of Sheepshead
Bay Amazing. On Sunday, April twenty second, nineteen seventy nine,
the Rangers defeated the Philadelphia Flyers six nothing at the
(37:28):
Garden behind John Davidson shutout to take a commanding three
games to one lead in the Stanley Cup Semifinals. By
this point Bill looked somewhere between amused and be mused.
The question included the key details, what on earth could
the question be John Rowland resumed seventeen thousand, three hundred
and eighty fans were at Madison Square Garden that night.
(37:51):
Give their names and addresses. Bill Mazer did not even laugh.
Aaron Albert A. One hundred and twenty five Bedford Avenue,
Apartment four L, Brooklyn, New York. Aaron Albert's see seventeen
Golf Course Way, Nutley, New Jersey. Aaron Albert V. The
director faded to black. I saw him last around two
(38:16):
thousand and eight in the old Yankee Stadium. He was
alone in the clubhouse and shaking his head slowly. I
went up and said, hello, my god, Keith. He said,
very quietly, other than Jeter, I don't know anybody here anymore.
I told him the hell he didn't, he knew me.
We talked for half an hour. I was his intern
(38:39):
one summer, and the next July I was covering the
same games and press conferences he was, And not once
did he claim he discovered me. He introduced me to
everybody I did not know. I had the good fortune
to have this young man as my intern last year.
I'm very proud of him. It was always like that,
that conversation about the nineteen thirty two Olympic one hundred meters.
That was at his desk in the seductively cool newsroom
(39:02):
at Channel five one evening when I was his intern,
And it ended with me saying Dwight Evans of the
Boston Red Sox had as good an outfield arm as
I had ever seen, for whatever that was worth. And
Bill said that was a good choice, but he didn't
quite measure up to Meryl Hogue. Meryl Hogue in the
thirties with the Yankees, I added, and the Browns, No,
(39:26):
corrected Bill, just the Yankees. He played only for the Yankees.
I was in a pickle. Bill Mazer was wrong, I
stated my evidence, Bill, I have a nineteen forty baseball
card of Merril Hogue with the Saint Louis Browns. Bill
Maser's side must be a misprint, he said quietly. He
(39:48):
then rose dramatically from his chair, cleared his throat, and
as he reached to unlock the drawer that contained his
copy of the finally published Baseball Encyclopedia. He was always
an early adopter of new tech, he said to one
of the producers. It's always like this with these kids.
He thumbed through the book Hogue. Here it is nineteen
(40:10):
thirty six, Yankees, nineteen thirty seven, Yankees, nineteen thirty eight,
Yankees nineteen thirty nine Browns. Bill went silent. He replaced
his copy of the Baseball Encyclopedia and sat down, slowly
and silently. He did not look at me, but rather
at the news producer Stanley Pinsley was his name, and
(40:33):
as he had taught me, Bill corrected himself this in turn.
He finally said, this one is almost as good as me.
That's all I really wanted. I had unintentionally stumped the
amazing Maser. Bill Maser died at Danbury, Connecticut, in October
(40:56):
of twenty thirteen, at the age of ninety two, and
people are still asking me about him. Congratulations Bill, and
thank you. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(41:22):
Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and
John Phillip Chanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, Mister
Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by
Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(41:43):
The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two.
It was written by Mitch Warren Davis and a Peers
courtesy of ESPN. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. My
announcer today was my friend Larry David. Everything else was
pretty much my fault as usual. So that's countdown for
(42:03):
this the ninety seventh day until the twenty twenty four
presidential election. They three second day since convicted feldon Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing, use
the mental health system and involuntary commitment. You've got it,
(42:25):
President Biden. Use presidential immunity to stop him from doing
it again while we still can. And anti Semitic, anti
immigration Republicans, please stop shooting at Trump. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news requires till the
next one. I'm Keith Oldraman good morning, good afternoon, good night,
(42:49):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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