April 24, 2024 • 38 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 163: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump faces a month in jail for contempt of court - or at minimum, he will be THREATENED with a month in jail for contempt of court.
Trump's lawyers, led by Todd (of Todd, Emil, Susan and Alina) beclowned themselves before Justice Juan Merchan during the Trump Gag Order Violation Hearing yesterday and the judge said he was "reserving his decision" which is almost always news so bad for the one side that has so infuriated the judge that he doesn't want to be in the room with them when he rules against them.
The prosecution demanded $10,000 in fines and the threat of a month in jail and as Merchan told the lawyers they were losing their credibility, another story broke. Whatever happens there have already been quiet conversations with the Secret Service over what you do when you finally do put a former president in jail for an hour or a lifetime.
As to the trial and the only witness thus far David Pecker – as to what came out of the Pecker at the Trump Trial – nothing new, if you’ve been paying attention. He and Trump and Michael Cohen set up a machine by which they bought stories about Trump – true ones, false ones, something-in-between ones – like the child out of wedlock one and the Stormy Daniels one and the Karen McDougal one – and the critical testimony was about the love child story. The doorman selling it got $30,000 to start, then they checked the story, found it wasn’t true, Pecker of the National Enquirer was about to release the doorman from his Non-Disclosure Agreement when Michael Cohen said don’t do that until AFTER the 2016 election because it could damage the Trump campaign.
That’s the conviction right there. They paid these people – Stormy Daniels included – not to protect Trump the person, not to save him from lies, not to save him from the truth - but to influence the outcome of 2016 election.
And it would be sad in another context, but
the lede yesterday? That he wanted his mobs to at minimum SURROUND every courthouse in the country? Especially New York State Supreme Court, 100 Centre Street? I got a few scoffs at that. Turns out he REALLY expected. He REALLY believed it. And it didn’t happen. It REALLY didn’t happen: CNN’s Jim Sciutto with the sad truth. He wrote “Other than the first day of jury selection when I saw a pickup waving Trump flags and heard a handful of Trump supporters, their presence has dwindled. I don’t see any outside the courthouse today. If Trump was expecting a large and lasting public show of support here, it hasn’t materialized.”
Well of COURSE that’s what he was expecting. IN FACT he was expecting another January 6th. And I emphasize again that the ultimate importance of this trial may simply be exposing him to weeks of radiation-leak-levels of reality. Because after it DIDN’T happen he had to tell his people – and most importantly his EGO – that it DID: “Thousands of people were turned away from the courthouse in Lower Manhattan by steel stanchions and police, literally blocks from the tiny side door from where I enter and leave,” unquote. Utterly untrue. Nobody showed up. Not thousands, not hundreds, not dozens, not even family and friends. Like he has FRIENDS. That was his friend testifying against him. His friend – a Pecker.
PLUS: Tucker Carlson is dunked on by Mitch McConnell, Trump is dunked on by Mitt Romney, and the Republicans are dunked on by...Axios? Which reports they've... castrated themselves?
Video or it didn't happen!
B-Block (26:44) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: This surfeit of media-government interaction reminded me of the first time I ever encountered it, back when the Bushies were so naive they thought I was doing their bidding during the controversy over the made-up story of Saddam Hussein getting nukes from Niger. I was to interview Ambassador Joe Wilson - who debunked the W bull - and yet they
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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 iHeartRadio. Trump
could get a month in jail for contempt of court
for violating the gag order, or at least he could
(00:27):
be explicitly threatened with a month in jail for violating
the gag order, and whatever happens. There have already been
Soto vo Jay conversations involving the Secret Service over what
they do when you finally do put a former president
in jail. What prosecutors will settle for now is not jail,
(00:49):
but the threat of jail plus a fine of one
thousand dollars for each of what they count as ten violations,
which is to me a very low bid ten violations
one thousand dollars each, or, as the impeccable Harris Faulkner
set on Fox, the prosecution quote wants one hundred grand.
Some big gees. They hire only the smart ones at Fox.
(01:14):
Justice meyr Shaan was so exasperated by Trump's idiot lawyers
at the gag Order violation hearing that he called the
damn thing off and said he was reserving his decision,
which usually means he will either issue something in writing
and the trial is off. Today it would be a
good day to issue something in writing, or he will
seek further information before deciding, and there is no indication
(01:35):
that he's doing that. There is reason to suspect we
will at least see Trump explicitly threatened with jail time. Boy,
will the world go nuts over that, because not only
are Trump's lawyers genuine idiots, but they did literally nothing
yesterday to counter the prosecution arguments for fines and threats
(01:58):
and even incarceration. And there was one blockbuster shock moment
that hearing You're losing all credibility, Justice Meyrshaan says to
Trump's lawyer Todd, I have to tell you right now,
you're losing all credibility with the court unquote. And the
blockbuster shock, of course, is that any of Trump's lawyers
(02:20):
still had credibility to lose. Trump started with Roy Kohane
as his lawyer, and he's gone downhill from there over
the decades. Right now, he's got Alina Resident Professor of
Parking Lot Territorial Law and Theory, and Susan with the
hair who used to represent Venero, Benny Eggs Mangano from
(02:43):
the Genovese family, and Emil who was a star lacrosse
player at Sunny Albany, And of course Todd, who did
such a good job representing Paul Manifort that Trump wound
up having to pardon Paul Manafort. And Todd, who kind
of looks like the former newscaster Rick Sanchez, got up
(03:05):
there and insisted he and Trump had no idea that
reposting a threat to a witness counted as a threat,
and that he and Trump had no idea that posting
an article with a picture of the judge's daughter in
it counted as posting a picture of the judge's daughter,
and that he and Trump had no idea that typing
(03:26):
up how Jesse Waters lied about the jury on his
Politics for Moron Show and posting that how that counted
as lying about the jury. Todd either believes all of
Trump's conspiracy theories or he is pretending real hard that
he does so he gets paid the full retainer by Trump.
(03:49):
Good luck with that, Todd. Trump is quote being very
careful to comply with your order, Todd said. And there
are two systems of justice, Todd added, And he kept
saying that Trump didn't attack Michael Cohen, he didn't attacked
Stormy Daniels. They attacked him, and the judge says, show
me where they attacked him, and Todd. Todd couldn't show
(04:11):
him where. And I was waiting to see a meal
strap on his helmet and grab his cross and run
out onto the field. To prevent Todd from responding to
Trump calling this a kangaroo court by himself going up
to the jury and shouting, you're out of order. You're
out of order. The whole trial is out of order.
They're out of order. The actual testimony was extraordinary unless
(04:37):
you haven't been in a coma for the last decade,
or in case, you cover Trump for a major news
organization and thus everything that moves shocks you. Ooh, look
a couple of beetles. A few thoughts on what happened
under oath in a moment. But the other genuinely fascinating
thing yesterday was this secret service story. CNN confirmed it
(05:01):
last night. They probably confirmed it by reading The New
York Times, which had it early yesterday under the byline
of William K. Rashbaum a meeting last week among federal,
state and city agencies, quoting that behind the scenes conversation
involving officials from the Secret Service and other relevant law
enforcement agencies focused only on how to move and protect
(05:25):
mister Trump if the judge were to order him briefly
jailed for contempt in a courthouse holding cell. The people said,
what was that they did tomorrowon Brando? I hate to
keep making these film references in Apocalypse Now where all
the villagers just surrounded him as he moved. Protecting mister
Trump in a prison environment would involve keeping him separate
(05:47):
from other inmates, as well as screening his food and
other personal items. Officials said, hamburger, hamburger, hamburger, hamburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger,
no coke, pepsi. If he were to be imprisoned, a
detail of agents would work twenty four hours a day,
(06:09):
seven days a week, rotating in and out of the facility.
Several officials said, while firearms are obviously strictly prohibited in prisons,
the agents would nonetheless be armed unquote as an aside, well,
why the hell is that the case? What are they
doing in there in the first place if they're not
allowed to have firearms and they would be armed, where
(06:34):
Trump could conceivably get a hold of the weapon, or
have the weapons used on his behalf. Of course, there
is Benny Thompson's build a revoke Secret Service protection for
anybody convicted of a felony with a year in the
can attached to it, but that would have to wait
until next January at the earliest. The Times added that
there were a couple of closed or partially closed New
(06:57):
York State prisons and New York City jails that would
have large sections or even wings empty where they could
stash Trump and his retinue for a week or a
month or a millennium. It's too bad. The abandoned part
of Grand Central Station that Lex Luthor lived in in
(07:17):
Superman is fictional. You know, though. The Manhattan Detention Complex
on White Street, the infamous tombs that's still standing, you
could keep them there. There's a building over here at
ninth Avenue in fifty seventh Street that's been so tied
up in lawsuits for decades that it's basically abandoned with
boarded up windows. That'd be good, but once he got
(07:39):
in legally, he probably could never get out without eighty
one lawsuits say as to the trial, and the only
witness thus far, David Pecker, who will be back tomorrow
when they resume. As to what came out of the
Pecker at the Trump trial, nothing new if you've been
paying attention. He and Trump and Michael Cohen set up
(08:01):
a machine by which they bought stories about Trump. One's
false ones, something in between, ones like the child out
of wedlock story and the Stormy Daniels story and the
Karen McDougall story, and the critical testimony was about that
love child story that wasn't true. The doorman selling it
(08:23):
got thirty thousand dollars from David Pecker to start. Then
they checked the story. They found it wasn't true, not
even close. Pecker of the National Inquirer was about to
release the doorman from his non disclosure agreement when Michael
Cohen said, don't do that. Don't do it until after
the twenty sixteen election, because even if it isn't true,
it could damage the Trump campaign and he could sell
(08:46):
it to somebody else. And that's the conviction right there.
There's no way back for Trump from that. They paid
these people. Stormy Daniels included not to protect Trump the person,
not to save him and his family from embarrassment, not
to save him from lies, not to save him from
(09:07):
the truth, but solely to influence the outcome of the
twenty sixteen election. And if you missed it, and we
know CNN missed it, they're still calling this the hush
money trial. Prosecutors finally cited the law which proves this
is not a hush money trial. New York State Laws,
Section seventeen, Dash one, five to two Conspiracy to promote
(09:31):
or prevent election. Quote. Any two or more persons who
conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person
to a public office by unlawful means, at which conspiracy
is acted upon by one or more of the parties,
there too, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. This is
(09:51):
an election interference case. This is prosecutable under seventeen one
five two. It's not a hush money trial. Stop calling
it that. I mean, I know CNN looks like bad
local news from nineteen, but for God's sakes, have some
self respect. Either call it what it is, an election
interference trial, or show cartoons have a live camera of
(10:15):
David Zaslav. Anyway, the case becomes more than that, and
the hush money becomes more than that. When you commit
another crime to cover up your seventeen dash one five
to two conspiracy to promoter prevent election like trying to
hide your hush money and pretend your hush money, which
(10:35):
is election interference, is a business expense. The irony there,
I think, is that just the first two partial days
of testimony underscores that all of these guys, David Pecker,
Michael Cohen, Trump really thought of this as a business expense,
the way the mafia considers killing people a business expense.
(11:00):
And they transformed it effortlessly and seamlessly from a business
expensive buying information into a campaign expense of buying information.
And guess what, Lying to the public during a campaign
is not a crime. Paying people to help you get
elected is not a crime. But illegally conspiring to keep
other people from telling the truth about you during a
(11:21):
campaign that is a crime, especially if you then try
to deduct it in some way. So is illegally conspiring
to lie about other candidates during a campaign. The stories
about Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and all the others
that Pecker printed on Trump's behalf, which is once they
(11:41):
are finished with the stormy Daniels and the fake love
child of it all, which is the direction in which
they will next point the pecker. Some legal sidebars that
(12:18):
lead story yesterday here that Trump wanted his mobs to
at minimums surround every courthouse in the country, especially New
York State Supreme Court one hundred Center Street. That courthouse.
I got a few scoffs about that one. Turns out, no,
he really expected it to happen. He really believed it
(12:38):
was going to happen. He's admitted he really believed it
was going to happen. And guess what, it didn't happen.
It really didn't happen. CNN's Jim Shootout with the sad truth.
He writes, other than the first day of jury selection,
when I saw a pickup waving Trump flags and heard
a handful of Trump supporters, their presence has dwindled. I
(12:59):
don't see any outside the courthouse today. If Trump was
expecting a large and lasting pub show of support here,
it has not materialized. Well, of course that's what he
was expecting. In fact, he was expecting another January sixth.
And I emphasize again that the ultimate importance of this
trial may simply be to expose Trump to weeks of
(13:23):
radiation leak levels of reality because after January sixth, the
sequel did not happen. Yesterday, he had to tell his people,
and most importantly, to tell his ego. Look yet did
quoting him, thousands of people were turned away from the
courthouse in Lower Manhattan by steel stanchions and police, literally
(13:47):
blocks from the tiny side door from where I enter
and leave unquote, utterly untrue. Nobody showed up, not thousands,
not hundreds, not dozens, not even his family and friends,
like he has friends. That was his friend testifying against
(14:10):
him yesterday, his friend a pecker. It is an armed
camp to keep people away. No, no, there's no armed camp.
There was nobody, nobody to be kept away except the
ones in your brain. Maggot Hagerman of the failing New
(14:33):
York Times, Well, okay, he's got me there. It is
failing falsely reported that I was disappointed with the crowds. No,
I'm disappointed with Maggot at her lack of writing skill
and that some of these many police aren't being sent
to Columbia at NYU to keep the schools open and
the students safe. Unquote. For an animal skilled enough to
(14:57):
find a thousand holes in what we had thought for
two centuries plus was a fairly air tight protecting democracy
for some creature that's skilled. He really is colossally stupid. Sometimes.
Perhaps he was just celebrating the four year anniversary of
(15:18):
the day April twenty third, when he said people could
cure COVID maybe by shining light into their bodies and
consuming disinfectant. Here, eat a light bulb, wash it down
some bleach. Somewhere in that adult brain of his is
the absolute certainty that if he can just convince them
that the cops are needed at the what do we
(15:41):
got protests protests, if he can just convince them of that,
there will no longer be enough cops to stop those
thousands from coming in to bust him out of court
by force. Again, it's Nathan Fielder, time out on the time,
having the time of my life with a bunch of friends.
They're all just out of frame, laughing too hell back
(16:05):
by the stanchions. I haven't been watching a lot of
movies lately. I don't know why these references are flowing today,
but I am reminded now tragically of the fictionalized version
of the emotionally troubled baseball center fielder of the Boston
Red Sox of the nineteen fifties. Jimmy Pearson, as portrayed
(16:27):
in the movie Fear strikes out. In one scene, they
decide to make Jimmy Pearson into a shortstop, and he
is destroyed by this because, of course, he lives in
mortal fear of disappointing his stage father, who wants him
to be the center fielder, not the shortstop. In the
next scene, Pearsall is played by Anthony Perkins, is suddenly
(16:49):
calm and his wife asks him why he's suddenly so happy,
and he says, well, I solve that shortstop problem. I
got rid of my shortstops glove. Now I never have
to play shortstop again. Trump, as played by Anthony Perkins
playing Jimmy Pearsall, sees those thousands of protesters just out
(17:14):
of frame, the ones that aren't there, and they've all
destroyed their shortstop gloves. Haven't they to run a couple
of headlines? Well, okay, talk about people not recognizing how
(17:36):
the winds might have changed about them. Tucker Carlson is
still on some sort of post your Career is over high,
busily explaining that there are extra terrestrials living in the
ocean although they're probably not from some other place, and
they're also in the sky, and this has been proven,
(17:57):
and the theory of evolution has been disproved, and he's
going so crazy. I mean, is this a tumor crazy?
Joe Rogan had to fact check him, and Tucker thinks
he's flourishing, And then I mean, what do you do
when this happens? When a Fox News reporter questioned Mitch
(18:20):
McConnell about why it has taken so long to pass
Ukraine Aid, Mitch McConnell, Wow, just just just listen, just
listen to this. What took so long to get some
of these other aid Republicans persuaded to your position? Or
was it the overall nature of this bill and what
was best in that time period for Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Well that's a good question. You already know the answer.
I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson, who,
in my opinion, ended up or he should have been
all along, which is interviewing Vladimir Putin, and so he
had an enormous audience which convinced a lot of rankentfile Republicans.
(19:09):
Maybe this was a mistake.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Uh soup spoon for mister Carlson. You're Tucker Carlson. You've
just been dunked on by Mitch McConnell, who had gone
catatonic a couple of times in the last year. You've
been dunked on by Mitch McConnell. Time to go home
to Russia. But wait, there's more, even better, Mitt Romney.
(19:35):
Mitt Romney dunked on Trump. So far as I know,
you don't pay someone one hundred and thirty thousand dollars
not to have sex with you. You're Trump. You've just
been dunked on by Mitt Romney with a sex joke.
Mitt Romney, with a sex joke. Although, to be fair,
one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, I can't tell you
how much I would pay to not have sex with
(19:56):
Donald Trump if it came to that a more substance.
The Marist Pole kind of buried under all the Trumps,
National and Navaris poll has its own problems. Biden leading
Trump by fifty three to forty seven in a crowded field.
It's forty six thirty nine, with Kennedy at eleven and
(20:16):
Stein at three, more evidence that the numbers are coming
out from Kennedy and to the other vanity candidates from
Trump not Biden. More evidence of that, read Galen. Trump
has lost support among independents and those who have an
(20:37):
unfavorable opinion of both candidates. Trump forty nine percent and
Biden forty nine percent now tie. Among independents, Trump held
a seven percentage point lead over Biden previously. Among those
who have an unfavorable both candidates, Biden fifty percent and
Trump forty eight percent are now competitive. Trump was leading
Biden fifty four to thirty nine among those who had
(21:01):
unfavorable opinions of both. So the lesser of two evils decidedly,
Trump by fifteen is now Biden by two. Read Galen,
Republican strategist. This Marist poll is a debacle for Donald Trump.
What are Chris and Susie It's Las Savida and Susie
(21:22):
Wiles Pet Summerl's daughter, Hi pet Somemmerl's daughter. For Donald Trump?
What are Chris and Susie? Read Galen asks even doing
down there? They're losing. When does this collective wisdom shift?
When do people start saying Biden is winning, Biden is
(21:43):
leading in all the polls. When does that become the
dominant theme? Of network television, and presuming that we survive
the election in November, what are we going to do
to replace television news because it's dead. The CNN thing
(22:06):
that I keep harping on is an example of this.
It's not a hush money trial. Part of Today and
Yesterday were devoted to proving that it's not a hush
money trial, that it's an election interference trial. Their graphic
reads and has read four months hush money. I'm happy
(22:27):
it doesn't say hush puppy trial. And lastly, this from
Axios above pictures of Chip roy Cave, Woman Green at
her cave, Womanist, Matt Gates of Hell, and Tom ninety
nine chins of Massy. This headline, how Republicans castrated themselves?
(22:55):
Come on, Come on, how Republicans castrated themselves? Never before
as the party in control of the House of Representatives
knowingly and willingly castrated its own power so thoroughly. How
Republicans castrated themselves boys video or it didn't happen? Also
(23:22):
of interest here that reminds me of when the Bushies
thought I was their friend and trying to get me
to shive Joe Wilson over the infamous non existence Sadam
Hussein pancake uranium story. And all they wound up doing
was telling me who all the people were at NBC
who were secretly friendly to them and doing their administration's
(23:43):
bidding within the walls of Tom Broklawland. That's next. This
is Cowtown. Finally to the number one story on the
Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promise
(24:04):
not to tell. And on Monday, May third, two thousand
and four, my executive producer phoned me at home and said,
we got Ambassador Joe Wilson. He'll be on the show tomorrow.
Within hours, the communications office of the White House of
George W. Bush began a desperate, ceaseless, tireless effort to
send me one email with talking points about Ambassador Joe Wilson,
(24:30):
which repeatedly, hilariously failed to get through to me because
none of them could spell my name correctly. By late
in the evening of May third, and throughout the morning
of May the fourth, I got calls and forwarded emails
from people throughout NBC who had received emails of their
own from the Bush White House Communications Office, all of
them with attachments addressed to Keith Oberman, without the l,
(24:54):
Keith Olberman with only one N, Kaieth Olberman Keith spelled wrong,
and even Keith Oberman with a V. This was actually
truly the first day I believed I was having an
impact on the Bush White House, and also the first
day I realized they were incredibly stupid. There democracy still
(25:16):
had a slim chance. The Internet had been operating at
more or less its present speed since about nineteen ninety
seven or nineteen ninety eight. My name was all over
the Internet in articles about my news career, about my
sports career, about my previous news career. There were articles
I had written, there were books I had written, and
(25:37):
these people who were trying to reshape the United States
of America into a reactionary, conservative, cruel, xenophobic, semi authoritarian state,
we're not smart enough to figure out how to spell
my name, just so we know who we are talking about.
By this point, Scott McClellan had succeeded the infamous Aary
(25:59):
Fleischer as Press secretary. His deputies were Dana Perino, who
went from being the the stupidest person ever to be
White House Press secretary to being one of the stupidest
persons ever to have a show on Fox News Pamela
is Stevens, who later wound up as a producer at CNN,
because political press people are exactly like unemployed football coaches
(26:19):
or baseball managers who get TV jobs and then leave
the TV jobs to go back onto the field. The
communications director was named Dan Bartlett, and there was another
communications person there named Nicole Wallace, who has somehow shaken
off the stink of working for both George and Jeb
Bush and is now considered a darling of MSNBC, even
(26:40):
though her only true non fascist credential is she doesn't
like Trump either. The crack White House media team representing
the most powerful man in the world in the anxious
and foreshadowing years after nine to eleven, and not one
of them could even find anybody else who could spell
my name, let alone spell it themselves. More on them
(27:02):
in a moment, But I need to explain who Joe
Wilson was if you don't know, and why he was
so important. Long before Colin Powell confessed to Tim Russert
that he had been lied to by the White House
and thus he himself had lied to the United Nations
about Sadam Hussein's imaginary weapons of mass destruction. Those were
(27:24):
the excuses from Bush Cheney for dragging this country into
an unnecessary and national soul destroying war in Iraq with
lies and torture and scapegoating and suppression and brutality. Before that,
there was Ambassador Joseph Charles Wilson four and in two
thousand and two, after pressure from the White House, the
CIA sent him back to the scene of his first
(27:45):
diplomatic posting, the African nation of Niger to get proof
for Bush that Saddam was trying to buy yellow cake
uranium there to make nuclear bombses out of. And Wilson
quickly found out it was nonsense, and he reported back
and the Bush White House promptly buried his findings instead.
In the two thousand and three State of the Union address,
(28:07):
just before he started bombing Iraq, George W. Bush said,
the British government has learned that Sadam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa. It was and remains
a complete lie, and war occurred because of it. And
Joe Wilson called it a complete lie in an op
ed in The New York Times on July sixth, two
(28:30):
thousand and three, the Iraq War was still at this
stage defined by rah, Rah, we're winning, but Sadam's WND
and his biological weapons and his chemical weapons might be
over the next hill. And you'd better not criticize what
we're doing, or maybe you're a terrorist. Joe Wilson said,
the Emperor had no clothes. In two thousand and three,
he was an American hero of the highest order. A
(28:53):
week later, a Dick Cheney flunky named Scooter Libby and
a Deputy Secretary of State named Armitage began a campaign
to punish Joe Wilson and discredit him. They leaked to
a dyspeptic and hate filled columnist named Robert Novak, who
is now working in the Bureau in Hell, that Wilson's
(29:14):
wife was an undercover agent for the CIA, and that
her name was Valerie Plain, and that the pair of
them were dirty Democrats. And moreover, it was Plain who
had urged that her own husband be sent to Niger
to deliberately not find the uranium or the Sadam Hussein
signed receipts, or whatever Bush expected to find there. The
(29:36):
Bush Whitehouse destroyed the career of risked the life of
and ruined several assignments and contacts of one of this
country's own secret CIA agents just to make her husband
look bad. So in May two thousand and four, when
Joe Wilson wrote a book about all this crap, and
he inexplicably wanted to go on MSNBC, which was still
(29:58):
at that point trying to be more conservative than Fox Nudes,
and wanted to go on My little Watched show, which
was considered the neutral outlier on a network full of
Joe Scarboroughs and Michael Savage's. This was a happy surprise
for us, which was followed by this wonderful, flailing effort
by the Bush White House to send me talking points
(30:19):
about Joe Wilson before I interviewed him. They not only
could not spell my name, but they were utterly convinced
that my interview was designed to discredit Joe Wilson. The
talking points, which eventually got to me from Assistant Press
Secretary Pamela Stevens, consisted of six items over two pages.
The headings were as follows. One political motivation. This was
(30:41):
about Wilson calling Dick Cheney a lying sob about a
year after the knee jair trip. I couldn't figure this
one out. Dick Cheney was a lying SOB. That's how
I got to be vice president. Two Gingrich spokesman calls
allegations about alleged March two thousand and three meeting completely falls.
This cited Newt Gingrich and his people as if they
(31:04):
were good sources, as opposed to the punchlines they already
were back then in two thousand and four, talking point
number three, McClellan points out political objective, and four McClellan
addresses accusations. These were quotes from the press secretary. This
man suddenly quit that job two years later two thousand
and six, and confessed he had repeatedly lied for George W.
(31:27):
Bush and the others, and now he just couldn't take
it anymore. And he would come on my show and
give one of the best atonement interviews I've ever heard.
It went on for forty five minutes. Five Fleischer says
VP office did not request trip a quote from McClellan's predecessor,
who unless he is talking about baseball, you should assume
(31:49):
he's lying. Plus he might be lying about baseball. And finally,
six statement by George J. Tennant, July eleven, two thousand
and three. This was a quote from the CIA director
which they thought was their home run, and it basically
consisted of this. Bush never saw that report. That was it.
(32:10):
There are three punchlines to this story. Number one. I
don't know why the Bush Communications office assumed I was
there to take down Joe Wilson, But the moment I
saw these talking points, any lingering doubt I had that
they were not all lying bastards down there was erased.
I used the talking points in my interview, all right.
I read them out loud to Joe Wilson, and he
(32:31):
rebutted each of them with impeccable charm and elegance. He
and Valerie Plain became regular guests on My show and
would beat the crap out of George Bush with the
plom right through the morning of January twenty two, thousand
and nine. Second punchline. A year earlier, a supply clerk
with a maintenance company on the ground in Iraq was
(32:51):
captured Private Jessica Lynch. The military and the Bush administration
immediately put out the story that she was being tortured
by them evil Iraqi Sadam Hussein doctors. There was the
glory rescue of Jessica Lynch, which followed, and the parades
and the you better not question this story period which
(33:12):
lasted about six weeks until a Toronto newspaper printed a
substantially different account that Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi
hospital and a US military team in good faith went
in to extract her, but that this was all arranged,
not by some sort of part of intelligence or US
(33:32):
operations or the Allies, but by the Iraqi doctors. Some
of them sneaked over to American lines at great danger
and said, one of your soldiers is hurt and we
don't have the right equipment to help her. Could you
swing by and pick her up? I reported that version
on MSNBC, and the next day, as I was still
(33:53):
taking my coat off, my boss, Phil Griffin called me
in and said that the head of NBC News and
the president of NBC, Bob Wright, had been on the
phone all morning to him, insisting I should be fired
for implying that the Bush administration had lied. Griffin proudly
said he had talked them into letting me get away
(34:14):
with just apologizing to the troops. I can't even read
this with a straight face. Now, twenty years later, apologizing
to the troops who rescued her. I must credit myself
when my brain was fulled in that I did some
quick thinking. The demand was comical nonsense journalistically. On the
(34:35):
other hand, if I agreed to apologize to okay, the
troops who rescued her, whoever you want, I would get
the chance to tell the whole real story of Jessica
Lynch again. So I did. The apology was fifteen seconds,
and while unnecessary, was sincere. I didn't want to make
(34:56):
the troops look bad. They didn't know anything about this crap.
I made sure, however, that the retelling of the true
Lynch rescue story took about two and a half minutes.
That was in June of two thousand and three. So
why as of May of two thousand and four the
Bush White House thought I was sympathetic to them, I'll
never know, Or why they bothered with me, I'll never know,
(35:17):
which brings me to the last point. The unintended side
effect with the long term impact of all those failed
White House emails with my name misspelled was that this
Pamelas Stevens person promptly forwarded them to people around NBC
whom she considered friendly to George W. Bush. One of
(35:38):
them was Tom Brokaw's assistant, another was in the office
of future NBC News president Steve Cappus, and the final
one was to some guy named George Uribe. And so
I found out all the people in the Bush administrations
we like them. List at NBC News who I should
avoid under all circumstances. Let's see Brokaw's assistance. So no Brokaw,
(36:00):
somebody in Cappus's office, and no Cappus, and this guy
George Urib And George Rebey turned out to be a
guy hired by MSNBC from Fox News to go work
for Scarborough. He fell out of favor with Joe Scarborough,
and I guess he didn't henchman enough for Joe's taste,
(36:22):
and his influence fell to a guy. I don't think
I've mentioned him to you yet, Chris licked. I've done
(36:49):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown.
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanel arranged, produced
and performed most of our music. Mister Ray on guitars,
bass and drums, Mister Chanel on orchestration and keyboards. Produced
by Tko Brothers, other music, and some of the Beethoven
compositions arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(37:09):
The sports music the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our
satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. And everything else was pretty
much my fault. So that's countdown for this the one
hundred and ninety sixth day until the twenty twenty four
presidential election, the one two hundred and fifth day since
(37:33):
Diaper J. Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
government of the United States. Use the Fourteenth Amendment and
the not regularly given elector objection option provided by the
Supreme Court, use the Insurrection Act, use the justice system
and the mental health system to stop him from doing
it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
(37:58):
is tomorrow. Bulletins is the news warrants till then. I'm
Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
(38:21):
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. Trump
could get a month in jail for contempt of court
for violating the gag order, or at least he could
(00:27):
be explicitly threatened with a month in jail for violating
the gag order, and whatever happens. There have already been
Soto vo Jay conversations involving the Secret Service over what
they do when you finally do put a former president
in jail. What prosecutors will settle for now is not jail,
(00:49):
but the threat of jail plus a fine of one
thousand dollars for each of what they count as ten violations,
which is to me a very low bid ten violations
one thousand dollars each, or, as the impeccable Harris Faulkner
set on Fox, the prosecution quote wants one hundred grand.
Some big gees. They hire only the smart ones at Fox.
(01:14):
Justice meyr Shaan was so exasperated by Trump's idiot lawyers
at the gag Order violation hearing that he called the
damn thing off and said he was reserving his decision,
which usually means he will either issue something in writing
and the trial is off. Today it would be a
good day to issue something in writing, or he will
seek further information before deciding, and there is no indication
(01:35):
that he's doing that. There is reason to suspect we
will at least see Trump explicitly threatened with jail time. Boy,
will the world go nuts over that, because not only
are Trump's lawyers genuine idiots, but they did literally nothing
yesterday to counter the prosecution arguments for fines and threats
(01:58):
and even incarceration. And there was one blockbuster shock moment
that hearing You're losing all credibility, Justice Meyrshaan says to
Trump's lawyer Todd, I have to tell you right now,
you're losing all credibility with the court unquote. And the
blockbuster shock, of course, is that any of Trump's lawyers
(02:20):
still had credibility to lose. Trump started with Roy Kohane
as his lawyer, and he's gone downhill from there over
the decades. Right now, he's got Alina Resident Professor of
Parking Lot Territorial Law and Theory, and Susan with the
hair who used to represent Venero, Benny Eggs Mangano from
(02:43):
the Genovese family, and Emil who was a star lacrosse
player at Sunny Albany, And of course Todd, who did
such a good job representing Paul Manifort that Trump wound
up having to pardon Paul Manafort. And Todd, who kind
of looks like the former newscaster Rick Sanchez, got up
(03:05):
there and insisted he and Trump had no idea that
reposting a threat to a witness counted as a threat,
and that he and Trump had no idea that posting
an article with a picture of the judge's daughter in
it counted as posting a picture of the judge's daughter,
and that he and Trump had no idea that typing
(03:26):
up how Jesse Waters lied about the jury on his
Politics for Moron Show and posting that how that counted
as lying about the jury. Todd either believes all of
Trump's conspiracy theories or he is pretending real hard that
he does so he gets paid the full retainer by Trump.
(03:49):
Good luck with that, Todd. Trump is quote being very
careful to comply with your order, Todd said. And there
are two systems of justice, Todd added, And he kept
saying that Trump didn't attack Michael Cohen, he didn't attacked
Stormy Daniels. They attacked him, and the judge says, show
me where they attacked him, and Todd. Todd couldn't show
(04:11):
him where. And I was waiting to see a meal
strap on his helmet and grab his cross and run
out onto the field. To prevent Todd from responding to
Trump calling this a kangaroo court by himself going up
to the jury and shouting, you're out of order. You're
out of order. The whole trial is out of order.
They're out of order. The actual testimony was extraordinary unless
(04:37):
you haven't been in a coma for the last decade,
or in case, you cover Trump for a major news
organization and thus everything that moves shocks you. Ooh, look
a couple of beetles. A few thoughts on what happened
under oath in a moment. But the other genuinely fascinating
thing yesterday was this secret service story. CNN confirmed it
(05:01):
last night. They probably confirmed it by reading The New
York Times, which had it early yesterday under the byline
of William K. Rashbaum a meeting last week among federal,
state and city agencies, quoting that behind the scenes conversation
involving officials from the Secret Service and other relevant law
enforcement agencies focused only on how to move and protect
(05:25):
mister Trump if the judge were to order him briefly
jailed for contempt in a courthouse holding cell. The people said,
what was that they did tomorrowon Brando? I hate to
keep making these film references in Apocalypse Now where all
the villagers just surrounded him as he moved. Protecting mister
Trump in a prison environment would involve keeping him separate
(05:47):
from other inmates, as well as screening his food and
other personal items. Officials said, hamburger, hamburger, hamburger, hamburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger,
no coke, pepsi. If he were to be imprisoned, a
detail of agents would work twenty four hours a day,
(06:09):
seven days a week, rotating in and out of the facility.
Several officials said, while firearms are obviously strictly prohibited in prisons,
the agents would nonetheless be armed unquote as an aside, well,
why the hell is that the case? What are they
doing in there in the first place if they're not
allowed to have firearms and they would be armed, where
(06:34):
Trump could conceivably get a hold of the weapon, or
have the weapons used on his behalf. Of course, there
is Benny Thompson's build a revoke Secret Service protection for
anybody convicted of a felony with a year in the
can attached to it, but that would have to wait
until next January at the earliest. The Times added that
there were a couple of closed or partially closed New
(06:57):
York State prisons and New York City jails that would
have large sections or even wings empty where they could
stash Trump and his retinue for a week or a
month or a millennium. It's too bad. The abandoned part
of Grand Central Station that Lex Luthor lived in in
(07:17):
Superman is fictional. You know, though. The Manhattan Detention Complex
on White Street, the infamous tombs that's still standing, you
could keep them there. There's a building over here at
ninth Avenue in fifty seventh Street that's been so tied
up in lawsuits for decades that it's basically abandoned with
boarded up windows. That'd be good, but once he got
(07:39):
in legally, he probably could never get out without eighty
one lawsuits say as to the trial, and the only
witness thus far, David Pecker, who will be back tomorrow
when they resume. As to what came out of the
Pecker at the Trump trial, nothing new if you've been
paying attention. He and Trump and Michael Cohen set up
(08:01):
a machine by which they bought stories about Trump. One's
false ones, something in between, ones like the child out
of wedlock story and the Stormy Daniels story and the
Karen McDougall story, and the critical testimony was about that
love child story that wasn't true. The doorman selling it
(08:23):
got thirty thousand dollars from David Pecker to start. Then
they checked the story. They found it wasn't true, not
even close. Pecker of the National Inquirer was about to
release the doorman from his non disclosure agreement when Michael
Cohen said, don't do that. Don't do it until after
the twenty sixteen election, because even if it isn't true,
it could damage the Trump campaign and he could sell
(08:46):
it to somebody else. And that's the conviction right there.
There's no way back for Trump from that. They paid
these people. Stormy Daniels included not to protect Trump the person,
not to save him and his family from embarrassment, not
to save him from lies, not to save him from
(09:07):
the truth, but solely to influence the outcome of the
twenty sixteen election. And if you missed it, and we
know CNN missed it, they're still calling this the hush
money trial. Prosecutors finally cited the law which proves this
is not a hush money trial. New York State Laws,
Section seventeen, Dash one, five to two Conspiracy to promote
(09:31):
or prevent election. Quote. Any two or more persons who
conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person
to a public office by unlawful means, at which conspiracy
is acted upon by one or more of the parties,
there too, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. This is
(09:51):
an election interference case. This is prosecutable under seventeen one
five two. It's not a hush money trial. Stop calling
it that. I mean, I know CNN looks like bad
local news from nineteen, but for God's sakes, have some
self respect. Either call it what it is, an election
interference trial, or show cartoons have a live camera of
(10:15):
David Zaslav. Anyway, the case becomes more than that, and
the hush money becomes more than that. When you commit
another crime to cover up your seventeen dash one five
to two conspiracy to promoter prevent election like trying to
hide your hush money and pretend your hush money, which
(10:35):
is election interference, is a business expense. The irony there,
I think, is that just the first two partial days
of testimony underscores that all of these guys, David Pecker,
Michael Cohen, Trump really thought of this as a business expense,
the way the mafia considers killing people a business expense.
(11:00):
And they transformed it effortlessly and seamlessly from a business
expensive buying information into a campaign expense of buying information.
And guess what, Lying to the public during a campaign
is not a crime. Paying people to help you get
elected is not a crime. But illegally conspiring to keep
other people from telling the truth about you during a
(11:21):
campaign that is a crime, especially if you then try
to deduct it in some way. So is illegally conspiring
to lie about other candidates during a campaign. The stories
about Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and all the others
that Pecker printed on Trump's behalf, which is once they
(11:41):
are finished with the stormy Daniels and the fake love
child of it all, which is the direction in which
they will next point the pecker. Some legal sidebars that
(12:18):
lead story yesterday here that Trump wanted his mobs to
at minimums surround every courthouse in the country, especially New
York State Supreme Court one hundred Center Street. That courthouse.
I got a few scoffs about that one. Turns out, no,
he really expected it to happen. He really believed it
(12:38):
was going to happen. He's admitted he really believed it
was going to happen. And guess what, it didn't happen.
It really didn't happen. CNN's Jim Shootout with the sad truth.
He writes, other than the first day of jury selection,
when I saw a pickup waving Trump flags and heard
a handful of Trump supporters, their presence has dwindled. I
(12:59):
don't see any outside the courthouse today. If Trump was
expecting a large and lasting pub show of support here,
it has not materialized. Well, of course that's what he
was expecting. In fact, he was expecting another January sixth.
And I emphasize again that the ultimate importance of this
trial may simply be to expose Trump to weeks of
(13:23):
radiation leak levels of reality because after January sixth, the
sequel did not happen. Yesterday, he had to tell his people,
and most importantly, to tell his ego. Look yet did
quoting him, thousands of people were turned away from the
courthouse in Lower Manhattan by steel stanchions and police, literally
(13:47):
blocks from the tiny side door from where I enter
and leave unquote, utterly untrue. Nobody showed up, not thousands,
not hundreds, not dozens, not even his family and friends,
like he has friends. That was his friend testifying against
(14:10):
him yesterday, his friend a pecker. It is an armed
camp to keep people away. No, no, there's no armed camp.
There was nobody, nobody to be kept away except the
ones in your brain. Maggot Hagerman of the failing New
(14:33):
York Times, Well, okay, he's got me there. It is
failing falsely reported that I was disappointed with the crowds. No,
I'm disappointed with Maggot at her lack of writing skill
and that some of these many police aren't being sent
to Columbia at NYU to keep the schools open and
the students safe. Unquote. For an animal skilled enough to
(14:57):
find a thousand holes in what we had thought for
two centuries plus was a fairly air tight protecting democracy
for some creature that's skilled. He really is colossally stupid. Sometimes.
Perhaps he was just celebrating the four year anniversary of
(15:18):
the day April twenty third, when he said people could
cure COVID maybe by shining light into their bodies and
consuming disinfectant. Here, eat a light bulb, wash it down
some bleach. Somewhere in that adult brain of his is
the absolute certainty that if he can just convince them
that the cops are needed at the what do we
(15:41):
got protests protests, if he can just convince them of that,
there will no longer be enough cops to stop those
thousands from coming in to bust him out of court
by force. Again, it's Nathan Fielder, time out on the time,
having the time of my life with a bunch of friends.
They're all just out of frame, laughing too hell back
(16:05):
by the stanchions. I haven't been watching a lot of
movies lately. I don't know why these references are flowing today,
but I am reminded now tragically of the fictionalized version
of the emotionally troubled baseball center fielder of the Boston
Red Sox of the nineteen fifties. Jimmy Pearson, as portrayed
(16:27):
in the movie Fear strikes out. In one scene, they
decide to make Jimmy Pearson into a shortstop, and he
is destroyed by this because, of course, he lives in
mortal fear of disappointing his stage father, who wants him
to be the center fielder, not the shortstop. In the
next scene, Pearsall is played by Anthony Perkins, is suddenly
(16:49):
calm and his wife asks him why he's suddenly so happy,
and he says, well, I solve that shortstop problem. I
got rid of my shortstops glove. Now I never have
to play shortstop again. Trump, as played by Anthony Perkins
playing Jimmy Pearsall, sees those thousands of protesters just out
(17:14):
of frame, the ones that aren't there, and they've all
destroyed their shortstop gloves. Haven't they to run a couple
of headlines? Well, okay, talk about people not recognizing how
(17:36):
the winds might have changed about them. Tucker Carlson is
still on some sort of post your Career is over high,
busily explaining that there are extra terrestrials living in the
ocean although they're probably not from some other place, and
they're also in the sky, and this has been proven,
(17:57):
and the theory of evolution has been disproved, and he's
going so crazy. I mean, is this a tumor crazy?
Joe Rogan had to fact check him, and Tucker thinks
he's flourishing, And then I mean, what do you do
when this happens? When a Fox News reporter questioned Mitch
(18:20):
McConnell about why it has taken so long to pass
Ukraine Aid, Mitch McConnell, Wow, just just just listen, just
listen to this. What took so long to get some
of these other aid Republicans persuaded to your position? Or
was it the overall nature of this bill and what
was best in that time period for Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Well that's a good question. You already know the answer.
I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson, who,
in my opinion, ended up or he should have been
all along, which is interviewing Vladimir Putin, and so he
had an enormous audience which convinced a lot of rankentfile Republicans.
(19:09):
Maybe this was a mistake.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Uh soup spoon for mister Carlson. You're Tucker Carlson. You've
just been dunked on by Mitch McConnell, who had gone
catatonic a couple of times in the last year. You've
been dunked on by Mitch McConnell. Time to go home
to Russia. But wait, there's more, even better, Mitt Romney.
(19:35):
Mitt Romney dunked on Trump. So far as I know,
you don't pay someone one hundred and thirty thousand dollars
not to have sex with you. You're Trump. You've just
been dunked on by Mitt Romney with a sex joke.
Mitt Romney, with a sex joke. Although, to be fair,
one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, I can't tell you
how much I would pay to not have sex with
(19:56):
Donald Trump if it came to that a more substance.
The Marist Pole kind of buried under all the Trumps,
National and Navaris poll has its own problems. Biden leading
Trump by fifty three to forty seven in a crowded field.
It's forty six thirty nine, with Kennedy at eleven and
(20:16):
Stein at three, more evidence that the numbers are coming
out from Kennedy and to the other vanity candidates from
Trump not Biden. More evidence of that, read Galen. Trump
has lost support among independents and those who have an
(20:37):
unfavorable opinion of both candidates. Trump forty nine percent and
Biden forty nine percent now tie. Among independents, Trump held
a seven percentage point lead over Biden previously. Among those
who have an unfavorable both candidates, Biden fifty percent and
Trump forty eight percent are now competitive. Trump was leading
Biden fifty four to thirty nine among those who had
(21:01):
unfavorable opinions of both. So the lesser of two evils decidedly,
Trump by fifteen is now Biden by two. Read Galen,
Republican strategist. This Marist poll is a debacle for Donald Trump.
What are Chris and Susie It's Las Savida and Susie
(21:22):
Wiles Pet Summerl's daughter, Hi pet Somemmerl's daughter. For Donald Trump?
What are Chris and Susie? Read Galen asks even doing
down there? They're losing. When does this collective wisdom shift?
When do people start saying Biden is winning, Biden is
(21:43):
leading in all the polls. When does that become the
dominant theme? Of network television, and presuming that we survive
the election in November, what are we going to do
to replace television news because it's dead. The CNN thing
(22:06):
that I keep harping on is an example of this.
It's not a hush money trial. Part of Today and
Yesterday were devoted to proving that it's not a hush
money trial, that it's an election interference trial. Their graphic
reads and has read four months hush money. I'm happy
(22:27):
it doesn't say hush puppy trial. And lastly, this from
Axios above pictures of Chip roy Cave, Woman Green at
her cave, Womanist, Matt Gates of Hell, and Tom ninety
nine chins of Massy. This headline, how Republicans castrated themselves?
(22:55):
Come on, Come on, how Republicans castrated themselves? Never before
as the party in control of the House of Representatives
knowingly and willingly castrated its own power so thoroughly. How
Republicans castrated themselves boys video or it didn't happen? Also
(23:22):
of interest here that reminds me of when the Bushies
thought I was their friend and trying to get me
to shive Joe Wilson over the infamous non existence Sadam
Hussein pancake uranium story. And all they wound up doing
was telling me who all the people were at NBC
who were secretly friendly to them and doing their administration's
(23:43):
bidding within the walls of Tom Broklawland. That's next. This
is Cowtown. Finally to the number one story on the
Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promise
(24:04):
not to tell. And on Monday, May third, two thousand
and four, my executive producer phoned me at home and said,
we got Ambassador Joe Wilson. He'll be on the show tomorrow.
Within hours, the communications office of the White House of
George W. Bush began a desperate, ceaseless, tireless effort to
send me one email with talking points about Ambassador Joe Wilson,
(24:30):
which repeatedly, hilariously failed to get through to me because
none of them could spell my name correctly. By late
in the evening of May third, and throughout the morning
of May the fourth, I got calls and forwarded emails
from people throughout NBC who had received emails of their
own from the Bush White House Communications Office, all of
them with attachments addressed to Keith Oberman, without the l,
(24:54):
Keith Olberman with only one N, Kaieth Olberman Keith spelled wrong,
and even Keith Oberman with a V. This was actually
truly the first day I believed I was having an
impact on the Bush White House, and also the first
day I realized they were incredibly stupid. There democracy still
(25:16):
had a slim chance. The Internet had been operating at
more or less its present speed since about nineteen ninety
seven or nineteen ninety eight. My name was all over
the Internet in articles about my news career, about my
sports career, about my previous news career. There were articles
I had written, there were books I had written, and
(25:37):
these people who were trying to reshape the United States
of America into a reactionary, conservative, cruel, xenophobic, semi authoritarian state,
we're not smart enough to figure out how to spell
my name, just so we know who we are talking about.
By this point, Scott McClellan had succeeded the infamous Aary
(25:59):
Fleischer as Press secretary. His deputies were Dana Perino, who
went from being the the stupidest person ever to be
White House Press secretary to being one of the stupidest
persons ever to have a show on Fox News Pamela
is Stevens, who later wound up as a producer at CNN,
because political press people are exactly like unemployed football coaches
(26:19):
or baseball managers who get TV jobs and then leave
the TV jobs to go back onto the field. The
communications director was named Dan Bartlett, and there was another
communications person there named Nicole Wallace, who has somehow shaken
off the stink of working for both George and Jeb
Bush and is now considered a darling of MSNBC, even
(26:40):
though her only true non fascist credential is she doesn't
like Trump either. The crack White House media team representing
the most powerful man in the world in the anxious
and foreshadowing years after nine to eleven, and not one
of them could even find anybody else who could spell
my name, let alone spell it themselves. More on them
(27:02):
in a moment, But I need to explain who Joe
Wilson was if you don't know, and why he was
so important. Long before Colin Powell confessed to Tim Russert
that he had been lied to by the White House
and thus he himself had lied to the United Nations
about Sadam Hussein's imaginary weapons of mass destruction. Those were
(27:24):
the excuses from Bush Cheney for dragging this country into
an unnecessary and national soul destroying war in Iraq with
lies and torture and scapegoating and suppression and brutality. Before that,
there was Ambassador Joseph Charles Wilson four and in two
thousand and two, after pressure from the White House, the
CIA sent him back to the scene of his first
(27:45):
diplomatic posting, the African nation of Niger to get proof
for Bush that Saddam was trying to buy yellow cake
uranium there to make nuclear bombses out of. And Wilson
quickly found out it was nonsense, and he reported back
and the Bush White House promptly buried his findings instead.
In the two thousand and three State of the Union address,
(28:07):
just before he started bombing Iraq, George W. Bush said,
the British government has learned that Sadam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa. It was and remains
a complete lie, and war occurred because of it. And
Joe Wilson called it a complete lie in an op
ed in The New York Times on July sixth, two
(28:30):
thousand and three, the Iraq War was still at this
stage defined by rah, Rah, we're winning, but Sadam's WND
and his biological weapons and his chemical weapons might be
over the next hill. And you'd better not criticize what
we're doing, or maybe you're a terrorist. Joe Wilson said,
the Emperor had no clothes. In two thousand and three,
he was an American hero of the highest order. A
(28:53):
week later, a Dick Cheney flunky named Scooter Libby and
a Deputy Secretary of State named Armitage began a campaign
to punish Joe Wilson and discredit him. They leaked to
a dyspeptic and hate filled columnist named Robert Novak, who
is now working in the Bureau in Hell, that Wilson's
(29:14):
wife was an undercover agent for the CIA, and that
her name was Valerie Plain, and that the pair of
them were dirty Democrats. And moreover, it was Plain who
had urged that her own husband be sent to Niger
to deliberately not find the uranium or the Sadam Hussein
signed receipts, or whatever Bush expected to find there. The
(29:36):
Bush Whitehouse destroyed the career of risked the life of
and ruined several assignments and contacts of one of this
country's own secret CIA agents just to make her husband
look bad. So in May two thousand and four, when
Joe Wilson wrote a book about all this crap, and
he inexplicably wanted to go on MSNBC, which was still
(29:58):
at that point trying to be more conservative than Fox Nudes,
and wanted to go on My little Watched show, which
was considered the neutral outlier on a network full of
Joe Scarboroughs and Michael Savage's. This was a happy surprise
for us, which was followed by this wonderful, flailing effort
by the Bush White House to send me talking points
(30:19):
about Joe Wilson before I interviewed him. They not only
could not spell my name, but they were utterly convinced
that my interview was designed to discredit Joe Wilson. The
talking points, which eventually got to me from Assistant Press
Secretary Pamela Stevens, consisted of six items over two pages.
The headings were as follows. One political motivation. This was
(30:41):
about Wilson calling Dick Cheney a lying sob about a
year after the knee jair trip. I couldn't figure this
one out. Dick Cheney was a lying SOB. That's how
I got to be vice president. Two Gingrich spokesman calls
allegations about alleged March two thousand and three meeting completely falls.
This cited Newt Gingrich and his people as if they
(31:04):
were good sources, as opposed to the punchlines they already
were back then in two thousand and four, talking point
number three, McClellan points out political objective, and four McClellan
addresses accusations. These were quotes from the press secretary. This
man suddenly quit that job two years later two thousand
and six, and confessed he had repeatedly lied for George W.
(31:27):
Bush and the others, and now he just couldn't take
it anymore. And he would come on my show and
give one of the best atonement interviews I've ever heard.
It went on for forty five minutes. Five Fleischer says
VP office did not request trip a quote from McClellan's predecessor,
who unless he is talking about baseball, you should assume
(31:49):
he's lying. Plus he might be lying about baseball. And finally,
six statement by George J. Tennant, July eleven, two thousand
and three. This was a quote from the CIA director
which they thought was their home run, and it basically
consisted of this. Bush never saw that report. That was it.
(32:10):
There are three punchlines to this story. Number one. I
don't know why the Bush Communications office assumed I was
there to take down Joe Wilson, But the moment I
saw these talking points, any lingering doubt I had that
they were not all lying bastards down there was erased.
I used the talking points in my interview, all right.
I read them out loud to Joe Wilson, and he
(32:31):
rebutted each of them with impeccable charm and elegance. He
and Valerie Plain became regular guests on My show and
would beat the crap out of George Bush with the
plom right through the morning of January twenty two, thousand
and nine. Second punchline. A year earlier, a supply clerk
with a maintenance company on the ground in Iraq was
(32:51):
captured Private Jessica Lynch. The military and the Bush administration
immediately put out the story that she was being tortured
by them evil Iraqi Sadam Hussein doctors. There was the
glory rescue of Jessica Lynch, which followed, and the parades
and the you better not question this story period which
(33:12):
lasted about six weeks until a Toronto newspaper printed a
substantially different account that Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi
hospital and a US military team in good faith went
in to extract her, but that this was all arranged,
not by some sort of part of intelligence or US
(33:32):
operations or the Allies, but by the Iraqi doctors. Some
of them sneaked over to American lines at great danger
and said, one of your soldiers is hurt and we
don't have the right equipment to help her. Could you
swing by and pick her up? I reported that version
on MSNBC, and the next day, as I was still
(33:53):
taking my coat off, my boss, Phil Griffin called me
in and said that the head of NBC News and
the president of NBC, Bob Wright, had been on the
phone all morning to him, insisting I should be fired
for implying that the Bush administration had lied. Griffin proudly
said he had talked them into letting me get away
(34:14):
with just apologizing to the troops. I can't even read
this with a straight face. Now, twenty years later, apologizing
to the troops who rescued her. I must credit myself
when my brain was fulled in that I did some
quick thinking. The demand was comical nonsense journalistically. On the
(34:35):
other hand, if I agreed to apologize to okay, the
troops who rescued her, whoever you want, I would get
the chance to tell the whole real story of Jessica
Lynch again. So I did. The apology was fifteen seconds,
and while unnecessary, was sincere. I didn't want to make
(34:56):
the troops look bad. They didn't know anything about this crap.
I made sure, however, that the retelling of the true
Lynch rescue story took about two and a half minutes.
That was in June of two thousand and three. So
why as of May of two thousand and four the
Bush White House thought I was sympathetic to them, I'll
never know, Or why they bothered with me, I'll never know,
(35:17):
which brings me to the last point. The unintended side
effect with the long term impact of all those failed
White House emails with my name misspelled was that this
Pamelas Stevens person promptly forwarded them to people around NBC
whom she considered friendly to George W. Bush. One of
(35:38):
them was Tom Brokaw's assistant, another was in the office
of future NBC News president Steve Cappus, and the final
one was to some guy named George Uribe. And so
I found out all the people in the Bush administrations
we like them. List at NBC News who I should
avoid under all circumstances. Let's see Brokaw's assistance. So no Brokaw,
(36:00):
somebody in Cappus's office, and no Cappus, and this guy
George Urib And George Rebey turned out to be a
guy hired by MSNBC from Fox News to go work
for Scarborough. He fell out of favor with Joe Scarborough,
and I guess he didn't henchman enough for Joe's taste,
(36:22):
and his influence fell to a guy. I don't think
I've mentioned him to you yet, Chris licked. I've done
(36:49):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown.
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanel arranged, produced
and performed most of our music. Mister Ray on guitars,
bass and drums, Mister Chanel on orchestration and keyboards. Produced
by Tko Brothers, other music, and some of the Beethoven
compositions arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(37:09):
The sports music the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our
satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. And everything else was pretty
much my fault. So that's countdown for this the one
hundred and ninety sixth day until the twenty twenty four
presidential election, the one two hundred and fifth day since
(37:33):
Diaper J. Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
government of the United States. Use the Fourteenth Amendment and
the not regularly given elector objection option provided by the
Supreme Court, use the Insurrection Act, use the justice system
and the mental health system to stop him from doing
it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
(37:58):
is tomorrow. Bulletins is the news warrants till then. I'm
Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
(38:21):
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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