May 24, 2023 • 36 mins
EPISODE 209: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Special Counsel is at the End Game. From The Wall Street Journal: “Some of Trump’s close associates are bracing for his indictment and anticipate being able to fundraise off a prosecution, people in the former president’s circle said...Jack Smith has all but finished obtaining testimony and other evidence” (about the classified documents Trump stole and stashed).
What's more: Trump knows this is it.
His attorneys John Rowley and Jim Trusty last night wrote a “Dear Attorney General Garland” letter that Trump clearly composed. I don’t know exactly where this lands on the scale from Panic, to Desperately Trying To Gain Public Pity, to Lawyers Desperately Trying To Please Their Crazy Client. But it's desperate and childish and revelatory:
“Dear Attorney General Garland:
"We represent Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, in the investigation currently being conducted by the Special Counsel’s Office. Unlike President Biden, his son Hunter, and the Biden family, President Trump is being treated unfairly. No President of the United States has ever, in the history of our country, been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous and unlawful fashion. We request a meeting at your earliest convenience to discuss the ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated by your Special Counsel and his prosecutors.
"Thank you for your attention to this matter."
I understand Garland has composed his reply “Dear Mr. Rowley and Mr. Trusty, happy to meet you and your client, please come to my office at 123 Trump Pooped His Pants Didn’t He? Avenue, Washington D.C."
I know we all have Mueller Derangement Syndrome. But when the WSJ says it's over - it's over.
B-Block (15:19) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Ron DeSantis will announce something everybody already knows. He'll announce it on Twitter, which will make all the Trump cultists hate Musk. And he'll announce it instead of something he just mentioned in passing the other day which is the first good reason he's given for supporting him over Trump. How would Trumpy try for a 3rd Term? And just when the CNN Town Hall thing seemed to be dying, its PR person sets it ablaze anew. (21:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Martin Shrkeli is back and weirder than ever; the Youth Poet Laureate's poem is banned in Florida because of one crazy parent; Matt Gaetz confesses the Republicans think of the Democrats as their "hostages" in the debt discussion.
C-Block (27:45) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Layla's Heart and Rescue in Texas needs your help (28:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos are reportedly engaged. Engaged in WHAT?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
Special Council is at the end game. Trump's liberty maybe
(00:26):
at the endgame as well. Quote. Some of Trump's close
associates are bracing for his indictment and anticipate being able
to fund raise off of prosecution. People in the former
president circle said, unquote, Jack Smith has all but finished
obtaining testimony and other evidence unquote, evidence about the classified documents.
Trump stole not a thing in there about Saudi Arabia,
(00:49):
or China, or even Oman or Coup's or January sixth
or fifty pages of Evan Corcoran's handwritten dear Diary. Trump said,
another really illegal thing today notes or even two pages
of those notes. That is hardly breathless composition. Right there
by the Wall Street Journal. It also reminds us that
(01:09):
nearly three weeks ago, the same paper seem to write
the same thing. The steps prosecutors are taking suggest mister
Smith is in the late stages of his inquiry. Only
that was about not the marri Lago documents, but about
Trump's extra legal, cynical attempt to manipulate the electoral college system.
And still I am hopeful I know, I know, I know,
(01:33):
I know, I know, I know there is no such
thing as Trump derangement syndrome. But they're sure as hell
is a Mueller derangement syndrome and we all have it.
But perversely, I am encouraged more by the Journal's board
robotic voice redlent of Alan Rickman and The Hitchhiker's Guide
(01:53):
to the Galaxy that I was by some of the
hyperventilation over Monday's revelations about the Corcoran revelations, or the
stitching together of the theory that Trump actually stole nuclear
secrets so he could get a better deal on goddamn
golf course naming rights from the saudis hyperventilation that included
my own. But I mean, how would you expect the
(02:15):
Wall Street Journal, which starts by sucking the life out
of everything its reporter's touch, and when it's something that
hurts conservatives, then runs it all through the deflavorizing machine
a second time just to make sure. How would you
expect the journal to present a genuinely shocking detail such
as the one they did in paragraph three quote. In
(02:37):
recent weeks, prosecutors working for Smith have completed interviews with
nearly every employee at Trump's Florida home, from top political
aids to maids and maintenance staff unquote, wait, nearly every employee.
(02:57):
When the pandemic hit, Trump furloughed one hundred and fifty
three Mary Lago employees, saying you couldn't have hundreds of
people standing around doing nothing. Each year he applies to
hire nearly one hundred foreign workers there. Presumably Jack Smith
didn't interview everybody at the golf course caddy Shack, but
who knows how many people he did interview. Two months ago,
(03:19):
Rolling Stone and CNN reported about two dozen Trump Florida
employees had been interviewed, including the unfortunately named press aide
Margo Martin and that's Margo Martin and not beloved character
actress Margot Martindale from BoJack Horseman. I'm sorry I wandered
off there. Prosecutors have pressed witnesses, some in multiple rounds
(03:41):
of testimony, to resume the journal story on questions that
appeared to home in on specific elements Smith's teams would
need to show to prove a crime, including those that
speak to Trump's intentions and questions aimed at undermining potential
defenses Trump could raise. So What they're doing, in part,
is curating a forensic, minute by minute breakdown of a
(04:04):
couple of days or even weeks in question, with an
eye towards being able to prove where Trump was during
every moment of Evan Corkoran's search for documents in June
of last year, and where the guys running the security
video were at those moments, and where his valet and
box mover Walt Nauta was, and where the other as
(04:24):
yet unnamed employee who helped Naota move the boxes to
and from Trump's office so Trump could pull the documents
he needed for whatever, trading to the UAE or just
framing for future memories. Why he did it almost doesn't matter,
As the old saw goes, it's never the crime, it's
the cover up. Back to the Wall Street matter of
fact journal quote Smith's team, which has been examining whether
(04:48):
anyone tried to obstruct the criminal inquiry, has obtained evidence
that appears to show Trump held on to sensitive documents
after being asked to relinquish them. The report then blandly
restates the significance of last week's reports that the National
Archives turned over all its correspondence with Trump and his
(05:09):
advisors about the process of declassifying materials and his apparent
acknowledgment that he understood what that process was. But the
conclusion from those countless interviews at the residence at Mary
Lago has to be one of two completely opposite things,
namely that the act of stealing the classified documents is
(05:30):
either such a slam dunk conviction that it doesn't need
a minute by minute it was the colonel with the
Iranian nukes docks in the pantry timeline, or more likely,
the question of secret classification is way too vague and
way too complicated, especially when compared with obstructing justice and
lying to your own attorney and lying to the FBI
(05:52):
and the DOJ, and ordering your lawyers to lie to
the FBI and the DOJ, and hiding documents you have
been ordered by the government to return in undeniable violation
of the Espionage Act. That all that is far less
nuanced and far less likely to be fuzzed up by
Trump's only real skill throwing obfuscation against the wall and
(06:13):
seeing if it will stick like it was a plate
of burgers and fries during a Bill Barr interview. And lastly,
in parsing the journal's fantastic success in turning the worst
political scandal in the history of all of the Western
democracies into the equivalent of ambient. I must credit the
paper for making something stand out. In April, Trump attorney
(06:37):
Tim Parlatour and colleagues wrote to lawmakers in Washington trying
to get them to force the Department of Justice to
drop all the inquiries into all the classified documents found
at Trump's home, or Biden's property, or Pence's property, or
the astonishing number of congressman's and senators homes. I didn't
(06:57):
see the Parlatar letter as quite the big tell that
the journal characterizes it as deficient. Document handling and storage
procedures it says in that letter are not limited to
any individual, administration or political party. The letter read, in part,
Parloatar wanted to call off quote ham handed criminal investigations
(07:19):
of matters that are inherently not criminal. Next thing we knew,
Tim Parlator was off the Trump legal team, and he
was blaming Boris Epstein for making it much more difficult
to defend Trump. And now the journal says the letter
quote and particularly a push by its authors to publicize it,
triggered upheaval within the Trump legal team. In other words,
(07:42):
Epstein got Parlatre fired over that letter. Why it's so
obvious you probably didn't see it. I didn't. In the letter,
Parlatore admits that Trump did something wrong. You can't admit
Trump did something wrong that destroys the entire bubble inside
(08:03):
of which Trump is always lived and lives, his genuine
belief that he is infallible, his belief that he is indestructible,
and for all we know, his belief that he is immortal.
Parlator confessed in writing that Trump had the same kinds
of documents that were found in Biden's properties and in pencs.
And what kind of documents were those classified documents? Parlatre
(08:29):
in that letter is confessing in writing that Trump had
classified documents and he shouldn't have oops fired. I'm surprised
Trump didn't respond to the Parlator letter by throwing a
plate of ketchup at him. And then there was the
(08:50):
other letter. Trump's attorneys, John Rowley and Jim Trusty last
night wrote a Dear Attorney General Garland letter that Trump
clearly composed himself. I don't know exactly where this lands
on the scale from panic to you desperately trying to
gain public pity to lawyers desperately trying to please their
crazy client. I'll read it in full. Doesn't take that long.
(09:12):
Dear Attorney General Garland, we represent Donald J. Trump, the
forty fifth President of the United States. He owns a
mansion and a yacht. In the investigation currently being conducted
by the Special Counsel's office. Unlike President Biden, his son Hunter,
and the Biden family, President Trump is being treated unfairly.
Reads like it was written by a third grader. No
(09:34):
president of the United States has ever in the history
of our country been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous
and unlawful fashion. We request a meeting at your earliest
convenience to discuss the ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated
by your Special Counsel at his prosecutors. Thank you for
your attention to this matter. I understand Garland has already
(09:56):
composed his reply. Dear mister Rowley and mister Trusty, happy
to meet you and your client. Please come to my office.
At one twenty three Trump pooped his pants Didney Avenue, Washington, DC.
Or maybe Trump is sitting there silently making mean faces
at a picture of Garland. That's what he did yesterday
while he attended only virtually your welcome New York courtroom
(10:19):
crowd the hearing at which his buddy, Judge Juan Murshawan
set the trial date for the thirty four felony charges
in the Stormy Daniels payoff for Monday, March twenty fifth,
twenty twenty four, three weeks after Super Tuesday. Got to
reserve those trial dates early. There are going to be
a lot of Trump trials next year. Seems extremely unlikely
(10:39):
that Fannie Willis would notify law enforcement months in advance
if she was not going to indict him in July.
It seems extremely unlikely that the Special Council would present
just one all encompassing case against Trump, rather than breaking
it up into a series of trials, bettering the odds
of getting at least one conviction that way. All through
(10:59):
the thing yesterday in New York and by virtual, Judge
Mershawn warned Trump about not disseminating evidence discovered free trial
and not being able to make public appearances during a trial,
but continued to reassure him that nobody was going to
restrict his First Amendment rights. I guess all of that
was greeted with pantomimed Trump fury, his usual petulance and childishness,
(11:25):
but amen, while his microphone was muted. I like the
way the New York Times put it quote when Justice
Merchahan mentioned the trial date, Trump immediately grew agitated, chattering
at his attorney Todd Blanche with his microphone muted, waving
his hands and shaking his head. Put that out on
(11:46):
a disc. I'd watched that on a loop. Is it
too much to hope? Trump was also demanding a plate
of catchup. Also of note here Florida man runs for
Republican nomination, and never mind the Twitter thing. DeSantis has
done something that I have not seen mentioned very much,
if at all, even though once you'll hear it, you
(12:09):
will say, so obvious, so so obvious, which I think
is going to be huge in the primary, and if
DeSantis is the nominee, will be huge in the general election.
That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman.
Postscripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
(12:31):
some predictions. Dateline tallahassee how can you announce something that
everybody already knows about? I mean, you can make that
announcement on Twitter, or you can make it on the moon.
It's just not a thing if everybody already knows yet.
Ron DeSantis, the short man in high heels, will be
announcing he is running for president, which he has been
(12:52):
doing for two years on Twitter with Elon Musk. Now,
obviously Musk has not thought this through. That's a surprise.
Has he turned Twitter into a right wing cesspool? Musk
probably noticed through his ego that most of its denizens
were Trump cultists, So now in their mind, as of today,
Twitter will be anti Trump. Nice work, Almo. And DeSantis,
(13:17):
of course, has buried his own lead. Monday, he mentioned
on the record in a trivial venue, a Christian media
conference in Orlando. That's three boring things combined into one.
A Christian media conference in Orlando. DeSantis announced something that
will presumably be the backbone of his campaign against Trump,
(13:38):
or if it isn't, it should be, and if DeSantis
somehow gets the nomination, it should be the backbone of
his campaign against Biden. DeSantis casually mentioned that he believes
four or five current Supreme Court justices will retire by
the year twenty thirty three. That's actually kind of irrelevant
to this. But he expects to be president for eight years,
so he'd get to replace all the liberals and the
(13:59):
non Clarence Thomas style conservatives with four or five new
Clarence Thomases. And he just sort of glossed over the
fact that if elected, he Desantists could run for reelection
in twenty twenty eight, and Trump, if elected next year,
could not run for reelection in twenty twenty eight. That
seems like the first decent selling point for the Republicans
(14:22):
from Ronda against Trump. But no, he doesn't seem to
think so. He seems to think the real key is
going on Twitter because MySpace isn't available. Iran run Aprand,
(14:49):
help me, Ronda, get Trump out of jail. Thank you,
Nancy faust a caveat here. This all presumes Trump does
not intend to try to change the Constitution or terminate it,
in his words, so he can seek a third term.
Somebody ought to ask him about that if elected, do
(15:11):
you intend to try to change the laws so you
can be reelected in twenty twenty eight? Maybe they could
ask Trump that at a town hall for uh never mind,
Speaking of which, dateline Hudson Yards, New York. Oh, there
are some tense crew members aboard RMS Titanic. Washington Post
(15:33):
columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin wrote a rather textbook
piece kind of a ways after the fact, suggesting that
after the CNN town hall disaster and Christiana'munpour's diplomatic vivisection
of Chris Licked, maybe CNN should get rid of Chris
Licked and put Christian i'm onpoor in charge. The piece
suggested CNN had become a laughingstock, which it is except
(15:57):
when college grads are booing the boss's boss. Well, he
gives a commencement speech. That's not a laughing stock. It's
a booing stock. This did not sit well with Matt Dornick,
CNN's senior vice president in charge of communications. Wait, let
me check. Is he he's still on that job? Dornick
fired back against Jennifer Ruben on Twitter, complaining about two
(16:18):
old articles she had linked to and then throwing meaningless
stats at her like we are airing thirty percent more
traditional news packages from our correspondence today than a year ago,
and then saying she was throwing stones about the hiring
of former White House aides, considering she is paid by
MSNBC and calling her reckless and defensive because she said
(16:38):
CNN was a laughingstock, which it is, and he added
quote because you disagree with the merits of a single
event or a few high profile decisions made by leadership,
that's not championing journalism. It's shameful. Dornick then added, what
about all the times Titanic didn't hit an iceberg and sink? Huh,
why didn't you write about that? Ha ha ha. I
(17:01):
made the last part up having been in this business
full time for one month, shy of forty four years
now when management like Chris Licked and his bosses screw
up like this and the world's media comes down on
them personally like has been happening now for two weeks.
And by the way, congrats Matt Dornick on giving this
story at least another day in the hot file. When
(17:24):
guys like Licked get criticized, the first person they yell
at is the pr guy in this case, this Matt Dornick.
So to borrow Anderson Cooper's last words when he was
still relatively popular, I get it, but honestly, just let
it die Bro, you need to save your strength. I mean,
Cooper avoided Last Place Monday by just eleven thousand viewers.
(17:47):
And think what your job is going to be like
when Chris Licked starts blaming his own bosses for making
him do all this stuff that destroyed CNN, which will
start in about well, what time was it last week?
What time is it now? Is it blame your boss's time? Yet?
(18:18):
Counting up? Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are engaged. I
bet they are once again because it is all about me.
I used to work with her at Fox. How did
I not see this coming? You should excuse the expression.
First the daily round up with the misgrants, morons and
Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's whereas persons in
(18:40):
the world. Ron's Martin Screlly. Remember Martin Screlly, the pharmacy
bro who cornered the market in an anti parasitic medication
that cost thirteen dollars and fifty cents a pill. But
he had a genius idea. He raised it seven hundred
and fifty dollars a pill, and then they caught him
for securities fraud and he went to prison. He has
now claimed on a podcast the other day that this
(19:02):
latest greed bro running as a long shot for the
Republican nomination. Vivek Ramaswami was once his Screlley's lead investor.
So a political reporter named Daniel Lippman called Screlley to
ask him about this rather remarkable claim. Now, the last
psych report on Screlly mentioned delusions of grandeur and such.
(19:23):
Lippman reports their conversation began with Screlly demanding to be
paid for the interview, and then it got worse. The
Screlly parts are quotes. I will tell you everything I know,
and in exchange, I suppose your company would do something
for me. The really juicy stuff I know is something
that I could potentially sell to the National Inquirer or
to monetize that myself. Lipman, we don't pay for interviews, Screlly.
(19:48):
I'm just struggling what's in it for me. I'm going
to need a sweeter deal than that. I have this
new software. If you plug that, maybe we got a deal,
then Lipman, we don't barterer for interviews, Screlley. If I
bless your cash app like five bans that my fellow
non hipsters means five thousand dollars. If I bless your
(20:10):
cash app like five bands, will you say some nice
blank about me? Whoooo? The runners up the Bob Graham
Education Center in Miami Lake's, Florida. It's always Florida. This
place banned five books from its K through five library
because many parents complained. While some parents complained well, one
(20:33):
parent complained Daily Salinas, who has two kids at that school.
She says the books contain references to critical race theory
and quote indirect hate messages, so they banned them just
on her word. Her complaint this Daily Selenus would know
critical race theory if it came up, and bitter in
her Panhandle the unfortunate punchline. Remember when I mentioned the
(20:55):
other day that a Texas school had banned a book
of poems by the State Poet Laureate of Texas. The
Bob Graham Center just banned the poem written by and
read by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman at Joe
Biden's inauguration, The Hills We Climb band It once again.
The solution to this is simple. It was used one
(21:16):
hundred years ago as various states in the South tried
to ban the teaching of evolution. You want to ban
these books, cool knock yourselves out. Degrees issued by schools
in your state will no longer be considered sufficient for
acceptance in any institution of higher learning outside your state,
and no homeschooling degree will be either and our winner
(21:39):
and too bad we didn't have these rules for him.
Matt Gates, congressman from the Florida County of Infected Groin.
One assumes what he said to the Semaphore website was
just saying the quiet part out loud. But I don't
think he cares. I don't think he's sane. I don't
think he's sober. On the debt limit and the prospects that,
you know, whatever they're saying today. Quote. I think my
(22:02):
conservative colleagues, for the most parts, support limit, save grow
and they don't feel like we should negotiate with our
hostage unquote. It's on audio, negotiate with our hostage and
on the OUDEO. Gates sounds totally unbothered by the term Congressman.
(22:22):
Matt Sure sounded like a man who has in his
time taken plenty of hostages. Gates two days worst person
and the world hostage still ahead on Countdown, People magazine
(22:48):
reporting that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are now engaged
engaged in what So I gotta go through this again,
don't I? I mean, what are the odds that not
only did I used to work with the woman Sanchez
who was used to try to blackmail Bezos into supporting Trump,
but that I also used to work with the guy
who later tried to blackmail David Letterman. Next. First, in
(23:13):
each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need
you can help. Every dog has its day and again
it's time to help people who help dogs. Another great
rescue is in deep financial trouble. The rescues are dropping
like flies. Layla's Heart and Rescue in Cedar Creek, Texas.
They never let geography constrain their generosity. They've helped pull
numerous dogs from the New York Pound, so they have
(23:35):
a special place in my heart. They need simply more money.
Lhr R has a tweet out with a venmo QR code,
or you can go to their site. If you're going
via Twitter, look out there's a fake account trying to
scam their money. Look for them at Lala's Heart RR
or the details will be on my Twitter feeds. I
thank you and Layla's Heart and Rescue. Thanks you. Jeff Bezos,
(24:09):
the founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post,
was being blackmailed by allies of Crazy Trump, who expected
to get positive coverage for their leader of their cult.
What they had on Bezos was he had a girlfriend.
They had pictures. It would cost him hundreds of millions
of dollars were his wife to find out, He said,
that'll happen. In February twenty nineteen, Jeff Bezos went public,
(24:33):
said his marriage was ending anyway. He was sorry about
the pain this caused his wife, but he would now
give her all she wanted, and the National Inquirer blackmailers
could shove it amid everything else. It suggested to me
that when you cannot figure out what happened to the
people who once seemed to have principles, or at least
seemed to have enmity towards Crazy Trump, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham,
(24:57):
others remembered that the odds were amazingly small that the
first time Trump's allies tried to mail somebody on his
behalf that they would find in Jeff Bezos, the one
guy who would say no on the first try. I
don't think so. I have assumed ever since that this
process has been utilized for years on Trump's behalf in business,
(25:21):
inside politics and at its fringes, and that Bezos was
not the first victim of this, just the first victim
who said, few, this is why we have fu money.
But beneath all that important stuff was yet another occasion
where my jaw dropped to the floor and I had
to reattach it with Elmer's glue. The woman at the
(25:42):
center of the blackmail, the woman for whom Jeff Bezos
was going to leave his wife, was named Lauren Sanchez,
and like everybody else in this twenty first century America,
I used to work with her. Lauren was a reporter
and sometimes anchor at Fox Sportsnet when I got there
in nineteen ninety eight. Only sometimes they wrote her a
(26:02):
script once that actually read Roger clement era is one
of the greatest in his era, and she, of course
read Roger Clemens's era is one of the greatest in
his ra She was much better at interviewing Lakers players
after games, particularly Shaquille O'Neil, even though he was more
than two feet taller than she was, and she used
to insist on interviewing him standing up. These little visits
(26:26):
looked so odd on camera that I remember seeing one
of her stories being fed in from the LA Forum
and I asked the producer, are we actually putting that
on the air or just onto the gag reel for Christmas?
We did not overlap long there after, she gave birth
to the child of NFL tight end Tony Gonzales, long
after she had ended her relationship with him. Lauren Sanchez
(26:48):
was hired to anchor the news on Channel thirteen, which
is a station that was apparently created because somebody would
always have to be in last place in the news ratings,
and it might as well be them. I was back
visiting in LA in the spring of two thousand and
two and dived in and out of his men newscast
as I could so I could see what my two
ex employers there, and so many of my old colleagues
(27:10):
and rivals were doing. That's when I saw it. The
worst or perhaps the best commercial for a local television
news sweeps series in human history in any language. Sweeps
series used to be local TVs Bread and Butter during
the weeks when the local ratings were tabulated and used
to establish who was number one and thus how much
(27:33):
everybody's commercials would cost. Each station would do a series
of special reports within each newscast. They were designed solely
to be advertised, to be sponsored, and to be as
salacious or silly, or unbelievable or titillating or just as
memorable as possible. When I was in local news in
LA in the eighties and nineties, we had a series
(27:55):
at Channel two with a very good reporter named Dorothy Lucy,
and the series was called The Search for Slees. The
commercials for The Search for Slees showed her riding around
in a jacuzzi built into the back of a stretch
limo with an old guy with a beard and a
couple of bikini models in there too. That had been,
to my knowledge, the low point of the Sweeps series.
(28:18):
But now, as I watched in my hotel room in
Santa Monica in the spring of two thousand and two,
this is more or less what I heard the voiceover
announcer say. This week a special report, CACOP thirteen news
anchor Lauren Sanchez brings you how to meet a baller ladies,
(28:38):
find out where to meet the athlete of your dreams Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Dodgers, Angels.
Do you want to meet him? Do you want to
get to know him? Do you want to date him?
How to beat a Baller? This week on the CACOP
thirteen News at ten with Lauren Sanchez, How to meet
(28:59):
a Baller. I'm not certain how how they restored me
to human form from the puddle into which I had dissolved.
I do remember calling the desk to ask if it
was still Tuesday. It felt like I had been out
called for several weeks. I was appalled, shocked, chagrined, nauseated, mortified, embarrassed, humiliated,
(29:21):
and then I stopped and as an angelic choir saying
in the background, I changed my mind completely. This was
not Sweep's series madness. This was not a woman debasing
herself by teaching other women how to debase themselves, how
to meet dollars. This was, for perhaps the first time
in Sweeps series history, perhaps the first time in local
(29:44):
television news history, a true expert lending her panoramic learned
comprehensive knowledge about one subject requiring subtlety, insight, insider information
and the selflessness to share it with mere ordinary women viewers.
How do you meet a baller? I would never have
(30:05):
known who to ask. I never would have known to
whom to send my wife or daughter or friend. Not really.
I knew there were experts, there were scholars, there were
fonts of wisdom. But Lauren Sanchez was the Einstein of
meeting ballers. And even in the glimmering light of knowledge
(30:27):
that radiated from her that week on Channel thirteen, Los Angeles,
two decades ago, even in the blinding aura of her brilliance,
could she have known that the ultimate target of the
Little Sweep series should have been No, mere Tony Gonzalez?
Or do you want to meet him? Do you want
to get to know him? Do you want to date him?
(30:48):
It should have been do you want to meet him?
Do you want to get to know him? Do you
want to date him? How to meet a bezos? In life?
You just don't expect people you worked with for a
few weeks, like Lauren Sanchez, to you wind up as
part of modern American history. It just seems unlikely, not
that they could be involved in a blackmail story like hers,
(31:11):
and she was a victim, but that you could have
known her. And yet for me this was the second time.
On October first, two thousand and nine, it was the
anniversary that reminded me of both of these stories. My
friend David Letterman came out onto the stage of the
CBS Late Night Show and revealed that he had had
a series of consensual relationships with women on his staff.
(31:33):
The studio audience laughed, assuming it was the start of
some bit in which the guys at the Hello Deli
would somehow have a roll of some sort. But Dave
went on and on and on, and finally revealed he
had been the victim of an extortion plot and that
he in the Manhattan DA's office set up a meeting
with the blackmailer, who wanted two million dollars, with the
(31:55):
cover story being that he had written a screenplay about
Letterman that would reveal all the relationships, but he would
sell the quote screenplay unquote two Letterman for two million dollars.
Within hours, Letterman's blackmailer was identified by authorities. I saw
the name pop up on my computer terminal, NBC, Robert Joel,
(32:16):
Joe Halderman, and I looked at it, and I said,
of course, Joe Halderman. He had been the assignment editor
at CNN in New York from the day I broke
into television in August nineteen eighty one until he left
for CBS News a year later. All television assignment editors
have to deny reporters camera crews. There are invariably scheduling conflicts,
(32:38):
and ultimately there are always two stories to shoot for
every one camera crew available. But Halderman used to enjoy
denying us reporters crewise. He used to like to mock us,
to make us grovel, and then when you got to
your story with your crew, he would page them and
tell them to go cover something else and leave you
stranded there. And personally he had absolutely no redeeming qualities.
(33:04):
If you would travel back in time to the twenty
two or twenty three year old me and explain who
David Letterman would be and what his fame would be like,
and how I'd be a guest on his show one
night when a presidential candidate canceled at the last minute,
and how somebody I already knew and had worked with
at age twenty two or twenty three would try to
blackmail him over staffers. He'd slept with and could I
(33:26):
I would have interrupted you by that point, said, matter
of factly, Oh, it's Joe Halderman, right, of course, Halderman,
total creep. You say he blackmails this letterbox guy. Frankly,
forty year old me probably could have figured out the
whole Lauren Sanchez thing for some time traveling quiz master
as well. Although I will make no comparison between Joe
(33:46):
Halderman and Lauren Sanchez, Lauren was very pleasant and there
is a lesson in that for you. It's not just nostalgia,
it's not a brush with greatness, to use a lettermanesque term.
Wherever you are in life or in your career, you
may have yet to meet them, or you may have
already met them. But this I know to be true.
(34:09):
You have your own Lauren Sanchez and your own Joe
Halderman already or already in the past. And whatever your
first impressions about them were, or are or will be,
you're damned right they are. And also keep in mind
(34:29):
that thought I mentioned that I had about Bezos and
the blackmail. Do you really think he could have been
the first one they tried to blackmail into supporting Trump?
And the first one turned them down and went public.
I don't think so. I've done all the damage I
(35:03):
can do here here the but it's most of the
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillips Shanelle. They are the Countdown musical directors. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanelle, Guitars, bass and
drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Oulderman theme from
(35:25):
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Fauss the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine, and everything
else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for
this the eight hundred and sixty ninth day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Don't forget to keep arresting him while
(35:46):
we still can. The next schedule countdown is tomorrow. Until then,
I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is fection of iHeartRadio.
(36:06):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
Special Council is at the end game. Trump's liberty maybe
(00:26):
at the endgame as well. Quote. Some of Trump's close
associates are bracing for his indictment and anticipate being able
to fund raise off of prosecution. People in the former
president circle said, unquote, Jack Smith has all but finished
obtaining testimony and other evidence unquote, evidence about the classified documents.
Trump stole not a thing in there about Saudi Arabia,
(00:49):
or China, or even Oman or Coup's or January sixth
or fifty pages of Evan Corcoran's handwritten dear Diary. Trump said,
another really illegal thing today notes or even two pages
of those notes. That is hardly breathless composition. Right there
by the Wall Street Journal. It also reminds us that
(01:09):
nearly three weeks ago, the same paper seem to write
the same thing. The steps prosecutors are taking suggest mister
Smith is in the late stages of his inquiry. Only
that was about not the marri Lago documents, but about
Trump's extra legal, cynical attempt to manipulate the electoral college system.
And still I am hopeful I know, I know, I know,
(01:33):
I know, I know, I know there is no such
thing as Trump derangement syndrome. But they're sure as hell
is a Mueller derangement syndrome and we all have it.
But perversely, I am encouraged more by the Journal's board
robotic voice redlent of Alan Rickman and The Hitchhiker's Guide
(01:53):
to the Galaxy that I was by some of the
hyperventilation over Monday's revelations about the Corcoran revelations, or the
stitching together of the theory that Trump actually stole nuclear
secrets so he could get a better deal on goddamn
golf course naming rights from the saudis hyperventilation that included
my own. But I mean, how would you expect the
(02:15):
Wall Street Journal, which starts by sucking the life out
of everything its reporter's touch, and when it's something that
hurts conservatives, then runs it all through the deflavorizing machine
a second time just to make sure. How would you
expect the journal to present a genuinely shocking detail such
as the one they did in paragraph three quote. In
(02:37):
recent weeks, prosecutors working for Smith have completed interviews with
nearly every employee at Trump's Florida home, from top political
aids to maids and maintenance staff unquote, wait, nearly every employee.
(02:57):
When the pandemic hit, Trump furloughed one hundred and fifty
three Mary Lago employees, saying you couldn't have hundreds of
people standing around doing nothing. Each year he applies to
hire nearly one hundred foreign workers there. Presumably Jack Smith
didn't interview everybody at the golf course caddy Shack, but
who knows how many people he did interview. Two months ago,
(03:19):
Rolling Stone and CNN reported about two dozen Trump Florida
employees had been interviewed, including the unfortunately named press aide
Margo Martin and that's Margo Martin and not beloved character
actress Margot Martindale from BoJack Horseman. I'm sorry I wandered
off there. Prosecutors have pressed witnesses, some in multiple rounds
(03:41):
of testimony, to resume the journal story on questions that
appeared to home in on specific elements Smith's teams would
need to show to prove a crime, including those that
speak to Trump's intentions and questions aimed at undermining potential
defenses Trump could raise. So What they're doing, in part,
is curating a forensic, minute by minute breakdown of a
(04:04):
couple of days or even weeks in question, with an
eye towards being able to prove where Trump was during
every moment of Evan Corkoran's search for documents in June
of last year, and where the guys running the security
video were at those moments, and where his valet and
box mover Walt Nauta was, and where the other as
(04:24):
yet unnamed employee who helped Naota move the boxes to
and from Trump's office so Trump could pull the documents
he needed for whatever, trading to the UAE or just
framing for future memories. Why he did it almost doesn't matter,
As the old saw goes, it's never the crime, it's
the cover up. Back to the Wall Street matter of
fact journal quote Smith's team, which has been examining whether
(04:48):
anyone tried to obstruct the criminal inquiry, has obtained evidence
that appears to show Trump held on to sensitive documents
after being asked to relinquish them. The report then blandly
restates the significance of last week's reports that the National
Archives turned over all its correspondence with Trump and his
(05:09):
advisors about the process of declassifying materials and his apparent
acknowledgment that he understood what that process was. But the
conclusion from those countless interviews at the residence at Mary
Lago has to be one of two completely opposite things,
namely that the act of stealing the classified documents is
(05:30):
either such a slam dunk conviction that it doesn't need
a minute by minute it was the colonel with the
Iranian nukes docks in the pantry timeline, or more likely,
the question of secret classification is way too vague and
way too complicated, especially when compared with obstructing justice and
lying to your own attorney and lying to the FBI
(05:52):
and the DOJ, and ordering your lawyers to lie to
the FBI and the DOJ, and hiding documents you have
been ordered by the government to return in undeniable violation
of the Espionage Act. That all that is far less
nuanced and far less likely to be fuzzed up by
Trump's only real skill throwing obfuscation against the wall and
(06:13):
seeing if it will stick like it was a plate
of burgers and fries during a Bill Barr interview. And lastly,
in parsing the journal's fantastic success in turning the worst
political scandal in the history of all of the Western
democracies into the equivalent of ambient. I must credit the
paper for making something stand out. In April, Trump attorney
(06:37):
Tim Parlatour and colleagues wrote to lawmakers in Washington trying
to get them to force the Department of Justice to
drop all the inquiries into all the classified documents found
at Trump's home, or Biden's property, or Pence's property, or
the astonishing number of congressman's and senators homes. I didn't
(06:57):
see the Parlatar letter as quite the big tell that
the journal characterizes it as deficient. Document handling and storage
procedures it says in that letter are not limited to
any individual, administration or political party. The letter read, in part,
Parloatar wanted to call off quote ham handed criminal investigations
(07:19):
of matters that are inherently not criminal. Next thing we knew,
Tim Parlator was off the Trump legal team, and he
was blaming Boris Epstein for making it much more difficult
to defend Trump. And now the journal says the letter
quote and particularly a push by its authors to publicize it,
triggered upheaval within the Trump legal team. In other words,
(07:42):
Epstein got Parlatre fired over that letter. Why it's so
obvious you probably didn't see it. I didn't. In the letter,
Parlatore admits that Trump did something wrong. You can't admit
Trump did something wrong that destroys the entire bubble inside
(08:03):
of which Trump is always lived and lives, his genuine
belief that he is infallible, his belief that he is indestructible,
and for all we know, his belief that he is immortal.
Parlator confessed in writing that Trump had the same kinds
of documents that were found in Biden's properties and in pencs.
And what kind of documents were those classified documents? Parlatre
(08:29):
in that letter is confessing in writing that Trump had
classified documents and he shouldn't have oops fired. I'm surprised
Trump didn't respond to the Parlator letter by throwing a
plate of ketchup at him. And then there was the
(08:50):
other letter. Trump's attorneys, John Rowley and Jim Trusty last
night wrote a Dear Attorney General Garland letter that Trump
clearly composed himself. I don't know exactly where this lands
on the scale from panic to you desperately trying to
gain public pity to lawyers desperately trying to please their
crazy client. I'll read it in full. Doesn't take that long.
(09:12):
Dear Attorney General Garland, we represent Donald J. Trump, the
forty fifth President of the United States. He owns a
mansion and a yacht. In the investigation currently being conducted
by the Special Counsel's office. Unlike President Biden, his son Hunter,
and the Biden family, President Trump is being treated unfairly.
Reads like it was written by a third grader. No
(09:34):
president of the United States has ever in the history
of our country been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous
and unlawful fashion. We request a meeting at your earliest
convenience to discuss the ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated
by your Special Counsel at his prosecutors. Thank you for
your attention to this matter. I understand Garland has already
(09:56):
composed his reply. Dear mister Rowley and mister Trusty, happy
to meet you and your client. Please come to my office.
At one twenty three Trump pooped his pants Didney Avenue, Washington, DC.
Or maybe Trump is sitting there silently making mean faces
at a picture of Garland. That's what he did yesterday
while he attended only virtually your welcome New York courtroom
(10:19):
crowd the hearing at which his buddy, Judge Juan Murshawan
set the trial date for the thirty four felony charges
in the Stormy Daniels payoff for Monday, March twenty fifth,
twenty twenty four, three weeks after Super Tuesday. Got to
reserve those trial dates early. There are going to be
a lot of Trump trials next year. Seems extremely unlikely
(10:39):
that Fannie Willis would notify law enforcement months in advance
if she was not going to indict him in July.
It seems extremely unlikely that the Special Council would present
just one all encompassing case against Trump, rather than breaking
it up into a series of trials, bettering the odds
of getting at least one conviction that way. All through
(10:59):
the thing yesterday in New York and by virtual, Judge
Mershawn warned Trump about not disseminating evidence discovered free trial
and not being able to make public appearances during a trial,
but continued to reassure him that nobody was going to
restrict his First Amendment rights. I guess all of that
was greeted with pantomimed Trump fury, his usual petulance and childishness,
(11:25):
but amen, while his microphone was muted. I like the
way the New York Times put it quote when Justice
Merchahan mentioned the trial date, Trump immediately grew agitated, chattering
at his attorney Todd Blanche with his microphone muted, waving
his hands and shaking his head. Put that out on
(11:46):
a disc. I'd watched that on a loop. Is it
too much to hope? Trump was also demanding a plate
of catchup. Also of note here Florida man runs for
Republican nomination, and never mind the Twitter thing. DeSantis has
done something that I have not seen mentioned very much,
if at all, even though once you'll hear it, you
(12:09):
will say, so obvious, so so obvious, which I think
is going to be huge in the primary, and if
DeSantis is the nominee, will be huge in the general election.
That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman.
Postscripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
(12:31):
some predictions. Dateline tallahassee how can you announce something that
everybody already knows about? I mean, you can make that
announcement on Twitter, or you can make it on the moon.
It's just not a thing if everybody already knows yet.
Ron DeSantis, the short man in high heels, will be
announcing he is running for president, which he has been
(12:52):
doing for two years on Twitter with Elon Musk. Now,
obviously Musk has not thought this through. That's a surprise.
Has he turned Twitter into a right wing cesspool? Musk
probably noticed through his ego that most of its denizens
were Trump cultists, So now in their mind, as of today,
Twitter will be anti Trump. Nice work, Almo. And DeSantis,
(13:17):
of course, has buried his own lead. Monday, he mentioned
on the record in a trivial venue, a Christian media
conference in Orlando. That's three boring things combined into one.
A Christian media conference in Orlando. DeSantis announced something that
will presumably be the backbone of his campaign against Trump,
(13:38):
or if it isn't, it should be, and if DeSantis
somehow gets the nomination, it should be the backbone of
his campaign against Biden. DeSantis casually mentioned that he believes
four or five current Supreme Court justices will retire by
the year twenty thirty three. That's actually kind of irrelevant
to this. But he expects to be president for eight years,
so he'd get to replace all the liberals and the
(13:59):
non Clarence Thomas style conservatives with four or five new
Clarence Thomases. And he just sort of glossed over the
fact that if elected, he Desantists could run for reelection
in twenty twenty eight, and Trump, if elected next year,
could not run for reelection in twenty twenty eight. That
seems like the first decent selling point for the Republicans
(14:22):
from Ronda against Trump. But no, he doesn't seem to
think so. He seems to think the real key is
going on Twitter because MySpace isn't available. Iran run Aprand,
(14:49):
help me, Ronda, get Trump out of jail. Thank you,
Nancy faust a caveat here. This all presumes Trump does
not intend to try to change the Constitution or terminate it,
in his words, so he can seek a third term.
Somebody ought to ask him about that if elected, do
(15:11):
you intend to try to change the laws so you
can be reelected in twenty twenty eight? Maybe they could
ask Trump that at a town hall for uh never mind,
Speaking of which, dateline Hudson Yards, New York. Oh, there
are some tense crew members aboard RMS Titanic. Washington Post
(15:33):
columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin wrote a rather textbook
piece kind of a ways after the fact, suggesting that
after the CNN town hall disaster and Christiana'munpour's diplomatic vivisection
of Chris Licked, maybe CNN should get rid of Chris
Licked and put Christian i'm onpoor in charge. The piece
suggested CNN had become a laughingstock, which it is except
(15:57):
when college grads are booing the boss's boss. Well, he
gives a commencement speech. That's not a laughing stock. It's
a booing stock. This did not sit well with Matt Dornick,
CNN's senior vice president in charge of communications. Wait, let
me check. Is he he's still on that job? Dornick
fired back against Jennifer Ruben on Twitter, complaining about two
(16:18):
old articles she had linked to and then throwing meaningless
stats at her like we are airing thirty percent more
traditional news packages from our correspondence today than a year ago,
and then saying she was throwing stones about the hiring
of former White House aides, considering she is paid by
MSNBC and calling her reckless and defensive because she said
(16:38):
CNN was a laughingstock, which it is, and he added
quote because you disagree with the merits of a single
event or a few high profile decisions made by leadership,
that's not championing journalism. It's shameful. Dornick then added, what
about all the times Titanic didn't hit an iceberg and sink? Huh,
why didn't you write about that? Ha ha ha. I
(17:01):
made the last part up having been in this business
full time for one month, shy of forty four years
now when management like Chris Licked and his bosses screw
up like this and the world's media comes down on
them personally like has been happening now for two weeks.
And by the way, congrats Matt Dornick on giving this
story at least another day in the hot file. When
(17:24):
guys like Licked get criticized, the first person they yell
at is the pr guy in this case, this Matt Dornick.
So to borrow Anderson Cooper's last words when he was
still relatively popular, I get it, but honestly, just let
it die Bro, you need to save your strength. I mean,
Cooper avoided Last Place Monday by just eleven thousand viewers.
(17:47):
And think what your job is going to be like
when Chris Licked starts blaming his own bosses for making
him do all this stuff that destroyed CNN, which will
start in about well, what time was it last week?
What time is it now? Is it blame your boss's time? Yet?
(18:18):
Counting up? Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are engaged. I
bet they are once again because it is all about me.
I used to work with her at Fox. How did
I not see this coming? You should excuse the expression.
First the daily round up with the misgrants, morons and
Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's whereas persons in
(18:40):
the world. Ron's Martin Screlly. Remember Martin Screlly, the pharmacy
bro who cornered the market in an anti parasitic medication
that cost thirteen dollars and fifty cents a pill. But
he had a genius idea. He raised it seven hundred
and fifty dollars a pill, and then they caught him
for securities fraud and he went to prison. He has
now claimed on a podcast the other day that this
(19:02):
latest greed bro running as a long shot for the
Republican nomination. Vivek Ramaswami was once his Screlley's lead investor.
So a political reporter named Daniel Lippman called Screlley to
ask him about this rather remarkable claim. Now, the last
psych report on Screlly mentioned delusions of grandeur and such.
(19:23):
Lippman reports their conversation began with Screlly demanding to be
paid for the interview, and then it got worse. The
Screlly parts are quotes. I will tell you everything I know,
and in exchange, I suppose your company would do something
for me. The really juicy stuff I know is something
that I could potentially sell to the National Inquirer or
to monetize that myself. Lipman, we don't pay for interviews, Screlly.
(19:48):
I'm just struggling what's in it for me. I'm going
to need a sweeter deal than that. I have this
new software. If you plug that, maybe we got a deal,
then Lipman, we don't barterer for interviews, Screlley. If I
bless your cash app like five bans that my fellow
non hipsters means five thousand dollars. If I bless your
(20:10):
cash app like five bands, will you say some nice
blank about me? Whoooo? The runners up the Bob Graham
Education Center in Miami Lake's, Florida. It's always Florida. This
place banned five books from its K through five library
because many parents complained. While some parents complained well, one
(20:33):
parent complained Daily Salinas, who has two kids at that school.
She says the books contain references to critical race theory
and quote indirect hate messages, so they banned them just
on her word. Her complaint this Daily Selenus would know
critical race theory if it came up, and bitter in
her Panhandle the unfortunate punchline. Remember when I mentioned the
(20:55):
other day that a Texas school had banned a book
of poems by the State Poet Laureate of Texas. The
Bob Graham Center just banned the poem written by and
read by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman at Joe
Biden's inauguration, The Hills We Climb band It once again.
The solution to this is simple. It was used one
(21:16):
hundred years ago as various states in the South tried
to ban the teaching of evolution. You want to ban
these books, cool knock yourselves out. Degrees issued by schools
in your state will no longer be considered sufficient for
acceptance in any institution of higher learning outside your state,
and no homeschooling degree will be either and our winner
(21:39):
and too bad we didn't have these rules for him.
Matt Gates, congressman from the Florida County of Infected Groin.
One assumes what he said to the Semaphore website was
just saying the quiet part out loud. But I don't
think he cares. I don't think he's sane. I don't
think he's sober. On the debt limit and the prospects that,
you know, whatever they're saying today. Quote. I think my
(22:02):
conservative colleagues, for the most parts, support limit, save grow
and they don't feel like we should negotiate with our
hostage unquote. It's on audio, negotiate with our hostage and
on the OUDEO. Gates sounds totally unbothered by the term Congressman.
(22:22):
Matt Sure sounded like a man who has in his
time taken plenty of hostages. Gates two days worst person
and the world hostage still ahead on Countdown, People magazine
(22:48):
reporting that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are now engaged
engaged in what So I gotta go through this again,
don't I? I mean, what are the odds that not
only did I used to work with the woman Sanchez
who was used to try to blackmail Bezos into supporting Trump,
but that I also used to work with the guy
who later tried to blackmail David Letterman. Next. First, in
(23:13):
each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need
you can help. Every dog has its day and again
it's time to help people who help dogs. Another great
rescue is in deep financial trouble. The rescues are dropping
like flies. Layla's Heart and Rescue in Cedar Creek, Texas.
They never let geography constrain their generosity. They've helped pull
numerous dogs from the New York Pound, so they have
(23:35):
a special place in my heart. They need simply more money.
Lhr R has a tweet out with a venmo QR code,
or you can go to their site. If you're going
via Twitter, look out there's a fake account trying to
scam their money. Look for them at Lala's Heart RR
or the details will be on my Twitter feeds. I
thank you and Layla's Heart and Rescue. Thanks you. Jeff Bezos,
(24:09):
the founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post,
was being blackmailed by allies of Crazy Trump, who expected
to get positive coverage for their leader of their cult.
What they had on Bezos was he had a girlfriend.
They had pictures. It would cost him hundreds of millions
of dollars were his wife to find out, He said,
that'll happen. In February twenty nineteen, Jeff Bezos went public,
(24:33):
said his marriage was ending anyway. He was sorry about
the pain this caused his wife, but he would now
give her all she wanted, and the National Inquirer blackmailers
could shove it amid everything else. It suggested to me
that when you cannot figure out what happened to the
people who once seemed to have principles, or at least
seemed to have enmity towards Crazy Trump, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham,
(24:57):
others remembered that the odds were amazingly small that the
first time Trump's allies tried to mail somebody on his
behalf that they would find in Jeff Bezos, the one
guy who would say no on the first try. I
don't think so. I have assumed ever since that this
process has been utilized for years on Trump's behalf in business,
(25:21):
inside politics and at its fringes, and that Bezos was
not the first victim of this, just the first victim
who said, few, this is why we have fu money.
But beneath all that important stuff was yet another occasion
where my jaw dropped to the floor and I had
to reattach it with Elmer's glue. The woman at the
(25:42):
center of the blackmail, the woman for whom Jeff Bezos
was going to leave his wife, was named Lauren Sanchez,
and like everybody else in this twenty first century America,
I used to work with her. Lauren was a reporter
and sometimes anchor at Fox Sportsnet when I got there
in nineteen ninety eight. Only sometimes they wrote her a
(26:02):
script once that actually read Roger clement era is one
of the greatest in his era, and she, of course
read Roger Clemens's era is one of the greatest in
his ra She was much better at interviewing Lakers players
after games, particularly Shaquille O'Neil, even though he was more
than two feet taller than she was, and she used
to insist on interviewing him standing up. These little visits
(26:26):
looked so odd on camera that I remember seeing one
of her stories being fed in from the LA Forum
and I asked the producer, are we actually putting that
on the air or just onto the gag reel for Christmas?
We did not overlap long there after, she gave birth
to the child of NFL tight end Tony Gonzales, long
after she had ended her relationship with him. Lauren Sanchez
(26:48):
was hired to anchor the news on Channel thirteen, which
is a station that was apparently created because somebody would
always have to be in last place in the news ratings,
and it might as well be them. I was back
visiting in LA in the spring of two thousand and
two and dived in and out of his men newscast
as I could so I could see what my two
ex employers there, and so many of my old colleagues
(27:10):
and rivals were doing. That's when I saw it. The
worst or perhaps the best commercial for a local television
news sweeps series in human history in any language. Sweeps
series used to be local TVs Bread and Butter during
the weeks when the local ratings were tabulated and used
to establish who was number one and thus how much
(27:33):
everybody's commercials would cost. Each station would do a series
of special reports within each newscast. They were designed solely
to be advertised, to be sponsored, and to be as
salacious or silly, or unbelievable or titillating or just as
memorable as possible. When I was in local news in
LA in the eighties and nineties, we had a series
(27:55):
at Channel two with a very good reporter named Dorothy Lucy,
and the series was called The Search for Slees. The
commercials for The Search for Slees showed her riding around
in a jacuzzi built into the back of a stretch
limo with an old guy with a beard and a
couple of bikini models in there too. That had been,
to my knowledge, the low point of the Sweeps series.
(28:18):
But now, as I watched in my hotel room in
Santa Monica in the spring of two thousand and two,
this is more or less what I heard the voiceover
announcer say. This week a special report, CACOP thirteen news
anchor Lauren Sanchez brings you how to meet a baller ladies,
(28:38):
find out where to meet the athlete of your dreams Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Dodgers, Angels.
Do you want to meet him? Do you want to
get to know him? Do you want to date him?
How to beat a Baller? This week on the CACOP
thirteen News at ten with Lauren Sanchez, How to meet
(28:59):
a Baller. I'm not certain how how they restored me
to human form from the puddle into which I had dissolved.
I do remember calling the desk to ask if it
was still Tuesday. It felt like I had been out
called for several weeks. I was appalled, shocked, chagrined, nauseated, mortified, embarrassed, humiliated,
(29:21):
and then I stopped and as an angelic choir saying
in the background, I changed my mind completely. This was
not Sweep's series madness. This was not a woman debasing
herself by teaching other women how to debase themselves, how
to meet dollars. This was, for perhaps the first time
in Sweeps series history, perhaps the first time in local
(29:44):
television news history, a true expert lending her panoramic learned
comprehensive knowledge about one subject requiring subtlety, insight, insider information
and the selflessness to share it with mere ordinary women viewers.
How do you meet a baller? I would never have
(30:05):
known who to ask. I never would have known to
whom to send my wife or daughter or friend. Not really.
I knew there were experts, there were scholars, there were
fonts of wisdom. But Lauren Sanchez was the Einstein of
meeting ballers. And even in the glimmering light of knowledge
(30:27):
that radiated from her that week on Channel thirteen, Los Angeles,
two decades ago, even in the blinding aura of her brilliance,
could she have known that the ultimate target of the
Little Sweep series should have been No, mere Tony Gonzalez?
Or do you want to meet him? Do you want
to get to know him? Do you want to date him?
(30:48):
It should have been do you want to meet him?
Do you want to get to know him? Do you
want to date him? How to meet a bezos? In life?
You just don't expect people you worked with for a
few weeks, like Lauren Sanchez, to you wind up as
part of modern American history. It just seems unlikely, not
that they could be involved in a blackmail story like hers,
(31:11):
and she was a victim, but that you could have
known her. And yet for me this was the second time.
On October first, two thousand and nine, it was the
anniversary that reminded me of both of these stories. My
friend David Letterman came out onto the stage of the
CBS Late Night Show and revealed that he had had
a series of consensual relationships with women on his staff.
(31:33):
The studio audience laughed, assuming it was the start of
some bit in which the guys at the Hello Deli
would somehow have a roll of some sort. But Dave
went on and on and on, and finally revealed he
had been the victim of an extortion plot and that
he in the Manhattan DA's office set up a meeting
with the blackmailer, who wanted two million dollars, with the
(31:55):
cover story being that he had written a screenplay about
Letterman that would reveal all the relationships, but he would
sell the quote screenplay unquote two Letterman for two million dollars.
Within hours, Letterman's blackmailer was identified by authorities. I saw
the name pop up on my computer terminal, NBC, Robert Joel,
(32:16):
Joe Halderman, and I looked at it, and I said,
of course, Joe Halderman. He had been the assignment editor
at CNN in New York from the day I broke
into television in August nineteen eighty one until he left
for CBS News a year later. All television assignment editors
have to deny reporters camera crews. There are invariably scheduling conflicts,
(32:38):
and ultimately there are always two stories to shoot for
every one camera crew available. But Halderman used to enjoy
denying us reporters crewise. He used to like to mock us,
to make us grovel, and then when you got to
your story with your crew, he would page them and
tell them to go cover something else and leave you
stranded there. And personally he had absolutely no redeeming qualities.
(33:04):
If you would travel back in time to the twenty
two or twenty three year old me and explain who
David Letterman would be and what his fame would be like,
and how I'd be a guest on his show one
night when a presidential candidate canceled at the last minute,
and how somebody I already knew and had worked with
at age twenty two or twenty three would try to
blackmail him over staffers. He'd slept with and could I
(33:26):
I would have interrupted you by that point, said, matter
of factly, Oh, it's Joe Halderman, right, of course, Halderman,
total creep. You say he blackmails this letterbox guy. Frankly,
forty year old me probably could have figured out the
whole Lauren Sanchez thing for some time traveling quiz master
as well. Although I will make no comparison between Joe
(33:46):
Halderman and Lauren Sanchez, Lauren was very pleasant and there
is a lesson in that for you. It's not just nostalgia,
it's not a brush with greatness, to use a lettermanesque term.
Wherever you are in life or in your career, you
may have yet to meet them, or you may have
already met them. But this I know to be true.
(34:09):
You have your own Lauren Sanchez and your own Joe
Halderman already or already in the past. And whatever your
first impressions about them were, or are or will be,
you're damned right they are. And also keep in mind
(34:29):
that thought I mentioned that I had about Bezos and
the blackmail. Do you really think he could have been
the first one they tried to blackmail into supporting Trump?
And the first one turned them down and went public.
I don't think so. I've done all the damage I
(35:03):
can do here here the but it's most of the
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillips Shanelle. They are the Countdown musical directors. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanelle, Guitars, bass and
drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Oulderman theme from
(35:25):
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Fauss the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine, and everything
else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for
this the eight hundred and sixty ninth day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Don't forget to keep arresting him while
(35:46):
we still can. The next schedule countdown is tomorrow. Until then,
I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is fection of iHeartRadio.
(36:06):
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