June 12, 2024 • 45 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 192: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT:
Trump has now floated reinstating the Military Draft.
He put the words in the mouth of the last of his Secretaries of Defense and that guy – Christopher Miller who sat back and watched January 6th unfold nearly as much as Trump did – dressed the draft up as “A National Service Requirement.” It seems to be targeted at 18, 19, and 20-year old American boys and girls (and maybe 17-year olds) and it would start with a mandatory military aptitude test administered BY the Pentagon IN your local high school and any kid who refused to take it might be prevented from graduating and any school that hesitated to go along with this would lose ALL federal funding.
Trump breaking precedent and using the American army domestically to suppress protests and conceivably kill civilians is not the bottom of the plan for the military-dictatorship part of his dictatorship. Those army soldiers, and marines, and whoever else, firing on other Americans – many of them or most of them or maybe all of them, would be draftees.
And when The Washington Post reported it, and the story got no traction and no pick-up at all, and even though the paper reported Trump had not expressly endorsed the draft, within six hours Trump posted an enraged denial reading “In fact, I never even thought of that idea” which even for him is a disastrously transparent non-denial denial. Of course HE never thought of that idea: when has Donald Trump ever thought anything about a military draft – except how to dodge it.
Somebody ELSE thought of that idea. The somebody else is that former Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller. The Post interviewed Miller and he said a national service requirement should be “strongly considered. He described the concept as a common “rite of passage,” one that would create a sense of “shared sacrifice” among America’s youth."
The impact this Washington Post story, could have on Trump’s campaign would be nothing short of fatal – if only it were to be handled correctly by BIDEN’S campaign:
Trump wants to reinstate the draft.
The. DRAFT.
Is there a more powerful campaign message than “Trump wants to draft your kids”? “Trump Wants To Force Your Kids To Kill Or Be Killed?” Actually there is. Because the voting age is not what it was in the ‘60s. The 18-year olds vote. There IS a more powerful campaign message and it is “Trump wants to draft YOU. Trump Wants To Force YOU to Kill or Be Killed.”
ALSO: Trump's felony conviction means he can't own a gun in Florida. So why has he had one longer than Hunter Biden had his? And what about Washington State's law allowing any voter to challenge any candidate's ballot position if he's been convicted of a felony? And why is Alvin Bragg voluntarily appearing at Jim Jordan's hearing - the day after Trump will be sentenced?
B-Block (25:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A Twitter follower of mine puts Chris Cillizza and Nate Silver in the same tweet just to mess with me. Jonathan Martin, who has spent a year talking about nothing but Joe Biden's age, complains that nobody has talked about Joe Biden's age (and works Aaron Sorkin into it, somehow) and the Republican who wants to be Senator from Minnesota, Royce White, explains the campaign funds may have been spent AT the all-nude strip club but that doesn't mean they were spent on STRIPPERS since they serve FOOD at all-nude strip clubs.
C-Block (34:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: As I read of Stephen A. Smith demanding that ESPN pay him more than it pays Pat McAfee, I flashed back to the days when the studio-show audiences there were way more profitable than they are now and ESPN was make $60 million a year from SportsCenter and they were paying me $300,000 and I asked for $3,000,000. Oh the look on their faces delights me to this day. How I Quit SportsCenter...
See
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump
has just floated reinstating the military draft. He put the
(00:26):
words into the mouth of the last of his secretaries
of Defense, and that guy, Christopher Miller, who sat back
and watched January sixth unfold nearly as much as Trump did.
Miller it was who dressed the draft up as a
national service requirement. But make no mistake about it, Trump
has now floated the one thing that would unquestionably lose
(00:48):
him the election in a landslide, and it is a
military draft. It seems to be targeted at eighteen, nineteen,
and twenty year old American boys and girls, and maybe
seventeen year olds as well. And it start with a
mandatory military aptitude test administered by the Pentagon in your
(01:11):
local high school. And any kid who refused to take
that test might be prevented from graduating. And any school
that hesitated to go along with this would lose all
federal funding. So Trump, breaking precedent and using the American
Army domestically to suppress protests and conceivably kill civilians he
(01:33):
does not like, is not the bottom of the plan
for the military dictatorship Part of the Trump dictatorship, those
army soldiers and marines and whoever else firing on other Americans,
many of them or most of them, or maybe all
of them would be draftees. And when the Washington Post
(01:57):
reported this and the story got no traction and no
pickup at all. And even though the paper reported Trump
had not expressly endorsed the draft himself, within six hours
Trump posted an enraged, chaotic denial, reading quote, in fact,
I never even thought of that idea, which even for
(02:19):
Trump is a disastrously transparent non denial denial. Of course,
he never thought of that idea. When has Donald Trump
ever thought anything about a military draft except about how
to dodge it? Somebody else thought of that idea. And
(02:41):
that's somebody else is the former Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller.
The burden of this trial balloon turned led balloon, now
lead balloon that may have made somebody else the early
front runner for the first Secretary of Defense in a
Trump dictatorship. That burden has fallen on this idiot Miller,
(03:03):
the ex soldier, defense contractor and weapons fetishist who took
over at the Pentagon after an enraged Trump fired Mark
Esper November twenty twenty, because Esper clearly would not let
Trump use the military to overthrow the civilian government and
void the election, the Post interviewed Christopher Miller, and Miller
(03:27):
said a national service requirement should be quote strongly considered.
He described the concept as a common rite of passage,
one that would create a sense of shared sacrifice among
America's youth unquote shared sacrifice, right, just like in Vietnam
(03:53):
the military draft, a national service requirement, a shared sacrifice
of fifty thousand Americans was the animating force behind all
the protests of the nineteen sixties. It was such a
third rail that the president who ended it was Richard Nixon.
(04:16):
And you can dress the draft up any way you want,
but under a draft requirement, American citizens, almost always teenagers,
almost always minorities, or economically or educationally deprived teenagers were
forced against their will to go to Vietnam or somewhere
else and kill or be killed. It reinforces the bonds
(04:41):
of civility. Miller also told The Washington Post, why wouldn't
we give that a try. If we're going to prepare
for a great power competition, it's helpful to have a
baseline understanding of the pool of potential military service members
and their specific aptitudes prior. We don't have a mechanism
(05:03):
now in our society that levins everyone and provides a
common focus and a common vision. Let me translate this
mad man Miller's euphemisms here, and how many goddamned mad
men Miller does Trump have working for him anyway? A
great power competition, as Christopher Miller said, is in fact
(05:27):
some kind of war or near war conflict with China.
Potential military service members, as Miller put it, are your
kids who would be forced to take that aptitude test.
The mechanism to provide a common focus and a common
vision that would be the Draft. Trump tried to run
(05:52):
away from this picture of a future America as military state,
but the Draft plan is far enough along inside the
fascist Republican Party that it is now chasing Trump. This
is not some half baked dream of an American SS
about which Miller just offhandedly mused to The Washington Post.
(06:13):
This entire National service structure is inside Project twenty twenty five,
the Trump and Federalist Society blueprint Project twenty twenty five
for converting this country into something more resembling Iran, and
that part of Project twenty twenty five that includes the
(06:33):
mandatory military exam and an interim and immediate step of
greater access to secondary schools for military recruiters. That thing
in Project twenty twenty five. That essay just happens to
have been written by former Trump Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.
(06:56):
Now and before Trump got some understanding that any sign
of him supporting a draft will instantly kill his campaign
if handled correctly by the opposition, some of his sick
offense had already endorsed it. To the Post. Quote I
like the idea of national service, and I'm not talking
(07:19):
about in wartime. That was said by Ohio idiot Senator JD. Vance,
who is furiously peddling to become the vice presidential nominee.
If he had not sufficiently come out in favor of
conscription and forcing American teenagers to kill or be killed
(07:39):
against their will, Vance then said something stupid and even macabre.
He told the Post he wants more Americans to put
quote some skin in the game unquote. Who knows if Vance,
who appears ever more so to be an utterly moronic,
(08:01):
deranged lunatic who knows if Vance realizes that his use
of the words skin there may not be some kind
of metaphor. Trump's non denial denial just does not hold up.
This is his clientt ex Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller,
(08:23):
whose chief of staff was Cash Patel Miller, who wrote
up the plan for Project twenty twenty five, which Trump
has sworn to implement, which includes a military draft that
Senator Vance just endorsed. And if you're still not seeing
this for what it is, the Post found disturbing enthusiasm
(08:45):
from another man who was not only Trump's former Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs, but who was also
in George W. Bush's administration. So he's one deal with
the devil's shy of the elusive evil hat trick. His
name impossibly is Rob Hood. And if the nightmare that
(09:08):
opens up before US mandatory military proficiency tests for high
school girls, roundups of defiant school administrators and students, a draft,
if those parts of the nightmare were not horrifying enough,
Hood was willing to say the even quieter part out loud,
(09:28):
even louder, that our young people are losers and takers,
and if they won't shape up. They need to be
shaped up by a draft. Eighteen to twenty year olds
would benefit from gaining who had told the paper quote
a better appreciation for how great this country is. Who
(09:50):
gave them their Social Security numbers? The United States government.
There can be the takers, and there can be the givers.
And once we're all a bunch of takers and there
are no givers, this country will collapse. Un Quote Rob Hood,
He's not a taker. The only thing he would take
(10:12):
is your child's life. One more part of the Post's
story merits quotation. The paper is paraphrasing the man whom
Trump might now disappear after this public relations disaster. Quote.
A national service requirement, Christopher Miller contends, would afford young
(10:32):
people from across the country the opportunity to learn about
and rely on one another. He and other advocates on
the political rights say they believe the United States is
losing its civil cohesion and view this as a solution.
In other words, force all of the teenagers into camps
(10:53):
and give them guns and teach them about our enemies.
And as Trump said on television just this month, just
this time, quote the enemy from within. They are doing
damage to this country. Under Trump, the military would not
(11:14):
be there to defend our allies. It would not be
there just in the event of conflict. It would be mandatory.
It would be fascistic, It would be used domestically, and
it would be aimed at Trump's political opponents, his enemies.
I never even thought of that idea. He belches. He
didn't have to. Every dictator in history has already thought
(11:37):
of that idea for him. And by the way, I
am not exaggerating. I don't think about the impact this
Washington Post story and just that Gateway drug in at
the initial plan to make a military assessment of each
high school kid in the United States mandatory, just that,
(12:00):
the impact just that would have on Trump's campaign, if
only it were to be handled correctly by Biden's campaign.
Trump wants to reinstate the draft. The draft. There were
revolutionaries blowing up buildings in this country because of the draft.
(12:23):
The nineteen sixty eight Democratic Convention and most of its
campaign was sabotaged because of the draft. The Lyndon Johnson
presidency and the Great Society and the strides towards integration
died because of the draft. One hundred thousand young men
fled this country because of the draft. No protest movement
(12:48):
in the half a century since has carried the weight
of nor had the impact of those of the sixties
and early seventies, because simply the draft was not a
vague concept. Theft was literally life and death. Your life
(13:10):
and death, My life and death. Is there a more
powerful campaign message conceivable than Trump wants to draft your
kids or Trump wants to force your kids to kill
(13:32):
or be killed? Actually there is, because the voting age
is not what it was in the nineteen sixties. The
eighteen year olds vote now, So there is a more
powerful campaign message, and it is this, Trump wants to
draft you. Trump wants to force you to kill or
(13:56):
be killed. Trump's legal status news remains in stasis. I
(14:26):
will note that his former campaign staff for Jessica Denson,
who broke the grip of Trump's non disclosure agreements and
now hosts The lights On podcast, noted two side effects
to his probation interview Monday, which have not only been
criminally undercovered, but which could theoretically put Trump at further
criminal risk. It is widely reported and Trump did not
(14:47):
winally deny this. That at the end of the Zoom
session he told the probation people in New York, quote,
be safe. As a former Trump worker and courtroom opponent,
she knows what the rest of us can only suspect here.
Trump telling New York State Corrections employees to be safe.
(15:09):
That's a threat. And even if the word threat is
a little too strong at minimum, that's yet another stochastic warning.
Be safe, not be well, be good, be happy, be healthy,
but be safe. Be safe from what? Safe? Safe from
(15:32):
Trump's mobs? What else? More tangibly miss Denson notes that
in his probation interview, Trump confirmed he is in possession
of his firearm at his home in Florida. Felons are
not permitted to possess firearms in Florida, but he has
now for thirteen days, longer than Hunter Biden possessed one separately.
(15:56):
It now proves at least two state organizations forbid nominating
felons for political office. Articles SEKX of the Nevada Republican
State Party by Laws insists that that organization quote shall
neither recognize nor support any candidate for public office who
has been convicted of a felony or while serving in
(16:18):
a public office, was impeached and convicted or removed from
office for any reason, how close on the last one
there got them on the first. Of course, there are
Republicans there in the Republican Party of Nevada, so there
is another article permitting them to behave immorally and override
Article sixteen by a two thirds vote. Unresolved, however, is
(16:39):
the matter of Trump and Washington State. Denny Westnead of
the Seattle Times notes that since eighteen sixty five, Washington,
before it was a state, has had a law barring
felons from holding elected office. It was updated in twenty
sixteen to read that any registered voter can challenge the
right of any candidate to be on the general election
(17:01):
ballot in Washington State for any one of five reasons,
including those candidates who were quoting convicted of a felony
by a court of competent jurisdiction, the conviction not having
been reversed nor the person's civil rights restored after the
conviction columnis. Westneat quotes an attorney named David Vogel in
Washington State who says, I have clients lined up. We're
(17:24):
going to be all over pursuing a ballot challenge in
Trump's case, mister Westnate notes plenty of presidential candidates have
been thrown off Washington state ballots in the past, always
from minor parties and also on the legal front, for
reasons I can only shake my head at. And I'm
beginning to think there may be a masochism requirement if
(17:46):
you want to be both a prosecutor and a Democrat.
The Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo
have agreed to voluntarily testify to Jim Jordan's latest dog
and pony show, which Jordan, for some reason, calls the
(18:07):
House Judiciary Committee. Brag and Colangelo will appear on Friday
July twelfth. And if you're saying, wait, July twelfth, July twelfth,
why does that date ring a bell? It's because Thursday,
July eleventh is still the date scheduled for Trump's sentencing. Happily,
(18:29):
it's not like they'll actually be sending Trump to jail
just one day before Bragg and Colangelo go and testify
to the Jordan Star Chamber, you know, sending him to
jail for illegal possession of a gun while felon or
threatening the jury, or violating the gag order a dozen times,
or committing the thirty four crimes he was convicted of.
(18:51):
I know he's not going to jail. Jonathan Turley told
me so. It also would be absurd to sends him
to jail. He is an elderly first defender, nonviolent crime.
He is an elder lee first offender.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
He is an elderly first Oh wait a minute, old Nancy,
I'm an elderly first defender.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I've been found guilty. The stormy jury had no doubt.
I'm far too old to go to prison, Butterly says,
I'm fine for the wide high. Thank you, Nancy foul
(19:55):
and thank you soggy bottom boys. Elderly first offender all
through his days. Also of interest here, Jonathan mar Is
back the Politico quote reporter unquote was spent the last
year talking about almost nothing except President Biden's age. Returns
to complain that nobody is talking about President Biden's age,
(20:19):
and he's doing this because Hunter Biden's conviction means that
president is even older than and should drop out. Honestly,
I don't know what Jonathan Martin is talking about, except
that while he was talking about it, he also managed
to invoke Aaron Sorkin. So for all I know, he
(20:42):
may be reporting that Sorkin may have just borrowed something
else from my life to make into a third TV series.
That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
Olboman still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown.
(21:18):
So there's a story in the TV sports world that
Stephen A. Smith is about to sign another deal with
ESPN and that the key bargaining point, reportedly is that
he believes he must be paid more than ESPN pays
that challenged guy it has on its air, Pat McAfee.
And this made me laugh and flashback to nineteen ninety seven,
(21:41):
this time of year when there were more people watching
ESPN studio shows than there are now, and I was
the lead anchor of Supports Center, and they were paying
me a little less than three hundred thousand a year,
and I figured out the show was profiting like sixty
million a year, and the rule of thumb in TV
was ten percent goes to the talent, ten percent of
(22:01):
the profit. That meant they should be paying me and
Dan three million each. And I told this to one
executive and then he looked like he was going to
have a stroke, and now Smith wants twenty million for
an audience that's only half as profitable as it was
in nineteen ninety seven, which means I need to tell
you the saga of how I quit Sports Center twenty
(22:22):
seven years ago and left for NBC, and then ESPN
tried to rehire me. Coming up, but first, As ever,
there are still more new idiots to talk about. The
daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens,
who we celebrate as two days worst persons in the world. However,
(22:46):
the bronze worse. And I mean this affectionately. A Twitter
exer self identifying only as a follower of mine named
Art Martin. Art responded to a Nate Silver tweet, and
he has struck me right in my guilt. Nate Silver's
tweet began if I told you ten years ago, and
it ended with would you be surprised? Mister Martin replied
(23:10):
to Nate Silver with quote if I had told you
ten years ago that Nate Silver would turn into someone
as quote credible unquote as Chris Solicit, would you be surprised?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
As the kids say, Man, do I feel seen and
not in a good Way, Nate Silver and Chris Solicit
in the same tweet, two of my biggest guilts in
my life. I'm sorry. I thought they added something. I
didn't realize that what they added would always have to
be limited to single digit numbers. I'm sorry, couldn't have worked.
(23:48):
Inter or Jonathan Turley in there like Aaron Sorkin, throwner
up worser. Jonathan Martin of Politico. We've met him here before.
You may remember Jonathan Martin from such worst person entries
as I had him important Trump news, but I sat
on it until I got a book deal, and I
(24:09):
spent eighteen months calling Trump the front runner. Then the
polls change, so I wrote an article saying Trump's the
front runner. Not so fast, and most relevantly, Biden should
stop calling David Axelrod a prick and admit he's too old.
Now Jonathan Martin is back to the only topic he
can handle, Biden's age, and he's back with the kind
(24:31):
of brilliant take that will make America ring. If this
is nineteen ninety nine and it invokes Aaron Sorkin quote
in the Sorkin version of twenty twenty four, Hunter's conviction
would be the escape hatch Biden takes to focus on
family and drop out of the race, deferring to a
Democrat who is not approaching eighty two here in reality,
(24:54):
it will take the jaws of life to get Biden out,
and Dems will continue what they've done for two years,
grumbling but saying nothing in public. Okayst staff In the
twenty twenty four Sorkin version of twenty twenty four, Aaron
Sorkin would not write this scene unless somebody else wrote
(25:15):
it for him first, then it would mysteriously appear in
his script. Also, mister Martin writes, Dems will continue what
they've done for two years, grumbling but saying nothing in public. Why, Yes,
Danny Konkannon's summer vacation relief guy. Not one Democrat has
said anything in public about Joe Biden's age these last
(25:38):
two years. Not one. Why are American news organizations imploding
the unrecognizable, ever changing marketplace? Yes, the collapse of the
media industry as a business. Absolutely that The Washington Post
had ten people cover the Hunter Biden trial, and all
(25:59):
of its tweets about the guilty verdict combined in the
first five hours had gotten only sixty retweets because the
Post doesn't understand that its audience doesn't give a crap,
and the audience that did give a crap would never
read the Post's coverage of that story. You bet you.
But there's a fourth factor about which we will continue
to do what we've done for two years, grumbling but
(26:19):
saying nothing in public. I guess the quality of today's
political journalists is so mediocre that there was actually a
bidding war for this one note idiot Jonathan Martin, but
our winner, Royce White. I love this guy, the ex
(26:40):
NBA player whose principal campaign issues are his own rage
and his own NBA career. His NBA career, which lasted
exactly eight minutes and fifty five seconds. White was the
Republican who lost to ilan Omar seventy five to twenty five.
(27:01):
He is now poised to be the Republican nominee for
the Senate in Minnesota to try to unseat Amy Klobashar.
As The Daily Beast has extensively reported, mister eight minutes
and fifty five seconds has had a campaign ethics complaint
filed on him after it turned out some of his
campaign money was spent at a strip club, and here
(27:24):
come the g Strings, an all nude strip club in Florida,
not Minnesota, A strip club called the gold Rush Cabaret
would be Republican Senator White went on David Pacman's show,
where the following exchange took place. Pac Man, your claim
(27:45):
is there were filings which said you spent campaign funds
at a strip club, but they were incorrect filings. White, No,
they didn't say I spent the funds at a strip club.
Or let's say they didn't say I spent the funds
on strippers, Pacman. But it was spent at a strip club. Why, well,
(28:07):
they sell food at the strip club, don't they A yes, yes, yes, food.
You spent the money at the strip club on food
the gold Rush Cabaret, Well, maybe the campaign was prospecting. Later,
(28:27):
in the same interview, White, who had already said they
didn't say I spent the funds on strippers, implied that
it may have been somebody else in his campaign who
who spent the money at the gold Rush Cabaret, not him,
even though he just said it was him and it
was it was spent on fine dining. Royce, I spent
(28:48):
it on food at the strip club. White. I never
heard that described as food before. I love this guy.
He's his own series and he's today's worst person. And
that's the word Latakos. There is a huge oral history
(29:30):
of ESPN from twenty eleven by Jim Miller, and most
of it is pretty good, but there's one line in
it that triggered this recollection. The executive vice president of
the company in nineteen ninety seven was named Howard Katz,
and in this ESPN book he was quoted as saying,
I didn't fire Keith. I just chose not to renew
his contract. And then there's a couple of quotes from
(29:52):
guys I never heard of who said, no, we fired him.
None of it's true. Howard and I got along surprisingly
well at ESPN and even better since, so I'm just
going to assume he misremembered all this, and he's right.
I mean, legally, he chose not to renew my contract
early in nineteen ninety seven, and a couple of weeks later,
instead he offered me a new four year contract which
(30:13):
would have basically doubled my salary. And even after I
had said no, thanks and I signed with NBC. The
then president of ABC, Bob Eiger whatever happened to him,
tried to get me to back out of the NBC deal,
to renege on it, and then sign a new deal
at ESPN. So they offered me two new deals after
they didn't renew my old contract. See how this works.
(30:37):
In ninety six and ninety seven, it was no secret
that my first choice was to leave ESPN. I had
come within hours of asking to be let out of
my deal. In the summer of nineteen ninety six, a
radio station in Chicago WMVP had wanted me to go
do the afternoon drive show there, a mix of news
and sports, and they were offering me twice the money
(30:57):
I was getting to host SportsCenter, and I was ready
to go. Loved it, had a great week there. They
wined me, they died me, and everybody offered me a
free beer, Welcome to Chicago, you're from out of town.
And then ownership of the radio station simply pulled the
plug on the station it was in thirty first place
and said they could save a lot more money by
(31:18):
simply rebroadcasting what was on FM radio. And eventually, and
this would have been interesting had I gone to Chicago.
Eventually the owners sold WMVP to ESPN. Anyway, My ESPN
deal was set to expire on December thirty first, nineteen
ninety seven, but they had the option to extend it
(31:38):
for I can't remember either either for a year after
that or two years, but they had to notify me
really early in ninety seven, and instead, on February eighteenth,
nineteen ninety seven, Howard Katz proposed to my then agent
that we tear up the contract and do a new
four year deal that started at seven hundred thousand dollars
(31:59):
a year and covered a radio show with Dan Patrick,
and the Sunday edition of Sports and the sp Awards ceremonies,
and the Internet and everything else. This was a lot
of money for ESPN in nineteen ninety seven, seven hundred
thousand dollars a year, so we played around with that
for a while. But I didn't really want to go
(32:20):
into radio full time, not then when I still had
dark hair. So on April fourth, nineteen ninety seven, Howard
Catz came back with another offer, three sports centers a
week plus some radio, starting at five hundred and fifty
thousand dollars a year. I noticed that this was less
than the first offer, so two weeks later, at the
first ever Jackie Robinson Night at Chase Stadium in New York,
(32:44):
Howard came up to me and asked me, in front
of everybody in our booth, ranging from Chris Berman to
Robin Roberts, to all the producers, and briefly to President
Bill Clinton, he asked me if we were close on
this new deal that he'd offered me. I got angry
at him. He got angry at me for getting angry
at him, and I said, you know, forget it. And
what's more, it makes no sense for me to hang
(33:04):
around here as a lame duck. Howard wait, Howard the duck,
and he calmed down. He said I could look at
other jobs and we'd let things cool off and talk
again about a new deal in a few weeks after
I looked around to see if it was something I'd
rather do than be at ESPN, and if it still
wasn't going anywhere, we would agree on a date early
in the summer and I could leave six months before
(33:24):
the contract officially ended. And then three huge things happened
about this that most people still don't know to this day.
Even after all that, When I called Phil Mushnick of
the new York Post and Richard Sandomir of The New
York Times, and I told them I would be leaving ESPN,
and it appeared I would be going to go to
Court TV to be the host and executive producer of
(33:46):
my own sports show, four nights a week. I almost
stayed at ESPN once it got out that I was leaving.
I got a letter from a viewer who told me
that his son, who had autism, had been at his
other son's little league game, and when his brother banged
out a base hit, this kid, who had rarely ever
(34:07):
spoken in his life, suddenly shouted out one of my catchphrases.
This guy said, he hit the ball real hard. Then
there was a flyball, and the boy said it's deep,
and I don't think it's playable. Then they went home,
and this virtually noncommunicative child began to draw illustrations of
(34:30):
my catchphrases. For whatever reason, I had triggered some kind
of blossoming by this child and his brother and his
father sent me a book of the child's illustrations of
my catchphrases. I am not trying to suggest I really
had anything to do with this. It was good fortune
(34:51):
and circumstance and probably something to do with the tone
of my voice, nothing more. But I was very moved
by this, and I remained so and by other things.
People wrote to me or wrote in the press about
how much the show Dan and I did men to them,
and I went back to Howard Katz and I said, look,
I know I've been impossible. You have to understand that
from my perspective, the company has also been impossible. But
(35:13):
Dan and I created too good a show to let
it die. When I go here to Court TV, I'm
only going to work Monday through Thursday on this new thing.
If you will send a car to take me to
and from Bristol every Sunday and give me some tokensal
give me fifty thousand dollars or something, I'll just do
the Sunday night show for you every week. You'll never
(35:34):
see me. I'll never see you. It's the show that
has the highest factor of management control. It's basically coloring
in by numbers, and it reruns all morning on Monday.
So forty percent of the people who see Dan and
I during the week they see this one show. That's it.
If you want some other stuff for me to do,
like radio commentaries. Great, we can negotiate that, but we
(35:55):
should not let this die. At least let's have it
on once a week. And Howard Katz said, Okay, let
me think about this. It sounds really good. And he
got back to me the next day and he said
it was the most difficult decision he had ever made
in this business, but he just couldn't do it. It
established too much of a precedent, especially the idea that
(36:16):
somebody could work at ESPN and also at some other
TV operation. He put it very bluntly. If ESPN was
not the sole employer of its people, it could not
control them by threatening to fire them. And he looked
at me and he said, especially you, And in the
same sentence he said, look, we'd love to continue the relationship,
(36:39):
though we see lots of ways you could fit into
ESPN Classic, like once a week or once a month
or whatever, and we'd like to get in on the
bidding for these radio commentaries that you're going to do
on the side. Well, it all ended surprisingly amicably. I
decided to go to MSNBC and NBC Sports instead of
Court TV, and as I signed the contract, I called
(37:01):
the ESPN president, Steve Bornstein and the head of Sports Center,
John Walsh. I called them from the office of the
head of NBC Sports, Dick Eversol, And in my diary,
I can't tell if that was June nineteenth, nineteen ninety
seven or June twentieth, nineteen ninety seven, but I made
the calls, and it was Eversall's idea called them. Now
call them right now, it'll matter later. The funniest thing
(37:23):
was the following Monday, June twenty third, I was packing
up my stuff in my house in Connecticut. I am
all set, and I am officially beginning my first week
not working for ESPN and instead working for NBC. And
the phone rings and it's John Walsh in Los Angeles
for something, and he has to talk to my agent immediately.
(37:45):
Do you know where she is right now? Howard Katz?
And I have just spoken with Bob Iger and he
wants to present a primetime proposal to you for ABC
and until you can continue at ESPN. And I laughed,
and I said, John, I signed with NBC last week
the World Series and the news show, oh and super
Bowl stuff. Remember I called you from Dick Ebersoll's office.
(38:09):
You remember it was Friday or Thursday, whatever it was,
we're having the news conference today. And he is dead serious,
and he says to me, oh oh oh, and there's
a long pause. Well, well, I still need to talk
to your agent. Well. I had known Bob Iger, who
had apparently precipitated this phone call, since I was in
(38:31):
college in nineteen seventy nine. He had given me an
hour of his time just for career advice because I
had interned at the TV station for which his first
wife had been a news producer, Channel five in New York.
I told that story I think two weeks ago, and
Bob was wonderful to me. So I called Bob and
I explained what had happened, and he said, Steve Bornstein
only told me that you were leaving this morning. I'm
(38:53):
very very sorry. I knew there were contentious negotiations about
a new deal for you, but I had no clue
it was at the point where you might actually leave.
I should have known. That's my fault. That's why I
told John to make the call. He did. Trust me.
If I'd known would have been totally different. I would
have made it right by you. You would have wanted
to stay, and if it doesn't work at NBC. You
call me directly and I'll bring you back here myself.
(39:15):
I mean, the ending was so unexpectedly and surprisingly pleasant
that even when my new bosses at MSNBC suddenly announced
I think it was in newsweek that they were going
to call my program The Big Show, which was our
nickname for Sports Center at ESPN, the Big Show. But
they hadn't told anybody at ESPN that we were going
to call our MSNBC show the Big Show. It was
(39:37):
me who got on the phone with Howard Katz and
a couple of other people at ESPN to apologize and
to make sure they were okay with it. So, even
after my ESPN career was officially over and all chance
of my returning was dead, we tried to revive it,
both of us, Howard Katz and me, in good faith.
And I don't think Bob Iger was blowing smoke at me.
(39:58):
He had no reason to. And even after all that,
the parting was non nuclear. I think they sent me
a fruit basket for my first night at MSNBC on
October first, and then it all blew up. John Walsh
called the TV sports columnist at USA Today, Rudy Marski
(40:20):
and gave him my first set of ratings from MSNBC
just to try to make me look like I couldn't
succeed without ESPN. Marski told me that direct quote, they
want to punish you publicly. Walsh has been pressuring me
to run the very poor ratings, and he said, I'm
going to finally do it. I just wanted to give
you a little warning and maybe you have a comment. Well,
(40:42):
that set the tone for the next five years of warfare,
and it was nuclear pretty quickly. But this impression that
ESPN chose to dismiss me or not renew me, or
not bring me back, it's nonsense. Howard did not not
renew me. Instead, he offered to double my salary if
I stayed. If I had signed with NBC, Iiger was
(41:03):
still trying to get me to back up out after
I had signed with NBC and stay at ESPN and ABC.
The irony of this minor detail from about nineteen ninety
seven printed in twenty eleven, I think is that I
had already returned to ESPN by the time it was printed.
I took an hour out of my day at MSNBC
to go on with Dan Patrick on his ESPN radio
(41:25):
show from two thousand and five through two thousand and seven.
A year after that book came out with that quote
in it, twenty twelve, I was talking to the executives
at ESPN about going back full time, and a year
later I did to launch a nightly show on ESPN two.
And that ended when they laid off like one hundred
million dollars worth of talent salaries in twenty fifteen. But
(41:46):
then I went back again in twenty eighteen and I
did Sports Center, and I did baseball games on radio
and on TV, and I did reports, and I did
commentaries and did the not top ten plays of the week,
and on and on and on, and finally we parted
happily in the late summer of twenty twenty so I
could return to political cover Bridge and I knew they
wouldn't want that, and I didn't want to put it
(42:07):
on ESPN, and the unlikely result of that my parting
happiway in twenty twenty. On the books at Disney, I
am listed as a Disney and ESPN retiree. I get
benefits I retired from ESPN. I mean, they didn't give
(42:30):
me a gold watch or anything. But I'm technically a retiree.
And if you had predicted that in nineteen ninety seven
or twenty eleven, well you know the cliche. I bring
all this up again because I don't know how often
I have thought of that father and his two boys,
and the one who started speaking, but only in my
catch phrases. I would guess it's at least once a month.
(42:54):
Those boys would have to be in their thirties by
now or nearly, and I wonder often of what has
become of them, and I sure hope they are well.
(43:17):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countdown Musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Chanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums. Mister Chaneale
handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
(43:40):
music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. And
our satirical and fifty musical comments are by Nancy Fauss,
the best baseball stadium organist ever, who, of course accompanied
me on the Trump Elderly Saw. Our announcer was my
friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and better call Saul
(44:02):
and airplane. Everything else was pretty much my fault as usual.
That's countdown for this the one hundred and forty seventh
day until the twenty twenty fourth presidential election, and the
two hundred and fifty fourth day since convicted felon and
first time elderly offender Donald Trump's first attempt at coop
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use
(44:25):
the July eleventh sentencing hearing, use the mental health system,
use presidential immunity if it happens, Use the not regularly
given elector objection option to stop him from doing it
again while waste can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
(44:46):
Bolton says the news warrants till the next one. I'm
Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(45:10):
I'm an elderly first offender. I have been found guilty
in the stormy jury had no nut and forn't you
old to go to prison? But Turly says I'm fine
(45:30):
for the word. The End Countdown with Keith Olreman is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump
has just floated reinstating the military draft. He put the
(00:26):
words into the mouth of the last of his secretaries
of Defense, and that guy, Christopher Miller, who sat back
and watched January sixth unfold nearly as much as Trump did.
Miller it was who dressed the draft up as a
national service requirement. But make no mistake about it, Trump
has now floated the one thing that would unquestionably lose
(00:48):
him the election in a landslide, and it is a
military draft. It seems to be targeted at eighteen, nineteen,
and twenty year old American boys and girls, and maybe
seventeen year olds as well. And it start with a
mandatory military aptitude test administered by the Pentagon in your
(01:11):
local high school. And any kid who refused to take
that test might be prevented from graduating. And any school
that hesitated to go along with this would lose all
federal funding. So Trump, breaking precedent and using the American
Army domestically to suppress protests and conceivably kill civilians he
(01:33):
does not like, is not the bottom of the plan
for the military dictatorship Part of the Trump dictatorship, those
army soldiers and marines and whoever else firing on other Americans,
many of them or most of them, or maybe all
of them would be draftees. And when the Washington Post
(01:57):
reported this and the story got no traction and no
pickup at all. And even though the paper reported Trump
had not expressly endorsed the draft himself, within six hours
Trump posted an enraged, chaotic denial, reading quote, in fact,
I never even thought of that idea, which even for
(02:19):
Trump is a disastrously transparent non denial denial. Of course,
he never thought of that idea. When has Donald Trump
ever thought anything about a military draft except about how
to dodge it? Somebody else thought of that idea. And
(02:41):
that's somebody else is the former Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller.
The burden of this trial balloon turned led balloon, now
lead balloon that may have made somebody else the early
front runner for the first Secretary of Defense in a
Trump dictatorship. That burden has fallen on this idiot Miller,
(03:03):
the ex soldier, defense contractor and weapons fetishist who took
over at the Pentagon after an enraged Trump fired Mark
Esper November twenty twenty, because Esper clearly would not let
Trump use the military to overthrow the civilian government and
void the election, the Post interviewed Christopher Miller, and Miller
(03:27):
said a national service requirement should be quote strongly considered.
He described the concept as a common rite of passage,
one that would create a sense of shared sacrifice among
America's youth unquote shared sacrifice, right, just like in Vietnam
(03:53):
the military draft, a national service requirement, a shared sacrifice
of fifty thousand Americans was the animating force behind all
the protests of the nineteen sixties. It was such a
third rail that the president who ended it was Richard Nixon.
(04:16):
And you can dress the draft up any way you want,
but under a draft requirement, American citizens, almost always teenagers,
almost always minorities, or economically or educationally deprived teenagers were
forced against their will to go to Vietnam or somewhere
else and kill or be killed. It reinforces the bonds
(04:41):
of civility. Miller also told The Washington Post, why wouldn't
we give that a try. If we're going to prepare
for a great power competition, it's helpful to have a
baseline understanding of the pool of potential military service members
and their specific aptitudes prior. We don't have a mechanism
(05:03):
now in our society that levins everyone and provides a
common focus and a common vision. Let me translate this
mad man Miller's euphemisms here, and how many goddamned mad
men Miller does Trump have working for him anyway? A
great power competition, as Christopher Miller said, is in fact
(05:27):
some kind of war or near war conflict with China.
Potential military service members, as Miller put it, are your
kids who would be forced to take that aptitude test.
The mechanism to provide a common focus and a common
vision that would be the Draft. Trump tried to run
(05:52):
away from this picture of a future America as military state,
but the Draft plan is far enough along inside the
fascist Republican Party that it is now chasing Trump. This
is not some half baked dream of an American SS
about which Miller just offhandedly mused to The Washington Post.
(06:13):
This entire National service structure is inside Project twenty twenty five,
the Trump and Federalist Society blueprint Project twenty twenty five
for converting this country into something more resembling Iran, and
that part of Project twenty twenty five that includes the
(06:33):
mandatory military exam and an interim and immediate step of
greater access to secondary schools for military recruiters. That thing
in Project twenty twenty five. That essay just happens to
have been written by former Trump Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.
(06:56):
Now and before Trump got some understanding that any sign
of him supporting a draft will instantly kill his campaign
if handled correctly by the opposition, some of his sick
offense had already endorsed it. To the Post. Quote I
like the idea of national service, and I'm not talking
(07:19):
about in wartime. That was said by Ohio idiot Senator JD. Vance,
who is furiously peddling to become the vice presidential nominee.
If he had not sufficiently come out in favor of
conscription and forcing American teenagers to kill or be killed
(07:39):
against their will, Vance then said something stupid and even macabre.
He told the Post he wants more Americans to put
quote some skin in the game unquote. Who knows if Vance,
who appears ever more so to be an utterly moronic,
(08:01):
deranged lunatic who knows if Vance realizes that his use
of the words skin there may not be some kind
of metaphor. Trump's non denial denial just does not hold up.
This is his clientt ex Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller,
(08:23):
whose chief of staff was Cash Patel Miller, who wrote
up the plan for Project twenty twenty five, which Trump
has sworn to implement, which includes a military draft that
Senator Vance just endorsed. And if you're still not seeing
this for what it is, the Post found disturbing enthusiasm
(08:45):
from another man who was not only Trump's former Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs, but who was also
in George W. Bush's administration. So he's one deal with
the devil's shy of the elusive evil hat trick. His
name impossibly is Rob Hood. And if the nightmare that
(09:08):
opens up before US mandatory military proficiency tests for high
school girls, roundups of defiant school administrators and students, a draft,
if those parts of the nightmare were not horrifying enough,
Hood was willing to say the even quieter part out loud,
(09:28):
even louder, that our young people are losers and takers,
and if they won't shape up. They need to be
shaped up by a draft. Eighteen to twenty year olds
would benefit from gaining who had told the paper quote
a better appreciation for how great this country is. Who
(09:50):
gave them their Social Security numbers? The United States government.
There can be the takers, and there can be the givers.
And once we're all a bunch of takers and there
are no givers, this country will collapse. Un Quote Rob Hood,
He's not a taker. The only thing he would take
(10:12):
is your child's life. One more part of the Post's
story merits quotation. The paper is paraphrasing the man whom
Trump might now disappear after this public relations disaster. Quote.
A national service requirement, Christopher Miller contends, would afford young
(10:32):
people from across the country the opportunity to learn about
and rely on one another. He and other advocates on
the political rights say they believe the United States is
losing its civil cohesion and view this as a solution.
In other words, force all of the teenagers into camps
(10:53):
and give them guns and teach them about our enemies.
And as Trump said on television just this month, just
this time, quote the enemy from within. They are doing
damage to this country. Under Trump, the military would not
(11:14):
be there to defend our allies. It would not be
there just in the event of conflict. It would be mandatory.
It would be fascistic, It would be used domestically, and
it would be aimed at Trump's political opponents, his enemies.
I never even thought of that idea. He belches. He
didn't have to. Every dictator in history has already thought
(11:37):
of that idea for him. And by the way, I
am not exaggerating. I don't think about the impact this
Washington Post story and just that Gateway drug in at
the initial plan to make a military assessment of each
high school kid in the United States mandatory, just that,
(12:00):
the impact just that would have on Trump's campaign, if
only it were to be handled correctly by Biden's campaign.
Trump wants to reinstate the draft. The draft. There were
revolutionaries blowing up buildings in this country because of the draft.
(12:23):
The nineteen sixty eight Democratic Convention and most of its
campaign was sabotaged because of the draft. The Lyndon Johnson
presidency and the Great Society and the strides towards integration
died because of the draft. One hundred thousand young men
fled this country because of the draft. No protest movement
(12:48):
in the half a century since has carried the weight
of nor had the impact of those of the sixties
and early seventies, because simply the draft was not a
vague concept. Theft was literally life and death. Your life
(13:10):
and death, My life and death. Is there a more
powerful campaign message conceivable than Trump wants to draft your
kids or Trump wants to force your kids to kill
(13:32):
or be killed? Actually there is, because the voting age
is not what it was in the nineteen sixties. The
eighteen year olds vote now, So there is a more
powerful campaign message, and it is this, Trump wants to
draft you. Trump wants to force you to kill or
(13:56):
be killed. Trump's legal status news remains in stasis. I
(14:26):
will note that his former campaign staff for Jessica Denson,
who broke the grip of Trump's non disclosure agreements and
now hosts The lights On podcast, noted two side effects
to his probation interview Monday, which have not only been
criminally undercovered, but which could theoretically put Trump at further
criminal risk. It is widely reported and Trump did not
(14:47):
winally deny this. That at the end of the Zoom
session he told the probation people in New York, quote,
be safe. As a former Trump worker and courtroom opponent,
she knows what the rest of us can only suspect here.
Trump telling New York State Corrections employees to be safe.
(15:09):
That's a threat. And even if the word threat is
a little too strong at minimum, that's yet another stochastic warning.
Be safe, not be well, be good, be happy, be healthy,
but be safe. Be safe from what? Safe? Safe from
(15:32):
Trump's mobs? What else? More tangibly miss Denson notes that
in his probation interview, Trump confirmed he is in possession
of his firearm at his home in Florida. Felons are
not permitted to possess firearms in Florida, but he has
now for thirteen days, longer than Hunter Biden possessed one separately.
(15:56):
It now proves at least two state organizations forbid nominating
felons for political office. Articles SEKX of the Nevada Republican
State Party by Laws insists that that organization quote shall
neither recognize nor support any candidate for public office who
has been convicted of a felony or while serving in
(16:18):
a public office, was impeached and convicted or removed from
office for any reason, how close on the last one
there got them on the first. Of course, there are
Republicans there in the Republican Party of Nevada, so there
is another article permitting them to behave immorally and override
Article sixteen by a two thirds vote. Unresolved, however, is
(16:39):
the matter of Trump and Washington State. Denny Westnead of
the Seattle Times notes that since eighteen sixty five, Washington,
before it was a state, has had a law barring
felons from holding elected office. It was updated in twenty
sixteen to read that any registered voter can challenge the
right of any candidate to be on the general election
(17:01):
ballot in Washington State for any one of five reasons,
including those candidates who were quoting convicted of a felony
by a court of competent jurisdiction, the conviction not having
been reversed nor the person's civil rights restored after the
conviction columnis. Westneat quotes an attorney named David Vogel in
Washington State who says, I have clients lined up. We're
(17:24):
going to be all over pursuing a ballot challenge in
Trump's case, mister Westnate notes plenty of presidential candidates have
been thrown off Washington state ballots in the past, always
from minor parties and also on the legal front, for
reasons I can only shake my head at. And I'm
beginning to think there may be a masochism requirement if
(17:46):
you want to be both a prosecutor and a Democrat.
The Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo
have agreed to voluntarily testify to Jim Jordan's latest dog
and pony show, which Jordan, for some reason, calls the
(18:07):
House Judiciary Committee. Brag and Colangelo will appear on Friday
July twelfth. And if you're saying, wait, July twelfth, July twelfth,
why does that date ring a bell? It's because Thursday,
July eleventh is still the date scheduled for Trump's sentencing. Happily,
(18:29):
it's not like they'll actually be sending Trump to jail
just one day before Bragg and Colangelo go and testify
to the Jordan Star Chamber, you know, sending him to
jail for illegal possession of a gun while felon or
threatening the jury, or violating the gag order a dozen times,
or committing the thirty four crimes he was convicted of.
(18:51):
I know he's not going to jail. Jonathan Turley told
me so. It also would be absurd to sends him
to jail. He is an elderly first defender, nonviolent crime.
He is an elder lee first offender.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
He is an elderly first Oh wait a minute, old Nancy,
I'm an elderly first defender.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I've been found guilty. The stormy jury had no doubt.
I'm far too old to go to prison, Butterly says,
I'm fine for the wide high. Thank you, Nancy foul
(19:55):
and thank you soggy bottom boys. Elderly first offender all
through his days. Also of interest here, Jonathan mar Is
back the Politico quote reporter unquote was spent the last
year talking about almost nothing except President Biden's age. Returns
to complain that nobody is talking about President Biden's age,
(20:19):
and he's doing this because Hunter Biden's conviction means that
president is even older than and should drop out. Honestly,
I don't know what Jonathan Martin is talking about, except
that while he was talking about it, he also managed
to invoke Aaron Sorkin. So for all I know, he
(20:42):
may be reporting that Sorkin may have just borrowed something
else from my life to make into a third TV series.
That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
Olboman still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown.
(21:18):
So there's a story in the TV sports world that
Stephen A. Smith is about to sign another deal with
ESPN and that the key bargaining point, reportedly is that
he believes he must be paid more than ESPN pays
that challenged guy it has on its air, Pat McAfee.
And this made me laugh and flashback to nineteen ninety seven,
(21:41):
this time of year when there were more people watching
ESPN studio shows than there are now, and I was
the lead anchor of Supports Center, and they were paying
me a little less than three hundred thousand a year,
and I figured out the show was profiting like sixty
million a year, and the rule of thumb in TV
was ten percent goes to the talent, ten percent of
(22:01):
the profit. That meant they should be paying me and
Dan three million each. And I told this to one
executive and then he looked like he was going to
have a stroke, and now Smith wants twenty million for
an audience that's only half as profitable as it was
in nineteen ninety seven, which means I need to tell
you the saga of how I quit Sports Center twenty
(22:22):
seven years ago and left for NBC, and then ESPN
tried to rehire me. Coming up, but first, As ever,
there are still more new idiots to talk about. The
daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens,
who we celebrate as two days worst persons in the world. However,
(22:46):
the bronze worse. And I mean this affectionately. A Twitter
exer self identifying only as a follower of mine named
Art Martin. Art responded to a Nate Silver tweet, and
he has struck me right in my guilt. Nate Silver's
tweet began if I told you ten years ago, and
it ended with would you be surprised? Mister Martin replied
(23:10):
to Nate Silver with quote if I had told you
ten years ago that Nate Silver would turn into someone
as quote credible unquote as Chris Solicit, would you be surprised?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
As the kids say, Man, do I feel seen and
not in a good Way, Nate Silver and Chris Solicit
in the same tweet, two of my biggest guilts in
my life. I'm sorry. I thought they added something. I
didn't realize that what they added would always have to
be limited to single digit numbers. I'm sorry, couldn't have worked.
(23:48):
Inter or Jonathan Turley in there like Aaron Sorkin, throwner
up worser. Jonathan Martin of Politico. We've met him here before.
You may remember Jonathan Martin from such worst person entries
as I had him important Trump news, but I sat
on it until I got a book deal, and I
(24:09):
spent eighteen months calling Trump the front runner. Then the
polls change, so I wrote an article saying Trump's the
front runner. Not so fast, and most relevantly, Biden should
stop calling David Axelrod a prick and admit he's too old.
Now Jonathan Martin is back to the only topic he
can handle, Biden's age, and he's back with the kind
(24:31):
of brilliant take that will make America ring. If this
is nineteen ninety nine and it invokes Aaron Sorkin quote
in the Sorkin version of twenty twenty four, Hunter's conviction
would be the escape hatch Biden takes to focus on
family and drop out of the race, deferring to a
Democrat who is not approaching eighty two here in reality,
(24:54):
it will take the jaws of life to get Biden out,
and Dems will continue what they've done for two years,
grumbling but saying nothing in public. Okayst staff In the
twenty twenty four Sorkin version of twenty twenty four, Aaron
Sorkin would not write this scene unless somebody else wrote
(25:15):
it for him first, then it would mysteriously appear in
his script. Also, mister Martin writes, Dems will continue what
they've done for two years, grumbling but saying nothing in public. Why, Yes,
Danny Konkannon's summer vacation relief guy. Not one Democrat has
said anything in public about Joe Biden's age these last
(25:38):
two years. Not one. Why are American news organizations imploding
the unrecognizable, ever changing marketplace? Yes, the collapse of the
media industry as a business. Absolutely that The Washington Post
had ten people cover the Hunter Biden trial, and all
(25:59):
of its tweets about the guilty verdict combined in the
first five hours had gotten only sixty retweets because the
Post doesn't understand that its audience doesn't give a crap,
and the audience that did give a crap would never
read the Post's coverage of that story. You bet you.
But there's a fourth factor about which we will continue
to do what we've done for two years, grumbling but
(26:19):
saying nothing in public. I guess the quality of today's
political journalists is so mediocre that there was actually a
bidding war for this one note idiot Jonathan Martin, but
our winner, Royce White. I love this guy, the ex
(26:40):
NBA player whose principal campaign issues are his own rage
and his own NBA career. His NBA career, which lasted
exactly eight minutes and fifty five seconds. White was the
Republican who lost to ilan Omar seventy five to twenty five.
(27:01):
He is now poised to be the Republican nominee for
the Senate in Minnesota to try to unseat Amy Klobashar.
As The Daily Beast has extensively reported, mister eight minutes
and fifty five seconds has had a campaign ethics complaint
filed on him after it turned out some of his
campaign money was spent at a strip club, and here
(27:24):
come the g Strings, an all nude strip club in Florida,
not Minnesota, A strip club called the gold Rush Cabaret
would be Republican Senator White went on David Pacman's show,
where the following exchange took place. Pac Man, your claim
(27:45):
is there were filings which said you spent campaign funds
at a strip club, but they were incorrect filings. White, No,
they didn't say I spent the funds at a strip club.
Or let's say they didn't say I spent the funds
on strippers, Pacman. But it was spent at a strip club. Why, well,
(28:07):
they sell food at the strip club, don't they A yes, yes, yes, food.
You spent the money at the strip club on food
the gold Rush Cabaret, Well, maybe the campaign was prospecting. Later,
(28:27):
in the same interview, White, who had already said they
didn't say I spent the funds on strippers, implied that
it may have been somebody else in his campaign who
who spent the money at the gold Rush Cabaret, not him,
even though he just said it was him and it
was it was spent on fine dining. Royce, I spent
(28:48):
it on food at the strip club. White. I never
heard that described as food before. I love this guy.
He's his own series and he's today's worst person. And
that's the word Latakos. There is a huge oral history
(29:30):
of ESPN from twenty eleven by Jim Miller, and most
of it is pretty good, but there's one line in
it that triggered this recollection. The executive vice president of
the company in nineteen ninety seven was named Howard Katz,
and in this ESPN book he was quoted as saying,
I didn't fire Keith. I just chose not to renew
his contract. And then there's a couple of quotes from
(29:52):
guys I never heard of who said, no, we fired him.
None of it's true. Howard and I got along surprisingly
well at ESPN and even better since, so I'm just
going to assume he misremembered all this, and he's right.
I mean, legally, he chose not to renew my contract
early in nineteen ninety seven, and a couple of weeks later,
instead he offered me a new four year contract which
(30:13):
would have basically doubled my salary. And even after I
had said no, thanks and I signed with NBC. The
then president of ABC, Bob Eiger whatever happened to him,
tried to get me to back out of the NBC deal,
to renege on it, and then sign a new deal
at ESPN. So they offered me two new deals after
they didn't renew my old contract. See how this works.
(30:37):
In ninety six and ninety seven, it was no secret
that my first choice was to leave ESPN. I had
come within hours of asking to be let out of
my deal. In the summer of nineteen ninety six, a
radio station in Chicago WMVP had wanted me to go
do the afternoon drive show there, a mix of news
and sports, and they were offering me twice the money
(30:57):
I was getting to host SportsCenter, and I was ready
to go. Loved it, had a great week there. They
wined me, they died me, and everybody offered me a
free beer, Welcome to Chicago, you're from out of town.
And then ownership of the radio station simply pulled the
plug on the station it was in thirty first place
and said they could save a lot more money by
(31:18):
simply rebroadcasting what was on FM radio. And eventually, and
this would have been interesting had I gone to Chicago.
Eventually the owners sold WMVP to ESPN. Anyway, My ESPN
deal was set to expire on December thirty first, nineteen
ninety seven, but they had the option to extend it
(31:38):
for I can't remember either either for a year after
that or two years, but they had to notify me
really early in ninety seven, and instead, on February eighteenth,
nineteen ninety seven, Howard Katz proposed to my then agent
that we tear up the contract and do a new
four year deal that started at seven hundred thousand dollars
(31:59):
a year and covered a radio show with Dan Patrick,
and the Sunday edition of Sports and the sp Awards ceremonies,
and the Internet and everything else. This was a lot
of money for ESPN in nineteen ninety seven, seven hundred
thousand dollars a year, so we played around with that
for a while. But I didn't really want to go
(32:20):
into radio full time, not then when I still had
dark hair. So on April fourth, nineteen ninety seven, Howard
Catz came back with another offer, three sports centers a
week plus some radio, starting at five hundred and fifty
thousand dollars a year. I noticed that this was less
than the first offer, so two weeks later, at the
first ever Jackie Robinson Night at Chase Stadium in New York,
(32:44):
Howard came up to me and asked me, in front
of everybody in our booth, ranging from Chris Berman to
Robin Roberts, to all the producers, and briefly to President
Bill Clinton, he asked me if we were close on
this new deal that he'd offered me. I got angry
at him. He got angry at me for getting angry
at him, and I said, you know, forget it. And
what's more, it makes no sense for me to hang
(33:04):
around here as a lame duck. Howard wait, Howard the duck,
and he calmed down. He said I could look at
other jobs and we'd let things cool off and talk
again about a new deal in a few weeks after
I looked around to see if it was something I'd
rather do than be at ESPN, and if it still
wasn't going anywhere, we would agree on a date early
in the summer and I could leave six months before
(33:24):
the contract officially ended. And then three huge things happened
about this that most people still don't know to this day.
Even after all that, When I called Phil Mushnick of
the new York Post and Richard Sandomir of The New
York Times, and I told them I would be leaving ESPN,
and it appeared I would be going to go to
Court TV to be the host and executive producer of
(33:46):
my own sports show, four nights a week. I almost
stayed at ESPN once it got out that I was leaving.
I got a letter from a viewer who told me
that his son, who had autism, had been at his
other son's little league game, and when his brother banged
out a base hit, this kid, who had rarely ever
(34:07):
spoken in his life, suddenly shouted out one of my catchphrases.
This guy said, he hit the ball real hard. Then
there was a flyball, and the boy said it's deep,
and I don't think it's playable. Then they went home,
and this virtually noncommunicative child began to draw illustrations of
(34:30):
my catchphrases. For whatever reason, I had triggered some kind
of blossoming by this child and his brother and his
father sent me a book of the child's illustrations of
my catchphrases. I am not trying to suggest I really
had anything to do with this. It was good fortune
(34:51):
and circumstance and probably something to do with the tone
of my voice, nothing more. But I was very moved
by this, and I remained so and by other things.
People wrote to me or wrote in the press about
how much the show Dan and I did men to them,
and I went back to Howard Katz and I said, look,
I know I've been impossible. You have to understand that
from my perspective, the company has also been impossible. But
(35:13):
Dan and I created too good a show to let
it die. When I go here to Court TV, I'm
only going to work Monday through Thursday on this new thing.
If you will send a car to take me to
and from Bristol every Sunday and give me some tokensal
give me fifty thousand dollars or something, I'll just do
the Sunday night show for you every week. You'll never
(35:34):
see me. I'll never see you. It's the show that
has the highest factor of management control. It's basically coloring
in by numbers, and it reruns all morning on Monday.
So forty percent of the people who see Dan and
I during the week they see this one show. That's it.
If you want some other stuff for me to do,
like radio commentaries. Great, we can negotiate that, but we
(35:55):
should not let this die. At least let's have it
on once a week. And Howard Katz said, Okay, let
me think about this. It sounds really good. And he
got back to me the next day and he said
it was the most difficult decision he had ever made
in this business, but he just couldn't do it. It
established too much of a precedent, especially the idea that
(36:16):
somebody could work at ESPN and also at some other
TV operation. He put it very bluntly. If ESPN was
not the sole employer of its people, it could not
control them by threatening to fire them. And he looked
at me and he said, especially you, And in the
same sentence he said, look, we'd love to continue the relationship,
(36:39):
though we see lots of ways you could fit into
ESPN Classic, like once a week or once a month
or whatever, and we'd like to get in on the
bidding for these radio commentaries that you're going to do
on the side. Well, it all ended surprisingly amicably. I
decided to go to MSNBC and NBC Sports instead of
Court TV, and as I signed the contract, I called
(37:01):
the ESPN president, Steve Bornstein and the head of Sports Center,
John Walsh. I called them from the office of the
head of NBC Sports, Dick Eversol, And in my diary,
I can't tell if that was June nineteenth, nineteen ninety
seven or June twentieth, nineteen ninety seven, but I made
the calls, and it was Eversall's idea called them. Now
call them right now, it'll matter later. The funniest thing
(37:23):
was the following Monday, June twenty third, I was packing
up my stuff in my house in Connecticut. I am
all set, and I am officially beginning my first week
not working for ESPN and instead working for NBC. And
the phone rings and it's John Walsh in Los Angeles
for something, and he has to talk to my agent immediately.
(37:45):
Do you know where she is right now? Howard Katz?
And I have just spoken with Bob Iger and he
wants to present a primetime proposal to you for ABC
and until you can continue at ESPN. And I laughed,
and I said, John, I signed with NBC last week
the World Series and the news show, oh and super
Bowl stuff. Remember I called you from Dick Ebersoll's office.
(38:09):
You remember it was Friday or Thursday, whatever it was,
we're having the news conference today. And he is dead serious,
and he says to me, oh oh oh, and there's
a long pause. Well, well, I still need to talk
to your agent. Well. I had known Bob Iger, who
had apparently precipitated this phone call, since I was in
(38:31):
college in nineteen seventy nine. He had given me an
hour of his time just for career advice because I
had interned at the TV station for which his first
wife had been a news producer, Channel five in New York.
I told that story I think two weeks ago, and
Bob was wonderful to me. So I called Bob and
I explained what had happened, and he said, Steve Bornstein
only told me that you were leaving this morning. I'm
(38:53):
very very sorry. I knew there were contentious negotiations about
a new deal for you, but I had no clue
it was at the point where you might actually leave.
I should have known. That's my fault. That's why I
told John to make the call. He did. Trust me.
If I'd known would have been totally different. I would
have made it right by you. You would have wanted
to stay, and if it doesn't work at NBC. You
call me directly and I'll bring you back here myself.
(39:15):
I mean, the ending was so unexpectedly and surprisingly pleasant
that even when my new bosses at MSNBC suddenly announced
I think it was in newsweek that they were going
to call my program The Big Show, which was our
nickname for Sports Center at ESPN, the Big Show. But
they hadn't told anybody at ESPN that we were going
to call our MSNBC show the Big Show. It was
(39:37):
me who got on the phone with Howard Katz and
a couple of other people at ESPN to apologize and
to make sure they were okay with it. So, even
after my ESPN career was officially over and all chance
of my returning was dead, we tried to revive it,
both of us, Howard Katz and me, in good faith.
And I don't think Bob Iger was blowing smoke at me.
(39:58):
He had no reason to. And even after all that,
the parting was non nuclear. I think they sent me
a fruit basket for my first night at MSNBC on
October first, and then it all blew up. John Walsh
called the TV sports columnist at USA Today, Rudy Marski
(40:20):
and gave him my first set of ratings from MSNBC
just to try to make me look like I couldn't
succeed without ESPN. Marski told me that direct quote, they
want to punish you publicly. Walsh has been pressuring me
to run the very poor ratings, and he said, I'm
going to finally do it. I just wanted to give
you a little warning and maybe you have a comment. Well,
(40:42):
that set the tone for the next five years of warfare,
and it was nuclear pretty quickly. But this impression that
ESPN chose to dismiss me or not renew me, or
not bring me back, it's nonsense. Howard did not not
renew me. Instead, he offered to double my salary if
I stayed. If I had signed with NBC, Iiger was
(41:03):
still trying to get me to back up out after
I had signed with NBC and stay at ESPN and ABC.
The irony of this minor detail from about nineteen ninety
seven printed in twenty eleven, I think is that I
had already returned to ESPN by the time it was printed.
I took an hour out of my day at MSNBC
to go on with Dan Patrick on his ESPN radio
(41:25):
show from two thousand and five through two thousand and seven.
A year after that book came out with that quote
in it, twenty twelve, I was talking to the executives
at ESPN about going back full time, and a year
later I did to launch a nightly show on ESPN two.
And that ended when they laid off like one hundred
million dollars worth of talent salaries in twenty fifteen. But
(41:46):
then I went back again in twenty eighteen and I
did Sports Center, and I did baseball games on radio
and on TV, and I did reports, and I did
commentaries and did the not top ten plays of the week,
and on and on and on, and finally we parted
happily in the late summer of twenty twenty so I
could return to political cover Bridge and I knew they
wouldn't want that, and I didn't want to put it
(42:07):
on ESPN, and the unlikely result of that my parting
happiway in twenty twenty. On the books at Disney, I
am listed as a Disney and ESPN retiree. I get
benefits I retired from ESPN. I mean, they didn't give
(42:30):
me a gold watch or anything. But I'm technically a retiree.
And if you had predicted that in nineteen ninety seven
or twenty eleven, well you know the cliche. I bring
all this up again because I don't know how often
I have thought of that father and his two boys,
and the one who started speaking, but only in my
catch phrases. I would guess it's at least once a month.
(42:54):
Those boys would have to be in their thirties by
now or nearly, and I wonder often of what has
become of them, and I sure hope they are well.
(43:17):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countdown Musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Chanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums. Mister Chaneale
handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
(43:40):
music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. And
our satirical and fifty musical comments are by Nancy Fauss,
the best baseball stadium organist ever, who, of course accompanied
me on the Trump Elderly Saw. Our announcer was my
friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and better call Saul
(44:02):
and airplane. Everything else was pretty much my fault as usual.
That's countdown for this the one hundred and forty seventh
day until the twenty twenty fourth presidential election, and the
two hundred and fifty fourth day since convicted felon and
first time elderly offender Donald Trump's first attempt at coop
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use
(44:25):
the July eleventh sentencing hearing, use the mental health system,
use presidential immunity if it happens, Use the not regularly
given elector objection option to stop him from doing it
again while waste can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
(44:46):
Bolton says the news warrants till the next one. I'm
Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(45:10):
I'm an elderly first offender. I have been found guilty
in the stormy jury had no nut and forn't you
old to go to prison? But Turly says I'm fine
(45:30):
for the word. The End Countdown with Keith Olreman is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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