August 15, 2023 • 48 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 13: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The former president of the United States is indicted in Georgia, accused of leading in essence a criminal gang that committed 161 separate illegal acts or components. 161. From the fake electors scheme through the breaching of the voting machines in Coffee County to the phone call to Brad Raffensberger to find the 11,780 votes to the abuse of the state poll workers to lying to the State Senate to trying to bring the Vice President in on the conspiracy to trying to bring the Department of JUSTICE in on the conspiracy to a specific charge that Trump directed his aide Johnny McEntee to develop a specific plan to PREVENT the Electoral Vote count and certification on January 6th.
19 defendants. They have until a week from Friday to turn themselves in. There are arrest warrants ready for all of them. There is an arrest warrant ready for Trump. There is a mugshot camera ready for Trump. Oh and there are 30 unindicted co-conspirators. There is an unindicted co-conspirator Number 30.
It is… breathtaking. It is… sprawling. It is… 98 pages long. It is… national – prosecutors say the criminal enterprise also operated in the District of Columbia, in Arizona, in Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It makes Jack Smith look like he’s throwing six darts while Fani Willis brought a six-foot tall pile of arrows. The trials could go on for years. Like Wyatt Earp chasing down The Clanton Gang went on for years. Hell – analyzing this indictment could go on for years. No wonder this became the first-ever PRIME TIME edition of the Donald Trump Gets Indicted Again show. It is the War and Peace of American political criminology.
And because of his threats against Fani Willis, and Jack Smith, and Judge Chutkan, there is the chance that he does not meet the key legal requirement to be allowed out on bail: "D) POSES NO SIGNIFICANT RISK OF INTIMIDATING WITNESSES OR OTHERWISE OBSTRUCTING THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE."
B-Block (26:48) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS (30:55) IN SPORTS (36:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD
C-Block (42:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The time I nearly hired Monica Lewinsky's lawyer to save me from having to do a nightly show about Monica Lewinsky.
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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. Violation
of the Georgia Rico Act, solicitation of violation of oath
(00:27):
by public officer, three counts, Conspiracy to commit impersonating a
public officer, Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree,
two counts, Conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, two counts,
conspiracy to commit filing false documents, filing false documents, false
(00:49):
statements and writings two counts. Thirteen counts in total. The
former President of the United States is indicted in Georgia
accused of, in essence, leading a criminal gang which committed
one one hundred and sixty one separate illegal acts or
(01:09):
components one hundred and sixty one from the fake elector's
scheme through the breaching of the voting machines of Coffee County, Georgia,
to the phone call to Brad Raffensberger to find the
eleven seven hundred and eighty votes, to the abuse of
the state poll workers in Georgia, to line to the
Georgia State Senate to try to bring the Vice president
(01:33):
in on the conspiracy, to try to bring the Department
of Justice in on the conspiracy to a specific charge
that Trump directed his aide Johnny mcintee, to develop a
specific plan to prevent the electoral vote count and the
certification from being completed on January sixth, under a state
(01:54):
racketeering act, the Rico Act, in which a guilty verdict
carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and a
maximum of twenty with many of the people who acted
corruptly with him acted corruptly at his insistence, indicted with him,
eighteen of them Trump and eighteen co defendants Rudy Giuliani,
(02:19):
the Trump attorney John Eastman, that would be Attorney General
Jeffrey Clark, the Trump attorney Kenneth cheesebro the Trump attorney
Sidney Powell, the Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, the former chair
of the Coffee County Republican Party, Kathy Latham, an operative
in the voting machine breach, There a fake elector herself,
the hat trick of crime, and surprisingly political operative Mike Roman,
(02:44):
and Trump's last chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Roman and
Meadows may have been cooperating in the Jack Smith federal
version of this case, or they may not have been,
but they clearly were not cooperating with Fannie Willis. Others
of those indicted included more of the fake electors, nineteen defendants,
(03:04):
nineteen defendants who have until a week from Friday to
turn themselves in in Georgia. There are arrest warrants ready
for each of them. There is an arrest warrant ready
for Donald Trump. There is a mugshot camera ready for
Donald Trump. Oh, and there are thirty unindicted co conspirators.
(03:30):
There is an unindicted co conspirator number thirty. It is breathtaking,
It is sprawling, It is ninety eight pages long. It
is national. Prosecutors say the criminal enterprise operated obviously in
the state of Georgia, but also in the District of Columbia,
(03:52):
in Arizona, in Michigan, in Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
It makes Jack Smith look like he's throwing six darts
while Fannie Willis has brought a six foot tall pile
of arrows with her. The trials could go on for years,
Like Wyatt earp chasing down the Clanton Gang went on
(04:14):
for years. Hell analyzing this indictment could go on for years,
no wonder. This became the first ever prime time edition
of the Donald Trump gets indicted again show this is
the war and peace of American political criminology, and that
may be the point ultimately in our worst nightmares. On
(04:37):
the morning of January twentieth, twenty twenty five, Trump, whether
indicted or convicted, or still on trial or still on
trial in multiple states or any other Republican, is sworn
in as president of the United States and tries to
pardon himself or can cause his new Attorney general to
(04:59):
drop every single charge already brought by Jack Smith, or
pardon every conviction ever achieved for a jury, and he
gets away with it. He does not get away with
it in Georgia. For once, the tyranny of time and
the law's delay is working on our side. There are
(05:24):
ways for Trump to wriggle out of this in Georgia,
as he has wriggled out of everything else so far.
But he has no magic wand in Georgia to make
this go away, and cannot achieve one simply by being
elected president. It would involve a convoluted fight against every
(05:45):
facet every one of these one hundred and sixty one
criminal acts, every one of these eighteen co defendants, every
one of these thirty unindicted co conspirators and every piece
of evidence they have, and one at a time. And
at her news conference just before midnight last night, Fani
(06:06):
Willis said she hopes to begin trial within six months,
and if she manages that, she gets an Olympic gold
medal and she breaks the world record for the mile
several times. This trial, these trials, this extraordinary event, will
not begin this year nor early next. And we only
(06:30):
have an infinite amount of time here on a podcast,
so I will not try to drill down on the
charges yet. With one exception from a cursory skim of
this book length indictment, I would direct you to page
twenty four and predicate Act number nineteen, which I think
distills in a way we have not seen before anywhere
(06:51):
the entirety of the Trump coup plot into one heinous thread.
I quote from the indictment. On or between the first
day of December twenty twenty and the first day of
December twenty twenty, Donald John Trump and Mark Randall Meadows
met with John mcintee and requested that mcintee prepared a
(07:13):
memorandum outlining a strategy for disrupting and delaying the Joint
Session of Congress on January sixth, twenty twenty one. The
strategy included having Vice President Pence count only half of
the electoral votes from certain states and return the remaining
electoral votes to state legislatures. The request was an overt
(07:35):
act in furtherance of the conspiracy unquote. That is, in effect,
the origin point, the center spot in this web, the
moment at which, in the timeline of this infamy, that
any doubt was erased, that any thought that this attempt
to scal the election was somehow ad hoc or somehow
(07:58):
an accidental outgrowth from a sincere belief that there had
been fraud or deceit. That is the moment page twenty
four predicate, Act number nineteen where such an assumption vanishes.
That is the point at which this becomes the Donald
Trump plot to overturn the election. Fannie Willis is charging
(08:24):
Trump and Meadows not just with firing the smoking gun,
but withholding the meeting at which the smoking gun was loaded. Incredibly,
it is still very possible that ultimately the Atlanta indictments
on charges pertaining to the attempt to steal a presidential
(08:46):
election and end American democracy, they might not actually be
the real lead story anyway, because there is the rather
startling prospect on the side but glowing in the dark,
that Donald Trump in Georgia it might not be granted bail.
(09:08):
The Georgia statutes are pretty cut and dried here. Quote.
A court shall be authorized to release a person on
bail if the court finds that the person A poses
no significant risk of fleeing from the jurisdiction of the
court or failing to appear in court when required. B
poses no significant threat or danger to any person to
the community or to any property in the community. C
(09:31):
poses no significant risk of committing any felony pending trial.
And and this is the big one. D poses no
significant risk of intimidating witnesses or otherwise obstructing the administration
of justice. Un quote all right, uh define significant. At
(09:52):
eight fifty eight Eastern Monday morning, Trump posted quote, I
am reading reports that failed Lieutenant governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan,
will be testifying before the Fulton County grand Jury. He
shouldn't does publicly telling a former lieutenant governor that he
shouldn't testify without a reason, without an adjective, without an
(10:14):
explicit threat, Does that indicate that Trump poses no significant
risk of intimidating witnesses or that he poses some significant
risk of intimidating witnesses. How about assessing that in the
context of the fact that, in the preceding eight and
a half hours Trump had used that same platform to
attack and threaten the prosecutor in the three federal cases
(10:36):
pending against him, and then to attack and threaten the
judge in one of the federal cases pending against him,
and then attack and threaten the Department of Justice, which
is prosecuting him in all of the federal cases pending
against him. If anybody anywhere who is not unconscious is
not already seeing a pattern here, Trump took the interval
(10:58):
between the handing up of the Atlanta indictments and their
public release last night to symbolically stand up on a
chair and scream I'm still here and I'm still intimidating
witnesses or otherwise obstructing the administration of justice his campaign.
His cult released at ten oh four Eastern a seven
(11:21):
paragraph statement in which he smears da Fani Willis as
quote corrupt and quote biased, and insists the grand jury
produced quote fabricated accusations and reminded the Georgia penal system
that Trump quote will never give up and will never
stop fighting, A won't flee or fail to appear in court. Well,
(11:43):
I could see him refuse to show up, especially if
the trial is going badly where the verdict is due
or worse yet, the sentencing. But he has not missed
a court date yet anywhere else, and God knows there
have been enough of them already. He's already had as
many in person court appearances this year as wives. So
he's probably clear on a b no threat or day
(12:04):
in the community. Probably not not in Atlanta anyway, see
committing any felony pending trial while are we counting intimidating
witnesses or the prosecutors or the judges in other cases
or is that just d It would take the guts
of a cat burglar for a county superior judge anywhere
in this country to rule that a former president of
(12:26):
the United States, even this amoral schmuck, is not eligible
for bail because of his repeated threats towards figures in
this case and others. But that supposedly is why some
people are judges. I mean, they can't all be members
of the Federalist Society, and so far in his months
on the periphery of this case, Judge Robert McBurney of
(12:48):
Georgia has shown the guts of a cat burglar. Indeed,
but we don't even know that McBurnie will get this case.
The simplest measure of what McBurnie, or whichever judge does
draw the assignment, should do is the swapout rule. It's
not the state of Georgia versus Donald Trump. It's the
state of Georgia versus you or me or any of
(13:09):
Trump's co defendants listed alphabetically or by age or height.
You know, the eighteen people. It takes five minutes to
just read the list aloud. Of any of us, we
would not be granted bail, or we might be granted
it under only the most stringent of conditions, probably confined
(13:30):
to the state of Georgia in the interim, or maybe
to house arrest wearing an ankle monitor. And you and
I do not own our own social media websites, nor
lead our own cults, nor talk to their members in
the language of terrorism by remote control, nor do it
so efficiently that just last week one of the cultists
openly threatened to assassinate the president of the United States
(13:53):
and dared the FBI to do anything about it, and
when they did, he actually thought he could shoot it
out with the FBI. And now he's dead. I am
not expecting them to refuse Trump bail because, frankly, the
prosecutor and the judge who do that would be well
aware that the threat of political violence works, and they
(14:15):
would have something on their hands the likes of which
we have not seen before in this country, something that
the world would compare to Lula in Brazil, or maybe
what's happening in Niger or Myanmar, or hell, maybe the
world would compare it to Napoleon. But the judge could
easily begin with sterner restrictions on what Trump can say
(14:37):
and cannot say at what happens to him if he
says it, then did Judge Chutkin in Washington, And they
should because sooner rather than later, the American justice system is,
as I said yesterday, going to have to break Donald Trump,
or Donald Trump will break the justice system. And so
far there is no indication that Judge Chuckkin or Jack
(15:01):
Smith has even begun the process of caging Trump's will
winginess to ignore the laws of this nation and spit
at those who defend those laws. Smith pushed back yesterday
against Trump, but against his demand for a special skiff,
a secure facility for reading the classified documents in the
Florida case, the one he wants at his home. Jack
(15:22):
Smith was quiet about the Washington indictments and the Trump
threats on Sunday night and Monday morning. However, quote while
on release, if you commit a federal felony offense, the
punishment is an additional prison term of not more than
ten years. It is a crime punishable by up to
(15:43):
ten years in prison and a two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars fine, or both. To obstruct a criminal investigation,
tamper with a witness, victim or informant, retaliate or attempt
to retaliate against a witness, victim or informant, or intimidate
or attempt to intimidate a witness, victim, juror informant, or
(16:07):
officer of the court. I have quoted there from the
instructions that Judge Truckton gave Trump and his attorneys last week.
Last week, Trump attempted to intimidate two officers of the
court hearing this case and a witness in another case
(16:30):
in a span of eight and a half hours on
Sunday night and Monday morning. A judge in Fulton County,
Georgia may not have the heft to decide to take
what remains of our supposedly peaceful political system, the part
Trump has not yet destroyed, and balance it atop the
Washington Monument and hope it does not fall off. The
idea that the judge will preside over a trial that
(16:53):
could convict Donald Trump of something he could not pardon
or overturn or have overturned on his behalf may be
burden enough for the judge in Fulton County, whoever he
or she turns out to be. But a federal judge
hearing a case in which the defendant attempted to overthrow democracy,
steal an election, cause harm or death to congressman, senators,
(17:17):
the Vice president, and peace officers, and, according to the
Atlanta indictment, planned it out at a meeting with Mark
Meadows and Johnny mcintee. A federal judge has that heft,
and she damn well better use it, because the forces
arrayed against democracy now against the future of representative government
(17:38):
of any kind in this country. Against violence is our
primary means of political communication. They are not backing down.
Lindsey Graham desperate, skulking, venomous, treasonous, despicable, decayed, putrid. Lindsey
Graham spoke for all of the fiends last night. This
(18:02):
should be decided at the ballot box. He had the
nerve to say on Fox and not in a bunch
of liberal jurisdictions trying to put the man in jail.
We did decide it at the ballot box. And then
Trump decided to betray this nation and try to overturn
(18:26):
that election. And you, Lindsey Graham, you helped him, you
little shit. Two other notes. You may have heard this
story Joe Biden on vacation on a beach in Delaware
and a question shouted at him asking if he had
any comment on the rising death toll in Maui, and
(18:48):
he answered no comment. Completely fabricated, completely, This was the
work of the White House press pool reporter. They're chosen randomly.
This one is as random as it gets. His name
is Rob Crilly. He is from the Britginish publication The
Daily Mail. It is not a newspaper per se, and
(19:09):
Krilly is nowhere close to being a journalist. His most
recent work has been stories quoting sources insisting America was
flooded with terrorists after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and other
stories about how popular Robert F. Kennedy Junior is and
how the Trump indictments mean America is reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
What he's doing as the White House pool reporter is
(19:32):
anybody's guests. What he's doing, accredited by the White House
Correspondence Association, is just more evidence of that organization's long
time slovenliness. But here's the kicker. The truth could survive
all that Rob Crilly is and isn't, and all that
the Correspondence Association is and isn't. But what it can't
survive is Rob Crilly making up what he thinks. Joe
(19:56):
Biden said when he was asked for comment about Hawaii,
Crilly's official pool report from the Beach, I'm quoting it
in its entirety. Potus stopped when he heard a question
asking any comment on the rising death toll in Maui.
He appeared to say no, no comment, according to lip
(20:17):
readers in the pool, but could not be heard he
climbed into the suv, which then left in the motorcade
for the short journey up his street and lid at
nineteen oh five. Thanks to all copoolers for lip reading unquote.
So Biden's supposedly callous response to the worsening reality of
(20:39):
Hawaii was not heard by the pool reporter, by any reporter,
by anybody near the reporters, but lip readers think they
know what he said and were willing to put quotation
marks around it. I don't know how many White House
reporters I've met over the last quarter century, but a
clear majority of them cannot understand things that are clearly
(21:02):
explained to them aloud, and half of those who can
cannot understand the meaning of those things. But now we're
putting words in the mouth of the President of the
United States about a disaster with deaths in triple digits,
because all of a sudden they are all qualified lipreaders.
The White House should have come out punching the moment
(21:23):
the story broke yesterday afternoon. It should have gotten the
Correspondence Association to get Curly to retract, or at least
confirm he heard no such thing and is guessing or
it should have reclaimed its sole right to control who
does and does not get to cover the president and
get into the White House. Instead, it issued a statement
saying President Biden was praying for the people of Hawaii.
(21:47):
A lot of the people in the White House are
not qualified to play the game at this level. Amateur
lip readers operating from thirty or more feet away think
the President may have said no comment becomes simply an
unqualified quotation of Joe Biden for all time Rob Crilly,
(22:09):
which segues into today's comic relief talk about actually hearing
what somebody said, rather than just guesses about what they said.
The Ronnie Jackson body cam video is out. Well it's
the police bodycam video, and well it's only twenty nine
seconds of it, possibly because it was the cleanest twenty
(22:30):
nine seconds they had. In the twenty nine seconds, Jackson
emits only two F bombs. The congressman insisted immediately after
this happened he was not drunk and that he was
respectful as police told him to back away from a
girl who was having a seizure at the m RELLLL rodeo. Yeah,
not so much. You did not You were a fu
(23:01):
recaculating up. Nobody else is gonna get everybody here asking.
I can read his lips and he is not praying.
(23:27):
Also of interest, funniest dog gone thing. The political website
roll Call has gone through the list of Joe Mansion's
latest donors and like a dozen of them all work
for the same television network. You want to guess which
television network? No, not that one. Mmm, not that one either, Yeah,
(23:53):
that one. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown
with Keith Olberman. Postscripts to the news, some headline, some updates,
some snark, some predictions, dateline, campaign finance, reform City Arizona,
(24:16):
which is a place that does not exist and never will.
The website roll Call reporting that just under two million,
three hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions to sixteen House
and Senate members in this cycle alone has gone to
repaying loans to their campaigns made by themselves. Memet Oz
(24:38):
took back a million two from contributions. Ron Johnson four
hundred thousand, and some of his self loans were from
his campaign in twenty ten. Jd Vance four hundred and
eighty thousand. That's out of a million one raised. George
Santos has raised two hundred and nine grand since his election.
A lot of people want to underwrite a con man,
(25:00):
and he has given eighty five thousand of that to himself.
Perhaps Katara ravashe thank you, Nancy faus Sa and Tos
(25:21):
Santos makes the very best CA Dateline Charleston, West Virginia, OH.
Speaking of contributions, an interesting list of donors to Senator
Joe Manchin revealed by the website The Intercept thirty three
hundred dollars from Jack Abernethy, sixty six hundred from Adrian Farley,
another sixty six hundred from Jamie Gillespie, fifteen hundred from
(25:43):
Mike Mulbihill, a thousand from Fernando zoo viat Din and
four of his friends donated a total of eleven three
hundred and fifty. Who are these people? Why they are
all executives and lawyers for Fox. Jack Abernethy is CEO
of Fox TV Stations. Malbihill is the raiding expert in sports,
(26:06):
and Dinn was the lawyer who thought they could beat
dominion in court. And they all love Joe Mansion and
Dateline Hudson Yards, New York. CNN has retooled its entire
anchor lineup or has it a lot of stories about
this yesterday, I mean a lot. The most publicity CNN
has gotten since the last time Chris licked led himself
(26:29):
on fire. And I think every one of these stories
missed the point, and ultimately that is the point. Phil
Mattingley is the new morning co anchor, except he has
been filling in as morning co anchor since spring. Abby
Phillip will anchor at ten PM, Laura Coates at eleven,
but Abby Phillip and Laura Coates had been doing that
(26:51):
off and on for a year. In short, CNN just
announced a bunch of new anchors of key shows who
were already anchoring those shows, and nobody, not even the
few pe people who still have jobs covering television, noticed
that the new hires were already in the jobs. This
(27:14):
is ominous. It is one thing if the viewers aren't watching.
It's another if the TV critics and TV writers aren't
and they're not even bothering to Google. By the way,
no change at CNN at eight PM, where the Anderson
Cooper Career memorial Silo Hour will continue as originally scheduled.
(27:51):
This is Sports Center wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Aulberman in sports. It was the
feel goods story of fifteen years ago. Adopted out of
terrible poverty by a rich white family, and his surrogate
mother fought to get him seen by college and pro scouts,
(28:13):
and he grew up to be Michael Or, star tackle
at Mississippi and for the Baltimore Ravens, and their story
was made into a box office smash film, and it
got Sondra Bullock an Academy Award, And yesterday Michael Orr
said it was all a fraud and he is suing
his adoptive family. In fact, he says Leeann and Sean
(28:35):
Toohey did not adopt him. They had him sign a
conservatorship agreement instead, which is still in effect even though
he's thirty seven years old now, and through which they
got to control all the money from the movie. And
he got bupkus And in the suit, Or says the
two he's got two and a half percent of the
(28:55):
film's defined net proceeds, and it grows three hundred million
dollars at the box office and tens of millions more
in home video sales, and he got nutting He says
he only found out about this this year. The two
we say none of this is true, and they are shocked.
The name of the movie was prophetically, as it turns out,
the blind Side. I used to take a lot of
(29:17):
heat inside ESPN and outside of ESPN for regularly asserting
that Derek Jeter was not one of the top one
hundred players in baseball history, and not one of the
top five players in New York Yankees history, and that
if you were going to call him a leader because
he was team captain, you were going to have to
note that the Yankees won four World Series with him
(29:38):
in the seven seasons he was not team captain, but
only won one World Series in the twelve seasons he
was team captain. I also pointed out that when he
was CEO and part owner of the Miami Marlins, he
didn't really seem to understand how the sports business worked.
One of his earliest observations was that while he would
be trading away his higher priced, better players to cut
(30:01):
salary and expenses, he expected more fans to spend more
money buying more Marlins tickets. He never explained how that
was supposed to happen. Derek Jeter was eased out of
the Miami Marlins operation more than a year ago. Now,
one of the people his group bought that team from
has attacked Jeter, Jeffrey Lauria, who had lots of flaws himself,
(30:23):
but did manage to con South Florida into giving him
a free ballpark for a city that has never and
will never actually support Major League baseball. Jeffrey Laurier, art dealer,
told The Miami Herald that Jeter quote destroyed the ballpark
by getting rid of all the colorful decor and the
on field aquariums, and especially the bizarre Some people loved
(30:46):
it seven story tall Marlin statue that looked like an
Erector set toy gone crazy and was painted every pastel
color known to man. Destroying public art was a horrible
thing to do, Lauria says, pointing at Jeter. To me,
it reflected the culture of Miami. Now, it's all it's ridiculous. Still,
(31:08):
things are better at the moment in Miami than with
Florida's other big league team, the Tampa Bay Rays, say
All star infielder Wander Franco has been placed on the
restricted list. He doesn't play, he doesn't have to get paid,
though the Rays say they are paying Franco salary. This
while the league investigates a series of social media posts
made during the Ray's game Sunday alleging a relationship between
(31:32):
Franco and an underage girl with photographs. Baseball and its
fans have a lot of problems, but the response to
such accusations has always been appropriately harsh. First, baseman Ed
Boushee of the Philadelphia Phillies arrested for exposing himself to
several young girls. Bouchet was suspended institutionalized for half a season.
(31:54):
Pete Rose, in the midst of the rehabilitation of his
post playing career, the star of Fox Baseball's pregame and
postgame show Fired, disappeared from the game when a relationship
with an underage girl was revealed forty years after it happened.
Now Franco on the restricted list and being savaged online
by baseball fans with such observations as a tweet by
(32:17):
an account called New York Chankys quote, sorry about this quote. Quote.
You can call Wander Franco up to the majors, but
he will always be in the minors. Hey, don't blame me,
(32:50):
I just read what the producer puts in front of me.
Of course I'm the producer, still ahead on countdown. If
you're going to sue NBC to get out of having
to cover the Monica Lewinsky story against your will, who
do you want as your attorney? Well, Monica Lewinski's attorney.
Am I right? The twenty fifth anniversary of that adventure
(33:10):
ahead in things I promised not to tell first time
for the Daily round up, the miss Grants, morons and
Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in
the world Bronze. Kellen Browning, a New York Times reporter
who admits to covering the video game industry. I don't
know if this explains what he's done, but something has to.
(33:33):
On Friday, he tweeted from his coverage in Maui. Quote
Delicius Stratton searched desperately through the wreckage of her Lehina
home for the Rolex watch her parents gave her when
she graduated college. Suddenly, her fiance pulled it from the ashes.
You found it, she said, choking up. It was damaged,
but still legible. Companying this, we're two photos, one showing
(33:56):
Miss Stratton holding the charred watch, her hands and nails
in surprisingly perfect condition considering she'd just been doing this
desperate search. Okay, that's Friday, and the full extent of
the Hawaiian disaster might not yet have been fully clear
to mister Browning. Well maybe not. An hour later, Browning
reported on the Times Live blog about a woman named
(34:18):
Sarah Salmones and her quote unreal discovery of her diamond
earrings among the twisted wreck of her peloton bike. It's
a pulitzer, for sure. I guess we are fortunate. Browning
did not follow his updates on these miracles amid tragedy
by writing the rolex and diamond earrings strewn rubble of
(34:41):
Lahina might be an unusual place to find Trump supporters,
but in this Hawaiian diner, the runner at Vivek Ramaswami,
who is still running for the GOP presidential nomination. Though
I am beginning to think this may actually just be
a Fox reality TV show to be called Mine Not
So Big, Not So Fat, Stupid dark Horse presidential campaign.
(35:03):
Ramaswami was on with another deep thinker, Hugh Hewitt, when
Taiwan came up, and Ramaswami basically said, this country will
defend Taiwan to the death, not exactly the death, but
until we stop needing what they're making, and then the
Taiwanese can go f themselves. Quoting Ramaswami, I'm being very clear,
Shijinping should not mess with Taiwan until we have achieved
(35:28):
semiconductor independence, until the end of my first term, when
I will lead us there. And after that, our commitments
to Taiwan, our commitments to being willing to go to
military conflict, will change after that because that's rationally in
our self interest. So defend them until we finish bleeding
(35:48):
them of their semi conductors, and then by Felicia is
that the deal Vivek never occurred to mister Ramswami that
if we actually said that, like he actually just said that, that,
the Taiwanese could then slow walk semi conductor production, so
we don't ever achieve semiconductor independence, couldn't they. I might
(36:13):
mention this to my former Cornell classmate and now the
president of Taiwan. It seems like Ramaswami realized what he
had done because he ended the interview fifteen minutes before
the Hewitt people say they anticipated but our winner and
this pertains to that Ramaswami's communications director, Tricia McLaughlin doing
cleanup on his amazing faux pas not exactly her response
(36:36):
to this, She complained to a reporter who wrote up
the Taiwan disaster that quote, your story and headline are inaccurate.
It was a twenty minute schedule hit that went way
over to forty five minutes. If you plan to write
about Vivek or our interview schedule, flease reach out to
me to insure accuracy. The guy just did an RFK
(36:58):
junior to his own campaign, only it's about Taiwan and
she's focused on correcting how long the interview was scheduled for.
Tricia McLaughlin VVAK Gramaswami's communications director, Idiocy Game, Recognize, Idiocy Game,
(37:18):
Today's worst Parson and our number one story on the
countdown and back to my favorite topic, me and things
(37:41):
I promised not to tell. So twenty four years ago
this week, I nearly hired Monica Lewinsky's lawyer to sue
NBC so I didn't have to cover the Monica Lewinsky
story anymore for NBC. It started in like June of
nineteen ninety eight, and I was at the lowest point
(38:01):
of what would turn out to be a ten month
struggle to extricate my from having to host at least
one hour long show every night covering the news of
the Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky investigations, whether or not there
was any news, and whether or not there was any journalistic, ethical,
or legal justification for doing it, because guess what, my
(38:22):
employers had a hit on their hands and they weren't
going to let anything other than money factor into this equation.
I had tried everything I could think of. On the air,
I trashed how we covered it. The ratings went up.
I trashed how we covered it in newspaper interviews. The
ratings went up. I trashed how we covered it in
(38:42):
a commencement speech. I gave it Cornell University. The ratings
went up. I threatened to quit publicly. The ratings went up.
I trashed the prosecutor and said this was a political
distraction from the threat of terrorism. The ratings went up.
NBC tried to blackmail me into staying, and I hinted
at that on the air, and the ratings went up. Finally,
(39:04):
and inside the office of the head of NBC Sports Dick.
Eversoll revealed that Eversol and Company had been part of
what she had called a little white lie about the
contract I had signed a year earlier when I left
ESPN Sports Center to go do MSNBC News with a
little NBC Sports on the side. Turned out it wasn't
(39:28):
a little NBC Sports on the side. NBC Sports was
in fact paying the majority of my salary, even though
everybody at NBC News insisted to me during and after
in the negotiations that it was like ninety percent News
and only ten percent Sports. This detail was my first
(39:48):
ray of hope. It was not much, and it might
or might not mean the contract was invalid, but it
was technically illegal to do what they had done. If
you sign a contract with somebody who says he's paying
you and it turns out no, you're secretly being paid
by somebody else and that isn't in the contract, you
have been deceived into signing the contract. And if you
(40:09):
have been deceived into signing the contract, well that might
be enough of a can opener to get me out
of here. So I needed a lawyer. On June second,
nineteen ninety eight, William Ginsburg retired as Monica Lewinsky's lawyer
went back to Los Angeles. He was only there because
he was a friend of her father's. He was a
medical malpractice lawyer with a little experience in contract law.
(40:32):
He was also really good on TV, and to this day,
when the same person appears on all five of the
Sunday talk shows on ABC, CBSCNN, Fox, and NBC all
in one morning, especially if they do it live in
the studio, it's called the full Ginsburg because he did
it first. Bill Ginsburg hated the story understandably. I hated
(40:55):
the story. I heard through colleagues that he respected the
way I tried to cover it and not the way
anybody else did. So I wrote him a letter. I
suggested that while contract law might not be his specialty,
pushing back against the public humiliation of Monica s. Lewinsky
was his specialty, and he could help her and help
me at the same time. And he wrote back that
(41:15):
he liked the idea, he would research it, and we
should have dinner the next time he was in New
York or I was in LA. That time came on
August twentieth, nineteen ninety eight. I was in LA staying
in Santa Monica, and he said, perfect, let's go to
the Jonathan Club. And it really was a terrific meal
and conversation with one of his law colleagues joining us.
(41:36):
Bill Ginsburg was gruff and funny and a big sports fan,
and he had been involved in the legal action after
the death of the college basketball star Hank Gathers. I
was at Loyal and Marymount University the night Hank Gathers
died on the court. We had a lot to talk about.
Bill was also a Dodgers fan, furious at the trade
of Mike Piazza and wanted to know the inside story, etc.
(41:59):
And there were a few drinks we went fully off
the record, and after he said he would love to
represent me if I sued, and and thought I had
quite a case, and thought, if I just let it
leak inside thirty Rock, that I might hire a lawyer,
particularly if I leaked that I might hire him to
sue them over deceptive contract negotiations, NBC might give up quickly.
(42:20):
Having resolved our business before the second drink arrived, we
spent the next four hours telling each other all the
horror stories of our respective roles in this one of
the dumbest, most self debasing cluster frocks in the history
of American politics, and the history of American law, and
the history of American journalism. Obviously, Bill had a lot
(42:42):
more horror stories to tell than I did, and after
hearing dozens of them, I asked him to let me
tell three of the stories someday, on whatever terms he dictated.
He laughed, and he said, Okay, twenty years for tonight
or after I'm dead, whichever comes first. Sadly, Bill passed
away in twenty thirteen. The first story he was just
(43:05):
TV gossip. Bill said that early on, right after the
story broke in January nineteen ninety eight, when he was
still living in a Washington hotel and trying to figure
out what was what and who was who, he had
been taken to dinner by Rita Cosby, a Fox News
she later worked with me for a time at MSNBC.
She had a voice like the Leo the Lion character
(43:25):
from Looney Tunes. Hey wait a minute, and she was
approximately exactly as fetching. Somehow, he found himself at her
apartment for a drink. She carried two whiskeys to the
couch on which he sat and curled up next to him,
just let me leave. Bill quoted himself as saying, and
(43:46):
I'll tell you anything you want to know. Before Bill
Ginsburg told me this other story, he said he thought
it explained the entire Clinton Lewinsky saga. The older I get,
the more inclined I am to agree with him. He
said that sometime in the late seventies, he was getting
groceries at a huge supermarket in Beverly Hills. Went to
his shock, he saw his college classmate from cal Berkeley,
(44:08):
Bernie Lewinsky, pushing a shopping cart toward him. The two
men had not seen each other since they graduated in
nineteen sixty four. They immediately swapped stories, they embraced, and
Lewinsky casually mentioned where he and his family lived. I
was doing pretty well in my practice, Bill told me.
And Bernie and I were the same age, thirty five
(44:29):
thirty six, and I had a house in Beverly Hills
that I paid fifty thousand dollars for and I thought
I was king of the world. And then Bernie told
me his address in Beverly Hills, and I realized he
must have paid five hundred thousand for his house. And
I said, Bernie, I know you're a genius, but how
could you possibly afford that place so soon? And he
(44:49):
said he had this oncology practice and they had just
opened another office and he was at one or the
other of those offices, like six days a week, and
I said great. And then he said, plus five nights
a week. I'm the overnight emergency oncology doctor at Cedar
Sinai Hospital. And I said great, And then I realized
what he had just told me. Bernie, I said, you
(45:10):
work six days a week and five overnights a week,
so you work eleven days a week. And he laughed,
and he said it's easier than saying no to my wife.
And that Alderman explains everything you need to know about
the Clinton Lewinsky story. Wow, As it turned out, on
(45:34):
the NBC contract stuff, Bill Kinsburg was prescient. I told
one of the top NBC office gossips that I'd had
dinner with Monica Lewinsky's former attorney and we had sketched
out plans to sue NBC because it had deliberately lied
to me about whether I was being paid by NBC
News or NBC Sports. And like four weeks later, out
of the blue, NBC suddenly advised my agent that it
(45:56):
was giving us ten days to negotiate a deal to
sell my contract to Fox Sports for a million dollars,
and the promise that I would not go back at
a time News for two years. Coincidence, I think not.
Mike Bill Ginsburg's Oh wait, I didn't tell you the
third story, he said, I could tell twenty years later.
(46:19):
If you know anything about the Clinton Lewinsky saga. You
know about the dress, the stained blue dress. If you
don't know, eh, look it up somewhere. I don't have
the time or the patience to tell you here. But
(46:39):
what Bill Ginsburg said that night twenty four years ago
cracks me up to this day. You know, he said,
when Monica took that dress out of her closet to
wear it at Thanksgiving and she realized it was stained,
she wasn't certain. She thought the stain might be potato salad.
(47:18):
Such a pain in the ass, he is. I've done
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Countdown has come to you from our studios high on
top the Sports Capsule Building in New York. Here are
the credits host of the music arrange, produced and performed
by Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, who are the
countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel, guitars,
(47:38):
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 Olderman
theme from ESPN two, which was written by Mitch Warren
Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust
the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
(47:59):
my friend Kenny Maine, and everything else was bety much
my fault Downtown for this the nine hundred and fifty
first day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him again
while we still can. Let's go on an odd even system.
Arrest him on odd numbered days. Don't arrest him on
(48:20):
even numbered days. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins,
as the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olderman, good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. You did not
(48:40):
you recarculate multiple countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Violation
of the Georgia Rico Act, solicitation of violation of oath
(00:27):
by public officer, three counts, Conspiracy to commit impersonating a
public officer, Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree,
two counts, Conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, two counts,
conspiracy to commit filing false documents, filing false documents, false
(00:49):
statements and writings two counts. Thirteen counts in total. The
former President of the United States is indicted in Georgia
accused of, in essence, leading a criminal gang which committed
one one hundred and sixty one separate illegal acts or
(01:09):
components one hundred and sixty one from the fake elector's
scheme through the breaching of the voting machines of Coffee County, Georgia,
to the phone call to Brad Raffensberger to find the
eleven seven hundred and eighty votes, to the abuse of
the state poll workers in Georgia, to line to the
Georgia State Senate to try to bring the Vice president
(01:33):
in on the conspiracy, to try to bring the Department
of Justice in on the conspiracy to a specific charge
that Trump directed his aide Johnny mcintee, to develop a
specific plan to prevent the electoral vote count and the
certification from being completed on January sixth, under a state
(01:54):
racketeering act, the Rico Act, in which a guilty verdict
carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and a
maximum of twenty with many of the people who acted
corruptly with him acted corruptly at his insistence, indicted with him,
eighteen of them Trump and eighteen co defendants Rudy Giuliani,
(02:19):
the Trump attorney John Eastman, that would be Attorney General
Jeffrey Clark, the Trump attorney Kenneth cheesebro the Trump attorney
Sidney Powell, the Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, the former chair
of the Coffee County Republican Party, Kathy Latham, an operative
in the voting machine breach, There a fake elector herself,
the hat trick of crime, and surprisingly political operative Mike Roman,
(02:44):
and Trump's last chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Roman and
Meadows may have been cooperating in the Jack Smith federal
version of this case, or they may not have been,
but they clearly were not cooperating with Fannie Willis. Others
of those indicted included more of the fake electors, nineteen defendants,
(03:04):
nineteen defendants who have until a week from Friday to
turn themselves in in Georgia. There are arrest warrants ready
for each of them. There is an arrest warrant ready
for Donald Trump. There is a mugshot camera ready for
Donald Trump. Oh, and there are thirty unindicted co conspirators.
(03:30):
There is an unindicted co conspirator number thirty. It is breathtaking,
It is sprawling, It is ninety eight pages long. It
is national. Prosecutors say the criminal enterprise operated obviously in
the state of Georgia, but also in the District of Columbia,
(03:52):
in Arizona, in Michigan, in Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
It makes Jack Smith look like he's throwing six darts
while Fannie Willis has brought a six foot tall pile
of arrows with her. The trials could go on for years,
Like Wyatt earp chasing down the Clanton Gang went on
(04:14):
for years. Hell analyzing this indictment could go on for years,
no wonder. This became the first ever prime time edition
of the Donald Trump gets indicted again show this is
the war and peace of American political criminology, and that
may be the point ultimately in our worst nightmares. On
(04:37):
the morning of January twentieth, twenty twenty five, Trump, whether
indicted or convicted, or still on trial or still on
trial in multiple states or any other Republican, is sworn
in as president of the United States and tries to
pardon himself or can cause his new Attorney general to
(04:59):
drop every single charge already brought by Jack Smith, or
pardon every conviction ever achieved for a jury, and he
gets away with it. He does not get away with
it in Georgia. For once, the tyranny of time and
the law's delay is working on our side. There are
(05:24):
ways for Trump to wriggle out of this in Georgia,
as he has wriggled out of everything else so far.
But he has no magic wand in Georgia to make
this go away, and cannot achieve one simply by being
elected president. It would involve a convoluted fight against every
(05:45):
facet every one of these one hundred and sixty one
criminal acts, every one of these eighteen co defendants, every
one of these thirty unindicted co conspirators and every piece
of evidence they have, and one at a time. And
at her news conference just before midnight last night, Fani
(06:06):
Willis said she hopes to begin trial within six months,
and if she manages that, she gets an Olympic gold
medal and she breaks the world record for the mile
several times. This trial, these trials, this extraordinary event, will
not begin this year nor early next. And we only
(06:30):
have an infinite amount of time here on a podcast,
so I will not try to drill down on the
charges yet. With one exception from a cursory skim of
this book length indictment, I would direct you to page
twenty four and predicate Act number nineteen, which I think
distills in a way we have not seen before anywhere
(06:51):
the entirety of the Trump coup plot into one heinous thread.
I quote from the indictment. On or between the first
day of December twenty twenty and the first day of
December twenty twenty, Donald John Trump and Mark Randall Meadows
met with John mcintee and requested that mcintee prepared a
(07:13):
memorandum outlining a strategy for disrupting and delaying the Joint
Session of Congress on January sixth, twenty twenty one. The
strategy included having Vice President Pence count only half of
the electoral votes from certain states and return the remaining
electoral votes to state legislatures. The request was an overt
(07:35):
act in furtherance of the conspiracy unquote. That is, in effect,
the origin point, the center spot in this web, the
moment at which, in the timeline of this infamy, that
any doubt was erased, that any thought that this attempt
to scal the election was somehow ad hoc or somehow
(07:58):
an accidental outgrowth from a sincere belief that there had
been fraud or deceit. That is the moment page twenty
four predicate, Act number nineteen where such an assumption vanishes.
That is the point at which this becomes the Donald
Trump plot to overturn the election. Fannie Willis is charging
(08:24):
Trump and Meadows not just with firing the smoking gun,
but withholding the meeting at which the smoking gun was loaded. Incredibly,
it is still very possible that ultimately the Atlanta indictments
on charges pertaining to the attempt to steal a presidential
(08:46):
election and end American democracy, they might not actually be
the real lead story anyway, because there is the rather
startling prospect on the side but glowing in the dark,
that Donald Trump in Georgia it might not be granted bail.
(09:08):
The Georgia statutes are pretty cut and dried here. Quote.
A court shall be authorized to release a person on
bail if the court finds that the person A poses
no significant risk of fleeing from the jurisdiction of the
court or failing to appear in court when required. B
poses no significant threat or danger to any person to
the community or to any property in the community. C
(09:31):
poses no significant risk of committing any felony pending trial.
And and this is the big one. D poses no
significant risk of intimidating witnesses or otherwise obstructing the administration
of justice. Un quote all right, uh define significant. At
(09:52):
eight fifty eight Eastern Monday morning, Trump posted quote, I
am reading reports that failed Lieutenant governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan,
will be testifying before the Fulton County grand Jury. He
shouldn't does publicly telling a former lieutenant governor that he
shouldn't testify without a reason, without an adjective, without an
(10:14):
explicit threat, Does that indicate that Trump poses no significant
risk of intimidating witnesses or that he poses some significant
risk of intimidating witnesses. How about assessing that in the
context of the fact that, in the preceding eight and
a half hours Trump had used that same platform to
attack and threaten the prosecutor in the three federal cases
(10:36):
pending against him, and then to attack and threaten the
judge in one of the federal cases pending against him,
and then attack and threaten the Department of Justice, which
is prosecuting him in all of the federal cases pending
against him. If anybody anywhere who is not unconscious is
not already seeing a pattern here, Trump took the interval
(10:58):
between the handing up of the Atlanta indictments and their
public release last night to symbolically stand up on a
chair and scream I'm still here and I'm still intimidating
witnesses or otherwise obstructing the administration of justice his campaign.
His cult released at ten oh four Eastern a seven
(11:21):
paragraph statement in which he smears da Fani Willis as
quote corrupt and quote biased, and insists the grand jury
produced quote fabricated accusations and reminded the Georgia penal system
that Trump quote will never give up and will never
stop fighting, A won't flee or fail to appear in court. Well,
(11:43):
I could see him refuse to show up, especially if
the trial is going badly where the verdict is due
or worse yet, the sentencing. But he has not missed
a court date yet anywhere else, and God knows there
have been enough of them already. He's already had as
many in person court appearances this year as wives. So
he's probably clear on a b no threat or day
(12:04):
in the community. Probably not not in Atlanta anyway, see
committing any felony pending trial while are we counting intimidating
witnesses or the prosecutors or the judges in other cases
or is that just d It would take the guts
of a cat burglar for a county superior judge anywhere
in this country to rule that a former president of
(12:26):
the United States, even this amoral schmuck, is not eligible
for bail because of his repeated threats towards figures in
this case and others. But that supposedly is why some
people are judges. I mean, they can't all be members
of the Federalist Society, and so far in his months
on the periphery of this case, Judge Robert McBurney of
(12:48):
Georgia has shown the guts of a cat burglar. Indeed,
but we don't even know that McBurnie will get this case.
The simplest measure of what McBurnie, or whichever judge does
draw the assignment, should do is the swapout rule. It's
not the state of Georgia versus Donald Trump. It's the
state of Georgia versus you or me or any of
(13:09):
Trump's co defendants listed alphabetically or by age or height.
You know, the eighteen people. It takes five minutes to
just read the list aloud. Of any of us, we
would not be granted bail, or we might be granted
it under only the most stringent of conditions, probably confined
(13:30):
to the state of Georgia in the interim, or maybe
to house arrest wearing an ankle monitor. And you and
I do not own our own social media websites, nor
lead our own cults, nor talk to their members in
the language of terrorism by remote control, nor do it
so efficiently that just last week one of the cultists
openly threatened to assassinate the president of the United States
(13:53):
and dared the FBI to do anything about it, and
when they did, he actually thought he could shoot it
out with the FBI. And now he's dead. I am
not expecting them to refuse Trump bail because, frankly, the
prosecutor and the judge who do that would be well
aware that the threat of political violence works, and they
(14:15):
would have something on their hands the likes of which
we have not seen before in this country, something that
the world would compare to Lula in Brazil, or maybe
what's happening in Niger or Myanmar, or hell, maybe the
world would compare it to Napoleon. But the judge could
easily begin with sterner restrictions on what Trump can say
(14:37):
and cannot say at what happens to him if he
says it, then did Judge Chutkin in Washington, And they
should because sooner rather than later, the American justice system is,
as I said yesterday, going to have to break Donald Trump,
or Donald Trump will break the justice system. And so
far there is no indication that Judge Chuckkin or Jack
(15:01):
Smith has even begun the process of caging Trump's will
winginess to ignore the laws of this nation and spit
at those who defend those laws. Smith pushed back yesterday
against Trump, but against his demand for a special skiff,
a secure facility for reading the classified documents in the
Florida case, the one he wants at his home. Jack
(15:22):
Smith was quiet about the Washington indictments and the Trump
threats on Sunday night and Monday morning. However, quote while
on release, if you commit a federal felony offense, the
punishment is an additional prison term of not more than
ten years. It is a crime punishable by up to
(15:43):
ten years in prison and a two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars fine, or both. To obstruct a criminal investigation,
tamper with a witness, victim or informant, retaliate or attempt
to retaliate against a witness, victim or informant, or intimidate
or attempt to intimidate a witness, victim, juror informant, or
(16:07):
officer of the court. I have quoted there from the
instructions that Judge Truckton gave Trump and his attorneys last week.
Last week, Trump attempted to intimidate two officers of the
court hearing this case and a witness in another case
(16:30):
in a span of eight and a half hours on
Sunday night and Monday morning. A judge in Fulton County,
Georgia may not have the heft to decide to take
what remains of our supposedly peaceful political system, the part
Trump has not yet destroyed, and balance it atop the
Washington Monument and hope it does not fall off. The
idea that the judge will preside over a trial that
(16:53):
could convict Donald Trump of something he could not pardon
or overturn or have overturned on his behalf may be
burden enough for the judge in Fulton County, whoever he
or she turns out to be. But a federal judge
hearing a case in which the defendant attempted to overthrow democracy,
steal an election, cause harm or death to congressman, senators,
(17:17):
the Vice president, and peace officers, and, according to the
Atlanta indictment, planned it out at a meeting with Mark
Meadows and Johnny mcintee. A federal judge has that heft,
and she damn well better use it, because the forces
arrayed against democracy now against the future of representative government
(17:38):
of any kind in this country. Against violence is our
primary means of political communication. They are not backing down.
Lindsey Graham desperate, skulking, venomous, treasonous, despicable, decayed, putrid. Lindsey
Graham spoke for all of the fiends last night. This
(18:02):
should be decided at the ballot box. He had the
nerve to say on Fox and not in a bunch
of liberal jurisdictions trying to put the man in jail.
We did decide it at the ballot box. And then
Trump decided to betray this nation and try to overturn
(18:26):
that election. And you, Lindsey Graham, you helped him, you
little shit. Two other notes. You may have heard this
story Joe Biden on vacation on a beach in Delaware
and a question shouted at him asking if he had
any comment on the rising death toll in Maui, and
(18:48):
he answered no comment. Completely fabricated, completely, This was the
work of the White House press pool reporter. They're chosen randomly.
This one is as random as it gets. His name
is Rob Crilly. He is from the Britginish publication The
Daily Mail. It is not a newspaper per se, and
(19:09):
Krilly is nowhere close to being a journalist. His most
recent work has been stories quoting sources insisting America was
flooded with terrorists after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and other
stories about how popular Robert F. Kennedy Junior is and
how the Trump indictments mean America is reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
What he's doing as the White House pool reporter is
(19:32):
anybody's guests. What he's doing, accredited by the White House
Correspondence Association, is just more evidence of that organization's long
time slovenliness. But here's the kicker. The truth could survive
all that Rob Crilly is and isn't, and all that
the Correspondence Association is and isn't. But what it can't
survive is Rob Crilly making up what he thinks. Joe
(19:56):
Biden said when he was asked for comment about Hawaii,
Crilly's official pool report from the Beach, I'm quoting it
in its entirety. Potus stopped when he heard a question
asking any comment on the rising death toll in Maui.
He appeared to say no, no comment, according to lip
(20:17):
readers in the pool, but could not be heard he
climbed into the suv, which then left in the motorcade
for the short journey up his street and lid at
nineteen oh five. Thanks to all copoolers for lip reading unquote.
So Biden's supposedly callous response to the worsening reality of
(20:39):
Hawaii was not heard by the pool reporter, by any reporter,
by anybody near the reporters, but lip readers think they
know what he said and were willing to put quotation
marks around it. I don't know how many White House
reporters I've met over the last quarter century, but a
clear majority of them cannot understand things that are clearly
(21:02):
explained to them aloud, and half of those who can
cannot understand the meaning of those things. But now we're
putting words in the mouth of the President of the
United States about a disaster with deaths in triple digits,
because all of a sudden they are all qualified lipreaders.
The White House should have come out punching the moment
(21:23):
the story broke yesterday afternoon. It should have gotten the
Correspondence Association to get Curly to retract, or at least
confirm he heard no such thing and is guessing or
it should have reclaimed its sole right to control who
does and does not get to cover the president and
get into the White House. Instead, it issued a statement
saying President Biden was praying for the people of Hawaii.
(21:47):
A lot of the people in the White House are
not qualified to play the game at this level. Amateur
lip readers operating from thirty or more feet away think
the President may have said no comment becomes simply an
unqualified quotation of Joe Biden for all time Rob Crilly,
(22:09):
which segues into today's comic relief talk about actually hearing
what somebody said, rather than just guesses about what they said.
The Ronnie Jackson body cam video is out. Well it's
the police bodycam video, and well it's only twenty nine
seconds of it, possibly because it was the cleanest twenty
(22:30):
nine seconds they had. In the twenty nine seconds, Jackson
emits only two F bombs. The congressman insisted immediately after
this happened he was not drunk and that he was
respectful as police told him to back away from a
girl who was having a seizure at the m RELLLL rodeo. Yeah,
not so much. You did not You were a fu
(23:01):
recaculating up. Nobody else is gonna get everybody here asking.
I can read his lips and he is not praying.
(23:27):
Also of interest, funniest dog gone thing. The political website
roll Call has gone through the list of Joe Mansion's
latest donors and like a dozen of them all work
for the same television network. You want to guess which
television network? No, not that one. Mmm, not that one either, Yeah,
(23:53):
that one. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown
with Keith Olberman. Postscripts to the news, some headline, some updates,
some snark, some predictions, dateline, campaign finance, reform City Arizona,
(24:16):
which is a place that does not exist and never will.
The website roll Call reporting that just under two million,
three hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions to sixteen House
and Senate members in this cycle alone has gone to
repaying loans to their campaigns made by themselves. Memet Oz
(24:38):
took back a million two from contributions. Ron Johnson four
hundred thousand, and some of his self loans were from
his campaign in twenty ten. Jd Vance four hundred and
eighty thousand. That's out of a million one raised. George
Santos has raised two hundred and nine grand since his election.
A lot of people want to underwrite a con man,
(25:00):
and he has given eighty five thousand of that to himself.
Perhaps Katara ravashe thank you, Nancy faus Sa and Tos
(25:21):
Santos makes the very best CA Dateline Charleston, West Virginia, OH.
Speaking of contributions, an interesting list of donors to Senator
Joe Manchin revealed by the website The Intercept thirty three
hundred dollars from Jack Abernethy, sixty six hundred from Adrian Farley,
another sixty six hundred from Jamie Gillespie, fifteen hundred from
(25:43):
Mike Mulbihill, a thousand from Fernando zoo viat Din and
four of his friends donated a total of eleven three
hundred and fifty. Who are these people? Why they are
all executives and lawyers for Fox. Jack Abernethy is CEO
of Fox TV Stations. Malbihill is the raiding expert in sports,
(26:06):
and Dinn was the lawyer who thought they could beat
dominion in court. And they all love Joe Mansion and
Dateline Hudson Yards, New York. CNN has retooled its entire
anchor lineup or has it a lot of stories about
this yesterday, I mean a lot. The most publicity CNN
has gotten since the last time Chris licked led himself
(26:29):
on fire. And I think every one of these stories
missed the point, and ultimately that is the point. Phil
Mattingley is the new morning co anchor, except he has
been filling in as morning co anchor since spring. Abby
Phillip will anchor at ten PM, Laura Coates at eleven,
but Abby Phillip and Laura Coates had been doing that
(26:51):
off and on for a year. In short, CNN just
announced a bunch of new anchors of key shows who
were already anchoring those shows, and nobody, not even the
few pe people who still have jobs covering television, noticed
that the new hires were already in the jobs. This
(27:14):
is ominous. It is one thing if the viewers aren't watching.
It's another if the TV critics and TV writers aren't
and they're not even bothering to Google. By the way,
no change at CNN at eight PM, where the Anderson
Cooper Career memorial Silo Hour will continue as originally scheduled.
(27:51):
This is Sports Center wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Aulberman in sports. It was the
feel goods story of fifteen years ago. Adopted out of
terrible poverty by a rich white family, and his surrogate
mother fought to get him seen by college and pro scouts,
(28:13):
and he grew up to be Michael Or, star tackle
at Mississippi and for the Baltimore Ravens, and their story
was made into a box office smash film, and it
got Sondra Bullock an Academy Award, And yesterday Michael Orr
said it was all a fraud and he is suing
his adoptive family. In fact, he says Leeann and Sean
(28:35):
Toohey did not adopt him. They had him sign a
conservatorship agreement instead, which is still in effect even though
he's thirty seven years old now, and through which they
got to control all the money from the movie. And
he got bupkus And in the suit, Or says the
two he's got two and a half percent of the
(28:55):
film's defined net proceeds, and it grows three hundred million
dollars at the box office and tens of millions more
in home video sales, and he got nutting He says
he only found out about this this year. The two
we say none of this is true, and they are shocked.
The name of the movie was prophetically, as it turns out,
the blind Side. I used to take a lot of
(29:17):
heat inside ESPN and outside of ESPN for regularly asserting
that Derek Jeter was not one of the top one
hundred players in baseball history, and not one of the
top five players in New York Yankees history, and that
if you were going to call him a leader because
he was team captain, you were going to have to
note that the Yankees won four World Series with him
(29:38):
in the seven seasons he was not team captain, but
only won one World Series in the twelve seasons he
was team captain. I also pointed out that when he
was CEO and part owner of the Miami Marlins, he
didn't really seem to understand how the sports business worked.
One of his earliest observations was that while he would
be trading away his higher priced, better players to cut
(30:01):
salary and expenses, he expected more fans to spend more
money buying more Marlins tickets. He never explained how that
was supposed to happen. Derek Jeter was eased out of
the Miami Marlins operation more than a year ago. Now,
one of the people his group bought that team from
has attacked Jeter, Jeffrey Lauria, who had lots of flaws himself,
(30:23):
but did manage to con South Florida into giving him
a free ballpark for a city that has never and
will never actually support Major League baseball. Jeffrey Laurier, art dealer,
told The Miami Herald that Jeter quote destroyed the ballpark
by getting rid of all the colorful decor and the
on field aquariums, and especially the bizarre Some people loved
(30:46):
it seven story tall Marlin statue that looked like an
Erector set toy gone crazy and was painted every pastel
color known to man. Destroying public art was a horrible
thing to do, Lauria says, pointing at Jeter. To me,
it reflected the culture of Miami. Now, it's all it's ridiculous. Still,
(31:08):
things are better at the moment in Miami than with
Florida's other big league team, the Tampa Bay Rays, say
All star infielder Wander Franco has been placed on the
restricted list. He doesn't play, he doesn't have to get paid,
though the Rays say they are paying Franco salary. This
while the league investigates a series of social media posts
made during the Ray's game Sunday alleging a relationship between
(31:32):
Franco and an underage girl with photographs. Baseball and its
fans have a lot of problems, but the response to
such accusations has always been appropriately harsh. First, baseman Ed
Boushee of the Philadelphia Phillies arrested for exposing himself to
several young girls. Bouchet was suspended institutionalized for half a season.
(31:54):
Pete Rose, in the midst of the rehabilitation of his
post playing career, the star of Fox Baseball's pregame and
postgame show Fired, disappeared from the game when a relationship
with an underage girl was revealed forty years after it happened.
Now Franco on the restricted list and being savaged online
by baseball fans with such observations as a tweet by
(32:17):
an account called New York Chankys quote, sorry about this quote. Quote.
You can call Wander Franco up to the majors, but
he will always be in the minors. Hey, don't blame me,
(32:50):
I just read what the producer puts in front of me.
Of course I'm the producer, still ahead on countdown. If
you're going to sue NBC to get out of having
to cover the Monica Lewinsky story against your will, who
do you want as your attorney? Well, Monica Lewinski's attorney.
Am I right? The twenty fifth anniversary of that adventure
(33:10):
ahead in things I promised not to tell first time
for the Daily round up, the miss Grants, morons and
Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in
the world Bronze. Kellen Browning, a New York Times reporter
who admits to covering the video game industry. I don't
know if this explains what he's done, but something has to.
(33:33):
On Friday, he tweeted from his coverage in Maui. Quote
Delicius Stratton searched desperately through the wreckage of her Lehina
home for the Rolex watch her parents gave her when
she graduated college. Suddenly, her fiance pulled it from the ashes.
You found it, she said, choking up. It was damaged,
but still legible. Companying this, we're two photos, one showing
(33:56):
Miss Stratton holding the charred watch, her hands and nails
in surprisingly perfect condition considering she'd just been doing this
desperate search. Okay, that's Friday, and the full extent of
the Hawaiian disaster might not yet have been fully clear
to mister Browning. Well maybe not. An hour later, Browning
reported on the Times Live blog about a woman named
(34:18):
Sarah Salmones and her quote unreal discovery of her diamond
earrings among the twisted wreck of her peloton bike. It's
a pulitzer, for sure. I guess we are fortunate. Browning
did not follow his updates on these miracles amid tragedy
by writing the rolex and diamond earrings strewn rubble of
(34:41):
Lahina might be an unusual place to find Trump supporters,
but in this Hawaiian diner, the runner at Vivek Ramaswami,
who is still running for the GOP presidential nomination. Though
I am beginning to think this may actually just be
a Fox reality TV show to be called Mine Not
So Big, Not So Fat, Stupid dark Horse presidential campaign.
(35:03):
Ramaswami was on with another deep thinker, Hugh Hewitt, when
Taiwan came up, and Ramaswami basically said, this country will
defend Taiwan to the death, not exactly the death, but
until we stop needing what they're making, and then the
Taiwanese can go f themselves. Quoting Ramaswami, I'm being very clear,
Shijinping should not mess with Taiwan until we have achieved
(35:28):
semiconductor independence, until the end of my first term, when
I will lead us there. And after that, our commitments
to Taiwan, our commitments to being willing to go to
military conflict, will change after that because that's rationally in
our self interest. So defend them until we finish bleeding
(35:48):
them of their semi conductors, and then by Felicia is
that the deal Vivek never occurred to mister Ramswami that
if we actually said that, like he actually just said that, that,
the Taiwanese could then slow walk semi conductor production, so
we don't ever achieve semiconductor independence, couldn't they. I might
(36:13):
mention this to my former Cornell classmate and now the
president of Taiwan. It seems like Ramaswami realized what he
had done because he ended the interview fifteen minutes before
the Hewitt people say they anticipated but our winner and
this pertains to that Ramaswami's communications director, Tricia McLaughlin doing
cleanup on his amazing faux pas not exactly her response
(36:36):
to this, She complained to a reporter who wrote up
the Taiwan disaster that quote, your story and headline are inaccurate.
It was a twenty minute schedule hit that went way
over to forty five minutes. If you plan to write
about Vivek or our interview schedule, flease reach out to
me to insure accuracy. The guy just did an RFK
(36:58):
junior to his own campaign, only it's about Taiwan and
she's focused on correcting how long the interview was scheduled for.
Tricia McLaughlin VVAK Gramaswami's communications director, Idiocy Game, Recognize, Idiocy Game,
(37:18):
Today's worst Parson and our number one story on the
countdown and back to my favorite topic, me and things
(37:41):
I promised not to tell. So twenty four years ago
this week, I nearly hired Monica Lewinsky's lawyer to sue
NBC so I didn't have to cover the Monica Lewinsky
story anymore for NBC. It started in like June of
nineteen ninety eight, and I was at the lowest point
(38:01):
of what would turn out to be a ten month
struggle to extricate my from having to host at least
one hour long show every night covering the news of
the Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky investigations, whether or not there
was any news, and whether or not there was any journalistic, ethical,
or legal justification for doing it, because guess what, my
(38:22):
employers had a hit on their hands and they weren't
going to let anything other than money factor into this equation.
I had tried everything I could think of. On the air,
I trashed how we covered it. The ratings went up.
I trashed how we covered it in newspaper interviews. The
ratings went up. I trashed how we covered it in
(38:42):
a commencement speech. I gave it Cornell University. The ratings
went up. I threatened to quit publicly. The ratings went up.
I trashed the prosecutor and said this was a political
distraction from the threat of terrorism. The ratings went up.
NBC tried to blackmail me into staying, and I hinted
at that on the air, and the ratings went up. Finally,
(39:04):
and inside the office of the head of NBC Sports Dick.
Eversoll revealed that Eversol and Company had been part of
what she had called a little white lie about the
contract I had signed a year earlier when I left
ESPN Sports Center to go do MSNBC News with a
little NBC Sports on the side. Turned out it wasn't
(39:28):
a little NBC Sports on the side. NBC Sports was
in fact paying the majority of my salary, even though
everybody at NBC News insisted to me during and after
in the negotiations that it was like ninety percent News
and only ten percent Sports. This detail was my first
(39:48):
ray of hope. It was not much, and it might
or might not mean the contract was invalid, but it
was technically illegal to do what they had done. If
you sign a contract with somebody who says he's paying
you and it turns out no, you're secretly being paid
by somebody else and that isn't in the contract, you
have been deceived into signing the contract. And if you
(40:09):
have been deceived into signing the contract, well that might
be enough of a can opener to get me out
of here. So I needed a lawyer. On June second,
nineteen ninety eight, William Ginsburg retired as Monica Lewinsky's lawyer
went back to Los Angeles. He was only there because
he was a friend of her father's. He was a
medical malpractice lawyer with a little experience in contract law.
(40:32):
He was also really good on TV, and to this day,
when the same person appears on all five of the
Sunday talk shows on ABC, CBSCNN, Fox, and NBC all
in one morning, especially if they do it live in
the studio, it's called the full Ginsburg because he did
it first. Bill Ginsburg hated the story understandably. I hated
(40:55):
the story. I heard through colleagues that he respected the
way I tried to cover it and not the way
anybody else did. So I wrote him a letter. I
suggested that while contract law might not be his specialty,
pushing back against the public humiliation of Monica s. Lewinsky
was his specialty, and he could help her and help
me at the same time. And he wrote back that
(41:15):
he liked the idea, he would research it, and we
should have dinner the next time he was in New
York or I was in LA. That time came on
August twentieth, nineteen ninety eight. I was in LA staying
in Santa Monica, and he said, perfect, let's go to
the Jonathan Club. And it really was a terrific meal
and conversation with one of his law colleagues joining us.
(41:36):
Bill Ginsburg was gruff and funny and a big sports fan,
and he had been involved in the legal action after
the death of the college basketball star Hank Gathers. I
was at Loyal and Marymount University the night Hank Gathers
died on the court. We had a lot to talk about.
Bill was also a Dodgers fan, furious at the trade
of Mike Piazza and wanted to know the inside story, etc.
(41:59):
And there were a few drinks we went fully off
the record, and after he said he would love to
represent me if I sued, and and thought I had
quite a case, and thought, if I just let it
leak inside thirty Rock, that I might hire a lawyer,
particularly if I leaked that I might hire him to
sue them over deceptive contract negotiations, NBC might give up quickly.
(42:20):
Having resolved our business before the second drink arrived, we
spent the next four hours telling each other all the
horror stories of our respective roles in this one of
the dumbest, most self debasing cluster frocks in the history
of American politics, and the history of American law, and
the history of American journalism. Obviously, Bill had a lot
(42:42):
more horror stories to tell than I did, and after
hearing dozens of them, I asked him to let me
tell three of the stories someday, on whatever terms he dictated.
He laughed, and he said, Okay, twenty years for tonight
or after I'm dead, whichever comes first. Sadly, Bill passed
away in twenty thirteen. The first story he was just
(43:05):
TV gossip. Bill said that early on, right after the
story broke in January nineteen ninety eight, when he was
still living in a Washington hotel and trying to figure
out what was what and who was who, he had
been taken to dinner by Rita Cosby, a Fox News
she later worked with me for a time at MSNBC.
She had a voice like the Leo the Lion character
(43:25):
from Looney Tunes. Hey wait a minute, and she was
approximately exactly as fetching. Somehow, he found himself at her
apartment for a drink. She carried two whiskeys to the
couch on which he sat and curled up next to him,
just let me leave. Bill quoted himself as saying, and
(43:46):
I'll tell you anything you want to know. Before Bill
Ginsburg told me this other story, he said he thought
it explained the entire Clinton Lewinsky saga. The older I get,
the more inclined I am to agree with him. He
said that sometime in the late seventies, he was getting
groceries at a huge supermarket in Beverly Hills. Went to
his shock, he saw his college classmate from cal Berkeley,
(44:08):
Bernie Lewinsky, pushing a shopping cart toward him. The two
men had not seen each other since they graduated in
nineteen sixty four. They immediately swapped stories, they embraced, and
Lewinsky casually mentioned where he and his family lived. I
was doing pretty well in my practice, Bill told me.
And Bernie and I were the same age, thirty five
(44:29):
thirty six, and I had a house in Beverly Hills
that I paid fifty thousand dollars for and I thought
I was king of the world. And then Bernie told
me his address in Beverly Hills, and I realized he
must have paid five hundred thousand for his house. And
I said, Bernie, I know you're a genius, but how
could you possibly afford that place so soon? And he
(44:49):
said he had this oncology practice and they had just
opened another office and he was at one or the
other of those offices, like six days a week, and
I said great. And then he said, plus five nights
a week. I'm the overnight emergency oncology doctor at Cedar
Sinai Hospital. And I said great, And then I realized
what he had just told me. Bernie, I said, you
(45:10):
work six days a week and five overnights a week,
so you work eleven days a week. And he laughed,
and he said it's easier than saying no to my wife.
And that Alderman explains everything you need to know about
the Clinton Lewinsky story. Wow, As it turned out, on
(45:34):
the NBC contract stuff, Bill Kinsburg was prescient. I told
one of the top NBC office gossips that I'd had
dinner with Monica Lewinsky's former attorney and we had sketched
out plans to sue NBC because it had deliberately lied
to me about whether I was being paid by NBC
News or NBC Sports. And like four weeks later, out
of the blue, NBC suddenly advised my agent that it
(45:56):
was giving us ten days to negotiate a deal to
sell my contract to Fox Sports for a million dollars,
and the promise that I would not go back at
a time News for two years. Coincidence, I think not.
Mike Bill Ginsburg's Oh wait, I didn't tell you the
third story, he said, I could tell twenty years later.
(46:19):
If you know anything about the Clinton Lewinsky saga. You
know about the dress, the stained blue dress. If you
don't know, eh, look it up somewhere. I don't have
the time or the patience to tell you here. But
(46:39):
what Bill Ginsburg said that night twenty four years ago
cracks me up to this day. You know, he said,
when Monica took that dress out of her closet to
wear it at Thanksgiving and she realized it was stained,
she wasn't certain. She thought the stain might be potato salad.
(47:18):
Such a pain in the ass, he is. I've done
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Countdown has come to you from our studios high on
top the Sports Capsule Building in New York. Here are
the credits host of the music arrange, produced and performed
by Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, who are the
countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel, guitars,
(47:38):
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 Olderman
theme from ESPN two, which was written by Mitch Warren
Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust
the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
(47:59):
my friend Kenny Maine, and everything else was bety much
my fault Downtown for this the nine hundred and fifty
first day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him again
while we still can. Let's go on an odd even system.
Arrest him on odd numbered days. Don't arrest him on
(48:20):
even numbered days. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins,
as the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olderman, good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. You did not
(48:40):
you recarculate multiple countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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