July 19, 2023 • 45 mins
EPISODE 250: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: We now have more Trump Trials than court schedule time FOR Trump Trials. Well - this is what we wished for!
The SECOND federal set of indictments of The Defendant could be handed up as early as Thursday though Friday is likelier still and the likeliest is Trump being notified Thursday or Friday and then announcing it and we will re-enact early June where we all know in advance and there’s enough time for the sledge gangs to put up all the stages and tents and refreshment stands because the circus is coming to town.
We DO know what was in the Jack Smith January 6th Target letter – second in a series of who knows how many (collect them all) -- received Sunday by Trump’s lawyers. It was Rolling Stone that broke it: it listed just three CATEGORIES of federal statutes the government claims Trump violated and is likely to be charged under: Conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States; deprivation of rights under color of law; and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant. A few hours later ABC NEWSconfirmed those three categories word-for-word and both reports note what is NOT in the letter. As Rolling Stone puts it quote “the letter does not mention statutes on sedition or insurrection” (and I’ll add there is no category mentioned that could even obliquely house charges of wire fraud for scamming people into donating into this bottomless slush fund ostensibly designed to fund Trump’s effort to overturn a stolen election Jack Smith has clearly been trying to prove Trump knew WASN’T stolen). Perhaps the most important fact about the Target Letter is that it does NOT have to be inclusive and it does not have to spell out charges and that there were counts in the Classified Documents case indictments that were not even obliquely referenced in THAT letter, either.“Trump is the only person named in the letter,” says Rolling Stone’s source. Quoting ABC: “Multiple sources tell ABC News that allies, aides and attorneys for the former president have been working to determine if anyone else received a target letter: “we can’t find anyone” unquote, a source said Tuesday afternoon.” Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer confirms HE did not get a target letter; same from John Eastman’s; no firm answers from Jeffrey Clark, Michael Roman, Boris Epshteyn, or (cough) Mark Meadows, or any other Trump lawyer involved in the fake electors end of the coup attempt. Conventional wisdom had developed that Jack Smith was going to reel in not only Trump but a lot of his legal co-conspirators and that’s one of the problems with Conventional Wisdom.
OTOH here's the conventional wisdom: this case centers on faking government documents (the electoral results) and using them to falsely claim it's the law that Pence had to invalidate Biden's certification.
B-BLOCK (21:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well it's just past my first dog Stevie's 11th birthday and given I've done three of these in 24 hours I'm going to devote the rest of this podcast to the extraordinary hour in which I went from a man who had never had a dog and knew he never would, to one who has now had five full timers including three rescues and three others who were here briefly. Hell - I have a lot of wasted time to make up!
C-BLOCK (35:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL, PART 2: How Rudy Giuliani fits in the story. And my interview with Stevie. Sorta :-)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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. And
here we are. There are now so many Trump trials
(00:25):
there is no longer enough Trump trial time quote. At
one point in the proceedings, writes the website The Messenger
from the pre trial in Florida. Yesterday, Judge Eileen Cannon
asked whether a Manhattan judge may be open to moving
Trump's separate criminal trial in New York in March twenty
twenty four. Not enough runways. Well, I never say we
(00:50):
did not get what we asked for. The second federal
set of indictments of the defendant could be handed up
as early as Thursday, though Friday seems likelier still, and
the likeliest is Trump being notified Thursday or Friday and
then announcing it. And then we will re enact early June,
where we all know in advance, and there's enough time
for the sledge gangs to put up all the stages
(01:12):
and tents and refreshment stands, and the jugglers can get
out the elephants because the circus is coming to town
in Washington. We do know what was in the Jack
Smith January sixth target letter, second in a series of
who Knows how many collect them all received Sunday by
Trump's lawyers and read to him that night. It was
(01:34):
Rolling Stone that broke it. It listed just three categories
of federal statutes the government claims Trump violated and is
likely to be charged over conspiracy to commit offence or
defraud the United States, deprivation of rights under color of law,
and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant. A
(01:55):
few hours later, ABC News confirmed those three categories word
for word, and both reports noted what is not in
the letter, As Rolling Stone put it, quote, the letter
does not mention statutes on sedition or insurrection. I'll add
there is no category mentioned that could even obliquely house
charges of wire fraud for scamming people into donating into
(02:17):
that bottomless slush fund ostensibly designed to fund Trump's effort
to overturn a stolen election. Jack Smith has clearly been
trying to prove Trump knew was not stolen. Perhaps the
most important fact about the target letter is that it
does not have to be inclusive, and it does not
have to spell out charges, and that there were counts
(02:39):
in the classified documents case indictments that were not even
obliquely referenced in that letter. Either Trump is the only
person named in the letter, says Rolling Stone source quoting ABC.
Multiple sources tell ABC News that allies aids and attorneys
for the former president have been working to determine if
anyone else received a target letter. Quote. We can't find anyone,
(03:03):
unquote said Tuesday afternoon. Rudy Giuliani's lawyer confirms on the
record he did not get a target letter. Same from
John Eastman's lawyer. No firm answers from Jeffrey Clark, Michael Roman,
Boris Epstein, or Mark Meadows he flipped or any other
Trump lawyer involved in the fake elector's end of the
(03:25):
coup attempt. Conventional wisdom had developed the Jacksmith was going
to reel in not only Trump but also a lot
of his legal co conspirators. And that's one of the
problems with conventional wisdom. So let me now quote more
conventional wisdom. Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and ABC
led the way here, quoting experts who believe that one
(03:47):
of the GISTs of this case spelled out or at
least referred to in the letter, may center on the
effort to produce false documents that would be the actual
physical slates of electors, which would be that first category
of charge, conspiracy to defraud the United States false electors
and then using those documents and those electors to pressure
(04:10):
Mike Pence and others to act illegally, which could be
deprivation of rights under color of law. Rolling Stone says
there are charges in there, specifically relating to the pressure
on Pence during the Electoral College ceremony on January sixth,
and The Times quotes the former White House Ethics chief
Norm Eisen. By leading the effort to procure fraudulent electoral
(04:32):
certificates across the nation, Trump helmed a conspiracy to defraud
the US, and by using those false documents to press
Mike Pence to disrupt the January sixth meeting of Congress,
Trump attempted to obstruct an official proceeding. As an aside,
no one, no one anywhere, no offense, mister Eisen, no one,
(04:53):
no one anywhere has ever said the word helmed aloud.
Deprivation of rights under color of law is section two
four to two, Title eighteen of the US Code, and
while it is almost always used in discrimination cases, the
government explains the law thusly. It covers some acts done
(05:15):
by government officials lawfully quote, but also acts done beyond
the bounds of that official's lawful authority, if the acts
are done while the official is purporting to or pretending
to act, in the performance of his slash her official duties.
If Trump as president is telling Pence as vice president
(05:38):
he is lawfully required to stop the certification of the
Biden electors, and Pence is not lawfully required to do that,
not even lawfully allowed to do that, that act by
Trump could easily be deprivation of Pence's rights. As an aside,
There is a huge irony here, pointed out by NBC
(05:58):
Justice reporter Ryan Riley. Whether deprivation of rights under color
of law is the Pence thing or it's something else.
It loudly echoes the day half a century ago, nineteen
seventy three, when the Justice Department, you know, Jack Smith's
current employers, indicted Trump management, Fred Trump chairman, and his
(06:20):
weird kid, Donald President for discriminating against black renters at
the Trump Wilshire apartments in Jamaica. Estates in the New
York borough of Queen's The Trumps settled Dementia. J Trump
claimed victory at a pattern of public racism in Trump's
life that has lasted half a century was established if
(06:42):
it hadn't been established in the womb. As to that
third category of charge in the letter, I have found
no wisdom, conventional or otherwise about the tampering with the
witness part or tampering with a witness, victim or informant.
But it could easily be the Cassidy Hutchinson case where
a Trump provided lawyer urged her to not remember what
(07:04):
she clearly did remember. Or tampering could be the Pence stuff,
and the deprivation of rights under color of law could
be something else. Altogether, there continues to be some reporting,
but far more murmuring below the surface that whenever we
see this grand jury report, it is going to be
filled with enough separate counts, as I phrased it in
(07:27):
my bulletin podcast report yesterday, to make the first case
look like a small stack of parking tickets. In addition
to the prospect of other categories of Trumpan criming, that
first one defrauding the government, why that might as well
be accompanied with an actual CT scan of dementia j
Trump's head. Defrauding the government that is Trump's reason for existence.
(07:52):
The fake electors are doubtless included in there, and Trump
would certainly be charged for each separate slate from each
separate state. In fact, he could be charged with each
separate elector from each set state. And the ones indicted
by Michigan's attorney generally yesterday totaled sixteen. That could be
sixteen Trump charges right there. It makes sense thus to
(08:15):
mention here the curiosities in that Michigan indictment. These sixteen
were sitting ducks because state law there requires that for
their electoral votes to count, they had to meet in
the state capitol. So that's what they all wrote on
the forms. Except oops, they did not meet in the
state capitol. They met in Republican headquarters in a basement somewhere,
(08:37):
and they are thus probably all on the hook for perjury.
Just to start with, Republican National Committee woman Kathy Burden
is one of the Michigan defendants, as is somebody named
Michelle Lundgren who told the Detroit TV station that she
thought she was signing an attendance sheet for a meeting. Yeah,
the Liar's Club. Also indicted was the fake elector and
(08:58):
former Michigan gop CO chair Mishaw Maddock, who only on
Monday had tweeted a wonderful meet. It's a picture of
a gull on a beach, and the gull is marked me.
One leg of the gull is outstretched towards something on
the beach, marked that, and the caption to the whole
thing is everyone don't do that. She should probably delete
(09:22):
that meme and replace it with one of those f
around and find out memes. Back to Trump. And one
of the exhausting parts of this story for both you
and I is that twenty four hours ago, if you
had said that two hundred and fifty words into today's commentary,
I would not have substantively addressed the first day of
pre trial in the court of Judge Eileen Cannon, you know,
(09:47):
the woman who I said yesterday will in part decide
whether we all live or die. I would not have
believed you. But that is how fast and how dramatically
events have been moving. It was like this during Watergate,
too sunny, and that was beginning to get like this
just about fifty years ago. Right around now. And if
you can get good odds in Vegas for the day
(10:07):
Trump reports to prison or is disqualified from serving, or
he flees the country, or however he wraps this up.
Bet on either August eighth, twenty twenty four or August ninth,
twenty twenty four, because those days are exactly fifty years
to the day since Nixon announced he would resign and
then did resign. On the other hand, in the living
(10:31):
in a blender feel that Watergate provided the news did
seem to come only one or two stories a day
instead of, you know, the Special Council's second target letter
to the defendant ex President dropping three hours before the
defendant's lawyers are trying to get the results of the
Special Council's first target letter to the ex President postponed
(10:52):
till the year twenty five, twenty five, if Man is
still alive. The news out of the Florida court is
that there was very little news and that's good news.
And the news is but Eileen Cannon did not roll
over and woof on cue for the man who appointed her.
The judge is yet to formally rule on any of this,
but she said both that the mid December opening of
(11:14):
the trial that Jack Smith wanted ideally is too soon
and does indeed conflict with Trump's civil two hundred and
fifty million dollar fraud trial in October. I think in
the old days of the New York Airports we called
this gait saturation. She also indicated, though, the idea about
pushing the trial until after the election is not a
(11:35):
serious one. That is why she asked about moving the
Alvin Bragg trial dates in New York next March. I'm
sure Alvin will oblige. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told Judge
Cannon he sees the documents trial lasting six to seven weeks.
Prosecutors say they can get through their part in twenty
one days. The wild cards would be handling the classified
(11:57):
documents and the paneling a jury of Trump's peers, like
there's anybody else like this guy in the universe. Still,
the overarching news from Judge Cannon's courtroom is positive. It
remains Cannon did not open the thing up by shutting
it all down to hop briefly through the looking glass
(12:18):
people and see all this from parallel America, white Land,
fascist land, Trump Land. Guess what this is? All a diversion.
Didn't you know that there's no case, There has been
no investigation. The target letter to Trump was sent for
only one reason. And it was only written the other day,
and it only exists to distract America from the latest
(12:40):
James Comer Hunter Biden's scandal fairy tale and the revelation
of the identity of whistleblower X. I believe she was
played by Lana Turner in a movie in nineteen sixty six.
As the most nit witted Fox News actresses. Harris Faulkner
said to a Republican congressman yesterday, what about the timing?
(13:01):
Everybody knew you were going to do this hearing tomorrow.
The only reference to the looming indictments of their former
president in the Washington Examiner, which is ostensibly a newspaper,
is about his reaction and a quote from him about
election interference. One far right operative responded to all this
by tweeting the list of the fake electors indicted in
(13:24):
Michigan with their ages next to their names, and captioned
it only quote, They're going after seniors who support Trump
now and the biggest story on the ever more sad
CNN homepage is Trump convening with his whores, Kevin McCarthy,
(13:44):
Matt Gates, Byron Donald's, Jim Jordan, and Elise Stefanik and
trying to figure out how to go on offense against
Jack Smith and the entire prosecution. CNN happily provided Trump
and his minions with his first pushback by quoting Gates's
bid to quote defund the Jack Smith investigation and the
loudest Donald's basically threatening the Department of Justice. And it
(14:08):
also let Jordans suggest that Congress should no longer fund
DOJ investigations of wait for this, no longer fund DOJ
investigations of elected officials, political candidates, and their families until
new policies are established. A. Jim, we have policies. They're
(14:29):
called laws. B. Jim, you seem to forget that. Under
your plan, all you'd have to do to get away
with a crime, any crime, is to declare your candidacy
for office, any office. Of course, given Jim Jordan's personal history,
there's every chance that to him that is not a
bug but a feature in the supposed middle. This is
(14:52):
where we are right now in America and American politics
and American political news. A political headline posted late last
night at the Politico website asked this question in the headline,
indictment wrenches open the central question of twenty twenty four
is Trump fit to serve? I really did expect to
(15:14):
see below that about twenty four inches of blank space
on my computer screen, followed by just four words no,
of course not. Yeah, that's not what was there. Because
in this Ohio diner, when Trump long ago said he
could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters,
he was actually being circumspect. He could shoot somebody on
(15:37):
Fifth Avenue and not lose any news sites desperate to
apply both SIDESSM to his crime. He could launch nukes
and some reporter from Politico or somewhere else would spend
the last moment of our planetary collective existence tweeting. But
won't this really hurt Biden? More? Also of interest here,
(16:02):
I want to repeat an observation I made in the
bullet And yesterday. I am convinced now that Ron DeSantis
is there only to make Trump look good. By contrast,
DeSantis's first big mainstream media interview four o'clock yesterday, swamped
by Trump's pre trial, Trump's target letter, Trump's primetime interview,
(16:24):
and he actually says something DeSantis does that gets quoted,
and unfortunately it's a callback to that incident where he
reportedly ate custard at dinner with his hands. Asked by
Jake Tamper whether moving further to the right on cultural
issues in Florida makes him less electable nationally, DeSantis answered, quote,
(16:45):
I don't think it's true. The proof is in the pudding.
Fingers are in the pudding fats. Not that the stain
of that will be hard to clean off for him.
But the aforementioned Washington Examiner quoted it in its DeSantis
story last night four different times. I'll say it again.
(17:09):
If Trump falls, jumps, or gets pushed out of window,
he will survive the fall without a scratch because he
will land on Ron DeSantis. One other thing, I have
been ignoring the dogs here at home. Yeah a little,
(17:29):
but I really mean on the podcast. So let me
tell you of the day I went from no dogs
to all dogs. And I'll introduce you to my special guest,
my birthday Gal Stevie. We've just turned eleven, and I'll
tell you how she and Rudy Giuliani figured in my
becoming born again in dogs. That's next. This is Countdown.
(17:55):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman. Now on a day
of an unusual Rundown for Countdown. Since I had two
of them to do yesterday, I kind of ran out
of time, which is fine because I've been wanting to
tell this for a while. We're already at the number
one story on the countdown and my favorite topic, me
(18:17):
and things I promised not to tell busy month around
here with the dogs. July first was Ted's Gotcha day,
five years since he came in as a foster, and
then I failed profoundly once again. Lucky me. I don't
know how Ted found me, but here he is. A
week later, it was Stevie's birthday, the big one to one.
A week after that, Mene turned sixteen. I told you
(18:39):
about mine. He's the rescue who had outlived his human
and they thought he had dementia and we had to
take all of his teeth out. And when he first
got here, he was like a roomba and he didn't
have dementia, he had bad teeth, and once we took
out the bad teeth, ninety percent of his dementia cleared up,
and he's gained three pounds since then. He started talking
to me now, and he understands most of what I
(19:02):
say to him, even though he really only understands French.
It's a long story. He's also the best on a
walk dog in the world. But if you had said
any of this to me on September thirtieth, twenty twelve,
not one word of it would have made any sense
to me. I had never had a dog. Allergies and
(19:26):
travel and work. And then Olivia looked at me and said,
I need a puppy fix. That was the exact quote.
This was September thirtieth, twenty twelve, nearly eleven years ago,
and my girlfriend, Olivia, her family dog, was dying. My
girlfriend wouldn't say it, her folks wouldn't say it. The dog,
a Jack Russell Terrier named Casey, did her best to
(19:49):
be the only truthful one in the bunch, moving purposefully
and unsteadily with every step and looking out at her
world with a seeming mixture of acceptance and sadness and
regret that the one time she really needed bipeds to
speak for her, they wouldn't. I just need for dogs,
not to mean sadness. Olivia said, just for a while,
(20:12):
can we go to that pet shop on Lex? I
mumbled that we could go, but that I had resisted.
The dog entreaties of eleven girlfriends before her, and I
would successfully resist hers. I had always loved dogs, but
I was really allergic to them, and my doctors had
all said that even hypoallergenic dogs were a crap shoot.
(20:33):
She said, I do not want a dog. I am
not trying to convince you to get us a dog.
I just want to hold a puppy for a little while.
She paused, as she always did when she felt both
hopeless and angry at being at the mercy of feelings,
and she lapsed into the shrug emoji. As sappy as
that sounds, Olivia the girlfriend, the former girlfriend, let me
(20:58):
make this easier on both of us. We'll call her TFGF.
The former girlfriend TFGF and I left for the pet
shop job in midafternoon, and I told her my true
fear here that my native but dormant shared affinity with
dogs would all of a moment spring fully grown from
my soul, and I would blurt, just give me all
of them. I mean, what kind of life could I
(21:20):
offer a dog? I was on television and thus always
in a television studio, and thus never home for play
or walks or just the prevention of canine loneliness. I
had a girlfriend who lived out of town. Half the time,
I was clueless as to every practical aspect of the
dog thing. I had littered the continent with dead house plants,
(21:41):
and I no longer thought myself capable of pulling my
ego out of my backside sufficiently to take care of fish.
I had literally not had a pet of any kind
since nineteen sixty seven. I had come to terms with
living in a wistful, hazy world in which I might
inadvertently have a dog pal for a few moments, but
(22:03):
almost never endore, and never without the pang of knowing
that the hello itself contained the start of the goodbye.
And I was allergic. I was allergic to the obvious big, furry,
friendly dogs, and I might be allergic to the ones
that were built as non allergic. And if I disobeyed
this immutable cannon, the buried tears of permanent exclusion might
(22:26):
be replaced by far worse ones of separation and loss.
Me I would get over it, probably, but without overvaluing
myself too much to betray the love of a dog
to send a dog back because of allergies as TFGF
and I approached the shop, there was, as there almost
(22:48):
always is, there a small crowd undulating around it. Lexington
Avenue's narrow sidewalks make these human clots easier to form,
even late on the first Sunday of autumn. There is
also an obstacle course of grates and cellar doors and
bikes chained poll and parking meters and canopies for diners
and restaurants and mattress showrooms and other places that are
(23:10):
not quite seedy but also aren't quite your first choice.
The uptown edges of the grime and noise that constitute
the maze of fifty ninth Street Bridge approaches lend the
place a congested feel even when it's otherwise quiet. We
are three blocks up from the trying just a little
too hard merchandising of Bloomingdale's. There are unwashed delivery trucks,
(23:34):
double parked three hundred and sixty five days a year,
and then totally out of place amid the prosaic trappings
of a big city at its most meh. There they
are bouncing off each other, tearing infinitely at other, tiny
heads and tails and paws, doing a seeming pantomime of dismemberment.
Their yips and the crunch of the shredded cavorting paper
(23:56):
are just audible through the glass and over the din
of the street. They create an oasis of cute. And
just in case you can't tell what they are, there's
this big Neon sign above their street front window that
reads puppies. Don't make me go in? I pleaded. She
(24:16):
reassured me. We'd go in. She'd hold the dog. All
I had to do was take a picture. You don't understand.
I reached for her hand. What I'm trying to say
is I always wanted a dog, but I could never
have a dog. Just as the door to the shop opened,
she grabbed my arm. She yanked hard, She swore, and
she muttered, you'll survive. Man up. Don't make eye contact.
(24:39):
Don't make eye contact. Don't make eye contact. Don't make
eye contact. We were going towards puppies and past puppies,
and the appearance of a small staircase to a training
loft confirmed we are now going under puppies. And in
the deepest recesses of the shop there was a wall
of puppies two hour right, three cages high, six across,
all a yellowish beige behind a reddish brown for Micah countertop,
(25:01):
then a structural beam, and then three cages high across,
then a corner with a small visiting pen built into
the countertop. Then right in front of me, the Hollywood
squares of puppies three high, three across, and all of
their inmates, all nine of them, staring at me and
screaming at me and making eye contact and saying, by
(25:22):
esp take me home. A salesman now introduced himself as Jeffrey,
and Jeffrey asked if TFGF had any particular dog she
wanted him to bring to her. Let me see them
all tease the girl. In that moment, two things struck me. Firstly,
this was my cue to get the phone out and
(25:42):
prepared to take the photo of her with the puppy. Secondly,
the dog, whom the salesman was now temporarily liberating from
the surprisingly spare cage, was the only living soul inside
that pet shop besides me, who was not making any
damn noise. Every other puppy was perfecting its adolescent bark.
The cats were making a bewildering variety of noises, and
(26:04):
and was that a Norwegian blue parrot squawk, remarkable bird,
the Norwegian blue. Isn't it beautiful? Plumage? This Maltese said nothing.
She looked like her torso would easily fit in one
of my hands if she was three pounds. A quarter
of it was hair and half of that was curled,
and presumably somebody came by every day to turn what
sat atop her head into a mohawk up top and
(26:27):
a mullet in the back. Her cage mate brother seemed
a little bigger, but his eyes were clearly smaller, and
their ocular contrast was immediately visible, even if you still
had forlorn hopes of avoiding eye contact. His shone hers
were illuminated. He tried to get past her into the
(26:47):
salesman's arms. She simply lifted up her head towards him,
and it actually crossed my mind that she looked like
she was about to say, Hi, Jeffrey, how are you today?
He put her gently down in the playpen at the
right corner of the counter. TFGF asked if she could
pick the puppy up, and nodded to me to get
the cat. I'm ready. Honestly, Jeffrey said, this is the
(27:08):
sweetest dog. We've had in here for months. I say
that every day to almost everybody, but this time I'm
actually not lying. TFGFF cradled the Maltese in her arms,
with the dog's head facing to my right. I tapped
the camera on the phone. My hand was already shaking
as I sent it up TFGF and the puppy in
the frame. The Maltese suddenly wiggled upright, placed her front
(27:30):
paws on my girlfriend's chest, and just as I snapped
the image, the dog reached up and kissed my girlfriend
on the lips. I am, on occasion, completely incapable of
remembering anything that happened in my entire life before that moment.
(27:53):
TFGF made the appropriate sounds of approval. Jeffrey began discussing
how little grooming the Maltese breed needs and the great
price he could give us, and even as my head spun,
it seemed silly to me that he was calculating the
tax on something that was obviously timelessly and eternally priceless.
TFGF said something about how we needed a minute outside
to discuss it, and she handed the puppy back to
(28:14):
Jeffrey and the dog looked at each each of us
and as if she was about to say nice to
meet you. As the pup went back up into the
cage with her brother, something extraordinary happened. The little girl
was reaching her head up towards the spout of the
cage's water bottle with the same graceful movement she had
made to bestow that kiss on TFGF when her brother
(28:39):
puppy abruptly body slammed her out of the way, and
her tiny frame bounced off the side of the cage.
And then, to my shock and confusion, a deep and
threatening growl, a vengeful h reverberated throughout the pet shop.
The growl was coming from me. The next sounds were
(29:03):
from tfg O YEF, my god, what's wrong with you?
I didn't know it at the time, but as we
turned to fight our way back out through the shop
to the street, I evidently half skidded into a display
full of chew toys. They nearly toppled to the floor.
I nearly toppled to the floor. I couldn't see, but
I didn't recognize my own tears until they hit the
edges of my lips. Somehow I managed to say it again,
(29:26):
this time in despair. I always wanted a dog, but
I could never have one. She suddenly realized what had happened.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm an asshole. TFGF was now
holding me upright and steering me towards the door to
the street. I didn't listen to you. I'm an asshole.
I'm an asshole. You told me. I didn't believe you.
I'm so sorry. Well now the stories came pouring out,
(29:48):
all jumbled, one on top of the other. Tiny, the
Saint Bernard at the Katzensteins. He only wanted to embrace me.
He wasn't trying to eat me. And the mcconnon's mutt
next door, Boots used to come sit on my lap,
and Tiny didn't make me sneeze, He only scared me.
And the mcconnons had three boys and a mother, baked
cookies by the car load lot and Boots never left
their side, and I was always at their house. And
(30:09):
if I was allergic, how was it that I never
once had a problem with Boots? How in the hell
did that work? Huh? What about Vladimir or the stray
cat my sister found He used to live in the
garage and behaved like a dog and like to be
carried around like a baby. And how allergic was I
had beautiful, beautiful little Maltese reach up and kissed you
on the mouth. And the one time I took my
dad's movie camera to the mcconnon's house, half of the
film was of Boots. And what if I went back
(30:31):
and got the allergy shots again? And it was my
mother who said she was really allergic, so I must
be too, And what's the use? The little Maltese was perfect.
The next person who sees her will snap her up
in an instant. And I asked them just to let
me try a little dog who woodn't shed. The only
thing my mother would let me have were lizards, and
I could take a zertech every day. I'm so sorry, Tiny,
I didn't realize I never said goodbye to Boots. Maltese
(30:52):
is gone. She's gone. She's gone, and she's my dog.
I know what I could feel it. She's my dog
and she's gone. What happened next? Beggar's fiction. It involves
Rudy Giuliani back to the Number one story on the
(31:14):
Countdown and the day I fell in love with a
dog for the first time, and my girlfriend, the former
girlfriend TFGF, and I left the puppy in the pet shop.
TFGF and I were walking me mid meltdown, somehow now
nearing the Park Avenue Armory, one block west and four
blocks north of the pet shop that I thought we
(31:37):
were still in. To her credit, TFGF had kept me
from throwing myself into traffic or dissolving into a puddle
on sixty second Street. The overwhelming sensation I had was
not one of having left the tiny puppy in the shop,
but of having left a part of myself there that
was my dog. And what was worse was she was
(31:58):
obviously going to be taken by somebody else even before
I got back there, even if we turned around right away.
Who could resist her? I certainly hadn't. My chaotic stream
of consciousness monologue paused only when I had no choice
but to shut up and gasp for breath, and the
comments with which TFGF tried to soothe me in these
moments were self abnegating and solemn. She had talked me
(32:21):
off the limb of my certainty that the dog had
already been sold, and was now steering me back towards sanity.
I had to. She would say later, you were having
a breakdown. She said we should go home, and if
I wanted to talk seriously about the practicalities of owning
the dog, we could do that and still get the
puppy the next morning, even if it meant delaying her
departure for DC. Don't worry. I'm sure she's still there.
(32:45):
They were getting ready to close. She'll be there in
the morning. I exhaled, and then I repanicked. She's she's
I sniffed anew and the tears resumed. She's in that
cage with that brother of hers in the basement somewhere.
Before TFGF could answer and where this is true, Rudy
(33:07):
Giuliani spilled down the stairs from the armory we were passing.
A cop suddenly appeared from a different nowhere and put
out an arm and firmly asked us to stop walking,
and Juliani scuttled rodent like into a waiting car. A
wife was with him. I did not and do not
know which number. The driver was already closing the door
(33:29):
behind them when I shouted it, how come my dog
has to spend the night in a cage while that
ass hat is allowed to roam around this city without
a leash on him. Later that evening, TFGF said that
was the first moment she thought we might just get
home safe and sound. After all, it was not ten
more minutes back to my apartment, and we walked it
(33:51):
in silence. Now I had long since saturated my handkerchief
and some tissues TFGF had in her pockets. I was
breathing deeply and restoratively. Now the sniffle frequency reduced to
once or twice per block uck, and my mind was
crowded with the dogs I had known, Boots, Tiny, Vladimir
the Cat, even tfgf's little Casey dying out in Jersey
(34:15):
and unaware of the seismic events which she had set
in motion. I was thinking of other dogs. To all
of the dogs in all of the stories of James
Thurber that I read on TV every Friday night, I
had smiled along with his poetic descriptions of them, but
never confessed I loved them as he must have. There
(34:35):
was Samantha, whom my late friend Bruce Hagen used to
bring everywhere, including our college radio station newsroom. The first
really big dog who did not frighten me, my great
aunt's Yorky, whose gas was so potent that the Christmas
just before I turned nine, my great uncle said he
was convinced she had been a German terror weapon at
Chateau Terry in the First World War, and he and
(34:56):
I had bonded because I knew what Chateau Terry was.
There was Nellie McNally, the only dog that any of
my son times out of town girlfriends ever had actually
put on the phone with me. In my mind, they
all stood before me, all lined up, all quiet, smiling,
all with the kindest type of I told you so,
(35:17):
dummy on their wonderful faces, and dozens more behind them,
vague shapes and sizes, who belonged to neighbors or coworkers,
pastor who were just chance encounters on the streets of
any of a dozen cities decades before. No, I'm sorry,
she said, I shouldn't have been that selfish. But now
(35:37):
I disagreed with her, and as I unlocked the apartment door,
I began to tell her of the dogs I had
just been communing with in my mind, and what had
suddenly become necessary, urgent, inevitable, and perfect, but about which
I needed as much detail as I could in as
short a period as possible. TFGF tried, well, you just
take the dog wherever you can. My parents have been
(35:59):
saying this a lot lately. Now they regret not doing
more things with Casey, not adventures, not kayaking, just taking
her with them, or going out in the yard, or
just holding her while they watched TV. You just let
the dog in. We went through topic after topic, cleaning, training, handling,
poop walks, food, puppy sitters, moving books off ground level shelves, discipline,
(36:23):
and most importantly of all, a backup plan in case
this epiphany was false and or I was still allergic
or terrified or incoonfident or all three. I don't think
it'll take much to convince my parents to take her.
I mean, even after Casey recovers and I can take
(36:44):
her with me to DC tomorrow, I'll bring her back
next weekend. So you can get the apartment ready, and
you can get you ready, and you don't have to
go in at the deep end right away, I interrupted
her with a kiss, Let's go back there before they close.
I don't want to wait till morning. I'm still terrified
somebody else will realize how extraordinary she is. Unexpectedly, I
(37:07):
had a moment of doubt at this point. This isn't
just me having a breakdown, right, I mean, she is extraordinary.
I'm having a breakdown, and she is extraordinary, isn't she.
TFGF stopped being nice, and now for the first time,
looked at me like I'd just gone crazy, even though
I just had gone crazy. Obviously, She said that was
a real kiss. The pet shop had stayed open, partly
(37:28):
because TFGF phoned them as we hit the street outside
of the apartment building, and partly because they knew you
were coming back. Jeffrey said, you just see it sometimes. Also,
you seemed kind of emotional. TFGFF helpfully mentioned that I'd
had a breakdown. They had all the paraphernalia ready, a
(37:50):
little aquabed, a series of attached gates that could be
used as a pen or a barrier, a small pink blanket,
a bag of training pads, and the plastic pad holder,
enough dry food to last twelve to fourteen months, some
horrific wet food that looked like a discarded early design
for liverwurst, a few chew toys, a bright pink harness
and a leash as light as a ribbon, a black
(38:12):
carrying bag, and paperwork with the Pempy Puppies family tree, which,
to my astonishment, stretched back beyond her birth one week
shive three months before, through the six preceding generations, all
the way back to six entire years earlier. In addition
to all this, they could have included a moped, a
stock portfolio to guarantee your college education, and I'm all
(38:33):
tease sized typewriter with a twenty year supply of replacement ribbons,
and I would have also bought them. Very nice lady
named Ellie tried to train me to be a dog
owner in about ninety four seconds and handed me a
voucher for a vet at a checklist of stuff to do,
I signed a credit card bill. I think I used
my own name. I absolved myself of the guilt of
(38:54):
not getting a shelter dog because I was allergic and
kind of had to go the shop route. Plus I
was not looking for a dog. I had actually fallen
in love at first sight with this dog. And lastly,
because no matter how the obvious and often tragic flaws
in this system, there was no arguing with the fact
that those dogs who came from a pet shop had
as much of a right to a happy life as
(39:16):
any other dog. At that moment, they produced her from
the back room behind the block of cages where we
had first seen her. Her curls had been fluffed up
and her hair freshly brushed. It would be lovely to
say she made eye contact them across the shop floor,
or was aware of our presence, or yipped happily at
the sight of me, and it would be completely untrue.
(39:38):
The little Maltese calmly scanned the room, only occasionally glancing
up at the manager who carried her, and not once
at us, until she was, without ceremony or comment, handed
to me, whereupon she immediately twisted out of my trembling hands,
stuck her front paws on my chest, and reached up
to give me a kiss on the lips, and then another,
(40:01):
and a third, and my sunglasses hid the tears it
welled up again. I managed to ask if they all
did that. No, came the answer from that salesman, Jeffrey. Honestly,
like I told you, sweetest puff we've had here in months,
loves people, loves people. I'm sad to see her go.
I marveled, and how white she was, and yet how
(40:24):
articulated on strong her body was. Her eyes were far
more beautiful than I had realized, oversized even for a puppy,
almost no white visible, the reflection off the deep brown irises,
almost iridescent. And more astonishingly, this little soul, who was
about two hundred and twelfth my age and about one
eighty seventh my weight, and who had a great great
(40:46):
great great grandmother born in two thousand and six, when
my great great great great grandmother was born in like
eighteen hundred, she was meeting and holding my gaze with
her own. Whatever I was seeing in her eyes, whatever
the inner being I was actually processing, she seemed to
be doing her equivalent vetting. I gave her a little kiss,
(41:09):
and was by now not surprised when she kissed me again.
The little tongue poked out a fraction of an inch,
just enough so any one of us dumb, unsettled bipeds
could tell she meant it. And then she relaxed from
her upright pose and settled back into my arms, her
head in the crook of my right elbow, in an
attitude I would soon discover she would repeat every time
(41:30):
I ever picked her up. A couple hours later, the
name came to me her haircut. It was Stevie Nix's haircut.
I named her Stevie. I've done all the damage I
(41:59):
can do here. Wait a minute, hold on, let's just
stop the music just for a second. Stevie, you want
to treat? You been a good girl lately. I mean
we didn't mention your birthday on the air. I'm very
sorry about that. Do you want to treat? We'll say something. Stevie,
you want to treat? Come on, say that again? Okay?
(42:23):
Do you want to tell them about physical therapy? Stevie
couldn't walk three months ago. She had had a problem
with both of her back knees. She tore an acl
and she had an immune disease and these things combined
and made it impossible for her to walk. And she
has been going to physical therapy at the Animal Medical
Center ever since. She's learned how to swim. She gets
(42:43):
massages and she gets laser treatments every week and she
has a great time. And this is the hospital that
she has always treated as if it were a spa.
She has a very high threshold for pain, so through
cancer treatments and surgery and half a dozen other things
that have gone wrong. She's always kept a smile on
her face because they've treated her so well there, and
(43:05):
she's had such a good time. She's always acted like
it was a spa. Well here it is after ten
years of going there. They give her spa treatments. They
put her in the water, They blow dry her hair.
They often trim her nails to make sure that they
get the whole imprint of her feet right, to make
sure her gait is okay, and she's regained the ability
to walk. She goes for a swim, she goes in
(43:26):
an underwater treadmill to work out. As I said, they
use lasers on her knees, and then they end the
whole thing with doing her hair and giving her a massage.
It's a spa. She was right, my girl, Stevie eleven
years old and the anniversary coming up too. All right,
you were good enough to sit through this. You want
that treat? Now say it again, one more time. You
(43:48):
want this treat? Say it. You don't have to sit,
you don't have to be quiet. She's sitting the one
time she's sitting at being quiet, Say something, do you
want this treat? Yes or no? Yes? Yes, yes, well
you're twirling, but say yeah yes? Do you want this tree?
Here we go? All right, thank you very much. All right,
(44:10):
you've indulged me long enough. Okay, I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Here
are the credits. Most of this was written by Stevie.
The music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillips Shaneale. They are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray All, orchestration and keyboards
(44:30):
by John Phillip Shaneal, produced by TKO Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of
ESPN Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball
stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend John Dean.
Everything else was pretty much my fault. Don't forget Countdown
(44:53):
now also available for you on YouTube if you want
to see the animated version of me what we should
have put on? There was an animated version of Stevie.
So that's countdown for this the nine hundred and twenty
fifth day since Donald Trump's first to ten to coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest
him again while we still have time, like would Friday
be convenient? The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Boltons has
(45:15):
the news Lawrence Till then for Stevie, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(45:39):
wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. And
here we are. There are now so many Trump trials
(00:25):
there is no longer enough Trump trial time quote. At
one point in the proceedings, writes the website The Messenger
from the pre trial in Florida. Yesterday, Judge Eileen Cannon
asked whether a Manhattan judge may be open to moving
Trump's separate criminal trial in New York in March twenty
twenty four. Not enough runways. Well, I never say we
(00:50):
did not get what we asked for. The second federal
set of indictments of the defendant could be handed up
as early as Thursday, though Friday seems likelier still, and
the likeliest is Trump being notified Thursday or Friday and
then announcing it. And then we will re enact early June,
where we all know in advance, and there's enough time
for the sledge gangs to put up all the stages
(01:12):
and tents and refreshment stands, and the jugglers can get
out the elephants because the circus is coming to town
in Washington. We do know what was in the Jack
Smith January sixth target letter, second in a series of
who Knows how many collect them all received Sunday by
Trump's lawyers and read to him that night. It was
(01:34):
Rolling Stone that broke it. It listed just three categories
of federal statutes the government claims Trump violated and is
likely to be charged over conspiracy to commit offence or
defraud the United States, deprivation of rights under color of law,
and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant. A
(01:55):
few hours later, ABC News confirmed those three categories word
for word, and both reports noted what is not in
the letter, As Rolling Stone put it, quote, the letter
does not mention statutes on sedition or insurrection. I'll add
there is no category mentioned that could even obliquely house
charges of wire fraud for scamming people into donating into
(02:17):
that bottomless slush fund ostensibly designed to fund Trump's effort
to overturn a stolen election. Jack Smith has clearly been
trying to prove Trump knew was not stolen. Perhaps the
most important fact about the target letter is that it
does not have to be inclusive, and it does not
have to spell out charges, and that there were counts
(02:39):
in the classified documents case indictments that were not even
obliquely referenced in that letter. Either Trump is the only
person named in the letter, says Rolling Stone source quoting ABC.
Multiple sources tell ABC News that allies aids and attorneys
for the former president have been working to determine if
anyone else received a target letter. Quote. We can't find anyone,
(03:03):
unquote said Tuesday afternoon. Rudy Giuliani's lawyer confirms on the
record he did not get a target letter. Same from
John Eastman's lawyer. No firm answers from Jeffrey Clark, Michael Roman,
Boris Epstein, or Mark Meadows he flipped or any other
Trump lawyer involved in the fake elector's end of the
(03:25):
coup attempt. Conventional wisdom had developed the Jacksmith was going
to reel in not only Trump but also a lot
of his legal co conspirators. And that's one of the
problems with conventional wisdom. So let me now quote more
conventional wisdom. Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and ABC
led the way here, quoting experts who believe that one
(03:47):
of the GISTs of this case spelled out or at
least referred to in the letter, may center on the
effort to produce false documents that would be the actual
physical slates of electors, which would be that first category
of charge, conspiracy to defraud the United States false electors
and then using those documents and those electors to pressure
(04:10):
Mike Pence and others to act illegally, which could be
deprivation of rights under color of law. Rolling Stone says
there are charges in there, specifically relating to the pressure
on Pence during the Electoral College ceremony on January sixth,
and The Times quotes the former White House Ethics chief
Norm Eisen. By leading the effort to procure fraudulent electoral
(04:32):
certificates across the nation, Trump helmed a conspiracy to defraud
the US, and by using those false documents to press
Mike Pence to disrupt the January sixth meeting of Congress,
Trump attempted to obstruct an official proceeding. As an aside,
no one, no one anywhere, no offense, mister Eisen, no one,
(04:53):
no one anywhere has ever said the word helmed aloud.
Deprivation of rights under color of law is section two
four to two, Title eighteen of the US Code, and
while it is almost always used in discrimination cases, the
government explains the law thusly. It covers some acts done
(05:15):
by government officials lawfully quote, but also acts done beyond
the bounds of that official's lawful authority, if the acts
are done while the official is purporting to or pretending
to act, in the performance of his slash her official duties.
If Trump as president is telling Pence as vice president
(05:38):
he is lawfully required to stop the certification of the
Biden electors, and Pence is not lawfully required to do that,
not even lawfully allowed to do that, that act by
Trump could easily be deprivation of Pence's rights. As an aside,
There is a huge irony here, pointed out by NBC
(05:58):
Justice reporter Ryan Riley. Whether deprivation of rights under color
of law is the Pence thing or it's something else.
It loudly echoes the day half a century ago, nineteen
seventy three, when the Justice Department, you know, Jack Smith's
current employers, indicted Trump management, Fred Trump chairman, and his
(06:20):
weird kid, Donald President for discriminating against black renters at
the Trump Wilshire apartments in Jamaica. Estates in the New
York borough of Queen's The Trumps settled Dementia. J Trump
claimed victory at a pattern of public racism in Trump's
life that has lasted half a century was established if
(06:42):
it hadn't been established in the womb. As to that
third category of charge in the letter, I have found
no wisdom, conventional or otherwise about the tampering with the
witness part or tampering with a witness, victim or informant.
But it could easily be the Cassidy Hutchinson case where
a Trump provided lawyer urged her to not remember what
(07:04):
she clearly did remember. Or tampering could be the Pence stuff,
and the deprivation of rights under color of law could
be something else. Altogether, there continues to be some reporting,
but far more murmuring below the surface that whenever we
see this grand jury report, it is going to be
filled with enough separate counts, as I phrased it in
(07:27):
my bulletin podcast report yesterday, to make the first case
look like a small stack of parking tickets. In addition
to the prospect of other categories of Trumpan criming, that
first one defrauding the government, why that might as well
be accompanied with an actual CT scan of dementia j
Trump's head. Defrauding the government that is Trump's reason for existence.
(07:52):
The fake electors are doubtless included in there, and Trump
would certainly be charged for each separate slate from each
separate state. In fact, he could be charged with each
separate elector from each set state. And the ones indicted
by Michigan's attorney generally yesterday totaled sixteen. That could be
sixteen Trump charges right there. It makes sense thus to
(08:15):
mention here the curiosities in that Michigan indictment. These sixteen
were sitting ducks because state law there requires that for
their electoral votes to count, they had to meet in
the state capitol. So that's what they all wrote on
the forms. Except oops, they did not meet in the
state capitol. They met in Republican headquarters in a basement somewhere,
(08:37):
and they are thus probably all on the hook for perjury.
Just to start with, Republican National Committee woman Kathy Burden
is one of the Michigan defendants, as is somebody named
Michelle Lundgren who told the Detroit TV station that she
thought she was signing an attendance sheet for a meeting. Yeah,
the Liar's Club. Also indicted was the fake elector and
(08:58):
former Michigan gop CO chair Mishaw Maddock, who only on
Monday had tweeted a wonderful meet. It's a picture of
a gull on a beach, and the gull is marked me.
One leg of the gull is outstretched towards something on
the beach, marked that, and the caption to the whole
thing is everyone don't do that. She should probably delete
(09:22):
that meme and replace it with one of those f
around and find out memes. Back to Trump. And one
of the exhausting parts of this story for both you
and I is that twenty four hours ago, if you
had said that two hundred and fifty words into today's commentary,
I would not have substantively addressed the first day of
pre trial in the court of Judge Eileen Cannon, you know,
(09:47):
the woman who I said yesterday will in part decide
whether we all live or die. I would not have
believed you. But that is how fast and how dramatically
events have been moving. It was like this during Watergate,
too sunny, and that was beginning to get like this
just about fifty years ago. Right around now. And if
you can get good odds in Vegas for the day
(10:07):
Trump reports to prison or is disqualified from serving, or
he flees the country, or however he wraps this up.
Bet on either August eighth, twenty twenty four or August ninth,
twenty twenty four, because those days are exactly fifty years
to the day since Nixon announced he would resign and
then did resign. On the other hand, in the living
(10:31):
in a blender feel that Watergate provided the news did
seem to come only one or two stories a day
instead of, you know, the Special Council's second target letter
to the defendant ex President dropping three hours before the
defendant's lawyers are trying to get the results of the
Special Council's first target letter to the ex President postponed
(10:52):
till the year twenty five, twenty five, if Man is
still alive. The news out of the Florida court is
that there was very little news and that's good news.
And the news is but Eileen Cannon did not roll
over and woof on cue for the man who appointed her.
The judge is yet to formally rule on any of this,
but she said both that the mid December opening of
(11:14):
the trial that Jack Smith wanted ideally is too soon
and does indeed conflict with Trump's civil two hundred and
fifty million dollar fraud trial in October. I think in
the old days of the New York Airports we called
this gait saturation. She also indicated, though, the idea about
pushing the trial until after the election is not a
(11:35):
serious one. That is why she asked about moving the
Alvin Bragg trial dates in New York next March. I'm
sure Alvin will oblige. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told Judge
Cannon he sees the documents trial lasting six to seven weeks.
Prosecutors say they can get through their part in twenty
one days. The wild cards would be handling the classified
(11:57):
documents and the paneling a jury of Trump's peers, like
there's anybody else like this guy in the universe. Still,
the overarching news from Judge Cannon's courtroom is positive. It
remains Cannon did not open the thing up by shutting
it all down to hop briefly through the looking glass
(12:18):
people and see all this from parallel America, white Land,
fascist land, Trump Land. Guess what this is? All a diversion.
Didn't you know that there's no case, There has been
no investigation. The target letter to Trump was sent for
only one reason. And it was only written the other day,
and it only exists to distract America from the latest
(12:40):
James Comer Hunter Biden's scandal fairy tale and the revelation
of the identity of whistleblower X. I believe she was
played by Lana Turner in a movie in nineteen sixty six.
As the most nit witted Fox News actresses. Harris Faulkner
said to a Republican congressman yesterday, what about the timing?
(13:01):
Everybody knew you were going to do this hearing tomorrow.
The only reference to the looming indictments of their former
president in the Washington Examiner, which is ostensibly a newspaper,
is about his reaction and a quote from him about
election interference. One far right operative responded to all this
by tweeting the list of the fake electors indicted in
(13:24):
Michigan with their ages next to their names, and captioned
it only quote, They're going after seniors who support Trump
now and the biggest story on the ever more sad
CNN homepage is Trump convening with his whores, Kevin McCarthy,
(13:44):
Matt Gates, Byron Donald's, Jim Jordan, and Elise Stefanik and
trying to figure out how to go on offense against
Jack Smith and the entire prosecution. CNN happily provided Trump
and his minions with his first pushback by quoting Gates's
bid to quote defund the Jack Smith investigation and the
loudest Donald's basically threatening the Department of Justice. And it
(14:08):
also let Jordans suggest that Congress should no longer fund
DOJ investigations of wait for this, no longer fund DOJ
investigations of elected officials, political candidates, and their families until
new policies are established. A. Jim, we have policies. They're
(14:29):
called laws. B. Jim, you seem to forget that. Under
your plan, all you'd have to do to get away
with a crime, any crime, is to declare your candidacy
for office, any office. Of course, given Jim Jordan's personal history,
there's every chance that to him that is not a
bug but a feature in the supposed middle. This is
(14:52):
where we are right now in America and American politics
and American political news. A political headline posted late last
night at the Politico website asked this question in the headline,
indictment wrenches open the central question of twenty twenty four
is Trump fit to serve? I really did expect to
(15:14):
see below that about twenty four inches of blank space
on my computer screen, followed by just four words no,
of course not. Yeah, that's not what was there. Because
in this Ohio diner, when Trump long ago said he
could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters,
he was actually being circumspect. He could shoot somebody on
(15:37):
Fifth Avenue and not lose any news sites desperate to
apply both SIDESSM to his crime. He could launch nukes
and some reporter from Politico or somewhere else would spend
the last moment of our planetary collective existence tweeting. But
won't this really hurt Biden? More? Also of interest here,
(16:02):
I want to repeat an observation I made in the
bullet And yesterday. I am convinced now that Ron DeSantis
is there only to make Trump look good. By contrast,
DeSantis's first big mainstream media interview four o'clock yesterday, swamped
by Trump's pre trial, Trump's target letter, Trump's primetime interview,
(16:24):
and he actually says something DeSantis does that gets quoted,
and unfortunately it's a callback to that incident where he
reportedly ate custard at dinner with his hands. Asked by
Jake Tamper whether moving further to the right on cultural
issues in Florida makes him less electable nationally, DeSantis answered, quote,
(16:45):
I don't think it's true. The proof is in the pudding.
Fingers are in the pudding fats. Not that the stain
of that will be hard to clean off for him.
But the aforementioned Washington Examiner quoted it in its DeSantis
story last night four different times. I'll say it again.
(17:09):
If Trump falls, jumps, or gets pushed out of window,
he will survive the fall without a scratch because he
will land on Ron DeSantis. One other thing, I have
been ignoring the dogs here at home. Yeah a little,
(17:29):
but I really mean on the podcast. So let me
tell you of the day I went from no dogs
to all dogs. And I'll introduce you to my special guest,
my birthday Gal Stevie. We've just turned eleven, and I'll
tell you how she and Rudy Giuliani figured in my
becoming born again in dogs. That's next. This is Countdown.
(17:55):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman. Now on a day
of an unusual Rundown for Countdown. Since I had two
of them to do yesterday, I kind of ran out
of time, which is fine because I've been wanting to
tell this for a while. We're already at the number
one story on the countdown and my favorite topic, me
(18:17):
and things I promised not to tell busy month around
here with the dogs. July first was Ted's Gotcha day,
five years since he came in as a foster, and
then I failed profoundly once again. Lucky me. I don't
know how Ted found me, but here he is. A
week later, it was Stevie's birthday, the big one to one.
A week after that, Mene turned sixteen. I told you
(18:39):
about mine. He's the rescue who had outlived his human
and they thought he had dementia and we had to
take all of his teeth out. And when he first
got here, he was like a roomba and he didn't
have dementia, he had bad teeth, and once we took
out the bad teeth, ninety percent of his dementia cleared up,
and he's gained three pounds since then. He started talking
to me now, and he understands most of what I
(19:02):
say to him, even though he really only understands French.
It's a long story. He's also the best on a
walk dog in the world. But if you had said
any of this to me on September thirtieth, twenty twelve,
not one word of it would have made any sense
to me. I had never had a dog. Allergies and
(19:26):
travel and work. And then Olivia looked at me and said,
I need a puppy fix. That was the exact quote.
This was September thirtieth, twenty twelve, nearly eleven years ago,
and my girlfriend, Olivia, her family dog, was dying. My
girlfriend wouldn't say it, her folks wouldn't say it. The dog,
a Jack Russell Terrier named Casey, did her best to
(19:49):
be the only truthful one in the bunch, moving purposefully
and unsteadily with every step and looking out at her
world with a seeming mixture of acceptance and sadness and
regret that the one time she really needed bipeds to
speak for her, they wouldn't. I just need for dogs,
not to mean sadness. Olivia said, just for a while,
(20:12):
can we go to that pet shop on Lex? I
mumbled that we could go, but that I had resisted.
The dog entreaties of eleven girlfriends before her, and I
would successfully resist hers. I had always loved dogs, but
I was really allergic to them, and my doctors had
all said that even hypoallergenic dogs were a crap shoot.
(20:33):
She said, I do not want a dog. I am
not trying to convince you to get us a dog.
I just want to hold a puppy for a little while.
She paused, as she always did when she felt both
hopeless and angry at being at the mercy of feelings,
and she lapsed into the shrug emoji. As sappy as
that sounds, Olivia the girlfriend, the former girlfriend, let me
(20:58):
make this easier on both of us. We'll call her TFGF.
The former girlfriend TFGF and I left for the pet
shop job in midafternoon, and I told her my true
fear here that my native but dormant shared affinity with
dogs would all of a moment spring fully grown from
my soul, and I would blurt, just give me all
of them. I mean, what kind of life could I
(21:20):
offer a dog? I was on television and thus always
in a television studio, and thus never home for play
or walks or just the prevention of canine loneliness. I
had a girlfriend who lived out of town. Half the time,
I was clueless as to every practical aspect of the
dog thing. I had littered the continent with dead house plants,
(21:41):
and I no longer thought myself capable of pulling my
ego out of my backside sufficiently to take care of fish.
I had literally not had a pet of any kind
since nineteen sixty seven. I had come to terms with
living in a wistful, hazy world in which I might
inadvertently have a dog pal for a few moments, but
(22:03):
almost never endore, and never without the pang of knowing
that the hello itself contained the start of the goodbye.
And I was allergic. I was allergic to the obvious big, furry,
friendly dogs, and I might be allergic to the ones
that were built as non allergic. And if I disobeyed
this immutable cannon, the buried tears of permanent exclusion might
(22:26):
be replaced by far worse ones of separation and loss.
Me I would get over it, probably, but without overvaluing
myself too much to betray the love of a dog
to send a dog back because of allergies as TFGF
and I approached the shop, there was, as there almost
(22:48):
always is, there a small crowd undulating around it. Lexington
Avenue's narrow sidewalks make these human clots easier to form,
even late on the first Sunday of autumn. There is
also an obstacle course of grates and cellar doors and
bikes chained poll and parking meters and canopies for diners
and restaurants and mattress showrooms and other places that are
(23:10):
not quite seedy but also aren't quite your first choice.
The uptown edges of the grime and noise that constitute
the maze of fifty ninth Street Bridge approaches lend the
place a congested feel even when it's otherwise quiet. We
are three blocks up from the trying just a little
too hard merchandising of Bloomingdale's. There are unwashed delivery trucks,
(23:34):
double parked three hundred and sixty five days a year,
and then totally out of place amid the prosaic trappings
of a big city at its most meh. There they
are bouncing off each other, tearing infinitely at other, tiny
heads and tails and paws, doing a seeming pantomime of dismemberment.
Their yips and the crunch of the shredded cavorting paper
(23:56):
are just audible through the glass and over the din
of the street. They create an oasis of cute. And
just in case you can't tell what they are, there's
this big Neon sign above their street front window that
reads puppies. Don't make me go in? I pleaded. She
(24:16):
reassured me. We'd go in. She'd hold the dog. All
I had to do was take a picture. You don't understand.
I reached for her hand. What I'm trying to say
is I always wanted a dog, but I could never
have a dog. Just as the door to the shop opened,
she grabbed my arm. She yanked hard, She swore, and
she muttered, you'll survive. Man up. Don't make eye contact.
(24:39):
Don't make eye contact. Don't make eye contact. Don't make
eye contact. We were going towards puppies and past puppies,
and the appearance of a small staircase to a training
loft confirmed we are now going under puppies. And in
the deepest recesses of the shop there was a wall
of puppies two hour right, three cages high, six across,
all a yellowish beige behind a reddish brown for Micah countertop,
(25:01):
then a structural beam, and then three cages high across,
then a corner with a small visiting pen built into
the countertop. Then right in front of me, the Hollywood
squares of puppies three high, three across, and all of
their inmates, all nine of them, staring at me and
screaming at me and making eye contact and saying, by
(25:22):
esp take me home. A salesman now introduced himself as Jeffrey,
and Jeffrey asked if TFGF had any particular dog she
wanted him to bring to her. Let me see them
all tease the girl. In that moment, two things struck me. Firstly,
this was my cue to get the phone out and
(25:42):
prepared to take the photo of her with the puppy. Secondly,
the dog, whom the salesman was now temporarily liberating from
the surprisingly spare cage, was the only living soul inside
that pet shop besides me, who was not making any
damn noise. Every other puppy was perfecting its adolescent bark.
The cats were making a bewildering variety of noises, and
(26:04):
and was that a Norwegian blue parrot squawk, remarkable bird,
the Norwegian blue. Isn't it beautiful? Plumage? This Maltese said nothing.
She looked like her torso would easily fit in one
of my hands if she was three pounds. A quarter
of it was hair and half of that was curled,
and presumably somebody came by every day to turn what
sat atop her head into a mohawk up top and
(26:27):
a mullet in the back. Her cage mate brother seemed
a little bigger, but his eyes were clearly smaller, and
their ocular contrast was immediately visible, even if you still
had forlorn hopes of avoiding eye contact. His shone hers
were illuminated. He tried to get past her into the
(26:47):
salesman's arms. She simply lifted up her head towards him,
and it actually crossed my mind that she looked like
she was about to say, Hi, Jeffrey, how are you today?
He put her gently down in the playpen at the
right corner of the counter. TFGF asked if she could
pick the puppy up, and nodded to me to get
the cat. I'm ready. Honestly, Jeffrey said, this is the
(27:08):
sweetest dog. We've had in here for months. I say
that every day to almost everybody, but this time I'm
actually not lying. TFGFF cradled the Maltese in her arms,
with the dog's head facing to my right. I tapped
the camera on the phone. My hand was already shaking
as I sent it up TFGF and the puppy in
the frame. The Maltese suddenly wiggled upright, placed her front
(27:30):
paws on my girlfriend's chest, and just as I snapped
the image, the dog reached up and kissed my girlfriend
on the lips. I am, on occasion, completely incapable of
remembering anything that happened in my entire life before that moment.
(27:53):
TFGF made the appropriate sounds of approval. Jeffrey began discussing
how little grooming the Maltese breed needs and the great
price he could give us, and even as my head spun,
it seemed silly to me that he was calculating the
tax on something that was obviously timelessly and eternally priceless.
TFGF said something about how we needed a minute outside
to discuss it, and she handed the puppy back to
(28:14):
Jeffrey and the dog looked at each each of us
and as if she was about to say nice to
meet you. As the pup went back up into the
cage with her brother, something extraordinary happened. The little girl
was reaching her head up towards the spout of the
cage's water bottle with the same graceful movement she had
made to bestow that kiss on TFGF when her brother
(28:39):
puppy abruptly body slammed her out of the way, and
her tiny frame bounced off the side of the cage.
And then, to my shock and confusion, a deep and
threatening growl, a vengeful h reverberated throughout the pet shop.
The growl was coming from me. The next sounds were
(29:03):
from tfg O YEF, my god, what's wrong with you?
I didn't know it at the time, but as we
turned to fight our way back out through the shop
to the street, I evidently half skidded into a display
full of chew toys. They nearly toppled to the floor.
I nearly toppled to the floor. I couldn't see, but
I didn't recognize my own tears until they hit the
edges of my lips. Somehow I managed to say it again,
(29:26):
this time in despair. I always wanted a dog, but
I could never have one. She suddenly realized what had happened.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm an asshole. TFGF was now
holding me upright and steering me towards the door to
the street. I didn't listen to you. I'm an asshole.
I'm an asshole. You told me. I didn't believe you.
I'm so sorry. Well now the stories came pouring out,
(29:48):
all jumbled, one on top of the other. Tiny, the
Saint Bernard at the Katzensteins. He only wanted to embrace me.
He wasn't trying to eat me. And the mcconnon's mutt
next door, Boots used to come sit on my lap,
and Tiny didn't make me sneeze, He only scared me.
And the mcconnons had three boys and a mother, baked
cookies by the car load lot and Boots never left
their side, and I was always at their house. And
(30:09):
if I was allergic, how was it that I never
once had a problem with Boots? How in the hell
did that work? Huh? What about Vladimir or the stray
cat my sister found He used to live in the
garage and behaved like a dog and like to be
carried around like a baby. And how allergic was I
had beautiful, beautiful little Maltese reach up and kissed you
on the mouth. And the one time I took my
dad's movie camera to the mcconnon's house, half of the
film was of Boots. And what if I went back
(30:31):
and got the allergy shots again? And it was my
mother who said she was really allergic, so I must
be too, And what's the use? The little Maltese was perfect.
The next person who sees her will snap her up
in an instant. And I asked them just to let
me try a little dog who woodn't shed. The only
thing my mother would let me have were lizards, and
I could take a zertech every day. I'm so sorry, Tiny,
I didn't realize I never said goodbye to Boots. Maltese
(30:52):
is gone. She's gone. She's gone, and she's my dog.
I know what I could feel it. She's my dog
and she's gone. What happened next? Beggar's fiction. It involves
Rudy Giuliani back to the Number one story on the
(31:14):
Countdown and the day I fell in love with a
dog for the first time, and my girlfriend, the former
girlfriend TFGF, and I left the puppy in the pet shop.
TFGF and I were walking me mid meltdown, somehow now
nearing the Park Avenue Armory, one block west and four
blocks north of the pet shop that I thought we
(31:37):
were still in. To her credit, TFGF had kept me
from throwing myself into traffic or dissolving into a puddle
on sixty second Street. The overwhelming sensation I had was
not one of having left the tiny puppy in the shop,
but of having left a part of myself there that
was my dog. And what was worse was she was
(31:58):
obviously going to be taken by somebody else even before
I got back there, even if we turned around right away.
Who could resist her? I certainly hadn't. My chaotic stream
of consciousness monologue paused only when I had no choice
but to shut up and gasp for breath, and the
comments with which TFGF tried to soothe me in these
moments were self abnegating and solemn. She had talked me
(32:21):
off the limb of my certainty that the dog had
already been sold, and was now steering me back towards sanity.
I had to. She would say later, you were having
a breakdown. She said we should go home, and if
I wanted to talk seriously about the practicalities of owning
the dog, we could do that and still get the
puppy the next morning, even if it meant delaying her
departure for DC. Don't worry. I'm sure she's still there.
(32:45):
They were getting ready to close. She'll be there in
the morning. I exhaled, and then I repanicked. She's she's
I sniffed anew and the tears resumed. She's in that
cage with that brother of hers in the basement somewhere.
Before TFGF could answer and where this is true, Rudy
(33:07):
Giuliani spilled down the stairs from the armory we were passing.
A cop suddenly appeared from a different nowhere and put
out an arm and firmly asked us to stop walking,
and Juliani scuttled rodent like into a waiting car. A
wife was with him. I did not and do not
know which number. The driver was already closing the door
(33:29):
behind them when I shouted it, how come my dog
has to spend the night in a cage while that
ass hat is allowed to roam around this city without
a leash on him. Later that evening, TFGF said that
was the first moment she thought we might just get
home safe and sound. After all, it was not ten
more minutes back to my apartment, and we walked it
(33:51):
in silence. Now I had long since saturated my handkerchief
and some tissues TFGF had in her pockets. I was
breathing deeply and restoratively. Now the sniffle frequency reduced to
once or twice per block uck, and my mind was
crowded with the dogs I had known, Boots, Tiny, Vladimir
the Cat, even tfgf's little Casey dying out in Jersey
(34:15):
and unaware of the seismic events which she had set
in motion. I was thinking of other dogs. To all
of the dogs in all of the stories of James
Thurber that I read on TV every Friday night, I
had smiled along with his poetic descriptions of them, but
never confessed I loved them as he must have. There
(34:35):
was Samantha, whom my late friend Bruce Hagen used to
bring everywhere, including our college radio station newsroom. The first
really big dog who did not frighten me, my great
aunt's Yorky, whose gas was so potent that the Christmas
just before I turned nine, my great uncle said he
was convinced she had been a German terror weapon at
Chateau Terry in the First World War, and he and
(34:56):
I had bonded because I knew what Chateau Terry was.
There was Nellie McNally, the only dog that any of
my son times out of town girlfriends ever had actually
put on the phone with me. In my mind, they
all stood before me, all lined up, all quiet, smiling,
all with the kindest type of I told you so,
(35:17):
dummy on their wonderful faces, and dozens more behind them,
vague shapes and sizes, who belonged to neighbors or coworkers,
pastor who were just chance encounters on the streets of
any of a dozen cities decades before. No, I'm sorry,
she said, I shouldn't have been that selfish. But now
(35:37):
I disagreed with her, and as I unlocked the apartment door,
I began to tell her of the dogs I had
just been communing with in my mind, and what had
suddenly become necessary, urgent, inevitable, and perfect, but about which
I needed as much detail as I could in as
short a period as possible. TFGF tried, well, you just
take the dog wherever you can. My parents have been
(35:59):
saying this a lot lately. Now they regret not doing
more things with Casey, not adventures, not kayaking, just taking
her with them, or going out in the yard, or
just holding her while they watched TV. You just let
the dog in. We went through topic after topic, cleaning, training, handling,
poop walks, food, puppy sitters, moving books off ground level shelves, discipline,
(36:23):
and most importantly of all, a backup plan in case
this epiphany was false and or I was still allergic
or terrified or incoonfident or all three. I don't think
it'll take much to convince my parents to take her.
I mean, even after Casey recovers and I can take
(36:44):
her with me to DC tomorrow, I'll bring her back
next weekend. So you can get the apartment ready, and
you can get you ready, and you don't have to
go in at the deep end right away, I interrupted
her with a kiss, Let's go back there before they close.
I don't want to wait till morning. I'm still terrified
somebody else will realize how extraordinary she is. Unexpectedly, I
(37:07):
had a moment of doubt at this point. This isn't
just me having a breakdown, right, I mean, she is extraordinary.
I'm having a breakdown, and she is extraordinary, isn't she.
TFGF stopped being nice, and now for the first time,
looked at me like I'd just gone crazy, even though
I just had gone crazy. Obviously, She said that was
a real kiss. The pet shop had stayed open, partly
(37:28):
because TFGF phoned them as we hit the street outside
of the apartment building, and partly because they knew you
were coming back. Jeffrey said, you just see it sometimes. Also,
you seemed kind of emotional. TFGFF helpfully mentioned that I'd
had a breakdown. They had all the paraphernalia ready, a
(37:50):
little aquabed, a series of attached gates that could be
used as a pen or a barrier, a small pink blanket,
a bag of training pads, and the plastic pad holder,
enough dry food to last twelve to fourteen months, some
horrific wet food that looked like a discarded early design
for liverwurst, a few chew toys, a bright pink harness
and a leash as light as a ribbon, a black
(38:12):
carrying bag, and paperwork with the Pempy Puppies family tree, which,
to my astonishment, stretched back beyond her birth one week
shive three months before, through the six preceding generations, all
the way back to six entire years earlier. In addition
to all this, they could have included a moped, a
stock portfolio to guarantee your college education, and I'm all
(38:33):
tease sized typewriter with a twenty year supply of replacement ribbons,
and I would have also bought them. Very nice lady
named Ellie tried to train me to be a dog
owner in about ninety four seconds and handed me a
voucher for a vet at a checklist of stuff to do,
I signed a credit card bill. I think I used
my own name. I absolved myself of the guilt of
(38:54):
not getting a shelter dog because I was allergic and
kind of had to go the shop route. Plus I
was not looking for a dog. I had actually fallen
in love at first sight with this dog. And lastly,
because no matter how the obvious and often tragic flaws
in this system, there was no arguing with the fact
that those dogs who came from a pet shop had
as much of a right to a happy life as
(39:16):
any other dog. At that moment, they produced her from
the back room behind the block of cages where we
had first seen her. Her curls had been fluffed up
and her hair freshly brushed. It would be lovely to
say she made eye contact them across the shop floor,
or was aware of our presence, or yipped happily at
the sight of me, and it would be completely untrue.
(39:38):
The little Maltese calmly scanned the room, only occasionally glancing
up at the manager who carried her, and not once
at us, until she was, without ceremony or comment, handed
to me, whereupon she immediately twisted out of my trembling hands,
stuck her front paws on my chest, and reached up
to give me a kiss on the lips, and then another,
(40:01):
and a third, and my sunglasses hid the tears it
welled up again. I managed to ask if they all
did that. No, came the answer from that salesman, Jeffrey. Honestly,
like I told you, sweetest puff we've had here in months,
loves people, loves people. I'm sad to see her go.
I marveled, and how white she was, and yet how
(40:24):
articulated on strong her body was. Her eyes were far
more beautiful than I had realized, oversized even for a puppy,
almost no white visible, the reflection off the deep brown irises,
almost iridescent. And more astonishingly, this little soul, who was
about two hundred and twelfth my age and about one
eighty seventh my weight, and who had a great great
(40:46):
great great grandmother born in two thousand and six, when
my great great great great grandmother was born in like
eighteen hundred, she was meeting and holding my gaze with
her own. Whatever I was seeing in her eyes, whatever
the inner being I was actually processing, she seemed to
be doing her equivalent vetting. I gave her a little kiss,
(41:09):
and was by now not surprised when she kissed me again.
The little tongue poked out a fraction of an inch,
just enough so any one of us dumb, unsettled bipeds
could tell she meant it. And then she relaxed from
her upright pose and settled back into my arms, her
head in the crook of my right elbow, in an
attitude I would soon discover she would repeat every time
(41:30):
I ever picked her up. A couple hours later, the
name came to me her haircut. It was Stevie Nix's haircut.
I named her Stevie. I've done all the damage I
(41:59):
can do here. Wait a minute, hold on, let's just
stop the music just for a second. Stevie, you want
to treat? You been a good girl lately. I mean
we didn't mention your birthday on the air. I'm very
sorry about that. Do you want to treat? We'll say something. Stevie,
you want to treat? Come on, say that again? Okay?
(42:23):
Do you want to tell them about physical therapy? Stevie
couldn't walk three months ago. She had had a problem
with both of her back knees. She tore an acl
and she had an immune disease and these things combined
and made it impossible for her to walk. And she
has been going to physical therapy at the Animal Medical
Center ever since. She's learned how to swim. She gets
(42:43):
massages and she gets laser treatments every week and she
has a great time. And this is the hospital that
she has always treated as if it were a spa.
She has a very high threshold for pain, so through
cancer treatments and surgery and half a dozen other things
that have gone wrong. She's always kept a smile on
her face because they've treated her so well there, and
(43:05):
she's had such a good time. She's always acted like
it was a spa. Well here it is after ten
years of going there. They give her spa treatments. They
put her in the water, They blow dry her hair.
They often trim her nails to make sure that they
get the whole imprint of her feet right, to make
sure her gait is okay, and she's regained the ability
to walk. She goes for a swim, she goes in
(43:26):
an underwater treadmill to work out. As I said, they
use lasers on her knees, and then they end the
whole thing with doing her hair and giving her a massage.
It's a spa. She was right, my girl, Stevie eleven
years old and the anniversary coming up too. All right,
you were good enough to sit through this. You want
that treat? Now say it again, one more time. You
(43:48):
want this treat? Say it. You don't have to sit,
you don't have to be quiet. She's sitting the one
time she's sitting at being quiet, Say something, do you
want this treat? Yes or no? Yes? Yes, yes, well
you're twirling, but say yeah yes? Do you want this tree?
Here we go? All right, thank you very much. All right,
(44:10):
you've indulged me long enough. Okay, I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Here
are the credits. Most of this was written by Stevie.
The music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillips Shaneale. They are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray All, orchestration and keyboards
(44:30):
by John Phillip Shaneal, produced by TKO Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of
ESPN Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball
stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend John Dean.
Everything else was pretty much my fault. Don't forget Countdown
(44:53):
now also available for you on YouTube if you want
to see the animated version of me what we should
have put on? There was an animated version of Stevie.
So that's countdown for this the nine hundred and twenty
fifth day since Donald Trump's first to ten to coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest
him again while we still have time, like would Friday
be convenient? The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Boltons has
(45:15):
the news Lawrence Till then for Stevie, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(45:39):
wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.