May 1, 2025 • 62 mins
SEASON 3 EPISODE 122: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is the greatest president of all time... at losing public support! Almost overlooked in the typical maelstrom, analysis by the last King of 538: Trump's Net Approval Rating has fallen farther, faster, than any other president since they started keeping the statistic in 1953. On Inauguration Day he was at Net Plus 10. After 100 Days he's already at Net MINUS 10. At this rate, by August he'll be at NET MINUS 30. He is losing an approval point every FIVE DAYS. By itself, the Net Minus 10 is also a record.
And that's just the start of Trump's polling crater. Internal Republican Congressional Campaign polling has him at a Net Minus Seven inside vulnerable swing House districts. He is collapsing faster than he is collapsing the economy! This sets up the prospect of a Democratic landslide next year, if only the Democrats will TRY. Chuck Schumer's response? More bipartisanship in spending bills!
B-Block (33:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer wants an ethics investigation of Minnesota Congresswoman Angie Craig because when he was too terrified to host a town hall in his district, she did. Their districts ADJOIN. DC US Attorney nominee Ed Martin sinks further into deceit over Hitler cosplayer Hale-Cusanelli. And Trump demands Penn apologize for letting transgender athletes compete or he'll withhold $175 million in funding. My suggestion? Penn should declare that Trump got his degree from Penn's Wharton School by deception and sue HIM FOR $175 MILLION. And new developments in Bill Maher's self-immolation. He did something ELSE about Trump - eight years ago - that he attacked Larry David for doing last week!
C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: If I didn't actually invent the mobile phone, there is every chance I was the first to use one on the streets of New York City. It was this time of year, about 35 years ago, and it still shocks me that I actually stopped pedestrian traffic on 42nd Street just by answering a call.
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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. Donald
Trump is the greatest president of all time at losing
(00:29):
support in the polls as fast as humanly possible. He
has hemorrhaged approval. He has turned his honeymoon into a divorce,
and he is setting up a Democratic landslide next year
if only the Democrats would try. And the evidence went
by so fast, the real report card on the first
(00:50):
one hundred days, well one hundred and two days, It
went by so fast almost nobody noticed. Elliot Morris, the
last king of five thirty eight dot com, now in
charge of Strength in Numbers, calculated the chase in Trump's approval,
the depth of his sinking underwater since day one to
(01:11):
day one hundred, and it is the worst in American
polling history dating back to nineteen fifty three, worse even
than Trump's own first term. He was a net plus
nine at the time of his inauguration, and he is
at minus ten now plus nine to minus ten in
(01:32):
one hundred days. And the minus ten is itself a
presidential record. The move from positive territory to gurgle, gurgle,
You're drowning is a record. The dispelling of the notion
that he might be okay. This fast is a record.
He is the most worst president of all time. As
(01:54):
Morris notes, only Gerald Ford is even in Trump's league,
and even after Ford pardon Nixon and shed half his support,
Ford was still a net plus and a net plus
twenty four at one hundred days. Carter was a net
plus fifty five. George W. Bush was a net plus
twenty seven. Trump is a net minus ten. He is drowning.
(02:19):
He is losing an average of one approval point every
five days. At this rate, by early August, he would
be at net minus thirty. I mean, this is worse
than the economy. That's how bad these numbers are. Trump
only wasted seven percent of the value of the stock
market in the first hundred days, and gross domestic product
(02:40):
only shrank three tenths of a point when it was
supposed to continue the huge growth that had under Biden.
Trump went from net plus ten to net minus ten
in one hundred days. And that's just the start. The
Republican internal polling may be even worse than that, if
that is mathematically possible. This is from punch Bowl News.
(03:03):
Trump's approval rating is underwater, and our CC chair Richard
Hudson told House Republicans during a private meeting on Capitol Hill,
this is the Republican Congressional Committee to elect Republicans to Congress.
Their poll, conducted April to thirteenth to eighteenth in competitive
House seats, has forty six percent of respondents approving of
(03:26):
Trump's performance fifty three percent disapproving. This is roughly in
line with public polling data. Trump is seven points underwater
in vulnerable House seats, many of them now held by
Republican congress people. Aggressive democratic campaigning focused on freedom, democracy,
Trump's psychosis, Trump causing prices to rise, Trump threatening SS
(03:51):
and medicare, Trump trying to kill small businesses in favor
of monopolies and cartels. Trump abducting Americans, Trump running a
child trafficking gang, Trump threatening the constitution, Trump constantly denying reality,
Trump threatening judges, Trump threatening you, Trump causing your costs
to go through the roof. That could lead to a
(04:13):
democratic landslide next year. And you can run on every
kitchen table issue you want and against Trump and for
democracy in the same sentence. Happily, the Democrats are poised
to take advantage of this polling opportunity to who the
(04:33):
hell am I kidding? This is a simple fix. You
just have to not be Chuck Schumer anymore. Chuck Schumer,
who is somehow in charge, did say something yesterday at
a Senate hearing about how Trump quote doesn't deserve to
be president. Schumer says he is planning to maintain his
(04:56):
current strategy in the Senate, which is do nothing but
try to negotiate more bipartisan appropriations bills with Republicans when
Republican voters are headed for the lifeboats about Trump in
winnable congressional districts and winnable Senate seats, Schumer says he
(05:21):
thinks he can chip away at Trump's popularity. Trump's popularity
the one thing they can let Trump take care of himself.
But back to the good news, boy, is all of
these poll and stuffs pissing Trump off? The poles from
(05:42):
the fake news are like the news itself fake. We're
doing great, better than ever before. As they noted the
other day, Trump's rage is fueled in part because those
around him have learned to lie to him to keep
him controllable. They are telling him the polls are fake.
Did you see the televised Cabinet meeting yesterday, a series
(06:06):
of ever increasing lies about how wonderful and gorgeous he is.
And they told him this, and he raged before the
Fox News poll, which not only showed how far he
was underwater personally, but pointed out and measured how close
the individual sharks are to him. Border security, there he
(06:31):
is ahead. He's above water fifteen percent. Everything else not
so much. Underwater on immigration by a point, underwater, on
deportations by four points, underwater, on guns by three, underwater,
on foreign policy by fourteen, underwater on taxes by fifteen,
(06:52):
on the economy by sixteen, on tariffs by twenty. On
inflation thirty three percent approved, fifty nine percent disapprove one
hundred days in and Trump, who guaranteed to lower prices,
is twenty six points underwater on inflation. The White House
(07:13):
responds to this a disaster at every turn except border
security from the Ministry of Truth. Steven Miller says to
John Roberts on Fox News. There is our opinion that
Fox News needs to fire its polster.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
War.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Miller on Fox News is also our opinion that I
have long flowing luxurious bond hair, and Fox News needs
to fire it's cameras. On the other hand, Trump did
(08:10):
have success in one poll, the Canadian election on inauguration Day,
Trump's inauguration Day, the Conservatives of Canada led the Liberals
in polling forty five to twenty two Monday, the Liberals won.
Conservative leader Pierre paulev first lost his ass then he
(08:34):
lost his seat. He's out of parliament, although he can
try to coerce some sap who got elected to resign
and hand him his seat or hand him his ass
The American right wing response to this, it would be
easier to invade Canada with the Liberals there in charge.
Or you can look at it this way, it would
(08:55):
be easier for Canada to invade the US with a
guy who hates Trump in charge. And remember, Canadians, you
could to borrow a phrase of somewhat recent vintage. You
could be greeted as liberators, and you might get help
from Americans, a few of us, like three hundred million
(09:20):
or more. The latest on the abduction and human trafficking scam.
Judge Zennis yesterday denied the ICE and Department of Justice
GESTAPO a long term delay in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case,
but gave them de facto small delays by seeing a
series of deadlines in the next three weeks for sworn
statements and testimony. This might have had something to do
(09:43):
with Trump making the faithful and possibly fate ole mistake
of confessing that, yes, he could get mister Abrago Garcia
back from l Salvador with one lousy phone call. He
did this by saying one of the few non ambiguous
things of his presidency in that sit down interview with
Terry Moran of ABC quote, I could, I could unquote.
(10:08):
Marian asked him if he could use that phone on
the resolute desk and get Abrego Garcia back. I could,
I could, was the response. And I know this will
be a controversial interpretation of what Trump said there, but
I believe that when he said I could, I could,
that could be read as meaning he could he could.
(10:29):
Trump then added, and if he were the gentleman that
you say he is, I would do that. Trump then
lost even more people who still think he is saying
by insisting that the tattoos on Abrego Garcia's knuckles wrongly
identified as representing the gang MS thirteen actually read MS
one three like m is on the pinky and then
(10:51):
s and then there's a dash, then one on the forefinger,
and then three on the thumb. He really thinks that's
what it says. He really thinks that's on the man's fingers.
Inadvertently confessed because the ABC interview was not with George
Stephanoppolis or David Muhre, he was expecting more TV fillatio
(11:13):
from Terry Moran, apparently unaware that Terry Moran has been
savaging him online and on the air for a decade.
Trump he had MSN fifteen known his knuckles tattooed Moran.
That was photoshopped. Trump, Terry, they're giving you the big
break of a lifetime. I picked you, but you're not
being very nice. In other words, Trump just assumed the
(11:37):
ABC interviewer would join him in Lyne to the world
about the man he had abducted and renditioned to an
authoritarian country. Also the big break of a lifetime. Terry
Moran is sixty four years old. I know he looks youthful,
but he's sixty four. If he hadn't gotten his big
(11:59):
break long before, now, Trump, you did not give it
to him on Tuesday Night. Meanwhile, well, Trump's employee who
runs Al Salvador for him, completely blew the whole thing.
As Trump was finally admitting yes, he can get Abrego
Garcia home, in an instant, President Bucell said no, no, no,
you can't. As The New York Times put it quote yesterday,
(12:20):
the Trump administration recently sent a diplomatic note to officials
in L Salvador to inquire about releasing a Salvadoran immigrant
whom government officials have been ordered by the Supreme Court
to help free, according to three people with knowledge of
the matter, but the authoritarian government of Naid Bukela, the
leader of L Salvador, said no. Two of the people
(12:41):
said the Bukela administration claimed the man should stay in L.
Salvador because he was a Salvadoran citizen. According to one
of those people, that would have been exactly the statement
Trump needed to bolster his phony Bolgoni case here if
he hadn't pre contradicted it in the ABC interview by
(13:02):
saying yes, I can get him back right now here
for dinner. No, Moran wasn't very nice, and as usual,
Trump wasn't very sane on the others, As you know,
the leader of the Columbia protests. The student Mosenne Madawi,
was ordered released by a court yesterday after he had
(13:22):
been kidnapped and detained. Madawi is wrong. He's hurting the
Palestinian cause more than Netanyahu is. I think he's an idiot.
But if you want to prosecute him for something, we
have laws and you follow them and you go to
a judge. That's why we have laws and judges. Assuming
we still do. I have nothing new on the Honduras girls,
(13:46):
including the four year old with cancer. The hearing on
the girl, the two year old identified as VML and
the others is two weeks from tomorrow. You will recall,
though Tom Holman's defense was if they didn't sell Miss
VML with her mother when they renditioned her mother, we
would be complaining about his Gestapo separating families. Well, it
(14:08):
turns out they're doing that as well. ICE sent a
woman named Heidi Sanchez from a routine immigration check in
in Tampa back to Cuba without her daughter, her one
year old daughter, her one year old daughter who was
still breastfeeding. We really need to make sure Homan and
(14:28):
NOME and ICE agents and Pam Bondi are tried at
the International Court of Justice at the Hague. They are
the peacetime equivalent of war criminals. Then there are the
new victims. Xavier Salazar of Texas, aged nineteen, was picked
up shackled on a bus heading towards rendition, probably to
(14:51):
El Salvador. When the Supreme Court ordered no further abductions
to other countries, he too was declared MS thirteen by
the Trump fascists because there was a photo of him
in his social media standing next to another kid, and
the other kid had a water pistol a squirt gun.
(15:13):
The squirt gun in the other kid's hand was enough
for ICE to mark Salazar down as a member of
MS thirteen. There is not just the immorality of the
entire process here, there is also the amazing stupidity and
the slovenliness and the shoot first, asked questions later with
(15:35):
a squirt gun quality of each individual case. They are
trying to kill kids by proxy, using as evidence photos
of a different kid holding what is not a gun.
Turns out ICE is also lying about it. Its arrests totals.
This is from Aaron Reichlan Melnick of the American Immigration Council.
(15:57):
He writes, Ice clarifies that the one hundred and fifty
one thousand arrest figure put out by the White House
is not internal arrests, as Caroline Levitt and DHS have implied.
The figure likely includes all CBP encounters, including people with
visa issues at airports. The actual ICE arrest number is
(16:19):
sixty six thousand, five hundred high, but not historic. On
March thirteenth, he writes, Ice said the agency had conducted
thirty two, eight hundred and nine arrests in its first
fifty days. That would be an average of six hundred
and fifty six arrests per day. So now they're averaging
six hundred and sixty five arrests per day. If ICE
manages to keep up this level of arrests, it would
(16:42):
reach a level last scene in the first Obama term.
Six hundred and sixty five arrests a day, on average
would be two hundred and forty three thousand arrests for
the year. ICE reported three hundred and twenty two thousand
arrests in fiscal year twenty eleven, which is still the record.
In other words, all of this, all of this nightmare,
all of this destroying of the fabric of the American
(17:04):
consciousness and the American conscience, and they have to lie
to make the arrest totals look big. They're not even
doing their evil well up the road in the administration
checking in on the administration's alcoholism problem, the Secretary of
(17:24):
Whiskey has killed a Defense Department program that fostered and
promoted the contributions of women in the national security area.
The Women Peace and Security Act WPS basically a backslapping
thank you card kind of operation. Hegseeth's announcement quote, WPS
has yet another woke, divisive social justice Biden initiative that
(17:47):
overburdens our commanders and troops, distracting from our core task.
Excuse me, war fighting. Department of Defense will hereby executive
the minimum of WPS required by statute and fight to
end the program for our next budget. Good riddence. WPS
(18:08):
Secretary Pete drunk Breath has one small problem here. WPS
was signed into law by President President Trump. This is
a Trump program WPS. Trump in twenty seventeen, hag Seth
just killed a Trump program that was too woke. Why
(18:29):
did Trump's numbers tank because he became too woke? Back
then in twenty seventeen, it was championed by people who
are in the new Trump administration, or, as we all
are beginning to call it now, Titanic. More bad news
for mister. The next round is on me an amendment
to a House bill from Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs of California
(18:53):
limitation on use of funds for a makeup studio for
the Secretary of Defense. None of the funds made available
by this title may be used to construct sustained outfit
or may a dedicated makeup studio for the Secretary of
Defense within the Pentagon or any other building under the
jurisdiction of the Department of Defense. No response to Sarah
(19:17):
Jacob's amendment from the Secretary of Mabelene the Secretary of Defense,
Secretary of Defense of Mabelene. Meanwhile, back in the private sector,
(19:40):
Jeff Bezos is Trump's bitch. What does capitulating to blackmail
get you, Jeff? What it always gets you more blackmail?
Timeline one punch Bowl News reported Amazon would start noting
how much more products on its site cost you because
of the tariffs. Sixty percent of Amazon sales are from
(20:04):
the smaller businesses Trump is out to kill with the tariffs. Two.
Within hours, Amazon publicly denied this. Three after that, lying
Caroline lying Levitt attacked Amazon. I just got off the
found with the President at death about Amazon, the announcement
that the host dial and political act by Amathon four.
(20:27):
An Amazon spokesman, then denied it was ever even possibly
remotely chance worthy going to be true. Tim Doyle, the
team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Hall store,
considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products.
This was never approved and is not going to happen.
(20:48):
I swear, I swear to Jesus, I swear. Turns out
there was one step on that timeline we didn't know
about initially. It was step one A of all people.
Fox News reported at first Jackie Heinrich, how she keeps
her job there? I don't know, but may the Good
Lord bless her and keeper Confirming reports, sources familiar tell
(21:10):
Fox that President Trump called Jeff Bezos this morning to
complain about plans to display tariff impact on Amazon product prices.
Every network in the world except the Game Show Channel
then confirmed the report. Then Trump confirmed he called Bezos,
and Bezos fielded the problem for Trump, or ren fielded
(21:33):
the problem for Trump. Quote he was terrific. He solved
the problem very quickly. It's a good thing Jeff Bezos
destroyed the Washington Post curry favor with Trump. Trump now
owns him, and of course this will not stop as
life worsens for Trump, as the net minus continues to grow,
(21:55):
he will demand more and more from Bezos, because that's
what blackmailers do, especially to those victims who have lost
the will to metaphorically live, like Jeff Bezos obviously has.
It is sad but true. If you do not already
doubt every word printed in the Washington Post, and if
(22:15):
you don't already at least look for other buying options
before going to Amazon start and this could boomerang badly
for Trump. He has ordered that truck drivers now that
(22:36):
they well, basically what President Ted Bundy told the truck
drivers is speak English here and fascist America. Now. Another
royal decree from the man who thinks he's king and
believes it because Pam Bondi keeps telling him it's true.
Truckers quote should be able to read and understand traffic signs,
(22:58):
communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo
weight limit Station office drivers need to provide feedback to
their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.
Have we noticed this as some sort of huge problem.
Have they been driving past the wait limit station officers?
(23:21):
Have they been parking there and just staying there for
days at a time because they don't speak English or
won't speak English? No, sir, this is not just some
sort of official language proclamation, which was bad enough as
it was, if you don't recognize the Trump scam and
the methodology therein by now this is a precursor to
imposing English only restrictions in countless other aspects of American life.
(23:46):
One can imagine that it will extend into government and
into politics, and especially into elections, because what could disenfranchise
minority voters faster than English only election data and advertisements
and campaigns and English only polling places. Of course, here
(24:12):
is where it rebounds against Trump. If English does become
mandatory in government or in politics, what are these fots
friends of Trump going to do for a living. Elon
Musk unintelligible in any language, but especially in English, especially
when he's wearing two Maga caps at the same time,
(24:35):
like he was at the Cabinet meeting. Yesterday, the squeezing
tightly what's left of his calcified brain. On the other hand,
two caps is not enough. He really needs seventeen. Musk
needs at least seventeen to cover each of his personalities.
What about Senator Roger Marshall. What will he do if
English becomes mandatory? He still thinks the worst terrorist act
(24:58):
in our history is pronounced nine to one to one.
What about the Secretary of Insufficient Education Jaian McMahon, who
believes the chatbot she has is using a one? What
about herschel Walker? What about Marjorie's stupid green she doesn't
speak English? And of course what about Press Secretary Lying
(25:22):
Caroline Lying Levitt, who thinks the Nazi guy was named
Adolph Hilter, Ladolf Hilter. And of course you have to
speak English to serve in government. Well, if that goes
into effect, what the hell does Trump do? Then? No,
(25:49):
I'm sorry, sir. You can't come into the Oval office.
You can't say your name without getting something wrong. Also
of interest here, yes, there are new developments in Bill
Maher's self immolation. Thank you for asking he did something
else seven years ago that he just attacked Larry David
for doing earlier this month. That's next. This is countdown.
(26:14):
This is countdown with Keith Oberman still had on this
(26:39):
initiative countdown. I saw a payphone in New York the
other day, a working payphone, and memories came flooding back,
including the time I literally stopped pedestrian traffic in New
York on what must have been the first time anybody
(27:00):
in the city ever saw the thing that killed off
the payphone. Something lighter as comic relief. Next in things
I promised not to tell first, Believe it or not,
there's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup
of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens
who constitute the latest other worse persons in the world.
(27:24):
Don't call collect. Let me dedicate this addition to Bill
Maher and advise him he did not make the cut
this time. This is principally in order to give him
a few days to get his wounds attended to, mostly
the ones Larry David inflicted on him, but helped. Larry
called my attention to and it was my old friend
(27:46):
Sam Seedter of the Majority Report who found and clipped it.
This additional Bill maher bit of hypocrisy. You will recall
that Larry had turned Bill into confetti over going to
the White House for dinner with Trump and falling for
the Ted Bundy stuff all over again. His op ed
in The Times was called My Dinner with Adolf. Bill
(28:08):
immediately insisted that by comparing Trump to Hitler, Larry was
insulting six million dead Jews. I found clips from twenty
fifteen in which Bill compared Trump to Hitler twice on
his show in a span of just four shows. I also,
as I told you, remembered being on with Bill as
he repudiated his previous statements that Trump was a great guy.
(28:33):
He said Trump had fooled him. Now Trump's fooled him
again because he doesn't remember anything. But it was Sam
Cedar who found Bill also frying Geraldo Rivera for doing
the other thing that Bill Maher has done here doubling
down defending himself by trying to separate Trump, the power
(28:54):
crazed demon from Hell, from Trump, the glib dinner host
who only orders the best burgers from McDonald's. This is
Bill Maher with Heraldo Rivera excoriating Heraldo Rivera over Trump
from twenty eighteen, and I have stolen this clip from
(29:15):
the Majority Report. You know, Trump is my friend. I've
known Trump for forty years. I don't have any I
don't have He didn't Trump, he didn't go to Trump.
He tru remain my friend when I felt he had
a certain moral lack.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Well in my in my family, my wife agrees with you.
She doesn't like his policies on so many things that
I already listed. So she just can't stand the guy.
I'm different. I can separate the man who has always
been gracious to me, always been.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Nice to my family.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
You know, you were on Celebrity Printice together together every
day for six weeks. I've done him really through every
shit he's running the world.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
But now what does that matter that he was nice
to you with Thanksgiving? Hold, I'm not trying to be
as not trying to be an asshole to you. You're
a smart guy. This befuddles me, but it looked up
to you. Bill. I have a suggestion for you after that.
It's a one word suggestion for you. Are you ready
for it? My suggestion is hiatus Hello Anyway. The winner
(30:16):
is in the Worst Persons in the World segment. The
bronze worse Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer, who in the House
represents Trump and does not represent anybody from Minnesota, even
though he was elected by Minnesota's sixth district. He is
the majority whip, meaning he doesn't mind when Trump whips him,
which he does if Mike Johnson is unavailable. Emmer is
(30:40):
a fully compromised Trump whore, and the degree to which
that is true has been underscored again as Emmer files
an ethics complaint in the House against another member of
the Minnesota delegation, the Democrat Angie Craig of the Minnesota
second District. Her crime, according to Emmer, quote misuse of
(31:00):
public resources that erodes the trust Americans place in their
elected officials and undermines the integrity of our institutions. So
resources taxpayer money? What did she do? Did she imbezzle it? Oh? Nos?
What did Angie Craig do? Did she spend taxpayer money
(31:21):
on a makeup studio? Did she dig up the Capitol
Hill lawn to put down cement and to install one
hundred foot flagpoles? Did she buy Ben Carson's old thirty
one thousand dollars office desk for her own office? No, sir,
since Tom Emmer wouldn't she held a town hall in
(31:45):
Minnesota in Tom Ehmer's district. Tom Emmer had had a
virtual town hall in March, during which he insisted that
when prices skyrocketed because of Trump's tariffs, that would make
Trump more popular, and everything was great out there in Minnesota,
even though he wasn't there and wouldn't go there, and
wouldn't dare go there, and wouldn't talk to anybody in
(32:07):
public in Minnesota, and if it's possible to get booed
off the internet, he got booed off the internet during
this zoom call. He has not set foot in public
in the Minnesota sixth since. So Angie Craig, being a
servant of all the people of Minnesota, held a town
hall in the Minnesota sixth for which Emmer wants her
(32:28):
reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee. How dare you talk
to the citizens? One might think Tom Emmer would be
momentarily smart about this and not call further attention to
the fact that he's too much of a coward to
hold a town hall anywhere in Minnesota, or calling more
(32:48):
attention to the other inconvenient truth here, which is that
Angie Craig's second district adjoins Tom Emmer's sixth district. There's
a street somewhere that starts out in the second and
ends in the sixth. If Emmer isn't going to listen
to vote, is there Angie Craig? Damn well? Should she
(33:09):
should get a menu, a medal or a menu. She
should get a menu full of medals for doing Tom
Emmer's job for him.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Man Man ethics complaint for her because she was she
was talking to constituents when I I'm too much of
a we need to do it myself.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Hit me again, mister Trump. The runner up worser Ed
Martin also whipped by Trump. Ed Martin lyar, he is
the whack job Trump nominee for US to attorney for
DC and he just got nailed. As Ed Martin await
Senate confirmation. Somebody pointed out he had praised the Holocaust
denier and Hitler dresser upper, Timothy Hale q Sinelli. Martin immediately,
(33:56):
now I think this is called lied. He said he
knew nothing about Hale q Sinelli's psycho views. Quote. I
denounce everything about what that guy said, everything about the
way he talked and all as I've now seen it,
at the time I didn't know it. Uh oh, here
come the podcasts. Ed Martin not only hosted Timothy hale
(34:19):
Qsinelli on his podcast on Ed Martin's podcast five times
last year, just last year, but CNN also found that
Martin defended the photos hale Qsinelli took of himself pretending
to be Hitler. He branded criticism of hale Qsinelli as
(34:39):
character assassination, called him a great guy, and when that
wasn't enough, he called hale Qsinelli an amazing guy. Well,
the last part about an amazing guy, that's that's true.
He's he's pretty amazing. Clearly, Ed Martin has to be
withdrawn as DCUs attorney nominee and instead nominated to be
(35:04):
Press secretary. But the winner worst el Trumpo himself President
Scrooge McDuck Ted Bundy himself. This time. The demand from
Trump's education Gestapo is for the University of Pennsylvania to
lose one hundred and seventy five million dollars in federal
(35:27):
funding unless it restores quote to all female athletes, all
individual athletic records, titles, honors, awards, or similar recognition for
Division I swimming competitions misappropriated by male athletes unquote, and
Penn must write a letter of apology to every female
(35:47):
athlete involved within ten days or quote risk a referral
to the US Department of Justice for enforcement proceedings. We
need the ten days so we could explain it to
Pam Bondy, who's what we used to call slow. No,
I'm not kidding about any of this except the Pam
Bondi part. I mean explaining it to her. I don't
(36:07):
know if she's slow or not. This is about Leah Thomas,
the Penn swimmer whose success destroyed America's favorite failure, Riley Gains,
and caused her to finish tied for fifth rather than
just fifth or maybe tied for fourth, tied for fifth
(36:29):
in the only race she competed against that Thomas was in.
Of course, Thomas also caused poor Riley Gains to finish
eighty fifth in the Olympic qualifying events. Because, once again,
as I've mentioned before, any female athlete who failed, it's
because of transgender surgery from some x guy. It's not
(36:51):
because the female athlete wasn't any damn good at her sport.
It couldn't possibly be because they like you and I
and every American from you and I to Babe Ruth
had to face the day when we realized we weren't
good enough or good enough anymore at sports. The day
we realized, if you are a first baseman who hits
(37:13):
one thirty eight for NIMA New York Military Academy, like
Trump did, you're gonna have to try something else. And
I wish to god he hit seven thirty eight and
had been signed by the San Francisco Giants and was
still playing Major League Baseball today at age two hundred
and six or whatever he is. I wish I'd done
(37:33):
his highlights every day on Sports Center, anything other than this. No,
it's not that moment when you realize I can't swim.
It's not that, it's not that, for all intents and purposes,
Riley Gains can't swim. It's transgender surgery. It's their fault.
(37:54):
It can't be my fault. I'm Riley Gaines. I'm the
eighty fifth best swimmer. Because we all remember what happened
when my friend Renee Richards played in the US Tennis Open.
Starting in nineteen seventy seven, after being born Richard Raskin
you will remember that Renee won thirty consecutive US Open
(38:15):
titles and thirty consecutive Wimbledon's and twenty nine out of
thirty French Opens. The only time she didn't win was
once she had to do eye surgery on that guy
and she had to drop out. It was an emergency.
And you remember how Renee destroyed women's tennis, and you
never heard of Martine and Nevertelova or Chris Evert or
Tracy Austin or right, that didn't happen. None of that happened,
(38:38):
because the best Renee Richards ever did at the US
Open was losing the doubles final in nineteen seventy seven.
Because yes, transgender athletes might have some slight biological advantages, like,
as Renee points out, longer bones. And guess what you
could simply allow for that by giving the transgender athlete
a slight disadvantage what they call in horse racing a handicap.
(39:01):
When it's match play against CIS females, I could give
the opponent a win in one tennis game before the
match even starts, or you give them half a second
in the pool before they get in the pool. And
thus this could all be resolved by next Monday. But
this isn't about sports or athletes or Riley Gaines. It's
about demonizing transgender athletes and transgender people. And what Pen
(39:25):
should do is respond to this bullshit by saying Trump
obtained his degree from their Wharton School of Business by
fraud and suing Trump for it for one hundred and
seventy five million dollars. And we'll see then how fast
he falls on his bullshit. Donald, I didn't obtain my
degree from Wharton at Penn by fraud. There was nothing
(39:46):
fraudulent about that money. Trump two days worse person in
the world, to the number one story on the Countdown,
(40:12):
and things I promised not to tell, which is now
our humorous relief from the day to day series of
nightmares from which we cannot wake. I saw something I
had literally not seen in years in New York the
other day, and it brought back a flood of extraordinary
(40:32):
memories that once weren't extraordinary at all. The thing I
saw was a telephone attached to some sort of piece
of metal, itself attached to some sort of pole like
support coming out of the ground. There was a little
hole at the top of this above the what was
(40:53):
it called receiver? That's right above the thing you the handset,
the thing you you put next to your ear and
talked into and listened to. There was a thing of it,
a hole in which you were supposed to put I
don't know, taffy. Oh, no, coins, that's what it was. Okay,
(41:14):
I'll stop. The number of memories that came flooding back
to me about this payphone started with an episode this
time of year, late spring, early summer, nineteen eighty eight,
eighty nine, ninety, maybe as late as nineteen ninety one,
(41:36):
when I emerged from Grand Central Station on an late spring,
early summer day visiting from Los Angeles, on my way
to see my folks, walked out of Grand Central Station
at midday, around noon onto forty second Street, and for
only the second time in my life, I saw the
(42:00):
pedestrian traffic of forty second Street stop and stare, and
they were staring at me because something inside the bag
I was carrying had made a noise and I had
reached in and picked it out and started talking, and
(42:21):
literally everybody stopped. I think you can guess what it was.
I think you need to hear the background first to
understand why it had that impact on people. The payphone
had been part of my life for as long as
(42:41):
I could remember. I used to call home from school
on a payphone at Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York,
to see and ask my mother if the mail had
come yet and the baseball cards I had ordered the
nineteen ten baseball cards were in the mail, so I
had something to look forward to when I got home,
(43:02):
something to get me through the rest of the day.
In school, as a reporter, I was part of near fistfights,
and actually once saw a fistfight between a news reporter
from the Westinghouse All News radio station in New York
wi INS and the CBS All News Radio station in
New York WCBS. I actually saw them come to shoving
(43:24):
and throwing punches. Happily they were radio people. They missed
over a payphone at a news story that I was
also covering. They had to get live on the air,
and that's how you did it. In nineteen seventy nine,
nineteen eighty, hell, in nineteen ninety, the number of times
(43:45):
the biggest task of the day from a story I
was covering in New York, primarily in radio, but even
later in television was the sprint first off, finding where
the payphones were outside the luncheon where the thing was
being announced, or outside the breaking news or on the street,
(44:05):
where was the nearest payphone, and then where was the
nearest payphone after that, in case there were six reporters
lined up for that payphone, and the sprint to it afterwards,
And could you leave the press conference before it was
officially over so you could get to the phone first.
That's the way it was. It wasn't just a convenience
of calling in as I did on my way to
(44:27):
the radio network every Saturday, and asking my fellow employees
at the RKAO Radio network in nineteen eighty one if
they wanted something, because I was stopping at Arby's and
I would bring in no drinks, but I'd bring in
all the burgers I could carry or whatever. This time
it was McDonald's one week and Burger came the next.
And the reason I did this was because there were
no restaurants open in Times Square on the weekend, so
(44:51):
they couldn't go anywhere nearer than a twenty minute walk
to get food. No restaurants open in Times Square, we
barely had electric light. In nineteen eighty one, everything was
in black and light. They hadn't invented color yet. Okay,
it had been with me a long time, and it
emerged later on in one of the great series of
(45:13):
practical jokes, one of which I was a victim of
in nineteen eighty one, and I know nineteen eighty two,
at the football strike, I was covering it for CNN,
and I walked in once and sat down because I
wasn't going to have a camera crew for quite a while,
and found Ed Garvey, the head of the union, sitting
outside the press conference that was being conducted by Jack Donolin,
(45:36):
the Boston born guy who talked like that, the negotiator
for the National Football League, was holding a news conference,
and I sat outside with Ed because I already knew
what he was saying, and you could hear him through
the walls anyway. He had one of those voices, one
of those South station PA voices. Let's go baggin. So
(45:58):
Ed and I are talking, and out of nowhere, a
small woman with glasses appears, and so this, excuse me,
excuse me. My name is Jane Miller. I'm with CBS News.
Does either of you know where Ed Garvey, the head
of the Football Players Union is. I was told he
was going to be here. I was sitting with Ed Garvey.
We shot each other looks from behind our glasses and
(46:20):
I said, I haven't seen him, and Garvey went, I
don't know where that son of a bitch is. We
went on with Jane for quite a while and led
her quite a merry dance about how Garvey had left
for Washington. Oh, no, I just came from Washington. I'll
get fired if I don't get an interview with him.
And Garvey and I took turns calling Ed, calling Garvey
(46:40):
a liar, a manipulator, a thief, a crook, and a
drunk Ed added that part he's a drunk too, Did
you know that? Finally, something, and I don't remember what
it was, caused me to burst into laughter, and Ed said,
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. I'm Ed Garvey. How can
I help you. I'll give you an exclusive interview. So
(47:01):
it worked out well for Jane, and she forgave Ed
Garvey immediately. She did, not, however, forgive me. Several weeks later,
the talks in the Football Strike of nineteen eighty two
had moved to Hunt Valley, Maryland, Cockeysville if you wanted
to go by what it said on the map, fitting
a location for the football talks that went on and
(47:24):
on and on and on and on. Cockeysville, Maryland, the
Hunt Valley at Cockeysville. The number of potential mispronunciations and
slips on the air that I avoided using Cockeysville and
Hunt Valley, I lost count after the first two thousand.
(47:45):
I was on the phone with CNN doing an update
for the eleven o'clock News, the eleven o'clock sports cast
we used to do because I didn't have a camera crew,
a running theme of my days at CNN. Again, we
were out in the wilds of Maryland. It would be
a waste of a camera crew. To give me a
camera crew all the time. They would just stop when
they were within an hour of the place, and I
(48:07):
would do a stand up and hoped that my stand
up report would somehow hold until it appeared at eleven o'clock.
But that night something happened. We couldn't use the stand
up I had recorded eight hours previously, and so instead
I was on the phone on a payphone, and I'm
talking to Fred Hickman and Nick Charles, and I see
Jane Miller of CBS News still burning, seething with resentment
(48:31):
because of the joke I played on her. And I
was only half of that. Garvey was talking about himself
in the third person, pretending not to be him. I
was just going along with it. I may have started it.
Jane simply smiled at me realized from the monitor behind
the bar where we were all based at the Hunt
(48:54):
Valley Inn in Cockeysville, Maryland. She realized that I was
on the air live on that telephone, on that payphone,
because the monitor had a picture of me and it
said live on the phone from Cockeysville, Maryland at the
Football Talks CNN Sports Keith Olberman. So Jane very sweetly
(49:14):
smiled at me and reached over, and I didn't know
what she was going to do. She pressed the button
on top of the phone, and I was disconnected, right
in the middle of my live report on CNN. Payphones
may have been important to you at some point. If
you are old enough and understand now, you really need
(49:37):
to be at least forty five to have used a
payphone on a regular basis. Well, maybe maybe less than that,
but I think forty five is probably a good number,
and to have used it as an adult. To use
a payphone as an adult, I don't know the last
(49:59):
time I used one, maybe sometime around nineteen eighty seven
or eighty eight. There's one other professional concern though, my
point being that it's not just your use as a
person to call in an emergency or just call because
you're not home and you don't have a phone with you.
I mean, who's going to have a phone with them?
(50:19):
A hell of a long cord professionally. It also is
involved in one of the great blooper tapes of all
time when Pat summer All, the famous broadcaster, football announcer
and father of the chief of staff at the White
House that won't cost him any time in hell, Pat
(50:40):
summer All is on the phone live from Madison Square
Garden reporting on a basketball tournament in his role as
the first sports director of the Affirmation, aforementioned CBS all
news station in New York WCBS. Pat is on the
phone talking about the double header at Madison Square Garden,
which they used to have all the time, college basketball
being a big thing in those days in New York.
(51:02):
Pat Smarl is talking and suddenly you hear a hit
and a pre recorded voice of the universal operator, the
sweet voice of the woman going, pardon me for interrupting,
Please deposit ten cents for an additional two minutes, and
then the thing would go off. The recording stopped. The
anchorman burst into laughter. Pat Sumrall burst into laughter, and
(51:25):
he said, anyway, Columbia won the first game, and I'll
get back to your Harvey, and I'll say I'll get
back to you as soon as I can get the
operator off the phone. One of the great bloopers of
all time. And I did not do it justice. But
it's pretty funny if you remember what a payphone was.
So now my own experience in making the payphone a
(51:46):
thing of the past. And I don't know what my
role was in this. I did not invent cellular communications.
I did not invest in them when I had the
opportunity to do so. But there was that story about
me stopping traffic literally on forty second Street in eighty
eight or eighty nine or ninety And it started in
(52:06):
Palm Springs, California, in nineteen eighty six, my first year
covering the California Angels. Spring training. I did that for
my television station, which carried the Angels games, KTLA, but
I also did by that point the afternoon sports casts
on kN X Radio, the CBS all news radio station
in Los Angeles, and to do these reports from Palm Springs,
(52:30):
I had two choices. I would cover the Angels game
for KTLA and then go and do my three or
four afternoon sports casts at four forty five, five fifteen,
five forty five, whatever the times were, and I would
either have to stay at the ballpark for a couple
of additional hours and do the reports from an empty
Angels stadium in Palm Springs with the leaf blowers going
(52:53):
in the background as they cleaned up all the debris
from everybody going to those games, so you can imagine
how much fun that was, and then finding my way
back to the hotel at some point point as it
started to get dark in March of nineteen eighty six,
or I could try to rush back to the hotel
room and do the reports from there, and if I
(53:15):
didn't make it, there wouldn't be a sportscast at four
forty five pm on KNX. So by nineteen eighty seven,
in anticipation of going and doing this again. I said
to my friend, the assistant news director of KNX, Roger Nadell,
what about using one of these new mobile phones? And
he went, what what do you mean mobile phones? Car phones?
(53:37):
You don't drive. How are you going to use a
car phone? I said, no, I saw something about them
in the news. They'll they'll rent you a phone and
it comes in a bag and you carry it with
you and you can just use it. You just have
to keep it charged. Well. Sure enough, he looked into
it and for a nominal fee for that time, I
don't know, five hundred dollars, they loaned us a big,
(54:01):
hulking phone that looked like it looked like a bowling
ball in a bowling ball bag. And the warning that
I got from Roger was don't let it sit in
the sun or it will start to smoke. Now we're
in Palm Springs, California, in March. There's a lot of sun,
so I had to be very careful about it. But
it was a wonder for all of the overheating on
(54:21):
all the need to recharge the thing for sixteen hours
a day, it eliminated all the problems I could do
the four to forty five sports cast from the ballpark
in Palm Springs, then get in the car and go
back to the hotel, or even walk back to the
hotel and do the five to fifteen sports cast from
the hotel. It was a wonder So when I got
back to Los Angeles in March of nineteen eighty seven
(54:44):
or early April of nineteen eighty seven, I began to
consider the possibility of buying a mobile phone. Los Angeles
was filled in those days. Every day there seemed to
be a new one with carphone stores. Car phones wants
the elite rich symbol of those who drove Bentley's, but
not mere Catillac. The car phone was becoming a regular thing,
(55:09):
and store after store opened, and the key thing was
they would not only sell you the phone, they would
install it, because of course a car phone needed a car.
Who's going to have a car phone without a car.
I went in and said could they work without a car?
And after the guy, the salesman stopped laughing at me,
(55:31):
he said, well, let me get the expert out, the
guy who installs them. Let me find out. And Larry
came out and Larry said, yeah, yeah, they could. I mean,
you have to keep it charged. But all the only
thing that we really do is put a bracket in
there so you can keep the phone on the dashboard
and have it permanently plugged into the cigarette lighter in
(55:52):
your dashboard. Something else that doesn't exist anymore. You could
there's a jack that allows you to plug it into
a wall socket. But why on earth would you want
a car phone without a car? I said, to carry
it around with me on st I'm a reporter. Well
that's a very specific use. Nobody'll ever carry around one
of these. They didn't see it either. Frankly, I saw
(56:14):
it for me and other reporters. I never thought it
would be a commonplace thing. I mean, the phone without
the car cost I don't know, fifteen hundred dollars. I
thought it was a great, great investment and a tax
deduction to boot, and so I bought it, and soon
I was going everywhere with it and talking to my
friends and calling my girlfriend on it, and calling into
(56:35):
the office to say I might be late, and calling
into the office to go on the radio or sometimes
the television. To the marvel of other reporters who said,
what are you doing with a car phone if you
don't have a car you don't even drive. I said, well,
that's what made me think of getting one without a car,
because I don't drive. Needless to say, by nineteen eighty eight,
the car phone was as attached to me as it
(56:58):
was to any car. In southern California, I was the
guy with the phone. You can always reach Keith wherever
he is. He's walking outside the Arby's here in Hollywood
if you want him to stop buy and get something
for you, like this was Times Square in nineteen eighty one.
He's probably passing Arby's right now. So the first time
(57:20):
I came to New York with a car phone a
mobile phone, nobody apparently had done this in New York.
And so I got off the train in Grand Central Station,
walked through it, and as I pushed passed through the
doors into the brilliant, humid suns rise of midday New York,
(57:43):
bustling with street traffic, hawkers of every possible item like
the streets of Marrakesh, the phone rang, and I reached
into my little shoulder bag and pulled it out and
went Hello, at which point about one hundred people on
the street on forty second Street froze, where they stood
(58:05):
and their jaws simultaneously dropped. If my pants had disappeared,
not been removed, but disappeared, vanished, and I was standing
there in my underwear, suddenly, they could not have been
more astonished. What is he doing? I heard someone say,
is it a walkie talkie? My god? What is it?
(58:27):
Is it a bomb? It was, in fact a wrong number,
and I hung up and looked around and literally did
one of those what moments. It's a phone. So my
trip wherever I was going was delayed by fifteen minutes,
as I explained to a series of passers by, and
New Yorkers are never as friendly as when they want
(58:48):
something from you. I say this as a New Yorker
who's done it himself. I had to explain to them
what it was. Why did you buy a car phone
without a car? That question dogged me until we began
to see the widespread use of cell phones in the
early nineties. I was the first, apparently, I was the
(59:13):
first person in the history of New York to publicly
answer a cell phone call. I should have written the
date down. I don't have that record anywhere. It's too bad.
It was as historic an event as the invention of
the telephone or the installation of electric light in New
York City. And it was my phone. And I'm sure
(59:39):
within minutes I passed a payphone on forty second Street
and I did not hear that as I passed it
with my cell phone in my hand. I did not
hear the payphone that knew what it portended, the payphone
(01:00:03):
that was silently weeping. I've done all the damage I
(01:00:23):
can do here, including making up that last part. But
it's a wow finish, wasn't it. Thank you for listening.
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical directors have Countdown, arranged,
produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled
orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums,
and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our pithy and
satirical musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
(01:00:47):
Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olberman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
The whole thing with the cell phone was so long
ago that it was contemporaneous with ESPN making its second
job offer to me, I only accepted the third one anyway.
(01:01:11):
Other music arranged and performed by the group No horns allowed,
and my announcer today was my friend John Dean. Everything
else was as ever my fault phone for you. That's
countdown for today, Day one hundred and two of America
held hostage, just one three hundred and sixty one days
until the scheduled end of his lane duck and lame
brained term, unless Musk removes him sooner or the actuarial
(01:01:33):
tables do. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. As always,
bulletins as the news warrants, remember impeach Trump. It won't
work now, it will win the Democrats the midterms, and
the polling suggests they could win the all the midterms. Also,
I want polling on a presidential recall vote. Let's put
pressure on these guys until next time. I'm Keith Olberman.
(01:01:55):
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
(01:02:17):
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. Donald
Trump is the greatest president of all time at losing
(00:29):
support in the polls as fast as humanly possible. He
has hemorrhaged approval. He has turned his honeymoon into a divorce,
and he is setting up a Democratic landslide next year
if only the Democrats would try. And the evidence went
by so fast, the real report card on the first
(00:50):
one hundred days, well one hundred and two days, It
went by so fast almost nobody noticed. Elliot Morris, the
last king of five thirty eight dot com, now in
charge of Strength in Numbers, calculated the chase in Trump's approval,
the depth of his sinking underwater since day one to
(01:11):
day one hundred, and it is the worst in American
polling history dating back to nineteen fifty three, worse even
than Trump's own first term. He was a net plus
nine at the time of his inauguration, and he is
at minus ten now plus nine to minus ten in
(01:32):
one hundred days. And the minus ten is itself a
presidential record. The move from positive territory to gurgle, gurgle,
You're drowning is a record. The dispelling of the notion
that he might be okay. This fast is a record.
He is the most worst president of all time. As
(01:54):
Morris notes, only Gerald Ford is even in Trump's league,
and even after Ford pardon Nixon and shed half his support,
Ford was still a net plus and a net plus
twenty four at one hundred days. Carter was a net
plus fifty five. George W. Bush was a net plus
twenty seven. Trump is a net minus ten. He is drowning.
(02:19):
He is losing an average of one approval point every
five days. At this rate, by early August, he would
be at net minus thirty. I mean, this is worse
than the economy. That's how bad these numbers are. Trump
only wasted seven percent of the value of the stock
market in the first hundred days, and gross domestic product
(02:40):
only shrank three tenths of a point when it was
supposed to continue the huge growth that had under Biden.
Trump went from net plus ten to net minus ten
in one hundred days. And that's just the start. The
Republican internal polling may be even worse than that, if
that is mathematically possible. This is from punch Bowl News.
(03:03):
Trump's approval rating is underwater, and our CC chair Richard
Hudson told House Republicans during a private meeting on Capitol Hill,
this is the Republican Congressional Committee to elect Republicans to Congress.
Their poll, conducted April to thirteenth to eighteenth in competitive
House seats, has forty six percent of respondents approving of
(03:26):
Trump's performance fifty three percent disapproving. This is roughly in
line with public polling data. Trump is seven points underwater
in vulnerable House seats, many of them now held by
Republican congress people. Aggressive democratic campaigning focused on freedom, democracy,
Trump's psychosis, Trump causing prices to rise, Trump threatening SS
(03:51):
and medicare, Trump trying to kill small businesses in favor
of monopolies and cartels. Trump abducting Americans, Trump running a
child trafficking gang, Trump threatening the constitution, Trump constantly denying reality,
Trump threatening judges, Trump threatening you, Trump causing your costs
to go through the roof. That could lead to a
(04:13):
democratic landslide next year. And you can run on every
kitchen table issue you want and against Trump and for
democracy in the same sentence. Happily, the Democrats are poised
to take advantage of this polling opportunity to who the
(04:33):
hell am I kidding? This is a simple fix. You
just have to not be Chuck Schumer anymore. Chuck Schumer,
who is somehow in charge, did say something yesterday at
a Senate hearing about how Trump quote doesn't deserve to
be president. Schumer says he is planning to maintain his
(04:56):
current strategy in the Senate, which is do nothing but
try to negotiate more bipartisan appropriations bills with Republicans when
Republican voters are headed for the lifeboats about Trump in
winnable congressional districts and winnable Senate seats, Schumer says he
(05:21):
thinks he can chip away at Trump's popularity. Trump's popularity
the one thing they can let Trump take care of himself.
But back to the good news, boy, is all of
these poll and stuffs pissing Trump off? The poles from
(05:42):
the fake news are like the news itself fake. We're
doing great, better than ever before. As they noted the
other day, Trump's rage is fueled in part because those
around him have learned to lie to him to keep
him controllable. They are telling him the polls are fake.
Did you see the televised Cabinet meeting yesterday, a series
(06:06):
of ever increasing lies about how wonderful and gorgeous he is.
And they told him this, and he raged before the
Fox News poll, which not only showed how far he
was underwater personally, but pointed out and measured how close
the individual sharks are to him. Border security, there he
(06:31):
is ahead. He's above water fifteen percent. Everything else not
so much. Underwater on immigration by a point, underwater, on
deportations by four points, underwater, on guns by three, underwater,
on foreign policy by fourteen, underwater on taxes by fifteen,
(06:52):
on the economy by sixteen, on tariffs by twenty. On
inflation thirty three percent approved, fifty nine percent disapprove one
hundred days in and Trump, who guaranteed to lower prices,
is twenty six points underwater on inflation. The White House
(07:13):
responds to this a disaster at every turn except border
security from the Ministry of Truth. Steven Miller says to
John Roberts on Fox News. There is our opinion that
Fox News needs to fire its polster.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
War.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Miller on Fox News is also our opinion that I
have long flowing luxurious bond hair, and Fox News needs
to fire it's cameras. On the other hand, Trump did
(08:10):
have success in one poll, the Canadian election on inauguration Day,
Trump's inauguration Day, the Conservatives of Canada led the Liberals
in polling forty five to twenty two Monday, the Liberals won.
Conservative leader Pierre paulev first lost his ass then he
(08:34):
lost his seat. He's out of parliament, although he can
try to coerce some sap who got elected to resign
and hand him his seat or hand him his ass
The American right wing response to this, it would be
easier to invade Canada with the Liberals there in charge.
Or you can look at it this way, it would
(08:55):
be easier for Canada to invade the US with a
guy who hates Trump in charge. And remember, Canadians, you
could to borrow a phrase of somewhat recent vintage. You
could be greeted as liberators, and you might get help
from Americans, a few of us, like three hundred million
(09:20):
or more. The latest on the abduction and human trafficking scam.
Judge Zennis yesterday denied the ICE and Department of Justice
GESTAPO a long term delay in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case,
but gave them de facto small delays by seeing a
series of deadlines in the next three weeks for sworn
statements and testimony. This might have had something to do
(09:43):
with Trump making the faithful and possibly fate ole mistake
of confessing that, yes, he could get mister Abrago Garcia
back from l Salvador with one lousy phone call. He
did this by saying one of the few non ambiguous
things of his presidency in that sit down interview with
Terry Moran of ABC quote, I could, I could unquote.
(10:08):
Marian asked him if he could use that phone on
the resolute desk and get Abrego Garcia back. I could,
I could, was the response. And I know this will
be a controversial interpretation of what Trump said there, but
I believe that when he said I could, I could,
that could be read as meaning he could he could.
(10:29):
Trump then added, and if he were the gentleman that
you say he is, I would do that. Trump then
lost even more people who still think he is saying
by insisting that the tattoos on Abrego Garcia's knuckles wrongly
identified as representing the gang MS thirteen actually read MS
one three like m is on the pinky and then
(10:51):
s and then there's a dash, then one on the forefinger,
and then three on the thumb. He really thinks that's
what it says. He really thinks that's on the man's fingers.
Inadvertently confessed because the ABC interview was not with George
Stephanoppolis or David Muhre, he was expecting more TV fillatio
(11:13):
from Terry Moran, apparently unaware that Terry Moran has been
savaging him online and on the air for a decade.
Trump he had MSN fifteen known his knuckles tattooed Moran.
That was photoshopped. Trump, Terry, they're giving you the big
break of a lifetime. I picked you, but you're not
being very nice. In other words, Trump just assumed the
(11:37):
ABC interviewer would join him in Lyne to the world
about the man he had abducted and renditioned to an
authoritarian country. Also the big break of a lifetime. Terry
Moran is sixty four years old. I know he looks youthful,
but he's sixty four. If he hadn't gotten his big
(11:59):
break long before, now, Trump, you did not give it
to him on Tuesday Night. Meanwhile, well, Trump's employee who
runs Al Salvador for him, completely blew the whole thing.
As Trump was finally admitting yes, he can get Abrego
Garcia home, in an instant, President Bucell said no, no, no,
you can't. As The New York Times put it quote yesterday,
(12:20):
the Trump administration recently sent a diplomatic note to officials
in L Salvador to inquire about releasing a Salvadoran immigrant
whom government officials have been ordered by the Supreme Court
to help free, according to three people with knowledge of
the matter, but the authoritarian government of Naid Bukela, the
leader of L Salvador, said no. Two of the people
(12:41):
said the Bukela administration claimed the man should stay in L.
Salvador because he was a Salvadoran citizen. According to one
of those people, that would have been exactly the statement
Trump needed to bolster his phony Bolgoni case here if
he hadn't pre contradicted it in the ABC interview by
(13:02):
saying yes, I can get him back right now here
for dinner. No, Moran wasn't very nice, and as usual,
Trump wasn't very sane on the others, As you know,
the leader of the Columbia protests. The student Mosenne Madawi,
was ordered released by a court yesterday after he had
(13:22):
been kidnapped and detained. Madawi is wrong. He's hurting the
Palestinian cause more than Netanyahu is. I think he's an idiot.
But if you want to prosecute him for something, we
have laws and you follow them and you go to
a judge. That's why we have laws and judges. Assuming
we still do. I have nothing new on the Honduras girls,
(13:46):
including the four year old with cancer. The hearing on
the girl, the two year old identified as VML and
the others is two weeks from tomorrow. You will recall,
though Tom Holman's defense was if they didn't sell Miss
VML with her mother when they renditioned her mother, we
would be complaining about his Gestapo separating families. Well, it
(14:08):
turns out they're doing that as well. ICE sent a
woman named Heidi Sanchez from a routine immigration check in
in Tampa back to Cuba without her daughter, her one
year old daughter, her one year old daughter who was
still breastfeeding. We really need to make sure Homan and
(14:28):
NOME and ICE agents and Pam Bondi are tried at
the International Court of Justice at the Hague. They are
the peacetime equivalent of war criminals. Then there are the
new victims. Xavier Salazar of Texas, aged nineteen, was picked
up shackled on a bus heading towards rendition, probably to
(14:51):
El Salvador. When the Supreme Court ordered no further abductions
to other countries, he too was declared MS thirteen by
the Trump fascists because there was a photo of him
in his social media standing next to another kid, and
the other kid had a water pistol a squirt gun.
(15:13):
The squirt gun in the other kid's hand was enough
for ICE to mark Salazar down as a member of
MS thirteen. There is not just the immorality of the
entire process here, there is also the amazing stupidity and
the slovenliness and the shoot first, asked questions later with
(15:35):
a squirt gun quality of each individual case. They are
trying to kill kids by proxy, using as evidence photos
of a different kid holding what is not a gun.
Turns out ICE is also lying about it. Its arrests totals.
This is from Aaron Reichlan Melnick of the American Immigration Council.
(15:57):
He writes, Ice clarifies that the one hundred and fifty
one thousand arrest figure put out by the White House
is not internal arrests, as Caroline Levitt and DHS have implied.
The figure likely includes all CBP encounters, including people with
visa issues at airports. The actual ICE arrest number is
(16:19):
sixty six thousand, five hundred high, but not historic. On
March thirteenth, he writes, Ice said the agency had conducted
thirty two, eight hundred and nine arrests in its first
fifty days. That would be an average of six hundred
and fifty six arrests per day. So now they're averaging
six hundred and sixty five arrests per day. If ICE
manages to keep up this level of arrests, it would
(16:42):
reach a level last scene in the first Obama term.
Six hundred and sixty five arrests a day, on average
would be two hundred and forty three thousand arrests for
the year. ICE reported three hundred and twenty two thousand
arrests in fiscal year twenty eleven, which is still the record.
In other words, all of this, all of this nightmare,
all of this destroying of the fabric of the American
(17:04):
consciousness and the American conscience, and they have to lie
to make the arrest totals look big. They're not even
doing their evil well up the road in the administration
checking in on the administration's alcoholism problem, the Secretary of
(17:24):
Whiskey has killed a Defense Department program that fostered and
promoted the contributions of women in the national security area.
The Women Peace and Security Act WPS basically a backslapping
thank you card kind of operation. Hegseeth's announcement quote, WPS
has yet another woke, divisive social justice Biden initiative that
(17:47):
overburdens our commanders and troops, distracting from our core task.
Excuse me, war fighting. Department of Defense will hereby executive
the minimum of WPS required by statute and fight to
end the program for our next budget. Good riddence. WPS
(18:08):
Secretary Pete drunk Breath has one small problem here. WPS
was signed into law by President President Trump. This is
a Trump program WPS. Trump in twenty seventeen, hag Seth
just killed a Trump program that was too woke. Why
(18:29):
did Trump's numbers tank because he became too woke? Back
then in twenty seventeen, it was championed by people who
are in the new Trump administration, or, as we all
are beginning to call it now, Titanic. More bad news
for mister. The next round is on me an amendment
to a House bill from Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs of California
(18:53):
limitation on use of funds for a makeup studio for
the Secretary of Defense. None of the funds made available
by this title may be used to construct sustained outfit
or may a dedicated makeup studio for the Secretary of
Defense within the Pentagon or any other building under the
jurisdiction of the Department of Defense. No response to Sarah
(19:17):
Jacob's amendment from the Secretary of Mabelene the Secretary of Defense,
Secretary of Defense of Mabelene. Meanwhile, back in the private sector,
(19:40):
Jeff Bezos is Trump's bitch. What does capitulating to blackmail
get you, Jeff? What it always gets you more blackmail?
Timeline one punch Bowl News reported Amazon would start noting
how much more products on its site cost you because
of the tariffs. Sixty percent of Amazon sales are from
(20:04):
the smaller businesses Trump is out to kill with the tariffs. Two.
Within hours, Amazon publicly denied this. Three after that, lying
Caroline lying Levitt attacked Amazon. I just got off the
found with the President at death about Amazon, the announcement
that the host dial and political act by Amathon four.
(20:27):
An Amazon spokesman, then denied it was ever even possibly
remotely chance worthy going to be true. Tim Doyle, the
team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Hall store,
considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products.
This was never approved and is not going to happen.
(20:48):
I swear, I swear to Jesus, I swear. Turns out
there was one step on that timeline we didn't know
about initially. It was step one A of all people.
Fox News reported at first Jackie Heinrich, how she keeps
her job there? I don't know, but may the Good
Lord bless her and keeper Confirming reports, sources familiar tell
(21:10):
Fox that President Trump called Jeff Bezos this morning to
complain about plans to display tariff impact on Amazon product prices.
Every network in the world except the Game Show Channel
then confirmed the report. Then Trump confirmed he called Bezos,
and Bezos fielded the problem for Trump, or ren fielded
(21:33):
the problem for Trump. Quote he was terrific. He solved
the problem very quickly. It's a good thing Jeff Bezos
destroyed the Washington Post curry favor with Trump. Trump now
owns him, and of course this will not stop as
life worsens for Trump, as the net minus continues to grow,
(21:55):
he will demand more and more from Bezos, because that's
what blackmailers do, especially to those victims who have lost
the will to metaphorically live, like Jeff Bezos obviously has.
It is sad but true. If you do not already
doubt every word printed in the Washington Post, and if
(22:15):
you don't already at least look for other buying options
before going to Amazon start and this could boomerang badly
for Trump. He has ordered that truck drivers now that
(22:36):
they well, basically what President Ted Bundy told the truck
drivers is speak English here and fascist America. Now. Another
royal decree from the man who thinks he's king and
believes it because Pam Bondi keeps telling him it's true.
Truckers quote should be able to read and understand traffic signs,
(22:58):
communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo
weight limit Station office drivers need to provide feedback to
their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.
Have we noticed this as some sort of huge problem.
Have they been driving past the wait limit station officers?
(23:21):
Have they been parking there and just staying there for
days at a time because they don't speak English or
won't speak English? No, sir, this is not just some
sort of official language proclamation, which was bad enough as
it was, if you don't recognize the Trump scam and
the methodology therein by now this is a precursor to
imposing English only restrictions in countless other aspects of American life.
(23:46):
One can imagine that it will extend into government and
into politics, and especially into elections, because what could disenfranchise
minority voters faster than English only election data and advertisements
and campaigns and English only polling places. Of course, here
(24:12):
is where it rebounds against Trump. If English does become
mandatory in government or in politics, what are these fots
friends of Trump going to do for a living. Elon
Musk unintelligible in any language, but especially in English, especially
when he's wearing two Maga caps at the same time,
(24:35):
like he was at the Cabinet meeting. Yesterday, the squeezing
tightly what's left of his calcified brain. On the other hand,
two caps is not enough. He really needs seventeen. Musk
needs at least seventeen to cover each of his personalities.
What about Senator Roger Marshall. What will he do if
English becomes mandatory? He still thinks the worst terrorist act
(24:58):
in our history is pronounced nine to one to one.
What about the Secretary of Insufficient Education Jaian McMahon, who
believes the chatbot she has is using a one? What
about herschel Walker? What about Marjorie's stupid green she doesn't
speak English? And of course what about Press Secretary Lying
(25:22):
Caroline Lying Levitt, who thinks the Nazi guy was named
Adolph Hilter, Ladolf Hilter. And of course you have to
speak English to serve in government. Well, if that goes
into effect, what the hell does Trump do? Then? No,
(25:49):
I'm sorry, sir. You can't come into the Oval office.
You can't say your name without getting something wrong. Also
of interest here, yes, there are new developments in Bill
Maher's self immolation. Thank you for asking he did something
else seven years ago that he just attacked Larry David
for doing earlier this month. That's next. This is countdown.
(26:14):
This is countdown with Keith Oberman still had on this
(26:39):
initiative countdown. I saw a payphone in New York the
other day, a working payphone, and memories came flooding back,
including the time I literally stopped pedestrian traffic in New
York on what must have been the first time anybody
(27:00):
in the city ever saw the thing that killed off
the payphone. Something lighter as comic relief. Next in things
I promised not to tell first, Believe it or not,
there's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup
of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens
who constitute the latest other worse persons in the world.
(27:24):
Don't call collect. Let me dedicate this addition to Bill
Maher and advise him he did not make the cut
this time. This is principally in order to give him
a few days to get his wounds attended to, mostly
the ones Larry David inflicted on him, but helped. Larry
called my attention to and it was my old friend
(27:46):
Sam Seedter of the Majority Report who found and clipped it.
This additional Bill maher bit of hypocrisy. You will recall
that Larry had turned Bill into confetti over going to
the White House for dinner with Trump and falling for
the Ted Bundy stuff all over again. His op ed
in The Times was called My Dinner with Adolf. Bill
(28:08):
immediately insisted that by comparing Trump to Hitler, Larry was
insulting six million dead Jews. I found clips from twenty
fifteen in which Bill compared Trump to Hitler twice on
his show in a span of just four shows. I also,
as I told you, remembered being on with Bill as
he repudiated his previous statements that Trump was a great guy.
(28:33):
He said Trump had fooled him. Now Trump's fooled him
again because he doesn't remember anything. But it was Sam
Cedar who found Bill also frying Geraldo Rivera for doing
the other thing that Bill Maher has done here doubling
down defending himself by trying to separate Trump, the power
(28:54):
crazed demon from Hell, from Trump, the glib dinner host
who only orders the best burgers from McDonald's. This is
Bill Maher with Heraldo Rivera excoriating Heraldo Rivera over Trump
from twenty eighteen, and I have stolen this clip from
(29:15):
the Majority Report. You know, Trump is my friend. I've
known Trump for forty years. I don't have any I
don't have He didn't Trump, he didn't go to Trump.
He tru remain my friend when I felt he had
a certain moral lack.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Well in my in my family, my wife agrees with you.
She doesn't like his policies on so many things that
I already listed. So she just can't stand the guy.
I'm different. I can separate the man who has always
been gracious to me, always been.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Nice to my family.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
You know, you were on Celebrity Printice together together every
day for six weeks. I've done him really through every
shit he's running the world.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
But now what does that matter that he was nice
to you with Thanksgiving? Hold, I'm not trying to be
as not trying to be an asshole to you. You're
a smart guy. This befuddles me, but it looked up
to you. Bill. I have a suggestion for you after that.
It's a one word suggestion for you. Are you ready
for it? My suggestion is hiatus Hello Anyway. The winner
(30:16):
is in the Worst Persons in the World segment. The
bronze worse Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer, who in the House
represents Trump and does not represent anybody from Minnesota, even
though he was elected by Minnesota's sixth district. He is
the majority whip, meaning he doesn't mind when Trump whips him,
which he does if Mike Johnson is unavailable. Emmer is
(30:40):
a fully compromised Trump whore, and the degree to which
that is true has been underscored again as Emmer files
an ethics complaint in the House against another member of
the Minnesota delegation, the Democrat Angie Craig of the Minnesota
second District. Her crime, according to Emmer, quote misuse of
(31:00):
public resources that erodes the trust Americans place in their
elected officials and undermines the integrity of our institutions. So
resources taxpayer money? What did she do? Did she imbezzle it? Oh? Nos?
What did Angie Craig do? Did she spend taxpayer money
(31:21):
on a makeup studio? Did she dig up the Capitol
Hill lawn to put down cement and to install one
hundred foot flagpoles? Did she buy Ben Carson's old thirty
one thousand dollars office desk for her own office? No, sir,
since Tom Emmer wouldn't she held a town hall in
(31:45):
Minnesota in Tom Ehmer's district. Tom Emmer had had a
virtual town hall in March, during which he insisted that
when prices skyrocketed because of Trump's tariffs, that would make
Trump more popular, and everything was great out there in Minnesota,
even though he wasn't there and wouldn't go there, and
wouldn't dare go there, and wouldn't talk to anybody in
(32:07):
public in Minnesota, and if it's possible to get booed
off the internet, he got booed off the internet during
this zoom call. He has not set foot in public
in the Minnesota sixth since. So Angie Craig, being a
servant of all the people of Minnesota, held a town
hall in the Minnesota sixth for which Emmer wants her
(32:28):
reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee. How dare you talk
to the citizens? One might think Tom Emmer would be
momentarily smart about this and not call further attention to
the fact that he's too much of a coward to
hold a town hall anywhere in Minnesota, or calling more
(32:48):
attention to the other inconvenient truth here, which is that
Angie Craig's second district adjoins Tom Emmer's sixth district. There's
a street somewhere that starts out in the second and
ends in the sixth. If Emmer isn't going to listen
to vote, is there Angie Craig? Damn well? Should she
(33:09):
should get a menu, a medal or a menu. She
should get a menu full of medals for doing Tom
Emmer's job for him.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Man Man ethics complaint for her because she was she
was talking to constituents when I I'm too much of
a we need to do it myself.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Hit me again, mister Trump. The runner up worser Ed
Martin also whipped by Trump. Ed Martin lyar, he is
the whack job Trump nominee for US to attorney for
DC and he just got nailed. As Ed Martin await
Senate confirmation. Somebody pointed out he had praised the Holocaust
denier and Hitler dresser upper, Timothy Hale q Sinelli. Martin immediately,
(33:56):
now I think this is called lied. He said he
knew nothing about Hale q Sinelli's psycho views. Quote. I
denounce everything about what that guy said, everything about the
way he talked and all as I've now seen it,
at the time I didn't know it. Uh oh, here
come the podcasts. Ed Martin not only hosted Timothy hale
(34:19):
Qsinelli on his podcast on Ed Martin's podcast five times
last year, just last year, but CNN also found that
Martin defended the photos hale Qsinelli took of himself pretending
to be Hitler. He branded criticism of hale Qsinelli as
(34:39):
character assassination, called him a great guy, and when that
wasn't enough, he called hale Qsinelli an amazing guy. Well,
the last part about an amazing guy, that's that's true.
He's he's pretty amazing. Clearly, Ed Martin has to be
withdrawn as DCUs attorney nominee and instead nominated to be
(35:04):
Press secretary. But the winner worst el Trumpo himself President
Scrooge McDuck Ted Bundy himself. This time. The demand from
Trump's education Gestapo is for the University of Pennsylvania to
lose one hundred and seventy five million dollars in federal
(35:27):
funding unless it restores quote to all female athletes, all
individual athletic records, titles, honors, awards, or similar recognition for
Division I swimming competitions misappropriated by male athletes unquote, and
Penn must write a letter of apology to every female
(35:47):
athlete involved within ten days or quote risk a referral
to the US Department of Justice for enforcement proceedings. We
need the ten days so we could explain it to
Pam Bondy, who's what we used to call slow. No,
I'm not kidding about any of this except the Pam
Bondi part. I mean explaining it to her. I don't
(36:07):
know if she's slow or not. This is about Leah Thomas,
the Penn swimmer whose success destroyed America's favorite failure, Riley Gains,
and caused her to finish tied for fifth rather than
just fifth or maybe tied for fourth, tied for fifth
(36:29):
in the only race she competed against that Thomas was in.
Of course, Thomas also caused poor Riley Gains to finish
eighty fifth in the Olympic qualifying events. Because, once again,
as I've mentioned before, any female athlete who failed, it's
because of transgender surgery from some x guy. It's not
(36:51):
because the female athlete wasn't any damn good at her sport.
It couldn't possibly be because they like you and I
and every American from you and I to Babe Ruth
had to face the day when we realized we weren't
good enough or good enough anymore at sports. The day
we realized, if you are a first baseman who hits
(37:13):
one thirty eight for NIMA New York Military Academy, like
Trump did, you're gonna have to try something else. And
I wish to god he hit seven thirty eight and
had been signed by the San Francisco Giants and was
still playing Major League Baseball today at age two hundred
and six or whatever he is. I wish I'd done
(37:33):
his highlights every day on Sports Center, anything other than this. No,
it's not that moment when you realize I can't swim.
It's not that, it's not that, for all intents and purposes,
Riley Gains can't swim. It's transgender surgery. It's their fault.
(37:54):
It can't be my fault. I'm Riley Gaines. I'm the
eighty fifth best swimmer. Because we all remember what happened
when my friend Renee Richards played in the US Tennis Open.
Starting in nineteen seventy seven, after being born Richard Raskin
you will remember that Renee won thirty consecutive US Open
(38:15):
titles and thirty consecutive Wimbledon's and twenty nine out of
thirty French Opens. The only time she didn't win was
once she had to do eye surgery on that guy
and she had to drop out. It was an emergency.
And you remember how Renee destroyed women's tennis, and you
never heard of Martine and Nevertelova or Chris Evert or
Tracy Austin or right, that didn't happen. None of that happened,
(38:38):
because the best Renee Richards ever did at the US
Open was losing the doubles final in nineteen seventy seven.
Because yes, transgender athletes might have some slight biological advantages, like,
as Renee points out, longer bones. And guess what you
could simply allow for that by giving the transgender athlete
a slight disadvantage what they call in horse racing a handicap.
(39:01):
When it's match play against CIS females, I could give
the opponent a win in one tennis game before the
match even starts, or you give them half a second
in the pool before they get in the pool. And
thus this could all be resolved by next Monday. But
this isn't about sports or athletes or Riley Gaines. It's
about demonizing transgender athletes and transgender people. And what Pen
(39:25):
should do is respond to this bullshit by saying Trump
obtained his degree from their Wharton School of Business by
fraud and suing Trump for it for one hundred and
seventy five million dollars. And we'll see then how fast
he falls on his bullshit. Donald, I didn't obtain my
degree from Wharton at Penn by fraud. There was nothing
(39:46):
fraudulent about that money. Trump two days worse person in
the world, to the number one story on the Countdown,
(40:12):
and things I promised not to tell, which is now
our humorous relief from the day to day series of
nightmares from which we cannot wake. I saw something I
had literally not seen in years in New York the
other day, and it brought back a flood of extraordinary
(40:32):
memories that once weren't extraordinary at all. The thing I
saw was a telephone attached to some sort of piece
of metal, itself attached to some sort of pole like
support coming out of the ground. There was a little
hole at the top of this above the what was
(40:53):
it called receiver? That's right above the thing you the handset,
the thing you you put next to your ear and
talked into and listened to. There was a thing of it,
a hole in which you were supposed to put I
don't know, taffy. Oh, no, coins, that's what it was. Okay,
(41:14):
I'll stop. The number of memories that came flooding back
to me about this payphone started with an episode this
time of year, late spring, early summer, nineteen eighty eight,
eighty nine, ninety, maybe as late as nineteen ninety one,
(41:36):
when I emerged from Grand Central Station on an late spring,
early summer day visiting from Los Angeles, on my way
to see my folks, walked out of Grand Central Station
at midday, around noon onto forty second Street, and for
only the second time in my life, I saw the
(42:00):
pedestrian traffic of forty second Street stop and stare, and
they were staring at me because something inside the bag
I was carrying had made a noise and I had
reached in and picked it out and started talking, and
(42:21):
literally everybody stopped. I think you can guess what it was.
I think you need to hear the background first to
understand why it had that impact on people. The payphone
had been part of my life for as long as
(42:41):
I could remember. I used to call home from school
on a payphone at Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York,
to see and ask my mother if the mail had
come yet and the baseball cards I had ordered the
nineteen ten baseball cards were in the mail, so I
had something to look forward to when I got home,
(43:02):
something to get me through the rest of the day.
In school, as a reporter, I was part of near fistfights,
and actually once saw a fistfight between a news reporter
from the Westinghouse All News radio station in New York
wi INS and the CBS All News Radio station in
New York WCBS. I actually saw them come to shoving
(43:24):
and throwing punches. Happily they were radio people. They missed
over a payphone at a news story that I was
also covering. They had to get live on the air,
and that's how you did it. In nineteen seventy nine,
nineteen eighty, hell, in nineteen ninety, the number of times
(43:45):
the biggest task of the day from a story I
was covering in New York, primarily in radio, but even
later in television was the sprint first off, finding where
the payphones were outside the luncheon where the thing was
being announced, or outside the breaking news or on the street,
(44:05):
where was the nearest payphone, and then where was the
nearest payphone after that, in case there were six reporters
lined up for that payphone, and the sprint to it afterwards,
And could you leave the press conference before it was
officially over so you could get to the phone first.
That's the way it was. It wasn't just a convenience
of calling in as I did on my way to
(44:27):
the radio network every Saturday, and asking my fellow employees
at the RKAO Radio network in nineteen eighty one if
they wanted something, because I was stopping at Arby's and
I would bring in no drinks, but I'd bring in
all the burgers I could carry or whatever. This time
it was McDonald's one week and Burger came the next.
And the reason I did this was because there were
no restaurants open in Times Square on the weekend, so
(44:51):
they couldn't go anywhere nearer than a twenty minute walk
to get food. No restaurants open in Times Square, we
barely had electric light. In nineteen eighty one, everything was
in black and light. They hadn't invented color yet. Okay,
it had been with me a long time, and it
emerged later on in one of the great series of
(45:13):
practical jokes, one of which I was a victim of
in nineteen eighty one, and I know nineteen eighty two,
at the football strike, I was covering it for CNN,
and I walked in once and sat down because I
wasn't going to have a camera crew for quite a while,
and found Ed Garvey, the head of the union, sitting
outside the press conference that was being conducted by Jack Donolin,
(45:36):
the Boston born guy who talked like that, the negotiator
for the National Football League, was holding a news conference,
and I sat outside with Ed because I already knew
what he was saying, and you could hear him through
the walls anyway. He had one of those voices, one
of those South station PA voices. Let's go baggin. So
(45:58):
Ed and I are talking, and out of nowhere, a
small woman with glasses appears, and so this, excuse me,
excuse me. My name is Jane Miller. I'm with CBS News.
Does either of you know where Ed Garvey, the head
of the Football Players Union is. I was told he
was going to be here. I was sitting with Ed Garvey.
We shot each other looks from behind our glasses and
(46:20):
I said, I haven't seen him, and Garvey went, I
don't know where that son of a bitch is. We
went on with Jane for quite a while and led
her quite a merry dance about how Garvey had left
for Washington. Oh, no, I just came from Washington. I'll
get fired if I don't get an interview with him.
And Garvey and I took turns calling Ed, calling Garvey
(46:40):
a liar, a manipulator, a thief, a crook, and a
drunk Ed added that part he's a drunk too, Did
you know that? Finally, something, and I don't remember what
it was, caused me to burst into laughter, and Ed said,
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. I'm Ed Garvey. How can
I help you. I'll give you an exclusive interview. So
(47:01):
it worked out well for Jane, and she forgave Ed
Garvey immediately. She did, not, however, forgive me. Several weeks later,
the talks in the Football Strike of nineteen eighty two
had moved to Hunt Valley, Maryland, Cockeysville if you wanted
to go by what it said on the map, fitting
a location for the football talks that went on and
(47:24):
on and on and on and on. Cockeysville, Maryland, the
Hunt Valley at Cockeysville. The number of potential mispronunciations and
slips on the air that I avoided using Cockeysville and
Hunt Valley, I lost count after the first two thousand.
(47:45):
I was on the phone with CNN doing an update
for the eleven o'clock News, the eleven o'clock sports cast
we used to do because I didn't have a camera crew,
a running theme of my days at CNN. Again, we
were out in the wilds of Maryland. It would be
a waste of a camera crew. To give me a
camera crew all the time. They would just stop when
they were within an hour of the place, and I
(48:07):
would do a stand up and hoped that my stand
up report would somehow hold until it appeared at eleven o'clock.
But that night something happened. We couldn't use the stand
up I had recorded eight hours previously, and so instead
I was on the phone on a payphone, and I'm
talking to Fred Hickman and Nick Charles, and I see
Jane Miller of CBS News still burning, seething with resentment
(48:31):
because of the joke I played on her. And I
was only half of that. Garvey was talking about himself
in the third person, pretending not to be him. I
was just going along with it. I may have started it.
Jane simply smiled at me realized from the monitor behind
the bar where we were all based at the Hunt
(48:54):
Valley Inn in Cockeysville, Maryland. She realized that I was
on the air live on that telephone, on that payphone,
because the monitor had a picture of me and it
said live on the phone from Cockeysville, Maryland at the
Football Talks CNN Sports Keith Olberman. So Jane very sweetly
(49:14):
smiled at me and reached over, and I didn't know
what she was going to do. She pressed the button
on top of the phone, and I was disconnected, right
in the middle of my live report on CNN. Payphones
may have been important to you at some point. If
you are old enough and understand now, you really need
(49:37):
to be at least forty five to have used a
payphone on a regular basis. Well, maybe maybe less than that,
but I think forty five is probably a good number,
and to have used it as an adult. To use
a payphone as an adult, I don't know the last
(49:59):
time I used one, maybe sometime around nineteen eighty seven
or eighty eight. There's one other professional concern though, my
point being that it's not just your use as a
person to call in an emergency or just call because
you're not home and you don't have a phone with you.
I mean, who's going to have a phone with them?
(50:19):
A hell of a long cord professionally. It also is
involved in one of the great blooper tapes of all
time when Pat summer All, the famous broadcaster, football announcer
and father of the chief of staff at the White
House that won't cost him any time in hell, Pat
(50:40):
summer All is on the phone live from Madison Square
Garden reporting on a basketball tournament in his role as
the first sports director of the Affirmation, aforementioned CBS all
news station in New York WCBS. Pat is on the
phone talking about the double header at Madison Square Garden,
which they used to have all the time, college basketball
being a big thing in those days in New York.
(51:02):
Pat Smarl is talking and suddenly you hear a hit
and a pre recorded voice of the universal operator, the
sweet voice of the woman going, pardon me for interrupting,
Please deposit ten cents for an additional two minutes, and
then the thing would go off. The recording stopped. The
anchorman burst into laughter. Pat Sumrall burst into laughter, and
(51:25):
he said, anyway, Columbia won the first game, and I'll
get back to your Harvey, and I'll say I'll get
back to you as soon as I can get the
operator off the phone. One of the great bloopers of
all time. And I did not do it justice. But
it's pretty funny if you remember what a payphone was.
So now my own experience in making the payphone a
(51:46):
thing of the past. And I don't know what my
role was in this. I did not invent cellular communications.
I did not invest in them when I had the
opportunity to do so. But there was that story about
me stopping traffic literally on forty second Street in eighty
eight or eighty nine or ninety And it started in
(52:06):
Palm Springs, California, in nineteen eighty six, my first year
covering the California Angels. Spring training. I did that for
my television station, which carried the Angels games, KTLA, but
I also did by that point the afternoon sports casts
on kN X Radio, the CBS all news radio station
in Los Angeles, and to do these reports from Palm Springs,
(52:30):
I had two choices. I would cover the Angels game
for KTLA and then go and do my three or
four afternoon sports casts at four forty five, five fifteen,
five forty five, whatever the times were, and I would
either have to stay at the ballpark for a couple
of additional hours and do the reports from an empty
Angels stadium in Palm Springs with the leaf blowers going
(52:53):
in the background as they cleaned up all the debris
from everybody going to those games, so you can imagine
how much fun that was, and then finding my way
back to the hotel at some point point as it
started to get dark in March of nineteen eighty six,
or I could try to rush back to the hotel
room and do the reports from there, and if I
(53:15):
didn't make it, there wouldn't be a sportscast at four
forty five pm on KNX. So by nineteen eighty seven,
in anticipation of going and doing this again. I said
to my friend, the assistant news director of KNX, Roger Nadell,
what about using one of these new mobile phones? And
he went, what what do you mean mobile phones? Car phones?
(53:37):
You don't drive. How are you going to use a
car phone? I said, no, I saw something about them
in the news. They'll they'll rent you a phone and
it comes in a bag and you carry it with
you and you can just use it. You just have
to keep it charged. Well. Sure enough, he looked into
it and for a nominal fee for that time, I
don't know, five hundred dollars, they loaned us a big,
(54:01):
hulking phone that looked like it looked like a bowling
ball in a bowling ball bag. And the warning that
I got from Roger was don't let it sit in
the sun or it will start to smoke. Now we're
in Palm Springs, California, in March. There's a lot of sun,
so I had to be very careful about it. But
it was a wonder for all of the overheating on
(54:21):
all the need to recharge the thing for sixteen hours
a day, it eliminated all the problems I could do
the four to forty five sports cast from the ballpark
in Palm Springs, then get in the car and go
back to the hotel, or even walk back to the
hotel and do the five to fifteen sports cast from
the hotel. It was a wonder So when I got
back to Los Angeles in March of nineteen eighty seven
(54:44):
or early April of nineteen eighty seven, I began to
consider the possibility of buying a mobile phone. Los Angeles
was filled in those days. Every day there seemed to
be a new one with carphone stores. Car phones wants
the elite rich symbol of those who drove Bentley's, but
not mere Catillac. The car phone was becoming a regular thing,
(55:09):
and store after store opened, and the key thing was
they would not only sell you the phone, they would
install it, because of course a car phone needed a car.
Who's going to have a car phone without a car.
I went in and said could they work without a car?
And after the guy, the salesman stopped laughing at me,
(55:31):
he said, well, let me get the expert out, the
guy who installs them. Let me find out. And Larry
came out and Larry said, yeah, yeah, they could. I mean,
you have to keep it charged. But all the only
thing that we really do is put a bracket in
there so you can keep the phone on the dashboard
and have it permanently plugged into the cigarette lighter in
(55:52):
your dashboard. Something else that doesn't exist anymore. You could
there's a jack that allows you to plug it into
a wall socket. But why on earth would you want
a car phone without a car? I said, to carry
it around with me on st I'm a reporter. Well
that's a very specific use. Nobody'll ever carry around one
of these. They didn't see it either. Frankly, I saw
(56:14):
it for me and other reporters. I never thought it
would be a commonplace thing. I mean, the phone without
the car cost I don't know, fifteen hundred dollars. I
thought it was a great, great investment and a tax
deduction to boot, and so I bought it, and soon
I was going everywhere with it and talking to my
friends and calling my girlfriend on it, and calling into
(56:35):
the office to say I might be late, and calling
into the office to go on the radio or sometimes
the television. To the marvel of other reporters who said,
what are you doing with a car phone if you
don't have a car you don't even drive. I said, well,
that's what made me think of getting one without a car,
because I don't drive. Needless to say, by nineteen eighty eight,
the car phone was as attached to me as it
(56:58):
was to any car. In southern California, I was the
guy with the phone. You can always reach Keith wherever
he is. He's walking outside the Arby's here in Hollywood
if you want him to stop buy and get something
for you, like this was Times Square in nineteen eighty one.
He's probably passing Arby's right now. So the first time
(57:20):
I came to New York with a car phone a
mobile phone, nobody apparently had done this in New York.
And so I got off the train in Grand Central Station,
walked through it, and as I pushed passed through the
doors into the brilliant, humid suns rise of midday New York,
(57:43):
bustling with street traffic, hawkers of every possible item like
the streets of Marrakesh, the phone rang, and I reached
into my little shoulder bag and pulled it out and
went Hello, at which point about one hundred people on
the street on forty second Street froze, where they stood
(58:05):
and their jaws simultaneously dropped. If my pants had disappeared,
not been removed, but disappeared, vanished, and I was standing
there in my underwear, suddenly, they could not have been
more astonished. What is he doing? I heard someone say,
is it a walkie talkie? My god? What is it?
(58:27):
Is it a bomb? It was, in fact a wrong number,
and I hung up and looked around and literally did
one of those what moments. It's a phone. So my
trip wherever I was going was delayed by fifteen minutes,
as I explained to a series of passers by, and
New Yorkers are never as friendly as when they want
(58:48):
something from you. I say this as a New Yorker
who's done it himself. I had to explain to them
what it was. Why did you buy a car phone
without a car? That question dogged me until we began
to see the widespread use of cell phones in the
early nineties. I was the first, apparently, I was the
(59:13):
first person in the history of New York to publicly
answer a cell phone call. I should have written the
date down. I don't have that record anywhere. It's too bad.
It was as historic an event as the invention of
the telephone or the installation of electric light in New
York City. And it was my phone. And I'm sure
(59:39):
within minutes I passed a payphone on forty second Street
and I did not hear that as I passed it
with my cell phone in my hand. I did not
hear the payphone that knew what it portended, the payphone
(01:00:03):
that was silently weeping. I've done all the damage I
(01:00:23):
can do here, including making up that last part. But
it's a wow finish, wasn't it. Thank you for listening.
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical directors have Countdown, arranged,
produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled
orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums,
and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our pithy and
satirical musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
(01:00:47):
Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olberman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
The whole thing with the cell phone was so long
ago that it was contemporaneous with ESPN making its second
job offer to me, I only accepted the third one anyway.
(01:01:11):
Other music arranged and performed by the group No horns allowed,
and my announcer today was my friend John Dean. Everything
else was as ever my fault phone for you. That's
countdown for today, Day one hundred and two of America
held hostage, just one three hundred and sixty one days
until the scheduled end of his lane duck and lame
brained term, unless Musk removes him sooner or the actuarial
(01:01:33):
tables do. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. As always,
bulletins as the news warrants, remember impeach Trump. It won't
work now, it will win the Democrats the midterms, and
the polling suggests they could win the all the midterms. Also,
I want polling on a presidential recall vote. Let's put
pressure on these guys until next time. I'm Keith Olberman.
(01:01:55):
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
(01:02:17):
Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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