TRUMP WANTS RUSSIA TO OCCUPY UKRAINE, LIKE THE WEST BANK - 8.14.25 - Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Hey

(00:38):
have fun watching Trump fell h Putin in their meeting
today in Alaska, Now in Russia. No in Alaska, No
in Russia. You know, I don't know where it is anymore.
I'm too busy, still giggling that Caroline Levitt renamed it

(01:00):
from the Putin Ukraine Summit into Trump's listening exercise, Trump
listening to Putin a listening exercise with Putin listening to
Putin tell him what to do? No shit. As always

(01:23):
the last line of defense against democracy besides South Park,
this fact, the last line of defense for democracy is
these guys are idiots, and this one is simple to see.
What's going to happen. Trump and Putin will leave this
photo op having agreed on something utterly agreeable to Putin,

(01:48):
like the ceasefire that Axios reports Trump told European leaders
yesterday he really wants and you know what that would be.
Putin will agree to a ceasefire. If Ukraine will stop
annoying Putin by trying to defend its territory, then Trump
will claim a victory that he has settled this war.

(02:09):
Then Ukraine will reject it. Although President Zelenski's real play
would be to say this is two naive and ideas
he even merit a comment, and then Trump will blame
Zelenski and say, well, he resolved this war except for
the war part, and that Zelensky screwed it up. But
he's the great deal maker and you must love him. Now.

(02:32):
Actually it may turn out worse than that. The Times
of London, reporting with this headline, US and Russia propose
West Bank style occupation of Ukraine. Trump's envoy, Steve Whitkoff,
is understood to support the idea, which can be revealed
before the President meets Putin in Alaska. We Sure about Alaska.

(02:54):
Russia and the United States have discussed a model for
ending the war in Ukraine that mirrors Israel's occupation of
the West Bank. The Times has been told, under this scenario,
Right Sure would have military and economic control of occupied
Ukraine under its own governing body, imitating Israel's de facto
rule of Palestinian territory seized from Jordan in nineteen sixty seven.

(03:18):
The idea was raised weeks ago in discussions between Steve
Whitkoff and his Russian counterparts. According to a source, close
to the US National Security Council. Sure Witkoff thought this
up himself. Witkoff is still playing with his toes.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
It'll just be like Israel occupies the West Bank, the
source said, with a governor with an economic situation that
goes into Russia, not Ukraine. But it'll still be Ukraine
because Ukraine will never give up its sovereignty. But the
reality is it'll be occupied territory and the model of
Palestine unquote, just like Israel and the West Bank, it'll

(03:56):
be Ukraine, only the Ukrainians there will be ruled by
another country and have their children shot by that country.
Best possible model out there, the West Bank. From Bloomberg TV,
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant told them sanctions are a possibility

(04:18):
if Putin doesn't do what Trump wants. Trump will quote
make it clear to President Putin that all options are
on the table. Yes, the options are Trump will pee
his pants or Trump will shit his pants. From Politico.
Trump said Putin could face very severe consequences if he

(04:39):
decides Putin is still not serious about ending the war. Ooh,
serious consequences this time? You know what that means. That
means Trump will no longer give him another fifty days
to end the war. He'll only give him twenty five
more days to end the war. Trump is a laughingstock

(05:01):
after a meeting that hasn't happened yet. You want to
impress the world? Trump, Do you want to make up
for everything at the meeting, during the photo op, during
the handshake attack putin with your manly bare hands around
the throat. Very severe consequences. What you won't let him

(05:23):
hack the American Federal Court document computers next time? You
won't give him all the data on the sources who
help prosecute Russians. Severe consequences. Threaten him with sanctions on
Russian oil while letting him wash Russian crude oil through
China and India. Trumpe.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Kitty kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty kitty.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay about the new military dictatorship in Washington that Trump
has threatened to impose also on Baltimore, Chicago, and New York.
Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington described Trump's moves as unsettling
and unprecedented. Correct. Then she added the fact that we
have more law enforcement presence in neighborhoods. You know, that

(06:38):
may be a positive. Bullshit, Mayor. It's a military dictatorship
that is in no way a positive, Madam, Mayor. It
is a dry run for installing the army, the army
Trump believes is his, like Julius Caesar thought the army
was his, like Hitler thought the army was his, installing

(06:59):
it in every place in your city, Mayor, and then
around own the country, mostly to overrule mayors and governors
who will not obey him or who are democrats. It
is a military dictatorship. Tryout, Mayor, if you're going to

(07:22):
be foolish enough to feel the way you do to
use the word positive in connection with Donald Trump. The
difference between exploiting any value you might perceive and collaborating
is shutting the f up. If he is inadvertently helping
the city of Washington in some way, great, don't tell

(07:47):
him that, because he doesn't care whether or not he's
helping the city of Washington. He only wants the that
may be a positive part, because now forever he will
say the mayor said it was a positive. Washington City
Paper reports Mayor Bowser finally snapped out of her pacifist dream.

(08:09):
We don't live in a dirty city, Powser declared during
a Zoom meeting with invited community leaders. We are not
seven hundred thousand scumbags and punks, and we don't have
neighborhoods that should be bulldozed. Our community needs to jump in.
We all need to do what we can in our space,
in our lane to protect our city and get to
the other side of this guy and make sure we

(08:31):
elect a democratic House so that we have a backstop
to this authoritarian push. Well, that's a little bit more
like it. Also, what Trump is doing Washington is based
on an utter lie. Not just an utter lie, but
based on the exact opposite of what Trump and the

(08:52):
whore is working for him said not four months ago.
It's a lie about what they said. What they them
said selves pre contradicted the lie that crime is increasing
in the District of Columbia, speaking of the District of Columbia.

(09:13):
This is a lie and a self flagellation worthy of
Columbia University. Less than four months ago, the Trump goon
ed Martin was literally insisting there was a one quarter
drop in violent crime in Washington and demanding we all
praise Trump for it. April twenty eighth quote. Thanks to

(09:35):
the leadership of President Trump and the efforts of our
Make DC Safe Again initiative, the district has seen a
significant decline in violent crime. We are proving that strong
enforcement and smart policies can make our community safer. It's
so safe, and we're so good, and Trump is so wonderful.
We're bringing in the troops. They will lie in any direction.

(10:00):
They will contradict themselves in any direction. They will say
whatever is necessary this minute, no matter how much it
contradicts an hour ago, or how much they will contradict
it tomorrow. And if there were any doubts as to
what Trump's plans long term are here, he gave them

(10:22):
away yesterday. He might as well have put on the
big Kim Jong un hat that he likes so much.
By the way, the day he comes out wearing a
military outfit with one of those big hats, it's over.
That is the day when either he goes or any
chance at restoring American democracy goes. We're not there yet

(10:42):
because he doesn't have a hat. In the interim, though,
we have this bullshit.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
Your federalization of the police has a thirty day limit
unless Congress acts to extend it. Are you talking to
Congress about extending it or do you believe thirty days
is sufficient.

Speaker 5 (10:56):
Well, if it's a national emergency, we can do it
without Congress, but we expect to be to Congress before
Congress very quickly. And again we think the Democrats will
not do anything to stop crime, but we think the
Republicans will do it almost unanimously. So we're going to
need a crime bill that we're going to be putting
in and it's going to pertain initially to DC. It's

(11:18):
almost we're going to use it as a very positive example,
and we're going to be asking for extensions on that,
long term extensions, because you can't have thirty days. Thirty
days is that's by the time you do it, We're
going to have this in good shape.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
And don't forget in the border.

Speaker 5 (11:36):
Everyone said it would take years and you'd have to
go back to Congress.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
I never went to Congress for anything.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
I just said close the border, and he closed the
border and that was the end of it.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
I didn't go back to Congress. We're going to do
this very quickly.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
The f you can f face Brian Boitler, why I
should pay By the quote I quote him so much
wrote yesterday that in DC, at least the Second Amendment
should be honored. He means the real Second Amendment, the
real intent, the idea that residents of the individual states

(12:12):
and territories should be allowed to defend themselves against an armed,
authoritarian federal government. He's not talking about the gunfight at
the DuPont Circle Corral, but he's saying, maybe it's time
to reduce the hurdles keeping Americans who live in places

(12:33):
like DC, like New York who would be threatened by Trump,
physically threatened by Trump, physically threatened by Trump's isis physically
threatened by Trump's brown shirts, physically threatened. Efforts should be
made by local constituencies to reduce the restrictions to keep

(12:57):
these people who are being physically threatened the ones he's
called traitors, reduce the restrictions on them getting weapons with
which to protect themselves if they so choose. On to

(13:22):
Trump Stein one of the greatest of the Monty Python
jokes that usually goes by so fast in the episode
you don't even notice it. John Clees in a BBC
truck Graham Chapman having just done something for the BBC
standing next to it, and Graham Chapman says, can you
give me a lift? And John Clee says can do?

(13:43):
But won't This from Aba Brown at the press briefing
the other day, Trump wants to see credible evidence released.
The reporter asked a judge rule that the grand jury
transcripts in Galaine Maxwell's case should not be released. Levitt says,

(14:04):
I think that is unfortunate. The president wants to see
credible evidence released. As for the appeal process, I would
send you to the Department of Justice for that. Well, sure,
he wants to see credible evidence released, but of course
he also wants to make sure that such evidence is
not released. Just like crime is going up in DC,

(14:26):
except it's twenty five percent down, says his spokesman, who's
not around, so you can't go back to him and say,
were you lying then or is Trump lying now?

Speaker 5 (14:36):
Or both?

Speaker 1 (14:39):
We want to see credible evidence released. Not on this planet.
She's a genius. I mean she just is. She is
the absolute genius of all geniuses, isn't she a We

(15:00):
do not yet have the official trump Stein files, but
seeing N has its own version. They wrote in twenty
nineteen in an interview Epstein referred to Trump as his
closest friend for ten years, a claim echoed by three
others who knew the men. Maria Farmer, one of Epstein's
first victims to speak publicly, Stacy Williams, a former model

(15:23):
who dated Epstein, and Jack O'Donnell, a former Trump casino executive,
all of whom use the phrase best friend to describe
their bond in recent interviews on CNN, A timeline of
Trump's interactions with Epstein and Glaine Maxwell reveals a long

(15:44):
pattern CNN reported of social proximity that stands in sharp
contrast to Trump's public attempts to downplay their friendship. End quote.
The timeline that CNN then produced, which goes on page
after page after page, and photograph after photograph after photograph,
on and on and on bulges with flight logs. Trump

(16:10):
on Epstein's jet, Epstein on Trump's jet, Trump at Epstein's
mansion next door, Epstein at Trump's mansion next door, Trump
on Epstein's jet, Epstein on Trump's jet, Trump and his
son Eric on Epstein's jet, Trump on Epstein's girlfriend. Now,

(16:31):
as to the records of Galaine Maxwell's still unexplained move
from a federal pen in Florida to basically minimum security
in Texas, with the right to leave the campus to
go to work. Reportedly, Senator white House of Rhode Island
has written to the Director of the Federal Prisons Bureau

(16:53):
for the documents, Alison gil the Muller. She wrote, person
has some of them already from a source. According to
a source, she writes, Maxwell's transfer code is threeh eight
Security transfer. This transfer code is normally reserved for inmates
whose point total has come down, but sex offenders are
never transferred to minimum security facilities. Her security point score

(17:17):
is twenty seven. This total is comprised of a twenty
point custody score and a seven point base score. Her
twenty point custody score. And here is something that's obviously
been screenshotted off a computer monitor. Time served four twenty
six to seventy five percent living skills to good, frequently

(17:40):
of discipline report. I guess that is what that abbreviation means.
Three none prague participant two good for progress, I guess
towards not being a pedophile type discipline report five none
and family slash community for good. She's like family to us.

(18:10):
Then she has a seven point base score, which is
the highest severity because of as is written by ms Gill,
because of her sex offender status. So despite her score
of twenty seven resulting in a minimum security level, BOP
policy does not allow people with a sex offender public
safety factor to serve their sentences in minimum security facilities.

(18:33):
Someone has to waive the PSF to make that move.
And then there is a screenshot that reads name Maxwell,
Glaine pub fifty semi colen sex offender. This indicates she
is a threat to the public because of her sex
offender status, and her management variable of PSF WAV indicates

(18:55):
her sex offender status has been waived in order to
facilitate her move to a minimum security facility. So when
the question is will Trump pardon her, that's almost an irrelevancy.
As I have been saying here, from the day that
Trump sent his former personal attorney, the now Deputy Attorney
General of the United States to see her in jail

(19:18):
and give her two days of immunity. From that point,
Trump has already had a deal with Glaine Maxwell. He
is already figuratively in bed with Gallaine Maxwell, the witness,
the living witness in the Trump Steen case, and she

(19:39):
is allowed to leave, you know, prison, where's she going? Oh,
she's allowed to leave. She'll be back tonight, even though
she's sentenced to stay here through twenty thirty seven. The
Stephen Wright joke suddenly occurs to me. He goes to
the twenty four to seven deli says open twenty four

(20:02):
to seven, and he walks up to it, and the
sign in the window says closed, and he wraps on
the glass and the guy running the place comes to
it and goes, what we're closed? Stephen Wright says, it
says you're open twenty four to seven, and the guy

(20:22):
running the store says, not in a row? Four more

(20:44):
things and sorry for the ragged nature of this episode.
There are dog health emergencies at the moment that I
need to deal with. For anybody else who said, like
me in late two thousand and one, are you sure
you want to call it the Department of Homeland Security?
Homeland And isn't that a hmmm mmm? Term? Isn't that?

(21:10):
Is it a little too not too Nazi for you?
Homeland Security put out this meme which way americanman join
ice dot gov. It's a picture of Uncle Sam and
he's got a sign post that reads law and order
and it's from cultural decline is one direction. Homeland invasion

(21:33):
Opportunity service the key part of this, though, As the
immigration expert and lawyer Aaron Reichlan Melnick notes, Trump's people
at DHS are referencing here when they write which way
American Man? They are referencing here, Which way Western Man?

(21:55):
A book by white supremacist William Gaily Simpson that was
published by an American neo Nazi organization, the Republican Party.
Oh no, sorry, I read that wrong, an American neo
Nazi organization, the National Alliance. In the book, Simpson argued
that Hitler was right and Jews must be killed which
way Western Man? But of course, Ice, Christy Nome, Trump,

(22:20):
Tom Holman, the rest of these mfors. They didn't say
which way Western man. They're not neo Nazis. They just
said which way American man? We go From American man
to American dildo. That would be Clay Travis used to

(22:40):
be a sportscaster of some kind, the same con men
who were claiming to be defending women athletes from the
horrors of transgendered competitors, all five or six of them
nationwide you remember them. They appeared right before the election
and made a big deal about Leah Thomas and all

(23:04):
those other transgendered athletes, none of whom they could identify,
and the NCAA said they thought there might be one
in the state of Michigan. Same guys, Clay Travis, Well
they're back. This is about the recent rash of green
sex toys that have been thrown at w NBA games

(23:27):
to promote crypto, because actually I think crypto, I think
of people playing with themselves. Clay Travis, who was one
of the people who platformed Whiny Gains on this scourge
of all these transgendered competitors who made her finish eighty

(23:49):
fifth in the Olympic Trials per Media Matters, I'll just
quote them. Travis offered to donate money to the legal
defense fund of someone accused of throwing a sex toy
at a WNBA game for every copy of his book
that was sold. Travis posted several times about the incident.
Latest dildo gambling odds are posted lots of value on

(24:10):
a white dildo after last night's purple dildo. I'll stop
using that word here over under WNBA accounts at seven
for the season feels low. Other posts, he said quote,
I agree, not funny, classless. The penal code exists for
a reason, guys, penalties are stiff. He's one of the

(24:32):
intellectuals of the right wing fascist sports world. Don't let
that look of it on his face, like, as Bill
Hicks once said, like a dog to whom you have
just shown a card trick. Don't let that fool you.
Clay Travis is a genius. I understand he can actually

(24:53):
write his own name. Now, which is the worst penalty
for the WNBA green thrower? Get banned from attending WNBA
games for a year or you're forced to attend an
entire season of games. Now, Remember this is the same
guy saying that the women in sports needed to be defended.

(25:17):
Travis also posted, according to Media Matters, an edited picture
of what appears to be President Donald Trump throwing from
the White House roof onto a WNBA court. Well, we
know he didn't put a WNBA court in the White House.
He just put in the cheapest looking patio from the
hot Sheet hotel outside the White House. Are we sure,

(25:40):
by the way, that that's an edited picture of Trump
throwing something off the roof, particularly something like that On
the other hand, to be fair, who would know better
about how to discuss dildo usage with other men than
Clay Travis. Unrelated to this, the Sydney Sweeney scandal, I

(26:06):
actually tweeted, and I meant it sincerely, Who the f
is Sydney Sweeney. I assumed, because you don't see a
lot of guys named Sidney anymore, that this was a
woman and some influencer. Turns out she's an actress, an
actress who did a Gen's commercial. Somebody thought the actress

(26:28):
was in a Genes commercial that was misogynistic. Wow, a
Gene's commercial that's misogynistic. A lot is the world coming
to the right decided that somebody who wrote this or
said this, one person apparently spoke for all liberals for
all time, and you, none of you ever could possibly

(26:50):
have your own opinions on your or not care or
anything else. And then Sean Hannity went to prove this
with a pole with an economist. You gov poll, do
you think the Sydney Sweeney ad is more clever, offensive,
either or not sure? Thirty nine percent said it was clever,

(27:11):
forty percent said it was neither, eight percent said they
were not sure, and twelve percent said it was offensive,
So eighty seven percent of America says it's not offensive.
Forty eight percent say they don't give a crap even
for a Sean Hannity speech impediment rage factory bullshit story.

(27:32):
This is a bullshit story. Trump has named the host
of the next Kennedy Center Honors show. It's himself, and
I thought it was going to be Sidney Sweeney. So
Trump is going to host it himself. So the first
three hours will be him bitching about how he really

(27:55):
won the eighteen seventy six election and how he's one
hundred and eighty five pounds. The camera just makes him
look bigger and he's only forty four years old, if
we're going by twenty four month years. He's also named
the Honorees Kiss Kennedy Center Honors Kiss Kiss. Jeene Simmons

(28:20):
hates Trump. Jeene Simmons, a conservative, hates Trump. Does he
know tomorrow's story will be Kennedy Center does not honor Kiss.
George Straight, I'm sorry, George Straight sucks. Sylvester Stallone. I'm sorry, Rocky.

(28:48):
It's a terrible movie and Sylvester Stallone sucks. Michael Crawford
star a Phantom of the Opera, and well he was
like the eighth leading man in the Hello Dolly movie.

(29:12):
He's somewhere down well below Walter Mathow on the list
of credits in the Hello Dolly. Honestly, Trump thinks he
chose Cindy Crawford, right, he doesn't. Roderick Crawford. Yeah, I
picked dud Crawford and finally Gloria Gainer. Now, as I

(29:34):
have aged, it turned out I like disco as much
as anybody else. From the seventies, I now find that
two out of every five hundred disco records are palatable.
For the longest time was it was one, and during
that time it was none. I like to think I've
mellowed and her song I Will Survive is iconic. I

(30:00):
can go a decade without hearing it, but it's iconic.
It's a great song. Another great song is Nana No No, Hey, Hey,
Goodbye by Steam. Of course, Nancy Faust made that a
big hit. Gloria Gaynor had a number one hit one

(30:21):
one number one hit for three weeks, not consecutive. I'd
like to point out that also on the all time
list of number one hits, disco duck by Rick Dees,
but that was only for a week, so Rick would
not be honored. Gloria Gaynor I Will Survive was on
the first Rolling Stones list of the five hundred Greatest

(30:43):
Songs of all Time. It came into number four hundred
and ninety two. Then they redid this and something happened.
There was a recount, some votes were thrown out. I
don't know, it's now two hundred and fifty. First, I'm
not saying that if something I had sung, and I

(31:05):
have sung here badly, if something I had sung here
was suddenly named the two hundred and fifty first greatest
song of all time, I'm not saying I would say
you want to take that off the list, But two
hundred and fifty first, I'm not getting a jacket made
up with that on the back. I sang the two
hundred and fifty first greatest song of all time, and

(31:31):
then a little in the bottom. They're ten spots behind
the Humpty Dance. She's got to be proud. Kennedy Center Honors.
They'll never hear from any of these people anyway, because
Trump has named himself the host of the Kennedy Center Honors,

(31:54):
so it will be the Kennedy Center or whatever he's
calling it, the ken Trumpety Center honors Trump, and he'll
just talk about himself, possibly for more than one day. Lastly,
if that were not comic relief enough for you, just
when you think Anna Pauline A Luna or Nancy Mace

(32:17):
or Derek van Orden or Tulci Gabbard or Senator Roger
Nine Gwen Marshall could challenge Marjorie's stupid Green for dumbest
Republican of all time, no they can't.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
And so it's really interesting to see these people just
use their basically their platforms as a bully puppet and
just go straight to name calling and lying.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Bully puppet, bully puppet. It's it's pulpit, Marge, Yeah, p
u l But you know, for all intensive purposes, we

(33:09):
have to nip this in the butt, extract revenge literally
and irregardless, and give the honor that is due.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
Here with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
But this begs the question, is Marjorie Barney Rubbel Green
no longer just the stupidest Republican but the stupidest human alive?
Also of interest, here Andrew Cuomo has done one of these,

(33:47):
only it was with a Muhammad Ali quote. The Muhammad
Ali quote, and Andrew Cuomo has been defeated by a
Muhammad Ali quote as well as by Mandani.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
That's next.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
This is Countdown. I got that right.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown. I
am late to the anniversary by more than one week
in fact, but I can never forget this anniversary at
this time of year, seared into my memory forty six
years and twelve days ago, a month into my career.

(34:59):
Seven solo shifts into my career, and this it's our
catcher and captain of the New York Yankees baseball team
is killed in a plane crash. His plane one minute
before I was going on to do a sportscast carried
by one thousand radio stations on our network. Next in

(35:24):
things I promise not to tell first believe it or not,
the fun stuff. There are still more new idiots to
talk about. The roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning
Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in
the world. The Bronze worse after Trump's step towards military

(35:47):
dictatorship in DC no, he's not just trying to throw
raw meat to the base. He's trying to take over
the dictatorship and start it now. After that, everything that
is wrong in the media and wrong in this country,
and raw in the Leopards Eating Faces party, all those

(36:08):
people who said I didn't know the leopardsre gonna eat
my face, and in its rival, the I didn't know
we were frogs being boiled alive party, All that is
wrong in all of these things summed up in eighteen
words on CNN. Literally, the network can go off the

(36:29):
air now. It is fulfilled its final purpose to summarize
this nightmare in less than twenty words. I guess the
contest is twenty five words or less. She beat it
by seven eighteen words. It was, of course on CNN,
and it was of course by Casey Hunt, who's one

(36:52):
of the hosts there. I would say newscaster, but that's
not that's not what she does. This is another person,
another celebrity on CNN, who has decided that the events
of the world do not apply to her, that she
lives in some other world over there, cross town, that

(37:14):
the things that happen don't apply to her and never
will touch her and she'll never have a problem with him.
And she was on the Trump campaign in twenty sixteen.
And like everybody else who covered that, now that they're
not facing that every day, they seem some of some
merit in this, like the mayor of Washington saying, well,
maybe this it's not gonna be a help. You're gonna

(37:36):
be in a prison camp. If not now, then later.
Christ read your history book. You don't have to go
to about page fifteen. In any event, this is what happened.
Representative Jamie Raskin was on Casey Hunt's show Treasure Hunter,

(37:57):
whatever it's called, and talked about the fact that crime
is significantly down. It's the second lowest murder rate in
sixty years in Washington, second lowest overall crime rate in
thirty years in Washington, dropping by twenty five percent. Trump
boasted that it was down by Trump's lackey ed Martin boasted,

(38:21):
and Trump boasted that crime is down by a quarter
since he took office. It's already down, and yet he's
doing this, And what does Casey Hunt ask Jamie Raskin?
We know that statistics show crime is down in DC,
but does it feel like crime is down what's the vibe,

(38:47):
because we're gonna turn this country into a dictatorship because
Casey Hunt has a bad vibe because she and Bennie Johnson.
Benny Johnson, of course, has been Benny Johnson has been
murdered several times when he lived in Washington, and then
he came back to life. And they and they and
they burned down his house, and they had murders outside

(39:09):
his house, and murders in his basement, and they they
lit they lit an entire city block on fire, and
and the and the nuclear weapons were used on his block.
You heard him, and Casey Hunt is asking, does it
feel like crime is down? I don't know. Does it
feel to you like you're a functioning idiot? Does it

(39:31):
feel like crime is do That's why we are going
to hell in a handbasket. Because somebody would say something
like that, I would argue that that is a dumber
thing said on CNN than the day a decade ago
after the Malaysian airliner disappeared, and Don Lemon asked if

(39:52):
there could be a small enough black hole in the
universe to have swallowed up just the one aircraft that
it might have just gone into a into a black hole.
That was pretty That really was an indicator that somebody
had never considered anything about black holes physics. What would

(40:14):
happen if there were a black hole near the Earth
that one necessarily big enough to swallow a plane would
swallow the entirety of Earth and his own house. Nope, no, no, no.
I would argue, this is dumber. This is somebody in
the news whose newscast is not necessarily so influential that

(40:34):
the CNN executives would try to kill it off or
turn them into a Trump supporter the way they did
with Jake Tapper. I mean, Chris Lick did not even
bother trying to turn Casey Hunt into anything other than
what she is. Somebody would ask, we know that statistics
show crime is don't in DC, but does it feel
like crime is down? You can put that on the

(40:59):
country's epitaph. Put that right on the stone United States
of America. It was a good idea seventeen seventy six,
twenty twenty five. But does it feel like crime is done? Also?
Does this pot that we're in feel warmer than it does?
And what about those leopards eating those faces? Does it

(41:22):
feel like they're eating those faces? Runner up worser Andrew Cuomo.
Can't imagine you missed this, but if you did somehow,
He put this out on Twitter about his supposed fight
against Zorn Mamdani for mayor of New York, the one
he already lost and has decided for some reason to

(41:43):
go out and lose again, two in one year. He
decided to compliment his fighting spirit his return from you know,
being one of the many New York governors who had
to resign, this time both over a sex scandal and
over a dead people scandal. Good good, good, good good

(42:06):
governor be mayor now. Yeah, except he's losing by more
than he than he was losing in the primary. In
any event, I haven't gotten around to what he wrote.
He wrote, fly like a butterfly sting like a bee.
Literally the most famous quote given by worldwide, the most

(42:30):
famous person in the nineteen seventies certainly, and still into
the eighties and nineties and into this decade, the beginning
of this decade, anyway. When he died two thousand and sixteen,
I want to say, literally his most famous quote. You
google ali quote and the one you get is float

(42:55):
like a butterfly, sting like a bee. That's why it's famous.
It's clever. It doesn't have the same word in it
twice in a span of one, two, three four words
fly like a butterfly, fly like a flying butterfly, would
be better fly butterly like a flying butterfly. Andrew, did

(43:20):
you read it aloud before you hit s end? Did
you ask anybody else to do it? Or is there
even worse somebody you hired to do social media for
you who wrote that this is Andrew Cuomo's best chance
to become mayor of New York. Cancel all the ads,

(43:40):
Cancel all of his idiotic ads, stop all social media,
in fact, leave the country until election day. I guarantee
you if you do that, you will go up in
the polls. I'm not saying you'll come close to Himndannie,
but you will go up in the polls. The only
thing I can figure about this whole campaign is that

(44:04):
it's even there's some sort of punked prank and they're
filming it all to make it into a reality series
called Andrew Cuomo deliberately loses the election or the campaign
is just one giant coded message from Cuomo to Trump
that yes, Cuomo will serve as Trump's military governor of

(44:27):
the New York Zone when Trump puts every blue city
under martial law after Casey Hunt is done asking, but
does it feel see Cuomo in New York, Janine Piro
in Wine Country, and of course Casey Hunt in Washington.

(44:50):
Fly like a butterfly unless he was trying, and we've
gotten this all wrong. He was trying not for Muhammad Ali,
but for the Steve Miller band. Fly like an eagle,
sting like uh, I'm I'm free, Float like a butterfly,

(45:12):
stink from the head like a fish. And still there's
something worse. The winner, the worst. Jeff Bezos. I'm just
gonna read this post from Okay magazine. Okay, well it's okay.

(45:33):
Letter Oh letter k exclamation point? How do you pronounce that?

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Okay? Quote?

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Jeff Bezos is about to make his wife Lauren Sanchez
a star. Insiders recently revealed Bezos' plans to launch his
wife into the sun No launch his wife into a
prominent acting role in the James Bond reboot, claiming the

(46:03):
billionaire is fit on seeing her in the film. I
think the word you were going for there is fixated. Quote.
He's obsessed a Hollywood insider dished to a news outlet,
this isn't just fantasy casting. Jeff wants her on screen period.
I guess on the theory that if he has to

(46:24):
suffer her, we all have to suffer her.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
So Bezos bought the Bond franchise a couple months ago.
He asked people online who the next Bond Girl should be.
And now this would explain why he did that, because
Lauren Sanchez would be the next Bond Girl. A few problems. First,

(46:50):
she can't move her lips anymore. I mean when she
could move her lips when I worked with her, she
couldn't move her lips. The famous tape, I don't know
what became of it. And once again I copied so
many things in so many different jobs. I don't have this.
The famous spot for Fox Sports News quote her on

(47:14):
camera reading a story about the baseball pitcher quote Roger
Clemens era is the second lowest in his er. And
that was done to be fair. She was a little
busy at the time. She was carrying the child of
an NFL player while dating an NBA player. This was

(47:36):
just before she left Fox and went to the local
independent station in lak cop and did the news and
did that sweep series I've told you about before, how
to Meet a Baller, which I thought was the most
appalling thing I'd ever seen in local television news until
I realized that for the first time here was a
sweep series, how to sweep series there was actually being

(47:57):
conducted by an expert. I mean, the two of them
now when they are in public, they look like Waylon
Jenny and Madam. No, Whalen Flowers and Madam. Whalen Jennings
was the musical artist, the country western star. Whalen Flowers

(48:17):
was his name. I may have called him Whalen Jennings
at some point. Look up Whalen Flowers and Madam and
just you know, Google image or something, or don't you know,
maybe just go to Amazon and buy Whalen Flowers and Madam.
You'll see what I'm talking about. I get it. Jeff,

(48:40):
You're worth all the money in the world. Of course
you get a trophy wife. Conversely, you're Lauren Sanchez. Your
goal is to find the richest man you can. I
don't think that's a sexist observation. I literally I literally
met her in nineteen ninety eight. It is an analysis
of her life to that point, let alone. Since then,

(49:03):
I'm not objecting. I'm not judging people relationships. I have
a whole pile of relationships that people go what you did?

Speaker 5 (49:12):
What?

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Seriously, what were you thinking? And of course the correct
answer is nothing. I was thinking nothing obviously.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Sorry.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
I mean, that's my attitude towards it. I'm just as
guilty as the rest of them. However, I'm not objecting.
But you are doing it in public, and if this
is correct, you are going into a James Bond movie
with no professional acting experience. You're going to get some attention.

(49:46):
But the real problem begins when Daddy Warbucks over here
decides Lauren is a James Bond girl at least. Okay,
magazine says that that is what he has decided. Let
me read that money quote again. Okay, he says Bezos
quote plans to law launch his wife into a prominent

(50:07):
acting role in the James Bond reboot. Doesn't say which one.
Doesn't say Bond girl. We're just assuming what that role
is Bond girl. It could be something else. Jeff Bezos
with Lauren Sanchez as Odd Job, or with Lauren Sanchez

(50:29):
as Richard keel as Jaws, Today's other worst person in the.

Speaker 4 (50:52):
The Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
And now to our number one story on the count
down and things I promised not to tell, And back
to my favorite topic, me and I will take you
back a little ways, back to August second, nineteen seventy nine.
One month earlier to that day, July second, nineteen seventy nine,
I had been in the stands in my family's seats

(51:26):
back of first base at Yankee Stadium in New York.
I was a twenty year old fan, unemployed, applauding Thurman
Munson's RBI double and Lou Panela's two for four day
and Roy White's appearance since he was my mother's favorite
New York Yankee player. Now August second, I was finishing

(51:46):
the first month of my professional broadcasting career. It was
either my seventh or eighth solo shift as the nighttime
sportscaster at UPI's radio network. For my first sports cast
have that night, I had long since finished my script.
Tom Watson was leading in Round one of the PG
Championship golf that is in Michigan. The lawyer who owned

(52:09):
the Washington team of the NFL, Edward Bennett Williams had
just bought the Baltimore Orioles. There was a Montreal Expo
Chicago Cubs matinee in Montreal with three rain delays, and
they were supposed to have had a roof on that stadium.
It was five forty three pm Eastern, and I was
making the short walk from the little sports cubby hole

(52:31):
where I prepared the broadcast, to the little main on
air studio, and just walking past this bank of thermal
printers which each made this same sluggish, muted honking sound
like that as they slowly printed stories on what wasn't

(52:52):
really paper. There was the main UPI wire, There was
the UPI Sports wire, the UPI Business wire, the UPI
International Wire, the UPI Radio wire, several internal message wires.
There was a UPI Tartar wire, But it was the
message wires that suddenly started to make noise. Those were

(53:14):
the ones via which the UPI bureaus around the world
could communicate more or less instantly with headquarters in New York,
the equivalent of I guess texts or intra office top
lines in computers faster than an email. Even today New York,

(53:36):
the New York Bureau was abbreviated an X. Not sure why,
but there was New York was NX. As I got
within a foot of these machines, one of them made
a noise I had never heard before, a series of
ten loud bells. I moved over to see what the
hell that could mean. The news editor, Frank Rayfield, came

(53:59):
over to check as well. Obviously he hadn't heard this
a lot in his career, and his was longer than mine.
We saw the words simultaneously, and we gasped simultaneously. Cleveland
Bureau to NX. Thurman Munson Catcher Captain New York Yankees dead,
piloting private plane, Canton Akron Airport thirty. As soon as

(54:23):
the words finished printing, Cleveland sent it again. The bells
went off again. I could now see from one of
the ubiquitous clocks in the room. I now had about
a minute until my sportscast started, whether or not I
was in the studio. The editor pointed this out to me,
as well, you'll have to add lib the sports cast,
then come out here and do a voicer just talk

(54:44):
about his career, keep repeating that this is a bulletin,
that he's dead, that he was piloting a private plane.
You know anything about him and planes? And I remember
saying aloud, oh God, yes I do, and he said, well,
use whatever you think fits. If anything else comes in,
I'll bring it in to you and I'll try to
get somebody at the airport for some sound. I don't

(55:05):
remember what I said on the air at five point
forty five Eastern time or anything else that night, nor
in the special report the voicer that the editor Frank
had just had me record. As soon as I finished
that live sports cast, it was all recorded, and I
never wanted to hear a word of it because I

(55:26):
knew my youth was over right then. Thurman Munson had
joined the New York Yankees when I was ten years old,
literally half my life ago. On that date, he was
the first good rookie I ever saw added to my team.
The Yankees stunk when I was a kid. My family
was convinced he looked like my mother's cousin Billy. I

(55:49):
met him a couple of times. I'd photographed him once
when I was a photographer, interviewed him once. He was gruff,
he was forbidding, but I had never had a problem
with him. If you were polite, and you had picked
the right moment to do it. There wasn't a problem
what I knew about him and his plane. Frank Rayfield's
question to me, I spoke of as generically as possible,

(56:12):
because in my mind I flashed back to lunch in
the press room at the old Yankee Stadium four months earlier,
when I was still in college, sitting there with my
friend Rick Sarone. Rick Sarone an editor and writer, not
Rick Saron, who would later be the Yankees catcher replacing
Thurman Munson. Of all people, Munson editor, Rick Sarone said,

(56:37):
almost surreptitiously, leaning in toward me over the little table
in the press room, is flying his own plane back
home to Ohio on every day off, and the Yankees
are terrified. He's just not as good a pilot as
he thinks he is, honest to God, one of the
executives is trying to get Steinbrenner to trade him to

(56:59):
Cleveland just so he'll get out of the plane. They
all think he might wind up himself. I don't even
know how many special reports I did, in addition to
a new sports cast every hour that night. Later, a
friend of mine from college who did not even know
I had gotten this job as a sportscaster, told me

(57:21):
he was driving in Buffalo listening to the news on
the radio at about quarter to six that night, August second,
he heard them say Munson had been killed with more
here's Keith Olberman in New York. And he said he
almost drove off the road and he wasn't sure if
it was because Munson was dead or because the guy
had said, here's Keith Alderman in New York. And I

(57:44):
do know my boss, Sam Rosen, who did the morning
shift and would have only gotten home from it at
around noon or one or two pm that day, so
only maybe four hours earlier. He came back into the
office that night to supervise things and to put together
a long memorial special to feed to the one thousand

(58:05):
stations that used our stuff. Boy was I glad to
see him until that is. He handed me a piece
of paper. These are the home phone numbers for lou
Panella and Roy White, Yankees outfielders Roy White, lou Panella.

(58:27):
Call them, Sam said, try to do interviews, be gentle,
just to even get one cut from them. Like Munson,
they had played in that game exactly one month before
my last as a fan, before I started to work
for UPI, lou Panella answered his own phone, and somehow

(58:47):
I asked him if he would talk to me for
two minutes, and he did, and almost immediately he burst
into tears. And this was such raw, immediate, brutal pain
evident in his voice. I did the only thing I
could think of. I said, listen, you shouldn't have to
do this all night. I'll make copies of this interview,
give it to the other radio networks so they will
leave you alone. Only after that did I think to

(59:11):
ask my boss if I could do that, and mercifully
Sam said it was when I called Roy White, and
Roy White was literally on the Yankees the day I
had become a baseball fan at the age of seven.
Roy White begged me to tell him that there'd been
some sort of mistake, that Thurman Munson was not dead,

(59:32):
and both he and Loupenella were blunt but gentle and
above and beyond courteous to me. And I did make
copies of both of the interviews, and I can see
myself handing a cassette to a guy from NBC named
Mike Leventhal ran a kind of a cartel, almost a
black market among New York radio sports reporters. So if

(59:55):
somehow you heard Lou Penella or Roy White talking about
Thurman Munsen's death on the dight night had happened to
the day after that my interview. I also remembered discovering,
after three or four hours of literally working NonStop, that
I had never really known what that meant. I remember

(01:00:16):
I was supposed to be done at eleven, but stayed
until one am, just barely making the last train back
to my folks house. I remember my boss Sam Rose
and talking to our stringer in San Francisco, his friend
Rob Navius, and saying, they're killing my team. We should
go to Mexico and smoke ourselves. Blind in my youthful

(01:00:40):
misunderstanding of how these things worked, I found myself coming
back to the thought that I had somehow failed failed.
Thurman Munson failed as fans failed by not telling somebody
about that Yankee fear from April that Rick Serone had
told me that Munson was not as good a pilot

(01:01:01):
as he thought he was, Although even then I asked myself,
who the hell you're going to tell? There are two
postscripts to my story of the twenty year old me
covering the night Thurman months and died. Twenty years later,
I was hosting Baseball's Game of the Week on Fox
and I asked my producer what we were doing for

(01:01:23):
the Munson anniversary, and he asked what anniversary. He was
younger than I was. I had to explain it to him.
You want to write something we can pre produce, like
a minute and a half ninety seconds. Well, the first
sportscast I did when it happened was one hundred and

(01:01:44):
twenty seconds ninety seconds. Sure, I did it. I didn't
think much of it. It was there, told the story.
There was a little emotion to it, but it was
mostly just the facts. Five years later, I was one
of the public address announcers at Old Timers Day at
Yankee Stadium, invited there by the public relations director of

(01:02:05):
the Yankees at the time, Rick Sarone, the same Rick
Sarone who had in April nineteen seventy nine told me
about Munson and the private planes. The twenty fifth anniversary
of Munson's death was days away and his widow, Diane
was there. We had never met. She saw me on
the field and raced up to me and embraced me.

(01:02:29):
That piece you did on him on the Game of
the Week, when was it five years ago, twentieth anniversary?
That was the best memorial I've ever seen to Thurman. Well,
she teered up, and I teared up, and I was stunned.
I told her about what that night in nineteen seventy
nine had been like for me. I said, I knew

(01:02:50):
it was almost insulting to tell her, but I thought
it was important somehow, and she hugged me again. It
was deeply moving, and to this day it remains deeply moving.
The other PostScript I only learned of in twenty twenty one.
For it forever, the reporter covering the New York Rangers

(01:03:14):
hockey team for the newspaper of the New York Post
has been Larry Brooks. I had forgotten that the year
Thurman Munson was killed nineteen seventy nine, Larry was a
very young beat reporter for the Post, covering not New
York Rangers hockey but New York Yankees baseball. And somebody
sent me a clipping from the New York Post from Saturday,

(01:03:35):
July twenty eighth, nineteen seventy nine, five days before the
months in plane crash, and it is almost beyond belief.
Every time I see it, I read it again to
make sure that last time I hadn't hallucinated it. Larry's
story began quote reports of Thurman Munson's death are exaggerated,

(01:03:59):
at least slightly unquote. Of course it was a meataw
for of course he didn't mean to use that. Munson's
knees had been giving him trouble since the previous season,
and the manager of the Yankees, Billy Martin, was giving
him more time off between catching assignments than usual, and
there was a lot of speculation as to whether or

(01:04:19):
not Munson's career as a catcher was over, and then
he might have to become a designated hitter or first
baseman or something. That's what the story was about. That's
what the death reference was, to the death of his
catching career. But the Larry Brooks story also included an
even more jaw dropping quote. Asked about the rumors he

(01:04:42):
might not catch again this year, Munson said, I don't
know who started them. It was Martin. Asked after the game,
how his knees felt, Munson said, quote sore, real, real sore.
Hey Munson added, you might be seeing my last hurrah.

(01:05:09):
Larry Brooks told me that story haunted him every day since,
and now it haunts me. I've done all the damage

(01:05:32):
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Most of
our countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian
Ray and John Phillip Chanel, our musical directors of Countdown.
Thank you Brian, Thank you, John Phillip Chanel. It was
produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Ray on guitars, bass on drums,
Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy

(01:05:54):
musical comments are buying the best baseball stadium organists ever.
Nancy Faust, Thank you Nancy. The Alderman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is
the sports music Thank you ESPN. Other music arranged and
performed by the group No Horns Allowed, Thank you boys.

(01:06:16):
My announcer today is my friend John Dean. Thank you John.
Everything else was, as always my fault. So that's countdown
for today. Day two hundred and seven of America held
hostage again, just fifty six days until the scheduled end
of his lane duck and lame brained term unless he

(01:06:36):
is removed sooner by MAGA and Jeffrey Epstein where the
actuarial tables or poutin at the meeting in Alaska, Rusher,
wherever it is. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Bully Puppet Countdown with Keith

(01:07:08):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.

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TRUMP WANTS RUSSIA TO OCCUPY UKRAINE, LIKE THE WEST BANK - 8.14.25

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