May 31, 2023 • 41 mins
EPISODE 214: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Now it's a CONSPIRACY to obstruct justice - within Mar-a-Lago and within the larger Obstruction. After two reports Tuesday, it's clear Trump may have had a team of aides and a box-moving guy who were literally playing hide-and-go-see with stolen classified documents, shifting them from place to place, and trying to burn the security video OF them shifting them from place to place, in order to keep the FBI from finding them, in order to keep the DOJ from getting them, and in order to prevent even his own lawyer from knowing about them.
The newest stuff: The Washington Post reports that guy who helped Trump valet Walt Nauta move the boxes full of stolen classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is now suspected of then trying to find out from the Mar-a-Lago IT guy how you could get rid of security video at, say, Mar-a-Lago, showing, hypothetically, a guy who helped move boxes full of stolen classified documents. And not just that but that Trump’s primary Mar-a-Lago lawyer told Jack Smith’s Grand Jury that HE was told to search for the classified documents the DOJ and FBI wanted IN a storage room. And when he asked if he should search anywhere else – like in Trump’s Office – he was “steered away” and “waved off” and Trump’s office, of course, is where the FBI ultimately FOUND the MOST sensitive of the documents when it came back a month later.
Meanwhile the Debt Deal is going so disastrously internally for the Republicans that when he sought support for his argument against passing it, radical Texas goofball conservative Rep. "Chip" Roy quoted... ME.
B-Block (18:52) IN SPORTS: The Dodger disaster continues. They folded to the pressure of "The Catholic League" (which is one loud guy named Bill) and uninvited a Nun Drag group supported by actual Catholic Nuns. Since? Dodgers rightly attacked by LGBTQ community and local fans, so they reversed and RE-invited. Now they've been attacked by a pitcher for The Washington Nationals who has called for fans to boycott the Dodgers, and their own star twirler has announced a Christian Night at Dodger Stadium - evidently BEFORE the team was ready to. (26:52) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Someone claiming to be the wife of a serving marine says the president needs to be "executed publicly." Elon Musk paid $44B for twitter. One of his co-investors now says it's worth $15B. And disgraced disloyal ex-General Mike Flynn has found a new calling: SELLING SPERM.
C-Block (32:40) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Bentley was rescued by a clueless group which stuck him in a luxury kennel and he has to be ransomed! (33:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I never wanted to do politics. Then one day I went from interviewing Chris Kattan on MSNBC to anchoring the 1998 State of the Union Address
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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. Republicans
in Disarray, gopan crisis, fascists all funked up a debt
(00:28):
deal so internally disastrous that for support Congressman Chip Roy
of Texas has turned to stuff I said on this
podcast in a moment. But first Trump and new evidence
that he led a conspiracy to obstruct justice within marri
Lago and within the larger obstruction conspiracy that Trump may
(00:49):
have had a team of aids and the box moving
guy who were literally playing hide and go seek with
the stolen classified documents, shifting them from place to place
and trying to burn the security video of them shifting
from place to place in order to keep the FBI
from finding them, in order to keep the DOJ from
(01:10):
getting them, and in order to prevent even Trump's own
lawyer from knowing about them. The newest stuff The Washington
Post now reporting that the guy who helped Trump Valet
Walt n Aouda move the boxes full of stolen classified
documents at Mary Lago is now suspected of then trying
to find out how could you get rid of security
(01:34):
video at OO say Mary Lago showing hypothetically a guy
who helped move boxes full of stolen classified documents, and
not just that, but that Trump's primary mariy Lago lawyer
told Jack Smith's grand jury that he was told to
search for the classified documents that the DOJ and FBI
(01:56):
wanted in that storage room, and when he asked if
he should search anywhere else like in Trump's office, he
was quote steered away and quote waved off. And Trump's
office is, of course where the FBI ultimately found the
most sensitive of all the documents when it came back
a month later. The lawyer was, of course Evan Corkoran,
(02:18):
and his story first and then the box guy, and
the story is from Hugo Lowell in The Guardian that
Corkoran quote recounted that several Trump aids had told him
to search the storage room because that was where all
the materials that had been brought from the White House
at the end of Trump's presidency ended up being deposited.
(02:38):
Corkoran found thirty eight classified documents in the storage room.
He then asked whether he should search anywhere else like
Trump's office, but was steered away. Corkoran never searched the
office end quote. It is hazy in the Guardian story,
and one presumes it is also hazy inside the Jacksmith
(03:00):
grand jury. Whether Evan Corkoran was completely misled by Trump,
or if Evan Corcoran winked along with the clear message
there's no need to search over there. Over here's the
only place any documents could possibly be. The possibility that
he was not fooled, that he was complicit, that he
(03:21):
was an accessory to some degree, is underscored by the
fact that when on June third, the FBI came over
to pick up what Trump claimed were the only classified
documents in his possession, the thirty eight that Corcoran found
in the storage room, and when it came time for
a legal memo to be written that day asserting that
the Trump people had conducted a quote diligent search, Evan
(03:44):
Corkoran sure as hell did not sign that document. Evan
Corcoran wrote that document, and he had TV spokesmodel lawyer
Christina bob sign it. Now as to whether or not
this is all on tape, and if not, why not,
The Washington Post now reporting that the same unknown Trump
(04:05):
staffer who was seen on June's second security video helping
Walt Nyoda move boxes into the storage area the day
before the FBI got there, presumably after Trumpet kept the
documents he'd wanted to keep or trade for better signage
at a golf tournament. He has now been accused of
asking a Mari Lago it guy quote how the security
(04:28):
cameras work and how long images remained stored in the system.
The Post reports that mystery employee number one told Jack
Smith's investigators that the conversation was innocent, and he knew
nothing about the investigation nor the subpoena. The other subpoena
that had just been delivered that was now demanding the
(04:51):
June second security video. It was just an amazing coincidence.
He gets caught on video moving boxes the FBI wanted
to get its hands on. A few weeks later, there's
a subpoena for that video. And he then just happens
to talk to Trump's security guy about the details of
the Mari Lago CC video system and how often it
(05:13):
records over stuff. And he was just making security video
small talk as one does. Hey bro, how many megapixels
you're running here? And how good is the night vision?
And then and the VMD and where's the charge couple device,
and uh, how's the missus. Of course, he wasn't trying
(05:36):
to figure out how to delete video or disable the systems,
so nobody would ever see him moving the boxes ever. Again,
and the post does not specifically link this amazingly timed
coincidental conversation to Trump as if maybe Trump suggested that
he should talk to the it guy, but it does
(05:58):
conveniently note in the story quote advisors to Trump said
the former president was annoy with conversations last summer over
how to handle subpoenas seeking video footage. The leaks about
Attorney Corcoran and the boxman with the amazingly plot specific
(06:21):
interest in what the it dude could tell him about
how the security video system worked are clearly the special counsels.
Shots across the bow against Corkoran and anybody who talked
to Corkoran about where he could and could not search,
and of course shots across the bow against that unnamed
employee whose lawyer may suddenly say to him, hey, you
(06:42):
know what, they may try to nail you as an
accessory to obstruction of justice. And it's more info fed
to a waiting public that when Jack Smith indicts Trump
it will be as much about destruction of evidence and
obstruction as it will be about espionage, And just to
ratchet it up one more notch, the Daily Beast reported
(07:04):
yesterday rather vaguely that quote. Now that federal investigators have
turned the interrogation spotlight on some of Trump's lawyers themselves,
defense attorneys on the team seem to be questioning whether
their colleagues may actually turn into snitches, which is intriguing,
which is plausible, but which leaves out the key takeaway
(07:27):
from the Post and Guardian stories. One of their colleagues
already turned into a snitch. Jack Smith has Evan Corcoran's
fifty pages of handwritten contemporaneous notes of his conversations with
Trump about these documents, and Jack Smith clearly has Evan
Corkoran's testimony, and frankly, if the trial started tomorrow, the
key witness for Jack Smith on the document's part of
(07:48):
the people versus Donald Trump would be Evan Corkoran Esquire,
followed by the box moving guy who just likes to
keep updated on how many you know terabytes they're running
round the resort and what's the FIFO on that? Fourteen days,
twenty eight days the FIFO, the FIFO, the first in,
(08:10):
first out deletion principle in the SSD, the SSD the
Solid state drives. And why am I asking? Well, well,
we were talking it over at the bar last night,
me and President, Me and Dona, Me and don No, no, no, no,
not don I forget his name, No, no, Evan. That's right,
(08:33):
Me and Evan were talking. We're talking FIFO on SSD's
over a bud light. I gotta go now. The debt
ceiling cataclysm that would be the cataclysm within the Republican
Party over whether to support the debt deal or scuttle it,
or oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker, or deify Kevin McCarthy,
(08:57):
or expose Kevin McCarthy for making secret voting deals to
become speaker. That the rest of his caucus was utterly
unaware of. This cataclysm is so bad that the Republican
who revealed what now appears to actually be a secret
agreement that any bill coming out of the Rules Committee
had to be unanimous among the nine Republicans, which was
(09:19):
news to everybody. Butt Congressman Chip Roy of Texas. And
how can you trust Chip Roy when he's sitting at
a hearing and quoting, Well, he wasn't quoting Evan Carkoran.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I could go down a list of other quotes the
ever important policy genius Keith Oberman. Biden has still kicked
McCarthy's but now he must also kick Joe manchins butt
and his pipeline out of the debt deal.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I said, ass Chip, Biden kicked Kevin McCarthy's ass. This
is a grown man fifty years old who's to chip.
His real name is Charles Charles Chip. Where I grew up,
(10:13):
we used to have a company called Charles Chips. They
used to deliver bags of potato chips to your house,
just potato chips and pretzels in big, old ups sized vans,
which is about as bad a business model as you
(10:34):
can come up with Charles Chips. But they only went
bankrupt the two times. All right, So back to the
bad business model that is the Republican's handling of the
debt deal. After Congressman Dan Bishop said he had no
confidence in Kevin McCarthy, he said McCarthy was lying. McCarthy
then walks into the House Republican Conference meeting and says,
I thrive for these moments, which isn't a thing I
(11:02):
thrive for these moments. I'm not even sure what he
was trying to say, let alone what he meant. Kevin
thinks he thrives in these moments? Is that? What was
he trying to say, thrives in these moments? He lives
for these moments? Or what's the fifo on that? Fourteen days,
(11:28):
though there are at least thirty Republican knows in the
House on the deal, there has yet to be a
motion to vacate the chair. And the bill was approved
by the Rules Committee, and it is still on schedule
for a full floor vote tonight. Oh and it got
out of rules without all nine Republican votes, just seven
of them. And chip Roy voted no. And he warned
(11:48):
that House Republicans have now been quote torn asunder. And
chip you might very well think you had a veto
in there. I could not possibly comment. If you want
to quote for today's hearing, that's a pretty good one,
feel free. I could not possibly come. It's from House cards.
And while we're here, I think it is really sad
(12:10):
that the third paragraph on chip Roy's Wikipedia page emphasizes
that while he was at UVA, he was a dorm
resident assistant for a year. Quote meeting future pro football
players Tiki and Rendez Barber. Ooh you met them?
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Cool?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, that's great. Did you get an autograph Tiki Barber?
You know, I worked with Tiki Barber for two years
on Football Night in America on NBC. But it's cool
you met him, Chip, you were a dorm ari, really
really cool. Chip. Parenthetically to the point I was making
(12:48):
in the tweet the Chipster quoted, and he could have
at least plugged the podcast. The point I was making
about the Joe Manchion Memorial pipeline the Mountain Valley and
that's an oxy moron if anybody cares. And now Tim
Kaine's movement to strip it out of the debt deal
has been joined by all six Virginia Democrats in the House,
(13:12):
so there is at least a chance. You'll also have
noticed that the CBO scored the whole thing and found that, yes,
the number of recipients now subject to new work and
other requirements for SNAP benefits is almost exactly equivalent to
the number of recipients who will no longer be subject
to work and other requirements. It is a push, and
(13:32):
I'll note that, barring one or two other small things,
Democrats who didn't talk about either the pipeline or the
snap benefits, they have largely been silent about this whole thing,
and they have let the ever important policy geniuses like
my own self do the heavy talking here while we've
all left the stage to the Republicans so they can
self destruct and then reform out of the goop and
(13:56):
then self destruct again. And lastly, on this I think
it is fantastic that Congressman Matt Gates has been able
to take time out from his substantive policy debate that
he cannot possibly understand to host the show on Newsmax
TV and boast that the rerun of it at eleven
PM last Friday had higher ratings than the rerun of
(14:19):
Anderson Cooper's Show on CNN, which was guest hosted by
the effervescent John King. And it is just as fantastic
that Kevin McCarthy could take time out from his version
of the Battle of Bosworth Field to go on radio
with Hugh Hewitt and announced that after this glittering triumph,
(14:43):
he McCarthy will dedicate himself to the Republican's next goal
to quote eliminate the wokeism, because, as we all know,
Kevin thrives for these moons. Also note here, I have
(15:05):
an infinite amount of time on this podcast. Yet I
do not have enough time to list all of the
degradations and perversions and madnesses and ecstatic religious visions and
disloyalties of the disgraced former General and National Security Advisor
Michael Flynn. But I give him immense credit because he
has at least not lost his capacity to shock me.
(15:32):
General Michael Flynn has started a new line of business.
General Michael Flynn is now selling a product. General Michael
Flynn is in fact, now selling sperm. You heard me,
Michael Flynn is now selling sperm. That's next. This is
(15:58):
kind of down. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Alberman in sports. How could it
possibly go more wrong for the Los Angeles Dodgers. First
they invited a satirical fundraising drag group called the Sisters
(16:39):
of Perpetual Indulgence to Pride Night at Dodgers Stadium. Then
when the infamous Catholic League, which is actually just one
obnoxious guy named Bill came after them for doing that.
They disinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from Pride Night. Then,
after blowback, including support for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
(17:00):
from actual Catholic nuns, the Dodgers reinvited them. On Monday,
relief pitcher Anthony Bass of the Toronto Blue Jays posted
a video from some guy calling for boycotts of Target
and Bud happily leaving the Dodgers out of it. This
is evil, this is demonic, said the video that Bass posted. Yesterday,
(17:20):
Bass issued a stiff, thirty second apology that looked like
a very well rehearsed live hostage video. A baseball blogger
named Tyrone Palmer noted Anthony Bass is calling for a
boycott of Target. Judging by his four point five zero
er and four walks per nine innings, it looks like
he's been boycotting targets all season long. Almost simultaneous to
(17:46):
Bass's Forest apology, another mediocre pitcher named Trevor Williams of
the Washington Nationals posted a two screenshot screed in which
he said he was quote deeply troubled that the Dodgers
were inviting The Sisters claimed the decision was a quote
violation of the Dodgers discrimination policy and encourage his quote
(18:08):
fellow Catholics to reconsider their support of an organization that
allows this kind of mockery of its fans to occur.
Williams is not quite as bad as Bass, but if
he disappeared from baseball tomorrow you probably would not notice,
and he might because while he might not be as
bad as Bass, Bass also did not attack another team,
(18:31):
the La Dodgers, no less, and encourage fans to boycott them.
You're in the same business, pal, or at least you were.
The whole thing just keeps getting worse and worse because
of one decision. This Catholic league, which convinced the Dodgers
to uninvite these crazy drag nuns, is actually just one
(18:53):
guy named Bill Donahue, a loud mouthed homophobe and bully.
All the cable networks figured him out in the nineties
and stopped putting him on. When the Dodgers finally figured
that out, they reverse course and reinvited the Sisters. But
then last week, the Dodgers team leader, the veteran pitcher
Clayton Kershaw, personally announced that the Dodgers would also be
(19:14):
staging Christian Faith and Family Day after an interruption that
began with the pandemic. Now it becomes evident that Kershaw
decided to announce this himself. Quote, I think we were
always going to do Christian Faith Day this year, but
I think the timing of our announcement was sped up,
Kershaw told the La Times. Yes, it was in response
(19:35):
to the highlighting of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence by
the Dodgers. So Kershaw announced his team was going to
hold a Christian event, boxing the Dodgers into holding the
Christian event. The team will not comment about its own star.
And just to complicate this more, Kershaw has always participated
(19:57):
in Pride Night, Quoting him again, this has nothing to
do with the LGBTQ community or Pride or anything like that.
This is simply a group that was making fun of
a religion that I don't agree with. Moral When Bill
Donahue of the Catholic quote League unquote calls whatever bad
thing you think he's tried to make happen, there is
(20:18):
really only one bad thing that can happen, and that
is this. You can forget that when Bill Donahue calls
you must immediately hang up on him.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Another moment of baseball fund At least this one's between
the lines sort of. First, the Houston Astros mocked the
fans of the Oakland A's, the moribund, lame duct team
that's probably moving to Las Vegas after ownership basically starved
the franchise to death over the last five years. The
Astros tweeted a video of their offensive explosion in Oakland
recently with this caption ten runs in front of tens
(20:53):
of fans. This was retweeted forty six hundred times, It
got seventeen thousand likes and seven million views, and then,
amid the criticism, the Astros del the tweet, thereby making
it twice as bad, and the beginning of the end
of TV sports as we know it is underway, or
(21:14):
something like that. The terminology here gets kind of confusing.
The Sports Business Journal reports that Diamond Sports Group, which
runs the Bally Sports regional networks, which carry dozens of
local team broadcasts in many sports, and which went bankrupt
in March, has for the first time forfeited its rights
to one of those teams games. It has told the
San Diego Padres, it will not be making its next
(21:37):
payment to them on the twenty year one point two
billion dollar deal, and so the TV rights for the
Padres revert back to the Padres. And I guess now
the announcers will just have to go door to door
every morning asking if anybody wants to watch that night's
game and how much they'd be willing to pay for it.
(22:17):
Thank you, Nancy Faust. And if you're wondering where tennis
gets its reputation for disconnection from reality. At the French Open,
Marta Costiuk lost to number two women's seed Arena Sabelenka.
Costiuk refused to shake Sabolenka's hand after the match. She
never shakes Sabolenka's hand after the match and they always
play and yes, it is because Costiuk is from Ukraine
(22:40):
and Sabolenka is from Belarus, which supports Russia's terrorism in Ukraine.
And Costiuk will not shake her hand and did not
shake her hand, and the French Open crowd at Roland
Garo Stadium promptly booed the Ukrainian for not shaking her hand.
And this is how stupid that is. Costiuc of Ukraine
(23:03):
said she was in embarrassed for the French crowd for
booing her, But then Sablenka of Belarus said even she
was amazed that the French crowd had booed costiuc when
both players in this dynamics say you've screwed up, You've
screwed up coming up. One day, I was the mild
(23:35):
mannered host of a mild mannered news magazine on MSNBC
that led the show with stories like, oh, the new
edition of the Farmer's Almanac is out, let's go live
to the publisher, or tonight we devote the hour to
Saturday Night Live's newest breakout star, Chris Catan. And then
the next day I was anchoring the State of the
Union broadcast and getting quoted by politicians as I was
(23:59):
yesterday by Chip Next first, the daily round up of
the miss Grants, Morons and Dunning Kruger effects Bestman's who
constitute today's worst persons in the world, The Bronze. Kayleie
Campbell Layton, posting on Facebook identifying as the wife of
Ryan Layton, a marine based in twenty nine Palms, California.
Quote Biden left many military service dogs to die in
(24:20):
cobble after the evacuation. I'm calling for public execution of
this old man, and you can't change my mind. Now.
I'm a dog lover, and the fate of the service
dogs in Afghanistan grieves me, as any dog at risk
grieves me. And this woman has also done the military
is racist against white people, posts and videos about target
(24:44):
and she should have been arrested already for this threat
against the president, and her husband needs to be thrown
out of the Marines and directly into well. I'm assuming
Congress Ryan chip Layton, runner up Elon musk Shot and
Chaser time shot. We all told him so. We told
him the blue two checks are not status symbols, they're
(25:07):
ID cards. But he didn't listen because he's a super genius. Yesterday,
an account called aoc Press began impersonating Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortes,
and it had a blue check mark, and some of
its tweets included wild policy statements, and thus the new
cognizanity of Twitter. Those with grilled cheese for brains who
(25:30):
also paid ninety six dollars a year for a blue
check mark that's bigger than their private parts, they began
to believe it really was the congresswoman saying these stupid things.
And that's when Musk replied to one of the fake
account's tweets, thereby amplifying it no pain, no gain. Also
no brain, no pain, and no brain, no shame. If
(25:54):
that's the shot, here's the chaser. Yesterday, Fidelity Investments, which
put money in when Musk bought Twitter, wrote down the
value of its share of the company and his He
bought it for forty four billion. Fidelity says it is
now worth fifteen billion. Elon bought it all right, but
the winner Michael Flynn, Yeah, that one, not the whole
(26:17):
treason and overthrowing the government start. This is his new venture.
He is described as a founding partner of for the Pure,
which is one stop shopping for the vaxer crowd quote
an online community of health conscious COVID nineteen unvaccinated people
where health conscious individuals who have rejected the vaccine can
connect and find everything they need. Friendships, dating, curated news
(26:41):
service providers, doctors, blood donors, fertility options, jobs, shopping events, etc.
Wait what was that last one? Blood donors, No, no, no,
Before that, doctors, blood donors, fertility options. Fertility options, you
(27:01):
mean you mean it's an unvaccinated sperm bank. Michael Flynn
is now selling unvaccinated sperm. Michael Well selling sperm is
I guess better than selling out the country. Flynn two
days worst person in the sperm world, still ahead on countdown.
(27:39):
Chip Roy is not the first to invoke my name
happily or otherwise in Congress or the Senate or whatnot.
Dick Cheney and John McCain both muttered angry jokes in
my direction within days of each other. And then there
was the night I anchored the nineteen ninety eight State
of the Union, when two weeks earlier I was not
even a political correspondent, not even close. That's saga. Next. First,
(28:00):
in each tradition of Countdown, we feature a dog. Indeed,
you can help. Every dog has its day. This is
about Bentley. Bentley is a big black dog with big ears,
and he's pretty calm and pretty happy. And somebody in Fullerton, California,
rescued him from a pound and clearly did not quite
get the whole what do we do next part and
simply took Bentley to a dog boarding place, a kennel
(28:21):
an upscale kennel that calls itself a pet lodge, and
it got him a space, and it left him there
for two hundred and eighteen nights at thirty eight dollars
a night and eighty four dollars to board one healthy dog.
My friend Alana Rizzo from MLB Network and her rescue
Gidrey's Guardian, is contributing to ransoming Bentley and she could
(28:42):
use your financial help. You can find her on Twitter
at Gidresguardian dot org or on my Twitter feeds. I
thank you, and Bentley thanks you from the Dog Hotel
in California, where you can check out but you can
never leave. Now to the number one story on the
Countdown and Things I promised not to tell and the
(29:04):
State of the Union nineteen ninety eight. When I left
ESPN and signed with MSNBC the first time in nineteen
ninety seven, it was not to become a political commentator
nor even anchor. I went there to do what the
president of NBC News America needed most, a live, hour
long news magazine show from Secaucus, New Jersey, so unfocused
(29:28):
that on consecutive nights, we led with the threat of
a terrorist group called al Qaeda, and then The next
night we led with the publication of the Farmers Almanac.
I mean, this was the news at eight pm, the
lead story that published the Farmers Almanac. Again, here's our
live guest, the publisher. Here's a going to rain next year.
(29:52):
I had regrets. Anyway, the good part of the job
was sports. I hosted baseball in the World Series and
even did some Super Bowl stuff for NBC, And in
mid January of nineteen ninety eight, I flew to the
West Coast to work on that and do this magazine show,
The Big Show on MSNBC from entertainment venues in LA,
(30:15):
most of them associated with NBC. On the afternoon of Tuesday,
January twentieth, nineteen ninety eight, we were on the set
of Third Rock from the Sun preparing to interview at
Star John Lithgow when my producer Phil Griffins sidled over, You,
my little friend, are about to become a political host.
The President got caught with some chippy in the White House. Chippy,
(30:38):
oh not sex, sex looks like just you know, and
then he lied about it in the deposition Saturday. I
asked him how in the hell anybody knew about what
the deposition said? When it was just four days after
he gave the deposition, and those things are supposed to be,
you know, secret, beats me. Drudge put it out yesterday
and I asked him if credible news organizations like NBC
(30:59):
were actually quoting an internet guy best known for his
hat about what was a potentially impeachable offense. A lot
of people were close on this story. Griffin said, we
were close. Lisa Myers almost had it Sunday night. Newsweek
finally put out a more detailed version about ninety minutes ago.
It was their scoop. Judge just stole it from them.
(31:20):
I think it was Isakov who wrote it. You'll have
to interview Tim Russer to lead the show. The president
may resign. We'll do it from right here. Back that up.
What was that you said, we'll do it from right here,
No part about the president resigning. Oh yeah, the president
might resign. Thus, half an hour later, I was hooked
up by satellite with Tim Russert from the Washington Bureau,
(31:42):
listening to him outline the possibilities that the president might
resign before sunrise. I nodded with as much gravitas as
I could fake, despite the elements of farce that were
apparently obvious only to me in the story and in
where I was seated. In the background of my close
up stood the refrigerator from the kitchen set of Lithgo's
(32:03):
show Third Rock from the Sun, and on the refrigerator
complete with its decorative magnets speaking their silent and suddenly
completely hip gag. The magnets were a banana surrounded on
either side by a strawberry. Phil I said to Phil
as we tried to plan a smooth transition from that
taped Russert interview about the possible impeachment or resignation of
(32:25):
the president to a taped interview with John Lithgow, and
then back to the live speculations of a couple of
political writers for the rest of the hour. We're not
going to have to do this every day, are we,
Griffin laugh, Of course not. What do you think this
is the end of the world. He was right. We
did not do it every day. We did it for
two hundred and eighteen consecutive shows, starting that night with
(32:49):
the banana and the strawberry magnets over my shoulder. Our
ratings kept doubling. Following Tuesday, my thirty eighth birthday. I
was back in New York hosting a roundtable of political
heavyweights in the hour leading up to Bill Clinton State
of the Union dress that night. Andy Lack of NBC
News and Phil Griffin had decided that I should host
(33:09):
a second live report once the NBC Network guys Russert,
Tom Brokaw a couple of others had wrapped up their analysis,
which we were also carrying on MSNBC. So I would
come on at eleven o'clock after Brokaw and russered two hours.
My little friend, this is our nightline. I was doing
my best to keep a straight face when during a
(33:30):
commercial break at maybe eleven forty five, maybe midnight, halfway
through my wrap up show, Griffin materialized next to my
anchor desk. He had this stunned but not unhappy look,
like when he used to smoke a lot of dope
when we worked together in the eighties. We have the
preliminary ratings, my little friend, I hope you're sitting down,
(33:50):
I pointed at myself, seated in the chair. The pregame
show that did a one point one. Our average rating
at MSNBC before this presidential stuff came up, had been
an zero point three. This was now four times previous ratings.
In the past week, it had searched to an zero
point six, and Griffin had insisted to me that Andy
(34:11):
Lack was so happy he had wet his pants. But
this is the kicker here, buddy. We have the immediate
Since the President finally stopped talking, speech, did an eight,
broke on Russer the wrap up, did an six. Since
eleven o'clock, you've been doing a one point seven. You
have had three times the audience of Tom Brokaw, three
times the audience of the old man himself. This isn't
(34:33):
just people crossing over from NBC to watch more. This
is people watching the speech, turning off the old man,
then turning back at eleven to watch you. I tried
to assimilate what he was telling me. For the first
time in my life, my ego refused to cooperate. The
stage manager barked his queue of thirty seconds until the
(34:54):
end of the commercial break. Phil Griffin shook my hand. Oh,
and by the way, that thing you said at the
start of the hour about it. It was as if
the Intern had opened the door to the chamber and said,
mister speaker, the President the United states. That's already included
in the Associated Press story one point seven, My little friend,
don't f it up. Actually, you can't f it up.
(35:14):
We're in for the long haul now. Revel in it
me quoted about the Clinton Lewinsky story in the main
coverage of the State of the Union address on the
Associated Press wire. Eight months after I stopped giving the
scores of the Greater Stuttgart Invitational tennis tournament on ESPN,
(35:35):
I had this sudden, horrible feeling that the usually slow
to decide American viewing public had instantly concluded that, for
some reason elusive even to me, they really like to
hear me talk about the whereabouts of the president's penis.
If I could have figured out how to f up
(35:56):
the rest of the hour, I would have done it
right then I didn't. The next day it got worse.
The ratings were so great last night, buddy, they want
us to go live every night at eight and eleven
only about the president. The eleven is going to be
called crisis in Washington. Finally we get what we want.
Phil Griffin was dancing around, it'll be our nightline. Since
(36:18):
joining MSNBC, I had not taken any time off and
I actually had a vacation booked in Hawaii the next
week with a young lady. Uh, yeah, about that. Phil
finally announced, well, that's what we have to talk about, Keith.
They want you to commit to this for at least
six weeks, so it's this or Hawaii. I explained Hawaii
(36:38):
to Phil. Lac said he'd probably pay for you to
go do that whenever this is over. I said, in
my opinion, that probably would not be good enough, and
Griffin said neither did he, but that it was just
for openers, and Lack told him that I could have
three wishes and I could anchor NBC Nightly News at
least on the weekends and a couple of times during
(37:00):
the week. Just personally, I'd recommend you do it. I
got the pressure that the show's going to happen whether
we agree to it or not. Griffin said. He mentioned
something about Brian Williams or maybe John Gibson being poor
second choices, but viable ones. He said, viable ones I
told Phil had some calls to make. Griffin suggested Lack
needed a decision within the hour, that he wanted White
(37:23):
House and Crisis on the air that night. Wait, that
didn't sound like what he'd called it before. Phil Is
it White House in crisis or crisis in Washington? Phil
Griffin seemed introspective for a moment, then got in touch
with the news executive within what's the difference, It's going
to be our nightline. I almost suggested to him that
(37:46):
that should be the title MSNBC presents It's going to
be our nightline. On and on. This went for weeks
four months. I mocked the story. The ratings went up.
I tried to quit the show. The ratings went up.
I gave a speech insulting the network for covering the story.
Twenty four to seven. The ratings went up. Fox Sports
(38:09):
approached me and offered me five times when NBC was
paying me to go out to LA to do their
sportscast LA, which was kind of near Hawaii, nowhere near
the Clinton Lewinski story. And the ratings went up. And
I was debating all this and the fact that I
had a contract and I had agreed to do it.
And then one night in early spring, I got home
after another night of this crap. I put my feet up.
(38:31):
I was half watching something on NBC while really just
staring off into the distance. Wondering what I had done
to deserve this, mulling my own future when the snare
drum and the violent string section of an NBC News
promo interrupted me Wednesday on a very special edition of Nightline,
Jane Paully and the former Miss America there she was
(38:52):
for a second, had tilted her look grave, journalistic, even scholarly.
Jane Paully, the ten year host of NBC's landmark Today Show,
the one who had then switched to primetime because the
journalism had slowly ebbed out of morning television and she
couldn't do it anymore. She was sitting there in a
two shot with a Miss America from too many Miss
Americas ago, the former brunette, former redhead, now former blonde,
(39:17):
whose jet black hair made her look a little frightening.
Why the hell was Jane Paul interviewing her on the
signature albeit superficial NBC thrice weekly magazine show Nightline No
less Well, in a split second, the promo gave me
my answer. Jane, did you have sex with the President
of the United States? Ex Miss America? Yes, Yes, I did, announcer.
(39:39):
That's Wednesday on a very special edition to Nightline only
on NBC America's news source with genuine terror. I screamed,
I shouted aloud to no one check please, and I
called my agent to talk about Fox. I've done all
(40:09):
the damage I can do. Here here are the credits.
Most of the music was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel, who are the Countdown
musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Chanel, Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN
(40:31):
two and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best
baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was my friend Stevie
van zandt Everything else was pretty much my fault. So
that's countdown for this, the eight hundred and seventy sixth
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Don't forget to keep
(40:53):
arresting him while we still can. The next scheduled Countdown
is tomorrow till then, I'm the ever Important policy Genius
Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
The ever important policy Genius Keith Olberman. Biden has still
kicked McCarthy's.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
But Countdown with Keith Olberman 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. Republicans
in Disarray, gopan crisis, fascists all funked up a debt
(00:28):
deal so internally disastrous that for support Congressman Chip Roy
of Texas has turned to stuff I said on this
podcast in a moment. But first Trump and new evidence
that he led a conspiracy to obstruct justice within marri
Lago and within the larger obstruction conspiracy that Trump may
(00:49):
have had a team of aids and the box moving
guy who were literally playing hide and go seek with
the stolen classified documents, shifting them from place to place
and trying to burn the security video of them shifting
from place to place in order to keep the FBI
from finding them, in order to keep the DOJ from
(01:10):
getting them, and in order to prevent even Trump's own
lawyer from knowing about them. The newest stuff The Washington
Post now reporting that the guy who helped Trump Valet
Walt n Aouda move the boxes full of stolen classified
documents at Mary Lago is now suspected of then trying
to find out how could you get rid of security
(01:34):
video at OO say Mary Lago showing hypothetically a guy
who helped move boxes full of stolen classified documents, and
not just that, but that Trump's primary mariy Lago lawyer
told Jack Smith's grand jury that he was told to
search for the classified documents that the DOJ and FBI
(01:56):
wanted in that storage room, and when he asked if
he should search anywhere else like in Trump's office, he
was quote steered away and quote waved off. And Trump's
office is, of course where the FBI ultimately found the
most sensitive of all the documents when it came back
a month later. The lawyer was, of course Evan Corkoran,
(02:18):
and his story first and then the box guy, and
the story is from Hugo Lowell in The Guardian that
Corkoran quote recounted that several Trump aids had told him
to search the storage room because that was where all
the materials that had been brought from the White House
at the end of Trump's presidency ended up being deposited.
(02:38):
Corkoran found thirty eight classified documents in the storage room.
He then asked whether he should search anywhere else like
Trump's office, but was steered away. Corkoran never searched the
office end quote. It is hazy in the Guardian story,
and one presumes it is also hazy inside the Jacksmith
(03:00):
grand jury. Whether Evan Corkoran was completely misled by Trump,
or if Evan Corcoran winked along with the clear message
there's no need to search over there. Over here's the
only place any documents could possibly be. The possibility that
he was not fooled, that he was complicit, that he
(03:21):
was an accessory to some degree, is underscored by the
fact that when on June third, the FBI came over
to pick up what Trump claimed were the only classified
documents in his possession, the thirty eight that Corcoran found
in the storage room, and when it came time for
a legal memo to be written that day asserting that
the Trump people had conducted a quote diligent search, Evan
(03:44):
Corkoran sure as hell did not sign that document. Evan
Corcoran wrote that document, and he had TV spokesmodel lawyer
Christina bob sign it. Now as to whether or not
this is all on tape, and if not, why not,
The Washington Post now reporting that the same unknown Trump
(04:05):
staffer who was seen on June's second security video helping
Walt Nyoda move boxes into the storage area the day
before the FBI got there, presumably after Trumpet kept the
documents he'd wanted to keep or trade for better signage
at a golf tournament. He has now been accused of
asking a Mari Lago it guy quote how the security
(04:28):
cameras work and how long images remained stored in the system.
The Post reports that mystery employee number one told Jack
Smith's investigators that the conversation was innocent, and he knew
nothing about the investigation nor the subpoena. The other subpoena
that had just been delivered that was now demanding the
(04:51):
June second security video. It was just an amazing coincidence.
He gets caught on video moving boxes the FBI wanted
to get its hands on. A few weeks later, there's
a subpoena for that video. And he then just happens
to talk to Trump's security guy about the details of
the Mari Lago CC video system and how often it
(05:13):
records over stuff. And he was just making security video
small talk as one does. Hey bro, how many megapixels
you're running here? And how good is the night vision?
And then and the VMD and where's the charge couple device,
and uh, how's the missus. Of course, he wasn't trying
(05:36):
to figure out how to delete video or disable the systems,
so nobody would ever see him moving the boxes ever. Again,
and the post does not specifically link this amazingly timed
coincidental conversation to Trump as if maybe Trump suggested that
he should talk to the it guy, but it does
(05:58):
conveniently note in the story quote advisors to Trump said
the former president was annoy with conversations last summer over
how to handle subpoenas seeking video footage. The leaks about
Attorney Corcoran and the boxman with the amazingly plot specific
(06:21):
interest in what the it dude could tell him about
how the security video system worked are clearly the special counsels.
Shots across the bow against Corkoran and anybody who talked
to Corkoran about where he could and could not search,
and of course shots across the bow against that unnamed
employee whose lawyer may suddenly say to him, hey, you
(06:42):
know what, they may try to nail you as an
accessory to obstruction of justice. And it's more info fed
to a waiting public that when Jack Smith indicts Trump
it will be as much about destruction of evidence and
obstruction as it will be about espionage, And just to
ratchet it up one more notch, the Daily Beast reported
(07:04):
yesterday rather vaguely that quote. Now that federal investigators have
turned the interrogation spotlight on some of Trump's lawyers themselves,
defense attorneys on the team seem to be questioning whether
their colleagues may actually turn into snitches, which is intriguing,
which is plausible, but which leaves out the key takeaway
(07:27):
from the Post and Guardian stories. One of their colleagues
already turned into a snitch. Jack Smith has Evan Corcoran's
fifty pages of handwritten contemporaneous notes of his conversations with
Trump about these documents, and Jack Smith clearly has Evan
Corkoran's testimony, and frankly, if the trial started tomorrow, the
key witness for Jack Smith on the document's part of
(07:48):
the people versus Donald Trump would be Evan Corkoran Esquire,
followed by the box moving guy who just likes to
keep updated on how many you know terabytes they're running
round the resort and what's the FIFO on that? Fourteen days,
twenty eight days the FIFO, the FIFO, the first in,
(08:10):
first out deletion principle in the SSD, the SSD the
Solid state drives. And why am I asking? Well, well,
we were talking it over at the bar last night,
me and President, Me and Dona, Me and don No, no, no, no,
not don I forget his name, No, no, Evan. That's right,
(08:33):
Me and Evan were talking. We're talking FIFO on SSD's
over a bud light. I gotta go now. The debt
ceiling cataclysm that would be the cataclysm within the Republican
Party over whether to support the debt deal or scuttle it,
or oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker, or deify Kevin McCarthy,
(08:57):
or expose Kevin McCarthy for making secret voting deals to
become speaker. That the rest of his caucus was utterly
unaware of. This cataclysm is so bad that the Republican
who revealed what now appears to actually be a secret
agreement that any bill coming out of the Rules Committee
had to be unanimous among the nine Republicans, which was
(09:19):
news to everybody. Butt Congressman Chip Roy of Texas. And
how can you trust Chip Roy when he's sitting at
a hearing and quoting, Well, he wasn't quoting Evan Carkoran.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I could go down a list of other quotes the
ever important policy genius Keith Oberman. Biden has still kicked
McCarthy's but now he must also kick Joe manchins butt
and his pipeline out of the debt deal.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I said, ass Chip, Biden kicked Kevin McCarthy's ass. This
is a grown man fifty years old who's to chip.
His real name is Charles Charles Chip. Where I grew up,
(10:13):
we used to have a company called Charles Chips. They
used to deliver bags of potato chips to your house,
just potato chips and pretzels in big, old ups sized vans,
which is about as bad a business model as you
(10:34):
can come up with Charles Chips. But they only went
bankrupt the two times. All right, So back to the
bad business model that is the Republican's handling of the
debt deal. After Congressman Dan Bishop said he had no
confidence in Kevin McCarthy, he said McCarthy was lying. McCarthy
then walks into the House Republican Conference meeting and says,
I thrive for these moments, which isn't a thing I
(11:02):
thrive for these moments. I'm not even sure what he
was trying to say, let alone what he meant. Kevin
thinks he thrives in these moments? Is that? What was
he trying to say, thrives in these moments? He lives
for these moments? Or what's the fifo on that? Fourteen days,
(11:28):
though there are at least thirty Republican knows in the
House on the deal, there has yet to be a
motion to vacate the chair. And the bill was approved
by the Rules Committee, and it is still on schedule
for a full floor vote tonight. Oh and it got
out of rules without all nine Republican votes, just seven
of them. And chip Roy voted no. And he warned
(11:48):
that House Republicans have now been quote torn asunder. And
chip you might very well think you had a veto
in there. I could not possibly comment. If you want
to quote for today's hearing, that's a pretty good one,
feel free. I could not possibly come. It's from House cards.
And while we're here, I think it is really sad
(12:10):
that the third paragraph on chip Roy's Wikipedia page emphasizes
that while he was at UVA, he was a dorm
resident assistant for a year. Quote meeting future pro football
players Tiki and Rendez Barber. Ooh you met them?
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Cool?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, that's great. Did you get an autograph Tiki Barber?
You know, I worked with Tiki Barber for two years
on Football Night in America on NBC. But it's cool
you met him, Chip, you were a dorm ari, really
really cool. Chip. Parenthetically to the point I was making
(12:48):
in the tweet the Chipster quoted, and he could have
at least plugged the podcast. The point I was making
about the Joe Manchion Memorial pipeline the Mountain Valley and
that's an oxy moron if anybody cares. And now Tim
Kaine's movement to strip it out of the debt deal
has been joined by all six Virginia Democrats in the House,
(13:12):
so there is at least a chance. You'll also have
noticed that the CBO scored the whole thing and found that, yes,
the number of recipients now subject to new work and
other requirements for SNAP benefits is almost exactly equivalent to
the number of recipients who will no longer be subject
to work and other requirements. It is a push, and
(13:32):
I'll note that, barring one or two other small things,
Democrats who didn't talk about either the pipeline or the
snap benefits, they have largely been silent about this whole thing,
and they have let the ever important policy geniuses like
my own self do the heavy talking here while we've
all left the stage to the Republicans so they can
self destruct and then reform out of the goop and
(13:56):
then self destruct again. And lastly, on this I think
it is fantastic that Congressman Matt Gates has been able
to take time out from his substantive policy debate that
he cannot possibly understand to host the show on Newsmax
TV and boast that the rerun of it at eleven
PM last Friday had higher ratings than the rerun of
(14:19):
Anderson Cooper's Show on CNN, which was guest hosted by
the effervescent John King. And it is just as fantastic
that Kevin McCarthy could take time out from his version
of the Battle of Bosworth Field to go on radio
with Hugh Hewitt and announced that after this glittering triumph,
(14:43):
he McCarthy will dedicate himself to the Republican's next goal
to quote eliminate the wokeism, because, as we all know,
Kevin thrives for these moons. Also note here, I have
(15:05):
an infinite amount of time on this podcast. Yet I
do not have enough time to list all of the
degradations and perversions and madnesses and ecstatic religious visions and
disloyalties of the disgraced former General and National Security Advisor
Michael Flynn. But I give him immense credit because he
has at least not lost his capacity to shock me.
(15:32):
General Michael Flynn has started a new line of business.
General Michael Flynn is now selling a product. General Michael
Flynn is in fact, now selling sperm. You heard me,
Michael Flynn is now selling sperm. That's next. This is
(15:58):
kind of down. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Alberman in sports. How could it
possibly go more wrong for the Los Angeles Dodgers. First
they invited a satirical fundraising drag group called the Sisters
(16:39):
of Perpetual Indulgence to Pride Night at Dodgers Stadium. Then
when the infamous Catholic League, which is actually just one
obnoxious guy named Bill came after them for doing that.
They disinvited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from Pride Night. Then,
after blowback, including support for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
(17:00):
from actual Catholic nuns, the Dodgers reinvited them. On Monday,
relief pitcher Anthony Bass of the Toronto Blue Jays posted
a video from some guy calling for boycotts of Target
and Bud happily leaving the Dodgers out of it. This
is evil, this is demonic, said the video that Bass posted. Yesterday,
(17:20):
Bass issued a stiff, thirty second apology that looked like
a very well rehearsed live hostage video. A baseball blogger
named Tyrone Palmer noted Anthony Bass is calling for a
boycott of Target. Judging by his four point five zero
er and four walks per nine innings, it looks like
he's been boycotting targets all season long. Almost simultaneous to
(17:46):
Bass's Forest apology, another mediocre pitcher named Trevor Williams of
the Washington Nationals posted a two screenshot screed in which
he said he was quote deeply troubled that the Dodgers
were inviting The Sisters claimed the decision was a quote
violation of the Dodgers discrimination policy and encourage his quote
(18:08):
fellow Catholics to reconsider their support of an organization that
allows this kind of mockery of its fans to occur.
Williams is not quite as bad as Bass, but if
he disappeared from baseball tomorrow you probably would not notice,
and he might because while he might not be as
bad as Bass, Bass also did not attack another team,
(18:31):
the La Dodgers, no less, and encourage fans to boycott them.
You're in the same business, pal, or at least you were.
The whole thing just keeps getting worse and worse because
of one decision. This Catholic league, which convinced the Dodgers
to uninvite these crazy drag nuns, is actually just one
(18:53):
guy named Bill Donahue, a loud mouthed homophobe and bully.
All the cable networks figured him out in the nineties
and stopped putting him on. When the Dodgers finally figured
that out, they reverse course and reinvited the Sisters. But
then last week, the Dodgers team leader, the veteran pitcher
Clayton Kershaw, personally announced that the Dodgers would also be
(19:14):
staging Christian Faith and Family Day after an interruption that
began with the pandemic. Now it becomes evident that Kershaw
decided to announce this himself. Quote, I think we were
always going to do Christian Faith Day this year, but
I think the timing of our announcement was sped up,
Kershaw told the La Times. Yes, it was in response
(19:35):
to the highlighting of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence by
the Dodgers. So Kershaw announced his team was going to
hold a Christian event, boxing the Dodgers into holding the
Christian event. The team will not comment about its own star.
And just to complicate this more, Kershaw has always participated
(19:57):
in Pride Night, Quoting him again, this has nothing to
do with the LGBTQ community or Pride or anything like that.
This is simply a group that was making fun of
a religion that I don't agree with. Moral When Bill
Donahue of the Catholic quote League unquote calls whatever bad
thing you think he's tried to make happen, there is
(20:18):
really only one bad thing that can happen, and that
is this. You can forget that when Bill Donahue calls
you must immediately hang up on him.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Another moment of baseball fund At least this one's between
the lines sort of. First, the Houston Astros mocked the
fans of the Oakland A's, the moribund, lame duct team
that's probably moving to Las Vegas after ownership basically starved
the franchise to death over the last five years. The
Astros tweeted a video of their offensive explosion in Oakland
recently with this caption ten runs in front of tens
(20:53):
of fans. This was retweeted forty six hundred times, It
got seventeen thousand likes and seven million views, and then,
amid the criticism, the Astros del the tweet, thereby making
it twice as bad, and the beginning of the end
of TV sports as we know it is underway, or
(21:14):
something like that. The terminology here gets kind of confusing.
The Sports Business Journal reports that Diamond Sports Group, which
runs the Bally Sports regional networks, which carry dozens of
local team broadcasts in many sports, and which went bankrupt
in March, has for the first time forfeited its rights
to one of those teams games. It has told the
San Diego Padres, it will not be making its next
(21:37):
payment to them on the twenty year one point two
billion dollar deal, and so the TV rights for the
Padres revert back to the Padres. And I guess now
the announcers will just have to go door to door
every morning asking if anybody wants to watch that night's
game and how much they'd be willing to pay for it.
(22:17):
Thank you, Nancy Faust. And if you're wondering where tennis
gets its reputation for disconnection from reality. At the French Open,
Marta Costiuk lost to number two women's seed Arena Sabelenka.
Costiuk refused to shake Sabolenka's hand after the match. She
never shakes Sabolenka's hand after the match and they always
play and yes, it is because Costiuk is from Ukraine
(22:40):
and Sabolenka is from Belarus, which supports Russia's terrorism in Ukraine.
And Costiuk will not shake her hand and did not
shake her hand, and the French Open crowd at Roland
Garo Stadium promptly booed the Ukrainian for not shaking her hand.
And this is how stupid that is. Costiuc of Ukraine
(23:03):
said she was in embarrassed for the French crowd for
booing her, But then Sablenka of Belarus said even she
was amazed that the French crowd had booed costiuc when
both players in this dynamics say you've screwed up, You've
screwed up coming up. One day, I was the mild
(23:35):
mannered host of a mild mannered news magazine on MSNBC
that led the show with stories like, oh, the new
edition of the Farmer's Almanac is out, let's go live
to the publisher, or tonight we devote the hour to
Saturday Night Live's newest breakout star, Chris Catan. And then
the next day I was anchoring the State of the
Union broadcast and getting quoted by politicians as I was
(23:59):
yesterday by Chip Next first, the daily round up of
the miss Grants, Morons and Dunning Kruger effects Bestman's who
constitute today's worst persons in the world, The Bronze. Kayleie
Campbell Layton, posting on Facebook identifying as the wife of
Ryan Layton, a marine based in twenty nine Palms, California.
Quote Biden left many military service dogs to die in
(24:20):
cobble after the evacuation. I'm calling for public execution of
this old man, and you can't change my mind. Now.
I'm a dog lover, and the fate of the service
dogs in Afghanistan grieves me, as any dog at risk
grieves me. And this woman has also done the military
is racist against white people, posts and videos about target
(24:44):
and she should have been arrested already for this threat
against the president, and her husband needs to be thrown
out of the Marines and directly into well. I'm assuming
Congress Ryan chip Layton, runner up Elon musk Shot and
Chaser time shot. We all told him so. We told
him the blue two checks are not status symbols, they're
(25:07):
ID cards. But he didn't listen because he's a super genius. Yesterday,
an account called aoc Press began impersonating Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortes,
and it had a blue check mark, and some of
its tweets included wild policy statements, and thus the new
cognizanity of Twitter. Those with grilled cheese for brains who
(25:30):
also paid ninety six dollars a year for a blue
check mark that's bigger than their private parts, they began
to believe it really was the congresswoman saying these stupid things.
And that's when Musk replied to one of the fake
account's tweets, thereby amplifying it no pain, no gain. Also
no brain, no pain, and no brain, no shame. If
(25:54):
that's the shot, here's the chaser. Yesterday, Fidelity Investments, which
put money in when Musk bought Twitter, wrote down the
value of its share of the company and his He
bought it for forty four billion. Fidelity says it is
now worth fifteen billion. Elon bought it all right, but
the winner Michael Flynn, Yeah, that one, not the whole
(26:17):
treason and overthrowing the government start. This is his new venture.
He is described as a founding partner of for the Pure,
which is one stop shopping for the vaxer crowd quote
an online community of health conscious COVID nineteen unvaccinated people
where health conscious individuals who have rejected the vaccine can
connect and find everything they need. Friendships, dating, curated news
(26:41):
service providers, doctors, blood donors, fertility options, jobs, shopping events, etc.
Wait what was that last one? Blood donors, No, no, no,
Before that, doctors, blood donors, fertility options. Fertility options, you
(27:01):
mean you mean it's an unvaccinated sperm bank. Michael Flynn
is now selling unvaccinated sperm. Michael Well selling sperm is
I guess better than selling out the country. Flynn two
days worst person in the sperm world, still ahead on countdown.
(27:39):
Chip Roy is not the first to invoke my name
happily or otherwise in Congress or the Senate or whatnot.
Dick Cheney and John McCain both muttered angry jokes in
my direction within days of each other. And then there
was the night I anchored the nineteen ninety eight State
of the Union, when two weeks earlier I was not
even a political correspondent, not even close. That's saga. Next. First,
(28:00):
in each tradition of Countdown, we feature a dog. Indeed,
you can help. Every dog has its day. This is
about Bentley. Bentley is a big black dog with big ears,
and he's pretty calm and pretty happy. And somebody in Fullerton, California,
rescued him from a pound and clearly did not quite
get the whole what do we do next part and
simply took Bentley to a dog boarding place, a kennel
(28:21):
an upscale kennel that calls itself a pet lodge, and
it got him a space, and it left him there
for two hundred and eighteen nights at thirty eight dollars
a night and eighty four dollars to board one healthy dog.
My friend Alana Rizzo from MLB Network and her rescue
Gidrey's Guardian, is contributing to ransoming Bentley and she could
(28:42):
use your financial help. You can find her on Twitter
at Gidresguardian dot org or on my Twitter feeds. I
thank you, and Bentley thanks you from the Dog Hotel
in California, where you can check out but you can
never leave. Now to the number one story on the
Countdown and Things I promised not to tell and the
(29:04):
State of the Union nineteen ninety eight. When I left
ESPN and signed with MSNBC the first time in nineteen
ninety seven, it was not to become a political commentator
nor even anchor. I went there to do what the
president of NBC News America needed most, a live, hour
long news magazine show from Secaucus, New Jersey, so unfocused
(29:28):
that on consecutive nights, we led with the threat of
a terrorist group called al Qaeda, and then The next
night we led with the publication of the Farmers Almanac.
I mean, this was the news at eight pm, the
lead story that published the Farmers Almanac. Again, here's our
live guest, the publisher. Here's a going to rain next year.
(29:52):
I had regrets. Anyway, the good part of the job
was sports. I hosted baseball in the World Series and
even did some Super Bowl stuff for NBC, And in
mid January of nineteen ninety eight, I flew to the
West Coast to work on that and do this magazine show,
The Big Show on MSNBC from entertainment venues in LA,
(30:15):
most of them associated with NBC. On the afternoon of Tuesday,
January twentieth, nineteen ninety eight, we were on the set
of Third Rock from the Sun preparing to interview at
Star John Lithgow when my producer Phil Griffins sidled over, You,
my little friend, are about to become a political host.
The President got caught with some chippy in the White House. Chippy,
(30:38):
oh not sex, sex looks like just you know, and
then he lied about it in the deposition Saturday. I
asked him how in the hell anybody knew about what
the deposition said? When it was just four days after
he gave the deposition, and those things are supposed to be,
you know, secret, beats me. Drudge put it out yesterday
and I asked him if credible news organizations like NBC
(30:59):
were actually quoting an internet guy best known for his
hat about what was a potentially impeachable offense. A lot
of people were close on this story. Griffin said, we
were close. Lisa Myers almost had it Sunday night. Newsweek
finally put out a more detailed version about ninety minutes ago.
It was their scoop. Judge just stole it from them.
(31:20):
I think it was Isakov who wrote it. You'll have
to interview Tim Russer to lead the show. The president
may resign. We'll do it from right here. Back that up.
What was that you said, we'll do it from right here,
No part about the president resigning. Oh yeah, the president
might resign. Thus, half an hour later, I was hooked
up by satellite with Tim Russert from the Washington Bureau,
(31:42):
listening to him outline the possibilities that the president might
resign before sunrise. I nodded with as much gravitas as
I could fake, despite the elements of farce that were
apparently obvious only to me in the story and in
where I was seated. In the background of my close
up stood the refrigerator from the kitchen set of Lithgo's
(32:03):
show Third Rock from the Sun, and on the refrigerator
complete with its decorative magnets speaking their silent and suddenly
completely hip gag. The magnets were a banana surrounded on
either side by a strawberry. Phil I said to Phil
as we tried to plan a smooth transition from that
taped Russert interview about the possible impeachment or resignation of
(32:25):
the president to a taped interview with John Lithgow, and
then back to the live speculations of a couple of
political writers for the rest of the hour. We're not
going to have to do this every day, are we,
Griffin laugh, Of course not. What do you think this
is the end of the world. He was right. We
did not do it every day. We did it for
two hundred and eighteen consecutive shows, starting that night with
(32:49):
the banana and the strawberry magnets over my shoulder. Our
ratings kept doubling. Following Tuesday, my thirty eighth birthday. I
was back in New York hosting a roundtable of political
heavyweights in the hour leading up to Bill Clinton State
of the Union dress that night. Andy Lack of NBC
News and Phil Griffin had decided that I should host
(33:09):
a second live report once the NBC Network guys Russert,
Tom Brokaw a couple of others had wrapped up their analysis,
which we were also carrying on MSNBC. So I would
come on at eleven o'clock after Brokaw and russered two hours.
My little friend, this is our nightline. I was doing
my best to keep a straight face when during a
(33:30):
commercial break at maybe eleven forty five, maybe midnight, halfway
through my wrap up show, Griffin materialized next to my
anchor desk. He had this stunned but not unhappy look,
like when he used to smoke a lot of dope
when we worked together in the eighties. We have the
preliminary ratings, my little friend, I hope you're sitting down,
(33:50):
I pointed at myself, seated in the chair. The pregame
show that did a one point one. Our average rating
at MSNBC before this presidential stuff came up, had been
an zero point three. This was now four times previous ratings.
In the past week, it had searched to an zero
point six, and Griffin had insisted to me that Andy
(34:11):
Lack was so happy he had wet his pants. But
this is the kicker here, buddy. We have the immediate
Since the President finally stopped talking, speech, did an eight,
broke on Russer the wrap up, did an six. Since
eleven o'clock, you've been doing a one point seven. You
have had three times the audience of Tom Brokaw, three
times the audience of the old man himself. This isn't
(34:33):
just people crossing over from NBC to watch more. This
is people watching the speech, turning off the old man,
then turning back at eleven to watch you. I tried
to assimilate what he was telling me. For the first
time in my life, my ego refused to cooperate. The
stage manager barked his queue of thirty seconds until the
(34:54):
end of the commercial break. Phil Griffin shook my hand. Oh,
and by the way, that thing you said at the
start of the hour about it. It was as if
the Intern had opened the door to the chamber and said,
mister speaker, the President the United states. That's already included
in the Associated Press story one point seven, My little friend,
don't f it up. Actually, you can't f it up.
(35:14):
We're in for the long haul now. Revel in it
me quoted about the Clinton Lewinsky story in the main
coverage of the State of the Union address on the
Associated Press wire. Eight months after I stopped giving the
scores of the Greater Stuttgart Invitational tennis tournament on ESPN,
(35:35):
I had this sudden, horrible feeling that the usually slow
to decide American viewing public had instantly concluded that, for
some reason elusive even to me, they really like to
hear me talk about the whereabouts of the president's penis.
If I could have figured out how to f up
(35:56):
the rest of the hour, I would have done it
right then I didn't. The next day it got worse.
The ratings were so great last night, buddy, they want
us to go live every night at eight and eleven
only about the president. The eleven is going to be
called crisis in Washington. Finally we get what we want.
Phil Griffin was dancing around, it'll be our nightline. Since
(36:18):
joining MSNBC, I had not taken any time off and
I actually had a vacation booked in Hawaii the next
week with a young lady. Uh, yeah, about that. Phil
finally announced, well, that's what we have to talk about, Keith.
They want you to commit to this for at least
six weeks, so it's this or Hawaii. I explained Hawaii
(36:38):
to Phil. Lac said he'd probably pay for you to
go do that whenever this is over. I said, in
my opinion, that probably would not be good enough, and
Griffin said neither did he, but that it was just
for openers, and Lack told him that I could have
three wishes and I could anchor NBC Nightly News at
least on the weekends and a couple of times during
(37:00):
the week. Just personally, I'd recommend you do it. I
got the pressure that the show's going to happen whether
we agree to it or not. Griffin said. He mentioned
something about Brian Williams or maybe John Gibson being poor
second choices, but viable ones. He said, viable ones I
told Phil had some calls to make. Griffin suggested Lack
needed a decision within the hour, that he wanted White
(37:23):
House and Crisis on the air that night. Wait, that
didn't sound like what he'd called it before. Phil Is
it White House in crisis or crisis in Washington? Phil
Griffin seemed introspective for a moment, then got in touch
with the news executive within what's the difference, It's going
to be our nightline. I almost suggested to him that
(37:46):
that should be the title MSNBC presents It's going to
be our nightline. On and on. This went for weeks
four months. I mocked the story. The ratings went up.
I tried to quit the show. The ratings went up.
I gave a speech insulting the network for covering the story.
Twenty four to seven. The ratings went up. Fox Sports
(38:09):
approached me and offered me five times when NBC was
paying me to go out to LA to do their
sportscast LA, which was kind of near Hawaii, nowhere near
the Clinton Lewinski story. And the ratings went up. And
I was debating all this and the fact that I
had a contract and I had agreed to do it.
And then one night in early spring, I got home
after another night of this crap. I put my feet up.
(38:31):
I was half watching something on NBC while really just
staring off into the distance. Wondering what I had done
to deserve this, mulling my own future when the snare
drum and the violent string section of an NBC News
promo interrupted me Wednesday on a very special edition of Nightline,
Jane Paully and the former Miss America there she was
(38:52):
for a second, had tilted her look grave, journalistic, even scholarly.
Jane Paully, the ten year host of NBC's landmark Today Show,
the one who had then switched to primetime because the
journalism had slowly ebbed out of morning television and she
couldn't do it anymore. She was sitting there in a
two shot with a Miss America from too many Miss
Americas ago, the former brunette, former redhead, now former blonde,
(39:17):
whose jet black hair made her look a little frightening.
Why the hell was Jane Paul interviewing her on the
signature albeit superficial NBC thrice weekly magazine show Nightline No
less Well, in a split second, the promo gave me
my answer. Jane, did you have sex with the President
of the United States? Ex Miss America? Yes, Yes, I did, announcer.
(39:39):
That's Wednesday on a very special edition to Nightline only
on NBC America's news source with genuine terror. I screamed,
I shouted aloud to no one check please, and I
called my agent to talk about Fox. I've done all
(40:09):
the damage I can do. Here here are the credits.
Most of the music was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel, who are the Countdown
musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Chanel, Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN
(40:31):
two and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best
baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was my friend Stevie
van zandt Everything else was pretty much my fault. So
that's countdown for this, the eight hundred and seventy sixth
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Don't forget to keep
(40:53):
arresting him while we still can. The next scheduled Countdown
is tomorrow till then, I'm the ever Important policy Genius
Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
The ever important policy Genius Keith Olberman. Biden has still
kicked McCarthy's.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
But Countdown with Keith Olberman is a production of iHeartRadio.
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