November 2, 2023 • 53 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 66: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Aileen Cannon, Trump's Personal Concierge Judge, is poised to delay his trial for stealing, stashing, stacking, and sharing secret documents and US war plans - at least until after the primaries and probably until after the election, possibly as early as today. Her excuse will be: he traitor so much that the court schedules are just too crowded with traitor trial stuff. She will first delay by giving him rights to see secret documents he does not have the right to see. She will then use the delay she's fabricated to say that NOW she has to delay everything because the Florida Documents trial schedule is colliding with the Washington Election Subversion trial schedule.
That'll be her excuse. The reality is that three years ago a week from Monday, she was still just one of 6300 Assistant United States Attorneys and it was Trump who made her a judge for the first time. Happy Anniversary, Concierge Judge.
THE DEMENTIA J. TRUMP SCHEDULE: More insomnia, more crazy threats against judges, and then one of the all-time lulus. On a video designed to inflame the cult, he tells them it's "Your chance to take a stand against tyrants that support the one and only movement the can save our country and Make America Great Again." In other words, for some reason, Trump is saying that you must FIGHT THE TYRANTS THAT SUPPORT MAGA. It's either a Freudian slip, or syphilis.
AND THE MIKE JOHNSON MOTHER LODE continues to produce unbelievable and damaging gold. The new speaker a) doesn't understand deficits and offsets b) has claimed he has not had a bank account since at least 2016 and c) was once a major player in forced Conversion Therapy for gay teens.
WHAT'S in his closet? My guess is, the first thing is, the doors to several MORE closets.
B-Block (23:47) IN SPORTS: The Diamondbacks never led once, not one inning, in the last three games and Texas polished them off 5-0 to win their first World Series. The TV ratings are likely to be the worst ever, by 20% or more. The San Diego Padres had to borrow $50 million in September to make payroll. And Bobby Knight has died. I'll neither mourn nor mock him but I will tell you of the day 30 years ago he tried to get me fired from SportsCenter (36:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A crazy bulletin from Fox News; How HBO used burner accounts to criticize the critics; the GOP Pennsylvania Senate candidate who thinks he could fight a bear - and win.
C-Block (43:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: From The Desert To The Sea To All of California: the story of one of the most remarkable newscasters I ever worked in the same market with.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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. Trump's
own private concierge. Federal Judge Eileen Cannon has already violated
(00:28):
her oath enough as it is on his behalf. She
has now revealed she is about to fulfill his second
biggest wish as early as today to delay his trial.
Delay his trial passed the already delayed start date of
May twentieth, twenty twenty four. Delay it certainly until after
the primaries are over, delay it conceivably until after the
(00:49):
Republican Convention, and maybe until after the election itself. The
dream of the Trumps, and Canon's excuse will be that
he and his lawyers are so busy with so many
different trials that the courts just have to adjust their schedules,
as if it was America's fault and not Trumps, that
(01:13):
he tried to steal all the classified documents he could
shove into his cheesy bathroom and steal the election in
each of the different ways he could think to try
to steal it. Delay his trial, Delay his trial for
stealing classified government documents and United States war plans and
(01:35):
potentially endangering the US nuclear fleet and sharing these secrets
with foreign nationals, one of whom reportedly in turn shared
them with eleven of his own foreign employees, ten assorted
officials of his home government, six journalists, and three former
prime ministers. Yet, at a hearing yesterday, Concier's judge Eileen
(02:00):
Cannon looked at the Trump demands to examine even more
classify information as part of discovery, and the Special Council said,
this is part of an explicit and unmistakable stall to
postpone this trial even further. And instead of doing what
Judge Chutkin in Washington did, which was to follow the
law and say no, you know it says right here
(02:22):
in the law the defendant is not entitled to see
one hundred percent of the classified evidence. Ninety percent is enough.
Judge Concierge wants to let Trump's team keep looking and
looking and looking and stalling to their heart's content, and
that delay, in turn will allow Trump's employee Cannon to
(02:47):
create another delay. She says at her hearing yesterday, I'm
having a hard time seeing how this work can be
accomplished in this compressed period of time, because the delays
in getting the materials turned over would the Florida documents
pre trial timetable to clash with the Washington election subversion
(03:11):
pre trial timetable. When government attorney j Brandt said in
exasperation that they really need to stick to the already
slack schedule that Canon devised, Canon answered quote, I'm not
seeing in your position a level of understanding to these realities.
(03:31):
Only a cynic would suggest that the realities to which
Judge Concierge refers are that Trump appointed Judge Concierge call
me a cynic. Eileen Cannon, the former Flamenco dancing and
yoga correspondent of the Miami Al Nuevo Herald newspaper, and
(03:53):
I wish I were making that up. Who a week
from Monday will celebrate three whole years as a judge anywhere.
She says he's prepared to make reasonable adjustments to the
Florida schedule, which right now has the pre trial hearing
on Tuesday May fourteenth, twenty twenty four, with the earliest
(04:15):
start date Monday, May twentieth, reasonable adjustments for the benefit
of justice judge, or reasonable adjustments for the guy who
personally promoted you to federal judge from your previous job
as one of sixty three hundred assistant United States attorneys.
(04:35):
The whole thing reeks. That's the Banana Republic, to use
one of dementia Ja Trump's most infamous social media constructions.
What Trump did in swiping, stealing, palming, hoarding, stacking, sharing,
and maybe selling all of those secret documents is an
(04:59):
act so egregious that in times gone by, the punishment
would have been death as he phrased something else, or
if not capital punishment, then these charges alone, when taken
in combination with his attempt to steal the election and
violently overthrow representative government in our country, that would have
resulted in a guy in jail in leg irons until
(05:21):
the trial starts. It could be that we have evolved
from that point in our history, or that we have
declined from that point in our history. But the further
we get away from that, the more we let this manipulative,
(05:42):
loophole sniffing, cunning animal gain the legal system into tying
itself into knots and giving him away to literally or
just effectively be in position to pardon himself for his
own treachery in twenty twenty five, the more we approach
the moment when that's possible is the more we approach
(06:05):
the moment when the nation comes apart at the seams.
What Aileen Canon is doing on behalf of her benefactor
Trump is the kind of perversion of justice that our
legal system was supposedly built not just to withstand, but
to crush. If she today gives Trump yet another delay
(06:28):
on the stupefying premise that, well, he's treason so much
that there's a treason trial glut, so we have to
give him a pass on some of his treason. If
she does that, Jack Smith needs to be in that
courtroom or as many other courtrooms as are required to
get Aileen Canon off this case. Trump already has enough lawyers.
(06:57):
The judge should not be serving as one of them.
It is absolutely true that for the next year there
will be more court dates than campaign stops for Trump.
That's one of the reasons. You know, we're supposed to
obey the laws, even if you don't believe any laws
(07:21):
on earth apply to you. Developments now from the New
York fraud and the Colorado Fourteenth Amendment disqualification cases, and
from another Trump case. I hadn't even heard of the
Michigan Fourteenth Amendment case in Colorado. The judge again has
refused a Trump motion to immediately find the case in
his favor. Trump's lawyers then began to roll out what
(07:44):
seems to be an attempt to prove Trump did not
want January sixth to happen and did not engage in
insurrection or rebellion or give aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. And naturally, if you're going to try to
do that, the first person you're going to call is
a witness to Trump's loyalty to the constitution is Cash Patel.
(08:05):
Cash Patel, because Aileen Cannon was too busy to testify.
Cash Patel, who testified that he was there when Trump
authorized twenty thousand troops from the DC National Guard in
anticipation of January sixth, which Trump's own Defense secretary denies
(08:27):
ever happened, and when pressed for any evidence that it
did happen, any evidence at all, Patel said I got nothing.
Patel did confirm, though, that every month he gets paid
fifteen thousand dollars from a Trump political action committee. Patel
was not asked how much of that he'd be willing
to spend to get those eyes fixed. The next Trump
(08:52):
witness against disqualifying him from the presidential ballot in Colorado
next year was Katrina Pearson. And it's at times like
these when you have to admit it's a damn shame
that diamond of diamond and silk died last January, your honor,
we next call Seesar Seyak the Magabomber, says our Sayak everybody. Meanwhile,
(09:18):
in ann Arbor, Trump's lawyers have sued the Michigan Secretary
of State, Jocelyn Benson, to prevent her from leaving his
name off the ballot there, and to get a judge
to declare she does not have the authority to leave
it off. They say they have asked the Secretary of
State for reassurance that she's not going to do that
in Michigan, and they have not heard back. So, since
(09:38):
the only human emotions Trump understands are lawsuits, contracts, bribes,
pre nups, and non disclosure agreements, they are taking the
Secretary of State from Michigan to court. There have been
private legal actions started to keep dementia Jay off the
Michigan ballot, but the state has done nothing, making Trump's
(10:00):
motion here even more crazy than usual, especially give it
that he's facing actually advanced prospects of disqualification in as
mentioned Colorado, also Minnesota, and most importantly in Hampshire and Arizona.
Here in New York, Judge Arthur and Goron has to
broaden the gag order. At two twenty eight Eastern Wednesday morning,
(10:21):
again with the insomnia, Trump raged against the judge because
he had ordered Junior and Moron Junior and Girl Junior
to also testify. Leave my children alone and grin. Trump threatened,
as if Trump could actually name all his children without
(10:43):
taking a breath or doing a Google search. Moron Junior
is supposed to testify today. Trump himself testifies Monday, Girl
Junior next Wednesday. Leave Bridvanka alone. Six hours after Trump
threatened the judge, he was back for more. Quote and
(11:03):
Goron is crazy, totally unhinged and dangerous. And yet when
Dementia Junior went up the courthouse steps to testify yesterday morning,
and when he testified, he blamed it all on the accountants.
An officer at the top of the steps. From his
shoulder patch, he looked more like NYPD than a state
(11:25):
court officer. An officer threw the three percenters signal with
his hand, two or at least towards Donald Trump Junior.
The three Percenters are the gun nut anti authority terrorist
gang that supposedly dissolved its American organization in protest of
the violence on January sixth, yet it still exists in
(11:47):
local chapters. It draws its stupid name from the drunk
history claim that the American Revolution was one even though
the Continental Army never amounted to more than three percent
of all the colonists. The three percenters have made some
inroads into law enforcement in this country, and interestingly given
the three percenter signal from that officer yesterday towards Trump Junior.
(12:12):
On May twenty seventh, twenty nineteen, a photo was posted
to an Instagram account in which a man was shown
wearing a shirt bearing both the MAGA slogan and the
skull logo of the three Percenters. The Instagram account belonged
to and the three percenter logo was worn by Donald
(12:34):
Trump Junior, your witness on the Dementia j Trump scoreboard,
I mentioned night two of the Insomnia, and then there
was the little Freudian slip in the latest video clip
posted to try to foment more violence. It's nothing much
(12:58):
just in it, Trump says, that tyrants support Maga. Well, well, look,
first I'll play the clip, then I'll read the verbatim,
then I'll play the clip a second time, so neither
of us thinks we're nuts.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
This is your chance to take a stand against tyrants
at support the one and only movement that can save
our country and make America great again.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
The verbatim on that quote, this is your chance to
take a stand against tyrants that support the one and
only movement that can save our country and make America
great again.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Tyrant says, support the one and only movement that can
save our country.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Take a stand against tyrants that support the one only
movement that can say he said it, I didn't take
a stand against tyrants that support Maga. Tyrants Maga, doctor Freud,
Please I'll wait. I don't think it's untreated tertiary syphilis,
(14:03):
but it sounds like treaded tertiary syphilis. He's old and
he's nuts, and whatever it is, it's getting worse, and
he is dementia. Jay Trump a reminder of that polling,
forty three percent of the voters think they're both too old,
(14:23):
and in that group, sixty one percent say they planned
to vote for President Biden and fifteen percent say for Trump.
So the immediate campaign issue is not how to decrease
voters worries about Biden's age, but to increase voters worries
about Trump's age. And oh, by the way, in complaining
about the New York trial online, he invoked Perry Mason again,
(14:48):
the TV courtroom drama so old that its last new
weekly episode aired on May twenty second, nineteen sixty six.
(15:23):
Thank you, Nancy Faust. Yeah, that was the That was
a Perry Mason theme, like you didn't know, like you
and what three hundred million other Americans didn't know? If
there were a new episode of Perry Mason, they do
show it on cable, even though all the stars are dead.
(15:46):
It could be titled the Case of the Unspeakable Speakers,
Unaccounted for account. The mining of the biography of the
fifth string Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson continues to
rival in profundity that of the Comstock load. Now there's
a current reference. The Daily Beast notes that all members
(16:08):
of Congress have to disclose all bank accounts which contain
one thousand dollars or more each or five thousand dollars
in total, and the number of bank accounts disclosed by
Speaker Johnson since twenty sixteen is zero. Maybe God just
(16:28):
sends him a money gram every time he's a little
shorter in cash. There are many earthly explanations for this.
None of them are good, though the gentlest is Mike
Johnson does not understand money or math, or audition or
subtraction or budgets. You will recall Johnson has inexplicably refused
(16:53):
to release fourteen billion dollars in aid to Israel unless
an offset of fourteen billion dollars is made from the
IRS budget, money that would have been spent and might
yet be spent to hire more AIG to pursue more
wealthy tax dodgers. The non partisan Congressional Budget Office yesterday
joined the partisan chorus of complaints that this is nuts
(17:14):
by calculating that this little offset about the IRS wouldn't
save the government a dime, It would instead increase the
deficit by twelve billion, five hundred million dollars. Mike Johnson,
who does not have a bank account, or is lying
about not having a bank account. Mike Johnson either does
(17:36):
not understand this, or does not believe this, or is
pretending to not understand or not believe. In other words,
in other words, he's either playing dumb or he's not
playing tru Were you surprised by the CBO's courser, Not
surprise at all.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Only in Washington when he cuts spending do they call
it an.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Increasing the enemy? Kind of obscured there, Johnson said, In essence,
only in Washington could Jew save money and be charged
with running up the deficit. And if he somehow is
not an idiot or a mathematical ignoramus or really bad actor,
Mike Johnson certainly is this a homophobe. CNN's crew is
(18:19):
just back from the Johnson Comstock load mine with a stunner.
In the first decade of this century, Mike Johnson was
not only an attorney for a group called Alliance Defense Fund,
but Alliance Defense Fund, and he collaborated with another group
called Exodus International. And what was Exodus International's thing conversion
(18:40):
therapy for gay kids, the attempt to force gay people,
particularly young ones, straight, by all manner of abuse and
bullying and worse, And what they did was not only
so bad but so obviously bad and damaging that Exodus
International shut itself down in twenty thirteen and its founder
(19:04):
then made a public apology for the quote pain and
hurt it and he had caused. And Mike Johnson was
not just a lawyer here. He was an advocate who promoted,
who gave interviews about, who insisted ancient Rome fell because
of homosexuality. Mike Johnson promoted an annual Day of Truth event,
(19:25):
which was billed as an anti gay event aimed at teens.
I'll repeat what I said yesterday. Whatever the scandal is
in this guy's closet, I am confident it is so
big and so disturbing that the first thing they will
(19:46):
find in his closet is the doors to several other closets.
Also of interest here, the House did not expel Santos
and did not take a vote on censuring Talib and
the Senate did not thwart Tubberville, and ladies and gentlemen,
(20:06):
welcome to your tax dollars in action. On the other hand,
the likely Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania next year thinks
he can fight a bear and win. And there's always
the World Series that's next. Ugh, this is countdown. This
(20:31):
is countdown with Keith Oberman. This is sports. Senate Wait
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman
(20:57):
in Sports Dateline. Phoenix, Arizona. The Texas Rangers came the
last of the original Baseball expansion franchises of nineteen sixty
one and nineteen sixty two to win the World Series.
No hit through six innings last night by Zach Gallon
of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas pushed through a run and
(21:17):
then padded it with four in the ninth to beat
the Snakes five zip and win the series four games
to one. Arizona, which had the twelfth best record in
the majors during the regular season compared to Texas's seventh best,
dominated Game two and tied the series at one win
a piece last Saturday night, and then, just like last
year's Philadelphia Phillies, they disappeared. Arizona did not lead once,
(21:43):
not for one inning in the final three games of
the World Series in their own home ballpark, and they
had blown a five to one lead in Game one.
They were completely outmanaged by the Texas skipper Bruce Boche,
who won his fourth World Series and cinched if he
had not already his spot in the Hall of Fame,
(22:03):
and if like me, you were at the game in
nineteen seventy eight at Chase Stadium in New York on
the field taking pictures when the Houston Astros called up
a rookie catcher with a giant head, bigger even than
your own, named Bruce Boche. You know how you feel
right now? Proud what is now? The Texas franchise was
such a joke for such a long time that in
(22:24):
nineteen sixty nine, believe it or not, Mad Magazine ran
a gag and a gimmick about giving all the kids
who read Mad Magazine free insurance against getting hit in
the head by a foul ball at a Washington Senators
New York Mets World Series. The joke being the Senators
and the Mets were so bad there would never be
(22:45):
such a World Series. The Mets won the World Series
that same year, the Senators did not. They moved to
Texas in nineteen seventy two, and after two failures two
blown World Series leads, they finally won it this year
last night, dateline one zero two zero one West Pico Boulevard,
(23:06):
Los Angeles, California. Hello, that is the address of the
headquarters of Fox Sports. And they are not going to
be happy. There today, the World Series TV ratings wants
the benchmark for all of sports will almost certainly end
up not just below the ten million viewer supposed floor
(23:27):
per game rating, but below nine million per game, maybe
below eight and a half million per game. The Game
four ratings came out last night, just before the first
pitch of Game five, eight million, four hundred and eighty
thousand viewers, the least watched game forever, and by a
margin of more than a million. It was a slight
(23:51):
ratings increase over worse ratings for Games two and three.
At least my pal Boog Shambie killed it on the
play by play on ESPN Radio. The only question about
the TV thing left is will the fact that the
series is over and there'll be no Game six tomorrow
night have any numerical effect on the TV ratings, because,
(24:15):
as these ratings show, almost nobody will notice the difference.
The ratings for Game two last Saturday eight million, one
hundred and fifty thousand viewers, the lowest rated World Series
game ever atly since they went to color TV. The
ratings for Game three on Monday night eight million, one
hundred and thirty thousand viewers. No, that's the lowest rated
(24:39):
World Series game ever. It's also less than half of
the average ratings for the World Series in twenty seventeen
Houston versus La eighteen point nine million per game in
that series, and unbelievably, eight point one three million viewers
is literally just fifteen percent of the TV audience that
(25:03):
saw the most wat World Series game of all time,
Game seven of the nineteen eighty six World Series between
the Mets and the Red Sox at least fifty five
million viewers. Some counts have it as high as sixty
million and a rating of thirty eight point nine. I
remember those ratings get me all nostalgic. No, I always
(25:25):
point out that there were two non baseball factors in
the eighties that we do tend to forget and really matter. First,
cable was still not universal on the night of October
twenty seventh, nineteen eighty six, so most of America's viewing
choices consisted of the following cad and Alley Newhart Designing
Women and Cagney and Lacey on CBS mcgiver and Monday
(25:46):
Night Football in ABC Masterpiece Theater. And The Day the
Universe Changed with James Brooke on PBS, and the Little
seventh Game of the World Series with the Mets in
the Red Sox, the game after the Bill Buckner Mooky
Will See You Get Him with Vin Scully and Joe
Garagiol on NBC. Some good programs there, but not exactly
(26:08):
a thousand different options, and the World Series, which is
how you get a thirty eight point nine rating. On
the other hand, the population of the United States in
nineteen eighty six was twenty eight percent smaller than it
is now, so it's not that the World Series ratings
are down by eighty five percent compared with nineteen eighty six,
because adjusted for population, the World Series ratings are closer
(26:31):
to being down by eighty nine percent. Baseball Commissioner Rob
Manfred's solution to this yesterday he said, we'll receede the
teams after each round of the playoffs. Yeah, rather than
the obvious problem, which is the first round byes, where
the best teams don't play for lank four or five
(26:51):
days and get rusty. The division winners first round byes.
The Dodgers got one this year, they got swept. The
Orioles got one, they got swept. The Braves got one.
They lost in four games. Last year, the Dodgers and
Braves got first round byes. Each lost in four. But yeah,
receding should do it. I'm once again proud to say
(27:11):
that Rob Manfred was at Cornell when I was, and
he's the one who wound up as commissioner of Baseball.
Dateline San Diego startling news from the big budget, Big
disappointment San Diego Padres. The Athletic quotes sources who say
(27:32):
that the club basically ran out of money and had
to take a fifty million dollar loan just to meet
player payroll and to dress short term cash flow issues.
In September, Baseball, which can whistle past any graveyard vanishing
TV World Series, audiences its team in the eighteenth largest
market in the country. Coming up short about one month's
(27:53):
worth of money, Baseball says, Look on the bright side,
the Padres must be fine. They were able to get
the loan and not, you know, go bankrupt or something.
By the way, hats off to my friend Bob Melvin.
Bob left as manager of the Oakland A's after the
twenty twenty one season, and the franchise basically collapsed weeks later,
(28:15):
and it's now a lame duck. Waiting to move to
Las Vegas. Bob left Oakland in order to become manager
of Love Padres, and then on October twenty fifth, Bob
left the Padres to become manager of the San Francisco Giants,
and eight days later in San Diego. Now we're fine.
We're only fifty million short and dateline. Bloomington, Indiana. Legendary
(28:38):
Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight has died at the age
of eighty three. He won the national championship in nineteen
seventy six, with the most recent men's team to go unbeaten.
He won eleven Big Ten titles. He was also fired
by Indiana after twenty nine seasons there for wholesale abuse
of players and staff and maybe passers by sure seemed
(29:00):
like it. I am not going to be hypocritical here
and say nice things about him. I am going to
say that he hated me, and I hated him back,
and that Bob Knight tried to get me fired by ESPN,
And no, I'm not seeking some sort of revenge and
dancing on his grave. It is an ironic story worth telling,
(29:20):
even when there are many who are genuinely mourning him
right now. Because the dispute was completely accidental, but it
says something about him. We showed highlights on SportsCenter of
an Indiana basketball game in December nineteen ninety three when
Bob's son Pat Knight was playing for him at Indiana.
Father took son out of the game because he wasn't
(29:41):
playing well, and father shoved son by his shoulders onto
the team bench. Some witnesses at the game say Bobby
Knight also kicked his son Pat. The video did not
show that, and we did not say that, but it
showed the shove, all right, And guess who was doing
the highlights on SportsCenter that night? Shrug emojie what I
(30:03):
said that video? I concluded with, and this is not
a precise quote, but I think it's correct. At home
with the Bobby Knight family. Well, hell, The next day,
Bob Knight got on the phone and called every ESPN
executive he knew and many he did not, and threatened
never to let the network cover another Indiana game, and
to bar our reporters, and to kick my ass, and
(30:26):
and and a lot of other stuff he also could
not actually ever do. To their credit, my boss has
told me of Knight's displeasure, and they said maybe you
shouldn't do the next couple of Indiana highlights. But that
was it. Within a month, I was doing Indiana Highlights again.
They didn't ask me to apologize, they didn't ask me
(30:47):
to talk to him or anything. For thirty years, I
have given them all the credit in the world for that,
and I asked naturally, just for me not to go
on the air with it. Coach Knight was shown on
national television shoving his own son, and he wants me fired.
I mean, my thing was a wise ass joke. His
(31:11):
was shoving his own son, a player on national television,
and one of the guys who really knew college basketball
at ESPN knew it well. Told me that whether I
had known it or not, my remark at home with
the Bobby Knight family was what had driven Night crazy. See,
the guy told me the public doesn't know this, but
(31:34):
when his first wife divorced him in the eighties, that
was one of her allegations. I had had no idea,
no inkling, no clue. I wasn't even guessing. I wasn't extrapolating.
I didn't have a spirit message. It wasn't inspiration. It
(31:56):
was just a really typical mean spirited joke of mine.
Bob Knight tried to get he fired because he thought
I knew, so I didn't really blame him. In fact,
I took it as a kind of compliment. Rest in peace,
(32:39):
still ahead on countdown from the desert to the sea
to all of Southern California. The great newscaster who not
only dominated there for four decades, but who once came
back after three weeks off recovering after that time he
got shot in the Channel seven parking lot. Thanks, I
promise not to tell. Coming up first time for the
(33:01):
daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects bestmans who constitute two days worst persons in the
world from the desert to the sea to wall up
Southern California, worse Fox Business News, you know, the Maria
Bartiromo's credibility memorial channel. At two four pm Eastern yesterday,
it sent out this little urgent social media post quote
(33:25):
breaking dot dot dot. That was it. No follow up,
no explanation, no deletion, leaving us to supply with our
imaginations exactly what was breaking, Like Bartiromo's brain or Stuart
Varney's hair or something worser HBO, or as it likes
(33:49):
to call itself now Max. And it calls itself Max,
and you say who what huh? And somebody whispers HBO
and you go, oh, HBO. And if it's recent struggles
with its identity were not clues enough that something has
gone very wrong with that outfit that really truly launched
cable television in this country. I mean it was originally
(34:10):
owned by Madison Square Garden, and it showed new movies
and hockey games and basketball games and even a slate
of Major League Baseball games. If its recent confusion were
not the first sign of trouble, well, this report from
Rolling Stone probably is. In June twenty twenty, the magazine
(34:30):
reports HBO's president of Original Programming, Casey Bloys, was really
pissed off by complaints about the reboot of Perry Mason,
Trump's favorite new show of nineteen fifty seven. This reboot
got banned or panned or something by a TV critic
(34:51):
from Vulture named Catherine van Arendock. So HBO gave Perry
Mason a backstory trauma in World War One or something
like that, and the critic wrote, dear Prestige TV, please
find some way to communicate ma trauma, besides showing me
a flashback to the hero's memories of trench warfare. Well,
President Bloise of HBO max HB Maxo did what any
(35:16):
TV exec would do. He texted an HBO vice president
and they began to devise a plan in which they
would use or create a burner account on Twitter to
attack the critic Van Arendonk's criticism by making it look
like she was mocking war casualties. Turned out HBO actually
(35:37):
did have fictitious tweeters attacking other critics from the New
York Times and Rolling Stone and Deadline and others who
said bad things about HBO shows. And somebody posted an
anonymous comment somewhere saying HBO's future was this guy Bloyse
and on and on, and I don't get it. Why
go to such trouble? Why not just hire John Baron
(36:00):
or John Miller to do your pr But our winner
the worst, David McCormick, the hedge fund guy who, as
hard as this is in retrospect to believe, lost the
Republican nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania last year to Memet Oz. Yes,
(36:21):
he was the runner up to doctor Charcuterie himself, having
learned his lesson, hit the wall harder with your head
next time. David McCormick is now intending to run again
for the Senate in Pennsylvania next year. And I think
we now understand all of this. Mister McCormick has appeared
(36:44):
on a podcast called Ruthless, which bills itself as bringing
next generation conservative talk to the next level. A. There
is no next generation conservative, but b It has a
logo in which the parts of its named Ruthless, Ruth,
and less are on two differ diferent lines. It says
(37:07):
ruth and then beneath it says less. So you look
at that and you're thinking, so this is a podcast
hosted by somebody named ruth or it's hosted by somebody
not named ruth or it has less ruth than the
other podcasts. AnyWho. David McCormick, already a failed Senate candidate
going for double honors in that field, when on this
(37:29):
podcast and revealed he is confident he can successfully fight
a bear. So what is the biggest animal you think
you could take?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I think I could take a bear. Wow, I think
I could take you bear. Now there's big bears and
little bears. But you know, I think a good medium
sized bear. You know, I've watched those bears. First of all,
they're lazy. Yeah, they don't look like they're in shape, right,
you know, So I think he can go the long
game with them. And you know, their their claws and
their teeth are big, but not that big. I mean,
they're like a lion or anything, you know. And so
(37:59):
I think if I could get a bear right pre
hibernation or post hibernation, you know about time. Yeah, and
I hadn't eaten much and he didn't need much, or
he'd eating a lot.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
A couple.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
I'm long on McCormick.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I like that a bear. You were convinced you can
fight and defeat a bear. If this actually happens, of course,
it will end with a news story featuring the following
phrase the body of former Pennsylvania Senate candidate David you.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
Can fight and defeat a bear. You couldn't fight and
defeat memot oz David. Await, that's a bear. Never mind, McCormick.
Two days worst person.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
And so SILTI to the number one story on the
(39:13):
countdown and my favorite topic, me and things. I promised
not to tell, And somebody sent me a video of
him the other day, and I laughed again, and I
flashed back again. And now you get to hear about
him too, from the desert to the sea to all
of southern California. Good evening. You may or may not
have ever heard of Jerry Dunfi. That statement that you
(39:34):
may or may not have ever heard of Jerry dunfeye
just sent anybody from southern California who is more than
thirty five years old into a deep, stunned silence. Because
Jerry Dunfi was ubiquitous on TV news in Los Angeles
from nineteen sixty until two thousand and two. He died
a week after his last newscast, and there are some
in the business who have seriously believed he may show
(39:57):
up again sooner or later on TV, even though he's dead.
He worked for Channel two, and he and his team
won all the ratings wars for fifteen years, and then
one year the station finished only tied for first in
the Spring LA ratings of nineteen seventy five, so the
CBS corporate geniuses in New York fired him and he
(40:19):
went to Channel seven. Like thirty six hours later and
then Channel seven won nearly all the ratings periods there
over fourteen years. And then after six years at Channel nine,
he was hired back at Channel two where he started
where they fired him. Hired back at Channel two for
a couple million more than he was making when they
fired him twenty years earlier, and then he went back
(40:39):
to Channel nine and he was still on every night
at the age of eighty and oh, by the way,
he worked for twenty nine years after he came out
of the KABC studios. On the night of October twenty fourth,
nineteen eighty three, hopped into his Rolls Royce with the
station makeup lady by his side, and was ambushed and
shot in the neck by four assailants, leading him to
(41:02):
issue the memorable statement they said, don't move, and I didn't,
but they shot anyway, unquote. And they never figured out
who shot him or why, but Jerry dunfhe was back
on the air three weeks later anyway, And you cannot
imagine how many different guesses there were about that in
(41:22):
the LA news industry when I was on the air
there from nineteen eighty five through nineteen ninety one. There
is no question that in creating the fictional newscasters Ted
Baxter and Kent Brockman, and maybe even Ron Burgundy. Much
was stolen from Jerry dunfe Jerry Dunfeye had a huge
shock of white hair, a craggy face, and a rich
(41:45):
baritone voice. He was in twenty one different movies, including
Oh God, and the amazing Ann Margaret Flick Kitten with
a Whip. No, really, there is an Ann Margaret film
called Kitten with a Whip. Anyway, I knew Jerry Dunfey.
He was a smart man, and a nice and a
welcoming man, and obviously quite a business man. But he
(42:06):
did have a tendency on the air to become, in
his own words, a teleprompter reading machine. He said, you
put it up there, and I'm going to say it
down here, and that's what this story is about. When
I got to Los Angeles at the age of twenty
six in nineteen eighty five, our newscast Channel five News
(42:27):
at ten was like something out of the nineteen sixties.
The studio had carpeting on the walls. There were no
graphics to speak of, just a big rear screen projection device.
Our best reporter, the lovely stand Chambers had literally worked
there since the station had signed on the air for
the first time thirty eight years before, and he would
(42:48):
keep working there for another twenty five years. Our inimitable anchorman,
Hal Fishman, would not wear an IFB and earpiece because
he thought viewers might think that if he did, it
was because he needed a hearing aid. He did, however,
wear one of a series of two pays of different
length to simulate the need for a haircut. Until the
(43:12):
first commercial break was over on News at ten, only
Hal spoke. His female co anchor just sat there adoringly.
And the producer was a marvelously frantic character named Jerry Rubin,
who every night at nine PM, an hour to airtime,
would run around the newsroom screaming battle stations, battle stations,
(43:33):
and who took me seriously only when I could figure
out what his as Jerry phrased it, invisible thread was
running through his nightly ordering of the stories, the rundown.
He would ask me to come into the newsroom and
look at the rundown and say, all right, Olderman, you're
so smart, what's the invisible thread? And he only began
(43:54):
to like me when I could recite to him from
memory the starting lineup of his beloved nineteen forty five
Chicago Cubs, but he stayed liking me. We remained friends
for thirty years. Anyway. Jerry had come to Los Angeles
in nineteen sixty nine, hired away from WGN in Chicago
to become the lead writer for This is where the
(44:15):
story comes together. You guessed it, the Jerry Dunfee newscasts
on KNXT, the CBS station in Los Angeles. In fact,
after winning every sweeps period for nine years, the newscast
had rightly become the Big News with Jerry Dunfie. And
it began with an unseen announcer intoning the Big News
(44:35):
with Jerry Dunfee. Now here is Jerry Dunfie. And then
Jerry Dunvee said his catchphrase, the catchphrase of all catchphrases.
Unlike the guy I worked with in New York when
I was an intern, Bill Jorgenson, thank you for your
time this time till next time, Jerry Dunfee said, from
the desert to the sea to all of southern California,
(44:58):
the good evening nonsense, of course, but boy, it sounded good.
From the desert to the sea to all of southern California.
Good evening. He said this so often that it is
still used in some promotional announcements by Channel nine News
in Los Angeles and Channel seven News in Los Angeles
(45:20):
and Channel two in Los Angeles. From the desert to
the sea to all of southern California, good evening, I'm
dead Well. No, they don't actually say that, but that's
pretty much what it means. The only joke about the
night he got shot outside the parking lot that I
can tell is that when the cops arrived, Dunfey said
to them, from the desert to the sea to all
(45:41):
of southern California, good evening, I've been shot in the neck.
The first night, my friend Jerry Rubin sat down to
write The Big News with Jerry dunfy Jerry Rubin was
a little nervous. He got there early, he said. He
wrote some stories a dozen times each trying to get
it perfect. Finally, for the lead story, which if memory serves,
(46:04):
was about a bank robbery in Pasadena, Jerry got it
just right, and on that nineteen sixty nine evening at
six PM, viewers of The Big News on Channel two
in Los Angeles those for whom from the desert to
the sea to all of southern California was not a cliche,
but mantra. They heard the familiar Channel two screeching theme music,
and then the big news with Jerry Dunfee. Now here
(46:26):
is Jerry Dunfie And up popped Jerry Dunfee's face and
he said, three armed and very dangerous modern day desperadoes
are still loose in Pasadena tonight. After blah blah blah,
blah blah, the newscast ended an hour later. Jerry Rubin
was very relieved. Jerry Dunfee strode back to his desk
before presumably going out to warm up the Rolls Royce
(46:48):
and avoid the gunmen who would finally get him fourteen
years later and not even slow him down. And that's
when the station's news director leaned out of his office
and waved the two Jerry's inside. What the hell happened, Dunfee?
Did you retire it? You can't retire it. It's in
the contract. Have to stay it. According to Jerry Rubin,
(47:08):
Dunfey looked blankly at his boss. Jerry Rubin said he
was even more confused himself. From the desert to the sea.
You didn't say from the desert to the sea. At
the start of the big News you say from the
desert to the sea to all of Southern California, Good evening.
Only tonight you didn't say from the desert to the
sea to all of Southern California, Good evening. You said
something about a bank. What the hell, Jerry, we got
(47:32):
two hundred and fifty phone calls. Jerry Dunfey now pursed
his lips and turned to the new writer, What the hell, Ruben,
didn't you put it in the script? Jerry Rubin kept
this part to himself, but frankly, he said he couldn't
believe what he was hearing. For nine years, this man
Dunfey had signed on virtually every one of his news
(47:52):
broadcasts every night at six and then again every night
at eleven by saying, from the desert to the sea
to all southern California, Good evening. But apparently, if you
did not write it in the script, and did not
put it on the telepropter for him, he would forget it.
Before Jerry Rubin could say anything, Jerry dunfee barked at him,
with some understanding, don't you understand. When I'm out there,
(48:14):
I'm a teleprompter reading machine. You put it up there,
I'm going to say it down here. You don't put
it up there. I'm not going to say it down here.
The news director looked sternly at Jerry Rubin. Jerry Rubin
did not burst into uncontrollable laughter. Race from the building
KNXT was in on Sunset Boulevard, and get on the
(48:36):
first plane back to Chicago. He just said yes, sir,
and the news director said good and everybody left. And
from that night, at eleven o'clock onwards, Jerry Rubin always
started his script for the lead story by typing out,
from the desert to the Sea to all of Southern California,
good evening, there's a twenty six car pile up on
the Santa Monica Freeway after another mattress has been dumped
(48:56):
in the left lane. Or from the desert to the
Sea to all of Southern California, good evening, Burbank bank
burgled or whatever. Over the next few weeks, the lead
story on the Big News with Jerry Dunfey would change,
as lead stories do at five m or five thirty
or five fifty something, big er would happen, and it
(49:18):
was the big news. So Jerry Rubin would often have
to rewrite page one of the script, and every time
he rewrote it, and every time he re rewrote it,
and the one time he told me that he re
re rewrote it, Jerry remembered to start page one with
from the desert to the sea to all southern California,
Good evening. All was well, the teleprompter reading machine was happy,
(49:43):
the news director was happy, Jerry Rubin was happy. And
then calamity struck. At about five point fifty eight one night,
Jerry Rubin was told there is a refinery fire in Torrents.
It is the new lead story. Just say, we're rushing
a crew, get it written. He started to type our
top story, breaking news, a refinery and and then he
(50:04):
tore the page from his machine. He started anew His
fingers danced across the keyboard from the desert to the
sea to all of Southern California. Good evening, Our top
story tonight, breaking news. Our refinery fire is just erupted
in Torrents. A Channel two Big News Live crew is
rushing to the scene at this hour and we will
have a big News live report from Rick Davis before
this news cast is over. Rubin knew he did not
(50:28):
have time to get a production assistant to take the
new lead script into Dunfee, nor to tape it into
the script about to pass through the teleprompter, so he
did both things himself. New lead. He screamed at Dunfee,
throwing the page at him, and the unseen announcer was
already at mid introduction when Jerry Rubin taped that new
piece of script into the prompter without remembering to remove
(50:51):
the old lead script from the prompter. And this is
what Los Angeles heard the Big News with Jerry Dunfee.
Now here's Jerry Dunfie to the Sea to all of
Southern California. Good evening, our top story Tonight, breaking news
or refinery fire has just erupted in Torrents at Channel two.
(51:13):
Big News Live crew is rushing to the scene at
this hour, and we will have a Big News Live
report from Rick Davis before this newscast is over. Jerry
Dunfey dramatically turned over page one and began to read
page two. From a desert to the Sea to all
of Southern California. Good evening, Our top story tonight, Mayor, Sam,
you're he said, Jerry Rubin said, My head dropped to
(51:36):
my desk with a thud. I've done all the damage
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has
come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at the
(51:57):
Olderman Broadcasting Empire World Headquarters in New York. Countdown musical
directors Ray and John Phillip Chanel arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums produced by
tk Obros. Other music, including some Beethoven works, were arranged
(52:20):
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports music
is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And it was written by
Mitch Warren Davis and we call it the Olderman theme
from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium morganist ever. Our
announcer today was my friend Howard Feyneman, and everything else
was pretty much by fault. So that's countdown for this
(52:42):
the one thousand and thirty first day since dementia j
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States convict him now while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow, Bolton says, the news
warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Alderman is
(53:18):
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. Trump's
own private concierge. Federal Judge Eileen Cannon has already violated
(00:28):
her oath enough as it is on his behalf. She
has now revealed she is about to fulfill his second
biggest wish as early as today to delay his trial.
Delay his trial passed the already delayed start date of
May twentieth, twenty twenty four. Delay it certainly until after
the primaries are over, delay it conceivably until after the
(00:49):
Republican Convention, and maybe until after the election itself. The
dream of the Trumps, and Canon's excuse will be that
he and his lawyers are so busy with so many
different trials that the courts just have to adjust their schedules,
as if it was America's fault and not Trumps, that
(01:13):
he tried to steal all the classified documents he could
shove into his cheesy bathroom and steal the election in
each of the different ways he could think to try
to steal it. Delay his trial, Delay his trial for
stealing classified government documents and United States war plans and
(01:35):
potentially endangering the US nuclear fleet and sharing these secrets
with foreign nationals, one of whom reportedly in turn shared
them with eleven of his own foreign employees, ten assorted
officials of his home government, six journalists, and three former
prime ministers. Yet, at a hearing yesterday, Concier's judge Eileen
(02:00):
Cannon looked at the Trump demands to examine even more
classify information as part of discovery, and the Special Council said,
this is part of an explicit and unmistakable stall to
postpone this trial even further. And instead of doing what
Judge Chutkin in Washington did, which was to follow the
law and say no, you know it says right here
(02:22):
in the law the defendant is not entitled to see
one hundred percent of the classified evidence. Ninety percent is enough.
Judge Concierge wants to let Trump's team keep looking and
looking and looking and stalling to their heart's content, and
that delay, in turn will allow Trump's employee Cannon to
(02:47):
create another delay. She says at her hearing yesterday, I'm
having a hard time seeing how this work can be
accomplished in this compressed period of time, because the delays
in getting the materials turned over would the Florida documents
pre trial timetable to clash with the Washington election subversion
(03:11):
pre trial timetable. When government attorney j Brandt said in
exasperation that they really need to stick to the already
slack schedule that Canon devised, Canon answered quote, I'm not
seeing in your position a level of understanding to these realities.
(03:31):
Only a cynic would suggest that the realities to which
Judge Concierge refers are that Trump appointed Judge Concierge call
me a cynic. Eileen Cannon, the former Flamenco dancing and
yoga correspondent of the Miami Al Nuevo Herald newspaper, and
(03:53):
I wish I were making that up. Who a week
from Monday will celebrate three whole years as a judge anywhere.
She says he's prepared to make reasonable adjustments to the
Florida schedule, which right now has the pre trial hearing
on Tuesday May fourteenth, twenty twenty four, with the earliest
(04:15):
start date Monday, May twentieth, reasonable adjustments for the benefit
of justice judge, or reasonable adjustments for the guy who
personally promoted you to federal judge from your previous job
as one of sixty three hundred assistant United States attorneys.
(04:35):
The whole thing reeks. That's the Banana Republic, to use
one of dementia Ja Trump's most infamous social media constructions.
What Trump did in swiping, stealing, palming, hoarding, stacking, sharing,
and maybe selling all of those secret documents is an
(04:59):
act so egregious that in times gone by, the punishment
would have been death as he phrased something else, or
if not capital punishment, then these charges alone, when taken
in combination with his attempt to steal the election and
violently overthrow representative government in our country, that would have
resulted in a guy in jail in leg irons until
(05:21):
the trial starts. It could be that we have evolved
from that point in our history, or that we have
declined from that point in our history. But the further
we get away from that, the more we let this manipulative,
(05:42):
loophole sniffing, cunning animal gain the legal system into tying
itself into knots and giving him away to literally or
just effectively be in position to pardon himself for his
own treachery in twenty twenty five, the more we approach
the moment when that's possible is the more we approach
(06:05):
the moment when the nation comes apart at the seams.
What Aileen Canon is doing on behalf of her benefactor
Trump is the kind of perversion of justice that our
legal system was supposedly built not just to withstand, but
to crush. If she today gives Trump yet another delay
(06:28):
on the stupefying premise that, well, he's treason so much
that there's a treason trial glut, so we have to
give him a pass on some of his treason. If
she does that, Jack Smith needs to be in that
courtroom or as many other courtrooms as are required to
get Aileen Canon off this case. Trump already has enough lawyers.
(06:57):
The judge should not be serving as one of them.
It is absolutely true that for the next year there
will be more court dates than campaign stops for Trump.
That's one of the reasons. You know, we're supposed to
obey the laws, even if you don't believe any laws
(07:21):
on earth apply to you. Developments now from the New
York fraud and the Colorado Fourteenth Amendment disqualification cases, and
from another Trump case. I hadn't even heard of the
Michigan Fourteenth Amendment case in Colorado. The judge again has
refused a Trump motion to immediately find the case in
his favor. Trump's lawyers then began to roll out what
(07:44):
seems to be an attempt to prove Trump did not
want January sixth to happen and did not engage in
insurrection or rebellion or give aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. And naturally, if you're going to try to
do that, the first person you're going to call is
a witness to Trump's loyalty to the constitution is Cash Patel.
(08:05):
Cash Patel, because Aileen Cannon was too busy to testify.
Cash Patel, who testified that he was there when Trump
authorized twenty thousand troops from the DC National Guard in
anticipation of January sixth, which Trump's own Defense secretary denies
(08:27):
ever happened, and when pressed for any evidence that it
did happen, any evidence at all, Patel said I got nothing.
Patel did confirm, though, that every month he gets paid
fifteen thousand dollars from a Trump political action committee. Patel
was not asked how much of that he'd be willing
to spend to get those eyes fixed. The next Trump
(08:52):
witness against disqualifying him from the presidential ballot in Colorado
next year was Katrina Pearson. And it's at times like
these when you have to admit it's a damn shame
that diamond of diamond and silk died last January, your honor,
we next call Seesar Seyak the Magabomber, says our Sayak everybody. Meanwhile,
(09:18):
in ann Arbor, Trump's lawyers have sued the Michigan Secretary
of State, Jocelyn Benson, to prevent her from leaving his
name off the ballot there, and to get a judge
to declare she does not have the authority to leave
it off. They say they have asked the Secretary of
State for reassurance that she's not going to do that
in Michigan, and they have not heard back. So, since
(09:38):
the only human emotions Trump understands are lawsuits, contracts, bribes,
pre nups, and non disclosure agreements, they are taking the
Secretary of State from Michigan to court. There have been
private legal actions started to keep dementia Jay off the
Michigan ballot, but the state has done nothing, making Trump's
(10:00):
motion here even more crazy than usual, especially give it
that he's facing actually advanced prospects of disqualification in as
mentioned Colorado, also Minnesota, and most importantly in Hampshire and Arizona.
Here in New York, Judge Arthur and Goron has to
broaden the gag order. At two twenty eight Eastern Wednesday morning,
(10:21):
again with the insomnia, Trump raged against the judge because
he had ordered Junior and Moron Junior and Girl Junior
to also testify. Leave my children alone and grin. Trump threatened,
as if Trump could actually name all his children without
(10:43):
taking a breath or doing a Google search. Moron Junior
is supposed to testify today. Trump himself testifies Monday, Girl
Junior next Wednesday. Leave Bridvanka alone. Six hours after Trump
threatened the judge, he was back for more. Quote and
(11:03):
Goron is crazy, totally unhinged and dangerous. And yet when
Dementia Junior went up the courthouse steps to testify yesterday morning,
and when he testified, he blamed it all on the accountants.
An officer at the top of the steps. From his
shoulder patch, he looked more like NYPD than a state
(11:25):
court officer. An officer threw the three percenters signal with
his hand, two or at least towards Donald Trump Junior.
The three Percenters are the gun nut anti authority terrorist
gang that supposedly dissolved its American organization in protest of
the violence on January sixth, yet it still exists in
(11:47):
local chapters. It draws its stupid name from the drunk
history claim that the American Revolution was one even though
the Continental Army never amounted to more than three percent
of all the colonists. The three percenters have made some
inroads into law enforcement in this country, and interestingly given
the three percenter signal from that officer yesterday towards Trump Junior.
(12:12):
On May twenty seventh, twenty nineteen, a photo was posted
to an Instagram account in which a man was shown
wearing a shirt bearing both the MAGA slogan and the
skull logo of the three Percenters. The Instagram account belonged
to and the three percenter logo was worn by Donald
(12:34):
Trump Junior, your witness on the Dementia j Trump scoreboard,
I mentioned night two of the Insomnia, and then there
was the little Freudian slip in the latest video clip
posted to try to foment more violence. It's nothing much
(12:58):
just in it, Trump says, that tyrants support Maga. Well, well, look,
first I'll play the clip, then I'll read the verbatim,
then I'll play the clip a second time, so neither
of us thinks we're nuts.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
This is your chance to take a stand against tyrants
at support the one and only movement that can save
our country and make America great again.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
The verbatim on that quote, this is your chance to
take a stand against tyrants that support the one and
only movement that can save our country and make America
great again.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Tyrant says, support the one and only movement that can
save our country.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Take a stand against tyrants that support the one only
movement that can say he said it, I didn't take
a stand against tyrants that support Maga. Tyrants Maga, doctor Freud,
Please I'll wait. I don't think it's untreated tertiary syphilis,
(14:03):
but it sounds like treaded tertiary syphilis. He's old and
he's nuts, and whatever it is, it's getting worse, and
he is dementia. Jay Trump a reminder of that polling,
forty three percent of the voters think they're both too old,
(14:23):
and in that group, sixty one percent say they planned
to vote for President Biden and fifteen percent say for Trump.
So the immediate campaign issue is not how to decrease
voters worries about Biden's age, but to increase voters worries
about Trump's age. And oh, by the way, in complaining
about the New York trial online, he invoked Perry Mason again,
(14:48):
the TV courtroom drama so old that its last new
weekly episode aired on May twenty second, nineteen sixty six.
(15:23):
Thank you, Nancy Faust. Yeah, that was the That was
a Perry Mason theme, like you didn't know, like you
and what three hundred million other Americans didn't know? If
there were a new episode of Perry Mason, they do
show it on cable, even though all the stars are dead.
(15:46):
It could be titled the Case of the Unspeakable Speakers,
Unaccounted for account. The mining of the biography of the
fifth string Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson continues to
rival in profundity that of the Comstock load. Now there's
a current reference. The Daily Beast notes that all members
(16:08):
of Congress have to disclose all bank accounts which contain
one thousand dollars or more each or five thousand dollars
in total, and the number of bank accounts disclosed by
Speaker Johnson since twenty sixteen is zero. Maybe God just
(16:28):
sends him a money gram every time he's a little
shorter in cash. There are many earthly explanations for this.
None of them are good, though the gentlest is Mike
Johnson does not understand money or math, or audition or
subtraction or budgets. You will recall Johnson has inexplicably refused
(16:53):
to release fourteen billion dollars in aid to Israel unless
an offset of fourteen billion dollars is made from the
IRS budget, money that would have been spent and might
yet be spent to hire more AIG to pursue more
wealthy tax dodgers. The non partisan Congressional Budget Office yesterday
joined the partisan chorus of complaints that this is nuts
(17:14):
by calculating that this little offset about the IRS wouldn't
save the government a dime, It would instead increase the
deficit by twelve billion, five hundred million dollars. Mike Johnson,
who does not have a bank account, or is lying
about not having a bank account. Mike Johnson either does
(17:36):
not understand this, or does not believe this, or is
pretending to not understand or not believe. In other words,
in other words, he's either playing dumb or he's not
playing tru Were you surprised by the CBO's courser, Not
surprise at all.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Only in Washington when he cuts spending do they call
it an.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Increasing the enemy? Kind of obscured there, Johnson said, In essence,
only in Washington could Jew save money and be charged
with running up the deficit. And if he somehow is
not an idiot or a mathematical ignoramus or really bad actor,
Mike Johnson certainly is this a homophobe. CNN's crew is
(18:19):
just back from the Johnson Comstock load mine with a stunner.
In the first decade of this century, Mike Johnson was
not only an attorney for a group called Alliance Defense Fund,
but Alliance Defense Fund, and he collaborated with another group
called Exodus International. And what was Exodus International's thing conversion
(18:40):
therapy for gay kids, the attempt to force gay people,
particularly young ones, straight, by all manner of abuse and
bullying and worse, And what they did was not only
so bad but so obviously bad and damaging that Exodus
International shut itself down in twenty thirteen and its founder
(19:04):
then made a public apology for the quote pain and
hurt it and he had caused. And Mike Johnson was
not just a lawyer here. He was an advocate who promoted,
who gave interviews about, who insisted ancient Rome fell because
of homosexuality. Mike Johnson promoted an annual Day of Truth event,
(19:25):
which was billed as an anti gay event aimed at teens.
I'll repeat what I said yesterday. Whatever the scandal is
in this guy's closet, I am confident it is so
big and so disturbing that the first thing they will
(19:46):
find in his closet is the doors to several other closets.
Also of interest here, the House did not expel Santos
and did not take a vote on censuring Talib and
the Senate did not thwart Tubberville, and ladies and gentlemen,
(20:06):
welcome to your tax dollars in action. On the other hand,
the likely Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania next year thinks
he can fight a bear and win. And there's always
the World Series that's next. Ugh, this is countdown. This
(20:31):
is countdown with Keith Oberman. This is sports. Senate Wait
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman
(20:57):
in Sports Dateline. Phoenix, Arizona. The Texas Rangers came the
last of the original Baseball expansion franchises of nineteen sixty
one and nineteen sixty two to win the World Series.
No hit through six innings last night by Zach Gallon
of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas pushed through a run and
(21:17):
then padded it with four in the ninth to beat
the Snakes five zip and win the series four games
to one. Arizona, which had the twelfth best record in
the majors during the regular season compared to Texas's seventh best,
dominated Game two and tied the series at one win
a piece last Saturday night, and then, just like last
year's Philadelphia Phillies, they disappeared. Arizona did not lead once,
(21:43):
not for one inning in the final three games of
the World Series in their own home ballpark, and they
had blown a five to one lead in Game one.
They were completely outmanaged by the Texas skipper Bruce Boche,
who won his fourth World Series and cinched if he
had not already his spot in the Hall of Fame,
(22:03):
and if like me, you were at the game in
nineteen seventy eight at Chase Stadium in New York on
the field taking pictures when the Houston Astros called up
a rookie catcher with a giant head, bigger even than
your own, named Bruce Boche. You know how you feel
right now? Proud what is now? The Texas franchise was
such a joke for such a long time that in
(22:24):
nineteen sixty nine, believe it or not, Mad Magazine ran
a gag and a gimmick about giving all the kids
who read Mad Magazine free insurance against getting hit in
the head by a foul ball at a Washington Senators
New York Mets World Series. The joke being the Senators
and the Mets were so bad there would never be
(22:45):
such a World Series. The Mets won the World Series
that same year, the Senators did not. They moved to
Texas in nineteen seventy two, and after two failures two
blown World Series leads, they finally won it this year
last night, dateline one zero two zero one West Pico Boulevard,
(23:06):
Los Angeles, California. Hello, that is the address of the
headquarters of Fox Sports. And they are not going to
be happy. There today, the World Series TV ratings wants
the benchmark for all of sports will almost certainly end
up not just below the ten million viewer supposed floor
(23:27):
per game rating, but below nine million per game, maybe
below eight and a half million per game. The Game
four ratings came out last night, just before the first
pitch of Game five, eight million, four hundred and eighty
thousand viewers, the least watched game forever, and by a
margin of more than a million. It was a slight
(23:51):
ratings increase over worse ratings for Games two and three.
At least my pal Boog Shambie killed it on the
play by play on ESPN Radio. The only question about
the TV thing left is will the fact that the
series is over and there'll be no Game six tomorrow
night have any numerical effect on the TV ratings, because,
(24:15):
as these ratings show, almost nobody will notice the difference.
The ratings for Game two last Saturday eight million, one
hundred and fifty thousand viewers, the lowest rated World Series
game ever atly since they went to color TV. The
ratings for Game three on Monday night eight million, one
hundred and thirty thousand viewers. No, that's the lowest rated
(24:39):
World Series game ever. It's also less than half of
the average ratings for the World Series in twenty seventeen
Houston versus La eighteen point nine million per game in
that series, and unbelievably, eight point one three million viewers
is literally just fifteen percent of the TV audience that
(25:03):
saw the most wat World Series game of all time,
Game seven of the nineteen eighty six World Series between
the Mets and the Red Sox at least fifty five
million viewers. Some counts have it as high as sixty
million and a rating of thirty eight point nine. I
remember those ratings get me all nostalgic. No, I always
(25:25):
point out that there were two non baseball factors in
the eighties that we do tend to forget and really matter. First,
cable was still not universal on the night of October
twenty seventh, nineteen eighty six, so most of America's viewing
choices consisted of the following cad and Alley Newhart Designing
Women and Cagney and Lacey on CBS mcgiver and Monday
(25:46):
Night Football in ABC Masterpiece Theater. And The Day the
Universe Changed with James Brooke on PBS, and the Little
seventh Game of the World Series with the Mets in
the Red Sox, the game after the Bill Buckner Mooky
Will See You Get Him with Vin Scully and Joe
Garagiol on NBC. Some good programs there, but not exactly
(26:08):
a thousand different options, and the World Series, which is
how you get a thirty eight point nine rating. On
the other hand, the population of the United States in
nineteen eighty six was twenty eight percent smaller than it
is now, so it's not that the World Series ratings
are down by eighty five percent compared with nineteen eighty six,
because adjusted for population, the World Series ratings are closer
(26:31):
to being down by eighty nine percent. Baseball Commissioner Rob
Manfred's solution to this yesterday he said, we'll receede the
teams after each round of the playoffs. Yeah, rather than
the obvious problem, which is the first round byes, where
the best teams don't play for lank four or five
(26:51):
days and get rusty. The division winners first round byes.
The Dodgers got one this year, they got swept. The
Orioles got one, they got swept. The Braves got one.
They lost in four games. Last year, the Dodgers and
Braves got first round byes. Each lost in four. But yeah,
receding should do it. I'm once again proud to say
(27:11):
that Rob Manfred was at Cornell when I was, and
he's the one who wound up as commissioner of Baseball.
Dateline San Diego startling news from the big budget, Big
disappointment San Diego Padres. The Athletic quotes sources who say
(27:32):
that the club basically ran out of money and had
to take a fifty million dollar loan just to meet
player payroll and to dress short term cash flow issues.
In September, Baseball, which can whistle past any graveyard vanishing
TV World Series, audiences its team in the eighteenth largest
market in the country. Coming up short about one month's
(27:53):
worth of money, Baseball says, Look on the bright side,
the Padres must be fine. They were able to get
the loan and not, you know, go bankrupt or something.
By the way, hats off to my friend Bob Melvin.
Bob left as manager of the Oakland A's after the
twenty twenty one season, and the franchise basically collapsed weeks later,
(28:15):
and it's now a lame duck. Waiting to move to
Las Vegas. Bob left Oakland in order to become manager
of Love Padres, and then on October twenty fifth, Bob
left the Padres to become manager of the San Francisco Giants,
and eight days later in San Diego. Now we're fine.
We're only fifty million short and dateline. Bloomington, Indiana. Legendary
(28:38):
Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight has died at the age
of eighty three. He won the national championship in nineteen
seventy six, with the most recent men's team to go unbeaten.
He won eleven Big Ten titles. He was also fired
by Indiana after twenty nine seasons there for wholesale abuse
of players and staff and maybe passers by sure seemed
(29:00):
like it. I am not going to be hypocritical here
and say nice things about him. I am going to
say that he hated me, and I hated him back,
and that Bob Knight tried to get me fired by ESPN,
And no, I'm not seeking some sort of revenge and
dancing on his grave. It is an ironic story worth telling,
(29:20):
even when there are many who are genuinely mourning him
right now. Because the dispute was completely accidental, but it
says something about him. We showed highlights on SportsCenter of
an Indiana basketball game in December nineteen ninety three when
Bob's son Pat Knight was playing for him at Indiana.
Father took son out of the game because he wasn't
(29:41):
playing well, and father shoved son by his shoulders onto
the team bench. Some witnesses at the game say Bobby
Knight also kicked his son Pat. The video did not
show that, and we did not say that, but it
showed the shove, all right, And guess who was doing
the highlights on SportsCenter that night? Shrug emojie what I
(30:03):
said that video? I concluded with, and this is not
a precise quote, but I think it's correct. At home
with the Bobby Knight family. Well, hell, The next day,
Bob Knight got on the phone and called every ESPN
executive he knew and many he did not, and threatened
never to let the network cover another Indiana game, and
to bar our reporters, and to kick my ass, and
(30:26):
and and a lot of other stuff he also could
not actually ever do. To their credit, my boss has
told me of Knight's displeasure, and they said maybe you
shouldn't do the next couple of Indiana highlights. But that
was it. Within a month, I was doing Indiana Highlights again.
They didn't ask me to apologize, they didn't ask me
(30:47):
to talk to him or anything. For thirty years, I
have given them all the credit in the world for that,
and I asked naturally, just for me not to go
on the air with it. Coach Knight was shown on
national television shoving his own son, and he wants me fired.
I mean, my thing was a wise ass joke. His
(31:11):
was shoving his own son, a player on national television,
and one of the guys who really knew college basketball
at ESPN knew it well. Told me that whether I
had known it or not, my remark at home with
the Bobby Knight family was what had driven Night crazy. See,
the guy told me the public doesn't know this, but
(31:34):
when his first wife divorced him in the eighties, that
was one of her allegations. I had had no idea,
no inkling, no clue. I wasn't even guessing. I wasn't extrapolating.
I didn't have a spirit message. It wasn't inspiration. It
(31:56):
was just a really typical mean spirited joke of mine.
Bob Knight tried to get he fired because he thought
I knew, so I didn't really blame him. In fact,
I took it as a kind of compliment. Rest in peace,
(32:39):
still ahead on countdown from the desert to the sea
to all of Southern California. The great newscaster who not
only dominated there for four decades, but who once came
back after three weeks off recovering after that time he
got shot in the Channel seven parking lot. Thanks, I
promise not to tell. Coming up first time for the
(33:01):
daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects bestmans who constitute two days worst persons in the
world from the desert to the sea to wall up
Southern California, worse Fox Business News, you know, the Maria
Bartiromo's credibility memorial channel. At two four pm Eastern yesterday,
it sent out this little urgent social media post quote
(33:25):
breaking dot dot dot. That was it. No follow up,
no explanation, no deletion, leaving us to supply with our
imaginations exactly what was breaking, Like Bartiromo's brain or Stuart
Varney's hair or something worser HBO, or as it likes
(33:49):
to call itself now Max. And it calls itself Max,
and you say who what huh? And somebody whispers HBO
and you go, oh, HBO. And if it's recent struggles
with its identity were not clues enough that something has
gone very wrong with that outfit that really truly launched
cable television in this country. I mean it was originally
(34:10):
owned by Madison Square Garden, and it showed new movies
and hockey games and basketball games and even a slate
of Major League Baseball games. If its recent confusion were
not the first sign of trouble, well, this report from
Rolling Stone probably is. In June twenty twenty, the magazine
(34:30):
reports HBO's president of Original Programming, Casey Bloys, was really
pissed off by complaints about the reboot of Perry Mason,
Trump's favorite new show of nineteen fifty seven. This reboot
got banned or panned or something by a TV critic
(34:51):
from Vulture named Catherine van Arendock. So HBO gave Perry
Mason a backstory trauma in World War One or something
like that, and the critic wrote, dear Prestige TV, please
find some way to communicate ma trauma, besides showing me
a flashback to the hero's memories of trench warfare. Well,
President Bloise of HBO max HB Maxo did what any
(35:16):
TV exec would do. He texted an HBO vice president
and they began to devise a plan in which they
would use or create a burner account on Twitter to
attack the critic Van Arendonk's criticism by making it look
like she was mocking war casualties. Turned out HBO actually
(35:37):
did have fictitious tweeters attacking other critics from the New
York Times and Rolling Stone and Deadline and others who
said bad things about HBO shows. And somebody posted an
anonymous comment somewhere saying HBO's future was this guy Bloyse
and on and on, and I don't get it. Why
go to such trouble? Why not just hire John Baron
(36:00):
or John Miller to do your pr But our winner
the worst, David McCormick, the hedge fund guy who, as
hard as this is in retrospect to believe, lost the
Republican nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania last year to Memet Oz. Yes,
(36:21):
he was the runner up to doctor Charcuterie himself, having
learned his lesson, hit the wall harder with your head
next time. David McCormick is now intending to run again
for the Senate in Pennsylvania next year. And I think
we now understand all of this. Mister McCormick has appeared
(36:44):
on a podcast called Ruthless, which bills itself as bringing
next generation conservative talk to the next level. A. There
is no next generation conservative, but b It has a
logo in which the parts of its named Ruthless, Ruth,
and less are on two differ diferent lines. It says
(37:07):
ruth and then beneath it says less. So you look
at that and you're thinking, so this is a podcast
hosted by somebody named ruth or it's hosted by somebody
not named ruth or it has less ruth than the
other podcasts. AnyWho. David McCormick, already a failed Senate candidate
going for double honors in that field, when on this
(37:29):
podcast and revealed he is confident he can successfully fight
a bear. So what is the biggest animal you think
you could take?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I think I could take a bear. Wow, I think
I could take you bear. Now there's big bears and
little bears. But you know, I think a good medium
sized bear. You know, I've watched those bears. First of all,
they're lazy. Yeah, they don't look like they're in shape, right,
you know, So I think he can go the long
game with them. And you know, their their claws and
their teeth are big, but not that big. I mean,
they're like a lion or anything, you know. And so
(37:59):
I think if I could get a bear right pre
hibernation or post hibernation, you know about time. Yeah, and
I hadn't eaten much and he didn't need much, or
he'd eating a lot.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
A couple.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
I'm long on McCormick.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I like that a bear. You were convinced you can
fight and defeat a bear. If this actually happens, of course,
it will end with a news story featuring the following
phrase the body of former Pennsylvania Senate candidate David you.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
Can fight and defeat a bear. You couldn't fight and
defeat memot oz David. Await, that's a bear. Never mind, McCormick.
Two days worst person.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
And so SILTI to the number one story on the
(39:13):
countdown and my favorite topic, me and things. I promised
not to tell, And somebody sent me a video of
him the other day, and I laughed again, and I
flashed back again. And now you get to hear about
him too, from the desert to the sea to all
of southern California. Good evening. You may or may not
have ever heard of Jerry Dunfi. That statement that you
(39:34):
may or may not have ever heard of Jerry dunfeye
just sent anybody from southern California who is more than
thirty five years old into a deep, stunned silence. Because
Jerry Dunfi was ubiquitous on TV news in Los Angeles
from nineteen sixty until two thousand and two. He died
a week after his last newscast, and there are some
in the business who have seriously believed he may show
(39:57):
up again sooner or later on TV, even though he's dead.
He worked for Channel two, and he and his team
won all the ratings wars for fifteen years, and then
one year the station finished only tied for first in
the Spring LA ratings of nineteen seventy five, so the
CBS corporate geniuses in New York fired him and he
(40:19):
went to Channel seven. Like thirty six hours later and
then Channel seven won nearly all the ratings periods there
over fourteen years. And then after six years at Channel nine,
he was hired back at Channel two where he started
where they fired him. Hired back at Channel two for
a couple million more than he was making when they
fired him twenty years earlier, and then he went back
(40:39):
to Channel nine and he was still on every night
at the age of eighty and oh, by the way,
he worked for twenty nine years after he came out
of the KABC studios. On the night of October twenty fourth,
nineteen eighty three, hopped into his Rolls Royce with the
station makeup lady by his side, and was ambushed and
shot in the neck by four assailants, leading him to
(41:02):
issue the memorable statement they said, don't move, and I didn't,
but they shot anyway, unquote. And they never figured out
who shot him or why, but Jerry dunfhe was back
on the air three weeks later anyway, And you cannot
imagine how many different guesses there were about that in
(41:22):
the LA news industry when I was on the air
there from nineteen eighty five through nineteen ninety one. There
is no question that in creating the fictional newscasters Ted
Baxter and Kent Brockman, and maybe even Ron Burgundy. Much
was stolen from Jerry dunfe Jerry Dunfeye had a huge
shock of white hair, a craggy face, and a rich
(41:45):
baritone voice. He was in twenty one different movies, including
Oh God, and the amazing Ann Margaret Flick Kitten with
a Whip. No, really, there is an Ann Margaret film
called Kitten with a Whip. Anyway, I knew Jerry Dunfey.
He was a smart man, and a nice and a
welcoming man, and obviously quite a business man. But he
(42:06):
did have a tendency on the air to become, in
his own words, a teleprompter reading machine. He said, you
put it up there, and I'm going to say it
down here, and that's what this story is about. When
I got to Los Angeles at the age of twenty
six in nineteen eighty five, our newscast Channel five News
(42:27):
at ten was like something out of the nineteen sixties.
The studio had carpeting on the walls. There were no
graphics to speak of, just a big rear screen projection device.
Our best reporter, the lovely stand Chambers had literally worked
there since the station had signed on the air for
the first time thirty eight years before, and he would
(42:48):
keep working there for another twenty five years. Our inimitable anchorman,
Hal Fishman, would not wear an IFB and earpiece because
he thought viewers might think that if he did, it
was because he needed a hearing aid. He did, however,
wear one of a series of two pays of different
length to simulate the need for a haircut. Until the
(43:12):
first commercial break was over on News at ten, only
Hal spoke. His female co anchor just sat there adoringly.
And the producer was a marvelously frantic character named Jerry Rubin,
who every night at nine PM, an hour to airtime,
would run around the newsroom screaming battle stations, battle stations,
(43:33):
and who took me seriously only when I could figure
out what his as Jerry phrased it, invisible thread was
running through his nightly ordering of the stories, the rundown.
He would ask me to come into the newsroom and
look at the rundown and say, all right, Olderman, you're
so smart, what's the invisible thread? And he only began
(43:54):
to like me when I could recite to him from
memory the starting lineup of his beloved nineteen forty five
Chicago Cubs, but he stayed liking me. We remained friends
for thirty years. Anyway. Jerry had come to Los Angeles
in nineteen sixty nine, hired away from WGN in Chicago
to become the lead writer for This is where the
(44:15):
story comes together. You guessed it, the Jerry Dunfee newscasts
on KNXT, the CBS station in Los Angeles. In fact,
after winning every sweeps period for nine years, the newscast
had rightly become the Big News with Jerry Dunfie. And
it began with an unseen announcer intoning the Big News
(44:35):
with Jerry Dunfee. Now here is Jerry Dunfie. And then
Jerry Dunvee said his catchphrase, the catchphrase of all catchphrases.
Unlike the guy I worked with in New York when
I was an intern, Bill Jorgenson, thank you for your
time this time till next time, Jerry Dunfee said, from
the desert to the sea to all of southern California,
(44:58):
the good evening nonsense, of course, but boy, it sounded good.
From the desert to the sea to all of southern California.
Good evening. He said this so often that it is
still used in some promotional announcements by Channel nine News
in Los Angeles and Channel seven News in Los Angeles
(45:20):
and Channel two in Los Angeles. From the desert to
the sea to all of southern California, good evening, I'm
dead Well. No, they don't actually say that, but that's
pretty much what it means. The only joke about the
night he got shot outside the parking lot that I
can tell is that when the cops arrived, Dunfey said
to them, from the desert to the sea to all
(45:41):
of southern California, good evening, I've been shot in the neck.
The first night, my friend Jerry Rubin sat down to
write The Big News with Jerry dunfy Jerry Rubin was
a little nervous. He got there early, he said. He
wrote some stories a dozen times each trying to get
it perfect. Finally, for the lead story, which if memory serves,
(46:04):
was about a bank robbery in Pasadena, Jerry got it
just right, and on that nineteen sixty nine evening at
six PM, viewers of The Big News on Channel two
in Los Angeles those for whom from the desert to
the sea to all of southern California was not a cliche,
but mantra. They heard the familiar Channel two screeching theme music,
and then the big news with Jerry Dunfee. Now here
(46:26):
is Jerry Dunfie And up popped Jerry Dunfee's face and
he said, three armed and very dangerous modern day desperadoes
are still loose in Pasadena tonight. After blah blah blah,
blah blah, the newscast ended an hour later. Jerry Rubin
was very relieved. Jerry Dunfee strode back to his desk
before presumably going out to warm up the Rolls Royce
(46:48):
and avoid the gunmen who would finally get him fourteen
years later and not even slow him down. And that's
when the station's news director leaned out of his office
and waved the two Jerry's inside. What the hell happened, Dunfee?
Did you retire it? You can't retire it. It's in
the contract. Have to stay it. According to Jerry Rubin,
(47:08):
Dunfey looked blankly at his boss. Jerry Rubin said he
was even more confused himself. From the desert to the sea.
You didn't say from the desert to the sea. At
the start of the big News you say from the
desert to the sea to all of Southern California, Good evening.
Only tonight you didn't say from the desert to the
sea to all of Southern California, Good evening. You said
something about a bank. What the hell, Jerry, we got
(47:32):
two hundred and fifty phone calls. Jerry Dunfey now pursed
his lips and turned to the new writer, What the hell, Ruben,
didn't you put it in the script? Jerry Rubin kept
this part to himself, but frankly, he said he couldn't
believe what he was hearing. For nine years, this man
Dunfey had signed on virtually every one of his news
(47:52):
broadcasts every night at six and then again every night
at eleven by saying, from the desert to the sea
to all southern California, Good evening. But apparently, if you
did not write it in the script, and did not
put it on the telepropter for him, he would forget it.
Before Jerry Rubin could say anything, Jerry dunfee barked at him,
with some understanding, don't you understand. When I'm out there,
(48:14):
I'm a teleprompter reading machine. You put it up there,
I'm going to say it down here. You don't put
it up there. I'm not going to say it down here.
The news director looked sternly at Jerry Rubin. Jerry Rubin
did not burst into uncontrollable laughter. Race from the building
KNXT was in on Sunset Boulevard, and get on the
(48:36):
first plane back to Chicago. He just said yes, sir,
and the news director said good and everybody left. And
from that night, at eleven o'clock onwards, Jerry Rubin always
started his script for the lead story by typing out,
from the desert to the Sea to all of Southern California,
good evening, there's a twenty six car pile up on
the Santa Monica Freeway after another mattress has been dumped
(48:56):
in the left lane. Or from the desert to the
Sea to all of Southern California, good evening, Burbank bank
burgled or whatever. Over the next few weeks, the lead
story on the Big News with Jerry Dunfey would change,
as lead stories do at five m or five thirty
or five fifty something, big er would happen, and it
(49:18):
was the big news. So Jerry Rubin would often have
to rewrite page one of the script, and every time
he rewrote it, and every time he re rewrote it,
and the one time he told me that he re
re rewrote it, Jerry remembered to start page one with
from the desert to the sea to all southern California,
Good evening. All was well, the teleprompter reading machine was happy,
(49:43):
the news director was happy, Jerry Rubin was happy. And
then calamity struck. At about five point fifty eight one night,
Jerry Rubin was told there is a refinery fire in Torrents.
It is the new lead story. Just say, we're rushing
a crew, get it written. He started to type our
top story, breaking news, a refinery and and then he
(50:04):
tore the page from his machine. He started anew His
fingers danced across the keyboard from the desert to the
sea to all of Southern California. Good evening, Our top
story tonight, breaking news. Our refinery fire is just erupted
in Torrents. A Channel two Big News Live crew is
rushing to the scene at this hour and we will
have a big News live report from Rick Davis before
this news cast is over. Rubin knew he did not
(50:28):
have time to get a production assistant to take the
new lead script into Dunfee, nor to tape it into
the script about to pass through the teleprompter, so he
did both things himself. New lead. He screamed at Dunfee,
throwing the page at him, and the unseen announcer was
already at mid introduction when Jerry Rubin taped that new
piece of script into the prompter without remembering to remove
(50:51):
the old lead script from the prompter. And this is
what Los Angeles heard the Big News with Jerry Dunfee.
Now here's Jerry Dunfie to the Sea to all of
Southern California. Good evening, our top story Tonight, breaking news
or refinery fire has just erupted in Torrents at Channel two.
(51:13):
Big News Live crew is rushing to the scene at
this hour, and we will have a Big News Live
report from Rick Davis before this newscast is over. Jerry
Dunfey dramatically turned over page one and began to read
page two. From a desert to the Sea to all
of Southern California. Good evening, Our top story tonight, Mayor, Sam,
you're he said, Jerry Rubin said, My head dropped to
(51:36):
my desk with a thud. I've done all the damage
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has
come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at the
(51:57):
Olderman Broadcasting Empire World Headquarters in New York. Countdown musical
directors Ray and John Phillip Chanel arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums produced by
tk Obros. Other music, including some Beethoven works, were arranged
(52:20):
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports music
is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And it was written by
Mitch Warren Davis and we call it the Olderman theme
from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium morganist ever. Our
announcer today was my friend Howard Feyneman, and everything else
was pretty much by fault. So that's countdown for this
(52:42):
the one thousand and thirty first day since dementia j
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States convict him now while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow, Bolton says, the news
warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Alderman is
(53:18):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
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