September 17, 2024 • 55 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 29: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump’s newest threat: quote: “the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!” There WERE no bullets on Sunday, other than those fired by the Secret Service. There was no line of sight for any shots. There are thus far no charges other than gun possession and the reality of the case suggests there may never be. The man who voted for Trump in 2016 and wanted to shoot or shoot at hm in 2024 didn’t even make the slightest attempt to resist arrest. Trump knows he was never in real danger. In fact he was genuinely put out that they wouldn’t let him finish the round of golf he was cheating through when the would-be almost sorta kinda assassination attempt didn’t-actually-take-place.
JD Vance then followed with a tortured demand that America either let Trump do what he wants - including blaming the migrants for the security failures around him - including lying about the migrants - including destroying Springfield Ohio - or accept an America in which there's something wrong with falsely accusing beleaguered people with eating pets and those who make such accusations are subject to censorship and censorship inevitably leads to a bullet in the brain. Vance really said all this.
And it all comes back to those ten words: “the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!” Only getting worse, of course, is exactly what Trump wants. Any similarity between this madman and the president played by Martin Sheen in the Steven King film “The Dead Zone”: “The missiles are flying. Hallelujah, Hallelujah!”
PLUS: Inside the attempts to defend yourself against political violence and the awful truth that you really can't, and based on my experience during 2006 when I repeatedly received mailings of fake anthrax, much of what we assume is security is actually just security theater.
B-Block (35:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The leader of a Trumpler Youth Group named Brilyn Hollyhand thinks Trump was endangered by a "riffle." Speaker Mike Johnson's thumb is fine but Trump seems to be suffering from thumb erectile dysfunction. And his swipe at Taylor Swift may have cost him the support of Patrick Mahomes' wife Brittany because hatred and racism is cool but insulting Tay Tay is a bridge too far.
C-Block (41:45) A SPECIAL SPORTSCENTRAL CENTER UPDATE: Baseball's annual suicide attempt. As the World Series TV audience shrinks to 10% of what it was fun 1978, what does the game need? Giant ADS on BOTH SIDES of every player's batting helmet! Along with a picture of an OSTRICH.
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
newest threat quote, the bullets are flying and it will
(00:27):
only get worse. There were no bullets on Sunday other
than those fired by the Secret Service. There was no
line of sight for any shots at or near Trump.
There are thus far no charges other than gun possession,
and the reality of the case suggests there may never be.
The man who voted for Trump in twenty sixteen and
(00:48):
wanted to shoot or shoot at him in twenty twenty
four did not make even the slightest attempt to resist
a rest. Trump knows he was never in real danger.
In fact, he was genuinely put out that they would
not let him finish the round of golf he was
cheating through, when the would be almost sort of kind
of assassination attempt didn't actually take place. Trump's knowledge of
(01:14):
this only underscores that his statement yesterday is yet another
stochastic demand for violence to be directed against Vice President
Harris and other Democrats and anybody who doesn't like Trump,
and that the only brush with reality within that statement
is his demand that terrorists be deported from this country,
(01:34):
and Trump is the leading domestic terrorist in this nation,
and we should start with him. We have known for weeks,
we have known for months that even Trump has perceived
that his chances of victory via the ballot are decreasing daily,
and that violence and subversion are his only ways to
regain power and avoid dying in prison. And so this
(01:57):
all becomes another excuse for Trump to threaten this nation
and to exploit Sunday's events, events at a property he
owns and apparently provides next to no private security for
to treat this with sweeping statements to the nation's press,
which the nation's press is letting him get away with
(02:19):
out of fear of being accused of covering up something that,
if it happened five hundred yards from Joe Biden while
Joe Biden was at the White House, would have gotten
sober and serious coverage that would have by now faded
from the front pages because there was no real danger.
Trump unsurprisingly made as much danger up as he could
(02:40):
and dragged in Kamala Harris and immigration and the prosecutions
of him for his espionage and insurrection and other criminality.
Quote he believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and
he acted on it. Trump first told Fox about the
non shooter. They do it with a combination of rhetoric
(03:00):
and lawsuits. They wrap me up in. These are the
thing that dangerous fools like the shooter listened to. That
is the rhetoric they listen to. And the same with
the first one. The first one, of course, the maga
gun nut who actually shot at Trump. Then Trump posted
quote the rhetoric lies, as exemplified by the false statements
(03:22):
made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly
partisan ABC debate. As an aside, I thought he won
the ABC debate? Is he saying otherwise? Quoting again, and
all of the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage
on Joe's than Kamala's political opponent, me has taken politics
(03:44):
in our country to a whole new level of hatred, abuse,
and distrust because of this communist left rhetoric. The bullets
are flying and it will only get worse. Un quote.
Trump's threat then takes a curious left turn, which explains
what his next political strategy is. Steal your elf for
(04:05):
this quote, Allowing millions of people from places unknown to
invade and take over our country is an unpardonable sin.
Trump continued on the theme of deportation, and that segued
into a later statement in which it became clearer what
he is trying to do now. He is trying to
transfer the threat of the political violence he invoked into
(04:29):
some kind of threat against minority voters. The Poles, of course,
say he is hemorrhaging minority voters. Quote illegal migrants who
are pouring into our country in record numbers, are taking
the jobs away from black and Hispanic people who have
held them for years unquote the black jobs line again,
(04:52):
but now added to it the threat to Trump. So,
in what he would call weaving and what the rest
of us would call cynical and irrational exploitation, the environment
of political violence which Trump has been fomenting for a decade,
suddenly becomes an excuse for more prejudice and more suspicion,
(05:15):
and more violence directed at democratic leadership and at the
migrants already here, whom Trump has previously threatened to expel,
even the ones here legally. And suddenly we are back
in Springfield, Ohio, and Trump's gangs and militias and the
new excuse they have for their racism. Trump is now
(05:36):
saying that the migrants there being persecuted, being threatened, living
in a city turned upside down by the lies he
and JD. Vance and other Republicans have spread, they are,
in fact some kind of threat to him. The migrants
in Ohio are somehow connected to the attempts to shoot
at Trump, also connected to those threats defending the migrants
(06:05):
prosecuting Trump, the debate he lost last week. It is
one giant, delusional, paranoid demand by Trump to America to
let him do whatever he wants to, And at its
heart are those ten terrifying words. The bullets are flying,
(06:26):
and it will only get worse. Only getting worse, of course,
is exactly what Trump wants. If, like me, you are
of a certain age, perhaps the similarity has already occurred
to you between this madman and the mad man President
played by Martin Sheen in the Stephen King film The
(06:49):
Dead Zone. Trump, the bullets are flying. It will only
get worse, Martin Sheen, the missiles are flying. Hallelujah, hallelujah,
(07:28):
it gets worse. Trump and his running mate are now,
in fact playing a variant of good Cop Bad Cop,
called bad Cop Other bad Cop, leaving it for JD.
Vance to try to exploit this still further and sew
more death threats against the media for not selling the
narrative Trump wants. Vance complains about one newscast, in particular,
(07:53):
something on PBS he saw quote after spending thirty seconds
on the second assassination attempt on President Trump, they then
focused on the real danger me and President and Trump,
who are, according to them, personally responsible for bomb threats
against Springfield. Of course, I repeatedly condemned those threats. Donald
(08:14):
Trump and I are by their account, directly responsible for
bomb threats from foreign countries. Why because we had the
audacity to repeat what residents told us about the problems
in their town. Meanwhile, Harris Allies call for Trump to
be eliminated as the media publishes arguments that he deserved
to be shot. If you think Vance is hallucinating and
(08:38):
is way out on a limb here, he has in
fact only started to move out onto that limb. Quoting again,
it is one thing to say that pets are not
in fact being eaten, and another thing to say that
anyone who disagrees is trying to murder people. Dissent, even
vigorous descent, is a great tradition of the United States,
censorship is not unquote. Now we are approaching Vance's endpoint here.
(09:04):
You have to let him make up stories about pets
being eaten, otherwise you're not a real American. You have
to let him paint a giant bullseye on a town
in a state he putatively represents in the Senate of
the United States, because the only other option is to
support censorship, and JV says censorship means wait for it, quote,
(09:30):
the logic of censorship leads directly to one place. For
there is only one way to permanently silence a human being,
put a bullet in his brain unquote. So according to JV. Vance,
this election is now a clear choice between letting him
and Trump smear and slander and lie and endanger the
(09:52):
lives of and about anyone and anything they want, or
supporting bullets in the brain. And remember this insanity, this
cold bloodless, laser focused stupidity of JD. Vance has actually
overtaken the day to day lives of the people of Springfield, Ohio.
(10:17):
This is from the local newsroom. There of Spectrum News
quote facilities in Springfield, Ohio that have either been placed
on lockdown evacuated, closed, or searched at some point over
the last week due to threats. It coincides with Vance
and Trump, amplifying what local and state officials say are
baseless claims about Haitian migrants eating people's pets and local
(10:42):
geese in the community. Here's the list. One Springfield City Hall,
two Springfield's Bureau of Motor Vehicles, three, Springfield's Drivers Exam Station. Four,
Springfield's Local Ohio Licensed Bureau, five Springview Government Center. Six
Clark County Department of Job and Family Service This is
(11:05):
seven Clark County Common Please Court, eight Clark County Board
of Elections, nine Clark County Juvenile Court. Ten A. B.
Graham Building, eleven Springfield Academy of Excellence, twelve, Fulton Elementary School, thirteen,
Parren Woods Elementary School fourteen, snow Hill Elementary School fifteen,
Roosevelt Middle School sixteen, Kettering Health Springfield seventeen, Mercy Health
(11:29):
Springfield Regional Medical Center eighteen, Wittenberg University nineteen, Clark State College, twenty,
Simon Kenton Elementary School, twenty one Kenwood Elementary School. And
he adds Springfield's annual culture Fest has been canceled over
security concerns and note next on the Trumpian schedule is Aurora, Colorado,
(11:56):
where even before last week's debate, Trump was claiming immigrant
gangs were quote taking over buildings, They're going in violently.
It was of Aurora that he had said earlier, and
getting them out will be a bloody story. The New
York Times yesterday quoted what has actually happened in Aurora.
As far back as May twenty twenty three, Aurora officials
(12:18):
have been trying to force an out of state landlord
to fix up three blighted apartment complexes in the downtrodden
East Colfax Corridor, which connects the cities of Denver and Aurora.
In July twenty twenty four, the landlord, CBZ Management, which
says it is based in Colorado and Brooklyn, offered a
(12:40):
new argument for Wyatt couldn't repair the buildings Venezuelan gangs
had taken over and the property managers had been forced
to flee. On August fifth, a public relations agent, Sarah Latman,
hired by CBZ, pitched a quote tip to the local
Fox television network affiliate in Denver, quote an apartment building
(13:03):
and its owners in Aurora, Colorado, have become the most
recent victims of the Venezuelan gang trand de Arraguas violence,
which has taken over several communities in the Denver area.
None of this is true. No part of Colorado is
(13:24):
under the control of anybody but bad landlords. And there
is criminality in Aurora, Colorado, and it is not gangs.
It is a bunch of landlords and their pr person,
Sarah Latman. And then there's the Leon theory Elon Musk
(13:57):
to you, Leon to Trump, and the greatest rationalization of
them all, it's the When I say it, everybody knows
I'm joking. When you say it, it's the deep state
trying to murder our president. Sometime early Sunday evening, somebody
called dodge Dog Designer, one of these crypto idiots, tweeted
(14:21):
why they want to kill Donald Trump. Elon, of course,
then retweeted this, adding, and no one is even trying
to assassinate Biden slash Kamala with an emoji. It's his
site and he can put out what he wants. But frankly,
that is the kind of thing that if you wrote
(14:41):
it in public, the Secret Service would be asking for
an appointment to see you. Within twenty four hours, and
they should be asking to see what Elon Musk meant
by this, since he is running a super pack for Trump,
and he has expressed violence before, and he is a
known drug user, and most importantly, he has government contracts
(15:01):
and security clearances, none of which should continue beyond this.
In point of fact, he should have been imprisoned by
Monday morning, but he wasn't. Musk deleted this tweet sometime
early Monday without making any comment nor an explanation other
than something about how he should know by now that
if he says something and against a bunch of laughs
(15:22):
in the room, that won't necessarily translate to this lousy
website which he owns and has made lousy. There was
something that obscured or was obscured by Elon Musk that
was even worse and more directly addresses this issue of
when I say it, it's political commentary, When you say it,
(15:43):
it's a threat against Trump, and you should be shot, arrested, jailed, castrated,
whatever it is they feel like doing that day, or
have your town turned into the focal point of every
idiot and every racist and every backdoor bomber in the world.
This is from the Libertarian part of New Hampshire. At
(16:05):
least it's their account they claim to be the Libertarian
Party of New Hampshire. Libertarian is just another word for
trumpest of course, somebody wrote I disagree with the assault
weapons band, but maybe save the threatening rhetoric a and
they retweeted that with this message quote anyone who murders
Kamala Harris would be an American hero at LPNH Libertarian
(16:30):
Party of New Hampshire. If they're not the Libertarian Party
of New Hampshire, they probably should have denied the existence
of this and gotten the blue check mark removed from
the account using that name. Anyone who murders Kamala Harris
would be an American hero. Well, I'm sure they just
meant that as a metaphor it well, pray maybe not.
Later on that tweet vanished. We deleted a tweet read
(16:52):
a subsequent tweet because we don't want to break the
terms of this website we agreed to. It's a shame that,
even on a free speech website, that libertarians cannot speak freely.
Libertarians are truly the most oppressed minority. Yes, when you
advocate in a stochastic manner, the murder of the Vice
(17:12):
President of the United States, that is somehow a violation
of your rights. What's the distance between what Elon Musk
wrote and what this Libertarian Party of New Hampshire wrote.
And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden Kamala
Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero.
My argument would be these are adjacent and somebody from
(17:35):
the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire who's responsible for their
social media should be in jail next to Elon Musk.
Musk minimally needs to have his security clearance revoked. It
would be nice if we could get him out of
this country. I don't think we can do that. Apparently
we have people in space who need his cyber truck
or something to get home because we went to use
(17:58):
a Boeing Craft to get them home, and the Boeing
craft apparently cannot get out of the hangar. There's more
than this, of course, it's not just the tech pros
and the Libertarians who are doing this. Scott Perry, who
I believe has his phone back finally after January sixth,
then whatever his role was in the attempted coup said
yesterday that nobody is trying to assassinate Joe Biden. They
(18:21):
can't get to his bedroom to find him sleeping. But
President Trump is out there and they're actively trying to
assassinate him. The Secret Service needs to take actions that
are concurrent with the risk on the ground. Scott Perry,
Congressman of Pennsylvania. In other words, he's saying, takes security
from Joe Biden and assign it to Donald Trump so
(18:42):
he can golf whenever he wants to and not have
the risk of having somebody from four hundred feet away
try to shoot him from a public street. Representative Laurel
Lee of Florida basically insisted that Democrats must stop campaigning
on all the bad things Trump does and says and threatens,
because when the truth like that is revealed, it makes
(19:03):
people mad might try to take a shot at Trump.
One might suggest Representative Lee that perhaps it is mister
Trump who should not be saying these things, mister Trump
who should not have been invoking the question of violence
and politically violent activity and rhetoric. But of course that
ship sailed literally in a previous decade, and the average
congress person representing the Republican Party is a flaming idiot
(19:27):
like Laurel Lee. And of course, again I'll circle back
to the Trump quote himself. Their rhetoric is causing me
to be shot at. In short, the one through line
in all of this, from Elon Musk to the Libertarians,
to Scott Perry to Laurel Lee is I never thought
(19:48):
the leopard would eat my face. See, I'm gonna let
you in on two secrets, one of which you already
know and the other which you probably don't. About political violence.
Number one, we have talked about the peaceful transfer of
power in this country as if it were built into
the Constitute, and it had been observed for every one
of our presidential transfers since the first of them, and
(20:11):
obviously it has not. The Civil War is a strong
argument against the idea that we have had peaceful transfers
of power. The name Kennedy would be the same thing.
In any event, You cannot open Pandora's box as Trump
has and then pick the bock up, shaken it, and
let its contents spill out everywhere, and direct the evils
(20:35):
contained within the mythological Pandora's box. Direct those evils to
leave you alone. Once you open the box, it can
go anywhere. I have no desire to see politicians killed.
I have no desire to see anyone killed, and particularly
have no desire for any gun violence in this country.
(20:57):
But guess what happens. Leopards box, open box, leopards everywhere.
Leopards eat faces. Trump has a face under all the makeup.
Now the secret that you probably are not aware of.
You cannot ultimately stop political violence. You can try, you
(21:19):
can minimize it. We have done an excellent job, in fact,
certainly since well let's see how many times was the
Clinton White House shot at? How many times the threats
against Obama and Bush and Biden and Trump? And well, okay,
we haven't done that good a job of it. But
on the other hand, we haven't had one killed since
nineteen sixty three, sixty one years without a fatality. But
(21:46):
you cannot stop it ultimately. As has been said many times,
if a madman wants to surrender their own life in
the attempt to take that of a politicians, it will
probably happen, not always, and there are ways to minimize
that too. But I had a harrowing experience with this,
and I've been dealing with violence or the threat of
it now for literally twenty six years. My first experience
(22:09):
with it dates back to nineteen ninety eight. Minor threats, letters,
anonymous letters, warnings, threats, et cetera, none of which was
ever dealt with very seriously because it wasn't that kind
of threat. And you cannot live your life that way.
You cannot live your life inside a bubble. If you
(22:31):
cannot run the risk, get out of the risk area.
But I've dealt with this as recently as twenty nineteen,
and I've had the simple ones, idiots in public telling
me to kill myself, and people leaving threatening notes and
sending notes to old addresses. But in twenty nineteen, I
(22:55):
got one of those serious ones where the FBI called
me up and said, you're in Saysar Saox computer. We've
finally done unloading everything in Saysar Sayox computer. And you
apparently were in his second wave Sezar Sayak, the magabomber,
the guy with the drawn on hair and the van
in which every inch of the outside of this van
was covered in a trump sticker or something like it,
(23:18):
who sent pipe bombs to a dozen Democrats and legislators
and all kinds of liberals. Well, if he had not
gotten caught and been sent to prison, I was on
the second list. But principally, and this is back to
the point of the secret you probably are not aware of,
there was two thousand and six. I've told many times
(23:38):
the story of the guy who lived in his mother's
basement in southern California who kept sending me threatening letters
filled with fake anthrax. And obviously it was fake anthrax.
The experts who deal with real anthrax in the mail,
the one we know of, apparently killed himself because he
didn't do it right. It's not an easy fix. It's
not a self addressed, stamped envelope full of anthras, so
(24:01):
it probably was not anthrax. But I could not make
that decision on behalf of everybody else who lived in
my apartment building, especially the surprisingly large number of ninety
five year old women who lived in that building. So
I got the authorities involved, and by the time of
the fourth letter, I knew them all by their first names,
and I used to make them call me up with updates,
(24:21):
and I would call them with updates, And then came
finally a letter to my office at MSNBC, and the
giveaway was the return address was J Leno, NBC Burbank, California,
J period Leno. Well, that's not how Jay Leno writes
his name. Why would you abbreviate your name Jay as
(24:42):
a J period. If your name is J, it's J. Also,
there was postage on this. I knew Jay Leno for
nearly the whole run of his career at NBC on
the Tonight Show, and I know very well that Jay
Leno would never spend a dollar twenty five to send
me a letter, not when he could put it in
an interoffice pouch and save himself a dollar twenty five
(25:04):
in anyay event. When I saw this, I knew immediately
that it probably was from my correspondent in southern California
sending me the fake anthrax. And so I called one
of the agents at the FBI. I went, hey, I
got another one, but it's here in secaucas Oh, okay,
we'll be right over. What do I do here? We
had never gotten one here before? Well, tell whoever is
in charge of the plant of the building. And if
(25:27):
the small chance that it's actually anthrax, NBC irradiates all
the mail. Remember from getting the antrax two thousand and
one it's only five years ago. They're still irradiating all
the mail. There's no danger. Well, of course I called
the guy who was running secaucus for NBC News for MSNBC,
and when I told him what had happened, he went
(25:49):
into a screaming panic. His solution to this was to
insist that I stay in my office, in my little
cubicle and not leave. And I said, well, what's the
danger here? You you irradiated all of this. The mail's
taken to separate facility, and everything is checked, and there's
no threat whatsoever. I just wanted you to know that
(26:10):
this was here, and the FBI guys are coming over,
so nobody should be surprised. There's no threat to this.
He looked like, I don't know quite how to describe it.
He looked like he had just eaten some anthras. Is
the only way I can possibly describe it to you.
Sure Enough, guess what I found out that day. They
(26:30):
did not irradiate every letter in coming to MSNBC or
for that matter, NBC News. They simply said that, thinking
that that would discourage people from sending actual anthrax. Thinking
while I went to all this trouble of mailing anthrax
and not killing myself, And here it is going to
be of no damaging value to me. By the time
(26:51):
it gets there, it will have spoiled or NBC will
have spoiled it through its irradiation machines. I don't know
how universal this is, but I don't even know if
there are irradiation machines that could neutralize anthrax or any
other biological weapon, let alone something like a pipe bomb.
(27:12):
But the look on the guy who was running the
Secaucus plan for NBC told me all I needed to know.
The problem with political violence is not just that it
is a tool to change history, not that it risks
the lives of the people who are the potential victims,
(27:33):
both the targets and the ones who are stochastically urged
to take political violence into their own hands, as Trump
has been doing NonStop since twenty fifteen. It's not just that.
On a bigger level, it is what I mentioned before,
the Pandora's box effect. You never know what the next
(27:54):
step is going to be or what will happen. The
unintended consequences rule comes into play immediately. There was, in fact,
nothing to protect any of us at NBC News except
the illusion. I don't know to what degree this is
true of the Secret Service. I think we found out
around January sixth. Then in my commentaries of twenty twenty
(28:15):
two and twenty twenty three, you may recall I urge
President Biden to fire the Secret Service and start all
over again, because they were not doing a very good
job of protecting him. This might be the only thing
we all agree on. The Secret Service has not been
doing its job, perhaps for several different presidencies. But this
rages the larger question exactly what can they do? If
(28:37):
you own the golf course, and the golf course is
out there in public in Florida, how much of it
can you protect? How much of it can you ring
with agents? How many agents would you need thirty thousand
to completely cover a place like a golf course. And
here's the end part of this story. Hopefully the laugh
(28:59):
you can take with you, A dark and bitter laugh,
I assure you, but it is a laugh. The response
in two thousand and six, when the letter which did
not actually contain fake anthrax, but did contain the means
by which we finally identified this guy and he wound
up going to prison as a result, the envelope itself
with a barcode on it. That envelope produced this response
(29:23):
from MSNBC to protect all of us. The guy told
me to stay in my office and close the door
and he would be right back with a protective device.
Within ninety seconds, he was back outside my clear sea
through door and there was his protective device, bright orange,
(29:45):
extra large traffic cone. We all felt safe after that.
Also of interest, here the good news. Democratic presidential nomine
Kamala Harris, according to USA Today, narrowly leads Trump in
(30:08):
the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania and in two of
the state's key bell Weather counties. According to a trio
of exclusive USA Today Suffolk University polls taken after the debate,
the bounce is here and strong Harris leads Trump the
(30:29):
Republican nominee forty nine forty six, five hundred likely Pennsylvania
voters say that is, however, within the margin of era
four point four forty ninety six, and thank goodness, built
into the stupidity of the Trump cult, there's always comic relief.
One of Trump's guys thinks Trump was threatened with a riffle.
(30:53):
There is clear evidence Trump is suffering from some kind
of thumb irrectile dysfunction, and Trump may have just lost
his most valuable endorsement, that life of the quarterback of
the Kansas City Chiefs football team. Worst Person's next this Discountdown.
(31:14):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman stell ahead of us
(31:39):
on this Editiontive Countdown, mixing up the format a little bit. Today,
I'm going to tell the sad story of the financial
and esthetic suicide of Major League Baseball. The postseason will
feature advertisements five inches wide each on the sides of
every batting helmet, on every player in every game. Now,
(32:04):
they're is a good news here. There is a silver lining,
and that is that baseball's postseason ratings have collapsed so
much almost nobody will see these I sores coming up
in sports. First, there are still more new idiots to
talk about. The daily roundup of the misgrints, morons and
Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worst persons
(32:28):
in the world. The Bronze Worse Brilind Holly Hand. That's
the name. I don't make them up. Pally Brilin Holly Hand,
chairman of a youth group for Trump. I'm not your
embryos for Trump, Brilin writes, camping outside the president's golf
(32:49):
course without being detected until the gun barrel aims at
the president. That's not true, another failure by the Secret Service.
Swift action once detected. But he never should have been
allowed to camp by the fence with a riffle. Lots
of questions, writes Brilin. Hollyhand. Yeah, I got a question.
(33:13):
This kid is eighteen years old. Certainly, even being a
Trump supporter, certainly he should know by now the difference
between rifle, you know, a gun usually used to shoot
school kids with, and riffle, which is a verb meaning
to leave through pages. Then again, if his parents, mister
(33:34):
and Missus Holly Hand really named him Brilin b r
I l y N, what chance did he ever have?
The Runner is Up worser speaker Mike Johnson and Trump.
Johnson visited Trump, still shaken and disturbed by not being
(33:54):
allowed to finish his golf game Sunday. They took the
thumbs up picture. Johnson's thumb is fully erect vertically pointed
up as ordered by godd This Johnson works, but something
is clearly wrong with Trump's thumb. Trump's thumb is horizontal
in the picture. It's pointing towards the camera. Trump just
(34:17):
can't get it up. His thumb is thumb. He can't
get up his thumb. What were you thinking? But our
winner the worst Trump himself. He has cost himself a
surprisingly useful endorsement. Taylor Swift, of course, endorsed Vice President
Harris after the debate. Among other things, Miss Swift is
(34:37):
the girlfriend of Travis Kelcey of the Kansas City Chiefs.
I believe she has a day job as well. But
Trump had been endorsed by the wife of the quarterback
of the Kansas City Chiefs, Pat Mahomes. Then Trump decided
he had to tell the world on Sunday quote I
hate Taylor Swift from the British tabloids. Quote that prompted
(35:00):
Britney Mahomes to quote question if she will continue to
endorse Trump's campaign. She is questioning her support for Donald
Trump after he lashed out at Taylor saying he hates her.
A source exclusively revealed to dillymail dot com. This deeply
bothered Brittany because Taylor is like a sister to her
(35:20):
and she has done absolutely nothing wrong. Quote. She didn't
mention Trump in her post and is allowed to speak
her mind. The source added, the Trump's decision to react
in such a hateful manner upset Brittany quote. She does
not believe in hate in any form and loves Taylor
so much. The insider continued, this shook her to the core.
(35:43):
Trump Yeah, saying he hated her friend shook Missus Mahomes
to her core. All the racism, sexism, criminality, the attempt
to overthrow the government, the new attempt to overthrow the government,
and by the way, all the hate in every form
that he's already expressed. All that was dandy with her,
all right, missus Mahomes. We take all people who see
(36:06):
the light. All right, fine, and you just you redeem
yourself easily, just withdraw your endorsement in public. Of course,
prepare yourself if you do that. Trump will then issue
a fatoa against you, like he does everybody else who
thwarts him. Donald domestic j terrorist, two days, worst Pyson
(36:28):
in the world.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
This is Sports Center Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Alberman in Sports Central Center up date tonight. Kind of
breaking with the format here, but what the hell? Dateline
New York. I have theorized for some time that the
man running the National Hockey League, Gary Bettman, is actually
an agent of the National Basketball Association, sent to the
(37:28):
National Hockey League to make sure it is in no
way as successful as the National Basketball Association. Just pet
theory of mine during my more delusional days or more
insightful days. However, there is a concombinant theory that relates
to Major League Baseball. Rob Manfred, who I did not know,
(37:49):
but was a contemporary of mine at Corneill University in
the year nineteen seventy eight seventy nine. And if you
told anybody on campus there is one guy here who
will wind up being Commissioner of Baseball, they all would
have pointed at me. Rob Manfred is working for somebody
who is trying to destroy baseball. There is no other
(38:11):
possible explanation. I'll just read part of this press release.
Major League Baseball has announced a multi year partnership with
a German workware company called Strauss. The deal, we'll see
the Strauss logo added to both sides of all twelve
team batting helmets during every Baseball postseason and World Series
(38:36):
game starting this year next month through the end of
the season of twenty twenty seven. It will also apply
to all baseball regular season games held in Europe, as
well as all minor league baseball games regular and postseason
from twenty twenty five forward. The strous logo will appear
in two different color ways, depending on the helmet on
(38:59):
which it's being worn. For teams with red helmets, the
decal will feature a transparent version of Strauss's Ostridge logo
placed inside a white box. Helmets of any other color,
we'll have the ostrichen white inside a red box. Both
feature the company named to the right of the ostrichen
white letters five inch wide on both sides of every
(39:21):
batting helmet in every baseball Playoff and World Series game,
in addition to the ads on the uniforms. In addition
to the patches that say World Series, they'll all look
like racing car drivers or like a little league team
five inches wide advertising a company selling a product. Nobody
(39:43):
buys Strauss German Workwear. They were the high bidder. I
assume Strauss German Workware, so Commissioner Manfred is working for
the Bundesliga. The German soccer outfit is that it because
there aren't that many things left for rob manfre to
(40:05):
do to destroy baseball's postseason and World Series. I have
not gone to a Major League Baseball game in this
season of twenty twenty four. I believe there were two
years in the nineties where, mostly because of logistics, I
was out in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut, I
couldn't easily get to one, and I didn't. I know
at least one year I did not go at all.
(40:27):
This year, I have not gone, even though the subway
that goes to the Mets home stadium literally runs under
my house. It just has not been worth it. I
miss my friends, I'd go to see them, but the
games I know I'm watching have no relevance to the postseason.
The teams that do well immediately get eliminated, or if
(40:52):
they don't get eliminated and go on to play in
the World Series, they'll meet a team so much better
than they are that they'll be like the Phillies from
a couple of years ago. Leading the series two games
to one, then they got no hit and never led
again in the entirety of the series and got blown out.
It was an embarrassment. I felt sorry for the players.
I'm sixty five years old. There are no athletes I
(41:13):
should feel sorry for. Baseball has destroyed itself and now
it's going to stick a big ad on the side.
The big words Strauss and an Ostriche if there's anything
more appropriate to describe the commissionership of Robert Manfred, who
transferred from some local school into Cornell University in nineteen
(41:35):
seventy eight, it's an Ostridge. In June of this year,
the infielder Justin Turner, now of the Mariners and generally
one of the most thoughtful of all baseball players in
the last two decades, had one of the worst ideas
of all time. This is how bad things are getting.
(41:55):
Appearing on a streaming show called Foul Territory, Turner was
asked what he would do if they let him be
commissioner for a day. Please God, let's try it anyway.
He suggested expanding from thirty to thirty two different teams,
completely eliminating the current format of American League and National League,
and rearranging things so that the World Series is always
(42:15):
East versus West, with a big Strauss logo on it
at an ostrich. The television audience for the World Series
reached its peak in nineteen seventy eight, coincidentally, the year
Manfred and I were both at Cornell. Forty four million
(42:36):
viewers on average watched the World Series games the six
games between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees.
Last year, the average was I believe eight million viewers
per game nine. So the audience is about one tenth
one ninth what it was in nineteen seventy eight. Even
(43:00):
though the population is one third greater than it was
in nineteen seventy eight, the net loss here is spectacular.
It's more than ninety percent against the growth of the country.
Why did the World Series die? There are a thousand reasons,
one of which is an ostrich, but the easiest one
(43:21):
to comprehend is this. In nineteen seventy eight, the average
television viewer had four channels to choose from, maybe five,
maybe six. Some people had cable, but not many. There
weren't a lot of choices. The World Series was live.
Baseball was much more popular, but you know, if you're
watching TV, there aren't a lot of choices. Necessarily, many
more would be watching the baseball Who are now watching,
(43:44):
I don't know, streaming something, watching mad Men for the
seven hundredth time. But one of the other reasons that
the decline reached epidemic proportions. And I mean, if the
audience was half what it was in nineteen seventy eight,
that would make sense. It's it's realistically eight or nine
percent of what it was. And the earliest signs of this,
(44:09):
the earliest signs show up with the earliest actions that
would go into the Justin Turner idea of eliminating the
American and National Leagues. In nineteen ninety six, the Braves
and the Yankees played in the World Series. Even though
the Braves won the first game by a huge amount,
blew the Yankees out, and again in the second game
looked like a runaway, they still averaged twenty five million
(44:30):
viewers per game that year. And I remember going on
Sports Center and saying, yeah, the ratings are in decline.
Nobody is willing to say this, But what happens twenty
five years from now, Well we find out nineteen ninety seven.
The next year, they began interleague play. Until nineteen ninety seven,
teams from the American League and the National League had
never played each other except in spring training or exhibition
(44:52):
games or in the World Series never played each other
when it counted. Since the American League opened for business
in nineteen oh one. The World Series was an utterly
novel event, and it was also that thing that all
sports leagues try to fabricate today create artificially. This was
(45:13):
an actual but organic rivalry because most American League fans
up till nineteen ninety seven hated the National League or
at least disrespected it, and vice versa. There used to
be endless arguments, scholarly articles, research in the Society for
(45:35):
American Baseball Research, annual guide research into which league was
better than the other league. And this was true because
while I'll use the example of my grandfather, Victor Charbineer,
he died in nineteen eighty seven, and he died in
nineteen eighty seven hating the American League. He would watch
(45:58):
the World Series, he would watch the All Star Game.
He would root against the American League. He didn't know
most of the play He didn't know many of the teams.
He didn't know that the Washington Senators that he saw
play in nineteen sixty one were an entirely different franchise
than the ones he'd seen as the Washington Senators in
nineteen sixty. He wasn't that sophisticated a fan, but he
hated the American League. He knew that much. He would
(46:20):
mock the New York Yankees of the American League. He
insisted they played in the weaker league than did the
National League New York Mets. He was loyal to the
National League. Even though his team, the New York Giants,
had moved out of New York in nineteen fifty seven,
he still preferred the National League because it was a rivalry,
and his hatred in nineteen eighty seven owed to something
(46:41):
that had happened in July nineteen oh three. My grandfather
was a little boy when the star shortstop of his
National League, New York Giants, a man named George Stacy Davis,
jumped his contract and went and signed with the Chicago
White Sox of the New American League. That had happened
(47:01):
actually in nineteen oh two. In nineteen oh three, Davis
had jumped back to New York Giants, but as part
of the peace settlement between these two leagues that were
at war, and war in baseball means driving up salaries.
Owners don't like that. When they settled it and drove
salaries down. Davis was ordered back to Chicago as part
of the settlement. Grandpa, even though he was a little
(47:21):
boy who really didn't understand any of this stuff, and
I don't know that he heard it firsthand. It may
have been his older relatives who were angry, and he
just inherited that. Grandpa was still angry about George Stacey
Davis eighty four years later. You can't possibly buy that
kind of rivalry. Hatreds like that were inherited, cultivated, maintained, cherished, enjoyed.
(47:47):
My mother became a New York Yankees fan entirely because
she knew it would piss off her father, my grandfather.
That's why I had become a Yankee fan when I
was a kid, because I went with the games to
her see her team. You may try to create rivalries
(48:10):
like that, in fact, they form only from true hatred,
true division. It was Coke versus Pepsi. It was Republican
versus Democrat for profit. And when Baseball stopped keeping the
league separate, stopped making the World Series the battle the
only battle between the leagues, it suddenly didn't mean that much.
(48:32):
The New York Mets versus the New York Yankees was
something I dreamed of seeing as a kid. Oh what
my grandfather would have made of that they finally faced
each other in the World Series of two thousand. I
was the host for Fox. Seemingly this would have been
the epitome of my sports career. The ratings the lowest
(48:54):
the World Series it ever had. That was the big sign.
Interleague play began in nineteen ninety seven. The nineteen ninety
six World audience had been twenty five million viewers a game.
Within four years, they were down to eighteen million since
two thousand and four, when the Red Sox won their
first World Series. Since nineteen eighteen, the average has been
(49:16):
more than twenty million a game only once. It was
last as high as fourteen million per game six years ago.
If you want to make the World Series live again,
you have to make it interesting to fans whose teams
are not playing in it. That used to be everybody
because you were also a fan, not just of a team,
but of a league. It may not be salvageable, it
(49:40):
may be too late, it may be dead forever, it
may be extinct. But what Baseball should do is eliminate
all inter league play and see if it can bring
the league versus league rivalry back to life. Rather than saying,
you know, I think we could put a second ad
on the helmets next to the ostrich like in the
back of the helmet or on the front where that
(50:01):
Why does the Texas Ranger helmet had that tea? We're
not getting any money off that. It's the team logo, sir, Wow,
we're not making any money off of it. How about
we put a little like a miner's light on top
of each helmet and put an advertisement on each side
of that. Think of all the different birds we can
put up there. Grandpa wasn't just still angry about George
(50:28):
sta C. Davis eighty four years later. He was also
convinced that the National League played real baseball and the
American League was not only weak and bad, but that
the American League was fixed, fixed so that the Yankees
would win the pennant. Nearly every year he had to
watch the World Series because it was It was existential
(50:53):
to him and two millions of others forty four million
TV viewers a night. They won't get forty four million
viewers for the World Series in its entirety if it
goes seven games. Next month. You cannot buy that kind
of devotion from customers. You cannot forge it. The crazy
(51:16):
has to be organic, and Baseball has been steadily eliminating
the crazy, and it has made its World Series small
and smaller and smallest. And now it's putting ads for
a company nobody's ever heard of before on both sides
of every helmet in every playoff and World Series games,
(51:37):
stals all the helmets. Not even mind you an ad
for a company people have heard of. I mean you
could probably gain an audience if instead of the ads
reading Strauss, they read Chico's bail bonds. I've done all
(52:11):
the damage I can do here. And no, I'm not
arguing against advertising on sports uniforms. You get used to
it as long as it's small and not like standing
out on top of every helmet only in the postseason. Here,
here's our marquee item. Let's punish you with more advertising.
What do you mean nobody watched the game last night?
(52:33):
I mean you're saying the ratings were down from but
literally nobody watched. They're not even going to put all
the lights on tonight to save some money. Look, the
World Series once in eighteen ninety was so unpopular baseball
so alienated its audience that the World Series of eighteen
ninety was tied, three games for Brooklyn, three games for Louisville,
(52:56):
one game tied. The attendance had dropped to about four
hundred fans, The weather was bad, and when it came
time to play the decisive game, they said, nobody's here.
Why bother? The World Series was abandoned in eighteen ninety.
It could happen again, but at least Strauss will get
(53:17):
its ads on the helmets as they knocked down the
stadiums or something. Thanks for listening, Please send this to
somebody who doesn't. We're now back to five episodes a week,
posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. Once again, there is
a Monday Countdown. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the
musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced and performed most of
(53:37):
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
was on guitars, bass, and drums. This was produced by
Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by
the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. Sports Music
is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch
Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and
(53:58):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today
was my friend Stevie van Zant. Else it's pretty much
my fault. That's countdown for this the fiftieth day until
the twenty twenty fourth presidential election. That counts to day
and election day, the three and forty fourth day since
convicted felon dementia j Trump's first attempted coup against the
(54:21):
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the election,
use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if we
have to, to keep him from doing it again legally
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Boltons,
as the news requires, cross off the name Strauss workwear
(54:42):
from potential advertisers here till the next one. I'm Keith Ulrman.
Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
(55:06):
with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump's
newest threat quote, the bullets are flying and it will
(00:27):
only get worse. There were no bullets on Sunday other
than those fired by the Secret Service. There was no
line of sight for any shots at or near Trump.
There are thus far no charges other than gun possession,
and the reality of the case suggests there may never be.
The man who voted for Trump in twenty sixteen and
(00:48):
wanted to shoot or shoot at him in twenty twenty
four did not make even the slightest attempt to resist
a rest. Trump knows he was never in real danger.
In fact, he was genuinely put out that they would
not let him finish the round of golf he was
cheating through, when the would be almost sort of kind
of assassination attempt didn't actually take place. Trump's knowledge of
(01:14):
this only underscores that his statement yesterday is yet another
stochastic demand for violence to be directed against Vice President
Harris and other Democrats and anybody who doesn't like Trump,
and that the only brush with reality within that statement
is his demand that terrorists be deported from this country,
(01:34):
and Trump is the leading domestic terrorist in this nation,
and we should start with him. We have known for weeks,
we have known for months that even Trump has perceived
that his chances of victory via the ballot are decreasing daily,
and that violence and subversion are his only ways to
regain power and avoid dying in prison. And so this
(01:57):
all becomes another excuse for Trump to threaten this nation
and to exploit Sunday's events, events at a property he
owns and apparently provides next to no private security for
to treat this with sweeping statements to the nation's press,
which the nation's press is letting him get away with
(02:19):
out of fear of being accused of covering up something that,
if it happened five hundred yards from Joe Biden while
Joe Biden was at the White House, would have gotten
sober and serious coverage that would have by now faded
from the front pages because there was no real danger.
Trump unsurprisingly made as much danger up as he could
(02:40):
and dragged in Kamala Harris and immigration and the prosecutions
of him for his espionage and insurrection and other criminality.
Quote he believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and
he acted on it. Trump first told Fox about the
non shooter. They do it with a combination of rhetoric
(03:00):
and lawsuits. They wrap me up in. These are the
thing that dangerous fools like the shooter listened to. That
is the rhetoric they listen to. And the same with
the first one. The first one, of course, the maga
gun nut who actually shot at Trump. Then Trump posted
quote the rhetoric lies, as exemplified by the false statements
(03:22):
made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly
partisan ABC debate. As an aside, I thought he won
the ABC debate? Is he saying otherwise? Quoting again, and
all of the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage
on Joe's than Kamala's political opponent, me has taken politics
(03:44):
in our country to a whole new level of hatred, abuse,
and distrust because of this communist left rhetoric. The bullets
are flying and it will only get worse. Un quote.
Trump's threat then takes a curious left turn, which explains
what his next political strategy is. Steal your elf for
(04:05):
this quote, Allowing millions of people from places unknown to
invade and take over our country is an unpardonable sin.
Trump continued on the theme of deportation, and that segued
into a later statement in which it became clearer what
he is trying to do now. He is trying to
transfer the threat of the political violence he invoked into
(04:29):
some kind of threat against minority voters. The Poles, of course,
say he is hemorrhaging minority voters. Quote illegal migrants who
are pouring into our country in record numbers, are taking
the jobs away from black and Hispanic people who have
held them for years unquote the black jobs line again,
(04:52):
but now added to it the threat to Trump. So,
in what he would call weaving and what the rest
of us would call cynical and irrational exploitation, the environment
of political violence which Trump has been fomenting for a decade,
suddenly becomes an excuse for more prejudice and more suspicion,
(05:15):
and more violence directed at democratic leadership and at the
migrants already here, whom Trump has previously threatened to expel,
even the ones here legally. And suddenly we are back
in Springfield, Ohio, and Trump's gangs and militias and the
new excuse they have for their racism. Trump is now
(05:36):
saying that the migrants there being persecuted, being threatened, living
in a city turned upside down by the lies he
and JD. Vance and other Republicans have spread, they are,
in fact some kind of threat to him. The migrants
in Ohio are somehow connected to the attempts to shoot
at Trump, also connected to those threats defending the migrants
(06:05):
prosecuting Trump, the debate he lost last week. It is
one giant, delusional, paranoid demand by Trump to America to
let him do whatever he wants to, And at its
heart are those ten terrifying words. The bullets are flying,
(06:26):
and it will only get worse. Only getting worse, of course,
is exactly what Trump wants. If, like me, you are
of a certain age, perhaps the similarity has already occurred
to you between this madman and the mad man President
played by Martin Sheen in the Stephen King film The
(06:49):
Dead Zone. Trump, the bullets are flying. It will only
get worse, Martin Sheen, the missiles are flying. Hallelujah, hallelujah,
(07:28):
it gets worse. Trump and his running mate are now,
in fact playing a variant of good Cop Bad Cop,
called bad Cop Other bad Cop, leaving it for JD.
Vance to try to exploit this still further and sew
more death threats against the media for not selling the
narrative Trump wants. Vance complains about one newscast, in particular,
(07:53):
something on PBS he saw quote after spending thirty seconds
on the second assassination attempt on President Trump, they then
focused on the real danger me and President and Trump,
who are, according to them, personally responsible for bomb threats
against Springfield. Of course, I repeatedly condemned those threats. Donald
(08:14):
Trump and I are by their account, directly responsible for
bomb threats from foreign countries. Why because we had the
audacity to repeat what residents told us about the problems
in their town. Meanwhile, Harris Allies call for Trump to
be eliminated as the media publishes arguments that he deserved
to be shot. If you think Vance is hallucinating and
(08:38):
is way out on a limb here, he has in
fact only started to move out onto that limb. Quoting again,
it is one thing to say that pets are not
in fact being eaten, and another thing to say that
anyone who disagrees is trying to murder people. Dissent, even
vigorous descent, is a great tradition of the United States,
censorship is not unquote. Now we are approaching Vance's endpoint here.
(09:04):
You have to let him make up stories about pets
being eaten, otherwise you're not a real American. You have
to let him paint a giant bullseye on a town
in a state he putatively represents in the Senate of
the United States, because the only other option is to
support censorship, and JV says censorship means wait for it, quote,
(09:30):
the logic of censorship leads directly to one place. For
there is only one way to permanently silence a human being,
put a bullet in his brain unquote. So according to JV. Vance,
this election is now a clear choice between letting him
and Trump smear and slander and lie and endanger the
(09:52):
lives of and about anyone and anything they want, or
supporting bullets in the brain. And remember this insanity, this
cold bloodless, laser focused stupidity of JD. Vance has actually
overtaken the day to day lives of the people of Springfield, Ohio.
(10:17):
This is from the local newsroom. There of Spectrum News
quote facilities in Springfield, Ohio that have either been placed
on lockdown evacuated, closed, or searched at some point over
the last week due to threats. It coincides with Vance
and Trump, amplifying what local and state officials say are
baseless claims about Haitian migrants eating people's pets and local
(10:42):
geese in the community. Here's the list. One Springfield City Hall,
two Springfield's Bureau of Motor Vehicles, three, Springfield's Drivers Exam Station. Four,
Springfield's Local Ohio Licensed Bureau, five Springview Government Center. Six
Clark County Department of Job and Family Service This is
(11:05):
seven Clark County Common Please Court, eight Clark County Board
of Elections, nine Clark County Juvenile Court. Ten A. B.
Graham Building, eleven Springfield Academy of Excellence, twelve, Fulton Elementary School, thirteen,
Parren Woods Elementary School fourteen, snow Hill Elementary School fifteen,
Roosevelt Middle School sixteen, Kettering Health Springfield seventeen, Mercy Health
(11:29):
Springfield Regional Medical Center eighteen, Wittenberg University nineteen, Clark State College, twenty,
Simon Kenton Elementary School, twenty one Kenwood Elementary School. And
he adds Springfield's annual culture Fest has been canceled over
security concerns and note next on the Trumpian schedule is Aurora, Colorado,
(11:56):
where even before last week's debate, Trump was claiming immigrant
gangs were quote taking over buildings, They're going in violently.
It was of Aurora that he had said earlier, and
getting them out will be a bloody story. The New
York Times yesterday quoted what has actually happened in Aurora.
As far back as May twenty twenty three, Aurora officials
(12:18):
have been trying to force an out of state landlord
to fix up three blighted apartment complexes in the downtrodden
East Colfax Corridor, which connects the cities of Denver and Aurora.
In July twenty twenty four, the landlord, CBZ Management, which
says it is based in Colorado and Brooklyn, offered a
(12:40):
new argument for Wyatt couldn't repair the buildings Venezuelan gangs
had taken over and the property managers had been forced
to flee. On August fifth, a public relations agent, Sarah Latman,
hired by CBZ, pitched a quote tip to the local
Fox television network affiliate in Denver, quote an apartment building
(13:03):
and its owners in Aurora, Colorado, have become the most
recent victims of the Venezuelan gang trand de Arraguas violence,
which has taken over several communities in the Denver area.
None of this is true. No part of Colorado is
(13:24):
under the control of anybody but bad landlords. And there
is criminality in Aurora, Colorado, and it is not gangs.
It is a bunch of landlords and their pr person,
Sarah Latman. And then there's the Leon theory Elon Musk
(13:57):
to you, Leon to Trump, and the greatest rationalization of
them all, it's the When I say it, everybody knows
I'm joking. When you say it, it's the deep state
trying to murder our president. Sometime early Sunday evening, somebody
called dodge Dog Designer, one of these crypto idiots, tweeted
(14:21):
why they want to kill Donald Trump. Elon, of course,
then retweeted this, adding, and no one is even trying
to assassinate Biden slash Kamala with an emoji. It's his
site and he can put out what he wants. But frankly,
that is the kind of thing that if you wrote
(14:41):
it in public, the Secret Service would be asking for
an appointment to see you. Within twenty four hours, and
they should be asking to see what Elon Musk meant
by this, since he is running a super pack for Trump,
and he has expressed violence before, and he is a
known drug user, and most importantly, he has government contracts
(15:01):
and security clearances, none of which should continue beyond this.
In point of fact, he should have been imprisoned by
Monday morning, but he wasn't. Musk deleted this tweet sometime
early Monday without making any comment nor an explanation other
than something about how he should know by now that
if he says something and against a bunch of laughs
(15:22):
in the room, that won't necessarily translate to this lousy
website which he owns and has made lousy. There was
something that obscured or was obscured by Elon Musk that
was even worse and more directly addresses this issue of
when I say it, it's political commentary, When you say it,
(15:43):
it's a threat against Trump, and you should be shot, arrested, jailed, castrated,
whatever it is they feel like doing that day, or
have your town turned into the focal point of every
idiot and every racist and every backdoor bomber in the world.
This is from the Libertarian part of New Hampshire. At
(16:05):
least it's their account they claim to be the Libertarian
Party of New Hampshire. Libertarian is just another word for
trumpest of course, somebody wrote I disagree with the assault
weapons band, but maybe save the threatening rhetoric a and
they retweeted that with this message quote anyone who murders
Kamala Harris would be an American hero at LPNH Libertarian
(16:30):
Party of New Hampshire. If they're not the Libertarian Party
of New Hampshire, they probably should have denied the existence
of this and gotten the blue check mark removed from
the account using that name. Anyone who murders Kamala Harris
would be an American hero. Well, I'm sure they just
meant that as a metaphor it well, pray maybe not.
Later on that tweet vanished. We deleted a tweet read
(16:52):
a subsequent tweet because we don't want to break the
terms of this website we agreed to. It's a shame that,
even on a free speech website, that libertarians cannot speak freely.
Libertarians are truly the most oppressed minority. Yes, when you
advocate in a stochastic manner, the murder of the Vice
(17:12):
President of the United States, that is somehow a violation
of your rights. What's the distance between what Elon Musk
wrote and what this Libertarian Party of New Hampshire wrote.
And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden Kamala
Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero.
My argument would be these are adjacent and somebody from
(17:35):
the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire who's responsible for their
social media should be in jail next to Elon Musk.
Musk minimally needs to have his security clearance revoked. It
would be nice if we could get him out of
this country. I don't think we can do that. Apparently
we have people in space who need his cyber truck
or something to get home because we went to use
(17:58):
a Boeing Craft to get them home, and the Boeing
craft apparently cannot get out of the hangar. There's more
than this, of course, it's not just the tech pros
and the Libertarians who are doing this. Scott Perry, who
I believe has his phone back finally after January sixth,
then whatever his role was in the attempted coup said
yesterday that nobody is trying to assassinate Joe Biden. They
(18:21):
can't get to his bedroom to find him sleeping. But
President Trump is out there and they're actively trying to
assassinate him. The Secret Service needs to take actions that
are concurrent with the risk on the ground. Scott Perry,
Congressman of Pennsylvania. In other words, he's saying, takes security
from Joe Biden and assign it to Donald Trump so
(18:42):
he can golf whenever he wants to and not have
the risk of having somebody from four hundred feet away
try to shoot him from a public street. Representative Laurel
Lee of Florida basically insisted that Democrats must stop campaigning
on all the bad things Trump does and says and threatens,
because when the truth like that is revealed, it makes
(19:03):
people mad might try to take a shot at Trump.
One might suggest Representative Lee that perhaps it is mister
Trump who should not be saying these things, mister Trump
who should not have been invoking the question of violence
and politically violent activity and rhetoric. But of course that
ship sailed literally in a previous decade, and the average
congress person representing the Republican Party is a flaming idiot
(19:27):
like Laurel Lee. And of course, again I'll circle back
to the Trump quote himself. Their rhetoric is causing me
to be shot at. In short, the one through line
in all of this, from Elon Musk to the Libertarians,
to Scott Perry to Laurel Lee is I never thought
(19:48):
the leopard would eat my face. See, I'm gonna let
you in on two secrets, one of which you already
know and the other which you probably don't. About political violence.
Number one, we have talked about the peaceful transfer of
power in this country as if it were built into
the Constitute, and it had been observed for every one
of our presidential transfers since the first of them, and
(20:11):
obviously it has not. The Civil War is a strong
argument against the idea that we have had peaceful transfers
of power. The name Kennedy would be the same thing.
In any event, You cannot open Pandora's box as Trump
has and then pick the bock up, shaken it, and
let its contents spill out everywhere, and direct the evils
(20:35):
contained within the mythological Pandora's box. Direct those evils to
leave you alone. Once you open the box, it can
go anywhere. I have no desire to see politicians killed.
I have no desire to see anyone killed, and particularly
have no desire for any gun violence in this country.
(20:57):
But guess what happens. Leopards box, open box, leopards everywhere.
Leopards eat faces. Trump has a face under all the makeup.
Now the secret that you probably are not aware of.
You cannot ultimately stop political violence. You can try, you
(21:19):
can minimize it. We have done an excellent job, in fact,
certainly since well let's see how many times was the
Clinton White House shot at? How many times the threats
against Obama and Bush and Biden and Trump? And well, okay,
we haven't done that good a job of it. But
on the other hand, we haven't had one killed since
nineteen sixty three, sixty one years without a fatality. But
(21:46):
you cannot stop it ultimately. As has been said many times,
if a madman wants to surrender their own life in
the attempt to take that of a politicians, it will
probably happen, not always, and there are ways to minimize
that too. But I had a harrowing experience with this,
and I've been dealing with violence or the threat of
it now for literally twenty six years. My first experience
(22:09):
with it dates back to nineteen ninety eight. Minor threats, letters,
anonymous letters, warnings, threats, et cetera, none of which was
ever dealt with very seriously because it wasn't that kind
of threat. And you cannot live your life that way.
You cannot live your life inside a bubble. If you
(22:31):
cannot run the risk, get out of the risk area.
But I've dealt with this as recently as twenty nineteen,
and I've had the simple ones, idiots in public telling
me to kill myself, and people leaving threatening notes and
sending notes to old addresses. But in twenty nineteen, I
(22:55):
got one of those serious ones where the FBI called
me up and said, you're in Saysar Saox computer. We've
finally done unloading everything in Saysar Sayox computer. And you
apparently were in his second wave Sezar Sayak, the magabomber,
the guy with the drawn on hair and the van
in which every inch of the outside of this van
was covered in a trump sticker or something like it,
(23:18):
who sent pipe bombs to a dozen Democrats and legislators
and all kinds of liberals. Well, if he had not
gotten caught and been sent to prison, I was on
the second list. But principally, and this is back to
the point of the secret you probably are not aware of,
there was two thousand and six. I've told many times
(23:38):
the story of the guy who lived in his mother's
basement in southern California who kept sending me threatening letters
filled with fake anthrax. And obviously it was fake anthrax.
The experts who deal with real anthrax in the mail,
the one we know of, apparently killed himself because he
didn't do it right. It's not an easy fix. It's
not a self addressed, stamped envelope full of anthras, so
(24:01):
it probably was not anthrax. But I could not make
that decision on behalf of everybody else who lived in
my apartment building, especially the surprisingly large number of ninety
five year old women who lived in that building. So
I got the authorities involved, and by the time of
the fourth letter, I knew them all by their first names,
and I used to make them call me up with updates,
(24:21):
and I would call them with updates, And then came
finally a letter to my office at MSNBC, and the
giveaway was the return address was J Leno, NBC Burbank, California,
J period Leno. Well, that's not how Jay Leno writes
his name. Why would you abbreviate your name Jay as
(24:42):
a J period. If your name is J, it's J. Also,
there was postage on this. I knew Jay Leno for
nearly the whole run of his career at NBC on
the Tonight Show, and I know very well that Jay
Leno would never spend a dollar twenty five to send
me a letter, not when he could put it in
an interoffice pouch and save himself a dollar twenty five
(25:04):
in anyay event. When I saw this, I knew immediately
that it probably was from my correspondent in southern California
sending me the fake anthrax. And so I called one
of the agents at the FBI. I went, hey, I
got another one, but it's here in secaucas Oh, okay,
we'll be right over. What do I do here? We
had never gotten one here before? Well, tell whoever is
in charge of the plant of the building. And if
(25:27):
the small chance that it's actually anthrax, NBC irradiates all
the mail. Remember from getting the antrax two thousand and
one it's only five years ago. They're still irradiating all
the mail. There's no danger. Well, of course I called
the guy who was running secaucus for NBC News for MSNBC,
and when I told him what had happened, he went
(25:49):
into a screaming panic. His solution to this was to
insist that I stay in my office, in my little
cubicle and not leave. And I said, well, what's the
danger here? You you irradiated all of this. The mail's
taken to separate facility, and everything is checked, and there's
no threat whatsoever. I just wanted you to know that
(26:10):
this was here, and the FBI guys are coming over,
so nobody should be surprised. There's no threat to this.
He looked like, I don't know quite how to describe it.
He looked like he had just eaten some anthras. Is
the only way I can possibly describe it to you.
Sure Enough, guess what I found out that day. They
(26:30):
did not irradiate every letter in coming to MSNBC or
for that matter, NBC News. They simply said that, thinking
that that would discourage people from sending actual anthrax. Thinking
while I went to all this trouble of mailing anthrax
and not killing myself, And here it is going to
be of no damaging value to me. By the time
(26:51):
it gets there, it will have spoiled or NBC will
have spoiled it through its irradiation machines. I don't know
how universal this is, but I don't even know if
there are irradiation machines that could neutralize anthrax or any
other biological weapon, let alone something like a pipe bomb.
(27:12):
But the look on the guy who was running the
Secaucus plan for NBC told me all I needed to know.
The problem with political violence is not just that it
is a tool to change history, not that it risks
the lives of the people who are the potential victims,
(27:33):
both the targets and the ones who are stochastically urged
to take political violence into their own hands, as Trump
has been doing NonStop since twenty fifteen. It's not just that.
On a bigger level, it is what I mentioned before,
the Pandora's box effect. You never know what the next
(27:54):
step is going to be or what will happen. The
unintended consequences rule comes into play immediately. There was, in fact,
nothing to protect any of us at NBC News except
the illusion. I don't know to what degree this is
true of the Secret Service. I think we found out
around January sixth. Then in my commentaries of twenty twenty
(28:15):
two and twenty twenty three, you may recall I urge
President Biden to fire the Secret Service and start all
over again, because they were not doing a very good
job of protecting him. This might be the only thing
we all agree on. The Secret Service has not been
doing its job, perhaps for several different presidencies. But this
rages the larger question exactly what can they do? If
(28:37):
you own the golf course, and the golf course is
out there in public in Florida, how much of it
can you protect? How much of it can you ring
with agents? How many agents would you need thirty thousand
to completely cover a place like a golf course. And
here's the end part of this story. Hopefully the laugh
(28:59):
you can take with you, A dark and bitter laugh,
I assure you, but it is a laugh. The response
in two thousand and six, when the letter which did
not actually contain fake anthrax, but did contain the means
by which we finally identified this guy and he wound
up going to prison as a result, the envelope itself
with a barcode on it. That envelope produced this response
(29:23):
from MSNBC to protect all of us. The guy told
me to stay in my office and close the door
and he would be right back with a protective device.
Within ninety seconds, he was back outside my clear sea
through door and there was his protective device, bright orange,
(29:45):
extra large traffic cone. We all felt safe after that.
Also of interest, here the good news. Democratic presidential nomine
Kamala Harris, according to USA Today, narrowly leads Trump in
(30:08):
the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania and in two of
the state's key bell Weather counties. According to a trio
of exclusive USA Today Suffolk University polls taken after the debate,
the bounce is here and strong Harris leads Trump the
(30:29):
Republican nominee forty nine forty six, five hundred likely Pennsylvania
voters say that is, however, within the margin of era
four point four forty ninety six, and thank goodness, built
into the stupidity of the Trump cult, there's always comic relief.
One of Trump's guys thinks Trump was threatened with a riffle.
(30:53):
There is clear evidence Trump is suffering from some kind
of thumb irrectile dysfunction, and Trump may have just lost
his most valuable endorsement, that life of the quarterback of
the Kansas City Chiefs football team. Worst Person's next this Discountdown.
(31:14):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman stell ahead of us
(31:39):
on this Editiontive Countdown, mixing up the format a little bit. Today,
I'm going to tell the sad story of the financial
and esthetic suicide of Major League Baseball. The postseason will
feature advertisements five inches wide each on the sides of
every batting helmet, on every player in every game. Now,
(32:04):
they're is a good news here. There is a silver lining,
and that is that baseball's postseason ratings have collapsed so
much almost nobody will see these I sores coming up
in sports. First, there are still more new idiots to
talk about. The daily roundup of the misgrints, morons and
Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worst persons
(32:28):
in the world. The Bronze Worse Brilind Holly Hand. That's
the name. I don't make them up. Pally Brilin Holly Hand,
chairman of a youth group for Trump. I'm not your
embryos for Trump, Brilin writes, camping outside the president's golf
(32:49):
course without being detected until the gun barrel aims at
the president. That's not true, another failure by the Secret Service.
Swift action once detected. But he never should have been
allowed to camp by the fence with a riffle. Lots
of questions, writes Brilin. Hollyhand. Yeah, I got a question.
(33:13):
This kid is eighteen years old. Certainly, even being a
Trump supporter, certainly he should know by now the difference
between rifle, you know, a gun usually used to shoot
school kids with, and riffle, which is a verb meaning
to leave through pages. Then again, if his parents, mister
(33:34):
and Missus Holly Hand really named him Brilin b r
I l y N, what chance did he ever have?
The Runner is Up worser speaker Mike Johnson and Trump.
Johnson visited Trump, still shaken and disturbed by not being
(33:54):
allowed to finish his golf game Sunday. They took the
thumbs up picture. Johnson's thumb is fully erect vertically pointed
up as ordered by godd This Johnson works, but something
is clearly wrong with Trump's thumb. Trump's thumb is horizontal
in the picture. It's pointing towards the camera. Trump just
(34:17):
can't get it up. His thumb is thumb. He can't
get up his thumb. What were you thinking? But our
winner the worst Trump himself. He has cost himself a
surprisingly useful endorsement. Taylor Swift, of course, endorsed Vice President
Harris after the debate. Among other things, Miss Swift is
(34:37):
the girlfriend of Travis Kelcey of the Kansas City Chiefs.
I believe she has a day job as well. But
Trump had been endorsed by the wife of the quarterback
of the Kansas City Chiefs, Pat Mahomes. Then Trump decided
he had to tell the world on Sunday quote I
hate Taylor Swift from the British tabloids. Quote that prompted
(35:00):
Britney Mahomes to quote question if she will continue to
endorse Trump's campaign. She is questioning her support for Donald
Trump after he lashed out at Taylor saying he hates her.
A source exclusively revealed to dillymail dot com. This deeply
bothered Brittany because Taylor is like a sister to her
(35:20):
and she has done absolutely nothing wrong. Quote. She didn't
mention Trump in her post and is allowed to speak
her mind. The source added, the Trump's decision to react
in such a hateful manner upset Brittany quote. She does
not believe in hate in any form and loves Taylor
so much. The insider continued, this shook her to the core.
(35:43):
Trump Yeah, saying he hated her friend shook Missus Mahomes
to her core. All the racism, sexism, criminality, the attempt
to overthrow the government, the new attempt to overthrow the government,
and by the way, all the hate in every form
that he's already expressed. All that was dandy with her,
all right, missus Mahomes. We take all people who see
(36:06):
the light. All right, fine, and you just you redeem
yourself easily, just withdraw your endorsement in public. Of course,
prepare yourself if you do that. Trump will then issue
a fatoa against you, like he does everybody else who
thwarts him. Donald domestic j terrorist, two days, worst Pyson
(36:28):
in the world.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
This is Sports Center Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Alberman in Sports Central Center up date tonight. Kind of
breaking with the format here, but what the hell? Dateline
New York. I have theorized for some time that the
man running the National Hockey League, Gary Bettman, is actually
an agent of the National Basketball Association, sent to the
(37:28):
National Hockey League to make sure it is in no
way as successful as the National Basketball Association. Just pet
theory of mine during my more delusional days or more
insightful days. However, there is a concombinant theory that relates
to Major League Baseball. Rob Manfred, who I did not know,
(37:49):
but was a contemporary of mine at Corneill University in
the year nineteen seventy eight seventy nine. And if you
told anybody on campus there is one guy here who
will wind up being Commissioner of Baseball, they all would
have pointed at me. Rob Manfred is working for somebody
who is trying to destroy baseball. There is no other
(38:11):
possible explanation. I'll just read part of this press release.
Major League Baseball has announced a multi year partnership with
a German workware company called Strauss. The deal, we'll see
the Strauss logo added to both sides of all twelve
team batting helmets during every Baseball postseason and World Series
(38:36):
game starting this year next month through the end of
the season of twenty twenty seven. It will also apply
to all baseball regular season games held in Europe, as
well as all minor league baseball games regular and postseason
from twenty twenty five forward. The strous logo will appear
in two different color ways, depending on the helmet on
(38:59):
which it's being worn. For teams with red helmets, the
decal will feature a transparent version of Strauss's Ostridge logo
placed inside a white box. Helmets of any other color,
we'll have the ostrichen white inside a red box. Both
feature the company named to the right of the ostrichen
white letters five inch wide on both sides of every
(39:21):
batting helmet in every baseball Playoff and World Series game,
in addition to the ads on the uniforms. In addition
to the patches that say World Series, they'll all look
like racing car drivers or like a little league team
five inches wide advertising a company selling a product. Nobody
(39:43):
buys Strauss German Workwear. They were the high bidder. I
assume Strauss German Workware, so Commissioner Manfred is working for
the Bundesliga. The German soccer outfit is that it because
there aren't that many things left for rob manfre to
(40:05):
do to destroy baseball's postseason and World Series. I have
not gone to a Major League Baseball game in this
season of twenty twenty four. I believe there were two
years in the nineties where, mostly because of logistics, I
was out in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut, I
couldn't easily get to one, and I didn't. I know
at least one year I did not go at all.
(40:27):
This year, I have not gone, even though the subway
that goes to the Mets home stadium literally runs under
my house. It just has not been worth it. I
miss my friends, I'd go to see them, but the
games I know I'm watching have no relevance to the postseason.
The teams that do well immediately get eliminated, or if
(40:52):
they don't get eliminated and go on to play in
the World Series, they'll meet a team so much better
than they are that they'll be like the Phillies from
a couple of years ago. Leading the series two games
to one, then they got no hit and never led
again in the entirety of the series and got blown out.
It was an embarrassment. I felt sorry for the players.
I'm sixty five years old. There are no athletes I
(41:13):
should feel sorry for. Baseball has destroyed itself and now
it's going to stick a big ad on the side.
The big words Strauss and an Ostriche if there's anything
more appropriate to describe the commissionership of Robert Manfred, who
transferred from some local school into Cornell University in nineteen
(41:35):
seventy eight, it's an Ostridge. In June of this year,
the infielder Justin Turner, now of the Mariners and generally
one of the most thoughtful of all baseball players in
the last two decades, had one of the worst ideas
of all time. This is how bad things are getting.
(41:55):
Appearing on a streaming show called Foul Territory, Turner was
asked what he would do if they let him be
commissioner for a day. Please God, let's try it anyway.
He suggested expanding from thirty to thirty two different teams,
completely eliminating the current format of American League and National League,
and rearranging things so that the World Series is always
(42:15):
East versus West, with a big Strauss logo on it
at an ostrich. The television audience for the World Series
reached its peak in nineteen seventy eight, coincidentally, the year
Manfred and I were both at Cornell. Forty four million
(42:36):
viewers on average watched the World Series games the six
games between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees.
Last year, the average was I believe eight million viewers
per game nine. So the audience is about one tenth
one ninth what it was in nineteen seventy eight. Even
(43:00):
though the population is one third greater than it was
in nineteen seventy eight, the net loss here is spectacular.
It's more than ninety percent against the growth of the country.
Why did the World Series die? There are a thousand reasons,
one of which is an ostrich, but the easiest one
(43:21):
to comprehend is this. In nineteen seventy eight, the average
television viewer had four channels to choose from, maybe five,
maybe six. Some people had cable, but not many. There
weren't a lot of choices. The World Series was live.
Baseball was much more popular, but you know, if you're
watching TV, there aren't a lot of choices. Necessarily, many
more would be watching the baseball Who are now watching,
(43:44):
I don't know, streaming something, watching mad Men for the
seven hundredth time. But one of the other reasons that
the decline reached epidemic proportions. And I mean, if the
audience was half what it was in nineteen seventy eight,
that would make sense. It's it's realistically eight or nine
percent of what it was. And the earliest signs of this,
(44:09):
the earliest signs show up with the earliest actions that
would go into the Justin Turner idea of eliminating the
American and National Leagues. In nineteen ninety six, the Braves
and the Yankees played in the World Series. Even though
the Braves won the first game by a huge amount,
blew the Yankees out, and again in the second game
looked like a runaway, they still averaged twenty five million
(44:30):
viewers per game that year. And I remember going on
Sports Center and saying, yeah, the ratings are in decline.
Nobody is willing to say this, But what happens twenty
five years from now, Well we find out nineteen ninety seven.
The next year, they began interleague play. Until nineteen ninety seven,
teams from the American League and the National League had
never played each other except in spring training or exhibition
(44:52):
games or in the World Series never played each other
when it counted. Since the American League opened for business
in nineteen oh one. The World Series was an utterly
novel event, and it was also that thing that all
sports leagues try to fabricate today create artificially. This was
(45:13):
an actual but organic rivalry because most American League fans
up till nineteen ninety seven hated the National League or
at least disrespected it, and vice versa. There used to
be endless arguments, scholarly articles, research in the Society for
(45:35):
American Baseball Research, annual guide research into which league was
better than the other league. And this was true because
while I'll use the example of my grandfather, Victor Charbineer,
he died in nineteen eighty seven, and he died in
nineteen eighty seven hating the American League. He would watch
(45:58):
the World Series, he would watch the All Star Game.
He would root against the American League. He didn't know
most of the play He didn't know many of the teams.
He didn't know that the Washington Senators that he saw
play in nineteen sixty one were an entirely different franchise
than the ones he'd seen as the Washington Senators in
nineteen sixty. He wasn't that sophisticated a fan, but he
hated the American League. He knew that much. He would
(46:20):
mock the New York Yankees of the American League. He
insisted they played in the weaker league than did the
National League New York Mets. He was loyal to the
National League. Even though his team, the New York Giants,
had moved out of New York in nineteen fifty seven,
he still preferred the National League because it was a rivalry,
and his hatred in nineteen eighty seven owed to something
(46:41):
that had happened in July nineteen oh three. My grandfather
was a little boy when the star shortstop of his
National League, New York Giants, a man named George Stacy Davis,
jumped his contract and went and signed with the Chicago
White Sox of the New American League. That had happened
(47:01):
actually in nineteen oh two. In nineteen oh three, Davis
had jumped back to New York Giants, but as part
of the peace settlement between these two leagues that were
at war, and war in baseball means driving up salaries.
Owners don't like that. When they settled it and drove
salaries down. Davis was ordered back to Chicago as part
of the settlement. Grandpa, even though he was a little
(47:21):
boy who really didn't understand any of this stuff, and
I don't know that he heard it firsthand. It may
have been his older relatives who were angry, and he
just inherited that. Grandpa was still angry about George Stacey
Davis eighty four years later. You can't possibly buy that
kind of rivalry. Hatreds like that were inherited, cultivated, maintained, cherished, enjoyed.
(47:47):
My mother became a New York Yankees fan entirely because
she knew it would piss off her father, my grandfather.
That's why I had become a Yankee fan when I
was a kid, because I went with the games to
her see her team. You may try to create rivalries
(48:10):
like that, in fact, they form only from true hatred,
true division. It was Coke versus Pepsi. It was Republican
versus Democrat for profit. And when Baseball stopped keeping the
league separate, stopped making the World Series the battle the
only battle between the leagues, it suddenly didn't mean that much.
(48:32):
The New York Mets versus the New York Yankees was
something I dreamed of seeing as a kid. Oh what
my grandfather would have made of that they finally faced
each other in the World Series of two thousand. I
was the host for Fox. Seemingly this would have been
the epitome of my sports career. The ratings the lowest
(48:54):
the World Series it ever had. That was the big sign.
Interleague play began in nineteen ninety seven. The nineteen ninety
six World audience had been twenty five million viewers a game.
Within four years, they were down to eighteen million since
two thousand and four, when the Red Sox won their
first World Series. Since nineteen eighteen, the average has been
(49:16):
more than twenty million a game only once. It was
last as high as fourteen million per game six years ago.
If you want to make the World Series live again,
you have to make it interesting to fans whose teams
are not playing in it. That used to be everybody
because you were also a fan, not just of a team,
but of a league. It may not be salvageable, it
(49:40):
may be too late, it may be dead forever, it
may be extinct. But what Baseball should do is eliminate
all inter league play and see if it can bring
the league versus league rivalry back to life. Rather than saying,
you know, I think we could put a second ad
on the helmets next to the ostrich like in the
back of the helmet or on the front where that
(50:01):
Why does the Texas Ranger helmet had that tea? We're
not getting any money off that. It's the team logo, sir, Wow,
we're not making any money off of it. How about
we put a little like a miner's light on top
of each helmet and put an advertisement on each side
of that. Think of all the different birds we can
put up there. Grandpa wasn't just still angry about George
(50:28):
sta C. Davis eighty four years later. He was also
convinced that the National League played real baseball and the
American League was not only weak and bad, but that
the American League was fixed, fixed so that the Yankees
would win the pennant. Nearly every year he had to
watch the World Series because it was It was existential
(50:53):
to him and two millions of others forty four million
TV viewers a night. They won't get forty four million
viewers for the World Series in its entirety if it
goes seven games. Next month. You cannot buy that kind
of devotion from customers. You cannot forge it. The crazy
(51:16):
has to be organic, and Baseball has been steadily eliminating
the crazy, and it has made its World Series small
and smaller and smallest. And now it's putting ads for
a company nobody's ever heard of before on both sides
of every helmet in every playoff and World Series games,
(51:37):
stals all the helmets. Not even mind you an ad
for a company people have heard of. I mean you
could probably gain an audience if instead of the ads
reading Strauss, they read Chico's bail bonds. I've done all
(52:11):
the damage I can do here. And no, I'm not
arguing against advertising on sports uniforms. You get used to
it as long as it's small and not like standing
out on top of every helmet only in the postseason. Here,
here's our marquee item. Let's punish you with more advertising.
What do you mean nobody watched the game last night?
(52:33):
I mean you're saying the ratings were down from but
literally nobody watched. They're not even going to put all
the lights on tonight to save some money. Look, the
World Series once in eighteen ninety was so unpopular baseball
so alienated its audience that the World Series of eighteen
ninety was tied, three games for Brooklyn, three games for Louisville,
(52:56):
one game tied. The attendance had dropped to about four
hundred fans, The weather was bad, and when it came
time to play the decisive game, they said, nobody's here.
Why bother? The World Series was abandoned in eighteen ninety.
It could happen again, but at least Strauss will get
(53:17):
its ads on the helmets as they knocked down the
stadiums or something. Thanks for listening, Please send this to
somebody who doesn't. We're now back to five episodes a week,
posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. Once again, there is
a Monday Countdown. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the
musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced and performed most of
(53:37):
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
was on guitars, bass, and drums. This was produced by
Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by
the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. Sports Music
is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch
Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and
(53:58):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today
was my friend Stevie van Zant. Else it's pretty much
my fault. That's countdown for this the fiftieth day until
the twenty twenty fourth presidential election. That counts to day
and election day, the three and forty fourth day since
convicted felon dementia j Trump's first attempted coup against the
(54:21):
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the election,
use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if we
have to, to keep him from doing it again legally
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Boltons,
as the news requires, cross off the name Strauss workwear
(54:42):
from potential advertisers here till the next one. I'm Keith Ulrman.
Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
(55:06):
with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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