July 17, 2023 • 46 mins
EPISODE 247: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Why did Trump imply he was quote “being charged under the Insurrection Act?” Why did Trump put that out THOSE words – “Insurrection Act” on his social media propaganda site and then delete the post within half an hour and replace “Insurrection Act” with “Espionage Act”? Is there a chance somebody has told him that he may actually BE charged under the Insurrection Act? Could Jack Smith be prosecuting him under the Disqualification Clause of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment? Could the Special Counsel try to get Donald Trump DISQUALIFIED from ever again holding office in this country?
The very thought of it is breathtaking.
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States… to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof." Any person will make tens of thousands of mistakes with words in his life and Trump, more than that, but almost all substitution mistakes – you MEAN one word but SAY or WRITE another – have one minimum threshold: the person who substitutes the one for the other – the person who writes “Insurrection Act” when he INTENDED to write “Espionage Act” – has been thinking about The Insurrection Act. The word “insurrection” did not fall off a shelf and hit Trump in the head and he suddenly wrote it when he MEANT to write “Espionage.”
If I haven’t been clear let me state this explicitly: I don’t have a source in the Special Counsel’s office. I don’t have a cousin whose meter maid’s twin brother’s spiritual advisor’s uncle’s nephew types up the daily notes. Nor have any of the people I actually DO know who MIGHT have those kinds of sources said anything. Nor is there anything – ANYTHING – from any of the solid dozen or so reporters covering the coming Trials of Trump that suggests… anything. Nobody has said Smith is think about prosecuting him on Insurrection. And yet I am still sitting here wondering why he wrote what he wrote and I am absolutely convinced Trump has been thinking about the Insurrection Act. So setting aside the one thing you and I most WANT to be true – that even some of Trump’s idiot legal advisers including the non-lawyer ones have told him they may charge him with it… what else could it be?
B-Block (20:50) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Tucker Carlson goes off the deep end and as he attacks six presidential contenders to their face it finally dawns on me whose career his has always reminded me of: it was the top American political commentator of 1938. He too was fired while at the pinnacle. He never returned - and he was dead six years later. (27:33) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Michigan GOP bank account is down to five figures, Eric Adams is still rhetorically beating up the 84-year old holocaust survivor, and Steve Bannon makes me an offer I cannot refuse.
C-Block (33:00) IN SPORTS: A brilliant idea! Bring in an aging ex-GOAT from another country to finally make MLS a big deal. Sure it didn't work the first 50 times but Messi's different. Isn't he? And the Buck may not stop here as the Mets near a purge (36:30) Meaning I have to tell the story of the day 30 years ago next month Buck Showalter locked all his players in the trainers' room at Yankee Stadium to teach me a lesson and blame it on them. And I LIKE Buck!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Why
did Trump imply he was quote being charged under the
(00:27):
Insurrection Act? Why did Trump put that out those words
Insurrection Act on his social media propaganda site, And why
did he then delete that post within half an hour
and replace the words Insurrection Act with the words Espionage Act.
(00:48):
Is there a chance somebody has told him that he
may actually be charged under the Insurrection Act? Could Jack
Smith be prosecuting him under the disqualification clause of Section
three of the fourteenth Amendment? Could the Special Council be
(01:09):
trying to get Donald Trump disqualified from ever again holding
office in this country? The very thought of it is breathtaking. Quote.
No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress,
or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any
(01:29):
office civil or military under the United States or under
any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a
member of Congress or as an officer of the United States,
to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given
(01:49):
aid or comfort to the enemies thereof Unquote, any person
will make tens of thousands of mistakes with words in
their lifetime, and Trump more than that. But almost all
substitution mistakes you mean one word, but you say or
(02:11):
write another, have one minimum threshold. The person who substitutes
the one word for the other. The person who writes
Insurrection Act when he intended to write Espionage Act. That
person has been thinking about the Insurrection Act. The word
(02:31):
insurrection did not fall off a shelf and hit Trump
in his big fat head and he suddenly wrote it
when he meant to write espionage. If I haven't been
clear yet, let me state this explicitly. I do not
have a source in the Special Council's office. I don't
(02:52):
know the address. I don't have a cousin whose meter
maid's twin brothers spiritual advisor's uncle's nephew types up the
daily notes there. Nor have any of the people I
actually do you know who might have those kinds of
sources said anything. Nor is there anything anything from any
of the solid dozen or so reporters covering the coming
(03:14):
trials of Trump that suggests anything. There's no extrapolation here.
There's no reading between the lines. There are no lines
to read. Nobody has said Jack Smith is thinking about
prosecuting Trump for insurrection. This threat is in terms of
facts about as thin as it gets. And yet I
(03:35):
am still sitting here wondering, wondering why he wrote what
he wrote. And I am absolutely convinced that Trump has
been thinking about the Insurrection Act for whatever reason. So,
setting aside the one thing you and I most want
to be true that even some of Trump's idiot legal advisors,
(03:57):
including the non lawyer advisors, have told him they may
charge him with this, what else could it be? Trump
wrote this and will skip the lies for the moment.
We're going for a forensic analysis of why he used
one word amid the lies he wrote? Quote, whatever happened
to the Biden document's case? Twenty times more documents than
(04:20):
I have, and I'm allowed under the Presidential Records Act,
and he's not. What about the classified docs he had
in Chinatown and on his garage floor in Delaware? Is
he being charged under the Insurrection Act? What about Penn etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
He would delete that post relatively quickly and replace it
(04:42):
with is he being charged under the Espionage Act? The
most obvious interpretation of that post is also the most
clearly mistaken. Whatever Trump was trying to say, whyever he
was thinking about the Insurrection Act. He was not accusing
Biden of violating it. Obviously that would make sense, and
(05:05):
just as obviously, since when has since had anything to
do with Trump? But more importantly, if he meant Biden
should be quote charged under the Insurrection Act, why would
he write that and then delete it and then repost
it with only one change to make it Espionage Act. No,
the sentence and paragraph structure is clearly constructed that way
(05:26):
to say that he Trump has been charged under an
act but Biden has not, and to imply that Biden
should have been, and somehow Trump picked the wrong act.
So we can rule out the already unlikely possibility that
he wanted to associate Biden and only Biden with the
Insurrection Act and then thought better of it. When was
(05:52):
the last time Trump thought better of anything? Nineteen eighty two.
This is, in the broadest sense, some kind of Freudian mistake,
And we circle back to my question, why is Trump
ump thinking about the Insurrection Act and actually has been
in the news twice in the last week. Miles Taylor
(06:14):
referenced it last week in an excerpt from his new book, Blowback,
Taylor claims Trump was ready to declare an insurrection during
the twenty eighteen State of the Union address and use
the powers under the Act against migrants. So now we're
thinking Trump is keeping on top of what Miles Taylor
has said. I actually went through all Trump Truth social
(06:39):
media posts since that story came out, No Miles Taylor.
Surprisingly enough, no reference to the Insurrection Act against the migrants. Now,
I could have missed something, since Trump's feed is, and
I mean this literally, one third his posts pleading for
people to love him, one third promotions for Jim Cavizl movies,
and one third ads for braziers for seventy year old women.
(07:03):
I swear to God God, but I don't think I
missed anything. The other reference in the news to the
Insurrection Act lately was by the good folks at just Security.
Last week they published a gargantuan model prosecution memo for
that part of Jack Smith's case which deals with the insurrection,
(07:26):
and in it they go into a thorough and surprisingly
intelligible to US laymen comparison of using the Fourteenth Amendments
insurrection disqualification clause, which carries no jail time, but does
keep the malefactor forever out of office. And eighteen Usc.
Two three eighty three, which prevents inciting an insurrection and
(07:48):
giving aid or comfort to insurrectionists. And if you want
a harrowing read on why the disqualification clause is so
tempting but has the disadvantage of having not really been
prosecuted federally since the Civil War versus the reasons the
January sixth House comit he made a criminal referral against Trump,
hoping to see him charge not for inciting the insurrection,
(08:10):
but for failing to stop it when he had the
chance to do so for hours there. It is. The
other great thing about it is you can be certain
Trump did not read it, not those paragraphs, not those pages,
not the entire Just Security model prosecution memo, because in
the model prosecution memo there isn't one damn photo for
(08:33):
Trump to stare at, or a face for him to
draw a mustache on. And guess what. Trump also has
no idea that Conservative judge Michael Luddig said that not
only is that model prosecution memo great, but the idea
of seeking criminal insurrection charges against Trump put you in
jail charges is both necessary and courageous. Donald Trump doesn't
(08:55):
know the difference between Michael Luddig and Booth Lustig, the
field goal kicker of the nineteen sixty six Buffalo Bills.
So no, Trump, not here, Judge Luddig bring up the
Insurrection Act. And he didn't read just Security analyzing the
Criminal Insurrection Act and the Disqualification Insurrection Act. And he
(09:16):
didn't hear Miles Taylor and the Insurrection Act. And it
wasn't some random word that popped into his head instead
of cheeseburger, and the post codjestin easily and innocently appeared
with the sentence is Biden being charged under the Cheeseburger Act? No? No, no,
and no, which brings us back to the question with
which I began. Why did Trump imply he was quote
(09:41):
being charged under the Insurrection Act? And I have no
more idea of the answer now than I did when
I began dancing on the head of this pin. And
I hate answering a question with another question, But I
will go back to this spot, and I will stay
here until we find out did somebody tell Trump that
(10:02):
Jack Smith might now charge him under either kind of
insurrection Act? This much about Jack Smith's case, we know
for certain he has expanded it again. CNN reporting that
federal prosecutors have interviewed the secretaries of state of Georgia, Michigan,
(10:25):
New Mexico, Pennsylvania, others other state officials, and the topic
was the impact of misinformation on election workers and quote
the threats that emerged from that from various sources. This
is I think new territory. There have been plenty of
links between twenty twenty election misinformation and the endangering of
(10:46):
election workers and state officials. Just think of the Ruby
Freeman Shay Moss lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani. But Jack Smith
isn't gathering testimony from victims of electoral intimidation so they
can tie it to Rudy. They want to tie it
to the Trump campaign per se, and Trump per se,
(11:10):
And suddenly that sends us reeling back to a previous possibility,
Remember the one where I suggested Juliani has flipped or
will If Juliani has testimony and evidence that somebody Trump
told him to smear Miss Freeman and Ms Moss or
(11:30):
to lean on anybody anywhere, it is a whole new
vein of prosecutorial gold opening up for Jack Smith and
now we know. Jared Kushner testified to a Jack Smith
brand grand jury last month. Kushner was one of many
witnesses asked about how and when Trump acknowledged in the
days after he lost that he had lost again. This
(11:54):
mainlines into possible charges against Trump for fleecing his cultists
getting them to contribute to cure a stolen election Trump
knew wasn't stolen, which could easily by itself mean forty
four thousand counts of wire fraud. And besides that, how
much would you pay to hear a prosecutor say at
(12:15):
a Trump trial, mister witness, would you please state your
name for the record, and you hear the guy say,
Jared Corey Kushner. We already know. Alissa Farrall already gave
Trump up. She says. She told the grand jury the
same thing she told the January sixth Committee that days
after the election, Trump asked her rhetorically, can you believe
(12:36):
I lost to Joe Biden? Yes, we can all believe
it because it happened. Can we move on now? And
there is one more substantive development, ABC says, somebody's lying
and moreover, Jacksmith's office has written to tell them they
know they're lying. Somebody in the Trump organization, somebody who
(12:58):
testified in May, according to ABC, and last week that
somebody got a target letter saying there seems to have
been some light perjury committed and there may be charges
of trying to obstruct the probe. ABC knew who it
was and knew that the lying seems to have been
about the handling of the Mari Lago security video. ABC
(13:18):
reached the person in question, and the only answer from
them was, quote, it's none of your business, and they
know whoever it is is represented by the attorney Stanley Woodward.
And that really does not help as much as it
might seem, because Stanley Woodward represents or has represented Cash Bettel,
Dan Scavino, Peter Nevadroo, Walt Nauda, and lots of others,
(13:39):
And it's not Walt Nauda. Because whoever it is, they
still want this guy to testify about what he said
to Walt Nauda. And no, we don't know when we
will hear from the glorified game show judge MS Cannon,
who is currently more important than any other figure in
the American judiciary. Smith answered the trump pitch to delay
(14:01):
the Florida document's case until I don't know the year
eleveny billion. Smith answered by saying the mid December start
he hopes for is entirely fitting that there is nowhere
near the amount of evidence Trump's attorneys have portrayed. The
gist of the no nonsense response from Smith was if
they are real lawyers and judge, if you are a
(14:24):
real judge, you can get this done in half the
time we are giving you. I don't want to leave
an impression here. I do not want to leave the
impression that the madness of Robert F. Kennedy Junior does
not matter to me. It is, in fact, actually personally painful.
(14:47):
I was an admirer of his environmental work, which literally
cleaned up the river along which I was raised and
which used to be a cesspool. I met Bobby twenty
years ago when he shared my doubts about why an
Ohio he needed to expel the media and the vote checkers,
(15:09):
the bipartisan vote checkers during the two thousand and four
presidential ballot county count because of what that county called terrorism.
But this, this disgusting statement that COVID nineteen was or
even might have been targeted to attack Caucasians and black people,
(15:32):
but there are genetic structural differences that leave the Chinese
and the Ashkenazi Jews safer is absolute disqualifying bullshit. And
then to blame the media when he's heard saying it
on tape, no media required that, in some respects is
(15:56):
far more disturbing because it's absolute madness. The issue of
Robert F. Kennedy Junior is no longer a political or
moral or racist one. It is whether or not there
is anybody who cares enough about him to get him
the inpatient mental health care he needs. Also of interest
(16:16):
here to us, speaking of kind of the same topic,
Tucker Carlson, Oh nothing. He just attacked six different Republicans
seeking the presidential nomination, and I'm not going to pretend
I give a damn about them, even if those attacks
didn't take place right in person at an event in Iowa.
But for literally years, I have looked at Tucker Carlson's failure,
(16:39):
his assent, his new failure, and I have thought this
reminds me of the career arc of somebody in the
vast annals of American news commentary, which I have studied
in addition to participating in Somebody I've read about, Somebody
I've read about and been astonished by their story. And
(16:59):
after this debacle in Iowa on Friday, I finally figured
out who Tucker Carlson is. The name will mean nothing
to you, so holding it back provides me with no
teas here. I'll go into depth in this in a moment.
But Tucker Carlson is Boke Carter, and one fine morning,
(17:25):
many years ago, Boke Carter was the number one news
commentator in America. And then on that fine morning things
happened so that at seven o'clock that night, Boke Carter's
career was over. That's next. This is countdown. This is
(17:49):
countdown with Keith Oboman quot scripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snarks, some predictions, dateline des moine in Iowa.
The good news for Tucker Carlson is his delusions of
grandeur took the weekend off, at least publicly. Carlson did
(18:13):
not insult any more Republican presidential candidates for the nomination
while interviewing them at a Republican forum of Republican Religious nuts.
He did not, somehow again make Chris Christy and Mike
Pence look sympathetic. He did not somehow again accuse Ukraine
of attacking Catholicism because Ukraine had restricted the activities of
(18:33):
the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. With the Russian Orthodox
Church now being run by Vladimir Putin, He did not
once more boast of not taking the COVID vaccine, nor
claim that countless people were quote injured by that vaccine,
even though the only injuries in this equation have been
to Tucker Carlson's brain, and he did not post any
more interviews with psychos who are charged in Romania with
(18:57):
sex trafficking. The bad news for Tucker Carlson is, I
have finally realized, after months of being unable to put
my finger on this, exactly whose career path Tucker Carlson
has now followed. The answer is Boke Carter. You don't
know who Boke Carter is. Tucker Carlson does not know
(19:20):
who Boke Carter is. And despite what you will hear
happened to Boke Carter, it is kind of amazing that
he has been in essence completely erased from human history.
Because as of Friday August twenty sixth, nineteen thirty eight,
Harold Thomas Henry Boch Carter was the most popular news
(19:42):
commentator in this country and had, depending on the week,
either the second highest rated news broadcast of any kind
or the highest rated news broadcast of any kind, and
at the same time he wrote the second most widely
read newspaper column in this country. The British Raised bolk
(20:04):
Ca signed off his nightly fifteen minute news commentary on
the CBS Radio network at seven pm Eastern Time on
August twenty sixth, nineteen thirty eight, with his trademark Cheerier.
The network switched to a summertime replacement show called The
Ghost of Benjamin's Sweet and then, speaking of ghosts, bok
Carter was basically never heard from again. Carter's instantaneous fame
(20:29):
was built on criticism of President Roosevelt and the New
Deal and the left. He dismissed the Nazis as any
threats to America. He opposed unions in this country. He
took absolute positions, and he joined America first. Hello everyone,
lot he let's wake up mconity is too late and
(20:49):
defend America first before trying to defend someone else. Let's
first be able to defend our service. Hi, thank you, Bok.
Carter was a conservative radio commentator just as in our
our own time. Nothing that unusual, And then something very
unusual happened. Senate Majority Leader Joe Robinson of Arkansas had
(21:15):
a heart attack and died, and both Carter went on
the CBS radio network and said, not implied, but said
that President Roosevelt had caused the heart attack and thus
caused Senator Robinson's death. When the recipient of some of
his other criticisms questioned Carter's immigration status, Carter sent an
(21:37):
official unemployment report card to the White House, addressed to
the President and wrote on it, beware libel me at
your peril. Carter spoke at a public forum and insisted
America should never go to war, even against fascists. By
April of nineteen thirty eight, he was telling his listeners
of a plot by Democrats and the White House to
(22:01):
silence news commentators and conservatives. Any of this sound familiar,
I would expect much of it would sound familiar to
Tucker Carlson Bolch. Carter was off radio for eight months,
then he started a series of three commentaries a week
on a lesser network. By nineteen forty one, he was
(22:23):
on only sporadically in the afternoons, two days a week.
By nineteen forty two, he had two shows a week
on a regional network and had reinvented himself as a
liberal commentator who publicly advocated for President Roosevelt and who
addressed Roosevelt on the air as quote dear Boss. By
(22:44):
nineteen forty three, Carter and his final wife had joined
a religious cult. He had legally changed his name to
Ephraim Bok Carter. His radio stardom, which had begun just
eight years earlier, his radio career, which had begun just
five years before that when a Philadelphia station needed someone
to narrate live coverage of a rugby match, was over.
(23:07):
Three years after that rugby match, the station sent Bolk
Carter to cover the Lindberg kidnapping trial in New Jersey,
and overnight, CBS gave him a network national slot, sponsored
first by Philco Radios, then by General Foods. He ranked
first in the ratings in nineteen thirty six, nineteen thirty seven,
nineteen thirty eight. He appeared originally on twenty three CBS stations,
(23:30):
then on sixty, then on eighty five, and then on none.
In nineteen forty four, Bolk Carter died of a heart
attack in Hollywood. He had just turned forty one years old.
As near as I can tell through a search of
Internet and old newspaper archives, the number of newspaper stories
(23:51):
that merely mentioned Bolk Carter in passing in this country
in this century now totals twenty two. Still ahead on
(24:18):
countdown sports and Things. I promise not to tell Merge,
the veteran manager of the New York Mets Buck Showalter,
may have, as they say, lost the room. I will
tell you of the day when he owned the rooms
so thoroughly that he could order all of his New
York Yankee players out of that room and tell them
to go and hide, supposedly because they didn't want to
(24:39):
talk to me. First time for the daily round up
with the mis grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens
who constitute today's worst persons in the world West Peasants
in the World Focus speaking the Bronze Christina Caramo, the
woman who believes that demonic possession can be transmitted sexually
and again, as an aside, how would she know that else?
(25:04):
She's got bigger fish to fry right now is Carmel
got elected chairwoman of the Michigan State Republican Party and
as rumored, it is about to go under financially. A
tape of a July eighth internal meeting of the state
party has been obtained by the Detroit News, and on it,
the party's General Council confirms that the Michigan GOP has
(25:25):
been quote threatened with default on a loan and the
party is a little short of funds. Republican lawmakers say
the Michigan GOP needs between thirty and forty million dollars
per election cycle to compete sixteen months before the next election.
The Michigan Republican Party's budget director has heard on that tape,
(25:45):
saying they have ninety three, two hundred and thirty one
dollars and ninety cents. Ninety hundred and thirty one dollars
and ninety cents. The runner up him again, New York
City Mayor Eric Adams. He didn't end his career enough
when he attacked in public an eighty four year old
(26:07):
tenant advocate who escaped the Holocaust. He compared her to
a plantation owner. While he's decided to go back in
on her at a Brooklyn church. Even though his victim
had moved on, Adams did not. Adams now says he
heard his dead mother explaining to him not to let
someone disrespect you, which means he's going to have to
(26:29):
have arguments with several million of us here in New
York who don't respect him. Happily, Mayor Adams has enough
ego and delusion to fill in that respect gap. Adams
says in a tape of the speech at the church, quote,
I'm the symbol of black manhood in this city, in
this country and what it represents. I am the mayor
(26:49):
of the most powerful city on the globe and people
need to recognize that. Mayor, how did that work out
for mister Giuliani to shut up and do the job
and earn the respect. But the winner, Steve Bannon once
again international fascist slob of the Year, winner of the
annual balloonne d'hor This is not a major thing that
(27:13):
he does, like, you know, trying to install a dictator
or trying to fix an election, or going on trial
for fraud. This is just a threat he made on
his streaming show against speaker Kevin McCarthy quote, I got
news for McCarthy and this audience has news over our
dead bodies? Will you do anything to Matt Gates? Unquote
(27:36):
Steve Deal, Steve, how would you tell if that was
a dead body? Bannon?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Today's worst far set. This is Sports Center. Wait, check
(28:09):
that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
In Sports Stop me if you've heard this before, but
the world's greatest soccer player has signed to play here
in the US of A. He's wait, they didn't. They
didn't fill in the blank on the piece of paper
this time. Who is it?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Oh, okay, here it is the world's greatest soccer player
has signed to play here in the US of A.
He's Lionel Messi. He's just turned thirty six, he just
washed out of his last European team in Paris, and
a lot of his teammates were not sad to see
him go. And the Miami team in Major League Soccer,
which is owned by David Beckham, which is in twenty
(28:53):
ninth place out of twenty nine teams, just gave Messi
somewhere between fifty and sixty million a year to play
in Miami through the twenty twenty five season. American soccer fan.
We'll call them football fans. We don't need to piss
them off more than usual. We'll never admit this, but
this country has been importing the declining stars of other
(29:14):
nations since literally the first day somebody tried to put
together a true professional league in this country, which was
in nineteen sixty seven. Literally all the teams in the
original nineteen sixty seven United Soccer Association were just international
teams on summer break, claiming to be from American cities.
The Cleveland Stokers they were actually Stoke City from England
(29:38):
with star goalie Gordon Banks. The Houston Stars. They were
Banngu of Brazil, Chicago Mustangs, Kalliari of Sardinia. George Best
came to the United States, Bobby Moore, Usebio, then the
Big Fish Pele, then Franz Beckenbauer and Kanalia and crou
Beniskins and more recently Tierry Henry and then Wayne Rooney
(30:01):
and Frank Lampard and Ibrahimovich and Beckham's and their net
effect on pro soccer in this country. It is America's
sport of the future. It always has been and it
always will be. I mean, what did Beckham do for
Major League Soccer. He became just what America did not
(30:22):
have enough of a sports team. Owner Messi makes his
Miami debut Friday against the Mexican club cruz Azul. It's
probably for a championship cup. Every other game in international
soccer is for a championship cup of some sort. The failing,
of course, is that of all the internationals Americans brought
(30:43):
here in this endless belief that yesterday's starts from other
lands will build a future in this one, they did
not bring the one man who could have actually sold
it to the United States, the fabled Italian goalie John
Luca Paliuca. One other sports note my baseball spidey sense
(31:04):
here tingling, and I think New York may shortly be
the scene of baseball carnage, one of those things where
a team fires its hitting coach, and fires its manager,
and fires its general manager and trades literally every player
it can get rid of at the trade deadline in
two weeks. The New York Mets they vanished without a
(31:25):
trace about June. First, they have two star pitchers who
are not pitching much starlike. They are to be paid
eighty seven million between the two of them this year
they have no trade clauses, and they are combined seventy
eight years old. They make messy look like a spring chicken.
The only thing messy about the Mets is the roster construction.
(31:46):
If I'm right, this would be the end of one
of my favorite people in baseball, manager Buck Showalter of
the Mets. I hope I am wrong, but I kind
of feel like I should tell you the Buck Showalters
story now rather than wait. Anty's our number one story
on the COUNTWN and my favorite topic, me and things
(32:08):
I promised not to tell. The New York Yankees were
in their first Pennant race in five years. They had
reeled off eight wins in ten games to reach a
first place tie with the defending world champion Toronto Blue Jays.
It was Sunday, August twenty second, nineteen ninety three, and
I was at Yankee Stadium just cuz we were about
(32:29):
to start a month of intensive preparations for the launch
of the ill fated ESPN. Two. Good evening and welcome
to the end of our careers that one. And this
was probably going to be my last chance to go
to the city, visit my folks, see a ballgame. Whatever,
till further notice. And here was my childhood team, the Yankees,
with a lineup that now included friends of mine like
(32:51):
Danny Tartible and Mike Diego and Don Mattingly against the Royals,
for whom my friends Wiley Joiner and David Cohne played,
and a seat awaiting me in the press box on
a beautiful late summer Sunday afternoon with just the earlyest
hint to fall in the air and Bobby Darren singing
on the PA system, and the Yankees got crushed. Kansas
(33:14):
City started a pitcher named Chris Haney, who was much
less successful than his mediocre five point four to seven
era implied he would somehow last for eleven seasons and
become statistically one of the worst pitchers of a generation.
And that day, the Yankees got at least one base
runner on in eight of the nine innings against Chris Haney,
(33:36):
and he still shut them out seven to nothing. And
you could sense right then that whatever it was that
a team needed to have to hold its own down
the stretch, the nineteen ninety three New York Yankees did
not have it. Still, it was fun to visit with
reporter friends, some of whom I'd known since i'd broken
(33:57):
in fourteen years earlier, and some I hadn't seen since then.
The only oddity was that at some point during the game,
the kids from the Yankees media relations department came over
and asked me for my ID, and when I showed
him my ID, he asked me if I was planning
to go into the Yankee Clubhouse afterwards. I said, funny
you should ask that I am headed downtown for dinner.
(34:20):
But I missed my friend Danny Tartable before the game
for some reason, and I just want to pop in
and say hello. And the kids said thanks, sorry to
trouble you, and he left, and the radio reporter I
was sitting next to Don Gould, said that that was
one of the strangest things he had seen in that
press box, and he added, and nowadays all you see
up here is strange things. As the Yankees went out
(34:43):
limply in the ninth, leaving Bernie Williams stranded on first, naturally,
I waited until all the reporters with real deadlines had
taken the first couple of elevator trips down to the
Yankee Clubhouse in the basement. Then then I leisurely made
my way downstairs. I navigated the catacombs of the stadium
basement as I had since it had opened in nineteen
seventy six, and felt warm and nostalgic and at peace.
(35:08):
I showed my pass to the guard at the clubhouse
door and walked into the clubhouse to find the Yankee
Clubhouse lacking the one thing it had literally always featured
in each of the dozens and dozens of times I'd
previously entered it since I was seventeen years old. Players.
There were no Yankee players in the Yankee Clubhouse. No Yankees,
(35:33):
no Yankees still in uniform, no Yankees half dressed, no
Yankees not dressed, No sounds of other Yankees in the
showers off to the left. Nothing. Well, that wasn't quite right.
I realized something after about a minute of walking slowly
from locker to locker, thinking, isn't this where they used
(35:56):
to be? Maybe Maddingly is crouching out of sight over here,
and maybe Tartable is hiding behind his suit. After that,
over three three, I realized that while there were no
Yankees in the Yankee Clubhouse, there were reporters in the
Yankee Clubhouse, and they were all staring at me and
angrily staring at me. I said to them, might have
(36:19):
been my friend from upstairs, Don Gould, what the hell's
going on? And he said testily, I don't know. Why
don't you tell us. The reporters around him, who had
never taken their eyes off me, now murmured quietly, but
with a subtext of threat and menace and vengeance in
their indistinct gurgling. Just at this point, Arthur Richmond, who
(36:44):
had been the Mets public relations man forever and was
now a Yankees' vice president of something for some reason,
and more importantly, was the surviving brother of the great
baseball reporter Milt Richmond, who had so helped me at
the start of my career at UPI. Arthur tapped me
on the shoulder and said, uk, Keith Oberman, right, And
I said, yes, we've met before. I used to work
(37:06):
with your brother. And he did not look happily at me.
And I asked him if he wanted to see my
pass or my ID or my identifying birthmarks. Arthur did
not smile. The manager would like to see you in
his office. I still didn't have the faintest idea what
was going on. Have I been said down to the miners, Arthur,
I asked, jauntily. Yes, yes, you have, Richmond answered with
(37:31):
utter seriousness. Arthur Richmond escorted me to the little room
on the home plate side of the clubhouse, in which
I had once seen the late Billy Martin shout at
a coach, two pictures, three writers, and a clubhouse attendant
who had been with the team since nineteen twenty seven.
The current occupant of that tiny office, the manager, rose
from his desk, Keith hi Buck Showalter. I'm the manager here.
(37:53):
I reminded him that we had done a lengthy interview
for ESPN Radio the year before. That's right, I'd forgotten.
I apologize, Listen. I wanted to tell you. I think
you brought something refreshing and fun to Sports Center. I
watch all the time time, especially when we're on the road.
You know the game too, That's important. But I have
to tell you my players have a problem with what
you do now. On that surprise. Players were like that
(38:16):
in nineteen ninety three. Very few sportscasters said anything negative
about players. They certainly did not make jokes or puns
about them. I saw you on the field before the game.
I heard some of our guys show, Walter continued, like
Paul O'Neal and Wade Boggs and Joe Girardi. They were
talking about how they were thinking about going out there
on the field and punching you in the head. I
(38:40):
flashed back suddenly to nineteen eighty nine when Boggs went
on Heraldo Rivera's show and announced he was a sex addict,
and how after checking with a few of his Red
Sox teammates whom I knew from the year I worked
in Boston, who said that was nonsense. I went on
the air on my sportscast in the local station in LA,
having intercut Boggs's weepy comments to Heraldo with the music
(39:03):
video from Robert Palmer is Addicted to Love. I have
to say it was pretty funny and also might have
been the meanest thing I ever did on TV. Boggs
wanted to punch me in the head on the field
at Yankee Stadium. That checked out, go on, I said
to Buck Showalter. In fact, the players are all staying
(39:26):
in the training room in the back until they've been
assured you've left the clubhouse and you won't be returning.
They voted unanimously. I thought about this, when did they
vote unanimously while they were getting shut out by the
worst picture of a generation that did not check out? Now,
Like I said, person, I like what you do, but
I think you may want to consider the implications of
(39:46):
what not having any access to players ever again will
have on your career, especially in such a high profile
program as Sports Center. I thought about it briefly, and
I smiled at Buck Showalter. None whatsoever. Actually, I'm a
studio guy. I never have to go to games. And
more to the point, I've just left Sports Center for
this new ESPN to network because my boss has said
(40:07):
it's basically going to be a network that's designed around
my sense of humor. Buck Showalter was thirty seven years
old then, and at the end of his second year
as a major league manager. His team, having just achieved
a tie for first place, had just gotten the air
let out of its balloon by an epically bad pitcher
on a not so good team. Plus, they were due
on a flight for Chicago, and the bus was supposed
(40:29):
to leave in an hour, but Paul O'Neill, Wade Bogs,
and Joe Girardi were worried about some dumb sportscaster making jokes.
I knew they were doomed. And if manager Buck Showalter
actually let Paul O'Neil, Wade Bonds, and Joe Girardi worried
about some dumb sportscaster and his jokes, Buck Showalter II
(40:53):
was doomed, And sure enough they would lose twenty of
their last thirty seven games after that day and not
make the playoffs for two years and not actually get
anywhere in the playoffs until after Showalter was fired and
replaced by my and Joe Tory. Right around then after
the firing, I was part of the annual ESPN Awards
show The Spies. It was the post SP's party, and
(41:15):
I went to get a drink and turned a corner
and they're coming toward me were Paul O'Neill, Wade Bogs,
and Joe Girardi. I was just about to gulp when
O'Neill shouted, there he is our favorite ESPN guy. Handshakes
all of them. Girardi said he was amazed. Every time
(41:35):
I ripped a player, he said it was somebody he
also didn't like. How did I know? Bog said, somebody
told me that you put my Heraldo appearance into that
Robert Palmer song. If you got a tape of that,
I'd like to see it. I told them the Buck
show Walter story immediately. Ah, God, I remember that, said O'Neil.
He was pissed. You were in the ballpark and we
got shut out, and he made us stay in the
(41:56):
trainer's room and not come out till after you left.
And god, it was terrible. The smile vanished from Joe
Girardi's face. Buck did stuff like that all the time.
We should all have a drink and talk about it.
We all had a drink and we talked about it.
Years later, I was telling my late friend Pedro Gomez
of ESPN the story, and he said Showalter used to
(42:18):
do this to him when Showalter was managing the Arizona
Diamondbacks and Pedro was a beat reporter for a newspaper
in Phoenix. You know, Colbran wants to beat you up,
but I stopped him. He quoted Showalter as saying Greg
Colbran was a six foot one hundred and ninety pound
weightlifter from California's Inland Empire who seemed to play baseball
(42:39):
in his spare time. So Pedro said, I confronted him
one day and he said, dude, what are you talking about.
You know, Buck just makes this crap up. The Yankees
fired Buck Showalter in nineteen ninety five, as I mentioned,
and won the World Series in nineteen ninety six. The
Diamondbacks fired him in two thousand and won the World
Series in two thousand and one. Then he went to
(43:01):
work in of all places, the studio at ESPN for
two years. Then he got another managing job in Texas,
got fired from there, went back to ESPN for three
more years, and then became the manager at Baltimore in
twenty ten. I was at the Baltimore spring training camp
one day that March and I see walking toward me
(43:22):
from the other side of the field, trying to capture
my attention, Buck Showalter. I am now fifty one years old.
He is now fifty three years old. It is nearly
seventeen years since the day he locked his entire team
in the trainer's room in the middle of a Pennant
race in a complicated ritual that would have been too labyrinthine,
a plot for Tom Clancy just to express some cheesy
(43:44):
grudge against the way I did sportscasts, Hey Showalter said
when he finally reached me, when I pulled that stunt
on you in Yankee Stadium, was at ninety three or
ninety four? We shook hands as I laughed, and I
told him it was August of nineteen ninety three. I
can get you the exact date if you needed. I'm sorry.
I had not been in television. I didn't get any
(44:05):
of it. I just thought you guys came in and
shouted your heads off and then went home. I didn't
get it, obviously. Why didn't you tell me off or something?
He asked. I shrugged. I said, well, there was you.
There was six coaches, twenty five players there versus me,
plus all the reporters who were angry at me, who
were on deadline. What if you were telling the truth now?
(44:30):
Buck laughed and apologized again. We have been professional friends
ever since. Whenever I have seen him, we compare the
cruelties of aging and talk about politics and television. I
saw him two Saturdays ago, after four more years in TV,
when it looked like his managing career might be over.
He is back running the New York Mets at the
age of sixty six and doing a damn fine job
(44:51):
of it. And every once in a while I bring
up the trainer's room full of Yankees, and he flinches
and says, you know, there's one last thing about it
that now I cannot possibly understand that trainer's room that
was really tiny? How did the players all fit in there?
(45:24):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Shanelle, who are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, all orchestration and keyboards
by John Phillip Shanelle, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN
(45:48):
two and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best
baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend
Larry David. Everything else is pretty much my fault. Don't
forget Countdown now also available on YouTube with the wonderful
Little animated me subscribe there too, give yourself options. That's
(46:11):
countdown for this, the nine hundred and twenty third day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
government of the United States. Arrest him again while we
still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolton says.
The news warrants till then, Folk Konta speaking no. I'm
Keith Olverman, Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and share you.
(46:43):
Countdown 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. Why
did Trump imply he was quote being charged under the
(00:27):
Insurrection Act? Why did Trump put that out those words
Insurrection Act on his social media propaganda site, And why
did he then delete that post within half an hour
and replace the words Insurrection Act with the words Espionage Act.
(00:48):
Is there a chance somebody has told him that he
may actually be charged under the Insurrection Act? Could Jack
Smith be prosecuting him under the disqualification clause of Section
three of the fourteenth Amendment? Could the Special Council be
(01:09):
trying to get Donald Trump disqualified from ever again holding
office in this country? The very thought of it is breathtaking. Quote.
No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress,
or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any
(01:29):
office civil or military under the United States or under
any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a
member of Congress or as an officer of the United States,
to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given
(01:49):
aid or comfort to the enemies thereof Unquote, any person
will make tens of thousands of mistakes with words in
their lifetime, and Trump more than that. But almost all
substitution mistakes you mean one word, but you say or
(02:11):
write another, have one minimum threshold. The person who substitutes
the one word for the other. The person who writes
Insurrection Act when he intended to write Espionage Act. That
person has been thinking about the Insurrection Act. The word
(02:31):
insurrection did not fall off a shelf and hit Trump
in his big fat head and he suddenly wrote it
when he meant to write espionage. If I haven't been
clear yet, let me state this explicitly. I do not
have a source in the Special Council's office. I don't
(02:52):
know the address. I don't have a cousin whose meter
maid's twin brothers spiritual advisor's uncle's nephew types up the
daily notes there. Nor have any of the people I
actually do you know who might have those kinds of
sources said anything. Nor is there anything anything from any
of the solid dozen or so reporters covering the coming
(03:14):
trials of Trump that suggests anything. There's no extrapolation here.
There's no reading between the lines. There are no lines
to read. Nobody has said Jack Smith is thinking about
prosecuting Trump for insurrection. This threat is in terms of
facts about as thin as it gets. And yet I
(03:35):
am still sitting here wondering, wondering why he wrote what
he wrote. And I am absolutely convinced that Trump has
been thinking about the Insurrection Act for whatever reason. So,
setting aside the one thing you and I most want
to be true that even some of Trump's idiot legal advisors,
(03:57):
including the non lawyer advisors, have told him they may
charge him with this, what else could it be? Trump
wrote this and will skip the lies for the moment.
We're going for a forensic analysis of why he used
one word amid the lies he wrote? Quote, whatever happened
to the Biden document's case? Twenty times more documents than
(04:20):
I have, and I'm allowed under the Presidential Records Act,
and he's not. What about the classified docs he had
in Chinatown and on his garage floor in Delaware? Is
he being charged under the Insurrection Act? What about Penn etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
He would delete that post relatively quickly and replace it
(04:42):
with is he being charged under the Espionage Act? The
most obvious interpretation of that post is also the most
clearly mistaken. Whatever Trump was trying to say, whyever he
was thinking about the Insurrection Act. He was not accusing
Biden of violating it. Obviously that would make sense, and
(05:05):
just as obviously, since when has since had anything to
do with Trump? But more importantly, if he meant Biden
should be quote charged under the Insurrection Act, why would
he write that and then delete it and then repost
it with only one change to make it Espionage Act. No,
the sentence and paragraph structure is clearly constructed that way
(05:26):
to say that he Trump has been charged under an
act but Biden has not, and to imply that Biden
should have been, and somehow Trump picked the wrong act.
So we can rule out the already unlikely possibility that
he wanted to associate Biden and only Biden with the
Insurrection Act and then thought better of it. When was
(05:52):
the last time Trump thought better of anything? Nineteen eighty two.
This is, in the broadest sense, some kind of Freudian mistake,
And we circle back to my question, why is Trump
ump thinking about the Insurrection Act and actually has been
in the news twice in the last week. Miles Taylor
(06:14):
referenced it last week in an excerpt from his new book, Blowback,
Taylor claims Trump was ready to declare an insurrection during
the twenty eighteen State of the Union address and use
the powers under the Act against migrants. So now we're
thinking Trump is keeping on top of what Miles Taylor
has said. I actually went through all Trump Truth social
(06:39):
media posts since that story came out, No Miles Taylor.
Surprisingly enough, no reference to the Insurrection Act against the migrants. Now,
I could have missed something, since Trump's feed is, and
I mean this literally, one third his posts pleading for
people to love him, one third promotions for Jim Cavizl movies,
and one third ads for braziers for seventy year old women.
(07:03):
I swear to God God, but I don't think I
missed anything. The other reference in the news to the
Insurrection Act lately was by the good folks at just Security.
Last week they published a gargantuan model prosecution memo for
that part of Jack Smith's case which deals with the insurrection,
(07:26):
and in it they go into a thorough and surprisingly
intelligible to US laymen comparison of using the Fourteenth Amendments
insurrection disqualification clause, which carries no jail time, but does
keep the malefactor forever out of office. And eighteen Usc.
Two three eighty three, which prevents inciting an insurrection and
(07:48):
giving aid or comfort to insurrectionists. And if you want
a harrowing read on why the disqualification clause is so
tempting but has the disadvantage of having not really been
prosecuted federally since the Civil War versus the reasons the
January sixth House comit he made a criminal referral against Trump,
hoping to see him charge not for inciting the insurrection,
(08:10):
but for failing to stop it when he had the
chance to do so for hours there. It is. The
other great thing about it is you can be certain
Trump did not read it, not those paragraphs, not those pages,
not the entire Just Security model prosecution memo, because in
the model prosecution memo there isn't one damn photo for
(08:33):
Trump to stare at, or a face for him to
draw a mustache on. And guess what. Trump also has
no idea that Conservative judge Michael Luddig said that not
only is that model prosecution memo great, but the idea
of seeking criminal insurrection charges against Trump put you in
jail charges is both necessary and courageous. Donald Trump doesn't
(08:55):
know the difference between Michael Luddig and Booth Lustig, the
field goal kicker of the nineteen sixty six Buffalo Bills.
So no, Trump, not here, Judge Luddig bring up the
Insurrection Act. And he didn't read just Security analyzing the
Criminal Insurrection Act and the Disqualification Insurrection Act. And he
(09:16):
didn't hear Miles Taylor and the Insurrection Act. And it
wasn't some random word that popped into his head instead
of cheeseburger, and the post codjestin easily and innocently appeared
with the sentence is Biden being charged under the Cheeseburger Act? No? No, no,
and no, which brings us back to the question with
which I began. Why did Trump imply he was quote
(09:41):
being charged under the Insurrection Act? And I have no
more idea of the answer now than I did when
I began dancing on the head of this pin. And
I hate answering a question with another question, But I
will go back to this spot, and I will stay
here until we find out did somebody tell Trump that
(10:02):
Jack Smith might now charge him under either kind of
insurrection Act? This much about Jack Smith's case, we know
for certain he has expanded it again. CNN reporting that
federal prosecutors have interviewed the secretaries of state of Georgia, Michigan,
(10:25):
New Mexico, Pennsylvania, others other state officials, and the topic
was the impact of misinformation on election workers and quote
the threats that emerged from that from various sources. This
is I think new territory. There have been plenty of
links between twenty twenty election misinformation and the endangering of
(10:46):
election workers and state officials. Just think of the Ruby
Freeman Shay Moss lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani. But Jack Smith
isn't gathering testimony from victims of electoral intimidation so they
can tie it to Rudy. They want to tie it
to the Trump campaign per se, and Trump per se,
(11:10):
And suddenly that sends us reeling back to a previous possibility,
Remember the one where I suggested Juliani has flipped or
will If Juliani has testimony and evidence that somebody Trump
told him to smear Miss Freeman and Ms Moss or
(11:30):
to lean on anybody anywhere, it is a whole new
vein of prosecutorial gold opening up for Jack Smith and
now we know. Jared Kushner testified to a Jack Smith
brand grand jury last month. Kushner was one of many
witnesses asked about how and when Trump acknowledged in the
days after he lost that he had lost again. This
(11:54):
mainlines into possible charges against Trump for fleecing his cultists
getting them to contribute to cure a stolen election Trump
knew wasn't stolen, which could easily by itself mean forty
four thousand counts of wire fraud. And besides that, how
much would you pay to hear a prosecutor say at
(12:15):
a Trump trial, mister witness, would you please state your
name for the record, and you hear the guy say,
Jared Corey Kushner. We already know. Alissa Farrall already gave
Trump up. She says. She told the grand jury the
same thing she told the January sixth Committee that days
after the election, Trump asked her rhetorically, can you believe
(12:36):
I lost to Joe Biden? Yes, we can all believe
it because it happened. Can we move on now? And
there is one more substantive development, ABC says, somebody's lying
and moreover, Jacksmith's office has written to tell them they
know they're lying. Somebody in the Trump organization, somebody who
(12:58):
testified in May, according to ABC, and last week that
somebody got a target letter saying there seems to have
been some light perjury committed and there may be charges
of trying to obstruct the probe. ABC knew who it
was and knew that the lying seems to have been
about the handling of the Mari Lago security video. ABC
(13:18):
reached the person in question, and the only answer from
them was, quote, it's none of your business, and they
know whoever it is is represented by the attorney Stanley Woodward.
And that really does not help as much as it
might seem, because Stanley Woodward represents or has represented Cash Bettel,
Dan Scavino, Peter Nevadroo, Walt Nauda, and lots of others,
(13:39):
And it's not Walt Nauda. Because whoever it is, they
still want this guy to testify about what he said
to Walt Nauda. And no, we don't know when we
will hear from the glorified game show judge MS Cannon,
who is currently more important than any other figure in
the American judiciary. Smith answered the trump pitch to delay
(14:01):
the Florida document's case until I don't know the year
eleveny billion. Smith answered by saying the mid December start
he hopes for is entirely fitting that there is nowhere
near the amount of evidence Trump's attorneys have portrayed. The
gist of the no nonsense response from Smith was if
they are real lawyers and judge, if you are a
(14:24):
real judge, you can get this done in half the
time we are giving you. I don't want to leave
an impression here. I do not want to leave the
impression that the madness of Robert F. Kennedy Junior does
not matter to me. It is, in fact, actually personally painful.
(14:47):
I was an admirer of his environmental work, which literally
cleaned up the river along which I was raised and
which used to be a cesspool. I met Bobby twenty
years ago when he shared my doubts about why an
Ohio he needed to expel the media and the vote checkers,
(15:09):
the bipartisan vote checkers during the two thousand and four
presidential ballot county count because of what that county called terrorism.
But this, this disgusting statement that COVID nineteen was or
even might have been targeted to attack Caucasians and black people,
(15:32):
but there are genetic structural differences that leave the Chinese
and the Ashkenazi Jews safer is absolute disqualifying bullshit. And
then to blame the media when he's heard saying it
on tape, no media required that, in some respects is
(15:56):
far more disturbing because it's absolute madness. The issue of
Robert F. Kennedy Junior is no longer a political or
moral or racist one. It is whether or not there
is anybody who cares enough about him to get him
the inpatient mental health care he needs. Also of interest
(16:16):
here to us, speaking of kind of the same topic,
Tucker Carlson, Oh nothing. He just attacked six different Republicans
seeking the presidential nomination, and I'm not going to pretend
I give a damn about them, even if those attacks
didn't take place right in person at an event in Iowa.
But for literally years, I have looked at Tucker Carlson's failure,
(16:39):
his assent, his new failure, and I have thought this
reminds me of the career arc of somebody in the
vast annals of American news commentary, which I have studied
in addition to participating in Somebody I've read about, Somebody
I've read about and been astonished by their story. And
(16:59):
after this debacle in Iowa on Friday, I finally figured
out who Tucker Carlson is. The name will mean nothing
to you, so holding it back provides me with no
teas here. I'll go into depth in this in a moment.
But Tucker Carlson is Boke Carter, and one fine morning,
(17:25):
many years ago, Boke Carter was the number one news
commentator in America. And then on that fine morning things
happened so that at seven o'clock that night, Boke Carter's
career was over. That's next. This is countdown. This is
(17:49):
countdown with Keith Oboman quot scripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snarks, some predictions, dateline des moine in Iowa.
The good news for Tucker Carlson is his delusions of
grandeur took the weekend off, at least publicly. Carlson did
(18:13):
not insult any more Republican presidential candidates for the nomination
while interviewing them at a Republican forum of Republican Religious nuts.
He did not, somehow again make Chris Christy and Mike
Pence look sympathetic. He did not somehow again accuse Ukraine
of attacking Catholicism because Ukraine had restricted the activities of
(18:33):
the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. With the Russian Orthodox
Church now being run by Vladimir Putin, He did not
once more boast of not taking the COVID vaccine, nor
claim that countless people were quote injured by that vaccine,
even though the only injuries in this equation have been
to Tucker Carlson's brain, and he did not post any
more interviews with psychos who are charged in Romania with
(18:57):
sex trafficking. The bad news for Tucker Carlson is, I
have finally realized, after months of being unable to put
my finger on this, exactly whose career path Tucker Carlson
has now followed. The answer is Boke Carter. You don't
know who Boke Carter is. Tucker Carlson does not know
(19:20):
who Boke Carter is. And despite what you will hear
happened to Boke Carter, it is kind of amazing that
he has been in essence completely erased from human history.
Because as of Friday August twenty sixth, nineteen thirty eight,
Harold Thomas Henry Boch Carter was the most popular news
(19:42):
commentator in this country and had, depending on the week,
either the second highest rated news broadcast of any kind
or the highest rated news broadcast of any kind, and
at the same time he wrote the second most widely
read newspaper column in this country. The British Raised bolk
(20:04):
Ca signed off his nightly fifteen minute news commentary on
the CBS Radio network at seven pm Eastern Time on
August twenty sixth, nineteen thirty eight, with his trademark Cheerier.
The network switched to a summertime replacement show called The
Ghost of Benjamin's Sweet and then, speaking of ghosts, bok
Carter was basically never heard from again. Carter's instantaneous fame
(20:29):
was built on criticism of President Roosevelt and the New
Deal and the left. He dismissed the Nazis as any
threats to America. He opposed unions in this country. He
took absolute positions, and he joined America first. Hello everyone,
lot he let's wake up mconity is too late and
(20:49):
defend America first before trying to defend someone else. Let's
first be able to defend our service. Hi, thank you, Bok.
Carter was a conservative radio commentator just as in our
our own time. Nothing that unusual, And then something very
unusual happened. Senate Majority Leader Joe Robinson of Arkansas had
(21:15):
a heart attack and died, and both Carter went on
the CBS radio network and said, not implied, but said
that President Roosevelt had caused the heart attack and thus
caused Senator Robinson's death. When the recipient of some of
his other criticisms questioned Carter's immigration status, Carter sent an
(21:37):
official unemployment report card to the White House, addressed to
the President and wrote on it, beware libel me at
your peril. Carter spoke at a public forum and insisted
America should never go to war, even against fascists. By
April of nineteen thirty eight, he was telling his listeners
of a plot by Democrats and the White House to
(22:01):
silence news commentators and conservatives. Any of this sound familiar,
I would expect much of it would sound familiar to
Tucker Carlson Bolch. Carter was off radio for eight months,
then he started a series of three commentaries a week
on a lesser network. By nineteen forty one, he was
(22:23):
on only sporadically in the afternoons, two days a week.
By nineteen forty two, he had two shows a week
on a regional network and had reinvented himself as a
liberal commentator who publicly advocated for President Roosevelt and who
addressed Roosevelt on the air as quote dear Boss. By
(22:44):
nineteen forty three, Carter and his final wife had joined
a religious cult. He had legally changed his name to
Ephraim Bok Carter. His radio stardom, which had begun just
eight years earlier, his radio career, which had begun just
five years before that when a Philadelphia station needed someone
to narrate live coverage of a rugby match, was over.
(23:07):
Three years after that rugby match, the station sent Bolk
Carter to cover the Lindberg kidnapping trial in New Jersey,
and overnight, CBS gave him a network national slot, sponsored
first by Philco Radios, then by General Foods. He ranked
first in the ratings in nineteen thirty six, nineteen thirty seven,
nineteen thirty eight. He appeared originally on twenty three CBS stations,
(23:30):
then on sixty, then on eighty five, and then on none.
In nineteen forty four, Bolk Carter died of a heart
attack in Hollywood. He had just turned forty one years old.
As near as I can tell through a search of
Internet and old newspaper archives, the number of newspaper stories
(23:51):
that merely mentioned Bolk Carter in passing in this country
in this century now totals twenty two. Still ahead on
(24:18):
countdown sports and Things. I promise not to tell Merge,
the veteran manager of the New York Mets Buck Showalter,
may have, as they say, lost the room. I will
tell you of the day when he owned the rooms
so thoroughly that he could order all of his New
York Yankee players out of that room and tell them
to go and hide, supposedly because they didn't want to
(24:39):
talk to me. First time for the daily round up
with the mis grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens
who constitute today's worst persons in the world West Peasants
in the World Focus speaking the Bronze Christina Caramo, the
woman who believes that demonic possession can be transmitted sexually
and again, as an aside, how would she know that else?
(25:04):
She's got bigger fish to fry right now is Carmel
got elected chairwoman of the Michigan State Republican Party and
as rumored, it is about to go under financially. A
tape of a July eighth internal meeting of the state
party has been obtained by the Detroit News, and on it,
the party's General Council confirms that the Michigan GOP has
(25:25):
been quote threatened with default on a loan and the
party is a little short of funds. Republican lawmakers say
the Michigan GOP needs between thirty and forty million dollars
per election cycle to compete sixteen months before the next election.
The Michigan Republican Party's budget director has heard on that tape,
(25:45):
saying they have ninety three, two hundred and thirty one
dollars and ninety cents. Ninety hundred and thirty one dollars
and ninety cents. The runner up him again, New York
City Mayor Eric Adams. He didn't end his career enough
when he attacked in public an eighty four year old
(26:07):
tenant advocate who escaped the Holocaust. He compared her to
a plantation owner. While he's decided to go back in
on her at a Brooklyn church. Even though his victim
had moved on, Adams did not. Adams now says he
heard his dead mother explaining to him not to let
someone disrespect you, which means he's going to have to
(26:29):
have arguments with several million of us here in New
York who don't respect him. Happily, Mayor Adams has enough
ego and delusion to fill in that respect gap. Adams
says in a tape of the speech at the church, quote,
I'm the symbol of black manhood in this city, in
this country and what it represents. I am the mayor
(26:49):
of the most powerful city on the globe and people
need to recognize that. Mayor, how did that work out
for mister Giuliani to shut up and do the job
and earn the respect. But the winner, Steve Bannon once
again international fascist slob of the Year, winner of the
annual balloonne d'hor This is not a major thing that
(27:13):
he does, like, you know, trying to install a dictator
or trying to fix an election, or going on trial
for fraud. This is just a threat he made on
his streaming show against speaker Kevin McCarthy quote, I got
news for McCarthy and this audience has news over our
dead bodies? Will you do anything to Matt Gates? Unquote
(27:36):
Steve Deal, Steve, how would you tell if that was
a dead body? Bannon?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Today's worst far set. This is Sports Center. Wait, check
(28:09):
that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
In Sports Stop me if you've heard this before, but
the world's greatest soccer player has signed to play here
in the US of A. He's wait, they didn't. They
didn't fill in the blank on the piece of paper
this time. Who is it?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Oh, okay, here it is the world's greatest soccer player
has signed to play here in the US of A.
He's Lionel Messi. He's just turned thirty six, he just
washed out of his last European team in Paris, and
a lot of his teammates were not sad to see
him go. And the Miami team in Major League Soccer,
which is owned by David Beckham, which is in twenty
(28:53):
ninth place out of twenty nine teams, just gave Messi
somewhere between fifty and sixty million a year to play
in Miami through the twenty twenty five season. American soccer fan.
We'll call them football fans. We don't need to piss
them off more than usual. We'll never admit this, but
this country has been importing the declining stars of other
(29:14):
nations since literally the first day somebody tried to put
together a true professional league in this country, which was
in nineteen sixty seven. Literally all the teams in the
original nineteen sixty seven United Soccer Association were just international
teams on summer break, claiming to be from American cities.
The Cleveland Stokers they were actually Stoke City from England
(29:38):
with star goalie Gordon Banks. The Houston Stars. They were
Banngu of Brazil, Chicago Mustangs, Kalliari of Sardinia. George Best
came to the United States, Bobby Moore, Usebio, then the
Big Fish Pele, then Franz Beckenbauer and Kanalia and crou
Beniskins and more recently Tierry Henry and then Wayne Rooney
(30:01):
and Frank Lampard and Ibrahimovich and Beckham's and their net
effect on pro soccer in this country. It is America's
sport of the future. It always has been and it
always will be. I mean, what did Beckham do for
Major League Soccer. He became just what America did not
(30:22):
have enough of a sports team. Owner Messi makes his
Miami debut Friday against the Mexican club cruz Azul. It's
probably for a championship cup. Every other game in international
soccer is for a championship cup of some sort. The failing,
of course, is that of all the internationals Americans brought
(30:43):
here in this endless belief that yesterday's starts from other
lands will build a future in this one, they did
not bring the one man who could have actually sold
it to the United States, the fabled Italian goalie John
Luca Paliuca. One other sports note my baseball spidey sense
(31:04):
here tingling, and I think New York may shortly be
the scene of baseball carnage, one of those things where
a team fires its hitting coach, and fires its manager,
and fires its general manager and trades literally every player
it can get rid of at the trade deadline in
two weeks. The New York Mets they vanished without a
(31:25):
trace about June. First, they have two star pitchers who
are not pitching much starlike. They are to be paid
eighty seven million between the two of them this year
they have no trade clauses, and they are combined seventy
eight years old. They make messy look like a spring chicken.
The only thing messy about the Mets is the roster construction.
(31:46):
If I'm right, this would be the end of one
of my favorite people in baseball, manager Buck Showalter of
the Mets. I hope I am wrong, but I kind
of feel like I should tell you the Buck Showalters
story now rather than wait. Anty's our number one story
on the COUNTWN and my favorite topic, me and things
(32:08):
I promised not to tell. The New York Yankees were
in their first Pennant race in five years. They had
reeled off eight wins in ten games to reach a
first place tie with the defending world champion Toronto Blue Jays.
It was Sunday, August twenty second, nineteen ninety three, and
I was at Yankee Stadium just cuz we were about
(32:29):
to start a month of intensive preparations for the launch
of the ill fated ESPN. Two. Good evening and welcome
to the end of our careers that one. And this
was probably going to be my last chance to go
to the city, visit my folks, see a ballgame. Whatever,
till further notice. And here was my childhood team, the Yankees,
with a lineup that now included friends of mine like
(32:51):
Danny Tartible and Mike Diego and Don Mattingly against the Royals,
for whom my friends Wiley Joiner and David Cohne played,
and a seat awaiting me in the press box on
a beautiful late summer Sunday afternoon with just the earlyest
hint to fall in the air and Bobby Darren singing
on the PA system, and the Yankees got crushed. Kansas
(33:14):
City started a pitcher named Chris Haney, who was much
less successful than his mediocre five point four to seven
era implied he would somehow last for eleven seasons and
become statistically one of the worst pitchers of a generation.
And that day, the Yankees got at least one base
runner on in eight of the nine innings against Chris Haney,
(33:36):
and he still shut them out seven to nothing. And
you could sense right then that whatever it was that
a team needed to have to hold its own down
the stretch, the nineteen ninety three New York Yankees did
not have it. Still, it was fun to visit with
reporter friends, some of whom I'd known since i'd broken
(33:57):
in fourteen years earlier, and some I hadn't seen since then.
The only oddity was that at some point during the game,
the kids from the Yankees media relations department came over
and asked me for my ID, and when I showed
him my ID, he asked me if I was planning
to go into the Yankee Clubhouse afterwards. I said, funny
you should ask that I am headed downtown for dinner.
(34:20):
But I missed my friend Danny Tartable before the game
for some reason, and I just want to pop in
and say hello. And the kids said thanks, sorry to
trouble you, and he left, and the radio reporter I
was sitting next to Don Gould, said that that was
one of the strangest things he had seen in that
press box, and he added, and nowadays all you see
up here is strange things. As the Yankees went out
(34:43):
limply in the ninth, leaving Bernie Williams stranded on first, naturally,
I waited until all the reporters with real deadlines had
taken the first couple of elevator trips down to the
Yankee Clubhouse in the basement. Then then I leisurely made
my way downstairs. I navigated the catacombs of the stadium
basement as I had since it had opened in nineteen
seventy six, and felt warm and nostalgic and at peace.
(35:08):
I showed my pass to the guard at the clubhouse
door and walked into the clubhouse to find the Yankee
Clubhouse lacking the one thing it had literally always featured
in each of the dozens and dozens of times I'd
previously entered it since I was seventeen years old. Players.
There were no Yankee players in the Yankee Clubhouse. No Yankees,
(35:33):
no Yankees still in uniform, no Yankees half dressed, no
Yankees not dressed, No sounds of other Yankees in the
showers off to the left. Nothing. Well, that wasn't quite right.
I realized something after about a minute of walking slowly
from locker to locker, thinking, isn't this where they used
(35:56):
to be? Maybe Maddingly is crouching out of sight over here,
and maybe Tartable is hiding behind his suit. After that,
over three three, I realized that while there were no
Yankees in the Yankee Clubhouse, there were reporters in the
Yankee Clubhouse, and they were all staring at me and
angrily staring at me. I said to them, might have
(36:19):
been my friend from upstairs, Don Gould, what the hell's
going on? And he said testily, I don't know. Why
don't you tell us. The reporters around him, who had
never taken their eyes off me, now murmured quietly, but
with a subtext of threat and menace and vengeance in
their indistinct gurgling. Just at this point, Arthur Richmond, who
(36:44):
had been the Mets public relations man forever and was
now a Yankees' vice president of something for some reason,
and more importantly, was the surviving brother of the great
baseball reporter Milt Richmond, who had so helped me at
the start of my career at UPI. Arthur tapped me
on the shoulder and said, uk, Keith Oberman, right, And
I said, yes, we've met before. I used to work
(37:06):
with your brother. And he did not look happily at me.
And I asked him if he wanted to see my
pass or my ID or my identifying birthmarks. Arthur did
not smile. The manager would like to see you in
his office. I still didn't have the faintest idea what
was going on. Have I been said down to the miners, Arthur,
I asked, jauntily. Yes, yes, you have, Richmond answered with
(37:31):
utter seriousness. Arthur Richmond escorted me to the little room
on the home plate side of the clubhouse, in which
I had once seen the late Billy Martin shout at
a coach, two pictures, three writers, and a clubhouse attendant
who had been with the team since nineteen twenty seven.
The current occupant of that tiny office, the manager, rose
from his desk, Keith hi Buck Showalter. I'm the manager here.
(37:53):
I reminded him that we had done a lengthy interview
for ESPN Radio the year before. That's right, I'd forgotten.
I apologize, Listen. I wanted to tell you. I think
you brought something refreshing and fun to Sports Center. I
watch all the time time, especially when we're on the road.
You know the game too, That's important. But I have
to tell you my players have a problem with what
you do now. On that surprise. Players were like that
(38:16):
in nineteen ninety three. Very few sportscasters said anything negative
about players. They certainly did not make jokes or puns
about them. I saw you on the field before the game.
I heard some of our guys show, Walter continued, like
Paul O'Neal and Wade Boggs and Joe Girardi. They were
talking about how they were thinking about going out there
on the field and punching you in the head. I
(38:40):
flashed back suddenly to nineteen eighty nine when Boggs went
on Heraldo Rivera's show and announced he was a sex addict,
and how after checking with a few of his Red
Sox teammates whom I knew from the year I worked
in Boston, who said that was nonsense. I went on
the air on my sportscast in the local station in LA,
having intercut Boggs's weepy comments to Heraldo with the music
(39:03):
video from Robert Palmer is Addicted to Love. I have
to say it was pretty funny and also might have
been the meanest thing I ever did on TV. Boggs
wanted to punch me in the head on the field
at Yankee Stadium. That checked out, go on, I said
to Buck Showalter. In fact, the players are all staying
(39:26):
in the training room in the back until they've been
assured you've left the clubhouse and you won't be returning.
They voted unanimously. I thought about this, when did they
vote unanimously while they were getting shut out by the
worst picture of a generation that did not check out? Now,
Like I said, person, I like what you do, but
I think you may want to consider the implications of
(39:46):
what not having any access to players ever again will
have on your career, especially in such a high profile
program as Sports Center. I thought about it briefly, and
I smiled at Buck Showalter. None whatsoever. Actually, I'm a
studio guy. I never have to go to games. And
more to the point, I've just left Sports Center for
this new ESPN to network because my boss has said
(40:07):
it's basically going to be a network that's designed around
my sense of humor. Buck Showalter was thirty seven years
old then, and at the end of his second year
as a major league manager. His team, having just achieved
a tie for first place, had just gotten the air
let out of its balloon by an epically bad pitcher
on a not so good team. Plus, they were due
on a flight for Chicago, and the bus was supposed
(40:29):
to leave in an hour, but Paul O'Neill, Wade Bogs,
and Joe Girardi were worried about some dumb sportscaster making jokes.
I knew they were doomed. And if manager Buck Showalter
actually let Paul O'Neil, Wade Bonds, and Joe Girardi worried
about some dumb sportscaster and his jokes, Buck Showalter II
(40:53):
was doomed, And sure enough they would lose twenty of
their last thirty seven games after that day and not
make the playoffs for two years and not actually get
anywhere in the playoffs until after Showalter was fired and
replaced by my and Joe Tory. Right around then after
the firing, I was part of the annual ESPN Awards
show The Spies. It was the post SP's party, and
(41:15):
I went to get a drink and turned a corner
and they're coming toward me were Paul O'Neill, Wade Bogs,
and Joe Girardi. I was just about to gulp when
O'Neill shouted, there he is our favorite ESPN guy. Handshakes
all of them. Girardi said he was amazed. Every time
(41:35):
I ripped a player, he said it was somebody he
also didn't like. How did I know? Bog said, somebody
told me that you put my Heraldo appearance into that
Robert Palmer song. If you got a tape of that,
I'd like to see it. I told them the Buck
show Walter story immediately. Ah, God, I remember that, said O'Neil.
He was pissed. You were in the ballpark and we
got shut out, and he made us stay in the
(41:56):
trainer's room and not come out till after you left.
And god, it was terrible. The smile vanished from Joe
Girardi's face. Buck did stuff like that all the time.
We should all have a drink and talk about it.
We all had a drink and we talked about it.
Years later, I was telling my late friend Pedro Gomez
of ESPN the story, and he said Showalter used to
(42:18):
do this to him when Showalter was managing the Arizona
Diamondbacks and Pedro was a beat reporter for a newspaper
in Phoenix. You know, Colbran wants to beat you up,
but I stopped him. He quoted Showalter as saying Greg
Colbran was a six foot one hundred and ninety pound
weightlifter from California's Inland Empire who seemed to play baseball
(42:39):
in his spare time. So Pedro said, I confronted him
one day and he said, dude, what are you talking about.
You know, Buck just makes this crap up. The Yankees
fired Buck Showalter in nineteen ninety five, as I mentioned,
and won the World Series in nineteen ninety six. The
Diamondbacks fired him in two thousand and won the World
Series in two thousand and one. Then he went to
(43:01):
work in of all places, the studio at ESPN for
two years. Then he got another managing job in Texas,
got fired from there, went back to ESPN for three
more years, and then became the manager at Baltimore in
twenty ten. I was at the Baltimore spring training camp
one day that March and I see walking toward me
(43:22):
from the other side of the field, trying to capture
my attention, Buck Showalter. I am now fifty one years old.
He is now fifty three years old. It is nearly
seventeen years since the day he locked his entire team
in the trainer's room in the middle of a Pennant
race in a complicated ritual that would have been too labyrinthine,
a plot for Tom Clancy just to express some cheesy
(43:44):
grudge against the way I did sportscasts, Hey Showalter said
when he finally reached me, when I pulled that stunt
on you in Yankee Stadium, was at ninety three or
ninety four? We shook hands as I laughed, and I
told him it was August of nineteen ninety three. I
can get you the exact date if you needed. I'm sorry.
I had not been in television. I didn't get any
(44:05):
of it. I just thought you guys came in and
shouted your heads off and then went home. I didn't
get it, obviously. Why didn't you tell me off or something?
He asked. I shrugged. I said, well, there was you.
There was six coaches, twenty five players there versus me,
plus all the reporters who were angry at me, who
were on deadline. What if you were telling the truth now?
(44:30):
Buck laughed and apologized again. We have been professional friends
ever since. Whenever I have seen him, we compare the
cruelties of aging and talk about politics and television. I
saw him two Saturdays ago, after four more years in TV,
when it looked like his managing career might be over.
He is back running the New York Mets at the
age of sixty six and doing a damn fine job
(44:51):
of it. And every once in a while I bring
up the trainer's room full of Yankees, and he flinches
and says, you know, there's one last thing about it
that now I cannot possibly understand that trainer's room that
was really tiny? How did the players all fit in there?
(45:24):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Shanelle, who are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, all orchestration and keyboards
by John Phillip Shanelle, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN
(45:48):
two and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best
baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend
Larry David. Everything else is pretty much my fault. Don't
forget Countdown now also available on YouTube with the wonderful
Little animated me subscribe there too, give yourself options. That's
(46:11):
countdown for this, the nine hundred and twenty third day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
government of the United States. Arrest him again while we
still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolton says.
The news warrants till then, Folk Konta speaking no. I'm
Keith Olverman, Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and share you.
(46:43):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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