August 11, 2025 • 47 mins
SEASON 4 EPISODE 3: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Hey! While Putin is here in Alaska so Trump can kiss his fanny, let's arrest him on behalf of the International Criminal Court and its member states Canada and Mexico who want to try him for kidnapping Ukrainian children and lying that they're orphans and forcibly converting them into Russians!
The willingness to let this scum set foot on American territory is all part of Trump's desperate need to win an award. A major award. A major award like the one the father wanted in the movie "A Christmas Story." He wants what his idiot press secretary Karoline Leavitt calls "The Noble Peace Prize." He'll do anything to get it. Because he needs it to distract you from Trumpstein.
Happily Jayvee Vance is back to remind you all that the Epstein files contain all kinds of dirt about Democratic billionaire politicians of 20 years ago. Of whom Trump was one. Registered Democrat. Oops. And it turns out that meeting Vance and the FBI and DOJ chiefs and the White House Chief of Staff DIDN'T have at the VP's residence about Epstein WITHOUT Trump? They had the Trumpstein meeting. They just had it somewhere else. And once again: why did they have it WITHOUT TRUMP?
And now Trump is trying to distract by demanding all those DC homeless people who read Truth Social move out of town or else he'll...make them look at his new gold ballroom. And oh by the way as the leading universities continue to fold before Trump's dictatorial censorship and threat, somebody's standing up to him: Stanford's student-run newspaper is suing him for violating the 1st Amendment rights of its staffers. The leaders of all of the El Foldo Universities (Columbia, Penn, UCLA) should resign and let the students lead the resistance.
B-Block (29:17) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Kristi Noem is upset South Park made her look like a cartoon. Well, MORE like a cartoon. I need to apologize for Mike Huckabee again insulting England. And Pam Bondi just offered you $50,000,000 if you can tell her where Nicolas Maduro is. He's in Venezuela. Can we each have our 50 mill now?
C-Block (41:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's the 37-year anniversary of Gretzky Week! My greatest scoop, the one I did the least work on of any story I ever covered. The sources literally phoned it in to me. The day Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings and I was the first on television with it.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
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. While
(00:25):
he's here, you know what, Let's arrest Putin. There's an
arrest warrant for him from the International Criminal Court. Sure
we're not a member country, because well, Trump and his
co conspirator Dictatorship are criminals. That would be awkward. And
whether you want to call it collusion or conspiracy or
(00:46):
simple ownership, Putin still runs Trump. But while he's here,
let's arrest Vladimir Putin. The one and twenty five member
states of the International Criminal Court have been looking to
put Putin away, most recently for kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian
children and forcing them to speak Russian and pretending they
(01:07):
are without homes or they've been abandoned or their refugees
literally the sick joke about killing the parents and then
claiming what's left over is orphans. The one hundred and
twenty five member states that have a series of arrest
warrants for Russia's monsters for all kinds of war crimes
in Ukraine include the rest of our continent, Canada, and Mexico.
(01:32):
I mean, it's not gonna happen, but it sure would
be nice to see the Canadian military move across its
border into Alaska and take Putin. Who knows, maybe Vladimir
would hide behind Trump is a human shield. You have
to admit Trump would make a giant double XL human shield. Finally,
(01:52):
something useful. Of course, Trump is already a giant double
excel human shield for Putin. Figuratively, you will recall it
was Trump who did nothing as Putin and Russia became
ensconced in Crimea and the don Bas. During Trump's first junta.
You will recall Trump's asinine campaign promise to settle Russia's
(02:15):
invasion of Ukraine in one day. I believe we're at
two hundred and four different one days since since seizing
power again, Trump has given Putin two weeks to observe
a ceasefire. When Putin ignored that, Trump gave him another
two weeks. Then he said he was disappointed in Putin.
Then he gave him fifty more days. Then he said
(02:38):
he wondered if Putin was lying to him or what
had happened to Putin. Then he gave him ten days.
Then when those ten days ran out, he offered to
meet with Putin. Not Putin, and Zelenski just Putin, and
when the small problem of where to meet came up,
Putin would be arrested in nearly all of those one
hundred and twenty five ICC member nations. Trump volunteered our house, Alaska.
(03:06):
This asshole lies to Trump about Ukraine five times that
we know of, and Trump responds by inviting this butcher.
This would be Stalin into our country unless you brought
him here to drop twenty tons of shit on his head.
(03:27):
Fu Trump. Also, Trump's special envoy dealing with Russia is
either a moron or deliberately stalling for Putin, or both.
This is that clown Witkof, not that clown Lutnik or
that clown Huckabee or that clown Kellogg or that clown Vance.
(03:51):
The German news outlet Build reports that Witkof is such
a nitwit that, when he met with Putin, demanded as
a starting point for any ceasefire negotiations the starting point
that Ukrainian forces be withdrawn from those parts of Ukraine
Putin falsely claims are his. Witkoff promptly decided that what
(04:16):
Putin had said was he was offering to withdraw Russian
forces from those parts of Ukraine. Honest to God life
in prison. I thought you said life out of prison.
The Wall Street Journal has since confirmed this German report.
In fact, Whitkof has now told at least three different
(04:37):
versions of the phony Ukraine peace deal from Russia, one
or two or all three of which are the nonsensical
basis for inviting this scumbag Putin here to our country
without a plan to detain him. Here's what Murdoch's paper wrote, quote.
The European counterproposal concludes a week of frantic diplomacy triggered
(05:01):
by Putin's overture to Whitkof. After the two men met
at the Kremlin, Trump summoned a call with select European
leaders and Zelensky to brief them on the proposal. On
the call, Trump suggested that Russia would be ready to
withdraw from the southern region of Zapparizia and Kherson in
(05:23):
exchange for full control of Dunnetsk. That's the first version. However,
here comes the second version. Witkoff walked back that claim
the next day in a call with the chief aids
of European leaders, suggesting that Russia would both withdraw and
freeze the front line. It's two different things. The third one.
(05:48):
On Friday, European officials demanded a third call with WITCOF
to clarify the growing confusion about what Putin actually proposed.
In that call, WITCOF clearly stated that the only offer
on the table was for Ukraine to withdraw unilaterally from
Donetsk in exchange for a ceasefire. Vance, Rubio, and Kellogg
(06:13):
attended some of the calls, which is of course the
same thing as Vance, Rubio, and Kellogg not attending any
of the calls. There are a lot of stupid people
working with Donald Trump. He surrounds himself with the best
of the stupid people. In fact, he looks for people
who are stupider than he is. To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield,
(06:34):
if you want to look smart, surround yourself with a
bunch of wit Coffs, Vance's, Rubios and Kellogg's. But whit
Cooff may be the stupidest outstanding work. Trump a moron
actually found to negotiate for him, to negotiate for us,
(06:56):
theoretically to negotiate for Ukraine an even bigger moron. And
based on this guy's moronity, we are admitting Putin to
this country. Hey call that hitler guy see if he
wants to come to By the way, Putin actually did
(07:16):
offer a concession in these negotiations, not to Ukraine, not
to achieve peace, but he offered a concession to Trump.
And what is that concession to meet him in Alaska?
To go to Alaska? Going to Alaska? Is the concession Alaska?
(07:37):
Or is the Russians call it Russian America. That's the
win he's giving to Trump to condescend to come to
our country and not get arrested, because he knows Trump
desperately needs something he can pretend is a win, a triumph,
a deal statesmanship, something other than Epstein. So when this
(08:02):
meeting happens and Putin pitches something like who knows Ukraine
is just erase from all maps tomorrow? And Trump endorses it.
Because Trump so desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize, or,
as Caroline Levitt calls it, the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump
will endorse anything that might get a Nobel Peace Prize
(08:25):
for him. When Trump endorses it and Zelenski rejects it,
Trump will start hating Zelensky again and blaming him, because
this is about Trump getting a prize he hosted Azerbaijan
and Armenia last week because he wants a prize. He
didn't know what an Azerbaijan is. He just wants a prize,
(08:50):
a major prize, a major prize. Like the father in
the movie A Christmas Story wanted a major prize. He
just wants a major prize, a nice glowing mesh stocking
leg lamp to put in his window, A noble leg prize.
(09:10):
I take back what I said about arresting Putin while
he's here. Arrest Putin and Trump and this buffoon witcoff
own Caroline Levitt to the idiot. So the Vice president
(09:46):
is covering up a secret conspiracy meeting that was held
to cover up the secret conspiracy Trump cover up of
Trump Stein got it? You will recall that somebody leaked
that Advance was supposed to host Vance evidently taking a
day off from his exhausting schedule of back to back
to back vacations. Vance was supposed to host for dinner
(10:11):
at the Vice President's residence last Wednesday. White House Chief
of Staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Blondie FBI director Keep
Your Eye on the Ball Patel, and Deputy Attorney General
Todd Blanche visibly to discuss the ongoing Trump Epstein crisis,
specifically what to do with the tape and the transcript
(10:33):
of Trump's first deal with Glaine Maxwell, where he flew
Todd Blanche to her prison cell and Blanche gave her
immunity for two days and then Presto chaninjo she wound
up being moved from that prison cell to a club
fed jail camp in Texas. Release the tape, burn the tape,
(10:54):
claim the tape is missing a minute, do something about
whatever crisis it presented, depending on whatever it was that
Maxwell revealed about Trump or threatened with or whatever during
that meeting. Vance and the others immediately denied there was
such a meeting. It was fake news. It was they lied.
(11:15):
It now turns out that to make it technically not
a lie, they had the dinner all right with all
those people and talked about Epstein. They just did not
have it at the Vice President's residence at the Naval Observatory.
They moved it to the White House. That way. When
they said they sure as hell were not meeting about
Epstein Advance's residents, they weren't lying. They were meeting about
(11:38):
Epstein at Trump's residence. We still don't know what happened,
except for the fact that the lead has been buried
by those who broke that story, and then those who
broke that story that the venue was changed, and by
those few news organizations that have brought it up since
the lead is why we're vance Wiles, Bondi, Patel, and
(12:03):
Blanche meeting about Epstein, about Gallaine Maxwell without Trump being there?
Where was Trump? Why would they meet about Epstein and
not have Trump there? Because whether there's a picture of
Trump on every page if the Epstein files, or there's
literally sworn testimony in them from every victim saying Trump
(12:25):
was not involved, the Trump conspiratorial mob's interest in the
Epstein case is Trump period. So it wasn't like he
wasn't there because he was golfing at Sunset. We are
all left speculating. Seems to me pretty clear they needed
(12:47):
to figure out what to do about Trump whenever whatever
was in the files or whatever was in Maxwell's conversations
with Blanche got out, or how to keep it from
getting out, or how to keep Trump from finding out,
or who to get in as the new president of
what was in there about Trump was really really bad.
(13:11):
I mean it's a cover up. It's obviously a cover up.
That's not a conclusion. Trump keeps saying it's a cover up.
He keeps saying he has to protect people who would
be hurt by the truth. He meanders around that basic line.
But that's what he's saying, again and again. We can't
release it because innocent people may be hurt. Innocent meaning
(13:36):
him and his relatives. That is the definition of a
cover up. We have the information, we're not going to
tell you. Cover up. Let's talk cover up. Make sure
Trump is not there? Why not? Well, the cover up
is about him. Happily, just as those of us still
(14:00):
paying attention to Trump's steen were worrying that it might
be losing steam as a news story, here comes JV. Vance,
not on vacation for the second time in a week.
What is there an asteroid about to hit the earth? JV.
Vance goes on Maria Bartiromo's Sunday Fox Show. And by
the way, he's wearing more makeup and eyeliner than she is,
(14:21):
and she wears a lot. And how in the hell
has he gotten away with this for a year as
the number two person in the Let's kill all the
drag Queens party. I mean, I'm opposed to this. I
have nothing against drag queens, but at some point are
any of these cultists going to come down from whatever
drug they are all high on. We hate drag queens.
(14:46):
What's that on Vance's face? Anyway? JV goes on with
Bartiromo and says, quote, we know that Jeffrey Epstein had
a lot of connections with left wing politicians and left
wing billionaires. Democrat billionaires and Democrat political leaders went to
Epstein Island all the time. Who knows what they did,
which raises two points JV. One, if that's how you
(15:09):
read it, boy, why haven't you released the files? If
this is a treasure trove of details about Democrat billionaires
and left wing billionaires and Democrat political leaders and left
wing politicians going to Epstein Island and who knows what
they did? Isn't this the kind of stuff you MAGA
scum make sure goes public even when it doesn't really exist.
(15:33):
Why are you suddenly covering up for them? The second point,
of course, is that throughout the Epstein era, one of
those left wing politician, left wing billionaire Democratic billionaire Democratic
political leaders registered Democrats was Donald Trump. Oh, I get it.
(15:58):
That second point I just made there that explains my
first point. That's yeah, what we are seeing is clearly
the outcome of dinner with JV and Susie Wiles. When
Trump does something new, suddenly, irrationally. That's my next item
about this nutso demand that the homeless move out of DC.
(16:18):
Thank you for your attention to this matter, because all
homeless people have the truth social app When he does
something out of the blue, there's always something in the
background that has actually just thrown him, something so big
that it got through that haze of mirrors that he
holds around his own face, so you can always see
(16:39):
how handsome and beautiful he is. Now, this could be
a Yugov poll for The Economist, showing that his approval
among conservatives, while still wildly above water, is not as
wildly above water as it was just a month ago.
He was a net plus eighty among conservatives in July,
and he's a net plus sixty five in August. Reading
(17:06):
conservative poll numbers is always a risky business, but a
lot of pole analysts look at the interior numbers in
this Yugo of Economist poll and they see most of
his slippage coming over the brutality of ice and much
more significantly about how they're handling Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Who
(17:26):
mister katur, mister Katur, I know who net plus sixty
five is net plus sixty five. But he loses that
much support among conservatives every month, an admittedly crazy idea
by itself, But if he loses fifteen points a month,
by January, he would be underwater among conservatives at minus five.
(17:50):
So dropping fifteen points in a month is not a
big one, but it's an iceberg. That's what Susie and
JV were meeting about, because if he drops five points
among conservatives every month, by next November, he'll be at
minus ten among conservatives. And guess what next November is
(18:14):
now it rhymes with schmid schmerms. Trump is obviously in
the Epstein files the way Gatsby is in The Great Gatsby.
So you release none of it, but you keep saying
(18:34):
maybe you will, and when you do, it'll implicate Nick
Carraway and especially that meer wolfsheime guy. Trump tried to
(18:55):
spend his weekend teasing a big press conference for today
about seizing control of the district of Columbia. But of
course he couldn't shut up. As I hinted earlier, that's
his big surprise, to try to break your attention from
Epstein and the disaster that is his mishandling of Ukraine.
(19:16):
But by yesterday we knew it was going to be
an attempt to sweep up the homeless and any suspected criminals,
like the trash left over from the birthday parade Trump
threw for himself in Washington. Speaking of which, you want
to sweep up criminals in d C. Don hope you
start with the Trump cabinet and your family. The first
slime who should be rounded up is Howard Lutnik, the
(19:39):
impossibly skilled Trump ass kisser. Howard used to be a
sympathetic figure. Catter Fitzgerald was his firm. He was chairman.
Six hundred and fifty eight of his employees died on
nine to eleven and thereafter, including two of my college classmates.
He helped organize fundraising recovery care for the families, treatment
(20:02):
for the nine to eleven cancer victims. Now now what
they're rite on his tombstone was he kissed the ass
of a dictator who just cut sixty four million dollars
in federal funding for terrorism prevention funding in New York City. Howard,
(20:23):
you've apparently forgotten this now that you found a new
life lying on television in service of the devil. But
New York City is where Canter Fitzgerald and the World
Trade Center was. I do have a practical suggestion about
Trump's planned treatment of the homeless in DC, which may
(20:45):
turn out to rival Putin's treatment of the stray dogs
in Sochi during the twenty fourteen Winter Olympics. This monstrous
ninety thousand square foot pile of shit Trump plants to
put next to the White House, then spray it with
gold plate and call it a ballroom. Move all homeless
in there, although I can understand if they are reluctant
(21:09):
to go in because of the rustolium seven seven one
zero eight three zero. But Trump is now sprayed on
everything in the area, including Milania. Just because one is
homeless does not mean one ceases to have taste and standards,
which would invariably be better than Donald Trump's. And then
(21:34):
there's the most underrated story and most underrated villain of
twenty twenty five Columbia University and my former friend and
colleague gets co chair and Acting President Claire Neville chamberlainshipman
her cowardice. Her university's cowardice has inspired cowardice copycats everywhere
in academia. Everything you ever thought bad about a teacher
(21:58):
or a professor turns out they went into the management
of our major universities. Trump is now trying to find
a way to invalidate patents held by Harvard because because
this is a dictatorship, and he wants a billion dollars
(22:18):
from UCLA, or he will cut off research grants to
UCLA because this is a dictatorship. And he has now
gotten pen to cancel its equal opportunity scholarships because this
is a dictatorship. On the other hand, as usual, it
is the students at these places showing most of the guts.
(22:42):
The newspaper, The Stanford Daily is suing the Trump administration.
Stanford is not suing the newspaper run by the students.
The Stanford Daily is suing the Trump administration over its
use of immigration laws to target and deport pro Palestinian
activists because international students on the staff of The Stanford
(23:06):
Daily are turning down news assignments related to the War
on Gaza or quote seeking removal of their previous articles
about it. The lawyers for the student papers say the
government is actively and retroactively violating the First Amendment. Unlike
(23:26):
the people they pay their money to and are supposed
to learn from, they are doing something. I'll say it again.
You know what would have stopped this, this particular thing
about academia if when Trump first aimed symbolic rocket launchers
at Columbia and at his own alma mater, Penn, if
Penn had said, you go girl, and then announced it
(23:49):
was withdrawing Trump's degree from the Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania. Or if Penn had merely announced that
Trump's degree was now under review, a review that will
take several years because of irregularities discovered in the admissions
office records of the time, which they had just found
(24:09):
while looking for DEI stuff at Penn. And you know
what else, If Penn did that now we're reviewing Trump's degree,
it will take till the year twenty thirty six. If
Penn did that now, it would completely push Trump and
(24:30):
his multiple assholes back on their heels today. Ultimately, of course,
we're still going to have to defund the federal government.
That might wait till after the midterms, but at minimum
going to have to do it no later than January
(24:51):
twenty one, twenty twenty six. We have to starve Trump out.
We have to demand he pays a billion dollars or
any of you guys know how to turn off all
the electricity to the White House in mary Lago. Worst
person's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
(25:11):
Olberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown thirty seven
(25:35):
years ago. Right now they were getting a press conference ready.
They were putting it together for that night, the biggest
one in the history of hockey in California, one of
the five biggest press conferences in the history of sports
in Los Angeles, and as a vice president of the
(25:57):
Los Angeles King's hockey team said to me, it's all
your fault, you bastard. He was smiling at me though
when he said that. I think it was a smile.
The story of the greatest story I ever broke, and
how I did almost nothing to break it. I didn't
even phone it in. The sources phoned it into me
(26:21):
next in things I promised not to tell. It's Kretzky
Day first. Believe it or not, there's still more new
idiots to talk about, the roundup of the miss Grants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other
worst persons in the world, the Brons worse. Why it's
Secretary Christy Nome, Christie Garden, Gnome CHRISTI murder your daughter's dog, Gnome, Christy,
(26:52):
I'm keeping an entire industry alive, Gnome, reacting to her
portrayal on South Park. And I'd like to point out
that the ball all the guardrails that have failed us,
the one last remaining guardrail, the last line of defense
surrounding democracy, maybe South Park, Parker and Stone, and that's it.
(27:19):
Washington Post out the window, the Courts, out the e
fing window, CBS News out the window, NBC, ABC, out
the window. Appeasement after appeasement by the university system. The
university's out the window. Everybody in it for themselves, Like
(27:41):
this is France in February of nineteen thirty freaking nine,
not South Park. She's not happy with the portrayal, in
which I believe they kind of represented her as Michael
Palin's movie or Terry Gilliams movie Brazil portrayed one of
(28:02):
the characters who's facial work melted one day and they
were having problems with facial work and the faces just
melted or turned into goo. And they did that with
the Secretary Nome, who among our Western monuments, the only
faces that have had more work than Christy Nomes are
(28:25):
the ones on Mount Rushmore. Anyway, she's complaining and thou
anything constantly main fine of women for how they look.
She said to Glenn Beck that's right, Glenn Beck. I
didn't know either. Yeah, so she managed to make her
(28:45):
lips move long enough to be able to say in
thou lay John constantly make fun of women for how
they look. Well, Secretary Nome, we don't just make fun
of how you look. We make fun of how you talk,
because you've had so much work done that you can't
move your mouth anymore. And we make fun, Secretary Nome,
of the fact that you are a sadist who kills
(29:07):
animals for pleasure and shoots puppies. And we make fun
of the fact that you're a clown. We make fun
of the fact that that you wear a variety of
action adventure dress up outfits. And pretend to be tough
and go to jails in other countries and stand in
front of bunches of nude men in cages like a
(29:30):
poor an actress. That's what we make fun of, and
particularly those dress up outfits. Corey Lewandowski doll sold separately,
runner up worser. Oh, it's ambassador Mike Huckabee. What's interesting
about Mike Huckabee is, of course his interest in Israel
(29:52):
is that it be destroyed, but destroyed the right way.
They want. The fundamentalists, like this lunatic Huckabee and his
daughter Huckster Huckabee, and his grandson huck Huckabee, they want
to see a rapture and for the rapture to happen
in this screwball version of the Bible that they have.
(30:14):
The Bible being somewhat dubious source to begin with, but
their screwball version of the Bible, it ends with all
of the Jews being forcibly converted to screwball Bible religion,
whichever one it is, fundamental, episca, whatever it is. And
(30:35):
you know what happens if you don't get converted, if
you're Jewish. Yeah, the other way to forcibly convert them
and make sure that they're all converted. Is that you
don't have any on earth who aren't converted? And how
do you do that? Yeah, well, we know how people
have tried this before. That's Huckabee's interest in Israel. That's
why he is the ambassador to Israel, to make sure
(30:58):
that when Israel is destroyed, it meets with his biblical approval.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain here Starmer, Sir here Starmer,
of whom I have many doubts, but Sir Kir wrote
that the Israeli government's decision to further escalate its offensive
in Gaza is wrong and we urge it to reconsider immediately.
(31:20):
He went on about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and
made excellent points. He did not go so far as
to pull the plug on Israel, as Germany seems to
be about to Hukkabee, and again Hekabee wants to see
Israel destroyed and all the Jews in the world forcibly
converted one way or the other. Huckabee writes, with his
false sincerity, so Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas
(31:44):
and feed them, even though Israeli hostages are being starved.
And by the way, remember Mike Khawkabee became famous by
selling people weight loss cures that, ultimately, as he proved,
don't effing work. Speaking of starving people, did UK surrender
to Nazis and drop four to them? Ever heard of
(32:06):
Dresden PM starmer? That wasn't food you dropped. If you
had been PM, then UK would be speaking German. If
you're not in the United States, I'd like to point
out that I don't know how many of us at
the moment are infected by this brainworm or the curse
or whatever it is that's caused the mass lowering of
IQ and morality in this nation. I don't know if
(32:30):
it's forty percent or twenty percent. They're just real loud.
But for those of us who do not have this
brainworm and or curse, I'd like to once again apologize
on behalf of all of us in real America for
things like my cuckaby, and we're guilty of not doing
enough to stop Mi Kukabe because bluntly, we're just so
(32:50):
goddamned happy he's not in the country at the moment.
He's one of our greatest shames. The Charlton Mike Huckabee
has any role in the United States government, and to
use his phrasing there, he of course sought the residency
ran for president in two thousand and eight. Had he
gained the presidency, we in America, we would all already
(33:15):
be speaking Russian. Those are the first two nominees, but
the winner the worst, Pam Blondie, our Attorney general, who
makes Mike Huckabee seem like Woodrow Wilson, who sounds like
she has failed hundreds of auditions as the co host
on late night TV infomercials. Tell me more about these vegetables. Doctor.
(33:41):
Apparently for a long time, we've had a bounty out
twenty five million dollars on the scumbag Maduro, the essentially
dictator of Venezuela, and calls himself, I guess a socialist.
He's a scumbag. Well, she's just doubled this. By the way,
(34:01):
I'd just like to point out again she does not
know how to read any thing allowed, nor does she
have any ability to modulate or control.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
A volume of her voice. Today, the Department of Justice
and State Department are announcing a historic fifty million dollar
reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicholas Maduro.
Cocaine is often laced with fentanyl, resulting in the loss
and destruction of countless American lives.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Boy oh boy, pambody makes Christy Gnomes sound like the
vintage Kathleen Turner. Am I right, guys, Holy crap. But wait,
there's a fifty million dollar reward for information leading to
the arrest of Nicholas Maduro. Like like where he is?
Oo oo ooh, mister cutteur, mister cutteur, information leading to
(34:56):
the earth he's in. He's in Venezuela. So Pam Blondy
sent me my fifty million Pambondy, No, really, she's Attorney
General no, the of the United States. Hey, I got
an idea, Blondie. Why don't you arrest Putin while he's here?
Two days? Worst person in the world. Just after dinner,
(35:52):
the phone rang in my office at Channel five in
La I am a viewer. I took a deep breath.
You never knew where a call that started like that
was going to end up. I just wanted you to know.
I was out golfing at Riviera at the Riviera Club
this afternoon and Bruce McNall, the owner of the kings
Well He just walked through the locker room saying, hey, guys,
(36:13):
if you want to buy your seasoned Kings tickets, do
it now. It just traded for Wayne Gretzky. The price
is going to go up next week. To be polite
to the viewer, I asked a few questions, but frankly,
the story was pretty stupid. This was the second week
of August nineteen eighty eight, and there was a lot
of talk that the Edmonton Oilers were going to trade
(36:33):
Wayne Gretzky, the most famous player in hockey, and there
was nearly as much talk that that trade would send
him to use in La. But the owner of the
Kings just telling passers by at random in a golf
clubhouse that he had just made the trade. I was
suspicious that I was being pranked. Fifteen minutes later, my
(36:57):
phone rang again. Hi, I'm a big fan of yours
and I watch every night. Here we go again. I
was just having lunch with a friend of mine out
here at the golf course in bel Air, and like
an hour later, freaking Bruce McNall shows up in the
dining room and asks for everybody's attention, and he says
he's just completed the deal for Wayne Gretzky, and now
(37:18):
I was beginning to get actually worried. I was a
lame duck as the sports director of Channel five in
Los Angeles, and for months there had been rumors that
I was moving down the street to Channel two in
Los Angeles. There had been these rumors, mostly because I
was moving down the street to Channel two. The deal
had been done months earlier. We were going to announce
it that week. In fact, as these two guys called in,
(37:41):
I had actually been busily packing up my Channel five office.
My thought now was that the sportscaster at the local
NBC station, who had a bit of a substance problem
and a nasty temper and a real dislike for the
fact that I was nearly as popular as he was,
was setting me up. I had once managed to mislead
(38:02):
him into thinking we were about to break a story
about a big LA football trade. There was no breaking
story because there was no trade, and he had actually
mentioned it on the air, having clearly stolen it from
me because I was the one who had made it up.
And oh was he furious at me for all I
knew he wanted to embarrass me. Three weeks before I
(38:22):
moved into direct competition with him at five, six and eleven.
This August eighth, nineteen eighty eight was in fact my
first day back after I had burned all my Channel
five vacation time, and for all I knew, this guy
at NBC had been having his staffers call me for
a week with made up sightings of McNall confirming a
Gretzky trade that frankly, I never believed was going to happen.
(38:44):
I mean not to get two sidetracked here, But one
day my phone rang and it was a kid who said, Hi,
mister Oberman, I'm sorry, but I'm a finalist to be
an intern here at Channel four for Fred Rogan, and
mister Rogan says I can have the spot, but only
if I call you up right now and say I'm sorry.
If I call you up and I tell you to
go f your self, the kid did not say f
(39:07):
To his credit, he used his real name, Bill Weir.
He later became a sportscaster for the third Network station
in LA, then a correspondent for ABC and now CNN,
and I have not let a year go by since
without reminding him of his f yourself internship phone call
he said life paid him back by making him work
(39:29):
with the guy for several months. Anyway, back to Gretzky night.
Two supposed listeners have called to say that Bruce McNall,
the owner of the La Kings, is apparently trapesing through
golf locker rooms and dining rooms at country clubs to
tell them he has completed a trade for the babe
ruth of hockey, Wayne Gretzky. And they're calling me because
they like me. I'm suspicious. And now the phone rings again.
(39:55):
This guy was playing golf at the La country Club.
Same story, McNall, by your Kings tickets, No, I just
got Gretzky. The next caller had been a yet a
fourth club, I think Wilshire or something. If this was
a prankett was a big one, and bluntly I had
begun to admire it. Finally came a fifth call. You
(40:16):
don't know me, but I watch you every night. I
stumbled onto a story. I think you'll want to run tonight.
I said, which golf course were you at? And he said,
excuse me. I was in my office all day, and
so was my missus. She's on the phone with me.
She works for Bruce McNall the Kings. This time, I
grabbed a pencil, Honey, why don't you take it from here?
(40:37):
And she did. She worked in the finance office and
she had, literally, she said, just made out a check
for fifteen million dollars to the owner of the Edmonton Oilers,
Peter Pocklington. She said, and the note memo where you
write what it's for, I was told to put in
Wayne Gretzky. She also had seen the trade contract identified
(40:59):
the players the Kings were going to give up with
the fifteen million to get Gretzky. They were Jimmy Carson
and Martinez Jell. There were also draft choices, but she
didn't know or didn't remember the specifics of which ones. Now, breathless,
I asked her if I could call her back through
the switchboard of the LA Forum where the Kings and
McNall's offices were, just to confirm she was who she
(41:21):
said she was. She said, I could, I did she was.
I believe. In fact, she turned out to be the
only person on the McNall financial team that did not
get charged with something. So now I went in to
talk to my news director and to the producer of
our newscast we were not on until ten PM. It
was now about seven. They were very excited, and they
(41:41):
said that given that I had exact details from a
King's source, plus the four witnesses to the owner of
the team shooting off his big bazoo at every golf
course he could reach, that we should run it, and
that we should run it as the lead news story
right at the start of the newscast that night, which
we did. The Kings would not confirm it, obviously, but
(42:03):
as soon as I got off the with my sports
cast the second time I reported this story, a reporter
from the Associated Press was on the phone asking me
to read him my script, which he then quoted word
for word and put out on their sports wire. It
was on the back page of the New York Post.
The next day. My friends called me from New York
(42:23):
to say, hey, your sports cast is on the back
page of the New York Post along with this big
picture of Wayne Gretzky. The leak caused the Kings to
move up the announcement of the deal from their original plan,
which was Thursday the eleventh, to the next night, Tuesday
the ninth, A King's vice president told me at the
press conference that The Oilers were enraged because they had
(42:45):
wanted to hold off until the eleventh, because the deadline
for their season ticket holders to get their deposits back
were Wednesday the tenth. The Kings were nice enough to
let me of all the TV guys interview Gretzky first Live,
and I congratulated Wayne on the move, and he actually
congratulated me on the scoop, and I said I didn't
do anything but answer the phone, and he thought about
(43:06):
it for a second and said pretty much the same
for me, and we've been friendly ever since. But the
laziest scoop of all time did eventually come back with
a sting for me and some payback. A year later,
we all submitted our best stories for consideration for the
local Emmy for Best TV Sports Reporting for the calendar
year nineteen eighty eight. I submitted Surprise, Surprise, the Gretzky scoop.
(43:32):
The Emmys were always judged by a committee of television
types from a different city, so he didn't have that
home La Bias and the guy from NBC, who I
had first thought was pranking me about the Gretzky story,
had somehow found out that the Emmys for nineteen eighty
eight would be judged in nineteen eighty nine in Ohio.
In Columbus, Ohio, I think so he managed to get
(43:54):
an interview with Morgana the Kissing Bandit, who was this
scantily clad, buxome woman you may remember, who in the
old days of innocence, used to bribe her way on
Major League Baseball fields and bounce out onto the plate
or the mound, and she'd go and kiss stars like
George Brent and Nolan Ryan during games. Morgana MORGANA. Roberts
(44:17):
lived near Columbus, Ohio, so sure enough, at the Emmys
the next year, my exclusive report of the trade of
Hockey's greatest player, Wayne Gretzky was one of the finalists
for the Los Angeles Best TV Sports Reporting Emmy. But
in the ceremony, and it was at some old Landmark
hotel in Pasadena, they showed clips of all the pieces
(44:37):
that were finalists and then announced that the winner was
Fred Rogan KNBC. For being chased by Morgana the Kissing Bandit,
my agent stood up and bowed my girlfriend, punched me
in the arm and said let's get out of here
and go drinking. We left I've done all of the
(45:13):
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Most
of our countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil. Our musical directors have
countdown and my great thanks to them. It was produced
by TKO Brothers. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass
and drums. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical
(45:33):
and pithical, Our satirical and pithical musical comments are by
the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. Thank you, Nancy,
Thank you for never saying pithical. The Olderman theme for
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis, is courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
(45:56):
That's the sports music. Thank you, ESPN. Other music arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed, Thank you,
No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend Larry David.
Thank you Larry. Everything else was as always my fault.
Thank you me. It's countdown for today. Day one two
(46:16):
hundred and four America held hostage and only seems like
one two hundred four. It's just two hundred and four,
but it is just one, two hundred and fifty nine
days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and
lame brained term, unless he is removed sooner by MAGA
and trump'steen or the Actuarial Tables, or while they're arresting
(46:40):
Putin in Alaska on Friday, Go Go Go. The next
scheduled countdown is Thursday till then. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. The Nobel Peace
(47:08):
Prize 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. While
(00:25):
he's here, you know what, Let's arrest Putin. There's an
arrest warrant for him from the International Criminal Court. Sure
we're not a member country, because well, Trump and his
co conspirator Dictatorship are criminals. That would be awkward. And
whether you want to call it collusion or conspiracy or
(00:46):
simple ownership, Putin still runs Trump. But while he's here,
let's arrest Vladimir Putin. The one and twenty five member
states of the International Criminal Court have been looking to
put Putin away, most recently for kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian
children and forcing them to speak Russian and pretending they
(01:07):
are without homes or they've been abandoned or their refugees
literally the sick joke about killing the parents and then
claiming what's left over is orphans. The one hundred and
twenty five member states that have a series of arrest
warrants for Russia's monsters for all kinds of war crimes
in Ukraine include the rest of our continent, Canada, and Mexico.
(01:32):
I mean, it's not gonna happen, but it sure would
be nice to see the Canadian military move across its
border into Alaska and take Putin. Who knows, maybe Vladimir
would hide behind Trump is a human shield. You have
to admit Trump would make a giant double XL human shield. Finally,
(01:52):
something useful. Of course, Trump is already a giant double
excel human shield for Putin. Figuratively, you will recall it
was Trump who did nothing as Putin and Russia became
ensconced in Crimea and the don Bas. During Trump's first junta.
You will recall Trump's asinine campaign promise to settle Russia's
(02:15):
invasion of Ukraine in one day. I believe we're at
two hundred and four different one days since since seizing
power again, Trump has given Putin two weeks to observe
a ceasefire. When Putin ignored that, Trump gave him another
two weeks. Then he said he was disappointed in Putin.
Then he gave him fifty more days. Then he said
(02:38):
he wondered if Putin was lying to him or what
had happened to Putin. Then he gave him ten days.
Then when those ten days ran out, he offered to
meet with Putin. Not Putin, and Zelenski just Putin, and
when the small problem of where to meet came up,
Putin would be arrested in nearly all of those one
hundred and twenty five ICC member nations. Trump volunteered our house, Alaska.
(03:06):
This asshole lies to Trump about Ukraine five times that
we know of, and Trump responds by inviting this butcher.
This would be Stalin into our country unless you brought
him here to drop twenty tons of shit on his head.
(03:27):
Fu Trump. Also, Trump's special envoy dealing with Russia is
either a moron or deliberately stalling for Putin, or both.
This is that clown Witkof, not that clown Lutnik or
that clown Huckabee or that clown Kellogg or that clown Vance.
(03:51):
The German news outlet Build reports that Witkof is such
a nitwit that, when he met with Putin, demanded as
a starting point for any ceasefire negotiations the starting point
that Ukrainian forces be withdrawn from those parts of Ukraine
Putin falsely claims are his. Witkoff promptly decided that what
(04:16):
Putin had said was he was offering to withdraw Russian
forces from those parts of Ukraine. Honest to God life
in prison. I thought you said life out of prison.
The Wall Street Journal has since confirmed this German report.
In fact, Whitkof has now told at least three different
(04:37):
versions of the phony Ukraine peace deal from Russia, one
or two or all three of which are the nonsensical
basis for inviting this scumbag Putin here to our country
without a plan to detain him. Here's what Murdoch's paper wrote, quote.
The European counterproposal concludes a week of frantic diplomacy triggered
(05:01):
by Putin's overture to Whitkof. After the two men met
at the Kremlin, Trump summoned a call with select European
leaders and Zelensky to brief them on the proposal. On
the call, Trump suggested that Russia would be ready to
withdraw from the southern region of Zapparizia and Kherson in
(05:23):
exchange for full control of Dunnetsk. That's the first version. However,
here comes the second version. Witkoff walked back that claim
the next day in a call with the chief aids
of European leaders, suggesting that Russia would both withdraw and
freeze the front line. It's two different things. The third one.
(05:48):
On Friday, European officials demanded a third call with WITCOF
to clarify the growing confusion about what Putin actually proposed.
In that call, WITCOF clearly stated that the only offer
on the table was for Ukraine to withdraw unilaterally from
Donetsk in exchange for a ceasefire. Vance, Rubio, and Kellogg
(06:13):
attended some of the calls, which is of course the
same thing as Vance, Rubio, and Kellogg not attending any
of the calls. There are a lot of stupid people
working with Donald Trump. He surrounds himself with the best
of the stupid people. In fact, he looks for people
who are stupider than he is. To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield,
(06:34):
if you want to look smart, surround yourself with a
bunch of wit Coffs, Vance's, Rubios and Kellogg's. But whit
Cooff may be the stupidest outstanding work. Trump a moron
actually found to negotiate for him, to negotiate for us,
(06:56):
theoretically to negotiate for Ukraine an even bigger moron. And
based on this guy's moronity, we are admitting Putin to
this country. Hey call that hitler guy see if he
wants to come to By the way, Putin actually did
(07:16):
offer a concession in these negotiations, not to Ukraine, not
to achieve peace, but he offered a concession to Trump.
And what is that concession to meet him in Alaska?
To go to Alaska? Going to Alaska? Is the concession Alaska?
(07:37):
Or is the Russians call it Russian America. That's the
win he's giving to Trump to condescend to come to
our country and not get arrested, because he knows Trump
desperately needs something he can pretend is a win, a triumph,
a deal statesmanship, something other than Epstein. So when this
(08:02):
meeting happens and Putin pitches something like who knows Ukraine
is just erase from all maps tomorrow? And Trump endorses it.
Because Trump so desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize, or,
as Caroline Levitt calls it, the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump
will endorse anything that might get a Nobel Peace Prize
(08:25):
for him. When Trump endorses it and Zelenski rejects it,
Trump will start hating Zelensky again and blaming him, because
this is about Trump getting a prize he hosted Azerbaijan
and Armenia last week because he wants a prize. He
didn't know what an Azerbaijan is. He just wants a prize,
(08:50):
a major prize, a major prize. Like the father in
the movie A Christmas Story wanted a major prize. He
just wants a major prize, a nice glowing mesh stocking
leg lamp to put in his window, A noble leg prize.
(09:10):
I take back what I said about arresting Putin while
he's here. Arrest Putin and Trump and this buffoon witcoff
own Caroline Levitt to the idiot. So the Vice president
(09:46):
is covering up a secret conspiracy meeting that was held
to cover up the secret conspiracy Trump cover up of
Trump Stein got it? You will recall that somebody leaked
that Advance was supposed to host Vance evidently taking a
day off from his exhausting schedule of back to back
to back vacations. Vance was supposed to host for dinner
(10:11):
at the Vice President's residence last Wednesday. White House Chief
of Staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Blondie FBI director Keep
Your Eye on the Ball Patel, and Deputy Attorney General
Todd Blanche visibly to discuss the ongoing Trump Epstein crisis,
specifically what to do with the tape and the transcript
(10:33):
of Trump's first deal with Glaine Maxwell, where he flew
Todd Blanche to her prison cell and Blanche gave her
immunity for two days and then Presto chaninjo she wound
up being moved from that prison cell to a club
fed jail camp in Texas. Release the tape, burn the tape,
(10:54):
claim the tape is missing a minute, do something about
whatever crisis it presented, depending on whatever it was that
Maxwell revealed about Trump or threatened with or whatever during
that meeting. Vance and the others immediately denied there was
such a meeting. It was fake news. It was they lied.
(11:15):
It now turns out that to make it technically not
a lie, they had the dinner all right with all
those people and talked about Epstein. They just did not
have it at the Vice President's residence at the Naval Observatory.
They moved it to the White House. That way. When
they said they sure as hell were not meeting about
Epstein Advance's residents, they weren't lying. They were meeting about
(11:38):
Epstein at Trump's residence. We still don't know what happened,
except for the fact that the lead has been buried
by those who broke that story, and then those who
broke that story that the venue was changed, and by
those few news organizations that have brought it up since
the lead is why we're vance Wiles, Bondi, Patel, and
(12:03):
Blanche meeting about Epstein, about Gallaine Maxwell without Trump being there?
Where was Trump? Why would they meet about Epstein and
not have Trump there? Because whether there's a picture of
Trump on every page if the Epstein files, or there's
literally sworn testimony in them from every victim saying Trump
(12:25):
was not involved, the Trump conspiratorial mob's interest in the
Epstein case is Trump period. So it wasn't like he
wasn't there because he was golfing at Sunset. We are
all left speculating. Seems to me pretty clear they needed
(12:47):
to figure out what to do about Trump whenever whatever
was in the files or whatever was in Maxwell's conversations
with Blanche got out, or how to keep it from
getting out, or how to keep Trump from finding out,
or who to get in as the new president of
what was in there about Trump was really really bad.
(13:11):
I mean it's a cover up. It's obviously a cover up.
That's not a conclusion. Trump keeps saying it's a cover up.
He keeps saying he has to protect people who would
be hurt by the truth. He meanders around that basic line.
But that's what he's saying, again and again. We can't
release it because innocent people may be hurt. Innocent meaning
(13:36):
him and his relatives. That is the definition of a
cover up. We have the information, we're not going to
tell you. Cover up. Let's talk cover up. Make sure
Trump is not there? Why not? Well, the cover up
is about him. Happily, just as those of us still
(14:00):
paying attention to Trump's steen were worrying that it might
be losing steam as a news story, here comes JV. Vance,
not on vacation for the second time in a week.
What is there an asteroid about to hit the earth? JV.
Vance goes on Maria Bartiromo's Sunday Fox Show. And by
the way, he's wearing more makeup and eyeliner than she is,
(14:21):
and she wears a lot. And how in the hell
has he gotten away with this for a year as
the number two person in the Let's kill all the
drag Queens party. I mean, I'm opposed to this. I
have nothing against drag queens, but at some point are
any of these cultists going to come down from whatever
drug they are all high on. We hate drag queens.
(14:46):
What's that on Vance's face? Anyway? JV goes on with
Bartiromo and says, quote, we know that Jeffrey Epstein had
a lot of connections with left wing politicians and left
wing billionaires. Democrat billionaires and Democrat political leaders went to
Epstein Island all the time. Who knows what they did,
which raises two points JV. One, if that's how you
(15:09):
read it, boy, why haven't you released the files? If
this is a treasure trove of details about Democrat billionaires
and left wing billionaires and Democrat political leaders and left
wing politicians going to Epstein Island and who knows what
they did? Isn't this the kind of stuff you MAGA
scum make sure goes public even when it doesn't really exist.
(15:33):
Why are you suddenly covering up for them? The second point,
of course, is that throughout the Epstein era, one of
those left wing politician, left wing billionaire Democratic billionaire Democratic
political leaders registered Democrats was Donald Trump. Oh, I get it.
(15:58):
That second point I just made there that explains my
first point. That's yeah, what we are seeing is clearly
the outcome of dinner with JV and Susie Wiles. When
Trump does something new, suddenly, irrationally. That's my next item
about this nutso demand that the homeless move out of DC.
(16:18):
Thank you for your attention to this matter, because all
homeless people have the truth social app When he does
something out of the blue, there's always something in the
background that has actually just thrown him, something so big
that it got through that haze of mirrors that he
holds around his own face, so you can always see
(16:39):
how handsome and beautiful he is. Now, this could be
a Yugov poll for The Economist, showing that his approval
among conservatives, while still wildly above water, is not as
wildly above water as it was just a month ago.
He was a net plus eighty among conservatives in July,
and he's a net plus sixty five in August. Reading
(17:06):
conservative poll numbers is always a risky business, but a
lot of pole analysts look at the interior numbers in
this Yugo of Economist poll and they see most of
his slippage coming over the brutality of ice and much
more significantly about how they're handling Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Who
(17:26):
mister katur, mister Katur, I know who net plus sixty
five is net plus sixty five. But he loses that
much support among conservatives every month, an admittedly crazy idea
by itself, But if he loses fifteen points a month,
by January, he would be underwater among conservatives at minus five.
(17:50):
So dropping fifteen points in a month is not a
big one, but it's an iceberg. That's what Susie and
JV were meeting about, because if he drops five points
among conservatives every month, by next November, he'll be at
minus ten among conservatives. And guess what next November is
(18:14):
now it rhymes with schmid schmerms. Trump is obviously in
the Epstein files the way Gatsby is in The Great Gatsby.
So you release none of it, but you keep saying
(18:34):
maybe you will, and when you do, it'll implicate Nick
Carraway and especially that meer wolfsheime guy. Trump tried to
(18:55):
spend his weekend teasing a big press conference for today
about seizing control of the district of Columbia. But of
course he couldn't shut up. As I hinted earlier, that's
his big surprise, to try to break your attention from
Epstein and the disaster that is his mishandling of Ukraine.
(19:16):
But by yesterday we knew it was going to be
an attempt to sweep up the homeless and any suspected criminals,
like the trash left over from the birthday parade Trump
threw for himself in Washington. Speaking of which, you want
to sweep up criminals in d C. Don hope you
start with the Trump cabinet and your family. The first
slime who should be rounded up is Howard Lutnik, the
(19:39):
impossibly skilled Trump ass kisser. Howard used to be a
sympathetic figure. Catter Fitzgerald was his firm. He was chairman.
Six hundred and fifty eight of his employees died on
nine to eleven and thereafter, including two of my college classmates.
He helped organize fundraising recovery care for the families, treatment
(20:02):
for the nine to eleven cancer victims. Now now what
they're rite on his tombstone was he kissed the ass
of a dictator who just cut sixty four million dollars
in federal funding for terrorism prevention funding in New York City. Howard,
(20:23):
you've apparently forgotten this now that you found a new
life lying on television in service of the devil. But
New York City is where Canter Fitzgerald and the World
Trade Center was. I do have a practical suggestion about
Trump's planned treatment of the homeless in DC, which may
(20:45):
turn out to rival Putin's treatment of the stray dogs
in Sochi during the twenty fourteen Winter Olympics. This monstrous
ninety thousand square foot pile of shit Trump plants to
put next to the White House, then spray it with
gold plate and call it a ballroom. Move all homeless
in there, although I can understand if they are reluctant
(21:09):
to go in because of the rustolium seven seven one
zero eight three zero. But Trump is now sprayed on
everything in the area, including Milania. Just because one is
homeless does not mean one ceases to have taste and standards,
which would invariably be better than Donald Trump's. And then
(21:34):
there's the most underrated story and most underrated villain of
twenty twenty five Columbia University and my former friend and
colleague gets co chair and Acting President Claire Neville chamberlainshipman
her cowardice. Her university's cowardice has inspired cowardice copycats everywhere
in academia. Everything you ever thought bad about a teacher
(21:58):
or a professor turns out they went into the management
of our major universities. Trump is now trying to find
a way to invalidate patents held by Harvard because because
this is a dictatorship, and he wants a billion dollars
(22:18):
from UCLA, or he will cut off research grants to
UCLA because this is a dictatorship. And he has now
gotten pen to cancel its equal opportunity scholarships because this
is a dictatorship. On the other hand, as usual, it
is the students at these places showing most of the guts.
(22:42):
The newspaper, The Stanford Daily is suing the Trump administration.
Stanford is not suing the newspaper run by the students.
The Stanford Daily is suing the Trump administration over its
use of immigration laws to target and deport pro Palestinian
activists because international students on the staff of The Stanford
(23:06):
Daily are turning down news assignments related to the War
on Gaza or quote seeking removal of their previous articles
about it. The lawyers for the student papers say the
government is actively and retroactively violating the First Amendment. Unlike
(23:26):
the people they pay their money to and are supposed
to learn from, they are doing something. I'll say it again.
You know what would have stopped this, this particular thing
about academia if when Trump first aimed symbolic rocket launchers
at Columbia and at his own alma mater, Penn, if
Penn had said, you go girl, and then announced it
(23:49):
was withdrawing Trump's degree from the Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania. Or if Penn had merely announced that
Trump's degree was now under review, a review that will
take several years because of irregularities discovered in the admissions
office records of the time, which they had just found
(24:09):
while looking for DEI stuff at Penn. And you know
what else, If Penn did that now we're reviewing Trump's degree,
it will take till the year twenty thirty six. If
Penn did that now, it would completely push Trump and
(24:30):
his multiple assholes back on their heels today. Ultimately, of course,
we're still going to have to defund the federal government.
That might wait till after the midterms, but at minimum
going to have to do it no later than January
(24:51):
twenty one, twenty twenty six. We have to starve Trump out.
We have to demand he pays a billion dollars or
any of you guys know how to turn off all
the electricity to the White House in mary Lago. Worst
person's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
(25:11):
Olberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown thirty seven
(25:35):
years ago. Right now they were getting a press conference ready.
They were putting it together for that night, the biggest
one in the history of hockey in California, one of
the five biggest press conferences in the history of sports
in Los Angeles, and as a vice president of the
(25:57):
Los Angeles King's hockey team said to me, it's all
your fault, you bastard. He was smiling at me though
when he said that. I think it was a smile.
The story of the greatest story I ever broke, and
how I did almost nothing to break it. I didn't
even phone it in. The sources phoned it into me
(26:21):
next in things I promised not to tell. It's Kretzky
Day first. Believe it or not, there's still more new
idiots to talk about, the roundup of the miss Grants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other
worst persons in the world, the Brons worse. Why it's
Secretary Christy Nome, Christie Garden, Gnome CHRISTI murder your daughter's dog, Gnome, Christy,
(26:52):
I'm keeping an entire industry alive, Gnome, reacting to her
portrayal on South Park. And I'd like to point out
that the ball all the guardrails that have failed us,
the one last remaining guardrail, the last line of defense
surrounding democracy, maybe South Park, Parker and Stone, and that's it.
(27:19):
Washington Post out the window, the Courts, out the e
fing window, CBS News out the window, NBC, ABC, out
the window. Appeasement after appeasement by the university system. The
university's out the window. Everybody in it for themselves, Like
(27:41):
this is France in February of nineteen thirty freaking nine,
not South Park. She's not happy with the portrayal, in
which I believe they kind of represented her as Michael
Palin's movie or Terry Gilliams movie Brazil portrayed one of
(28:02):
the characters who's facial work melted one day and they
were having problems with facial work and the faces just
melted or turned into goo. And they did that with
the Secretary Nome, who among our Western monuments, the only
faces that have had more work than Christy Nomes are
(28:25):
the ones on Mount Rushmore. Anyway, she's complaining and thou
anything constantly main fine of women for how they look.
She said to Glenn Beck that's right, Glenn Beck. I
didn't know either. Yeah, so she managed to make her
(28:45):
lips move long enough to be able to say in
thou lay John constantly make fun of women for how
they look. Well, Secretary Nome, we don't just make fun
of how you look. We make fun of how you talk,
because you've had so much work done that you can't
move your mouth anymore. And we make fun, Secretary Nome,
of the fact that you are a sadist who kills
(29:07):
animals for pleasure and shoots puppies. And we make fun
of the fact that you're a clown. We make fun
of the fact that that you wear a variety of
action adventure dress up outfits. And pretend to be tough
and go to jails in other countries and stand in
front of bunches of nude men in cages like a
(29:30):
poor an actress. That's what we make fun of, and
particularly those dress up outfits. Corey Lewandowski doll sold separately,
runner up worser. Oh, it's ambassador Mike Huckabee. What's interesting
about Mike Huckabee is, of course his interest in Israel
(29:52):
is that it be destroyed, but destroyed the right way.
They want. The fundamentalists, like this lunatic Huckabee and his
daughter Huckster Huckabee, and his grandson huck Huckabee, they want
to see a rapture and for the rapture to happen
in this screwball version of the Bible that they have.
(30:14):
The Bible being somewhat dubious source to begin with, but
their screwball version of the Bible, it ends with all
of the Jews being forcibly converted to screwball Bible religion,
whichever one it is, fundamental, episca, whatever it is. And
(30:35):
you know what happens if you don't get converted, if
you're Jewish. Yeah, the other way to forcibly convert them
and make sure that they're all converted. Is that you
don't have any on earth who aren't converted? And how
do you do that? Yeah, well, we know how people
have tried this before. That's Huckabee's interest in Israel. That's
why he is the ambassador to Israel, to make sure
(30:58):
that when Israel is destroyed, it meets with his biblical approval.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain here Starmer, Sir here Starmer,
of whom I have many doubts, but Sir Kir wrote
that the Israeli government's decision to further escalate its offensive
in Gaza is wrong and we urge it to reconsider immediately.
(31:20):
He went on about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and
made excellent points. He did not go so far as
to pull the plug on Israel, as Germany seems to
be about to Hukkabee, and again Hekabee wants to see
Israel destroyed and all the Jews in the world forcibly
converted one way or the other. Huckabee writes, with his
false sincerity, so Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas
(31:44):
and feed them, even though Israeli hostages are being starved.
And by the way, remember Mike Khawkabee became famous by
selling people weight loss cures that, ultimately, as he proved,
don't effing work. Speaking of starving people, did UK surrender
to Nazis and drop four to them? Ever heard of
(32:06):
Dresden PM starmer? That wasn't food you dropped. If you
had been PM, then UK would be speaking German. If
you're not in the United States, I'd like to point
out that I don't know how many of us at
the moment are infected by this brainworm or the curse
or whatever it is that's caused the mass lowering of
IQ and morality in this nation. I don't know if
(32:30):
it's forty percent or twenty percent. They're just real loud.
But for those of us who do not have this
brainworm and or curse, I'd like to once again apologize
on behalf of all of us in real America for
things like my cuckaby, and we're guilty of not doing
enough to stop Mi Kukabe because bluntly, we're just so
(32:50):
goddamned happy he's not in the country at the moment.
He's one of our greatest shames. The Charlton Mike Huckabee
has any role in the United States government, and to
use his phrasing there, he of course sought the residency
ran for president in two thousand and eight. Had he
gained the presidency, we in America, we would all already
(33:15):
be speaking Russian. Those are the first two nominees, but
the winner the worst, Pam Blondie, our Attorney general, who
makes Mike Huckabee seem like Woodrow Wilson, who sounds like
she has failed hundreds of auditions as the co host
on late night TV infomercials. Tell me more about these vegetables. Doctor.
(33:41):
Apparently for a long time, we've had a bounty out
twenty five million dollars on the scumbag Maduro, the essentially
dictator of Venezuela, and calls himself, I guess a socialist.
He's a scumbag. Well, she's just doubled this. By the way,
(34:01):
I'd just like to point out again she does not
know how to read any thing allowed, nor does she
have any ability to modulate or control.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
A volume of her voice. Today, the Department of Justice
and State Department are announcing a historic fifty million dollar
reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicholas Maduro.
Cocaine is often laced with fentanyl, resulting in the loss
and destruction of countless American lives.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Boy oh boy, pambody makes Christy Gnomes sound like the
vintage Kathleen Turner. Am I right, guys, Holy crap. But wait,
there's a fifty million dollar reward for information leading to
the arrest of Nicholas Maduro. Like like where he is?
Oo oo ooh, mister cutteur, mister cutteur, information leading to
(34:56):
the earth he's in. He's in Venezuela. So Pam Blondy
sent me my fifty million Pambondy, No, really, she's Attorney
General no, the of the United States. Hey, I got
an idea, Blondie. Why don't you arrest Putin while he's here?
Two days? Worst person in the world. Just after dinner,
(35:52):
the phone rang in my office at Channel five in
La I am a viewer. I took a deep breath.
You never knew where a call that started like that
was going to end up. I just wanted you to know.
I was out golfing at Riviera at the Riviera Club
this afternoon and Bruce McNall, the owner of the kings
Well He just walked through the locker room saying, hey, guys,
(36:13):
if you want to buy your seasoned Kings tickets, do
it now. It just traded for Wayne Gretzky. The price
is going to go up next week. To be polite
to the viewer, I asked a few questions, but frankly,
the story was pretty stupid. This was the second week
of August nineteen eighty eight, and there was a lot
of talk that the Edmonton Oilers were going to trade
(36:33):
Wayne Gretzky, the most famous player in hockey, and there
was nearly as much talk that that trade would send
him to use in La. But the owner of the
Kings just telling passers by at random in a golf
clubhouse that he had just made the trade. I was
suspicious that I was being pranked. Fifteen minutes later, my
(36:57):
phone rang again. Hi, I'm a big fan of yours
and I watch every night. Here we go again. I
was just having lunch with a friend of mine out
here at the golf course in bel Air, and like
an hour later, freaking Bruce McNall shows up in the
dining room and asks for everybody's attention, and he says
he's just completed the deal for Wayne Gretzky, and now
(37:18):
I was beginning to get actually worried. I was a
lame duck as the sports director of Channel five in
Los Angeles, and for months there had been rumors that
I was moving down the street to Channel two in
Los Angeles. There had been these rumors, mostly because I
was moving down the street to Channel two. The deal
had been done months earlier. We were going to announce
it that week. In fact, as these two guys called in,
(37:41):
I had actually been busily packing up my Channel five office.
My thought now was that the sportscaster at the local
NBC station, who had a bit of a substance problem
and a nasty temper and a real dislike for the
fact that I was nearly as popular as he was,
was setting me up. I had once managed to mislead
(38:02):
him into thinking we were about to break a story
about a big LA football trade. There was no breaking
story because there was no trade, and he had actually
mentioned it on the air, having clearly stolen it from
me because I was the one who had made it up.
And oh was he furious at me for all I
knew he wanted to embarrass me. Three weeks before I
(38:22):
moved into direct competition with him at five, six and eleven.
This August eighth, nineteen eighty eight was in fact my
first day back after I had burned all my Channel
five vacation time, and for all I knew, this guy
at NBC had been having his staffers call me for
a week with made up sightings of McNall confirming a
Gretzky trade that frankly, I never believed was going to happen.
(38:44):
I mean not to get two sidetracked here, But one
day my phone rang and it was a kid who said, Hi,
mister Oberman, I'm sorry, but I'm a finalist to be
an intern here at Channel four for Fred Rogan, and
mister Rogan says I can have the spot, but only
if I call you up right now and say I'm sorry.
If I call you up and I tell you to
go f your self, the kid did not say f
(39:07):
To his credit, he used his real name, Bill Weir.
He later became a sportscaster for the third Network station
in LA, then a correspondent for ABC and now CNN,
and I have not let a year go by since
without reminding him of his f yourself internship phone call
he said life paid him back by making him work
(39:29):
with the guy for several months. Anyway, back to Gretzky night.
Two supposed listeners have called to say that Bruce McNall,
the owner of the La Kings, is apparently trapesing through
golf locker rooms and dining rooms at country clubs to
tell them he has completed a trade for the babe
ruth of hockey, Wayne Gretzky. And they're calling me because
they like me. I'm suspicious. And now the phone rings again.
(39:55):
This guy was playing golf at the La country Club.
Same story, McNall, by your Kings tickets, No, I just
got Gretzky. The next caller had been a yet a
fourth club, I think Wilshire or something. If this was
a prankett was a big one, and bluntly I had
begun to admire it. Finally came a fifth call. You
(40:16):
don't know me, but I watch you every night. I
stumbled onto a story. I think you'll want to run tonight.
I said, which golf course were you at? And he said,
excuse me. I was in my office all day, and
so was my missus. She's on the phone with me.
She works for Bruce McNall the Kings. This time, I
grabbed a pencil, Honey, why don't you take it from here?
(40:37):
And she did. She worked in the finance office and
she had, literally, she said, just made out a check
for fifteen million dollars to the owner of the Edmonton Oilers,
Peter Pocklington. She said, and the note memo where you
write what it's for, I was told to put in
Wayne Gretzky. She also had seen the trade contract identified
(40:59):
the players the Kings were going to give up with
the fifteen million to get Gretzky. They were Jimmy Carson
and Martinez Jell. There were also draft choices, but she
didn't know or didn't remember the specifics of which ones. Now, breathless,
I asked her if I could call her back through
the switchboard of the LA Forum where the Kings and
McNall's offices were, just to confirm she was who she
(41:21):
said she was. She said, I could, I did she was.
I believe. In fact, she turned out to be the
only person on the McNall financial team that did not
get charged with something. So now I went in to
talk to my news director and to the producer of
our newscast we were not on until ten PM. It
was now about seven. They were very excited, and they
(41:41):
said that given that I had exact details from a
King's source, plus the four witnesses to the owner of
the team shooting off his big bazoo at every golf
course he could reach, that we should run it, and
that we should run it as the lead news story
right at the start of the newscast that night, which
we did. The Kings would not confirm it, obviously, but
(42:03):
as soon as I got off the with my sports
cast the second time I reported this story, a reporter
from the Associated Press was on the phone asking me
to read him my script, which he then quoted word
for word and put out on their sports wire. It
was on the back page of the New York Post.
The next day. My friends called me from New York
(42:23):
to say, hey, your sports cast is on the back
page of the New York Post along with this big
picture of Wayne Gretzky. The leak caused the Kings to
move up the announcement of the deal from their original plan,
which was Thursday the eleventh, to the next night, Tuesday
the ninth, A King's vice president told me at the
press conference that The Oilers were enraged because they had
(42:45):
wanted to hold off until the eleventh, because the deadline
for their season ticket holders to get their deposits back
were Wednesday the tenth. The Kings were nice enough to
let me of all the TV guys interview Gretzky first Live,
and I congratulated Wayne on the move, and he actually
congratulated me on the scoop, and I said I didn't
do anything but answer the phone, and he thought about
(43:06):
it for a second and said pretty much the same
for me, and we've been friendly ever since. But the
laziest scoop of all time did eventually come back with
a sting for me and some payback. A year later,
we all submitted our best stories for consideration for the
local Emmy for Best TV Sports Reporting for the calendar
year nineteen eighty eight. I submitted Surprise, Surprise, the Gretzky scoop.
(43:32):
The Emmys were always judged by a committee of television
types from a different city, so he didn't have that
home La Bias and the guy from NBC, who I
had first thought was pranking me about the Gretzky story,
had somehow found out that the Emmys for nineteen eighty
eight would be judged in nineteen eighty nine in Ohio.
In Columbus, Ohio, I think so he managed to get
(43:54):
an interview with Morgana the Kissing Bandit, who was this
scantily clad, buxome woman you may remember, who in the
old days of innocence, used to bribe her way on
Major League Baseball fields and bounce out onto the plate
or the mound, and she'd go and kiss stars like
George Brent and Nolan Ryan during games. Morgana MORGANA. Roberts
(44:17):
lived near Columbus, Ohio, so sure enough, at the Emmys
the next year, my exclusive report of the trade of
Hockey's greatest player, Wayne Gretzky was one of the finalists
for the Los Angeles Best TV Sports Reporting Emmy. But
in the ceremony, and it was at some old Landmark
hotel in Pasadena, they showed clips of all the pieces
(44:37):
that were finalists and then announced that the winner was
Fred Rogan KNBC. For being chased by Morgana the Kissing Bandit,
my agent stood up and bowed my girlfriend, punched me
in the arm and said let's get out of here
and go drinking. We left I've done all of the
(45:13):
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Most
of our countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil. Our musical directors have
countdown and my great thanks to them. It was produced
by TKO Brothers. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass
and drums. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical
(45:33):
and pithical, Our satirical and pithical musical comments are by
the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. Thank you, Nancy,
Thank you for never saying pithical. The Olderman theme for
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis, is courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
(45:56):
That's the sports music. Thank you, ESPN. Other music arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed, Thank you,
No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend Larry David.
Thank you Larry. Everything else was as always my fault.
Thank you me. It's countdown for today. Day one two
(46:16):
hundred and four America held hostage and only seems like
one two hundred four. It's just two hundred and four,
but it is just one, two hundred and fifty nine
days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and
lame brained term, unless he is removed sooner by MAGA
and trump'steen or the Actuarial Tables, or while they're arresting
(46:40):
Putin in Alaska on Friday, Go Go Go. The next
scheduled countdown is Thursday till then. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. The Nobel Peace
(47:08):
Prize Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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Host
Keith Olbermann
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