September 26, 2024 • 39 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 36: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: White Trash Congressman Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) has now targeted stochastic terrorism against the legal Haitian migrants in Ohio and elsewhere: "Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters, but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP. All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th."
His enabler, Speaker Mike Johnson, has blocked efforts to censure Higgins - the idiot who believes "Ghost Buses" transported somebody to January 6th - and insisted that Higgins prayed over his tweet and then deleted it. This raises the question obvious to everybody but the world's smallest politician: Why didn't Higgins pray BEFORE he virtually dropped the N-word on a bunch of legal residents in Ohio?
If at any point between now and the election you stop being angry that Donald Trump and his fellow peddler of cultural heroin JD Vance have let creatures like Clay Higgins crawl out of the woodwork, suck it up. The election of November 5th is as existential for this nation as was the Civil War – and many of the issues are identical. And the results must be.
TRUMP ALSO AGAIN ADMITS HE LOST "BY A WHISKER" IN 2020. He apparently forgot he previously used the same analogy, then denied it and said he was being sarcastic, and has now said it again. He also says Iran is trying to kill him because he's trying to restore the furniture industry in North Carolina and "they only kill consequential presidents."
This psychopath is PRE-BRAGGING ON HIS OWN POSSIBLE ASSASSINATION.
There's extraordinary news out of polling for the Senate race in Nebraska and it IS Jack Smith day and there was a blooper on Fox yesterday so grotesque as to be hilarious.
B-Block (20:11) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A brief Nuzzi update featuring my ex-girlfriend’s ex-fiancee’s because of my ex-friend’s sexts’ ex-wife. The medalists? Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski threatens Harris voters in Ohio. Jamie Dimon spits on all immigrants, like the grave of his immigrant grandfather. And Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are too stupid to understand that the Republicans will ban abortion whether the Democrats get rid of the filibuster or not.
C-Block (28:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 20 years ago Nicolle Wallace was one of the Bush White House thugs trying to kill MSNBC, the Democrats, me - and especially the man who caught Bush lying about Saddam and uranium, Ambassador Joe Wilson. The Bushes were convinced I was on their side in the story, so they kept emailing me talking points, But because Nicolle and the others were too lazy to look up the correct spelling of my name, I never got the emails directly - only forwarded from the people within NBC whom the Bushies knew would carry their water for them.
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. Happy
Jack Smith Day to all who celebrate first. A sitting
(00:28):
US congressman is now openly threatening Haitian immigrants, all of
whom are here legally, some of whom have been here
for generations. Clay Higgins, the disgraced ex cop from Louisiana
who fabricated a story about evidence he fabricated about a
thing he fabricated called January sixth ghost buses, told the
(00:50):
Haitians to quote get their ass out of our country
before January twentieth. In a tweet over a screenshot of
the news we mentioned yesterday here that a group representing
the immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, that Trump and Senator Van
Ants and other Republicans are trying to get killed via
stochastic terrorism. That that group was suing to try to
(01:11):
force the prosecution of Trump and Vance for breaking the
law by such incitement. Higgins writes, lull, these Haitians are wild,
eating pets, voodoo, nastiest country in the Western Hemisphere, cults,
slapstick gangsters, but damned if they don't feel all sophisticated.
Now filing charges against our president and VP all these
(01:35):
thugs better get their mind right and their ass out
of our country before January twentieth, unquote. Leaving aside the
question of whose mind is right, Clay Higgins apparently thinks JV.
Vance is Vice president right now just because his fascist
party has nominated him. The blowback was immediate. Before the
(01:57):
House adjourned yesterday, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus
attempted to get Higgins immediately censured for his racist lineage
and his violent threats against legal residents of the United States.
Now that, as Stephen Horsford says, he confronted Higgins and
demanded Higgins delete the tweet. Quoting Horsford, he actually told
me no, he would not. Horsford's censure bid was blocked
(02:19):
for the moment by Republicans led my speaker Mike Johnson,
also an ass from Louisiana. Johnson, who Tuesday revealed by
what he refused to say, that he would be on
the side of the next Republican attempt to nullify the
election by legal trickery, just as he was on the
side of the last Republican attempt to do so, said
that this matter was now closed because Higgins did in fact,
(02:41):
delete the get their ass out of our country tweet,
Johnson claimed, Higgins quote prayed about it, and he regretted it,
and he pulled the post down. That's what you want
a gentleman to do. I'm sure he probably regrets some
of the language he used, Johnson says, but you know,
we move forward. We believe in redemption around here, right.
(03:06):
The only regret Clay Higgins has about the language he
used is that he stopped himself from using the N
word to describe the targets of his stochastic terrorism. Johnson,
who has long since solidified his reputation as the smarmiest
and most morally weightless speaker in the history of the
(03:26):
House of Representatives, did not explain why this scumbag Higgins
didn't pray about his tweet before he posted it and
reignited the nightmare unfolding in Ohio and elsewhere for Haitian
Americans and Irish Americans and Ohio and Americans and non
psychotic people named Higgins Americans. The most positive thing that
(03:49):
can be said about the Higgins threat is that he
declared he only wanted all the Haitians to leave the
United States within four months, rather than to have them
all killed. I don't know what kind of redemption Johnson
thinks is possible here any longer, but bluntly, the only
redemption is that of the United States of America, and
it involves putting slime like Clay Higgins in prison or
(04:12):
in a psychiatric institution as quickly as possible, and getting
them out of the goddamned House of Representatives before it's
too late. It is Clay Higgins or America. It is
Clay Higgins and a fascist apartheid state in which every
lie is truth as long as it is directed against
someone who is not powerful or white, or the America
(04:35):
we have spent two hundred and forty eight years trying
to improve, even when white trash like Clay Higgins and
those hiding their tolerance for bigotry behind tailored suits like
Speaker Johnson, have tried to turn this country back to
Jim Crow, to lynchings, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and an attitude
(04:55):
that at its core amounts to this. My ancestors were
allowed to come here and make my life possible, Yours
are not. Why because I say so, If at any
point between now and election day, you stop being enraged
(05:17):
that Donald Trump and his fellow peddler of cultural heroine J. D. Vance,
have let worser creatures like Clay Higgins crawl out of
the woodwork. If you flag between now and then suck
it up. The election of November fifth is as existential
(05:37):
for this nation as was the Civil War, and many
of the issues are unchanged from the Civil War, and
the results must be identical. And by the way, the
phrase cultural heroine to describe what Trump has done to America,
that was coined in twenty sixteen by JD. Vance. As
(06:27):
we await the amended Jack Smith filing in Washington, again
we find ourselves on the subject of how far Trump
is gone mentally. Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown this month.
Yesterday Trump forgot he already admitted he lost the twenty
twenty election quote by a whisker, and then insisted, no, no,
(06:50):
he didn't mean that. He was being sarcastic and cynical
when he said whisker. And so he yesterday went back
and again admitted that he lost the twenty twenty election
by a whisker.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
More votes than any sitting president in the history of
our country. But they beat us by a whisker. They
beat us us by a little whisker.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I am now waiting for somebody to ask drooling Jay
Trump about the whisker and for him to say he
was being sarcastic and cynical, so we can start this
crap cycle all over again. Trump's new thing is that
he has been targeted for assassination twice by Iran, that
the assassination attempts were by Iran in some way. This
(07:36):
is not entirely one of his hallucinations. He was apparently
briefed on what Secretary of State Blincoln went public about yesterday,
that Iran has targeted dozens of top US officials, including
virtually everybody now in the White House and Trump, with
assassination and hacking at everything else. Of course, to Trump,
(07:58):
all the languages of the world, all spoken sounds sound
like the teacher and the Charlie Brown specials, so all
he would have heard, and that briefing was Trump Iran.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa wow. And then of course Trump
added the motive to this Iranian plot to kill him
(08:21):
and only him. And they want to kill him because
because of because of the furniture, because he's trying to
bring back the furniture finishing business to Mint Hill in
North Carolina. I bet even now you think I'm kidding
about this one. I'm not kidding about this one.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
All of your furniture makers are going to come back
and come back bigger and stronger and better than ever before.
They're mostly gone. They're all coming back. This is why
people in countries want to kill me. They're not happy
with me. It is to say risky business. This is
(09:07):
why they want to kill me. They only kill consequential presidents.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Remember that, not at all insane. The Iranians want to
kill him because he's bringing the furniture business back to
North Carolina from Tehran. I guess because they only kill
consequential presidents, the ones who restore America's furniture factories. He
(09:35):
is trying to pre brag on himself in case they
actually assassinate him. Oh, he's fine, He's out of his
freaking gord. He continues to sound high as a kite,
and in the video that accompanied what you just heard,
his face looked like a box of melting candlesticks. But
(09:59):
tell me again, Lindsey Graham, about why you don't think
that if he's returned to office, He's still going to
kill us all, including you. That day had begun just
after Tuesday turned into Wednesday with the briefest, craziest, most
harrowing Trump's social media post of all time. And I
know I'm really saying something when I say that. At
(10:20):
twelve twelve am Wednesday, Trump posted quote, a great day
in Louisiana. He was in Georgia. That is perhaps why
it was a great day in Louisiana. Meanwhile, what follows
here was an actual surprise. Harris Faulkner of Fox News,
(10:41):
dressed up like a cross between Angela Lansbury and the
Manchurian candidate and a slightly cleaned up version of reach
on He the anchor propagandist from North Korea Nightly News.
Harris Faulkner explains to guests Congresswoman Nancy Mace that Trump
was Let's just say that, according to what Harris Faulkner said,
(11:03):
it appears we've all been carrying the lead these last
twenty four hours.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Why would anybody want to block information about the assassination
of former President Trump?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
By the way, if I'm going to tell you, Harris
Faulkner was dressed up like that North Korean news lady.
In fairness, I had to tell you Nancy Mace was
wearing a pearl necklace. No, a real one. Two national
(11:37):
polls of note from yesterday, both head to head and
full candidate slate by you gov for the economist Harris
by three active vote for whatever active vote is worth,
Harris by three. The swing states are all over the map.
No pun intended Harris by three in Pennsylvania by Monmouth,
or by two by Focal Data, or tied by RMG
(11:59):
and SP and R. I'm imagining one of them's right,
maybe of the most interest, maybe of the most interest.
This week from the pollsters, survey USA has polled. Nebraska
hasn't been done in a while. Districts one and three
are Trump landslides District two. The blue dot is Harris
by fifteen. There is no surprise there. It is the
(12:22):
Nebraska Senate polling that is dumbfounding. Incumbent Republican Senator Fisher
trails Independent Dan Osborne forty five forty four. The Republican
is losing within the margin of error. For the Senate
from Nebraska. Dan Osbourne is a steam fitter, a Navy Vet,
(12:44):
a Union leader and a Democrat registered since twenty sixteen.
He is proving that the oldest of Republican tricks can
work both ways. If and when your party affiliation is
going to cost you a point or a vote, just
pretend it never happened. Speaking of which, we swing back
(13:07):
to that little shit Mike Johnson, who has ordered Ukrainian
President Vladimir Zelensky to fire his ambassador, the Ukrainian Ambassador
to the United States, because Zelensky went to the factory
in Pennsylvania where munitions for Ukraine have been manufactured. No seriously,
(13:28):
little big man Mike thinks he runs two governments rather
than you know none. The Republicans have now decided that
the Zelenski factory visit was a campaign event and thus
interference in the American election by Zelenski because Governor Josh
(13:49):
Shapiro was at the factory too, and Shapiro was briefly
a candidate to be Kamala Harris's running mate. No, seriously,
Johnson is on firmer ground with Clay Higgins than he
is with this one or with the other half of this.
Johnson's little fat ass henchman, James Comer claims to be
(14:11):
opening an investigation into Zolensky and the visit, and he
wants the testimony of Merrick Garland and Lloyd Austin, and
I don't know he wants Jesus to testify because, of
course Trump is still pissed about that little favu he
needed from Zelensky. Also, Comer has apparently decided that since
(14:32):
his entire life has now become an utter failure because
he never even took a vote on impeaching Biden as president,
what the hell, maybe he can still try to impeach
Zelenski as president. And yes, of course James Comer, Mike
(14:52):
Johnson and Clay Higgins are not just congressional viruses with shoes.
They all constitute part of Louisiana's Republican delegation. Squirt Louisiana,
thank you for sending us your spoiled oysters. Also of
(15:12):
interest here. Okay, the newsy RFK story may be petering out,
but not before London's Daily Mail interviewed doctor Christina Irene Gillespie.
And who is she? Well, we know this much about her.
She had the dignity to tell the London Rag I
am taking care of patients right now. Please don't call back.
(15:38):
Oh if only all of us could have said something
like that. An explanation is next. This is countdown.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman saw ahead of us
(16:12):
on this edition to Countdown. I was watching the MSNBC
promo campaign to advertise Kamala Harris's first interview last night. Oh,
first one on one with somebody named Stephanie on a
Wednesday at seven pm. But they're trying to make a
count in the eight pm ratings by calling it the
(16:33):
Chris Hayes Show. It's the first one of those.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
I mean, it's like these endless, nauseating baseball desperate efforts
to make clubs a thing showy Otani has seven triples,
four cot stealings, and ten intentional walks. He's just become
the first member of the seven four to ten club. Anyway,
these advertisements made it dawn on me and knew that
there was a prominent MSNBC anchor who twenty years ago
(16:59):
was actively trying to destroy MSNBC and me and the
Democratic Party on behalf of George W. Bush. And nobody
even bats an Ie about what she's doing now. And
it wasn't Joe Scarborough, the saga of the White House
that couldn't spell straight. Next in Things I promised not
(17:19):
to tell first, there are still more new idiots to
talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today worst persons
in the world. A preamble, there is no Newsy Nudes
News network today, although The London Daily Mail managed to
(17:40):
get a five word no comment from Newsy's former fiance's
former wife, and that led me to figure out that
relative to me, she is Are you ready? She is
my ex girlfriends, x fiances because of my ex friends, sexts,
(18:05):
ex wife a lot of exits. I also feel compelled
to compliment The New York Post on turning Monday's accounty
in this podcast into the first kind of fair, not cynical,
not inaccurate story involving me in the Post in the
last thirty years. They also spelled my name correctly roughly
twenty five percent of the time in the piece, which
(18:26):
I think is a new accuracy record for the Post.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Bravo, sir.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Anyway, the Bronze Worse Sheriff Bruce Sikowski of Portage County
Ohio told you about Bruce previously. He's the guy with
no neck and a bad rug who told voters there
told them on his official sheriff's Facebook page to look
for Kamala Harris campaign signs in yards in Portage County,
Ohio and write down the addresses so that when the
(18:54):
billions of the immigrants are sent to their Ohio towns
to eat their I don't know what is the lie now,
to eat their babies? What is it is? Is it fish?
What is it? Anyway, right down their addresses so you
can then send the migrants, or as Sheriff Zukowski called them,
with his seventh grade education, the locust, to live at
(19:17):
those houses. That was his excuse. Of course, writing down
addresses of who is supporting the Democrat in a red
county is stochastic terrorism. Well, God blessed the Elections Board
of Portage County, Ohio. They, including one of the two Republicans,
decided that Sheriff Zukowski was way over the line here.
They have barred their own sheriff's office from providing the
(19:42):
security during early voting, having determined that the mere sight
of Zukowski's brown shirts may serve as an illegal form
of electoral intimidation. They say they will borrow another county's
officers or hire private security instead. The one member of
the board who voted to keep the Nazis running the
elections says, the real victims here are Zukowski's office, who
(20:05):
committed no crime and blah blah blah blah blah. People
were literally saying at a town meeting they were now
afraid to vote because of what he posted. Zakowski should
be rotting in prison for this, but I don't think
we have the laws to put him there yet. The
runner up worser, Jamie Diamond, CEO of JP Morgan and
(20:25):
just as big a money grubbing swine as the founder
of the firm, was quote, if you do not control
the borders, you are going to destroy our country. Now
that they are sending migrants into New York, he said
on the Money is more important than Life Network CNBC.
Now that they are sending migrants into New York, all
(20:47):
my super liberal friends realize what a problem it is.
Once again, I cherish my ancestors. I love the thought
of my great great grandfather Frederick Olderman getting off the
boat at Castle Garden in New York and opening up
his blacksmith shop at forty sixth and Fifth in the
year eighteen forty seven, and me maybe going back in
(21:10):
time and telling him, look, Fred, never mind the blacksmith shop,
try to buy this land right here. I love the
fact that I am the end result of his courage.
Lord knows I don't have his courage. Just the blessings
Jamie Diamond. As the online commentator NYC Southpawd notes, Jamie
(21:32):
Diamond dishonors his ancestors, quoting Jamie Diamond's paternal grandfather, Panos
Papa Demetrio, immigrated from Greece to New York in nineteen
twenty one, the year a racist reaction against Southern and
Eastern European immigration led to the Quota Act. So did
(21:53):
Jamie Diamond's grandfather get into this country legally or illegally?
Let's see the documents, Jamie. The last time we decided
that we had to control the borders to keep immigrants
skuf like Jamie Diamond's grandfather out. What happened?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Then?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
May your grandfather come back from the dead, Jamie, and
drain your bank accounts and give all the money to
the new immigrants who count not like you, mf R.
But our winners the worst a tie between two senators
we have thankfully disposed of, Joe Manchin of West Virginia
and Kirsten Cinema of Arizona. And yes, if you are
(22:32):
new to the podcast, I went out with her for
a while too, and she and I also went to
see Book of Mormon twice. And even I'm getting tired
of this. And when I say tired, I mean I'm
not tired at all. I mean, what's the phrase I'm
thinking of laughing hysterically about all this. AnyWho, you've heard Manchin,
who is a scumbag that we've all pretended to be
(22:54):
nice to for twenty years because he occasionally voted with
the Democrats in the Senate. He says he will not
endorse Kamala Harris for president because she wants to eliminate
the filibuster in order to enshrine Roe v. Wade in
federal law. Now, setting aside for the moment the reality
that this will probably increase Harris's vote count in West
Virginia because they don't like Mansion there either, let's move
(23:14):
on to his fellow theoretical constitutionalist idiot, Kirsten Cinema is
a very different kind of person from Mansion. She's not
really a moron. She's in fact exceedingly bright, but as
they would say in baseball, she has reverse dunning. Krueger splits,
she knows she's smart, but unlike most smart people who think, well,
(23:37):
if I know this, lots of other people must know
it too, she thinks she's not only the smartest one
in the room, but the only smart one in the room. Sinny,
responding to the plan to eliminate the philibuster quote to
state the supremely obvious. Eliminating the filibuster to codify real
V made also enable to future Congress to ban all
(23:58):
aborich nahtan wide, Henny, what an absolutely terrible, short sighted idea.
When is not dawned on Kirsten Because she is the
smartest one in the room and the only one that's
smart in the room. Rest of us are all idiots.
What's not dawned on her is that her pals, the Republicans,
they're not going to wait for Congress to ban all
(24:19):
abortion nationwide. They're going to do it themselves. The next
Republican president will do it himself. He'll probably send troops
into the states that still permit abortion, and if he
wants to make it all actually legal, if there's a
Republican controlled Senate, he'll have them eliminate the filibuster or
force an exception to it, like the exceptions to the
filibuster have been forced roughly one hundred and fifty times
(24:41):
in my lifetime alone. Idiots, Senator Joe Manchin and Senator
Kirsten you self satisfied, unimaginative, smug ass clown cinema two
days worst persons than the world. Finally to the number
(25:15):
one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me
and things I promised not to tell. And on Monday,
May third, two thousand and four, my executive producer phoned
me at home and said, we got Ambassador Joe Wilson.
He'll be on the show tomorrow. Within hours, the communications
office of the White House of George W. Bush began
a desperate, ceaseless, tireless effort to send me one email
(25:41):
with talking points about Ambassador Joe Wilson, which repeatedly hilariously
failed to get through to me because none of them
could spell my name correctly. By late in the evening
of May third, and Throughout the morning of May the fourth,
I got calls and forwarded emails from people throughout NBC
who had received emails of their own from the Bush
(26:03):
White House Communications Office, all of them with attachments addressed
to Keith Oberman without the L, Keith Olberman with only
one N, Kaieth Olberman Keith spelled wrong, and even Keith
Oberman with a V. This was actually truly the first
day I believed I was having an impact on the
(26:23):
Bush White House, and also the first day I realized
they were incredibly stupid. There democracy still had a slim chance.
The Internet had been operating at more or less its
present speed since about nineteen ninety seven or nineteen ninety eight.
My name was all over the Internet in articles about
my news career, about my sports career, about my previous
(26:47):
news career. There were articles I had written, there were
books I had written, and these people who were trying
to reshape the United States of America into a reactionary, conservative, cruel, xenophobic,
semi authoritarian state were not smart enough to figure out
how to spell my name, just so we know who
(27:09):
we are talking about. By this point, Scott McClellan had
succeeded the infamous Aary Fleischer as press secretary. His deputies
were Dana Perino, who went from being the stupidest person
ever to be White House Press secretary to being one
of the stupidest persons ever to have a show on
Fox News, Pamela is Stevens, who later wound up as
a producer at CNN. Because political press people are exactly
(27:32):
like unemployed football coaches or baseball managers who get TV
jobs and then leave the TV jobs to go back
onto the field. The communications director was named Dan Bartlett,
and there was another communications person there named Nicole Wallace,
who has somehow shaken off the stink of working for
both George and Jeb Bush and is now considered a
(27:53):
darling of MSNBC, even though her only true non fascist
credential is she doesn't like Trump either. The crack White
House media team representing the most powerful man in the world,
the anxious and foreshadowing years after nine to eleven, and
not one of them could even find anybody else who
could spell my name, let alone spell it themselves. More
(28:17):
on them in a moment, But I need to explain
who Joe Wilson was if you don't know, and why
he was so important. Long before Colin Powell confessed to
Tim Russert that he had been lied to by the
White House, and thus he himself had lied to the
United Nations about Sadam Hussein's imaginary weapons of mass destruction.
(28:38):
Those were the excuses from Bush Cheney for dragging this
country into an unnecessary and national soul destroying war in
Iraq with lies and torture and scapegoating and suppression and brutality.
Before that, there was Ambassador Joseph Charles Wilson fourth, and
in two thousand and two, after pressure from the White House,
the CIA sent him back to the scene of his
(29:00):
first diplomatic posting, the African nation of Niger to get
proof for Bush that Saddam was trying to buy yellow
cake uranium there to make nuclear bombses out of and
Wilson quickly found out it was nonsense, and he reported
back and the Bush White House promptly buried his findings
and instead, in the two thousand and three State of
(29:21):
the Union address just before he started bombing Iraq, George W.
Bush said, the British government has learned that Sadam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. It was
and remains a complete lie, and war occurred because of it,
and Joe Wilson called it a complete lie in an
(29:41):
op ed in the New York Times on July sixth,
two thousand and three. The Iraq War was still at
this stage defined by Rah Rah, we're winning, but Sadam's
WND and his biological weapons and his chemical weapons might
be over the next hill. And you'd better not criticize
what we're doing, or maybe you're a terrorist. Joe Wilson said.
The emperor had no clothes in two thousand and three,
(30:05):
he was an American hero of the highest order. A
week later, a Dick Cheney flunky named Scooter Libby and
a Deputy Secretary of State named Armitage began a campaign
to punish Joe Wilson and discredit him. They leaked to
a dyspeptic and hate filled columnist named Robert Novak, who
(30:25):
is now working in the Bureau in Hell, that Wilson's
wife was an undercover agent for the CIA, and that
her name was Valerie Plain, and that the pair of
them were dirty Democrats. And moreover, it was Plain who
had urged that her own husband be sent to Niger
to deliberately not find the uranium or the Sadam Hussein
(30:46):
signed receipts, or whatever Bush expected to find there. The
Bush white House destroyed the career of risked the life
of and ruined several assignments and contacts of one of
this country's own secret CIA agents, just to make her
husband look bad. So in May two thousand and four,
(31:07):
when Joe Wilson wrote a book about all this crap,
and he inexplicably wanted to go on MSNBC, which was
still at that point trying to be more conservative than
Fox Nudes, and wanted to go on My little watched show,
which was considered the neutral outlier on a network full
of Joe Scarboroughs and Michael Savage's. This was a happy
surprise for us, which was followed by this wonderful, flailing
(31:31):
effort by the Bush White House to send me talking
points about Joe Wilson before I interviewed him. They not
only could not spell my name, but they were utterly
convinced that my interview was designed to discredit Joe Wilson.
The talking points which eventually got to me from Assistant
Press Secretary Pamela Stevens consisted of six items over two pages.
(31:52):
The headings were as follows. One political motivation. This was
about Wilson calling Dick Cheney a lying sob about a
year after the knee jair trip. I couldn't figure this
one out. Dick Cheney was a lying so b. That's
how I got to be vice president. Two Gingrich spokesman
calls allegations about alleged March two thousand and three meeting
(32:12):
completely false. This cited Newt Gingrich and his people as
if they were good sources, as opposed to the punchlines
they already were back then. In two thousand and four.
Talking point number three, McClellan points out political objective, and
four McClellan addresses accusations. These were quotes from the press secretary.
(32:35):
This man suddenly quit that job two years later two
thousand and six, and confessed he had repeatedly lied for
George W. Bush and the others, and now he just
couldn't take it anymore, and he would come on my
show and give one of the best Atonement interviews I've
ever heard. It went on for forty five minutes. Five
Fleischer says VP office did not request trip a quote
(32:58):
from McLellan's predecessor, who unless he is talking about baseball,
you should assume he's lying. Plus he might be lying
about baseball. And finally, six statement by George J. Tennant
July eleven, two thousand and three. This was a quote
from the CIA director which they thought was their home run,
and it basically consisted of this. Bush never saw that report.
(33:22):
That was it. There are three punchlines to this story.
Number one. I don't know why the Bush Communications office
assumed I was there to take down Joe Wilson, But
the moment I saw these talking points, any lingering doubt
I had that they were not all lying bastards down
there was erased. I used the talking points in my interview,
(33:43):
all right. I read them out loud to Joe Wilson,
and he rebutted each of them with impeccable charm and elegance.
He and Valerie Plain became regular guests on My show
and would beat the crap out of George Bush with
the plom right through the morning of January twenty, two
thousand and nine. Second punchline a year earlier, a supply
(34:03):
clerk with a maintenance company on the ground in Iraq,
was captured Private Jessica Lynch. The military and the Bush
administration immediately put out the story that she was being
tortured by them evil Iraqi Sadam Hussein doctors. There was
the glorious rescue of Jessica Lynch which followed, and the
parades and the you better not question this story period,
(34:26):
which lasted about six weeks until a Toronto newspaper printed
a substantially different account that Lynch was rescued from an
Iraqi hospital and a US military team in good faith
went in to extract her, but that this was all arranged,
not by some sort of part of intelligence or US
(34:47):
operations or the Allies, but by the Iraqi doctors. Some
of them sneaked over to American lines at great danger
and said, one of your soldiers is hurt and we
don't have the right equipment to help her. Could you
swing by and pick her up. I reported that version
on MSNBC, and the next day, as I was still
(35:08):
taking my coat off, my boss, Phil Griffin called me
in and said that the head of NBC News and
the president of NBC, Bob Wright, had been on the
phone all morning to him, insisting I should be fired
for implying that the Bush administration had lied. Griffin proudly
said he had talked him into letting me get away
(35:29):
with just apologizing to the troops. I can't even read
this with a straight face now, twenty years later, apologizing
to the troops who rescued her, I must credit myself
when my brain was fulled in that I did some
quick thinking. The demand was comical nonsense journalistically. On the
(35:50):
other hand, if I agreed to apologize to okay, the
troops who rescued her, whoever you want, I would get
the chance to tell the whole real story of Jessica
Lynch again. So I did. The apology was fifteen seconds,
and while unnecessary, was sincere. I didn't want to make
(36:10):
the troops look bad. They didn't know anything about this crap.
I made sure, however, that the retelling of the true
Lynch rescue story took about two and a half minutes.
That was in June of two thousand and three. So
why as of May of two thousand and four, the
Bush White House thought I was sympathetic to them, I'll
never know, or why they bothered with me, I'll never know,
(36:32):
which brings me to the last point. The unintended side
effect with the long term impact of all those failed
White House emails with my name misspelled was that this
Pamelas Stevens person promptly forwarded them to people around NBC
whom she considered friendly to George W. Bush. One of
(36:53):
them was Tom Brokaw's assistant, another was in the office
of future NBC News president Steve Cappus, and the final
one was to some guy named George Uribe. And so
I found about all the people in the Bush administrations
we like them, list at NBC News who I should
avoid under all circumstances. Let's see Brokaw's assistance. So no Brokaw,
(37:15):
somebody in Cappus's office, and no Cappus, and this guy
George Ribey. And George Rebay turned out to be a
guy hired by MSNBC from Fox News to go work
for Scarborough. He fell out of favor with Joe Scarborough,
and I guess he didn't henchman enough for Joe's tastes,
(37:37):
and his influence fell to a guy. I don't think
I've mentioned him to you yet, Chris Licked. I've done
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
(37:58):
We're now back to five episodes a week, posting nightly
just after midnight Eastern. Once again, there is a Monday Countdown.
Please forward this podcast to a non listener who should
start listening, and start listening now. Brian Ray and John
Phillip Shaneil, the musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced, and
performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
(38:20):
Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums. It was
produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today was my friend Nancy Faust. Everything else
(38:43):
was as usual, pretty much my fault. That's countdown for today.
Five weeks and five days until the twenty twenty four
presidential election and the one three hundred and sixtieth day
since convicted felon drooling Jay Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States, use the election,
(39:04):
use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if we
have to, to keep him from doing it again while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow Bolton's,
as the news requires. Till then, I'm Keith Oldremman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, I miss the post, and good luck.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
They only kill consequential presidents. Remember that.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
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. Happy
Jack Smith Day to all who celebrate first. A sitting
(00:28):
US congressman is now openly threatening Haitian immigrants, all of
whom are here legally, some of whom have been here
for generations. Clay Higgins, the disgraced ex cop from Louisiana
who fabricated a story about evidence he fabricated about a
thing he fabricated called January sixth ghost buses, told the
(00:50):
Haitians to quote get their ass out of our country
before January twentieth. In a tweet over a screenshot of
the news we mentioned yesterday here that a group representing
the immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, that Trump and Senator Van
Ants and other Republicans are trying to get killed via
stochastic terrorism. That that group was suing to try to
(01:11):
force the prosecution of Trump and Vance for breaking the
law by such incitement. Higgins writes, lull, these Haitians are wild,
eating pets, voodoo, nastiest country in the Western Hemisphere, cults,
slapstick gangsters, but damned if they don't feel all sophisticated.
Now filing charges against our president and VP all these
(01:35):
thugs better get their mind right and their ass out
of our country before January twentieth, unquote. Leaving aside the
question of whose mind is right, Clay Higgins apparently thinks JV.
Vance is Vice president right now just because his fascist
party has nominated him. The blowback was immediate. Before the
(01:57):
House adjourned yesterday, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus
attempted to get Higgins immediately censured for his racist lineage
and his violent threats against legal residents of the United States.
Now that, as Stephen Horsford says, he confronted Higgins and
demanded Higgins delete the tweet. Quoting Horsford, he actually told
me no, he would not. Horsford's censure bid was blocked
(02:19):
for the moment by Republicans led my speaker Mike Johnson,
also an ass from Louisiana. Johnson, who Tuesday revealed by
what he refused to say, that he would be on
the side of the next Republican attempt to nullify the
election by legal trickery, just as he was on the
side of the last Republican attempt to do so, said
that this matter was now closed because Higgins did in fact,
(02:41):
delete the get their ass out of our country tweet,
Johnson claimed, Higgins quote prayed about it, and he regretted it,
and he pulled the post down. That's what you want
a gentleman to do. I'm sure he probably regrets some
of the language he used, Johnson says, but you know,
we move forward. We believe in redemption around here, right.
(03:06):
The only regret Clay Higgins has about the language he
used is that he stopped himself from using the N
word to describe the targets of his stochastic terrorism. Johnson,
who has long since solidified his reputation as the smarmiest
and most morally weightless speaker in the history of the
(03:26):
House of Representatives, did not explain why this scumbag Higgins
didn't pray about his tweet before he posted it and
reignited the nightmare unfolding in Ohio and elsewhere for Haitian
Americans and Irish Americans and Ohio and Americans and non
psychotic people named Higgins Americans. The most positive thing that
(03:49):
can be said about the Higgins threat is that he
declared he only wanted all the Haitians to leave the
United States within four months, rather than to have them
all killed. I don't know what kind of redemption Johnson
thinks is possible here any longer, but bluntly, the only
redemption is that of the United States of America, and
it involves putting slime like Clay Higgins in prison or
(04:12):
in a psychiatric institution as quickly as possible, and getting
them out of the goddamned House of Representatives before it's
too late. It is Clay Higgins or America. It is
Clay Higgins and a fascist apartheid state in which every
lie is truth as long as it is directed against
someone who is not powerful or white, or the America
(04:35):
we have spent two hundred and forty eight years trying
to improve, even when white trash like Clay Higgins and
those hiding their tolerance for bigotry behind tailored suits like
Speaker Johnson, have tried to turn this country back to
Jim Crow, to lynchings, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and an attitude
(04:55):
that at its core amounts to this. My ancestors were
allowed to come here and make my life possible, Yours
are not. Why because I say so, If at any
point between now and election day, you stop being enraged
(05:17):
that Donald Trump and his fellow peddler of cultural heroine J. D. Vance,
have let worser creatures like Clay Higgins crawl out of
the woodwork. If you flag between now and then suck
it up. The election of November fifth is as existential
(05:37):
for this nation as was the Civil War, and many
of the issues are unchanged from the Civil War, and
the results must be identical. And by the way, the
phrase cultural heroine to describe what Trump has done to America,
that was coined in twenty sixteen by JD. Vance. As
(06:27):
we await the amended Jack Smith filing in Washington, again
we find ourselves on the subject of how far Trump
is gone mentally. Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown this month.
Yesterday Trump forgot he already admitted he lost the twenty
twenty election quote by a whisker, and then insisted, no, no,
(06:50):
he didn't mean that. He was being sarcastic and cynical
when he said whisker. And so he yesterday went back
and again admitted that he lost the twenty twenty election
by a whisker.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
More votes than any sitting president in the history of
our country. But they beat us by a whisker. They
beat us us by a little whisker.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I am now waiting for somebody to ask drooling Jay
Trump about the whisker and for him to say he
was being sarcastic and cynical, so we can start this
crap cycle all over again. Trump's new thing is that
he has been targeted for assassination twice by Iran, that
the assassination attempts were by Iran in some way. This
(07:36):
is not entirely one of his hallucinations. He was apparently
briefed on what Secretary of State Blincoln went public about yesterday,
that Iran has targeted dozens of top US officials, including
virtually everybody now in the White House and Trump, with
assassination and hacking at everything else. Of course, to Trump,
(07:58):
all the languages of the world, all spoken sounds sound
like the teacher and the Charlie Brown specials, so all
he would have heard, and that briefing was Trump Iran.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa wow. And then of course Trump
added the motive to this Iranian plot to kill him
(08:21):
and only him. And they want to kill him because
because of because of the furniture, because he's trying to
bring back the furniture finishing business to Mint Hill in
North Carolina. I bet even now you think I'm kidding
about this one. I'm not kidding about this one.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
All of your furniture makers are going to come back
and come back bigger and stronger and better than ever before.
They're mostly gone. They're all coming back. This is why
people in countries want to kill me. They're not happy
with me. It is to say risky business. This is
(09:07):
why they want to kill me. They only kill consequential presidents.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Remember that, not at all insane. The Iranians want to
kill him because he's bringing the furniture business back to
North Carolina from Tehran. I guess because they only kill
consequential presidents, the ones who restore America's furniture factories. He
(09:35):
is trying to pre brag on himself in case they
actually assassinate him. Oh, he's fine, He's out of his
freaking gord. He continues to sound high as a kite,
and in the video that accompanied what you just heard,
his face looked like a box of melting candlesticks. But
(09:59):
tell me again, Lindsey Graham, about why you don't think
that if he's returned to office, He's still going to
kill us all, including you. That day had begun just
after Tuesday turned into Wednesday with the briefest, craziest, most
harrowing Trump's social media post of all time. And I
know I'm really saying something when I say that. At
(10:20):
twelve twelve am Wednesday, Trump posted quote, a great day
in Louisiana. He was in Georgia. That is perhaps why
it was a great day in Louisiana. Meanwhile, what follows
here was an actual surprise. Harris Faulkner of Fox News,
(10:41):
dressed up like a cross between Angela Lansbury and the
Manchurian candidate and a slightly cleaned up version of reach
on He the anchor propagandist from North Korea Nightly News.
Harris Faulkner explains to guests Congresswoman Nancy Mace that Trump
was Let's just say that, according to what Harris Faulkner said,
(11:03):
it appears we've all been carrying the lead these last
twenty four hours.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Why would anybody want to block information about the assassination
of former President Trump?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
By the way, if I'm going to tell you, Harris
Faulkner was dressed up like that North Korean news lady.
In fairness, I had to tell you Nancy Mace was
wearing a pearl necklace. No, a real one. Two national
(11:37):
polls of note from yesterday, both head to head and
full candidate slate by you gov for the economist Harris
by three active vote for whatever active vote is worth,
Harris by three. The swing states are all over the map.
No pun intended Harris by three in Pennsylvania by Monmouth,
or by two by Focal Data, or tied by RMG
(11:59):
and SP and R. I'm imagining one of them's right,
maybe of the most interest, maybe of the most interest.
This week from the pollsters, survey USA has polled. Nebraska
hasn't been done in a while. Districts one and three
are Trump landslides District two. The blue dot is Harris
by fifteen. There is no surprise there. It is the
(12:22):
Nebraska Senate polling that is dumbfounding. Incumbent Republican Senator Fisher
trails Independent Dan Osborne forty five forty four. The Republican
is losing within the margin of error. For the Senate
from Nebraska. Dan Osbourne is a steam fitter, a Navy Vet,
(12:44):
a Union leader and a Democrat registered since twenty sixteen.
He is proving that the oldest of Republican tricks can
work both ways. If and when your party affiliation is
going to cost you a point or a vote, just
pretend it never happened. Speaking of which, we swing back
(13:07):
to that little shit Mike Johnson, who has ordered Ukrainian
President Vladimir Zelensky to fire his ambassador, the Ukrainian Ambassador
to the United States, because Zelensky went to the factory
in Pennsylvania where munitions for Ukraine have been manufactured. No seriously,
(13:28):
little big man Mike thinks he runs two governments rather
than you know none. The Republicans have now decided that
the Zelenski factory visit was a campaign event and thus
interference in the American election by Zelenski because Governor Josh
(13:49):
Shapiro was at the factory too, and Shapiro was briefly
a candidate to be Kamala Harris's running mate. No, seriously,
Johnson is on firmer ground with Clay Higgins than he
is with this one or with the other half of this.
Johnson's little fat ass henchman, James Comer claims to be
(14:11):
opening an investigation into Zolensky and the visit, and he
wants the testimony of Merrick Garland and Lloyd Austin, and
I don't know he wants Jesus to testify because, of
course Trump is still pissed about that little favu he
needed from Zelensky. Also, Comer has apparently decided that since
(14:32):
his entire life has now become an utter failure because
he never even took a vote on impeaching Biden as president,
what the hell, maybe he can still try to impeach
Zelenski as president. And yes, of course James Comer, Mike
(14:52):
Johnson and Clay Higgins are not just congressional viruses with shoes.
They all constitute part of Louisiana's Republican delegation. Squirt Louisiana,
thank you for sending us your spoiled oysters. Also of
(15:12):
interest here. Okay, the newsy RFK story may be petering out,
but not before London's Daily Mail interviewed doctor Christina Irene Gillespie.
And who is she? Well, we know this much about her.
She had the dignity to tell the London Rag I
am taking care of patients right now. Please don't call back.
(15:38):
Oh if only all of us could have said something
like that. An explanation is next. This is countdown.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman saw ahead of us
(16:12):
on this edition to Countdown. I was watching the MSNBC
promo campaign to advertise Kamala Harris's first interview last night. Oh,
first one on one with somebody named Stephanie on a
Wednesday at seven pm. But they're trying to make a
count in the eight pm ratings by calling it the
(16:33):
Chris Hayes Show. It's the first one of those.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
I mean, it's like these endless, nauseating baseball desperate efforts
to make clubs a thing showy Otani has seven triples,
four cot stealings, and ten intentional walks. He's just become
the first member of the seven four to ten club. Anyway,
these advertisements made it dawn on me and knew that
there was a prominent MSNBC anchor who twenty years ago
(16:59):
was actively trying to destroy MSNBC and me and the
Democratic Party on behalf of George W. Bush. And nobody
even bats an Ie about what she's doing now. And
it wasn't Joe Scarborough, the saga of the White House
that couldn't spell straight. Next in Things I promised not
(17:19):
to tell first, there are still more new idiots to
talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today worst persons
in the world. A preamble, there is no Newsy Nudes
News network today, although The London Daily Mail managed to
(17:40):
get a five word no comment from Newsy's former fiance's
former wife, and that led me to figure out that
relative to me, she is Are you ready? She is
my ex girlfriends, x fiances because of my ex friends, sexts,
(18:05):
ex wife a lot of exits. I also feel compelled
to compliment The New York Post on turning Monday's accounty
in this podcast into the first kind of fair, not cynical,
not inaccurate story involving me in the Post in the
last thirty years. They also spelled my name correctly roughly
twenty five percent of the time in the piece, which
(18:26):
I think is a new accuracy record for the Post.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Bravo, sir.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Anyway, the Bronze Worse Sheriff Bruce Sikowski of Portage County
Ohio told you about Bruce previously. He's the guy with
no neck and a bad rug who told voters there
told them on his official sheriff's Facebook page to look
for Kamala Harris campaign signs in yards in Portage County,
Ohio and write down the addresses so that when the
(18:54):
billions of the immigrants are sent to their Ohio towns
to eat their I don't know what is the lie now,
to eat their babies? What is it is? Is it fish?
What is it? Anyway, right down their addresses so you
can then send the migrants, or as Sheriff Zukowski called them,
with his seventh grade education, the locust, to live at
(19:17):
those houses. That was his excuse. Of course, writing down
addresses of who is supporting the Democrat in a red
county is stochastic terrorism. Well, God blessed the Elections Board
of Portage County, Ohio. They, including one of the two Republicans,
decided that Sheriff Zukowski was way over the line here.
They have barred their own sheriff's office from providing the
(19:42):
security during early voting, having determined that the mere sight
of Zukowski's brown shirts may serve as an illegal form
of electoral intimidation. They say they will borrow another county's
officers or hire private security instead. The one member of
the board who voted to keep the Nazis running the
elections says, the real victims here are Zukowski's office, who
(20:05):
committed no crime and blah blah blah blah blah. People
were literally saying at a town meeting they were now
afraid to vote because of what he posted. Zakowski should
be rotting in prison for this, but I don't think
we have the laws to put him there yet. The
runner up worser, Jamie Diamond, CEO of JP Morgan and
(20:25):
just as big a money grubbing swine as the founder
of the firm, was quote, if you do not control
the borders, you are going to destroy our country. Now
that they are sending migrants into New York, he said
on the Money is more important than Life Network CNBC.
Now that they are sending migrants into New York, all
(20:47):
my super liberal friends realize what a problem it is.
Once again, I cherish my ancestors. I love the thought
of my great great grandfather Frederick Olderman getting off the
boat at Castle Garden in New York and opening up
his blacksmith shop at forty sixth and Fifth in the
year eighteen forty seven, and me maybe going back in
(21:10):
time and telling him, look, Fred, never mind the blacksmith shop,
try to buy this land right here. I love the
fact that I am the end result of his courage.
Lord knows I don't have his courage. Just the blessings
Jamie Diamond. As the online commentator NYC Southpawd notes, Jamie
(21:32):
Diamond dishonors his ancestors, quoting Jamie Diamond's paternal grandfather, Panos
Papa Demetrio, immigrated from Greece to New York in nineteen
twenty one, the year a racist reaction against Southern and
Eastern European immigration led to the Quota Act. So did
(21:53):
Jamie Diamond's grandfather get into this country legally or illegally?
Let's see the documents, Jamie. The last time we decided
that we had to control the borders to keep immigrants
skuf like Jamie Diamond's grandfather out. What happened?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Then?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
May your grandfather come back from the dead, Jamie, and
drain your bank accounts and give all the money to
the new immigrants who count not like you, mf R.
But our winners the worst a tie between two senators
we have thankfully disposed of, Joe Manchin of West Virginia
and Kirsten Cinema of Arizona. And yes, if you are
(22:32):
new to the podcast, I went out with her for
a while too, and she and I also went to
see Book of Mormon twice. And even I'm getting tired
of this. And when I say tired, I mean I'm
not tired at all. I mean, what's the phrase I'm
thinking of laughing hysterically about all this. AnyWho, you've heard Manchin,
who is a scumbag that we've all pretended to be
(22:54):
nice to for twenty years because he occasionally voted with
the Democrats in the Senate. He says he will not
endorse Kamala Harris for president because she wants to eliminate
the filibuster in order to enshrine Roe v. Wade in
federal law. Now, setting aside for the moment the reality
that this will probably increase Harris's vote count in West
Virginia because they don't like Mansion there either, let's move
(23:14):
on to his fellow theoretical constitutionalist idiot, Kirsten Cinema is
a very different kind of person from Mansion. She's not
really a moron. She's in fact exceedingly bright, but as
they would say in baseball, she has reverse dunning. Krueger splits,
she knows she's smart, but unlike most smart people who think, well,
(23:37):
if I know this, lots of other people must know
it too, she thinks she's not only the smartest one
in the room, but the only smart one in the room. Sinny,
responding to the plan to eliminate the philibuster quote to
state the supremely obvious. Eliminating the filibuster to codify real
V made also enable to future Congress to ban all
(23:58):
aborich nahtan wide, Henny, what an absolutely terrible, short sighted idea.
When is not dawned on Kirsten Because she is the
smartest one in the room and the only one that's
smart in the room. Rest of us are all idiots.
What's not dawned on her is that her pals, the Republicans,
they're not going to wait for Congress to ban all
(24:19):
abortion nationwide. They're going to do it themselves. The next
Republican president will do it himself. He'll probably send troops
into the states that still permit abortion, and if he
wants to make it all actually legal, if there's a
Republican controlled Senate, he'll have them eliminate the filibuster or
force an exception to it, like the exceptions to the
filibuster have been forced roughly one hundred and fifty times
(24:41):
in my lifetime alone. Idiots, Senator Joe Manchin and Senator
Kirsten you self satisfied, unimaginative, smug ass clown cinema two
days worst persons than the world. Finally to the number
(25:15):
one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me
and things I promised not to tell. And on Monday,
May third, two thousand and four, my executive producer phoned
me at home and said, we got Ambassador Joe Wilson.
He'll be on the show tomorrow. Within hours, the communications
office of the White House of George W. Bush began
a desperate, ceaseless, tireless effort to send me one email
(25:41):
with talking points about Ambassador Joe Wilson, which repeatedly hilariously
failed to get through to me because none of them
could spell my name correctly. By late in the evening
of May third, and Throughout the morning of May the fourth,
I got calls and forwarded emails from people throughout NBC
who had received emails of their own from the Bush
(26:03):
White House Communications Office, all of them with attachments addressed
to Keith Oberman without the L, Keith Olberman with only
one N, Kaieth Olberman Keith spelled wrong, and even Keith
Oberman with a V. This was actually truly the first
day I believed I was having an impact on the
(26:23):
Bush White House, and also the first day I realized
they were incredibly stupid. There democracy still had a slim chance.
The Internet had been operating at more or less its
present speed since about nineteen ninety seven or nineteen ninety eight.
My name was all over the Internet in articles about
my news career, about my sports career, about my previous
(26:47):
news career. There were articles I had written, there were
books I had written, and these people who were trying
to reshape the United States of America into a reactionary, conservative, cruel, xenophobic,
semi authoritarian state were not smart enough to figure out
how to spell my name, just so we know who
(27:09):
we are talking about. By this point, Scott McClellan had
succeeded the infamous Aary Fleischer as press secretary. His deputies
were Dana Perino, who went from being the stupidest person
ever to be White House Press secretary to being one
of the stupidest persons ever to have a show on
Fox News, Pamela is Stevens, who later wound up as
a producer at CNN. Because political press people are exactly
(27:32):
like unemployed football coaches or baseball managers who get TV
jobs and then leave the TV jobs to go back
onto the field. The communications director was named Dan Bartlett,
and there was another communications person there named Nicole Wallace,
who has somehow shaken off the stink of working for
both George and Jeb Bush and is now considered a
(27:53):
darling of MSNBC, even though her only true non fascist
credential is she doesn't like Trump either. The crack White
House media team representing the most powerful man in the world,
the anxious and foreshadowing years after nine to eleven, and
not one of them could even find anybody else who
could spell my name, let alone spell it themselves. More
(28:17):
on them in a moment, But I need to explain
who Joe Wilson was if you don't know, and why
he was so important. Long before Colin Powell confessed to
Tim Russert that he had been lied to by the
White House, and thus he himself had lied to the
United Nations about Sadam Hussein's imaginary weapons of mass destruction.
(28:38):
Those were the excuses from Bush Cheney for dragging this
country into an unnecessary and national soul destroying war in
Iraq with lies and torture and scapegoating and suppression and brutality.
Before that, there was Ambassador Joseph Charles Wilson fourth, and
in two thousand and two, after pressure from the White House,
the CIA sent him back to the scene of his
(29:00):
first diplomatic posting, the African nation of Niger to get
proof for Bush that Saddam was trying to buy yellow
cake uranium there to make nuclear bombses out of and
Wilson quickly found out it was nonsense, and he reported
back and the Bush White House promptly buried his findings
and instead, in the two thousand and three State of
(29:21):
the Union address just before he started bombing Iraq, George W.
Bush said, the British government has learned that Sadam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. It was
and remains a complete lie, and war occurred because of it,
and Joe Wilson called it a complete lie in an
(29:41):
op ed in the New York Times on July sixth,
two thousand and three. The Iraq War was still at
this stage defined by Rah Rah, we're winning, but Sadam's
WND and his biological weapons and his chemical weapons might
be over the next hill. And you'd better not criticize
what we're doing, or maybe you're a terrorist. Joe Wilson said.
The emperor had no clothes in two thousand and three,
(30:05):
he was an American hero of the highest order. A
week later, a Dick Cheney flunky named Scooter Libby and
a Deputy Secretary of State named Armitage began a campaign
to punish Joe Wilson and discredit him. They leaked to
a dyspeptic and hate filled columnist named Robert Novak, who
(30:25):
is now working in the Bureau in Hell, that Wilson's
wife was an undercover agent for the CIA, and that
her name was Valerie Plain, and that the pair of
them were dirty Democrats. And moreover, it was Plain who
had urged that her own husband be sent to Niger
to deliberately not find the uranium or the Sadam Hussein
(30:46):
signed receipts, or whatever Bush expected to find there. The
Bush white House destroyed the career of risked the life
of and ruined several assignments and contacts of one of
this country's own secret CIA agents, just to make her
husband look bad. So in May two thousand and four,
(31:07):
when Joe Wilson wrote a book about all this crap,
and he inexplicably wanted to go on MSNBC, which was
still at that point trying to be more conservative than
Fox Nudes, and wanted to go on My little watched show,
which was considered the neutral outlier on a network full
of Joe Scarboroughs and Michael Savage's. This was a happy
surprise for us, which was followed by this wonderful, flailing
(31:31):
effort by the Bush White House to send me talking
points about Joe Wilson before I interviewed him. They not
only could not spell my name, but they were utterly
convinced that my interview was designed to discredit Joe Wilson.
The talking points which eventually got to me from Assistant
Press Secretary Pamela Stevens consisted of six items over two pages.
(31:52):
The headings were as follows. One political motivation. This was
about Wilson calling Dick Cheney a lying sob about a
year after the knee jair trip. I couldn't figure this
one out. Dick Cheney was a lying so b. That's
how I got to be vice president. Two Gingrich spokesman
calls allegations about alleged March two thousand and three meeting
(32:12):
completely false. This cited Newt Gingrich and his people as
if they were good sources, as opposed to the punchlines
they already were back then. In two thousand and four.
Talking point number three, McClellan points out political objective, and
four McClellan addresses accusations. These were quotes from the press secretary.
(32:35):
This man suddenly quit that job two years later two
thousand and six, and confessed he had repeatedly lied for
George W. Bush and the others, and now he just
couldn't take it anymore, and he would come on my
show and give one of the best Atonement interviews I've
ever heard. It went on for forty five minutes. Five
Fleischer says VP office did not request trip a quote
(32:58):
from McLellan's predecessor, who unless he is talking about baseball,
you should assume he's lying. Plus he might be lying
about baseball. And finally, six statement by George J. Tennant
July eleven, two thousand and three. This was a quote
from the CIA director which they thought was their home run,
and it basically consisted of this. Bush never saw that report.
(33:22):
That was it. There are three punchlines to this story.
Number one. I don't know why the Bush Communications office
assumed I was there to take down Joe Wilson, But
the moment I saw these talking points, any lingering doubt
I had that they were not all lying bastards down
there was erased. I used the talking points in my interview,
(33:43):
all right. I read them out loud to Joe Wilson,
and he rebutted each of them with impeccable charm and elegance.
He and Valerie Plain became regular guests on My show
and would beat the crap out of George Bush with
the plom right through the morning of January twenty, two
thousand and nine. Second punchline a year earlier, a supply
(34:03):
clerk with a maintenance company on the ground in Iraq,
was captured Private Jessica Lynch. The military and the Bush
administration immediately put out the story that she was being
tortured by them evil Iraqi Sadam Hussein doctors. There was
the glorious rescue of Jessica Lynch which followed, and the
parades and the you better not question this story period,
(34:26):
which lasted about six weeks until a Toronto newspaper printed
a substantially different account that Lynch was rescued from an
Iraqi hospital and a US military team in good faith
went in to extract her, but that this was all arranged,
not by some sort of part of intelligence or US
(34:47):
operations or the Allies, but by the Iraqi doctors. Some
of them sneaked over to American lines at great danger
and said, one of your soldiers is hurt and we
don't have the right equipment to help her. Could you
swing by and pick her up. I reported that version
on MSNBC, and the next day, as I was still
(35:08):
taking my coat off, my boss, Phil Griffin called me
in and said that the head of NBC News and
the president of NBC, Bob Wright, had been on the
phone all morning to him, insisting I should be fired
for implying that the Bush administration had lied. Griffin proudly
said he had talked him into letting me get away
(35:29):
with just apologizing to the troops. I can't even read
this with a straight face now, twenty years later, apologizing
to the troops who rescued her, I must credit myself
when my brain was fulled in that I did some
quick thinking. The demand was comical nonsense journalistically. On the
(35:50):
other hand, if I agreed to apologize to okay, the
troops who rescued her, whoever you want, I would get
the chance to tell the whole real story of Jessica
Lynch again. So I did. The apology was fifteen seconds,
and while unnecessary, was sincere. I didn't want to make
(36:10):
the troops look bad. They didn't know anything about this crap.
I made sure, however, that the retelling of the true
Lynch rescue story took about two and a half minutes.
That was in June of two thousand and three. So
why as of May of two thousand and four, the
Bush White House thought I was sympathetic to them, I'll
never know, or why they bothered with me, I'll never know,
(36:32):
which brings me to the last point. The unintended side
effect with the long term impact of all those failed
White House emails with my name misspelled was that this
Pamelas Stevens person promptly forwarded them to people around NBC
whom she considered friendly to George W. Bush. One of
(36:53):
them was Tom Brokaw's assistant, another was in the office
of future NBC News president Steve Cappus, and the final
one was to some guy named George Uribe. And so
I found about all the people in the Bush administrations
we like them, list at NBC News who I should
avoid under all circumstances. Let's see Brokaw's assistance. So no Brokaw,
(37:15):
somebody in Cappus's office, and no Cappus, and this guy
George Ribey. And George Rebay turned out to be a
guy hired by MSNBC from Fox News to go work
for Scarborough. He fell out of favor with Joe Scarborough,
and I guess he didn't henchman enough for Joe's tastes,
(37:37):
and his influence fell to a guy. I don't think
I've mentioned him to you yet, Chris Licked. I've done
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
(37:58):
We're now back to five episodes a week, posting nightly
just after midnight Eastern. Once again, there is a Monday Countdown.
Please forward this podcast to a non listener who should
start listening, and start listening now. Brian Ray and John
Phillip Shaneil, the musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced, and
performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
(38:20):
Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums. It was
produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today was my friend Nancy Faust. Everything else
(38:43):
was as usual, pretty much my fault. That's countdown for today.
Five weeks and five days until the twenty twenty four
presidential election and the one three hundred and sixtieth day
since convicted felon drooling Jay Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States, use the election,
(39:04):
use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if we
have to, to keep him from doing it again while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow Bolton's,
as the news requires. Till then, I'm Keith Oldremman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, I miss the post, and good luck.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
They only kill consequential presidents. Remember that.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
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.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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