Countdown with Keith Olbermann

SERIES 2 EPISODE 108: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: ONE of these days ONE of these judges will have to take the bullshit by the horns and jail Trump overnight for contempt of court. He made a mockery of all the laws of the nation again yesterday in New York and must be punished. Clearly somebody or something has punished him for something. Three or four red marks have suddenly sprouted on his right hand. James Carville thinks they're evidence of the secondary stage of syphilis. I think they're more consistent with an old man slipping on ice and grabbing something to try to stop himself from face-planting. But I'm sure Trump will claim they're stigmata. America's constipated political pundits have finally figured out that the interior numbers from Iowa confirm he didn't crush ANYTHING there; in fact only 8% of Iowa's Republicans voted for him! Oh and Nikki Haley is up to 38% in New Hampshire. Trump might not be the only one disqualified under the 14th Amendment. Representative Dan Goldman has moved to censure Representative Elise "Hostages" Stefanik B-Block (21:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The fascists are going to get another win out of the Supreme Court. Marjorie Taylor Greene sets herself up for another dick-pic joke. (25:23) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Argentina's New President - the guy in the Wolverine costume - blames the world's ills on feminism. The Babylon Bee's best bit of satire is its belief that it's funny. Ben Carson says why not concentration camps? The migrants have to have a place to stay! C-Block (30:35) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Beaten puppy Sweet Cheeks needs our help in North Carolina. (32:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Trump's rage against MSNBC for not worshiping him enough is actually not something new. The Republicans think they can get away with bullying MSNBC because they succeeded at it as long ago as 2008 - with me - and with the help of Tom Brokaw.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 107: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump did NOT crush DeSantis and Haley in Iowa. The "takeaway" is not that he crushed DeSantis and Haley in Iowa. The "takeaway" is he beat the field by only 2,222 votes. And the reality is Trump got a total of 56,260 votes and that’s about half the size of this podcast’s daily audience. And Trump only got 51 percent OF the votes in Iowa and if President Biden only got 51 percent in a primary they would cancel everything on television for the next 26 days and cover nothing BUT Biden only getting 51 percent in a primary, right up until kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday 26 days from now. “Biden Crisis Day 26. We pause now for football. Here’s the anthem. Join Wolf Blitzer, Tucker Carlson, David Axelrod, and Usher at halftime for a preview of Biden Crisis Day 27.” It's madness. Political media in this country has been in freefall since the 1990’s – hell, I succeeded in it, no experience necessary – but it is hard to believe it has ever been worse, even more a victim of band-wagoning, even more a john overflowing unto eternity, each reporter abandoning reality and objectivity to prove that THEIR take was right or that their NEXT take is FIRST or that THEY can stuff more undeserved accolades into a sentence than anybody else. It’s not that they are obsessed with the horserace – the horserace coverage is FINE. But when it’s a pack of miniature ponies struggling to make it around a ten-foot track, SAY THAT, don’t call them Secretariat and Man’o’War. Other REAL "takeaways" include Trump rolling out the new 2024 Con: his God Con, and Nikki Haley being utterly full of crap. And DeSantis realizing only too late that his path to victory was to turn on Trump and beat him senseless. Oh and Trump is deteriorating faster than ever before. If you mistake Biden for Obama, that's one thing. If you think the thing you rode down before you launched your campaign is an ESCALADE instead of an ESCALATOR... consult your physician! B-Block (21:26) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Gosh, where will Margie Green get her porn? House GOP may have dropped the Hunter Biden contempt plan. Knicks-Rangers owner James Dolan sued, accused of trafficking a woman to Harvey Weinstein. (23:46) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is so used to lying to its own morons it forgets the rest of the world needs to be slightly convinced. "Dudesy" steals George Carlin's jokes and calls it "A.I." Nate Cohn of The New York Times with a hiccup over "Hick-Up." C-Block (30:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Our 701-day snowless streak in Fun City is over and it got cold and clammy and as always I flashed back to the day my great doctor Ed Ceccolini gave me meds I wasn't ready for and the next thing I knew my face was stuck to the window of a commuter train in Grand Central because my drool had frozen onto it!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 106: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The obvious headline from Iowa last night: Trump romped, around 50%, with the reminder that if it were Biden only getting 50% in the first primary the Democrats would be considered dead in the water. The real headline from Iowa: Trump mused, in that skillfully ambitious way of his, about being in charge for "four years and beyond" and he can deny he meant refusing to leave office in 2029 but of course all he's TALKED about since 2017 was how he deserved more than two terms or more than eight years or more than the constitution allows. And the NEXT headline out of Iowa is the missing ingredient in the implausibly tight race between a psychotic dictator with dementia and a gifted dedicated president: the report that internal Biden research and polling says three out of four undecided voters really DON'T believe Trump will be the nominee and will have an "oh shit" moment. Plus: Marjorie Barney Rubble Greene thinks President Biden can communicate with the dead by phone. B-Block (26:08) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Rep. Barry "Your Tour Guide" Loudermilk makes a huge mistake. He wants to investigate Cassidy Hutchinson. And the Baltimore Sun is sold to a fascist and a one-time columnist who took a quarter of million in bribes from the Bush Administration. (30:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: When the NFL playoff game in Buffalo was postponed by snow, the Outkick The Coverage idiot whined that they didn't postpone D-Day because of bad weather - except of course they did. Plus Billo is back in the list. And Laura Loomer underscores the fundamental stupidity of the right. They don't believe in man-made climate change but they DO believe that Biden has a machine to manipulate the weather. C-Block (37:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A silly story about ESPN fudging nomination lists for the Emmy Awards (Erin Andrews became "Erik Andrews," etc., to allow ineligible talent to get trophies) ignores the real problem: the hosts of Emmy winning shows were ineligible to GET Emmys because the producers who ran the Emmys thought the talent had enough good stuff as it was. It flashed me back to a memorable conversation with Gil Stratton, an actor and sportscaster who insisted that every producer and executive he ever met was a bigger prima donna than an old colleague of his named Judy Garland.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 105: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) It is hard to believe that a year after he vanished like a bad dream, ex-Congressman/Hitler Fanboy/Weirdo Madison Cawthorn might emerge not just as a truth-teller but as THE truth-teller. He was the one who insisted Washington was a den of drug-fueled orgies and war-on-drug leaders doing bumps of coke in front of him. Did you WATCH the Hunter Biden hearing? Did you WATCH the Trump Town Hall on Fox? Did anything any Republican say make sense to you? Because not only is the answer "no" but the more frightening reality is that everything Trump said, and everything James Comer said, and Nancy Mace, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and all the other Republicans, made perfect sense to THEM. And what kind of thing causes you to mistakenly believe that your hallucinations seem perfectly normal to everybody else? And just to add in Cawthorn's other charge - it wasn't just drugs it was atypical sex. Greene showing more pornographic pictures of Hunter Biden? Nancy Mace referring to his balls? Is THIS the explanation of the behavior of... ALL REPUBLICANS? GOOD GOD WE NEED TO HEAR MORE FROM MADISON CAWTHORN. B-Block (15:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: No more itinerant laborers because of the animus towards migrants? This Indiana state rep has the solution: let kids quit school to go work in the fields at 14. And to help them not miss it, this Florida county has banned the dictionary. And to show you what you can become when you stop learning after the 8th Grade, there's Aaron Rodgers, who actually got himself fired by ESPN yesterday. C-Block (23:00) Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due and an explanation for today's comparative brevity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 104: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) Trump made another threat of political violence and terrorism and once again escaped being treated like any other terrorist or criminal trying to blackmail the nation by promising mass death and destruction if he doesn't get his way. After attending the appeals court hearing on his "presidential immunity" nonsense, Trump said if the prosecution of him continued "It'll be bedlam in the country." But he hasn't engaged in insurrection. Not since Noon Eastern yesterday. Meanwhile his attorney, Judge Luttig's former law clerk, insisted that no, if he hadn't been impeached and removed from office, Trump could not be prosecuted for ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. But he's not saying HE would CAUSE the bedlam. Besides the background drumbeat of Trumpist political violence, the point of the "presidential immunity" action is to stall. And the Just Security website has game-planned when this Jack Smith prosecution is likely to end. Two of the answers end within plenty of time, the third begins to brush up against an old favorite: the DOJ tradition of not acting within 60 days of an election. And speaking of oldies but goodies, Trump reverts to birtherism. This time his victim is Nikki Haley. And his own mother. And just for laughs, it was in an 1814 book of witticisms that our ancestors first read "Every man who is his own lawyer, has a fool for a client." So guess who intends to deliver some of the closing arguments in his Business Fraud Trial case in New York tomorrow? Our resident Fool. B-Block (17:48) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: I knew there was a reason not to say anything about the "disappearance" of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: his "minor medical procedure" was surgery for prostate cancer. And the ESPN/Big Sleeveless Pat/Aaron Rodgers/Jimmy Kimmel disaster escalates: Rodgers denies he implied anything about Kimmel, uses ESPN as a platform to spread vaccine disinformation, and attacks an ESPN VP who had been protecting his buddy's show. Like ESPN's Rush Limbaugh disaster 20 years ago, this will end in tears. (25:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORD: political and journalistic accounts mysteriously disappear on Ketamine Musk's site. Judge Judy makes a presidential endorsement. And Lou Dobbs, Tulsi Gabbard, Don Lemon and Jim Rome are too desperate to just stand in front of a mirror and do their new shows to an audience that cares. C-Block (31:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since it's ESPN time, why not tell again the events of 32 years ago this month when I met the wonderful actress Elizabeth Montgomery on a flight, we became great friends, and she... helped me to launch the ESPN Radio Network? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 103: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44): In the course of two speeches and four days President Joe Biden has found the word that not only perfectly describes Trump, that not only can be hung around him like a giant gold-outlined neon sign, that not only can humiliate him and stick to him forever, but that the rest of us have been waiting for SOMEBODY to say: "He's a loser." Loser = Trump Trump = Loser Loser J. Trump! The long weekend in which the prospects for retaining both Biden and democracy turned on a dime and Biden found his voice. He's the average American fed up with Trump's psychosis and violence and lies and racism and juvenile haircut and narcissism and stupidity and malevolence. And the anger is pitch-perfect. PLUS: Yesterday Trump overtly implied that if he regains power he will indict a former president of the United States. Today he was to attend the D-C Federal Appeals Court hearing at which he and his lawyers were to argue that you CANNOT indict a former president of the United States. Of all the legal updates the most interesting perhaps is the possibility that Trump digital guru Dan Scavino is cooperating with Jack Smith. Plus, no, Kristen Welker didn't fail to do her job with the Eva Braun of upstate New York. Her inertia when Stefanik called the January 6 insurrectionists "hostages" was what NBC was paying her to do. B-Block (24:44) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Wall Street Journal blockbuster about Elon Musk and drugs; Mehdi Hasan completely out at MSNBC, stars still silent (30:15) IN SPORTS: Latest on ESPN/Rodgers/McAfee/Kimmel/Williamson. In memory of Franz Beckenbauer (35:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Nikki Haley had a black friend, Kristina Karamo ousted in Michigan; Lauren Boebert can't keep a grip on herself in public despute with ex-hubby C-Block (40:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since the ESPN Pat McAfee/Jimmy Kimmel story includes accusations that ESPN leaked ratings to make McAfee look bad, I've got a story about MSNBC doing that to me at Current-TV - except the ratings were wrong.They were HIGHER than the ones we HAD at Current-TV!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 102: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN JANUARY 6th WEEKEND EDITION A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: You already know that MY default position when it comes to President Biden is deep respect, deep affection, and love. And having said that, even Iwas stunned by the virtuosity of his pitch-perfect speech about Trump and the threat to democracy he represents, which the President gave near Valley Forge on the eve of the third anniversary of Trump’s Insurrection, in which he hit every note ranging from whispered warning to raging righteousness; in which his emotional ebb and flow went from the astonishment of the moment to anger on behalf of every past president and every dead soldier; in which he roared from clear and unvarnished statement of the danger of Trump and the dictatorship with which he would KILL America, and the still CLEARER and MORE unvarnished delineation of the path by which to defeat it, and Trump, and these fascists, for all time. It was breathtaking. It was honest to God JFK-FDR level oratory. Here are the highlights. Also, here is Trump's response: to claim that migrants who don't speak "our language" should not be allowed to vote, and to post a video claiming God sent him to rule America. If the cadence of this accompaniment to Dementia J. Trump turning into Deified J. Trump sounds familiar, it should. It was stolen from a 2013 Super Bowl Ad, and itself stolen from a 1978 speech by one of my old bosses. B-Block (25:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Biden's speech was so good, so sweeping, that I think you should listen to all of it. Carve out half an hour and do so - here it is, C-Block (59:10) UPDATE: While we're here, there's news on this sports story I mentioned during the week in which Aaron Rodgers, on the Pat McAfee Show, a program for which ESPN just paid its namesake host 85 million dollars to run on its platforms, Rodgers implied that when the Jeffrey Epstein lists were published, Jimmy Kimmel would be mentioned. Rodgers said when that happened, he’d pop open a bottle of something.Kimmel, who like McAfee, and Rodgers – who is under contract TO McAfee to appear on his shows – is employed by Disney. And within hours of the Aaron Rodgers statement, Kimmel tweeted that if Rodgers did not stop, he would sue Rodgers. The next day McAfee pleaded ignorance. It didn’t take much effort; he’s pretty ignorant. He said he believed there was no cause for any problem because Rodgers was just quote “talking shit.” In fact that’s not really a defense many courts will accept in a defamation suit. A defamation suit by one Disney employee against two other Disney employees in McAfee and Rodgers. Rodgers has not again appeared on the show, nor did McAfee issue a retraction. What McAfee DID do Friday, though, was to declare war ON ESPN. He accused executives of the company of leaking inaccurate ratings about the program.Actually, what it is, is – professionally – suicidal. Because McAfee named names, and he named the one ESPN executive who has outlasted everybody who has ever worked there, including me, including me the second time, including me the third time when HE personally got me rehired, including me as he supervised the unlikeliest of outcomes to my ESPN career in which of all people I wound up… RETIRING FROM ESPN. I got everything but the gold watch. The executive’s name is Norby Williamson. And in trashing him, McAfee gave ESPN a way to fire him - for cause - and owe him none of the money in his contract. Or pay him off and silence him, just like Fox did with Tucker Carlson. Because if 32 years with Norby has taught me one thing: he survives - the other guy doesn't.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 101: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: For the second time in as many days and the fourth time in one week, Trump has gotten the message out to the Justices of the Supreme Court - and especially the three he appointed - that they’d better rule in favor of Trump in the 14th Amendment and Presidential Immunity cases because he put them there. Attorney Alina Habba did it again, again on Fox. Wednesday it was in the afternoon; last night it was in prime time. The message is loud and clear, and God knows with the utter corruption of the conservatives on THIS court you could never convict anybody of doing anything, but this is either an illegal threat AGAINST Justice Brett Kavanaugh and others, or it is the back half of an illegal quid pro quo. Habba said she "had faith" in "people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place. He'll step up." A week ago today Maggie Haberman went on CNN and said Trump feared SCOTUS might rule against him because it was trying to look balanced. On Tuesday, his first simpleton attorney Christina Bobb said that any ruling - even one declaring that Trump was guilty of insurrection - would be irrelevant if the people wanted Trump as their ruler. Wednesday, Habba insisted that "Republicans" (she meant Supreme Court Justices) "unfortunately sometimes shy away from being pro-Trump because they feel that even if the law’s on our side they might be swayed much like the Democratic side would be, right? So they’re trying so hard to look neutral that sometimes they make the wrong call." The political pressure is astonishing, even for Trump. And in the light of his stochastic terrorism against Justices Engoron and Chutkan, it is intolerable, and it portends true threats against any justice Trump feels hasn't been "loyal" to him. THERE MIGHT be good news out of New Hampshire: one poll shows Trump leading Nikki Haley by just four points with two weeks until the primary. There was also a good opening advertising salvo by the Biden campaign against the threat Trump is manifesting. And the same Alina Habba went on another streaming show and insisted that given the choice between being smart or pretty she'd choose pretty because "I can fake being smart." Well, no, sorry. You clearly can't. B-Block (32:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Like every other rich fascist before him, Elon Musk wants to destroy the National Labor Relations Board. Politico has a good joke at his expense. RFK Jr's Super Pac apparently made it up about Dionne Warwick AND Martin Sheen. And the Associated Press article that actually headlines Bothsidesism on tomorrow's 3rd Anniversary of Trump's January 6th Coup: “One Attack, Two Interpretations: Biden And Trump Both Make The January 6 Riot A Political Rallying Cry.” C-Block (40:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: In 1913 just as in 2024, people are likeliest to believe the dumbest, the most outrageous, the least believable thing. James Thurber commemorates "The Day The Dam Burst" in Columbus, Ohio, the most noteworthy feature of which was, the DAM DID NOT BURST.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 2 SERIES 100: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) I misunderstood the first salvo. I completely missed the second. But when the third one exploded yesterday, it finally dawned on me. Trump - using milquetoast seemingly benign surrogates, has already begun to threaten the Supreme Court and especially his three appointees that they had better find in his favor in the "presidential immunity" and 14th Amendment Disqualification cases - or else. Alina Habba delivered a message on Fox yesterday clearly designed for Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, warning them not to try "so hard to look neutral (and) make the wrong call" and that the only "American" verdicts would be those in Trump's favor. This echoed what Maggie Haberman reported last week (and Habba was nice enough to reveal she and Haberman are friends). And it puts in a new light Christina Bobb's boast Tuesday that it doesn't matter even if Trump IS guilty of insurrection: the people will decide who's president. It is muted, but it is a threat of violence and MORE insurrection, being delivered against the Supreme Court. B-Block (16:48) IN SPORTS: ESPN and ABC and Disney have quite the conundrum. Its new supposed savior of the sports network, Pat McAfee, failed to retract, or even apologize for, a statement by football's Aaron Rodgers implying that Jimmy Kimmel was on the Jeffrey Epstein "list." Kimmel already threatened to sue - and that was before the fake screenshots started, and before McAfee said that since Rodgers was only "talking shit" it's not like what he said mattered. Me? I think Kimmel should sue but even better, he should do what Chick Hearn did when he was fed up with his rookie sidekick Al Michaels on the broadcasts of the 1967-68 Los Angeles Lakers. I'll explain. (23:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Oh good, we have a SECOND extramarital sex scandal inside the "Moms For Liberty" pro-fascist group. Congressman Troy Nehls reveals the Republicans don't give a damn about whether or not there are a million migrants crossing the border, or none. It's a stunt. And are we sure C-SPAN meant to promote its coverage of the "End of Fist Session" of Congress? C-Block (29:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It is now nearly 17 years since a veteran Senator from Delaware asked me to lunch to pick my brain on how when I spoke angrily I seemed righteously indignant, but when he spoke angrily he seemed...angry. I think he's mastered it now - and we need him to be righteously indignant AND angry in the 300 days ahead.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 99: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Trump Attorney’s genuinely shocking admission: Trump MIGHT be guilty of insurrection. Christina Bobb, last night: “It should be the entire nation who determines who they want for president – whether they’re guilty of insurrection or not.” It’s a new defense. It’s an original defense. It’s the “HE’S GUILTY” defense. It’s also the clearest indication yet that Trump and his cult don’t give a damn about the laws or the constitution AND it’s an admission that the OTHER Trump lawyers KNOW they are just stalling for time or working to enable him to get away with anything. It’s also another direct quote that Joe Biden HAS to turn into a campaign commercial immediately. Because whether she meant it as a confession or not, that’s EXACTLY what it sounds like: A confession, compounded by a bonus dose of screw-you, America: Trump is guilty, and he doesn’t give a crap, and he's counting on America not to give a crap, either It would not surprise me in the least to SEE that Biden ad. And soon. CNN is reporting that the worm is about to turn and “as some of the younger aides on Biden’s reelection campaign have been grimly joking, it’s about WHEN to go ‘full Hitler’ – when the leading Republican candidate’s speeches and actions go so far that the Biden team goes all the way to a direct comparison to the Nazi leader rather than couching their attacks by saying Trump quote ‘parroted’ him.” Plus the unexpected report that Trump is afraid the Supreme Court justices he appointed will rule against him on Disqualification, just to prove they aren't in his pocket. Just because he appointed six people to lifetime jobs, in which they are beholden to nobody? Not even him? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get you. B-Block (20:08) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The OTHER thing Ted Cruz is bad at: The Ted Cruz Texas Sports Curse. Vivek Ramaswamy didn't want to be on your smelly CNN Republican debate anyway! And Jason Whitlock really believes ESPN has somebody putting porn ads on websites he visits. It couldn't possibly be the result of algorithms registering all the porn sites he went to. C-Block (33:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Jack Kerouac had his own fantasy baseball league, and when I was a kid my Dad asked me to lie to the sports know-it-all at the office and convince him of the existence of a non-existent pitcher from the 1939 Yankees. B-Block (20:08) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The OTHER thing Ted Cruz is bad at: The Ted Cruz Texas Sports Curse. Vivek Ramaswamy didn't want to be on your smelly CNN Republican debate anyway! And Jason Whitlock really believes ESPN has somebody putting porn ads on websites he visits. It couldn't possibly be the result of algorithms registering all the porn sites he went to. C-Block (33:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Jack Kerouac had his own fantasy baseball league, and when I was a kid my Dad asked me to lie to the sports know-it-all at the office and convince him of the existence of a non-existent pitcher from the 1939 Yankees.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 98: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: You and I have 305 days until the election and the GOOD news is: if the Supreme Court rules Trump is immune from prosecution for anything he did while president OR if the Supreme Court rules the 14th Amendment DOESN’T disqualify him from the ballot OR if the Supreme Court rules both… Joe Biden can declare himself president for life, he can arrest the Supreme Court, and he can detain Trump without charges or trial and the Supreme Court has just ruled there’s not a goddamned thing anybody can do about it, including them. Well thank god THAT’S settled. Happy New Year! I am mystified by the sanctimonious criticisms of Maine striking Trump from the ballot from its Senator Angus King and "Democratic" Congressman Jared Golden. They have decided the Constitution wasn’t enough and decided on their own that we needed HIGHER BARRIERS before as a nation we could defend ourselves against a psychotic dictator-in-waiting who wants to turn the government into a personal revenge factory and oh by the way the only thing he’s going to remember about YOU Angus King, is that you voted to impeach him. “Under the established Constitutional process," said Senator King from atop his high horse, "absent a final judicial determination of a violation of the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause, I believe the decision as to whether or not Trump should rest with the people as expressed in free and fair elections. This is the ultimate check within our Constitutional system,” This isn’t a matter of interpretation for the courts, or for you, Senator King. It’s what the 14thAmendment SAYS as opposed to what a fragment of your voters want you to tell them it says. What it SAYS is, your Senate AND the House have a right to REMOVE the disqualification of Donald Trump by a two-thirds vote. It exists. It exists right now. It only STOPS existing if you OVERRIDE IT. By 75 to 25, thank you. That’s what it says. THAT is the ultimate check within our Constitutional System. I hope you can hear me up there floating on that cloud above it all. Speaking of, congratulations to The New York Times, which addresses disqualification by quoting Judge Michael Luttig, and balancing him with someone who wrote commercial scripts for Dunkin' Donuts and an L.A. democrat who went on Fox to say he's mad at Joe Biden. And congratulations to The Washington Post for buying out the only one of its reporters who got it - Greg Sargent. But genuine thinks to Green Day, which did what the rest of us can almost never do - pierce the MAGA/Trump Cult/Fascist bubble and show its cultists, to their shock, that they are not a majority and not at all liked. It's shocking that such penetrations come during Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve - but it's worth singing about! B-Block (27:45) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: She allegedly liquored up underaged teenagers at her daughter's 17th birthday party. Is she A) a drag queen B) a trans-gendered swimmer C) a librarian or D) the founder of the “Keeping Kids In School PAC” and former Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor?; The right-wing pundit who boasts of how The Statue of Liberty is better than any European art; The passing of Tom Foty. (35:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Fox kills the wrong Frank Thomas. Aaron Rodgers has now descended into using antisemitic tropes. And Michael Flynn Jr. sticks his father with a new name: "General Flynn-Bitch." C-Block (41:55) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: We're now in the 25th anniversary year of the night - before Game 1 of the World Series which I was covering for Fox - where an Atlanta hotel gave me a room next to a choir that spent the entire night practicing for a competition the next day. It then tried to make it up to me by offering me, instead...THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 97: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: For all those wringing their hands about disqualifying Trump from the ballot via the 14th Amendment without a conviction: What would Donald Trump have done with Joe Biden if January 6th had somehow worked? Or TO him? It's January 20, 2021 and the 46th President-Elect of the United States is prevented by whatever means from assuming office as demanded by the Constitution and Trump remains in power extra-legally, extra-judicially, extra-constitutionally. And we are supposed to believe that Biden would have been left free to speak in public, on television, on social media, to the press, in the courts, to the Speaker Pelosi or Majority Leader Schumer, to the Democratic governors with their authority over the National Guard? Trump would have found a pretext to detain him. Or he HAD a pretext to detain him; a plan we just haven’t found out about. Having once crossed the ultimate threshold – ENDING 237 years of American democracy – having retained power as a dictator by some other name, what would Trump have then NOT been willing to do? And most importantly, what Trump would have done with a man he would’ve wanted the world to believe was an extra, illegitimate American president who had somehow plotted against Trump? He would have had Joe Biden killed. Or if somebody had stopped him from that, he would have had him seized somehow, by someone, by some official sounding but ultimately fabricated and illegal and anti-American quote “authority” unquote, and held. Incommunicado. With Kamala Harris and Pelosi and Schumer and uncooperative Senators and Congressmen of both parties and hundreds of reporters and editors and you and me and god knows how many others, on the pretext of god knows WHAT kind of imaginary plot to… enforce the Constitution? THAT is why the Colorado Supreme Court was right. Because THAT second plan is the TRUE comparison to the Civil War traitors on whom the 14th Amendment was first applied. Because the Confederacy’s plans involved killing the President and the Vice President and half the cabinet and burning down New York City and seizing Northern ports. And just because the Confederacy did not win the Civil War those plans did not miraculously disappear from the minds of the traitors. Just as Trump’s plans for what to do with one president too many did not miraculously disappear from HIS diseased and monomaniacal and traitorous mind. The 14th Amendment is Iabout what ELSE he was willing to do, and what horrors he is willing to precipitate today, and in 2024, and, god forbid, in January of 2029. ALSO: Trump's not an insurrectionist! He was so concerned about it he posted 11 whole words denying it. And as his lapdogs race to defend his paraphrases of Hitler, Trump undercut them again last night by repeating the "blood poisoning" line. He's also in even more insurrection trouble: turns out there's a RECORDING of his phone conversation pressuring Michigan Republicans to not certify Biden's win there in November, 2020. And Ronna McDaniel could go to jail - she's on the tape too, offering to pay for their lawyers. That is a bribe. And for comic relief, Rudy Giuliani has gone from Moral Bankruptcy to Actual Bankruptcy. He's filed for Chapter 11. And while he's unlikely to get it granted, he has revealed who he owes money to it and the list somehow includes Hunter Biden! It's so bad it has inspired yet more "singing" on the part of your deluded tone deaf host. B-Block (28:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rep. Tim Burchett thinks there are Republicans in the House being blackmailed with honey pots. He describes in stark detail (as if he were in the room when it happened!) what that would've been like. Kiss The Washington Post goodbye; its new publisher was a Murdoch editor. And John Schneider threatens Biden again. John Schneider. The actor. The guy from 'Dukes Of Hazzard.' The actor you thought was DEAD. C-Block (34:40) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Only one way to close out 2023: with James Thurber's amazingly prescient saga of a man everyone thinks is a hero but is in fact a nightmare who must be stopped: "The Greatest Man In The World." And no, he wrote this 15 years before Trump was born.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 96: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There are still some around him who want him to stay above the fray on Trump and to stay above the fray on Trump morphing into Baby Hitler and especially to stay above the NEW fray on Trump and the 14th Amendment and your newest Hallmark Movie: A Trumpy Christmas At The Supreme Court. But frankly, President Biden is at his best, his BEST, when HE is the spokesman for a nation dedicated to using all legal means to save this nation from Trump. He is not merely the President; he has a natural, perfect touch - blending matter-of-factness and the collective anger of 200 million Americans. Yesterday, tarmac at Milwaukee, Air Force One roaring in the background: Reporter: "Is Trump an insurrectionist?" Biden: "Certain things are self-evident. You saw it all. Now, whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision. But he certainly supported an insurrection. No question about it. None. Zero. And he seems to be doubling down on - about everything." No one can REMIND you of the obviousness of an answer more efficiently yet without any sense of condescension or correction than Joe Biden. No one. Now - do it every day. ALSO: This is a good moment to review the scholarly study of the 14th Amendment that really touched all this off. It was co-authored by the former clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts, and a conservative constitutional law professor so revered that his resume is 35 pages long. It's also a good moment to take a second look at Dementia J. Trump's bizarre flex about echoing Hitler. "I've never read 'Mein Kampf'" was followed by something even stranger - acknowledging that sure he and Hitler are saying the same things, just in different ways. It's another instant Biden ad, at the echelon of LBJ's "Daisy" Commercial from 1964. So I made one. B-BLOCK (30:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Kellyanne Conway is back with something stupid. Next question: does she really exist or is she a dedicated comedian devoted to a bit, like the guy who portrayed Dame Edna? Charlie Kirk turns a rule about keeping highway rest stops open on Sunday into a battle of The Democrats Versus The Jesus. And Kari Lake is about to get Rudied. Sued by a Republican Arizona election official she slandered, she moved to dismiss and assumed it would be. It isn’t. She’s going to trial for defamation. C-BLOCK (36:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The leadership of ESPN’s famed P.R. department just switched from my friend Chris LaPlaca to my friend Josh Krulewitz. And that made me think of the time nearly 27 years ago when I left ESPN forever (well, only to return in 2005. And again in 2013. And again again in 2018).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 95: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It's historic, it's epic, it's unprecedented, it's just the start of a landslide of events in which the will of the nation to take every precaution against giving Trump the chance to turn us into his totalitarian, Hitlerian state will crash against a Supreme Court torn between serving its money-paying fascist masters, and enraging the public just enough to threaten its continued existence. Plus, we've kinda buried the lede: the clock is already clicking on the Colorado State Supreme Court's verdict that the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment does TOO preclude Trump from appearing on the state's presidential ballot (or its Republican primary ballot). Circumstances and printing deadlines give the United States Supreme Court just SEVENTEEN DAYS to overrule, or at least agree to hear an attempt TO overrule (and six of those days are Saturdays, Sundays, and/or Holidays). Also the verdict? It came on an unlikely anniversary. It'll be wild. JUST TO EMPHASIZE THE POINT HERE: Trump quadrupled down on his "destroying the blood" HItler rhetoric last night in Iowa, condemning immigrants. And he artfully denied he had ever read Mein Kampf (he's right; the book he kept by his beside in the '80s according to his first wife was "My New Order" - Hitler's favorite speeches). And thank you, Senator Tommy Tuberville. He's criticized Trump for NOT USING STRONG ENOUGH LANGUAGE against immigrants. Tommy lost too many games without a helmet. B-BLOCK (28:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Fox Baseball commentator says he's not afraid to say Shohei Ohtani is the "most important signing" in Dodgers history. Huh. Woulda thought that Jackie Robinson guy was still more important. Lawyers dump a Trump co-defendant. Glenn Beck flunky Jason Whitlock pushes for ending votes for women. C-BLOCK (35:35) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since we’re talking about the Colorado Supreme Court and the 14th Amendment and the Conservatives and how they have had their way with this country for a quarter century, especially at the Supreme Court, maybe it’s time to mention the time I dated a conservative pundit who A) confirmed the vast right wing conspiracy postulated by Hillary Clinton, denying only that it was “vast” and B) was herself a former clerk to a Supreme Court Justice and C) who took me on our first date – of TWO – TO the Supreme Court where she arranged for me to sit… in Clarence Thomas’s chair.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 94: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN: In a historic decision validating the obvious intent of the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment, Colorado's State Supreme Court has ruled Trump is NOT eligible to appear on the state's ballot as a candidate for president next year because he participated in an insurrection against the United States of America. The decision is likely to spawn a wave of copycat cases (and remember previous rulings in Arizona, Michigan and Minnesota did NOT rule the other way; they pertained only to knocking Trump off the Republican PRIMARY ballot) and will of course go to the federal Supreme Court. Where the justices won't have much to decide. Only the future of the nation and the prospect of civil unrest. The rest of this bulletin is a repeat of Tuesday's full 93rd episode of Countdown. (11:51) SPECIAL COMMENT: In his three-day orgy of insults, expanding his list of those who are "poisoning our nation's blood" from Hispanics to Africans and Asians, praising dictators and echoing Hitler, it's understandable that most of us missed it. But Trump also explained the one rug that will really tie his totalitarian room together: he's going to indemnify the police. Translation: under Trump, the cops can kill George Floyd and be certain they will face no legal liability. They can kill YOU and be certain they will face no legal liability. It is literally a license to kill, a license granted to the 700,000 police officers at all state and city levels in this nation. Who already have weapons. Who already have tanks. Who already have affinity to Trump and the fascism and white supremacism he's selling. And now they will be freed of all restraint. And they'll owe that freedom to Trump. They will become Trump's stormtroopers and his little SS. And if invoking the Insurrection Act to use the National Guard against unarmed civilians is too sharp-edged for some of his under-Fuhrers, Trump can simply dispatch local cops to shoot up a Black Lives Matter protest. Or an anti-Cop City protest. Or just an anti-Trump protest. It may be his most totalitarian revelation since. And naturally, the New York Times follows it with an op-ed titled "The Secret of Trump’s Appeal Isn’t Authoritarianism” and Axios begins the last full business week of the year with 1,000 words on Trump and not one of them mentions his plan to take over the cops or his quoting Hitler or his praising Xi and Kim. Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen have shown that they - and so many other institutions we think would recoil from authoritarianism - are in fact ready to serve them, just as long as they can continue to make profits. Axios has 1,000 words on Trump and they are all positive and normalizing and praising him fo having "much greater power than in his first term and fewer restraints on carrying out his political agenda.” His political agenda is Totalitarianism, you useless slobs. B-Block (32:29) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Ruby Goodman and Shaye Moss are awarded $148 million from Giuliani. Giuliani re-slanders them. They sue again. He re-re-slanders them against last night. Clarence Thomas wasn't being bought; he was prostituting himself. Congressmen ask him to recuse. Mayor Eric Adams says NYC is the greatest because any day could be 9/11. (38:17 THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Wreaths Across America, Laura Loomer and the Senate staffer who was just, uh, receiving testimony. And the new allegation: that wasn't the first staffer CPAC's Matt Schlapp allegedly groped. C-Block (45:17 THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Tells you something that a week ago somebody who didn't know asked me about the legendary sportscaster for whom I interned in 1978. That means he's been famous for 80 years, the last 10 of them after he passed away. The story of The Amazin' Bill Mazer.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: In his three-day orgy of insults, expanding his list of those who are "poisoning our nation's blood" from Hispanics to Africans and Asians, praising dictators and echoing Hitler, it's understandable that most of us missed it. But Trump also explained the one rug that will really tie his totalitarian room together: he's going to indemnify the police. Translation: under Trump, the cops can kill George Floyd and be certain they will face no legal liability. They can kill YOU and be certain they will face no legal liability. It is literally a license to kill, a license granted to the 700,000 police officers at all state and city levels in this nation. Who already have weapons. Who already have tanks. Who already have affinity to Trump and the fascism and white supremacism he's selling. And now they will be freed of all restraint. And they'll owe that freedom to Trump. They will become Trump's stormtroopers and his little SS. And if invoking the Insurrection Act to use the National Guard against unarmed civilians is too sharp-edged for some of his under-Fuhrers, Trump can simply dispatch local cops to shoot up a Black Lives Matter protest. Or an anti-Cop City protest. Or just an anti-Trump protest. It may be his most totalitarian revelation since. And naturally, the New York Times follows it with an op-ed titled "The Secret of Trump’s Appeal Isn’t Authoritarianism” and Axios begins the last full business week of the year with 1,000 words on Trump and not one of them mentions his plan to take over the cops or his quoting Hitler or his praising Xi and Kim. Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen have shown that they - and so many other institutions we think would recoil from authoritarianism - are in fact ready to serve them, just as long as they can continue to make profits. Axios has 1,000 words on Trump and they are all positive and normalizing and praising him fo having "much greater power than in his first term and fewer restraints on carrying out his political agenda.” His political agenda is Totalitarianism, you useless slobs. B-Block (22:22) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Ruby Goodman and Shaye Moss are awarded $148 million from Giuliani. Giuliani re-slanders them. They sue again. He re-re-slanders them against last night. Clarence Thomas wasn't being bought; he was prostituting himself. Congressmen ask him to recuse. Mayor Eric Adams says NYC is the greatest because any day could be 9/11. (28:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Wreaths Across America, Laura Loomer and the Senate staffer who was just, uh, receiving testimony. And the new allegation: that wasn't the first staffer CPAC's Matt Schlapp allegedly groped. C-Block (35:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Tells you something that a week ago somebody who didn't know asked me about the legendary sportscaster for whom I interned in 1978. That means he's been famous for 80 years, the last 10 of them after he passed away. The story of The Amazin' Bill Mazer.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 92: BULLETIN EDITION/COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN: (1:40) In literally his last 24 hours in office, Donald Trump ordered a 10-inch thick binder of raw, ultra-secret intelligence about Russia interference, spying, and disinformation in this country - and American means of uncovering it - brought to the White House. He began to declassify it over the objection of every intelligence chief. His chief of staff Mark Meadows summoned disgraced ex-journalist John Solomon to the White House and handed him countless pages of the vital classified intelligence and a Solomon staffer "was even allowed to leave the White House with the declassified records in a paper bag.” The original unredacted binder, containing thousands of pages, has never been recovered in the nearly three years since it was last seen in Trump's hands. This comes from a new report this morning from CNN - startling even in the context of Trump's previously revealed treachery, treason, and intelligence theft. The implications of the report are obvious: Trump may still have the binder. Or he may have given it to someone else (the report implicates his former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows). Or he may have given it to a foreign country. Or sold it. And perhaps more importantly: WHAT did Trump hope to achieve by giving its contents to John Solomon the night before Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration? Solomon was literally stopped as he scanned the documents, presumably for publication, by White House lawyers who demanded he return what Trump had given him. Was Trump hoping that the small percentage of documents that pertained to "Operation Crossfire Hurricane" would serve as a pretext for him to act to STOP the Biden Inauguration by using the Insurrection Act, or by other pretext, and with the military's help? Is this nightmare of Trump stealing thousands of pages of intelligence about Russia's perfidy in our country - its violation of our national borders - its virtual invasion of our country, simply the preface for a darker plot in which Trump would have used the material as an excuse to illegally remain in power? Does he still have the binder? Does he still have the plan? (14:35) SPECIAL COMMENT: After spending their lives as bullies, Donald John Trump and Rudolph William Louis Giuliani will go out as cowards. Guess who did NOT testify yesterday as testimony ended in the Ruby Freeman/Shay Moss/Rudy Giuliani case? Yes, the defendant, who had promised after court Monday and Tuesday that he would testify, prove that he was telling the truth about them, and that they were lying about him. Instead, his lawyer was reduced to painting Giuliani as a pathetic "flat-earther" who could never process reality. Giuliani said nothing as the case concluded and the jury deliberated for three hours what he should make out the check for - and they didn't reach a conclusion. When it takes jurors more than one day to decide how much money you owe the people you lied about, guess what: you’re going to owe the people you lied about… eleventy billion dollars. It has been quite the week for Trumpian cowardice, led by Trump himself, because if the whole Giuliani "I'll prove I'm right" posturing sounds familiar, Trump did the SAME THING this week. He vowed to tell the truth – under oath - about the New York Business Fraud judge and the clerk and the attorney general and then suddenly, he vanished. Cowardice was on sale at popular prices in Trump-land this week. In ATLANTA yesterday the letters of apology required for the plea deals for Trump 19 confessed conspirators Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesbro were obtained through a Public Records Act motion and combined they stretched to just 26 words. The importance of Giuliani and Trump wimping out is that it underscores that when the spit hits the fan, the bullies ARE the first to run. The lesson in this is simple: hit them. Hit them every day. Hit them with every lawsuit, every indictment, every protest, every public mockery, every embarrassment. Hit them with everything you have, every day, for the rest of their lives. Because what Trump proved by NOT being in a New York courtroom Monday, and what Giuliani proved by squirming at the defense table yesterday, is that you CAN break them. Both of them. Maybe not all at once, maybe not permanently. But they cannot bullshit their way out of EVERYTHING. ALSO: You'll never believe how bad Vivek Ramaswamy's CNN ratings were. Or Charles Barkley's. And guess what else is back? Cajun Congressman Clay Higgins' "Ghost Buses" delusion. Except now they're MISSING! Complete with an interview by delusional ex-reporter Lara Logan. And her show literally opens with video of Logan playing in traffic. B-Block (36:53) IN SPORTS: Gene Carr, "The New Kid In Town," and Ken MacKenzie of the 1962 Mets, in memoriam (42:24) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Elon Musk says an anti-fraud law is a violation of the 1st Amendment. Kevin McCarthy puts the artificial in Artificial Intelligence. And w

SEASON 2 EPISODE 91: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: After spending their lives as bullies, Donald John Trump and Rudolph William Louis Giuliani will go out as cowards. Guess who did NOT testify yesterday as testimony ended in the Ruby Freeman/Shay Moss/Rudy Giuliani case? Yes, the defendant, who had promised after court Monday and Tuesday that he would testify, prove that he was telling the truth about them, and that they were lying about him. Instead, his lawyer was reduced to painting Giuliani as a pathetic "flat-earther" who could never process reality. Giuliani said nothing as the case concluded and the jury deliberated for three hours what he should make out the check for - and they didn't reach a conclusion. When it takes jurors more than one day to decide how much money you owe the people you lied about, guess what: you’re going to owe the people you lied about… eleventy billion dollars. It has been quite the week for Trumpian cowardice, led by Trump himself, because if the whole Giuliani "I'll prove I'm right" posturing sounds familiar, Trump did the SAME THING this week. He vowed to tell the truth – under oath - about the New York Business Fraud judge and the clerk and the attorney general and then suddenly, he vanished. Cowardice was on sale at popular prices in Trump-land this week. In ATLANTA yesterday the letters of apology required for the plea deals for Trump 19 confessed conspirators Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesbro were obtained through a Public Records Act motion and combined they stretched to just 26 words. The importance of Giuliani and Trump wimping out is that it underscores that when the spit hits the fan, the bullies ARE the first to run. The lesson in this is simple: hit them. Hit them every day. Hit them with every lawsuit, every indictment, every protest, every public mockery, every embarrassment. Hit them with everything you have, every day, for the rest of their lives. Because what Trump proved by NOT being in a New York courtroom Monday, and what Giuliani proved by squirming at the defense table yesterday, is that you CAN break them. Both of them. Maybe not all at once, maybe not permanently. But they cannot bullshit their way out of EVERYTHING. ALSO: You'll never believe how bad Vivek Ramaswamy's CNN ratings were. Or Charles Barkley's. And guess what else is back? Cajun Congressman Clay Higgins' "Ghost Buses" delusion. Except now they're MISSING! Complete with an interview by delusional ex-reporter Lara Logan. And her show literally opens with video of Logan playing in traffic. B-Block (23:48) IN SPORTS: Gene Carr, "The New Kid In Town," and Ken MacKenzie of the 1962 Mets, in memoriam (29:19) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Elon Musk says an anti-fraud law is a violation of the 1st Amendment. Kevin McCarthy puts the artificial in Artificial Intelligence. And what kind of act could the New York GOP find to follow George Santos? How about a registered Democrat whose name is spelled Nazi - only with an "M." C-Block (35:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: An extraordinary Minnesota rescue is in danger of losing everything: 9 dogs and 130 more animals from Emus to Silky Chickens. (36:05) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Man versus machine, reduced to Man versus Medicine Cabinet: "Nine Needles." And man versus transportation, reduced to mice: "The Mouse Who Went To The Country."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 90: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Dementia J. Trump has really lived up to the name. Or - DOWN to it. In a jaw-dropping development, even for him, even for his declining acuity, even in the vast Fog of Trump, he has just endorsed TWO rival candidates in the same congressional Republican primary. Saturday, at the Young Republicans banquet, Trump endorses Bo Hines, hoping to be chosen as the Republican running for North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District. Then yesterday, Trump writes “Addison McDowell just announced he is running for North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District… has my Complete and Total endorsement." There are SIX Republicans in the primary. Plenty of time for Trump to endorse all six of them. The primary isn’t until the 5th of March. This should stop being a surprise. The man is mentally impaired, declining fast, doesn’t know which number World War the NEXT World War would be, continually confuses Obama for Biden, doesn’t know what city he’s in, thinks Hungary’s Viktor Orban is the dictator of Turkey, and this is after he STARTED with any one (or more) of a dozen psychological and maybe physiological problems that could be summarized under the heading “his brain doesn’t work right.” It is not just a question of what Trump would do that he wanted to do but thought he couldn’t get away with the first time. It is also a question of what Trump would do that he would never know he was doing – out of sheer mental incapacitation. Like endorsing two candidates in the same race. Within 89 hours. Just to put a cherry on top of this cake of crazy, as I was recording the podcast Trump was speaking in Iowa. He was supposed to boast about the "U.S. Economy." But he didn't say that. He said the "Eunice Economy." Eunice. So good economic news for anybody named Eunice. Also: Hunter Biden humiliates Jim Comer and Jim Jordan, and the Republicans address the danger that Joe Biden is to America by launching a formal inquiry into impeaching him and then immediately going on vacation for the rest of the year. The show trial impeachment of Joe Biden is SO fraudulent that it has even by noticed by Chuck Todd, who has written 1,947 of the dumbest words imaginable on the topic, including the idea - as if he had dreamt it up - that the concept of impeachment has now been diluted. What Chuck did not mention but I will, is the role NBC News played on the day impeachment - and our original form of government - died. September 21, 1998, the day NBC and all the other networks prostituted themselves to the GOP and ran, unseen and unedited and without any context, Bill Clinton's Grand Jury testimony that had been illegally given to the Republican-run House Judiciary Committee and then illegally broadcast on all the networks while not one of tv's "journalists" made one complaint. It was before Chuck's time at NBC. It was NOT before mine. B-Block (27:21) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Running the gamut from Twitter-X to Tesla to putting his thumb on the finger for Republican politicians, Elon Musk wins all three medals. C-Block (34:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Any one, in any profession, can have a similar experience. But only in broadcasting does it signal the death of your youth. "Hey," your new colleague says. "I used to listen to you when I was a KID." I've been on both sides of the equation and I'll tell you those stories.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 89: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Republican Party, a wholly owned subsidiary of Vladimir Putin and the government of Russia, faced - to paraphrase Churchill - the bleak choice between war and shame. It has chosen shame. And it will get war thrown in, a little later. This, simply, is true: THE UNITED STATES is not helping UKRAINE… UKRAINE is helping the United States. It is fighting OUR war: at the cost of ITS lives, at the cost of ITS territory, at the cost of the existence through which its people must suffer. To protect US from Russia. And the Republicans are sending him home to, in all probability, watch his nation and his people die, because the Republicans are no longer connected, in any way, to reality. ALL issues are political machinations. ALL crises are opportunities. ALL good causes are to be held hostage so that fascism in America can take away a little more freedom and even more morality from the nation the Republican Party has raped. Once again, to re-purpose the infamous George W. Bush phrase – fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over HERE. THEY are the Russians and THEIR fascist madman’s dreams are as non-secret as ours is. He wants to reestablish the size and composition of the Soviet Union. That’s all of Ukraine. Estonia. Georgia. Belarus, Latvia, half a dozen more. That’s control-by-proxy of what is now Czechia and Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Poland, and half of Germany. Putin’s response? The Russians have already carpet-bombed Kiev this morning. And the Republican Party held THE DOOR OPEN FOR THEM, just as it tried to hold the door open for Adolf Hitler to subsume Europe 85 years ago. It will let him in and blame the Democrats about the Mexican border because the Republicans and the Republicans alone see a connection between a foreign dictator trying to absorb our allies and re-start the full-scale cold war, and immigration which the Republicans don’t actually want to SOLVE anyway because the point of the quote “border crisis” is to make sure there always IS a border crisis so the Republicans can scare their voters with it. And yet when Joe Biden says fine, we can couple these unrelated issues, let’s resolve everything, the Republicans say no. And we’re going on vacation. And Mike Johnson will need to see a detailed play script on exactly how Volodomir Zelensky is going to win and you think, man would I like to see Mike Johnson at the Ukrainian front and get to watch him break all land speed records while running away. PLUS: A Democratic Congressman finally nails down what the Republicans want to impeach Biden FOR. "High crimes and misdemeanors." But what EVENT? "That's why we're having an inquiry." But which ACT? "I don't have time to go into details." They're going to charge him with being WOKE. Or with illegally fathering Hunter Biden. Hell, that idiot Giuliani worked Hunter Biden into his latest paranoid theory about his trial for slandering the two Georgia Election Workers. B-Block (22:45) IN SPORTS: It's the greatest bad clip of sports play-by-play ever. The punch line is, we don't know the NAME of the hockey announcer, just that he describes a goal with "Look at that, look at this look at that." Speaking of bad, Tony Romo called Taylor Swift WHAT? (26:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The climate change conference that doesn't call for an end to fossil fuels; Morning Joe confuses everybody (how is this news?) and your own piece of the suit Trump was wearing when they arrested him - for only $4653. As the joke goes, good news for Trump's finances. There's a lot of fabric when you wear an XXXXXL C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: We are hovering near the 27th anniversary of the day I fell off a cliff shooting a Boston Market TV commercial. "Eat something," I said. And then - I did.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 88: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Jack Smith dares our corrupt Supreme Court to answer the decisive question right here, right now: If Dementia J. Trump is right and he didn't just make up this "Presidential Immunity" bullshit out of whole cloth, why did Ford pardon Nixon? Why did Nixon negotiate a pardon with Ford before he resigned? Why did Trump say just three months ago he was advised to pardon himself, and that if elected again he would consider a self-pardon? Smith's bold move to get the Supreme Court to decide this ultimate question will, if nothing else, cut Trump's endless stalls off at the pass. But with Samuel Alito just yesterday issuing a dissent in another case that might as well have been pulled off one of Trump's insane ALL CAPS SOCIAL MEDIA WORDGASMS, might Alito lead SCOTUS into a disaster just horrific enough to destroy itself and the nation by siding with Trump's ahistorical, unconstitutional crap? ALSO: On Day One of their trial, Giuliani's lawyer assures us he knows he did wrong and shouldn't be punished for slandering the two Georgia poll workers. Then Rudy goes out and slanders them again. Trump's mental deterioration is so obvious it was noticed even by Megyn Kelly (who looks like she could star in a re-make of "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS"). And his "dictator" remarks are so obviously dangerous that even Peter Baker and The New York Times noticed - and the Trump campaign is trying to get him to ix-nay the ictatorship-day. B-Block (20:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Their political grandfathers wanted to appease Hitler and give him England and the Jews. Today's GOP is meeting with representatives of Hungarian strongman Orban to try to appease Putin and give him Ukraine and NATO. (24:37) IN SPORTS: Shohei Ohtani is both selfless and selfish. He will defer $68 million a year of his $70 million salary, giving his new Dodger employers a huge break in the baseball "luxury tax" - and himself on the real California state tax. And what happened to that Ohtani-To-Toronto story? My bet, from having seen it occur to another brilliant sports reporter, is that Jon Paul Morosi didn't screw up; his source did - or lied to him. I'll tell you the Jim Lampley/Larry Brown story. And I'll SING ABOUT MOROSI AND OHTANI. (34:31) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Vivek Ramaswamy's most cogent statement ever: leaves the mike on during a bathroom break. Climate deniers will get to watch another previously unconsidered disaster unfold. And Nancy Mace and her fiancé broke up? A class dame like her what talks about morning sex at a prayer breakfast? c-Block (39:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: You are welcome to skip this, but I found a cassette over the weekend. It is a bunch of sportscasts recorded the week of my 18th birthday. The voice is high, the predictions are startlingly good. As are the cameos.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 87: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Dictator-On-Day-One Trump continues to measure the windows for the new curtains in his White House, and I don’t know if that has been PROCESSED on the fascist side or if we have properly done so on the, you know, Non-Dictatorship Side but it is increasingly obvious that Trump is increasingly confident that he will seize power next year. That is the ONLY possible explanation for what he has now done: leaking, to the gullible and willing stenographers from Axios Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei for publication yesterday, a set of choices for his administration that would make Jair Bolsonaro blush: Vice President Tucker Carlson, Chief of Staff Steve Bannon, CIA Director Kash Patel, Attorney General Stephen Miller, or Attorney General Mike Davis, or Attorney General J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense Tom Cotton, Secretary of Denial Kari Lake, Secretaries-of-to-be-announced Kristi Noem, Byron Donalds, Johnny McEntee, and of course Secretary of Lecterns Sarah Huckabee. We will never fully now, not even after the autopsy, what PRECISELY is wrong with Trump’s brain but it seems clear that whatever it is one of its symptoms is that he must convince himself that he IS winning, WILL win, will ALWAYS win. Jack Smith is right and he IS a serial election denier but it’s deeper than that: at his advanced age and with his advanced diseases, if he ever believed he was defeated, he would die – figuratively or maybe literally. So the greatest relief he could possibly have would be to believe, 334 days before it happens, that he has already won the 2024 election and that is how he is behaving and I’m not sure WHAT to do with that but it HAS to make him sloppy and vulnerable and better minds than ours can problem figure out which soft spot on his head to PUSH. What VALUE is there in saying “here’s Tucker Carlson: psychopathic white supremacist whose career stability makes Keith Olbermann’s look like that of Bob Cratchit – I’m going to put him in government. Along with Kari Lake, whose highest elected office was weekend weather-girl in Rock Island.” It’s the kind of things you do NOT to rally your base and NOT to scare your opponents but because you really can’t STOP yourself from doing them, and suddenly you are more convinced than ever than you can get away with them. And if that isn’t a motto for the entire Trump Nazi Party I don’t know what is. PLUS: Matt Gaetz is about to get Robespierred, J.D. Vance wants to get a head start on prosecutor writers. And competing January 6 Truthers fight it out over whose bullshit is true. (17:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: MAGA Congresswoman McClain makes a fool of herself but not as much as would-be MAGA Congressman Philip Sean Grillo does. The NFL coach who really doesn't have to "hand it to" the 9/11 plotters. Poor Nick Fuentes and Vivek Ramaswamy pushing white supremacy without realizing that if the Trumpers run out of brown immigrants, the next people they'll purge will be... Fuentes and Ramaswamy. B-Block (33:31) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Mr. Preble Gets Rid Of His Wife C-Block (43:32) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: A Box To Hide InSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 86: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The seven justices of the Supreme Court have given no indication HOW they will rule on Trump’s disqualification under the 14th Amendment and they have given no indication WHEN they will rule but here’s a bigger issue: They have no RIGHT to rule. The 14th Amendment clearly, unquestionably, inarguably, and ETERNALLY states that an insurrectionist can’t serve in an elected federal or state office, or a lot of other offices, and it doesn’t allow anybody to overrule the Constitution because the 14th Amendment already HAS a means for disqualified traitors to appeal – the drafters OF the 14thAmendment BUILT THAT REMEDY IN - and they have already designated two bodies to overrule disqualification under special circumstances, and those bodies are the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate and if they each vote by two-thirds to let Trump back on the ballot, he’s back on the ballot. That is, for all practical purposes, IN the Constitution! And if they DON’T, he's not. That is also, for all practical purposes, in the Constitution! And we KNOW this because it was written, principally, by Congressman John Bingham, a Radical Republican who not only was one of the House Managers for the IMPEACHMENT of President Johnson, but earlier Bingham had been the Assistant Judge Advocate General during the trial of the accomplices of the man who murdered Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth. And if John Bingham’s attitude towards insurrectionists wasn’t clear enough from the 14thAmendment and the completely justified slow roasting of President Andrew Johnson – just a reminder: the eight co-conspirators charged in the Lincoln Assassination that the co-author of the 14th Amendment PROSECUTED included Mrs. Mary Surratt who ran the boarding house where the conspirators met, and the stagehand at Ford’s Theater who did nothing more than hold Booth’s horse while he went in and murdered the president. They HANGED half of the defendants – including the woman who ran the boarding house. Three of the other four were given life sentences. The guy who held the horse got six years at hard labor. They DID make a concession to Mrs. Surratt. While they were preparing to hang her and the others they let her sit in a chair. The authors of the 14th Amendment weren’t EFFING AROUND. Plus: I've GOT it. I've GOT President Biden's version of the famous only-ran-once only-needed-to-run once Lyndon Johnson 1964 "Daisy" commercial. YOU'RE WELCOME. B-Block (24:46) IN SPORTS: After just 5-1/2 years of rumors: Juan Soto to the Yankees? The White Sox to Nashville? And why, yes, I did sell a 1914 Babe Ruth Baltimore Orioles rookie card for seven figures - why do you ask? (33:56) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: NYC Mayor Adams (appointed, he says, by God) has an approval rating of 28%. RFK Jr confesses to flying on Jeffrey Epstein's jet. Musk lets Carlson re-platform Jones on Twitter. C-Block (38:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The fanciness of the British accent trips me up on my way to interviewing Mickey Mantle. Also the guy WITH the woman with the fancy British accent was wearing a CAPE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 85: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Jack Smith's Shocker: He will prosecute Trump on the premise that the January 6th Coup Attempt started in 2012. A new filing with the Judge indicates Smith will argue he tried to push this country over the edge and into violent revolution and dictatorship in November and December of 2020 and January 2021, Donald Trump was NOT RESPONDING to what he falsely believed was a stolen election. And he was NOT RESPONDING to faulty legal advice. And he was not RESPONDING to changing partial vote counts. And he was not RESPONDING to unexpected outcomes in swing states. It was all a plan. An EIGHT YEAR OLD plan. A well-rehearsed plan. The “Rigged Election” lie of 2020 began in 2012… when Trump tweeted after Obama’s re-election, quote: “He lost the popular vote by a lot; We should have a revolution in this country…" “We should march on Washington and stop this…” “The election is a sham and a travesty…” And - most familiarly - “Let’s fight like hell.” Plus, Smith introduces an unidentified co-conspirator, a Trump staffer who tried to start a riot to derail the counting of ballots in Detroit on November 4, 2020, and was the go-between from the campaign to the actual rioters in the arena. Plus: the same day I suggest using the insurrection act against Trump, Steve Bannon and Kash Patel promise to jail journalists and Democrats and destroy government, and the Speaker of the House says he will release all remaining January 6 video but blur the faces of people on it so they cannot be prosecuted. It's literally lawless obstruction of justice. We are, AGAIN, at the political equivalent of the moment in the movie Rosemary’s Baby when Mia Farrow shakes off the drugs and the anesthetics and the gaslighting and shouts “This is no dream! This is really happening!” Use the tools we have, no matter how blunt they are, rather than leave them to be used against us. B-Block (27:05) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Johnson signs off on impeachment, Nehls admits it's being done just to give Trump "ammo," Gomer Comer stumbles over his explanation, Mitt Romney, grandson of a political refugee from Mexico, wants a sealed border, Nancy Mace loses another reason to get out of bed in the morning. (31:30) IN SPORTS: I'm going to assume Ohtani is NOT going anywhere that's been in the news. And taxpayer dollars to get a football team into a playoff? (37:41) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Julie Kelly doesn't understand laws, Thomas Massie does an antisemitism, and Ronna McDaniel is the latest to not know who was president in 2020. C-Block (41:52) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Tales of Ted Turner and me and the unlikely guy who wrote me a fan letter about a previous story I did on Ted. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 84: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Here's an idea. What if - instead of waiting for Trump to manipulate our system and get elected again and use The Insurrection Act against AMERICA, we just used it against him - today? It's not like he's not guilty of... you know... INSURRECTION. B-Block (28:03) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Deadline nears on Ukraine $: How could the GOP be anti-gun? Witness tampering in the Georgia Trump case (with singing). The online Mehdi Hasan petition exceeds 15,000. Trump calls Jimmy Carter "The First Lady" and never even notices. (33:13) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: COP28 actually put a UAE Oil Sultan in charge and they're all shocked he denied fossil fuels are killing the planet. Trump Diapers now on sale. And Christian Ziegler is not only in huge legal trouble, but the other woman was only really interested in his Missus. C-Block (38:36) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I guess because I'm suggesting using The Insurrection Act to SAVE America rather than leaving it for Trump to use to DESTROY America, I want to tell the saga of "A Christmas Story" and how Little Ralphie finally figured out how to defeat the bully, Scut Farkas (by invoking the insurrection act!)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 83: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I’d like to apologize for what MSNBC has become. Again. I'd like to apologize AGAIN for what MSNBC has become. They fired Mehdi Hasan yesterday. He hosted one hour a week on Sunday nights and it might have been the best hour on the network because while I don’t know that I agreed with even MOST of what he said, he wasn’t doctrinaire and he didn’t simply repeat what Maddow says and he didn’t pretend to be a moderate because being a Trump propagandist didn’t work out for him like Scarborough does and he didn’t struggle to read a prompter full of Democratic Party talking points like Joy Reid does and to my knowledge he never fell asleep on the air like Andrea Mitchell does nor cause the viewer to fall asleep like Hayes and O’Donnell do. I do NOT know for certain why they fired him, I do NOT know if he said something about the Middle East they did not like, I do not know if the timing was coincidental. Let’s put it this way: they either fired him for his Middle East opinions DURING conflict in the Middle East OR they fired him for something else DURING conflict in the Middle East and thus made themselves look guilty of firing him for his Middle East opinions anyway. Just as important as the continuing asinine and ignorant conduct of the management of MSNBC and NBC and NBC News is the issue of personal integrity of the people at what is god help us the closest thing to a liberal news network in this country. MORE important than the FIRING of Mehdi Hasan, is the response from MSNBC’s stars about the firing of Mehdi Hasan. Want to read what Maddow and O’Donnell and Hayes and Wagner and Reid and everybody else said about this: Wanna read it again? The POINT of HAVING the money IS that you SHOULD say "F YOU" to somebody at least once in your life. Not like Musk did; saying it to people who for some reason don’t want their ads next to antisemitic and Pizzagate posts. But in DEFENSE of something. FOR something. If there are three people at NBC – hell, three people in NEWS – three people in TELEVISION – who can at least get away with a loud pointed protest – hell, can get away with saying “If Mehdi Hasan goes or if Tiffany Cross goes or if we keep diluting our product down to badly rewritten Democratic Party press releases, we’re on strike” – if there are THREE people in media – besides like Taylor Swift - who can say “We are standing on our principles” and will LIVE TO TELL ABOUT IT, it’s Chris Hayes and Lawrence O’Donnell. Of course – you’ve gotta HAVE principles. ALSO the Judge Engoron Trump gag order is back in place and Trump is still endangering the judge, his wife, and now his son. And Politico says the editorial that provoked Trump to revive the self-own "I will kill ObamaCare" not only revivified the ISSUE; it revivified Biden’s campaign. Emails went out within hours. Nancy Pelosi got on a press call Tuesday. Biden hit Trump on video Wednesday. Commercials are already running on the state level. And then the Wall Street Journal ran another editorial on ObamaCare… attacking… TRUMP. For his failure to repeal AND his failed response to their first editorial. Whereupon Trump replied by attacking… the Wall Street Journal by calling the paper quote “Globalist” and the Editorial Page a “mess.” The Editorial Page whose editorial about ObamaCare got him so excited that he again vowed to replace ObamaCare and thus revitalized the Biden campaign and I haven’t fully diagrammed this bizarre confluence of events but I think the gist of it is: if Biden is re-elected we can thank… The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board? B-Block (31:46) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: House Judiciary subpoenas Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo and enrages GOP. Good. Wanna guess how many copies Marjorie Greene's book sold in its first week? You need only three digits. And Henry Kissinger is dead. Are we certain? (37:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Even The Daily Caller has fired Tucker Carlson. Lanah Burkhardt and book banning for fun and profit. And Three's Company: Florida GOP Chief accused of sexual battery by a woman who says she and he and his wife - who is the co-founder of Moms For Liberty - had a long-standing menage-a-trois polygamy thing going on. Oh so it's THAT kind of liberty! Moms for three-ways! C-Block (44:32) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: The first time I've ever read aloud Thurber's death-by-a-thousand-cuts critique of Salvador Dali's autobiography. "The Secret Life Of James Thurber."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 82: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has made a stochastic threat against the President of the United States: “Joe Biden should stop his Election Interfering Thugs before it is too late for him and the rest of the Country,” That is a threat and if you wrote it somewhere in public – depending on your rap sheet and past mental health – Secret Service might stop by for a visit. And Trump’s rap sheet includes manifest and growing clinical insanity. Oh and an attempt to violently overthrow the government of the United States. In the same post: “He’s got the Justice Department and others suing me… it opens up a very big and dangerous pandora’s box” which is yet another stochastic call for somebody to attack the Justice Department or its leaders or Jack Smith or all of the above, to say nothing of what – if he keeps saying it this loudly this often, voters might actually notice – is the hundredth repetition of his promise that he will actually do what he’s falsely claiming is being done to him – what he already DID do on a small scale – use the DOJ as a personal tool for revenge and suppression of any opposition. Trump also attacked Judge Engoron’s clerk and his wife: “Judge Engoron’s Trump Hating wife, together with his very disturbed and angry law clerk, have taken over control of the New York State Witch Hunt Trial aimed at me…” Again, this is the clerk he has doxxed, and now threatened; and added to this is Engoron’s wife. Five times in just four minutes yesterday Trump posted screenshots sent to him by the lunatic Laura Loomr of posts a Twitter-X account with various anti-Trump memes, over which Trump wrote “This is the judge’s wife saying this” and “Another from Judge Engoron’s Wife” and “Yet another from Judge Engoron’s wife” and “Judge Engoron’s Wife” and finally he ran out and just repeated “Judge Engoron’s Wife.”Spoiler alert: it’s NOT Judge Engoron’s Wife. 22 days ago she told Newsweek quote “I do not have a Twitter account. This is not me. I have not posted any anti-Trump messages.” Even if Mrs. Engoron IS somehow lying, boldly and on-the-record and with no wiggle room of course as we know, what a judge’s wife does in her life or on social media is immediate grounds for the judge’s impeachment. Right Ginni Thomas? And if he wasn’t self-destructing when he endorsed the Anti-semitic Great Replacement theory last week, or if he wasn’t self-destructing when he endorsed Pizzagate on Tuesday, he WAS self-destructing at the New York Times Dealbook Summit yesterday, daring advertisers not to advertise, implying no one could blackmail him with mere money. And congrats to interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin for not getting any of it on him when Musk turned into a human debris field. A lesson, kids: never let them inject the Ozempic into your brain. B-Block (23:40) IN SPORTS: Aaron Rodgers plays a little football and doesn't rip anything. And could the biggest baseball import from Japan make his decision based on what uniform number a team is willing to give him? (29:09) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The cognitive decline of Sean Hannity, Ron DeSantis "literally" standing in front of a freight train, and I'm back on Twitter-X thanks to the firm hand of Lauren Boebert. C-Block (34:30) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Myra - and her unborn puppies - in Devore, Ca. (35:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Every year at this time I am reminded that a Major League Baseball team once managed to get me fired from a job I hadn't started at. Which means that since 2000 they have done that, as often as they've won the World Series.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 81: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is actually trying to keep his ass out of prison for subverting the 2020 election, by insisting that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. "Russia Russia Russia. And THAT, your honor, is the case for the defense of Dementia J. Trump" Trump is demanding that Judge Tonya Chutkan give his lawyers access to the FULL classified intelligence report proving the 2016 Russian interference, and so what if he’s spent seven uninterrupted years honking and bleating about “The Russia Hoax” and denigrating the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, while insisting there was no Russian interference and making it an article of faith within the Republican Cult that he was cleared of any Russian collusion and election subversion and so what if he WASN’T cleared of Russian collusion and election subversion because there WAS no Russian collusion and election subversion except now his defense is: there was TOO Russian collusion and election subversion. “Whereas the Special Counsel’s Office falsely alleges that President Trump ‘eroded public faith in the administration of the election,’” write his lawyers in a light night filing demanding more documents for their defense against Jack Smith’s Washington case, “the 2016 Election Intelligence Community Assessment uses strikingly similar language to attribute the origins of that erosion to foreign influence – that is, foreign efforts to ‘undermine public faith in the U-S democratic process,” Plus: Some of Mike Pence's interview with Jack Smith and his Grand Jury testimony has leaked and Trump could go to jail over the placement of a comma. In his book, Pence recounted that he spoke to Trump on Christmas Day of 2020 when the Pence-Can-Block-The-Certification Plot was already well underway. In the book Pence quotes himself as telling Trump – and the punctuation is essential: “You know, I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome." But Pence told the investigators that the comma shouldn’t have been there at all and what he said was, quote, “You KNOW I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome,” which suggests that Trump had begun to pressure – to threaten – Pence to violate the constitution at least 13 days before the January 6th coup attempt. And that is DAMNING. Not the colloquial “y’know” but “You KNOW I can’t do that.” And some of Liz Cheney's book is out and the shock of all shocks: Donald Trump has actually spent some of his adult life not eating: “She recounts the moment she first found out that McCarthy, fearing he had lost his ability to fundraise, secretly went to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago just three weeks after the Jan. 6 attack. At first, Cheney thought the photo of the two men smiling and shaking hands was fake. But she was incredulous at McCarthy’s defense of his visit. He claimed Trump’s staff summoned him. “Mar-a-Lago? What the hell, Kevin?” Cheney asked. “They’re really worried,” McCarthy said. “Trump’s not eating, so they asked me to come see him.” “What? You went to Mar-a-Lago because Trump’s not eating?” Cheney responded. “Yeah, he’s really depressed,” McCarthy said. Oh have I got a couple jokes for YOU. B-Block (21:19) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Elon Musk insists on Twitter that Pizzagate is real and the only person who proved it wasn't has gone to jail for child porn. So I'm leaving Twitter. (27:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: BBC Washington anchor covers Rosalynn Carter memorial, mispronounces her first name THREE TIMES; Ron DeSantis may have helped kill a guy; Senator John Kennedy gets blown out of the water by a mild-mannered gun violence expert. C-Block (34:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My friend who wrote all the original "This Is SportsCenter" commercials, Hank Perlman, visited yesterday. So it's time to review our greatest work, especially the famous Alexi Lalas Guitar Smash episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 80: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Somebody finally told Dementia J. Trump that he’s been calling Biden “Obama” for the last few months. So he has fabricated a backstory that whenever he has MADE this cognitive gaffe, it has been “sarcastic," so he could “indicate” that “others” may actually be running things. And just to sell this excuse even harder, Trump has now begun to do the one thing that could most easily give back his poll numbers, particularly his improving numbers with minorities; the one thing that could most easily destroy Trump’s arguments about inflation under Biden; the one thing that would be the answer to the Biden Campaign Team’s Prayers. He has attacked ObamaCare. He has insisted he and the Republicans should never give up on TERMINATING it - just when almost everybody had forgotten he failed to do it despite 29 promises that he would, and that he lost at least two elections on it. It's not just a political millstone he's put around his own neck and the neck of every other Republican. It could also cost Trump his recent gains among minority voters. 80% of blacks and nearly 70% of Hispanics support ObamaCare and because of ObamaCare the rate of the uninsured among blacks and Hispanics has dropped roughly in HALF since 2010; just when Trump and Biden and events had tilted the entire profile of the election into things that favored Trump, Trump just brought back from the dead, what might be the LAST issue in which Democrats completely kick Republican ass. An NBC poll two months ago said Democrats are trusted by 2 to 1 over Republicans on Health Care. To sum it up, as an unnamed Biden adviser said: “It’s almost perfect that Trump would pick the ONE thing they haven’t really put front and center, which we know is incredibly unpopular, and say ‘Yeah, I’m gonna do this too!'" Thanks, Obama! Meanwhile, it is time for us to destroy Fox News. Twice in the last week its little oasis of presumed authenticity has proved to be just another venue for lying, journalistic terrorism, fraud, and partisanship that would embarrass Kimberly Guilfoyle. As late as Sunday, Fox was still intimidating that the horrible accident (never buy a car called a "Bentley Flying Spur") on the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls was some form of terrorism, and as late as last night it was still insisting Biden "couldn't even avoid age questions while on vacation" then playing a tape of its own reporter shouting the only age question. It's beyond dishonesty, it's desperation and it needs to come crashing down. And there are ways we can make it happen. B-Block (33:20) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Judge Chutkan rejects a Trump claim about imaginary January 6 evidence; Elise Stefanik somehow thinks she - a congresswoman - got the Trump Gag Order stayed; and now whenever you read Maggie Haberman or Jonathan Swan you'll remember they're holding back Trump news for their 2025 Trump book. (36:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Fox's Charlie "Butt" Hurt; Kevin McCarthy is dumber than we thought; and the Oxford Union chose HIM for their debate, instead of me. C-Block (42:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Like everybody else, I was once a Sports Illustrated writer. Hell, I was once in a sports media industry without AI-generated content (and as we just found out at SI: AI-generated writers!) and so competitive that when I was with UPI, my AP rival would not loan me a $1.50 piece of equipment to save my career at the Olympics when my own bosses had gotten me drunk!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 79: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Ludicrous as it looks, insane as Musk seems, corrupt as the Texas Attorney General is, this “Indict Media Matters” story is the FUTURE. It is practice, and Musk is the stand-in for the role ultimately to be played by Dementia J. Trump. Not merely politicizing but fully privatizing criminal prosecution in this country. Media Matters catches Musk placing high-priced corporate ads next to antisemitic content, the corporations investigate, the corporations cancel the ads. Musk complains. Trump's Renfield, Stephen Miller, responds and lights the bat signal. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has to do stuff like this or the billionaires will stop protecting him, promises to jail reporters for telling the truth. It's stochastic prosecution. The template is being sanded down and polished as we watch. This is practice for the bastards. Like January 6th was practice for the bastards. Just like the entirety of Trump’s time in the White House was practice for the bastards. Trump won't have to repeal the 1st Amendment to put Kristen Welker in jail. Or in theory, YOU, if you’ve ever tweeted or written anything online that he doesn’t like. Or in theory, ME. Hell: I could easily be FIRST. Trump doesn’t have to GET Congress to MAKE a law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. He reads something he doesn't like in The Washington Post (or one of his benefactors reads something bad on somebody's website and calls Trump) and he just drops the prosecution down to a state and the next thing you know Texas or Florida or Missouri or Mississippi becomes a veritable journalistic speed-trap. The Trumpists are so confident that they are giving us previews of their plans for 2025. There is one way to beat them: Liberal money, matching them dime for dime to save democracy. That, or this Trumpian nightmare isn't the future - it's the present. B-Block (22:13) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Mayor Adams' daily scandal is followed by a really weird sound bite. Senator Menendez needs to keep you from thinking about his gold bars so he hires a lawyer with the nickname "Gold Bars." (26:58) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Senator Kennedy does a racism and a sexism and a mispronunciationism; a Trumper messes up a meme; Nikki Haley just couldn't leave the nine-year old girl wearing the Haley hat alone. She had to ask her something. And Nikki got owned. C-Block (32:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I'm just about the youngest person you know who actually remembers the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 60 years ago today. And now it's clear it was a turning point in another way: it was the beginning of Conspiracy Theory Nation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 78: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The democracy will certainly not survive Donald Trump but I am now wondering if it has any chance of surviving Sarah Wallace, Patricia Millett, Cornelia Pillard, and Brad Garcia and if you don’t know who they are, they are the latest people on the latest list of supposed liberals and supposed officers of the court who could get us all KILLED. Millett seems to be the most clueless of the three DC Appeals Court dilettantes who first STAYED the gag order issued against Trump in the Election Subversion case and then yesterday conducted the in-person hearing and all but announced that they WILL significantly limit the order because apparently when Trump starts ignoring laws he doesn’t like and jailing judges he doesn’t like, these idiots somehow think they will be immune because they were so fair to him back there in November 2023. Judge Millett seemed to base her nitwitted reaction to the two hours of oral arguments on the impact of the gag order on…presidential debates. “He has to speak ‘Miss Manners’ while everyone else is throwing targets at him? It would be really hard in a debate, when everyone else is going at you full bore. Your attorneys would have to have scripted little things you can say.” Miss Manners. Trump has to speak ‘Miss Manners.’ Do you get the same feeling I do that Judge Millette has no earthly clue WHO Dementia J. Trump is? Do you get the OTHER same feeling that I do that it has not occurred to, and will NEVER occur to, Judge Millette that so far there have been THREE presidential debates in the Republican primary and Trump hasn’t shown up to any of them and there is no reason to expect he’d have the guts to show up to one in the general election. And THEN there is Judge Sarah Wallace and I’m not sure she didn’t even harm the country MORE than Judge “Miss Manners” and Judge “I Would Assume” did. Judge Wallace heard the 14th Amendment disqualification case and at the same time that she ruled quote “that Trump incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021, and therefore ‘engaged’ in insurrection within the meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment” she then superseded the Amendment itself in as remarkable an act of judicial cowardice as I’ve ever seen. “After considering the arguments on both sides,” wrote Judge Wallace, “the Court is persuaded that ‘officers of the United States’ did not include the PRESIDENT of the United States. It appears to the Court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section 3 did not intend to include a person who had only taken the Presidential Oath,” unquote. So she ordered him onto the Colorado primary ballot instead of saying “Yeah, I’m thinking they meant to include PRESIDENTS because otherwise having just survived the Civil War they decided to make sure Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest could NOT run for anything EXCEPT President of the United States rather than showing some guts, Judge Wallace folded. The people who could DO something and they actually divide into two categories and two categories ONLY: Judges who are too effete to do anything and judges who are too scared to do anything. B-Block (22:20) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: How did Argentina elect as its new president Jason Bateman playing Wolverine? The late great Joss Ackland. And the newest housing requisite: Built-in Dog Showers? (26:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Just a Fox News typo, no doubt: "Osama Biden Laden"; Moms For Liberty's Philly chief is a registered sex offender; Senator Mike Lee launches the worst January 6th gaslighting ever. C-Block (32:20) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Milo in Tennessee (33:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I anchored the telecast of the 1992 Baseball Expansion draft, 31 years ago this week. Star analyst Joe Morgan really didn't want to be there. REALLY didn't.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 77: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-BLOCK (1:44) BULLETIN: White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates issues searing condemnation of the antisemitism rampant on Twitter-X and specifically calls out Elon Musk's repetition of the antisemitic madness behind the 2018 "Tree Of Life" synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. It is a dramatic and unyielding statement with language so strong it must have been approved by President Biden himself and signals his willingness to confront the antisemitism, and all religious and anti-minority hate, and Musk himself. It is a startling development. The remainder of this podcast is a repeat of Friday's regular 76th episode and if you've heard it you may skip it with my full blessing. But it does emphasize how a threat to ban Twitter-X and end all government contracts with him, could rescue it from Musk's prejudice and bullying (6:56) It is time for the government of the United States to ban “X” – the social media site still primarily known as Twitter - and to terminate all government contracts with its owner. Under Trump the government moved to ban TikTok as a security risk to the United States, so there is precedent for at least the attempt, because a process that has been accelerating for more than a year reached a climax Wednesday when owner Elon Musk answered a blatantly antisemitic tweet with the reply quote “you have said the actual truth.” Combined with surging anti-semitism throughout the website, and the use of Nazi hate speech and paraphrases of infamous Hitler quotes by the likely Republican candidate for president, the tinderbox of antisemitism has never been fuller or drier and Trump and Musk seem determined to light it ablaze – and with it, light ablaze the peace and security of this nation. Musk’s bizarre running of the Twitter-X platform had already destroyed more than half its value and even more of its advertising. Yesterday afternoon, IBM announced it was pulling its already-scheduled ads for the next three months – the New York Times says that was a million dollars’ worth. Rather remarkably, as of the close of business yesterday The New York Times had not yet cancelled Musk’s scheduled appearance twelve days from now at a Times event it calls its “DealBook Summit” which it describes as the gathering of quote “the most consequential leaders in business, politics, and culture,” unquote… and, I guess, the most consequential leaders in antisemitism. As the snowball rolling down the hill toward her reached speeds of about a thousand miles an hour, Musk’s hand-picked CEO Linda Yaccarino posted a comment at 3:45 PM Eastern that seemed crafted by the nation’s finest satirical comedians, or maybe Tim Robinson in the hot dog suit and the “We’re All Trying To Find The Guy Who Did This” meme. Quote: “X’s point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the boad – I think that’s something we can and should all agree on. When it comes to this platform, X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world – it’s ugly and wrong. Full stop.” If taken sincerely and literally, Yaccarino’s only possible next action would be… to suspend Elon Musk’s account. Musk has gone down a path from which he cannot backtrack. Twitter-X – at least HIS version of it – must be banned, and government contracts and other agreements – local, state, national - with his other firms: Space-X, Tesla, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and xAI must be terminated. Today. There is no other option. B-BLOCK (23:07) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The George Santos ethics investigation is in. He doesn't have any. Remarkable research that suggests the Republicans haven't ONCE needed his vote. Paul Pelosi's attacker is found guilty, as is a J6 insurrectionist that MAGA has convinced itself was actually a Black Lives Matter Antifa George Soros plant.(28:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It's an ugly word and Caitlyn Jenner just proved she doesn't know how to spell it. It's the word "Congresswoman" and Trump Junior just proved he doesn't know how to pronounce it. And it may be the last words Charissa Thompson ever says as a sportscaster. The former Fox Sports football sideline reporter volunteers the startling information that several times she DIDN'T interview the coach at halftime and simply lied and made up what she thought he would've said. Unless...she made THAT story up too. C-BLOCK (36:00) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: One James Thurber short story, above all others, is in the college textbooks and high school textbooks and middle school textbooks. And there's a reason for it: "The Night The Bed Fell."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 76: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) It is time for the government of the United States to ban “X” – the social media site still primarily known as Twitter - and to terminate all government contracts with its owner. Under Trump the government moved to ban TikTok as a security risk to the United States, so there is precedent for at least the attempt, because a process that has been accelerating for more than a year reached a climax Wednesday when owner Elon Musk answered a blatantly antisemitic tweet with the reply quote “you have said the actual truth.” Combined with surging anti-semitism throughout the website, and the use of Nazi hate speech and paraphrases of infamous Hitler quotes by the likely Republican candidate for president, the tinderbox of antisemitism has never been fuller or drier and Trump and Musk seem determined to light it ablaze – and with it, light ablaze the peace and security of this nation. Musk’s bizarre running of the Twitter-X platform had already destroyed more than half its value and even more of its advertising. Yesterday afternoon, IBM announced it was pulling its already-scheduled ads for the next three months – the New York Times says that was a million dollars’ worth. Rather remarkably, as of the close of business yesterday The New York Times had not yet cancelled Musk’s scheduled appearance twelve days from now at a Times event it calls its “DealBook Summit” which it describes as the gathering of quote “the most consequential leaders in business, politics, and culture,” unquote… and, I guess, the most consequential leaders in antisemitism. As the snowball rolling down the hill toward her reached speeds of about a thousand miles an hour, Musk’s hand-picked CEO Linda Yaccarino posted a comment at 3:45 PM Eastern that seemed crafted by the nation’s finest satirical comedians, or maybe Tim Robinson in the hot dog suit and the “We’re All Trying To Find The Guy Who Did This” meme. Quote: “X’s point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the boad – I think that’s something we can and should all agree on. When it comes to this platform, X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination. There’s no place for it anywhere in the world – it’s ugly and wrong. Full stop.” If taken sincerely and literally, Yaccarino’s only possible next action would be… to suspend Elon Musk’s account. Musk has gone down a path from which he cannot backtrack. Twitter-X – at least HIS version of it – must be banned, and government contracts and other agreements – local, state, national - with his other firms: Space-X, Tesla, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and xAI must be terminated. Today. There is no other option. B-BLOCK (17:50) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The George Santos ethics investigation is in. He doesn't have any. Remarkable research that suggests the Republicans haven't ONCE needed his vote. Paul Pelosi's attacker is found guilty, as is a J6 insurrectionist that MAGA has convinced itself was actually a Black Lives Matter Antifa George Soros plant.(22:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It's an ugly word and Caitlyn Jenner just proved she doesn't know how to spell it. It's the word "Congresswoman" and Trump Junior just proved he doesn't know how to pronounce it. And it may be the last words Charissa Thompson ever says as a sportscaster. The former Fox Sports football sideline reporter volunteers the startling information that several times she DIDN'T interview the coach at halftime and simply lied and made up what she thought he would've said. Unless...she made THAT story up too. C-BLOCK (30:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: One James Thurber short story, above all others, is in the college textbooks and high school textbooks and middle school textbooks. And there's a reason for it: "The Night The Bed Fell."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 75: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: B-Block (19:16) IN SPORTS: The president of the Cleveland Guardians admits what I've guessed at here: Many baseball teams are in financial trouble because of the collapse of cable sports television. And a Reddit post about the Brooklyn Nets "killing their own players" is either the best satire of sports fan idiocy, or the best example of sports fan idiocy. (25:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: There's a bunch: Elon Musk's antisemitism, Brianna Keilar platforming Joe Lieberman and the No Labels Trump Stalking Horses, "Democrat" Dean Phillips circulates an endorsement by Matt Gaetz, and poor FBI Director Wray subjected to the stupidity of Marjorie Taylor Greene and the "Ghost Buses" of Clay Higgins. Who ya gonna call? C-Block (33:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: With his three Ukrainian Hunter Biden Dirt sources suddenly accused of being Russian spies and under indictment for treason in Ukraine, it's time to tell you of the first time I knew Rudy Giuliani was nuts. Spoiler alert: it was in a previous century.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 74: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Ukraine indicts Rudy Giuliani's three contacts on the fabricated "Hunter Biden Burisma Investigation" as RUSSIAN SPIES. The charge is TREASON. The second part of Trump's multi-pronged association with Russia (and the primary reason for his first impeachment) roars back to life as the Ukrainian government indicts a sitting member of its parliament, a former member, and the former deputy prosecutor, for running a disinformation campaign alongside the GRU - Russian Military Intelligence. It is unlikely the scandal will actually see Giuliani prosecuted in Ukraine, but until these indictments it was also unlikely that the Ukrainian-Russian-Disinformation scandal would spring back to life. Two of the three men indicted for treason had previously been sanctioned by Trump's own State Department for helping Russian spies pump disinformation into this country through gullible and corrupt people (looking at you Rudy). And this now ties to James Comer because last spring when Comer asked a "whistleblower" about recordings of Joe Biden, one of them mysteriously produced exactly those recordings. Comer's investigation is now based in part on the work of a Russian Spy under indictment in Ukraine for treason. ALSO: Fani Willis expects her Trump trial to extend into next winter and very possibly into early 2025. Textbook reply by the Special Counsel to the stay of the Trump DC case gag order - except prosecutors compared his case to those of Tim McVeigh, a 9/11 plotter, and a Boston Marathon bomber. And as Senator Mullin threatens to throw hands with a Union Boss witness on the Senate floor, and Rep. Tim Burchett accuses Rep. Kevin McCarthy of elbowing him, we see that Trump's attempt to normalize political violence in this country is taking root. Mullin even goes on two channels to insist MORE such violence is a good thing, and makes a glowing reference to the 1856 nightmare when a Pro-Slavery Congressman nearly beat an Abolitionist Senator to death with a cane at his Senate desk. Mullin is either a historical ignoramus, or a sadist who just indicated support for those who used violence to try to protect slavery. B-BLOCK (33:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The new manager of the New York Mets begins his tenure in the worst way possible: by invoking the New York Yankees. More accusations against Russell Brand. And billionaire CEO Jamie Dimon has decided who should be the next president. No, it's NOT "President Jamie Dimon" - because compared to who he has chosen, "President Jamie Dimon" would be a GOOD idea. C-BLOCK (39:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Speaking of the Mets, and of slamming one's head against a wall, I just told this story the other day so it's time to tell it here: the day I found out, courtesy New York City's Number 7 Subway, why Mom used to say "don't run for a train, there'll always be another."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 73: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump IS our Hitler. I posited this as early as 2016 and stated it in this series in September, 2022. But some bridge was crossed over the weekend, something happened that was so bad that even The Washington Post sat up and took notice. And now, suddenly, the forces of Groupthink and Conventional Wisdom and The Run On The Bank and The Fear Of Coming In Last On The New Big Beat have all aligned - and for once, for good. Trump is Hitler. Not Hitler 1940, not Hitler 1938. But Hitler 1933? The last moment at which he could have been stopped before he unleashed the cataclysms of European destruction and the holocaust. That's where we are with Trump. And a bevy of his quotes FINALLY broke through: calling his enemies vermin and promising to root them out and echoing Hitler's "ein Volk" speech, while at the same time his evil psychotic henchmen let one too many detail leak about plans to vet every significant military leader so he could count on the army, and his plan to build concentration camps for migrants (and oh by the way anybody who would defend them) and his attempts to get Mo Brooks to demand a new election and his reinstallation as president LAST YEAR and some kind of an overthrow of the Biden regime - all came out simultaneously. To say nothing of the video proffers that got Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell their Georgia plea deals, full of previously sourced stories that will now have witness testimony about seizing voting machines and "the boss is not going to leave" and suddenly a million light bulbs have gone off around the media: TRUMP REALLY MEANS TO TAKE POWER AND NEVER GIVE IT UP. It just might, just might not be too late. But we have to advance it, and the way you and I can do so directly is to use the words. Suspend Godwin's law and the Survivors' Law (there is only one Hitler - it's Hitler) by making sure there really IS only one Hitler. We must call Trump Hitler. We must call them Nazis. We must get President Biden to call them Nazis. We must make people realize that stopping Trump is essential to saving freedom and democracy in this nation. Because it is. And the first group - the media - just began to wake up to it. B-BLOCK (37:09) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Fox News fired a guy for reporting the truth about January 6; A Texas Trumpist is trying to get elected to congress by reenacting the Martin Luther King assassination; And the Supreme Court just instituted a Code of Ethics that a) isn't a code, and doesn't have anything to do with ethics. (43:03) IT IS NOW TWO YEARS since the death of my hospice pup Mishu and there is actually news about him. Even in death, he may have made it so that other dogs afflicted with the terrible heart malformation that claimed him, may survive. C-BLOCK (1:02:10) THE STORY OF MISHU, Part 2 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 72: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Literally, Trumped-Up Charges: in Univision interview Dementia J. Trump has confirmed last Sunday's Washington Post story that if we do not stop him from again taking over The White House, he WILL openly politicize the Department of Justice and order it to create fictional indictments of his political rivals in order to prosecute them from campaigns or elections. He literally boasted that he would do what he has falsely accused the legal system of doing to him. And of course if Trump can fabricate charges against politicians, he can fabricate them against you. "If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business, they’d be out of the election.” He also blamed the Democrats for his own evil, and in the process exposed more of his Swiss-cheese brain: "What they’ve done is, they’ve released the genie out of the...box." It's BOTTLE, genius. The Jack Smith Mar-a-Lago shocker: Potential witnesses against Trump? The receptionist, the head of maintenance, the housekeeper who cleans his bedroom suite and a woodworker who installed the Crown Molding in the bedroom (I'm guessing the color was gold). Trump was reportedly "ballistic" about the housekeeper. Could we get more obscure heroes like Alex Butterfield and Frank Wills? If you don't know them, you will. Another judge muddies the 14th Amendment case. In Michigan, Judge James Robert Redford (seriously) asks the suing attorney if the clause means you can only disqualify somebody AFTER he’s been ELECTED? To which the lawyer aptly asks “That would require, what? The country to re-run an entire presidentical election?” And President Biden reminds us that his best re-election campaign ads would be ones in which he mocks Biden. Talking to auto workers yesterday he mocked him with instant success, and then doubled the laughter when he made the stations of the cross. B-Block (21:57) IN SPORTS: The Chicago White Sox suffer the greatest loss of free agency so far as play-by-play man Jason Benetti leaves for Detroit. The departure of Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell for the Cubs may not be the end of a retrenchment there. There might have been more of it around baseball at the General Mangers' Meeting - except it was cancelled a day early due to a raging virus that sent at least 10% of the executives to the restrooms. (25:44) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Nancy Mace is still getting skewered by Kevin McCarthy and by one remark she will never live down. New York rep Claudia Tenney is a veteran of making a fool of herself. She's done it again. And NewsNation - the Nick-At-Nite of TV News, hires yet another fired failure who doesn't have enough self-respect to find a different line of work. Megyn Kelly will moderate a GOP debate...free-lance? C-Block (32:05) FRIDAYS WITH JAMES THURBER: A selection of his shortest short stories: the fables, including his wonderful "The Unicorn In The Garden."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 71: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: We are so goddamned afraid of OFFENDING somebody by DEFENDING democracy. The Minnesota State Supreme Court, whose Chief Justice is a pioneer and the daughter of a pioneer (the first African-American football coach at a predominantly white college in modern times) managed to find a way to NOT rule for OR against the bid to disqualify Trump from the ballot there via the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment IS self-executing. You ARE presumed guilty until you are proven innocent. It was designed by Americans who had survived the Civil War and didn't want us to have to go through that. If there are extenuating circumstances, there's an override mechanism: Congress can vote by 2/3 to waive application of the clause. Otherwise - you're out. Yet the Minnesota court has chosen the escape route, the way to shirk responsibility for fear of blowback or appeal or who knows what. Everybody placed in the position in which they can risk a little to defend freedom and the constitution rather than waiting until freedom and the constitution are DEAD and millions have to risk everything to restore them, seems to want to get out of it. Kristen Welker got out of it last night. That buffoon Vivek Ramaswamy, so loathsome that even Nikki Haley called him "scum" during the debate, pointed at Welker and demanded that she explain NBC's coverage of the Trump-Russia conspiracy. "Was that real or was that Hilary Clinton made-up misinformation." And instead of realizing he had just gifted her the chance to DO something for democracy - to speak to an audience consuming its first "mainstream media" in a decade and tell them the truth, whether they accepted it or not - she just smiled moronically at him. There’s an extraordinary French film, La Regle du Jeu, The Rules Of The Game. It premiered on July 7th, 1939…354 days before France fell to the Nazis. It was written and directed by Jean Renoir and in it he plays the hero’s buddy Octave and at one point Octave says something about the corruption and lack of morals and just plain lack of effort to stand up for what’s right, and it’s a quote that has come to symbolize the France that folded like a card table to the Hitler onslaught and the Vichy France full of more collaborators than the Germans believed possible. “You see, in this world, there is one awful thing,” Octave says, seemingly fighting back, and then gives up with a shrug, “and that is… that everyone has his REASONS.” We may be the 21st Century version of Pre-Hitler France. We all have our reasons to just shrug, or smile idiotically at hallucinating psychopaths who seem to believe more in (and are willing to fight more for) their delusions than we do about our reality. B-Block (24:42) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Lauren Boebert discovers that being in Congress means if it's a spending bill you have to talk about spending in the bill, courtesy Professor Steny Hoyer. I'm sure she'll eventually get a grip on it. For a day, Twitter's "NY Times Pitchbot" predicted it and finally Nate Cohn did it: the story explaining why Tuesday's Democratic ass-kicking of MAGA was bad news for Joe Biden. And remember Cygnal? The right wing pollster I praised here yesterday for reporting, though it defied their side's narrative, that Biden's "image" had jumped five points in just one month and voters ranking inflation as the key issue had dropped six points in just two months? They've responded by attacking me. For...quoting their press release hyping their own poll. When you are strangled by slavery to your own ideology... C-Block (34:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is moving to Florida to be closer to his partner Lauren Sanchez. And as I've mentioned before, I used to work with her and she has now achieved her life goal. Just as I used to work with the guy who would eventually try to blackmail David Letterman and yeah, I think that might've been HIS life goal too. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 70: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) ELECTION SCOREBOARD: Democrats and democracy kick MAGA’s ass: another Trump off-year disaster as Republicans not only don't flip the Virginia Senate, they've lost the Virginia House! Deep discounts on "PRESIDENT YOUNGKIN 2024" Red Vests! In Ohio, it's a landslide as Issue 1 wins by 57-43 and puts Abortion Rights INTO the Ohio Constitution. And Kentucky Democratic Governor Andy Beshear goes from winning by 4000 votes four years ago, to winning by five points last night. Plus there are expansions of Democratic control in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It's another state-level disaster for Trump's GOP and what's the response of the CNN political director who whored himself out to get Trump live from that disastrous Kaitlan Collins Town Hall? David Chalian says "It's not the Democratic BRAND that's in trouble here, it's Joe Biden that's in trouble here." Actually that's not true either - and CNN should fire this idiot Chalian ASAP because it's CNN that's in trouble here. (9:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump managed to combine stochastic terrorism and his Dementia J. Trump/Elmer J. Fudd split personality in one post, insisting someone “must stop” people who don’t realize he’s worth billions more even than he claims. America’s leading Parking Lot Legal Scholar Alina Habba insists they’ll be filing for a mistrial because they didn’t let Trump talk enough in court (oh, they let him talk enough in court). The good news is, Judge Chutkan shut them down on the latest delaying tactic. They wanted three more months for pre-trial motions; she told them she’ll give them two weeks and they’ll like it. And as more details emerge of Trump’s plan for a military dictatorship, Jeff Clark, the mediocre little man who might be the Attorney General who oversees the transition of the DOJ into the Ministry of Vengeance will finally have to face having his law license suspended. While most reporting stays focused on Sunday’s New York Times Biden poll crater, there’s a new CNN poll that’s a little better. And everybody ignores the work of a private, right-leaning pollster called Cygnal with eye-opening good news for President Biden. Not only has his net approval/disapproval improved a whopping five points in ONE MONTH but the issue seen as sinking Biden – inflation – is beginning to shrink its dominance. A year ago 42% said inflation was the key topic. Two months ago it was still 37%. Now it’s down to 31%. The less it is decisive, the more it points to Biden’s reelection. Still, Politico reports that after three months the Biden campaign has the results of its almost exclusively positive, issue-focused, non-Trump advertising: It’s failed. Completely. The campaign is being urged to re-focus on Trump but remains reluctant, still convinced that Trump will be torn down enough by his Republican challengers (if it doesn’t happen at tonight’s debate, it won’t). And more over, the question has to be raised: if you ARE selling Joe Biden’s Greatest Accomplishments, isn’t the first thing on that list, the fact that HE beat Trump? Wasn’t the most vivid, youthful, meaningful moment of his presidency his Defense-Of-Democracy speech in Philadelphia last year? Isn’t the greatest image of Biden, “Dark Brandon?” Joe? You beat him. You’re the only one who has. We need you to do it again. And we need you to TELL US THAT. Not only WHY he and the evil he personifies and spreads MUST be defeated, but, bluntly, that you did it before and you will do it again: that you are the man to… beat the ever-loving shit out of him. B-BLOCK (30:49) IN SPORTS: Now begins the blowback. Wisconsin says goodbye and good riddance to no-longer-beloved-son Craig Counsell. The President of Mexico knows who the next manager of the Padres should be. And that drying up of the nourishing milk of ever-increasing TV fees for baseball? It just spread to basketball and hockey, where right now 26 teams are making $0 for telecasts during the 2024-25 season. (35:57) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Washington Post followed up on its Trump Dictatorship piece with more good analysis and a Bothsidesist headline that would’ve looked stupid even above a travel story. There’s yet ANOTHER scandal for new 5th String Speaker Mike Johnson. And yesterday he was excoriating Rep. Tlaib for hate and prejudice. A month ago he was promising to turn Gaza into a parking lot. It isn’t which side you’re on – it’s that violence and destruction are fine as long as you’re MAGA. C-BLOCK (41:24) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The New York City Marathon ended Sunday night. I swear, there are people walking the streets of my Fun City, still wearing their gold medals indicating they ran the damn thing. It flashes me back to the days when the Marathon had to beg for me to do a preview for CNN, and to the nightmares I still have of anchoring the Los Angeles Marathon… on RADIO.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 69: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is a damp drizzly November in our polls, but Dementia J. Trump not only inadvertently confessed to fraud at his New York trial but also managed to repeat - on the record - that he has no idea what year this in, nor when his presidency ended. The first will cost him $250,000,000 in cash and all his New York properties. The second could cost him his bid to seize power in 2025. And it had better. You saw Trump’s plan for a Special Prosecutor to attack anybody named Biden, and deliberately politicizing the Department of Justice, and this Project 2025 and Trump’s White House Budget Director Russ Vought going on the record to say that TO politicize the DOJ quote “You don’t need a statutory change at all, you need a mindset change. You need an attorney general and a White House Counsel’s Office that don’t view themselves as trying to protect the department from the president” which I think is even nastier sounding in the original Russian when Stalin devised it. Trump is convinced he made mistakes during his presidency and he won’t repeat them and the foremost of those mistakes was NOT to install a military dictatorship. Quoting The Washington Post, his team of evils is "drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.” And the creature at the center of that plot is Jeffrey Clark, indicted in Georgia, unindicted co-conspirator in Washington, would-be Attorney General, the environmental lawyer who wants to turn the world over to the least pro-environment person on the dying planet. Clark devised the last-minute January 2021 plot for the DOJ to seize voting machines and when told that if Trump stayed in office there would be riots in every major city he answered “Well, that’s why there’s an insurrection act.” Just remember that by August 1934 Hitler re-shaped the entire judiciary of Germany so that every judge and prosecutor had to swear an oath TO HIM and apparently the total number of resignations was one guy, a prosecutor in Wuppertal and his name was Martin Gauger and he wound up fleeing to the Netherlands and the Nazis caught him and sent him to Buchenwald and he was dead by 1941 and Trump has a four-year head start on Hitler. And then there are the polls. I'd love if they looked differently. On the other hand, no incumbent president hasn't been underwater to an opposition opponent - real or generic - at this point in the timeline in decades. And amid the calls to dump Biden, who's your choice? Who else are you willing to bet democracy on? B-Block (26:12) IN SPORTS: Cubs double the all-time salary for a baseball manager to hire Craig Counsell away from the Brewers (and outbid the Mets for him). Lovely guy. Has managed his team to six playoff series and lost five times. Mets go to Plan B, Cleveland gets one, All-time worst World Series TV ratings and don't dismiss them: baseball's business model DEPENDS on the game getting MORE money from TV each year, not less (31:18) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sarah Huckabee does what the lectern tells her. Boris Johnson shows he REALLY doesn't know what a hair dryer is for. And Speaker Mike Johnson gets weirder and weirder: what do you mean you and your 17-year old son exchange updates on your porn usage? C-Block (32:34) THINGS I PROMISE NOT TO TELL: On busy baseball days like this one somebody always asks me why I don't work for that baseballl network. Wellllll... I was gonna, but one team got me fired before they had finished hiring me!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 68: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN: The District of Columbia Court of Appeals Friday afternoon halted Judge Chutkan's gag order against Trump for at least the next 17 days. Rather than deal with it on an emergency basis, it scheduled the first in-person hearing for NOVEMBER 20. The members of the three-judge panel consisting of two judges appointed by Obama and one appointed by Biden should be impeached and disbarred because they actually fell for not just a pathetically weak 1st Amendment excuse but also for a series of arguments based on the delusions-of-grandeur, megalomaniacal premise that this madman Trump believes a 100,000,000 Americans are somehow being deprived of their right to hear him because a judge had ruled no, Trump was not allowed to threaten the judge and the court officials and the prosecutors and not allowed to try to convince his cultists to try to kill them. He had already been given – BY the Judge who issued the gag order – the right to continue to insanely claim that the prosecution of his attempt to overthrow the government and foment violent revolution in this country and install an authoritarian regime with him as its permanent dictator was actually a political vendetta personally ordered by the President of the United States. All she wanted to stop was the continued attempt by Trump to use the social media site he OWNS and the propaganda video networks that make their only money by platforming him and the fascist rallies he stages to say it in just the right way to get somebody to KILL special counsel Jack Smith and to KILL judge Tanya Chutkan and to call in bomb threats to the court room and to doxx the jurors, the way he got hundreds of his cultists to attack the Capitol on January 6 and the way he doxxed Obama and one of his cultists went to Obama’s neighborhood and hunted him, with the ultimate goal being obvious and evil: to institutionalize political violence and turn it into the determinative factor in how this country is not governered but RULED. Donald Trump is a terrorist. A. TERRORIST. And he has been using terrorism by proxy to destroy the laws and rules of this country, without interruption by the law or the courts for fully EIGHT years now. And when the justice system FINALLY stands up on its feet and the courts FINALLY stand up on their feet and recognize that after ALL of our other institutions have utterly failed and ALL of our leaders have failed to protect the nation against domestic terrorism in the form of Trump and his family and his enablers, when SOMEBODY finally BEGINS to do SOMETHING about it, this DC Appeals court say well, no, maybe the legal system of this country has been bending over backwards to protect the rights of this man who would destroy it and KILL anybody in it he doesn’t like, but we don’t see that in bending over backwards it has yet severed its own SPINE yet, so we’re going to grant an “administrative stay” until at least November 20th to prove that we’re great legal scholars and we’re giving Trump every opportunity to get Jack Smith or Merrick Garland killed and why, yes, if there HAD been some sort of legal case against Osama Bin Laden before us in the summer of 2001 we would have delayed the injunction against him for two weeks because it’s FAR more important to give people bent on destroying the United States every last ounce of their rights, than it is to protect the LAWS of this country or the JUDGES of this country or the REPRESENTATIVE FORM OF GOVERNMENT of this country itself. (17:48) The rest of this edition of the podcast is a repeat of Friday's 67th episode and if you've heard it there is no reason to listen again after this point. SPECIAL COMMENT: Dementia J. Trump’s lawyers last night filed a 35-page document to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, one or two paragraphs of which asks that court to BAR Judge Tanya Chutkan from reinstating the gag order on him. The rest of it is about how wonderful he is and how much he leads in the primary polls and it sounds like the dialogue they gave Rita Moreno in the last scene of the Jack Nicholson movie “Carnal Knowledge.” From the first (!) page: “President Trump’s uniquely powerful voice has been a fixtue of American political discourse for eight years, and central to the American fabric for decades.” Well, true, like car alarms. Or Herpes. From Item 4, on Page 11: "The Gag Order violates the rights of tens of millions of Americans to receive President Trump’s speech: A restriction on President Trump’s speech inflicts a reciprocal injury on the rights of over 100 million Americans who listen to him…" Listen to him bout how big and strong he is and how he is better, more beautiful, more powerful, more perfect, more strong, more masculine, more extraordinary, more virile, more domineering, more irresistible and more up in the air and I may have added a little something to the text there. More importantly, but less entertainin

SEASON 2 EPISODE 67: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Dementia J. Trump’s lawyers last night filed a 35-page document to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, one or two paragraphs of which asks that court to BAR Judge Tanya Chutkan from reinstating the gag order on him. The rest of it is about how wonderful he is and how much he leads in the primary polls and it sounds like the dialogue they gave Rita Moreno in the last scene of the Jack Nicholson movie “Carnal Knowledge.” From the first (!) page: “President Trump’s uniquely powerful voice has been a fixtue of American political discourse for eight years, and central to the American fabric for decades.” Well, true, like car alarms. Or Herpes. From Item 4, on Page 11: "The Gag Order violates the rights of tens of millions of Americans to receive President Trump’s speech: A restriction on President Trump’s speech inflicts a reciprocal injury on the rights of over 100 million Americans who listen to him…" Listen to him bout how big and strong he is and how he is better, more beautiful, more powerful, more perfect, more strong, more masculine, more extraordinary, more virile, more domineering, more irresistible and more up in the air and I may have added a little something to the text there. More importantly, but less entertainingly, Judge Chutkan hits the gas, Judge Engoron hits the roof, Judge Cannon does NOT hit the pause button. Chutkan sent a not so subtle sign to the Trump Cult that the Subversion trial will start as planned 123 days from now, and Jack Smith let Cannon know that Trump was playing her like a two dollar banjo. Also, here in New York, the FBI searched the home of the Mayor's top campaign fundraiser and all of a sudden there is a money scandal involving her, him, a construction company, the nation of Turkey, donors who didn't donate, and don't blame me, I voted for the Garbage Commissioner Lady. And back in DC, Lauren Boeber and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Chip Roy in a three-way… war of words. It began with a post by Roy, explaining why he moved to stop the vote to censure Representative Tlaib. Then Barney Rubble sub-tweeted him: “You voted to kick me out of the freedom caucus, but keep CNN wannabe Ken Buck and vaping groping Lauren Boebert…” to which Roy replied “Tell her to go-chase so-called Jewish space lasers if she wants to spend time on that sort of thing.” And Greene responded “Oh shut up Colonel Sanders” and predicted that this would all end with him reciting “powdered wig soliloquies as Americans are marched to the firing squads”and no, I don’t get the reference either. Curiously silent through all this was Vaping Groping Lauren Boebert. Sources say she’s simply sitting there quietly, trying to get a grip on the situation. B-Block (26:03) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD (26:03) Dean Phillips, the Harlan Crow-funded "Democrat" challenging Biden, may have a bigger problem even than Crow. Fox is equally-opportunity hate: Jesse Watters gets suspended for threatening Arab Americans; Mark Levin lies about Wolf Blitzer's grandparents and denies they died in the holocaust. And after an ex-NHL player dies from taking a skate to his neck, how could an NHL team glorify one of their players nearly cutting another player with EACH of his skates? C-Block (35:05) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: There is boredom, there is paranoia, there is fantasy, there is detective fiction, there is self-satirization. Put them all together and you get Thurber's epic "The Lady on 142."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 66: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Aileen Cannon, Trump's Personal Concierge Judge, is poised to delay his trial for stealing, stashing, stacking, and sharing secret documents and US war plans - at least until after the primaries and probably until after the election, possibly as early as today. Her excuse will be: he traitor so much that the court schedules are just too crowded with traitor trial stuff. She will first delay by giving him rights to see secret documents he does not have the right to see. She will then use the delay she's fabricated to say that NOW she has to delay everything because the Florida Documents trial schedule is colliding with the Washington Election Subversion trial schedule. That'll be her excuse. The reality is that three years ago a week from Monday, she was still just one of 6300 Assistant United States Attorneys and it was Trump who made her a judge for the first time. Happy Anniversary, Concierge Judge. THE DEMENTIA J. TRUMP SCHEDULE: More insomnia, more crazy threats against judges, and then one of the all-time lulus. On a video designed to inflame the cult, he tells them it's "Your chance to take a stand against tyrants that support the one and only movement the can save our country and Make America Great Again." In other words, for some reason, Trump is saying that you must FIGHT THE TYRANTS THAT SUPPORT MAGA. It's either a Freudian slip, or syphilis. AND THE MIKE JOHNSON MOTHER LODE continues to produce unbelievable and damaging gold. The new speaker a) doesn't understand deficits and offsets b) has claimed he has not had a bank account since at least 2016 and c) was once a major player in forced Conversion Therapy for gay teens. WHAT'S in his closet? My guess is, the first thing is, the doors to several MORE closets. B-Block (23:47) IN SPORTS: The Diamondbacks never led once, not one inning, in the last three games and Texas polished them off 5-0 to win their first World Series. The TV ratings are likely to be the worst ever, by 20% or more. The San Diego Padres had to borrow $50 million in September to make payroll. And Bobby Knight has died. I'll neither mourn nor mock him but I will tell you of the day 30 years ago he tried to get me fired from SportsCenter (36:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A crazy bulletin from Fox News; How HBO used burner accounts to criticize the critics; the GOP Pennsylvania Senate candidate who thinks he could fight a bear - and win. C-Block (43:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: From The Desert To The Sea To All of California: the story of one of the most remarkable newscasters I ever worked in the same market with. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 65: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The likeliest explanation is that she said it in order to fool the cultists to think that there is no chance Trump could actually go to JAIL in Washington, Florida, New York, or Atlanta (or to fool Trump himself) but Trump's noted parking lot attorney Alina Habba has gone on NewsMax and insisted that she tells anybody who panics about the prospect that Trump will be arrested that "He's protected by Secret Service. Period. He's protected by Secret Service, number one...Number two, he did nothing wrong...Secret Service will always protect President Trump. That's the truth. They have to. Wherever he is. But it's not even something we think about." The NewsMax host then literally dares a judge to try to jail him. Did they literally present a passive-aggressive threat? Or just carefully phrased one to reassure the idiots that Trump, who is at great risk in four different courtrooms, is not at risk at all? DEMENTIA J. TRUMP SCOREBOARD: He has gotten the day wrong again (and this time it's on videotape) AND gotten the year wrong - twice - while the time stamps of his posts indicate he's being plagued by insomnia. We can't ignore these little-for-Trump things. The bar has to be: if Biden did this, what would The Times, The Post, and the Networks say about him? Remember the polling: if both are thought too old, Biden wins in a landslide. AND YOUR JOHNSON MAY NOT LAST: The 5th-String Speaker continues to pile up L's and the creepy factor continues to mount. Not only did he try to tie aid to Israel to cutting IRS investigation of wealthy tax cheats, but it turns out that as late as seven years ago he demanded that every candidate for office be subjected to a religious purity test - exactly the opposite of what the constitution says. B-Block (25:03) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Senator Josh Hawley humiliates himself while trying to brand Holocaust survivor DHS Secretary Mayorkas as an antisemite. Wait, there are POPULAR Senators and Governors? And woo hoo, Elon Musk proves that you are safe in his Cybertruck if you are attacked by a squadron of medieval French archery. (30:29) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: My ex Kyrsten Sinema, followed by my ex Laura Ingraham, followed by... Dean Phillips. Who I don't even know. But - Harlan Crow DOES know him. C-Block (36:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's nerve-wracking enough to be handed, at age 20, the home phone number of a very famous athlete and be told he's expecting your call and you have to interview him. When it gets interesting is when he picks up the phone and pretends to be a woman.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 64: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Biden Campaign slogan should literally be “MY OLD MAN CAN BEAT UP YOUR OLD MAN.” It is the most remarkable, unexpected, startling, counter-intuitive polling data I have ever seen: The future of democracy. The future of the prosecution of Trump. The future of the nation. The future of planetary climate. It may depend on convincing voters NOT that Joe Biden is somehow NOT TOO old but on convincing voters that he and Trump are BOTH TOO OLD. New polling shows 43 percent of Americans BELIEVE they’re BOTH too old and they plan to vote as follows: Biden 61% Trump 13% In Pennsylvania it’s Biden 66% Trump 11%! If they’re BOTH too old – Biden wins in a landslide. Just growing the percentage IN Pennsylvania who believe they’re both too old by FIVE percent would flip 110-thousand Trump votes TO BIDEN. And helpfully Trump is not only acting old, he’s acting demented. In the last 48 hours he hasn’t known WHERE he was, nor what YEAR it was, and even The New York Times is writing about it. Meanwhile, in a Washington courtroom, we had what one observer called a "proxy battle" for what might happen when Trump truly violates the newly-reinstated gag order. A J6 defendant freed while awaiting sentencing began to send violent, racist, homophobic, antisemitic texts to an FBI agent involved in his case, AND threatened to doxx him. The Judge had no problem cancelling his release and sending him directly to jail to await sentencing (the problem arose when he tried to resist the handcuffs and nearly took down four security officers). B-BLOCK (28:44) IN SPORTS: What if they gave a World Series and nobody watched? Texas survived the by-now traditional early departure of Max Scherzer to pull ahead of Arizona (on the road of course) in last night's 3rd Game. But the bad TV ratings and lack of national interest among baseball fans was far worse than even I had expected. In fact, they were record-setting worse. Plus the first star of the Texas franchise, Frank Howard, died yesterday. (31:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Boris Johnson goes into TV news, possibly for the free hairstyling. Tim Scott says it's Iowa or bust. And why are the Philadelphia Eagles advertisements appearing next to videos of lunatic Stew Peters spewing hate and giving voice to calls for violence against organizations like Catholic Charities? And why isn't the team or the NFL doing anything about it? C-BLOCK (37:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: October was the birthday month of one of my favorite humans of all-time. I met him only once but it was so memorable, so warm, so funny that a decade later when he died, I was stunned when I heard the news and broke into tears. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 63: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN: Details are sketchy because of an online systems failure (who names their system after the AMC Pacer?) but Sunday evening Judge Tanya Chutkan REINSTATED her Gag Order against Trump - presumably because of his threats to Mark Meadows and his misconduct in the New York gag order case - and Trump has acknowledged online that it has been reimposed. (8:47) The remainder of this bulletin is a repeat of Friday's Episode #62 and if you've heard it there's no reason to continue to listen. Although you'll have a damn good time if you do! SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump threatens the New York judge, while Jack Smith goes not for a stronger gag order but something closer to a Hannibal Lecter mask. “This is judicial misconduct, coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody from the state of New York must step in and stop this complete and total miscarriage of justice,” unquote. BECAUSE Trump had earlier suggested that New York’s GOVERNOR should “get involved” and because he capitalized the word “State” in State of New York, he kept one foot in that shadowy region in which he’s lived that life and his attorneys could argue that he was NOT asking “somebody from the state of New York” to “step in and stop this” by attacking somebody like the judge or the district attorney. The rest of the filing shows that Trump IGNORED the New York Gag Order, IGNORED it again, was called to the witness stand to explain what he said, LIED ABOUT IT – PERJURED HIMSELF – and has proven to be unrestrainable even with the Gag Order as presently constituted. Jack Smith isn’t telling the Judge that Trump has violated her GAG ORDER. He is telling her that Trump has violated the ORIGINAL CONDITIONS under which she did NOT jail him until the trial starts. To resume the quote. “Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant’s conditions of release by making compliance with the Order a CONDITION or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with witnesses about the facts of the case, INCLUDES indirect messages made publicly on social media or in speeches.” Plus, Trump's faint grip on sanity seems to be slipping and the tell on that is: he has reverted to the genuinely unfathomable dog analogies that he fell into during the most stressful times of 2015-2016. When Trump starts claiming dogs get fired, he's about to lose it. And Speaker Mike Johnson, Day 2: For a man who spent twenty years advocating for sending gay people to prison for having sex, advocating for sending doctors to prison for providing family planning, advocating for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws against guns, advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for gutting of the entire societal safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities and entire states, advocating for using the constitution to destroy the constitution, advocating for the forced conflation of church and state, advocating for a conservative group that makes employees swear an oath to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men wearing women’s clothes, advocating against women wearing MEN’S clothes, advocating restrictions against Muslims, advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for more oil and gas and against science that has proved we are all going to be KILLED by more oil and gas, advocating for that idiot Amy Coney Barrett since he met her in 1988, advocating for a limit of three terms in the House and then running for this one – his FOURTH, and advocating for the overthrow of the duly-elected government of the United States throughout the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. For a guy who has done nothing but comment on everything, all the time, and always wrong… so far… he sure has been Speaker of The House Mr. No Comment. B-Block (31:08) IN SPORTS: Oh boy. The World Series. The 7th best regular season team versus the 12th best. I have never been less interested. Here's a shock: after legal sports gambling websites become the primary sponsor of all North American sports league, a player is suspended for half a season for...using one. And the brilliant idea from England's Tottenham Hotspur: give each player in its team history their own "legacy number." (35:08) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: President Duda of Poland may be trying to Trump the last election. E-Bikers should be saving the planet; instead they're menacing New Yorkers. And I do not pretend this isn't a crass idea. I think we should name the mass shootings after the politicians and propagandists who have enabled them. So Lewiston, Maine, should be named after Speaker Johnson or Susan Collins or Sean Hannity. C-Block (44:35) BULLETINS WITH THURBER: A story I have not previously read you, to which almost everyone can relate. How science and swimming almost kept him from graduating in "University Days."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 62: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump threatens the New York judge, while Jack Smith goes not for a stronger gag order but something closer to a Hannibal Lecter mask. “This is judicial misconduct, coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody from the state of New York must step in and stop this complete and total miscarriage of justice,” unquote. BECAUSE Trump had earlier suggested that New York’s GOVERNOR should “get involved” and because he capitalized the word “State” in State of New York, he kept one foot in that shadowy region in which he’s lived that life and his attorneys could argue that he was NOT asking “somebody from the state of New York” to “step in and stop this” by attacking somebody like the judge or the district attorney. The rest of the filing shows that Trump IGNORED the New York Gag Order, IGNORED it again, was called to the witness stand to explain what he said, LIED ABOUT IT – PERJURED HIMSELF – and has proven to be unrestrainable even with the Gag Order as presently constituted. Jack Smith isn’t telling the Judge that Trump has violated her GAG ORDER. He is telling her that Trump has violated the ORIGINAL CONDITIONS under which she did NOT jail him until the trial starts. To resume the quote. “Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant’s conditions of release by making compliance with the Order a CONDITION or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with witnesses about the facts of the case, INCLUDES indirect messages made publicly on social media or in speeches.” Plus, Trump's faint grip on sanity seems to be slipping and the tell on that is: he has reverted to the genuinely unfathomable dog analogies that he fell into during the most stressful times of 2015-2016. When Trump starts claiming dogs get fired, he's about to lose it. And Speaker Mike Johnson, Day 2: For a man who spent twenty years advocating for sending gay people to prison for having sex, advocating for sending doctors to prison for providing family planning, advocating for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws against guns, advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for gutting of the entire societal safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities and entire states, advocating for using the constitution to destroy the constitution, advocating for the forced conflation of church and state, advocating for a conservative group that makes employees swear an oath to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men wearing women’s clothes, advocating against women wearing MEN’S clothes, advocating restrictions against Muslims, advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for more oil and gas and against science that has proved we are all going to be KILLED by more oil and gas, advocating for that idiot Amy Coney Barrett since he met her in 1988, advocating for a limit of three terms in the House and then running for this one – his FOURTH, and advocating for the overthrow of the duly-elected government of the United States throughout the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. For a guy who has done nothing but comment on everything, all the time, and always wrong… so far… he sure has been Speaker of The House Mr. No Comment. B-Block (22:24) IN SPORTS: Oh boy. The World Series. The 7th best regular season team versus the 12th best. I have never been less interested. Here's a shock: after legal sports gambling websites become the primary sponsor of all North American sports league, a player is suspended for half a season for...using one. And the brilliant idea from England's Tottenham Hotspur: give each player in its team history their own "legacy number." (27:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: President Duda of Poland may be trying to Trump the last election. E-Bikers should be saving the planet; instead they're menacing New Yorkers. And I do not pretend this isn't a crass idea. I think we should name the mass shootings after the politicians and propagandists who have enabled them. So Lewiston, Maine, should be named after Speaker Johnson or Susan Collins or Sean Hannity. C-Block (35:45) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: A story I have not previously read you, to which almost everyone can relate. How science and swimming almost kept him from graduating in "University Days."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 61: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: House Republicans have fully embraced Dementia J. Trump's tiny, ugly, Johnson. And even as Speaker Mike Johnson checks all the denialist nihilist boxes - he's homophobic, he wants to put abortion providers in prison, he wants to make gay sex illegal, he wants to spend taxpayer money on religious projects, he is so obscure that Senators Barrasso and Collins had no idea who he was - are the seeds already in price for his eventual dethroning? On January 6th, during the insurrection, on Fox News, Mike Johnson CRITICIZED DONALD TRUMP. One can only assume that nobody has played the clip for Trump or said "Are you aware, sir, that he blamed you for not doing more to stop things, SIR?" In the short term there is new reporting that Johnson was far more involved in the insurrection than originally known. He was the point man in the House's Amicus Brief to the Texas lawsuit to throw out the electoral results from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Washington (a brief so controversial that other Republicans said Trump should preemptively pardon all the Congressmen who signed it). But now it turns out he briefed other Congressmen on January 5th on how to rationalize blocking the certification of Biden's victory on bullshit "constitutional" grounds. Meanwhile: when will a judge in this country do the right thing and put Trump in jail the way he would put you or me in jail? During the lunch break at the civil fraud trial yesterday, Trump AGAIN attacked Judge Arthur Engoron's clerk. The judge merely assessed a $10,000 fine. If you're not going to have the balls to put him in prison, at least get his attention. The fine should be $1,500,000,000. See what he does about that. B-Block (19:43) IN SPORTS: Dusty Baker ends his baseball managerial career, while the only manager to commute with me on the New York Subway system shifts from San Diego to San Francisco. And Baseball's Hall of Fame announces ten nominees for its annual recognition of one great broadcaster and I've worked with three of them and four of them are good friends and good grief I'm old. (26:17) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Tommy Tuberville may have been thwarted by Senate Democrats. There's a Clarence Thomas money scandal (no, a DIFFERENT one), and here we go: Eric Adams says he was made mayor of New York City by God. Only this time it gets translated in real time into Spanish. C-Block (32:47) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: America lost something when the intricate, rehearsed, multi-person practical joke vanished. 41 years ago this month I was fortunate to play a minor role in the greatest practical joke I ever witnessed, when we at the NFL player strike negotiations convinced a reporter from The New York Times that he had just missed the biggest story of the year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 60: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Five months ago today this podcast was titled “Did Mark Meadows Flip?” Now, ABC reports and Bloomberg and The Guardian report – Mark Meadows has flipped. How much he said and how willingly he said it is unclear, but there’s no doubt that he testified under oath and with immunity to Jack Smith’s Grand Jury and would do the same in the Election Subversion Trial of Donald Trump. What Meadows told prosecutors and grand jurors is damning. He never found any evidence of election corruption. He repeatedly told Trump that. He felt Trump was being “dishonest” when he claimed victory on election night. When the Supreme Court ruled against Trump on December 11, 2020, Trump told Meadows “something to the effect of ‘then that’s the end’ or ‘so that’s it.’ Yet a week later came Trump’s “Will be Wild” tweet, 22 days later came the phone call to Georgia, 26 days later came the insurrection. And what Meadows testified underscores that at each of these traitorous moments, Trump knew he was lying – the essence of Smith’s case. There’s a run on the Plea Deal bank because Jenna Ellis became the third ex-Trump lawyer to flip in Georgia. She tearfully said if she’d known then what she knows now blah blah blah. Most of her testimony will sink Rudy Giuliani and as unlikely as this sounds, the next most logical candidate to flip is Giuliani himself. He’s out of money and Trump has abandoned him. MEANWHILE BACK AT TRUMP PLANTATION: House Republicans selected their third choice for Speaker, Tom Emmer. Trump vetoed him. The slaves threw Emmer overboard in just over four hours. Last night they selected their fourth choice, insurrectionist Mike Johnson, while Kevin McCarthy maneuvered behind the scenes to get back. Somewhere there must be six GOP members ready to retire rather than keep this lousy job, and who want revenge. They could dictate a name to the Democrats and between them get him elected and Trump could do NOTHING about it. Instead, pressed by a reporter about Johnson's role in the attempt to install Trump as dictator, the treason caucus shouted the questioner down. B-Block (19:23) IN SPORTS: Oh boy, just the dramatic World Series match-up we all wanted: the 4th best team in the American League (the Texas Rangers) versus the 6th best team in the National League (the Arizona Diamondbacks, who finished exactly three games over .500). This madness will be reflected in the ratings. Good news: NHL reversed its pride stick tape ban after a player used it anyway and dared Appeasement Commissioner Gary Bettman to do anything about it. (24:39) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The New York Post writer who thought she was bashing liberals over Sidney Powell but actually proved Jack Smith’s case; Kyrsten Sinema’s delusions of grandeur; and Ted Cruz – senator from Texas – does not know the name of the Texas team that is going to the World Series. Even though it’s FROM Texas and NAMED Texas. C-Block (30:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: A special request. Remember my hospice puppy Mishu? I’m now trying to help a Maltese girl, abandoned by a puppy mill and then hit by a car, with a broken leg and a broken pelvis, and named… MISHA. This one’s personal. The link is here: https://www.givinggrid.com/Hit-And-Run-Misha-Needs-Surgery/?ublast=407378 (32:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The “co-speaker” story reminded me of the “co-presidency” idea Gerald Ford pitched to Ronald Reagan in 1980. It fell through, but hours later the most talented newscaster I ever worked with, zonked out of his head, went on the air and read old copy that indicated it was a done deal. It helped to get him fired. He was a brilliant and tragic figure. Please meet Will Spens.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 59: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The cheese slid COMPLETELY off Trump’s cracker yesterday in Derry New Hampshire. The first time I ever posited in public that his brain doesn’t work right was in a piece and video I did for Vanity Fair in 2016 called Could Trump Pass A Sanity Test and I do NOT know what the next step DOWN is mentally or psychologically or intellectually from “no he could NOT pass a sanity test” but Trump has now reached it: one speech, five statements that in a previous century would have been examined as signs of possible tertiary syphilis. At Derry, New Hampshire he a) showed he believed he was the first person to ever realize the letters U and S could spell "us" AND "U.S;" b) revealed he didn't know why FDR "sat" while he spoke nor what the thing he sat in was called; c) confused Turkey's Erdogan and Hungary's Orban; d) claimed he was Nelson Mandela; and e) told his voters not to bother to vote. Trump is crazy. Those who opposed him shied away from this in 2016 and 2020. It needs to be mentioned hourly, because it's not only true and an existential danger - it's also perfect politics - the ideal answer to the slanders about Biden's age and acuity. Also: Judge Michael Luttig is back with another Constitutional answer to a Trump lie. If you don't know about the Presidential Vesting Clause in Article 2, it's why Trump does NOT have "absolute immunity" for trying to overturn an election while president. Luttig and 23 other former Republican officeholders filed a brief with the court saying this was a threat to the integrity of all future elections. Trump continues to dare a judge to jail him for violating his various gag orders; he's caught in a bald-faced lie about whether or not Sidney Powell ever worked for him; the essence of the Jack Smith case against him is proved by Kenneth Chesebro taking a plea deal; and is the Republican Civil War over the Speaker of the House (now extended to Trump pretending he's not trying to sabotage Tom Emmer) enough to send five Republicans to form their own third party and get one of their group elected by the Democrats as the new Speaker? Is the GOP about to re-enact what destroyed the Whig Party in 1852? B-Block (24:04) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Have you ever heard of the poll that indicated a third of all Trump supporters favor building a wall along the Atlantic Ocean to keep Muslims out? (32:27) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Tom Cruise's agent discovers what "genocide" actually means. A Stanford neurobiologist concludes there is no free will. A Jim Jordan colleague says the naysayers got all those death threats because they deserved them. And why, yes that WAS a picture of Hitler on Michigan State's football stadium scoreboard. Why do you ask? C-Block (38:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The anniversary was Sunday, and the story continues to unfold 23 years later. The night in the 2000 World Series when Mike Piazza's bat shattered and Roger Clemens picked up the barrel and threw it near (or at, if you were a Mets fan) Piazza. And I thought Clemens was throwing it at me. And then Piazza announced he was suing me. And then it turned out he'd threatened others. It's an amazing saga within a saga.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.