Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. So
Speaker 1: tomorrow Robert F. Kennedy Junior will drop out of the
Speaker 1: presidential race and might endorse Trump. And we don't know
Speaker 1: what the deal is and which bribe Trump offered him,
Speaker 1: but I'm expecting that Trump has agreed to name RFK
Speaker 1: Secretary of Bears just to mess this up further. The
Speaker 1: website The Hill reports that Rfk's endorsement of Trump is
Speaker 1: being held up because his wife, Cheryl Hines from Curb
Speaker 1: Your Enthusiasm, does not want him to endorse Trump. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't email Larry and ask him what he knows. Regardless,
Speaker 1: none of it may make any difference, because there is
Speaker 1: some stunning new pro Harris polling and equally stunning new
Speaker 1: reasons for me to repeat my question from yesterday. Is
Speaker 1: Trump dying or something? Kennedy First, he says, I will
Speaker 1: not confirm or deny that he's dropping out and endorsing Trump,
Speaker 1: but he has confirmed that tomorrow he will address the
Speaker 1: nation about the path forward for his campaign, which, as
Speaker 1: three quarters of his support has vanished, the path is
Speaker 1: pretty much narrowed to taking his campaign, stuffing it in
Speaker 1: the backseat. Of his car and then dumping it in
Speaker 1: Central Park and trying to make it look like it
Speaker 1: was killed by a bicyclist. Yeah, bicyclist named Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: ABC News reports Kennedy will drop out. The Washington Post
Speaker 1: merely intimates he has had multiple conversations about it with Trump,
Speaker 1: including one in person. The campaign insists nothing is final.
Speaker 1: He'll be announcing whatever he announces in Phoenix at noon
Speaker 1: local time, and Trump will be at a rally in Glendale, Arizona,
Speaker 1: at four local time. And yeah, you do the math.
Speaker 1: This really is Trump's only obvious remaining play at this point,
Speaker 1: and it is debatable if it is as big a
Speaker 1: deal as it would have been literally just five weeks ago.
Speaker 1: To start with, it is unclear how many Kennedy voters
Speaker 1: there are left, And of course all the polls asked
Speaker 1: a backwards version of the question that would answer that.
Speaker 1: NBC quized Republicans and Democrats about Kennedy in July before
Speaker 1: the President dropped out, and found that Kennedy's approval among
Speaker 1: Republicans was plus eleven, while among Democrats it was minus
Speaker 1: thirty eight. That, of course, is exactly the opposite of
Speaker 1: the information we could use, which is, what would be
Speaker 1: Kennedy voters think of Kamala Harris and Trump? What do
Speaker 1: they think of Democrats and Republicans before the Biden drop out,
Speaker 1: when it was forty five forty three in the head
Speaker 1: to head matchup, when they would expand to the full
Speaker 1: field with all the other psychoes like Kennedy and Cornell
Speaker 1: West and Jill Stein, Trump would lose thirteen percent of
Speaker 1: his support. What's more, though, in state after state, it's
Speaker 1: clear Kennedy is now hurting Trump. The most recent national
Speaker 1: poll by IPSO says Kennedy's has been taking two percent
Speaker 1: of Trump's support but three percent of Harris's support. The
Speaker 1: Times poll in just the battlegrounds produces an even foggier number.
Speaker 1: Kennedy has been taking three percent of Harris's support and
Speaker 1: three percent of Trump's support. And all of this is
Speaker 1: still predicated on an assumption that the remaining Kennedy voters
Speaker 1: will vote for Trump or Harris. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: were dumb enough to be ready to vote for Kennedy,
Speaker 1: you are dumb enough to vote for Jill Stein. There
Speaker 1: also continue to be early signs, and I mean like
Speaker 1: predicting next month's weather early signs that we might have
Speaker 1: to change that last sentence there too, if you were
Speaker 1: dumb enough to vote for Trump. Obviously, the Tim Walls
Speaker 1: speech went well last night, and the Obamas will continue
Speaker 1: to piss off the fascists right through the election. And please,
Speaker 1: dear God, get Kamala Harris on stage no later than
Speaker 1: ten pm Eastern tonight. I'm pleading with you. This is
Speaker 1: not a sporting event. The ratings do not go up
Speaker 1: the later you stay on past eleven o'clock. But more
Speaker 1: intriguing than all that these new polls, something very very
Speaker 1: odd has come out of Rasmussen polling. He died in
Speaker 1: the will pick fights on social media in the tank
Speaker 1: boot licking bunch of conservatives founded by the guy who
Speaker 1: created ESPN, then was removed from controlling it two months
Speaker 1: before it signed on, and eventually he got like seven
Speaker 1: hundred and forty grand for his share of the whole company.
Speaker 1: The average Rasmussen poll shaves four to five points off
Speaker 1: the Democrat in every other pole, and yet in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Rasmussen now has Senator Baldwin beating Eric Hovdy, the guy
Speaker 1: from the brawny paper towel rappers, by ten points and
Speaker 1: it has Harris beating Trump by one point. If that
Speaker 1: pole in Wisconsin by Rasmussen is accurate, the weather may
Speaker 1: be getting very dark for Trump very fast. And then
Speaker 1: the University of New Hampshire has put out polling on Maine.
Speaker 1: On July twenty fifth, the week Biden dropped out, This
Speaker 1: same pole had the pretty damned Conservative Republican Secure Main
Speaker 1: second District at Trump plus two or Trump plus four
Speaker 1: with Kennedy and the rest in the mix. The same
Speaker 1: pole now has Harris up by five in both measures,
Speaker 1: a seven or nine point swing to Harris in a
Speaker 1: Conservative bash in less than one month. And in the
Speaker 1: same poll she is ahead by twenty eight points in
Speaker 1: the liberal first district of Maine and seventeen overall in
Speaker 1: the state. It is startling, or if you prefer stunning,
Speaker 1: that is the word Politico of all outfits has used
Speaker 1: to describe interior numbers in major polls across tabs, as
Speaker 1: the kids call them. Taking time out from listing who
Speaker 1: went to the Politico grill at the Democratic Convention, their
Speaker 1: analysts delved into ten quality polls, and they now write, quote,
Speaker 1: Harris has registered gains across a wide range of demographic categories,
Speaker 1: but the improvement has been especially pronounced among young voters,
Speaker 1: non white voters, and women voters. Taken together, the numbers
Speaker 1: suggest that the Harris swap has largely repaired a fraying
Speaker 1: Democratic coalition, has repaired the party's image presidentially among independents,
Speaker 1: and has dragged the election back to a toss up
Speaker 1: at the minimum. In short, she has managed to do
Speaker 1: something that every candidate can only dream of, appeal to
Speaker 1: her base without turning off swing voters. Politico cites these
Speaker 1: gains in particular twelve percent improvement over Joe Biden among
Speaker 1: black voters, six percent among Hispanics, five percent growth among
Speaker 1: non college educated, seven points added among women, nine percent
Speaker 1: among independents, seventeen percent among young voters. Politico started that
Speaker 1: report with the words startling and ended its analysis of
Speaker 1: the eye popping gains with a different word, and that
Speaker 1: word was unprecedented. Here's another word to use about what's
Speaker 1: going on. Craze has in crasee gains for Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: because Trump is crazy. I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: truly the most Freudian slip Trump has ever made, or
Speaker 1: the most Freudian slip Trump could ever make but it
Speaker 1: sure feels like it, and it sure feels like it
Speaker 1: contains an admission or a plea for help, or a
Speaker 1: foreshadowing or something. It is now many hours since I
Speaker 1: first heard it, and I am still shocked by it,
Speaker 1: and I'll stop with the preamble already. But Trump has
Speaker 1: gone on the Hugh Hewitt Gullible Hour and was, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, unable to complete his hoary old anti Semitic
Speaker 1: trope about Jewish Americans voting for Democrats.
Speaker 2: If Jewish people vote for her, and I use this expression,
Speaker 2: they ought to go out because Kamala is a person.
Speaker 1: He left out. The second half the Trump trope is,
Speaker 1: if Jewish people vote for her, they ought to go
Speaker 1: out and get their heads examined. He left out and
Speaker 1: gets their heads examined. This brain damaged, deteriorating, crazy individual
Speaker 1: who packs more personality disorders per pound than anybody else
Speaker 1: in human history, This man who has over the last
Speaker 1: several months showed accelerating signs of physical decline, whole body decline.
Speaker 1: He said, if Jewish people vote for her, they ought
Speaker 1: to go out, and he forgot the rest of it.
Speaker 1: He forgot to say and get their heads examined, which,
Speaker 1: by no coincidence whatsoever, is what he should be doing
Speaker 1: right now, getting his head examined. Just to sell the
Speaker 1: point further. The interviewer well, the stenographer, Hugh Hewitt, the
Speaker 1: Lars Larsen of Eric Erickson's, followed up with a promotional
Speaker 1: tweet in which he gave it all away. Trump remains
Speaker 1: the best interview in America has been since twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: because he tells you exactly what you think. You bet
Speaker 1: your ass, Sonny. Hugh Hewett deleted that post. Again, it
Speaker 1: sounds like a badly written scene in a badly written
Speaker 1: episode of Succession. And I know that's redundant, but that's
Speaker 1: a different story for a different podcast. But it also
Speaker 1: sounds like one of those moments when everybody who doesn't
Speaker 1: recognize its importance looks back and says, and that's when
Speaker 1: I knew Trump was finished psychologically. One more time on this.
Speaker 2: It's Jewish people vote for her, And I use this
Speaker 2: expression they ought to go out because Kamala.
Speaker 1: Is a person, Doctor Fried. If that is insufficient, everybody
Speaker 1: forgets things like the second half of their hateful cat phrases,
Speaker 1: the half that could be applied to themselves everybody does
Speaker 1: that right. Trump also got back on the outdoor stump
Speaker 1: yesterday and he announced that American generals are woke and fake,
Speaker 1: and he claims we have F thirty two fighters, even
Speaker 1: though there is no such thing as an F thirty
Speaker 1: two fighter. And he made up a story, made up
Speaker 1: a story that Kamala Harris met with Vladimir Putin just
Speaker 1: before he invaded further into Ukraine in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Utter bullshit. They have never met. Harris went to the
Speaker 1: Munich Security Conference in February twenty twenty two, warning Russia
Speaker 1: and warning that Russia was going to create a false
Speaker 1: pretext for invasion. Putin was not there. The closest thing
Speaker 1: Harris and Putin have ever come to a meeting is
Speaker 1: Harris talked about Putin once. This sounds nuts, obviously in
Speaker 1: a way it is, But in a different way, it's
Speaker 1: far darker. Between the polls and the escalating tone of
Speaker 1: absurdity in Trump's attacks on Harris, there is reason to
Speaker 1: suppose Trump and is very evil, not quite geniuses may
Speaker 1: be shifting from bothering to even try to win at
Speaker 1: the ballot box to simply ginning up the rage and
Speaker 1: the doubt and the lunacy and the conspiracy so much
Speaker 1: that it, as they say, creates consent for him and
Speaker 1: his cooperative minions in the state legislatures and the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives to steal the election after they lose it.
Speaker 1: Thomas Edsell's column on Trump's next coup in the New
Speaker 1: York Times ends with a quote from Yale historian Timothy Snyder.
Speaker 1: I am thanking Edsall and quoting Snyder. Trump is in
Speaker 1: the classic dictatorial position. He needs to die in bed
Speaker 1: holding all executive power to stay out of prison. This
Speaker 1: means that he will do whatever he can to gain
Speaker 1: power and wants in power, will do all that he
Speaker 1: can to never let it go. This is a basic
Speaker 1: incentive structure which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent
Speaker 1: with democracy. So thanks to the Times for that, and
Speaker 1: damn the Times for this. From fact check reporter Linda Hugh,
Speaker 1: take it from an actual billionaire. Trump is rich and
Speaker 1: only one thing stupidity a quote attributed to Governor JB.
Speaker 1: Pritzker of Illinois at the Democratic National Convention, and the
Speaker 1: fact check reporter in the Times writes this lacks evidence.
Speaker 1: While mister Trump's exact net Worth is unknown. Forbes and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg estimate that he is currently a billionaire. Obviously, we
Speaker 1: know The New York Times has no sense of humor.
Speaker 1: I mean, Maureen Dowd is considered a humorist at the
Speaker 1: New York Times. But does a hyperbolic joke now require
Speaker 1: a Times fact check so that The Times can claim
Speaker 1: it as being fair to Trump? I mean, if I
Speaker 1: ask how many Times fact checkers and idiotic editors does
Speaker 1: it take to screw in a light bulb? Is the
Speaker 1: Times going to fact check that? And note that there
Speaker 1: is no empirical evidence that more or fewer of them
Speaker 1: would be required than of any other demographic group. Jud
Speaker 1: Leegum has an amazing piece of popular information headlined the
Speaker 1: fact checking industrial complex. Just one paragraph of that please.
Speaker 1: The fact checking industry got that right. Has attempted to
Speaker 1: prove its objectivity by producing similar pieces for the Democratic
Speaker 1: and Republican National Conventions. This requires some sleight of hand.
Speaker 1: Glenn Kessler's fact check in the Washington Post on the
Speaker 1: night Trump spoke to the RNC was limited exclusively to Trump.
Speaker 1: Other noted fabulousts on the agenda, including Tucker Carlson Franklin Graham,
Speaker 1: Alina Haba, and Eric Trump were ignored. Kessler's fact check
Speaker 1: of Biden's speech to the DNC included all other speakers
Speaker 1: on Monday evening. If you doubt that the Post is
Speaker 1: doing this, still doing this? Oh you want fact checks
Speaker 1: of Trump? Do you liberals? We'll give you some fact checks.
Speaker 1: Let me read you this from Amy Gardner, National reporter
Speaker 1: Washington Post quote. Donald Trump says he will refuse to
Speaker 1: accept the election results if he loses again. Biden said,
Speaker 1: But that's not true, Amy Gardner writes, Trump just hasn't
Speaker 1: said that he would accept, and he has previously said
Speaker 1: the only way he loses is if the Democrats cheat.
Speaker 1: Well done, Amy Gardner. If you manage to snatch fascism
Speaker 1: from the jaws of democracy with shit like this, please
Speaker 1: do so confidence that when we are then all in
Speaker 1: the Trump re education camps, there will be a sign
Speaker 1: hanging from just your cell door. Reading noted that Trump
Speaker 1: never said he would refuse to accept the election results,
Speaker 1: only that he didn't say he would accept the election result.
Speaker 1: So remember, give her two bowls of water a day.
Speaker 1: Also have interest here did Hulk Hogan make a threat
Speaker 1: of violence against the Vice president of the United States.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't the FBI or the Secret Service be asking this
Speaker 1: question and not some idiot with a podcast. Also, if
Speaker 1: Hulk Hogan did try to fight her, wouldn't she kick
Speaker 1: his ass? That's next? This is countdown. This is Countdown
Speaker 1: with Keith Olberman ahead of us on this editiontive Countdown
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. My lunch guest the other day who
Speaker 1: was not in broadcasting and never has been said he
Speaker 1: knew the former president of MSNBC, Rick Kaplan. Rick Kamplan
Speaker 1: who wants threatened to kill me live while we were
Speaker 1: both on MSNBC where we were in the background. We
Speaker 1: weren't like the main show. God knows that would have
Speaker 1: gotten much better ratings than anything they have now. But
Speaker 1: we were live and he threatened to kill me and
Speaker 1: was swearing at me live on MSNBC. So my friend
Speaker 1: at lunch and I we traded Rick Kaplan stories. Mine
Speaker 1: still wins because he tried to kill me. Coming up
Speaker 1: in Things I promised not to tell first, there are
Speaker 1: still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup
Speaker 1: of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens
Speaker 1: who constitute today's worst persons. In the world, the brons worse.
Speaker 1: The Live Casino in Philadelphia. Wait, I'm sorry, Apparently that's
Speaker 1: it's the Live casino in Philadelphia has an exclamation point,
Speaker 1: so it's either live or live. Apparently it's live. Makes
Speaker 1: more sense that way, doesn't it. In any event, they
Speaker 1: put up a big sign outside greeting Bruce Springsteen as
Speaker 1: he comes to Philadelphia for a bunch of tour dates
Speaker 1: there at the ballpark. Per Springsteen. Fan tour organizer Stan
Speaker 1: Goldstein took a picture of the sign at the Live
Speaker 1: or Live Cain in Philadelphia and captioned it, you had
Speaker 1: one job. And it's a picture apparently of Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 1: Live Casino hotel in the corner, and it says Welcome
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia, Bruce Springsteen s p R I N G
Speaker 1: st ei N. So it could read welcome to Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: Bruce Springstein. It misspelled Springsteen's name. They misspelled Springsteen's name
Speaker 1: kid from the Jersey Shore, and they misspelled his name
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. You had one job. Also, it's it's just me,
Speaker 1: but the photo of Springsteen looks like Jerry Seinfeld. Are
Speaker 1: we sure that's Springsteen? Maybe it's some guy named Springstein.
Speaker 1: And he's going to perform at the Live casino. Maybe
Speaker 1: Bruce in nineteen seventy seven, but it's much more Seinfeld.
Speaker 1: And the look on his face is is that my
Speaker 1: car on fire in the parking lot? Disaster? All around?
Speaker 1: Springsteen spelled wrong. The runner up worser Rudy Giuliani. Rudy
Speaker 1: Giuliani along with Mike Lindell co hosting Steve Bannon's streaming
Speaker 1: show on Nazi TV or whatever they call it, Real
Speaker 1: Nazi's Choice. I forget what the name of it is.
Speaker 1: The war Room, as if Steve Bannon could fit through
Speaker 1: the doorway of the War Room. And the one argument
Speaker 1: for letting Steve Bannon out of prison, and perhaps letting
Speaker 1: him out early, is so that Rudy Giuliani and Mike
Speaker 1: Lindell would not be hosting the show in his absence. Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm Mike Lindell. And by the way, wasn't Mike Lindell
Speaker 1: supposed to go undercover at the Democratic National Committee by
Speaker 1: shaving off his mustache, because in the video he's wearing
Speaker 1: a mustache. It's possible he has a collection of them
Speaker 1: at home in a jar, hopefully his own. He's been
Speaker 1: united done shaving other men's mustaches and keeping them in
Speaker 1: any event, just a little update from Rudy who said,
Speaker 1: as Steve mannon is being prevented from watching television or
Speaker 1: streaming stuff, or listening to radio or listening to his
Speaker 1: own show. And oh, by the way, Steve Bannon is
Speaker 1: being tortured in jail.
Speaker 3: Steve Bannon, let me tell you this, Steve mann is
Speaker 3: not being treated the way other prisoners are being treated.
Speaker 3: His case has been moved from the Bureau of Prisons
Speaker 3: to crooked Attorney General Garland's office, and they're calling the
Speaker 3: shots because contacts that I have in the Bureau of
Speaker 3: Prisons have told me they've been taken out of the case.
Speaker 1: So he's being let's.
Speaker 3: Say, tortured. Well, and he'll be out. I'm sure he'll
Speaker 3: be able to talk all about it. But boy, this
Speaker 3: election is about a fascist regime and Steve Bannon is
Speaker 3: prime number one of Victor.
Speaker 1: Now, Rudy is right about this election being about a
Speaker 1: fascist regime, just not in the way he's saying. I
Speaker 1: was going to say thinking, But Rudy doesn't think, does he.
Speaker 1: And by the way, he also used the little durbile,
Speaker 1: little bunny rabbit air quotes around the word tortured, so
Speaker 1: who knows what he actually means, but he theorizes Steve
Speaker 1: Bannon is being tortured at the instructions of Merrick Garland
Speaker 1: in a federal prison. I wish but your winner the worst.
Speaker 1: Hulk Hogan, who you will recall, is one of the
Speaker 1: speakers who introduced Trump on the climax night and if
Speaker 1: that's the right word for it, of the Republican National Convention.
Speaker 1: Somebody who represents Hulk Hogan does much of what has
Speaker 1: destroyed our culture. Not wrestling. Wrestling's fine. Lots of fictional
Speaker 1: things are fine, but the belief in the culture of wrestling,
Speaker 1: the belief that it's anything but a performance, the belief
Speaker 1: that it's legit in some way, the belief that it's
Speaker 1: dignified in some way. It's an act, and it's a
Speaker 1: crappy act. It's like the guy who announces his name
Speaker 1: is Bruce Springstein and comes out and sings born to
Speaker 1: run in the wrong key in any event. Here's Hulk
Speaker 1: Hogan on his threat against the Vice President of the
Speaker 1: United States.
Speaker 2: Right crazy, Love me to grow.
Speaker 1: More beers out, Love me to body slam somebody else,
Speaker 1: Love me to body slam Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: Send you along near the body slam Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk away on comala famala from young.
Speaker 2: Okay, I like it?
Speaker 3: Oh he for that one.
Speaker 1: Bears coming. First off, yes, you heard him go how
Speaker 1: and he thinks Indian means Native American? I mean not
Speaker 1: even Trump is stupid enough to think that the Indian
Speaker 1: in Indian African, in the heritage of the Vice President
Speaker 1: of the United States is Native American. That's how stupid
Speaker 1: this man, Hogan is. Secondly, broadly interpreted, asking a bunch
Speaker 1: of people, do you want me to body slam Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris could be deemed a threat against the Vice President
Speaker 1: of the United States. So, circling back to Rudy Giuliani's
Speaker 1: friend Merrick Garland, prosecute him, put him in prison. Let's
Speaker 1: see how far he's willing to take this T shirt
Speaker 1: ripping wrestling bullshit culture. I know, I know, don't say
Speaker 1: things like that. How about this. Put him in one
Speaker 1: of those Steve Bannon jails and he can be tortured
Speaker 1: by being forced to listen to Rudy doing the Steve
Speaker 1: Bannon show. Hulk. By the way, You're seventy one years old,
Speaker 1: three hundred pounds, drunk, and desperately out of shape. I
Speaker 1: would avoid the vice president. She'd probably beat the crap
Speaker 1: out of you. Hogan two days worst person in the world,
Speaker 1: finally our number one story in the Countdown Things. I
Speaker 1: promised not to tell him. Back to my favorite topic, me,
Speaker 1: How exactly was I supposed to tell the police that
Speaker 1: the man threatening to kill me was the president of MSNBC.
Speaker 1: He was chasing me through the studios. He was too
Speaker 1: overweight to run. But even though he inexplicably lied and
Speaker 1: said he was six foot seven, at six foot five,
Speaker 1: this guy his name was Rick Kaplan, and he was
Speaker 1: the soon to be ex president of MSNBC, just as
Speaker 1: he was already the ex president of CNN. He still
Speaker 1: had strides as long as my own. Plus On that
Speaker 1: night of August eighth, two thousand and five, I was multitasking.
Speaker 1: I was trying to mentally record everything he was shouting,
Speaker 1: while also drawing him away from the live microphones of
Speaker 1: the live studio in which he had started shouting, while
Speaker 1: also wishing for my office key so I could lock
Speaker 1: myself in there if need be, while also figuring out
Speaker 1: how I would hit him if it came to that,
Speaker 1: while also trying to register the superb double takes from
Speaker 1: my colleagues past, whom he was stomping like an out
Speaker 1: of shape Frankenstein, while also trying to suppress an overwhelming
Speaker 1: and seemingly inappropriate desire to burst into laughter, while still
Speaker 1: game planning these soon to be inevitable call to the cops.
Speaker 1: A beautiful downtown Secaucus, New Jersey. Hi. Yeah, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: trying to kill me, my boss, the president of MSNBC. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the cable television network. Yeah, exact down the street from
Speaker 1: the London Fog Outlet store. Yeah, one MSNBC Plaza. I
Speaker 1: know it's a dumb address. He's about sixty to seventy
Speaker 1: five two hundred and eighty pounds. By the way, he
Speaker 1: says he's six foot seven, but he's only six foot five.
Speaker 1: Why Why does he lie about his height or why
Speaker 1: is he trying to kill?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Well, I did a commentary urging the viewers to stop smoking,
Speaker 1: and he's afraid of the mention of blood. Hello.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 1: As all of this played out in my head, President
Speaker 1: Kaplan was huffing and puffing his way through our giant studio,
Speaker 1: weaving through the news assignment area, past the makeup room,
Speaker 1: down the hallways, nearing the offices of my show countdown,
Speaker 1: and passed the bank of a couple of one hundred
Speaker 1: television monitors with a different face on every one of them,
Speaker 1: each seemingly staring slack jawed at the executive, screaming threats
Speaker 1: at the only guy on his own network who got
Speaker 1: any ratings. I'll pay you back, I'll get you I'll
Speaker 1: finish your own I'll tell y'all. This had all begun
Speaker 1: roughly ten days earlier, in late July two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: an oral surgeon who had intended to examine a growth
Speaker 1: on the roof of my mouth that instead, with one
Speaker 1: pale look, silently betrayed his suspicion that it was cancerous.
Speaker 1: Then he cut the whole thing out. I was on
Speaker 1: my way to work anyway, It was too late to
Speaker 1: get a replacement, and I was bleeding so much that
Speaker 1: our technical director and I decided to pre record all
Speaker 1: of my on camera segments for that night's show, thus
Speaker 1: reducing the chances of viewers hearing me say President Bush
Speaker 1: today while blood oozed out of my mouth over my
Speaker 1: teeth and lips and onto the desk like I was
Speaker 1: dracul Anchor. When the following Wednesday I got the unexpected
Speaker 1: all clear from the surgeon's office, I decided to devote
Speaker 1: some of each night's newscast to a campaign to help
Speaker 1: viewers and myself quit smoking. My premise was a simple
Speaker 1: one that I had never heard argued before and have
Speaker 1: rarely heard argued since, that it would be a lot
Speaker 1: easier to quit if you didn't have cancer. If you
Speaker 1: did have cancer, I pitched my producers on the series.
Speaker 1: I went into Rick Kaplan's office to get his seal
Speaker 1: of approval. He was enthusiastic and supportive, and most rare
Speaker 1: of all, he was paying attention. And then I said,
Speaker 1: I was also going to point out that if you
Speaker 1: got the good outcome like I had, they would merely
Speaker 1: stick a laser in your mouth, and you'd smell your
Speaker 1: own flesh burning for like forty eight hours, and you'd
Speaker 1: have to keep spitting out your own blood. Don't say that.
Speaker 1: He suddenly threw his meaty hands out towards me in
Speaker 1: a strangling gesture, and then just as quickly clamped them
Speaker 1: over his own ears and closed his eyes and began
Speaker 1: actually screaming no no, no, no no no no no
Speaker 1: no no no no no. I thought he had gone crazy,
Speaker 1: as it proved he was just practicing for going crazy. Later,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm squeamish. I got the point. I just
Speaker 1: can't handle references to, you know, uh the red stuff.
Speaker 1: Go ahead with the series. Just tone down the uh
Speaker 1: the red stuff. I toned down the red stuff, and
Speaker 1: my executive producer is Epovich sent him the scripts and
Speaker 1: he told her to tone down the red stuff a
Speaker 1: little more. And I went and I did that too.
Speaker 1: We all decided to start the anti smoking series the
Speaker 1: following Monday, August eighth, two thousand and five. By nauseating coincidence,
Speaker 1: that was the day after the ABC anchorman Peter Jennings
Speaker 1: had died of lung cancer. The MSNBC president had been
Speaker 1: a producer on jennings newscast. I had long since written
Speaker 1: and recorded jennings obituary, and now this somewhat cold but
Speaker 1: still journalistically valid segue would have to be made. We
Speaker 1: would have to go directly from the twelve minute long
Speaker 1: Jennings Oh bit to the start of our anti tobacco
Speaker 1: campaign eight or nine minutes into that pre recorded Jennings obituary.
Speaker 1: Rick Kaplan came out of his office and walked the
Speaker 1: fifty feet or so through the vast open newsroom to
Speaker 1: where my anchor desk was. His eyes were full of tears.
Speaker 1: This is wonderful, he said. Qie Peter would have liked this.
Speaker 1: He gave me a thumbs up. Then he walked to
Speaker 1: a second desk another fifty feet away, where his first
Speaker 1: big hire, a woman named Rita Cosby, was about to
Speaker 1: premiere his first big gamble, her new show immediately following mine.
Speaker 1: I was actually moved by Rick Kaplan's comment. I did
Speaker 1: not once think of phoning the Secaucus police. But then
Speaker 1: I began the anti smoking segment, and as I focused
Speaker 1: on the camera and the teleprompter in front of me
Speaker 1: and detailed the blood and the gore and the spitting
Speaker 1: and how that was the good outcome, out of the
Speaker 1: corner of my eye I saw this weird sight. The
Speaker 1: President again left his office and waddled out along the
Speaker 1: wall thirty feet all ahead of me in the general
Speaker 1: direction of the control rooms. Within moments, as I continued
Speaker 1: to read my script, he was back in the studio
Speaker 1: and standing right next to my camera, gesticulating wildly. I said,
Speaker 1: they never say it, but wouldn't it be really easier
Speaker 1: to quit smoking when you didn't have cancer than when
Speaker 1: you did? And Kaplan responded with the same two handed
Speaker 1: choking gesture he had made briefly in his office much earlier.
Speaker 1: I presumed there was some simple problem, like that the
Speaker 1: building was on fire, but I calculated that I could
Speaker 1: still make it to the show scheduled finished time eight
Speaker 1: fifty nine to fifty nine EDT and still survive even
Speaker 1: if others perished. That's countdown for this the eight hundred
Speaker 1: and thirtieth day since the declaration of mission accomplished in Iraq.
Speaker 1: I'm Keith Olderman. Good night and good luck your SULIVI,
Speaker 1: Rick Kaplan suddenly screamed from the other anchor desk. I
Speaker 1: could hear, and this is my impression of her.
Speaker 4: Good evening. I'm Rita Cosby. This is Rita Cosby, live
Speaker 4: and direct with Rita Cosby, and I'm Rita Cosby.
Speaker 1: She was not a big woman, but she had a
Speaker 1: voice on her like the horn on the Staten Island
Speaker 1: ferry if it had a cold. You are over the top.
Speaker 1: You aren't disgusting. My first thought was that Kaplan had
Speaker 1: forgotten that microphones fifty feet away were live during the
Speaker 1: premiere of his pet project, sh Rina is on. I
Speaker 1: actually whispered to him, silly me, I don't give her half.
Speaker 4: If Free Day is on, you were told by is
Speaker 4: He poevits that the piece was over the top and
Speaker 4: you needed to cut it, and you didn't.
Speaker 1: I still couldn't bring myself to yell back her in
Speaker 1: a live studio. I did cut it, and eas He
Speaker 1: read it and approved it, and she said you had too.
Speaker 1: And Rita's premiere is going on over there in that
Speaker 1: sort of direction. Maybe you should yell at me closer
Speaker 1: to the assignment desk. Maybe I don't give a crap.
Speaker 1: If is He approved it, then she's an ass and
Speaker 1: I can't trust you. I can't trust you. You're all idiots.
Speaker 4: I can't believe you did this to me. I'm trying
Speaker 4: to get Rita's show off the ground, and you start
Speaker 4: talking about spitting blood into a garbage can.
Speaker 1: Well, now I was getting angry. I couldn't resist. Yes,
Speaker 1: Rita is in fact live and direct from that desk
Speaker 1: right over there. And if you'll notice, she keeps looking
Speaker 1: over here at us, wondering why you are yelling during
Speaker 1: the first minutes of her first show, So why don't
Speaker 1: we move over here? I began to move away from him,
Speaker 1: and we're walking away from the live Mike's and we're walking,
Speaker 1: and we're walking, and Rick and Keith are walking because
Speaker 1: the noise isn't really professional. Well, we're not talking professionals,
Speaker 1: are we We're talking idiots. We were walking and he
Speaker 1: was still screaming, you're idiots. I will never trust you again.
Speaker 1: He had begun to trot or stumble or whatever he
Speaker 1: was doing. This is not over.
Speaker 4: I will pay you back self serving garbage. I will
Speaker 4: get you, and I'll get that A hole is he
Speaker 4: for not staying here and reading that script? How many
Speaker 4: times did you intend to say spit blood into a
Speaker 4: garbage can before I stopped to I now realized what
Speaker 4: he thought had happened, as he had gestured spasmodically at
Speaker 4: me while he stood next to my camera. I briefly
Speaker 4: let my focus shift to amazement at the fact that
Speaker 4: this guy, who had been in TV news for twenty
Speaker 4: five years, knew almost nothing about how TV worked. I
Speaker 4: explained to him that Izzy and one of her assistants
Speaker 4: and I had gone over the the script several times
Speaker 4: and taken out half of the Gorrier references. Then they
Speaker 4: suck at television. And since I can't trust anybody here,
Speaker 4: since they won't stand up to you and edit the script,
Speaker 4: since you obviously bullied.
Speaker 1: Them, he bawled up his fist and stomped his foot
Speaker 1: on the floor as he called me a bully and
Speaker 1: now going to have to approve every piece of your copy.
Speaker 1: By this point, I was backing into the countdown work
Speaker 1: area with its array of desks and all the producers
Speaker 1: Kaplin had just insulted, and I knew one of them
Speaker 1: would dial the phone when I said, call the cops
Speaker 1: and call this lunatics boss, did you hear me? And
Speaker 1: if you don't like it and you don't want to
Speaker 1: come into work tomorrow, that's fine too. I never did
Speaker 1: get that part, but now I had him. I crossed
Speaker 1: my arms in front of my chest slowly, like you
Speaker 1: have seen every news anchor do in every television news
Speaker 1: promo ever shown in the history of the world. I
Speaker 1: flashed as evil a slow mo smile as I could, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'll be here tomorrow, and then I made a sweeping
Speaker 1: gesture back towards my staff, who were both, of course
Speaker 1: literally and figuratively behind me, and so will all of them. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: at that point, for no apparent reason, Rick Caplan's hysterics
Speaker 1: were replaced by mere confusion. He even stopped huffing at
Speaker 1: almost normal volume. He asked me all of who. Only
Speaker 1: at this point did I turn around to discover that
Speaker 1: my entire staff had already left the building. There was
Speaker 1: nobody there behind me. Of course, there was nobody there,
Speaker 1: Azipovich told me later he went into the control room
Speaker 1: and threatened all of them first. So we got on
Speaker 1: the phone back to the office to tell everybody to
Speaker 1: get the hell out of the building. She paused and laughed.
Speaker 1: I mean, we love you, but we're not crazy. Rick
Speaker 1: Caplan's exorcism was a brief one. He began screaming again,
Speaker 1: I'm going to hand your career tomorrow. I'm going to
Speaker 1: completely few up. He turned and stumbled away from my office.
Speaker 1: Good luck sleeping tonight. I slept like a stone, and
Speaker 1: not because Kaplin had previously threatened to fire me for
Speaker 1: not leaving my father's bedside after what they thought was
Speaker 1: a heart attack to fly to la to appear on
Speaker 1: the tonight show, and not because he'd once threatened to
Speaker 1: fire me because he didn't like my tie, and not
Speaker 1: because he had previously threatened to fire me for not
Speaker 1: doing something during live coverage that I had already done
Speaker 1: but he thought we hadn't done because he was watching
Speaker 1: us not live but on delay on his DVR president
Speaker 1: of a network. And I slept beautifully, not because I
Speaker 1: correctly guessed this would be it for Rick Kaplan and
Speaker 1: it was. The next day, human resources forced him to
Speaker 1: apologize to me, and ten months later his bosses fired him.
Speaker 1: Nor did I snooze blessedly because of any bravery or
Speaker 1: stoicism or fatalism on my part. But I slept well
Speaker 1: simply because of the realization that even after all of this,
Speaker 1: Rick Kaplan was still only the second or third craziest
Speaker 1: MSNBC executive I had ever worked for. I've done all
Speaker 1: the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: Please share this podcast with somebody who does not listen,
Speaker 1: And my apologies. Yesterday I was going to blame the
Speaker 1: fact that there was no podcast at midnight, as there
Speaker 1: usually is, and the first actual listing on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: was at about eight thirty or so in the morning yesterday.
Speaker 1: I was going to blame that on technical problems, but
Speaker 1: in fact I simply screwed up. You know when they
Speaker 1: say check the boxes, I didn't check the right boxes.
Speaker 1: The thing didn't get published. I apologize. I may need
Speaker 1: some time off. Brian Ray and John on Phillip Shanel,
Speaker 1: the musical directors of Countdown. Maybe I can suspend myself
Speaker 1: to get a day off. Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel,
Speaker 1: the musical directors of Countdown, arranged it wouldn't be the
Speaker 1: first time Arrange produced and performed most of our music.
Speaker 1: Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray was on guitars,
Speaker 1: bass and drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
Speaker 1: Our satirical and fifty musical comments are by the best
Speaker 1: baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports music is
Speaker 1: the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren
Speaker 1: Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed
Speaker 1: by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was
Speaker 1: my friend Stevie van Zant, and everything else as usual.
Speaker 1: It was pretty much my fault, so that's countdown for
Speaker 1: this the seventy sixth day until the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: presidential election. The one three hundred and twenty third day
Speaker 1: since convicted fellon Donald J. Trump's first attempted coup against
Speaker 1: the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
Speaker 1: September eighteenth sentencing hearing. If it happens, use the mental
Speaker 1: health system you've got this. President Biden used presidential immunity.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court says you can do whatever you want
Speaker 1: as long as it's official. To stop him from doing
Speaker 1: it again while we still can, and anti Semitic, anti immigration,
Speaker 1: gun nut Republicans, please stop shooting at Trump. The next
Speaker 1: scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news requires till
Speaker 1: the next one. I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.