Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio, with
Speaker 1: the news that Tomorrow night debate moderators Dana Bash and
Speaker 1: Jake Tapper will not fact check Trump's lies in real time.
Speaker 1: CNN has abrogated yet another journalistic imperative, and he had
Speaker 1: another Trump event offering him he had another step towards
Speaker 1: imposing a dictatorship on this nation. Oh okay, says CNN
Speaker 1: on the twenty twenty election. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll push back.
Speaker 1: But when Trump insists Biden killed two women and he
Speaker 1: should go to jail because the alleged actual murderers were
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants, what are they going to do to him?
Speaker 1: A customized Dana Bash shrug emoji When Trump insists the
Speaker 1: president is on drugs? Is Jake Tapper just going to
Speaker 1: stare daggers at Trump? The last time CNN punted on
Speaker 1: its responsibilities to this nation, the truth and to just reality,
Speaker 1: it gave us the hapless Caitlin Collins Trump Live town
Speaker 1: hall in May of twenty twenty three, and as bad
Speaker 1: as she proved to be at it, Collins was at
Speaker 1: least trying to get a fact in edgewise. The moderators
Speaker 1: tomorrow Night quote are not participants in the debate, they
Speaker 1: are facilitators, said as CNN spokesman CNN's woeful political director
Speaker 1: David Shallion, largely responsible for the Trump debacle last year,
Speaker 1: told The New York Times that a live debate is
Speaker 1: not the ideal arena for live fact checking, even as
Speaker 1: that spokesperson, who refused to give their name to Axios
Speaker 1: said that there would be some fact checking of major
Speaker 1: falsehoods and smaller details, but only on the secondary CNN
Speaker 1: platforms like the digital ones. So they're not going to
Speaker 1: do it. Oh no, they're going to do it. They're
Speaker 1: just not going to do it where it matters or
Speaker 1: when it matters. Just to further confess that the CNN
Speaker 1: decision to not fact check Trump's fire hose of lies
Speaker 1: as he makes them where he makes them is another
Speaker 1: principle thrown away to make sure Trump shows up or
Speaker 1: doesn't batter the network or take revengulator or all three.
Speaker 1: That same CNN spokesman said that they would fact check
Speaker 1: claims that the twenty twenty election was stolen, but the
Speaker 1: spokesman described those claims to Axios as inaccuracies. This is
Speaker 1: CNN Collins Trump town Hall of May twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: did not get the late and very unlamented Chris licked
Speaker 1: fired as CNN's chief and relegated to the dust spend
Speaker 1: of dereliction of duty. Licks amazingly self loving comments in
Speaker 1: the Atlantic magazine article did that, but the town Hall
Speaker 1: was his penultimate step off the cliff. You can almost
Speaker 1: see a similar fate sharpening into focus for Lickt's successor,
Speaker 1: the British print newsman Mark Thompson. Just to make CNN's
Speaker 1: pre debate failure seem even more like Homer Simpson falling
Speaker 1: down his cliff. Thompson said he expected this to be
Speaker 1: quote an absolutely classic debate, and he compared it to
Speaker 1: in advance, the first Nixon Kennedy debate from nineteen sixty. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they are comparable, sir, since they will both
Speaker 1: have been on television. Mister Thompson planted one last rake
Speaker 1: to step on, or one last Petard to hoist himself.
Speaker 1: With the format of the debate, he actually thinks has
Speaker 1: quote been done in a way at least in principle,
Speaker 1: that is designed to get as much light as possible
Speaker 1: and not to be overwhelmed with heat. Principal, we're talking
Speaker 1: about Trump, and you seriously think that principles will somehow
Speaker 1: prevail here. This is Trump. The way you kept candidates
Speaker 1: in line in nineteen ninety eight or nineteen sixty or
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight or in the UK may work again
Speaker 1: someday if we survive this election, but it is not
Speaker 1: going to work with Trump, because this man is literally
Speaker 1: running for his life, and thus he is tomorrow night
Speaker 1: literally debating for his life. There are no rules here,
Speaker 1: there is no truth here, and there is nobody inside
Speaker 1: of Trump for you to appeal to. By now it
Speaker 1: should no longer be such, yet this truth remains. It
Speaker 1: continues to stun me that TV network after TV network,
Speaker 1: and soon to be x TV executive after soon to
Speaker 1: be x TV executive still thinks his or her vision
Speaker 1: of exactly the same idea to contain Trump that didn't
Speaker 1: work last time or didn't work the last fifty times,
Speaker 1: is going to work this time because well, in Chris
Speaker 1: Licht's case, it was because he knew it would work
Speaker 1: since he had produced Stephen Colbert, so he was too
Speaker 1: cool for anybody to deare ignore him. In Kristin Welker
Speaker 1: and Carrie Butdolph Brown's cases, they thought they'd get away
Speaker 1: with it at NBC because, after all, they were hiring
Speaker 1: Ronald McDaniel and the price would be worth it to
Speaker 1: not fact check Trump on Meet the Press. And in
Speaker 1: the new CNN guy Mark Thompson's case, I guess he
Speaker 1: thinks it'll work because he has dual American and British citizenship,
Speaker 1: and he can always go back there and get a
Speaker 1: job there after this impending FASCO costs him this job,
Speaker 1: or maybe he can go become editor of the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: I understand they're hiring, by the way, if you had
Speaker 1: not noticed the fascists, maybe not the Republicans, but the
Speaker 1: true hallucinators. They believe Trump has already won the debate
Speaker 1: and the election. As the first of these looms, the
Speaker 1: Trump cult is really pouring gasoline they don't own on
Speaker 1: a fire. We intend to prevent them from lighting. There
Speaker 1: is today now not only an official Trump hit list,
Speaker 1: Schedule F, which would let him fire all government civil
Speaker 1: service employees and replace them with I don't know he's
Speaker 1: remaining relatives and other brain damage flunkies, but there is
Speaker 1: now also an unofficial Trump hit list. The Federalist Society,
Speaker 1: and again the solution here is to declare the Federalist
Speaker 1: Society a terrorist organization. The Federalist Society has given a
Speaker 1: Kentucky guy named Tom Jones with a resume showing he
Speaker 1: used to be an aid to fascist Congressman Jim de
Speaker 1: Mint and a press photo showing he has eight chins.
Speaker 1: The Federalist Society has given him one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to assemble and then publicly post a list of, as
Speaker 1: the Associated Press phrases it, quote, one hundred names of
Speaker 1: government workers who might be standing in the way of
Speaker 1: a second term Trump agenda. On the surface, Jones and
Speaker 1: his American Accountability Foundation are scanning backgrounds, social media posts,
Speaker 1: other commentary to get people fired from federal departments, especially
Speaker 1: Homeland Security. Because if you think Trump wants to use
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice as his personal attorneys and he
Speaker 1: wants to use the FBI as his personal police, take
Speaker 1: a guess what he wants to use Homeland Security for
Speaker 1: two letters. It begins with an S and it ends
Speaker 1: with another S. But getting them fired by Tom Jones
Speaker 1: is just the surface plan. What else do you suppose
Speaker 1: might happen to the one hundred people on it. If
Speaker 1: some conservative psychopath posted a Trump and Emmy's list on
Speaker 1: a website and again ruining the lives of one hundred people,
Speaker 1: making examples of one hundred people in order to preempt
Speaker 1: further criticism of a Trump dictatorship and the redeployment of DOJ,
Speaker 1: the FBI, Homeland and other federal institutions as part of
Speaker 1: a fascist state. That's just the first step. Because back
Speaker 1: at the official Trump kill list at Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: there is Joseph Backhome of the Family Research Council. When
Speaker 1: Whoopy Goldberg noted that the move to put up the
Speaker 1: Ten Commandments on the walls of every school in Louisiana,
Speaker 1: and I mean anywhere in this country outside of Vegas,
Speaker 1: where the Ten Commandments, bullshit as they might be, are
Speaker 1: violated more frequently than they are in Louisiana. When Whoopy
Speaker 1: noted that this was an attempt to turn every school
Speaker 1: into a religious school, this, Joseph Backholme of the Family
Speaker 1: Research Council and Project twenty twenty five commented, quote, I
Speaker 1: think the response there to Whoopee is that public schools
Speaker 1: are religious schools, and that's really what this moment requires
Speaker 1: us to recognize. Why does Joseph say that, because quote
Speaker 1: Pride flags represent a set of religious values about who
Speaker 1: is in charge. So there you have it. Opposition to
Speaker 1: Trump will be purged from the government and others will
Speaker 1: be warned from even trying it as they watch the
Speaker 1: lives of those who have already criticized him get their
Speaker 1: lives ruined. Schools will be religious schools, and the religion
Speaker 1: will prevent the gay And how did we get here?
Speaker 1: We got here obviously because of the villainy on the right.
Speaker 1: We also got here because for half a century, our secular, fair,
Speaker 1: non religious nut job somewhat scrupled politicians formerly in both
Speaker 1: major parties, lately just on the left, have bluntly not
Speaker 1: beaten the metaphorical shit out of the religious nut job
Speaker 1: every time they have surface to crusade. Crusade meant literally
Speaker 1: as in, let's go kill people in the Holy Land,
Speaker 1: or failing that, we will accept Louisiana as an alternate answer.
Speaker 1: They rise and they send their own members out into
Speaker 1: the public, and we have not done enough to crush them.
Speaker 1: And when that failed, they got behind a psychopath. It
Speaker 1: would do anything for them, because the evangelicals do vote
Speaker 1: and they do vote in blocks, and if you let
Speaker 1: them impose their hallucinations and delusions and superstitions upon the
Speaker 1: rest of us, they will let you get away with murder, or,
Speaker 1: in Trump's case, they will let him get away with
Speaker 1: bum fights. Bum fights, bum fights, having the homeless fight
Speaker 1: each other or fight low level professional fighters while the
Speaker 1: supposed ordinary good Americans pay money and sit back and laugh.
Speaker 1: Got any memory that does bring a distant from two
Speaker 1: decades ago. Bum fights back, only this time and even
Speaker 1: more hateful version of them, proposed by no less than
Speaker 1: the biggest bum of them all. Trump wants to have
Speaker 1: immigrants fight American born professionals in mixed martial arts fights.
Speaker 1: Trump is like two steps from suggesting building a new
Speaker 1: Roman colisseum in West Palm Beach and having them battle
Speaker 1: lions there. Trump is like three steps from in the
Speaker 1: bitterest of ironies, given the death of my friend Donald
Speaker 1: Sutherland last Thursday, the Trump Hunger Games, a title which
Speaker 1: itself would be ironic inso much as in the last
Speaker 1: three decades, Trump has clearly never let himself be hungry
Speaker 1: for more than five minutes at a stretch, and Trump crazy, Trump, sadistic,
Speaker 1: Trump living in a dreamlike fugue state, almost Caligula Trump,
Speaker 1: He's only like five steps from the worst thing he
Speaker 1: could ever ever think of, having immigrants fight sharks. I
Speaker 1: have one simple request, and that is to have sharks
Speaker 1: with freaking laser beams attached to their heads. Can you
Speaker 1: remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw
Speaker 1: me a bone here, Sharks with frickin' laser beams that
Speaker 1: are solar powered, so they'll short out and electrocute somebody
Speaker 1: when they get wet. Because Trump is simultaneously convinced that
Speaker 1: green energy fails when it's not windy, or if the
Speaker 1: machine gets wet, But the wind powered engine on a
Speaker 1: sinking boat would still somehow electrocute him, but it would
Speaker 1: not electrocute the shark ten feet away from him. At
Speaker 1: as much as this tells us about what terrifies this psychopath.
Speaker 1: We're a little deep in the woods here and the
Speaker 1: weeds as well, And as Biden prepares for the debate
Speaker 1: two nights from now, he should widen out the lens
Speaker 1: and underscore the key point in the shark story and
Speaker 1: the migrant fighting league story and all the rest of
Speaker 1: these violent fantasies, which is that Trump is not only
Speaker 1: insane and deteriorating, but that he has the makings of
Speaker 1: criminal insanity. Widening out and answering Trump's delusions not with
Speaker 1: what you and I do, parsing them to underscore just
Speaker 1: how crazy they and he really are. Widening out is
Speaker 1: I think Biden's best plan for tomorrow night. He needs
Speaker 1: to start where we leave off when Trump says something
Speaker 1: crazy about sharks or about the economy or anything in between.
Speaker 1: Start by saying Donald Trump is insane, and by the way,
Speaker 1: he's wrong and he's lying to you. Here's why this
Speaker 1: is especially true if Trump tries the are you better
Speaker 1: off now than you were four years ago? Jazz emphasized
Speaker 1: Trump's criminal culpability about COVID, emphasized the million dead, the bleach,
Speaker 1: the putting light in your body, the economic collapse, the
Speaker 1: fact that in February twenty twenty, Trump knew it was
Speaker 1: airborne and lied to the public for months as Americans died.
Speaker 1: Say it, mister president, say it. Bluntly. Trump killed a
Speaker 1: million Americans. There are American millions he killed for whom
Speaker 1: there is no question they ain't better off now than
Speaker 1: they were four years ago. And bluntly say that he
Speaker 1: still managed while doing this to kill the economy. That
Speaker 1: the inflation we are finally stopping now is Trump inflation.
Speaker 1: It's Trump COVID inflation. That the president with the worst
Speaker 1: job record since Herbert Hoover was Trump. That violent crime
Speaker 1: exploded under Trump, that there were two kinds of criminals
Speaker 1: under Trump, muggers and murderers on the street and ex
Speaker 1: presidents who tried to overthrow the government. And the most
Speaker 1: important truth to hit him with, the most important truth
Speaker 1: to dispel what Brian Bouler beautifully dubbed Trumpstalgia and trump Nisia,
Speaker 1: the most important truth to enrage Trump is the truth
Speaker 1: that he lost, that he lost the election, that he's
Speaker 1: a loser, and that instead of taking it like a man,
Speaker 1: he had other pe people tried to overthrow the government
Speaker 1: for him. He was such a coward. He didn't even
Speaker 1: have the guts to go to the capitol during the coup.
Speaker 1: I mean, what is he going to say to that,
Speaker 1: I did too have the guts to go to the
Speaker 1: capitol during the coup. I really wanted to stay and
Speaker 1: go there, but they said, sir, you can't go, it's
Speaker 1: not safe. They had tears in their eyes, to which
Speaker 1: Biden could reply, it wasn't safe. It was all your supporters,
Speaker 1: it was all your people, and it wasn't safe. And
Speaker 1: you wanted to go, but they stopped you. Who stopped you,
Speaker 1: who made your decisions for you? Donald, you were president
Speaker 1: of the United States. I mean you were the worst
Speaker 1: weakest president in history. And when you tried for reelection,
Speaker 1: you lost. But you let some White House aid or
Speaker 1: secret serviceman tell you what you could and couldn't do.
Speaker 1: Let me tie this together, bum fights, migrant fighting championships,
Speaker 1: the official Trump enemies List, the unofficial Trump enemies List,
Speaker 1: mandatory religion in public schools. This is your generation of
Speaker 1: politicians who have failed us. President Biden, you all tried
Speaker 1: to compromise. We all thought you were right to We
Speaker 1: were all wrong. You have to go into this debate
Speaker 1: escalating your assessment of what is really at risk. It
Speaker 1: is not enough to merely fight Trump in this debate
Speaker 1: on behalf of America. You have to think of it
Speaker 1: this way, on behalf of humanity and mankind, because the
Speaker 1: next five years is the last chance we have to
Speaker 1: mitigate a climate disaster. What would you have said, mister President,
Speaker 1: knowing what you know today if you were debating not
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four in Atlanta, but in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: two somewhere in Germany against Hitler. Throw some punches, Joe
Speaker 1: Summon the old anger, get in there with the plan
Speaker 1: on destroying Donald Trump because he might as well be
Speaker 1: Hitler or has his national press secretary called him the
Speaker 1: other night Hilter back on this planet. As they start Thursday,
Speaker 1: we are likely to see both sides claiming their candidate
Speaker 1: is leading in the polling. Trump will be lying using
Speaker 1: the polling averages from five point thirty eight dot Com,
Speaker 1: the Split Ticket political website, put out a graphic showing
Speaker 1: what Trump's stormy Daniel's election interference conviction did to his
Speaker 1: numbers In the swing states. Biden is only ahead and
Speaker 1: by only half a point in only two of them,
Speaker 1: Michigan and Wisconsin, but the move towards him in the
Speaker 1: polls since Trump's conviction on the thirtieth of May is astonishing.
Speaker 1: When reduced to the measurement of the swing. In the
Speaker 1: swing states, Biden has gained a point at a tenth
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, He's gained a point and one fifth.
Speaker 1: In Georgia. He's gained one and three fifths in Michigan.
Speaker 1: In three states Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, he's improved by
Speaker 1: two and three tenths of a point, and in Nevada
Speaker 1: he's three and three tenths points better than he was
Speaker 1: a month ago. Overall, in the swing states, he went
Speaker 1: from minus one point seven to plus zero point one
Speaker 1: in about four weeks. I hit the poll numbers last week,
Speaker 1: and at the same time George Conway noted accurately that
Speaker 1: we should not focus only on the polls because they
Speaker 1: could give a false sense of security. Yes, entirely true,
Speaker 1: but they are still of value because if I was
Speaker 1: taught one thing by my experience of two thousand and five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 1: when the viewer response to my commentaries was basically thank God,
Speaker 1: I thought I was the only person who realized this
Speaker 1: was happening. If I was taught one thing by all
Speaker 1: that it is never underestimate the value of reminding people
Speaker 1: that the gravity has not been turned off in the world,
Speaker 1: that cause an effect still exists, that good can beat evil,
Speaker 1: particularly when good gets up off its ass. There's nothing
Speaker 1: like having somebody, even a polster, even a lot of polsters,
Speaker 1: whose numbers are then made into an average say no, no,
Speaker 1: you're not alone, and no you're not crazy. And lastly
Speaker 1: to that end, and to circle back to advice to Biden,
Speaker 1: I think, mister President, you should say repeatedly that Trump
Speaker 1: is exactly that crazy, insane, nuts out of his head.
Speaker 1: I would go back to ancient history in the Trump
Speaker 1: versus Biden stuff, all the way back to nearly two
Speaker 1: weeks ago. Joe Bride, this guy Joe Bride. He called
Speaker 1: him Joe Bride, and don't forget in March Trump, who'd
Speaker 1: also called him. Trump wrote about Joe Biden, and in
Speaker 1: writing about him, called him Joe Buden. President should run
Speaker 1: with this tomorrow night. Run with it, laugh about it,
Speaker 1: shout about it, hell sing about it, yes, sir, sing
Speaker 1: about it. Oh. Nancy called him Joe Bride. Trump sprain
Speaker 1: is Bride. He once called him pewed and sanity inside
Speaker 1: of Trump has due, uh had, Thank you, Nancy Faust.
Speaker 1: Also of interest here, I wonder sometimes if there was
Speaker 1: an unknown pandemic, say twenty thirty years ago, a pandemic
Speaker 1: that made at least a third of our population stupid,
Speaker 1: but also convinced them they were genie, some kind of
Speaker 1: Dunning Krueger coronavirus, because a congressman who never fought in
Speaker 1: combat does not know that he can't wear a medal
Speaker 1: that they only gave the combat soldiers. And vive Ramaswamy
Speaker 1: doesn't know who prosecuted Assange, and an attorney general of
Speaker 1: one of these United States does not know how Lincoln
Speaker 1: was kept off the ballot in ten states or in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty, nor why these people are dumb enough that
Speaker 1: they could each run CNN. That's next. This is countdown.
Speaker 1: This is countdown with Keith Olberman still on this ediative countdown.
Speaker 1: It's not quite the anniversary that will come up in August,
Speaker 1: but I happened to do an interview over the weekend
Speaker 1: about the great tennis player and legendary muscle ophthalmologist and
Speaker 1: my friend, doctor Renee Richards, who treated me after I
Speaker 1: did this to myself in nineteen eighty, so it's close
Speaker 1: enough to the anniversary. It was the day I learned
Speaker 1: what mom had met all those years when she used
Speaker 1: to say, never run for a train, There'll always be
Speaker 1: another one. I found it out by making a loud
Speaker 1: clanging sound on the front of a train and using
Speaker 1: my own head to do it coming up in things
Speaker 1: I promised not to tell, or this time more accurately
Speaker 1: things I'm lucky I didn't accidentally maim myself, so I
Speaker 1: can still tell you ahead. But first there are still
Speaker 1: more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of
Speaker 1: the misgrants, morons and dunning krugriffects specimens who constitute two
Speaker 1: days worse persons in the world. Clank the bronze, speaking
Speaker 1: like he ran into a train once two Congressman Troy
Speaker 1: Nells Troy is one way or the other, not right
Speaker 1: in the head. He was a civil affairs branch officer
Speaker 1: in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, non combat, yet
Speaker 1: by some sort of clerical mistake, he was awarded the
Speaker 1: combat Infantry badge in two thousand and eight, which he
Speaker 1: was not eligible for he was never in combat. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, the army corrected its mistake and rescinded
Speaker 1: Nells's badge. Somebody noticed and asked him why if he
Speaker 1: wasn't eligible for the badge, he was still wearing it
Speaker 1: as a congressman, He said, go ask the army. So
Speaker 1: a group called not us or notice NTUS did the
Speaker 1: Army got back to them and said no, Nells can't
Speaker 1: keep it, can't wear it, and nobody in the military
Speaker 1: was entitled to give him a pass on the military medal.
Speaker 1: He is still weddering even though it isn't justified. Nells says,
Speaker 1: this is the establishment going to any lengths to get him.
Speaker 1: He did not use the word woke. I'm totally disappointed
Speaker 1: the runner up worser Vivic Ramaswami. There are some stupid people.
Speaker 1: There is the Dunning Kruger effect. Then there is Viviq Ramaswami,
Speaker 1: another potential author of Vivic's Ramaswami's autobiographical history of the World,
Speaker 1: unless Trump writes a book by that title first, or
Speaker 1: has it written for him first. This accidental rich guy
Speaker 1: who thinks he is the smartest person in history is
Speaker 1: actually clueless. He seems to be publicly celebrating the Julian
Speaker 1: Assange plea deal, but he criticizes the president for making
Speaker 1: that plea deal, and he knows nothing about the history
Speaker 1: of the prosecution of Essanje I mean just the last
Speaker 1: five years of it. Rama l Lama ding Dong writes,
Speaker 1: it's great that Julian Assange will finally be released in
Speaker 1: what smells like a desperate Biden gunmit for Libertarian votes.
Speaker 1: But it's shamed that he had to spend years rotting
Speaker 1: in a foreign prison for doing what other reporters do regularly,
Speaker 1: while the government employee who leaked to him, Chelsea Manning,
Speaker 1: had her sentence commuted by Obama because she's a member
Speaker 1: of a favored political class. Transgender Julian Assange deserves a
Speaker 1: pardon and its long past overdue to restore one standard
Speaker 1: of law again in America. He writes like he talks
Speaker 1: without punctuation or intelligence cool. Assange was indicted on May
Speaker 1: twenty third, twenty nineteen, by the Department of Justice, and
Speaker 1: the Attorney General was Bill Barr. The president was elderly
Speaker 1: first offender Trump. Not only did Trump indict Assange, but
Speaker 1: this was a superseding indictment. Meeting Trump and Barr and
Speaker 1: their DOJ decided the previous indictments of Massage were not
Speaker 1: strong enough, so they threw them out and indicted him
Speaker 1: some more so. Naturally. Ram Swami thinks it's all Biden's fault,
Speaker 1: but our winner. Same hubris. That is the theme today,
Speaker 1: same stupidity, different topic. Andrew Bailey another ex military guy
Speaker 1: who somehow became Attorney General of Missouri. You may recall
Speaker 1: that when they were talking about a ballot initiative of
Speaker 1: abortion in his state, ban or non ban, the Missouri
Speaker 1: Auditor's office confirmed that though like Bailey, he the auditor
Speaker 1: opposed abortion rights in Missouri. No, it would not cost
Speaker 1: taxpayers a dime to restore abortion rights in Missouri, and
Speaker 1: ending abortion rights in Missouri wouldn't save them a dime.
Speaker 1: It had no impact financially whatsoever. But Attorney General Bailey
Speaker 1: demanded that the auditor change his finding before the ballot
Speaker 1: initiative was voted on. He wanted him to lie and
Speaker 1: say that restoring abortion rights would cost Missouri billions of dollars. Anyway,
Speaker 1: He's one of those guys. Liar cheat more once used
Speaker 1: Little Jimmy O'Keeffe videos as evidence for something, and now
Speaker 1: he's back having Missouri sue the state of New York
Speaker 1: over the Trump convictions. You know that Trump felony convictions
Speaker 1: that make Trump a convicted felon. Bailey joined the Newsmax
Speaker 1: Joseph Goebel's memorial channel to explain this nuisance and or
Speaker 1: his PTSD from his service in Iraq suit quote. Look,
Speaker 1: no one would have tolerated it if in eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: a rogue da in South Carolina had prosecuted Lincoln for
Speaker 1: speaking out on abolition issues and taken him off the
Speaker 1: campaign trail. At some point we substituted the phrase I
Speaker 1: was in the military once, for I have the barest
Speaker 1: minimum education and experience required to serve in any form
Speaker 1: of government anywhere in this country. Attorney General Bailey does
Speaker 1: not know that in eighteen sixty Lincoln was not on
Speaker 1: the ballot in South Carolina because he was viewed as
Speaker 1: an abolitionist. And he wasn't on the ballot in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: And he wasn't on the ballot in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tacks, Arkansas, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: and North Carolina, and most of Virginia, oh On prosecuting
Speaker 1: Americans and American politicians for speaking out on abolition issues.
Speaker 1: That was done in the South and in the border states,
Speaker 1: in Ohio, in Maryland and oh By the way, what
Speaker 1: was the Civil War if not an attempt to prosecute
Speaker 1: Lincoln and millions of other Americans for speaking out for
Speaker 1: abolition of slavery. Missouri Attorney General Andrew O Buddy Francis
Speaker 1: Scott Key prosecuted abolitionists. You really should not have dropped
Speaker 1: out in the eighth grade like that, Bailey two days
Speaker 1: worst person the world. So finally to our number one
Speaker 1: story on the countdown on my favorite topic, Me and
Speaker 1: things I promised not to tell, although truth be told,
Speaker 1: I have been telling this story now for forty two years.
Speaker 1: On Sunday, the twenty fourth of August nineteen eighty, I
Speaker 1: learned what Mom meant when she had said, never run
Speaker 1: for a train. There will always be another one. Because
Speaker 1: I didn't know what it meant, I nearly killed myself.
Speaker 1: I permanently altered my health, and I put myself on
Speaker 1: a path towards meeting the great doctor Renee Richards. I
Speaker 1: was sleeping late in my relatively new and tiny studio
Speaker 1: apartment on fifty fifth Street in Manhattan, Apartment ten F,
Speaker 1: when above me, eleven F started making noise like pounding
Speaker 1: on the floor. And now it's a thirty Sunday morning,
Speaker 1: and I'm awake, and I'm not doing my job as
Speaker 1: a radio sportscaster until about two, and I think, well,
Speaker 1: I'm up. Oh, the Dodgers are playing the Mets at Shay,
Speaker 1: I can go to my other job as a semi
Speaker 1: professional photographer and go shoot the Dodgers and still make
Speaker 1: it to work on time. So I packed my semi
Speaker 1: professional emphasis on the semi photographer's bag and drag myself
Speaker 1: out on the subway and get to Share stadium around
Speaker 1: eleven thirty am. And there's nobody there, No Dodgers players,
Speaker 1: no Mets players, nobody but the grounds keepers. And as
Speaker 1: the minutes pass, I'm beginning to calculate when I have
Speaker 1: to leave in order to not be late to my
Speaker 1: job back in Manhattan. Weekend life in New York City
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty might as well have been nineteen ten.
Speaker 1: I tell people this. They do not believe me. But
Speaker 1: when I worked weekends the next year in Times Square,
Speaker 1: I used to call into my newsroom from a payphone
Speaker 1: on Fifth Avenue and say, Okay, I'm going to Rby's today.
Speaker 1: Who wants what? Or McDonald's or Burger King or wherever.
Speaker 1: Because our office was in Times Square and on weekends
Speaker 1: there were no restaurants open in Times Square. You could
Speaker 1: not get food in Times Square on weekends. Today, the
Speaker 1: same four square block area probably has fifty restaurants and
Speaker 1: fast food places. So the train back to Manhattan from
Speaker 1: Shae Stadium in Queens ran once every half an hour
Speaker 1: on that Sunday in August of nineteen eighty. And as
Speaker 1: I looked at my watch, I realized I should have
Speaker 1: left the field three or four minutes ago. If you
Speaker 1: went out the press entrance and exit at Shaye Stadium,
Speaker 1: you could see the train approaching the elevated station out
Speaker 1: behind right field. And if you had just seen it,
Speaker 1: if it had just become visible, and if you then
Speaker 1: ran your fastest, you could make it to the viaduct
Speaker 1: that crossed the parking lot and led you up towards
Speaker 1: the station platform. And if you could get your subway
Speaker 1: token out and into the turnstile slot with one fluid
Speaker 1: overhead motion, and if you kept running all the time,
Speaker 1: you could just make the train. If you didn't, you
Speaker 1: would be waiting half an hour, unless maybe the next
Speaker 1: train was late or on fire somewhere. Sure Enough, as
Speaker 1: I got out of the ballpark, I could see the
Speaker 1: Manhattan bound train just appearing at the horizon. I was
Speaker 1: twenty one. My knees still worked, and I ran and
Speaker 1: I got into the viaduct, and I got the token
Speaker 1: out of my pocket, and I got into the slot
Speaker 1: like Daryl Dawkins doing a tomahawk slam. And I not
Speaker 1: only made the train, but I made it by so
Speaker 1: much that I styled, I celebrated, I congratulated myself. I
Speaker 1: was guilty of premature jocularity. I could have just slowed
Speaker 1: to a triumphant jog and gotten a seat, huffing and sweaty,
Speaker 1: but eminently satisfied and on time for work. But no,
Speaker 1: I decided to make an exultant, joyful leap. The next
Speaker 1: thing I registered was the loudest sound I had ever
Speaker 1: or have since ever heard, as if six hundred gongs
Speaker 1: had gone off simultaneously, or a dozen church bells, or
Speaker 1: every alarm clock that had ever awakened me from the
Speaker 1: deepest of sleeps. Something like this, but inside your head, barm.
Speaker 1: When it happened was forgetting that I was no longer
Speaker 1: six feet tall as I had been even two years before,
Speaker 1: but was now just under six ' four. My leap
Speaker 1: had ended with me slamming my forehead on the flat
Speaker 1: metal bar just above the train doorway an inch higher,
Speaker 1: I might have blinded myself. The bar an inch above
Speaker 1: the doorway is, in fact, as I found out later,
Speaker 1: the thickest piece of metal on a New York City
Speaker 1: subway train. As it was, my momentum carried me safely
Speaker 1: into the train. I hit the floor. I saw my
Speaker 1: sunglasses go flying off and rattling down towards the back
Speaker 1: of the train like a plastic rat. I heard the
Speaker 1: train doors cl I felt the blood on my head
Speaker 1: and in my hair, and I crawled up onto the
Speaker 1: plastic bench seating behind me. The mass gong sound continued
Speaker 1: in my head, and my first cogent thought was to
Speaker 1: see the blood on the train floor and think, Oh,
Speaker 1: I have spilled blood all over their train, and I
Speaker 1: don't have anything to clean it up with. Similar nonsense
Speaker 1: continued to bounce around my concussed size eight noggin for seconds,
Speaker 1: maybe minutes. It was beginning to really hurt, and of
Speaker 1: more practical import the bleeding had not really stopped. At
Speaker 1: this point. An older woman sitting more or less across
Speaker 1: from me handed me a small packet. It was a
Speaker 1: wet wipe. I mumbled thanks, opened it, dabbed it on
Speaker 1: my forehead for a second, and was surprised to find
Speaker 1: it instantly inundated with blood. This was the first time
Speaker 1: it occurred to me that I might be in real
Speaker 1: trouble on the Number seven local train to Grand Central
Speaker 1: and Times Square. Apparently this thought occurred simultaneously to the
Speaker 1: woman with the wet wipes and to her friend, I
Speaker 1: think you're kind of hurt. One of them said to me,
Speaker 1: let's get you to the hospital. There's one a couple
Speaker 1: blocks from the next stop. Now understand this situation. The
Speaker 1: New York of nineteen eighty, and particularly the subways of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty were not nice places. Two years later, I
Speaker 1: took a rush hour train to my job at CNN
Speaker 1: at the World Trade Center and was annoyed to find
Speaker 1: one guy who had sprawled himself over three seats with
Speaker 1: a newspaper covering his face. Nine hours later, when I
Speaker 1: went home, I got onto a train and saw the
Speaker 1: same guy with the same newspaper on the same seats,
Speaker 1: because it was the same train, and more importantly, because
Speaker 1: he was dead. Anyway, it was now around twelve forty
Speaker 1: five of a Sunday afternoon. If it had been night,
Speaker 1: or indeed certain other times of the day or on
Speaker 1: other train lines, I would have simply been the easiest
Speaker 1: mugging victim in New York history. Somebody could have knocked
Speaker 1: me over and taken my wallet with next to no effort. Hell,
Speaker 1: they could have asked me for my wallet, and I
Speaker 1: was so dazed I probably I would have said, sure,
Speaker 1: have a nice day, got any wet wipes? Instead, I
Speaker 1: met not one, but two good Samaritans who knew where
Speaker 1: the hospitals were in a part of town I could
Speaker 1: barely find on a map. Sure enough, they helped me
Speaker 1: to my feet, walked me down the steps and to
Speaker 1: the two blocks or so that separated us from Elmhurst Hospital,
Speaker 1: And when I reassured them I was clear headed enough
Speaker 1: to get into the emergency room by myself, they wished
Speaker 1: me luck, and they would not even accept my offer
Speaker 1: of two tokens to get them back on the subway.
Speaker 1: There should be a monument to these two women somewhere.
Speaker 1: If the New York City subways of nineteen eighty were scary,
Speaker 1: the emergency rooms of its hospitals were something out of
Speaker 1: a Brian de Palma film. I think there were a
Speaker 1: couple of dozen people in the er. I remember one
Speaker 1: of them asking me how I got so bloody and
Speaker 1: I explained, and he said you should go ahead of me,
Speaker 1: and he opened his windbreaker to show a blood covered shirt,
Speaker 1: and he added the bullet. Only I know. I waited
Speaker 1: about two hours. During that time I had a singular
Speaker 1: experience which has informed my understanding of concussions and traumatic
Speaker 1: brain injury ever since. The desk nurse asked me for
Speaker 1: the name of a contact, preferably a family member. I
Speaker 1: gave my father's name, Theodore. Then she asked me for
Speaker 1: my full name, and when I went to say it,
Speaker 1: I could not remember my middle name. Could not remember
Speaker 1: my middle name Keith, I got Olderman, I got that
Speaker 1: was it. My middle name is also Theodore. I could
Speaker 1: remember Theodore my dad, but not Theodore my middle name.
Speaker 1: That is how fragile your brain really is. Think of
Speaker 1: that the next time you see somebody get clocked in
Speaker 1: a sporting event. There was some comic relief. I called
Speaker 1: into my office at United Press International's Audio network and
Speaker 1: explained to the news editor a veteran named Ed Kern's
Speaker 1: the most dapperman in radio history, who looked like the
Speaker 1: actor Ray Collins from Citizen Kane. I told Ed I
Speaker 1: had just sort of almost you know, killed myself on
Speaker 1: the subway coming in from Queen's, and I really didn't
Speaker 1: know when or if I would be at work. About
Speaker 1: forty five minutes after that conversation, the desk nurse started
Speaker 1: shouting my name, and I thought, Okay, I'm finally going
Speaker 1: to be brought in to see a doctor. No, it
Speaker 1: was Ed Caron's calling from UPI. My bosses were all
Speaker 1: very sorry that I was wounded, he said, but there
Speaker 1: was nobody available to fill in for me. So when
Speaker 1: could they expect me to be in the office, I explained,
Speaker 1: I did not know that since I was technically still
Speaker 1: bleeding to death. Forty five minutes more passed, and again
Speaker 1: the nurse summoned me and said there was a phone call,
Speaker 1: and this time I was sure it was my dad,
Speaker 1: Keith ed Karin's again at UPI. He explained that my
Speaker 1: boss now said that they would bring in the guy
Speaker 1: who was supposed to do the next morning sports cast,
Speaker 1: my college friend Peter shack Now, but they expected me
Speaker 1: to do his shift starting at four point thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning. I explained to Ed that I would try,
Speaker 1: but that honestly I didn't know where I was or
Speaker 1: what time it was. Now two nice ladies had mentioned
Speaker 1: the name of the hospital, but I really wasn't remembering
Speaker 1: too well. Plus I was still bleeding to death. Needless
Speaker 1: to say, I did not bleed to death. I survived.
Speaker 1: It was a severe concussion, but it only took a
Speaker 1: stitch and a half to actually close that wound. And
Speaker 1: the er doctor and the nurses were outstanding, and they
Speaker 1: gave me easy to remember instructions, plus a note indicating
Speaker 1: that I should rest for at least forty eight hours
Speaker 1: just in case Ed Karins showed up at my apartment.
Speaker 1: No offense to Ed. They told me what symptoms to expect,
Speaker 1: how to prepare for them, and when they would stop.
Speaker 1: And they stopped like one day earlier. It was a
Speaker 1: potential disaster that turned into a nothing burger, or so
Speaker 1: I thought. Two years later, I was at the original
Speaker 1: Louis Armstrong Stadium covering the nineteen eighty two US Tennis open,
Speaker 1: on the other side of the same elevated subway station
Speaker 1: where I had run into the train going there always
Speaker 1: actually made me laugh. Until the afternoon of Saturday, September eleventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. I was watching the Women's final, covering
Speaker 1: it for CNN Chris Everett over Hannah man Lakova, and
Speaker 1: swinging my head from side to side, as one does
Speaker 1: to follow the tennis action from over here, two over there,
Speaker 1: two over here, two over there, as I had swung
Speaker 1: my head from side to side for the preceding twelve
Speaker 1: days of the tournament. Then I swung to the right,
Speaker 1: but my left eye kept looking to the left. The
Speaker 1: old Marty Feldman thing reversed crossed eyes that hurt worse
Speaker 1: than hitting the train had. I could barely stand any light.
Speaker 1: I often had to keep my hand in front of
Speaker 1: my eyes. I rushed to my optometris Monday morning and
Speaker 1: he started to laugh. This happened to you during the
Speaker 1: US Open. I said, yes, Why are you laughing at me?
Speaker 1: He said, I'm going to send you to the best
Speaker 1: muscle optimist I've ever met. I said, so, why are
Speaker 1: you laughing at me? He said, you don't know who
Speaker 1: that is? I said, no, I let my knowledge of
Speaker 1: the muscle ophthalmology ranking slip. Why are you laughing at me?
Speaker 1: He said, The best muscle ophthalmologist I've ever met is
Speaker 1: doctor Renee Richards, the transsexual tennis player. I said, I
Speaker 1: don't care who you're sending me to. I'm in trouble here.
Speaker 1: If they can fix this, I don't care who you're
Speaker 1: sending me. My train accident was so far in my
Speaker 1: past that when I got in to see doctor Richards
Speaker 1: the next morning, I didn't even think to mention it
Speaker 1: in my patient history. Didn't matter. Thirty seconds of staring
Speaker 1: into my eyes through a wall sized feropter and Renee
Speaker 1: Richards said, when exactly did you hit your head August
Speaker 1: or September of nineteen eighty. I was stunned. Uh, I
Speaker 1: did hit my head in nineteen eighty August twenty fourth.
Speaker 1: She made a clicking noise of satisfaction. I've heard of
Speaker 1: this before, but I've never seen it. You couldn't do
Speaker 1: this again in a million years. The good news is
Speaker 1: that muscle problem with the eyes, that's just muscle exhaustion.
Speaker 1: We can fix that with a thing that costs to
Speaker 1: buck ninety eight. The bad news is when you hit
Speaker 1: your head, most of the damage must have been absorbed
Speaker 1: by your inner ear. If you want to fix that,
Speaker 1: you'll need brain surgery. I don't recommend brain surgery. Doctor
Speaker 1: Renee Richards showed me the muscle exercises that cost a
Speaker 1: dollar ninety eight that fixed my reverse cross eyes. They
Speaker 1: felt better immediately. I still do the exercises I did
Speaker 1: them earlier today. Then Renee Richards said, so you're a
Speaker 1: sports reporter. It says here, listen, my next patient isn't
Speaker 1: due for half an hour. You should rest anyway after
Speaker 1: my exam. Let's talk about sports reporting. Renee Richards was
Speaker 1: an expert. Her transition had been outed by a sportscaster,
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson's father. If you can believe that, I can
Speaker 1: believe it because she had been a man when she
Speaker 1: played in the US Open. As a woman, she had
Speaker 1: become almost instantaneously the most famous tennis player in the world.
Speaker 1: Then she became Martina Navratulova's coach. I learned more from
Speaker 1: her in that first half hour of conversation about the
Speaker 1: ethics of reporting than I had in all of my
Speaker 1: previous life experiences combined. Plus she was a gas. Renee
Speaker 1: Richards was hilarious, she was self effacing, She was a
Speaker 1: great doctor, and to me, she was the definition of courage.
Speaker 1: And she, I am proud to say, is still my friend.
Speaker 1: All because I did not know what Mom meant when
Speaker 1: she said, don't run for a train, There'll always be
Speaker 1: another one. The other phrase I never really understood till
Speaker 1: then was breakneck speed. Oh, when there is one more
Speaker 1: punchline here. If the name of that hospital that the
Speaker 1: two good Samaritans took me to, Elmhurst Hospital sounds vaguely familiar,
Speaker 1: it should. It was ground zero when COVID nineteen hit,
Speaker 1: when the pandemic had its hand around New York City's throat.
Speaker 1: The worst hit community was Elmhurst in Queen's and the
Speaker 1: worst hit hospital was Elmhurst Hospital. They were in desperate
Speaker 1: need at that point of ventilators, so I knew what
Speaker 1: I had to do. You could buy them for cash legally,
Speaker 1: so I got two ventilators. I had them delivered, one
Speaker 1: for each of the ladies who helped me to get
Speaker 1: off the damn train that day. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that also hurt for like three weeks. I've done all
Speaker 1: the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown.
Speaker 1: Musical directors Brian Rain, John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced and
Speaker 1: performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
Speaker 1: bass and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
Speaker 1: It was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some
Speaker 1: of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the
Speaker 1: group No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme
Speaker 1: from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis
Speaker 1: courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
Speaker 1: are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Speaker 1: Our announcer was my friend Dennis Leary, and everything else
Speaker 1: was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
Speaker 1: the one hundred and thirty third day until the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four presidential election and the two hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: ninth day since convicted fellon Trump's first attempted coup against
Speaker 1: the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
Speaker 1: July eleventh sentencing hearing, use the mental health system, use
Speaker 1: presidential immunity if it happens, Use the debate to stop
Speaker 1: him from doing it again while we still can. A
Speaker 1: reminder will be live again on YouTube after the debate
Speaker 1: Tomorrow night. Join me should be about ten thirty Eastern
Speaker 1: unless Trump gas out. They do it anyway. Even if
Speaker 1: he does gack out and take your questions about him
Speaker 1: gacking out anyway, Send your link to this edition of
Speaker 1: the podcast to somebody who does not already listen. Thank
Speaker 1: you for doing so. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Bulletins is the news warrants till the next one on
Speaker 1: Keith Oldreman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Speaker 1: Called him Joe Bride. Trump's brain is pride, he wants,
Speaker 1: called him beud in sanity inside of Trump has duh
Speaker 1: huh uh. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.