Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is the greatest president of all time at losing
Speaker 1: support in the polls as fast as humanly possible. He
Speaker 1: has hemorrhaged approval. He has turned his honeymoon into a divorce,
Speaker 1: and he is setting up a Democratic landslide next year
Speaker 1: if only the Democrats would try. And the evidence went
Speaker 1: by so fast, the real report card on the first
Speaker 1: one hundred days, well one hundred and two days, It
Speaker 1: went by so fast almost nobody noticed. Elliot Morris, the
Speaker 1: last king of five thirty eight dot com, now in
Speaker 1: charge of Strength in Numbers, calculated the chase in Trump's approval,
Speaker 1: the depth of his sinking underwater since day one to
Speaker 1: day one hundred, and it is the worst in American
Speaker 1: polling history dating back to nineteen fifty three, worse even
Speaker 1: than Trump's own first term. He was a net plus
Speaker 1: nine at the time of his inauguration, and he is
Speaker 1: at minus ten now plus nine to minus ten in
Speaker 1: one hundred days. And the minus ten is itself a
Speaker 1: presidential record. The move from positive territory to gurgle, gurgle,
Speaker 1: You're drowning is a record. The dispelling of the notion
Speaker 1: that he might be okay. This fast is a record.
Speaker 1: He is the most worst president of all time. As
Speaker 1: Morris notes, only Gerald Ford is even in Trump's league,
Speaker 1: and even after Ford pardon Nixon and shed half his support,
Speaker 1: Ford was still a net plus and a net plus
Speaker 1: twenty four at one hundred days. Carter was a net
Speaker 1: plus fifty five. George W. Bush was a net plus
Speaker 1: twenty seven. Trump is a net minus ten. He is drowning.
Speaker 1: He is losing an average of one approval point every
Speaker 1: five days. At this rate, by early August, he would
Speaker 1: be at net minus thirty. I mean, this is worse
Speaker 1: than the economy. That's how bad these numbers are. Trump
Speaker 1: only wasted seven percent of the value of the stock
Speaker 1: market in the first hundred days, and gross domestic product
Speaker 1: only shrank three tenths of a point when it was
Speaker 1: supposed to continue the huge growth that had under Biden.
Speaker 1: Trump went from net plus ten to net minus ten
Speaker 1: in one hundred days. And that's just the start. The
Speaker 1: Republican internal polling may be even worse than that, if
Speaker 1: that is mathematically possible. This is from punch Bowl News.
Speaker 1: Trump's approval rating is underwater, and our CC chair Richard
Speaker 1: Hudson told House Republicans during a private meeting on Capitol Hill,
Speaker 1: this is the Republican Congressional Committee to elect Republicans to Congress.
Speaker 1: Their poll, conducted April to thirteenth to eighteenth in competitive
Speaker 1: House seats, has forty six percent of respondents approving of
Speaker 1: Trump's performance fifty three percent disapproving. This is roughly in
Speaker 1: line with public polling data. Trump is seven points underwater
Speaker 1: in vulnerable House seats, many of them now held by
Speaker 1: Republican congress people. Aggressive democratic campaigning focused on freedom, democracy,
Speaker 1: Trump's psychosis, Trump causing prices to rise, Trump threatening SS
Speaker 1: and medicare, Trump trying to kill small businesses in favor
Speaker 1: of monopolies and cartels. Trump abducting Americans, Trump running a
Speaker 1: child trafficking gang, Trump threatening the constitution, Trump constantly denying reality,
Speaker 1: Trump threatening judges, Trump threatening you, Trump causing your costs
Speaker 1: to go through the roof. That could lead to a
Speaker 1: democratic landslide next year. And you can run on every
Speaker 1: kitchen table issue you want and against Trump and for
Speaker 1: democracy in the same sentence. Happily, the Democrats are poised
Speaker 1: to take advantage of this polling opportunity to who the
Speaker 1: hell am I kidding? This is a simple fix. You
Speaker 1: just have to not be Chuck Schumer anymore. Chuck Schumer,
Speaker 1: who is somehow in charge, did say something yesterday at
Speaker 1: a Senate hearing about how Trump quote doesn't deserve to
Speaker 1: be president. Schumer says he is planning to maintain his
Speaker 1: current strategy in the Senate, which is do nothing but
Speaker 1: try to negotiate more bipartisan appropriations bills with Republicans when
Speaker 1: Republican voters are headed for the lifeboats about Trump in
Speaker 1: winnable congressional districts and winnable Senate seats, Schumer says he
Speaker 1: thinks he can chip away at Trump's popularity. Trump's popularity
Speaker 1: the one thing they can let Trump take care of himself.
Speaker 1: But back to the good news, boy, is all of
Speaker 1: these poll and stuffs pissing Trump off? The poles from
Speaker 1: the fake news are like the news itself fake. We're
Speaker 1: doing great, better than ever before. As they noted the
Speaker 1: other day, Trump's rage is fueled in part because those
Speaker 1: around him have learned to lie to him to keep
Speaker 1: him controllable. They are telling him the polls are fake.
Speaker 1: Did you see the televised Cabinet meeting yesterday, a series
Speaker 1: of ever increasing lies about how wonderful and gorgeous he is.
Speaker 1: And they told him this, and he raged before the
Speaker 1: Fox News poll, which not only showed how far he
Speaker 1: was underwater personally, but pointed out and measured how close
Speaker 1: the individual sharks are to him. Border security, there he
Speaker 1: is ahead. He's above water fifteen percent. Everything else not
Speaker 1: so much. Underwater on immigration by a point, underwater, on
Speaker 1: deportations by four points, underwater, on guns by three, underwater,
Speaker 1: on foreign policy by fourteen, underwater on taxes by fifteen,
Speaker 1: on the economy by sixteen, on tariffs by twenty. On
Speaker 1: inflation thirty three percent approved, fifty nine percent disapprove one
Speaker 1: hundred days in and Trump, who guaranteed to lower prices,
Speaker 1: is twenty six points underwater on inflation. The White House
Speaker 1: responds to this a disaster at every turn except border
Speaker 1: security from the Ministry of Truth. Steven Miller says to
Speaker 1: John Roberts on Fox News. There is our opinion that
Speaker 1: Fox News needs to fire its polster.
Speaker 2: War.
Speaker 1: Miller on Fox News is also our opinion that I
Speaker 1: have long flowing luxurious bond hair, and Fox News needs
Speaker 1: to fire it's cameras. On the other hand, Trump did
Speaker 1: have success in one poll, the Canadian election on inauguration Day,
Speaker 1: Trump's inauguration Day, the Conservatives of Canada led the Liberals
Speaker 1: in polling forty five to twenty two Monday, the Liberals won.
Speaker 1: Conservative leader Pierre paulev first lost his ass then he
Speaker 1: lost his seat. He's out of parliament, although he can
Speaker 1: try to coerce some sap who got elected to resign
Speaker 1: and hand him his seat or hand him his ass
Speaker 1: The American right wing response to this, it would be
Speaker 1: easier to invade Canada with the Liberals there in charge.
Speaker 1: Or you can look at it this way, it would
Speaker 1: be easier for Canada to invade the US with a
Speaker 1: guy who hates Trump in charge. And remember, Canadians, you
Speaker 1: could to borrow a phrase of somewhat recent vintage. You
Speaker 1: could be greeted as liberators, and you might get help
Speaker 1: from Americans, a few of us, like three hundred million
Speaker 1: or more. The latest on the abduction and human trafficking scam.
Speaker 1: Judge Zennis yesterday denied the ICE and Department of Justice
Speaker 1: GESTAPO a long term delay in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case,
Speaker 1: but gave them de facto small delays by seeing a
Speaker 1: series of deadlines in the next three weeks for sworn
Speaker 1: statements and testimony. This might have had something to do
Speaker 1: with Trump making the faithful and possibly fate ole mistake
Speaker 1: of confessing that, yes, he could get mister Abrago Garcia
Speaker 1: back from l Salvador with one lousy phone call. He
Speaker 1: did this by saying one of the few non ambiguous
Speaker 1: things of his presidency in that sit down interview with
Speaker 1: Terry Moran of ABC quote, I could, I could unquote.
Speaker 1: Marian asked him if he could use that phone on
Speaker 1: the resolute desk and get Abrego Garcia back. I could,
Speaker 1: I could, was the response. And I know this will
Speaker 1: be a controversial interpretation of what Trump said there, but
Speaker 1: I believe that when he said I could, I could,
Speaker 1: that could be read as meaning he could he could.
Speaker 1: Trump then added, and if he were the gentleman that
Speaker 1: you say he is, I would do that. Trump then
Speaker 1: lost even more people who still think he is saying
Speaker 1: by insisting that the tattoos on Abrego Garcia's knuckles wrongly
Speaker 1: identified as representing the gang MS thirteen actually read MS
Speaker 1: one three like m is on the pinky and then
Speaker 1: s and then there's a dash, then one on the forefinger,
Speaker 1: and then three on the thumb. He really thinks that's
Speaker 1: what it says. He really thinks that's on the man's fingers.
Speaker 1: Inadvertently confessed because the ABC interview was not with George
Speaker 1: Stephanoppolis or David Muhre, he was expecting more TV fillatio
Speaker 1: from Terry Moran, apparently unaware that Terry Moran has been
Speaker 1: savaging him online and on the air for a decade.
Speaker 1: Trump he had MSN fifteen known his knuckles tattooed Moran.
Speaker 1: That was photoshopped. Trump, Terry, they're giving you the big
Speaker 1: break of a lifetime. I picked you, but you're not
Speaker 1: being very nice. In other words, Trump just assumed the
Speaker 1: ABC interviewer would join him in Lyne to the world
Speaker 1: about the man he had abducted and renditioned to an
Speaker 1: authoritarian country. Also the big break of a lifetime. Terry
Speaker 1: Moran is sixty four years old. I know he looks youthful,
Speaker 1: but he's sixty four. If he hadn't gotten his big
Speaker 1: break long before, now, Trump, you did not give it
Speaker 1: to him on Tuesday Night. Meanwhile, well, Trump's employee who
Speaker 1: runs Al Salvador for him, completely blew the whole thing.
Speaker 1: As Trump was finally admitting yes, he can get Abrego
Speaker 1: Garcia home, in an instant, President Bucell said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you can't. As The New York Times put it quote yesterday,
Speaker 1: the Trump administration recently sent a diplomatic note to officials
Speaker 1: in L Salvador to inquire about releasing a Salvadoran immigrant
Speaker 1: whom government officials have been ordered by the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: to help free, according to three people with knowledge of
Speaker 1: the matter, but the authoritarian government of Naid Bukela, the
Speaker 1: leader of L Salvador, said no. Two of the people
Speaker 1: said the Bukela administration claimed the man should stay in L.
Speaker 1: Salvador because he was a Salvadoran citizen. According to one
Speaker 1: of those people, that would have been exactly the statement
Speaker 1: Trump needed to bolster his phony Bolgoni case here if
Speaker 1: he hadn't pre contradicted it in the ABC interview by
Speaker 1: saying yes, I can get him back right now here
Speaker 1: for dinner. No, Moran wasn't very nice, and as usual,
Speaker 1: Trump wasn't very sane on the others, As you know,
Speaker 1: the leader of the Columbia protests. The student Mosenne Madawi,
Speaker 1: was ordered released by a court yesterday after he had
Speaker 1: been kidnapped and detained. Madawi is wrong. He's hurting the
Speaker 1: Palestinian cause more than Netanyahu is. I think he's an idiot.
Speaker 1: But if you want to prosecute him for something, we
Speaker 1: have laws and you follow them and you go to
Speaker 1: a judge. That's why we have laws and judges. Assuming
Speaker 1: we still do. I have nothing new on the Honduras girls,
Speaker 1: including the four year old with cancer. The hearing on
Speaker 1: the girl, the two year old identified as VML and
Speaker 1: the others is two weeks from tomorrow. You will recall,
Speaker 1: though Tom Holman's defense was if they didn't sell Miss
Speaker 1: VML with her mother when they renditioned her mother, we
Speaker 1: would be complaining about his Gestapo separating families. Well, it
Speaker 1: turns out they're doing that as well. ICE sent a
Speaker 1: woman named Heidi Sanchez from a routine immigration check in
Speaker 1: in Tampa back to Cuba without her daughter, her one
Speaker 1: year old daughter, her one year old daughter who was
Speaker 1: still breastfeeding. We really need to make sure Homan and
Speaker 1: NOME and ICE agents and Pam Bondi are tried at
Speaker 1: the International Court of Justice at the Hague. They are
Speaker 1: the peacetime equivalent of war criminals. Then there are the
Speaker 1: new victims. Xavier Salazar of Texas, aged nineteen, was picked
Speaker 1: up shackled on a bus heading towards rendition, probably to
Speaker 1: El Salvador. When the Supreme Court ordered no further abductions
Speaker 1: to other countries, he too was declared MS thirteen by
Speaker 1: the Trump fascists because there was a photo of him
Speaker 1: in his social media standing next to another kid, and
Speaker 1: the other kid had a water pistol a squirt gun.
Speaker 1: The squirt gun in the other kid's hand was enough
Speaker 1: for ICE to mark Salazar down as a member of
Speaker 1: MS thirteen. There is not just the immorality of the
Speaker 1: entire process here, there is also the amazing stupidity and
Speaker 1: the slovenliness and the shoot first, asked questions later with
Speaker 1: a squirt gun quality of each individual case. They are
Speaker 1: trying to kill kids by proxy, using as evidence photos
Speaker 1: of a different kid holding what is not a gun.
Speaker 1: Turns out ICE is also lying about it. Its arrests totals.
Speaker 1: This is from Aaron Reichlan Melnick of the American Immigration Council.
Speaker 1: He writes, Ice clarifies that the one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: one thousand arrest figure put out by the White House
Speaker 1: is not internal arrests, as Caroline Levitt and DHS have implied.
Speaker 1: The figure likely includes all CBP encounters, including people with
Speaker 1: visa issues at airports. The actual ICE arrest number is
Speaker 1: sixty six thousand, five hundred high, but not historic. On
Speaker 1: March thirteenth, he writes, Ice said the agency had conducted
Speaker 1: thirty two, eight hundred and nine arrests in its first
Speaker 1: fifty days. That would be an average of six hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty six arrests per day. So now they're averaging
Speaker 1: six hundred and sixty five arrests per day. If ICE
Speaker 1: manages to keep up this level of arrests, it would
Speaker 1: reach a level last scene in the first Obama term.
Speaker 1: Six hundred and sixty five arrests a day, on average
Speaker 1: would be two hundred and forty three thousand arrests for
Speaker 1: the year. ICE reported three hundred and twenty two thousand
Speaker 1: arrests in fiscal year twenty eleven, which is still the record.
Speaker 1: In other words, all of this, all of this nightmare,
Speaker 1: all of this destroying of the fabric of the American
Speaker 1: consciousness and the American conscience, and they have to lie
Speaker 1: to make the arrest totals look big. They're not even
Speaker 1: doing their evil well up the road in the administration
Speaker 1: checking in on the administration's alcoholism problem, the Secretary of
Speaker 1: Whiskey has killed a Defense Department program that fostered and
Speaker 1: promoted the contributions of women in the national security area.
Speaker 1: The Women Peace and Security Act WPS basically a backslapping
Speaker 1: thank you card kind of operation. Hegseeth's announcement quote, WPS
Speaker 1: has yet another woke, divisive social justice Biden initiative that
Speaker 1: overburdens our commanders and troops, distracting from our core task.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, war fighting. Department of Defense will hereby executive
Speaker 1: the minimum of WPS required by statute and fight to
Speaker 1: end the program for our next budget. Good riddence. WPS
Speaker 1: Secretary Pete drunk Breath has one small problem here. WPS
Speaker 1: was signed into law by President President Trump. This is
Speaker 1: a Trump program WPS. Trump in twenty seventeen, hag Seth
Speaker 1: just killed a Trump program that was too woke. Why
Speaker 1: did Trump's numbers tank because he became too woke? Back
Speaker 1: then in twenty seventeen, it was championed by people who
Speaker 1: are in the new Trump administration, or, as we all
Speaker 1: are beginning to call it now, Titanic. More bad news
Speaker 1: for mister. The next round is on me an amendment
Speaker 1: to a House bill from Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs of California
Speaker 1: limitation on use of funds for a makeup studio for
Speaker 1: the Secretary of Defense. None of the funds made available
Speaker 1: by this title may be used to construct sustained outfit
Speaker 1: or may a dedicated makeup studio for the Secretary of
Speaker 1: Defense within the Pentagon or any other building under the
Speaker 1: jurisdiction of the Department of Defense. No response to Sarah
Speaker 1: Jacob's amendment from the Secretary of Mabelene the Secretary of Defense,
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense of Mabelene. Meanwhile, back in the private sector,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos is Trump's bitch. What does capitulating to blackmail
Speaker 1: get you, Jeff? What it always gets you more blackmail?
Speaker 1: Timeline one punch Bowl News reported Amazon would start noting
Speaker 1: how much more products on its site cost you because
Speaker 1: of the tariffs. Sixty percent of Amazon sales are from
Speaker 1: the smaller businesses Trump is out to kill with the tariffs. Two.
Speaker 1: Within hours, Amazon publicly denied this. Three after that, lying
Speaker 1: Caroline lying Levitt attacked Amazon. I just got off the
Speaker 1: found with the President at death about Amazon, the announcement
Speaker 1: that the host dial and political act by Amathon four.
Speaker 1: An Amazon spokesman, then denied it was ever even possibly
Speaker 1: remotely chance worthy going to be true. Tim Doyle, the
Speaker 1: team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Hall store,
Speaker 1: considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products.
Speaker 1: This was never approved and is not going to happen.
Speaker 1: I swear, I swear to Jesus, I swear. Turns out
Speaker 1: there was one step on that timeline we didn't know
Speaker 1: about initially. It was step one A of all people.
Speaker 1: Fox News reported at first Jackie Heinrich, how she keeps
Speaker 1: her job there? I don't know, but may the Good
Speaker 1: Lord bless her and keeper Confirming reports, sources familiar tell
Speaker 1: Fox that President Trump called Jeff Bezos this morning to
Speaker 1: complain about plans to display tariff impact on Amazon product prices.
Speaker 1: Every network in the world except the Game Show Channel
Speaker 1: then confirmed the report. Then Trump confirmed he called Bezos,
Speaker 1: and Bezos fielded the problem for Trump, or ren fielded
Speaker 1: the problem for Trump. Quote he was terrific. He solved
Speaker 1: the problem very quickly. It's a good thing Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: destroyed the Washington Post curry favor with Trump. Trump now
Speaker 1: owns him, and of course this will not stop as
Speaker 1: life worsens for Trump, as the net minus continues to grow,
Speaker 1: he will demand more and more from Bezos, because that's
Speaker 1: what blackmailers do, especially to those victims who have lost
Speaker 1: the will to metaphorically live, like Jeff Bezos obviously has.
Speaker 1: It is sad but true. If you do not already
Speaker 1: doubt every word printed in the Washington Post, and if
Speaker 1: you don't already at least look for other buying options
Speaker 1: before going to Amazon start and this could boomerang badly
Speaker 1: for Trump. He has ordered that truck drivers now that
Speaker 1: they well, basically what President Ted Bundy told the truck
Speaker 1: drivers is speak English here and fascist America. Now. Another
Speaker 1: royal decree from the man who thinks he's king and
Speaker 1: believes it because Pam Bondi keeps telling him it's true.
Speaker 1: Truckers quote should be able to read and understand traffic signs,
Speaker 1: communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo
Speaker 1: weight limit Station office drivers need to provide feedback to
Speaker 1: their employers and customers and receive related directions in English.
Speaker 1: Have we noticed this as some sort of huge problem.
Speaker 1: Have they been driving past the wait limit station officers?
Speaker 1: Have they been parking there and just staying there for
Speaker 1: days at a time because they don't speak English or
Speaker 1: won't speak English? No, sir, this is not just some
Speaker 1: sort of official language proclamation, which was bad enough as
Speaker 1: it was, if you don't recognize the Trump scam and
Speaker 1: the methodology therein by now this is a precursor to
Speaker 1: imposing English only restrictions in countless other aspects of American life.
Speaker 1: One can imagine that it will extend into government and
Speaker 1: into politics, and especially into elections, because what could disenfranchise
Speaker 1: minority voters faster than English only election data and advertisements
Speaker 1: and campaigns and English only polling places. Of course, here
Speaker 1: is where it rebounds against Trump. If English does become
Speaker 1: mandatory in government or in politics, what are these fots
Speaker 1: friends of Trump going to do for a living. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk unintelligible in any language, but especially in English, especially
Speaker 1: when he's wearing two Maga caps at the same time,
Speaker 1: like he was at the Cabinet meeting. Yesterday, the squeezing
Speaker 1: tightly what's left of his calcified brain. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: two caps is not enough. He really needs seventeen. Musk
Speaker 1: needs at least seventeen to cover each of his personalities.
Speaker 1: What about Senator Roger Marshall. What will he do if
Speaker 1: English becomes mandatory? He still thinks the worst terrorist act
Speaker 1: in our history is pronounced nine to one to one.
Speaker 1: What about the Secretary of Insufficient Education Jaian McMahon, who
Speaker 1: believes the chatbot she has is using a one? What
Speaker 1: about herschel Walker? What about Marjorie's stupid green she doesn't
Speaker 1: speak English? And of course what about Press Secretary Lying
Speaker 1: Caroline Lying Levitt, who thinks the Nazi guy was named
Speaker 1: Adolph Hilter, Ladolf Hilter. And of course you have to
Speaker 1: speak English to serve in government. Well, if that goes
Speaker 1: into effect, what the hell does Trump do? Then? No,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, sir. You can't come into the Oval office.
Speaker 1: You can't say your name without getting something wrong. Also
Speaker 1: of interest here, yes, there are new developments in Bill
Speaker 1: Maher's self immolation. Thank you for asking he did something
Speaker 1: else seven years ago that he just attacked Larry David
Speaker 1: for doing earlier this month. That's next. This is countdown.
Speaker 1: This is countdown with Keith Oberman still had on this
Speaker 1: initiative countdown. I saw a payphone in New York the
Speaker 1: other day, a working payphone, and memories came flooding back,
Speaker 1: including the time I literally stopped pedestrian traffic in New
Speaker 1: York on what must have been the first time anybody
Speaker 1: in the city ever saw the thing that killed off
Speaker 1: the payphone. Something lighter as comic relief. Next in things
Speaker 1: I promised not to tell first, Believe it or not,
Speaker 1: there's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup
Speaker 1: of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens
Speaker 1: who constitute the latest other worse persons in the world.
Speaker 1: Don't call collect. Let me dedicate this addition to Bill
Speaker 1: Maher and advise him he did not make the cut
Speaker 1: this time. This is principally in order to give him
Speaker 1: a few days to get his wounds attended to, mostly
Speaker 1: the ones Larry David inflicted on him, but helped. Larry
Speaker 1: called my attention to and it was my old friend
Speaker 1: Sam Seedter of the Majority Report who found and clipped it.
Speaker 1: This additional Bill maher bit of hypocrisy. You will recall
Speaker 1: that Larry had turned Bill into confetti over going to
Speaker 1: the White House for dinner with Trump and falling for
Speaker 1: the Ted Bundy stuff all over again. His op ed
Speaker 1: in The Times was called My Dinner with Adolf. Bill
Speaker 1: immediately insisted that by comparing Trump to Hitler, Larry was
Speaker 1: insulting six million dead Jews. I found clips from twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen in which Bill compared Trump to Hitler twice on
Speaker 1: his show in a span of just four shows. I also,
Speaker 1: as I told you, remembered being on with Bill as
Speaker 1: he repudiated his previous statements that Trump was a great guy.
Speaker 1: He said Trump had fooled him. Now Trump's fooled him
Speaker 1: again because he doesn't remember anything. But it was Sam
Speaker 1: Cedar who found Bill also frying Geraldo Rivera for doing
Speaker 1: the other thing that Bill Maher has done here doubling
Speaker 1: down defending himself by trying to separate Trump, the power
Speaker 1: crazed demon from Hell, from Trump, the glib dinner host
Speaker 1: who only orders the best burgers from McDonald's. This is
Speaker 1: Bill Maher with Heraldo Rivera excoriating Heraldo Rivera over Trump
Speaker 1: from twenty eighteen, and I have stolen this clip from
Speaker 1: the Majority Report. You know, Trump is my friend. I've
Speaker 1: known Trump for forty years. I don't have any I
Speaker 1: don't have He didn't Trump, he didn't go to Trump.
Speaker 1: He tru remain my friend when I felt he had
Speaker 1: a certain moral lack.
Speaker 3: Well in my in my family, my wife agrees with you.
Speaker 3: She doesn't like his policies on so many things that
Speaker 3: I already listed. So she just can't stand the guy.
Speaker 3: I'm different. I can separate the man who has always
Speaker 3: been gracious to me, always been.
Speaker 1: Nice to my family.
Speaker 3: You know, you were on Celebrity Printice together together every
Speaker 3: day for six weeks. I've done him really through every
Speaker 3: shit he's running the world.
Speaker 1: But now what does that matter that he was nice
Speaker 1: to you with Thanksgiving? Hold, I'm not trying to be
Speaker 1: as not trying to be an asshole to you. You're
Speaker 1: a smart guy. This befuddles me, but it looked up
Speaker 1: to you. Bill. I have a suggestion for you after that.
Speaker 1: It's a one word suggestion for you. Are you ready
Speaker 1: for it? My suggestion is hiatus Hello Anyway. The winner
Speaker 1: is in the Worst Persons in the World segment. The
Speaker 1: bronze worse Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer, who in the House
Speaker 1: represents Trump and does not represent anybody from Minnesota, even
Speaker 1: though he was elected by Minnesota's sixth district. He is
Speaker 1: the majority whip, meaning he doesn't mind when Trump whips him,
Speaker 1: which he does if Mike Johnson is unavailable. Emmer is
Speaker 1: a fully compromised Trump whore, and the degree to which
Speaker 1: that is true has been underscored again as Emmer files
Speaker 1: an ethics complaint in the House against another member of
Speaker 1: the Minnesota delegation, the Democrat Angie Craig of the Minnesota
Speaker 1: second District. Her crime, according to Emmer, quote misuse of
Speaker 1: public resources that erodes the trust Americans place in their
Speaker 1: elected officials and undermines the integrity of our institutions. So
Speaker 1: resources taxpayer money? What did she do? Did she imbezzle it? Oh? Nos?
Speaker 1: What did Angie Craig do? Did she spend taxpayer money
Speaker 1: on a makeup studio? Did she dig up the Capitol
Speaker 1: Hill lawn to put down cement and to install one
Speaker 1: hundred foot flagpoles? Did she buy Ben Carson's old thirty
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars office desk for her own office? No, sir,
Speaker 1: since Tom Emmer wouldn't she held a town hall in
Speaker 1: Minnesota in Tom Ehmer's district. Tom Emmer had had a
Speaker 1: virtual town hall in March, during which he insisted that
Speaker 1: when prices skyrocketed because of Trump's tariffs, that would make
Speaker 1: Trump more popular, and everything was great out there in Minnesota,
Speaker 1: even though he wasn't there and wouldn't go there, and
Speaker 1: wouldn't dare go there, and wouldn't talk to anybody in
Speaker 1: public in Minnesota, and if it's possible to get booed
Speaker 1: off the internet, he got booed off the internet during
Speaker 1: this zoom call. He has not set foot in public
Speaker 1: in the Minnesota sixth since. So Angie Craig, being a
Speaker 1: servant of all the people of Minnesota, held a town
Speaker 1: hall in the Minnesota sixth for which Emmer wants her
Speaker 1: reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee. How dare you talk
Speaker 1: to the citizens? One might think Tom Emmer would be
Speaker 1: momentarily smart about this and not call further attention to
Speaker 1: the fact that he's too much of a coward to
Speaker 1: hold a town hall anywhere in Minnesota, or calling more
Speaker 1: attention to the other inconvenient truth here, which is that
Speaker 1: Angie Craig's second district adjoins Tom Emmer's sixth district. There's
Speaker 1: a street somewhere that starts out in the second and
Speaker 1: ends in the sixth. If Emmer isn't going to listen
Speaker 1: to vote, is there Angie Craig? Damn well? Should she
Speaker 1: should get a menu, a medal or a menu. She
Speaker 1: should get a menu full of medals for doing Tom
Speaker 1: Emmer's job for him.
Speaker 2: Man Man ethics complaint for her because she was she
Speaker 2: was talking to constituents when I I'm too much of
Speaker 2: a we need to do it myself.
Speaker 1: Hit me again, mister Trump. The runner up worser Ed
Speaker 1: Martin also whipped by Trump. Ed Martin lyar, he is
Speaker 1: the whack job Trump nominee for US to attorney for
Speaker 1: DC and he just got nailed. As Ed Martin await
Speaker 1: Senate confirmation. Somebody pointed out he had praised the Holocaust
Speaker 1: denier and Hitler dresser upper, Timothy Hale q Sinelli. Martin immediately,
Speaker 1: now I think this is called lied. He said he
Speaker 1: knew nothing about Hale q Sinelli's psycho views. Quote. I
Speaker 1: denounce everything about what that guy said, everything about the
Speaker 1: way he talked and all as I've now seen it,
Speaker 1: at the time I didn't know it. Uh oh, here
Speaker 1: come the podcasts. Ed Martin not only hosted Timothy hale
Speaker 1: Qsinelli on his podcast on Ed Martin's podcast five times
Speaker 1: last year, just last year, but CNN also found that
Speaker 1: Martin defended the photos hale Qsinelli took of himself pretending
Speaker 1: to be Hitler. He branded criticism of hale Qsinelli as
Speaker 1: character assassination, called him a great guy, and when that
Speaker 1: wasn't enough, he called hale Qsinelli an amazing guy. Well,
Speaker 1: the last part about an amazing guy, that's that's true.
Speaker 1: He's he's pretty amazing. Clearly, Ed Martin has to be
Speaker 1: withdrawn as DCUs attorney nominee and instead nominated to be
Speaker 1: Press secretary. But the winner worst el Trumpo himself President
Speaker 1: Scrooge McDuck Ted Bundy himself. This time. The demand from
Speaker 1: Trump's education Gestapo is for the University of Pennsylvania to
Speaker 1: lose one hundred and seventy five million dollars in federal
Speaker 1: funding unless it restores quote to all female athletes, all
Speaker 1: individual athletic records, titles, honors, awards, or similar recognition for
Speaker 1: Division I swimming competitions misappropriated by male athletes unquote, and
Speaker 1: Penn must write a letter of apology to every female
Speaker 1: athlete involved within ten days or quote risk a referral
Speaker 1: to the US Department of Justice for enforcement proceedings. We
Speaker 1: need the ten days so we could explain it to
Speaker 1: Pam Bondy, who's what we used to call slow. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding about any of this except the Pam
Speaker 1: Bondi part. I mean explaining it to her. I don't
Speaker 1: know if she's slow or not. This is about Leah Thomas,
Speaker 1: the Penn swimmer whose success destroyed America's favorite failure, Riley Gains,
Speaker 1: and caused her to finish tied for fifth rather than
Speaker 1: just fifth or maybe tied for fourth, tied for fifth
Speaker 1: in the only race she competed against that Thomas was in.
Speaker 1: Of course, Thomas also caused poor Riley Gains to finish
Speaker 1: eighty fifth in the Olympic qualifying events. Because, once again,
Speaker 1: as I've mentioned before, any female athlete who failed, it's
Speaker 1: because of transgender surgery from some x guy. It's not
Speaker 1: because the female athlete wasn't any damn good at her sport.
Speaker 1: It couldn't possibly be because they like you and I
Speaker 1: and every American from you and I to Babe Ruth
Speaker 1: had to face the day when we realized we weren't
Speaker 1: good enough or good enough anymore at sports. The day
Speaker 1: we realized, if you are a first baseman who hits
Speaker 1: one thirty eight for NIMA New York Military Academy, like
Speaker 1: Trump did, you're gonna have to try something else. And
Speaker 1: I wish to god he hit seven thirty eight and
Speaker 1: had been signed by the San Francisco Giants and was
Speaker 1: still playing Major League Baseball today at age two hundred
Speaker 1: and six or whatever he is. I wish I'd done
Speaker 1: his highlights every day on Sports Center, anything other than this. No,
Speaker 1: it's not that moment when you realize I can't swim.
Speaker 1: It's not that, it's not that, for all intents and purposes,
Speaker 1: Riley Gains can't swim. It's transgender surgery. It's their fault.
Speaker 1: It can't be my fault. I'm Riley Gaines. I'm the
Speaker 1: eighty fifth best swimmer. Because we all remember what happened
Speaker 1: when my friend Renee Richards played in the US Tennis Open.
Speaker 1: Starting in nineteen seventy seven, after being born Richard Raskin
Speaker 1: you will remember that Renee won thirty consecutive US Open
Speaker 1: titles and thirty consecutive Wimbledon's and twenty nine out of
Speaker 1: thirty French Opens. The only time she didn't win was
Speaker 1: once she had to do eye surgery on that guy
Speaker 1: and she had to drop out. It was an emergency.
Speaker 1: And you remember how Renee destroyed women's tennis, and you
Speaker 1: never heard of Martine and Nevertelova or Chris Evert or
Speaker 1: Tracy Austin or right, that didn't happen. None of that happened,
Speaker 1: because the best Renee Richards ever did at the US
Speaker 1: Open was losing the doubles final in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: Because yes, transgender athletes might have some slight biological advantages, like,
Speaker 1: as Renee points out, longer bones. And guess what you
Speaker 1: could simply allow for that by giving the transgender athlete
Speaker 1: a slight disadvantage what they call in horse racing a handicap.
Speaker 1: When it's match play against CIS females, I could give
Speaker 1: the opponent a win in one tennis game before the
Speaker 1: match even starts, or you give them half a second
Speaker 1: in the pool before they get in the pool. And
Speaker 1: thus this could all be resolved by next Monday. But
Speaker 1: this isn't about sports or athletes or Riley Gaines. It's
Speaker 1: about demonizing transgender athletes and transgender people. And what Pen
Speaker 1: should do is respond to this bullshit by saying Trump
Speaker 1: obtained his degree from their Wharton School of Business by
Speaker 1: fraud and suing Trump for it for one hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy five million dollars. And we'll see then how fast
Speaker 1: he falls on his bullshit. Donald, I didn't obtain my
Speaker 1: degree from Wharton at Penn by fraud. There was nothing
Speaker 1: fraudulent about that money. Trump two days worse person in
Speaker 1: the world, to the number one story on the Countdown,
Speaker 1: and things I promised not to tell, which is now
Speaker 1: our humorous relief from the day to day series of
Speaker 1: nightmares from which we cannot wake. I saw something I
Speaker 1: had literally not seen in years in New York the
Speaker 1: other day, and it brought back a flood of extraordinary
Speaker 1: memories that once weren't extraordinary at all. The thing I
Speaker 1: saw was a telephone attached to some sort of piece
Speaker 1: of metal, itself attached to some sort of pole like
Speaker 1: support coming out of the ground. There was a little
Speaker 1: hole at the top of this above the what was
Speaker 1: it called receiver? That's right above the thing you the handset,
Speaker 1: the thing you you put next to your ear and
Speaker 1: talked into and listened to. There was a thing of it,
Speaker 1: a hole in which you were supposed to put I
Speaker 1: don't know, taffy. Oh, no, coins, that's what it was. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll stop. The number of memories that came flooding back
Speaker 1: to me about this payphone started with an episode this
Speaker 1: time of year, late spring, early summer, nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: eighty nine, ninety, maybe as late as nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: when I emerged from Grand Central Station on an late spring,
Speaker 1: early summer day visiting from Los Angeles, on my way
Speaker 1: to see my folks, walked out of Grand Central Station
Speaker 1: at midday, around noon onto forty second Street, and for
Speaker 1: only the second time in my life, I saw the
Speaker 1: pedestrian traffic of forty second Street stop and stare, and
Speaker 1: they were staring at me because something inside the bag
Speaker 1: I was carrying had made a noise and I had
Speaker 1: reached in and picked it out and started talking, and
Speaker 1: literally everybody stopped. I think you can guess what it was.
Speaker 1: I think you need to hear the background first to
Speaker 1: understand why it had that impact on people. The payphone
Speaker 1: had been part of my life for as long as
Speaker 1: I could remember. I used to call home from school
Speaker 1: on a payphone at Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York,
Speaker 1: to see and ask my mother if the mail had
Speaker 1: come yet and the baseball cards I had ordered the
Speaker 1: nineteen ten baseball cards were in the mail, so I
Speaker 1: had something to look forward to when I got home,
Speaker 1: something to get me through the rest of the day.
Speaker 1: In school, as a reporter, I was part of near fistfights,
Speaker 1: and actually once saw a fistfight between a news reporter
Speaker 1: from the Westinghouse All News radio station in New York
Speaker 1: wi INS and the CBS All News Radio station in
Speaker 1: New York WCBS. I actually saw them come to shoving
Speaker 1: and throwing punches. Happily they were radio people. They missed
Speaker 1: over a payphone at a news story that I was
Speaker 1: also covering. They had to get live on the air,
Speaker 1: and that's how you did it. In nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, hell, in nineteen ninety, the number of times
Speaker 1: the biggest task of the day from a story I
Speaker 1: was covering in New York, primarily in radio, but even
Speaker 1: later in television was the sprint first off, finding where
Speaker 1: the payphones were outside the luncheon where the thing was
Speaker 1: being announced, or outside the breaking news or on the street,
Speaker 1: where was the nearest payphone, and then where was the
Speaker 1: nearest payphone after that, in case there were six reporters
Speaker 1: lined up for that payphone, and the sprint to it afterwards,
Speaker 1: And could you leave the press conference before it was
Speaker 1: officially over so you could get to the phone first.
Speaker 1: That's the way it was. It wasn't just a convenience
Speaker 1: of calling in as I did on my way to
Speaker 1: the radio network every Saturday, and asking my fellow employees
Speaker 1: at the RKAO Radio network in nineteen eighty one if
Speaker 1: they wanted something, because I was stopping at Arby's and
Speaker 1: I would bring in no drinks, but I'd bring in
Speaker 1: all the burgers I could carry or whatever. This time
Speaker 1: it was McDonald's one week and Burger came the next.
Speaker 1: And the reason I did this was because there were
Speaker 1: no restaurants open in Times Square on the weekend, so
Speaker 1: they couldn't go anywhere nearer than a twenty minute walk
Speaker 1: to get food. No restaurants open in Times Square, we
Speaker 1: barely had electric light. In nineteen eighty one, everything was
Speaker 1: in black and light. They hadn't invented color yet. Okay,
Speaker 1: it had been with me a long time, and it
Speaker 1: emerged later on in one of the great series of
Speaker 1: practical jokes, one of which I was a victim of
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one, and I know nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: at the football strike, I was covering it for CNN,
Speaker 1: and I walked in once and sat down because I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to have a camera crew for quite a while,
Speaker 1: and found Ed Garvey, the head of the union, sitting
Speaker 1: outside the press conference that was being conducted by Jack Donolin,
Speaker 1: the Boston born guy who talked like that, the negotiator
Speaker 1: for the National Football League, was holding a news conference,
Speaker 1: and I sat outside with Ed because I already knew
Speaker 1: what he was saying, and you could hear him through
Speaker 1: the walls anyway. He had one of those voices, one
Speaker 1: of those South station PA voices. Let's go baggin. So
Speaker 1: Ed and I are talking, and out of nowhere, a
Speaker 1: small woman with glasses appears, and so this, excuse me,
Speaker 1: excuse me. My name is Jane Miller. I'm with CBS News.
Speaker 1: Does either of you know where Ed Garvey, the head
Speaker 1: of the Football Players Union is. I was told he
Speaker 1: was going to be here. I was sitting with Ed Garvey.
Speaker 1: We shot each other looks from behind our glasses and
Speaker 1: I said, I haven't seen him, and Garvey went, I
Speaker 1: don't know where that son of a bitch is. We
Speaker 1: went on with Jane for quite a while and led
Speaker 1: her quite a merry dance about how Garvey had left
Speaker 1: for Washington. Oh, no, I just came from Washington. I'll
Speaker 1: get fired if I don't get an interview with him.
Speaker 1: And Garvey and I took turns calling Ed, calling Garvey
Speaker 1: a liar, a manipulator, a thief, a crook, and a
Speaker 1: drunk Ed added that part he's a drunk too, Did
Speaker 1: you know that? Finally, something, and I don't remember what
Speaker 1: it was, caused me to burst into laughter, and Ed said,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. I'm Ed Garvey. How can
Speaker 1: I help you. I'll give you an exclusive interview. So
Speaker 1: it worked out well for Jane, and she forgave Ed
Speaker 1: Garvey immediately. She did, not, however, forgive me. Several weeks later,
Speaker 1: the talks in the Football Strike of nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: had moved to Hunt Valley, Maryland, Cockeysville if you wanted
Speaker 1: to go by what it said on the map, fitting
Speaker 1: a location for the football talks that went on and
Speaker 1: on and on and on and on. Cockeysville, Maryland, the
Speaker 1: Hunt Valley at Cockeysville. The number of potential mispronunciations and
Speaker 1: slips on the air that I avoided using Cockeysville and
Speaker 1: Hunt Valley, I lost count after the first two thousand.
Speaker 1: I was on the phone with CNN doing an update
Speaker 1: for the eleven o'clock News, the eleven o'clock sports cast
Speaker 1: we used to do because I didn't have a camera crew,
Speaker 1: a running theme of my days at CNN. Again, we
Speaker 1: were out in the wilds of Maryland. It would be
Speaker 1: a waste of a camera crew. To give me a
Speaker 1: camera crew all the time. They would just stop when
Speaker 1: they were within an hour of the place, and I
Speaker 1: would do a stand up and hoped that my stand
Speaker 1: up report would somehow hold until it appeared at eleven o'clock.
Speaker 1: But that night something happened. We couldn't use the stand
Speaker 1: up I had recorded eight hours previously, and so instead
Speaker 1: I was on the phone on a payphone, and I'm
Speaker 1: talking to Fred Hickman and Nick Charles, and I see
Speaker 1: Jane Miller of CBS News still burning, seething with resentment
Speaker 1: because of the joke I played on her. And I
Speaker 1: was only half of that. Garvey was talking about himself
Speaker 1: in the third person, pretending not to be him. I
Speaker 1: was just going along with it. I may have started it.
Speaker 1: Jane simply smiled at me realized from the monitor behind
Speaker 1: the bar where we were all based at the Hunt
Speaker 1: Valley Inn in Cockeysville, Maryland. She realized that I was
Speaker 1: on the air live on that telephone, on that payphone,
Speaker 1: because the monitor had a picture of me and it
Speaker 1: said live on the phone from Cockeysville, Maryland at the
Speaker 1: Football Talks CNN Sports Keith Olberman. So Jane very sweetly
Speaker 1: smiled at me and reached over, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: what she was going to do. She pressed the button
Speaker 1: on top of the phone, and I was disconnected, right
Speaker 1: in the middle of my live report on CNN. Payphones
Speaker 1: may have been important to you at some point. If
Speaker 1: you are old enough and understand now, you really need
Speaker 1: to be at least forty five to have used a
Speaker 1: payphone on a regular basis. Well, maybe maybe less than that,
Speaker 1: but I think forty five is probably a good number,
Speaker 1: and to have used it as an adult. To use
Speaker 1: a payphone as an adult, I don't know the last
Speaker 1: time I used one, maybe sometime around nineteen eighty seven
Speaker 1: or eighty eight. There's one other professional concern though, my
Speaker 1: point being that it's not just your use as a
Speaker 1: person to call in an emergency or just call because
Speaker 1: you're not home and you don't have a phone with you.
Speaker 1: I mean, who's going to have a phone with them?
Speaker 1: A hell of a long cord professionally. It also is
Speaker 1: involved in one of the great blooper tapes of all
Speaker 1: time when Pat summer All, the famous broadcaster, football announcer
Speaker 1: and father of the chief of staff at the White
Speaker 1: House that won't cost him any time in hell, Pat
Speaker 1: summer All is on the phone live from Madison Square
Speaker 1: Garden reporting on a basketball tournament in his role as
Speaker 1: the first sports director of the Affirmation, aforementioned CBS all
Speaker 1: news station in New York WCBS. Pat is on the
Speaker 1: phone talking about the double header at Madison Square Garden,
Speaker 1: which they used to have all the time, college basketball
Speaker 1: being a big thing in those days in New York.
Speaker 1: Pat Smarl is talking and suddenly you hear a hit
Speaker 1: and a pre recorded voice of the universal operator, the
Speaker 1: sweet voice of the woman going, pardon me for interrupting,
Speaker 1: Please deposit ten cents for an additional two minutes, and
Speaker 1: then the thing would go off. The recording stopped. The
Speaker 1: anchorman burst into laughter. Pat Sumrall burst into laughter, and
Speaker 1: he said, anyway, Columbia won the first game, and I'll
Speaker 1: get back to your Harvey, and I'll say I'll get
Speaker 1: back to you as soon as I can get the
Speaker 1: operator off the phone. One of the great bloopers of
Speaker 1: all time. And I did not do it justice. But
Speaker 1: it's pretty funny if you remember what a payphone was.
Speaker 1: So now my own experience in making the payphone a
Speaker 1: thing of the past. And I don't know what my
Speaker 1: role was in this. I did not invent cellular communications.
Speaker 1: I did not invest in them when I had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do so. But there was that story about
Speaker 1: me stopping traffic literally on forty second Street in eighty
Speaker 1: eight or eighty nine or ninety And it started in
Speaker 1: Palm Springs, California, in nineteen eighty six, my first year
Speaker 1: covering the California Angels. Spring training. I did that for
Speaker 1: my television station, which carried the Angels games, KTLA, but
Speaker 1: I also did by that point the afternoon sports casts
Speaker 1: on kN X Radio, the CBS all news radio station
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, and to do these reports from Palm Springs,
Speaker 1: I had two choices. I would cover the Angels game
Speaker 1: for KTLA and then go and do my three or
Speaker 1: four afternoon sports casts at four forty five, five fifteen,
Speaker 1: five forty five, whatever the times were, and I would
Speaker 1: either have to stay at the ballpark for a couple
Speaker 1: of additional hours and do the reports from an empty
Speaker 1: Angels stadium in Palm Springs with the leaf blowers going
Speaker 1: in the background as they cleaned up all the debris
Speaker 1: from everybody going to those games, so you can imagine
Speaker 1: how much fun that was, and then finding my way
Speaker 1: back to the hotel at some point point as it
Speaker 1: started to get dark in March of nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: or I could try to rush back to the hotel
Speaker 1: room and do the reports from there, and if I
Speaker 1: didn't make it, there wouldn't be a sportscast at four
Speaker 1: forty five pm on KNX. So by nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: in anticipation of going and doing this again. I said
Speaker 1: to my friend, the assistant news director of KNX, Roger Nadell,
Speaker 1: what about using one of these new mobile phones? And
Speaker 1: he went, what what do you mean mobile phones? Car phones?
Speaker 1: You don't drive. How are you going to use a
Speaker 1: car phone? I said, no, I saw something about them
Speaker 1: in the news. They'll they'll rent you a phone and
Speaker 1: it comes in a bag and you carry it with
Speaker 1: you and you can just use it. You just have
Speaker 1: to keep it charged. Well. Sure enough, he looked into
Speaker 1: it and for a nominal fee for that time, I
Speaker 1: don't know, five hundred dollars, they loaned us a big,
Speaker 1: hulking phone that looked like it looked like a bowling
Speaker 1: ball in a bowling ball bag. And the warning that
Speaker 1: I got from Roger was don't let it sit in
Speaker 1: the sun or it will start to smoke. Now we're
Speaker 1: in Palm Springs, California, in March. There's a lot of sun,
Speaker 1: so I had to be very careful about it. But
Speaker 1: it was a wonder for all of the overheating on
Speaker 1: all the need to recharge the thing for sixteen hours
Speaker 1: a day, it eliminated all the problems I could do
Speaker 1: the four to forty five sports cast from the ballpark
Speaker 1: in Palm Springs, then get in the car and go
Speaker 1: back to the hotel, or even walk back to the
Speaker 1: hotel and do the five to fifteen sports cast from
Speaker 1: the hotel. It was a wonder So when I got
Speaker 1: back to Los Angeles in March of nineteen eighty seven
Speaker 1: or early April of nineteen eighty seven, I began to
Speaker 1: consider the possibility of buying a mobile phone. Los Angeles
Speaker 1: was filled in those days. Every day there seemed to
Speaker 1: be a new one with carphone stores. Car phones wants
Speaker 1: the elite rich symbol of those who drove Bentley's, but
Speaker 1: not mere Catillac. The car phone was becoming a regular thing,
Speaker 1: and store after store opened, and the key thing was
Speaker 1: they would not only sell you the phone, they would
Speaker 1: install it, because of course a car phone needed a car.
Speaker 1: Who's going to have a car phone without a car.
Speaker 1: I went in and said could they work without a car?
Speaker 1: And after the guy, the salesman stopped laughing at me,
Speaker 1: he said, well, let me get the expert out, the
Speaker 1: guy who installs them. Let me find out. And Larry
Speaker 1: came out and Larry said, yeah, yeah, they could. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have to keep it charged. But all the only
Speaker 1: thing that we really do is put a bracket in
Speaker 1: there so you can keep the phone on the dashboard
Speaker 1: and have it permanently plugged into the cigarette lighter in
Speaker 1: your dashboard. Something else that doesn't exist anymore. You could
Speaker 1: there's a jack that allows you to plug it into
Speaker 1: a wall socket. But why on earth would you want
Speaker 1: a car phone without a car? I said, to carry
Speaker 1: it around with me on st I'm a reporter. Well
Speaker 1: that's a very specific use. Nobody'll ever carry around one
Speaker 1: of these. They didn't see it either. Frankly, I saw
Speaker 1: it for me and other reporters. I never thought it
Speaker 1: would be a commonplace thing. I mean, the phone without
Speaker 1: the car cost I don't know, fifteen hundred dollars. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a great, great investment and a tax
Speaker 1: deduction to boot, and so I bought it, and soon
Speaker 1: I was going everywhere with it and talking to my
Speaker 1: friends and calling my girlfriend on it, and calling into
Speaker 1: the office to say I might be late, and calling
Speaker 1: into the office to go on the radio or sometimes
Speaker 1: the television. To the marvel of other reporters who said,
Speaker 1: what are you doing with a car phone if you
Speaker 1: don't have a car you don't even drive. I said, well,
Speaker 1: that's what made me think of getting one without a car,
Speaker 1: because I don't drive. Needless to say, by nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: the car phone was as attached to me as it
Speaker 1: was to any car. In southern California, I was the
Speaker 1: guy with the phone. You can always reach Keith wherever
Speaker 1: he is. He's walking outside the Arby's here in Hollywood
Speaker 1: if you want him to stop buy and get something
Speaker 1: for you, like this was Times Square in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: He's probably passing Arby's right now. So the first time
Speaker 1: I came to New York with a car phone a
Speaker 1: mobile phone, nobody apparently had done this in New York.
Speaker 1: And so I got off the train in Grand Central Station,
Speaker 1: walked through it, and as I pushed passed through the
Speaker 1: doors into the brilliant, humid suns rise of midday New York,
Speaker 1: bustling with street traffic, hawkers of every possible item like
Speaker 1: the streets of Marrakesh, the phone rang, and I reached
Speaker 1: into my little shoulder bag and pulled it out and
Speaker 1: went Hello, at which point about one hundred people on
Speaker 1: the street on forty second Street froze, where they stood
Speaker 1: and their jaws simultaneously dropped. If my pants had disappeared,
Speaker 1: not been removed, but disappeared, vanished, and I was standing
Speaker 1: there in my underwear, suddenly, they could not have been
Speaker 1: more astonished. What is he doing? I heard someone say,
Speaker 1: is it a walkie talkie? My god? What is it?
Speaker 1: Is it a bomb? It was, in fact a wrong number,
Speaker 1: and I hung up and looked around and literally did
Speaker 1: one of those what moments. It's a phone. So my
Speaker 1: trip wherever I was going was delayed by fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: as I explained to a series of passers by, and
Speaker 1: New Yorkers are never as friendly as when they want
Speaker 1: something from you. I say this as a New Yorker
Speaker 1: who's done it himself. I had to explain to them
Speaker 1: what it was. Why did you buy a car phone
Speaker 1: without a car? That question dogged me until we began
Speaker 1: to see the widespread use of cell phones in the
Speaker 1: early nineties. I was the first, apparently, I was the
Speaker 1: first person in the history of New York to publicly
Speaker 1: answer a cell phone call. I should have written the
Speaker 1: date down. I don't have that record anywhere. It's too bad.
Speaker 1: It was as historic an event as the invention of
Speaker 1: the telephone or the installation of electric light in New
Speaker 1: York City. And it was my phone. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: within minutes I passed a payphone on forty second Street
Speaker 1: and I did not hear that as I passed it
Speaker 1: with my cell phone in my hand. I did not
Speaker 1: hear the payphone that knew what it portended, the payphone
Speaker 1: that was silently weeping. I've done all the damage I
Speaker 1: can do here, including making up that last part. But
Speaker 1: it's a wow finish, wasn't it. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical directors have Countdown, arranged,
Speaker 1: produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled
Speaker 1: orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums,
Speaker 1: and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our pithy and
Speaker 1: satirical musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
Speaker 1: Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olberman theme from
Speaker 1: ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Speaker 1: The whole thing with the cell phone was so long
Speaker 1: ago that it was contemporaneous with ESPN making its second
Speaker 1: job offer to me, I only accepted the third one anyway.
Speaker 1: Other music arranged and performed by the group No horns allowed,
Speaker 1: and my announcer today was my friend John Dean. Everything
Speaker 1: else was as ever my fault phone for you. That's
Speaker 1: countdown for today, Day one hundred and two of America
Speaker 1: held hostage, just one three hundred and sixty one days
Speaker 1: until the scheduled end of his lane duck and lame
Speaker 1: brained term, unless Musk removes him sooner or the actuarial
Speaker 1: tables do. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. As always,
Speaker 1: bulletins as the news warrants, remember impeach Trump. It won't
Speaker 1: work now, it will win the Democrats the midterms, and
Speaker 1: the polling suggests they could win the all the midterms. Also,
Speaker 1: I want polling on a presidential recall vote. Let's put
Speaker 1: pressure on these guys until next time. I'm Keith Olberman.
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