Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio America
Speaker 1: held hostage day ninety five of the Trump dictatorship, and
Speaker 1: Trump's personal counter terrorism chief is now threatening to charge
Speaker 1: anybody who criticizes Trump with aiding and abetting terrorists. I
Speaker 1: don't know if the surprise is that the Trump dictatorship
Speaker 1: of the morons did this so fast, or that they
Speaker 1: waited so long, And it is the dictatorship of the
Speaker 1: morons by the team of idiot rivals. And as such,
Speaker 1: as the wheels fall off, as Trump's poll numbers collapse,
Speaker 1: as Trump crashes the world economy, as Trump can't keep
Speaker 1: one economic policy in place for two consecutive hours, and
Speaker 1: as Trump depopulates the life or death bureaucracy fostering public
Speaker 1: health and education and safety and scientific research and climate change,
Speaker 1: as the president of the New York Fed predicts five
Speaker 1: percent unemployment within the year, as his minions literally disappear
Speaker 1: US citizens and others with legal rights to be here
Speaker 1: off our streets and ship them to foreign hells, as
Speaker 1: his Secretary of Defense might as well be shouting our
Speaker 1: battle plans at passers by on a Washington Street corner,
Speaker 1: as we betray and threaten our allies, and reward the
Speaker 1: scum of the earth, both kinds Russian scum and non
Speaker 1: Russian scum, as the media and academia and the law
Speaker 1: firms and the judiciary cover their own asses and throw
Speaker 1: the rest of us to the lions. As the nation collapses.
Speaker 1: Because it is day ninety five of the Trump dictatorship
Speaker 1: of the morons, fled by the most moron public figure
Speaker 1: in our history, there is only one play left for
Speaker 1: the feral animal in charge, the one with the failing
Speaker 1: reptile brain. There is only one play left for Trump.
Speaker 1: We've all known it would come to this. We've all
Speaker 1: warned it would come to this. We've all predicted they
Speaker 1: would try to ease the knife in slowly that they
Speaker 1: take the boiling frog roots. And here it comes. It
Speaker 1: is in every piece of political science fiction from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four to V for Vendetta. We are now here.
Speaker 1: If everything Trump deserves criticism and gets criticism, there will
Speaker 1: be only one thing left for Trump and his gang
Speaker 1: to do, and that is to prosecute criticism of Trump
Speaker 1: and to claim those who criticize Trump are aiding and
Speaker 1: abetting terrorists.
Speaker 2: People who love America like the president, like his cabinet,
Speaker 2: like the directors of his agencies, who want to protect Americans.
Speaker 2: And then there is the other side that is on
Speaker 2: the side of the cartel members, on the side of
Speaker 2: the illegal aliens, on the side of the terrorists. And
Speaker 2: you have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and
Speaker 2: abetting them? Because aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is
Speaker 2: a crime in federal statute.
Speaker 1: You doubtless recognize there the foppish voice of the imbecilic
Speaker 1: Sebastian Gorka, the former Victor Orban advisor, so fringe and
Speaker 1: so cringe that Trump ushered him out of his first
Speaker 1: White House during its seventh month. Well, he's back, trying
Speaker 1: to sound sane on Newsmax, threatening to make criticism of
Speaker 1: the furor a terrorist adjacent act, or even terrorism itself,
Speaker 1: because there are no adults to stop Trump this time.
Speaker 1: And now Gorka is Deputy Assistant to the President and
Speaker 1: Senior Director for counter Terrorism, and thus he is a
Speaker 1: clear and present danger to the stability of this country
Speaker 1: and not just some asshole so sketchy, it's so egotistical.
Speaker 1: To the first inauguration, he wore not only that beard,
Speaker 1: that consumes half the nation's supply of just for men,
Speaker 1: but also a tunic. It was the last time you
Speaker 1: saw somebody wearing a tunic and a Garish medal with
Speaker 1: a conflicted history connected to both Hungarian World War two
Speaker 1: Nazi resistors and Hungarian World War two Nazi collaborators, but
Speaker 1: ultimately so bizarrely inappropriate because the metal looks either like
Speaker 1: an Eastern European fascist idea of class or something a
Speaker 1: minor league hockey team would wear as part of its
Speaker 1: special uniform on ren and stimpy night. Well, Sebastian Gorka,
Speaker 1: whoever the f he really is, has now begun the
Speaker 1: process of trying to make criticizing Trump an act of terrorism.
Speaker 1: The full thought of nineteen eighty four, the satirical but
Speaker 1: unbearably terrifying political torturer played by Michael Palin in Terry
Speaker 1: Gilliam's movie Brazil. The disappearing of the Stephen Fry character
Speaker 1: in V for Vendetta after he satirized the paranoid, crazy
Speaker 1: dictator the Countless. This is really happening, stories of true
Speaker 1: life torture in Spain and Germany and Venezuela and a
Speaker 1: thousand other places. It's not enough, apparently, to wrap up
Speaker 1: a bankroll of a couple of billion dollars and threaten
Speaker 1: to metaphorically beat the owners of ABC and CBS and
Speaker 1: NBC to death with it, and know that at least
Speaker 1: one of them will fold, and one day, like day
Speaker 1: before yesterday, you'll read that the executive producer of sixty
Speaker 1: Minutes has left CBS News after thirty seven years because
Speaker 1: his bosses are collaborators and colluds and goddamned cowards. It's
Speaker 1: not enough, apparently, to try to stochastically inspire vigilante death
Speaker 1: squads against reporters. It's not enough to threaten universities, usually
Speaker 1: universities with strong journalism programs like Columbia, with financial destruction
Speaker 1: and extra constitutional judicial overlords. It's not enough to prosecute
Speaker 1: news organizations and reporters about stories and leaks when you
Speaker 1: are really just trying to force them into praising Trump,
Speaker 1: like they did at the Washington Post. It's not enough, apparently,
Speaker 1: to put individuals in your crosshairs so that one day
Speaker 1: I wake up to watch people I worked with and
Speaker 1: trusted because they had spine and ethics fold up like
Speaker 1: a three card monte dealer's table during a raid people
Speaker 1: like Jeff Schell now destroying CBS News, or people like
Speaker 1: Claire Shipman now destroying Columbia University and thus the Columbia
Speaker 1: Journalism School. None of that is enough because none of
Speaker 1: that has worked, because none of that has scared enough
Speaker 1: people viscerally, none of that has scared enough people personally,
Speaker 1: and the only thing still working in the Trump dictatorship
Speaker 1: is the prospect of scaring people into obeying. Also, there
Speaker 1: is the realization that if you think it is going
Speaker 1: badly now in Trump Land, wait wait until the predictions
Speaker 1: come true. The predictions that the CEOs of Walmart and
Speaker 1: Target and Home Depot reportedly made to Trump this past
Speaker 1: Monday in the Oval Office, that it's not just that
Speaker 1: his tariff madness and his unshakable delusion that it was
Speaker 1: all so much better in the year eighteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: the delusion so tenacious, so complete within him that it
Speaker 1: is worthy of being a full visual and auditory hallucination
Speaker 1: caused by a brain tumor. The prediction that all this
Speaker 1: will not just disrupt supply chains, not just double or
Speaker 1: treble inflation, not just leave store after store in every
Speaker 1: city in this country with empty shelves, but that it
Speaker 1: will do all that within two weeks. Wait until those
Speaker 1: predictions come true. And it's a matter of degree now,
Speaker 1: because Trump folded again on tariffs after those warnings, and
Speaker 1: folded on China on Tuesday because he was so scared
Speaker 1: by what the CEOs told him. And then the delusion
Speaker 1: gripped him again yesterday and he went right back to
Speaker 1: his brain symptom of financing the national budget with effing tariffs.
Speaker 1: But wait until the undeniability of empty shelves hits the
Speaker 1: new cathedrals of America, the Target in Hoover, Alabama, one
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety one thousand square feet, the Home Depot
Speaker 1: and Buxhall, New Jersey, two hundred and seventeen thousand square feet,
Speaker 1: the Wall March at Crossgates Commons in Albany, New York
Speaker 1: two one hundred and sixty thousand square feet. Wait until
Speaker 1: their shelves are empty, and the worshippers of our Lady
Speaker 1: of the Megabox store riot in the parking lots two
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty thousand square feet of a Walmart.
Speaker 1: I mean, Saint Peter's basilica is only two hundred and
Speaker 1: forty seven thousand square feet. Ah, sorry about your Pope,
Speaker 1: says the American tourist. And this stadium here you got.
Speaker 1: This is nice, but it sure ain't as impressive as
Speaker 1: the Walmot at Crossgates commons back to doctor Gorka and
Speaker 1: his lifetime supply of just for men Beard when there
Speaker 1: is nothing left in this Trumpian shit show but criticism
Speaker 1: of it. The pompous, falsely ominous, simplistic effort to terrify
Speaker 1: the Americans with the minds of children from the dregs
Speaker 1: of humanity like Sebastian Gorka will take on a totally
Speaker 1: different meaning. The clip of what he threatened, and to
Speaker 1: use the cliche, it is so full of false and
Speaker 1: illogical extrapolation. It is so Sebastian Gorka that it hurts.
Speaker 1: That clip is nearly a week old, but it is
Speaker 1: just resonating today after their Axios has managed to put
Speaker 1: the truly evil pieces together, while as usual, never passing
Speaker 1: judgment on the morality of any of it, Like they
Speaker 1: were writing out assembly instructions for a potty seat for
Speaker 1: a child or for Trump. I'll quote from this Axios compendium.
Speaker 1: Now Trump administration officials are suggesting their immigration crackdown could
Speaker 1: expand to include deporting convicted US citizens and charging anyone,
Speaker 1: not just immigrants, who criticizes Trump's policies. One sending convicted
Speaker 1: US citizens to prisons abroad. This has been floated as
Speaker 1: a spit off of Trump's deal with l Salvador, where
Speaker 1: a high security prison is holding about three hundred US
Speaker 1: immigration detainees that the administration says are suspected criminals and
Speaker 1: gang members. Quote homegrowns are next, Trump said during an
Speaker 1: Oval Office meeting with I would point out as an
Speaker 1: aside his employee, Salvadoran President Naib Bucele last week, referring
Speaker 1: to sending Americans convicted of crimes to serve time in
Speaker 1: foreign prisons. Two, putting critics of the administration's policies in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: Some officials say US citizens who criticize administration policies could
Speaker 1: be charged with crimes based on the notion they're aiding
Speaker 1: terrorists and criminals. Then comes the quote from the Gorka interview.
Speaker 1: Trump's team has also questioned the legality of civic groups
Speaker 1: providing immigrants with know your Rights trainings on how to
Speaker 1: respond to federal agents. Borders are Tom Holman suggested that
Speaker 1: such seminars help people evade law enforcement. I would suggest
Speaker 1: it allows people to evade fascists like Tom Holman and
Speaker 1: their brown shirt Gestapo death squads. And I would note
Speaker 1: also that Tom Holman in particular has something for or
Speaker 1: Alexandria Accasio Cortes and is drooling at the thought of
Speaker 1: putting handcuffs on her. Quote. They're trying to use terrorism
Speaker 1: laws to attack people for their speech and for their
Speaker 1: political activism, and that's an authoritarian effort, said Carrie Talbot,
Speaker 1: co executive director of the Immigration Hub, an immigration advocacy
Speaker 1: group three questioning the authority of court orders, The administration's
Speaker 1: resistance to returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was legally in
Speaker 1: the US with an order not to be deported back
Speaker 1: to Al Salvador, but was deported to the prison there anyway,
Speaker 1: has raised questions about how far Trump's team can go
Speaker 1: in trying to skirt court orders. The White House says
Speaker 1: the decision to return Abrego Garcia rests with El Salvador
Speaker 1: because the US Supreme Court told the administration only to
Speaker 1: facilitate his return, not effectuated. Axios, of course, peppered this
Speaker 1: with its moronic life for dummies interjections like why it matters.
Speaker 1: I've always wondered what their coverage of an impending nuclear
Speaker 1: war would look like. Why it matters because everybody would
Speaker 1: be dead. Axios also missed one other component. This is
Speaker 1: from Reuters from a month ago. Now. US House Speaker
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson on Tuesday warned that Congress's authority over the
Speaker 1: federal judiciary includes the power to eliminate entire district courts.
Speaker 1: As the White House rails against activist judges blocking Trump's agenda,
Speaker 1: Johnson sold reporters the numerous injunctions issued by judges nationally
Speaker 1: that have steimied Trump's initiatives were part of a dangerous hand.
Speaker 1: This ugly, little, useless Johnson is talking about defunding the judges.
Speaker 1: That if the Democrats can't frame that as Republicans want
Speaker 1: to defund law enforcement, give up. What in whole all
Speaker 1: this indicates is that Trump is, as I suggested earlier,
Speaker 1: out of moves, he is, in fact now road testing
Speaker 1: using terrorism charges against Americans for their exercise of free speech.
Speaker 1: They've already done it in the Khalil case at Columbia.
Speaker 1: Then Trump said the quiet part out loud about homegrowns.
Speaker 1: The idiocy of the DEI Attorney General Blondie is another
Speaker 1: facet of this. Remember her boast that attacks on Tesla
Speaker 1: dealerships or Tesla vehicles would be treated as domestic terrorism.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this includes keing the cars, though
Speaker 1: the newspaper The Daily Mail reported that a decade ago
Speaker 1: Musk found a foreign born whistleblower in his company about
Speaker 1: bad breaks on Tesla's and threatened to deport her and
Speaker 1: her team. And that was in two thousand fourteen. But
Speaker 1: if you put all these components together, you may face
Speaker 1: a terrorism charge for criticizing how good a car a
Speaker 1: Tesla is, or for criticizing how good a president A
Speaker 1: Trump is. The other headlines Dick Durbin is retiring. Good
Speaker 1: should have happened two elections ago. Take Schumer with you,
Speaker 1: and take Ron Johnson with you. There are dumber senators,
Speaker 1: There are more dangerous Republican Johnson's. There are snottier politicians.
Speaker 1: But no one quite combines these three attributes as brilliantly
Speaker 1: as Russia. Ron his newest gambit as chair of the
Speaker 1: Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investment Mitigations, he wants one he
Speaker 1: has declared that World Trade Center Building seven collapse due
Speaker 1: to a quote controlled demolition, something disproved literally on nine
Speaker 1: to eleven and believed only by morons and rich losers
Speaker 1: who have never held any elected office other than the
Speaker 1: Senate seat they bought from Wisconsin. They brought down Ron's
Speaker 1: brain with a controlled demolition long before nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: Also today, the last king of five thirty eight dot
Speaker 1: com Elliot Morris reports Trump has completely spent his approval
Speaker 1: ratings on immigration and the economy and the cost of living.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of February, he was a net plus
Speaker 1: eight on the economy plus eight. He's now at minus ten.
Speaker 1: At the same time, he was plus five on the
Speaker 1: cost of living, He's now at minus twenty two. And
Speaker 1: on immigration. In the middle of February, he was at
Speaker 1: plus twelve. He's now at just plus two and a half.
Speaker 1: On immigration, he is hemorrhaging his support specifically and generally
Speaker 1: the overall. When he was at plus five in February,
Speaker 1: he is now twelve points lower at minus seven. New
Speaker 1: theory on the Christy Nome handbag theft, the one literally
Speaker 1: stolen out from under her at a DC restaurant with
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars in cash inside to pay for the
Speaker 1: family Easter dinner. I assume because the cash anyway, because
Speaker 1: her family had long since learned to disbelieve her promises
Speaker 1: like I'll put it on my card or I'll take
Speaker 1: care of your dog. Police think the culprit at an
Speaker 1: adjoining table gradually pushed the handbag away from Nome with
Speaker 1: their foot. My addition to this theory is that Nome
Speaker 1: has by now had so much work done that she
Speaker 1: could not move her head anymore to the side to
Speaker 1: check if the White House Correspondence din there is Saturday,
Speaker 1: having been forced to attend in two different centuries in
Speaker 1: far happier circumstances. My pro tip to the members of
Speaker 1: the DC political media industrial complex consists of just two words,
Speaker 1: uber eats and your pete. Hegseth update. He's still there,
Speaker 1: I guess, but he's clearly not all there. Jennifer Jacobs
Speaker 1: of CBS News reports that heg Seth has made a
Speaker 1: major change at the Pentagon. He has spent thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars to install in the green room next to the
Speaker 1: press briefing room, a makeup room, a new director's chair,
Speaker 1: and a large mirror with vanity bulbs has been installed.
Speaker 1: All true, says the Pentagon, but the heg Seth spokesperson
Speaker 1: proudly insists Pete Hegseth does not have a makeup artist.
Speaker 1: He does his own makeup himself. Because all fighters need
Speaker 1: to know when to powder their nose. And Trump is
Speaker 1: still behind hag Seth because we all presidents need to
Speaker 1: know when to empty another can of spray on their
Speaker 1: hair matrix or another car load lot of bronzer on
Speaker 1: their reptilian skin. Here we go again, It's just a
Speaker 1: waste of time he is doing. He is doing a
Speaker 1: great job. Because he's doing a great jobs to ask
Speaker 1: the hoodies how he's doing it? Why were they in
Speaker 1: the signal Chat two? Also of interest here, no word
Speaker 1: yet from HBO Max as to when and where the
Speaker 1: memorial services will be held for Bill Maher's career, now
Speaker 1: that it has been ended by a pitch perfect guest
Speaker 1: essay in the New York Times. If by now you
Speaker 1: have somehow not read it, I am not going to
Speaker 1: spoil your surprise by telling you about it, reading from it,
Speaker 1: nor telling you who the author is. Well, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do that now. I'll do it next This
Speaker 1: is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman. Stell ahead
Speaker 1: on this initiative countdown all new as it is. Did
Speaker 1: I ever tell you about the time I sang and
Speaker 1: danced on Broadway? I mean in an actual Broadway show,
Speaker 1: actually on Broadway, a political Broadway show. No, I didn't
Speaker 1: tell you because I had completely forgotten about it until
Speaker 1: I went to see George Clooney in Goodnight and good Luck,
Speaker 1: And then I forgot about it again until it turned
Speaker 1: out that my foot doctor's offices across the street from
Speaker 1: where George Clooney is doing Goodnight in good Luck. Anyway,
Speaker 1: my Broadway career that was so bad it would have
Speaker 1: made zero Mostelle and or Nathan Lane and the producers
Speaker 1: proud next in things I promised not to tell first,
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to
Speaker 1: talk about. The roundup of the miss Grants, morons and
Speaker 1: Dunning Krueger effect specimens who constitute the latest other worse
Speaker 1: persons in the world worse than me dancing on Broadway
Speaker 1: Lebron's worst Congressman Derek Van Orden. If you want a leaving,
Speaker 1: breathing example of evidence that the new research is correct
Speaker 1: that for years the American military has been giving our
Speaker 1: war fighters brain damage and PTSD because our weapons move
Speaker 1: so violently when they are shot or otherwise employed, that
Speaker 1: just training on them literally shakes a soldier's brain. If
Speaker 1: you need to be able to point at somebody and say,
Speaker 1: like this guy, look at the brain damage the military
Speaker 1: did to this guy. All he did was shoot a rifle.
Speaker 1: It's Congressman Van Orden of Wisconsin. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know how this actually works, because I'm not a brain surgeon,
Speaker 1: but it always seemed to me, having had a concussion,
Speaker 1: that if you had a small brain to begin with,
Speaker 1: it would rattle more, thus creating more damage. But who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe if you have a small brain to begin with,
Speaker 1: there's less two damage. Anyway, Van Orden has got major,
Speaker 1: major issues. He's got anger problems, he's got seeming delusions
Speaker 1: of grandeurs, he likes to order people around, and of
Speaker 1: course he is a buffoonish idiot. Maybe it was the
Speaker 1: machinery in the army that caused this one social media
Speaker 1: disaster the other day. Maybe it was just that he
Speaker 1: was made this way. Governor Tony Evers of Wisconsin tweeted
Speaker 1: a video trying to hook the upcoming National Football League
Speaker 1: Draft in Green Bay, Wisconsin with the year of the Kid.
Speaker 1: So Van Orden found a way to take this benign,
Speaker 1: kind of meaningless, generic tweet and turn it into a
Speaker 1: way to express all of his own problems anger, low
Speaker 1: class use of language, conspiracy theory, addiction, stupidity. And he
Speaker 1: did this all in a retweet of only ten words
Speaker 1: in length. Got to hand it to him for that
Speaker 1: great job. Turd a sitting US Congress and rights referring
Speaker 1: to the governor of his own state. How many kids
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee can read? And of course Van Orden misspelled
Speaker 1: the word how he spelled it hoe, So the RT
Speaker 1: actually reads and continued to read all day ho many
Speaker 1: kids in Milwaukee can read, which by itself tells you
Speaker 1: everything you need to know about Derek Van Orden, but which,
Speaker 1: because of that one word ho, may lead us down
Speaker 1: the path of wondering if there's another issue mister Van
Speaker 1: Orden has been dealing with any who the runner up
Speaker 1: worser Ryan kill mead to Fox and Friends. I've mentioned before,
Speaker 1: it's a real hall of fame of dumb white guys
Speaker 1: and gals over there. Jesse Waters will Cain, Janine Piro,
Speaker 1: Rachel Campos, Duffy. But if you had first draft choice,
Speaker 1: where would you go, where would you start? You would
Speaker 1: start with kill Mead. He has been there forever. He
Speaker 1: has been there literally twice as long as anybody else.
Speaker 1: And now he's made a major major boo boo even
Speaker 1: for him interviewing his former colleague eat as in PTSD.
Speaker 1: I'll just text it to you Hegseth at eight twenty
Speaker 1: one Eastern the other morning. Brian Kilmead was clearly upset
Speaker 1: at having to do this interview, and with good reason, nervous, worried.
Speaker 1: Heg Seth was so jumpy, arms flailing, mugging to the
Speaker 1: camera twice as much as usual that you would have
Speaker 1: thought he was just coming in at that hour of
Speaker 1: the morning, not just getting up. Hey wait a minute,
Speaker 1: maybe he was just kidding him. No, no, I bet
Speaker 1: he was just coming in. Any who. Kill Mead's part
Speaker 1: of this was saying, as usual, exactly what the Trumpsts
Speaker 1: did not want him to say, the Freudian slip of
Speaker 1: all Freudian slips. At the moment quote here to set
Speaker 1: the record straight himself, the former secretary, the current Secretary
Speaker 1: of State Pete Hegseth. First off, state no, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I would have accepted secretary of Defense or secretary of vodka.
Speaker 1: Also the former secretary you called Hegseth, the former secretary
Speaker 1: you meant to call him the former secretary of Defense, Brian,
Speaker 1: I believe that's what we call in the business a
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, bro. But our winner Bill Maher or whatever
Speaker 1: is now left of him, and frankly, all that is
Speaker 1: left of him now is pretty much graffiti. If you
Speaker 1: have not read the best piece of satirical newswriting this year,
Speaker 1: I urge you to go do so. It was in
Speaker 1: Monday's New York Times op ed section, and as in
Speaker 1: the last episode, I now read from somebody else's epic
Speaker 1: literary composition. First it was the objective power is Power
Speaker 1: speech by O'Brien has written by Orwell in the novel
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. But now I would like to read
Speaker 1: just a couple of paragraphs from this instant classic in
Speaker 1: the New York Times, and I urge you to go
Speaker 1: finish it. There is not one wasted word nor misplaced
Speaker 1: comma in the whole damn beautiful thing. Title of the
Speaker 1: guest essay, my dinner with Adolph opening three paragraphs, I
Speaker 1: have to quote them. I can't edit it down. Quote.
Speaker 1: Imagine my surprise when in the spring of nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: nine a letter arrived at my house inviting me to
Speaker 1: dinner at the Old Chancellory with the world's most reviled man,
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his
Speaker 1: on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything
Speaker 1: he was going to do on the road to dictatorship.
Speaker 1: No one I knew encouraged me to go. He's Hitler,
Speaker 1: He's a monster. But eventually I concluded that hate gets
Speaker 1: us nowhere. I knew I couldn't change his views, but
Speaker 1: we need to talk to the other side, even if
Speaker 1: it has invaded and annexed other countries and committed unspeakable
Speaker 1: crimes against humanity. Two weeks later, I found myself on
Speaker 1: the front steps of the Old Chancellory and was led
Speaker 1: into an opulent livering room where a few of the
Speaker 1: Furor's most vocal supporters had gathered, Himmler, Gering Lany Riefenstahl,
Speaker 1: and the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward the Eighth.
Speaker 1: We talked about some of the beautiful art on the
Speaker 1: walls that had been taken from the homes of Jews.
Speaker 1: But our conversation ended abruptly when we heard loud footsteps
Speaker 1: coming down the hallway. Everyone stiffened as Hitler entered the room.
Speaker 1: He was wearing a tan suit with a swastika armband
Speaker 1: and gave me an enthusiastic greeting that caught me off guard. Frankly,
Speaker 1: it was a warmer greeting than I normally get from
Speaker 1: my parents, and it was accompanied by a slap on
Speaker 1: my back. I found the whole thing quite disarming. I
Speaker 1: joked that I was surprised to see him in a
Speaker 1: tan suit, because if he wore that out, it would
Speaker 1: be perceived as unfeurerlike. That amused him to no end,
Speaker 1: and I I realized I'd never seen him laugh before.
Speaker 1: Suddenly he seems so human here. I was prepared to
Speaker 1: meet Hitler, the one I'd seen and heard, the public Hitler,
Speaker 1: But this private Hitler was a completely different animal, And
Speaker 1: oddly enough, this one seemed more authentic, like this was
Speaker 1: the real Hitler. The whole thing had my head spinning.
Speaker 1: Forgive my sudden move towards my pathetic impression of the
Speaker 1: pathetic mar but it seemed fitting at the moment. I
Speaker 1: might add this piece, this extraordinary bit of writing, only
Speaker 1: gets better from here. And I add further that with admiration, pride,
Speaker 1: and as somebody who's actually written stuff for The Times
Speaker 1: op ed page's pure bright green envy, I am not
Speaker 1: in the same universe as the author of that, and
Speaker 1: the author of that is, of course Larry David, somebody
Speaker 1: I'm proud to call a friend and friend of the podcast. Again,
Speaker 1: read the whole thing. That's just the start. This part
Speaker 1: about the the art stolen from the homes of Jews,
Speaker 1: just thrown away like that. Oh my goodness. The irony,
Speaker 1: of course, is as the historian Rick Pearlstein noted in
Speaker 1: the thirties, the Nazis really did what Larry David fantasizes
Speaker 1: about in this piece in The Times. They really did
Speaker 1: bring critics in to meet Hitler at one of Hitler's homes,
Speaker 1: and mostly they did this to tamp down the widespread
Speaker 1: assumptions in Germany that the unmarried Hitler was gay. There
Speaker 1: is even a book about this campaign, this pr whitewashing,
Speaker 1: that invited the Bill Mahers of nineteen thirty nine to
Speaker 1: come meet the Donald Trump of nineteen thirty nine. The
Speaker 1: book is titled Hitler at Home by Despina Stratagatos from
Speaker 1: Yale Books from twenty fifteen. Larry sat top is so
Speaker 1: good it's real. The fact of that book makes Larry's
Speaker 1: piece even better. But nothing, nothing will ever top the
Speaker 1: best part of Larry's vivisection of Mar, which is he
Speaker 1: never wants in the piece mentions Mar by name, never
Speaker 1: mentions Mar's obsequious, squirming praise of Trump after dinner with
Speaker 1: him at the Old Chancellery. Now there could be a
Speaker 1: good reason for not mentioning Bill Maher, because after what
Speaker 1: Larry David wrote about him, there no longer is a
Speaker 1: Bill Maher left to mention Bill. I hope they saved
Speaker 1: what's left of him to drop with the rest of
Speaker 1: the confetti in Times Square on New Year's Eve, Mar
Speaker 1: two days other worst person hellowel to the number one
Speaker 1: story on the Countdown and things I promised not to tell,
Speaker 1: And this actually falls into the category of things I
Speaker 1: forgot to tell. It may be a sign of age.
Speaker 1: I like to think it's a sign of having done
Speaker 1: so much in a now fifty year career. In front
Speaker 1: of microphones and audiences. But it could be the idea
Speaker 1: of age. But I had, until a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: completely forgotten that I once sang and danced on Broadway.
Speaker 1: I don't mean out in the street when I used
Speaker 1: to work in Times Square, I mean on the Broadway
Speaker 1: stage with an audience who paid money to see it.
Speaker 1: I was not the star of the show, thank goodness.
Speaker 1: It would have closed during the first act. But nonetheless
Speaker 1: I sang and danced on the stage of the Blasco Theater.
Speaker 1: And I did it twice, meaning someone made the decision
Speaker 1: that after the first time I did it, they should
Speaker 1: have me come back and do it again. Here's the background.
Speaker 1: In the spring of twenty seventeen, I got a call
Speaker 1: from Michael Moore. Michael and I have done countless things together,
Speaker 1: landmark events in our respective careers. He was the first
Speaker 1: guest on the first edition of Countdown on Current TV
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, when we beat both CNN and MSNBC
Speaker 1: in the ratings, even though our network was in digital
Speaker 1: might as well have been in black and white, might
Speaker 1: as well have been available only in three cities in
Speaker 1: the country, and we beat them. And Mike did that
Speaker 1: I did it too. Mostly Mike. We did a thing,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, speaking of Bill Maher, we did
Speaker 1: a thing for Bill Maher in which Michael and I
Speaker 1: did the halftime show when mar Once did a live
Speaker 1: stand up special on HBO and then went to a
Speaker 1: different studio to do a live edition of his Real
Speaker 1: time I Capitulate to Trump. Whatever the name of the
Speaker 1: show is called. We did the show in between while
Speaker 1: he went from one theater to the other in Washington.
Speaker 1: And we've been on each other's programs, and on each
Speaker 1: other's podcasts and on each other's coat tails for years.
Speaker 1: Michael and I have always gotten along very well, and
Speaker 1: that's often a challenge, both for him and for me.
Speaker 1: The call for Michael was he's going to do a
Speaker 1: one man show on Broadway, but they can't really trust
Speaker 1: it to be just one person. They want to experiment.
Speaker 1: They've done a couple of them already, but in previews,
Speaker 1: you know, one guy talking for an hour and a half,
Speaker 1: as good as that might be, is a little challenging
Speaker 1: if you're seated in a theater and you're expecting, I
Speaker 1: don't know, the Lion King songs something. Now, they did
Speaker 1: have a wow finish to this thing that was songs
Speaker 1: and lights and dancing, but that you didn't see till
Speaker 1: the end. So the idea was, let's break this up
Speaker 1: at some point. Let's have a surprise guest, a different
Speaker 1: guests show up in the middle of Michael's one man
Speaker 1: show every night at the Belasco Theater, unannounced, and just
Speaker 1: have Michael talk to him ten minutes, twenty minutes, whatever works.
Speaker 1: Would you come in, Keith and be one of the
Speaker 1: first people we try this with, In fact, would you
Speaker 1: be the first person we will try this with? And
Speaker 1: I said, of course I would. So I get to
Speaker 1: the theater and they explained to me what we're going
Speaker 1: to do and how I'm going to enter and just
Speaker 1: walk on, And I said, you sure? You just want
Speaker 1: me to walk on? People are going to think I'm
Speaker 1: just rushing the stage, aren't they?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: No, people will recognize you instantly. And no, that's not
Speaker 1: a problem or anything. I went, are you sure anyway?
Speaker 1: Then they said at the end of the show, the
Speaker 1: premise of Michael's show is that to defeat Trump, we
Speaker 1: must confront our fears. We must some of us choose
Speaker 1: to run for office. We must express ourselves when we
Speaker 1: are not used to expressing ourselves. We must protest when
Speaker 1: we're not used to protesting, and we must put ourselves
Speaker 1: on the line to some degree. And he used as
Speaker 1: an example something that really rang home with me. Four years,
Speaker 1: four decades. The death knell of anyone's career in entertainment
Speaker 1: in America has been the dreaded invitation to appear on
Speaker 1: one show, and one show alone in American television, Dancing
Speaker 1: with the Stars. When you are asked to be on
Speaker 1: Dancing with the Stars, it means you are or shortly
Speaker 1: will be dead to the world of television. Yes they
Speaker 1: invited me. Yes, I simply burned the letter. Yes they
Speaker 1: invited Tucker Carlson, and he did the one thing you
Speaker 1: should never do, which is say yes. And he has
Speaker 1: been since dead to the world of television. He now
Speaker 1: is out there in the extremes, first to Fox and
Speaker 1: now to a place where he's not reachable by human language.
Speaker 1: I mean, he had a good head start on that,
Speaker 1: but this really is this is no I think on
Speaker 1: behalf of the United States of America. I as the
Speaker 1: judge ruling on your sanity case, say you know, etc.
Speaker 1: But that's another topic for another edition of Things I
Speaker 1: Promise Not to Tell back to Michael Moore and the
Speaker 1: invitation to appear on Dancing with the Stars. He was invited.
Speaker 1: Not only did he recognize, as we all do intuitively,
Speaker 1: that's the end, but he also particularly because like me,
Speaker 1: he's not necessarily a great dancer. He's a big guy
Speaker 1: like me, he's a little bigger guy than I am,
Speaker 1: in fact, and he's not really confident about physical motions
Speaker 1: in public. So he thought, what would be a great
Speaker 1: example to people in the audience of really challenging yourself
Speaker 1: at this time when we need to challenge ourselves, was
Speaker 1: to actually say, tell the story about being invited on
Speaker 1: Dancing with the Stars, and then at the end of
Speaker 1: the show, do a version of Dancing with the Stars.
Speaker 1: Put on a top hat, put on a glittery jacket,
Speaker 1: have a professional dancer just like I'm Dancing with the Stars,
Speaker 1: appear out of nowhere in a beautiful skirt with all
Speaker 1: kinds of beads on it and glits and tirly things,
Speaker 1: and she comes out onto the stage going sixty miles
Speaker 1: an hour in a perfect semi circle. And then he
Speaker 1: gets up and dances with her, and as I'm being
Speaker 1: made up to go out and do my little cameo.
Speaker 1: They say, now, would you mind participating in this? And
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, you didn't mention this before. No,
Speaker 1: we find that it's probably a better idea just to
Speaker 1: bring this up. Once you're here inside the Belasco Theater,
Speaker 1: just stay till the end of the show. And here's
Speaker 1: what we want you to do. It's nothing big. When
Speaker 1: Michael is out there dancing with the woman from essentially
Speaker 1: Dancing with the Stars, we want you to again appear
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, go out onto the stage and interrupt
Speaker 1: them dancing. And I went and then danced with the
Speaker 1: woman from Dancing with the Stars. No, we want you
Speaker 1: to tap her on the shoulder and start dancing with Michael. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm as open minded as the next guy, but it
Speaker 1: seemed to me that this was probably a bad idea,
Speaker 1: so I did it anyway. I also had, as I
Speaker 1: have had recently, problems with my feet, so I was
Speaker 1: actually in bad shape knee and foot wise. And yet
Speaker 1: the possibility of being on stage on a Broadway stage
Speaker 1: at least this one time in my life. I mean,
Speaker 1: when would I get the opportunity to dance in public
Speaker 1: however badly I might do it. There were a few
Speaker 1: extra added efforts to this. Well, for one thing. The
Speaker 1: other part of this was Michael's fear of being arrested
Speaker 1: for saying something, for some sort of threat that he
Speaker 1: might be perceived as making against Trump by doing this show,
Speaker 1: and it was a setup for the police to come
Speaker 1: get him while he's dancing with the woman and then
Speaker 1: the guest star me. So this first night, they're still
Speaker 1: officially in previews, I come out unannounced, and I can
Speaker 1: hear this kind of from the crowd, like there's a
Speaker 1: terrorist rushing the stage. I'm thinking, I told you so.
Speaker 1: And I just come out and I'm wearing a Lavalier
Speaker 1: microphone that no one can see even on the stage.
Speaker 1: And I just come out and Michael says, it's Keith
Speaker 1: ol Rimman. Everybody, and a nice response and a nice
Speaker 1: conversation and thanks for coming out. And I walked off
Speaker 1: the stage and I said, do you agree with me now?
Speaker 1: And the producer went, yeah, you should have like at
Speaker 1: least a microphone. And I said, you gotta do a bit. Well,
Speaker 1: we want you to come back and do it went
Speaker 1: so well. I said, you haven't seen me dance yet, No,
Speaker 1: that's even better, especially if you break something. So at
Speaker 1: the end of the show, I'm standing in the wings, going,
Speaker 1: what in the hell am I doing here? What am
Speaker 1: I doing here? Why am I out here dancing? I
Speaker 1: can't dance. He can't dance, but he's been practicing, he's
Speaker 1: been taking lessons. He's been talking about how he couldn't
Speaker 1: go on Dancing with the Stars because he can't dance.
Speaker 1: So what did he do? He took dancing lessons. He's
Speaker 1: not going on Broadway every night not knowing how to dance.
Speaker 1: You are going on Broadway tonight not knowing how to dance.
Speaker 1: So of course it was a terrible idea, and I
Speaker 1: did it anyway. Among other things, the dancer was really cute,
Speaker 1: not Michael, but the professional dancer. So I come out
Speaker 1: and interrupt and start dancing with him, and then start
Speaker 1: dancing with her, at which point the cops descend on
Speaker 1: the stage. And now the audience is really scared because
Speaker 1: Michael has talked about something that he said that might
Speaker 1: get him arrested. Now it looks like he's getting arrested,
Speaker 1: and maybe me too. I didn't know about the cops
Speaker 1: coming on to the stage. I was as surprised as anybody.
Speaker 1: I went then and realized, that's probably not a cop.
Speaker 1: He's wearing makeup, not even in New York. Is that
Speaker 1: a likelihood? So I did the whole dramatic, you know,
Speaker 1: perils of Pauline Dudley do wright protect the girl with
Speaker 1: both hands. The dancer, the woman dancer. I shouldn't call
Speaker 1: her a girl, but that's the image she was projecting.
Speaker 1: So I'm protecting this professional woman dancer, shielding her with
Speaker 1: my body, and Michael is being arrested, and then of
Speaker 1: course it turns out the cops are stripper cops, and
Speaker 1: so they play the music again, and we're all out
Speaker 1: there dancing and the stripper cops are down to their
Speaker 1: g strings and I'm trying to dance with the woman
Speaker 1: and Michael is dancing with them, and then the curtain falls,
Speaker 1: and I went, oh my god, I'm never doing this again.
Speaker 1: They called two weeks later and asked me to do
Speaker 1: it again, and of course I said, yeah, yes, only
Speaker 1: this time. Well, I'll tell you the punchline to it.
Speaker 1: At the appropriate moment, I did say to them I
Speaker 1: have a better idea for the entrance, and they said, great,
Speaker 1: we have come up with this idea where a couple
Speaker 1: of doors open in the middle of the stage and
Speaker 1: you come out through that and you're holding a handheld microphone,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't look like a terrorist attack. And I said,
Speaker 1: but there's got to be a bit. There's got to
Speaker 1: be some interruption that matches the interruption in the monologue,
Speaker 1: because nobody's being told in advance that there is a
Speaker 1: guest star. Nobody knows this. It's not being built. And
Speaker 1: in fact, if I remember correctly, they eventually put it
Speaker 1: in the program. Don't tell people that there's a guest star.
Speaker 1: First off, some nights they couldn't get a guest star.
Speaker 1: There's a guest star. Oh, there isn't a guest star.
Speaker 1: So I come out with a microphone. The spotlight is
Speaker 1: on me suddenly as Michael goes, wait, who's that is that?
Speaker 1: And I come out going this, I do this. Hello,
Speaker 1: my name is Elder Key. Oh sorry wrong theater, big laugh.
Speaker 1: It is, of course, the opening words of the opening
Speaker 1: song from Book of Mormon, the only musical I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: In fact, I've seen it twelve times. My argument that
Speaker 1: anybody could sing for three seconds was proved correct. I
Speaker 1: sang on Broadway. I had already danced on Broadway. It
Speaker 1: was time for me to sing on Broadway too, and
Speaker 1: it was a good way to explain what the hell
Speaker 1: is happening here audience. And we had another nice conversation,
Speaker 1: and in fact, some news had just broken that I
Speaker 1: was able to give him. We were able to act
Speaker 1: and react to just things that had just happened in
Speaker 1: trump Land. And then we finished the show with the
Speaker 1: whole bit where I came out and danced. And now
Speaker 1: I'm prepared and I can really dramatically shield the dancer
Speaker 1: when the stripper cops come out to arrest us. All
Speaker 1: but here is the punchline. I had thought about this,
Speaker 1: and thought about this as I was waiting to go
Speaker 1: on during the preview, during the first time to dance,
Speaker 1: that the smell of burning Ham that I could perceive
Speaker 1: in the Belasco Theater was in fact me that long
Speaker 1: ago desire to be an actor that I've told you
Speaker 1: about in a previous episode, when I was instinctively aware
Speaker 1: of how I could improve a scene in the odd
Speaker 1: couple while doing it in the moment, I come up
Speaker 1: with a few lines and a few movements and stares
Speaker 1: that got laughs, and the producer of this in high school,
Speaker 1: who was the high school advisor, to the drama group
Speaker 1: and to the newspaper in the radio stations, I said,
Speaker 1: forget all that, f all that go and become an actor.
Speaker 1: You have instincts none of the rest of us have.
Speaker 1: We could never teach you. You could become one of
Speaker 1: the great actors. I'm dead serious. And then in the
Speaker 1: next time we did the show, the youngest member of
Speaker 1: the cast froze on stage. We had to bring the
Speaker 1: curtain down in the middle of the odd couple. He
Speaker 1: went off stage and face planted and wailed for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: And I said, I never want to get this close
Speaker 1: to it again. I never want to see this again,
Speaker 1: let alone risk it happening to me. So my career
Speaker 1: as an actor died that day. And here it was
Speaker 1: coming back and saying, no, you can do it now,
Speaker 1: Remember you have the gift. Step out in front of
Speaker 1: the lights. Everything will be fine. And I went and
Speaker 1: danced with a badfoot and a bad knee and no
Speaker 1: ability to dance, and then stripper cops. So now the
Speaker 1: second time, here's the punchline to it. When they asked
Speaker 1: me to do it again on Broadway. What did I do?
Speaker 1: I brought a change of clothes for the second appearance.
Speaker 1: I had changed into a kind of fusia colored dimpled
Speaker 1: smoking jacket for the dance scene. That's how much of
Speaker 1: a burning Ham I really was. The next day, by coincidence,
Speaker 1: I spoke to my friend, the late Norman Lloyd, the actor,
Speaker 1: who was then about one hundred and three years old,
Speaker 1: who said, oh, you're at the Belasco two points. I
Speaker 1: made my debut on Broadway at the Belasco. I was
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty eight with Awson. He met orson Wells,
Speaker 1: of course, and he also said, what time was this?
Speaker 1: I said, well, the dancing part, Yes, the dancing part,
Speaker 1: What time was that? The singing? I said that was
Speaker 1: probably about I don't know, nine forty five, so six
Speaker 1: forty five my time here in La Yes, that explains
Speaker 1: what I smelled. I had this awful smell coming from
Speaker 1: the east.
Speaker 3: It smelled like it smelled like burning Ham.
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. That's me burning Ham. But it's nice
Speaker 1: to think that my late friend Norman Lloyd and I
Speaker 1: both made our Broadway debuts on the same stage. He
Speaker 1: did a little better than I did, although I shielded
Speaker 1: that dancer really well. Brian Ray and John Phillip shaneil
Speaker 1: the musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most
Speaker 1: of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister
Speaker 1: Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It was
Speaker 1: produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
Speaker 1: are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
Speaker 1: The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Other
Speaker 1: music arranged and performed by the group. No horns allowed
Speaker 1: except for that three snippet from Book of Mormon. My
Speaker 1: announcer today was my friend, the new op ed editor
Speaker 1: of The New York Times, Larry David. Everything else was,
Speaker 1: as ever my fault. That's countdown for today. Day ninety
Speaker 1: five of America held hostage just three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: eight days until the scheduled end of his lane duck
Speaker 1: and lame brained term, unless Musk removes him sooner or
Speaker 1: the actuarial tables do the next scheduled countdown is Thursday,
Speaker 1: as always, bulletins as the news warrants, No, this is Thursday.
Speaker 1: I was going to mention the fact that I might
Speaker 1: be a little cloudy because of the medication for my foot,
Speaker 1: which continues to worsen. I'll say it again. The next
Speaker 1: scheduled countdown is Monday, unless unless I forget because of
Speaker 1: the medication. As always, bulletins, as the news warrants, unless
Speaker 1: I can't do them because of the medication or the
Speaker 1: fact that my foot is breaking off in small pieces.
Speaker 1: Remember impeach Trump. It won't work now, it will win
Speaker 1: the Democrats the midterms. I want pulling on a presidential
Speaker 1: recall vote. And by the way, when I walk downhill now,
Speaker 1: because of this foot, I look like Trump did after
Speaker 1: that one speech at West Point. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Till
Speaker 1: next time, if there is one. I'm Keith Oldrimman. Good morning,
Speaker 1: good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olreman
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcast s.