Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. My
Speaker 1: expectation is that before the weekend is out, if President
Speaker 1: Biden has not announced he will withdraw from the Democratic
Speaker 1: ticket to be replaced by an alternate presidential candidate, a
Speaker 1: big collection of party leaders with bigger names and even
Speaker 1: bigger reputations will go public and on the record and
Speaker 1: demand that President Biden drop out. Chuck Schumer, according to
Speaker 1: ABC News last night, went to Rehoboth Beach and in
Speaker 1: a one on one meeting with the president quote forcefully
Speaker 1: made the case that it would be better for Biden,
Speaker 1: better for the Democratic Party, and better for the country
Speaker 1: if he were to bow out of the race. Unquote.
Speaker 1: It is the twenty twenty four version of the Barry
Speaker 1: Goldwater mission to the White House to tell Nixon it
Speaker 1: was time to go. Only it's Biden, and it's not
Speaker 1: a scandal, and it was in Delaware, not DC, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't for them at once, but one at a time, essentially,
Speaker 1: And that the Democratic leadership that has been working behind
Speaker 1: the scenes since the debate to change candidates no longer
Speaker 1: cares whether their efforts are public or not could not
Speaker 1: have been more clear. If they had hired one of
Speaker 1: those moving billboard trucks and flashed the message up and
Speaker 1: down every street near the Capitol. Last night, Schumer's office
Speaker 1: replied to John Carl's report on ABC with something that
Speaker 1: isn't a denial. It isn't even a non denial denial.
Speaker 1: It's quote. Unless ABC source is Senator Chuck Schumer or
Speaker 1: President Joe Biden, the reporting is idle speculation. Leader Schumer
Speaker 1: conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden
Speaker 1: on Saturday. So the meeting happened. You're just keeping a
Speaker 1: fig leaf over announcing publicly what Schumer told the President
Speaker 1: at the meeting. You just confirmed. So what ABC reported
Speaker 1: is what Schumer told the President. Forcefully made the case
Speaker 1: it would be better for Biden, better for the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: and better for the country if he were to bow out.
Speaker 1: As yesterday unfolded, I had this growing suspicion that the
Speaker 1: behind the scenes Joe must Go drama was about to
Speaker 1: move center stage. I am confident his COVID test yesterday
Speaker 1: in Vegas is no more than ironically timed symbolism. Unless
Speaker 1: this is like President Kennedy developing a severe cold during
Speaker 1: the Cuban missile crisis and having to rush back to Washington,
Speaker 1: although you have to admit it was a hell of
Speaker 1: a way to upstage the JD vance speech and maybe
Speaker 1: Trump's tonight too. And it also set up an expert
Speaker 1: troll on Twitter x when at seven twenty two Eastern
Speaker 1: last night, Biden's account posted I'm sick, then two minutes
Speaker 1: later added of Elon Musk and his rich buddies trying
Speaker 1: to buy this election. Regardless of the singer, regardless of
Speaker 1: the illness, regardless of the Schumer story on ABC, the
Speaker 1: critical mass certainly appears to be building, and in several
Speaker 1: different areas and different chain reactions. The first, you already
Speaker 1: know the ABC Schumer story, which just doesn't have any
Speaker 1: wiggle room to it. You're either right with that story
Speaker 1: or you will never work again. But also yesterday the
Speaker 1: California Congressman Adam Schiff called for the president to retire
Speaker 1: from the ticket publicly, and Schiff Senator in waiting once
Speaker 1: he strikes out Steve Garvey with a curve ball low
Speaker 1: and away carries enough weight on his own. But there's
Speaker 1: also the little matter of him being Nancy Polo sees
Speaker 1: protege and confidante. And now, in addition to the continuing
Speaker 1: swarm of stories around the speaker Emerita and her off
Speaker 1: camera stage management of key players in the Talk Joe
Speaker 1: Down campaign, Politico reports she is serving as a sounding
Speaker 1: board for worried Democratic House members who not only think
Speaker 1: the president will lose, but that he will break their
Speaker 1: chances of reelection as well. One lawmaker told that website
Speaker 1: that Pelosi is taking these calls but not soliciting them,
Speaker 1: hasn't really acted on them, but quoting now, the member
Speaker 1: ended the phone call with the distinct impression that Pelosi
Speaker 1: believed Biden should exit the presidential race. And I think
Speaker 1: that's true. It is highly unlikely shiff would have said
Speaker 1: what he said publicly if Pelosi did not know he
Speaker 1: was going to, and more importantly, if Pelosi did not
Speaker 1: approve of him saying it as strategy. As you know,
Speaker 1: once Democrats actually successfully begin to plan something anything, it
Speaker 1: leaks quickly because they are so pleased with themselves that
Speaker 1: they have finally done something that they can't wait to
Speaker 1: tell everybody. On the other hand, reportedly Pelosi told colleagues
Speaker 1: she knew nothing about what is actually a bigger piece
Speaker 1: in this puzzle than is the shift announcement, which I
Speaker 1: guess serves as a warning shot to Biden that we
Speaker 1: will really go public, so don't make us. As I
Speaker 1: mentioned yesterday that virtual roll call online nomination of the
Speaker 1: president for a second term has been postponed by the
Speaker 1: DNC until around August seventh. They thought it might happen
Speaker 1: as early as August first, and first came the news
Speaker 1: from NBC that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was behind
Speaker 1: that decision, and that it was ABC and no, it
Speaker 1: was Schumer and House Minority Leader Jeffries each making it happen.
Speaker 1: And then it was punch Bowl News saying yeah, it
Speaker 1: was both of them, and they talked beforehand and coordinated
Speaker 1: their announcements and moves. Interestingly, one of the headlines on
Speaker 1: the ticket dilemma, let's call it a dilemma. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a crisis yet, though it escalated enough that
Speaker 1: it briefly threatened my ability to remain agnostic. Yesterday, one
Speaker 1: of the ticket dilemma headlines is actually much ado about nothing.
Speaker 1: The Associated Press Nork poll yesterday, three weeks after the debate,
Speaker 1: and nearly two thirds of Democrats say he should withdraw
Speaker 1: in favor of a different candidate sixty five percent, to
Speaker 1: be exact, which is actually an improvement. In April, a
Speaker 1: few research survey asked Biden supporters if they thought either
Speaker 1: he or Trump should drop out or both, and sixty
Speaker 1: two percent said both, and four more of Biden's supporters
Speaker 1: said just Biden. So sixty two plus four is sixty
Speaker 1: six percent. Now it's sixty five percent. And the sixty
Speaker 1: six was after the State of the Union and well
Speaker 1: before the debate. So I don't know why this was
Speaker 1: a big story other than the facts that polls are
Speaker 1: easily digestible fast news food, and most news organizations are
Speaker 1: happy to run them and say, well, it's their polls,
Speaker 1: not ours. Don't blame us. The data for Progress poll, though,
Speaker 1: seems more meaningful. Before the debate, swing voters believed Trump's
Speaker 1: criminal charges were far more important than Biden's age, by
Speaker 1: forty eight percent to forty one percent. Now, a different
Speaker 1: group of swing voters in this poll released yesterday say
Speaker 1: his age is way more important than Trump's criminality and
Speaker 1: fifty three percent to thirty seven percent. That is a swing,
Speaker 1: a swing swing of twenty three points. And I don't
Speaker 1: know how you come back from that. There were other
Speaker 1: developments suggesting something is coming on the Biden front, and
Speaker 1: right soon Pucked News with a lot of insider stuff
Speaker 1: on last Saturday's Biden Congress zoom call, which went so
Speaker 1: badly that one participant said, quote had the iss assassination
Speaker 1: attempt not occurred? An hour later, I imagine fifty people
Speaker 1: on that zoom were ready to come out publicly against him.
Speaker 1: The call seems to have been recorded, and Puck published
Speaker 1: a partial transcript of a loud blow up between Biden
Speaker 1: and the Colorado Democrat Jason Crowe, who said the recent
Speaker 1: campaign emphasis on national security wasn't working. Biden was yelling
Speaker 1: at Crow, quoting Puck quoting Biden on the quote of
Speaker 1: the call, things are in chaos, and I'm bringing some
Speaker 1: order to it. And again, find me a world leader
Speaker 1: who's an ally of ours, who doesn't think I'm the
Speaker 1: most respected person they've ever whereupon Crow interrupts, it's not
Speaker 1: breaking through, mister president, to our voters, and Biden comes
Speaker 1: back with you ought to talk about it on national security.
Speaker 1: Nobody has been a better president than I've been. Name
Speaker 1: me one, name me one exclamation point. So I don't
Speaker 1: want to hear that crap. So that'd be a Democratic
Speaker 1: congressman saying Biden's vitality score is drowning out the party's
Speaker 1: entire message, and Biden replying by screaming at them because
Speaker 1: they're not getting his message across loudly enough. Axios had
Speaker 1: a similar report saying Mark Vzi of Texas and Chrissy
Speaker 1: Hulan of Pennsylvania demanded to know the president's plan to
Speaker 1: turn the campaign around, and Biden responded to vis by
Speaker 1: saying House members weren't doing a good enough job reminding
Speaker 1: voters of the administration's accomplishments. This is fine, zips coffee,
Speaker 1: This is fine. Why is it warm in here? This
Speaker 1: is also fine. Bernie Sanders defending Biden yesterday to Isaac
Speaker 1: Chottner and The New Yorker, and it's well, it's very Bernie,
Speaker 1: and it's not very much help. Chattner to Sanders to
Speaker 1: merge the question about him selling his agenda with the
Speaker 1: question about his age. I watched President Biden with Lester
Speaker 1: Holt Monday night, and I watched him on three point
Speaker 1: sixty with Speedy Mormon, and he is definitely getting out
Speaker 1: there more than he was the night after the debate.
Speaker 1: But just to be honest, Senator, I mean, the guy
Speaker 1: has trouble completing a single sentence, Sanders, he does, Chotner.
Speaker 1: Every time he was attacking Donald Trump's record, he would
Speaker 1: just pause. I mean, the idea that this candidate who's
Speaker 1: going to be eighty two this year is going to
Speaker 1: Sanders may i Chotner, Yeah, please, Sanders. I'm not aware
Speaker 1: that anyone thinks that Joe Biden is the best candidate
Speaker 1: in the history of the world, or that he's an
Speaker 1: ideal candidate. And nobody will argue with you that he
Speaker 1: has a trails off it notes. He admitted it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: he gets confused about names. You're right, sometimes he doesn't
Speaker 1: put three sentences together. It is true. But the reality
Speaker 1: of the moment is, in my view, he is the
Speaker 1: best candidate the Democrats have for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 1: and trying in an unprecedented way to take him off
Speaker 1: the ticket would do a lot more harm than good.
Speaker 1: Schotner to Sanders, and then there's this substantive question about
Speaker 1: whether he can be president for four more years. You
Speaker 1: have no concerns about that, Sanders. Look, I have concerns
Speaker 1: about everything you know, and everybody should have concerns about everything. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that helped circling back to the COVID diagnosis. I
Speaker 1: truly don't think it's anything more or less than a
Speaker 1: COVID diagnosis. Certainly that's enough for an eighty one year
Speaker 1: old man. But here, of all things is a Biden interview,
Speaker 1: a new one with my old colleague from last century
Speaker 1: at MSNBC, Ed Gordon for beet, and the president for
Speaker 1: the first time said in it he could drop out
Speaker 1: if there were compelling health reasons.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that you would look to you personally,
Speaker 2: not anybody else, not other pundits, not even perhaps family
Speaker 2: members that you would look to to say, if I
Speaker 2: see that, I will reevaluate.
Speaker 3: If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody,
Speaker 3: if the doctors came to me and said you got
Speaker 3: this problem, that problem. But I made a serious mistake
Speaker 3: in the whole debate. And look, when I originally ran,
Speaker 3: you may remember it, I said I was gonna be again.
Speaker 1: Coincidence. I think interview comes out around two pm Eastern,
Speaker 1: COVID diagnosis around six pm Eastern. That's a coincidence, right, right,
Speaker 1: First two major unforced errors of the official Trump campaign.
Speaker 1: CBS News proposes August twelve for the vice presidential debate.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris accepts. This is hours before JD. Vance was
Speaker 1: to give his vice presidential acceptance speech, and Vance refused
Speaker 1: to commit, probably the first press release to carry the
Speaker 1: new Trump Vance campaign logo masthead. And it's a snarky
Speaker 1: excuse about how they can't commit to a debate because
Speaker 1: they don't know who the Democratic vice presidential candidate will be.
Speaker 1: And that sounds hilarious, doesn't it. And they mentioned Harris
Speaker 1: choosing Newsom or Pritzker or Whitmer's a running mate at
Speaker 1: Oh what wittiness from a Trump idiot, Except it reads
Speaker 1: like Vance is too afraid of Newsom or Pritzker or
Speaker 1: Whitmer or Harris to just say what you're supposed to
Speaker 1: do in this situation. Yes, that he needed a joke
Speaker 1: and a bad joke to cover up fear hours before
Speaker 1: his acceptance speech. Politics one oh one, JD. And you
Speaker 1: just failed the first exam, beardo the second mistake? Will
Speaker 1: I think move out of the shadows at some point soon,
Speaker 1: just like the Joe must Go thing again. And the
Speaker 1: longer this goes unaddressed, the less sense any of it
Speaker 1: makes to me. In short, we now have to assume
Speaker 1: that Trump is lying about getting shot, that he was
Speaker 1: shot at is not in doubt that the blood came
Speaker 1: from in the unfortunate phrase he himself chose. His ear
Speaker 1: being pierced by a bullet has been verified by absolutely nobody.
Speaker 1: Nothing from Butler Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania, nothing from the
Speaker 1: Secret Service, nothing from the Department of Justice, nothing from
Speaker 1: any branch of government, nothing from the FBI, even though
Speaker 1: the FBI has gone to unusual lengths of confirming the
Speaker 1: investigation is of an assassination attempt and of domestic terrorism.
Speaker 1: And they've already broken into the shooter's phone, and they
Speaker 1: know there were eight shots, and they know who else
Speaker 1: was shot, and they released their names, And nothing about
Speaker 1: Trump getting shot. Nothing from any news organization, and each
Speaker 1: normans organization has had to cleverly, almost artistically, avoid saying
Speaker 1: Trump was shot and also avoid saying Trump wasn't shot.
Speaker 1: New York Times the former president was holding a rally
Speaker 1: when he said he was shot in his ear. Even
Speaker 1: NBC News, in the middle of a company wide Trump
Speaker 1: suck up, writes not that Trump was hit by a bullock,
Speaker 1: but rather quote. Days since a Pennsylvania shooter opened fire
Speaker 1: at a campaign rally and wounded Trump's ear, the former
Speaker 1: president and his campaign have revealed next to nothing about
Speaker 1: his condition. Well neither did the NBC News story, nothing
Speaker 1: from anybody on Trump's own team, except for his own
Speaker 1: original social media post about the ear piercing, and then
Speaker 1: from Congressman and demoted former Navy di Ronnie glug Glug Jackson,
Speaker 1: who had last been seen publicly swearing like a sailor
Speaker 1: at sheriff's officers as they detained him at a rodeo
Speaker 1: in Amarillo a year and two weeks ago. And even
Speaker 1: Ronnie Jackson says he didn't treat Trump's ear until the
Speaker 1: day after Sunday, and not that he treated it last
Speaker 1: Saturday because he was home in Texas on Saturday. And
Speaker 1: based on how Jackson has described it and what he
Speaker 1: doesn't know about it, it is clear Jackson is assuming
Speaker 1: it was a bullet, but in fact, the superficial damage
Speaker 1: to Trump's ear could have been caused by a bullet
Speaker 1: or inadvertent shrapnel, or a piece of glass, or I
Speaker 1: don't know, by venomous fleas. The entire official medical report
Speaker 1: from the Trump campaign is that he is quote fine,
Speaker 1: unquote Five days later, the entirety of Trump's cult and
Speaker 1: his political gang and militia continue to treat last Saturday
Speaker 1: as if Trump had had been literally saved by a deity.
Speaker 1: They are not only trying to use it to boost
Speaker 1: his polling, but also to boost gods. They have compared
Speaker 1: him to Christ, including the amount of vood loss. They
Speaker 1: have thrown off any hesitation or moderation. They have made
Speaker 1: it if you shoot at the King analogies. A sitting
Speaker 1: senator has demanded that after Trump survived, we must all
Speaker 1: now believe in miracles. And nobody other than Trump will
Speaker 1: even confirm, even without a name attached to it, just
Speaker 1: an organizational name, even just anonymously. No one will confirm
Speaker 1: that what hit Trump really was a bullet? Why the
Speaker 1: hell not? As we crossed the milestone of one hundred
Speaker 1: hours since the assassination attempt, and there's no argument that
Speaker 1: it wasn't one, the fact that nobody has confirmed he
Speaker 1: was shot must now be considered as having transformed into
Speaker 1: the fact that people are deliberately choosing to not confirm it.
Speaker 1: I mean, the full report on Biden's COVID was out
Speaker 1: within an hour of the test, down to the timing
Speaker 1: of his first dose of packslovid. If Trump was shot,
Speaker 1: there is no longer any logical explanation for this hesitation,
Speaker 1: this five day long hesitation. Not even in Trump's world
Speaker 1: of illogic does this make sense. This creature lives to
Speaker 1: be the victim a statement from I don't know the
Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security that he was shot. He would
Speaker 1: frame it, he would put it on his wall, he'd
Speaker 1: move some of the fake Time magazine covers out of
Speaker 1: the way. He'd sell photo copies of it up for
Speaker 1: seventy eight dollars. Hell, the bastard is already selling commemorative
Speaker 1: limited edition assassination sneakers. Your costs two hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: nine dollars and no sense. By the way, you can,
Speaker 1: presumably in your assassination sneakers do the assassination tango. Nobody
Speaker 1: is disputing what was a tempted against Trump Saturday. Nobody
Speaker 1: is disputing what could have happened. If they are not
Speaker 1: saying yes, definitively conclusively, he was shot with a bullet,
Speaker 1: with a bullet that hit his body, even just a
Speaker 1: little at this point we have to assume he was
Speaker 1: not hit by a bullet. And as I said at
Speaker 1: the start, therefore we now have to assume that Trump
Speaker 1: is lying about getting shot. And again, they could clear
Speaker 1: this up in thirty seconds. It's seemingly trivial some investigators,
Speaker 1: some law enforcement official, some doctor other than Glug Glug,
Speaker 1: and they may yet do that. It may yet prove true.
Speaker 1: It is the easiest explanation of all the theories, and
Speaker 1: the most logical one. And the refusal to offer the
Speaker 1: proof has created uncertainty in an area that really shouldn't
Speaker 1: be that uncertain. If he wasn't shot, so what something
Speaker 1: else thrown up by the shit? The shooter's bullet intended
Speaker 1: to kill him, nicked his ear? Well, that's much better
Speaker 1: if he was shot. What's the issue? Is there something
Speaker 1: wrong with the bullets? Has he ever sold limited edition
Speaker 1: Trump bullets? Was he grazed by a bullet that had
Speaker 1: his face on it or his name on it? I
Speaker 1: mean talk about a bullet having your name on it.
Speaker 1: The thing is, the more you look into the coverage
Speaker 1: of exactly what he got hit with, the crazier that
Speaker 1: coverage reads. Go to the local coverage around Pittsburgh in
Speaker 1: the days since, and you will find nobody with direct
Speaker 1: knowledge of how Trump looked, or how he was treated,
Speaker 1: or what he was treated for. You'll find that none
Speaker 1: of them will say, yeah, Trump was shot. The hospital
Speaker 1: has been flooding the zone with information about how it
Speaker 1: reacted and how it had planned for something like this,
Speaker 1: and how it treated other new patients outside on the street,
Speaker 1: and how wonderful the hospital staff was. And then there's
Speaker 1: this from the KDKA TV website quote Butler Memorial Hospital's
Speaker 1: president was at a bridal shower when President Trump was
Speaker 1: shot at a local campaign rally. Karen Allen left the
Speaker 1: shower and rushed to Butler Memorial. Her colleagues were treating Trump,
Speaker 1: the hospital was locked down. Okay, it's mildly unintentionally humorous
Speaker 1: to this point. Now, the serious part president of the
Speaker 1: hospital and her info about what happened to Trump, that
Speaker 1: he was being treated for at her hospital is not
Speaker 1: just second hand, it's third hand. Again, quoting Alan said,
Speaker 1: she learned Trump had been shot from the hospital's chief
Speaker 1: medical officer, who was on vacation at the beach. So
Speaker 1: the head of the hospital has no first hand knowledge
Speaker 1: of the injuries, and the chief medical officer of the
Speaker 1: hospital has no first hand knowledge of the injuries either.
Speaker 1: Who in the hell does I mean at this point,
Speaker 1: Trump could have set off a movie prop blood squib
Speaker 1: and nobody would know. I'm not saying that's what happened,
Speaker 1: but you see where organic conspiracy theories grow from. And
Speaker 1: at five days in Trump has grown one. And we
Speaker 1: have to assume he's lying about getting hit by a bullet,
Speaker 1: or there's something about the whole thing that he's lying about.
Speaker 1: Also of interest, here is Trump's near death experience part
Speaker 1: of God's plan. That's not me asking that question. That's
Speaker 1: not some idiot on Newsmax. That's a Washington Post columnist.
Speaker 1: And if you think he's swallowed the kool aid, you
Speaker 1: know which pundit is the leading national distributor of Trump
Speaker 1: kool aid at the moment. It's Van. This is the
Speaker 1: night Trump became Jesus Jones of CNN. Van, the man
Speaker 1: is at it again, and you will never believe who
Speaker 1: he has praised. Now that's next. This is countdown. This
Speaker 1: is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead of us on
Speaker 1: this initiative countdown. So I'm reading those hilarious spotted entries
Speaker 1: of political celebrities at events at the Republican Convention. And
Speaker 1: you read these lists and your reaction to most of
Speaker 1: them is She's still alive. And there's one name, Alexey Lallas,
Speaker 1: time counterculture soccer hero and now just another hanger on
Speaker 1: at a party for an Indiana fascist at the Republican Convention.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, please, of the day at ESPN
Speaker 1: that I stole Alexei Lallas's guitar from him and smashed
Speaker 1: it to pieces in things I promised not to tell. Next,
Speaker 1: there are still more idiots to talk about. The daily
Speaker 1: roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect
Speaker 1: specimens who constitute two days worse persons in the world
Speaker 1: Lebrons worst. Ted Cruz podcaster Mister Cruz has a part
Speaker 1: time job in the US Senate. I believe his job
Speaker 1: is he empties the spittoons on the Senate floor under
Speaker 1: the senator's desks. The job offers plenty of room for promotion.
Speaker 1: After five years, they give him a brush Anyway, Ted
Speaker 1: Cruse's podcast, I believe the title is I'm lying with
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz featured this gem. I want to get answers
Speaker 1: to was Politics involved turning down additional resources for Trump.
Speaker 1: It's been reported now that on the day of the rally,
Speaker 1: Secret Service moved some of Trump's detail to protect Jill Biden. Well,
Speaker 1: the word reported is doing a lot of heavy lifting here,
Speaker 1: even for Ted the podcaster. The reporting seems to have
Speaker 1: all come from one story posted by a woman who
Speaker 1: works for the right wing propaganda site Real Clear Politics.
Speaker 1: By the way, that's one of the stupidest names of
Speaker 1: anything in the world. Real Clear Politics, World Clear Politics.
Speaker 1: They spelled it right. There was no shift of Secret
Speaker 1: Service on Saturday, and there was no evidence that the
Speaker 1: Trump detail was understaffed. You heard the Iran report, it
Speaker 1: was probably larger than usual. The Real Clear Politics clown
Speaker 1: just was told this by somebody who was lying, and
Speaker 1: she made a video. She even remembered to press record.
Speaker 1: The story, which is false, was reported in exactly the
Speaker 1: same way that the story has been reported for years
Speaker 1: that Ted Cruz is reported to reportedly be the Zode killer.
Speaker 1: It's not true, but it's been reported. The runner up
Speaker 1: worser Washington Post columnist and Washington Post editorial board member
Speaker 1: Shady Hamid or as we will identify him here. The
Speaker 1: latest guy fooled by Trump is Trump's near death experience
Speaker 1: part of God's plan what a nation can expect when
Speaker 1: a leader is nearly assassinated. Stories of near death experiences
Speaker 1: chastening sinners and pushing them toward the light are the
Speaker 1: stuff of legend, but they are also the stuff of real,
Speaker 1: ordinary lives, the individuals who make a conscious choice to
Speaker 1: turn away from the past and restructure their own narratives
Speaker 1: toward a better end. It could mean that he campaigns
Speaker 1: and then governs in the now more likely event that
Speaker 1: he wins in a manner that is less authoritarian. It
Speaker 1: could mean that, when presented with an opportunity to escalate tensions,
Speaker 1: he might choose instead to tamp them down. Is this
Speaker 1: about Trump really tamp them down? As it happens, this
Speaker 1: would also be in his self interest, a way to
Speaker 1: redeem his tarnished legacy. If this sounds like a fantasy,
Speaker 1: perhaps it is, But fantasies sometimes come true. Dear Peedhus Forum,
Speaker 1: I never believed this would happen to me. Christ Fortunately,
Speaker 1: for Trump and perhaps for us, God works in mysterious ways. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean this guy, Shadi Hamid is a member of
Speaker 1: the Washington Post editorial board. So that's about as mysterious
Speaker 1: as he gets. This was posted Tuesday, after Trump picked
Speaker 1: that psychopath Advance as his running mate, and after he
Speaker 1: demanded that the nation unify behind him by dropping all
Speaker 1: the charges against him. Can't imagine why the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: with writer Shadi Hamid, is bailing water twenty four hours
Speaker 1: a day publishing this crap, Holy crap, Why don't you
Speaker 1: just get a Trump is pivoting tattoo on your forehead?
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, our winner Van Jones of CNN, the
Speaker 1: number of people who say stupid things on CNN is
Speaker 1: almost limitless. It's why CNN's ratings have sunk so low
Speaker 1: that their audience is moving towards where it was when
Speaker 1: I joined CNN at the end of its first year
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one, and I used to call up
Speaker 1: for credentials to news conferences and sporting events, and the
Speaker 1: pr people would say, Sonny, you and I both know
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as an all news television network.
Speaker 1: If you want to get a free pass to the
Speaker 1: ball game, you'll have to make up a better story
Speaker 1: than that. Anyway, CNN is going there right now as
Speaker 1: I've noted the average audience for this podcast exceeds many
Speaker 1: hours of the audience during CNN's week. Van Jones is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons, As I said, a lot of
Speaker 1: people say dumb things on there, like all the anchors
Speaker 1: others like Jake Tapper and Dana Bash do the opp
Speaker 1: They don't say things dumb or otherwise when journalism would
Speaker 1: seemingly compel them to say something like during the debate
Speaker 1: or when Eric Trump is lying to them about who
Speaker 1: shot what at his father. But Van Jones has been
Speaker 1: saying earnestly, with deep conviction and the most sincere performance
Speaker 1: of fake sincerity imaginable from his announcement in early twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen that Trump, in a speech to Congress had just
Speaker 1: truly become president. I guess because Trump had not shot
Speaker 1: a guy during the speech or messed his diapers during
Speaker 1: the speech. From that point through last Saturday, when Van
Speaker 1: Jones cried on the air on seeing it and told
Speaker 1: Democrats to embrace Republicans to show we were all Americans,
Speaker 1: while Trump was already figuring out how to exploit the
Speaker 1: event by demanding that America owed him now and everybody
Speaker 1: should drop all those cases against him even though he
Speaker 1: is a trader and a convicted sexual assaulter, and now
Speaker 1: there is more from Van Jones. They keep putting him
Speaker 1: on because if there's one thing TV executives throughout the
Speaker 1: history of the world we'll not do is connect the
Speaker 1: dots between their stupid personnel decisions and lower ratings. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's why Anderson Cooper has been on the air there
Speaker 1: for twenty years, even though he's never won his own
Speaker 1: time slot, and he hasn't even finished second since like
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. Van Jones has now turned to
Speaker 1: commenting on the speakers at the Republican National Convention. Now, look,
Speaker 1: they're all political prostitutes. Nicki Haley got up and said
Speaker 1: Trump had her total endorsement because her fight against Trump
Speaker 1: was just a marketing scheme. Well, she didn't say it
Speaker 1: was a marketing scheme. I'm saying that. But there are
Speaker 1: a few more cynical, few more dishonest, few more ugly
Speaker 1: in their soul speakers than not Haley, but Sarah Huckabee Sanders,
Speaker 1: now the governor of Arkansas, just as her soul as
Speaker 1: father was, and she of course was Trump's most virulent
Speaker 1: and angry press secretary, and she spoke at the RNC
Speaker 1: and Van Jones said afterwards on CNN, Sarah Huckabee Sanders,
Speaker 1: she was incredibly compelling to me. She told personal stories
Speaker 1: that landed. It was moving, and it was powerful. She
Speaker 1: gave the speech of the night unquote. Here's part of
Speaker 1: Huckabee's moving, powerful personal story.
Speaker 4: I got the chance to take my four year old son,
Speaker 4: Huck to bring your kid to workday, much like Jill
Speaker 4: now drags Joe to bring your husband to work out.
Speaker 1: That was ageist and disrespectful, and like the rest of
Speaker 1: the life of Sarah Huckabee, it was as if you
Speaker 1: had taught a rhinoceros to talk. Plus, she's standing at
Speaker 1: the gates of heaven and the administrator there says, and
Speaker 1: what did you do with your life? And she says,
Speaker 1: I named my son Huck huck Tuckabee Sanders. And he
Speaker 1: goes next and the next thing you hear is Van
Speaker 1: Jones thought that was incredibly compelling, moving and powerful. Thought
Speaker 1: it was the speech of the night because Van, I'm
Speaker 1: an idiot. Jones is the worst person. Oh, it's so
Speaker 1: compelling in the world. Now things I promised not to tell.
Speaker 1: And it was nineteen ninety four, and they just had
Speaker 1: the first Soccer World Cup ever held in the United States,
Speaker 1: and Alexei Lallis was the folk hero of the plucky
Speaker 1: American team, and we put him in a This is
Speaker 1: Sports Center commercial. And there's a long, great story to this.
Speaker 1: I will tell you in a moment, But first listen
Speaker 1: to what I found. It is a DVD with the outtakes. Now,
Speaker 1: I didn't do this twice. It's two separate angles of it.
Speaker 1: I might add. In the second angle, when I hit
Speaker 1: the guitar against the wall, the fret of the thing
Speaker 1: flew directly into the lens of the backup camera that
Speaker 1: was on the floor. I couldn't do that again in
Speaker 1: a billion years. Please enjoy. If you don't recognize me,
Speaker 1: I'm the one grunting.
Speaker 5: Okay, I still love you, man, Okay, I still love
Speaker 5: you man.
Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety four Soccer World Cup did not really
Speaker 1: do that much for American soccer, which as you know,
Speaker 1: is the sport of the future in this country and
Speaker 1: always will be. But it did make a lot of
Speaker 1: Americans into fans of European soccer clubs, especially the British ones.
Speaker 1: But for a while, Alexi Lalas, with his shoulder length,
Speaker 1: reddish blonde hair and billy goat beard and anti establishment vibe,
Speaker 1: was on the front burner of American sports and he
Speaker 1: made quite a nice career out of it as a
Speaker 1: commentator on soccer on TV. But back then, naturally, ESPN,
Speaker 1: launching its surrealist fake documentary commercial series, wanted him to
Speaker 1: be in it, and sure enough he came to Bristol
Speaker 1: and Hank Perlman devised a bit in which Gary Miller,
Speaker 1: our anchor, who was himself a soccer immortal for his
Speaker 1: soccer breakdown which I've played to you, you know, John Luca, Palyuka,
Speaker 1: the Mother, etc. Gary would be sitting at a desk
Speaker 1: in the sports Center newsroom. As atop the adjoining desk,
Speaker 1: Alexi Lalis sat cross legged in sunglasses, philosophizing on relaxation
Speaker 1: and finally playing on his guitar. Michael Row the boat ashore.
Speaker 1: At that point the commercial turned into one of the
Speaker 1: classic scenes from John Belushi's film Animal House. Another sportscaster
Speaker 1: was to storm into the newsroom, pull the guitar out
Speaker 1: of Alexei Lalas's hands and smash it against a cubicle.
Speaker 1: Wall and emit a loud, primal grunt as he did so,
Speaker 1: and then hand Lallas back whatever was left of the guitar,
Speaker 1: and like Belushi in the movie, say sorry. Well, Hank
Speaker 1: had a sportscaster in mind for that role, and guess
Speaker 1: who it was me? So picture that in your mind
Speaker 1: as I play what it sounded like. And then I
Speaker 1: have what I think is a really good backstory to
Speaker 1: the filming of this. This is SportsCenter SportsCenter commercial, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you at the darkness. We got to
Speaker 1: do something about that, Michael. For time's sake, the word
Speaker 1: sorry didn't make it. So the backstory and it's out
Speaker 1: of chronological order. The guitar that Alexei Lawis was playing
Speaker 1: was not the one I smashed. There was an exact
Speaker 1: duplicate that had been bought. It had been taken apart,
Speaker 1: it had been sawed, and basically it was put back
Speaker 1: together with scotch tape. It would hold together long enough
Speaker 1: for him to scrum a few sour notes on it
Speaker 1: and then for me to grab it and smash it.
Speaker 1: They were confident it would not fly apart until I
Speaker 1: hit the cubicle wall with it. But they still told
Speaker 1: me to simply grab it, not yanked out of his hands,
Speaker 1: or I might be left holding the neck of the
Speaker 1: guitar and Alexey holding the rest of it. This was
Speaker 1: especially problematic because we only had the one prop guitar.
Speaker 1: That's right, We made the business end of that commercial
Speaker 1: in one take. This is SportsCenter campaign not only freakly
Speaker 1: achieved something approaching genius levels of originality and creativity, but
Speaker 1: they were all done cheaper than local news promos. In Burlington,
Speaker 1: Vermont in nineteen eighty two, we often shot three of
Speaker 1: these commercials in one day, and it wasn't until the
Speaker 1: second series of ads did the SportsCenter anchors who started
Speaker 1: in one, or two or three even get credit for
Speaker 1: a day off. In one of them, Charlie Sneiner is
Speaker 1: trying to get his tape of highlights back from the
Speaker 1: Harlem Globetrotters who are passing it around like a basketball,
Speaker 1: and he says, can he is a little help? Then
Speaker 1: I'm typing away at my computer and I say, sure, Charlie,
Speaker 1: and I don't even look at him, let alone stop typing,
Speaker 1: let alone give them any help. And that's done. Because
Speaker 1: the commercial was shot in the area right behind my desk,
Speaker 1: because nobody was working there that day except me, and
Speaker 1: it was around five PM, and I was, in fact
Speaker 1: sitting at my desk writing the eleven PM Sports Center script,
Speaker 1: and the original commercial script did not call for me
Speaker 1: to even be in Charlie's commercial. But on the fly
Speaker 1: the writer said, hey, Keith, can you give us one line?
Speaker 1: And I said, as long as I can keep writing,
Speaker 1: and they said perfect. By the way, Charlie did the
Speaker 1: commercial around five o'clock or so and then went and
Speaker 1: anchored the six thirty PM Sports Center. The spot we
Speaker 1: did where hockey legend Gordy Howe beats me up while
Speaker 1: I am trying to read through a script also shot
Speaker 1: at my desk, also on a day I was anchoring
Speaker 1: the show, and that was my real script. Anyway, back
Speaker 1: to alex A. Lallis and the guitar, so we only
Speaker 1: had the one prop guitar, and so we only had
Speaker 1: the one take, and we were shooting it in the
Speaker 1: actual Sports Center newsroom of course, in fact, they were
Speaker 1: remodeling the real newsroom to accommodate the launch of the
Speaker 1: new ESPN News network, so this was the temporary even
Speaker 1: more crowded than usual newsroom, so the cameraman and the
Speaker 1: producer and the writer, and I walked through how they
Speaker 1: thought it would work best since I would have to
Speaker 1: weave past people who were really doing their jobs and
Speaker 1: going to other desks and talking to people and stuff.
Speaker 1: They had two cameras in the little hallway that constituted
Speaker 1: the temporary newsroom's northern border, and they put a third,
Speaker 1: smaller camera on the floor where they guessed that a
Speaker 1: piece of the guitar might land after I smashed it.
Speaker 1: See if you can get the fret or something to
Speaker 1: go here. The producer said that would make a great shot.
Speaker 1: I asked him how in the hell I was supposed
Speaker 1: to do that since we couldn't even practice the smash,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, honestly, I don't know. Telepathy. Maybe
Speaker 1: that was the other salient part of the backstory, since
Speaker 1: we only had the one take and we wouldn't even
Speaker 1: be doing a dry run because they didn't want the
Speaker 1: guitar to fall apart in my hands. I would say
Speaker 1: less than half the people crowded into the temporary newsroom
Speaker 1: had any idea that when I came in I was
Speaker 1: in the commercial let alone, that I was going to
Speaker 1: actually and loudly destroy a guitar by smashing it against
Speaker 1: a low cubicle wall. Even if the guitar has been
Speaker 1: pre broken and taped back together, as that one was,
Speaker 1: it is still going to make a lot of noise. Wait,
Speaker 1: I said to my friend Hank, who wrote it. You're
Speaker 1: not warning anybody, are you, your little devil? Hank got
Speaker 1: a gleeful, evil glazed look in his eyes. No, isn't
Speaker 1: that great. So they filmed the closeups of Gary, and
Speaker 1: they filmed the closeups of Alexi, and then they set
Speaker 1: me up to enter from a vestibule through two swinging
Speaker 1: doors with windows in them, which was along the periphery
Speaker 1: of the temporary newsroom. Then a right turn, and then about no, no, no,
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty feet to where Alexei and Gary were still sitting.
Speaker 1: My target for exactly where I should hit the guitar
Speaker 1: was clearly marked on the cube wall, and they even
Speaker 1: put marks on the carpet of where a couple of
Speaker 1: practice walks had shown would give me the best chance
Speaker 1: at a solid stance. When I swung the guitar and
Speaker 1: sent it el kabonging to its doom, and nobody ever
Speaker 1: said quiet or roll or here we go. They told
Speaker 1: people in the room that they were just shooting some
Speaker 1: cover angles on Gary and Alexi, and people could say
Speaker 1: or move whatever and wherever they wanted to, just so
Speaker 1: long they didn't get away to the cameras. Then they
Speaker 1: just tapped the desks for Alexa and Gary to start,
Speaker 1: and the producer waved to me and in I went,
Speaker 1: trying to channel John Belushi when he takes the guitar
Speaker 1: away from Stephen Bishop on the stairs of the Front
Speaker 1: House and Animal House. I furrowed my brow and I
Speaker 1: tried to fake some venom towards Alexei Lalas. I found
Speaker 1: the emotion. As I came through the doors, I kept
Speaker 1: thinking that since I had been eight years old, I
Speaker 1: had heard people call soccer the sport of the future
Speaker 1: here and I was now thirty seven, and I was
Speaker 1: damn tired of me hearing it. Lallis was strumming on the
Speaker 1: nearly neutered prop guitar. It made a sick sound. I
Speaker 1: took my strides, I hit the marks. I grabbed the
Speaker 1: guitar by the neck with my right hand and simultaneously
Speaker 1: Alexey let go, and then with both hands I swung
Speaker 1: the guitar back over my head and smashed it right
Speaker 1: on the mark. As you heard Michael. The Sports Center
Speaker 1: newsroom promptly went silent for several seconds. The reaction was
Speaker 1: identical to what it would have been had there been
Speaker 1: no commercial being made and no cameras present, and I
Speaker 1: had just walked in and destroyed somebody's guitar, which I
Speaker 1: guess a lot of people expect that I might do someday,
Speaker 1: because even a lot of the people who were surprised
Speaker 1: were not surprised surprised. Craig Wax, the skinny research guy,
Speaker 1: can be seen in the finished commercial, which is on YouTube,
Speaker 1: for a second far left, just staring at me like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we always knew Keys would do something like that. After
Speaker 1: I'd destroyed the guitar, and I have to say, I
Speaker 1: did it really well. I kept moving per the plan
Speaker 1: until I walked back through the swinging doors and out
Speaker 1: of shot. The director shouted cut. I walked back in,
Speaker 1: and the crew gave me a round of applause, and
Speaker 1: a couple of them were cheering out of all proportion.
Speaker 1: Even if I had done is good of a job,
Speaker 1: as I thought, come here, come here. The cameraman kept saying,
Speaker 1: come here, that extra camera on the floor. They backed
Speaker 1: the videotape up from it, and they showed it to me.
Speaker 1: When I smashed the guitar, the fretboard, the actual wood
Speaker 1: and metal piece on the neck flew off and not
Speaker 1: only landed near the third camera's lens, it hit it
Speaker 1: on the fly and it stuck there. They were as
Speaker 1: happy as if they were engineers imploding a bill for
Speaker 1: the first time and it had fallen exactly as they
Speaker 1: had hoped. Plus, they showed me the playback from the
Speaker 1: first camera, and there was an assignment desk editor with
Speaker 1: her back to the action on the phone, completely unaware
Speaker 1: of what was happening or even that they were rolling
Speaker 1: film and videotape, and she literally jumped several inches out
Speaker 1: of her seat of her chair. But to me, the
Speaker 1: best part of this thing is Gary Miller. Even if
Speaker 1: you know a loud noise is coming, it is quite
Speaker 1: the effort to not flinch a little when it happens
Speaker 1: basically right over your shoulder. I mean, ask the little
Speaker 1: kid in the movie north By Northwest where Iva Marie
Speaker 1: Saint shoots Carrie Grant and he sticks his fingers in
Speaker 1: his ears because it's take thirty seven, and he knows
Speaker 1: the noise is coming. I mean, you're aware of it
Speaker 1: just for the possibility that somebody will screw it up
Speaker 1: like me and debris will fly into the back of
Speaker 1: your head. But if you watch Gary in this Sports
Speaker 1: Center commercial, he doesn't even blink, just a little dead
Speaker 1: pan head jerk. It's perfect. What also amazes me is
Speaker 1: that we got all this done in twenty four seconds
Speaker 1: of running time. Alexei goes on about negativity. I have
Speaker 1: to do something about it. He plays enough of the
Speaker 1: song that you recognize it. You got a shot at
Speaker 1: cheerleaders incongruously in the middle of the background. I appear
Speaker 1: from nowhere, move over there, smash the guitar while roaring spectacularly.
Speaker 1: I give him back the neck of the thing. The
Speaker 1: only thing missing is that shot from the fret bar
Speaker 1: flying into camera three. They explained they didn't have the
Speaker 1: extra two seconds scene. I remember enjoying doing this so
Speaker 1: much that I asked them for the front of the
Speaker 1: body of the guitar, and I had Alexi sign it
Speaker 1: to me on the spot. It hung framed in my
Speaker 1: various offices for about fifteen years. In twenty fourteen, I
Speaker 1: was leaving the recording of Stephen Colbert's final episode for
Speaker 1: Comedy Central. I was one of one hundred guests, and
Speaker 1: I went out onto the street to find a cab
Speaker 1: home and I got one, and in getting into it,
Speaker 1: I nearly ran into Alexei Lalas, who was one of
Speaker 1: the other one hundred guests. I laughed, He laughed, and
Speaker 1: he said, and I don't even have my guitar with me.
Speaker 1: And one last note, I doubt this will be of
Speaker 1: any practical use to you, but I must say, as
Speaker 1: somebody who was accorded this rare privilege, not only of
Speaker 1: doing this, but of doing this with impunity, and doing
Speaker 1: this to applause. If you are trying to HEALTHI event
Speaker 1: any frustrations or anger in your life, smashing a guitar
Speaker 1: against a workplace cubicle wall is exactly as satisfying as
Speaker 1: you would expect it would be. Okay, I still love you, man,
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Countdown Musical directors Brian Ray and John
Speaker 1: Phillip Schanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Speaker 1: Mister Ray on guitars, bass, and drums, Mister Chanelle, orchestration
Speaker 1: and keyboards. It was produced by Tkobros. Other music, including
Speaker 1: some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by Noah
Speaker 1: Horns Aloud. Mister Lallis's guitar was by Les Paul of
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
Speaker 1: ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN inc.
Speaker 1: Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Faust,
Speaker 1: the best baseball stadium organist ever. My announcer today was
Speaker 1: what a coincidence, Nancy Faust. Everything else was pretty much
Speaker 1: my fault. That's countdown for this the one hundred and
Speaker 1: eleventh day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the
Speaker 1: eighty eighth day since convicted felon Donald J. Trump's first
Speaker 1: attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Speaker 1: Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the mental health system,
Speaker 1: use presidential immunity. President Biden, you've got it, Use it
Speaker 1: to stop him from doing it again while we still can.
Speaker 1: And Republicans please stop shooting at Trump. The next scheduled
Speaker 1: countdown is tomorrow, Bulletins is the newest requires till then.
Speaker 1: I'm Keith Olremman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
Speaker 1: good luck. Countdown with Keith Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.