Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio, the
Speaker 1: trial in a moment, and the rare opportunity for me
Speaker 1: to say I told you so about something legal. But first,
Speaker 1: it is becoming increasingly obvious that Trump and the authoritarians
Speaker 1: seeking to overthrow democracy in the United States and install
Speaker 1: him as a dictator for life and then enact the
Speaker 1: equivalent of ethnic cleansing, have made the choice to let
Speaker 1: everybody know in advance that they are seeking to overthrow
Speaker 1: the democracy in the United States and install him as
Speaker 1: a dictator and then enact the equivalent of ethnic cleansing.
Speaker 1: You may recall Trump summoning most of the fossil fuel
Speaker 1: industry of this nation to Mari Lago in April and
Speaker 1: essentially demanding that they put one billion dollars into his
Speaker 1: campaign so that he can get elected and then eliminate
Speaker 1: virtually all of the restrictions on their businesses as they
Speaker 1: try to destroy the planet faster now. The Washington Post
Speaker 1: reports that early this month, he summoned most of the
Speaker 1: big money non gas donors to the Republicans and other
Speaker 1: fascists to the Pierre Hotel here in New York, around
Speaker 1: the corner from me, and there was essentially demanding that
Speaker 1: they increase their donations by a factor of twenty five
Speaker 1: or fifty times so he can eliminate virtually all taxes
Speaker 1: on their businesses and their personal incomes. One businessman Trump
Speaker 1: told them had offered him a donation of a million
Speaker 1: dollars in exchange for lunch. The Posts sources quoted Trump
Speaker 1: is replying, I'm not having lunch. You've got to make
Speaker 1: it twenty five million. Then there was the other would
Speaker 1: be donor, who normally gave two to three million.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: He told the donor that he wanted a twenty five
Speaker 1: million dollar or fifty million dollar contribution or he would
Speaker 1: not be quote very happy. Quote The tax cuts all
Speaker 1: expire for wealthy and poor and middle income and everybody else,
Speaker 1: he told the coven at the Pierre, According to the
Speaker 1: Washington Post, But they expire in another seven months, and
Speaker 1: Biden's not going to renew them, which means taxes are
Speaker 1: going to go up by four times. You're going to
Speaker 1: have the biggest tax increase in history. It's blackmail. Give
Speaker 1: me the money I want twenty five times or fifty
Speaker 1: times as much as you plan to give me, or
Speaker 1: else is this legal. Of course, it's not legal. What
Speaker 1: does legal mean to Trump? At this point? If he
Speaker 1: loses the election, he might as well enact the original
Speaker 1: outcome to the novel on which House of Cards was based,
Speaker 1: and go up to the roof somewhere and light himself
Speaker 1: on fire and jump off. The Washington Post quoted campaign
Speaker 1: finance lawyers who say Trump was technically allowed to ask
Speaker 1: these donors for contributions of thirty three hundred dollars or less. Well,
Speaker 1: he's close only fifty million. The quid pro quo is
Speaker 1: in Trump's blood. It's why he's on trial. It is
Speaker 1: the through line of his relationship with Michael Cohen and
Speaker 1: Stormy Daniels. It's why he was impeached over Ukraine. It
Speaker 1: was the premise of January sixth. It is why he
Speaker 1: is running a pre sale on the environment for one
Speaker 1: billion dollars. It is why he will tell you lower
Speaker 1: taxes for fifty million dollars a plate. It's why, of course,
Speaker 1: he doesn't care if anybody knows, because if it works,
Speaker 1: exactly who is going to prosecute him for blackmail and
Speaker 1: corruption and quid pro quos? And if it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: there are a whole lot of buildings he can jump off,
Speaker 1: many of which have his own name on them. If
Speaker 1: this unvarnished, unrestrained, undeniable corruption, we're not obvious enough. If
Speaker 1: it were not obvious enough that Trump just doesn't give
Speaker 1: a shit anymore, You're not gonna shame him, You're not
Speaker 1: going to restrain him, You're not going to prosecute him.
Speaker 1: He's decided it's us or him. There's the second part
Speaker 1: to this. Trump reposted or posted a video, another one
Speaker 1: of these fig leaf deniable Reich videos. He didn't make
Speaker 1: the video, he just posted the video. In it, a
Speaker 1: man encounters at a New York apparently airport Joe Scarborough.
Speaker 1: He rolls his phone camera and he starts swearing at
Speaker 1: Joe Scarborough for twenty three seconds, complete with a bad
Speaker 1: New York accent. Now, look, who am I to judge?
Speaker 1: We've all done this. And Scarborough tried to mainstream Trump,
Speaker 1: and he coached Trump before the debates in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: and he only stopped and suddenly found God when Trump
Speaker 1: did not pick him to be his vice president, or
Speaker 1: Scarborough would be out there at the trial supporting Trump.
Speaker 1: And Scarborough thus long ago forfeited the usual rules about
Speaker 1: deserving that minimal level of decorum in public. So he
Speaker 1: got screamed at with swear words for twenty three seconds
Speaker 1: by this guy. And by the way, the assumption is
Speaker 1: it's a guy. But to me, go listen to the
Speaker 1: tape you judge for yourself. To me, it sounded like
Speaker 1: Judge Janine Piro from Fox but who knows, and swearing
Speaker 1: at Scarborough. But the lunatic then branched out. And this
Speaker 1: is the point. Quoting quote again mildly correcting quote, He'll
Speaker 1: get rid of all you efing liberals. You liberals are
Speaker 1: gone when he e fing wins, You e fing blowjob
Speaker 1: liberals are done. Uncle Buny's gonna take this election. Landslide, landslide,
Speaker 1: You fing half a blowjob landslide. Get the f out
Speaker 1: of here, you scumbag unquote. Watch that guy wind up
Speaker 1: as Secretary of State. The point, of course, is that
Speaker 1: Trump posted that video and he can come up with
Speaker 1: any excuse he Oh, I thought it was funny. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just criticism of Joe Scarborough. Oh I didn't look
Speaker 1: at it as that I didn't make that video. He
Speaker 1: is as responsible for that as if somebody verbally assaulted
Speaker 1: I don't know Jesse Waters in a video? Does Jesse
Speaker 1: Waters recognize his own name if it's yelled at it
Speaker 1: on the streets? He yells at Jesse Waters in a video,
Speaker 1: promises Biden is going to purge Jesse Waters and his
Speaker 1: family and his supporters, and then Biden posted the video
Speaker 1: on his accounts on social media. It is the most
Speaker 1: rapidly efficiently worn out cliche of our century. But truly,
Speaker 1: what would be happening right now if Joe Biden had
Speaker 1: posted some kind of video like the Trump Scarborough video.
Speaker 1: If that had happened, the New York Times headquarters would
Speaker 1: be the first building in human history to faint from
Speaker 1: the vapors. And obviously Biden would not post that hypothetical
Speaker 1: video because his campaign is not an ever increasingly criminal
Speaker 1: plot to extort money from donors and pedal all the
Speaker 1: influence he has and trade tax cuts for political contributions,
Speaker 1: and sell the right to destroy the planet to oil
Speaker 1: executives who apparently get signed kind of bonus if they
Speaker 1: kill all of us by the year twenty thirty instead
Speaker 1: of merely the year twenty thirty five. I have been
Speaker 1: arguing since the year twenty sixteen that the essence of
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign, the Trump zeitgeist. The essence of Trump
Speaker 1: has been hit Larian. Not that he would take the
Speaker 1: oath of office and then open concentration camps a half
Speaker 1: an hour later, Not that I was comparing him to
Speaker 1: Hitler nineteen forty two, but that the point of Trump
Speaker 1: is to help one part of the country metaphor or
Speaker 1: literally kill the other half of the country. When you say,
Speaker 1: as Trump has said, the immigrants are poisoning the blood
Speaker 1: of the nation. When you say, as Trump has said,
Speaker 1: his enemies are vermin and you will remove them, and
Speaker 1: you will use the military, and you will also immunize
Speaker 1: the cops. So guess what. Then you could use the
Speaker 1: cops too, and you will do it quickly. First thing,
Speaker 1: and you will decide who is an immigrant. Guess what?
Speaker 1: What you are building to is an ethnic cleansing of
Speaker 1: the United States of America, only the ethnic definitions are
Speaker 1: kind of fluid. Step one, purge all the immigrants. Step two,
Speaker 1: declare that all of your political opponents are immigrants. It's
Speaker 1: just a word. You could purge. I don't know people
Speaker 1: who look like Swiss cheese. And and then declare that
Speaker 1: all of your political opponents look like Swiss cheese. The
Speaker 1: only thing knew about this is that most of Trump's
Speaker 1: predecessors on this list, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Paul Pott, they
Speaker 1: tried to fool some of the people some of the
Speaker 1: time before revealing their final solutions. Trump is not only
Speaker 1: revealing it. He's not only posting it in videos that
Speaker 1: mock Joe Scarborough. He's not only doing that. But if
Speaker 1: you give him a billion dollars, he'll say, would you
Speaker 1: like to have naming rights to the final solution? Okay?
Speaker 1: Final statements at the trial and ironically, as an aside,
Speaker 1: reading of Trump threatening donors at the Pierre Hotel, which
Speaker 1: I walk past every day every day. I once had
Speaker 1: an hour long staring contest with Bill O'Reilly at a
Speaker 1: charity event inside the Pierre Hotel, reading of him there,
Speaker 1: Reading of him at Mary Lago offering to sell all
Speaker 1: the remaining oxygen for a billion dollars. I think less
Speaker 1: of Hitler and Paul pod and those and more of
Speaker 1: the movie The Untouchables and the Al Capone baseball bat
Speaker 1: scene where Capone in formal attire is meeting with his
Speaker 1: henchmen at a formal dinner and talking about enthusiasms like
Speaker 1: baseball and good teamwork like in baseball. And the next thing, you, oh,
Speaker 1: he's beating in the skull of the character played by
Speaker 1: John Rocky with a baseball bat. And oh yeah, who
Speaker 1: is it that Trump keeps referencing when he boasts about
Speaker 1: how often he's been indicted al Capone? And who is
Speaker 1: it again, who plays.
Speaker 2: Al Capone in the movie The Untouchables. That's right, Robert
Speaker 2: de Niro, who went to the courthouse yesterday and spoke
Speaker 2: out vividly against Trump on Biden's behalf, on America's behalf,
Speaker 2: on Freedom's behalf, and broke all the Republicans. They declared
Speaker 2: he was washed up despite the Oscar nomination this year,
Speaker 2: because the other key to enabling Trump's ethnic more or
Speaker 2: less cleansing of this country is to insist that everybody
Speaker 2: but you and Trump are doing it. On Fox yesterday,
Speaker 2: after De Niro swore at Trump and Maga scum in public,
Speaker 2: Dana Perino, who, until the invention of Kaylee Mcananey, was
Speaker 2: easily the dumbest Press secretary in White House history, Dana
Speaker 2: Perino actually said that de Niro had been sent by
Speaker 2: quote the campaign to do a speech across the street
Speaker 2: from the jury trial. I actually think that they could
Speaker 2: probably file a lawsuit about that, because I think it
Speaker 2: is against the law, that it's against the rights of
Speaker 2: the defendant and of the former president, and it's tampering
Speaker 2: with the jury. Trump bringing the Speaker of the House
Speaker 2: and half a dozen Senators and half a dozen congressmen
Speaker 2: into the courthouse, not across the street, but into the
Speaker 2: courthouse several at a time every day of the trial,
Speaker 2: that's fine. Robert de Niro holding a news conference outside,
Speaker 2: that's against the law. Because simpletons like Dana Perino really
Speaker 2: think like that, and it's not complicated why they think
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: They are right. Therefore, the laws are there to protect
Speaker 1: them and to punish you. Doesn't matter if it's oh,
Speaker 1: going around a formal dining room with a baseball bat, legal,
Speaker 1: if it's Republicans, not legal, if it's Democrats more or
Speaker 1: less at the same hour that Dana Perino was saying that,
Speaker 1: and think about how many things she clearly doesn't understand
Speaker 1: about the United States of America, more or less at
Speaker 1: that same hour, Hogan Gidley, the Trump spokesman who either
Speaker 1: has a really bad wig that he bought at Woolworth's
Speaker 1: or was never taught by his dad how to comb
Speaker 1: his real hair. Hogan Gidley was on CNN upbraiding Jake
Speaker 1: Tapper because Jake Tapper had noted that Judge Eileen Cannon
Speaker 1: was appointed by Trump, but he did not also note
Speaker 1: that Judge Juan mere Shaan once donated to the Biden campaign,
Speaker 1: and to his credit, Tapper replied, yeah, I think he
Speaker 1: gave like thirty five bucks to get a T shirt
Speaker 1: for his daughter, and Hogan Gidley smiled with great satisfaction,
Speaker 1: because this is how they think one judge corrupt, clearly stalling,
Speaker 1: stalling so much. She may actually have stalled too much
Speaker 1: and may get herself removed from that trial, probably not
Speaker 1: in time, but she may get herself removed from that
Speaker 1: trial and sanctioned by the judges above her. Was appointed
Speaker 1: by Trump and the other judge once donated thirty five dollars.
Speaker 1: That's the same thing to them. Because it is illegal
Speaker 1: to oppose Trump, it is illegal to contradict Trump, it
Speaker 1: is illegal to work against Trump, and if it isn't,
Speaker 1: it will be. That's the idea I said. This part
Speaker 1: was about the trial itself, with jury's who knows, But
Speaker 1: I will point out that on May fourteenth, I noted
Speaker 1: the defense's self congratulatory insistence that they had blown up
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen because they insisted a critical call from Cohen
Speaker 1: to the phone of Trump bouncer Keith Schiller on October
Speaker 1: twenty four, twenty sixteen, could not have included questions about
Speaker 1: Harrison calls and the latest on the payments to Stormy Daniels,
Speaker 1: That the call was less than two minutes, that Cohen
Speaker 1: could not have talked about two different things to Shiller
Speaker 1: and to Trump in just that span of time. I
Speaker 1: noted that day. The last part is nonsense. I once
Speaker 1: fired my business manager and my agent in one phone call.
Speaker 1: They were both on that including the pleasantries, lasted thirty
Speaker 1: six seconds. So sure enough, what does Prosecutor Joshua Steinlass
Speaker 1: do in his closing argument to the jury yesterday? Per
Speaker 1: The New York Times, Steinlass just started a timer and
Speaker 1: pretended to have the exact same conversation, adding plenty of
Speaker 1: asides and silences as he played the role of Cohen
Speaker 1: talking first to Schiller and then to Trump. The call
Speaker 1: felt as if it lasted a long time. But when
Speaker 1: Steinlass stopped the timer. It had only been about forty
Speaker 1: nine seconds, about as long as the call in question.
Speaker 1: The point he was seeking to illustrate was simple that
Speaker 1: Cohen could have easily talked to both men just like
Speaker 1: he testified. This was a real piece of showmanship, clever
Speaker 1: and useful at the same time. Moments like these show
Speaker 1: Steinlass's experience as a longtime trial lawyer who can lean
Speaker 1: into the innate theatricality of the role. Jonah Bromwich, New
Speaker 1: York Times Tall JISSEU no idea what the jury will do.
Speaker 1: I know one of Trump's old attorneys was on TV
Speaker 1: and rolled his eyes at much of the Trump closing arguments.
Speaker 1: I know Trump's lawyer violated all the rules of the
Speaker 1: court and told the jury it could not send Trump
Speaker 1: to jail on Cohen's testimony, when this is not the
Speaker 1: jury that would decide if he goes to jail. The
Speaker 1: judge insisted that the lawyer did that deliberately. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you unhear that you can't desclare a mistrial
Speaker 1: in favor of the prosecution. And I do know lawyers
Speaker 1: keep pointing out the crux of this that Trump confessed
Speaker 1: elsewhere to paying Cohen to pay Daniels. And I also
Speaker 1: know that if I were Bob de Niro and I
Speaker 1: was going to speak outside the Trump courthouse about scum
Speaker 1: like Trump, I would have talked more about enthusiasms, and
Speaker 1: I would have brought my baseball back with me coffee.
Speaker 1: Last point. Sometimes I think the New York Times and
Speaker 1: Politico collude. I think they alternate in covering the campaign. Now,
Speaker 1: you guys are going to insist Biden can't win. Okay,
Speaker 1: will write something good saying he could win. Oh wait, no, no,
Speaker 1: you change it. You're going to write something good, Okay,
Speaker 1: then we'll write something bad. Times Yesterday headline, Trump leans
Speaker 1: into an outlaw image as his criminal trial concludes, Preparing
Speaker 1: for a potential verdict in Manhattan, the former president has
Speaker 1: increasingly aligned himself with fellow defendants and people convicted of crimes.
Speaker 1: By this logic, Whenever Trump eventually dies, the Times could
Speaker 1: run a headline saying Trump leans into a dead image
Speaker 1: as his life concludes, explains it'll be easier for him
Speaker 1: to get around because he's lost so much weight. So
Speaker 1: that was the Times out law image, who no rules?
Speaker 1: Just Trump? Politico Yesterday their headline a full blown freak
Speaker 1: out over Biden. I'll read this. A pervasive sense of
Speaker 1: fear has settled in at the highest levels of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party over Joe Biden's reelection prospects, even among office
Speaker 1: holders and strategists who have previously expressed confidence about the
Speaker 1: coming battle with Donald Trump. A few choice quotes a
Speaker 1: Democratic operative, this isn't oh my god, Mitt Romney might
Speaker 1: become president. It's oh my god, the democracy might end.
Speaker 1: There's still a path to win this, but they don't
Speaker 1: look like a campaign that's embarking on that path right now,
Speaker 1: said Pete g and Greco, a longtime Democratic strategist who's
Speaker 1: worked time Blah blah. New York Democrats need to wake up,
Speaker 1: said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levy. The number of people
Speaker 1: in New York, including people of color, that I come across,
Speaker 1: who are saying positive things about Trump is alarming. So
Speaker 1: they are the negatives. This followed last Friday, the Friday
Speaker 1: of Memorial Day weekend, when nobody is reading the holy
Speaker 1: goddamn New York Times, the holy goddamnedest New York Times story.
Speaker 1: I think I have ever read the polls they wrote
Speaker 1: last Friday. I doubt you saw it have shown Trump
Speaker 1: with an edge for eight straight months, but there's one
Speaker 1: big flashing warning sign suggesting that his advantage might not
Speaker 1: be quite as stable as it looks. By the way,
Speaker 1: that's as stable as The Times has made it look,
Speaker 1: while everybody else has said, you know, it's not stable.
Speaker 1: That warning sign the Times went on. His narrow lead
Speaker 1: is built on gains among voters who aren't paying close
Speaker 1: attention to politics, who don't follow traditional news, and who
Speaker 1: don't regularly vote, who don't regularly vote, so he'll win
Speaker 1: the votes of everybody who doesn't vote, go on. To
Speaker 1: the extent that has not been true in the New
Speaker 1: York Times Sienna College polling in the last eight years.
Speaker 1: Disengaged voters are driving the overall polling results and the
Speaker 1: storyline about the election. President Biden has actually led the
Speaker 1: last three Times Sienna national polls among those who voted
Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty election, even as he has trailed
Speaker 1: among registered voters overall. And looking back over the last
Speaker 1: few years, almost all of mister Trump's gains have come
Speaker 1: from these less engaged voters. So all of your polls
Speaker 1: this last year Times have been predicated on the opinions
Speaker 1: and promises and plans of voters who do not vote.
Speaker 1: I understand voters who do not vote might suddenly vote. Gotcha.
Speaker 1: Seems though, that you might have wanted to have mentioned
Speaker 1: this a little earlier, just saying in our polling, mister
Speaker 1: Biden wins just three quarters of Democratic leaning voters who
Speaker 1: didn't vote in the twenty twenty two midterm election, even
Speaker 1: as almost all high turnout Democratic leaners continue to support him.
Speaker 1: While the race has been stable so far. Okay, while
Speaker 1: the race has been stable so far, mister Trump's dependence
Speaker 1: on disengaged voters makes it easy to imagine how it
Speaker 1: could quickly become more volatile as voters tune in over
Speaker 1: the next six months. There's a chance that disengaged but
Speaker 1: traditionally Democratic voters could revert to their usual partisan leanings. Alternately,
Speaker 1: many of these disaffected voters might ultimately stay home, which
Speaker 1: might help mister Biden. The Time's latest excuse for a
Speaker 1: year of polls that have put a huge thumb on
Speaker 1: the polling picture, on the entire coverage of the campaign,
Speaker 1: on Democrats who have panicked and said get rid of
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. The latest Times excuse for its intolerable indefensible
Speaker 1: journalistic malpractice. Is Biden has not been reaching the non
Speaker 1: voters who are non politically plugged in and are non
Speaker 1: readers as well. What important factor might be the media consumption.
Speaker 1: While mister Biden holds nearly all of his support from
Speaker 1: voters who consume traditional mainstream media national newspapers, television networks
Speaker 1: and the like, the disengaged are far likelier to report
Speaker 1: getting their news from social media. Two things here. If
Speaker 1: national newspapers have no sway on this election, why why
Speaker 1: are we bothering to read their polls? Why are we
Speaker 1: bothering to believe leave their polls? Why are we not
Speaker 1: questioning the methodology of their polls? And the other thing,
Speaker 1: If there's one thing we know for certain about social
Speaker 1: media is that it's volatile and its influences are for
Speaker 1: sale by the car load lot. If this really is
Speaker 1: the crux of the problem, flood TikTok, flood insta, get
Speaker 1: on all of them with Biden influencers. How much do
Speaker 1: you think a million dollars will get you on TikTok?
Speaker 1: And here's one idea minute long clips News from the
Speaker 1: Future showing Trump jailing kids who are protesting, showing Trump
Speaker 1: instituting a draft showing all flights being canceled because of
Speaker 1: climate change because Trump sold all the oxygen after he
Speaker 1: got re elected. Paint in broad strokes. In other words,
Speaker 1: if this this is really about people who are influenced
Speaker 1: by social media, largely younger people or even older people,
Speaker 1: scare the crap out of them. And if that fails,
Speaker 1: just run a lot of clips of de Niro with
Speaker 1: the baseball bats. No one wants coffee after that. Also
Speaker 1: of interest, here, who wants to be a millionaire? Jesus does?
Speaker 1: A right wing pastor insists greed is good because Jesus
Speaker 1: was a trust fund baby who was given a million
Speaker 1: dollars at birth. And no, I'm not kidding, hallelujah, hallelujah.
Speaker 1: I wonder if Jesus invested in bedkind. That's next. This
Speaker 1: is Countdown.
Speaker 2: This is Countdown, with Keith Elberman.
Speaker 1: Still ahead of us on this almost all new edition
Speaker 1: of Countdown. There are football fans, and then there are
Speaker 1: football fans who thought about failing everybody in the IVY
Speaker 1: League history class they taught as revenge against the universe
Speaker 1: because their team blew a game on a terrible, stupid
Speaker 1: last second mistake, and of course I was in his
Speaker 1: class and I loved him. Still. Next in things I
Speaker 1: promised not to tell, but first, as ever, there are
Speaker 1: still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup
Speaker 1: of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who
Speaker 1: constitute two days worst persons in the world Theron's worst
Speaker 1: Senator Lindsey Graham. We have all watched as Graham has
Speaker 1: turned from an occasionally surprisingly responsible Republican into a bloated, psychotic,
Speaker 1: hallucinating a biologist for Trump who looks like he's being
Speaker 1: blackmailed with something really, really bad, and he has late
Speaker 1: stage PTSD, and he looks like he might take hostages
Speaker 1: at any moment. On the other hand, Lindsay Graham got
Speaker 1: a lot of grief undeserved, I think for something he
Speaker 1: said recently on Fox. He was schmoozing the idiots on
Speaker 1: the Fox Morning Show couch where you go to sit
Speaker 1: on your brains, and he was reassuring the challenged hosts
Speaker 1: that no, they were not propagandizing for fascism, they were
Speaker 1: standing up for freedom. The bottom line he is, Graham drawled,
Speaker 1: conservatives are tolerant. We are kind of get out of
Speaker 1: your business. You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, this has been met with guffaws, except
Speaker 1: I think it was met with guffaws because people thought
Speaker 1: when Lindsey Graham said tolerant, they thought he meant human tolerance,
Speaker 1: like letting people believe what they want to believe, letting
Speaker 1: women vote, letting minorities vote, letting Democrats vote, not trying
Speaker 1: to destroy the Capitol because they lost an election and
Speaker 1: they cannot deal with it. No, of course he didn't
Speaker 1: mean that kind of tolerant. Lindsey Graham said exactly literally
Speaker 1: what he meant. Let me read you that quote again.
Speaker 1: Conservatives are tolerant. We are kind of get out of
Speaker 1: your business. Take him literally here. Of course, Conservatives are
Speaker 1: tolerant about your business. I mean he just said your
Speaker 1: business business. They are get out of your business, conservatives,
Speaker 1: especial if your business wants to cheat on its taxes,
Speaker 1: or discriminate against gays, or payoff porn stars before an election,
Speaker 1: or hire eight year olds to clean dangerous machinery, or
Speaker 1: contribute billions of dollars to overthrowing democracy. That's what Lindsey
Speaker 1: Graham meant by tolerant. Literally, get out of my business.
Speaker 1: The runner's up Congress here is an enigma. A year ago,
Speaker 1: last March, the House of Representatives passed a spending bill
Speaker 1: that included required, mandated the construction, creation, and installation of
Speaker 1: a plaque listing the names of the officers who served
Speaker 1: at the capitol on January sixth, ordering that it be
Speaker 1: installed when ready on the western front of our capital.
Speaker 1: And fourteen months later, nothing, All quiet on the western
Speaker 1: front of our capital, no plaque, and Presentative Zoe Lofgren's
Speaker 1: letters to Speaker Mike Johnson about what he did with
Speaker 1: the plaque have gone unanswered. Well, of course, you don't
Speaker 1: have to be an expert to figure this one out.
Speaker 1: The plaque would offend Trump because it would give official
Speaker 1: sanction to the idea that the police were the good
Speaker 1: guys on January sixth, and Trump's traders were the bad guys.
Speaker 1: And Trump can't accept that. So Mike Johnson is slow
Speaker 1: walking a plaque that you know, backs the Blue, because
Speaker 1: Trump and the Republicans don't back the Blue. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, Monday Memorial Day, a man named Ben Pollock,
Speaker 1: the proud father of not one, but two insurrectionist bastards,
Speaker 1: who attacked the Capitol and the cops on January sixth
Speaker 1: led a convoy that tried to force its way into
Speaker 1: Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day to install there in
Speaker 1: the nation's most hallowed ground, a stone reading in honor
Speaker 1: of the ones who lost their lives on jan six,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, starting with Ashley Babbitt, and then there
Speaker 1: were three other names of insurrectionists or whatever garbage they were.
Speaker 1: When stopped by authorities this Yahoo Pollock got out live
Speaker 1: streaming this, and he insisted that Ashley Babbitt should be
Speaker 1: buried there quote right up there with mister Lee. And again,
Speaker 1: the appalling glorification of Traders is one thing. I'm afraid
Speaker 1: we're sort of used to that. But the continuously amazing
Speaker 1: part to me is the endless stupidity of these idiots,
Speaker 1: because while Arlington National Cemetery was once the mansion of
Speaker 1: Robert E. Lee, Robert E. Lee Trader is in fact
Speaker 1: buried at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where
Speaker 1: he was president when he died, which they could have
Speaker 1: googled if only they were smart enough to think. I
Speaker 1: wonder if I might be wrong out something in life PostScript,
Speaker 1: speaking of which one of the other names printed on
Speaker 1: that rock, And it's a rock with white paint on
Speaker 1: it and names then stenciled on it in black, and
Speaker 1: it looks like crap. It looks like a large frozen
Speaker 1: turkey from the A and P. One of the names
Speaker 1: on there is a woman named Roseanne Boyland, and these
Speaker 1: geniuses misspelled her name Roseanne. But our winner, Pastor Shane Vaughan.
Speaker 1: We visited with Pastor Shane before, courtesythefine folks at Friendlyatheist
Speaker 1: dot com. Pastor Shane was the one who said he
Speaker 1: had to be careful. He could not go on his
Speaker 1: live stream and call Joy Read of MSNBC a quote
Speaker 1: jungle bunny. And of course he said those exact words
Speaker 1: while claiming he was not saying them, because all you
Speaker 1: need to do is look at this guy and you
Speaker 1: realize that he has the ethics of the most corrupt
Speaker 1: insurance agent you've ever met. Pastor Shane has moved on
Speaker 1: to defending himself after what appears to have been a
Speaker 1: spate of complaints because he's been caught driving around in
Speaker 1: a Cadillac. Even his parishioners are wondering why so. Pastor
Speaker 1: Shane did another stream of some sort, just attacked all
Speaker 1: his own faithful who think maybe pastors shouldn't be rich.
Speaker 3: For some reason. There is this messed up thinking in
Speaker 3: the minds of people that pastors are to be poor.
Speaker 3: And I don't know. For example, this vehicle I'm driving
Speaker 3: right here, people look at it. Yes, it's a very
Speaker 3: extensive vehicle, very very But what you don't know is
Speaker 3: I didn't buy it. You didn't know that, did you.
Speaker 3: That's because you got your nose in places and you
Speaker 3: don't even know what you're talking about. This was given
Speaker 3: to me. You understand that people don't know those things.
Speaker 3: It's none of their business. But yes, I drive a
Speaker 3: Cadillact that I did not buy. Do you think I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna throw it in the ditch because it was
Speaker 3: given to me?
Speaker 1: So religious vows of poverty and whatnot just nonsense, utter nonsense,
Speaker 1: says Pastor Shane. Why look at Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is
Speaker 1: your defense for driving a Cadillac. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see how this plays out. Jesus, according to Pastor Shane,
Speaker 1: was a trust fund baby.
Speaker 3: Where do we get this thing from that? Anybody in
Speaker 3: the world can be blessed except a pastor. Where did
Speaker 3: that thinking come from? People say, well, Jesus didn't even
Speaker 3: have a place to lay his head, you poor uneducated
Speaker 3: Bible reader. Go look. I believe in the Book of
Speaker 3: Mark where it says the total opposite. It says that
Speaker 3: they were at Jesus's.
Speaker 1: House, his home. He had a home.
Speaker 3: What do you think Yashua did with all the money
Speaker 3: that was brought to him at his birth? Do you
Speaker 3: know what was brought to him from the kings of
Speaker 3: the East Gold Frankensons, mrkh Do you know how much
Speaker 3: that was worth in today's dollars? Almost a million dollars
Speaker 3: was given to the baby Jesus. What do you think
Speaker 3: financed his life? What do you think financed his ministry?
Speaker 3: Supernatural finances?
Speaker 1: Hallelujah and pass the tax deductions? Supernatural finances. Million dollar baby,
Speaker 1: million dollar Jesus, hallelujah, a million dollar Jesus. Okay, we
Speaker 1: can make fun of Pastor Shane with the ethics of
Speaker 1: a corrupt insurance agent, and God knows we will make
Speaker 1: fun of him, but I do have to offer a
Speaker 1: little factual analysis of his rationalization. His biblical greed is
Speaker 1: good because Jesus had a million dollars at birth. People
Speaker 1: who take the Bible seriously but also believe in like
Speaker 1: you know. Historical research have concluded that if you superimposed
Speaker 1: today's economics on the world of two thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: a pound of frankincense would be worth in today's money
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars, a pound of gold would be worth
Speaker 1: six hundred dollars, and a pound of murrh four thousand dollars. Hey,
Speaker 1: forget buying any of that gold. Let's invest in murr.
Speaker 1: In short, it would be as if putin King Charles
Speaker 1: and Trump gave Jesus twenty twenty four fifty one hundred
Speaker 1: bucks supernatural finances. You betcha hallelujah. Pastor Shane Vaughn can't add,
Speaker 1: can't count, can't do math, can't lie well, which is
Speaker 1: really a problem because he actually is an insurance agent
Speaker 1: as well. Can I pay you later past your insurance
Speaker 1: agent when my supernatural finances come through?
Speaker 2: Two days? Worst person.
Speaker 4: In the world?
Speaker 2: Where where are you? Tone? Why did you need me? Me?
Speaker 1: Roll alone? I searched the world.
Speaker 4: Over and a thought of about your love, But you
Speaker 4: made another and he was gone.
Speaker 1: The number one story on the countdown, and why don't
Speaker 1: we just make this stuff from my college days week?
Speaker 1: I know, I know, there's a really good chance you
Speaker 1: still have not finished yesterday's things. I promised not to
Speaker 1: tell about how I had to take twenty eight credits
Speaker 1: ten classes in my last semester of college just to
Speaker 1: graduate on time because Dad wouldn't pay for a dollar's
Speaker 1: worth after that one semester, and I had to walk
Speaker 1: up hill in the snow both ways. Had to take
Speaker 1: twenty eight credits in my last semester of college just
Speaker 1: to graduate on time, And how because of that I
Speaker 1: have endured nearly half a century of dreams about not
Speaker 1: graduating on time. I know I went on for a
Speaker 1: bit about this subject, like about half an hour. Sorry anyway,
Speaker 1: this story is two semesters before that, and much much shorter.
Speaker 1: It was the fall of my senior year at Cornell,
Speaker 1: and it's about a four credit course that I nearly failed,
Speaker 1: in fact, that every but in the class nearly failed
Speaker 1: because a quarterback fumbled a football in an NFL game. Seriously,
Speaker 1: in September nineteen seventy eight, I walked reluctantly but proudly
Speaker 1: into this one class at Cornell University, and if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, to get into nineteenth century American history with
Speaker 1: Professor Joel Silby eight credits spanning two semesters, I had
Speaker 1: to get special permission from the History department because I
Speaker 1: was not a history major. I just took all the
Speaker 1: history classes I could get, even this one, which was
Speaker 1: really toughly graded, an awful lot of reading, amazing amount
Speaker 1: of detail, and really good. Not only was Professor Silby
Speaker 1: really good, but the reading material was outstanding. I took
Speaker 1: all the Corneill history classes I could get, and this
Speaker 1: was one of the best ones. And I remember Profess
Speaker 1: Sir Sylby's first lecture and the accent and the mannerisms
Speaker 1: that quickly identified him not only as a fellow native
Speaker 1: New Yorker, but as a Brookly Knight and a Brookly
Speaker 1: Knight fan of as he quickly told us the New
Speaker 1: York football giants. What Professor Joel Silbey said next, cause
Speaker 1: the I think it was two hundred or so other
Speaker 1: students in the lecture hall to laugh, all of them
Speaker 1: except me, because I was the sports director of the
Speaker 1: Cornhill student owned radio station, and in those days you
Speaker 1: could actually know everything about and everybody in all the
Speaker 1: national sports off the top of your head, and usually
Speaker 1: that meant you could figure out all the teams in
Speaker 1: all the sports that had the slightest chance of succeeding,
Speaker 1: and all the teams in all the sports that did not.
Speaker 1: And the New York Football Giants did not. I want
Speaker 1: you to know I grade the papers, not the teaching
Speaker 1: assistants me and I happened to be a lifelong, therefore
Speaker 1: long suffering fan of the New York Football Giants. I
Speaker 1: saw my first Giant game in nineteen forty five, and
Speaker 1: over the years I happened to developed this habit of
Speaker 1: grading your papers on Sunday afternoons and evenings right after
Speaker 1: I watch my New York Football Giants. So, to some
Speaker 1: degree great or small, your grade will depend on how
Speaker 1: well the New York Football Giants do. In this nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight National Football League season, one hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: nine of Joel Sylbe's students laughed. I emitted a low moan,
Speaker 1: since they had gone to five NFL championship games in
Speaker 1: the six seasons ending in nineteen sixty three and lost
Speaker 1: all five. By the way, the Giants had had exactly
Speaker 1: two winning seasons and they had lost nine of fourteen
Speaker 1: games the year before nineteen seventy seven. Though they had
Speaker 1: opened this nineteen seventy eight season with a narrow victory
Speaker 1: over a very bad Tampa Bay team, and the first
Speaker 1: half of their schedule had as many as four more
Speaker 1: opponents who they might be better than. They would be lucky
Speaker 1: to win two games in the second half of the season.
Speaker 1: When I got back to the radio station, I looked
Speaker 1: at the Giants' schedule and Professor Silbey's class schedule, and
Speaker 1: I circled one critical day when the schedules converged, Sunday,
Speaker 1: November nineteenth, nineteen seventy eight. Our term papers were due
Speaker 1: on Thursday the sixteenth. He could actually read them all
Speaker 1: after the Giants Eagles game that night in the following day. Amazingly,
Speaker 1: your New York Football Giants actually opened the season winning
Speaker 1: three of their first four. In the middle of October,
Speaker 1: they were still five and three, and in the history
Speaker 1: lecture room, Professor Sylby was very happy, and he often
Speaker 1: recreated highlights of his glorious giants pleasing success. And he
Speaker 1: was furiously fanboying on the new quarterback they'd brought in
Speaker 1: from the Canadian League Joe Pisarchik. If you are a
Speaker 1: football history fan, or god forbid, a fan of the
Speaker 1: New York Football Giants, you already know where I'm going
Speaker 1: with this. The Giants lost the next three games, and
Speaker 1: then our term papers were due on November sixteenth, and
Speaker 1: Joel Sylbey turned morose and I was at the radio
Speaker 1: station watching the Giants Eagles game of the nineteenth on
Speaker 1: a big black and white TV in the lounge when
Speaker 1: my nightmare unfolded impossibly. The Giants led the much better
Speaker 1: Philadelphia Eagles fourteen nothing. After the first quarter. Pisarcik threw
Speaker 1: two touchdown passes. After the third quarter, it was still
Speaker 1: seventeen to six Giants. Then the Eagles scored and they
Speaker 1: were driving to go ahead with a minute and a
Speaker 1: half left in the game, when the impossible happened deep
Speaker 1: in Giants' territory. The Philly quarterback threw an interception with
Speaker 1: eighty three seconds left and in possession of the ball.
Speaker 1: The Giants led seventeen thirteen. The crowd at the radio
Speaker 1: station was ecstatic. I was even more ecstatic. All the
Speaker 1: Giants now had to do was stall and have the
Speaker 1: quarterback fall on the ball, maybe twice, as if he
Speaker 1: had heard me. Quarterback Joe Pisarchik fell on the ball.
Speaker 1: Then he nearly killed me by handing the ball off
Speaker 1: to his running back Larry Zanka, who plowed up the
Speaker 1: middle to get a first down and burn another thirty
Speaker 1: seconds off the clock. The Eagles called their last time out,
Speaker 1: thirty one seconds left, thirty one seconds to my grade
Speaker 1: in Joel Silbey's nineteenth century American history class, probably ending
Speaker 1: up being half or maybe even a full grade better
Speaker 1: than I deserved. All Joe Pisarchik had to do was
Speaker 1: fall on the damn ball again.
Speaker 2: And it was over.
Speaker 1: However, on the Giant's sideline, offensive coordinator Bob Gibson decided
Speaker 1: that the safe play, the winning play, was for Jopisarcik
Speaker 1: to hand the ball off again to Larry Zanka. Now
Speaker 1: that might have been the right play, only Bob Gibson
Speaker 1: and everybody else failed to tell Larry Zanka. Larry Zanka
Speaker 1: assumed he was there just to block for Joe Pisarcik.
Speaker 1: As Joe Pisarcik collapsed to the turf and ran out
Speaker 1: the clock and got me a better grind instead, Pisarchik
Speaker 1: handed the ball to where Zanka's hands should have been,
Speaker 1: except Larry Zanka was in the blocking stance, and Pisarchik
Speaker 1: in fact handed it off directly to Larry Zanka's helmet.
Speaker 1: I screamed. The ball bounced once off the turf and
Speaker 1: directly into the hands of Philadelphia cornerback Herman Edwards. I
Speaker 1: continued to scream. There was nobody near Edwards, and he
Speaker 1: scooted twenty six yards into the end zone and the
Speaker 1: Giants lost the damn game nineteen to seventeen. In the
Speaker 1: last seconds, And as the Giants fans at the radio
Speaker 1: station shouted or moaned or swore, I could see Professor
Speaker 1: Joel Sylvie shutting off the TV, grabbing our papers and
Speaker 1: sentencing us to hell, and I continued to scream. Our
Speaker 1: term papers were returned on Tuesday the twenty first, just
Speaker 1: before school broke for Thanksgiving. I actually was thankful I
Speaker 1: got either a B or a B plus. I can't
Speaker 1: find the paper. It should be somewhere in a box.
Speaker 1: There was a rumor which I was never able to confirm,
Speaker 1: that my B or B plus was the highest grade
Speaker 1: in the class. I can confirm I saw classmates, most
Speaker 1: far more prepared and astute than myself, most of them
Speaker 1: history majors, looking at their grades and blanching visibly. One
Speaker 1: girl cried, a C, really a C. Professor Joel Silbey said,
Speaker 1: much of our grade would depend on how well the
Speaker 1: New York Football Giants did in that nineteen seventy eight
Speaker 1: national football season. And my god, they had just sustained
Speaker 1: a loss so bad that it is still talked about
Speaker 1: to this day. My classmates did not listen, and I
Speaker 1: only am escaped alone to tell thee there is a PostScript.
Speaker 1: The PostScript takes place thirty two and one half years later.
Speaker 1: I returned to Cornell in March of twenty eleven to
Speaker 1: give a lecture and teach a series of classes to
Speaker 1: students who no longer afterwards felt they had got in
Speaker 1: their full money from the university. My alma mater was
Speaker 1: very kind to me. They gave me a tour of
Speaker 1: the secret places they never would have shown me when
Speaker 1: I was a struggling student, like where they kept Cornell's
Speaker 1: copy of the Gettysburg address. And they promised me something
Speaker 1: special for lunch the first day, and sure enough I
Speaker 1: was dropped off at a restaurant, and there, rising from
Speaker 1: a table to greet me with applause, were Cornell's official
Speaker 1: historian and former Professor Glenn alt Schuller and their very
Speaker 1: famous history professor Walter LaFeber, and I swear Professor Joel Silby,
Speaker 1: and they were fans of mine. Of course, I could
Speaker 1: not leave well enough alone. After a few minutes of
Speaker 1: very pleasant conversation with mister alt Schuller and Professor la
Speaker 1: Faber and Professor Silby, I brought up the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight term paper Joe pisarcik Handoff Story. Professor la Faber
Speaker 1: looked at Professor Silby like Professor Silby was out of
Speaker 1: his mind? Is that true? And Sylbey smiled and said, yes,
Speaker 1: yes it is. And then Joel Silbey looked off into
Speaker 1: the distance as if he were peering backwards through time.
Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy eight, that's when you could really enjoy being
Speaker 1: a professor. He then looked back at me and smiled, Keith,
Speaker 1: you won't believe this, but I actually graded those papers
Speaker 1: pretty fairly, and I didn't follow through on my original plan.
Speaker 1: After the fumble, I actually turned off the TV and
Speaker 1: I sat there for a few minutes, and I asked
Speaker 1: my soul if it was okay for me to take
Speaker 1: my revenge on the universe by failing all of you.
Speaker 1: The favorite gulped. Oh, said Sylby. It was so great
Speaker 1: to be a professor back then. I laughed so much
Speaker 1: I had tears in my eyes. And then Sylby said, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I was a little unfair to you guys, but
Speaker 1: you know it's the Giants and you have to take
Speaker 1: this as as a whole. The year they won their first
Speaker 1: Super Bowl, what was that eighty six? The final exam
Speaker 1: in that class was like two days after they finished
Speaker 1: the regular season, fourteen and two, eight o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: So I go to the final see, which I never do.
Speaker 1: And I waited until they were all sitting there sweating,
Speaker 1: and I said, remember last September when I told you
Speaker 1: your grade will depend on how well the New York
Speaker 1: Football Giants doing this nineteen eighty six National Football League season,
Speaker 1: And there was just silence, and I said, well, if
Speaker 1: you didn't notice, they went fourteen and two, and I
Speaker 1: haven't been this happy since when they won the title
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty six. So guess what, there's no final exam,
Speaker 1: and nobody moved, so I said it again, there's no
Speaker 1: final exam, Go home, go study for something else. You'
Speaker 1: all get a's. And then there was a couple of
Speaker 1: seconds of silence, and they all simultaneously realized I was
Speaker 1: not kidding, and everybody cheered and ran out into the sunshine.
Speaker 1: So with me and professors Alt Schuler and la Faber
Speaker 1: now in tears, Sylby said, see it evens out, and
Speaker 1: I said, the hell it does. I graduated in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine. How does a canceled final in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: six even it out?
Speaker 2: For me?
Speaker 1: Fella Joel Silby thought for a second and then he said, wow,
Speaker 1: I am buying you lunch. I've done all the damage
Speaker 1: I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical
Speaker 1: directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel arranged, produced, and
Speaker 1: performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass,
Speaker 1: and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and
Speaker 1: it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some
Speaker 1: of the aetoven compositions, arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.
Speaker 1: The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtis of ESPN, Inc. Where
Speaker 1: or Where Are You Tonight? Was from heehaw in about
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy and I sang that a cappella. Our satirical
Speaker 1: and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Faust, the best
Speaker 1: baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was my friend John Dean,
Speaker 1: and everything else was pretty much my fault, especially singing
Speaker 1: a cappella. So that's countdown for this the one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty second day until the twenty twenty four presidential election,
Speaker 1: the one two hundred and thirty ninth day since Dictator
Speaker 1: Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
Speaker 1: of the United States. Use the legal system, use the
Speaker 1: mental health system, use presidential immunity if it happens, use
Speaker 1: the not regularly given elector objection to stop him from
Speaker 1: doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled
Speaker 1: countdown is tomorrow bulletins as the news warrants till then,
Speaker 1: I'm Keith Ulberman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
Speaker 1: good luck. Supernatural Finances Countdown with Keith Oldman is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.