Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. They
Speaker 1: have inadvertently confessed why Alex Pretty was murdered by Ice
Speaker 1: and Border Patrol in Minneapolis Saturday. They the Trump dictatorship
Speaker 1: and its terrorists, the paramilitary organization the Proud Ice Boys
Speaker 1: death Squad. They murdered Alex Pretty as a warning that
Speaker 1: this is what they will continue to do if local
Speaker 1: leaders like Minnesota's governor do not stop thwarting the Trump dictatorship.
Speaker 1: They hadn't even cleaned up the murder site yet, and
Speaker 1: yet Trump's concierge, Attorney General Pambody, was already on Fox confessing.
Speaker 1: What she said could someday send her to finish her
Speaker 1: life in jail. But that's someday right now. What matters
Speaker 1: is what her confession means to us, Her confession about
Speaker 1: the letter she sent. It is an extortion letter, a
Speaker 1: blackmail letter, a kidnapping letter. It is a letter promising
Speaker 1: to end Trump's invasion of Minnesota, to withdraw Ice if
Speaker 1: Trump's ransom demands are met. Quote, we sent Governor Walls
Speaker 1: a very strong letter today, BONDI said to whichever Fox
Speaker 1: meat puppet was on the air that hour, We got
Speaker 1: it out, saying that he better support President Trump, he
Speaker 1: better support the men and women in law enforcement, because
Speaker 1: if he doesn't, we are, and that's what we're doing
Speaker 1: right now. He better support President Trump. It's simple. They
Speaker 1: want voter rolls and Medicare data and other showy things
Speaker 1: with which to suppress minorities and fix the midterms. But
Speaker 1: the big picture, the big message BONDI was too stupid
Speaker 1: to finesse or dress up. It's right there. What we
Speaker 1: did Saturday morning is she implied a message to Governor
Speaker 1: Walls and every other governor and every other mayor and
Speaker 1: every other American quote, saying that he better support President
Speaker 1: Trump because if he doesn't, we are, and that's what
Speaker 1: we're doing right now. Support Trump or we will well,
Speaker 1: we will keep shooting your residence. Comply or your people
Speaker 1: will die, or you will die. The United States of
Speaker 1: America is at this moment without a functioning government. In
Speaker 1: place of a government, the United States of America now
Speaker 1: has a Trump terrorist organization in forced by a paramilitary
Speaker 1: death squad, proud ice boys, masked gunmen, street gangs in
Speaker 1: Nazi leathered trench coats. The United States of America is
Speaker 1: at this moment without a functioning government, and the United
Speaker 1: States of America is at this moment without a functioning constitution,
Speaker 1: and the United States of America is at this moment
Speaker 1: without a functioning president. We are destabilized from within by
Speaker 1: state sponsored terrorism, our own state, with our own terrorist,
Speaker 1: the worst terrorist this nation has ever faced. Donald John Trump,
Speaker 1: he serves no one but himself, at his co conspirators,
Speaker 1: and his gangs and militias and Gestapo, and for all
Speaker 1: we know mercenaries which he calls homeland security and border
Speaker 1: patrol and Ice, and they are rioters and provocateurs and enforcers,
Speaker 1: and they are death squads. Trump serves no one but himself.
Speaker 1: He protects no one but himself, and he protects those
Speaker 1: who will break the laws on his behalf, his criminals,
Speaker 1: his executioners. You saw what happened. The world saw what happened.
Speaker 1: The video is conclusive, and what it depicts is unmistakable.
Speaker 1: Alex Pretty, a nurse, a nurse at a VA hospital,
Speaker 1: goes to where Ice was threatening to riot again. He
Speaker 1: brought with him his gun, for which he had a permit,
Speaker 1: which every right winger for half a century has claimed
Speaker 1: is the most important part of the Constitution, sometimes the
Speaker 1: only part of the Constitution they can even see. When
Speaker 1: he got there, he saw Ice sadists pepper sprang and
Speaker 1: knocking a woman to the snowy street. He filmed it.
Speaker 1: He tried to help her up. They swarmed him. They
Speaker 1: forced him to the ground, They beat him, They found
Speaker 1: and removed the gun he was not holding. And then
Speaker 1: as he fell to the ground and lay there defenseless,
Speaker 1: they shot him in the head and ten times in
Speaker 1: total the end. And then this subhuman witch, Christie Nome,
Speaker 1: got up and before his body was cold, accused him
Speaker 1: of being a domestic terrorist and of brandishing a gun.
Speaker 1: And amid the obvious slanders and untruths that brand her
Speaker 1: either a compulsive liar or someone impaired by brain injury
Speaker 1: or vision deprivation or impairment, she told the real story here,
Speaker 1: that Alex Pretty was shot because he interfered with what
Speaker 1: ICE was doing in Minneapolis, with its duties, with its purpose.
Speaker 1: And if you take that as the only true thing
Speaker 1: she said, true monstrousness of what happens Saturday becomes even
Speaker 1: worse because Christy Nome's inference, the sadistic admission she is
Speaker 1: too stupid and delusional to understand she made is that
Speaker 1: ICE's duties under the Trump a dvanced dictatorship are menacing
Speaker 1: Americans citizens and non citizens alike and throwing them to
Speaker 1: the ground and beating them and then killing them. This
Speaker 1: wasn't some kind of mistake. Noome hasn't said it. None
Speaker 1: of them have said it. None of them have said
Speaker 1: it still that the death of Alex Pretty was even
Speaker 1: a mistake, just as she and the others scums still
Speaker 1: haven't said the death of Renee Good was even a mistake.
Speaker 1: They continue to glory in what they did. Christin Noman,
Speaker 1: Tom Holman and todd Lyons and this pile of vomit
Speaker 1: in an SS trench coat. Bovino are celebrating the murders
Speaker 1: of Pretty and Good and the others who have been injured,
Speaker 1: and the others who have been seized, and the five
Speaker 1: year olds used as bait, and the doctors who have
Speaker 1: been not eyed access to the men dying of murders
Speaker 1: stochastically ordered by Trump. They have been glorying in this
Speaker 1: because that is what ICE's purpose is. That is what
Speaker 1: Bovino's purpose is, that is what nomes purpose is. That
Speaker 1: is what this dressed up street gang called Ice, barely
Speaker 1: dressed up street gang is. That is what Homan is,
Speaker 1: That is what Lions is, that is what the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice is. This wasn't some nightmare of hatred mixed
Speaker 1: with sadism, mixed with improper training. They meant for it
Speaker 1: to be like this, and they mean for it to
Speaker 1: be worse than this. Christy Nomes job is to get
Speaker 1: Americans killed. The proud Ice boys jobs are to throw
Speaker 1: Americans to the streets and beat them and killed them.
Speaker 1: Their duties are to menace and throw women and the
Speaker 1: elderly to the ground. And all that Nomes said is
Speaker 1: an acknowledgment of every one of our enraged criticisms about
Speaker 1: who they are and what they are doing. It is
Speaker 1: their confirmation that not only are we correct, but that
Speaker 1: we have understood their goal. They are not only terrorists,
Speaker 1: they intend to be terrorists, and not just some small
Speaker 1: subset of undocumented immigrants, some small number of easily slandered,
Speaker 1: easily targeted other scapegoats. This is intended to terrorize all Americans,
Speaker 1: and that includes those massachists who form half the base
Speaker 1: of Trump's support and to whom Ice is also a
Speaker 1: reminder a much more subtle reminder you want to be
Speaker 1: on our side, because here is what we do to
Speaker 1: people who are not on our side. And guess what,
Speaker 1: mister and missus maga in your heart, you may think
Speaker 1: you are one of us, and that we are what
Speaker 1: you voted for, and that you are safe. But what
Speaker 1: we really want you to take away from Minneapolis is
Speaker 1: that you can be a white guy who works for
Speaker 1: the government, and you can have a gun permit and
Speaker 1: you can carry the gun in accordance with the Second Amendment.
Speaker 1: We whip you into a frenzy over and we will
Speaker 1: still kill you. We will still kill you. Ice DHS
Speaker 1: these paramilitary gangs who then tried to destroy the evidence
Speaker 1: of their murder, and the local cops had to threaten them,
Speaker 1: and the city had to go to court to get
Speaker 1: a restraining order to keep them from destroying the evidence.
Speaker 1: Although they probably have These are terrorist organizations. The Trump
Speaker 1: vance government is a terrorist organization. I have been saying
Speaker 1: this since twenty sixteen, when I had to phrase it
Speaker 1: as a theoretical because we were still in the middle
Speaker 1: of that first goddamned election, when I had to say
Speaker 1: that if Trump meant what he said in his campaign,
Speaker 1: there would be concentration camps Trump concentration camps full of
Speaker 1: minorities and immigrants, and there would be American born citizens
Speaker 1: in there with them, or American born citizens injured or
Speaker 1: in jail, because not everybody was going to go along
Speaker 1: with the purging of their own neighbors. Not this time.
Speaker 1: Trump is a terrorist, Gnome is a terrorist. The murderers
Speaker 1: of Alex Prettier terrorist and they should all be in
Speaker 1: Gitmo today. The only difference between two thousand and twenty
Speaker 1: six and two thousand and sixteen is it's no longer
Speaker 1: theoretical they won't become terrorists. They are terrorists now. Well,
Speaker 1: there is one other difference. They are making almost no
Speaker 1: effort to hide it anymore, because to hide it, to
Speaker 1: deny it, is to deprive themselves of the other purpose
Speaker 1: of state sponsored terrorism against America and Americans, the opportunity
Speaker 1: to course and blackmail and neutralize the remaining local and
Speaker 1: state governments that might still defend citizens and stand between
Speaker 1: them and the murdering menace that is Trump and his thugs.
Speaker 1: As much as Alex Pretti tried to stand between the
Speaker 1: women on the street in Minneapolis Saturday and the oncoming
Speaker 1: proud Ice boys to deny that this is the plan
Speaker 1: is to hamstring Pam Bondy Gnomes response, and the best
Speaker 1: theoretical explanation for her, for all of them, is that
Speaker 1: they are strung out. Nome's response was appalling and infuriating,
Speaker 1: and yet it was surprisingly missionary position. She's a liar,
Speaker 1: she's a sadist, She's covered for Corey Lewandowski. She will
Speaker 1: do whatever is required for money and power. She is
Speaker 1: utterly fungible, and they could replace her tomorrow, and with
Speaker 1: the perversions she has had done to her appearance, they
Speaker 1: could literally replace her with somebody who looked sort of
Speaker 1: like her. And if the replacement had a deviated septum,
Speaker 1: you might never know the difference. Christinom is male order,
Speaker 1: Christinome is basic. But Pam Bondi is in a way, far,
Speaker 1: far more dangerous. Despite I have met her, despite her
Speaker 1: belligerent stupidity, her response to the murder of Alex pretty
Speaker 1: seemed too fast, too on the nose, too rehearsed. If
Speaker 1: you told me before she started to talk on Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 1: if you told me somebody instructed the ice invasion force
Speaker 1: in Minnesota on Thursday or Friday, Hey kill some guy
Speaker 1: tomorrow or Saturday, so BONDI can threaten to have you
Speaker 1: do it again. I would argue back against your conspiracy theory,
Speaker 1: but the only real heft to my argument would be
Speaker 1: that these people are too incompetent to pull off a
Speaker 1: conspiracy that they would want to do this. I have
Speaker 1: no doubt of that. But then BONDI responded to the
Speaker 1: murder by confirming the conspiracy theory. To send, she says,
Speaker 1: Governor walls that extortion letter, a series of threats, a
Speaker 1: series of demands, a series of orders, with the not
Speaker 1: too thinly veiled threat that if they are not complied with, well,
Speaker 1: there are a lot more Renee Goods and Alex Preddi's
Speaker 1: out there in Minnesota. And it's not like we're short
Speaker 1: of homicidal maniacs with endless AMMO and no Morality's not
Speaker 1: like we're short of people who will get up and
Speaker 1: lie while the video plays, proving they are lying as
Speaker 1: they are lying. And it's not like we're short of
Speaker 1: masochistic and sadistic maga out there who want to see
Speaker 1: people murdered, because that's what masochists and sadists and trumpists
Speaker 1: are Bondy, as you know, made an offer, an offer
Speaker 1: that Tim Walls is not supposed to. What was that
Speaker 1: phrase again, refuse it's a threat, of course, but she
Speaker 1: called it an offer. We will withdraw our Ice death
Speaker 1: squads from Minnesota after you give us all your medicaid
Speaker 1: and food assistant records, after you repudiate your sanctuary cities,
Speaker 1: after you swear to have your cops cooperate with and
Speaker 1: subordinate themselves to our power military gang, and then give
Speaker 1: us your voter rolls so we can prosecute you for
Speaker 1: discriminating against white people. You know, white people like the
Speaker 1: ones we've shot on your streets this month. The real
Speaker 1: victims here, Oh no, not when we shoot them, then
Speaker 1: they're not victims. Then the Ice and Border Patrol officers
Speaker 1: are the real victims here because they had a camera
Speaker 1: thrust towards them. And oh, by the way, with the
Speaker 1: voter rolls, we can purge all the Democrats and minority
Speaker 1: voters we can get away with from your voter rolls,
Speaker 1: because that's the only way we will not lose the midterms,
Speaker 1: and that's the only way all of us in Trump
Speaker 1: terrorist organizations and such won't wind up living out our
Speaker 1: worthless lives in prison, standard organized crime, standard terrorist organization,
Speaker 1: standard putinesque hitlerresque dictatorship procedure, damage wound, destroy kill first,
Speaker 1: then issue demands, then blame the victim, then agree to
Speaker 1: stop your crimes. If your victims essentially confess to enough
Speaker 1: fictition crimes to allow you to then say, we have
Speaker 1: defeated the Minnesota enemy. And not only have we defeated them,
Speaker 1: their evidence that they gave us now justifies us taking
Speaker 1: our proud Ice boys and invading New York because in
Speaker 1: New York they're doing the thing we told you they
Speaker 1: were doing in Minnesota, and Minnesota just confessed standard blackmail
Speaker 1: and extortion and frankly standard paramilitary dictatorship. And yet somehow
Speaker 1: it is still even worse. BONDI sent the letter to Walls.
Speaker 1: We assume this is true. We can't be sure. Can't
Speaker 1: be sure she actually sent Walls the letter. Hell Alex
Speaker 1: Pretti's family said Saturday night, nobody from ICE or DHS
Speaker 1: or the Trump mafia or anybody in the government. The
Speaker 1: federal government notified them that he was dead. Twelve hours later,
Speaker 1: they still hadn't heard from them. They had found out
Speaker 1: he was dead when an Associated Press reporter told them,
Speaker 1: Pam Bondi may have sent the letter to Walls, but
Speaker 1: she certainly sent the letter to Fox News, and as
Speaker 1: they are ordered to do, they put her on the
Speaker 1: air almost immediately, where this somehow even worse part happened.
Speaker 1: It's not just that Bondi and her future co defendants
Speaker 1: want Minnesota to turn over its voter roles and assistant
Speaker 1: records and become a subsidiary of ICE. It's that she
Speaker 1: let the cat out of a bag, because, as I said,
Speaker 1: I've met her, she's remarkably stupid and gullible and moreover
Speaker 1: desperate for approval. And there is nobody actually there behind
Speaker 1: those eyes. It is all a performance, and a bad one,
Speaker 1: and it all sounds truly rehearsed and unqualified and artificial.
Speaker 1: And when I say artificial, I don't mean an artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: And so Bondi then went on Fox and that's when
Speaker 1: she let the cat out of the bag about why
Speaker 1: Alex Pretty was really murdered. And I'll read it again.
Speaker 1: We sent Governor Walls a very strong letter today, we
Speaker 1: got it out, saying that he better support President Trump,
Speaker 1: he better support the men and women in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Because if he doesn't, we are, and that's what we're
Speaker 1: doing right now. That's what we're doing right now. We
Speaker 1: shot two of your citizens because you're not supporting President Trump.
Speaker 1: Pretty straightforward, actually, maybe the most honest thing said in
Speaker 1: the year and six days of this dictatorship from hell,
Speaker 1: this nightmare of Trump and his moron sidekick JV there
Speaker 1: it is you better support President Trump because if you don't,
Speaker 1: we are. That's what we did two weeks ago when
Speaker 1: we shot that woman in the face. That's what we
Speaker 1: did Saturday when we killed that Second Amendment guy from
Speaker 1: the VA hospital. You quote, better support President Trump. That's
Speaker 1: what we're doing right now. Yep, that is what they're
Speaker 1: doing right now. So how do we throw this dictatorship out?
Speaker 1: And how do we make sure the terrorists have not won?
Speaker 1: And how do we put Christy Noman, Pam Bondi and
Speaker 1: Bovino and Gitmo. I am encouraged that the murder and
Speaker 1: the threat of more murders was so obvious that even
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer noticed, But I'd like to point out that
Speaker 1: his statement and those of Cortes Masto and Jackie Rosen
Speaker 1: and the other senators who had wavered about voting against
Speaker 1: appropriations bills that would finance DHS and ICE past Friday
Speaker 1: of this week. Their statements were soft enough around the
Speaker 1: edges that they may still fold as usual. Schumer wrote
Speaker 1: a quote not providing the votes to proceed to the
Speaker 1: appropriation's bill if the DHS funding bill is included. That
Speaker 1: does not necessarily mean not funding the rest of the
Speaker 1: government by somehow stripping the ICE and DHS budgets out
Speaker 1: to be voted on separately and then approving them with
Speaker 1: some token nonsense like better training or body cams, because
Speaker 1: boy oh boy, the threat of their being video of
Speaker 1: ice murdering nurses sure stopped them from murdering a nurse
Speaker 1: on Saturday morning. Even if what Schumer said is not
Speaker 1: the liberately designed to allow the weasels among our elected
Speaker 1: representatives to eventually fund some form of, you know, Trump
Speaker 1: run government sponsored ice terrorism, it's still insufficient. What Democrats
Speaker 1: in the Senate, now that the seven traders inside the
Speaker 1: House Democratic Caucus close that escape route off looking at you,
Speaker 1: Marie Gluesen, camp Perez and Tom Swazi, what Democrats in
Speaker 1: the Senate need to do is deny all funding to
Speaker 1: this government. I mean, take a page from Pambondy literally
Speaker 1: a page her letter. If you are terrified, Chuck Schumer
Speaker 1: at the phrase abolish Ice, just cut off all funding
Speaker 1: to the government. Cut off all funding to Trump until
Speaker 1: they completely correct immigration control. Come back to us when
Speaker 1: you're ready. Trump, as Adam Schiff rightly said, not another dime.
Speaker 1: Shut the Trump dictatorship down. It's not like it's any
Speaker 1: good in anything anyway besides killing us. Shut it down
Speaker 1: for a month or six months, or until January twenty
Speaker 1: twenty nine. Shut it the f down, because surprise, the
Speaker 1: voters will back you up. You GOV polled Saturday after
Speaker 1: the execution in Minneapolis, would you support abolishing Ice? Yes?
Speaker 1: Forty six percent, No, forty one percent. That's a net
Speaker 1: plus five four abolishment. Among independents, it's a net plus twelve.
Speaker 1: Deep inside the demographics, they asked one group, would you
Speaker 1: support abolishing Ice? Nineteen percent said yes. That group is
Speaker 1: Republicans nineteen percent abolish Ice. A less weighted version of
Speaker 1: a similar question, do you approve or disapprove of the
Speaker 1: job Ice is doing? New York Times SIENA poll, all voters,
Speaker 1: all demographics, sixty three percent disapprove of the job Ice
Speaker 1: is doing. Seventy percent of independence disapproved, fifty seven percent
Speaker 1: of white voters disapproved. Nineteen percent of Trump voters disapprove.
Speaker 1: It's twenty seven points underwater. Put Ice underwater. Politico had
Speaker 1: polled over the last week, is it worth risking the
Speaker 1: lives of anti ICE protesters to conduct immigration enforcement? Fifty
Speaker 1: one percent said no. Thirty one percent of Trump voters
Speaker 1: said no. Schumer can stop having nightmares about suburban moms
Speaker 1: and focus groups. The polls are not, in any doubt
Speaker 1: like the video of the murder. The poles are in
Speaker 1: fact easier to understand first time you look at them.
Speaker 1: Abolish Ice plus five approval of ICE minus twenty seven
Speaker 1: percentage of Trump voters who say ICE is too aggressive
Speaker 1: twenty percent. And then there's everything else going on with
Speaker 1: this terrorist gang. We haven't even gotten around to this
Speaker 1: psycho impaired Secretary of Defense. Hegseth, writing Ice then a
Speaker 1: greater than sign than the abbreviation of Minnesota. You know
Speaker 1: what they have in Minnesota, Hegseth, You Neanderthal. They have
Speaker 1: Americans meet some someday. You haven't gotten to the Deputy
Speaker 1: Attorney General of the United States who went straight to
Speaker 1: that job after being Trump's personal horror attorney going on
Speaker 1: a Sunday show yesterday and saying Alex Preddie quote was
Speaker 1: not protesting peacefully. He was screaming in the face of Ice.
Speaker 1: He had a phone right up in ICE's face. Is
Speaker 1: that protesting peacefully? What do you expect you wanted something
Speaker 1: from the Vietnam War where he pours gasoline on himself
Speaker 1: and lights himself on fire. That your idea of the
Speaker 1: peaceful protest? Todd Todd Blanche's message to you is you
Speaker 1: can be summarily executed by the government on the streets
Speaker 1: of an American city for carrying a gun, or you
Speaker 1: can be summarily executed by the government of the United
Speaker 1: States on the streets of an American city for not
Speaker 1: carrying a gun. We haven't gotten to the right wingers
Speaker 1: denying the Second Amendment. We haven't gotten to the toy
Speaker 1: store owners who gave out free whistles to Minnesotan's to
Speaker 1: warn each other of an incoming Ice assault. ABC did
Speaker 1: a story on them, and within a day, Ice was
Speaker 1: at their door demanding their employee records and addresses. We
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to Trump's psychotic reaction to all this, to
Speaker 1: ignore it to ignore the murder done in his name,
Speaker 1: to ignore the murder done stochastically by him, and instead
Speaker 1: to write not just one of his asinine, self obsessed
Speaker 1: posts about his effing Trump Memorial ballroom, but to make
Speaker 1: it a double wide post, as if anybody gives a
Speaker 1: shit about him and his shit gold ballroom. Your white trash, Donald,
Speaker 1: your buildings are white trash, but the gold matches my hair.
Speaker 1: We haven't gotten to whether there is meaning or just
Speaker 1: grand standing. To the Republican chair of the House Committee
Speaker 1: on Homeland Security demanding that the head of Ice Lions
Speaker 1: shows up for a hearing and actual hearing into Minnesota
Speaker 1: before the eighteenth of March, we haven't gotten to the
Speaker 1: implications of Oklahoma's Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, ordinarily one of
Speaker 1: the biggest dufuses around, chairman of the Governor's Association, who
Speaker 1: said Americans don't like what they're seeing right now. Trump
Speaker 1: is getting bad advice right now. We have to enforce
Speaker 1: federal laws, but we need to know what is the endgame,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it's to duport every single non
Speaker 1: US citizen. Governor, my advice to you is, if you
Speaker 1: run into any ice agents. Keep your phone down. We
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to Ice doctoring the photos of the women
Speaker 1: arrested and immediately released for going to a pro ICE
Speaker 1: church service run by a guy from ICE. Christy Nome
Speaker 1: even used the real photo of the one victim. The
Speaker 1: White House took the photo, darkened the woman's skin, and
Speaker 1: turned her face from stoic and placid to crying. Caroline
Speaker 1: Levitt retweeted it, because Caroline Levitt isn't just a liar,
Speaker 1: she's racist swine. We haven't talked about the attempt to
Speaker 1: arrest Don Lemon for filming the fascist rally disguised as
Speaker 1: a Christian service. We haven't even discussed my pal Will
Speaker 1: Bunch's article for the Philly Inquirer about the three ICE
Speaker 1: detainees dead at the Fort Bliss, Texas concentration Camp three
Speaker 1: in thirty three days, or Will's observation that quote deaths
Speaker 1: are occurring in ICE detention facilities at nearly ten times
Speaker 1: the rate of the Biden years, or the inevitable conclusion
Speaker 1: that we have to now say of America in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, that we are now regularly hearing reports of
Speaker 1: deaths in our concentration camps, all new edition today comic
Speaker 1: relief at the end about a job I was ready
Speaker 1: to take and then the job the company went out
Speaker 1: of business. But Worst Persons is next. It is about
Speaker 1: all those people who defended Ice after Renee Goods murder
Speaker 1: or after the early information came out about Alex Pretty's murder.
Speaker 1: It's about them and why after the Pretty murder they
Speaker 1: still think somehow they still have public careers. So you're
Speaker 1: on deck, Tony Diakoppel, John Fetterman, The New York Post,
Speaker 1: Scott Jennings, and Steven Asmith. That's next. This is kind Down.
Speaker 1: This is Countdown with Keith Oberman still ahead. On this
Speaker 1: all new edition of Countdown. I recorded something new about
Speaker 1: a job I was about to accept, and half an
Speaker 1: hour before I was going to take it, the station
Speaker 1: went out of business. Instead. I recorded this literally half
Speaker 1: an hour before the news came in from Minneapolis on Saturday.
Speaker 1: I'm going to include it at the end anyway, because
Speaker 1: I sure as hell needed to break from this, and
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you might. If you don't I get it,
Speaker 1: don't listen. It's a okay, and it's next in things
Speaker 1: I promised not to tell. But first let's do the
Speaker 1: Worst Person's segment, and we'll devote it entirely to people
Speaker 1: who supported ICE even before the murder of Alex pretty
Speaker 1: or after it. And I just wanted to flash back
Speaker 1: to an anchor I worked with in Los Angeles when
Speaker 1: I was still doing only sports, and he came on
Speaker 1: and did an editorial and I was at the station
Speaker 1: for only a couple of weeks, I think, and it
Speaker 1: was about the terrorist attack on the ocean going vessel
Speaker 1: the Achille Loro, in which they took one of the passengers,
Speaker 1: a man in a wheelchair, and pushed him off into
Speaker 1: the ocean, killing him. Terrorist attack. And he did an
Speaker 1: editorial condemning terrorism. And he explained that he didn't like
Speaker 1: to do it atorials or commentaries because every time you
Speaker 1: did a commentary, if it was actually controversial, fifty percent
Speaker 1: of your audience would disagree with you. And that meant
Speaker 1: that if you did four editorials, you'd be down to
Speaker 1: single digits among support from your viewers. And I shuddered
Speaker 1: and took the job anyway. Still, there are some topics
Speaker 1: that really do sort of scream out to you. If
Speaker 1: you get this right, you're going to have nearly one
Speaker 1: hundred percent support If you get this wrong, you're done.
Speaker 1: I believe Minnesota and ICE had the earmarks of this
Speaker 1: from the beginning, from the death of poor Renee Good.
Speaker 1: So they're the medalists. They are also the runners up
Speaker 1: Jeff Earl and Elisia field Stat at the New York Post.
Speaker 1: They are apparently writers there or whatever they have there.
Speaker 1: The early headline for their standard Murdochian warring about Saturday's
Speaker 1: murder man waving gun at fed's attempting to arrest illegal
Speaker 1: criminal migrant in Minneapolis shot dead by agent DHS, says
Speaker 1: by Jeff Earl and Alicia Fieldstat New York Post. He
Speaker 1: wasn't waving a gun. The FEDS turned out to be
Speaker 1: trying to attempt to arrest somebody who was cleared and
Speaker 1: had been picked up and released by Ice several years ago.
Speaker 1: Other than that great story Jeff and Alicia another runner up,
Speaker 1: Scott Jennings, who was apparently leaving CNN to become I
Speaker 1: don't know, Deputy Rex Commissar. I don't know. The anti
Speaker 1: ICE propaganda war being waged by Democrats right now is
Speaker 1: out of control, he said the other day. If I
Speaker 1: were Trump, I'd be frustrated too. But he has to
Speaker 1: uphold federal laws in all fifty states, no matter what
Speaker 1: some secessionist angry mob in Minneapolis says Scott Jennings is
Speaker 1: a moron. Then there's Clay Travis, nominally a sports guy.
Speaker 1: Outkicked the coverage. I believe it was called or Clay
Speaker 1: Travis's White Supremacist Review. I don't know what the name
Speaker 1: of the site is. The outkicked the White Supremacists. That
Speaker 1: clown doesn't know politics, doesn't know America, doesn't know sports.
Speaker 1: The NBA canceled its game in Minneapolis today because the
Speaker 1: league felt it wasn't safe to play. The NHL is
Speaker 1: currently playing in Minneapolis and had zero issues with playing
Speaker 1: its game. The NBA's decision was one hundred percent political.
Speaker 1: Good for the NHL on playing.
Speaker 2: Ye, how.
Speaker 1: The uh? The NBA game, mister Travis, was in Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: where the shoe where the murder took place. The hockey
Speaker 1: game you referred to was in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It's
Speaker 1: a different city. It's ten miles and one world away.
Speaker 1: So the actual question of safety, do you play in
Speaker 1: the Target Center in Minneapolis, literally a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: from the murder scene. Do you play there in frigid temperatures,
Speaker 1: with protesters out on the street and ice shooting up
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. Do you play that game as a Paul
Speaker 1: was to a hockey game in Saint Paul. No wonder
Speaker 1: he veered over into politics. No shit about sports. Now
Speaker 1: are medallists the bronze worst Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, for
Speaker 1: whom I feel great sorrow, but enough go check in
Speaker 1: somewhere and resign. Quote ICE agents are just doing their job,
Speaker 1: and I fully support that. Again, he said this before
Speaker 1: the murder of Preddy. This was after the murder Renee
Speaker 1: good people in my party might treat them as criminals.
Speaker 1: That's inappropriate and outrageous. You know, the fact that you're
Speaker 1: still running around without supervision is inappropriate and outrageous. And
Speaker 1: the fact that you pose as a Democrat is inappropriate
Speaker 1: and outrageous. Get thee to a Nunnery the runners up
Speaker 1: wor Sir, CBS News and the greatest network news disaster
Speaker 1: of the last half century or more Tony da koppol
Speaker 1: Thursday again, if you really are going to try to
Speaker 1: take the wrong side in a what is to be
Speaker 1: a historically important societal turning point, if you're going to
Speaker 1: take the side of the cops in Rodney King, or
Speaker 1: if you're going to take, say, the side of the
Speaker 1: assassins in any political assassination, maybe maybe you should make
Speaker 1: other career plans. Thursday, Tony da Koppel signed off the
Speaker 1: CBS evening Barrywise Pick Me Trump, Pick Me News by
Speaker 1: elevating quote those who want to see our immigration laws
Speaker 1: enforced legally and peacefully and with safety for all, And
Speaker 1: he ended with It's not my job to tell you
Speaker 1: what to think about what happened here. No, no, of course, not,
Speaker 1: Tony Tacoppel. Government murders two people, shoots some other in
Speaker 1: the face, and blows a nurse's brains out with a
Speaker 1: point blank shot to his head after they disarmed him.
Speaker 1: But don't you dare offer any insight or opinion or
Speaker 1: even guidance as to what the viewers might think. Let
Speaker 1: them believe that it is not assassination and government inspired terrorism.
Speaker 1: I mean, honest to God, I hope they have a
Speaker 1: new one life end up to take over that show.
Speaker 1: Maybe they could do an AI thing. Years ago, when
Speaker 1: MSNBC went on one of the more creative shows they
Speaker 1: ever did, featured a co host who was actually an
Speaker 1: animated character who did half the news and reacted to
Speaker 1: the real people. May they can have that guy come back.
Speaker 1: He's in a box somewhere in Secaucus, New Jersey. By
Speaker 1: the way, the reporter about TV, Joe Adalion, he noted
Speaker 1: that Saturday night and Dacoppol was not there, so that's
Speaker 1: not his fault. And he doesn't make any of the
Speaker 1: decisions either. He just reads what they give him. Joe
Speaker 1: Adalion notes that on Saturday night, the CBS Evening Weekend
Speaker 1: News devoted nearly its entire show to weather, and it
Speaker 1: devoted two and a half minutes to the murder of
Speaker 1: Alex Preddi and BC mister Adallion notes, did about eight minutes.
Speaker 1: Given the content of a newscast is now down to
Speaker 1: sixteen eighteen minutes, two and a half minutes. But first,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's snow. What are we going to do?
Speaker 1: Can we still breathe this air of its twelve degrees?
Speaker 1: And yet there's worst the winner. And it's not like
Speaker 1: I didn't try to warn him. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: what passed for a working acquaintanceship, friendly acquaintanceship. I know
Speaker 1: that's long gone, but I have tried to warn him
Speaker 1: from the beginning when he went down this path that
Speaker 1: he was going to destroy the successful career he had
Speaker 1: in pursuit of a career in which he was insufficiently prepared.
Speaker 1: That the idea of going in just doing what I
Speaker 1: used to do when I did Sports with Dan Patrick
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five and six and seven. I
Speaker 1: would come in for one hour of his show at
Speaker 1: their request at ESPN, to just have fun with Dan.
Speaker 1: And I would come in at about one point fifty
Speaker 1: eight for the two o'clock hour, and we'd be coming
Speaker 1: back on at two four or two oh five, and
Speaker 1: I'd say, what are we talking about? And he'd give
Speaker 1: me three or four topics that they had guests lined
Speaker 1: up on, or he wanted to talk about Barry Bonds
Speaker 1: this and a basketball that and this thing from the
Speaker 1: other night. Did you see that?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: I did? Okay, good, we can talk about it. And
Speaker 1: I would then call up stories on the computer so
Speaker 1: I had a little factual representation of what we were
Speaker 1: talking about, and that was my entire prep and we
Speaker 1: would kill off an hour and have a great hour
Speaker 1: with real real time insights, because you can do that
Speaker 1: with sports that's the point of sports. The point of
Speaker 1: sports is not necessarily researching everything and then sitting down
Speaker 1: and contemplating it deeply, even though occasionally I've tried that
Speaker 1: in the past. The point of sports is you get
Speaker 1: off the bus, you go into the bar, you sit down,
Speaker 1: friends one, seven, and fifteen are there, and you start
Speaker 1: talking and you say things, and if you want to
Speaker 1: be impressive, you stick to facts. Now you can't do
Speaker 1: that with politics, because you're going to say stupid things
Speaker 1: and are totally untrue, especially if it's on the air,
Speaker 1: if you're on a podcast, if you're live somewhere, if
Speaker 1: you're Stephen A freaking Smith. It's not like I didn't
Speaker 1: warn you. This was Stephen A. Smith after Renee Goods murder.
Speaker 1: This was him on January eighth. Let me just read
Speaker 1: it to you quote. I saw the video on numerous occasions,
Speaker 1: and seeing what transpired from a lawful perspective as it
Speaker 1: pertains to a law enforcement official, don't expect him to
Speaker 1: be prosecuted. He was completely justified. She wrongfully tried to
Speaker 1: drive off and wrongfully disregarded a law enforcement official, which
Speaker 1: is exactly what ice is, and as a result lost
Speaker 1: her life. Because of it. Some people don't understand news,
Speaker 1: some people don't understand humanity, and some people don't understand politics,
Speaker 1: and some people don't understand when to stay in an
Speaker 1: area that they are successful in despite much evidence that
Speaker 1: they don't really have any talent at it. And then
Speaker 1: there is that rarest of persons who doesn't understand any
Speaker 1: of that, and that would be Stephen A. Smith, Today's
Speaker 1: worst person in the world. Back with the humorous relief next,
Speaker 1: I suppose the only thing I like about January is
Speaker 1: that it's the start of the new year. And because
Speaker 1: of a coincidence I have nothing to do with, my
Speaker 1: birthday is in January, so it's doubly the start of
Speaker 1: the new year. And I get very nostalgic, and milestones
Speaker 1: get hit, and it is now the twentieth anniversary of this,
Speaker 1: and the fiftieth anniversary of that, and the thirtieth anniversary
Speaker 1: of this. The fiftieth anniversary is this is the fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the year I became sports director of my
Speaker 1: college radio station, which to that point was an unbelievable accomplishment,
Speaker 1: and it's now half a century ago. It was the
Speaker 1: equivalent in terms of a time span of say, when
Speaker 1: I was eight years old and decided to become a
Speaker 1: sportscaster and thought, well, I'll have to become the college
Speaker 1: radio station sports director on along the way, won't I.
Speaker 1: If you go fifty years backwards, it's the American arrival
Speaker 1: in the middle of the First World War. That's how
Speaker 1: long ago fifty years is. But I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about something that happened thirty years ago now now that
Speaker 1: it has a nice round number to it, and we
Speaker 1: Americans are obsessed by this three thousand hits rather than
Speaker 1: two nine hundred and ninety nine or three thousand and one,
Speaker 1: thirty years instead of twenty nine or thirty one, even
Speaker 1: though there's really not much damn difference, And like the calendar,
Speaker 1: if anybody ever made a counting mistake, the number is
Speaker 1: also wrong. Anyway to the number one story and the
Speaker 1: day I they nearly quit ESPN Sports Center at the
Speaker 1: maximum point of its fame and success, to go work
Speaker 1: in local radio in Chicago in nineteen ninety six, I
Speaker 1: got a call I think through my agent, but I
Speaker 1: know I talked to the man directly, from a man
Speaker 1: named Doug Stern, who was the general manager of a
Speaker 1: radio station in Chicago, Illinois, and this station, which was WMVP,
Speaker 1: was anything, but it was thirty first in the ratings
Speaker 1: in a thirty one station market. It was an all
Speaker 1: sports station, but it was the number two all sports
Speaker 1: station in Chicago. And I couldn't understand why he was
Speaker 1: calling me. He made it rather plain, rather quickly that
Speaker 1: they were desperate to do something big to get on
Speaker 1: the scoreboard in Chicago. And the thing they wanted to
Speaker 1: do that was big was hire me away from SportsCenter.
Speaker 1: Understand my relationship with ESPN, which I've begun to understand
Speaker 1: a little bit better in the injury of decades from
Speaker 1: the time of its height and then later the time
Speaker 1: of my return to ESPN and Sports Center in the teens,
Speaker 1: and so I've got a better perspective on it. But
Speaker 1: it still boils down to this. I didn't like the
Speaker 1: lifestyle and was wrong. It was the wrong time for me.
Speaker 1: Nothing at all wrong with the place. I had a
Speaker 1: wonderful house. I had a giant, seven thousand square foot
Speaker 1: house with a heated swimming pool and like three acres
Speaker 1: and two hundred original growth trees, and it was fantastic,
Speaker 1: and it had a solarium, and it had a seated
Speaker 1: swimming pool and everything you could want. The problem was
Speaker 1: there were no sidewalks. The nearest place to go to
Speaker 1: was a general store, I mean by foot, about thirty
Speaker 1: five forty minutes away, which makes for a long walk
Speaker 1: back if you're shopping. Anyway, it was a fine place.
Speaker 1: If I wanted to raise a family, that would have
Speaker 1: been it. Or if I'd brought a family with me,
Speaker 1: that would have been it. Or if I'd even brought
Speaker 1: a girlfriend with me, that would have been it. But
Speaker 1: it was very tough to add those once you were
Speaker 1: out there in a place where you spent most of
Speaker 1: the time looking out the window at the far horizon
Speaker 1: where the highway to New York went up the hill,
Speaker 1: and then everybody had to break at the top of
Speaker 1: the hill to go down the hill towards New York.
Speaker 1: And there was this little red glowing light where all
Speaker 1: those people were just far enough away that they were
Speaker 1: going to New York and you weren't, and there was
Speaker 1: really nothing to do. I kind of liked the job.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of problems with management at ESPN.
Speaker 1: I think those may have been noted somewhere, and we
Speaker 1: largely paved those over in the ensuing years, and I'm
Speaker 1: kind of proud of them and of me, And I'm
Speaker 1: a Disney retiree. I just got another Disney retiree check
Speaker 1: the other day. That's the last possible outcome I would
Speaker 1: have believed, other than them selling me the place. But
Speaker 1: I just didn't fit in in the environment. I liked
Speaker 1: doing the show. I liked working with Dan Patrick. The
Speaker 1: success was something I knew I would never recreate. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty easy thing, considering how difficult it was.
Speaker 1: As ludicrous and Yogi Barrow like as that sounds, he
Speaker 1: looked out for me, I looked out for him. We
Speaker 1: had a great producer and series of them, including Norby
Speaker 1: Williamson who then ran the company, and Mike McQuaid who
Speaker 1: now runs the company. We had a lot of great
Speaker 1: people who worked there, person after person who advanced to
Speaker 1: the top of that place. It was really high quality.
Speaker 1: Took me four years to convince them, since I didn't drive,
Speaker 1: that maybe they should send a car for me and
Speaker 1: then I would never be late to anything again, rather
Speaker 1: than relying on the two cabs in town. I mean,
Speaker 1: if there'd been a cab that showed up on time,
Speaker 1: I would have been happy to pay for it myself,
Speaker 1: but there weren't any In any event, I was looking
Speaker 1: to move on and my contract expired at the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety seven, so I was beginning to think
Speaker 1: of what else I might do. And here comes this
Speaker 1: call from this man in Chicago, Dougster, and what he
Speaker 1: wants to do is pay me twice as much money
Speaker 1: as ESPN was paying me to come and do a
Speaker 1: radio show on him his station from say four to
Speaker 1: seven in the afternoon for six hundred thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: I was the highest paid sports center anchor and I
Speaker 1: think the third highest non game announcer on ESPN at
Speaker 1: the time. And I was making about three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars you heard me right, And these guys were willing
Speaker 1: to pay me six hundred thousand dollars. And oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, if I could get a TV job on
Speaker 1: the side, where I worked for one of the local
Speaker 1: Chicago stations and did the sportscasts on the six o'clock
Speaker 1: and eleven o'clock news, and they put a camera in
Speaker 1: my studio and we did the sportscast live on the
Speaker 1: radio station and on the television station. That would be
Speaker 1: fine with them, and I could make a deal for
Speaker 1: that on my own. And the yeah, the leading guy
Speaker 1: in Chicago's TV sports was making a little under a
Speaker 1: million of years, so this had all kinds of lucrative
Speaker 1: future to it. Plus on top of everything else, I
Speaker 1: was pretty exhausted by then. It was a lot of
Speaker 1: work at esp and they didn't make it particularly easy.
Speaker 1: And here was a show that would start at four
Speaker 1: conck in the afternoon that was nominally about sports, but
Speaker 1: their model was the Imus Show. They wanted it to
Speaker 1: be don Imus only with sports instead of politics as
Speaker 1: the through line. But it could be about anything as
Speaker 1: long as it was about Chicago. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: how about we do the plot to improve Chicago and
Speaker 1: just always have something going on where we'd be agitating
Speaker 1: for some improvement in the lower upper Whacker Drives. I
Speaker 1: had never been to Chicago, so I didn't know it.
Speaker 1: So that was the first thing. Doug Stern says, can
Speaker 1: you take a couple of days off and come out
Speaker 1: here and will wind you and dine you and show
Speaker 1: you the place and convince you why this hair brain
Speaker 1: idea of mine is actually a really good one. Do
Speaker 1: you think ESPN would let you go, I know you're
Speaker 1: under contract, and I said, I think they probably would.
Speaker 1: I think they're as tired of this from their perspective
Speaker 1: about me as I am tired of my perspective about them,
Speaker 1: and not enmity at this point, but just like, can
Speaker 1: we just resolve this, which is what happened the next
Speaker 1: year when I left about three or four months earlier
Speaker 1: than my contract expired, to go work for NBC and
Speaker 1: alternatively then go into the news business, which was something
Speaker 1: totally unexpected, although it was kind of foreshadowed by this
Speaker 1: idea in nineteen ninety six. In any event, I go
Speaker 1: to Chicago after a false start where I'm on my
Speaker 1: way to the airport and Doug s Turn calls me,
Speaker 1: and this is at the crack of dawn, and says,
Speaker 1: don't come out here, don't come out here. We can't
Speaker 1: have the meeting this week. Is there any way we
Speaker 1: can postpone it to two days from now or whatever
Speaker 1: it was? And I went I think so. And I
Speaker 1: turned around and went back to my house and went
Speaker 1: back to sleep. So I don't know why I was
Speaker 1: so interested in this, having never been there, but I
Speaker 1: did like one thing he mentioned. The station carried the
Speaker 1: White Sox games, and when the White Sox would be
Speaker 1: on at I guess seven o'clock at night local time,
Speaker 1: sometimes six o'clock. My show would end early, so that
Speaker 1: something like eighty or ninety times a year. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a three hour show that I'd be doing. It
Speaker 1: would be a two hour show for six hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year. So I was very interested in seeing
Speaker 1: what happened. Well, I get out to Chicago finally, and
Speaker 1: as I come off the plane, a man walks up
Speaker 1: to me and introduces himself, and it's Doug Stern, the
Speaker 1: general manager of this radio station, has come out to
Speaker 1: see me and greet me personally and pick me up personally,
Speaker 1: and he takes my bags and they are They go
Speaker 1: into full wine and dine and impress Keith. From the
Speaker 1: moment I land. They put me up in the Drake Hotel,
Speaker 1: which is fabulous mid century that's twentieth century Chicago, US, updated,
Speaker 1: but with this still kind of you know, the door
Speaker 1: is in the hotel, or you hang up your dry
Speaker 1: cleaning and they can come and pick it up without
Speaker 1: bothering you because there's another door on the other side
Speaker 1: of your door. You know the palms in the gigantic
Speaker 1: lobby that's like three blocks long. It just it just
Speaker 1: spoke to and still modernized. We're not talking about it.
Speaker 1: Looks like they haven't dusted it in fifty years. That
Speaker 1: was where they put me up. And then they take
Speaker 1: me into the radio station and I walk in the
Speaker 1: front door and everybody who's not on the air is
Speaker 1: standing at this station, and they're all plodding because they
Speaker 1: understood that being at thirty first in the ratings in
Speaker 1: the thirty one station market is not tenable long term. Please,
Speaker 1: So now they begin to whine and dine me, and
Speaker 1: they take me to lunch and they introduce me to
Speaker 1: the guys who are the stars of the network of
Speaker 1: the station as such as it was two very funny,
Speaker 1: very upbeat guys named Harry and Spike, and Harry Tynowitz
Speaker 1: who just died, I believe fairly recently courageous battle with
Speaker 1: a liver transplant. And they were just great guys. And
Speaker 1: Spike was this kind of low key guy. Oh where
Speaker 1: you're staying? I said it. They put me up at
Speaker 1: the Drake. Oh nice, my sister's getting married at the
Speaker 1: Drake on Saturday. Night. I said, that's the congratulations. You
Speaker 1: want to go? And I was like what, he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to go to I mean you're in the
Speaker 1: hotel anyway, it's not like you have to take a
Speaker 1: long trip. I said, tuxedo. No, no, no, you just go.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I'm gonna go stack. Oh, I can
Speaker 1: get you a date. In fact, I know a nice,
Speaker 1: nice Irish girl works in the Drake and she's I
Speaker 1: mean she's there already too, and I think she's got
Speaker 1: Saturdays off. She was talking about going and she didn't
Speaker 1: have a date. E you'd like her. I'm in the
Speaker 1: place an hour and I've got a Saturday night wedding
Speaker 1: to go to with a date who works in the
Speaker 1: place where the wedding is. That was the start. Hour
Speaker 1: after hour, they pulled these things off. I went, and
Speaker 1: I went into restaurants with people, and people turned around
Speaker 1: and from the chairs and the tables and turned around
Speaker 1: and recognized me. And we were trying to keep this
Speaker 1: quiet because I didn't know how ESPN was going to
Speaker 1: react to my doing something that had said the contract
Speaker 1: I couldn't do. They took me to a day White
Speaker 1: Sox game. Everybody stopped in the press room. They took
Speaker 1: me to a Chicago Bulls practice. It was during the playoffs.
Speaker 1: This was in the spring, and nobody said anything until
Speaker 1: I saw Dennis Rodman at the other end of the
Speaker 1: court run down from underneath the far basket to where
Speaker 1: I was standing with the radio guys, and he said, way,
Speaker 1: how you doing. How's Dan? I said, good, Dennis, how
Speaker 1: you doing great? Watch you every night? So what the
Speaker 1: hell you doing here? You already have a job, I went, Dennis,
Speaker 1: you don't get enough credit for your intelligence. You really don't.
Speaker 1: And he really didn't. And I said, do you think
Speaker 1: you could do me a favor and not tell anybody
Speaker 1: that you saw me here? Because you just figured it out?
Speaker 1: What are you talking with? These these clowns here from
Speaker 1: the radio. I like these guys, but nobody listens to them.
Speaker 1: They listen to them. If you're here, Welcome to Chicago.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Everybody I saw figured it out and we're trying to
Speaker 1: keep this. And every one of them said, please come here.
Speaker 1: We'd love to listen to you. What are you gonna
Speaker 1: do afternoons? I'm not doing anything at four o'clock. I'll
Speaker 1: listen and on and on and on, and I didn't
Speaker 1: pull my wallet out of my pocket once during this time.
Speaker 1: I didn't pay for anything. I didn't pay for a meal,
Speaker 1: I didn't pay for a beer. And the reaction to
Speaker 1: the people who did not know me was the following.
Speaker 1: And I'd never really seen this before in my travels.
Speaker 1: All the places that I worked, even when it was
Speaker 1: Boston versus New York or Los Angeles versus Boston. Ultimately
Speaker 1: the people were largely the same, but there was something
Speaker 1: different about the Midwest. And I think it's still true largely,
Speaker 1: but it was certainly true in nineteen ninety six. And
Speaker 1: this was the reaction to people who didn't know me.
Speaker 1: Who's your friend, Harry, Oh, hi, Keith, nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: You're from out of town. Well, welcome to Chicago. Have
Speaker 1: a beer. I don't know how many beers I had.
Speaker 1: I know I didn't couldn't have possibly had finished all
Speaker 1: of them, or even started most of them. Some of
Speaker 1: them were probably still sitting on a table somewhere in
Speaker 1: a bar in Chicago that I left in the spring
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety six because people kept handing me beers.
Speaker 1: So on and on and on this went, and we
Speaker 1: went and talked about what the show might be, and
Speaker 1: who the sidekick might be, and how we would work
Speaker 1: the camera if there was another station, and preliminary discussions
Speaker 1: with two of the other Chicago TV stations, and would
Speaker 1: ESPN really let me go when I was the centerpiece
Speaker 1: of Sports Center, I went, you'd be surprised, and on
Speaker 1: and on and on, and the longer I went through this,
Speaker 1: and the real reason I realized while I was there
Speaker 1: one morning having breakfast with somebody else they introduced me to.
Speaker 1: While I'm there, I realized I just needed some validation
Speaker 1: because it was a conflict at all times. I had
Speaker 1: one vision of what ESPN should be and what Sports
Speaker 1: Center should be, and more importantly, what my role should
Speaker 1: be in it, and they had a different one, and
Speaker 1: that conflict was constant, and I just needed somebody to say, no,
Speaker 1: we like your ideas, we think you should be the
Speaker 1: one making most of the decisions. Well, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: our station, it's our candy store. We get the ultimate say,
Speaker 1: but let's work out a whole sort of constitution for
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I love these people, and they want
Speaker 2: to pay me twice that I'm making now, and there
Speaker 2: are other people here. I have met more people here
Speaker 2: in Chicago in my four days here than I have
Speaker 2: met in my four years in Bristol, Connecticut. Nothing against Bristol, Connecticut,
Speaker 2: but they don't have any sidewalks there.
Speaker 1: And then we went looking for apartments and the price
Speaker 1: for apartments penthouses overlooking the lake was still, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe double what I was paying for my house. But
Speaker 1: my house was was in Southington, Connecticut. Again a great
Speaker 1: place to raise a family, very economical, but sort of
Speaker 1: like the most remote suburbs of Hartford as opposed to
Speaker 1: I'm in downtown Chicago. I can walk to work now.
Speaker 1: Admittedly it was I think the end of May, and
Speaker 1: one morning it was forty one degrees and I thought,
Speaker 1: is this the kind of life I want to? You know,
Speaker 1: Kathy went to Cornell University. It was kind of cold
Speaker 1: up there, and you know, you did go to the
Speaker 1: Lake Plaster the Olympics and kind of go, but it's windy,
Speaker 1: and that's why I walked around. It's like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: going to be a problem. How much did you say
Speaker 1: it was?
Speaker 2: Again?
Speaker 1: So on Friday after being there, I guess five days.
Speaker 1: I think I got there Monday. It may have been Tuesdays.
Speaker 1: It was at least four and they whined me and
Speaker 1: dined me and took me everywhere. Here was the schedule.
Speaker 1: On Friday, I was doing something with the boys. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe another White Sox game, maybe Wrigley Field, a private tour,
Speaker 1: I don't remember what it was, one of the museums,
Speaker 1: a view of the lake, a view of the surrounding
Speaker 1: neighborhoods outside of Chicago downtown. Just trips on the on
Speaker 1: the l trains, something fun. And then like dinner with
Speaker 1: thug Stern to tell him whether or not we would proceed,
Speaker 1: Like was I convinced? Had they successfully want and dined me?
Speaker 1: And should we try it? Not that I was going
Speaker 1: to accept it and sign a contract, but just could
Speaker 1: we proceed? Was I interested? And I was interested. I
Speaker 1: woke up that morning going, I think this could be
Speaker 1: a great deal of fun. This could be my home.
Speaker 1: It'll look crazy, but this could be my home. Radio
Speaker 1: is not necessarily easier than television. But bottom line is
Speaker 1: you don't have to shave. It's like podcasts. What do
Speaker 1: you like about the podcast, Keith, I don't have to shave. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we're going to go to dinner. Doug Stern is
Speaker 1: going to come by about five o'clock. He's got something
Speaker 1: going on on the weekend. He wants to see if
Speaker 1: he can at least get the ball rolling on, maybe
Speaker 1: getting this done if I'm interested, And we're going to
Speaker 1: have an early dinner and then everybody at the radio
Speaker 1: station knows that this is live or die for them,
Speaker 1: So we're all going to meet at a place near
Speaker 1: Wrigley Field and celebrate because they're convinced. They've convinced me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't even gotten to the date yet
Speaker 1: at the Drake Hotel for the wedding the next day,
Speaker 1: and I'm decided. It's like yeah, okay, and I'm getting dressed.
Speaker 1: Doug Stearn's going to pick me up about five point
Speaker 1: thirty six o'clock something outside the Drake, and the real
Speaker 1: wine and dine is going to go on. And I'm
Speaker 1: not going to tell him that I've already decided. I
Speaker 1: want him to spend the rest of the money on me.
Speaker 1: The phone rings five. If he's picking me up at
Speaker 1: five thirty, it's five to twenty, Keith, it's Doug's turn. Listen. Uh,
Speaker 1: let me just come out and say this. The owners
Speaker 1: of the radio station. Just got back from the corporate
Speaker 1: meetings in New Jersey, and they've decided that the best
Speaker 1: thing to do is not to spend six hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year on you and keep the station going,
Speaker 1: but rather simply take the station off the air and
Speaker 1: rebroadcast what we do on FM. And I said, excuse me,
Speaker 1: he said, yeah. I said, well, I was going to
Speaker 1: tell you that I like the idea. I thought you
Speaker 1: were too. I'm sorry, I literally I just hung up
Speaker 1: with them. They no more spending and everybody's going to
Speaker 1: get fired. And what I said, I said, all the everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't tell them you're going. I know you're going out
Speaker 1: to celebrate it. Can you just pretend for me? And
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know if I've got that in me, Doug,
Speaker 1: He said, well, in any event, I'm so sorry. Let's
Speaker 1: talk again next week. I have to get home and
Speaker 1: pack quickly because I've just taken a job in San
Speaker 1: Francisco and i have to be out there tomorrow morning,
Speaker 1: so I'm leaving on a red eye tonight. Thanks. I
Speaker 1: hope you had a good time at least, and please
Speaker 1: spend all the money you can on the station's dime
Speaker 1: before you leave for Bristol on Sunday morning. Bye click.
Speaker 1: So I didn't go to Chicago to become a sportscaster
Speaker 1: slash talk show hosts slash maybe earlier version of my
Speaker 1: political self, and certainly not the guy who went to
Speaker 1: MSNBC the next year, and certainly not the guy who
Speaker 1: went back to Bristol, Connecticut angrier, which always worked really
Speaker 1: well for Sports Center, by the way. But the punchline
Speaker 1: to this, of course, is I now still have to
Speaker 1: go out and celebrate with Harry and Spike and everybody
Speaker 1: else from the radio station. End. Oh goodness, gracious, I
Speaker 1: knew I would be drinking in a way. I had
Speaker 1: not had the volume of drink. I've discussed this before.
Speaker 1: I once had I think forty beers in one day
Speaker 1: and realize you could be a functional alcoholic. Avoid this
Speaker 1: whenever possible. So I probably hadn't had a drink in
Speaker 1: a couple of months or so, and I never had
Speaker 1: a drinking problem, except I knew the potential was there,
Speaker 1: and that night, the potential was going to be there
Speaker 1: because I was going to have to get completely drunk.
Speaker 1: It was so bad that I took several business cards
Speaker 1: from the Drake Hotel, wrote my name on them and
Speaker 1: a crude map of where the Drake Hotel was, because
Speaker 1: I was not convinced that when I got into the
Speaker 1: cab after this trauma was over going to celebrate with
Speaker 1: a bunch of people, all whom are going to get
Speaker 1: fired next Monday. And it's Friday night, and you're the
Speaker 1: only one who knows that they're all going to get fired.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that I was going to be able
Speaker 1: to speak, And sure enough I went and went out
Speaker 1: with Harry and Spike, and I couldn't keep the secret,
Speaker 1: and I told them, and apparently they were the only
Speaker 1: two who were retained to do what resembled what was
Speaker 1: left of the radio station that wasn't a rebroadcast of FM.
Speaker 1: The irony I think of it was that I believe
Speaker 1: the station was then sold to ESPN. It's all jumbled,
Speaker 1: and now that I think of it, I may even
Speaker 1: have the call letters wrong. They were two stations there,
Speaker 1: the SCORE and MVP, and I can't remember the one
Speaker 1: that wasn't doing well was the one that was I
Speaker 1: was going to go work for. And my prophecy came
Speaker 1: true when it came time to go back to the
Speaker 1: drake and go. These people are all going to get fired,
Speaker 1: and I think they know that. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: let's see how this date goes at the drake tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I entered the cab and I said to the cab
Speaker 1: driver when he said where to buddy, are you saying
Speaker 1: where too, Bunny? And I said, and he went, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't understand you. And I just hold up one
Speaker 1: finger and it pulled out the drink. I went and
Speaker 1: we went to the drink. It's a very nice wedding.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I've done all the damage I
Speaker 1: can do here. Thank you for listening. Dennis Rodman figured
Speaker 1: it out. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced
Speaker 1: and performed by Brian Ray On the guitars, bass, drums,
Speaker 1: and John Phillip Schaneil handling, orchestration and keyboards. They are,
Speaker 1: of course, our musical directors have Countdown. It was produced
Speaker 1: by Tko Brothers. Our satirical epithy musical comments are by
Speaker 1: the best baseball stadium organists ever, Nancy Faust. And I
Speaker 1: should mention that while I was at that White Sox
Speaker 1: game where they were whining and dining me, I said hello,
Speaker 1: to my old friend Nancy Faust. Nancy, I think that's
Speaker 1: the last time we actually saw each other in person,
Speaker 1: just nineteen ninety six. The sports music is the Alderman
Speaker 1: theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy
Speaker 1: of ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the
Speaker 1: group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was fittingly with
Speaker 1: the ESPN and radio motifs my friend Tony Kornheiser. This
Speaker 1: program was produced and he has perched in the production
Speaker 1: position the producer's booth, sitting on my lap by Ted.
Speaker 1: His assistant today was Kit. Everything else was as always
Speaker 1: my That's countdown for today, Day three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: nine of America held hostage again just one thy ninety
Speaker 1: four days, though until the scheduled end of his lame
Speaker 1: duck and lame brained term, unless he is removed sooner
Speaker 1: by MAGA and Epstein or affordability or Venezuela or the Ice,
Speaker 1: Gestapo or Greenland or the EU and NATO. The next
Speaker 1: scheduled countdown is Thursday. Bubbothan's is the news warrants until
Speaker 1: the next one. I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: Good Night and good Luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.