Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. A
Speaker 1: large number of our citizens will never stop lying to
Speaker 1: themselves about Trump's insanity, but the rest of us have
Speaker 1: to stop lying. The rest of us. Every politician who
Speaker 1: steps in front of a microphone, every news producer who
Speaker 1: begins a newscast with some other story made trivial in
Speaker 1: contrast by this reality, every columnist who writes about alarm
Speaker 1: or some quarters or this Ohio diner, every commentator tempted
Speaker 1: to say this was the moment Trump truly became president.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is manifestly insane, and this week is especially
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, he entered that stage of whatever it is
Speaker 1: that is specifically wrong with him that is characterized by mania. Mania,
Speaker 1: the conviction that something that is impossible will happen simply
Speaker 1: because he says it is going to happen. His mania
Speaker 1: happens to be about Gaza. The next mania that could
Speaker 1: be about the sun rising in the West, or how
Speaker 1: Americans would survive a nuclear war he could start because
Speaker 1: he's leading them and he is immortal. Mania does not
Speaker 1: have to be manic. It does not require hyperbolic words,
Speaker 1: nor unsuppressed rage, nor vivid hallucinations. He is, however, calm,
Speaker 1: as he might seem out of his mind. He believes
Speaker 1: in things that are not true and can't be true,
Speaker 1: and he has a rationalization ready for whenever somebody tells
Speaker 1: him why they can't be true. There is nothing of
Speaker 1: the cliched crazy man in his voice as he talks
Speaker 1: about Gaza. Nevertheless, as we heard from the Oval office,
Speaker 1: this guy is metaphorically about one inch away from having
Speaker 1: conversations with invisible gophers.
Speaker 2: You said before that.
Speaker 3: The US would buy Gaza, and today you just said,
Speaker 3: we're not going to buy Gaza'm.
Speaker 4: Not gonna have to buy We're going to We're going
Speaker 4: to have Gaza. We don't have to buy it. There's
Speaker 4: nothing to buy. We will have Gaza. Is that no
Speaker 4: reason to buy? There is nothing to buy. It's Gaza.
Speaker 4: It say it's a war torn area. We're gonna take it.
Speaker 4: We're gonna hold it, We're gonna cherish.
Speaker 1: It, and to take it upter one authority.
Speaker 4: It is under the US authority.
Speaker 1: That's not crazy policy, that's not crazy politics. That's just
Speaker 1: crazy unsupported delusions of grandeur, mental incompetence, a screw loose,
Speaker 1: a couple screws loose, all the goddamn screws loose. The
Speaker 1: tell in there is how he's talking about the land.
Speaker 1: As he began to talk about land and buildings and
Speaker 1: structures several years ago. This is accelerating. The land is
Speaker 1: real to him. The land is alive to him. The
Speaker 1: people are not. The people are just in the way.
Speaker 1: Sure they live there in Gaza. Sure they will just
Speaker 1: move because he says so. But the land, the land
Speaker 1: is beautiful and we will cherish it. He's talking like
Speaker 1: he's having sex with the land, like he's forgive me.
Speaker 1: What Billy Wilder allegedly told Nancy Reagan when she quizzed
Speaker 1: him about why Glorious Watson had a pet chimp in
Speaker 1: their movie Sunset Boulevard, Wilder told the first lady she
Speaker 1: was effings a monkey. Trump talks about Gaza like he's
Speaker 1: effing the monkey. Now, you can skip that imagery, but
Speaker 1: you cannot skip the reality. Everybody who doesn't tell the
Speaker 1: truth about Trump's now uncontrolled madness. Every time he shows
Speaker 1: that madness, every time he looks at the rest of
Speaker 1: the world as if everybody else, the other eight billion
Speaker 1: of us, we're wrong and we're stupid. And we're crazy
Speaker 1: and we can't see what is so plainly obvious to him.
Speaker 1: Everybody who doesn't say Donald Trump is failing not just
Speaker 1: their profession, nor their country or NATO, but failing the world.
Speaker 1: Because somebody who thinks that something that would at best
Speaker 1: require a war with thousands of Americans dead and hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of Palestinians dead, and who knows how many
Speaker 1: Israeli's dead on the ground, or it would require trillions
Speaker 1: of dollars, or it would require all of that. Somebody
Speaker 1: who thinks no, he can just say it and it
Speaker 1: will magically happen, miraculously and instantly. Just remember that somebody
Speaker 1: has nukes. And every Republican and every MAGA and every
Speaker 1: Republican pretending to be a MAGA has their own reality
Speaker 1: to face now. If not, Trump's next defeat at the
Speaker 1: hands of reality could very well destroy them, or turn
Speaker 1: him against their state, or be so astonishingly obvious to
Speaker 1: everybody that it derails the entirety of their program to
Speaker 1: turn this country into fascist land. I understand, boys, He's
Speaker 1: your entire platform. He is the cult, he is the
Speaker 1: sun and the moon and the stars. But you were
Speaker 1: gonna have to face the arithmetics someday, whether it was
Speaker 1: the two term limit in the twenty second Amendment or
Speaker 1: the other kind of limit in the actuarial tables, or
Speaker 1: the limit staring you in the face right now, the
Speaker 1: list you have to give to the President pro Tempore
Speaker 1: of the Senate and the Speaker of the House about
Speaker 1: how many cabinet members realize it is time to invoke
Speaker 1: Section four of the twenty fifth Amendment. The time is nigh.
Speaker 1: Stop lying about it, Republicans, stop lying about it. Stop
Speaker 1: lying about it. Fox News, stop lying about it. New
Speaker 1: York Times headline writers stop because Trump is effing the monkey.
Speaker 1: Of course, at least half of America is lying about
Speaker 1: the president as usual. I don't mean as usual about him,
Speaker 1: I mean as usual in our history. We don't like
Speaker 1: to admit this kind of meta view of things, but
Speaker 1: we lie all the time in this country. But we
Speaker 1: especially have always lied about our presidents at our presidency's
Speaker 1: and we lie about not lying about them. I guess
Speaker 1: I started thinking about this on January twentieth, when I
Speaker 1: don't know how many news reports in this country and
Speaker 1: outside of it that I heard and read included the
Speaker 1: phrase the traditional peaceful transfer of power. It's like one
Speaker 1: of those versions of the Oldest Dark cartoon in the book,
Speaker 1: the sign that reads now one day since a workplace accident,
Speaker 1: and the employee is walking to it holding a replacement
Speaker 1: panel that reads no days, and the employee carrying the
Speaker 1: panel has an axe stuck in the top of his head.
Speaker 1: That's us. Technically, we've always had peaceful transfers of power.
Speaker 1: If by that you define that there was literally no
Speaker 1: attempt to stop a new president from being sworn in
Speaker 1: and exactly at noon on the twentieth of January or
Speaker 1: the other dates that preceded that. But if you broaden
Speaker 1: the defination out a little bit, well, get the guy
Speaker 1: in the cartoon with the panel that says no days,
Speaker 1: because it's no days. We still had bomb threats at
Speaker 1: critical democratic leaning polling places last November, and for the
Speaker 1: two years before that, we had some fascist telegraphing or
Speaker 1: hinting or stochastically calling for violence every day if Trump lost,
Speaker 1: If that counts as the peaceful transfer of power, then
Speaker 1: the oldest Simpsons jokes apply attempted murder. Now, honestly, what
Speaker 1: is that? Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry?
Speaker 1: Was it a peaceful transfer of power? After the election
Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty You know in the Southern States responded
Speaker 1: to the election and seceded and started the Civil War
Speaker 1: to protest Lincoln's election? Was that peaceful? Does that count?
Speaker 1: What about nineteen sixty four? Nineteen sixty five? Brilliant fact
Speaker 1: about the Kennedy assassination? More on that from the distinguished
Speaker 1: Representative Anna Paulina Lunatic coming up. She wants to interview
Speaker 1: the War and Commission. But there's one salient fact about
Speaker 1: the Kennedy assassination that always seems to get glossed over.
Speaker 1: Is that when he went to Dallas in November nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, it was to informally start his re election
Speaker 1: campaign for nineteen sixty four. The incumbent president and Democratic
Speaker 1: candidate gets murdered three hundred and forty eight days before
Speaker 1: the vote. How peaceful was that transfer of power? How
Speaker 1: many other of our peaceful transfers are only peaceful? If
Speaker 1: you claim an assassination here or there doesn't count because
Speaker 1: it was outside some sort of historical window. It was
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three peaceful when the Republican president running in
Speaker 1: the election three months later had first Washington troops and
Speaker 1: then the Army under Douglas MacArthur open fire on the
Speaker 1: protesting World War One veterans in DC, known as the
Speaker 1: Bonus Army. How about April fourth, eighteen forty one, when
Speaker 1: the new president, William Henry Harrison died, and that had
Speaker 1: never happened before in this country, and Vice President John
Speaker 1: Tyler insisted he was the new president, and others said, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're not the new president. You're vice president and acting president,
Speaker 1: and we have to have a new election or something
Speaker 1: because it's not spelled out in the Constitution. And Tyler
Speaker 1: responded by having himself sworn in as fast as possible
Speaker 1: so nobody could stop him. And I'm not defending Trump,
Speaker 1: not the slightest, but we lie to ourselves constantly, especially
Speaker 1: about presidents and presidencies. Lincoln repeatedly ignored the courts, especially
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. We lie about the sanctity of the elections.
Speaker 1: Whoever really won in eighteen seventy six, that didn't decide
Speaker 1: who became president in eighteen seventy seven, a special commission
Speaker 1: did so because nobody really wanted to have another Civil
Speaker 1: war again quite so soon. I mean, we lie all
Speaker 1: the time about the presidency. Woodrow Wilson about whether he
Speaker 1: was healthy enough to remain president in nineteen nineteen, although
Speaker 1: he may have been so sick, he wasn't aware he
Speaker 1: was sick. He was thinking running again for a third term.
Speaker 1: Harding was sick. He never fully recovered from influenza, sick
Speaker 1: for seven months before he died suddenly. FDR obviously lied
Speaker 1: about his health. Eisenhower had two heart attacks, and there
Speaker 1: are months in his presidency about which historians are no
Speaker 1: longer sure he was President. JFK lied about his Addison's disease,
Speaker 1: even though the shape and color of his face changed
Speaker 1: from month to month. Reagan was clearly lying about his acuity,
Speaker 1: although like Wilson, he might have been unaware. But that's
Speaker 1: six presidents in a stretch of thirteen of them. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of lying about health, and it's reached its
Speaker 1: high point or low point. Half the country is lying
Speaker 1: about Trump's health and his mental health, specifically because they
Speaker 1: need him to keep the whole criminal enterprise rolling. And
Speaker 1: how many of us who want him gone tomorrow are
Speaker 1: also to some degree lying about his health because the
Speaker 1: reality is too terrifying to confront. How many reporters are
Speaker 1: lying to themselves because of that factor, and because they
Speaker 1: still don't know how to cover this perversion of everything
Speaker 1: we thought was true about this country. Only it turned
Speaker 1: out we were lying to ourselves. Someone was addressing the
Speaker 1: issue of this history of deceit by and about presidents
Speaker 1: as it relates to this pathetic farce who now has
Speaker 1: that title. They hoped for the best, and they invoked
Speaker 1: Lincoln's timeless phrase from his inauguration speech about how untimely,
Speaker 1: ultimately events would be decided by the better angels of
Speaker 1: our nature. You don't really want to laugh out loud
Speaker 1: when you hear a quote from mister Lincoln. But I
Speaker 1: laughed out loud because if there is one ultimate lie
Speaker 1: about the American presidency about America, that's it. The words
Speaker 1: are beautiful and immortal, and the part we lie about
Speaker 1: is that in reality, those beautiful words, those immortal words,
Speaker 1: were ignored. Lincoln spoke of the better angels of our
Speaker 1: nature in his first inaugural address, not his second one,
Speaker 1: not at the end of the Civil War, but before
Speaker 1: it even started. He invoked the better angels of our nature.
Speaker 1: And thirty nine days later, the rebels fired on Fort
Speaker 1: Sumter Lincoln invoked the Better Angels of Our Nature from
Speaker 1: a Shakespearean sonnet number one forty four. In fact, that's
Speaker 1: where it originates. I invoked she was Effing's a monkey
Speaker 1: from Billy Wilder trying to shock Nancy Reagan into unconsciousness.
Speaker 1: My mother would be very proud. I do think it's
Speaker 1: fitting to note here, though, that as crazy as Trump is,
Speaker 1: to go back to this subject directly, it would still
Speaker 1: be tempting if you had first pick in the annual
Speaker 1: crazy draft to select Musk or maybe even Congresswoman Anna
Speaker 1: Paulina Luna. Musk is really stupid online, but he's not
Speaker 1: half as stupid as he is in person. As you
Speaker 1: doubtless saw, he was good enough on Tuesday to reenact
Speaker 1: yet another movie scene Marty Sheen as the presidential candidate
Speaker 1: prophesied to begin a nuclear war and Marty Sheen is
Speaker 1: using a baby as a human shield from an assassin
Speaker 1: in the film The Dead Zone. Only this time it
Speaker 1: was in the Oval office, and Musk used his own baby,
Speaker 1: we assume, unless it was a rental, and Trump almost
Speaker 1: drifted off to sleep because the attention wasn't on him.
Speaker 1: And if you had to pick the sharpest one in
Speaker 1: the room among Trump, Musk and the baby. The baby
Speaker 1: would have gotten one hundred percent of the votes.
Speaker 5: Must you said fun case that an example of the
Speaker 5: fruit that you have cited was fifty million dollars of
Speaker 5: condoms was sent to Gaza. But after fact check this
Speaker 5: apparently Gaza in Mozambique and the program was to protect
Speaker 5: them against HIV. So can you correct these statements? It
Speaker 5: wasn't sent to Hamas. Actually it was sent to Musambie,
Speaker 5: which makes sense why condoms was sent there? And how
Speaker 5: can we make sure that all the statements that you
Speaker 5: said were correct? So we can't trust what you say?
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, some of the things that I
Speaker 6: say will be incorrect and should be corrected. So nobody
Speaker 6: can about one thousands, I mean any you know, we
Speaker 6: will make mistakes, but will quickly to correct any mistakes.
Speaker 1: Mistakes will be corrected. And yet you're still here. I'm
Speaker 1: glad he is rewarding Trump's confidence in him. Can we
Speaker 1: just jump ahead to the part of the script where
Speaker 1: must overdoses And I would be remiss if I did
Speaker 1: not play the clip of Congresswoman lun who has somehow
Speaker 1: wound up being the one in charge of the JFK
Speaker 1: assassination files. I guess because Bobert and Green are busy,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to know what they're busy with.
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Luna has somewhow wound up in Congress without being
Speaker 1: able to kind of guess within a tolerance of a
Speaker 1: decade or two, how many years it's been since the
Speaker 1: JFK assassination.
Speaker 5: What sort of witnesses will you expect to have at
Speaker 5: your hearing, some as in the first ones in marched
Speaker 5: at the apartment heads, former employees of various agents.
Speaker 7: Would you have to jump in? Yeah, I was going
Speaker 7: to say, based on what we're actually looking to do
Speaker 7: with the Jeff can investigation, I'm looking at to actually
Speaker 7: bring in some of the attending physicians at the initial assassination,
Speaker 7: and then also people that had been on the various
Speaker 7: commissions looking into, like the Warren Commission looking into the
Speaker 7: initial assassination.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Only one member of the Warren Commission lived past the
Speaker 1: year nineteen ninety one, and that was Gerald Ford. And
Speaker 1: I anchored MSNBC's coverage of funeral, and that was nearly
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. And never mind that all those autopsy
Speaker 1: surgeons are gone. I think the latest one died a
Speaker 1: decade ago, and the Secret Service people and almost all
Speaker 1: the witnesses. And then I was watching it on TV
Speaker 1: two months before my fifth birthday. If you want me
Speaker 1: to testify, ma'am, I mean, I'm sixty six. I might
Speaker 1: be the youngest witness available. I was watching it on
Speaker 1: Channel two, listening to her utter self confidence bordering on solemnity.
Speaker 1: There it dawned on me. I think I know where
Speaker 1: Representative Luna's cheese whiz slipped off her cracker, exactly when
Speaker 1: it happened, and why she thinks JFK who died in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three and JFK Junior, who died in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine. She thinks they're the same person, doesn't she.
Speaker 1: I will note that, for whatever his word is worth,
Speaker 1: Trump says he will not defy the courts. He'll just
Speaker 1: appeal the verdicts because he always respects the courts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if his history holds, he will shortly get enraged, however,
Speaker 1: and begin to threaten the judges again, while his fascist
Speaker 1: minions set the judges up for abuse and direct threats
Speaker 1: against their lives. The difference this time was that by
Speaker 1: the beginning of the week, there will be literally dozens
Speaker 1: of restraining orders dozens more against his administration, and some
Speaker 1: are likely to last months before they even fully play
Speaker 1: out in court. And I don't know how enraged that
Speaker 1: will actually leave him. He is, after all, Fang the monkey.
Speaker 1: The irony of the equation at the moment is that
Speaker 1: the primary public pushback against all this is coming not
Speaker 1: from the Democrats, not even from the Republicans, but from
Speaker 1: the moneyed class. Chuck Schumer had his ambiguous statement, and no,
Speaker 1: he did not say he would be helping Republicans pass
Speaker 1: the legislation that would keep the government from shutting down.
Speaker 1: He did maintain the position of the Democrats as the
Speaker 1: voice of reason, which, as much as I'd like to
Speaker 1: see AOC metaphorically kneecapping people on Capitol Hill, that holds
Speaker 1: your fire for the moment, that's not a bad position
Speaker 1: to hold temporarily, especially if this is what is coming
Speaker 1: out from those people like Trump and Musk who do
Speaker 1: not recognize the value or the existence of people, just
Speaker 1: the value and existence of money. This is all from
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal. The first is about the tariffs quote.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows what's up. Nick Pinchuck, chief executive of tool
Speaker 1: makers Snap on Set, on a conference call. It's like
Speaker 1: being on Space Mountain at Disney World. You get on
Speaker 1: Space Mountain, you get in a car, and you're in
Speaker 1: the dark, and the cars go left and right, left
Speaker 1: and right and abrupt turns. You don't know where you're going,
Speaker 1: but you know you're pretty confident that you're going to
Speaker 1: get to the right place at the bottom. This is
Speaker 1: from the WORL Wall Street Journal. The mood of the
Speaker 1: American consumer is souring. Tariff threats, market turbulence causing jitters
Speaker 1: early in Trump's second term. This is from the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal. For CEOs and bankers, the Trump euphoria is
Speaker 1: fading fast. Deals market gets curtailed by uncertainty delivered in
Speaker 1: presidents first weeks. This is from The Bulwark. It reports
Speaker 1: Republican congressmen are writing to constituents praising Musk and Trump
Speaker 1: and Maga and then adding little caveats that are not
Speaker 1: praising them at all. From Congressman Rob Whitman of Virginia,
Speaker 1: whose district has about twenty thousand federal employees in it.
Speaker 1: Or It did quote elon Musk's impressive track record of
Speaker 1: innovation provides valuable insights into how we can streamline government
Speaker 1: operations and leverage technology to better serve our citizens. That said,
Speaker 1: I share your concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest and overreach.
Speaker 1: Protecting the personal information of Americans is a fundamental responsibility
Speaker 1: and any breach of privacy is alarming. The prospect of
Speaker 1: private individuals or companies having unfettered access to sensitive data
Speaker 1: raises critical questions about accountability, oversight, and the safeguarding of
Speaker 1: our citizens' rights. Headline from June first, The search for
Speaker 1: the missing Elon Musk continues today. Republicans say no, they
Speaker 1: don't know where he is. And almost unbelievably, Glenn Greenwald
Speaker 1: has proven you can be a charlatan NonStop for twenty
Speaker 1: five years and then suddenly not only except reality, but
Speaker 1: then say something smart about it. This is a creed
Speaker 1: tocur from somebody who has never previously given any indication
Speaker 1: he has occur, Glenn Greenwald. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Speaker 1: is one of the very few tools ordinary Americans have
Speaker 1: to fight against the onslaught of abuses from massive corporate power.
Speaker 1: How is it consistent with the stated MAGA agenda to
Speaker 1: empower ordinary Americans to cripple it or shut it down. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not consistent, Glenn. Maga is a scam, you moron.
Speaker 1: But you had a good twelve seconds there, Glenn. All
Speaker 1: of that, even Glenn's twelve seconds, would be encouraging, maybe
Speaker 1: even suggestive. That the easiest way out of this burgeoning crisis, Trump,
Speaker 1: realizing he's going to tank the economy, cost the Republicans
Speaker 1: the House, set himself up for the bug House, get
Speaker 1: overruled in the courts left and right, and commit political suicide.
Speaker 1: Him realizing that that is all in the cards that
Speaker 1: might actually happen, he might reverse course. It would be encouraging, except,
Speaker 1: of course, that it would also require Trump reversing course,
Speaker 1: and reversing course requires him to admit, at least to himself,
Speaker 1: that he was mistaken and he has been defeated. And
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't know the meaning of the word defeat. I
Speaker 1: didn't know the meaning of a lot of words, but
Speaker 1: this is the only one that matters at the moment.
Speaker 1: By the way, I just I can't ignore this. If
Speaker 1: you want everything that's wrong with American news summarized in
Speaker 1: a four sentence confession, I give you Chris Solissa honest opinion,
Speaker 1: CNN should give Scott Jennings his own show. People who
Speaker 1: love him would watch, people who hate him would watch.
Speaker 1: The point is people would watch. First off, Melissa, they
Speaker 1: already did give Scott Jennings his own show. It's called
Speaker 1: The Abby Phillips Show. Also, Chris has no idea of
Speaker 1: right or wrong here, or journalism or not journalism. I
Speaker 1: guess we shouldn't be surprised by that. It doesn't factor
Speaker 1: into his consideration here. The point is people were to watch. No,
Speaker 1: the point is democracy is on fire. The United States
Speaker 1: of America could be a dictatorship before the end of
Speaker 1: the year. But you'll be fine. You're Chris, Solissa, you
Speaker 1: don't recognize things. You're the guy in the room with
Speaker 1: the hat on saying it's fine while it's on fire.
Speaker 1: But again, he has no idea of right or wrong.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know the difference between journalism and non journalism.
Speaker 1: But he knows what people will watch. That's why CNN
Speaker 1: and NBC fired him. You know what else? They would watch?
Speaker 1: A show in which the old Carnival dunk tank game
Speaker 1: is established, in which people like Chris Saliza and Scott
Speaker 1: Jennings are suspended over dunk tanks and dropped into the
Speaker 1: water every night by angry Americans throwing softballs at targets.
Speaker 1: And you could call it the CNN Evening News with
Speaker 1: Chris Silizza, but see that would be wrong and unjournalistic.
Speaker 1: And by this point of course, Chris Salizza has literally
Speaker 1: no idea what any of these words I am saying
Speaker 1: even mean. Also of interest here, the fascists are celebrating
Speaker 1: that American military base is not being re renamed after
Speaker 1: a Confederate general. Wait, they're celebrating because they didn't put
Speaker 1: a Confederate general's name on Fort Bragg what used to
Speaker 1: be Fort Bragg. They're celebrating for some reason. Oh, I
Speaker 1: see what it is. It's Denesh Desuza celebrating. And remember
Speaker 1: you can't spell DEI without Denesh Desuza. That's next. This
Speaker 1: is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead
Speaker 1: on countdown, on the premise that if I don't force
Speaker 1: you to take a break from this, you won't and
Speaker 1: you'll go crazy, and then I won't take a break
Speaker 1: from this, and I'll go crazy er. You know who
Speaker 1: Bill Baker was, but Bill the Baker, he was an
Speaker 1: infamous character from the press box at Yankee Stadium. This
Speaker 1: is an American Olympic hockey player named Bill Baker, a defenseman,
Speaker 1: and this is the anniversary of the least famous, most
Speaker 1: important goal in Olympic hockey history. This is also the
Speaker 1: window in which hockey itself should be shining, because after
Speaker 1: tonight there isn't another National Basketball Association regular season game
Speaker 1: scheduled until next Wednesday. There's no more football. Baseball is
Speaker 1: still just doing stretches, and hockey it shut down its
Speaker 1: season to play an artificial international tournament. Nobody in this
Speaker 1: country cares about way to market your sport, something I
Speaker 1: haven't done in a while. Hey, you sports kids, get
Speaker 1: off my lawn next first. Believe it or not, there
Speaker 1: are still more new idiots to talk about. The daily
Speaker 1: round up of the miscreants, morons and Donning Kruger effects
Speaker 1: specimens who constitute today's other worse parsons in the world.
Speaker 1: Let me dedicate this episode of wpiitw to the Associated Press,
Speaker 1: my natural enemies from my days long ago at the
Speaker 1: United Press International, But the AP has earned my respect.
Speaker 1: ANEW executive editor Julie Pace revealed that the White House
Speaker 1: threatened to revoke the AP's access to the Oval office
Speaker 1: if it did not call in all of its reporting
Speaker 1: the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. When it
Speaker 1: refused to do that, an AP reporter was in fact,
Speaker 1: within hours barred from attending a White House bill signing
Speaker 1: men this so our good friends at the Washington Post
Speaker 1: and CBS and CNN and ABC and NBC know exactly
Speaker 1: what is next. Whether you try to appease Trump or not,
Speaker 1: he will be back later for more. For now, your
Speaker 1: money will shut him up, But soon he'll be back
Speaker 1: insisting that you call it the Gulf of Mexico. And
Speaker 1: then he'll be back again, insisting you report in all
Speaker 1: of your reporting that the twenty twenty election was stolen
Speaker 1: from him. Because that's the way this works, Bezos. That's
Speaker 1: the way this works, Iiger, that's the way this works.
Speaker 1: Whoever's running CNN this week, they are blackmailers. You are
Speaker 1: being blackmailed. It doesn't stop when you give in. They
Speaker 1: will be writing your newscasts for you. AnyWho. On that
Speaker 1: bright note to the nominees, one of the real housewives
Speaker 1: of Propaganda County former Oakland. No wonder they don't exist anymore.
Speaker 1: Raiders cheerleader Emily Compagno, who is now at Fox News,
Speaker 1: So I guess she's the next Secretary of Lumber or
Speaker 1: Trump will insist they make her pope or something. She
Speaker 1: is the worst. The bronze winner Emily Compagne on the
Speaker 1: role of the media under her trumph and reichmarket von
Speaker 1: Musk Trump's quote Office of Communications is putting out every day,
Speaker 1: all day exactly what they are doing. So all you
Speaker 1: have to do legacy media is simply repeat, retweet, repost,
Speaker 1: and that is the news and that is the facts.
Speaker 1: First off, Fox News is legacy media. Secondly, miss Companio
Speaker 1: that process, just repeat what the Republican says, retweet it,
Speaker 1: and repost it. That was copyrighted by Fox News in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. The rest of us can't do that.
Speaker 1: You are the worldwide distributors of stenography for fascists. Another
Speaker 1: one of our mistakes in twenty twenty one twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two is not politicizing the DOJ and not prosecuting Rupert
Speaker 1: Murdoch and NewsCorp and Fox News for something into the
Speaker 1: effing ground. Of course, that was also one of our
Speaker 1: mistakes in nineteen ninety six. Next time, the runner up
Speaker 1: worser Denesh Desuza, now celebrating his sixty third year of
Speaker 1: disproving the theory that one needs to have an actual
Speaker 1: brain to be able to say things out loud. Denesh
Speaker 1: Desuza writes, it would be fun to rename all the
Speaker 1: forts after Confederate generals, not because we like Confederate generals,
Speaker 1: but just to piss off the left. Well, trader's gonna trader,
Speaker 1: of course. But what makes this even dumber than usual
Speaker 1: for Denesh Desuza is the fort they already re renamed
Speaker 1: Fort Bragg. The White supremacists actually folded on this. They
Speaker 1: have renamed Fort Liberty Fort Bragg, all right, but Secretary
Speaker 1: of Defense Pete Cagbreath insists it's not for the worst
Speaker 1: general of the Civil War, Braxton Brag. It is instead
Speaker 1: to honor Private Roland Brag, one of the heroes of
Speaker 1: the Battle of the Bulge in World War Two. I'm
Speaker 1: fine with that. I mean, I don't know if Roland
Speaker 1: Bragg is really at the top of the list of
Speaker 1: those who should have forts named after them, but if
Speaker 1: the place doesn't honor Braxton Bragg or anybody else who
Speaker 1: is a trader for the Confederacy, cool. We in the
Speaker 1: left one. If you want to rename Robert E. Lee
Speaker 1: Street at Fairchild Air Base in Spokane and keep it
Speaker 1: Lee straight, but rename it after Bruce Lee. Cool.
Speaker 6: Cool.
Speaker 1: We'll win again. Now, who wants to tell Desuza about this?
Speaker 1: I'll start the bidding. And oh, by the way, since
Speaker 1: we're in this mode now, you can't spell DEEI without
Speaker 1: Denesh Desuza. But our winner the worst Mayor twelve percent himself,
Speaker 1: whose nickname has now been changed to Mayor ten percent,
Speaker 1: Eric Adams of New York Fun City, one of the
Speaker 1: washed up lawyers. Trump dug out of the trash and
Speaker 1: put on it the defense team and then put in
Speaker 1: the Justice Department. We'll call him Renfield. I think his
Speaker 1: name is emmel something. Call them all Renfield. He has
Speaker 1: ordered DOJ to indefinitely postpone the prosecution of Mayor Adams,
Speaker 1: not just for corruption, but for really really cheap corruption,
Speaker 1: on the transparently nonsensical premise that the case started too
Speaker 1: close to any election. It was begun nine months before
Speaker 1: a primary for re election, which Adam stands no chance
Speaker 1: of or of being renominated by his party. Adams, of course,
Speaker 1: is genuinely one of the most stupid men ever to
Speaker 1: appear in American politics. He openly repeatedly met with Trump.
Speaker 1: Then last week he ordered New York City staff to
Speaker 1: open city buildings to the Iice Gestapo so they can
Speaker 1: go hunting for immigration violators, and he ordered city staff
Speaker 1: to not criticize Trump, and two business days later, the
Speaker 1: charges against him were postponed until at least after the
Speaker 1: next election, and Adams apparently thinks somehow New York voters
Speaker 1: won't notice any of this because he's stupid. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's even worse than it seems. Adams clearly not only
Speaker 1: hoard himself out to President Pimp, but he also did
Speaker 1: it in such a way that he's actively on the
Speaker 1: hook to him. Trump could have dropped the prosecution outright,
Speaker 1: but that's not what they did. They postponed it so
Speaker 1: Trump could restart the prosecution anytime he thinks Adams isn't
Speaker 1: cow towing sufficiently or licking Trump's ass fast enough. What
Speaker 1: neither of them have figured out, though, is the rather
Speaker 1: simple reality that all the career people in the government
Speaker 1: of the City of New York and an increasing number
Speaker 1: of other electeds here, and many of those appointed by Adams,
Speaker 1: who have not yet gotten into trouble because of him,
Speaker 1: have turned on him. They want to see him suffer,
Speaker 1: They want to see him out of office, they want
Speaker 1: to see him in jail. As suggested by his total
Speaker 1: lack of subtlety in meeting with the Furor, Adams is
Speaker 1: not smart enough to even symbolically cover his tracks here,
Speaker 1: and so presumably somebody somewhere can confirm exactly what Adams
Speaker 1: promised Trump or promised anybody else, and how much of
Speaker 1: a quid pro quote there is here. Plus all those
Speaker 1: federal charges that are now in abeyance, he can still
Speaker 1: be indicted for them, and indicted for whatever he did
Speaker 1: with Trump by the City of New York and by
Speaker 1: the State of New York. Just not a bright guy. Plus,
Speaker 1: it isn't clear what the Adams endgame is here. He's
Speaker 1: only got one route that lets him stay in politics,
Speaker 1: and that's to change parties. Now, it isn't clear if
Speaker 1: he's going to do that before the election and run
Speaker 1: as a Republican or if he would hold out and
Speaker 1: wait until after he thinks somehow he has been reelected
Speaker 1: as a Democrat. Eric adams approval rate was twelve percent
Speaker 1: even he beat the Republican last time, the old guy
Speaker 1: in the red beret. He beat him sixty seven percent
Speaker 1: to twenty seven percent. The polling for the Democratic primary
Speaker 1: right now, as the city comptroller and two state senators
Speaker 1: I've never heard of, and I was born here in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine tied at six percent each. Adams is
Speaker 1: now at ten percent. So he was at twelve percent approval,
Speaker 1: but now he's at ten percent. Just among Democrats in
Speaker 1: terms of getting the nomination. Running away with the nomination
Speaker 1: at this point at thirty three percent, is disgraced ex
Speaker 1: Governor Andrew Cuomo because as bad as he was, he
Speaker 1: wasn't as bad as Adams. So Adams is safe for
Speaker 1: now from jail. I guess unless the state or city
Speaker 1: does indict him like I suggested, because a Trump pardon
Speaker 1: wouldn't impact that. I'm left with this question. Do we
Speaker 1: think Adams knows that Trump can't pardon him for city
Speaker 1: or state prosecutions? Mayor Eric sh don't tell him. I'd
Speaker 1: like it to be a surprise. Adams two days worst person. Hello,
Speaker 1: this is Sports Senate. Wait check that not anymore. This
Speaker 1: is Countdown with Keith Alberman from the sports Ball central
Speaker 1: centered news desk tonight hene Boston, Massachusetts and Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Speaker 1: So what happens to football fans the week after the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl? They either immediately start looking ahead to the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five draft and the twenty twenty five season,
Speaker 1: or they consider for the first time all winter the
Speaker 1: possibility of concentrating on a different sport. Pitchers and catchers
Speaker 1: will have reported to all the baseball spring training camps
Speaker 1: by today. There are five NBA games tonight, than two
Speaker 1: days off in the All Star Games Sunday, then two
Speaker 1: more days off, so Tomorrow and Saturday, and then next
Speaker 1: Monday and next Tuesday. There are no NFL games, no
Speaker 1: NBA games, no baseball games, and the National Hockey League
Speaker 1: the only one in that group standing. It continues to
Speaker 1: provide evidence that it's actually run by people sent over
Speaker 1: by basketball to screw hockey into the ground. The next
Speaker 1: National Hockey League game in this absence of anything else
Speaker 1: is twelve thirty Eastern Time, Saturday, February twenty second, at
Speaker 1: the time when fans of other sports might be open
Speaker 1: to looking at your game. Maybe for the first time,
Speaker 1: you have shut the league down for two weeks. So
Speaker 1: you can hold a bullshit tournament nobody cares about that
Speaker 1: features almost no games. The Four Nations face Off, which
Speaker 1: sounds like a sequel to the Travolta Nick Cage movie,
Speaker 1: pits teams of NHL players, but not with their teams
Speaker 1: that you know, but with their countries. Because if you
Speaker 1: think the distinction of most fans about which of their
Speaker 1: players are Swedish and which are finish is negligible, you
Speaker 1: should check how much they don't care about which are
Speaker 1: Americans and which are Canadians. I literally just found out
Speaker 1: that a guy I always thought was a Swede named
Speaker 1: Patrick lyone of the Montreal Cans, is actually a Finn.
Speaker 1: And my response to this was who cares Canada and
Speaker 1: Sweden played the first game last night. Tomorrow it's America
Speaker 1: and Finland. There are only five other games in the
Speaker 1: next week after that, including the championship. One assumes this
Speaker 1: matters in Finland and Sweden they are rivals. One knows
Speaker 1: it matters in Canada, where many broadcasters like to recite
Speaker 1: the entire resume of where the referees and linesmen for
Speaker 1: each game where they played before they gave up playing
Speaker 1: when they were seventeen after that accident with the asphalt truck,
Speaker 1: and the names of the trainers and the goal judges
Speaker 1: who were on hand at the point where the asphalt
Speaker 1: truck ran into the rink, and how they all met
Speaker 1: Sidney Crosby's cousin's neighbors, skate sharpener, well his backup skate sharpener.
Speaker 1: It's an obsession. Last Saturday night, the host of Hockey
Speaker 1: Night in Canada pointed out that there were only four
Speaker 1: Americans in the Super Bowl, but the NHL has nearly
Speaker 1: sixty percent non Canadians. His implication was that this somehow
Speaker 1: makes the NHL better because the diversity between Canada and
Speaker 1: America is really big, isn't it. Luck Finns and Swedes.
Speaker 1: You ever see the Star Trek episode where the planet
Speaker 1: was divided into people who were white on the left
Speaker 1: side and black on the right side, and people who
Speaker 1: were black on the left side and white on the
Speaker 1: right side, and they hated each other and were racist
Speaker 1: towards each other or other. I always remembered that episode
Speaker 1: it starred Frank Gorshen, Because like race, nationality is primarily
Speaker 1: stupid and irrelevant, but somehow in Canada this is a
Speaker 1: big deal. The NHL is better because nearly sixty percent
Speaker 1: of the players don't play in Canada. What is it,
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the players the teams don't play in
Speaker 1: Canada and the players aren't from Canada. Okay, that makes
Speaker 1: sense anyway, The NHL is somehow better because of all this,
Speaker 1: and somehow better by not playing for the two weeks
Speaker 1: after football goes dark and as the battle to make
Speaker 1: the playoffs heats up, and as Alexander Ovechkin battles to
Speaker 1: break the all time goal scoring record of Wayne Gretzky's,
Speaker 1: with many hoping he does break Wayne Gretzky's records, while
Speaker 1: others like me, hope that instead he just breaks his
Speaker 1: putin loving ass, I love hockey. I will usually defer
Speaker 1: to Canadians on almost anything, especially now when they're angry
Speaker 1: enough at us that in Vancouver last week, the home
Speaker 1: crowd not only briefly booed the American anthem, they booed
Speaker 1: it while it was being sung by a woman of
Speaker 1: color who was in a wheel chair. That's how mad
Speaker 1: they were. To their credit, they cheered her when she
Speaker 1: sang the Canadian anthem, but it still was a choice.
Speaker 1: But if baseball seems committed to making all the wrong
Speaker 1: decisions about its sport, Hockey, it seems committed year after year,
Speaker 1: decade after decade, incarnation after incarnation, committed to keeping its
Speaker 1: sport the secret. By the way, that grueling load of
Speaker 1: seven games over twelve days that is supposed to captivate
Speaker 1: two nations and one continent and the Gulf of America.
Speaker 1: The games will be played in Boston and Montreal, and
Speaker 1: the ticket sales were reported to be weak in Montreal
Speaker 1: but worse in Boston. Dateline, Lake Placid, New York. Forty
Speaker 1: five years ago, yesterday, the US hockey team looked to
Speaker 1: be on its way to another noble but irrelevant, non
Speaker 1: metal finish at the Olympics. They trailed the powerful Swedes
Speaker 1: two to one. In the final minute, they pulled the
Speaker 1: goalie for an extra skater, and with twenty seven seconds left,
Speaker 1: defenseman Bill Baker put the puck passed superstar Swedish goalie
Speaker 1: Pelly Lindbergh to get America an unlikely two two tie,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, the Americans were still eligible
Speaker 1: for a medal. And if you do the math, you
Speaker 1: know how that turned out. We're talking about the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty Olympics a place where countries matter, where the Swedes
Speaker 1: versus the Americans decide which team wins, and ultimately the
Speaker 1: versus the Americans was followed by the Americans versus the
Speaker 1: Russians to determine who was going to get the gold medal,
Speaker 1: and it was the Americans, you know, back when we
Speaker 1: all used to hate Russia. The NHL will come back,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, on Saturday the twenty second, with twenty
Speaker 1: four games that day and on Sunday, the twenty third,
Speaker 1: But it's just going to have two two weeks from
Speaker 1: now on Monday the twenty fourth. So what Well, Monday
Speaker 1: the twenty fourth is forty five years to the day
Speaker 1: of the miracle on ice, when the US Olympic hockey team,
Speaker 1: having beaten Russia two days earlier, completed its impossible gold
Speaker 1: medal victory at the nineteen eighty Olympics in Lake Placid,
Speaker 1: New York. The NHL will celebate February twenty fourth with
Speaker 1: a game in Calgary and another one in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1: Because marketing, we've done all of our marketing, we got
Speaker 1: all the groceries. That Olympic victory gave hockey a brief
Speaker 1: hold on what was at worst a tie with basketball
Speaker 1: for the most popular winter sport in this country. Nobody
Speaker 1: believes this now, but in February nineteen eighty. In fact,
Speaker 1: through almost all of the nineteen eighties, NBA Finals games
Speaker 1: on weeknights were not shown live on American television. They
Speaker 1: were tape delayed until eleven thirty pm on the local
Speaker 1: CBS station because who is gonna watch basketball rather than Dallas?
Speaker 1: Or let's make a Beverly Hills Bills Lays or whatever
Speaker 1: the shows were. Of course, the Olympic hockey game, the
Speaker 1: one in which we beat the Russians on the twenty
Speaker 1: second of February, was also shown on delay. They played
Speaker 1: it late in the afternoon, but they knew everybody was
Speaker 1: going to watch. They played it on tape on ABC
Speaker 1: on the night that it happened. Only those of us
Speaker 1: who were there at the Lake Placid Olympic Center saw
Speaker 1: it live. Because my boss at UPI Radio was Sam Rosen,
Speaker 1: already the backup play by play by on of the
Speaker 1: New York Rangers, now a Hockey Hall of Famer in
Speaker 1: his last of two hundred seasons doing the Rangers games,
Speaker 1: he's retiring. Appropriately, he big footed me and took over
Speaker 1: covering the US Olympic team, and he gave me a
Speaker 1: hell of a second prize. He had me cover the
Speaker 1: crowd for the remaining games, which meant I got to
Speaker 1: sit there at center ice with a ticket and watch
Speaker 1: like a fan and then spend I don't know ninety
Speaker 1: seconds to two minutes working and ask happy American fans
Speaker 1: how happy they were. So since this is the end
Speaker 1: of it and I'm trying to give you a break
Speaker 1: from all of our real world nonsense, I'll play you
Speaker 1: one of my reports from the day of the wind
Speaker 1: over Russia. I am just shy here or just after
Speaker 1: I should say, my twenty first birthday, and this report
Speaker 1: aired on about a thousand radio stations in the United States,
Speaker 1: and it aired before people knew from television that we
Speaker 1: had beaten the Russians. Because tough. I will play you
Speaker 1: this report, and then I will tell you my real
Speaker 1: memory of those Olympics when Sam Rosen, my friend to
Speaker 1: this day, and his boss took me out and got
Speaker 1: me drunk and then sent me to cover the skiing
Speaker 1: when the wind chill outside was fifty below. And I'll
Speaker 1: just add before I play you this old tape. I'm
Speaker 1: still cold whenever I sit down with that share.
Speaker 2: The biggest upset in Olympic hockey history was complete. The
Speaker 2: United States four, the Soviet Union three, and the fans
Speaker 2: who packed the Olympics Center felt as much a part
Speaker 2: of the win as the players did.
Speaker 1: I really thought you Russia would win.
Speaker 2: I really didn't think the United States could pull it off.
Speaker 5: I'm so proud of him.
Speaker 3: Oh so tremendous, unbelievably tremendous. I I was gonna let
Speaker 3: else to say, I'm so psyched. It's just just an
Speaker 3: uplift for to see them win and to see them
Speaker 3: could do.
Speaker 2: So well against the Russian. After the game, thousands spilled
Speaker 2: onto the streets. There were tremendous firecracker displays and chants of.
Speaker 1: Weird number one.
Speaker 2: Keith Oberman, Lake Placid, passic.
Speaker 1: The alarm goes off. It is pitch black in my
Speaker 1: room at the Swiss Acres Motel. It is Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: and I am still drunk. Keith knew he was in trouble,
Speaker 1: but I was also twenty one years old, and in fact,
Speaker 1: my twenty first birthday had only been eighteen days earlier.
Speaker 1: So somehow I survived, showered, dressed, packed, and I mean
Speaker 1: I packed, two cassette tape recorders, four sets of batteries,
Speaker 1: an audio processing machine that weighed like fourteen pounds. The
Speaker 1: nine volt batteries it took, I think it was a
Speaker 1: dozen of them, a telephone, a backup telephone, twelve assorted
Speaker 1: patch cords, two loose leaf notebooks, about eight pens, two microphones,
Speaker 1: two extra pair of socks, and I got dressed, two
Speaker 1: full sets of thermal underwear, shirts, sweaters, snow pants, snow shoes.
Speaker 1: Because it was eleven degrees below zero that morning, I
Speaker 1: got something quick to eat at the commissary, and I
Speaker 1: made it out somehow to the line for the bus
Speaker 1: from the Lake Placid Olympics Center to the Lake Placid
Speaker 1: Transportation Center to Lake Placid's own White Face Mountain, then
Speaker 1: onto the snow track, the open penned mountain tractor that
Speaker 1: went up the side of Whiteface Mountain and took me
Speaker 1: to the finish line of the nineteen eighty Olympic Men's
Speaker 1: down hill ski final. Still drunk. That is how a
Speaker 1: reporter covered the Olympics nearly forty three years ago. You drank,
Speaker 1: you woke up, you went, you stood near the finish line,
Speaker 1: and when the skiers completed their runs, you hiked or
Speaker 1: wobbled over to them and you took out your microphone
Speaker 1: or your pen and you interviewed them, like two minutes
Speaker 1: after they had finished hurtling towards you down the hill.
Speaker 1: You could see almost nothing of the race from there.
Speaker 1: There were no TV monitors. Basically, your only clue was
Speaker 1: the sound of the crowd that would give you about
Speaker 1: thirty seconds worth of warning that the skier was coming
Speaker 1: over the near horizon, and you should be prepared to
Speaker 1: flee just in case he or she wiped out. Also,
Speaker 1: you were on top of a mountain at the dead
Speaker 1: point of winter, and whereas it might have been a
Speaker 1: balmy eleven degrees below zero in the comfort of the
Speaker 1: Swiss Acres motel with the wind chill, at the base
Speaker 1: of the mountain, it was forty eight below zero and
Speaker 1: there had already been four inches of new snow since
Speaker 1: the sun came up, which is where the still drunk
Speaker 1: part came in. Handy, my boss is at my first job,
Speaker 1: the thousand station radio network called United pres International Audio,
Speaker 1: had decided the night before to teach me how to
Speaker 1: drink while on assignment. My bosses were the bureau manager
Speaker 1: for that part of you PI, the late Stan Sabik,
Speaker 1: who had hired me, and Sam Rosen, the sports director
Speaker 1: of the network, who not only somehow survived being my
Speaker 1: first boss, but today, just forty three years later, is
Speaker 1: still working as the television voice of the New York
Speaker 1: Rangers hockey team and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: So I guess my reputation is a tough employee is
Speaker 1: wildly overrated, or at least Sam thinks. So Sam and
Speaker 1: Stan kept me drinking at the motel until two am,
Speaker 1: knowing full well that I had to get on the
Speaker 1: six am bus to go cover the men's downhill, because
Speaker 1: it was the two of them who had assigned me
Speaker 1: to go cover the men's downhill, and bluntly, I was
Speaker 1: surprisingly pleased with myself that freezing morning because I had
Speaker 1: indeed learned how to drink while on assignment. I had
Speaker 1: somehow found the phone jack for the UPI phone buried
Speaker 1: under all the new snow, which of course was buried
Speaker 1: under all the old snow, attached the phone to it,
Speaker 1: got in a dial tone, called the office, checked the
Speaker 1: alligator clips with which I would feed the tape, and
Speaker 1: all was well until I went to put a cassette
Speaker 1: tape into the cassette recorder. I didn't have one fat
Speaker 1: lot of good two cassette tape machines, gonna do you
Speaker 1: without a cassette to stick in one of them. I
Speaker 1: looked forlornly around the base of Whiteface Mountain, twelve hundred
Speaker 1: feet above sea level. As we were. There was a
Speaker 1: surprisingly nice chalet and a decent restaurant, but there were
Speaker 1: no radio shacks or other electronics stores. There was, however,
Speaker 1: one other radio guy, Jack Briggs, from the Associated Press
Speaker 1: Radio Network, the nominal arch rival to our own UPI Audio.
Speaker 1: I knew Jack a little. He was a nice guy.
Speaker 1: I went and explained my plight, making sure to blame
Speaker 1: my bosses for my predicament. Oh man, he said, his
Speaker 1: breath turning into first steam and then ice cubes. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, but I can't give you a cassette. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you're UPI, and I'm ap Oh how I laughed. That
Speaker 1: was a great line to say to a rookie reporter
Speaker 1: still drunk thanks to the initiation rituals of his own bosses.
Speaker 1: The possessor of one great buzz, but zero audio cassettes.
Speaker 1: Jack Briggs could tell I thought he was kidding. That's
Speaker 1: when he said, I'm not kidding. Look, if my boss,
Speaker 1: Shelby Whitfield, ever found out, he'd fire me. I suddenly
Speaker 1: wasn't drunk anymore, not at all. My boss will will
Speaker 1: will fire me. Briggs was adamant. I can't run the
Speaker 1: risk of shellby finding out. I have to confess. I shouted,
Speaker 1: how the hell is he gonna find out?
Speaker 3: Jack?
Speaker 1: I think subconsciously I was hoping to create an avalanche,
Speaker 1: which would have been a better solution than the one
Speaker 1: I was faced with. I said to him, there's you
Speaker 1: and there's me, and we're on top of a goddamn mountain,
Speaker 1: and Shelby Whitfield, your boss is in Washington, DC, and
Speaker 1: he's a drunk, and he's probably more drunk than I am,
Speaker 1: and he'd probably thank you for helping me to drink more.
Speaker 1: Briggs would not budge. I told him I would pay him.
Speaker 1: I told him I would give him the cassette back
Speaker 1: after I fed my boss the interviews over the phone,
Speaker 1: so there'd be no evidence and he wouldn't even have
Speaker 1: to do any interviews. No good. I'm sorry. I know
Speaker 1: you're going to tell this story about me for a while.
Speaker 1: As he walked away from me, I shouted after him forever.
Speaker 1: Turned out there was no radio shack and no camaraderie,
Speaker 1: but there was a West Coast newspaper reporter atop the
Speaker 1: mountain who heard some of this conversation. I guess I
Speaker 1: yelled a little loudly at mister Briggs. Some guy standing
Speaker 1: next to a Saint Bernard told me to quiet down
Speaker 1: and mentioned something else about the avalanches. Or maybe I
Speaker 1: dreamed that part. I don't know. Anyway, the West Coast
Speaker 1: newspaper guy said he had a micro cassette machine and
Speaker 1: he would loan it to me and I could give
Speaker 1: it back to him at the media center that day
Speaker 1: or the next one. But I had to do him
Speaker 1: a favor because there was this really cute reporter in
Speaker 1: our UPI bureau and he really wanted to be introduced
Speaker 1: to her. And I said, I can promise you nothing
Speaker 1: but a handshake, and he understood, and that's how I
Speaker 1: did not get fired. But of course, a story like
Speaker 1: this has punchlines, and this one has two of them.
Speaker 1: The first is two years and a couple of months later,
Speaker 1: Shelby Whitfield asked me to lunch. He had left the
Speaker 1: Associated Press to run the sports department at the ABC
Speaker 1: Radio network, back when that was not only a thing,
Speaker 1: but a big thing. We went to a terrific New
Speaker 1: York City Chinese restaurant near ABC called shun Lee, and
Speaker 1: Shelby Whitfield interviewed me for a job when that kind
Speaker 1: of job paid eighty thousand a year and my very
Speaker 1: nice studio apartment in a very nice part of town
Speaker 1: costs less than five hundred dollars. A month later, in
Speaker 1: an interesting twist, I found out that jobs didn't exist.
Speaker 1: I was mentioning the interview in a press box somewhere
Speaker 1: I think Madison Square Garden, and there was another kid
Speaker 1: reporter named Howie Rose, and how he is still working,
Speaker 1: he does the New York Mets games on the radio.
Speaker 1: And how he said, wait, they interviewed me for that
Speaker 1: job last year. Just an excuse for that damn Whitfield
Speaker 1: to go drink his lunch on ABC's tab. Anyway, before
Speaker 1: we started the interview for the job I did not
Speaker 1: know did not exist at ABC. I told Shelby Whitfield
Speaker 1: the white Face Mountain can I borrow a cassette Jack
Speaker 1: Briggs story? And Shelby's exact reply was, I don't know
Speaker 1: was I going to find out? There was you and
Speaker 1: there was him, and you were on top of a
Speaker 1: goddamn mountain and I was in Washington. Only he didn't
Speaker 1: say goddamn that Briggs. He added, always trying to suck
Speaker 1: up to me, I got to tell you something I
Speaker 1: actually once promised I wouldn't tell you if we ever met. This.
Speaker 1: When the Olympics were over and came back to the office,
Speaker 1: he told me what happened. He expected me to be
Speaker 1: happy or give him a bonus or something. And I
Speaker 1: called him a little snitch. Only Shelby didn't say snitch,
Speaker 1: just a word that rhymed with it. The other punch
Speaker 1: line is from nineteen ninety two, and remember this happened
Speaker 1: at the nineteen eighty Olympics. I go to work at
Speaker 1: ESPN and come in a little early to launch their
Speaker 1: radio network, a story I've told here before. And there
Speaker 1: I find a friend of mine since my radio days,
Speaker 1: who I have not seen in a year or so,
Speaker 1: and he says, hey, last month, I was at an
Speaker 1: NBA game in Washington. I ran to Jack Briggs. He
Speaker 1: heard you were going to ESPN. He asked me if
Speaker 1: you were still telling that story about the time you
Speaker 1: got stuck on Whiteface Mountain without a cassette, And he
Speaker 1: was the only other reporter there, and he wouldn't give
Speaker 1: you a spare And I told him you were and
Speaker 1: I smiled, and I replied, I hope you remembered to
Speaker 1: use the word forever. I've done all the damage I
Speaker 1: can do here. Thank you for listening. Brian Ray and
Speaker 1: John Phillips Chanel, the musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced
Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration
Speaker 1: and keyboards. Mister Ray, in between his other gigs, was
Speaker 1: on the guitars, bass and drums. He was produced by
Speaker 1: Tko Brothers. Our satirical and fifty musical comments are by
Speaker 1: the best baseball stadium organists ever, Nancy Faust. The sports
Speaker 1: music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by
Speaker 1: Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of e ESPN Inc. Other music
Speaker 1: arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My
Speaker 1: announcer today is my friend Larry David. Everything else was
Speaker 1: as ever my fault So that's countdown for today, just
Speaker 1: and thirty eight days until the scheduled end of his
Speaker 1: lane duck lame brained term, unless Musk removes him sooner
Speaker 1: or the actuarial tables due. The next scheduled countdown is Monday.
Speaker 1: As always, bulletins as the news warrants. Remember impeach Trump now,
Speaker 1: it won't work. Now it will win the Democrats the midterms.
Speaker 1: Until the next time. I'm Keith o'roman. Good morning, let
Speaker 1: me try that again, old b good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck. He set your name Rock Lauren.
Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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