Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
Speaker 1: think there has been an unrecognized earthquake in presidential election polling.
Speaker 1: I'll get to Trump's trial and how he managed to
Speaker 1: blow it, and why he thought a guy celebrating his
Speaker 1: fortieth year of no longer being on Saturday Night Live
Speaker 1: was just the right choice to lead his courthouse posse yesterday.
Speaker 1: I'll get to that in a moment, But first, I
Speaker 1: think I think a series of lights may have gone
Speaker 1: off over the heads of a series of voters. And
Speaker 1: not to sound like one of those British generals who
Speaker 1: believed he could end World War One by Thursday, they
Speaker 1: can take the sum by nightfall with less than a
Speaker 1: million casualties. But I think I think we may actually
Speaker 1: be seeing the start of the breakthrough, the voter breakthrough
Speaker 1: against Trump. This was Joshua Green writing for Bloomberg, and
Speaker 1: don't let his mixture of nonchalance and utter surprise infuriate you.
Speaker 1: Just listen. Quote. As the rematch between Joe Biden and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump draws nearer, political professionals are detecting an unusual
Speaker 1: concern among some undecided voters that if Trump returns to
Speaker 1: the White House, he'll refuse to step down when his
Speaker 1: term is up. Oh no, kidding? Is that a thing? Wow?
Speaker 1: Go on? Sa G. Carpenter, vice president at David binder
Speaker 1: Ree Search, noticed this fear in early April while conducting
Speaker 1: focus groups of people who had voted for Biden in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty but became disillusioned and we're considering switching sides
Speaker 1: quoting him. We were talking to Latino men and Asian
Speaker 1: American Pacific Islander women in battleground states, and they went
Speaker 1: straight to the issue of what if Trump won't give
Speaker 1: up power. It's not something we'd been testing for, but
Speaker 1: what we've seen so far indicates a real concern there. So, so,
Speaker 1: mister Carpenter, this is something new. You say it just
Speaker 1: because he started doing his quote jokes about never leaving
Speaker 1: office in February of twenty seventeen. You haven't been asking
Speaker 1: about this just because we all think that he has
Speaker 1: a Banana Republic military uniform with the Vietnam medals he's
Speaker 1: awarded himself, already pinned on it. You have not been
Speaker 1: asking this question ten years. He's been a Democratic focus
Speaker 1: group puller. According to Bloomberg, this, mister Carpenter. Republican strategists,
Speaker 1: the article goes on, have encountered the same thing it's
Speaker 1: showing up in our focus groups, says Sarah Longwell, the
Speaker 1: chief executive of Longwell Partners and publisher of the conservative
Speaker 1: website The Bulwark. It happened just the other day. Longwell
Speaker 1: shared a video of a group of undecided Swing state
Speaker 1: voters who had been asked if they were worried that
Speaker 1: Trump might violate the constitutional amendment limiting him to one
Speaker 1: more term if he wins in November. Does anybody think
Speaker 1: he may not abide by the twenty second Amendment of
Speaker 1: the Constitution and leave office after the twenty twenty eight election.
Speaker 1: Anyone worried about that? The moderator asked. In response, seven
Speaker 1: of the eight participants raised a hand unquote wait for
Speaker 1: or against? Wait this is the earthquake? Quote. A Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: man worried that Trump might go further and try to
Speaker 1: institute a dynasty, quoting him on this tape, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: put it past him now that he owns the RNC.
Speaker 1: The man said to say, Don Junior is going to
Speaker 1: do the next term, and he'll get to and then
Speaker 1: Baron will get to and we'll just have some fake monarchy.
Speaker 1: As far fetched as it may sound, mister Green goes
Speaker 1: on the prospect of Trump overriding. We're simply ignoring the
Speaker 1: constitutional provision that limits a president to serving two terms.
Speaker 1: Seems to be pushing some undecided voters toward Biden. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's far fetched. The guy who wrote this article wrote
Speaker 1: a book about Liz Warren, Bernie and AOC and he
Speaker 1: has written this article. Like the next paragraph will start.
Speaker 1: You may not believe this, but the kids now think Baby,
Speaker 1: the earth goes around the sun. Quote. Trump's flirtations with
Speaker 1: smashing limits on presidential power, while thrilling to many of
Speaker 1: his followers, alarm other voters, including some who once supported him.
Speaker 1: Laurie McCammon, a grandmother in Alma, Wisconsin, voted for Trump
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, but says she recoiled at his recent
Speaker 1: comments and won't be supporting him in November. She says
Speaker 1: she's worried that Trump won't seed power if he's reelected. Quote.
Speaker 1: Based on what I've heard from him and figures like
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon, McCammon says this would be our last free
Speaker 1: and fair election. In other words, in this Wisconsin Grandma's house.
Speaker 1: They don't think Trump is joking about never leaving office
Speaker 1: just because he had. The American Conservative magazine publish a
Speaker 1: piece saying that the two term limit shouldn't apply to
Speaker 1: non consecutive terms and doesn't apply to them all right
Speaker 1: Back to Bloomberg quote. Strategists and polsters say that, much
Speaker 1: like McCammon, many uncommitted voters don't perceive Trump's language to
Speaker 1: be jesting or ironic, nor do they view a potential
Speaker 1: power grab as a joke. I'm not alone. I'm not
Speaker 1: alone when we ask about his record on democracy. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of general concern, even among Republicans about what
Speaker 1: a second Trump term might be like, says Brian Bennett,
Speaker 1: a polster with Navigator Research, a Democratic Alliance firm. Unease
Speaker 1: among non Democratic voters is also evident in public surveys.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg says. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that twenty one
Speaker 1: percent of independent voters and eight percent of Republicans indicated
Speaker 1: that preserving democracy in the United States was the most
Speaker 1: critical issue facing the country. As an aside, every poll
Speaker 1: asks now for the top issue for voters. That often
Speaker 1: is not the same as the issue which voters say
Speaker 1: is actually the one on which they will decide their vote.
Speaker 1: Most of these polls also don't list second choice or
Speaker 1: third choice among most important issues, and very often that
Speaker 1: is the preservation of democracy, although the Republican definition of
Speaker 1: that and the democratic definition of that may not match exactly.
Speaker 1: But mister Green of Bloomberg has added something to this
Speaker 1: that is actually new. And again, I quote, several political
Speaker 1: professionals who talk to voters for a living say they've
Speaker 1: detected a fundamental shift in the way people view Trump's
Speaker 1: motivations and intentions as compared with other politicians. Quote. Typically,
Speaker 1: when we raise concerned about a candidate's agenda, are skeptical
Speaker 1: and want to do their own research first, or think
Speaker 1: it's an attack, says Carpenter, the Democratic Focus Group director.
Speaker 1: With Trump, that's not true. Voters believe that he would
Speaker 1: try to remove term limits and their nervous about what's possible.
Speaker 1: Carpenter's conversations with uncommitted voters have led him to believe
Speaker 1: that beyond January sixth and Trump's inflammatory comments, this shift
Speaker 1: owes a great deal to a less obvious catalyst. Are
Speaker 1: you ready? The less obvious catalyst is the Supreme Court quote.
Speaker 1: The dimensions of what constitutes a credible threat have expanded
Speaker 1: because of Roe. Carpenter says, since that decision, you hear
Speaker 1: voters talking themselves out of the notion that an idea
Speaker 1: is too far fed. Hallelujah, hallelujah, thank you, somebody is
Speaker 1: listening to me. One assumes that all the groundwork for
Speaker 1: this story for Bloomberg was done before mister and missus
Speaker 1: Alito answered comedian Eddie Izard's rhetorical question do you have
Speaker 1: a flag? It does give an answer to a very
Speaker 1: practical question. Democrats are shrinking from asking what should we
Speaker 1: do to Alito? Now? Senator Dick Durbin is saying no,
Speaker 1: hearings no, of course not, and is simply again asking,
Speaker 1: politely and pretty pleasing it that Alito recuse. In point
Speaker 1: of fact, Joe Biden and Democratic House and Senate candidates
Speaker 1: should be running not just against Trump or against Republicans
Speaker 1: per se, but running against the goddamned theocratic Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: And if Durbin doesn't want to do anything about Alito,
Speaker 1: he damn well better resign his chairmanship of Senate Judiciary
Speaker 1: and put somebody in there who will take the obvious
Speaker 1: softball and hit this over the effing fence. Okay, coming
Speaker 1: down the stretch here. Back to Bloomberg's Joshua Green quoting again. Recently,
Speaker 1: the liberal group Priorities USA asked fifteen hundred likely voters
Speaker 1: across eight battleground states to rank more than two dozen
Speaker 1: Trump statements or policies from most to least concerning. Do
Speaker 1: I have to write least? Can they all be most?
Speaker 1: In results not publicly released until now, Priorities found that
Speaker 1: Trump's dictator comment and calls to gut the Constitution ranked
Speaker 1: as the most concerning of all the options. As I
Speaker 1: said before, mister Green's wide eyedness seems less goofy or dumb,
Speaker 1: and more like he was cleverly trying to get this
Speaker 1: article passed. Terrified editors at Bloomberg, and with good reason,
Speaker 1: because the real lesson in it is that Republican polsters
Speaker 1: are seeing Republican voters recoiling from Trump. Green quotes an
Speaker 1: unaffiliated Republican polster who are asked not to be identified
Speaker 1: because he didn't want to anger the Trump campaign. Quote.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the bet that the Biden campaign is
Speaker 1: making that eventually people are going to become so frightened
Speaker 1: about what the next Trump turn will mean that they'll
Speaker 1: move over to Biden. The rest of the piece is
Speaker 1: about how repealing the presidential term limits contained in the
Speaker 1: twenty second Amendment would be nearly impossible. There is a
Speaker 1: dismissive quote from Steve Bannon saying they're just talking about
Speaker 1: this to own the Libs, presumably just like Bannon was
Speaker 1: talking about putting the heads of doctor Fauci and Christopher
Speaker 1: Ray on pikes just to troll doctor Fauci and troll
Speaker 1: FBI director Ray and troll fans of the French Revolution.
Speaker 1: Just kidding. The point, of course, is not that the
Speaker 1: twenty second Amendment would be repealed. It would be that
Speaker 1: it would be ignored. Trump sometime in twenty twenty five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 1: whenever he felt like it, would declare he's running in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight, try and stop me. Somebody would, somebody
Speaker 1: would sue him, and his defense would be that the
Speaker 1: twenty second Amendment doesn't say a goddamn thing specifically about
Speaker 1: the Grover Clevelands of the presidential universe. This issue, again
Speaker 1: completely fabricated, like presidential immunity or like some sort of
Speaker 1: magic eraser that takes care of the fourteenth Amendment and
Speaker 1: makes him eligible. This would go to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: which Trump owns, and the Trump owned Supreme Court would
Speaker 1: erase the twenty second Amendment as it has you may
Speaker 1: recall recently erased the fourteenth Amendment. Ooh, libs. When we
Speaker 1: said own libs, we meant it literally. We own you now.
Speaker 1: One last Bloomberg quote. The possibility that Trump might try
Speaker 1: to abolish term limits if re elected in November, registers
Speaker 1: as a serious threat to a meaningful share of voters,
Speaker 1: despite his claim to the contrary, and it appears to
Speaker 1: be driving them toward Biden. In an April twenty first
Speaker 1: NBC News Public Opinion Strategies poll, sixteen percent of registered
Speaker 1: voters named threats to democracy as the most important issue
Speaker 1: facing the country. Among them, Biden held a sixty seven
Speaker 1: point lead over Trump, eighty one percent to fourteen percent. McCammon,
Speaker 1: the Wisconsin woman who once voted for Trump, now counts
Speaker 1: herself as part of this group. Quote. I will vote
Speaker 1: for Biden even if he is in a coma, she says,
Speaker 1: Grandma Laurie, you have unsuspected depth. I cannot recommend this
Speaker 1: piece too highly to you, or to Joe Biden, or
Speaker 1: to Jen Dylan, O'Malley O'Malley Dylan, to the campaign manager.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Joshua Green tweeted this out with a gift link,
Speaker 1: So I sent it to my contacts at the Biden
Speaker 1: campaign since it won't cost them anything. Now reading this,
Speaker 1: it would seem that the play is pretty obvious from
Speaker 1: here on in. Run that piece from the American Conservative
Speaker 1: magazine about third terms and how Trump should get one
Speaker 1: as a campaign ad. Just quote it. Run every single
Speaker 1: Trump comment about staying in office as a campaign ad.
Speaker 1: Run the ones where he's joking and say is he joking?
Speaker 1: Run the ones where he's not joking and say he's
Speaker 1: not joking. You have a seam of new votes here.
Speaker 1: You have the comstock load of new votes here. And
Speaker 1: like I said, also run ads against the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: as well, especially that scenario in which Trump urinates on
Speaker 1: the Constitution, the part about only serving two terms and
Speaker 1: Alito applauds. If any more indication is required here, The
Speaker 1: Washington Post was nice enough to underscore yesterday that the
Speaker 1: New York Times siena poll last week with all the
Speaker 1: bad Biden numbers in the swing States actually has potentially
Speaker 1: really good news in it. Quote, a generic Democratic Senate
Speaker 1: candidate led a generic Republican by five points, but Biden
Speaker 1: trailed Trump by six points. That's an eleven point gap
Speaker 1: between Democratic Senate candidates and the president. We've also seen
Speaker 1: big gaps when you ask about actual Senate candidates. The
Speaker 1: time SIENA poll in Nevada showed Senator Jackie Rosen doing
Speaker 1: fourteen points better than Biden on the margins, I e
Speaker 1: Rosen ahead by two but Biden trailing by twelve. Representative
Speaker 1: Reuben Diego did eleven points better in Arizona, Senator Bob
Speaker 1: Casey did eight points better in Pennsylvania, and Senator Tammy
Speaker 1: Baldwin in Wisconsin did seven points better. A new CBS
Speaker 1: News yugub poll in Arizona released over the weekend showed
Speaker 1: an even bigger gap. Diego led Republican Kerry Lake by
Speaker 1: thirteen points, even as Biden trailed Trump by five, a
Speaker 1: whopping eighteen point difference. One way to look at this,
Speaker 1: wrote the Post, is that those votes are gettable for Biden.
Speaker 1: Another is that he's uniquely unpalatable to voters otherwise supportive
Speaker 1: of Democrats. Right, I'm voting for Tammy Baldwin but not
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. I'm voting for Reuben Diego and Trump. Of
Speaker 1: course it's possible. Of course those combinations must explain some
Speaker 1: of those numbers, but they don't explain all of those numbers.
Speaker 1: And I would put a bet down that they don't
Speaker 1: explain a majority of those numbers. The first point from
Speaker 1: the post is the key one way to look at
Speaker 1: this is that those votes are gettable for Biden. You think,
Speaker 1: but if only they had a great new punchline for
Speaker 1: new campaign ads in Wisconsin for Tammy Baldwin and Joe Biden, like, oh, hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Grandma, Laurie mccommon, and I'm a Wisconsin grandma from Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: and I'm a grandma and I voted for Trump and
Speaker 1: then I found out he wants to stop having elections
Speaker 1: and be president at least two hundred and six. So
Speaker 1: this year I'll be voting for Joe Biden, even if
Speaker 1: he's in a coma. Then there's a pause, and then
Speaker 1: you hear Joe Biden say I'm Joe Biden, and I
Speaker 1: approved this message because guess what, I'm also not in
Speaker 1: a coma. Coquet from the Trump trial here in New York,
Speaker 1: the defense rests, which, given the presence of drowsy Don
Speaker 1: torpid Trump day dreaming, Donald the comatose comb over, the
Speaker 1: defense rests is meant literally closing arguments begin next Tuesday,
Speaker 1: and then we'll see It's impossible to tell what the
Speaker 1: jury saw compared to what we saw. What we saw
Speaker 1: was Trump's witness pissing off the judge enough for the
Speaker 1: judge to clear the courtroom Monday, and for then the
Speaker 1: defendant's key witness, the same guy getting blown up by
Speaker 1: the prosecution yesterday, and then they take a week off.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, and we also got to see Trump concluding
Speaker 1: that everybody in the world agrees with him.
Speaker 2: Every single legal expert.
Speaker 1: Job in the future, Martin, everyone, Rick Jerrard. They call
Speaker 1: it a cas and we just can't have it. That's right.
Speaker 1: There are only four legal experts in the entire world.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Turley, mcuh McLevin somebody else, and Levin Mark Levin
Speaker 1: whose name is actually Mark Levin, but don't tell Trump
Speaker 1: because Trump may have narcolepsy. The jury also does not
Speaker 1: get to see all of the idiots who form the
Speaker 1: Trump posse every day. Remember that great joke I did
Speaker 1: yesterday about grabbing them by the Lieutenant General Dan Patrick,
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the guy who promised to die
Speaker 1: of COVID to protect his grand children's economy in Texas
Speaker 1: and then reneged spoke to the crowd Sebastian Gorka, who
Speaker 1: owns Nazi adjacent tunics and was the perfect guy to
Speaker 1: have in front of cameras the day, Trump reposted a
Speaker 1: fan video with all kinds of Nazi headlines over his picture,
Speaker 1: including the headline Unified Reich. He was there, Doctor Ronnie
Speaker 1: Jackson because there might have been beverage service, and of
Speaker 1: course funny man Joe Piscopo, I guess because Kid Rock
Speaker 1: was still sleeping off the Rolling Stone interview Joe Piscopo.
Speaker 1: Incredibly forty years and ten days ago. Two day was
Speaker 1: Joe Piscopo's last day on Saturday Night Live, and I
Speaker 1: must say I can't shape my fondness for he was
Speaker 1: very good on it. First of all, he did a
Speaker 1: sportscaster based on my friend Warner Wolf from Channel two
Speaker 1: in New York, who just screamed everything and asked questions,
Speaker 1: nothing else but questions, what does this mean? What is
Speaker 1: it going? To tell who says this? Who dropped that ball?
Speaker 1: Who cares? Joe Piscopole Live Saturday Night Sports loved it.
Speaker 1: He did a great Frank Sinatra. He did Frank Sinatra
Speaker 1: singing the theme from the Flintstones Flintstones Meet the Flintstones,
Speaker 1: and he told what I thought was the greatest joke
Speaker 1: I ever heard about Frank Sinatra. After he became somewhat
Speaker 1: famous for doing this Frank Sinatra routine. Joe Piscopo says
Speaker 1: he took Frank Sinatra, or took his mother to a
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra concert in New Jersey, and in the middle
Speaker 1: of it, as Frank was singing, Frank suddenly recognized him
Speaker 1: from the stage. Someday when I'm awfully and stopped and
Speaker 1: pointed at Joe Piscopal and said, you out. Joe Piscopal
Speaker 1: for a while sat behind me. He was in the
Speaker 1: second row at Yankee Stadium, behind the plate. I was
Speaker 1: in the first row. This is ten years ago, so
Speaker 1: it's thirty years after he told that joke, and I
Speaker 1: told him one day. I still remembered it word for word,
Speaker 1: that's how good of a joke it was. But I
Speaker 1: really needed to know did it actually happen. Did he
Speaker 1: actually take his mother to a Frank Sinatra concert actor
Speaker 1: portraying Frank Sinatra singing The Flintstones on national television back
Speaker 1: when Saturday Night Live was supposed to be funny and
Speaker 1: people over the age of seven years old watched it?
Speaker 1: Did it happen? And, honest to God, his answer was
Speaker 1: he didn't remember. He didn't remember the joke. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't remember the joke or you don't remember
Speaker 1: what the truth was, whether or not an actually happened,
Speaker 1: the correct answer is one of two things. You say,
Speaker 1: of course it happened. I couldn't have made up anything
Speaker 1: that funny, or of course it didn't happen. I'm a comedian.
Speaker 1: I wrote that, you out, But what do you want?
Speaker 1: Joe Piscopo thinks Trump is worth supporting, and forty years
Speaker 1: after his last big gig, ended forty years of Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live and seventeen thousand different cast members ago, Trump
Speaker 1: thought he was the right guy to bring down as
Speaker 1: part of his bosse you out. Also of interest here,
Speaker 1: I may do the unified Reich video story tomorrow with
Speaker 1: some context, depending on events. Frankly, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: his big ad, as everybody else does. Because, as mentioned
Speaker 1: a couple of times here, Trump's a Nazi and an
Speaker 1: anti Semite. Why is this a surprise? We have it
Speaker 1: on the record since nineteen ninety that he owned a
Speaker 1: copy of Hitler's speeches and kept it in a little
Speaker 1: nightstand near his bed, according to his wife, the one
Speaker 1: who's now in the now on the golf course, we'll
Speaker 1: see for now of interest here, anybody remember who was
Speaker 1: hosting Fox's eight pm news hour thirteen months ago tonight.
Speaker 1: The answer is not Joe Piscopo Saturday night Live Sports.
Speaker 1: It's the same guy who will now be hosting a
Speaker 1: show on Blosaiya twenty four, Russian state TV. And you
Speaker 1: thought I've worked for a lot of networks. That's next
Speaker 1: this discountdown. This is countdown with Keith old woman still
Speaker 1: ahead of us on this initiative countdown. I told this
Speaker 1: story yesterday to a friend, and I want to tell
Speaker 1: it again. The morning disc jockey who threatened to kill
Speaker 1: me one hour and then wanted to give me a
Speaker 1: multi year contract one hour later, who came to me
Speaker 1: and said, young man, I was a young man, then
Speaker 1: you punk things. I promised not to tell coming up
Speaker 1: at first. As ever, there are still more new idiots
Speaker 1: talk about the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and
Speaker 1: Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in
Speaker 1: the world. You out the bronze worse. Good old Marco Rubio,
Speaker 1: the senior idiot senator from Florida, the one who threatened
Speaker 1: to have me prosecuted for demanding we reform the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court because well, because Marco Rubio has the IQ of
Speaker 1: a chair, a chair that has one leg shorter than
Speaker 1: the others, well he may have topped himself, or he
Speaker 1: may just be maintaining the standards he has honed over
Speaker 1: the years. Marco Rubio on Fox quote news unquote, there
Speaker 1: is only one person that would ever face charges like this,
Speaker 1: and it has to have the last name Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: No se Marco. While you get some water last name,
Speaker 1: it means, it means that there's a Christian and then
Speaker 1: there's this cert Okay, never mind, It's like trying to
Speaker 1: explain something to a chair runner up worser, speaking of
Speaker 1: which Chris solicit is. Back days after posting his hilarious
Speaker 1: mission statement, Chris seemed to confirm that he only spends
Speaker 1: about an hour a day here on this plane of
Speaker 1: existence in the America of twenty twenty four. He is shocked,
Speaker 1: shocked to discover that people are diagnosing cognitive declines in
Speaker 1: presidential candidates. When the GOP consultant Stuart Stevens went on
Speaker 1: MSNBC and said Trump has dementia, Solissa retweeted the clip
Speaker 1: and added, this is absolutely ridiculous. You can hate Trump,
Speaker 1: you can believe him unfit for office. I definitely think
Speaker 1: the latter, But diagnosing him from afar with something as
Speaker 1: serious as dementia, it's just deeply irresponsible. Now you know
Speaker 1: what's deeply irresponsible, Chris both sides in every goddamned thing
Speaker 1: while the country burns to the ground, and you're the
Speaker 1: last thing to go up in flames, and you say, well,
Speaker 1: at least I didn't I eight sides against the fire.
Speaker 1: I treated the fire fairly. George Conway kind of felt
Speaker 1: the same thing I did. He came back with, no,
Speaker 1: it's not. Numerous mental health professionals have been watching him
Speaker 1: carefully and have come to the conclusion that he is
Speaker 1: cognitively deteriorating. Well, mister mission statement, would not seed, would
Speaker 1: not ask anybody one of them has actually seen him
Speaker 1: in person. No way, you should be diagnosing dementia from afar.
Speaker 1: No way. I have terrible news for Chris on two
Speaker 1: fronts three actually, first one being Chris, you're an idiot. Two.
Speaker 1: Starting in twenty fifteen, maybe earlier, Donald Trump has diagnosed
Speaker 1: everybody he's met with mental illness. The number is well
Speaker 1: into three figures, maybe four figures, maybe five figures by now.
Speaker 1: A people he has called all kinds of diseases and
Speaker 1: pejorative names for mental impaired in some way or cognitively
Speaker 1: impaired in some way. So if you're trying to stop
Speaker 1: people from diagnosing others afar, you're literally nine years too late.
Speaker 1: He diagnoses Biden every day. Biden the President of the
Speaker 1: United States. Joe Biden. No, Joe Biden's President of the
Speaker 1: United States. Chris, So, the ship sailed and it's already
Speaker 1: made its way around the world thirty seven times. Chris
Speaker 1: evidently did not know this. But more importantly, how do
Speaker 1: you think, Chris, that they diagnosed dementia a blood test?
Speaker 1: An X ray? Professionals observe behavior. They often ask the patient,
Speaker 1: but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they ask relatives and those
Speaker 1: around the patient. But whoever they ask, it's it's still
Speaker 1: all from afar. You cannot get into somebody's head and
Speaker 1: measure their neural synapses. And even more importantly, remember what
Speaker 1: were those Solizza Washington Post Hillary Clinton email headlines I
Speaker 1: quoted last week from his fifty articles about the topic
Speaker 1: in just six months of twenty fifteen, Several of them
Speaker 1: refer to quote Hillary Clinton's honesty problem. One said Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton as honest and trustworthy as Donald Trump. Well, the
Speaker 1: marriage of the words honest and problems suggests, well a problem,
Speaker 1: a clinical problem which Chris Solizza was diagnosing from afar.
Speaker 1: So what he's really saying here to Stuart Stevens and
Speaker 1: George Conway and everybody else in the world is you
Speaker 1: can't diagnose anybody's psychological or cognitive problems from afar. But
Speaker 1: I can. But our winner. Let me just quote newsweek
Speaker 1: dot Com. Conservative TV host Tucker Carlson has launched his
Speaker 1: own show on a Russian state television channel. He decided
Speaker 1: to go to one American news. Oh no, I must
Speaker 1: have misunderstood. The former Fox News anchor is presenting the
Speaker 1: program Tucker on the Rolling News channel Russia twenty four
Speaker 1: and we know where they're rolling it over, with the
Speaker 1: first episode now available online. Russian state newspaper Rosiskaya Gazeta reported.
Speaker 1: Paper said that the show is part of a joint
Speaker 1: project with Carlson TV in which you will interview figures
Speaker 1: and politicians who have alternative views to the mainstream. In
Speaker 1: other words, liars, Well, it turns out Newsweek is partially
Speaker 1: incorrect here. This is not going to be some news series,
Speaker 1: at least not yet. It's just going to be the
Speaker 1: videos that he's already posted to Twitter x only with subtitles,
Speaker 1: which raises this question, why would they need subtitles? I mean,
Speaker 1: everything Tucker Carlson says was written originally in Russia, wasn't it, Tucker.
Speaker 1: As the old joke goes, it loses something in the
Speaker 1: original Carlson Today's Worse Person in the World, Tavis. I'm
Speaker 1: Dave Spencer, WNWWS and now WAW Sportsen Commentary with John Kenner.
Speaker 2: And Good Morning Keith Olberman for Big John Sports is
Speaker 2: brought to you by Amtrak America is getting into training
Speaker 2: with Metro Ironers service thirteen times every business day to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: They run from Penn Station and if you were there
Speaker 2: last night, you probably heard some noise from upstairs. It
Speaker 2: was Ranger fans celebrating the new year a little bit.
Speaker 1: This remains, in short, as terrifying as anything else in
Speaker 1: my career, death threats, fake and threat What New York
Speaker 1: felt like post nine to eleven, the frozen feeling of
Speaker 1: realizing you've made a terrible, damaging mistake on a story,
Speaker 1: even working for Rupert Murdoch. Worse than that. Forty two
Speaker 1: years have passed since this event, and nothing has dimmed
Speaker 1: the memory, nothing has reduced the palpable sense of anxiety
Speaker 1: in every joint in my body. On Sunday, December twenty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, the Oakland Raiders defeated the New York Giants
Speaker 1: thirty three to seventeen to end the Giant season at
Speaker 1: four wins and twelve losses, with the most points they
Speaker 1: had given up in one year. Since nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: I was the backup sportscaster at w NEW Radio in
Speaker 1: New York. We carried the Giants game broadcasts. In fact,
Speaker 1: we had carried them since I was two years old.
Speaker 1: I was now a month shy of twenty two, and
Speaker 1: it being Christmas week. I reported bright and early to
Speaker 1: the studios at forty first Street and Third Avenue on Monday,
Speaker 1: December twenty second. My first sports cast was at five
Speaker 1: thirty am. There was a theme song which invoked the
Speaker 1: name of the regular sportscaster, John Kennelly. It said sports
Speaker 1: and commentary, and my first few weeks filling, and that
Speaker 1: year I stuck mostly to the sports, with just an
Speaker 1: occasional commentary, but mostly a joke or pithy observation. Well
Speaker 1: kind of pithy, but that first weekend of winter, the
Speaker 1: giant stink was all that we could smell in New York,
Speaker 1: and I felt I had to point it out, pointed Lee,
Speaker 1: and so while I observed that there was a positive
Speaker 1: they had started one in eight but then had actually
Speaker 1: won three of their last seven games, the rest of
Speaker 1: my commentary was cynical, acerbic, dissatisfied, in other words, the
Speaker 1: average day of the typical New York sports fan. I
Speaker 1: ended my show right on time at five thirty five am,
Speaker 1: and to my surprise, I heard the disc jockey skip
Speaker 1: his usual post sportscast remarks and instead simply play the
Speaker 1: next record, which I think was Frank Sinatra's The way
Speaker 1: you like tonight we were a big band station. I
Speaker 1: stepped out of the booth and took the dozen strides
Speaker 1: through the newsroom, busy even at that hour, with eight
Speaker 1: or ten staffers, and I was sitting down at my
Speaker 1: desk when the door from the main air studio slammed open.
Speaker 1: In the doorway stood the disc jockey, and he had
Speaker 1: a message for me. The message was you punk. The
Speaker 1: disc jockey's name was Ted Brown. On the air, he
Speaker 1: was your morning man, Ted Brown, speaking upbeat drivel, mostly
Speaker 1: to women who loved the mellow sound of his voice.
Speaker 1: Off the air. WNW was his station and the morning
Speaker 1: show was his show. He would fight for it. In fact,
Speaker 1: he had fought at least two news reporters in his
Speaker 1: time in the studio while Frank Sinatra records played on
Speaker 1: a turntable thirty feet away. Ted Brown was a big
Speaker 1: man six ' three six ' four maybe by this
Speaker 1: point I don't know, two thirty forty two fifty thick
Speaker 1: tortoise shell glasses. He was a sportsman, a huge gambler
Speaker 1: racetracks mostly the Giants had begun on WNW in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one. Ted Brown had begun on WNW in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty nine, and he was tough, and it was not
Speaker 1: even the New York tough I had grown up with.
Speaker 1: This guy had been a tail gunner on a B
Speaker 1: seventeen during the Second World War, and the Nazi shot
Speaker 1: him down, and they took him to Stalog nine CE,
Speaker 1: near Leipzig, and they kept him there for eighteen months,
Speaker 1: and basically he chewed up and spit out guys like
Speaker 1: me for breakfast. And I respected him. You punk say
Speaker 1: you don't like how the giants. Did you think any
Speaker 1: of us too? He gestured towards the newscasters and staffers.
Speaker 1: Nobody looked up. You know how easy it is to
Speaker 1: sit there in a nice, heated, dry, comfortable newsroom. I
Speaker 1: was in Stalog NINEC. His contempt for the idea of
Speaker 1: the newsroom was amazing. You sit here in your newsroom
Speaker 1: and ponte while men men in helmets with mud on them,
Speaker 1: they're bones, breaking, their hearts pounding. They are out on
Speaker 1: the field, fighting and tackling and working on the field
Speaker 1: of battle. So you can sit here in your news room.
Speaker 1: It was at this point that I remembered where I
Speaker 1: had first seen a photograph of Ted Brown. He was
Speaker 1: in a booth at Yankee Stadium, where the Giants played
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. He was the third man, a
Speaker 1: combination color announcer and host on Giants radio broadcasts on WNW.
Speaker 1: He was the worst possible person to have heard me
Speaker 1: rip the New York Giants, even the four and twelve
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty New York Giants, even if editorially I was
Speaker 1: completely correct and not nearly as hard on the team
Speaker 1: as its own announcers had been on our station the
Speaker 1: day before. What did you do to earn your spot? Here?
Speaker 1: Punk Ted Brown was turning red. One of his fists
Speaker 1: was already clenched, while the other arm cut through the
Speaker 1: air to emphasize how much I sucked. I truly believed
Speaker 1: he was about to take a swing at me. Then
Speaker 1: from behind him, the door from his studio swung open again,
Speaker 1: and the elderly engineer, the man who actually spun the
Speaker 1: records on Ted's show, came through it. Ted I just
Speaker 1: had to segue out of Sinatra to Jimmy Cagney singing
Speaker 1: Yankee Doodle Dandy. And the general manager called and he said,
Speaker 1: I should tell you WNEW does not segue. No records,
Speaker 1: don't do it. Again, you better get back in here.
Speaker 1: The cagnes almost finished. The engineer then vanished silently back
Speaker 1: through the door. This warning did nothing but make Ted
Speaker 1: Brown even angrier the general manager. Have you met the
Speaker 1: general manager, Punk, Jack Fair? And Jack Fair gets in
Speaker 1: here at eight twenty every morning on dot clockwork, Punk,
Speaker 1: when you finish your eight thirty sports cast, I'm dragging
Speaker 1: you in to meet Jack Thayer, the general manager. And
Speaker 1: that punk is when your career at WNW Radio will
Speaker 1: come to an abrupt end. You think the New York
Speaker 1: Giants had a bad nineteen eighty, how about your nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty punk when your career ended? Because the real men,
Speaker 1: the real men, are out there on the playing field,
Speaker 1: not sitting inside a noseroom in a sweater. Miscontinued for
Speaker 1: some time. The engineer returned Tennant's Thayer again, I just
Speaker 1: segued to some mel Tourmae. Ted Thayer wants to talk
Speaker 1: to you. He thinks maybe you're not here, and I'm
Speaker 1: covering for you. Ted Brown turned and swore dark oaths
Speaker 1: against the engineer, and for that matter, against the general manager,
Speaker 1: Jack Thayer, and for that matter, against mel Tourmae. You
Speaker 1: and me, Punk, eight thirty five of your career, pug.
Speaker 1: He lunged at me. Suddenly the engineer grabbed him and
Speaker 1: pulled him back through the door. In the newsroom, there
Speaker 1: were only two sounds, one my heart, which I suspect
Speaker 1: was audible perhaps the next block, the other typing. Nobody
Speaker 1: said a word, Nobody looked at me. A phone rang,
Speaker 1: The production assistant sang out WNW news. I went over
Speaker 1: to the newscaster who had been the most supportive of
Speaker 1: me to that point, Bob Hagen, and through my shaking
Speaker 1: I said thanks for to help Bob. Bob did not
Speaker 1: look up from his typewriter. What he said matter of
Speaker 1: factly Brown? I said, yes, Brown, he's gonna get me
Speaker 1: fired in three hours. Bob Hagen laughed, No, he's not.
Speaker 1: I said, he just spent I don't know how many
Speaker 1: minutes he spent three records screaming at me. Didn't you
Speaker 1: hear him? I heard him, We all heard him. We've
Speaker 1: all heard him every time he said that. He said
Speaker 1: that to every one of us out here. He said
Speaker 1: that about every one of us out here. He took
Speaker 1: a swing at eyes grow over there. What was it,
Speaker 1: Jimmy two months ago? Ignore him? I said, I failed
Speaker 1: to see why any of what he had told me
Speaker 1: should encourage me to ignore Ted Brown. When we had
Speaker 1: a meeting with the general manager at eight thirty five,
Speaker 1: Bob Hagen now stopped typhing and smiled up at me
Speaker 1: reassuringly from his chair. Keith, you do a good job.
Speaker 1: Ted is nuts. Ted is mean. Ted is a crazy
Speaker 1: Giants fan. Ted is also still bitter that he's not
Speaker 1: on the radio broadcast of the Giants games. But Ted
Speaker 1: has also been doing morning radio almost every day since
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five. Keith, that's thirty five years of getting
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night, and many many
Speaker 1: years ago, Keith, Ted stopped remembering things like what somebody
Speaker 1: said on his show. He doesn't remember, he won't remember who.
Speaker 1: Just finish off the next sportscast with one of your clever, funny,
Speaker 1: little kicker stories. And even if he somehow remembers what
Speaker 1: you said about the Giants, when he hears a good laugh,
Speaker 1: all he'll remember is the laugh. I tried to be
Speaker 1: respectful of Bob, but I told him I found all
Speaker 1: this hard to believe. Keith. He also drinks. He has nightmares,
Speaker 1: he has pow nightmares, and he gets up at three
Speaker 1: am every day. He does not imprint new memories anymore.
Speaker 1: But no, why should you listen to me. I've only
Speaker 1: been on his show for ten years. Why would I know?
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, get a good, funny kicker for the
Speaker 1: six thirty and he'll love you. I nodded grimly. I
Speaker 1: did not believe Bob Hagen, but I knew he meant well,
Speaker 1: and anyway, he had started to type again. The clock
Speaker 1: now moved impossibly quickly. Incredibly, I did find just the
Speaker 1: kind of funny, clever kicker story Bob suggested I should
Speaker 1: use to the six thirty sports cast. I minimized my
Speaker 1: assault on the Giants and then finished off my report
Speaker 1: with some story that shed a good light on Montclair
Speaker 1: State College in New Jersey. I could not have known,
Speaker 1: and I swear I did not know that Ted Brown's
Speaker 1: sister had graduated from Montclair State College in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: I finished off the sports cast with the story something
Speaker 1: that made Montclair State look good a little chuckle, and
Speaker 1: then Keith ol Rimman for John Kennelly on the Ted
Speaker 1: Brown Show ominously again, to my terror, Ted Brown now
Speaker 1: said nothing on the air. I could not see him
Speaker 1: through the window into the main air studio. The engineer
Speaker 1: played a record instead. It may have been the Montevanni
Speaker 1: strings play the Beatles. I opened the door back to
Speaker 1: the newsroom slowly and with trepidation. I crouched as I
Speaker 1: moved back towards my desk. And that's when it happened.
Speaker 1: The door from the main air studio slammed open again.
Speaker 1: It was Ted Brown again. Where is he? Where is he?
Speaker 1: Montclair State? My sister went to Montclair State. What a story,
Speaker 1: what a great laugh, perfectly delivered. My God, that was
Speaker 1: the best sports cast we have ever had on this station.
Speaker 1: Don't you think so? Prely? God? Love you, kid? Whatna
Speaker 1: tell it? I laughed out loud, Kid, I don't laugh
Speaker 1: out loud. It was the same Ted Brown. I stole
Speaker 1: a quick glance at the newsroom to see if this
Speaker 1: whole thing was some kind of act being filmed for
Speaker 1: a hidden camera TV series. Nobody looked up again. Nobody
Speaker 1: looked up Ted Brown, The man who an hour before
Speaker 1: was ready to beat me up and get me fired,
Speaker 1: was now repeating again and again that I had just
Speaker 1: delivered the best sports cast in the history of WNW Radio.
Speaker 1: That's when his engineer came back in. He had segueyed
Speaker 1: from Montavani to Perry Como and the general manager had called.
Speaker 1: And now Ted Brown's eyes widened behind the thick glasses.
Speaker 1: The general manager, Jack Thayer, say, Keith, have you ever
Speaker 1: met Jack Theayer? This gives me a great idea. Jack
Speaker 1: Thayer comes in here every morning at eight twenty like clockwork. Look.
Speaker 1: I love John Kennelly, he's great, but you were exactly
Speaker 1: the kind of new, fresh young voice we need on
Speaker 1: this radio station. Dammit, I need on my show. When
Speaker 1: Jack Thayer comes in here at eight twenty this morning,
Speaker 1: you and I are going right into his office and
Speaker 1: we're gonna get you your own sports cast on my show.
Speaker 1: We can do two sports casts an hour. We'll take
Speaker 1: it out of the stock Report Montclair stage. I'll get
Speaker 1: you a contract. You and Kennelly will seventy five grand
Speaker 1: being up for you. Kid. You're gonna hit the big
Speaker 1: time here, my friend, and out the engineer came again.
Speaker 1: Jack Thayer had again called in fourth time that I
Speaker 1: knew of he really needed Ted Mack in the studio
Speaker 1: to talk to the women. Ted Brown happily shouted okay, okay,
Speaker 1: and began to back up into the doorway. The look
Speaker 1: in his eyes towards me was one of unimaginable love.
Speaker 1: Come come here, wait, come here, come here, come here,
Speaker 1: and he lunged at me and grabbed me into a
Speaker 1: bear hug. Just brilliant Montclair State. I gotta call my
Speaker 1: sister and tell you. Seeing Jack's office at eight thirty five,
Speaker 1: I stood there, having now been pummeled by two hurricanes
Speaker 1: arriving from different directions in the span of one hour.
Speaker 1: All was silent in the WNEW newsroom again but for
Speaker 1: the typing. But it was silent only for a moment.
Speaker 1: That's when Bob Hagen addressed me again. He did not
Speaker 1: look up. All he said was Keith, he won't remember
Speaker 1: that either.
Speaker 2: Finally, they call it disastro turf, and the closer and
Speaker 2: closer we get to game day, the more and more
Speaker 2: likely it is the Giants won't get to practice on it.
Speaker 2: As the steady rains continue in the Bay Area, the
Speaker 2: forty nine ers continue to suggest that the Giants cancel
Speaker 2: their scheduled Saturday practice at Cattlestick Park for the good
Speaker 2: of the bad field, which means that the first time
Speaker 2: folks like Rob carpenter will get their feet wet, literally
Speaker 2: will be when they come out for the game Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 2: That sport's brought to you by Amtrak America is getting
Speaker 2: into trading with Metro Liner service thirteen times every business
Speaker 2: day to Philadelphia. I'm Keith Oberman for John Kennelly on
Speaker 2: the Ted Brown Show.
Speaker 1: Good morning everybody. Thank you Keith. It's twenty one before seven.
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John
Speaker 1: Phillips Chanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Speaker 1: Mister Ray was on guitars based on drums. Mister Shanelle
Speaker 1: handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by tk Obras.
Speaker 1: Other music, including some of the Beethoven arranged and by
Speaker 1: no horns allowed the sports music. The Olderman theme from
Speaker 1: ESPN two was written by Mitch Warren Davis. It's courtesy
Speaker 1: of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are
Speaker 1: by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. My
Speaker 1: announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else was
Speaker 1: pretty much my fault. Let's countdown for This the one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty eighth day until the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: presidential election, the undred and thirty third day since Dictator J.
Speaker 1: Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
Speaker 1: the United States. Use the legal system, use the mental
Speaker 1: health system, Use presidential immunity if it happens, Use the
Speaker 1: not regularly given elector objection option. Use the new article
Speaker 1: in Bloomberg to stop him from doing it again while
Speaker 1: we still cam The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Still
Speaker 1: day to day with the sinus tomorrow till the next one.
Speaker 1: Whenever it is. I'm Keith Oldraman 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.