Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. It
Speaker 1: is now time to cancel or suspend all of Elon
Speaker 1: Musk's government contracts and subsidies, SpaceX, NASA, Starlink, Tesla's, all
Speaker 1: of it. It was already fifteen billion dollars by just
Speaker 1: April of last year. The number's not gone down since then.
Speaker 1: The Department of Justice must also initiate efforts to get
Speaker 1: that money back, because Musk is coordinating with Trump to
Speaker 1: interfere in FEMA recovery efforts post Hurricane Helene by spreading
Speaker 1: life threatening disinformation, and he's also coordinating a political campaign
Speaker 1: with Trump which at its heart has Trump advocating for
Speaker 1: the overthrow of the duly elected government of the United
Speaker 1: States of America by violence if necessary. And if all
Speaker 1: of that is somehow insufficient to reinvestigate and or change
Speaker 1: Musk's immigration status here in order to deport him back
Speaker 1: to South Africa or Canada or whereever, if that is
Speaker 1: insufficient to take all of his money from him through
Speaker 1: the courts, it certainly is not insufficient to tie him
Speaker 1: up in court cases for the rest of his goddamned life.
Speaker 1: After Musk's mincing defeat performance on stage, leaping and bouncing
Speaker 1: behind Trump at Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, but I have had enough of this idiot,
Speaker 1: and more importantly, I have had enough of us underwriting
Speaker 1: this idiot as he immorally transforms the Twitter X platform
Speaker 1: he owns into a massive donation in kind to Trump's
Speaker 1: campaign of lies, anti Semitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, Nazism, trid fascism,
Speaker 1: and worst of all, stupidity. A donation in kind, by
Speaker 1: the way, which the government must value at forty four
Speaker 1: billion dollars, not the current number Musk has driven it
Speaker 1: down to, which I haven't actually checked today, but it's
Speaker 1: probably around fifty sixty bucks. Oh, and President Biden. The
Speaker 1: starlink equipment and the network behind it, and the rockets
Speaker 1: and the satellite access and the actual platform hosting X
Speaker 1: or what's left of it. Seize it if Musk wants
Speaker 1: it back, Let him go to court if he tries
Speaker 1: to shut it off. Arrest him for tampering with evidence
Speaker 1: in a criminal case. Remember per residential immunity. By the way,
Speaker 1: Musk's new good buddy Trump, Trump doesn't know what the
Speaker 1: hell starlink is.
Speaker 2: They said, could you do us a favor? Could you
Speaker 2: help us? We're trying to get starlink and it's very
Speaker 2: hard to get. Most people say you can't even get it.
Speaker 2: Called up. Elana said, North Carolina's in big trouble. George's
Speaker 2: in big trouble. They need communication. They have none because
Speaker 2: their poles have been knocked down and their wires are
Speaker 2: underwater and even dangerous, dangerously underwater. But they have no communication. Elon,
Speaker 2: could you do something about starlink? Whatever the hell that is, Elond,
Speaker 2: whatever starlink, That's all they want to hear is starlink.
Speaker 1: Incidentally, numerous right wing social media accounts posted that photo
Speaker 1: of Musk leaping like all the ketamin had kecked in
Speaker 1: all at once, behind a clearly annoyed Trump. You know
Speaker 1: that photo with musks belly flopping out, Lauded by the
Speaker 1: far right, This wrote, the infamous hate manger behind Libs
Speaker 1: of TikTok is going to go down in history is
Speaker 1: one of the most consequential images of the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four election. You bet your ass, as the cliche goes,
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when Libs of TikTok stcastically
Speaker 1: directed terroristic threats at men with bare middrifts and other
Speaker 1: men wearing makeup who were on stage prancing together in
Speaker 1: front of an audience. Oh and while we're at this,
Speaker 1: charge Musk's mother too, for conspiracy to commit election fraud.
Speaker 1: She retweeted her sons post about voting and added quote,
Speaker 1: the Democrats have given us another option. You don't have
Speaker 1: to register to vote an election day. Have ten fake names,
Speaker 1: go to ten polling booths and vote ten times. That's
Speaker 1: one hundred votes and it's not illegal. Maybe we should
Speaker 1: work the system too well. First of all, madam, congratulations
Speaker 1: on the math. You are correct. Ten fake names, ten
Speaker 1: polling booths, ten times. By the way, shut up, you've
Speaker 1: done enough to destroy the planet. Madam. You birth this
Speaker 1: Jack and Apes. I mean, it sounds comical at first,
Speaker 1: except it's true. All the James Bond and other spy
Speaker 1: movies of the sixties and seventies begin with a psychopathic
Speaker 1: billionaire who owns space rockets and communications systems. We used
Speaker 1: to have places where people like Trump and his family
Speaker 1: and Musk and his mother used to be able to
Speaker 1: get the care that could benefit, even save anybody in
Speaker 1: their condition. Now, instead we let them run for president.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you don't think part of Musk
Speaker 1: prostituting himself for Trump is some thought in that brain
Speaker 1: of his fightings for space in there with all the hallucinogens,
Speaker 1: that Trump will make it possible for naturalized American citizens
Speaker 1: who were not born here to serve as president, even
Speaker 1: though the Constitution says otherwise. You know it's in there.
Speaker 1: Musk thinks Musk can succeed Trump, as they used to say,
Speaker 1: depend upon it, sir quotes. Trump's speeches, increasingly angry and rambling,
Speaker 1: reignite the question of age. With the passage of time,
Speaker 1: the seventy eight year old former president's speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier,
Speaker 1: less focused, more profane, and increasingly fixated on the past,
Speaker 1: according to a review of his public appearances over the years. Yes,
Speaker 1: that actually was in the New York Times, not the
Speaker 1: Not the New York Times, not the Onion. This justin
Speaker 1: Trump is rambling, breaking news from Peter Baker hot off
Speaker 1: the presses. If you consider leading The Times first serious
Speaker 1: story about Trump's dementia with an anecdote that is now
Speaker 1: twenty eight days old, hot off the Presses, former President
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience had his
Speaker 1: climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side,
Speaker 1: except that there was no audience. The debate was held
Speaker 1: in an empty hall. No one quote went crazy, as
Speaker 1: mister Trump put it, because no one was there, even
Speaker 1: to be generous. Trump's hallucination about there having been an
Speaker 1: audience at that debate was from September eighteenth. The debate
Speaker 1: itself was September tenth. These days, that is approximately nine
Speaker 1: thousand election news cycles ago, and the Times piece, while
Speaker 1: to be welcomed as a sign that the Times knows
Speaker 1: it has fed up, knows it has damaged itself, knows
Speaker 1: that it has showed both its ass and its arrogance,
Speaker 1: knows that it's now October peace, only borders on the
Speaker 1: reality of the Trump cognitive crisis for three paragraphs before
Speaker 1: passing the buck quote. According to a computer analysis by
Speaker 1: The New York Times, mister Trump's rally speeches now last
Speaker 1: in average eighty two minutes compared to forty five minutes
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Proportionately, he uses thirteen percent more all
Speaker 1: or nothing terms like always and never than he did
Speaker 1: eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of
Speaker 1: advancing age. Oh my god, computer analysis. We're not saying this.
Speaker 1: The computer is saying this quote. It was hardly the
Speaker 1: only time mister Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent, or
Speaker 1: disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often
Speaker 1: these days that it no longer even generates much attention.
Speaker 1: As the great journalist and historian Rick Pearlstein wrote, one
Speaker 1: of the most abiding failures of agenda setting elite political
Speaker 1: journalism is its denial of its own agency. Trump's manner
Speaker 1: of speaking quote no longer generates much attention, as if
Speaker 1: Trump himself generates what the Times decides to attend to.
Speaker 1: Not the Times, Yes, sir, it's Trump no longer generating attention,
Speaker 1: the way Hurricane Helene is no longer generating catastrophic wins.
Speaker 1: Way down in paragraph seventeen, we finally get some human
Speaker 1: assessment again, not by the Times. Oh, we're just reporting
Speaker 1: with the help of computers. It's not us, it's not
Speaker 1: Peter Baker. It's not anybody who could sue, it's not
Speaker 1: anybody who could imprison. It's it's others. Quote how much
Speaker 1: his rambling discourse, what some experts called tangentiality, can be
Speaker 1: attributed to age. As the subject of some debate, mister
Speaker 1: Trump has always had a distinctive speaking style, la la
Speaker 1: la la la, that entertained and captivated supporters, even as
Speaker 1: critics called him detached from reality. Indeed, questions have been
Speaker 1: raised about mister Trump's mental fitness for years. John F. Kelly,
Speaker 1: his second White House chief of staff, was so convinced
Speaker 1: that mister Trump was psychologically unbalanced that he bought a
Speaker 1: book called The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, written by
Speaker 1: twenty seven mental health professionals, to try to understand his
Speaker 1: boss better. As it was, mister Kelly came to refer
Speaker 1: to mister Trump's White House as quote crazy town unquote. That,
Speaker 1: of course, is still no reason for us at the
Speaker 1: Times to acknowledge that Trump is crazy or brain damaged,
Speaker 1: or a madman or criminally effing insane. And it is
Speaker 1: certainly not sufficient for us at the holy goddamn New
Speaker 1: York Times to utilize four letter words with which to
Speaker 1: describe his falsehoods and other inaccuracies, four letter words like lies. Okay,
Speaker 1: I could literally go on for the length of the article,
Speaker 1: but I think you get my point. Only The Times
Speaker 1: could write a piece about Trump's mental self disqualification from
Speaker 1: the presidency while managing to steal both sides the damn thing,
Speaker 1: albeit with one of the sides being crazy and the
Speaker 1: other side being senile. Maybe that's what took them so
Speaker 1: long to write it. The point is they wrote it,
Speaker 1: and it reflects two things. So many people inside this
Speaker 1: country's newsrooms and outside this country's borders take their journalistic
Speaker 1: cues from The New York Times and have taken and
Speaker 1: then for so long that they don't even know anymore
Speaker 1: that their response to The Times is virtually Pavlovian. That
Speaker 1: article is likely to produce commentaries and pieces and just
Speaker 1: openness to finally addressing this issue with results that will
Speaker 1: settle everywhere from A to Z along the spectrum of
Speaker 1: the Emperor has no brain. It's terrible The Times has
Speaker 1: that influence, especially when they have used it so badly
Speaker 1: for so long. But somebody at the BBC right now
Speaker 1: is preparing his or her own version of that New
Speaker 1: York Times piece. Same at the Times of India and
Speaker 1: the Himalayan Times in Nepal. The second important part here
Speaker 1: is that working the refs works. It works, It works,
Speaker 1: it works. I mean, maybe if we keep kicking the
Speaker 1: editor in the ass publicly, the New York Time will
Speaker 1: correct his last mistake and put out a ten day
Speaker 1: long page one upper left hand corners series analyzing Jack
Speaker 1: Smith's evidence against Trump in a real sort of play
Speaker 1: by play. This is what Jack Smith thinks happened on
Speaker 1: January sixth, than the weeks before, analyzing the evidence that
Speaker 1: was released last week. Something they could run every day
Speaker 1: between now and the election. You know why Hillary's emails
Speaker 1: because working the refs works a lot more on working
Speaker 1: the refs in my own experience with it in a moment.
Speaker 1: But first, happily, there remains countless numbers of media folks
Speaker 1: here who still don't or won't get it. CBS Evening
Speaker 1: News Saturday anchor Jureka Duncan throws to reporter Caitlin Huey
Speaker 1: Burns in Butler, Pennsylvania for Trump's latest hateful fascist rally.
Speaker 1: The one musk was at watch me bothes and the
Speaker 1: last words of the anchor's introduction, the last words, Draka
Speaker 1: Duncan says, our quote Trump began with a unifying message.
Speaker 1: Unquote yeah, unifying you will bow down before me that
Speaker 1: kind of unifying. Of course, our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying
Speaker 1: media managed to both sides it again, it's not just
Speaker 1: about miscovering Trump. Kamala Harris's interview schedule this week so
Speaker 1: far sixty minutes last night, Howard Stern Tuesday, The View Tuesday,
Speaker 1: Colbert Tuesday, Une Vision town Hall Thursday. The reaction from
Speaker 1: Andrew Mitchell about this scheduling and about the Harris campaign
Speaker 1: when she was on Meet the Press yesterday, I think
Speaker 1: they've got to double down on more interviews and serious
Speaker 1: interviews by serious Andrew means Harris should do an interview
Speaker 1: with her on her little MSNBC. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: stay here till they finally fire me show, or Andrea
Speaker 1: is going to continue to go on NBC and whine
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing from Democratic and Republican business people. She
Speaker 1: means her husband, Alan Greenspan and a lot of men.
Speaker 1: There's an undercount of the Trump vote. I think there
Speaker 1: was missagenation. Missagenation. Yes, she said missagenation. She got about
Speaker 1: to the she got to the missage it and then
Speaker 1: she realized what she was saying, missgenette. Missagenation is race mixing.
Speaker 1: Good point about Kamala Harris Andrea missagenation. Well done, Mitchell
Speaker 1: hurriedly switched to quote misognation. Uh, in all of this,
Speaker 1: there is no such word as misogenation. Did you mean
Speaker 1: something about misogyny, Andrea? And then then you followed it
Speaker 1: up with quote black and white men? Big problem? But
Speaker 1: also the business world they don't think she's serious. They
Speaker 1: don't think she's heavyweight. And I tell you what, I
Speaker 1: don't think Andrew Mitchell slipped when she at first said missagenation.
Speaker 1: She should be fired. Then there's Politico. Excuse me I
Speaker 1: forgot to recognize its German ownership here dos Politico? Don't
Speaker 1: call it a media blitz. After avoiding the media for
Speaker 1: nigh on her whole campaign, VP, Kamala Harris is still
Speaker 1: largely avoiding the media. Let's be real here. Most of
Speaker 1: these are not the types of interviews that are going
Speaker 1: to press her on issues she may not want to
Speaker 1: talk about, even as voters want more specifics from Harris. Instead,
Speaker 1: expect most of these sit downs to be a continuation
Speaker 1: of the vibes campaign Harris has perfected. We're not saying
Speaker 1: there's no value in these sixty minutes and the Univision
Speaker 1: town Hall are sure to be substantive. Each of these
Speaker 1: shows has millions of viewers or listeners, especially women and
Speaker 1: young voters, key constituencies for Harris. Let me translate this,
Speaker 1: Politico believes it's more substantive than sixty minutes and Univision
Speaker 1: town Hall and also what else the view and my
Speaker 1: old friend Howard and what else everything else in the world.
Speaker 1: Politico is more important, and Politico will continue to accuse
Speaker 1: Harris of avoiding interviews until she does an interview with
Speaker 1: the news outlet that Politico considers the gold standard, namely
Speaker 1: Politico Dos Politico mine Politico Happily Politico followed this childish
Speaker 1: seven year old's diatribe with one of the greatest self
Speaker 1: owns of the century. But forgive me, I'm going to
Speaker 1: tease that in hopes that you will take the next
Speaker 1: two and a half minutes to listen to the appearance
Speaker 1: just a small part of it on a podcast by
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris that Politico mocked and Politico self owned by
Speaker 1: mocking it. The podcast is called call Her Daddy. It
Speaker 1: is a giant in the field. Politico insulted, it insulted
Speaker 1: its host Alex Cooper. The interview was forty five minutes
Speaker 1: of actual questions, not attempts to play gotcha or grab
Speaker 1: a headline that reads Harris tells Politico exclusively listen for
Speaker 1: the substance, stay for the Politico face plant.
Speaker 3: I do want to clarify something in the debate, Former
Speaker 3: President Trump claimed that some states are executing babies after birth.
Speaker 4: Can you just clarify that is not happening anywhere in
Speaker 4: the United States. It is not happening, And it's a lie.
Speaker 4: Just it's a bold faced lie that he is suggesting that.
Speaker 4: Can you imagine Can you imagine he is suggesting that
Speaker 4: women in their ninth month of pregnancy are electing to
Speaker 4: have an abortion? Are you kidding? That is so outrageously inaccurate,
Speaker 4: And it's so insulting to suggest that that would be
Speaker 4: happening and that women would be doing that. It's not
Speaker 4: happening anywhere. This guy is full of lies. I mean,
Speaker 4: I just have to be very candid with you. You know,
Speaker 4: so in my career, from the time I got out
Speaker 4: of law school through most of my career as a prosecutor,
Speaker 4: I understood that the words that I spoke and what
Speaker 4: I did with those words would be the difference between
Speaker 4: whether somebody was charged with a crime or went to prison,
Speaker 4: maybe prison for life. When I was Attorney General, I
Speaker 4: was the top law enforcement officer of the biggest state
Speaker 4: in this country. And I was acutely aware that the
Speaker 4: words I spoke could be the difference between whether a
Speaker 4: corporation was in business or out of business, that the
Speaker 4: words I spoke could move markets. The idea that someone
Speaker 4: is not only so careless and irresponsible and reckless, but
Speaker 4: out and out lies to create fear and division in
Speaker 4: our country and thinks he should be president of the
Speaker 4: United States, standing behind the seal of the President of
Speaker 4: the United States, using the microphone that comes with that,
Speaker 4: and using that voice and those words in such an
Speaker 4: irresponsible and that's mild way. And this is why this
Speaker 4: selection matters.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the whole election in two and a
Speaker 1: half minutes. The other forty two and a half minutes
Speaker 1: are nearly as good. Wherever you podcast, Call Her Daddy,
Speaker 1: This is what Politico wrote about Kamala Harris going on
Speaker 1: the Call Her Daddy podcast. Quote. Recent episodes of Call
Speaker 1: Her Daddy, just for a touch point were titled is
Speaker 1: he the One? And blowjobs, hall passes, and frat daddies unquote.
Speaker 1: So it's inappropriate or somehow a touch point that Call
Speaker 1: Her Daddy has had sexual content lately, Politico. One quick question, Politico,
Speaker 1: who is that political writer and editor and where did
Speaker 1: he work again? Who was just accused by his ex
Speaker 1: fiance of hacking her phone and leaking details of her
Speaker 1: sex life to other news outlets and trying to blackmail
Speaker 1: her into more sex and not leaving their relationship. Oh right,
Speaker 1: that was Ryan Lizza who was accused of that of Politico,
Speaker 1: editor of Politico Playbook, And you haven't fired him despite
Speaker 1: his record of having been fired by The New Yorker
Speaker 1: for something sexual. So Politico, one more question the Call
Speaker 1: Her Daddy podcast you don't like Vice President Harris doing?
Speaker 1: Is the problem that it has too much sex or
Speaker 1: that it has not as much sex as Politico Playbook does.
Speaker 1: Also of interest here back to working the refs and
Speaker 1: the startling truth lurking inside the disasters inside even the
Speaker 1: biggest newspapers like the New York Times. I can tell
Speaker 1: you from personal experience that sometimes it turns out the
Speaker 1: editors of the biggest newspapers in the world do not
Speaker 1: actually read what is in their own newspapers. That's next.
Speaker 1: This is countdown. So, as I mentioned earlier, a little
Speaker 1: bit more on working the refs and the New York
Speaker 1: Times piece yesterday in which this just in. Trump apparently
Speaker 1: hasn't been making a lot of sense recently in his speeches.
Speaker 1: I know, one can envision a conversation somewhere where they
Speaker 1: decide whether or not to devote reporters and resources and graphics,
Speaker 1: especially graphics. The New York Times is enamored of graphics,
Speaker 1: as if they were just invented, where they decide whether
Speaker 1: or not to do this finally, and whether or not
Speaker 1: perhaps some of the criticism that they might hear just
Speaker 1: in the distance, coming in faintly from outside in the
Speaker 1: real world, might be valid the theory of working the refs. Say,
Speaker 1: Buffy was telling me the other night, the Trump hasn't
Speaker 1: been sounding good. Is that right? Well, I haven't actually
Speaker 1: heard him speak since. Let's see, when was that New
Speaker 1: York Post Sports Breakfast nineteen eighty three? He sounded okay,
Speaker 1: then that was forty one years ago. How time flies.
Speaker 1: That's one theory of what happened at the New York Times.
Speaker 1: The other theory is that after months and months and
Speaker 1: months and months and months and months and years and
Speaker 1: years and years of criticizing the New York Times were
Speaker 1: how it handled first Hillary Clinton's emails, the entire issue
Speaker 1: of the Trump candidacy in twenty sixteen, the entire Trump presidency,
Speaker 1: especially the campaign of twenty twenty, and Joe Biden in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, in which whatever claims they might have
Speaker 1: thought they had proved about Joe Biden's public capacity or
Speaker 1: willingness to do an interview, or willingness to put himself
Speaker 1: at risk, as there was some kind of decline in
Speaker 1: his ability to speak extemporaneously in public. Whatever they thought
Speaker 1: they had, they thought they were justified in trying to
Speaker 1: bury the President of the United States alive, even if
Speaker 1: it meant getting Donald Trump elected again and ending democracy
Speaker 1: and by the way, ending the free press and the
Speaker 1: New York Times, and one of the things that I
Speaker 1: probably alone thought of. No one else would have made
Speaker 1: this analogy, because it's an experience from my own life
Speaker 1: and nobody else's. There's one person to whom this might
Speaker 1: have occurred, a man named Bob Costas, who I have
Speaker 1: invoked here before, who I once told to shut the
Speaker 1: f up on this very topic. Bob did not end
Speaker 1: his friendship with me over that. We had a long
Speaker 1: talk about it, and I tried to explain to Bob
Speaker 1: why that was the wrong time to do what he
Speaker 1: wanted to do, and that later was actually better. And
Speaker 1: I think it will prove later was actually better. But
Speaker 1: I'm straying off the topic here because the topic is
Speaker 1: working the refs when it comes to the newspapers. This
Speaker 1: is about working the refs in an entirely different context
Speaker 1: and sincerely in an entirely different meaning level. If the
Speaker 1: stuff in the New York Times finally getting around to
Speaker 1: Trump's mental capacity or incapacity is a one thousand, my
Speaker 1: story is a two. However, my story is a first
Speaker 1: hand story. I can tell you the whole thing, and
Speaker 1: it's a doozy. I got to Los Angeles as a
Speaker 1: local TV sportscaster at the age of twenty six on
Speaker 1: Labor Day nineteen eighty five. I just happened to hit
Speaker 1: the clouds right with my Marjorie Taylor Green and you
Speaker 1: know they can control the weather cloud seeding effort. I
Speaker 1: in three months became the second or third most popular
Speaker 1: sportscaster on television in Los Angeles. Quite a role reversal,
Speaker 1: because I literally could not get employment the year before
Speaker 1: after a very unfortunate series of experiences in Boston. So
Speaker 1: I got the Associated Press Sportscaster of the Year award
Speaker 1: for California, and I think also Nevada. So I wasn't
Speaker 1: even working in Nevada, and I was the Sportscaster of
Speaker 1: the Year in Nevada as well. And I got the
Speaker 1: UPI Award for the same thing. And I won a
Speaker 1: Golden Mic and all these accolades inside of three months,
Speaker 1: and on Christmas Day. Back when LA had two daily metropolitan,
Speaker 1: big scale newspapers, the Los Angeles Times and the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Herald Examiner, so big that even in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: they each had full time columns devoted just to TV
Speaker 1: sports and principally devoted to TV local sports. The two
Speaker 1: columnists both wrote their year end stories for nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: Bob Kaiser in the LA Harex the Herald Examiner wrote
Speaker 1: that I was the best sportscaster in town, a breath
Speaker 1: of fresh air, and all the other things you would
Speaker 1: say about me if you can envision me being twenty
Speaker 1: six years old, and my style being almost brand new
Speaker 1: and certainly brand new in Los Angeles. Larry Stewart, the
Speaker 1: TV sports columnist of the Los Angeles Times, wrote on
Speaker 1: the same day that I was the worst sportscaster who
Speaker 1: had ever worked in LA And what was worse, somebody
Speaker 1: had told me I was funny. These two pieces next
Speaker 1: to each other define for me proof that the theory
Speaker 1: that you can't be all things to all people at
Speaker 1: the same time was wrong. He examiner, best sportscaster we've
Speaker 1: ever had, best sportscaster we have right now, LA Times,
Speaker 1: worst of all time. Mister Stewart continued on this vein
Speaker 1: for quite some time. I don't remember how it was
Speaker 1: that I personally ticked him off, but I did. I
Speaker 1: may have said something to somebody at the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Times after the sixth or seventh or eighth article that
Speaker 1: he wrote in nineteen eighty six, suggesting that I was
Speaker 1: going to be fired by Channel five my employers, when
Speaker 1: I had a three year contract and Channel five really
Speaker 1: could not afford to fire me and pay me at
Speaker 1: the same time. They didn't have that kind of money.
Speaker 1: I may have complained and said, what are you guys doing?
Speaker 1: Then I began to notice that he was saving Larry
Speaker 1: Stewart was the worst of his insults towards me for
Speaker 1: things like my birthday, major holidays, other stuff like that.
Speaker 1: One day I reported that Wayne Gretzky had been traded
Speaker 1: to the Los Angeles Kings. His take was that I
Speaker 1: had guessed correctly and shouldn't get any credit for breaking
Speaker 1: the story. This was the sort of thing I had
Speaker 1: put up with through three years. Then I went to KCBS,
Speaker 1: another station in Los Angeles, and I can't remember now
Speaker 1: in retrospect what it was that finally ticked me off,
Speaker 1: except perhaps a rumor that I had that another sportscaster
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles was literally bribing Larry Stewart. Never proved it, tried,
Speaker 1: didn't succeed. I heard it from more than one person,
Speaker 1: then more than one person after I left local news
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles at the end of nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: I have heard it as recently as earlier this year.
Speaker 1: I cannot swear that it's true. I mention it only
Speaker 1: for the context of whatever it was that drove me
Speaker 1: to write a note to Bill Dwyer, the I might say,
Speaker 1: nationally respected sports editor of the Los Angeles Times, who
Speaker 1: retired from that role several years later and continued to
Speaker 1: contribute to The Times through the last decade. I believe
Speaker 1: as a infrequent columnist, a good writer, a good man.
Speaker 1: I had met him once, very briefly. He said he
Speaker 1: was a viewer and in desperation at a time when
Speaker 1: one did not take on the press face to face
Speaker 1: if you were in radio or TV, because, as the
Speaker 1: old saying goes, never pick a fight with a newspaperman.
Speaker 1: He has much more ink than you do. And it's
Speaker 1: one thing for somebody to be in that context critical
Speaker 1: of a newspaperman on television. It's ephemeral. You say it,
Speaker 1: and seven seconds later, most of the audience doesn't remember
Speaker 1: what you say. If I went on there and said
Speaker 1: Larry Stewart of the LA Times sucks, who's going to
Speaker 1: remember Larry Stewart's going to remember? The Los Angeles Time's
Speaker 1: going to remember. They're going to write an article about
Speaker 1: me every week. That way, and that is the way
Speaker 1: most of American newspaper dumb, especially on the fringes. I mean,
Speaker 1: the TV sports columnist is not one of the top
Speaker 1: five hundred employees in a newspaper, not even in those
Speaker 1: halcyon days when they had them in almost all major
Speaker 1: newspapers in the country. But the grudge will be then permanent.
Speaker 1: It's how much punishment are you willing to take. If
Speaker 1: it's not that much, you get out of the business.
Speaker 1: At least that was the mindset in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: So I wrote Dwyer note saying this latest article, which
Speaker 1: I believe prophesied that I would be fired when I
Speaker 1: was six months into a no cut, three and a
Speaker 1: half year contract that owed me something like two million dollars. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if they fired me, the CBS employers
Speaker 1: that I was working for then would have had to
Speaker 1: pay me two million dollars rather than spend the two
Speaker 1: million dollars and have me kill off four minutes a
Speaker 1: show on each of their newscasts. CBS then and now
Speaker 1: is always going to choose that latter option unless you
Speaker 1: are totally out of your mind, and they would be
Speaker 1: in first place without you. They will pay you, but
Speaker 1: only to keep working. When I finally did leave CBS,
Speaker 1: when they finally did not pick up my option, they
Speaker 1: gave me three months notice and said, of course, we
Speaker 1: want you to continue to stay on here. And do
Speaker 1: the newscast every night. Of course they did. They even
Speaker 1: sent me to cover the Magic Johnson HIV announcement. They
Speaker 1: trusted me with basically a full day live programming because
Speaker 1: they were already paying me. In any event, I am
Speaker 1: wandering away from this object again. I wrote Bill Dwyer
Speaker 1: a note in desperation. It was polite. It was addressed
Speaker 1: to mister Dwyer, and it said, look, this has been
Speaker 1: going on long enough. He is making things up. To
Speaker 1: my surprise, I got a phone call from Bill Dwyer
Speaker 1: about a week later saying, hey, I got your note.
Speaker 1: I didn't want you to think I'm neglecting it. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything to it. But I watch you
Speaker 1: every night and I have a totally different opinion of
Speaker 1: you than Larry Stewart does. And I think I owe you,
Speaker 1: as somebody who's been here for a few years now
Speaker 1: and has not made a big deal about Larry's comments
Speaker 1: about you, I think I owe you a quick review
Speaker 1: of what he's doing. So I'm going to go back
Speaker 1: and read all of his columns and I don't expect
Speaker 1: to find anything. I'm not going to take any action
Speaker 1: against him. I just wanted you to know I was
Speaker 1: doing it well. Even then, it seemed to me that
Speaker 1: this was an okay kind of show of respect. It
Speaker 1: was not an admission of anything being wrong. It was
Speaker 1: not saying, look we at the Los Angeles Times drop
Speaker 1: the ball here, or I as the sports editor of
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Time drop It was just something rather
Speaker 1: than ignoring it, rather than saying you're an idiot. Rather
Speaker 1: than printing my letter in the paper, which was one
Speaker 1: suggestion that somebody made write a letter to the editor.
Speaker 1: They we'll print publisher letter to the editor about Larry.
Speaker 1: Just what I need. In any event, the phone call ended.
Speaker 1: It didn't last very long, and about a week and
Speaker 1: a half later the phone rang again and it was
Speaker 1: Bill Dwyer and I did not recognize his voice. His
Speaker 1: demeanor was utterly different Keith Bill Dwyer from the LA Times.
Speaker 1: I finished my review of what Stuart has written of me.
Speaker 1: I I'm very sorry. I'd like to take you to
Speaker 1: dinner to talk about remedies. Can can you? Would you
Speaker 1: be willing to sit down with me? I was so
Speaker 1: startled by this, I just said, sure, how about tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: I'll come to you. The restaurant across the street from
Speaker 1: CBS the Columbia Grill. Sure what time's convenient. I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna maybe I should play with him and say
Speaker 1: eight am. I picked the time after the six o'clock
Speaker 1: news was over. I said, seven seven it is. We'll
Speaker 1: see you then the reservation will be in my name.
Speaker 1: My apologies. The dinner the next night was one of
Speaker 1: the rare ones in which I actually had time to
Speaker 1: eat and digest my food. Bill Dwyer spent easily forty
Speaker 1: five minutes apologizing on behalf of himself and his sports
Speaker 1: department and the Los Angeles Times, and after years of
Speaker 1: trying to work that ref nicely at a distance, he
Speaker 1: said something that I believe is relevant to all those
Speaker 1: who ever have a criticism of a new paper, sometimes
Speaker 1: believe it or not. The people in charge know only
Speaker 1: what the people who work for them say about what
Speaker 1: is in the paper. They have not, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that you would think this would be the first thing
Speaker 1: they would do, read everything in the newspaper. They have not.
Speaker 1: Even as Bill Dwyer explained, he did not read everything
Speaker 1: that was in the Los Angeles Times between you and me.
Speaker 1: Larry doesn't get paid for this. He works in the
Speaker 1: makeup department. He helps us lay out the pages of
Speaker 1: the sports section. We send them every once in a
Speaker 1: while to cover some high school football games, and you know,
Speaker 1: we throw them kind of a fee for that, but
Speaker 1: his contract is as a layout person. Well, I stifled
Speaker 1: my laughter because I wanted to hear where he was
Speaker 1: going with this story. The rest of it was the
Speaker 1: column that he wrote two or three times a week
Speaker 1: about TV sports was basically done for free. I did
Speaker 1: not even ask how they got this passed the newspaper man,
Speaker 1: but they did somehow. He explained that he thought Larry
Speaker 1: Stewart was probably the worst writer who had ever appeared
Speaker 1: in the Los Angeles Times, and that they did this
Speaker 1: just because for years, the LA Herald Examiner, before it
Speaker 1: went out of business in I believe nineteen eighty seven
Speaker 1: or eighty eight, had a very good TV sports columnist
Speaker 1: named Bob Kaiser, and there was an excellent one at
Speaker 1: the LA Daily News named Phil Rosenthal, and they were
Speaker 1: ashamed that they didn't have their own TV sports columnist,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't enough money in the budget for it.
Speaker 1: They rather cover local high school sports, and then they
Speaker 1: found this marvelous opportunity, and he said, I'm realizing now
Speaker 1: we have gotten what we paid for, and I did.
Speaker 1: At this point, having small responsibilities as the sports editor
Speaker 1: or sports director of Channel two in Los Angeles, I
Speaker 1: needed to talk to an actual sports editor about this.
Speaker 1: I said, I don't understand. There are very few ma
Speaker 1: your editorial decisions that I input myself into that are
Speaker 1: not directly parts of the script right in front of me.
Speaker 1: But every once in a while I have to be
Speaker 1: involved in somebody else's work on a show I'm not
Speaker 1: doing and issue either instructions or assignments or don't cover that,
Speaker 1: or make sure you cover this, or emphasize that. I
Speaker 1: don't think it happens every month, but maybe every six weeks.
Speaker 1: I know you must have this daily. You're the sports editor.
Speaker 1: How could you not know what's in the column. I
Speaker 1: can't bear to read it. So I'm feeling a little
Speaker 1: bit better about myself here. But he said, I read
Speaker 1: everything he has written about you in the paper. I
Speaker 1: went into our morgue the archives and read. In these
Speaker 1: pre internet days, I read everything he wrote about you.
Speaker 1: There is the same pattern that you described about him
Speaker 1: attacking you on major holidays and your birthday, and always
Speaker 1: finding some way to do something negative about you and
Speaker 1: to predict he has reported twenty three different times that
Speaker 1: you were about to be fired. This is not possible.
Speaker 1: How many times were you about to be fired? I
Speaker 1: went maybe once? He my God, he said, I made
Speaker 1: a terrible mistake. I left that column and a couple
Speaker 1: of others in the hands of two deputy sports editors
Speaker 1: of the LA Times. Two of them were responsible for
Speaker 1: Stuart's content. I have now demoted them both there now
Speaker 1: I forget the title, but it was basically assistant copy
Speaker 1: editor of the sports section of Los Angeles Times. And
Speaker 1: I told Stuart that if he writes anything else about
Speaker 1: you ever again, it must go to my desk. In fact,
Speaker 1: I want him to come into my office and read
Speaker 1: it to me aloud before he publishes. Stewart, of course,
Speaker 1: worked around this by never mentioning me again for the
Speaker 1: length of my time as a local sportscaster in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Later on he had no choice but to mention me
Speaker 1: because I was at ESPN and then in fact working
Speaker 1: in Los ange to us on Fox Sports, and he
Speaker 1: managed to find ways long after Bill Dwyer had retired
Speaker 1: as sports editor to try to take shots at me.
Speaker 1: The punchline to this was one of the many punchlines,
Speaker 1: was that Bill Dwyer said that I was not only
Speaker 1: totally correct, but that if I had made any mistakes,
Speaker 1: it was not telling him sooner that this had happened.
Speaker 1: Go to the boss in the situation in which you're
Speaker 1: dealing with the newspaper that has decided or part of
Speaker 1: it has decided to enact vengeance or bias against someone
Speaker 1: or something or somebody particularly connected to us. You're not
Speaker 1: in exactly the same business that we are, but we
Speaker 1: all cover sports in Los Angeles. You deserve better respect
Speaker 1: than that. You should have come to me sooner. The
Speaker 1: only time he got anywhere near defensive about what had happened,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, I'll remember to do that again.
Speaker 1: Although I don't like to work the refs, and he shouted,
Speaker 1: work the refs. It works. Two punchlines, I said, there
Speaker 1: was just one. There are, in fact three. If the
Speaker 1: name Greta Gerwig means anything to you, I believe the
Speaker 1: Academy Award winning director of Barbie had an actress also
Speaker 1: in her own right. Writer of Barbie and other film works,
Speaker 1: Larry Stewart's niece. That was a surprise and the punchline
Speaker 1: of all punchlines. I had assumed when I left local
Speaker 1: news in Los Angeles at the end of nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one that Larry Stewart had no greater enemy in the
Speaker 1: business than myself. Six years later, seven years later, I
Speaker 1: guess I went to work at NBC Sports had the
Speaker 1: privilege of working on baseball broadcasts with Bob Yucker and
Speaker 1: Joe Morgan and Jim Gray and Bob Costas and me.
Speaker 1: We were the World Series team in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: Hannah Storm and I did the game show together as well,
Speaker 1: and I was in the dugout for the Cleveland Indians
Speaker 1: during that World Series. The nineteen ninety eight American League Playoffs,
Speaker 1: I was in the dugout for Cleveland throughout that series
Speaker 1: with the Yankees and did the pre and postgame shows
Speaker 1: then too. As we left Cleveland for Newark, I believe
Speaker 1: in the middle of the series, as we were taxing
Speaker 1: down the runway, I was seated next to my friend
Speaker 1: Bob Costas. This is I think October nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: and I said something as we began to lift off
Speaker 1: the ground at the airport in Cleveland. I said, so
Speaker 1: did you see what Larry Stewart wrote the other day?
Speaker 1: And Bob looked at me as if he was going
Speaker 1: to kill me and everybody connected to Larry Stewart. You
Speaker 1: know Larry Stuart. There was a different voice, not the
Speaker 1: Bob Costas voice that we've heard for many years. You
Speaker 1: know Larry Stewart, I said, I was his victim for
Speaker 1: many years. I've got a great story about him. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you a story about him. First we landed
Speaker 1: in Newark, New Jersey. I want to say about an
Speaker 1: hour and a half later. Those who know that flight
Speaker 1: could probably correct me and give me an exact time,
Speaker 1: but it was about an hour and a half, maybe
Speaker 1: a little more, maybe a little less. And as we
Speaker 1: touched down, as we heard that little as your wheels
Speaker 1: satisfactorily hit the runway and you have survived another flight,
Speaker 1: Bob said, Okay, that's my story. Now you can tell
Speaker 1: your Larry Stewart story. I've done all the damage I
Speaker 1: can do here. Thank you for listening. That's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: Greta Gerwig is the niece of the former TV sports
Speaker 1: columnist of the Los Angeles Times, Larry Stewart, and I
Speaker 1: didn't tell you half the stories about Larry Stewart. Any
Speaker 1: who worked the refs, that's the lesson. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's what caused the New York Times take out
Speaker 1: on Trump's insanity. I don't know if that's why we
Speaker 1: will be now inundated with articles of that sort and
Speaker 1: pieces of that sort by the news organizations from around
Speaker 1: the world that treat The New York Times as if
Speaker 1: it were the final authority on everything, rather than a
Speaker 1: bunch of guys named Biff. In any event, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: We're now back to five episodes a week, posting nightly
Speaker 1: just after midnight Eastern. Once again, there's a Monday Countdown.
Speaker 1: As you are listening to it now, you will have
Speaker 1: noticed it's a little shorter than the other ones. Give
Speaker 1: me a break. Please send this podcast to somebody who
Speaker 1: does not know they need to listen, but should, especially
Speaker 1: anybody who's not a fan of Larry Stewart. Brian Ray
Speaker 1: and John Phillips Chanel, the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration
Speaker 1: and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass, and drums,
Speaker 1: and it was produced by Tko Brothers. The story was
Speaker 1: that at all press conferences mister Stewart would bring a
Speaker 1: bag and take food home with him. Our satirical and
Speaker 1: pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
Speaker 1: Nancy Faust. I mean, I've walked out of a press
Speaker 1: conference with a little extra sandwich or something while we're
Speaker 1: talking about a three day supply. That was the story
Speaker 1: I was told. The sports music is the Old Woman
Speaker 1: theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy
Speaker 1: of ESPN, Inc. I mean, if you want to say
Speaker 1: I'm not funny or not good at it, you have
Speaker 1: the right to do that. That's a columnist's job. You
Speaker 1: can't make stories up. And that's what the guy who
Speaker 1: edited the La Times sports section said. Larry did other
Speaker 1: music arranged and performed by the group No horns allowed,
Speaker 1: and everything else was as usual. Pretty much my fault,
Speaker 1: ask Larry Stewart. Honest to goodness, I don't even remember
Speaker 1: if I got my Bob Costas rebuttal in. There After
Speaker 1: Bob finished his hour and a half long story about
Speaker 1: Larry Stewart. He did not like Larry Stewart in a
Speaker 1: way that made it look like Larry and I were
Speaker 1: I don't know, attached twins. That's countdown for today, four
Speaker 1: weeks and one day until the twenty twenty four presidential election,
Speaker 1: the one three hundred and seventy first day since convicted
Speaker 1: felon drooling Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
Speaker 1: elected government of the United States, and day two after
Speaker 1: The Times realized something was wrong with Dawn. Use the election,
Speaker 1: use the metal health system, use presidential immunity if we
Speaker 1: have to, to keep Trump from doing it again while
Speaker 1: we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow, boltons
Speaker 1: as the news requires. Till then, I'm Keith Alremman. Good morning,
Speaker 1: good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
Speaker 1: Alreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.