Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
Speaker 1: only scum here is Trump, and the only thing that
Speaker 1: has been obliterated is America's reputation. We have now descended
Speaker 1: to that level of hell in which the entire purpose
Speaker 1: of the government of the United States is to say
Speaker 1: and shout and lie so loudly and so often that
Speaker 1: the insane, deteriorating, mentally dissolving international joke, that is, the
Speaker 1: current president does not yell at the fools and whorees
Speaker 1: who work for him and can't stand the sound of
Speaker 1: his voice another god damned minute. He has now gotten
Speaker 1: the government of Israel to lie for him about his
Speaker 1: private war against Iran. He has now gotten his own
Speaker 1: government to issue assessments that not only completely contradict yesterday's assessments,
Speaker 1: but completely contradict his own assessments. He has now gotten
Speaker 1: his own Director of National Intelligence, presumably under the threat
Speaker 1: of being fired, to cherry pick somebody's intelligence, maybe ours,
Speaker 1: maybe Katars, maybe sho Rogans who knows and insists that
Speaker 1: this is new intelligence and it confirms his obsession, his
Speaker 1: obsession that everybody in the country, everybody in the world,
Speaker 1: everybody in the universe, everybody yet to be born must
Speaker 1: agree with him that Iran's nuclear capacity is quote obliterated
Speaker 1: and for all time and forever, in no arguments, and
Speaker 1: it's the greatest military success in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And
Speaker 1: don't you dare say otherwise, don't you dare inconclusive obliterated,
Speaker 1: except that twenty four hours ago Trump said it was inconclusive.
Speaker 1: Both you and Secret Terry Rubio on hex I mentioned
Speaker 1: the week. But can you clarify is the intelligence correct,
Speaker 1: wh is the intelligence wrong?
Speaker 2: Well, the intelligence was was very inconclusive. The intelligence says,
Speaker 2: we don't know. It could have been very severe. That's
Speaker 2: what the intelligence says. So I guess that's correct. But
Speaker 2: I think we can take that we don't know. It
Speaker 2: was very severe. It was obliteration. And you think that
Speaker 2: a media outlet would say, isn't it a great thing?
Speaker 1: Inconclusive but also obliterated and obliterating, because about an hour
Speaker 1: before he said that, Trump wrote this fake news CNN.
Speaker 1: This is all caps, by the way, so you know
Speaker 1: he really means it. Together with the failing New York Times,
Speaker 1: have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of
Speaker 1: the most successful military strikes in history. The nuclear sights
Speaker 1: in Iran are completely destroyed. Both the Times in CNN
Speaker 1: are getting slammed by the public. They're not. He's holding
Speaker 1: another news conference, having hegseeth do it today to say,
Speaker 1: presumably something like fake news. CNN, together with the failing
Speaker 1: New York Times, have teamed up in an attempted to
Speaker 1: mean one of the most successful military strikes in history.
Speaker 1: Can I have my weekend job back at Fox and
Speaker 1: a drink please? And by the way, Fox reported the
Speaker 1: same thing that CNN and the New York Times reported inconclusive, inconclusive,
Speaker 1: and again Trump said it was inconclusive. But don't you
Speaker 1: dare say anything about inconclusive. Don't say anything but obliteration,
Speaker 1: or you will be included when America's all time worst
Speaker 1: scumbag makes his daily proclamation of who is scum and
Speaker 1: who is not? And not just left town.
Speaker 2: This was an unbelievable hit by genius pilots and genius
Speaker 2: people in the military, and they're not being given credit
Speaker 2: for it because we have scum that's in this group,
Speaker 2: and not all of you are. You had some great reporters,
Speaker 2: but you have scum. CNN is scum. MSDNZ is scum.
Speaker 2: The New York Times is scum. They're bad people, they're.
Speaker 1: Sick good things. CNN has been sucking up to him
Speaker 1: for three years, or he'd be saying this three times
Speaker 1: a day, and not just at NATO conferences to international reporters,
Speaker 1: international reporters that have the courage, unlike our wretched leftovers,
Speaker 1: to laugh at him of.
Speaker 2: Question on his Spain, Are you satisfying with today?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: It's terrible what they've done.
Speaker 1: Now I do.
Speaker 2: They're the only country they won't pay the full up.
Speaker 2: They want to stay at two percent. I think it's terrible.
Speaker 2: And you know, they're doing very well. The economy is
Speaker 2: very well, and that economy could be blown right out
Speaker 2: of the water with something bad happening. You know, Spain
Speaker 2: is the only country that are you from Spain? Good congratulations.
Speaker 2: You're the only country that is not paying. I don't
Speaker 2: know what the problem is.
Speaker 1: It's also he wants a Nobel Peace Prize for obliterating
Speaker 1: like Hiroshima. So to quiet d menhaed Trump down for
Speaker 1: a few hours while somebody figures out a way to
Speaker 1: impeach him or twenty fifth amendment him, or just next
Speaker 1: time leave him at the Hague. That's where the International
Speaker 1: Court of Justice is. Here is who is lying to
Speaker 1: him and to us now statement on behalf of the
Speaker 1: Israel Atomic Energy Commission. The devastating US strike on Fordeaux
Speaker 1: destroyed the site's critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.
Speaker 1: We assessed that the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities,
Speaker 1: combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran's military
Speaker 1: nuclear program, has set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons by many years. This achievement can continue indefinitely if
Speaker 1: Iran does not get access to nuclear material. This statement
Speaker 1: apparently shocked observers in Israel because it was not released
Speaker 1: by the Israeli government to anybody in that country. It
Speaker 1: was for American media only. In point of fact, it
Speaker 1: was for Trump only. You can tell that it's not
Speaker 1: largely holy or perhaps at all true because Nettnyahu's government,
Speaker 1: which also needs to maintain a war footing and create
Speaker 1: this sense that there is an existential threat to keep
Speaker 1: its leader out of prison for life. In this statement, Netnya,
Speaker 1: whose government credits American strikes, now another lie domestic. The
Speaker 1: one member of the Trump administration, who seems to have
Speaker 1: gotten it right of all people, the stopped clock herself,
Speaker 1: Tulsey Gabbard, skunkhead, Iran was not within weeks or months
Speaker 1: of a nuke. This attack would accelerate the nuclear risk
Speaker 1: actual ascertainable fact. And then they don't even tell her
Speaker 1: in advance when they decide to bomb against her advice.
Speaker 1: She's not in the situation room that night, so she
Speaker 1: presumably has to issue the most ridiculous lie yet or
Speaker 1: lose her job. New intelligence confirms what Potus has stated
Speaker 1: numerous times. Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed. What new intelligence?
Speaker 1: Who's did you find it on a slip of paper
Speaker 1: inside a fortune cookie? Telsey? If the Iranians choose to rebuild,
Speaker 1: they would have to rebuild all three facilities Natans for
Speaker 1: now Esfahan entirely, which would likely take years to do. Sure,
Speaker 1: because they didn't move anything out of those three facilities
Speaker 1: to allow them to put them elsewhere and build elsewhere,
Speaker 1: And they didn't learn one thing that they better build
Speaker 1: their nukes back better and stronger than ever before. Before
Speaker 1: this asshole bombs the empty facilities again. The propaganda media
Speaker 1: has deployed their usual tactic, selectively released portions of illegally
Speaker 1: leaked classified intelligence assessments. Tulsie, the leaker is in the house.
Speaker 1: Those were re leaked by somebody with access to that information,
Speaker 1: that somebody works for Trump. You moren incidentally, this memo
Speaker 1: that you just issued that I'm reading here, this is
Speaker 1: you selectively releasing portions of classified intelligence assessments, not a notice.
Speaker 1: Did you notice the coincidence there, Tulsi, unless you made
Speaker 1: them up? Unless this is a lie, in which case
Speaker 1: you're in the clear. Portions intentionally leaving out the fact
Speaker 1: that the assessment was written with low confidence to try
Speaker 1: to undermine President Trump's decisive leadership and the brave servicemen
Speaker 1: and women who flawless executed a truly historic mission to
Speaker 1: keep the American people safe and secure. The oldest trick
Speaker 1: in the Neocon book. And yes, Maga and the Neocons
Speaker 1: are now indistinguishable. Doesn't matter how differently the roots were
Speaker 1: that they got they took to get there, they are
Speaker 1: now the same thing they got to the same place.
Speaker 1: Meaningless carnage in the Middle East that makes things worse
Speaker 1: and will have ramifications a quarter century from now that
Speaker 1: we can't possibly predict. But you defend that by saying
Speaker 1: that if you dare to question the outcome, the purpose
Speaker 1: the president the secretary of brill cream. If you don't
Speaker 1: say obliterated, if you don't praise, dear leader, you're insulting
Speaker 1: the troops. And to try to stitch all this together,
Speaker 1: let me quote the Wall Street Journal, Iran nuclear obliterated.
Speaker 1: So now we have to negotiate with Iran to get
Speaker 1: them to discontinue their nuclear quote. Trump said he doesn't
Speaker 1: think a nuclear deal with Iran is necessary after the
Speaker 1: US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites that he added
Speaker 1: there would be talks with Tehran next week. He said
Speaker 1: the US would be asking the Iranians for the same
Speaker 1: thing before Israel attacked Iran. We want no nuclear, the
Speaker 1: president said, adding we destroyed the nuclear Speaking from the
Speaker 1: NATO summit, Trump said he believed the ceasefire between Israel
Speaker 1: and Iran would hold. The president signaled that he wouldn't
Speaker 1: stop China from buying oil from Iran, saying Tehran needs
Speaker 1: the money to put that country back into shape. Trump
Speaker 1: also pushed back on a leaked intelligence report that said
Speaker 1: US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities only set back Tehran's
Speaker 1: nuclear ambitions by a few months. Defense Secretary Pete he
Speaker 1: Said said the FBI started a probe into how the
Speaker 1: preliminary assessment became public. Cash Patel's going to put a
Speaker 1: couple of eyes on it. As the reporter Roger Sallenberger
Speaker 1: noted about this Wall Street Journal write up, we don't
Speaker 1: need to deal with Iran, but we're still going to
Speaker 1: ask them to give up their nuclear program, which we destroyed.
Speaker 1: And of course it's all bill, and Iran has finished.
Speaker 1: And Trump posted a music video in which the Beach
Speaker 1: Boys Barbara Ann is subhumanly repurposed as bomb Iran. The
Speaker 1: old John McCain joke. Don't tell but Trump he'll stroke
Speaker 1: out when he hears it's a John McCain joke. Good
Speaker 1: week to do it too, when Brian Wilson has died.
Speaker 1: And remember, there's no threat. Obliterator obliterated. And you're scum
Speaker 1: if you say otherwise. So I guess that means that
Speaker 1: Trump administration is scum. Oh and Trump, who you heard
Speaker 1: in the clip before, agreed the results are inconclusive. Trump
Speaker 1: thinks Trump is scum, and for once he's right. There
Speaker 1: are four sidebars initially anyway to Zoran Mamdani's startling and
Speaker 1: thrilling first round win in the Democratic primary for mayor
Speaker 1: here in Fun City one the early tepidness of national
Speaker 1: Democratic support for him and for his run for mayor
Speaker 1: from Chuck Schumer, the Gironto crostis in chief. He praised
Speaker 1: his campaign Akeem Jeffries, whose only apparent career goal is
Speaker 1: to last long enough to join that jeron tocras he
Speaker 1: did the same. Oh, he ran a wonderful campaign. What
Speaker 1: was his name again? Gentlemen, get on board, Ma'm Danny
Speaker 1: won the middle class in New York City by doing
Speaker 1: the two things you idiots refuse to even try to
Speaker 1: do last November. Combine concern for the financial crushing of
Speaker 1: the middle class and stand up for what's right in
Speaker 1: the country and the world, including opposing Trump and Ice
Speaker 1: and the fascists as loudly and frequently as possible while
Speaker 1: reducing costs. It's only two things. I know. You might
Speaker 1: have to eliminate a bunch of banquets and dinners and
Speaker 1: press conferences from your schedule to accomplish two things in
Speaker 1: one year, but this guy apparently is doing it. Also,
Speaker 1: Schumer Jeffries, you and the other chameleons who are now
Speaker 1: trying to be centrist after everything else failed because you
Speaker 1: aren't any good at this. They are responsible for democratic
Speaker 1: cowardice at every corner. From Politico, it is extremely alarming
Speaker 1: that the only candidates who genuinely excite our voters are
Speaker 1: the ones making absolutely insane promises on politically toxic positions.
Speaker 1: One DEM strategist tells Playbooks Adam Wren, leaving us in
Speaker 1: the spot of trying to execute on bad policy and
Speaker 1: losing terribly or failing to keep our promises, and reinforcing
Speaker 1: the idea that all politics is bullshit. Firstly, politically, you
Speaker 1: know what bullshit is. Bullshit is granting somebody anonymity for that.
Speaker 1: You know why Kamala Harris lost last year. You know
Speaker 1: why the Senate didn't get any closer. You know why
Speaker 1: the House was lost because an alleged Democratic strategist who
Speaker 1: has his finger on the pulse of nothing, does not
Speaker 1: have the honesty nor the confidence in his own analysis
Speaker 1: right or wrong to put his own goddamned worthless name
Speaker 1: on that milk toast quote. Secondly, sir or madam, talking
Speaker 1: to Politico, how about this crazy idea. How about keeping
Speaker 1: your promises? Or if you can't make as much noise
Speaker 1: as possible, because you have been thwarted by the armies
Speaker 1: that Maurice Metterlink saw. At every crossway on the road
Speaker 1: that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed
Speaker 1: by a thousand men appointed to guard the past. The
Speaker 1: second sidebar those thousand men, they're all named Andrew Cuomo.
Speaker 1: The biggest threat to New York City right now, the
Speaker 1: biggest threat to the Democratic Party right now, the biggest
Speaker 1: threat to the midterms, The biggest threat in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: eight is tepid Democratic support for ma'm Danny for mayor
Speaker 1: and the window that then opens for Cuomo to run
Speaker 1: as an independent backed by another twenty million or so
Speaker 1: from Mike Bloomberg Republican and other rich bastard Republicans to
Speaker 1: keep the boy socialist out, even if all that results
Speaker 1: in is spoiling it for ma'm Danny and we get
Speaker 1: another term of Eric Adams. Eric Adams who is missing
Speaker 1: yesterday in the day after the New York political earthquake
Speaker 1: because he was doing live guest hits on Newsmax from
Speaker 1: inside his car, which is where next year in a
Speaker 1: just world, Eric Adams will be living the third sidebar
Speaker 1: Watch now for the chance that went Trump. Our minor
Speaker 1: bird president who keeps repeating the same word, switches from
Speaker 1: to mandelli once they teach him how to say it
Speaker 1: when he pivots back from persecuting Hispanics to persecuting Muslims.
Speaker 1: Under the radar. Trump has just established an America first
Speaker 1: Homeland Security Advisory Committee on it. Mark Levin, the guy
Speaker 1: in Fox who talks like this, Corey Lewandowski, he's an
Speaker 1: advisor to Christy. No. You know, I've heard a lot
Speaker 1: of terms for this before. I never heard Hey, let
Speaker 1: me give you some advice, honey. And Rudy Giuliani, who
Speaker 1: apparently has escaped from his new home in the Bronx Zoo.
Speaker 1: So clearly, Levin, Lewandowski and Giuliani are their inside Homeland
Speaker 1: Security to push back against and balance all those at
Speaker 1: Homeland Security who are in favor of protecting America. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: after ma'am Donnie's knockout blow, the Laura Loomer Charlie Kirk
Speaker 1: types have already invoked nine to eleven. And how dare
Speaker 1: New York elect one of them? Let me tell you
Speaker 1: something in nineteen ten, and I have this secondhand from
Speaker 1: my late grandfathers, who were very happy about it because
Speaker 1: they were German and they had been this category of
Speaker 1: New Yorker the decade before. But in nineteen ten, Italians
Speaker 1: not named Enrico Caruso in this city were presumed to
Speaker 1: be mafiosi, and Jews in this city were treated as
Speaker 1: third class citizens. Twenty three years later, nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 1: New York City elected its greatest mayor of all time,
Speaker 1: who was Italian and Jewish Lagardia. His mother's name was
Speaker 1: Irene Lozato Cohen. Oh, and he was a socialist. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to shock you. He was a Republican socialist.
Speaker 1: Our second greatest mayor, John Purroy Mitchell, was thirty four
Speaker 1: when he was elected. Thirty four, Why that's too young?
Speaker 1: And our greatest mayor since LaGuardia ed Koch. To this
Speaker 1: day we don't know his second orientation. And guess what
Speaker 1: nobody really ever bothered to ask. We don't give a crap.
Speaker 1: This is a city that looks for competence. This is
Speaker 1: a city of immigrants and assimilation and especially the mixing
Speaker 1: of the gene pools. Often we miss we screw it up.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're on a hell of a mayor's streak.
Speaker 1: This idiot Adams, this idiot Deblasio, this idiot Bloomberg, this idiot, fascist,
Speaker 1: lunatic Giuliani. But one thing we do not do, and
Speaker 1: this is the fourth takeaway after the election results in
Speaker 1: the primary, one thing we do not do is get
Speaker 1: full the second time. This above all else was lost,
Speaker 1: and not just Mandani's victory, but his victory in round
Speaker 1: one instead of round seven of ranked voting. This was
Speaker 1: as much of a repudiation of Andrew Cuomo and the
Speaker 1: idea that there's no longer such a thing as bad
Speaker 1: political publicity. It's the Trump theory. It's the way we've
Speaker 1: lived for a decade now. It doesn't matter who you raped,
Speaker 1: as long as they spelled your name right. New York
Speaker 1: is trying to show America, trying to show the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Please wake it up if you see it, that the
Speaker 1: way to beat a scumbag is to remind everybody what
Speaker 1: a scumbag he is, and while doing so, offer alternatives
Speaker 1: that can benefit them in their real lives. Trump is
Speaker 1: a scumbag. Here are free buses. I wonder if they
Speaker 1: have figured this out now in all the places where
Speaker 1: Zamdani was attacked and Cuomo Cuomo an unrepented sleeze, and
Speaker 1: I'll need to see a paternity test to believe he's
Speaker 1: really Mario Cuomo's son, where Cuomo was welcomed back as
Speaker 1: if none of that had happened. Bill Clinton endorsed Cuomo.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg did. Jim Clyburn. I love Jim Clyburn. Jim Clyburn
Speaker 1: called Cuomo the future of the Democratic Party nationally. Cowomo's
Speaker 1: older than I am. Jim, your trolley has come off
Speaker 1: the track. Best of all the New York Times editorial Board,
Speaker 1: which said, whatever you do, do not put him on
Speaker 1: your ballot anywhere. Don't rank him last he is. There's
Speaker 1: no way he can possibly run the few New York
Speaker 1: Times And by the way, we are now officially in
Speaker 1: this period of time, the New York Times editorial Board
Speaker 1: and the New York Times publisher have affirmed that the
Speaker 1: words New and York are just part of a brand name,
Speaker 1: and any actual connection between that paper and this city
Speaker 1: has long since been eliminated. I know I called him Zamdani.
Speaker 1: It was a kind of a telescoping of his first
Speaker 1: name and his last name, just call him Mayor. Also
Speaker 1: of interest here, anybody noticed Trump went full gay bashing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I understand stuff getting buried under the avalanche
Speaker 1: of Trump is bullshit and rage and but full unmistakable
Speaker 1: homophobia in writing from Trump. That's next. This is Countdown.
Speaker 2: This his countdown with Keith Oberman Oberman.
Speaker 1: Stollah on this all new editionive Countdown. Since I am
Speaker 1: back in TV sports doing stuff for the baseball games
Speaker 1: carried on the fan dual network sports regional outlets, might
Speaker 1: be a good time to commemorate my departure from ESPN,
Speaker 1: the first one this time of year in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: not the second time, not the third time, when I
Speaker 1: became a Disney retiree. Seriously, I'm a Disney retiree. Get me,
Speaker 1: I'm a Disney retiree. The first time I left. Boy,
Speaker 1: oh boy, was that a big story. I'll explain next
Speaker 1: in Things I promised not to tell first, Believe it
Speaker 1: or not, There's still more new idiots to talk about.
Speaker 1: The roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
Speaker 1: effects specimens who constitute the latest other worse persons in
Speaker 1: the world Thebron's David Ellison, who, along with my former
Speaker 1: friend Jeff you should have known I was lying to Shell.
Speaker 1: We'll be running CBS news once Sherry Redstone finishes pretending
Speaker 1: she's just settling a Trump lawsuit when in fact she's
Speaker 1: taking the smell off a little payola. This is from
Speaker 1: Oliver Darcy's Absolutely Necessary Status newsletter. Late last year, during
Speaker 1: a trip to New York City, David Ellison quietly made
Speaker 1: time for a meeting that said as much about his
Speaker 1: worldview as it did about his interest in media. According
Speaker 1: to people familiar with the matter, the Hollywood scion sky
Speaker 1: On I never knew how to pronounce that word, Hollywood asshole,
Speaker 1: set time aside on his busy calendar to meet with
Speaker 1: Barry Weiss, the founder of the Free Press. Allison, like
Speaker 1: a number of C suite executive types parentheses longing to
Speaker 1: turn the rest of us into robots, has long been
Speaker 1: an admirer of Weiss's style of journalism, and I have
Speaker 1: to compliment Oliver for not putting journalism in quotes here.
Speaker 1: I'm told viewing her as one one of the more
Speaker 1: compelling voices in the shifting landscape of independent journalism. Independent
Speaker 1: journalism being an ironic term for sucking Trump's ass. Ellison
Speaker 1: appeared to leave a wide range of options on the table,
Speaker 1: signaling that he sees Wiss's a valuable addition to CBS News,
Speaker 1: wants to hire her for CBS News while he considers
Speaker 1: how to put his stamp on the news division. Trust me,
Speaker 1: you put a lunatic, loser, asshole like this woman at
Speaker 1: CBS News, you put your stamp on the news division,
Speaker 1: and then you threw the package out the window. Might
Speaker 1: as well change the name from CBS to well, we're
Speaker 1: going to say CBS stands for completely bullshit. Now, while
Speaker 1: a management role is not said to be on the table,
Speaker 1: it would not be out of the range of possibilities
Speaker 1: that she could be named as an on air contributor
Speaker 1: or perhaps even given a coveted correspondent position On sixty minutes,
Speaker 1: Barry Weiss is the asshole who thinks everyone and everything
Speaker 1: is woke and anti Semitic, that criticism of Israel is
Speaker 1: anti Semitism. She wrote her way out of real journalism.
Speaker 1: She now provides a platform for people who were never
Speaker 1: good enough to be in it. If you think CBS
Speaker 1: has already hit rock bottom, no weight. There's still the
Speaker 1: Barry Weiss basement to hit. The runner up Kerry Lake,
Speaker 1: you know, the fired Phoenix weather caster who looks like
Speaker 1: the marionette from the old Act Whylon Flowers and Madam
Speaker 1: look it up? What of all things did this country
Speaker 1: actually need during Trump's private war of obliteration against Iran?
Speaker 1: The one that ablittered nothing propaganda or information against Iranian
Speaker 1: propaganda broadcast into Iran? What did it get dead? From
Speaker 1: Axios mid a historic flashpoint in the Middle East. The
Speaker 1: Voice of America has broadcast just seventy five minutes of
Speaker 1: content targeted to its audience in Iran over the last
Speaker 1: seventy two hours. This is a little old. A source
Speaker 1: familiar with the schedule said the programming was limited to
Speaker 1: just one show for around thirty minutes Sunday morning. I
Speaker 1: believe it was Breakfast with the Beatles, and another for
Speaker 1: around forty five minutes Monday morning. The source said nothing
Speaker 1: against Breakfast with the Beatles. Before the Trump administration's efforts
Speaker 1: to gut funding for USAGM and its outlets, the Voice
Speaker 1: of America broadcast twenty four to seven for its Iranian audience.
Speaker 1: Why it matters? Duh? Driving the news. Carrie Lake, special
Speaker 1: advisor to VOA's parent agency, the US Agency for Global Media,
Speaker 1: last week said termination notices were sent to six hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty nine employees at USAGM and VOA. One time
Speaker 1: Carrie Lake actually does something that isn't about her and
Speaker 1: how she is the greatest martyr this side of whiny gains.
Speaker 1: The one time she does something, it actually hurt Trump's
Speaker 1: private war against Iran. I sure hope Trump doesn't hear
Speaker 1: about this. Speaking of which our winner de mensaed Trump himself.
Speaker 1: We all know he hates black people, Jews, Hispanics, the truth,
Speaker 1: anybody who looks at him, funny Muslims, members of his
Speaker 1: own family, foreigners, sane people. And there's another like three
Speaker 1: thousand names on this list, but I'm going to skip them.
Speaker 1: But we tend to overlook his homophobia. It's transactional homophobia.
Speaker 1: Roy Cone, who tutored Trump's psychoses and various expertises in
Speaker 1: the Evil Arts, he was gay, But of course roy
Speaker 1: Cone hated himself for that, so this fits. This is
Speaker 1: not the first time he did this. He did this
Speaker 1: just before the election. But see if you can spot
Speaker 1: the homophobia. The sites that were hit in Iran were
Speaker 1: totally destroyed, and everyone knows that only the fake news
Speaker 1: would say anything different in order to try and demean
Speaker 1: as much as possible, and even they say that they
Speaker 1: were pretty well destroyed. Working especially hard on this falsehood
Speaker 1: is Allison Cooper of fake News CNN. Allison Cooper, I
Speaker 1: have a long history with Anderson Cooper. I think he'd
Speaker 1: say hello to me if I said hello to him,
Speaker 1: and that'd be the end of the conversation, and probably fine.
Speaker 1: I think just too many times he missed opportunities to
Speaker 1: stand up for what was right. Other times he stood
Speaker 1: up for what was right. But that's irrelevant to this.
Speaker 1: You don't judge whether or not to say something when
Speaker 1: you read something like that based on your own personal
Speaker 1: experience with somebody. Because one of the most reliable ways
Speaker 1: of mainstreaming hatred, violent filth, prejudice, repression in government, the
Speaker 1: death of freedom of speech, one of the most reliable
Speaker 1: ways to allow eventual murderers and persecutors to begin to
Speaker 1: lay the groundwork to try to extinguish a class of people,
Speaker 1: a group of people because of who they are is
Speaker 1: to stop calling them out every time they take a
Speaker 1: step towards that, Ah, well, that's just Trump Allison group,
Speaker 1: So the hell it is. In any other time, any
Speaker 1: politician who made that reference once about anybody, let alone
Speaker 1: a public figure, would be finished. Within weeks. You'd be saying,
Speaker 1: whatever happened to that Trump guy? Erased from public discourse
Speaker 1: because we stood for something, Because exhausted as we might
Speaker 1: have been by war or depression or conflict, or prejudice
Speaker 1: or hatred, we shamed the malefactors among us. The Cuomos
Speaker 1: of this world disappeared after what they did. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is the worst person who has ever lived in this country,
Speaker 1: the worst. It is no longer close. The insult against
Speaker 1: Anderson Cooper, against gay men, against LGBTQ, against any minority group,
Speaker 1: against just anybody who dares to combat Trump's lies and
Speaker 1: delusions and delusions of grandeur with reality, anybody who dares
Speaker 1: to take reality and hit Trump in the fucking face
Speaker 1: with it. That insult against those people is an insult
Speaker 1: against you, and against me, and against everyone in America.
Speaker 1: And when we ignore it for one second, it lets
Speaker 1: Trump retain strength. And draining Trump of all of his
Speaker 1: strength is our only chance of survival. Trump homophobe, truly
Speaker 1: unquestionably and permanently two Day's worst person in the world.
Speaker 1: There is a huge oral history of ESPN from twenty
Speaker 1: eleven by Jim Miller, and most of it is pretty good,
Speaker 1: but there's one line in it that triggered this recollection.
Speaker 1: The executive vice president of the company in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: seven was named Howard Katz, and in this ESPN book
Speaker 1: he was quoted as saying, I didn't fire Keith. I
Speaker 1: just chose not to renew his contract. And then there's
Speaker 1: a couple of quotes from guys I never heard of
Speaker 1: who said, no, we fired him. None of it's truth.
Speaker 1: Howard and I got along surprisingly well at ESPN and
Speaker 1: even better since, so I'm just going to assume he
Speaker 1: misremembered all this, and he's right, I mean, legally, he
Speaker 1: chose not to renew my contract early in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: and a couple of weeks later, instead he offered me
Speaker 1: a new four year contract which would have basically doubled
Speaker 1: my salary. And even after I had said no thanks
Speaker 1: and I signed with NBC, the then president of ABC,
Speaker 1: Bob Eiger, whatever happened to him, tried to get me
Speaker 1: to back out of the NBC deal to renege on
Speaker 1: it and then sign a new deal at ESPN. So
Speaker 1: they offered me two new deals after they didn't renew
Speaker 1: my old contract. See how this works. In ninety six
Speaker 1: and ninety seven, it was no secret that my first
Speaker 1: choice was to leave ESPN. I had come within hours
Speaker 1: of asking to be let out of my deal. In
Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen ninety six, a radio station in Chicago,
Speaker 1: WMVP had wanted me to go do the afternoon drive
Speaker 1: show there, a mix of news and sports, and they
Speaker 1: were offering me twice the money I was getting to
Speaker 1: host SportsCenter, and I was ready to go. Loved it,
Speaker 1: had a great week there. They wined me, they dined me,
Speaker 1: and everybody offered me a free beer. Welcome to Chicago,
Speaker 1: you're from out of town. And then ownership of the
Speaker 1: radio station simply pulled the plug on the station it
Speaker 1: was in thirty first place and said they could save
Speaker 1: a lot more money by simply rebroadcasting what was on
Speaker 1: FM radio. And eventually, and this would have been interesting
Speaker 1: had I gone to Chicago. Eventually the owners sold WMVP
Speaker 1: to ESPN. Anyway, my ESPN deal was set to expire
Speaker 1: on December thirty first, nineteen ninety seven, but they had
Speaker 1: the option to extend it for I can't remember either
Speaker 1: either for a year after that or two years, but
Speaker 1: they had to notify me really early in ninety seven,
Speaker 1: and instead, on February eighteenth, nineteen ninety seven, Howard Katz
Speaker 1: proposed to my then agent that we tear up the
Speaker 1: contract and do a new four year deal that started
Speaker 1: at seven hundred thousand dollars a year and covered a
Speaker 1: radio show with Dan Patrick, and the Sunday edition of
Speaker 1: Sports Center, and the sp Awards ceremonies, and the Internet
Speaker 1: and everything else. This was a lot of money for
Speaker 1: ESPN in nineteen ninety seven, seven hundred thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 1: so we played around with that for a while, but
Speaker 1: I didn't really want to go into radio full time,
Speaker 1: not then when I still had dark hair. So on
Speaker 1: April fourth, nineteen ninety seven, Howard Katz came back with
Speaker 1: another offer, three Sports centers a week plus some radio,
Speaker 1: starting at five hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: I noticed that this was less than the first offer,
Speaker 1: so two weeks later, at the first ever Jackie Robinson
Speaker 1: Night at Chase Stadium in New York Howard came up
Speaker 1: to me and asked me, in front of everybody in
Speaker 1: our booth, ranging from Chris Berman to Robin Roberts, to
Speaker 1: all the producers, and briefly to President Bill Clinton, he
Speaker 1: asked me if we were close on this new deal
Speaker 1: that he'd offered me. I got angry at him. He
Speaker 1: got angry at me for getting angry at him, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, forget it. And what's more, it
Speaker 1: makes no sense for me to hang around here as
Speaker 1: a lame duck. Howard wait, Howard the duck, and he
Speaker 1: calmed down. He said I could look at other jobs
Speaker 1: and we'd let things cool off and talk again about
Speaker 1: a new deal in a few weeks after I looked
Speaker 1: around to see if it was something I'd rather do
Speaker 1: than be at ESPN, and if it still wasn't going anywhere,
Speaker 1: we would agree on a date early in the summer
Speaker 1: and I could leave six months before the contract officially ended.
Speaker 1: And then three huge things happened about this that most
Speaker 1: people still don't know to this day. Even after all that,
Speaker 1: When I called Phil Mushnick of the New York Post
Speaker 1: and Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, and I
Speaker 1: told them I would be leaving ESPN, and it appeared
Speaker 1: I would be going to go to Court TV to
Speaker 1: be the host and executive producer of my own sports show,
Speaker 1: four nights a week. I almost stayed at ESPN once
Speaker 1: it got out that I was leaving. I got a
Speaker 1: letter for a viewer who told me that his son,
Speaker 1: who had autism, had been at his other son's little
Speaker 1: league game, and when his brother banged out a base hit,
Speaker 1: this kid, who had rarely ever spoken in his life,
Speaker 1: suddenly shouted out one of my catchphrases. This guy said,
Speaker 1: he hit the ball real hard. Then there was a flyball,
Speaker 1: and the boy said it's deep, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's playable. Then they went home, and this virtually noncommunicative
Speaker 1: child began to draw illustrations of my catchphrases. For whatever reason,
Speaker 1: I had triggered some kind of blossoming by this child
Speaker 1: at his brother, and his father sent me a book
Speaker 1: of the child's illustrations of my catchphrases. I am not
Speaker 1: trying to suggest I really had anything to do with this.
Speaker 1: It was good fortune and circumstance, and probably something to
Speaker 1: do with the tone of my voice, nothing more. But
Speaker 1: I was very moved by this, and I remain so
Speaker 1: and by other things. People wrote to me or wrote
Speaker 1: in the press about how much the show Dan and
Speaker 1: I did meant to them, and I went back to
Speaker 1: Howard Katz and I said, look, I know I've been impossible.
Speaker 1: You have to understand that from my perspective, the company
Speaker 1: has also been impossible. But Dan and I created too
Speaker 1: good a show to let it die. When I go
Speaker 1: here to Court TV, I'm only going to work Monday
Speaker 1: through Thursday on this new thing. If you will send
Speaker 1: a car to take me to and from Bristol every
Speaker 1: Sunday and give me some tokensal give me fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars or something, I'll just do the Sunday night show
Speaker 1: for you every week. You'll never see me, I'll never
Speaker 1: see you. It's the show that has the highest factor
Speaker 1: of management control. It's basically coloring in by numbers, and
Speaker 1: it reruns all morning on Monday. So forty percent of
Speaker 1: the people who see Dan and I during the week
Speaker 1: they see this one show. That's it. If you want
Speaker 1: some other stuff for me to do, like radio commentaries, great,
Speaker 1: we can negotiate that, but we should not let this die.
Speaker 1: At least let's have it on once a week, and
Speaker 1: Howard Katz said, Okay, let me think about this. It
Speaker 1: sounds really good. And he got back to me the
Speaker 1: next day and he said it was the most difficult
Speaker 1: decision he had ever made in this business, but he
Speaker 1: just couldn't do it. It established too much of a precedent,
Speaker 1: especially the idea that somebody could work at ESPN and
Speaker 1: also at some other TV operation. He put it very bluntly,
Speaker 1: if ESPN was not the sole employer of its people,
Speaker 1: it could not control them by threatening to fire them.
Speaker 1: And he looked at me and he said, especially you,
Speaker 1: And in the same sentence he said, look, we'd love
Speaker 1: to continue the relationship, though we see lots of ways
Speaker 1: you could fit into ESPN Classic, like once a week
Speaker 1: or once a month or whatever, and we'd like to
Speaker 1: get in on the bidding for these radio commentaries that
Speaker 1: you're going to do on the side. Well, it all
Speaker 1: ended surprisingly amicably. I decided to go to NBC and
Speaker 1: NBC Sports instead of Court TV, and as I signed
Speaker 1: the contract, I called the ESPN president, Steve Bornstein and
Speaker 1: the head of Sports Center, John Walsh. I called them
Speaker 1: from the office of the head of NBC Sports Dick Eversol,
Speaker 1: and in my diary, I can't tell if that was
Speaker 1: June nineteenth, nineteen ninety seven or June twentieth, nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: but I made the calls, and it was Eversall's idea,
Speaker 1: call them now, call them right now, it'll matter later.
Speaker 1: The funniest thing was the following Monday, June twenty third,
Speaker 1: I was packing up my stuff in my house in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: I am all set, and I am officially beginning my
Speaker 1: first week not working for ESPN and instead working for NBC.
Speaker 1: And the phone rings, and it's John Walsh in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles for something, and he has to talk to my
Speaker 1: agent immediately. Do you know where she is right now?
Speaker 1: Howard Katz and I have just spoken with Bob Iger
Speaker 1: and he wants to present a primetime proposal to you
Speaker 1: for ABC and you can continue at ESPN. And I laughed,
Speaker 1: and I said, John, I signed with NBC last week
Speaker 1: the World Series and the news show and Super Bowl stuff.
Speaker 1: Remember I called you from Dick Ebersoll's office. You remember
Speaker 1: it was Friday or Thursday, whatever it was. We're having
Speaker 1: the news conference today and he is dead serious and
Speaker 1: he says to me, oh oh oh, and there's a
Speaker 1: long pause. Well, well, I still need to talk to
Speaker 1: your agent. Well. I had known Bob Iger, who had
Speaker 1: apparently precipitated this phone call, since I was in college
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine. He had given me an hour
Speaker 1: of his time just for career advice, because I had
Speaker 1: interned at the TV station for which his first wife
Speaker 1: had been a news producer, Channel five in New York.
Speaker 1: I told that story I think two weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: Bob was wonderful to me. So I called Bob and
Speaker 1: I explained what had happened, and he said, Steve Bornstein
Speaker 1: only told me that you were leaving this morning. I'm
Speaker 1: very very sorry. I knew there was contentious negotiations about
Speaker 1: a new deal for you, but I had no clue
Speaker 1: it was at the point where you might actually leave.
Speaker 1: I should have known. That's my fault. That's why I
Speaker 1: told John to make the call. He did. Trust me.
Speaker 1: If I had known, would have been totally different. I
Speaker 1: would have made it right by you. You would have
Speaker 1: wanted to stay. And if it doesn't work at NBC,
Speaker 1: you call me directly and I'll bring you back here myself.
Speaker 1: I mean the ending was so unexpectedly and surprisingly pleasant
Speaker 1: that even when my new bosses at MSNBC suddenly announced
Speaker 1: I think it was in newsweek that they were going
Speaker 1: to call my program The Big Show, which was our
Speaker 1: nickname for Sports Center at ESPN, the Big Show. But
Speaker 1: they hadn't told anybody at ESPN that we were going
Speaker 1: to call our MSNBC show the Big Show. It was
Speaker 1: me who got on the phone with Howard Katz and
Speaker 1: a couple of other people at ESPN to apologize and
Speaker 1: to make sure they were okay with it. So even
Speaker 1: after my ESPN career was officially over and all chance
Speaker 1: of my returning was dead, we tried to revive it,
Speaker 1: both of us, Howard Katz and me, in good faith.
Speaker 1: And I don't think Bob Eiger was blowing smoke at me.
Speaker 1: He had no reason to. And even after all that,
Speaker 1: the parting was non nuclear. I think they sent me
Speaker 1: a fruit basket for my first night at MSNBC on
Speaker 1: October first, and then it all blew up. John Walsh
Speaker 1: called the TV sports columnist at USA Today, Rudy Marski,
Speaker 1: and gave him my first set of ratings from MSNBC,
Speaker 1: just to try to make me look like I couldn't
Speaker 1: succeed without ESPN. Marski told me that direct quote. They
Speaker 1: want to punish you publicly. Walsh has been pressuring me
Speaker 1: to run the very poor ratings, and he said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to finally do it. I just wanted to give
Speaker 1: you a little warning and maybe you have a comment. Well,
Speaker 1: that set the tone for the next five years of warfare,
Speaker 1: and it was nuclear pretty quickly. But this impression that
Speaker 1: ESPN chose to dismiss me or not renew me, or
Speaker 1: not bring me back, it's nonsense. Howard did not not
Speaker 1: renew me. Instead, he offered to double my salary if
Speaker 1: I stayed. If I had signed with NBC, Iiger was
Speaker 1: still trying to get me to back out after I
Speaker 1: had signed with NBC and stay at ESPN and ABC.
Speaker 1: The irony of this minor detail from about nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: seven printed in twenty eleven, I think is that I
Speaker 1: had already returned to ESPN by the time it was printed.
Speaker 1: I took an hour out of my day at MSNBC
Speaker 1: to go on with Dan Patrick on his ESPN radio
Speaker 1: show from two thousand and five through two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: A year after that book, came out with that quote
Speaker 1: in it. Twenty twelve, I was talking to the executives
Speaker 1: at ESPN about going back full time, and a year
Speaker 1: later I did to launch a nightly show on ESPN two.
Speaker 1: And that ended when they laid off like one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of talent salaries in twenty fifteen. But
Speaker 1: then I went back again in twenty eighteen and I
Speaker 1: did Sports Center, and I did baseball games on radio
Speaker 1: and on TV, and I did reports, and I did
Speaker 1: commentaries and did the not top ten plays of the
Speaker 1: week and on and on and on, and finally we
Speaker 1: parted happily in the late summer of twenty twenty so
Speaker 1: I could return to political coverage, and I knew they
Speaker 1: wouldn't want that, and I didn't want to put it
Speaker 1: on ESPN, and the unlikely result of that my partying
Speaker 1: happily in twenty twenty. On the books at Disney, I
Speaker 1: am listed as a Disney and ESPN retiree. I get
Speaker 1: benefits I retired from ESPN. I mean, they didn't give
Speaker 1: me a gold watch or anything, but I'm technically a retiree.
Speaker 1: And if you had predicted that in nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 1: or twenty eleven. Well, you know the cliche. I bring
Speaker 1: all this up again because I don't know how often
Speaker 1: I have thought of that father and his two boys,
Speaker 1: and the one who started speaking, but only in my
Speaker 1: catch phrases. I would guess it's at least once a month.
Speaker 1: Those boys would have to be in their thirties by
Speaker 1: now or nearly, and I wonder often of what has
Speaker 1: become of them, and I sure hope they are well.
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Fan Duel Sports Network, that's the new address,
Speaker 1: five networks just covering baseball fiftieth anniversary. In the business
Speaker 1: is October, if there's still a business, if there's still
Speaker 1: a planet in October. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel, the
Speaker 1: musical directors of Countdown, and it was produced by TKO Brothers.
Speaker 1: That's Brian and John and me. Mister Ray was on guitars,
Speaker 1: bass and drums. Mister Chanelle handled the orchestration and keyboards.
Speaker 1: Hour sit here and fifthy. Musical comments are by the
Speaker 1: best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust, the Olderman theme
Speaker 1: from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis, appears courtesy
Speaker 1: of ESPN, Inc. And it is the sports music other
Speaker 1: music arranged and performed by the group No Horns allowed.
Speaker 1: My announcer today because we were talking about New York
Speaker 1: was my friend Clarie David doing the impression of the
Speaker 1: old Yankees' public address announcer Bob Shepherd. Everything else was
Speaker 1: as always my fault. Let's countdown for today, day one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty seven of America held hostage again at
Speaker 1: just one three hundred and seven days until the scheduled
Speaker 1: end of his lame duck and lame brained term. Unless
Speaker 1: putin or musk remove him sooner or advance does where
Speaker 1: the actuarial tables do or we do. He did Iran
Speaker 1: because he thinks it will help him domestically. All that
Speaker 1: matters is that you say, is it blue? The next
Speaker 1: scheduled countdown is Monday. Until that next one, I'm Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1: Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. We
Speaker 1: here is obliteration. Countdown with Keith Olberman is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
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