Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. So
Speaker 1: we're going to repeat every mistake from Bush and Iraq,
Speaker 1: only this time with Trump and Iran, only this time
Speaker 1: starting with blowing up nuclear facilities, only this time starting
Speaker 1: with Trump making up stories about the other country wanting
Speaker 1: to negotiate, only this time starting while the Senate has
Speaker 1: gone home until next week, So no briefings until next week.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do this again because Trump got fomo fau
Speaker 1: mob actually fear of missing out on bombing. When I
Speaker 1: said that in Monday's podcast, I was serious. Fomo fomo
Speaker 1: is what animates Trump, the dreadful existential fear he has
Speaker 1: that something somewhere in the world is not being credited
Speaker 1: to him. But I didn't think it was going to
Speaker 1: be decisive. This is where the narrator says it was decisive.
Speaker 1: We are gearing up for a strike. I think on
Speaker 1: the Fardeaux facility. What I can see is the military
Speaker 1: maneuvers are getting in place. That was Bret McGirk yesterday.
Speaker 1: Brett McGirk was Obama's point man against ISIS, and then
Speaker 1: he was Trump's point man against ISIS. So I don't
Speaker 1: think he's grinding an axe here, Owen mix in some
Speaker 1: of this phony, Mike Huckabee, religious ecstasy. We have to
Speaker 1: save Israel because we have to make sure the Jews
Speaker 1: get raptured. Fundamentalist anti Semitic bullshit, and we're here again.
Speaker 1: New York Times quote. When he woke on Friday morning,
Speaker 1: his favorite TV channel, Fox News, was broadcasting wall to
Speaker 1: wall imagery of what it was portraying as Israel's military genius,
Speaker 1: and mister Trump could not resist claiming some credit for himself. Fomo.
Speaker 1: That's when the I was more involved than I said.
Speaker 1: Psychosis from Trump started to seep in to his out
Speaker 1: loud voice. By Sunday it was beginning to flower. We'd
Speaker 1: never attack Iran, but when we do quote the US
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with the attack on Iran tonight.
Speaker 1: If we are attacked in any way, shape or formed
Speaker 1: by Iran, the full strength and might of the US
Speaker 1: armed forces will come down on you at levels never
Speaker 1: seen before. However, we can easily get a deal done
Speaker 1: between Iran and Israel and end this bloody conflict. That's
Speaker 1: all the possibilities In one sentence. We could blow you up,
Speaker 1: you could blow us up, all but we could, we
Speaker 1: could negotiate our way out of this, and by the
Speaker 1: day before yesterday we now have complete and total control
Speaker 1: of the skies over Iran. We Iran had good skytrackers
Speaker 1: and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't compare to American made, conceived and manufactured stuff. Nobody
Speaker 1: does it better than the good old USA. We blowed
Speaker 1: him up good. We blowed him up real good. This
Speaker 1: is big Jim mc Trump and Billy Saal Hirak Hukabe saying,
Speaker 1: may the Good Lord take a liking to you and
Speaker 1: blow you up real soon. Ah, Billy saw hira Kukabe.
Speaker 1: When Bush did this with Iraq, and yeah, this is
Speaker 1: where I came in, I seem to recall saying, if
Speaker 1: we didn't stop Bush about Iraq, the next Republican president
Speaker 1: would do this in Iran. And sure enough, here we are.
Speaker 1: When Bush did this with Iraq, he went through this long,
Speaker 1: sometimes subtle, intricate, labyrinthine, sometimes deeply sourced series of lies
Speaker 1: and manufactured evidence and blackmail and the ex boyation of
Speaker 1: nine to eleven and the dragging in of Sadam Hussein.
Speaker 1: He went to all that trouble when he could have
Speaker 1: just done a Trump and just blowed it up, bloated
Speaker 1: up real good. After first publishing the religious delusions of
Speaker 1: a fundamentalist confidence trickster and TV pitchman for red Grape
Speaker 1: Circulation superfood named Mike Huckabee. Bush could have just said
Speaker 1: it was to defend Israel. Who knew, even though the
Speaker 1: reason the Huckabees and the others who in previous generations
Speaker 1: would have been back home at the Church of God
Speaker 1: handling snakes. The technical term for which we students of
Speaker 1: religion use is self correcting problem for the handling of snakes.
Speaker 1: The entirety of the mainstream defense of Israel is not
Speaker 1: predicated on preserving Israel, but about fulfilling this madness that
Speaker 1: all the world's Jews will be gathered in Israel and
Speaker 1: then con and then we will have the rapture and
Speaker 1: all the good souls will go to Heaven, and everybody
Speaker 1: else will stay here and enjoy hell on earth, which
Speaker 1: is pretty much where we are right now. Anyway. Please
Speaker 1: note that if you read all of the fundamentalist stuff
Speaker 1: about the conversion of the Jews, if you read it,
Speaker 1: it's very carefully written, and all it really says is
Speaker 1: that there will only be Jews in Israel, and those
Speaker 1: that won't go there and convert will perish or vanish
Speaker 1: in the rapture. Well, there's lots of ways you can
Speaker 1: achieve that, and most of them involve murder. This means
Speaker 1: that my kakabi is involved in a religious movement that
Speaker 1: literally wants to save Israel from Iran or anybody else,
Speaker 1: because the only people allowed to destroy Israel are American evangelicals.
Speaker 1: Trump not only listens to this drivel and thinks, there's
Speaker 1: my excuse I can go drop some bombs and get
Speaker 1: some credit for something. He then ratchets it up and
Speaker 1: publishes it, so he reinforces the idea that this is
Speaker 1: something religious. Ambassador Huckabee's text, President Trump, I'd forgotten he
Speaker 1: was the ambassador. At least he's out of the country,
Speaker 1: mister President. God spared you and Butler pa to be
Speaker 1: the most consequential president in a century. Maybe Ever, what
Speaker 1: was God thinking about that poor guy got shot in
Speaker 1: the head too, was sitting there just listening to this shit?
Speaker 1: God said, you are spared that guy over there. I
Speaker 1: don't like that guy. Some God, you got here the
Speaker 1: decisions on your shoulders. I would not want to be
Speaker 1: made by anyone else. You have many voices speaking to you, sir,
Speaker 1: oh boy, is that true? Trump has many voices in
Speaker 1: his head. You're right about that, Huck, but there is
Speaker 1: only one voice that matters his voice. And Trump is
Speaker 1: reading this, going, Hannity, I am your appointed servant in
Speaker 1: this land and am available for you. But I do
Speaker 1: not try to get in your presence office often because
Speaker 1: I trust your instincts. No president in my lifetime has
Speaker 1: been a position like yours, not since Truman in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five. I don't reach out to persuade you, only
Speaker 1: to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven
Speaker 1: and that voice is far more important than mine or
Speaker 1: anyone else's. And Trump is thinking, Janine Piro, you sent
Speaker 1: me to Israel to be your eyes, ears, and voice
Speaker 1: and to make sure our flag flies above our embss.
Speaker 1: My job is to be the last one to leave. Yeah, bomb,
Speaker 1: stop draw, start dropping. Mike's going to be the last
Speaker 1: one to leave. I will not abandon this post. Our
Speaker 1: flag will not come down. You did not seek this moment.
Speaker 1: This moment sought you. Who in the hell thinks that
Speaker 1: the American flag is going to come down in Israel.
Speaker 1: It is my honor to serve you. Just remember to
Speaker 1: serve man. Mike Huckabee. They printed this out. First, they
Speaker 1: printed out the actual text, or what is supposedly the text.
Speaker 1: Then they made a pretty looking picture of Huckabee and Trump,
Speaker 1: not quite looking at each other, with the words America's
Speaker 1: future right over each of their heads. America's future Mike
Speaker 1: Huckabee and Donald Trump, or our past. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if you read that again and change a couple of
Speaker 1: words in this this thing from Huckaby, this text. This
Speaker 1: is also the script for Mike Huckaby's TV commercial for
Speaker 1: another snake oil called Relaxium. God put relaxium on this
Speaker 1: earth to relax you. Two other points about the religious
Speaker 1: ecstasy bullshit. The next level delusion after this, and millions
Speaker 1: in this country believe this as well, is that if
Speaker 1: Israel is at war, this means Jesus will be coming
Speaker 1: back like late Sunday, maybe in time for Britain. So
Speaker 1: where are your crosses? Because, as the late great comic
Speaker 1: genius Bill Hicks noted, sure, that's the first thing Jesus
Speaker 1: wants to see when he comes back. You wearing a
Speaker 1: cross One thing that is never explained is like of
Speaker 1: Israel is at war, that means Jesus is coming back.
Speaker 1: What about the last sixteen wars? He didn't come back
Speaker 1: for any of those. Does he not get the news?
Speaker 1: Does he not get Fox News? Wherever he is? We
Speaker 1: know Jesse Waters thinks he speaks with divine influence. Now
Speaker 1: back on this earth, there are some practical consequences here.
Speaker 1: Politico's Foreign affairs correspondent mentions the one thing that Trump
Speaker 1: hasn't counted on the Iranian response quote. A former Western
Speaker 1: intelligence official told me the spy community suspects the Islamist
Speaker 1: regime in Tehran has sleeper cells in various countries to
Speaker 1: carry out attacks if it feels an existential threat. The
Speaker 1: regime could also round up Americans in Iran and effectively
Speaker 1: hold them hostage, as it is done in the past.
Speaker 1: So we're not only going to reenact Iraq and remember
Speaker 1: how well and how quickly that went. We go in
Speaker 1: and blow it up, and forty two days later, Bush
Speaker 1: declares mission accomplished. And I'm co anchoring with Chris Matthews,
Speaker 1: and I say to him, wait, if it's mission accomplished,
Speaker 1: why is there still fighting there? And why is the
Speaker 1: cross eyed president wearing a flight suit if he doesn't
Speaker 1: want us to remember the questions about his Air National
Speaker 1: Guard service? Shut up. Matthews explained tenderly, We're not only
Speaker 1: going to reenact Iraq with a different final letter. We
Speaker 1: are going to reenact something like the Iran hostage crisis
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty, which was also
Speaker 1: exploited by a Republican president. Rule one of war. No
Speaker 1: wars are ever quick, and all wars are sold as
Speaker 1: being quick. The other consequences will be largely political and domestic.
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson attacked Trump. Ted Cruz attacked Carlson. Steve Bannon
Speaker 1: attacked Fox News as not being real. Maga Josh Hawley said,
Speaker 1: I don't want us fighting a war. I don't want
Speaker 1: another Mid East war. It's so obviously a bad idea
Speaker 1: that even Tulsey Gabbard knows it's a bad idea. And
Speaker 1: she told Trump this in March and put out that
Speaker 1: psycho video last month about nuclear war and leaked that
Speaker 1: if Trump gets US involved, she'll have to quit. And
Speaker 1: when they asked Trump about her testimony that Iran was
Speaker 1: not building a nuclear weapon, he said, I don't care
Speaker 1: what she said, and the odds are six to five.
Speaker 1: He doesn't really know who she is, or at least
Speaker 1: he doesn't really know who she is anymore. So whatever
Speaker 1: the end game here is, it will damage Trump and
Speaker 1: MAGA and the entire voting block in this country that
Speaker 1: believes in brownies and elves and guys who come back
Speaker 1: from the dead, but not until you wait twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five years for them. And whatever the Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns
Speaker 1: are will then alter the entire political landscape a second time.
Speaker 1: And oh yes, somebody will eventually notice that this will
Speaker 1: be three consecutive Republican presidents who've attacked Iraq or Iran,
Speaker 1: and the one before them, Reagan wanted to attack Iran.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is, of course, as simple now as
Speaker 1: it was in two thousand and two and two thousand
Speaker 1: and three. The purpose of war with Iran is the
Speaker 1: same as was the purpose of war with Iraq. It's
Speaker 1: to have a war, because if you don't have a war,
Speaker 1: you can't use all those expensive bombs and tanks and
Speaker 1: have to replace them, and especially those bombers. And I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: when was the last time we sent a couple of
Speaker 1: two billion dollars be too stealth bombers anywhere and had
Speaker 1: one of them shot down or broken or the door
Speaker 1: fell off and oops, we have to buy a new one.
Speaker 1: So the Department of Defense needs another two billion dollars.
Speaker 1: The point of a Republican war, neo cons Maga Bush
Speaker 1: trumpet doesn't matter. The point of a Republican war is
Speaker 1: to transfer taxpayer money to the military industrial complex. Ike
Speaker 1: was right, end of story. The only way Jesus Christ
Speaker 1: comes into this is in our reaction to all this.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ again. We blowed them up good. We blowed
Speaker 1: them up real good. If you don't know, we blowed
Speaker 1: them up real good. By the way. That is from
Speaker 1: sc TV, the Late Great John Candy and the late
Speaker 1: Great Joe O'Flaherty and the Farm Movie Review, in which
Speaker 1: these two guys in overalls talk about tremendous fastbunder fan
Speaker 1: films and eventually get around to the fact that the
Speaker 1: only films they like are the ones in which people
Speaker 1: get blown up. And that's the end. We blow them
Speaker 1: up real good. Billy sal Hurrock and Big Jim mcbobb.
Speaker 1: It's it's worth looking for it elsewhere Okay, so that's
Speaker 1: now for serving elected democratic government officials. Harris Beaten, arrested
Speaker 1: and lied about by Christy Nomes Ice Gestapo. She had
Speaker 1: to go to the hospital the other day for an
Speaker 1: allergic reaction. What an allergic reaction to reality? The latest arrest,
Speaker 1: the arrest and then unarrest of the New York City
Speaker 1: Comptroller Brad Lander, seems to have been, and you haven't
Speaker 1: heard this probably a setup. Firstly, this was not some
Speaker 1: sort of stunt for Brad landers campaign from mayor. He
Speaker 1: has been going to Immigration court for weeks trying to
Speaker 1: literally throw his body between Ice and its cruelest of
Speaker 1: its many cruel tortures, getting immigration cases dismissed against defendants,
Speaker 1: thus denying them protection against immediate seizure and rendition without trial.
Speaker 1: This was the third or fourth time he'd done it.
Speaker 1: This is just the first time somebody stopped him. The
Speaker 1: best local news here, the City reports the details that
Speaker 1: give away the fact that this was a setup. Quote
Speaker 1: in the chaotic scene at around noon, Lander asked the
Speaker 1: agents repeatedly to show a judicial warrant. You do not
Speaker 1: have the authority to arrest US citizens. Lander repeated, as
Speaker 1: the officers tightened handcuffs to his wrists. The federal agents
Speaker 1: escorted him into an elevator with one member of his
Speaker 1: NYPD security detail alongside him. Note in this Ice arrested
Speaker 1: a New York City Police officer. A reporter from the
Speaker 1: city had overheard one agent say to another minutes before
Speaker 1: Lander's arrest, do you want to arrest the comptroller? It
Speaker 1: was a setup. They planned this and then they stone
Speaker 1: cold lied about Brad Lander, even though there was video.
Speaker 1: Homeland Security protecting America, Christy Nomes tweets New York City
Speaker 1: Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and
Speaker 1: impeding a federal officer. Our heroic ice. Law enforcement officers
Speaker 1: face a four hundred and thirteen percent increase in assaults
Speaker 1: against them. Four hundred and thirteen percent, that's all we have.
Speaker 1: It is wrong that politicians seeking higher office undermine law
Speaker 1: enforcement safety to get a viral moment. No one is
Speaker 1: above the law except Christy Nome and Ice and Trump,
Speaker 1: and we're going to change that. If you lay a
Speaker 1: hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences.
Speaker 1: If we lay a hand on you illegally, we will
Speaker 1: not face consequences. I added that last part signed Homeland
Speaker 1: Security spokesperson Billy sol Hurok. Cool. Cool. The video shows
Speaker 1: the exact opposite of what you wrote here. But your ice,
Speaker 1: you're supposed to lie. You're the scum of the earth.
Speaker 1: It's the old Monty Python joke come to life. We
Speaker 1: charged him with a legal possession of whatever we happen
Speaker 1: to have at the police station, which in this case
Speaker 1: was a desk. The good news here is that for
Speaker 1: the first time I can speak with pride about the
Speaker 1: current governor of this state. It appears that the rage
Speaker 1: in Gavin Newsom in California and get back in the
Speaker 1: rage business, Governor. The glow is beginning to fade a
Speaker 1: little bit around the edges, but that glow remains inspirational
Speaker 1: to other governors in the normally meh blue states. Speaking
Speaker 1: of Blue Governor, Kathy Hokeel goes blue.
Speaker 2: Do you want to know what I really think? Please?
Speaker 2: It's bullshit? How dare they take an elected official who's
Speaker 2: been going down there for weeks to escort people who
Speaker 2: are afraid to walk into a courthouse in the United
Speaker 2: States of America because despite them having legal status and
Speaker 2: following the rules and making their appointments that they don't
Speaker 2: know what's going to happen them. So Brad Lander has
Speaker 2: stepped up to be a guiding help for them, and
Speaker 2: this is what happens to him. What the hell is
Speaker 2: happening to this country?
Speaker 1: That's right, Governor exactly, the bon mo, the mos juice.
Speaker 1: It's bullshit, and we need not just that sentiment, but
Speaker 1: that language from Democrats. Chuck Schumer get up there and
Speaker 1: say it's bullshit once again. We are not going to
Speaker 1: negotiate our way out of this. Somebody asked me the
Speaker 1: other day, when are the Republicans finally going to stop Trump.
Speaker 1: They're not. They're in power. They no longer care how
Speaker 1: they got there. They're no longer going to give it
Speaker 1: up voluntarily. We are not going to have beautifully crafted
Speaker 1: Maddow Seniors thesis arguments lead us out of this. We
Speaker 1: are going to have to kick them in the balls
Speaker 1: our way out of this, because they have also now
Speaker 1: reversed course and reprioritized cruelty over food. Trump retacos on deportations.
Speaker 1: He's not show moderate anymore. I'll quote the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Security told staff that was reversing
Speaker 1: guidance issued last week that agents were not to conduct
Speaker 1: immigration raids at farms, hotels, and restaurants, a decision that
Speaker 1: stood at odds with Trump's calls for mass deportations of
Speaker 1: anyone without legal status. Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
Speaker 1: including its Homeland Security Investigations Division just call them the Gestapo,
Speaker 1: told agency leaders in a call that agents must continue
Speaker 1: conducting immigration raids at agricultural businesses, hotels, and restaurants, according
Speaker 1: to two people familiar with the call, once again a
Speaker 1: reminder from Georgia. In twenty eleven, they only had sixty
Speaker 1: percent of the farm workers they needed because of a
Speaker 1: crackdown on migrant farm workers, and at least seventy five
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of food rotted in the fields, just
Speaker 1: in Georgia. If they do this well enough, if they
Speaker 1: pursue this sufficiently, there will be food shortages. Not oh,
Speaker 1: I couldn't get my favorite brand of crup de tay.
Speaker 1: Not that. No, just like no food. Also, oops, Ice
Speaker 1: is already out of money. Don't worry. We'll just cut
Speaker 1: social security or prosecuting criminals, or maybe we'll fire some
Speaker 1: more air traffic controllers. This is from Axios Trump's immigration
Speaker 1: crackdown is burning through cash so quickly the agency charged
Speaker 1: with arresting, detaining, and removing unauthorized immigrants could run out
Speaker 1: of money next month. Whoa Immigration and Customs Enforcement parentheses
Speaker 1: GESTAPO is already one billion dollars over budget by one estimate,
Speaker 1: with more than three months left in the fiscal year.
Speaker 1: It's detention facility, about forty one thousand beds, are far
Speaker 1: past capacity as DHS continues to seek more detention space
Speaker 1: in the US and abroad. Honest to God, you went
Speaker 1: to all this trouble to create this fictional disaster and
Speaker 1: invasion bullshit, and you did not build the facilities beforehand
Speaker 1: to make your money off of it. What kind of
Speaker 1: corrupt businessmen are you? Ice? And the private jail business?
Speaker 1: What kind of corrupt idiot are you? No? Oh, I've
Speaker 1: had an allergic reaction to the law. I saw the
Speaker 1: Constitution and I went late headed save over. I remember
Speaker 1: when I was a little girl. That's also worth looking
Speaker 1: up if you've never seen it. That's Dan Ackroyd as
Speaker 1: the magic chef, cutting her wrists accidentally Julia Child and
Speaker 1: beginning to lose consciousness. Find that and Big Jim MCBOB.
Speaker 1: If Trump's big bill Axios continued isn't passed soon, he
Speaker 1: could use his authority to declare a national emergency. How
Speaker 1: many effing national emergencies does this guy have up his
Speaker 1: ass to redirect money to ice from elsewhere in the government.
Speaker 1: Why don't you take it from the money wasted on
Speaker 1: big flag poles and paving over the beautiful lawns of
Speaker 1: the White House. Who is the controller? Who is the
Speaker 1: handler for Donald Trump? This time it's Steven Miller? A
Speaker 1: couple other things. The Senate has to censor Mike Lee.
Speaker 1: Mike Lee, who once was an actual kind of nerdy
Speaker 1: wonk policy guy, is now just an out of control
Speaker 1: Internet addict and showing all of the signs of deep,
Speaker 1: deep emotional damage because of it. He has now deleted
Speaker 1: his stochastic threat against Governor Walls, misspelling his name Nightmare
Speaker 1: on Waltz Street. He put a t in it which
Speaker 1: showed the Minnesota Maga murderer next to a picture of
Speaker 1: the governor of Minnesota. That's a stochastic terrorist threat. In
Speaker 1: a real country, Mike Lee would have been arrested. The
Speaker 1: far right has dropped this story like not just a
Speaker 1: hot brick, but a ton of hot bricks. Turns out
Speaker 1: the guy is indeed ultra maga from NPR. Authorities in
Speaker 1: Minnesota say the man arrested in the Saturday attack that
Speaker 1: killed one state lawmaker and left another wounded, had a
Speaker 1: hit list of forty five elected officials, all Democrats. But
Speaker 1: sure he was on an appointee to some nine hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty second most important commission in Minnesota by Governor Walls,
Speaker 1: who is a bipartisan guy in a bipartisan state, which
Speaker 1: means he couldn't possibly be mega because he worked for
Speaker 1: root for Walls, just because he wanted to cool Democrats
Speaker 1: blowed them up. Real good, Jesus is coming back for brunch.
Speaker 1: Here are the problems. Mike Lee deleted these things, won't
Speaker 1: acknowledge that he ever sent them, will not apologize. Trump
Speaker 1: would not call the governor saying he didn't like the governor.
Speaker 1: The jokes that Mike Lee made were more befitting a
Speaker 1: mental patient than a senator, even a Republican senator. And
Speaker 1: what this underscores here is the fascists have now dropped
Speaker 1: even the lame pretense of thoughts and prayers. As always,
Speaker 1: the next question becomes is any of this making any
Speaker 1: impact or are we stuck permanently between the immovable object
Speaker 1: and the irresistible farce? Well, looky here. Strength in numbers
Speaker 1: is in. Democrats have an eight point edge for the
Speaker 1: generic House ballot for the twenty twenty six midterms. Forty
Speaker 1: five percent of adults say they would back the Democratic
Speaker 1: candidate in their local congression disc thirty seven percent for
Speaker 1: the Republican. Americans also say they are worried about corruption
Speaker 1: in the White House. Sixty two percent say Trump's promotion
Speaker 1: of his crypto represents a conflict of interest. Twenty nine
Speaker 1: percent of adults say it's appropriate for the president to
Speaker 1: accept a luxury jet from Katar as a gift. Fifty
Speaker 1: four percent say in its inappropriate. So the Trump administration
Speaker 1: is not getting away with this. In the zeitgeist, that's
Speaker 1: the Trump administration and shopping channel. Because don't forget those
Speaker 1: new Trump American smartphones introduced after he hit Apple with
Speaker 1: fifty percent tariffs on iPhones, he put out his own iPhone,
Speaker 1: Trump Phones, Trump Phones. Hello, can you hear me now? Hello?
Speaker 1: There's no speaker? What? It doesn't dial what when? Trump,
Speaker 1: by the way, says made in America it turns out
Speaker 1: he actually means made in China. Also of interest here,
Speaker 1: if an American news organization put out a photo of
Speaker 1: what appeared to be Trump wearing a Dunce cap, first off,
Speaker 1: it would be the most journalism in American news this year.
Speaker 1: But second, Trump and the Maga martyrdom machine would come
Speaker 1: down on that news organization so hard that Bob Iiger
Speaker 1: would send Trump twenty five million dollars even before Trump
Speaker 1: sued him. So why did the government of the United
Speaker 1: States put out a photo of what appears to be
Speaker 1: Trump wearing a dunce cap? That's next, This is countdown.
Speaker 1: This is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on this
Speaker 1: edition to countdown. Last week would have been my mother's
Speaker 1: ninety sixth birthday. She didn't quite make it to her
Speaker 1: eightieth birthday. When she was alive, Mom used to lament
Speaker 1: that to the degree she was known, she was known
Speaker 1: as my dad's wife, or is my mother? Where's my
Speaker 1: sister's mother? And then came that day in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand when all that changed. We have just passed
Speaker 1: the quarter century anniversary of that day, June seventeenth, two thousand.
Speaker 1: My mother is in her usual seat in the ninth
Speaker 1: row behind the dugout at Yankee Stadium. I am in
Speaker 1: my usual seat in the baseball studio at the Fox
Speaker 1: Television Network on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, doing the
Speaker 1: pregame show for Major League Baseball and all the game
Speaker 1: highlights during the broadcasts. It is not an unusual Saturday
Speaker 1: for either my mother or myself. And then enter Chuck Knoblock,
Speaker 1: second Basement of the New York Yankees, but not for
Speaker 1: much longer, and thereupon my mother ascends to baseball immortality.
Speaker 1: Next in things I promised not to tell first, believe
Speaker 1: it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about.
Speaker 1: The roundup of the Miss Green's morons, Undonning Kruger effects
Speaker 1: specimens who constitute today's other worse persons in the world,
Speaker 1: the Bronze Worse CNNMSNBC, Fox, Fox Business, those other useless
Speaker 1: places collectively known as cable news. Philip Bump of the
Speaker 1: Washington Post the last living cell in a dying body. There,
Speaker 1: the great traffics visualizer of the rotting hulk of the
Speaker 1: Post put this out in really great color bar graphs.
Speaker 1: What happened two saturdays ago? Trump had a pathetic toy
Speaker 1: tank parade in which it in retrospect clearly looks like
Speaker 1: the soldiers deliberately mailed it in to make him look bad. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: five million or more protesters attended the No Kings marches
Speaker 1: and rallies. And what a couple hundred people protested in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles? Maybe a thousand. There were anti ice protests
Speaker 1: in many cities, maybe a couple thousand alls old. So
Speaker 1: what was coverage of all these events like on the
Speaker 1: cable networks? Well, sir, it's not just that the cable
Speaker 1: network's got the proportions all wrong. It's that the least
Speaker 1: well proportioned, the least fair coverage was by CNN and MSNBC.
Speaker 1: By contrast, Fox was only terrible the mentions, per the
Speaker 1: bump data, CNN mentioned No Kings between June eighth and
Speaker 1: June fourteenth seventy three times. That's a seven day span.
Speaker 1: Seventy three mentions of the No Kings protests. Other protests
Speaker 1: mentioned six hundred and thirty nine times, so like nine
Speaker 1: times as many on CNN MSNBC. Oh, they did much better.
Speaker 1: Instead of seventy three mentions of No Kings, they mentioned
Speaker 1: it seventy seven times, mentions of other protests six hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty five times. So the two supposed real news
Speaker 1: cable networks did a crap job, and almost identically, they're
Speaker 1: now being programmed almost identically in terms of what they mentioned.
Speaker 1: In terms of the news, there is a decreasing difference
Speaker 1: between the crap that drove away CNN's audience and the
Speaker 1: crap that is now driving away MSNBC's audience Fox News.
Speaker 1: Fox News mentioned no kings, probably not favorably sixty times times,
Speaker 1: and mentioned all the other protests, including the LA protests,
Speaker 1: only three hundred and one times. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: the coverage of the protests, the anti ice protests and
Speaker 1: everything else only got half the bad press on Fox
Speaker 1: that it did on CNN or MSNBC. MSNBC and CNN
Speaker 1: could not resist the pictures of smoke from LA, even
Speaker 1: if it was smoked from a two square block area.
Speaker 1: Bumps graphs show in that same span two hundred and
Speaker 1: nine mentions of clashes, riots, rioting, vandalism, looting on MSNBC
Speaker 1: two hundred and ninety one mentions of clashes, riots, rioting, bandalism,
Speaker 1: looting on CNN. This is even though as the Post's
Speaker 1: own polling indicated American opinion about the LA protests was
Speaker 1: split down the middle. Thirty seven percent said it was
Speaker 1: mostly violent, thirty five percent said it was mostly peaceful.
Speaker 1: Independence went thirty five thirty three peaceful. So we don't
Speaker 1: have any cable news left in this country. Just turn
Speaker 1: your sets off there, as a New York sportscaster used
Speaker 1: to say, runner up Katie Miller. Ever, wonder what kind
Speaker 1: of messed up person would marry Steven Miller. I'll just
Speaker 1: read this verbatim from the New York Times backgrounder. Wasn't
Speaker 1: there a movie called The Millers where they were actually
Speaker 1: giant cockroaches from another planet who just pretended to be humans.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk stood before a giant American flag at a
Speaker 1: Wisconsin political rally in March and rolled out an eye
Speaker 1: popping allegation of rampant fraud at the Social Security Administration.
Speaker 1: As an aside, remember Elon Musk, Scammers, he said, were
Speaker 1: making forty percent of all calls to the agency's customer
Speaker 1: service line. Social Security employees knew the billionaires claim had
Speaker 1: no basis. In fact, after journalists followed up, staff members
Speaker 1: began drafting a response correcting the record. That's when Leland Dudek,
Speaker 1: plucked from a mid level job only six weeks earlier
Speaker 1: to run Social Security because of his willingness to co
Speaker 1: operate with mister Musk's Department of Government Efficiency or Douche,
Speaker 1: got an angry call from the White House. According to
Speaker 1: several people familiar with the exchange, the number is forty percent.
Speaker 1: Insisted Katie Miller, a top administration aideh was working closely
Speaker 1: with mister Musk. According to one of the people familiar
Speaker 1: with the April one call, President Trump believed mister Musk.
Speaker 1: She said, quote, do not contradict the President. So if
Speaker 1: you're wondering why it is that Stephen Miller every day
Speaker 1: talks and acts like he didn't sleep at all last
Speaker 1: night and instead had spent the evening frog tied in
Speaker 1: his own basement while somebody beat him repeatedly with oddly
Speaker 1: shaped pieces of rubber. Well, I'm just saying, but the
Speaker 1: winner the worst. Fresh Secretary Caroline Levitt l Ie in
Speaker 1: her first name, l Ie in her last name, and
Speaker 1: Sigmund Freud in her soul. As Trump tried to show
Speaker 1: off his trade deal with the British at the g seven,
Speaker 1: and he said it was a deal with the EU
Speaker 1: because he doesn't know that's not the same thing EU, UK.
Speaker 1: I see you, you see me, me talk now, President
Speaker 1: sleepy time. Trump opened the folder with the deal with
Speaker 1: the British and not the EU, and the loose pages
Speaker 1: fell to the ground. Immediately British Prime Minister Keir Starmer
Speaker 1: bent down to pick them up. Why did he do that?
Speaker 1: Why is the premiere of the UK reduced to picking
Speaker 1: up the stuff Trump just dropped you? And I might
Speaker 1: assume it's because Starmer realizes that Trump can't bend down,
Speaker 1: But no, sir, it was because he was afraid that,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump's security FAILANX would then open fire or
Speaker 1: start tackling people. The day after this happened, Starmer said, quote,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, there weren't many choices with the documents
Speaker 1: in picking it up, because, as you probably know, there
Speaker 1: were quite strict rules about who can get close to
Speaker 1: the president. I mean, seriously, I think if any of you,
Speaker 1: meaning the media, had stepped forward other than me, I
Speaker 1: was just deeply conscious that in a situation like that,
Speaker 1: it would not have been good for anybody else to
Speaker 1: have stepped forward. Not that any of you rushed to
Speaker 1: There's a very tightly guarded security zone around the president,
Speaker 1: as you would expect. So just that's the end of
Speaker 1: the quote. Translate what he's saying here. If anybody else
Speaker 1: but him had reached down to try to pick the
Speaker 1: papers up that Trump dropped and may or may not
Speaker 1: have realized he dropped, the entirety of the American security
Speaker 1: force would have descended upon them, and knowing the quality
Speaker 1: of the people that Trump hires, they probably would have
Speaker 1: shot first. So Keir Starmer prevented a massacre in Canada,
Speaker 1: you know, like with Huey Long. Look it up, Huey Long.
Speaker 1: Now to the Levitt part of this, kind of fittingly,
Speaker 1: Caroline Levitt then tweeted out a photo of Trump at
Speaker 1: a news conference at the G seven. It was chosen,
Speaker 1: presumably because alone, of the dozens of people in the
Speaker 1: crowded photograph, Trump is the only one clearly visible. You
Speaker 1: can see him from the head to the torso, from
Speaker 1: the bottom of his eight foot long tie to the
Speaker 1: bottom of his seventy third chin. The problem is in
Speaker 1: this photo that Caroline Levitt put out, Trump is perfectly
Speaker 1: placed in front of a Canadian flag with only the
Speaker 1: left hand red bar of that flag visible, and it's
Speaker 1: right above Trump's head. So there's Trump, and right above
Speaker 1: him is this furled red thing in a conical shape.
Speaker 1: So as you look closer and closer, it is perfectly shaped.
Speaker 1: It is perfectly proportioned, it is perfectly positioned, and it
Speaker 1: looks exactly like Trump is wearing a red dunce cap. Caroline,
Speaker 1: this is a call for help, blinked. Oh no, no, make
Speaker 1: it more obvious than that. If this is a call
Speaker 1: for help, tell the truth twice Levitt two Day's other
Speaker 1: worst twy saidden in the world to the number one
Speaker 1: story on the Countdown and a story that begins a
Speaker 1: little bit in the past nineteen thirty four. I was
Speaker 1: not there for that part of it. But in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty four, my mother, who was five years old, was
Speaker 1: sent over to her uncle's house or apartment for the day.
Speaker 1: My grandparents needed the day off from her for some reason,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure what it was, but her uncle, Willy,
Speaker 1: my great uncle Willy, took her to Yankee Stadium along
Speaker 1: with a kid that he knew who he used to
Speaker 1: push to Yankee Stadium because the young man was in
Speaker 1: a wheelchair. And often before the games. In nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: the last season that the legendary Babe Ruth played for
Speaker 1: the New York Yankees, Babe Ruth would see this kid
Speaker 1: in a wheelchair and, consistent with the times, would come
Speaker 1: over and rub his back for good luck, which seems
Speaker 1: to us to be very crass, and also, if you're
Speaker 1: just looking at it from a superstition point of view,
Speaker 1: how in the world would that be good luck in
Speaker 1: any event. So one day, for the first time, when
Speaker 1: she was five years old and just turned five years old,
Speaker 1: her birthday was in June, she goes with her uncle
Speaker 1: Willy and the boy in the wheelchair to Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 1: They don't have the money to go to the games.
Speaker 1: It's the middle of the depress, but they live in
Speaker 1: the Bronx. They are a few blocks away from the stadium,
Speaker 1: and they go to say hi to the players on
Speaker 1: the way in, and sure enough, Babe Ruth says hello
Speaker 1: to them and asks my mother at the age of five,
Speaker 1: what her name is now. Her name was Marie, but
Speaker 1: because her mother's name was also Marie, the family often
Speaker 1: referred to her as Babe. I heard my grandmother referred
Speaker 1: to my mother as Babe when my mother was forty
Speaker 1: five years old. It was rather extraordinary in any events.
Speaker 1: She says, my name is Babe, and Babe Ruth was
Speaker 1: so delighted by this that she went back inside and
Speaker 1: got her a brand new baseball, which he gave to
Speaker 1: my mother. The first day she went to Yankee Stadium,
Speaker 1: she met Babe Ruth, She talked to Babe Ruth, and
Speaker 1: Babe Ruth gave her a baseball. Needless to say, in
Speaker 1: the ensuing sixty six years that my mother was a
Speaker 1: Yankee fan, nothing of interest ever happened to her at
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium. She would eventually see the Yankees win a
Speaker 1: couple of World Series, and eventually she saw her own
Speaker 1: son reporting from the field after the World Series games
Speaker 1: on the World Series broadcast. But nothing like getting a
Speaker 1: baseball from Babe Ruth on your first day as a
Speaker 1: fan and meeting Babe Ruth occurred to her. There was
Speaker 1: a brawl once between Red Sox and Yankees fans. I
Speaker 1: recall when I was ten or eleven years old. Beer
Speaker 1: was thrown and she may have gotten a few drops
Speaker 1: of beer on the shoulder of her dress. I seem
Speaker 1: to recall that happening. That was it. Nothing else of interest, Certainly,
Speaker 1: nothing difficult or untoward happened to my mother at Yankee
Speaker 1: Stadium until the middle of June in the year two thousand.
Speaker 1: The Yankees on that Saturday afternoon had a second baseman
Speaker 1: named Chuck Knobloch, who had been a great star for
Speaker 1: them in an extraordinary addition to their team and set
Speaker 1: off the process by which they won preconsecutive World Series
Speaker 1: and four in a span of five years, and almost
Speaker 1: five in a span of six years. In any event,
Speaker 1: Knoblock unfortunately had an issue throwing the ball to first base.
Speaker 1: Many second basemen, many baseball players have developed this. It's
Speaker 1: somewhat consistent with the idea of the yips in golf,
Speaker 1: where you can't sink the putt even though it's two
Speaker 1: feet away. Four baseball players, it turns out to generally
Speaker 1: be an expression of emotional distress. Your mind is sabotaging
Speaker 1: the most fundamental thing in the game. It's stopping you
Speaker 1: from throwing the ball. And the easier the play is,
Speaker 1: the more familiar you are with it, the more difficult
Speaker 1: it suddenly becomes. It happened to Chuck Knoblock. It happened
Speaker 1: to another second baseman named Steve Sachs, and they've all
Speaker 1: turned out. And it was a pitcher minor league pitcher
Speaker 1: who became a writer named Pat Jordan, and they all
Speaker 1: turned out. And another one named Rick ang Keel, a
Speaker 1: pitcher for the Saint Louis Cardinals, all of whom suddenly
Speaker 1: lost the ability to throw the ball in the easiest
Speaker 1: way possible, in the way in which they had the
Speaker 1: most control, couldn't throw the ball over the baseman's head,
Speaker 1: over the catcher's head into the stands. Well, that's where
Speaker 1: we joined Chuck naw Block, as it later turned out,
Speaker 1: Chuck naw Block's father, who had seen every one of
Speaker 1: his games from little league, who had gone to all
Speaker 1: his high school games, who had traveled the country when
Speaker 1: Chuck naw Block played in the minor leagues, who'd gone
Speaker 1: to all the road games of the Minnesota Twins and
Speaker 1: the Yankees. Chuck naw Block's father had Alzheimer's disease and
Speaker 1: was in the final stages of it, and sometime early
Speaker 1: in the two thousand season lost the ability to recognize
Speaker 1: the Yankee second basement Chuck naw Block. Well, that accelerated
Speaker 1: a problem that would later or shortly thereafter make Chuck
Speaker 1: naw Block an x second basement. And on this day,
Speaker 1: in June of two thousand, I was completing the second
Speaker 1: year of a two year, not particularly happy stint as
Speaker 1: the host of Fox Baseball Game of the Week on
Speaker 1: the Fox Television network. I was based in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and every Saturday, I spent the whole day from six
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning till six o'clock at night in
Speaker 1: a studio in Los Angeles that was kept down about
Speaker 1: thirty six degrees. Not my choice. I had to wear
Speaker 1: a winter coat. Sometimes, when we weren't on the air,
Speaker 1: we would do a pregame show, which, because of the
Speaker 1: timing difference, started at ten am, and they liked to
Speaker 1: rehearse their pregame shows madness. All the good lions had
Speaker 1: been used and made stupid and not funny by the
Speaker 1: time we got on the air. They would rehearse this
Speaker 1: show two times, three times. An awful experience of my
Speaker 1: co host was one of the worst persons in the world,
Speaker 1: a man named Steve Lyons, who made me look like
Speaker 1: somebody who never complained once in his life. That's the
Speaker 1: only good aspect of working with Steve Lyons. He complained
Speaker 1: an average of three times a minute. All right, So
Speaker 1: Lyons and I are there doing the game of the week,
Speaker 1: and that day the broadcast was from Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: it was a four pm Eastern start one pm Pacific time,
Speaker 1: So the game and the show started a little bit late,
Speaker 1: and we get them started, the Dodgers and whoever. It
Speaker 1: was at Dodgers Stadium with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver
Speaker 1: as the announcers and me in the studio, and Lions
Speaker 1: goes away and he won't be back to the postgame show,
Speaker 1: so everybody's happier. Somewhere in the middle of the game,
Speaker 1: I'm watching the bank of televisions that's showing all the
Speaker 1: other games in progress. And the Chicago White Sox are
Speaker 1: playing at Yankee Stadium in New York. This is the
Speaker 1: remodeled Yankee Stadium that operated between the years nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: six and two thousand and eight. I essentially grew up
Speaker 1: in Yankee Stadium, the original original Yankee Stadium and then
Speaker 1: this modified, reconstructed one that reopened in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: and I knew not only every nook and cranny of
Speaker 1: the ballpark, but I knew every camera angle, and we
Speaker 1: had had since nineteen seventy two. My family Yankee season tickets,
Speaker 1: which I had been paying for since about nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: even though I did not live in New York. They
Speaker 1: were for my mother, who went forty fifty times a year.
Speaker 1: So by this point, my mother has been to since
Speaker 1: that first game when she was greeted by Babe Ruth
Speaker 1: at the front door of Yankee Stadium. Here, welcome to
Speaker 1: your future. Here's a baseball for me, Babe Ruth, she
Speaker 1: has been to at least a thousand games. She went
Speaker 1: to more games in her life than I have, actually
Speaker 1: literally true. And she is seated in the seats in
Speaker 1: our seats, which have been the same one box forty
Speaker 1: seven E since the stadium reopened in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: and this is the year two thousand, so she is
Speaker 1: in essence celebrating her twenty fifth anniversary in those seats.
Speaker 1: The Chicago White Sox are playing the New York Yankees.
Speaker 1: They would rout the Yankees that day, and the Yankees
Speaker 1: were in the middle of a funk in the middle
Speaker 1: of the season. Do not, in small part to Chuck
Speaker 1: Knoblock's sudden inability to throw the ball successfully from second
Speaker 1: base to first base. He would throw it past the
Speaker 1: first basement, over the first basement, he would drop the
Speaker 1: ball as he threw it, it would fly out of
Speaker 1: his hand. And of course later it proved this was
Speaker 1: a psychological protest from deep within in his mind against
Speaker 1: playing baseball anymore. It was too painful because his father
Speaker 1: was so sick, and his father was so intimately connected
Speaker 1: to the game. So now Greg Norton of the Chicago
Speaker 1: White Sox hits a fairly tough play towards Chuck Nablock
Speaker 1: grounds the ball to the right of the mound. Chuck
Speaker 1: naw Block has to charge in, pick the ball up
Speaker 1: bare handed, and while slightly off balance, throw it backwards
Speaker 1: towards the Yankee first basement, Tino Martinez. Not an impossible play,
Speaker 1: and not an impossible play for a good second basement,
Speaker 1: as Chuck naw Block had been. But under the circumstances
Speaker 1: a disaster in the making which we then saw unfold,
Speaker 1: Chuck naw Block throws the ball. It leaves his hand
Speaker 1: not straight, but an angle to the right of about
Speaker 1: I don't know, fifty sixty degrees the ball shoots out
Speaker 1: of his hand and goes nowhere near first base. It
Speaker 1: goes into the stands behind first base, and in fact,
Speaker 1: it goes to box forty seven E, where my mother
Speaker 1: is seated with my high school friend and his two kids.
Speaker 1: And my mother is sitting where the incoming throw has
Speaker 1: just been launched. I am seeing this unfold on a monitor,
Speaker 1: one of like nine with different games going on. But
Speaker 1: I know Yankee Stadium, and as I said, the camera
Speaker 1: angles intimately, so I know immediately where the ball based
Speaker 1: on where it left now Block's hand, where it has
Speaker 1: likely gone, and I say that may have hit my mother.
Speaker 1: They then cut to a shot of a woman being
Speaker 1: attended to and I say that hit my mother, and
Speaker 1: everybody in the room laughs because they assume I'm joking,
Speaker 1: Because what are the odds that while I am in
Speaker 1: the studio hosting the game of the week and doing
Speaker 1: the highlights of the games in progress. You know, when
Speaker 1: they say now let's go back to the studio for
Speaker 1: a Fox game break, I'm the guy doing the game breaks.
Speaker 1: That was my job for two years. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: I say, that's my mother, and everybody laughs, and then
Speaker 1: they cut to a tight shot of a woman holding
Speaker 1: her head with a little blood and her glasses have
Speaker 1: been broken, and she looks kind of dazed and confused
Speaker 1: and they are leading her away, and I went, that's Mom.
Speaker 1: And now I call her on my cell phone and
Speaker 1: you see her while she is on camera on the
Speaker 1: local broadcast of the Yankee White Sox game. You see
Speaker 1: her answering the phone. That's when they stopped laughing in
Speaker 1: the studio. That's when they realized it was really my mother.
Speaker 1: So I talked to her and she said, I'm okay,
Speaker 1: it broke my glasses. They think maybe I should go home.
Speaker 1: And Georgia and George's kids they want to go home
Speaker 1: after that, and I said, did you get the ball
Speaker 1: showing where my level of concern was? No, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, for Christ's sake, Mom, So she's fine,
Speaker 1: And otherwise I wouldn't have asked that question. Probably anyway,
Speaker 1: now we're predicting this sort of situation. What do we
Speaker 1: do with it? And is it going to be a controversy?
Speaker 1: And I said, we have to put the highlight on
Speaker 1: and I have to mention that it's my mother. It's
Speaker 1: not like we're not going to show if it was
Speaker 1: some other woman, we'd show it, wouldn't we It would
Speaker 1: be the biggest story in baseball today. We have to
Speaker 1: do it, and I just happen to know who it is.
Speaker 1: So we throw to We are thrown to buy Joe
Speaker 1: Buck and Tim McCarver, ti'me for a Fox game break.
Speaker 1: Here's Keith Olderman in the studio, White Sox and Yankees.
Speaker 1: Joe and Chuck now blocks throwing problem is now getting
Speaker 1: personally picks up the Greg Norton bounder from the White
Speaker 1: Sox Yankees in the Bronx and throws it into the
Speaker 1: stands where right on the edit it hits my mother.
Speaker 1: Mom's Okay, I called her. She's a gamer. She'll be
Speaker 1: back tomorrow. She just got her lenses broken. Joe, Tim
Speaker 1: back to you. Silence from Dodger Stadium. In the broadcast,
Speaker 1: you just hear like birds in the background from Dodger Stadium.
Speaker 1: For the first time in their lives, Joe Buck and
Speaker 1: Tim McCarver have between them, nothing to say. I don't
Speaker 1: know what to say, says Joe Buck. Is Keith kidding?
Speaker 1: Is that one of Keith jokes? Says Tim, who is
Speaker 1: an old friend of mine. Keith, are you still there?
Speaker 1: I'm still here, Timmy, Are you kidding? Why would I
Speaker 1: kid about something like that? Was that really your mother?
Speaker 1: What are the odds against that? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: she's been going a game since nineteen thirty four, that
Speaker 1: first game she ever went to Babe Ruth gave her
Speaker 1: a baseball. Nothing bad has happened in the ensuing years,
Speaker 1: So I'd say the odds were probably about six to
Speaker 1: five in favor. And he goes, I guess you're right.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that was Keith's mother that got hit
Speaker 1: by the throw by Chuck no Block. Well, give us
Speaker 1: an update later on how she is. We'll do, Tim.
Speaker 1: So now the story is out. It's my mother who
Speaker 1: got hit by the ball June seventeenth, eighteenth, one of
Speaker 1: the two days, the Saturday of that weekend two thousand.
Speaker 1: Only the kind of thing that could happen to my mother.
Speaker 1: But again, truly, the odds were not that impossible. The
Speaker 1: ball's thrown behind first base. Here's a woman who's gone
Speaker 1: to an average of forty to fifty games a year
Speaker 1: in that stadium for twenty five years. The odds are
Speaker 1: pretty good it's going to hit her. And if you're
Speaker 1: getting meta and like, what are the union versal odds?
Speaker 1: What are the metaphysical odds that she gets hit? As
Speaker 1: I said, nothing of interest has happened to her since
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four. She's due in any event. Just to
Speaker 1: add to this, two of my best friends in the
Speaker 1: world worked for the Yankees. One was the manager, Joe Tory.
Speaker 1: The other was the head of publicity, Rick Sarone. Not
Speaker 1: the catcher, Rick Serone, but the head of publicity, Rick Serone.
Speaker 1: So I call Rick Serone in the office at Yankee
Speaker 1: Stadium in the press box, because I figure he's already
Speaker 1: figured this out and I want to give him a
Speaker 1: heads up that I had no choice but to mention
Speaker 1: that it was my mother, since it was my broadcast.
Speaker 1: I call him up. I said, did you see the
Speaker 1: now block throw? Now? I heard about it. I've been
Speaker 1: here in the back. I didn't see who it hit.
Speaker 1: I said, do you have any idea who it was?
Speaker 1: He said no, Why would I have any idea who
Speaker 1: it was? I said, why would I be calling you?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Keith. Why would you be calling me?
Speaker 1: I said, how many times have you sat behind first
Speaker 1: base with me and somebody else, and he goes, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, what are you saying? I said, how many
Speaker 1: times did you and I go as teenage friends in
Speaker 1: the seventies and sat behind first bit And he goes,
Speaker 1: oh god no, I said, yep. He said that hit
Speaker 1: your mother. I said yep. And he said, first off,
Speaker 1: he said, did she get the ball? And I went, no,
Speaker 1: she didn't. Oh for crying out loud, Well what you
Speaker 1: didn't say anything about it, did you? I went, of course,
Speaker 1: I said something they showed her on your broadcast. And
Speaker 1: he goes, oh god no. I said, what other choice
Speaker 1: did I have? He goes, no, you're right, You're right,
Speaker 1: all right. I better get out there. We're going to
Speaker 1: start getting phone calls about this, if we haven't already.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the heads up. So now. The next day
Speaker 1: the newspapers of New York front and back page of
Speaker 1: the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and
Speaker 1: the Long Island Paper News Day front and back page
Speaker 1: some reference to my mother. Photographs in the Daily News
Speaker 1: of her being led away. Chuck Nablock hits sportscaster's mother.
Speaker 1: And the day after that they're still telling the story,
Speaker 1: and there are wire stories, and it is everywhere, and
Speaker 1: of course we mentioned it maybe once or twice an
Speaker 1: hour on Fox Sports and on cable and on broadcast.
Speaker 1: So now Mom is a celebrity, and I must confess
Speaker 1: to you. Mom really liked being a celebrity. Mom was
Speaker 1: appreciative of my success in my career. But Mom had
Speaker 1: wanted to be a ballerina. Apparently. She told me that
Speaker 1: I don't really buy it, but that was her story.
Speaker 1: And she was a little jealous, resentful, just in a
Speaker 1: manageable way most of the time. But I don't want
Speaker 1: to bore you with my developmental problems. Emotionally, Mom was
Speaker 1: a little jealous of not being in the spotlight, and
Speaker 1: she gloried in this, among other things. Mom wound up
Speaker 1: being interviewed on the pregame show for the next Saturday's
Speaker 1: Game of the Week, and for various reasons, we could
Speaker 1: not do a live remote interview with her. So we
Speaker 1: sat down and I were courted the questions in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and on the phone asked her the questions while
Speaker 1: she was in our ancestral home in the suburbs of
Speaker 1: New York City, and Mom didn't really have any good answers,
Speaker 1: so I said, why don't you just repeat the answers
Speaker 1: that I give you. I'll give you good snarky answers,
Speaker 1: real quick ones, and we can do this and you
Speaker 1: can make fun of me. Okay. She had a little
Speaker 1: trouble delivering the lines, and we actually did several takes.
Speaker 1: So if anybody wants to call the FCC and say
Speaker 1: that interview was not what it seemed in two thousand,
Speaker 1: go right ahead. I don't know what you're going to
Speaker 1: do to us about it, but go right ahead. There
Speaker 1: were some elements of fakery to this, like I wrote
Speaker 1: her answers for her, but there was one answer to
Speaker 1: one of my six or seven questions that she gave
Speaker 1: completely authentically and we did not need a second take.
Speaker 1: And this may tell you the nature of the complicated
Speaker 1: relationship between me and my mother and baseball and Chuck Knoblock.
Speaker 1: I said, are you surprised that everybody's so interested in this?
Speaker 1: And I wrote for her as an answer, No, but
Speaker 1: I'm surprised they keep mentioning you. She had no trouble
Speaker 1: giving that line whatsoever. She really bought into that answer.
Speaker 1: You could see from the tape when I eventually saw
Speaker 1: the tape that she was smiling during that one. So
Speaker 1: in any event, Mom becomes a celebrity for several months.
Speaker 1: This is June of two thousand, come October, when the
Speaker 1: Yankees and Mets played in the World Series and she
Speaker 1: was in the stands number one. My employers had given
Speaker 1: her a Fox Sports cap to wear, and they repeatedly
Speaker 1: showed her during the games of the World Series at
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium. So Mom became a celebrity and became very
Speaker 1: well known for getting hit in the head with Chuck
Speaker 1: Knoblock's throw. Joe Tory, who I mentioned, was an old
Speaker 1: friend of mine, the first person I ever interviewed in television,
Speaker 1: and a colleague in local sports in television in LA
Speaker 1: when I worked there in the eighties and nineties. Joe
Speaker 1: Tory called me up right afterwards and asked how she was,
Speaker 1: and I said, she's fine. How's your second basement? Hey
Speaker 1: acts like he got hit in the head with a
Speaker 1: throw too. He's very worried. You think he did it deliberately,
Speaker 1: And I said, Joe, you have to tell him that
Speaker 1: I'm confident he did not do it deliberately. If he
Speaker 1: was aiming at my mother, it would have missed. Joe
Speaker 1: Tory laughs and later he tells me he told Noblock
Speaker 1: that and was Noblock's first laugh of the year. All right,
Speaker 1: So moving ahead on this story, it continued for many years,
Speaker 1: for at least ten years, Once or twice a month,
Speaker 1: somebody in baseball would say, was it your mother who
Speaker 1: got hit by Chuck Knoblock's throw? Memorably, in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, the year that the Hall of
Speaker 1: Famer Randy Johnson, the big left hander of the mostly
Speaker 1: of the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Seattle Mariners in the
Speaker 1: Montreal Expos, he pitched one season for the Yankees, and
Speaker 1: the Yankees got blown out in the playoffs that year.
Speaker 1: And before the last game of the season, and this
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite moments in the history of baseball.
Speaker 1: Before that last game, I walk out into the Yankee
Speaker 1: dugout and there is al Lighter, who was a friend
Speaker 1: of mine then and now he is telling the story
Speaker 1: of my mother and Chuck Knoblock to two other Yankee pitchers,
Speaker 1: Scott Proctor and Randy Johnson. And I walk in and
Speaker 1: he goes, and then Alderman's mother gets hit in the
Speaker 1: head and he says on he's doing the highlights on
Speaker 1: TV on the game of the week, and he said,
Speaker 1: and I walk out, and he goes, did you hear
Speaker 1: that I was telling the story about you? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: only the last couple of steps. This is a coincidence.
Speaker 1: Finish the story yourself. So now I've got the three
Speaker 1: of them, and they're all in hysterics. Yankees lose that
Speaker 1: last game of the playoffs. I don't know, it seemed
Speaker 1: like it was one hundred and fifty to nothing. And
Speaker 1: I go into the clubhouse after the game to say
Speaker 1: goodbye for the offseason to the few players that I
Speaker 1: knew on the team, including Al Lighter, and to Randy Johnson,
Speaker 1: and Randy Johnson in his own deep voiced way, thank
Speaker 1: good to see you have a good winter. And he
Speaker 1: leaves with his little carrying case with his little wheels
Speaker 1: on it and looks like a toy. He's six foot
Speaker 1: ten and he has a roller case designed for maybe
Speaker 1: his daughter. It looks like a toy. And he leaves,
Speaker 1: and about five minutes later, I see the door to
Speaker 1: the Yankee clubhouse open up, and in walk Randy Johnson
Speaker 1: and he comes over to me and he said, I
Speaker 1: forgot to say something. I was already out to my car,
Speaker 1: and I thought I better come back in and say
Speaker 1: goodbye to Keith and tell him, I mean, this was
Speaker 1: a really bad week this last week, as we've been
Speaker 1: losing and the season ended, and I just wanted to
Speaker 1: say that telling that story about your mother really was
Speaker 1: the highlight of the whole thing and made me smile
Speaker 1: for the only time this month. So thank you. Have
Speaker 1: a great winter. So that's my mother and Randy Johnson,
Speaker 1: five years after she got hit in the head with
Speaker 1: a throw by Chuck Knoblock the second basement of the Yankees,
Speaker 1: one of the more remarkable moments in the history of
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball, at least as it pertains to the
Speaker 1: Olderman family, and a kind of bookend. Mom stopped going
Speaker 1: to the games about two thousand and five, ysaically could
Speaker 1: not do it, but she had a good run as
Speaker 1: a Yankee fan of about seventy seasons that essentially booke
Speaker 1: ended by getting hit in the head with a throw
Speaker 1: that made her famous within baseball circles and began with
Speaker 1: her being handed to baseball at her first game ever
Speaker 1: by Babe Ruth, who was charmed by the fact that
Speaker 1: my mother's nickname was Babe punchline to this, to me
Speaker 1: is one of the most avid collectors of sports memorabilia
Speaker 1: and particularly game used baseballs. I didn't get either of
Speaker 1: those baseballs from my mom, my god, twenty five years ago,
Speaker 1: and the best part remains Chuck naw Block for years
Speaker 1: thought I thought he had done it deliberately, as if
Speaker 1: he to hit her. If he had done it deliberately,
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. And
Speaker 1: yes I'm not exaggerating in any of that. Mom loved that.
Speaker 1: Mom was disappointed when that faded out. Mom thought there
Speaker 1: would be a ceremony on the first anniversary. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Most of the Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed
Speaker 1: by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel, who are our
Speaker 1: musical directors of Countdown, and the music was produced by
Speaker 1: Tko Brothers. Mister Ray on guitars, bass and drums, Mister
Speaker 1: Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical
Speaker 1: comments here by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
Speaker 1: The Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren
Speaker 1: Davis courtesy of the ESPN Inc. Is the sports music
Speaker 1: other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
Speaker 1: My announcer today, fittingly with the sports theme, was my
Speaker 1: friend Kenny Maine. Everything else was, as always, my fault.
Speaker 1: So that's countdown for today, Day one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: one of America held hostage, just one three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirteen days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck
Speaker 1: lame brained term, unless Putin or Musk remove him sooner,
Speaker 1: or he decides to ride the bomb into Iran, or
Speaker 1: the actuarial tables remove him, or we do. The next
Speaker 1: scheduled countdown is Monday. Until that next one, I'm Keith Olderman.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, good morning, good night, and good luck. Countdown
Speaker 1: with Keith Ouldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.