Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump wants,
Speaker 1: and his Republican Whorehouse of Representatives could give him as
Speaker 1: early as today, more likely tomorrow, a law letting him
Speaker 1: not only ignore the courts and their injunctions and their
Speaker 1: temporary restraining orders, but immunizing himself and his minions from
Speaker 1: even being subject to contempt of court citations. The law
Speaker 1: cutting the legs off every judge in this country, including
Speaker 1: all of them on the Supreme Court, is sitting deep
Speaker 1: in the maga multi trillion dollar budget bill, curled up
Speaker 1: like a snake, ready to attack and poison the judiciary
Speaker 1: at Trump's sole discretion. Any court issuing a tro against
Speaker 1: Trump or his pack of wolves with titles decimating safety
Speaker 1: regulations or firing tens of thousands of essential government employees,
Speaker 1: Any court issuing an injunction against Trump kidnapping and renditioning
Speaker 1: people off our streets. Any court doing anything Trump doesn't like,
Speaker 1: could rule whatever it likes, But when it came to
Speaker 1: the only teeth, such rulings have the threat of actually
Speaker 1: putting somebody who ignores those rulings in jail for contempt,
Speaker 1: that threat would be gone. The gist of this is
Speaker 1: the Trumpists have found another loophole. Loopholes are Trump's whole life.
Speaker 1: He probably thinks he has found a loophole around his
Speaker 1: own death. This loophole is based on a provision that's
Speaker 1: as if you are suing and trying to get a
Speaker 1: restraining order or an injunction against the government, you have
Speaker 1: to deposit the amount of money that the restraining order
Speaker 1: or injunction could cost or hurt the government a bond.
Speaker 1: The judge almost always sets that bond at zero dollars,
Speaker 1: but this time bomb in this House bill would make
Speaker 1: any injunction where the bond is set at zero dollars unenforceable.
Speaker 1: You want a restraining order against Trump renditions, the judge
Speaker 1: better set the bond at eleven dy billion dollars ACLU
Speaker 1: or Immigration Rights Campaign, and you better have that eleveny
Speaker 1: billion dollars. As usual with Trump, it is blackmail, regular blackmail,
Speaker 1: or like this, economic blackmail. And it doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: if the Senate shoots this down, even if the House
Speaker 1: passes it or a court shoots this down, because once
Speaker 1: it passes the House, once Trump can say Congress approve this,
Speaker 1: he can ignore the rest even if the Senate strikes
Speaker 1: the provision from its version of the budget bill, even
Speaker 1: if a court says it's unconstitutional, even if the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court says it's unconstitutional, all the Republicans have to do
Speaker 1: is pass it in the House, and ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of the country will never know that the last line
Speaker 1: of our defense against a dictatorship had just been erased.
Speaker 1: And the other one percent would applaud because you know
Speaker 1: what Trump would do. He would point in his mindless, manipulative,
Speaker 1: snake oil salesman's way to the big, beautiful bill and
Speaker 1: the will of the people and the action of the House,
Speaker 1: and insists that is all the approval he needs. The Senate.
Speaker 1: Trump would say, who cares? The judges? Trump would say,
Speaker 1: who cares the Supreme Court? Trump would say, of course,
Speaker 1: that's what the Supreme Court would do. It's the deep
Speaker 1: state protecting itself against the will of the people. It
Speaker 1: would be a law to forbid, in essence contempt charges
Speaker 1: against Trump government agents, or Trump whores, or Trump himself
Speaker 1: for ignoring the courts. Is it constitutional? They don't care.
Speaker 1: They don't care. Now they are preparing for a public
Speaker 1: Are you with us or are you against us about
Speaker 1: the courts in which they seek vigilante influence, pressure or
Speaker 1: violence over the judiciary. Hell, Trump already threw the Conservatives
Speaker 1: on the Court, including Roberts and the three justices he
Speaker 1: appointed overboard. He doesn't care. The only hope to slow
Speaker 1: this down is for it to be exposed before the
Speaker 1: House vote and pressure to mount on enough Republicans from
Speaker 1: an increasingly horrified Republican voting base, who, however wrong they
Speaker 1: are about what the constitutions says, still believes the Constitution
Speaker 1: matters more than Trump does. There ain't many of them,
Speaker 1: but if they fall by the wayside, it's over. And
Speaker 1: on the ground in the courts they hope to neuter
Speaker 1: and neutralize, the Trump Gestapo is already behaving as if
Speaker 1: it is over. They have escalated the contempt and the
Speaker 1: midnight renditions and the new cynical evil forms of the
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller ethnic cleansing. They are not only ignoring a
Speaker 1: swath of judicial orders on the table right now against
Speaker 1: further renditioning flights. Now it's flights to Burma and South
Speaker 1: Sudan or even Vietnam. But like Hitler, they have decided
Speaker 1: they are not forcing enough victims into their deadly machinery
Speaker 1: fast enough. Since Tuesday, ICE has reportedly been going to
Speaker 1: immigration courts around this country and trying to get active
Speaker 1: immigration cases against people, those pending for lessless than two
Speaker 1: years dismissed. Dismissed for humanitarian reasons, for crowded court reasons,
Speaker 1: to give these people more time to seek due process.
Speaker 1: Know the exact opposite, so that with the old charges
Speaker 1: against them dismissed, ICE can now immediately re arrest those
Speaker 1: same people and shove them into expedited removal. No more
Speaker 1: court hearings for them, no more judges for them. You
Speaker 1: show up for your court date in good faith seeking
Speaker 1: to become a citizen of this country, legally obeying the law,
Speaker 1: only to find out that your case has now been dismissed,
Speaker 1: and before you can leave, you are instead detained. The
Speaker 1: lawyer you came with cannot see you. The hearing you
Speaker 1: were at is not succeeded by a different hearing. All
Speaker 1: you get is a seat on a plane headed for
Speaker 1: a country literally in the middle of a civil war
Speaker 1: like South Sudan or Burma or even Libya, taking people
Speaker 1: who thought they were going in and doing the right thing,
Speaker 1: and sending them to hell for doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: And the best the judges in these cases are doing
Speaker 1: is saying that when those flights get there, the flights
Speaker 1: the judges ordered could not take off. The flights the
Speaker 1: judges ordered could not contain anybody who hadn't had at
Speaker 1: least three weeks to fight back legally, that the Trump
Speaker 1: administration must not turn over its kidnap victims to local
Speaker 1: authorities like they did poor Kilmar Abrago. Garcia was still
Speaker 1: in limbo in l Salvador. From Boston. The Federal District
Speaker 1: Judge Brian Murphy said he would not order the flights
Speaker 1: that went off despite his orders turned around, but that
Speaker 1: the American government would have to maintain control possession of
Speaker 1: the people on those flights and not hand them over
Speaker 1: to the El Salvador dictator, and not hand them over
Speaker 1: to the Burmese tyrants, and not hand them over to
Speaker 1: whoever is in charge this week in South Sudan, a
Speaker 1: judge in Boston thinks he can control what Trump does
Speaker 1: to unpopular foreign born Americans in South Sudan, judges haven't
Speaker 1: been able to control what Trump does to people in Texas,
Speaker 1: Judge Murphy told the court late Tuesday, night that everybody
Speaker 1: who ignores his order, from the officials who ordered the
Speaker 1: flights in the first place to the officers who actually
Speaker 1: piloted the planes could face criminal sanctions. Quoting based on
Speaker 1: what I have been told, this seems like it may
Speaker 1: be contempt. No kidding. Murphy then came back yesterday and
Speaker 1: said the Trump gang had violated the court order. But
Speaker 1: he has yet to say anything about what the hell
Speaker 1: he's going to do about it. But I would offer
Speaker 1: one word of advice to Judge Murphy. Hurry circles back
Speaker 1: to that law hidden inside the House of Republican prostitution
Speaker 1: budget bill. Right now, this may still be contempt. Judge Murphy,
Speaker 1: check back with us next week, when it may be
Speaker 1: unenforceable contempt or one billion dollars contempt, or at best
Speaker 1: Trump would be able to claim it is unenforceable contempt
Speaker 1: and that he has triumphed over you deep state communists
Speaker 1: who are thwarting his mandate to privatize the country that
Speaker 1: he claims he got with forty nine point eight percent
Speaker 1: of the vote last November. Goddamn it, this is an
Speaker 1: extinction level event for the backbone of American justice, the courts,
Speaker 1: the law, the oversight, the pre eminence and inviolability of
Speaker 1: the Constitution, and since the Republicans in the House are
Speaker 1: a lost cause, they are the undead, our best hope
Speaker 1: is garlic and holy water. The judges had damn well
Speaker 1: bet act and act now, because it is also an
Speaker 1: extension level event for them. The Trump propaganda hate machine
Speaker 1: is about to make them household names within the week,
Speaker 1: no matter what happens to the provision erasing contempt of
Speaker 1: court enforcement. And as we have seen, the weakest part
Speaker 1: of our guardrails have been judges personally threatened by Trump.
Speaker 1: Like all of us, the judges have a choice. Let
Speaker 1: themselves become targets and let the law they have devoted
Speaker 1: their lives to become as optional and as impotent and
Speaker 1: as quaint as the tag on the mattress that says
Speaker 1: do not remove this tag. They damn well better put
Speaker 1: Trump officials, the higher up the better, in jail, even
Speaker 1: if only for a few hours today, while they still can.
Speaker 1: In the self absorbed amorl America of the twenty first century.
Speaker 1: It's not just that justice depends on jailing Trump's army
Speaker 1: of the undead for however long, whenever, and wherever you can.
Speaker 1: But the judges and the Supreme Court justices too have
Speaker 1: to realize that maybe something even bigger is at stake
Speaker 1: their own asses. Jail them, Jail everybody in the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: You can now for contempt of court while there still
Speaker 1: is contempt of court, and start with the woman whose
Speaker 1: department this all emanates from, this idiotic, plasticized witch, Christy Nome,
Speaker 1: the Secretary of Homeland Security, the secretary of making sure
Speaker 1: you don't have any security in your home, never mind
Speaker 1: your homeland. When I say people like her are unqualified
Speaker 1: to hold any public office, including obviously in her case,
Speaker 1: dog catcher, I mean it literally, and she's proved it. Everybody,
Speaker 1: I think by now has heard her being asked by
Speaker 1: Senator Maggie Hassen what habeas corpus is, and Gnome not
Speaker 1: just getting it wrong, but revealing the startling breadth of
Speaker 1: her own stupidity and her brainwashing and the infectiousness of
Speaker 1: Maga disease. Habeas corpus a fundamental right to protect a
Speaker 1: citizen against the King or the President, or the Parliament,
Speaker 1: or the police, or the Soviet or the chairman. The
Speaker 1: fundamental right of ordinary people has been explained to her
Speaker 1: tiny malfunctioning little brain as a weapon, not dating back
Speaker 1: to the Magna Carta, but as a weapon Trump can
Speaker 1: use to disappear those very same ordinary people it was
Speaker 1: written to protect. She has it entirely wrong. And this
Speaker 1: answer is only, as it turned out, the second most
Speaker 1: horrifying one that she gave on the subject of habeas corpus.
Speaker 1: This is the warm.
Speaker 2: Up the secretary, No, what is habeas corpus? Well, habeas
Speaker 2: corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to
Speaker 2: be able to remove people from this country. Let's spend
Speaker 2: their right. Let me let me stop, and corpus excuse me.
Speaker 2: That's that's incorrect, Presidents, corpus excuse Habeas corpus is the
Speaker 2: legal principle that requires that the government provide a public
Speaker 2: reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
Speaker 1: And as I said, that was the smarter of her responses,
Speaker 1: because the next one to New Jersey Senator Andy Kim
Speaker 1: indicated that not only does she not know what habeas
Speaker 1: corpus means, even after it was just explained to her,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't know what the words suspend means when
Speaker 1: it is used in the sentence suspend habeas corpus. Listen
Speaker 1: to this and tell me this idiot is not undeniably
Speaker 1: convinced that the word suspend is a synonym for the
Speaker 1: words evoke, invoke, enforce, and utilize. She thinks to suspend
Speaker 1: habeas corpus means to you use habeas corpus to enact
Speaker 1: habeas corpus. She doesn't think it means no. She thinks
Speaker 1: it means yes, habeas corpus.
Speaker 3: Can you confirm to us that you understand that any
Speaker 3: suspension of habeas corpus requires an act of Congress?
Speaker 2: President Lincoln executed habeas corpus in the past with retroactive
Speaker 2: action by Congress. I believe that any president that was
Speaker 2: able to do that in the past, it should be
Speaker 2: afforded to our current day president.
Speaker 3: How many times has habeas corpus been suspended in our cost.
Speaker 1: Once that I know of, four times. I'm not certain if.
Speaker 3: Those the instance that you were referring to was one
Speaker 3: where the courts subsequently show that Congress is the one
Speaker 3: that has the ability. Do you know what section of
Speaker 3: the Constitution the suspension clause of habeas corpus does not?
Speaker 3: Do you know which article it is in?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: I do not, sir, Christy, check your plastic surgeon. I
Speaker 1: think they're putting the boatox right in your brain. This
Speaker 1: was after her education from Senator and the seventh grade
Speaker 1: social studies teacher. Christy Nome never had Maggie Hassen. After
Speaker 1: Maggie Hassen explained to her what habeas corpus was, and
Speaker 1: she still thinks it's something Trump can wield like an
Speaker 1: executioner's axe. And she still somehow thinks the word suspend
Speaker 1: means employ She doesn't know what that word means. She
Speaker 1: doesn't know what habeas corpus is. She doesn't know the
Speaker 1: most superficial details of the outline of the Constitution of
Speaker 1: the United States of America. If passing a six question
Speaker 1: exam that the worst student would ace in the worst
Speaker 1: Civics class in the worst high school in this country,
Speaker 1: if that were the requirement before we could put anybody
Speaker 1: on those human trafficking flights of hers, Gnome would go
Speaker 1: zero for six and she would have just won an
Speaker 1: all expenses paid trip to South Sudan, and god knows
Speaker 1: where she'd get her next botox and lip fattening injections
Speaker 1: from in goddamn South Sudan. This is what Trump is
Speaker 1: doing instead of stuff we need done, like FEMA to Missouri.
Speaker 1: Oh and there is a separate bill besides the killoff
Speaker 1: the Judiciary bill that raises the stakes further. After Steven
Speaker 1: Miller gets as many people out of this country illegally
Speaker 1: and inhumanely, but with each of them leaving behind a
Speaker 1: part of a precedent that Miller and Trump can then exploit.
Speaker 1: They will build higher the legal wall behind them to
Speaker 1: prevent them from getting back in. If you are renditioned
Speaker 1: and somehow come back to this country, they will now
Speaker 1: charge you with illegal re entry. If you are found
Speaker 1: guilty and sentenced to a year in jail for illegal reentry,
Speaker 1: not an unlikely outcome. A new proviso would kick in.
Speaker 1: Anybody convicted of illegal re entry who is then also
Speaker 1: convicted of any crime punishable a year or more in
Speaker 1: prison could be sentenced to life in prison. But all
Speaker 1: re entry would be repunishable by a year or more
Speaker 1: in prison, and all those sentences of just a year
Speaker 1: or more in prison would immediately be turned into life
Speaker 1: in prison. It's catch twenty two. How long is your
Speaker 1: jail term? One year? Ah, But anybody who sentenced to
Speaker 1: jail for one year gets life. So what is now
Speaker 1: a one year crime instantly and automatically becomes life in jail.
Speaker 1: Like all evil people, they have thought this through. I
Speaker 1: suspect Stephen Miller thinks it through and masturbates afterwards. This
Speaker 1: is what Trump is doing and now investigating Andrew Cuomo
Speaker 1: as he runs for mayor of New York to see
Speaker 1: if he lined to Congress when he testified about COVID
Speaker 1: as governor. I don't like Andrew Cuomo ordinarily be very
Speaker 1: pleased by this, except it's not for what you think
Speaker 1: it's for. There is no mystery in fact as to
Speaker 1: why they would be investigating Andrew Cuomo. Trump had foolishly
Speaker 1: bet on Eric Adams being re elected as Mayor of
Speaker 1: New York, so they dropped the corruption charges against Eric
Speaker 1: Adams and instead they hung them over him like the
Speaker 1: sort of Damocles, so they don't even have to blackmail
Speaker 1: him to get whatever they want from him to do
Speaker 1: to sell out the city of New York and the
Speaker 1: Democratic supermajority here. But it is evident now Eric Adams
Speaker 1: is going to get destroyed in this election running for
Speaker 1: office again as an independent if he gets double digits.
Speaker 1: That would be a major upset victory for him. If
Speaker 1: he only finishes last, it's a moral victory. So that
Speaker 1: means they need a new corrupt candidate to back and
Speaker 1: then blackmail, and thus they are investigating, not charging, investigating
Speaker 1: the new front runner among the democ Kratz Cuomo, because
Speaker 1: they already know he won't wait to be told what
Speaker 1: to do when they need him to sell out the city,
Speaker 1: the state, the country. This is what Trump is doing,
Speaker 1: as well as prosecuting a New Jersey congresswoman on phony
Speaker 1: charges of assault against the Ice brown shirts, who are
Speaker 1: turning out to be soft as church music and as
Speaker 1: easily sidelined as baseball pitchers. They just happened to be
Speaker 1: prosecuting her via the new interim US attorney for New Jersey,
Speaker 1: noted Trump parking lot legal scholar Alina Haba, who just
Speaker 1: two months ago revealed her real reason for accepting that job. Quote,
Speaker 1: we could turn New Jersey red, and I think New
Speaker 1: Jersey is absolutely close to getting there, So hopefully while
Speaker 1: I'm there, I can help that cause unquote. This is
Speaker 1: a US attorney campaigning by dirtying up a Democratic congresswoman
Speaker 1: who did nothing but use her right to inspect a
Speaker 1: government facility, and then Haba can run, probably run for
Speaker 1: something herself on a campaign of democratic violence against those
Speaker 1: nice police and ice storm troopers will apparently sustain bone
Speaker 1: damage if you look at them. This is what Trump
Speaker 1: is doing, instead of sending FEMA to Missouri, instead of
Speaker 1: obeying the courts, instead of with one of our four
Speaker 1: living ex presidents now battling cancer, with Congress and Jerry
Speaker 1: Connolly dying of cancer yesterday of the esophagus months after
Speaker 1: the diagnosis, at least not defunding and destroying cancer research
Speaker 1: during the time. The effectiveness of treatment and the survivability
Speaker 1: of the diseases have not only never been higher, but
Speaker 1: have never been improving and escalating faster than they have
Speaker 1: been in the last ten years. God damned Trump and
Speaker 1: all of them to hell as soon as possible. Why
Speaker 1: you have heard so little of this? There are two
Speaker 1: bits of good journalistic news. CBS news chief quit over
Speaker 1: the looming settlement with Trump because he sued after CBS
Speaker 1: did something that A wasn't in the least bit wrong.
Speaker 1: B didn't in the least bit have anything to do
Speaker 1: with Trump. And see Trump claims damaged his election chances
Speaker 1: in an election he claims he won in a landslide.
Speaker 1: More importantly, three American senators are calling the paramount CBS
Speaker 1: settlement with Trump what it actually is, a legalized bribe.
Speaker 1: Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders have warned Sherry
Speaker 1: Redstone of the reality she seems to have forgotten. As
Speaker 1: Oliver Darcy put it in Status that if Paramount settles
Speaker 1: Trump's twenty billion dollar lawsuit over a sixty minute segment
Speaker 1: to win favor with the Trump administration, it could constitute
Speaker 1: criminal bribery, something that I'm That's Oliver Darcy's I'm told
Speaker 1: has also been caused for concern among the company's three
Speaker 1: co chief executives. Well, I'm concerned that could be my money.
Speaker 1: The senator's reminded Paramount that it is illegal to quote
Speaker 1: corruptly give anything of value in this case, you know,
Speaker 1: billions and billions of dollars in exchange for government of action,
Speaker 1: namely federal approval of that CBS paramount pending merger with
Speaker 1: Skydance Media. Widen and Sanders and Warren pressed Redstone on
Speaker 1: whether the company has quote evaluated the risk of shareholder
Speaker 1: derivative litigation from settling the lawsuit and critically again, according
Speaker 1: to Oliver Darcy, whether DBS news content has been altered
Speaker 1: to gain favor with regulators, among a series of other
Speaker 1: probing questions, Quote Paramount appears to be trying to settle
Speaker 1: a lawsuit that it has assessed as completely without merit
Speaker 1: and moderating the content of its programs in order to
Speaker 1: obtain approval of this merger. Under the federal bribery Statute,
Speaker 1: it is illegal to corruptly give anything of value to
Speaker 1: public officials to influence an official act. Miss Redstone's company
Speaker 1: was thinking of postponing sixty minutes the other day because
Speaker 1: it had a segment critical of Trump, putting on something
Speaker 1: like I don't know motorcycle racing on ice Highlights of
Speaker 1: motorcycle racing on ice Highlights of motorcycle racing on ice
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy seven. I'm just speculating here, So sure,
Speaker 1: Miss Redstone, settle your Trump lawsuit, bribe lawsuit, bribe suit,
Speaker 1: and and humans regained control of the DOJ. Prepare to
Speaker 1: go to prison for bribery. Ms Redstone. And of course
Speaker 1: this is all happening while all the networks are talking
Speaker 1: about the alleged cover up of Biden's relative clarity while
Speaker 1: they are actively right now this minute. The second covering
Speaker 1: up Trump's increasing lack of clarity yesterday with Sarah Ramaposa,
Speaker 1: the President of South Africa, who, unlike Zelensky, didn't have
Speaker 1: to try to reason with him. Mister Ramaposo cleared Trump's clock.
Speaker 1: But then my old colleague Peter Alexander of NBC News
Speaker 1: tried to ask Trump an actual question about actual news stuff.
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? You know, you to get
Speaker 1: out of here. What does this have to do with
Speaker 1: the guitar jet?
Speaker 5: They're giving the United States Air Force a jet, okay,
Speaker 5: and it's a great thing. We're talking about a lot
Speaker 5: of other things. This NBC trying to get off the
Speaker 5: subject of what you just saw. You are a real
Speaker 5: you know, you're a terrible reporter, number one. You don't
Speaker 5: have what it takes to be reporting. You're not smart enough.
Speaker 5: But for you to go into a subject about a
Speaker 5: jet that was given to the United States Air Force,
Speaker 5: which is a very nice thing. They also gave five
Speaker 5: point one trillion dollars worth of investment in addition to
Speaker 5: the jet.
Speaker 1: Go back, you to go back to.
Speaker 5: Your studio at NBC because Brian Roberts and the people
Speaker 5: that run that place, they are to be investigated. They
Speaker 5: are so terrible the way you run that deatwork, and
Speaker 5: you are a disgrace.
Speaker 1: No more questions from you. Go ahead. Now, look, at
Speaker 1: some point somebody in this position, if not Peter Alexander,
Speaker 1: somebody has got to say in response to that, I
Speaker 1: have enough money, I can get another job. And if
Speaker 1: I can't, it's been a great run, I go do
Speaker 1: something else. And then they have to respond to Trump
Speaker 1: and say, you're a terrible president and your brains are
Speaker 1: leaking out your ears, and everybody knows that plane as
Speaker 1: a bribe, and everybody knows you lost the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 1: By the way, your hair looks like the cheapest wig
Speaker 1: on the head of the worst clown in the Ringling Brothers,
Speaker 1: Barnum and Effing Bailey's circus. If you get fired, you
Speaker 1: get fired. My suggestion would be get fired and somebody
Speaker 1: will hire you for twice the money you're making. Peter,
Speaker 1: nearly nineteen years ago, I'm sitting on a jet on
Speaker 1: the tarmac in La reading about Donald Rumsfeld calling all
Speaker 1: of us who criticized Bush or his bushy in Iraq
Speaker 1: policies morally or intellectually confused, And I thought, ef you,
Speaker 1: old fascist. And I started handwriting a commentary saying EF you,
Speaker 1: old fascist, expecting it would get me fired. It would
Speaker 1: be the last thing I ever did on television. And
Speaker 1: guess what, it did not get me fired. In fact,
Speaker 1: it got me like sixty seven mellon dollars. So somebody
Speaker 1: in this situation, Peter or anybody else in that White
Speaker 1: House Press office who is still an actual reporter, somebody
Speaker 1: who gets in that situation where Trump humiliates them, needs
Speaker 1: to humiliate him back, needs to stand up to Trump
Speaker 1: and say, F you, old fascist. President Ramaposa kind of did.
Speaker 1: Trump of course never noticed.
Speaker 5: So why did they give us a plane to the
Speaker 5: United States Air Force? That's what that idiot talks about
Speaker 5: after viewing a thing with thousands of people are dead.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I don't have a plane to give you.
Speaker 5: I wish I did. I would take it if your
Speaker 5: country offered the United States Air Force applant, I would.
Speaker 1: Take it, okay. But coming back to this issue, which
Speaker 1: I really would like us to talk about, and to
Speaker 1: talk about it very commonly, Trump never heard it too
Speaker 1: busy looking at himself in the mirror to realize that
Speaker 1: Ramaposa jokingly offered him a bribe, and then he Trump
Speaker 1: seriously accepted it. What another plane? More money from me? Good?
Speaker 1: If I get all the money, I'll never die. Oh
Speaker 1: how I wish President Ramaposa had said, and your hair
Speaker 1: looks like the cheapest wig on the head of the
Speaker 1: worst clown in the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus.
Speaker 1: Trump's mental deterioration continues to accelerate, not only that stuff yesterday,
Speaker 1: not only when he said Biden had staged nine cancer
Speaker 1: There is no such thing. But he has been flatly
Speaker 1: in the last week fixated on on anal issues. On
Speaker 1: the ass. This was at an event at the Kennedy
Speaker 1: Center for the Performing Arts. And then they rigged the election.
Speaker 1: And then I said, you know what I'll do. I'll
Speaker 1: run again and I'll shove it up their ass. That
Speaker 1: was at an event at the Kennedy Center for the
Speaker 1: Performing Arts. It was an event about restoring decorum and
Speaker 1: lifting up the best of our country at the Kennedy Center.
Speaker 1: And according to Trump, the best way to do that
Speaker 1: is to tell the audience at the Kennedy Center that
Speaker 1: his goal, the sitting president's goal, has been to shove
Speaker 1: something up somebody's ass. Parenthetically lost behind Trump's new ass
Speaker 1: obsession is this kind of laugh out loud funny new
Speaker 1: MAGA approved dehydrated pro American lineup of events at the
Speaker 1: Kennedy Center, which includes a stage play version of Missus Doubtfire, which,
Speaker 1: unless it's undergone extensive rewriting since the last time I
Speaker 1: saw the movie, Missus Doubtfire, is I believe still a
Speaker 1: story about a guy who dresses up in drag so
Speaker 1: he can get close to children. Wasn't this the exact
Speaker 1: thing Trump ran on last year, claiming if it was
Speaker 1: not stopped, it would destroy the world before January first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, And of course, what is nominally this
Speaker 1: country's last surviving news channel continues to ignore almost all
Speaker 1: of this so that it can instead on a twenty
Speaker 1: four to seven basis, hawk this Jake Thompson. No, it's
Speaker 1: Jake Tapper, It's Tapper Thompson. I know it's Jake Tapper
Speaker 1: and Alex Thompson. It's actually it's a piece of shit
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory and gossip book supposedly about Biden's acuity. His
Speaker 1: granddaughter was nice enough to call it silly. They have
Speaker 1: this book and they are trying to sell a copy
Speaker 1: of it to every person in America, to the point
Speaker 1: where I fully expect Jake Tapper to ring my doorbell
Speaker 1: at some point and offer me a discount. They are
Speaker 1: doing this while Trump is on the verge of complex
Speaker 1: visual hallucinations. They are working on the last president. You
Speaker 1: are one president behind Jake. Jake, you should get yourself
Speaker 1: checked for brain tumors. You have managed to top yourself
Speaker 1: or bottom yourself by not merely going on Megan Kelly's
Speaker 1: ilsa she Wolf of the SS podcast. But while you
Speaker 1: were there, you apologize to Lara Trump for scolding her
Speaker 1: for once addressing the Biden acuity topic. You apologize to
Speaker 1: Lara Trump should apologize to Hitler while you're at it.
Speaker 1: And as to how CNN has prostituted itself for this
Speaker 1: cynical book about last years presidential clarity of mind news
Speaker 1: when this year's presidential clarity of mind news is that
Speaker 1: Trump's brain appears to be missing. As John Stewart appletely
Speaker 1: put it, it's not just Tapper whom they found video
Speaker 1: of him holding his book up to camera at least
Speaker 1: six times on his CNN program, which is now his
Speaker 1: CNN Shopping Channel show, exactly the way Bill O'Reilly used
Speaker 1: to hold up his stupid books up to camera on
Speaker 1: his Fox Shopping Channel show. They didn't just find six
Speaker 1: editions of Jake literally telling you to buy the book,
Speaker 1: but all the CNN anchors and shows vying to see
Speaker 1: who can filate Jake Tapper most frequently and effectively. I
Speaker 1: have all kinds of problems with John Stewart, but his
Speaker 1: writer's room is still the best we have for manufacturing
Speaker 1: perfect analogies. It's Denizen's saw what CNN is doing, what
Speaker 1: everybody from Brian Stelter to Andy the k File Guy,
Speaker 1: to Aaron Burnett to Pamela Brown are doing to destroy
Speaker 1: their own credibility. As Stuart said, it's at the point
Speaker 1: where it looked like a girl Scout cookie contest. You know,
Speaker 1: whoever sells the most Jake Tapper books gets a free
Speaker 1: Shwin bike. This is a good time to mention that
Speaker 1: CNN will air George Clooney's stage version of good Night
Speaker 1: and good Luck Live from Broadway with Clooney as Edward R.
Speaker 1: Murrow CNN will air it on its network on June seventh,
Speaker 1: and this will be the first time anyone will attempt
Speaker 1: to portray actual journalism on CNN in years. What they
Speaker 1: should do is just leave the live feed on from
Speaker 1: the Winter Garden Theater after George is done, and just
Speaker 1: never come back with anything that's on at the moment.
Speaker 1: Just show what's ever live, including the guy cleaning it
Speaker 1: up with a broom. Higher ratings. Also of interest here,
Speaker 1: good Golly, Bill Maher is back on the Worst Person's list.
Speaker 1: Karma is that process by which you do something evil
Speaker 1: and stupid, and you do not try to correct it,
Speaker 1: and soon enough, out of nowhere, the universe punishes you
Speaker 1: for something else you did. Bill Chump was charming. I
Speaker 1: didn't get to meet Eva Brown when I was there.
Speaker 1: Mar just got himself some big mf ing karma. That's next.
Speaker 1: This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Openman still
Speaker 1: ahead on this all new edition of Countdown. This sounds
Speaker 1: like a really long, convoluted stretch. How a piece from
Speaker 1: the fabric roof at the baseball domed Stadium in Saint
Speaker 1: Petersburg destroyed by last October's hurricane arriving in the mail
Speaker 1: from a friend of mine made me understand why I
Speaker 1: do this podcast when it is so much work, and
Speaker 1: so much of that work is so painful. Talking about
Speaker 1: Trump is like gargling flaming chainsaws. Why do I do this?
Speaker 1: It's because my dad once correctly warned me that another
Speaker 1: sports arena fabric roof would vanish due to bad weather,
Speaker 1: and it was all math and physics, and for him,
Speaker 1: all that work was so hard and so painful. A metaphor,
Speaker 1: we are all living under a roof that will collapse
Speaker 1: and will kill many of us. So somebody has to
Speaker 1: sit here and keep pointing and screaming.
Speaker 6: That roof is going to collapse. Does anybody hear no
Speaker 6: physics or evacuations. We're getting a new roof next.
Speaker 1: In things I promised not to tell first of believe
Speaker 1: it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about.
Speaker 1: The roundup of the miscreants, morons and dunning Krueger effects
Speaker 1: specimens who constitute the latest other worst persons in the world,
Speaker 1: the Bronze worse Grock. I'm just not convinced we should
Speaker 1: call AI artificial intelligence yet. This is of course Musk's
Speaker 1: AI bot and asked about that clip I played earlier
Speaker 1: of Christy Nome now with eight new action adventure dress
Speaker 1: up outfits. Not knowing what Habeas corpus is, or what
Speaker 1: part of the Constitution it's in, or what the word
Speaker 1: suspend means. Groc was so confused it thought Christy Nome
Speaker 1: was talking about the WNBA. The question to Groc from
Speaker 1: OGP two three ninety six, does what Christy Nomes does
Speaker 1: say in this video make sense? You need artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: to answer that question, Groc answers. Without seeing the specific video,
Speaker 1: I can't directly assess Christy Nomes's statements. However, if this
Speaker 1: relates to the reason Caitlin Clark Angel Reese WNBA incident
Speaker 1: on May seventeenth, twenty twenty five, both players and officials
Speaker 1: called the foul standard basketball play. Clark said it was
Speaker 1: a good take Fowl and Reese agreed it was just
Speaker 1: part of the game. The flagrant one ruling suggests unnecessary
Speaker 1: but not malicious contact. Some fans see it as an
Speaker 1: excessive due to the rivalry, but there's no clear evidence
Speaker 1: of intent beyond competition. If nomes comments align with this,
Speaker 1: they make sense in context. Can you clarify the videos content.
Speaker 1: Number one, it makes more sense than what Christy Nomes says.
Speaker 1: Number two. Maybe Trump's idiot Secretary of Education Linda McMahon
Speaker 1: is actually right after all. Maybe we should call this
Speaker 1: a one. The runner up worser Mike Richards, not Michael Richards,
Speaker 1: not Keith Richards. Mike. One of the reasons MAGA disease
Speaker 1: spreads and thrives and claims new victims who were at
Speaker 1: one point intelligent, reliable, responsible human beings, or at least
Speaker 1: pre to be that. One of the reasons that's true
Speaker 1: is that it allows the justifiably canceled, awful, hateful people
Speaker 1: to resume their careers after they were banished. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at the political scumbag Mark no pants Halpron. Jeff
Speaker 1: Scarborough just went on Mark Halprin's podcast, meaning we are
Speaker 1: this close to Halpron getting his job back on scarborough show,
Speaker 1: which is called Morning Vshi anyway, Mike Richards not Jack Scarborough.
Speaker 1: Mike Richards is the new president and chief content officer
Speaker 1: of The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro's sinking ship. Shapiro had
Speaker 1: been showing signs of rare humanity. Recently fired Candace Owens
Speaker 1: for anti semitism, wants to fire Peter Navarro into the
Speaker 1: ocean via a catapult unquote over tariffs. Way, he finds
Speaker 1: out who he hired in Mike Richards. Here come the catapults.
Speaker 1: Mike Richards is a former executive producer and host of Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: This is the guy who was running the search to
Speaker 1: succeed Trebec and was then run out of the Jeopardy
Speaker 1: Shop after the office filled with stories that he was
Speaker 1: fixing the search so that the search would wind up
Speaker 1: choosing Mike Richards himself. Also, there was that small problem
Speaker 1: of all the crap he talked on his podcast, like
Speaker 1: five years earlier, fat shaming women and calling one model
Speaker 1: a quote booth slut and drawing the ire of the
Speaker 1: ADL before the ADL itself went sour when somebody said
Speaker 1: something about big noses, Mike Richards reportedly said, ixnay on
Speaker 1: the o's nay, She's not an ooja unquote. Richards hosted
Speaker 1: Jeopardy for about a week then well then cut to
Speaker 1: five years later where he's running the daily wire for
Speaker 1: a guy who fired somebody for anti semitism. Have a
Speaker 1: nice month, and just as we're hitting a new round
Speaker 1: of media collapses, like the Daily Wire needing a new
Speaker 1: buyer or money because it's running out. What other new
Speaker 1: media collapses like The Winner the Worst, Bill.
Speaker 6: Maher, Oh, he's back.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you commit a sin or two, like dining with
Speaker 1: Trump and falling for his Ted Bundy psychopath charm bullshit
Speaker 1: for the second time. And then when your friend Larry
Speaker 1: David cuts you into confetti in the New York Times,
Speaker 1: railing at Larry rather than just saying three simple words,
Speaker 1: I deserved that I deserved. That is the quickest way
Speaker 1: out of any controversy. That's not what Bill did. Man.
Speaker 4: Now he's in made these six million Jews.
Speaker 1: Larry offended them.
Speaker 4: I didn't defend them by heavy dinner with trem just
Speaker 4: because I'm too stupid to know that. I fell for
Speaker 4: this crab in twenty fourteen. The last time he suffed
Speaker 4: sod me. Now he soffed something again. I think he
Speaker 4: was really very polite and anything. We should sit down
Speaker 4: with me.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked in such Neville Chamberlain went to
Speaker 1: hell because of this Bill. All right, enough of that
Speaker 1: last year. In any event, as I'm pointing out here,
Speaker 1: when you do things like this, often you are punished,
Speaker 1: not for what you have just done, but for something else.
Speaker 1: This is the way the universe works. Last year, Mar
Speaker 1: launched a podcast company based on his podcast I'll point
Speaker 1: out here's here's my experience with podcasts, and this is
Speaker 1: a very successful one. It's still kind of boutique, but
Speaker 1: it makes a surprisingly large amount of money. And we're
Speaker 1: it's somewhere near seventy five million total verified views and
Speaker 1: listens between here and Youtubeube. It's pretty good. We're not
Speaker 1: even three years old yet. And I do this in
Speaker 1: my suit closet. My producers are my dogs. Anyway. Last year,
Speaker 1: he launched a podcast company, the point being don't launch
Speaker 1: a podcast company. Do your fing podcast, count your money,
Speaker 1: and go home. Leave the podcast companies to the people
Speaker 1: that can afford what happens when it doesn't work, or
Speaker 1: when you can't find other good podcasters, worry about your
Speaker 1: own damn podcast. Anyway, he launched a podcast company based
Speaker 1: on his podcast, and he declared, we talk like no
Speaker 1: one can cancel us, Bill, and you got that wrong too.
Speaker 1: Your company has now been canceled ceased operations last week,
Speaker 1: apparently per Semaphore News. Damn shame. After he'd hired poor
Speaker 1: old sage Steele to do a podcast and buy away
Speaker 1: what the f ever happened to Sage Steal having so
Speaker 1: much fun with the self definestration, the weekly self defenestration
Speaker 1: of Sage the worst broadcast partner I've ever had in
Speaker 1: my life, worse than Chris Myers Steele. And then she's
Speaker 1: not on the air. She's just like on YouTube. It's
Speaker 1: like everybody's on YouTube. She's not in the Trump administration. Wait,
Speaker 1: why am I complaining about this? She's not on the
Speaker 1: air and she's not on the Trump administration. All right,
Speaker 1: don't tell me. I'm cool with it the way it is. Oh,
Speaker 1: she's getting married again. Can you send someone for their wedding?
Speaker 1: Just a box of condolences to the groom? I'm so sorry,
Speaker 1: you have no idea. I did like six television shows
Speaker 1: whe her and I can already predict your life for you. Flee,
Speaker 1: please flee. Anyway, she's getting married again, and she's making
Speaker 1: the rounds again, reminiscent about the day that she got
Speaker 1: hit by a drive at a golf tournament. Good times, anyway,
Speaker 1: Podcasting experts say mar Belief briefly, the employer of Sage
Speaker 1: Seal probably just ran out of money, so Bango's Club
Speaker 1: Random Studios, though apparently Mars podcast will continue somewhere, and
Speaker 1: that will allow Bill to humiliate himself to dozens of
Speaker 1: people simultaneously, rather than having to do it one at
Speaker 1: a time. Bill, there's a lesson here. One never say
Speaker 1: your ship Titanic is unsinkable, and two never say your
Speaker 1: podcast company is uncancellable. Mar canceled two days, Other Worst
Speaker 1: Worst and.
Speaker 4: The world.
Speaker 1: Finally to the number one story on this all new
Speaker 1: edition of Countdown and Things I promised not to tell.
Speaker 1: This doesn't really qualify for the title, but what the hell,
Speaker 1: it's my podcast. I hold in my hand a piece
Speaker 1: of what was, until last September October, a piece of
Speaker 1: the roof at Trumpicana Field in Saint Petersburg, Florida, the
Speaker 1: home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, not the
Speaker 1: most inviting of indoor sports stadiums, but no longer in use.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine, a devoted listener to this podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'll keep his name quiet so as not to
Speaker 1: mark him with the scarlet letter among those he deals
Speaker 1: with in life, was kind enough to purchase for me
Speaker 1: during a recent trip there, a piece of what was
Speaker 1: the roof. The Tampa Bay Rays, owned by friends of mine,
Speaker 1: are very intelligently selling eight x ten pieces of the
Speaker 1: roof for fifteen dollars if you would like to have
Speaker 1: the chance to hold and keep in your home. What
Speaker 1: was a piece of a Major League baseball stadium. I'm
Speaker 1: sure the Rays make these available on their website. I
Speaker 1: hope they do. But I have to tell you my
Speaker 1: surprise when I opened up the package. There was a
Speaker 1: clear plastic bag from the place at which this was purchased,
Speaker 1: inside the stadium that they're now using. The spring training
Speaker 1: home of the New York Yankees is now the regular
Speaker 1: season home of the Tampa Bay Rays. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's an odd way to package it. That thing there
Speaker 1: in the back, that must be the cardboard backing to
Speaker 1: make sure the thing isn't get folded in transit. No,
Speaker 1: that's the roof. The roof looks like a piece of cardboard.
Speaker 1: Looks like a shirt cardboard if you've ever gotten your
Speaker 1: shirts back from the dry cleaners. That way. It has
Speaker 1: about the thickness and the approximate look of a linen
Speaker 1: duster coat that I own and I use as a raincoat.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a piece of my duster. That
Speaker 1: was the roof at that field, Tropicana Field, until Hurricane
Speaker 1: Milton hit on October ninth of last year, and I
Speaker 1: was reminded instantly in thinking of that disaster, as I
Speaker 1: was when it happened, of my dad. My dad was
Speaker 1: an architect who loved the design element and was a
Speaker 1: born artist and used to be able to draw, not
Speaker 1: just well, but he could produce what looked like the
Speaker 1: kind of work that an entire architectural firm would take
Speaker 1: months to produce, including if you've ever seen drawings before
Speaker 1: the computer era of a new park or a new mall,
Speaker 1: and the little stick figures in front of representing the
Speaker 1: people anxiously and delightedly going into the mall or the park,
Speaker 1: the little tiny hundreds of people. He could draw those
Speaker 1: freehand and you'd never know that some team had not
Speaker 1: slaved over them. So he was a born artist. I
Speaker 1: inherited his ability to block letter so that people are
Speaker 1: still surprised by how clean my lettering is. That's all
Speaker 1: I got. My architectural career ended lettering. But Dad, because
Speaker 1: he was so good at the art, really worked at
Speaker 1: the math. He hated the math. He hated the physics
Speaker 1: of it. He hated the construction part of architectural construction, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, they don't let you just draw the
Speaker 1: stick figures and the buildings. You have to go and
Speaker 1: do the math calculating whether or not the damn thing
Speaker 1: will fall down. So Dad became an expert who hated
Speaker 1: doing it, kind of like me with politics. Okay, I
Speaker 1: hate this, I better triple check everything, and he did,
Speaker 1: and soon his ability to judge whether or not that
Speaker 1: building would hold up probably exceeded his artistic capabilities. I
Speaker 1: don't think he would like to hear me say that,
Speaker 1: but it's true. One day, sometime in the winter of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven seventy eight, when I was a junior
Speaker 1: in college, my phone rang at my dorm room fourteen
Speaker 1: men In Hall at Cornell University, and it was my
Speaker 1: dad calling me from Hartford, Connecticut. I can't remember if
Speaker 1: this was December or perhaps the beginning of January of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, but it was early in the year,
Speaker 1: and Dad said he was staying at a hotel overlooking
Speaker 1: the Hartford Civic Center. Hertford Civic Center, the home of
Speaker 1: University of Connecticut basketball games and the then New England
Speaker 1: Whalers of the World Hockey Association and a couple of
Speaker 1: other teams as well, a kind of brand new facility
Speaker 1: in which the greatest concepts of American architectural design of
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies were merged. Ugly sports stadiums and malls.
Speaker 1: The Hertford Civic Center was in the middle of a mall,
Speaker 1: and the center, the actual arena, looked like just another
Speaker 1: store in the mall. In any event, we'll leave the
Speaker 1: esthetics out of it. Dad was saying he was staying
Speaker 1: high up in this hotel and had an overlooking view
Speaker 1: on a very very heavy snow winter that year nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven seventy eight, and was looking just i'dly before
Speaker 1: a meeting he had somewhere at some store location that
Speaker 1: he was designing in that area. Was looking at the
Speaker 1: roof of the Hartford Civic Center and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of snow on top of it, because there was
Speaker 1: a lot of snow everywhere that winter. In Ithaca, we
Speaker 1: had three eleven inch snowstorms in five days, and the
Speaker 1: only thing passable by foot was a small divot in
Speaker 1: the snow drifts down the center of the main drags
Speaker 1: at Cornell University, and if you encountered somebody walking in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction, one of you had to go and
Speaker 1: stand in the thirty inch snowbank for a moment. In
Speaker 1: any event, Dad said, listen, do you ever go to
Speaker 1: the Hertford Civic Center? And I said no, I actually
Speaker 1: avoided that completely. Do any of the Cornell teams play there?
Speaker 1: I said, well, it's possible, but I don't think we're
Speaker 1: playing Yukon basketball this year. Good, don't go in there.
Speaker 1: The damn thing's going to collapse sooner or later. And
Speaker 1: I said, what do you mean, the damn thing's going
Speaker 1: to collapse sooner or later. I knew nothing of the
Speaker 1: nature of the roof, but the nature of the roof
Speaker 1: at the Hertford Civic Center was not unlike this thing there,
Speaker 1: this piece of duster thickness. I mean, you couldn't use
Speaker 1: it as a as a computer pad, as a mouse pad.
Speaker 1: It's not that thick That is the essence of the roof,
Speaker 1: along with the superstructure, the metal, the grid work. But
Speaker 1: the essence of it, the thing that the wind could
Speaker 1: get under or the snow could get on top of,
Speaker 1: was one I don't know sixty fourth of an inch
Speaker 1: thick and kind of flexible. And Dad said, I don't
Speaker 1: think they desire this, right, I had a quick look.
Speaker 1: They let me, let me look inside, and I went, boy,
Speaker 1: oh boy, I wouldn't come in here again for a
Speaker 1: million dollars. And the guy then threw me out of
Speaker 1: the building. That was my dad, that's me. Dad said,
Speaker 1: there was so much snow on the roof, and it
Speaker 1: was probably sufficiently designed to handle a great deal of snow.
Speaker 1: He said, thirty six inches forty eight inches of snow.
Speaker 1: It could withstand a couple of more serious snowstorms before
Speaker 1: it and every other roof in Hartford, Connecticut would collapse.
Speaker 1: He said. The problem was they had not done enough
Speaker 1: with the grid work. This thing had been poorly designed,
Speaker 1: especially if it got really warm and there was rain,
Speaker 1: and then it got really cold and the whole thing
Speaker 1: turned into a block of ice, which would double or
Speaker 1: treble the weight on top of this roof. Sure enough,
Speaker 1: I go into my college radio station on January eighteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, and the news is on the wire
Speaker 1: that about five six hours after the University of Kinnetic
Speaker 1: basketball team beat the University of Massachusetts basketball team in
Speaker 1: front of counting staff and employees about forty eight hundred
Speaker 1: people inside the Hertford Civic Center. About five hours afterwards,
Speaker 1: about four in the morning, the Hartford Civic Center cloth
Speaker 1: roof caved in under the weight of the ice that
Speaker 1: had built up atop it. And it wasn't just the ice.
Speaker 1: It was a design flaw. It was exactly as my
Speaker 1: dad had forecast, maybe a month earlier, certainly at least
Speaker 1: a week earlier. Whatever you do, don't let any of
Speaker 1: Cornell teams go into the Hartford Civic Center. Boy, he
Speaker 1: got that right. That was the good one. Because, of course,
Speaker 1: the night watchman, the night manager of the Hartford Civic Center,
Speaker 1: had cleaned the place out, after the employees there had
Speaker 1: cleaned everything up, had locked the door, maybe at two
Speaker 1: or three o'clock. And I don't know if I added
Speaker 1: this in the years of remembering my dad forecasting this
Speaker 1: disaster or not, or if it actually happened, but there
Speaker 1: was some story about the last guy out locking the
Speaker 1: place at three or four in the morning, driving a
Speaker 1: couple of blocks away, stopped at a stoplight, and he
Speaker 1: hears a roar, looks in his rear view mirror and
Speaker 1: there's the roof of the Hartford Civic Center that he
Speaker 1: has just left empty, caving in on itself. That may
Speaker 1: be apocryphal, but it could have happened. That's how good
Speaker 1: dad's prediction was. If he'd put a time stamp on
Speaker 1: it, it was the only way he could have gotten it better.
Speaker 1: The other thing, of course, that reminded me of was
Speaker 1: the other time my dad made a prediction like that,
Speaker 1: which was a true tragedy, and I regret not doing
Speaker 1: more about it, and he regretted not doing more about it.
Speaker 1: But there was a point at which you can't do
Speaker 1: more about it because the people are telling you you're
Speaker 1: insane and they're going to arrest you, and you should
Speaker 1: stop fear mongering, etc. My dad used to travel all
Speaker 1: the time. It was one of the great joys of
Speaker 1: his becoming an architect. And as I've told the story before,
Speaker 1: he became an architect without going to college. He was
Speaker 1: offered a full ride as a high school valedictorian at
Speaker 1: the School of Industrial Arts in New York, a full
Speaker 1: ride to Cornell five years in the Architecture college, a
Speaker 1: full scholarship. Had to turn it down because his father
Speaker 1: said to him, well, yeah, you can go do your
Speaker 1: drawing crap, but then your younger brother is going to
Speaker 1: have to drop out of high school and support us
Speaker 1: because my grandfather couldn't support the family, and not because
Speaker 1: he had the victimization of the Great Depression. And my
Speaker 1: grandfather just did not cooperate with anybody under any circumstances.
Speaker 1: I am Saint Francis of the CSI compared to my grandfather,
Speaker 1: I digress. My father's joy in architecture was he did
Speaker 1: not turn out to design nine hundred story buildings that
Speaker 1: were sweeping architectural monuments that would last like the pyramids did.
Speaker 1: And they'd say, who was the designer of this palace?
Speaker 1: Theodore Sea Olderman designed it. That's his statue over there.
Speaker 1: It didn't happen that way, but at one point all
Speaker 1: the basking Robs, like four hundred Baskin Robbins in this
Speaker 1: country were all his design because he didn't know it
Speaker 1: when he went into architecture. But he had a natural
Speaker 1: ability to fit your stock architectural design for your chain
Speaker 1: store into this oddly shaped place you were able to
Speaker 1: rent in the mall in Nacadochis, Texas. So traveling around
Speaker 1: to places like Nacadoches, Texas, and to the beach communities
Speaker 1: of la which he loved, and to everywhere on earth,
Speaker 1: and to Hartford, Connecticut, and to Kansas City, Missouri. Put
Speaker 1: him in places like Kansas City, Missouri. And sometime late
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty he would always call. In those pre
Speaker 1: internet days and those pre cell phone days, he'd call
Speaker 1: to say he'd gotten to the hotel. He'd leave an
Speaker 1: itinerary in case we needed to get him. And he
Speaker 1: was calling me late in nineteen eighty or early in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one to tell me that he was changing hotels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I checked into the Higatt Regency and here it's a
Speaker 1: death trap. And I said, oh, what's wrong with it? Now?
Speaker 1: Does it have a fabric roof? Hahaha? Was I right
Speaker 1: about that? Yes? You were. I'm sorry. I don't mean
Speaker 1: to mock you. We could have done something more now.
Speaker 1: That worked out pretty well all things considered, given that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't listen to me, the idiots. Do you see
Speaker 1: where I come from? Do you see where my attitude
Speaker 1: comes from? Well? He was right, as I am right.
Speaker 1: It gets frustrating sometimes to be the only one who's
Speaker 1: right in the room, especially when people's lives are endangered.
Speaker 1: And that's the whole point. My dad didn't give a
Speaker 1: damn whether or not he was right. It was a
Speaker 1: certain source of pride to him that a subject that
Speaker 1: he hated, he had mastered the arithmetic, the science, the
Speaker 1: weightload management in the real meaning of it, not the
Speaker 1: sports meaning of it. But he didn't get any joy
Speaker 1: over the fact that he was right that the roof
Speaker 1: had collapsed. He just said, maybe that's more evidence that
Speaker 1: you should listen to me again. Where do you think
Speaker 1: that comes from in this podcast? In any event, back
Speaker 1: to the phone call from Kansas City. I've checked out.
Speaker 1: I'm in the such and such hotel. Now here's the number,
Speaker 1: and I wrote it down and I called my mother
Speaker 1: and I said, change this on the itinerary. And whether
Speaker 1: or not she did, who knows. In any event, he said,
Speaker 1: you won't believe what they've done here. They've hung a
Speaker 1: walkway from another walkway on top of another walkway. And
Speaker 1: I was like, you can't be you can't be serious,
Speaker 1: and he went, no, I'm serious. I went, no, no, you
Speaker 1: can't be serious. In assuming I know what that means,
Speaker 1: he said, all right, let me explain it. To you simply,
Speaker 1: if you hang a walkway from a ceiling at like
Speaker 1: this highatt regency, If you hang it from the ceiling,
Speaker 1: let's say that requires a support for that hanging walkway
Speaker 1: worth one point. If you hang another walkway from the
Speaker 1: walkway from the ceiling, so that you have walkway number one,
Speaker 1: and then below it hanging from walkway number one is
Speaker 1: walkway number two. How many points worth of support do
Speaker 1: you need? And I said two, No, you need three.
Speaker 1: You need one for the original walkway, one for the
Speaker 1: new walkway, and another point a third point for the
Speaker 1: additional stress that the lower walkway has put on the
Speaker 1: top one. You have doubled the stress. You need a three.
Speaker 1: He said, they barely have one. It's a disaster waiting
Speaker 1: to happen, as God is my witness. And he was
Speaker 1: an atheist. It's an odd phrase, but he used it
Speaker 1: all the time, as God is my witness, that thing
Speaker 1: will collapse. And I went to the manager and I
Speaker 1: asked to see the structural engineer, and I told him this,
Speaker 1: and I gave him my credentials, and I mentioned the
Speaker 1: Hertford Civic Center, and nobody listened to me. In fact,
Speaker 1: they said, maybe you should leave, or maybe we're going
Speaker 1: to have to call the authorities. You're beginning to make
Speaker 1: a scene and frighten the other guests here, and he
Speaker 1: said they should be frightened. The damn and he swore
Speaker 1: roof is going to come down someday. The damn walkway
Speaker 1: is going to drag the ceiling down. And if it
Speaker 1: could be worse, these two ceilings, these two walkways hanging
Speaker 1: from the sea. One is hanging from the other, and
Speaker 1: they're on top of another walkway, So there's another walkway
Speaker 1: that is not supported separately. He is supported separately, but
Speaker 1: it's sitting below. So when walkway number two pulls down
Speaker 1: Walkway number one on the way down to the floor
Speaker 1: where they hold all sorts of events and have a
Speaker 1: couple of nice lobby bars, it will go through walkway
Speaker 1: number three. I don't know how many people are going
Speaker 1: to get killed. They're going to get killed. So he
Speaker 1: sounded like everybody you've ever seen in every science fiction
Speaker 1: picture who then claims they came in from the future
Speaker 1: and they asked him to leave, and he said, don't worry,
Speaker 1: I'm not staying here, and don't send me the bill,
Speaker 1: because by the time you send me the bill. You
Speaker 1: guys won't be in business anymore. Once again, time elapses.
Speaker 1: I didn't make any phone calls. Who am I going
Speaker 1: to call? I'm a twenty two year old sportscaster in
Speaker 1: New York City. I'm not exactly carrying any weight on
Speaker 1: subjects like this. My dad has correctly predicted the fabric
Speaker 1: roof collapse at the Hartford Civic Center. He now says
Speaker 1: that there's a walkway hanging from another walkway, and there
Speaker 1: should be a force of three and is only a
Speaker 1: force of one. And I don't know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: but maybe you should call him. Here's his phone number.
Speaker 1: What am I going to do about this? My great
Speaker 1: regret that I didn't make those calls anyway. I walked
Speaker 1: into my office at the RKO Radio Network on Saturday,
Speaker 1: July eighteenth, nineteen eighty one, and the wires were full
Speaker 1: of stories about the disaster in Kansas City. The baseball
Speaker 1: strike was in full flower in the middle of July
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, and most of the members of the
Speaker 1: Kansas City Royals, or a lot of them at least,
Speaker 1: including the pitcher Rich Gale, were serving as celebrity bartenders
Speaker 1: at a charity event in the lobby of a Hyatt
Speaker 1: Regency in Kansas City on the night of July seventeenth Friday,
Speaker 1: July seventeenth, nineteen eighty one, when one of the walkways
Speaker 1: began to collapse. It began to pull down the walkway
Speaker 1: from which it was hung, and then part of the ceiling,
Speaker 1: and on the way down it knocked down parts of
Speaker 1: other pieces of the superstructure above the lobby. One one
Speaker 1: hundred and four teen people were killed. And I remember
Speaker 1: to this day the agonized interview with rich Gail, the
Speaker 1: Kansas City Royals pitcher, a big guy for the time,
Speaker 1: about six', six who said that the first thing he
Speaker 1: did was try to move these, giant multi ton blocks
Speaker 1: of concrete off still living, victims and being an, athlete
Speaker 1: figuring that he and a few of his friends could
Speaker 1: do it and they could not even budge the. THING
Speaker 1: i think it changed his life. UTTERLY i think it
Speaker 1: basically ended his career as a viable baseball. Pitcher it
Speaker 1: certainly caused him, struggles AND i know he succeeded in
Speaker 1: staying in the game and becoming a, coach but he
Speaker 1: was affected in a. Way you could hear instantaneously in the,
Speaker 1: interviews and we covered the story AND i left my
Speaker 1: father out of. It but my father had predicted it
Speaker 1: down to the fact that there would be people, killed
Speaker 1: that there would be such large pieces of debris coming
Speaker 1: from the ceiling because they had not hung the thing.
Speaker 1: Successfully the, designer AS i found out of this, disaster
Speaker 1: then became a lecturer on disasters in bad, architecture of
Speaker 1: which he was responsible, for instead of going to. Prison
Speaker 1: so this all came back to mind that my father Was.
Speaker 1: Cassandra my father was the guy who arrived, saying the
Speaker 1: next person you hear from will be the angel of.
Speaker 1: Death maybe you want to get out of, here maybe
Speaker 1: you want to fix, this maybe you want to have
Speaker 1: another look at your. MATH i, mean there were lots
Speaker 1: of disasters that my dad did not, predict like the
Speaker 1: time that The City Corps center In New york almost
Speaker 1: blew over in a wind because they realized at the
Speaker 1: last minute that the slanted ten story roof they'd put
Speaker 1: on the thing it hit directly by hurricane, forces would
Speaker 1: topple the entire top half of the building Onto Midtown,
Speaker 1: manhattan and they were just lucky that it hit. Differently
Speaker 1: he didn't see that. Coming but of course he wasn't
Speaker 1: in the civic The. Hartford he was only in The hartford.
Speaker 1: Place he was only in The Kansas city. Place he
Speaker 1: was not in The City Corps. Center but that was
Speaker 1: WHAT i was reminded of AS i looked at this.
Speaker 1: Piece this was the roof under which for thirty four,
Speaker 1: years thirty five, years people. Assembled many TIMES i went
Speaker 1: there myself and did ball games from and did coverage,
Speaker 1: from and my friends who owned The Tampa Bay, rays
Speaker 1: and all the players THAT i, knew and all the
Speaker 1: announcers THAT i knew who worked, there and all the
Speaker 1: visiting announcers all went in under this. Roof and thank
Speaker 1: god that when what my father would have, said do
Speaker 1: you have any GAMES i planned At Tropicana, field whatever you,
Speaker 1: do don't go. There that main a hurricane going to
Speaker 1: take that effing roof right. Off and then you know,
Speaker 1: WHAT i bet it winds up as a souvenir somewhere
Speaker 1: in your. Collection that'll probably cut up the. Roof knowing
Speaker 1: your friends who owned the, team they'll be smart enough
Speaker 1: to take what's left of this fabric roof and sell.
Speaker 1: IT i would put the price at like ten. Dollars
Speaker 1: knowing your, friends they'll probably charge. Fifteen i've done all
Speaker 1: the DAMAGE i can do. Here nature and physics do the.
Speaker 1: Rest thank you for. Listening and, yes there are, people
Speaker 1: particularly from my college, days who remember my dad's prediction
Speaker 1: because the one about The Hartford Civic CENTER i had
Speaker 1: to share BECAUSE i, asked AND i asked At Cornell Sports,
Speaker 1: information do we have any games In hartford this? Year?
Speaker 1: NO i, said, okay, good because my, dad the, architect
Speaker 1: just said the roof's going to come down one.
Speaker 2: Night.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable my dad was not, Psychic he was not the
Speaker 1: harbinger of the angel of. Death he just paid real
Speaker 1: attention to the things that he hated most and the
Speaker 1: work he hated doing the. Most as he used to
Speaker 1: say to, me you're good at this. Work hardist on
Speaker 1: the things you're not good, at and that's why we
Speaker 1: have this. Podcast do you Think i'm happy doing this every? Week?
Speaker 1: Then do you Think i'm happy doing? This there are
Speaker 1: many glories to getting this, done and there are many, positive,
Speaker 1: warming life validating and affirming moments in knowing that you appreciate,
Speaker 1: This but do you think it's? Enjoyable which do you
Speaker 1: think is more enjoyable this podcast or writing up the
Speaker 1: histories of The Detroit tigers and The Saint Louis cardinals
Speaker 1: for their pregame. SHOW i think that question answers itself
Speaker 1: enough do the. Math Brian ray And John Phillip, shanelle
Speaker 1: the musical, directors Have Countdown arrange produced and performed most
Speaker 1: of our. Music Mister chanelle handled orchestration and. Keyboards Mister
Speaker 1: ray was on the, guitars bass and. Drums it was
Speaker 1: produced BY Tko. Brothers my dad did once say to,
Speaker 1: me at sort of the height of THE msnbc, experience
Speaker 1: WHEN i said that much of the stuff THAT i
Speaker 1: STUDIED i hated studying and really was dedicated to, it
Speaker 1: only because he told me this year before to pay
Speaker 1: special attention to the STUFF i, hated paying special attention
Speaker 1: to to do the hard work on the stuff that
Speaker 1: was really hard and. Work he teared up and he,
Speaker 1: SAID i taught you. SOMETHING i, said, YEAH i also
Speaker 1: always check the hanging walkways WHENEVER i go into a.
Speaker 1: Hotel god help. Us our satirical and pithy musical comments
Speaker 1: are by the best baseball stadium organists. Ever Nancy faust
Speaker 1: now back doing cameos with The White, sox or as
Speaker 1: they are now, known saluting both The pope And chicago's crime.
Speaker 1: History The leo polls and. Lobes all, right that's a tasteless,
Speaker 1: joke but a good. One the sports music is The
Speaker 1: ulberman theme FROM espn, two written By Mitch Warren davis
Speaker 1: courtesy OF, Espn. Inc other music arranged and performed By
Speaker 1: No Horns. Allowed my announcer today was my Friend Larry.
Speaker 1: David everything was as ever other than. That my fault
Speaker 1: not the roof collapse. HERE i, MEAN i swear you
Speaker 1: could roll this thing, up AND i don't. THINK i,
Speaker 1: mean of all the, things this looks. Like this piece
Speaker 1: of the, roof a piece of a, roof is not
Speaker 1: what it looks?
Speaker 3: Like is?
Speaker 1: That for a? Tautology that's countdown for, today day one
Speaker 1: to twenty three Of america sitting under the roof at
Speaker 1: The Higatt regency or The Hartford Civic. Center just forty
Speaker 1: days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and
Speaker 1: lame brain, term Unless putin removes him, sooner or the
Speaker 1: actuarial tables, do or we. Do the next scheduled countdown Is,
Speaker 1: monday as always bulletins as the news. Warrants remember he
Speaker 1: is laying the groundwork now to not leave office. Later
Speaker 1: he must be. Stopped we must get out from under
Speaker 1: this roof until next. Time I'm keith oulteran good, morning good,
Speaker 1: afternoon good, night and good. Luck countdown With Keith olderman
Speaker 1: is a production Of. iHeartRadio for more podcasts From, iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: visit The iHeartRadio, App Apple, podcasts or wherever you get your.
Speaker 1: Podcasts