Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Dementia.
Speaker 1: J Trump is, as noted by the ineccable Scott McFarlane
Speaker 1: of CBS News, now the oldest presidential nominee in American history.
Speaker 1: The flag bearer of the Republican Party. By the way,
Speaker 1: the flag now depicts the late Great Hannibal Elector failing
Speaker 1: to get away from a shark, one of them shark
Speaker 1: NATO type flying sharks, because it's cloudy, so Hannibal Lecter's
Speaker 1: electric tank doesn't work. The flag bearer of the Republican
Speaker 1: Party is now older than was Ronald Reagan the day
Speaker 1: he left the presidency with dementia. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: the Vice President of the United States crossed one thousand
Speaker 1: pledged delegates early yesterday afternoon and should have the requisite
Speaker 1: one thousand, nine hundred and eighty six of them by
Speaker 1: tonight tomorrow. Sure. As to fundraising, Vice President Harris raised
Speaker 1: eighty one million dollars in the first twenty four hours
Speaker 1: of her presidential campaign, an all time record. Act Blue,
Speaker 1: the grassroots fundraising organization for all Democratic candidates, raised ninety
Speaker 1: million dollars in the same twenty four hours. Future forward,
Speaker 1: the flagship super pack with a good relationship with President
Speaker 1: Biden got one hundred and fifty million dollars in new
Speaker 1: commitments from major Democratic donors in the same twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: There had already been a quarter of a billion in
Speaker 1: the Democratic kitty. That was at four pm yesterday. There
Speaker 1: is a six hundred million dollar anti Trump war chest.
Speaker 1: Was a six hundred million dollar anti Trump war chess
Speaker 1: probably higher by now, and also by now it's eleventy billion.
Speaker 1: We are beginning to get the first real time post
Speaker 1: Biden withdrawal polling Morning consult showing most Democratic voters think
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris has the best chance in victory in November
Speaker 1: and are rallying behind her. They conducted a survey entirely
Speaker 1: after the announcement on Sunday, showing the President's decision to
Speaker 1: end his campaign and endorse the vice president is popular
Speaker 1: with voters, could lead to an enthusiasm boost among Democrats.
Speaker 1: You think as the majority of the electorate, as they
Speaker 1: phrase it, appears comfortable with him completing his term. Among
Speaker 1: ten potential replacements for Biden, Harris performs best against Trump.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris starts her race down forty seven forty five
Speaker 1: to Trump. And oh, by the way, Joe Manchin, who's
Speaker 1: on this list, suddenly said, ah, oh no, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to run for the Democratic nomination after all, when
Speaker 1: somebody reminded him that he had made a big deal
Speaker 1: of no longer being a registered Democrat. Sorry, senator, we're
Speaker 1: out of the blanks. We don't have anymore. You'll just
Speaker 1: have to stay whatever. It is a horror of the
Speaker 1: coal mining industry. I suppose that's your title. The numbers
Speaker 1: for morning consults, and some of these poll numbers are
Speaker 1: literally from yesterday. The generic Democrat would be trailing Trump
Speaker 1: forty six forty five. Kamala Harris, as I said, starts
Speaker 1: down forty seven to forty five. Poodha Jeedge would be
Speaker 1: down forty six thirty nine, Newsom down forty seven to
Speaker 1: thirty nine, Whitner forty seven thirty nine. We can forget mansion,
Speaker 1: Andy Basher forty six thirty seven, forty six thirty seven.
Speaker 1: Also for Josh Shapiro forty six thirty six, for Pritzker,
Speaker 1: and Cooper wes Moore down forty seven to thirty five.
Speaker 1: They don't list Mark Kelly, who was getting a lot
Speaker 1: of buzz for vice president because astronaut? Why not moderate?
Speaker 1: Why not? Bald white guy? Why not? And and this
Speaker 1: cannot be discounted in terms of importance, the husband of
Speaker 1: Gabby Gifferts, who is still an extraordinary figure within the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. As to endorsements, No, the Obamas haven't endorsed
Speaker 1: anybody because they don't want this to be seen as
Speaker 1: a coordinated attempt to crown Kamala Harris, even though let's
Speaker 1: see what time is it now, she could be crowned
Speaker 1: as early as tonight. Whitmer, who already said she would
Speaker 1: not stand for Biden's role in the ticket if he
Speaker 1: gave it back, is co chairing the Harris campaign. Shapiro
Speaker 1: has endorsed her, Wes Moore has endorsed her. The President
Speaker 1: has endorsed her. John Fetterman endorsed her. Wait, wasn't John
Speaker 1: Fetterman mocking everybody who's trying to talk to president into
Speaker 1: standing aside? Of course he was. He knew what was
Speaker 1: going on. We've all known what was going on, except
Speaker 1: for everybody who demanded that Biden recues in February or March,
Speaker 1: when all it could have done by demanding that was
Speaker 1: and all that it did do by demanding that was
Speaker 1: make him and those around him more stubborn and dig
Speaker 1: in deeper, which is exactly what happened. You do, what
Speaker 1: Fetterman did. You support the candidate, You let behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: stay behind the scenes until the last possible minute, and
Speaker 1: when it changes, you support the new candidate. And we
Speaker 1: all knew that if the President did not wrap this
Speaker 1: up by the end of this past weekend, the figure
Speaker 1: leading the charge to get him to leave on his own,
Speaker 1: and he left on his own, would go public. And
Speaker 1: the figure was Nancy Pelosi. So what pops up in
Speaker 1: the media now from Politico? Senior Biden aids were bracing
Speaker 1: for former House Speaker Nancy, who'd worked behind the scenes
Speaker 1: to encourage others in the party towards the kind of
Speaker 1: collective action that might finally push the president to end
Speaker 1: his campaign, to go public this week and possibly even
Speaker 1: disclosed Democratic polling, clarifying Biden's dire political straits. No kidding,
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought of that quote. Nancy made clear that
Speaker 1: they could do this the easy way. You're the hard way,
Speaker 1: said one Democrat familiar with private conversations who was granted
Speaker 1: anonymity to speak candidly, because we here at Politico have
Speaker 1: no idea what we're doing. She gave them three weeks
Speaker 1: of the easy way. It was about to be the
Speaker 1: hard way. Again. I don't claim prescients on these things.
Speaker 1: I called for him at the last possible moment to
Speaker 1: leave the presidential slot on the ticket last Friday, because
Speaker 1: if he didn't, they'd go public this week. And here
Speaker 1: it is. Oh, by the way, polling, you say. When
Speaker 1: the campaign commissioned new battleground polling over the last week,
Speaker 1: it was the first time they had done surveys in
Speaker 1: some key states in more than two months. According to
Speaker 1: people familiar with the surveys, that's the old what is
Speaker 1: that thing growing on my arm? Whatever you do, don't
Speaker 1: get it checked out. And the numbers were grim, showing
Speaker 1: Biden not just trailing in all six critical swing states,
Speaker 1: but collapsing in places like Virginia and New Mexico where
Speaker 1: Democrats had not planned on needing to spend massive resources
Speaker 1: to win. Well, that's now over with, and the big winners,
Speaker 1: of course are the pollsters, because now we're going to
Speaker 1: need a whole new set of polls, particularly in the
Speaker 1: swing states, where as I pointed out, last week one
Speaker 1: of the groups pushing to get Joe Biden to stand down,
Speaker 1: as he did, and we will build statues to him
Speaker 1: for doing this, and I will talk about this later
Speaker 1: in the week, in particular about the future of Joe
Speaker 1: Biden as the elder statesman of the Democratic Party in
Speaker 1: a way that might have been achieved by Franklin Delano
Speaker 1: Roosevelt if he had lived. One of those surveys suggested
Speaker 1: that the swing in the Swing States to the generic
Speaker 1: younger qualified Democrat could be from down five and a
Speaker 1: half to plus seven and change, almost a thirteen point swing.
Speaker 1: It will not be that much, because, as we pointed
Speaker 1: out before, the generic invisible Democrat or the generic invisible
Speaker 1: Republican always does better than the real life ones. Still,
Speaker 1: how much do you need it to swing in the
Speaker 1: Swing States? Half a point victory in the Swing States
Speaker 1: would be a blowout. Also, after all this, you know
Speaker 1: who else has endorsed the Vice president from her candidacy
Speaker 1: for the first getting the Democratic nomination and then for
Speaker 1: President the United States. Oh, look at this, Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi endorsed here too. What a shot. The best part,
Speaker 1: the best part of all of this, the third best
Speaker 1: part of this a part of the whole. Oh, now
Speaker 1: we have a chance of saving democracy. And hey, guess what,
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris is the other candidate. That means Trump is
Speaker 1: now old, owns all the old and the too old
Speaker 1: and the too crazy. And Trump now owns all the
Speaker 1: parsing of his words. And suddenly all of these experts
Speaker 1: on unintelligible presidential candidates will have to cover Trump and
Speaker 1: he's old, old, old and crazy. But besides that, the
Speaker 1: Republicans have fulfilled the old joke about the dog catching
Speaker 1: the car. What are you gonna do now? Well, Trump
Speaker 1: has his standard answer already. He wants to talk to
Speaker 1: the Manager of Elections and he's going to sue him.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to do this because he says so,
Speaker 1: because he's a psychopath and he's a hitler. So we
Speaker 1: are forced to spend time and money on fighting Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: He pulls badly after having a terrible debate and quits
Speaker 1: the race. Now we have to start all over again.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud? And that
Speaker 1: everybody around Joe, including his doctors in the fake news media,
Speaker 1: knew he was not capable of running for or being president.
Speaker 1: Just asking question mark number one. If you're saying, just
Speaker 1: asking the question mark renders it meaningless. Secondly, I have
Speaker 1: some change here somewhere. Wait here we go. There's fifty
Speaker 1: cents that reimburses you for all the money you spent
Speaker 1: on your clothes. He wants reimbursement. Who do you want
Speaker 1: the reimbursement from? Shit haes? Who is it you're expecting
Speaker 1: the reimbursement from. Oh wait, you're gonna sue. You're gonna
Speaker 1: sue the Republicans. You're gonna sue Jesus. You're gonna sue Biden.
Speaker 1: You're gonna sue each state. You're gonna sue, sue studio?
Speaker 1: What are you going too? Who are you going to sue?
Speaker 1: The best part of this is Trump had moments of lucidity.
Speaker 1: They're gone now. Somehow he really didn't think Biden would
Speaker 1: step aside, and certainly he had no plan in the
Speaker 1: event this actually happened. Now you can argue that he's
Speaker 1: had no plan since about nineteen ninety and he's just
Speaker 1: been making this crap up as he goes along, And
Speaker 1: unlike most of us who try to live that way,
Speaker 1: he's just hit it correctly by accident. And then one
Speaker 1: day you run out of good accidents, and that day
Speaker 1: was Sunday. My debate with Crooked Joe Biden, the worst
Speaker 1: President in the history of the United States, was slated
Speaker 1: to be broadcast on fake news ABC, the Home of
Speaker 1: George and he's misspelled Stephanopolis sometime in September. Now that
Speaker 1: Joe has not surprisingly quit the race, but you're suing
Speaker 1: to stop him from quitting the brace. You want money
Speaker 1: for this. I think the debate with whomever the radical
Speaker 1: left Democrats choose should be held on Fox News rather
Speaker 1: than very biased ABC. Thank you, Sure, we'll move it.
Speaker 1: It's his way at bargaining out of the debate. He
Speaker 1: will not take the stage against Kamala Harris because if
Speaker 1: he took the stage against Kamala Harris, they would, at
Speaker 1: the end of the debate have to go out and
Speaker 1: collect Trump with spoons and a terreen fellon Republican Party
Speaker 1: prosecutor Democratic Party. Joe just got knocked out, So now
Speaker 1: I'll have to do it a fourth time. That the
Speaker 1: fourth time is that Egene Carroll Biden is the worse
Speaker 1: president by far in the history of our nation. He's
Speaker 1: done everything possible to destroy our country. A little bit
Speaker 1: of a national security with sharks, Hannibal elector annihilated an
Speaker 1: earth shattering debate. Now the corrupt radical throwing him overboard,
Speaker 1: not fit to serve. Whatever the left picks up now
Speaker 1: will be just moorake America great again. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: before it became obvious that it's going to be Harris.
Speaker 1: The Democrats pick a candidate, he loses the debate badly,
Speaker 1: then panics makes mistake after mistake, is told he can't win,
Speaker 1: and decide they'll pick another candidate, probably Harris. They stole
Speaker 1: the race from Biden after he wanted in the primaries
Speaker 1: of first These people are the real threat to democracy.
Speaker 1: The logical failures in this statement are so many that
Speaker 1: even though we're on the Internet, I literally do not
Speaker 1: have enough infinity to explain this to him. Plus he
Speaker 1: had already moved on. Who is running our country right now?
Speaker 1: It's not crooked Joe has no idea where he is.
Speaker 1: If he can't run for office, he can't run our country. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let me put it to you this way. Would
Speaker 1: you like to run against President Kamala Harris? I didn't
Speaker 1: think so. Genius. Biden never had COVID. He's a threat
Speaker 1: to democracy. Ooh, he caught threat to democracy disease? Did
Speaker 1: he tested positive for that? You know how you get
Speaker 1: rid of that? You shove bleach up your ass and
Speaker 1: a light. Trump tries it weekly. It's not over tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's going to wake up and forget that. He
Speaker 1: dropped out of the race today. Ha ha. Don made
Speaker 1: a funny. The Democrats guess what it is over? The
Speaker 1: Democrats pick a cand he loses the debate. Oh, I
Speaker 1: read that twice. I'm turning into Trump now, just watching
Speaker 1: the fake news and they're doing their very best to
Speaker 1: turn the worst president the history of our country into
Speaker 1: a brilliant and heroic leader. He was heroic because he quit. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was heroic because he quit. You might learn something
Speaker 1: from that if you had been capable of learning at
Speaker 1: any date later than say June first, nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: mister dementia. And to turn dumb as Iraq Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: once again. If she's dumb as I rock, you should
Speaker 1: be able to debate her on I don't know Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris TV and beat the hell out of her shouldn't
Speaker 1: you from a totally failed and insignificant vice president. Okay,
Speaker 1: you tried to kill your vice president. Any vice president
Speaker 1: who survived their term without the president trying to kill
Speaker 1: them is automatically not insignificant and not totally failed. Dondie. No,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't work that way. Yes it does. You're
Speaker 1: about to fight. Here's my advice. You have plenty of time.
Speaker 1: Now you're going to lose the election. Now, flee because
Speaker 1: if you don't flee, you're gonna die in prison. And
Speaker 1: here's a prediction. He's going to use a racial epithet
Speaker 1: about the future president of the United States before the
Speaker 1: end of the month, maybe the end of the week.
Speaker 1: Isn't he isn't the crazy old man yelling at the
Speaker 1: cloud and they are talking about suing. I swear to Jesus.
Speaker 1: Listen to Mike Johnson speaking of swearing at Jesus. Trump
Speaker 1: fobbed this. You can't change nominees even though the nomination
Speaker 1: isn't legal for another month. Nuisance suit. He's put this
Speaker 1: all on poor dumb speaker Mike Johnson, who also insists
Speaker 1: that if Joe Biden is going to leave the ticket,
Speaker 1: which they're not going to let him do by the
Speaker 1: lawsuits that he mentions at the beginning of this, he
Speaker 1: must resign the presidency, which they will force him to
Speaker 1: do because because because something about Hannibal elector Sharks. You said,
Speaker 1: you mean Seuer in all fifty states? What are you
Speaker 1: alleging at the breaking.
Speaker 2: I never said I was going to sueer. I said
Speaker 2: that we have fifty different systems in each of the
Speaker 2: states when it comes to presidential elections and choosing electors.
Speaker 1: And all the rest.
Speaker 2: And in some of the states there are impediments to
Speaker 2: just switching someone out like that, and I have suggested
Speaker 2: that the president should resign. The reason is if everyone
Speaker 2: acknowledges that he is incapable of running a campaign, then
Speaker 2: he's clearly incapable of running the country.
Speaker 1: I'd like to point out that if inability to run
Speaker 1: a campaign disqualifies you from being president, well, look, Trump
Speaker 1: became the first incumbent president to lose his campaign to
Speaker 1: keep the White House in twenty eight years, and he lost.
Speaker 1: We tend to forget this. He lost both of his
Speaker 1: at least two coups, and he lost the midterms in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, and they underperformed in the mid terms in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Trump is like one for six in campaigns.
Speaker 1: That makes him ineligible to be president, doesn't it Ah,
Speaker 1: But in terms of eligibility, Mike Johnson is an idiot.
Speaker 1: If Biden were to resign, retire, and Harris were to
Speaker 1: become president, well we know House Republicans will never approve
Speaker 1: a new vice president nominated via the twenty fifth Amendment.
Speaker 1: Less Trump Junior, So golly speaker Mike Johnson, who would
Speaker 1: be next in line to the presidency under President Harris
Speaker 1: if there's no VP. Wait, speaker Mike Johnson. That's Speaker
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson's name. Speaker Mike Johnson would be next in
Speaker 1: line under President Harris if there's no vice president. I mean,
Speaker 1: what a coincidence that is. And he's arguing for Biden
Speaker 1: to resign. What a shock. I know. I thought this
Speaker 1: was going to be Taylor Swift sue somebody, Mike sue
Speaker 1: sue studio. We're a little ragged today. I don't know
Speaker 1: if the show will end up being too long or
Speaker 1: too short, as I will explain in depth much later,
Speaker 1: and as you may have seen in social media, my
Speaker 1: beloved rescue dog Mine who turned seventeen, a week ago.
Speaker 1: Yesterday died on Sunday. It's never a happy story. This
Speaker 1: was happier than most. I'll tell it to you later,
Speaker 1: but forgive me for being a little all over the
Speaker 1: place and a couple of bloopers and mistakes. I called
Speaker 1: Trump something earlier in the show, and I don't even
Speaker 1: know what I said. Warren Bobert. I demand proof of
Speaker 1: low from Joe Biden today by five pm. He needs
Speaker 1: to get in front of some camera and discuss if
Speaker 1: he's aware that he's dropped out. Hiding is completely unacceptable. Listen, lady,
Speaker 1: don't get near the subject of videos of proof of life.
Speaker 1: Because the last video we saw of you in a
Speaker 1: theater in the dark, sitting next to some guy on
Speaker 1: the first date giving him the old five finger discount.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I understand you have the IQ of the
Speaker 1: printer that prints out my script. Maybe a little less,
Speaker 1: but certainly you should never mention videos or proof of
Speaker 1: life videos, or I demand ever again. Joe Biden is
Speaker 1: unfit to stand trial. Joe Biden is unfit to debate.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is unfit to run for reelection. But Joe
Speaker 1: Biden is fit to serve out the remainder of his ter.
Speaker 1: Make it make sense. I tried to Lauren Bobert, but
Speaker 1: you have the IQ of my printer on a good day.
Speaker 1: A few other notes. Sean Hannity also didn't see this coming.
Speaker 1: I mean, honest to god, these are the people who
Speaker 1: are running that half of the country, and they did
Speaker 1: not foresee the actual prospect after calling for Joe Biden
Speaker 1: to leave the campaign, of Joe Biden actually leaving the campaign.
Speaker 1: It's all so performative that they have built into their
Speaker 1: own minds the idea that none of it will ever happen,
Speaker 1: and therefore they can say anything because they know well.
Speaker 1: I know it was irresponsible and it started a war,
Speaker 1: but I didn't think anybody would actually do it. We're
Speaker 1: just entertainment here. Now it happens. Sean Hannity's Scotch squirted
Speaker 1: out his nose. Here's just one reason vote ashamed to
Speaker 1: detest Kamala Harris. Plays a bunch of clips of Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris laughing. Number one, it's a great laugh. Number two.
Speaker 1: It only dawned on me when I saw this. Trump
Speaker 1: doesn't laugh at all. He tries to get you to
Speaker 1: laugh at disabled people at foreigners, at people of color,
Speaker 1: at the people who harvest your food and cook it
Speaker 1: for you, the people who serve you at the West
Speaker 1: Moron Cowboy Bootstore in West Moron, Oklahoma. He likes to
Speaker 1: make fun of all of them. He likes you to laugh.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard him laugh? And by the way,
Speaker 1: name me another human who has not lost the ability
Speaker 1: to vocalize who does not laugh at all. Here's josh
Speaker 1: one reason voters seemed to detach Kamala Harrish. By the way, yes,
Speaker 1: my Sean had any impression for those of you who
Speaker 1: remember SportsCenter, is the same as my old Phil Rizuto impression.
Speaker 1: Fail razudo for the straw. And I'll defend the late
Speaker 1: Phil Risuto. The last time I saw him before he
Speaker 1: passed away, obviously, he was giving me points on how
Speaker 1: to crumple up the piece of paper at the end
Speaker 1: of the show and get a better grip, because Phil
Speaker 1: Risuto watched Countdown every night. And I had known Phil
Speaker 1: Rizzuto since nineteen sixty eight. And I said, Phil, you're
Speaker 1: a liberal, and he went, sh don't tell anybody. Also
Speaker 1: from Hannity, she wants to ban plastic straws. I love
Speaker 1: my plastic straws. I hate paper straws. You use straws
Speaker 1: with your whiskey. He's literally grasping at straws. The entire
Speaker 1: Republican Party is so destroyed by this. Everything was built
Speaker 1: on the idea they're running against Joe Biden. Joe Biden
Speaker 1: is old. Joe Biden is the only person in America
Speaker 1: older than Donald Trump. He may be the only person
Speaker 1: who's less capable in a public setting of guaranteeing that
Speaker 1: he's going to say what he intends to say. Then
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, And now all of a sudden, the field
Speaker 1: is cleared. There's nothing else standing out there propping Trump up.
Speaker 1: His crazy is on stage by itself. It's the hamlet
Speaker 1: of crazy in the soliloquy to be or Hannibal elector
Speaker 1: a couple of other items. Washington Post. Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 1: I'm saying this, not them, solicited a bribe in the
Speaker 1: form of a job from Trump. Independent presidential candidate Robert
Speaker 1: Woo Whoo. F. Kennedy Junior held talks this month with
Speaker 1: former President DONALDO. Trump about endorsing his campaign. Kennedy endorsing
Speaker 1: Trump's campaign, bad sentence Tructure Post and taking a job
Speaker 1: in a second Trump administration, that'll be the one in
Speaker 1: hell overseeing a portfolio of health and medical issues. Well,
Speaker 1: if there's anybody who's going to bring health and medical
Speaker 1: issues to this team, it's Trump and Kennedy. The discussions
Speaker 1: which began hours after the attempted assassination of Trump at
Speaker 1: a rally on July thirteenth. Hey, my running mate whose
Speaker 1: name I've forgotten, has disappeared. Uh, Trump's not dead. Call him.
Speaker 1: This did not result in an agreement, amid concerns in
Speaker 1: Trump's orbit about the complications of promising a job in
Speaker 1: exchange for a political endorsement when usually they just operate
Speaker 1: with money. Oh no, that's not in the post. I
Speaker 1: said that. All I will say to you is, I'm
Speaker 1: willing to talk to anybody from either political party who
Speaker 1: wants to talk about children's health and how to end
Speaker 1: the chronic disease epidemic, Kennedy said Monday in a bullshit statement.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I said that, to adding, the Trump has
Speaker 1: been more open to him than the Democratic National Committee.
Speaker 1: That's because the DNC recognizes you're crazy. You're committable, Bob,
Speaker 1: as an old friend of yours, honest to god, go
Speaker 1: into a voluntarily induced coma. You'll do the least damage
Speaker 1: that way, pop back up around November sixth. The rest
Speaker 1: will do you good. They've dellocated millions to try to
Speaker 1: disrupt my campaign. Yeah, and they just raised another three
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars since Sunday, So your campaign is going
Speaker 1: to get disrupted. Guess what has gotten buried by all
Speaker 1: of this stuff. Did you see the statement by ex
Speaker 1: doctor Ronnie Jackson about the bullet. We still do not
Speaker 1: have anything resembling confirmation that what hit Trump's ear and
Speaker 1: caused the loss of well over a tenth of an
Speaker 1: ounce of blood, that that was a bullet that grazed
Speaker 1: him miraculously instead of, you know, at least taking the
Speaker 1: ear off, possibly leaving some sort of trace, or if
Speaker 1: it really was a bullet even though there were no
Speaker 1: bullets around him and the four cops from Pittsburgh who
Speaker 1: were standing nearby just got hit by pieces of plastic.
Speaker 1: Josh Marshall noted something of importance which I think is
Speaker 1: as relevant as the fact that Trump is still lying
Speaker 1: about the bullet. Whatever the truth is he's not telling
Speaker 1: it could be there's a bullet, as I suggested, who
Speaker 1: knows maybe the bullet had a picture of Trump on it,
Speaker 1: Literally the bullet with your name on it, Josh Marshall noted,
Speaker 1: as I alluded to earlier, it was learned today that
Speaker 1: top decision makers at major news organizations seem to assume
Speaker 1: that Trump's bullet story is just his personal opinion, and
Speaker 1: they've been unwilling to ask for more information because they
Speaker 1: don't think it matters that much, and they fear that
Speaker 1: if they press for any details or some official word
Speaker 1: beyond what a Trump decided on his own, there'd be retribution.
Speaker 1: That's journalism. Well, we can't ask them about a basic
Speaker 1: element of human history. I mean, this is going to
Speaker 1: go in the books as an assassination attempt. It turns
Speaker 1: out he got hit in the ear with a really
Speaker 1: old piece of roll up bubble gum. Couple more. It's
Speaker 1: not over on election day, said Chris Losovita, who is
Speaker 1: essentially running or co running the Trump campaign, in an
Speaker 1: event at the convention. Remember the Republicans at the convention.
Speaker 1: Do you know they nominated the jd vance? Jd vance
Speaker 1: You ever seen the original version of the movie Be Dazzled?
Speaker 1: Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Peter cook sings a song
Speaker 1: with the priceless line you fill me with inertia jd Vance.
Speaker 1: Of all of these Republicans who are willing to say
Speaker 1: and do anything to get elected, they found somebody who
Speaker 1: was the dullest and least convincing of the apocalyptic preachers.
Speaker 1: I mean, Mike Johnson is an enthusiastic lunatic compared to this.
Speaker 1: I mean, check him for a pulse. He makes Mike
Speaker 1: Pence look like a male stripper. It's not over on
Speaker 1: election day, it's over on inauguration day, says Chris Lasovito.
Speaker 1: We're in conversation with politicost Jonathan Martin. Two things about this.
Speaker 1: It's not over on election day, it's over on inauguration day,
Speaker 1: COO twenty twenty five. Yes, we'll see about that one.
Speaker 1: Because there is one thing that is unavoidably clear at
Speaker 1: this point. The official in charge of certifying the electoral
Speaker 1: College results will be the Democratic president for camp president,
Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee for president, and the vice president of
Speaker 1: the United State States, and the President of the United States,
Speaker 1: and who might be the president elect. They would be
Speaker 1: the ones in charge of the what's the word military.
Speaker 1: By the way, the interview with Chris los Avito of
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign by Jonathan Martin Politico. This was conducted
Speaker 1: before Jonathan Martin went on BBC World News and each
Speaker 1: of his two earbuds popped out, one or another. First,
Speaker 1: I believe the left one just fell out in a
Speaker 1: close up, and then the right one. I tweeted it.
Speaker 1: It was like his brain farted twice and out popped
Speaker 1: his earbuds. I think they were earbuds that could have
Speaker 1: been brains. This question was raised, and it does explain
Speaker 1: an awful lot about the entirety of the Trump campaign
Speaker 1: since the day he came down that goddamned escalator. Is
Speaker 1: it possible someone asked that Trump just doesn't know that
Speaker 1: the word is si has two different meanings. Does this
Speaker 1: explain why he thinks political prisoners claiming asylum coming here
Speaker 1: from Venezuela are in fact from insane asylums. Well, it
Speaker 1: is the word asylum. It means just one thing. There's
Speaker 1: a law that says words can only mean one thing, right,
Speaker 1: That's why wind power only works when there's wind. So
Speaker 1: things are better than they were last week. I'm claiming
Speaker 1: no credit whatsoever for what happened, except for maybe knowing
Speaker 1: a little bit more of the timing than other people did.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry I couldn't say anything else, but the
Speaker 1: point of it was to wait till Biden was ready,
Speaker 1: and we did. And now everybody can go to work
Speaker 1: with a few hundred million dollars that we did not
Speaker 1: have on Sunday morning. And the last thing that I've
Speaker 1: heard repeatedly from friends of mine who are terrified not
Speaker 1: that Kamala Harris would make a great president, not that
Speaker 1: she is not completely qualified for the job, and for
Speaker 1: the race against Trump, for the electoral strains, for everything
Speaker 1: else involved in the process, but simply they're worried about America.
Speaker 1: We are misogynistic and we are racist, period. And I
Speaker 1: pointed out that the last four elections were president in
Speaker 1: this country twenty eight, twelve, sixteen, and twenty the following
Speaker 1: things happened. In the first one, we elected a president
Speaker 1: who was a man of color. In twenty twelve, we
Speaker 1: re elected him. Twenty sixteen, we did not win anything,
Speaker 1: and by we, I mean, you know, democracy and representative government.
Speaker 1: But what happened even in the worst of these and
Speaker 1: the most calamitous of them of all time, the woman
Speaker 1: candidate won the popular vote in this society of misogyny
Speaker 1: and racism. In the fourth of them, in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: the very same woman of color we're talking about was
Speaker 1: elected Vice President of the United States, defeating the ticket
Speaker 1: led by a racist incumbent and his vice president, the
Speaker 1: guy he wanted to hang. Now, assume nothing going forward.
Speaker 1: Lots of things could go wrong, lots of people who
Speaker 1: did not know which was left on their bodies and
Speaker 1: which was right. They have the vote, they found out
Speaker 1: how to vote. Assume nothing, but just rejoice. In terms
Speaker 1: of getting her into the White House, the last four
Speaker 1: elections suggest it can be done. Rejoice, excelsior. Also of
Speaker 1: interest here, we've only scratched the surface of the stupid
Speaker 1: things that people said about Biden withdrawing Trump. Sure, Mike Johnson,
Speaker 1: you betcha Hannity, of course, But there's also the worst
Speaker 1: persons in the world, and they are Brian Stelter, Olivia Newsy,
Speaker 1: Katie Turr, and Aaron Sorkin. Keith Olberman. This is your life,
Speaker 1: and I will tell you, as I've mentioned once already,
Speaker 1: the story of the passing of the wonderful pup Mene
Speaker 1: bless him. That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown,
Speaker 1: with Keith Olberman still ahead of us on this editiontive
Speaker 1: Countdown The Life and of Mine German Olberman, two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, twenty twenty four. Who would, if there were
Speaker 1: such a thing, hold world records for all forms of
Speaker 1: precision leaping over crosswalks stripes by any dog over the
Speaker 1: age of fifteen and under ten pounds in weight. Mine
Speaker 1: in Memoriam coming up first. There are still more idiots
Speaker 1: to talk about. They never stop, they never take a
Speaker 1: day off. The daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and
Speaker 1: dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in
Speaker 1: the world. So many to choose from. Unprecedented events bring
Speaker 1: out unprecedented stupidity, the bronze worse. Good old Aaron Sorkin.
Speaker 1: You may ask yourself, what's his newest TV series going
Speaker 1: to be about? Is it going to be about a
Speaker 1: former top sports camp and former top TV political commentator
Speaker 1: doing a podcast?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Is it going to be something else for my life?
Speaker 1: Because you know, using two aspects of my career might
Speaker 1: not be sufficient for one lifetime for Aaron and not
Speaker 1: paying me for the second one. When he said he
Speaker 1: was going to no, no, no. This is unrelated to me,
Speaker 1: though not unrelated to him. Saturday night Sunday morning, a
Speaker 1: Times op ed appears literally hours before President Biden with
Speaker 1: draws from the race. Aaron Sorkin, how I would script
Speaker 1: this moment for Biden and the Democrats. The first nine
Speaker 1: paragraphs are not about Joe Biden, nor about the Democrats.
Speaker 1: They are about well, I'll read you the opening paragraph.
Speaker 1: The Paley Center for Media just opened an exhibition celebrating
Speaker 1: the twenty fifth anniversary of The West Wing, the NBC
Speaker 1: series I wrote from nineteen nine sinety nine to two
Speaker 1: thousand and three. Some of the show's story points have
Speaker 1: become outdated in the last quarter century. The first five
Speaker 1: minutes of the first episode depended entirely on the audience
Speaker 1: being unfamiliar with the acronym potus, while others turned out
Speaker 1: to be well, not prescient, but sadly coincidental. In paragraph ten,
Speaker 1: at their convention next month, the Democrats should nominate met Romney,
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney. Hello, nominating mister Romney, continues mister Sorkin, if
Speaker 1: he did write, this would be putting our money where
Speaker 1: our mouth is, a clear and powerful demonstration that This
Speaker 1: election isn't about what our elections are usually about, but
Speaker 1: about stopping a deranged man from taking power. Surely mister Romney,
Speaker 1: who doesn't have to be introduced to voters, would peel
Speaker 1: off enough Republican voters to win, probably by a lot.
Speaker 1: It's the shelf life of mushrooms. I don't know this
Speaker 1: off the top of my head, and the day being
Speaker 1: what it's been, I haven't had a chance to research this.
Speaker 1: It's two thousand and one that they picked Aaron up
Speaker 1: with the mushrooms and his carry on bag on the flight.
Speaker 1: Was it to Vegas? Was it from Vegas? Did he
Speaker 1: know which? I don't know what to say about this
Speaker 1: idea of nominating Mitt Romney as the Democratic nominee when
Speaker 1: the Vice President of the United States is sitting there.
Speaker 1: And it's been clear all along that all of the
Speaker 1: double haters who Sorkin does refer to in his op ed,
Speaker 1: all of them were leaning towards Biden anyway, and that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, and we now understand the extent of the
Speaker 1: worries and the angst and the clenched teeth and turned
Speaker 1: stomachs with which even his most ardent supporters have been
Speaker 1: operating the last few months. Even under those circumstances, there
Speaker 1: were paths for Joe Biden to win election. So clearly
Speaker 1: the solution is not to take the vice president of
Speaker 1: the United States, who's been vice president of the United States,
Speaker 1: just in case something were to happen to the President
Speaker 1: of the United States. And here something has happened to
Speaker 1: the President of the United States. He's decided not to
Speaker 1: run for reelection. Who replaces him. It's too bad that
Speaker 1: the Constitution gives us no guidance on how a political
Speaker 1: party should do that, especially why it hasn't officially nominated
Speaker 1: anybody yet. He didn't steal this from Aaron Sorkin, did
Speaker 1: not steal this from me. He stole it from Mike Johnson,
Speaker 1: the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the latest
Speaker 1: Republican stooge wearing those no I'm straight glasses. All right,
Speaker 1: enough of this. I'd just like to point out once
Speaker 1: again that if you've ever seen The Newsroom, the pilot
Speaker 1: episode is play by play and in some cases word
Speaker 1: for word. What happened to me when Lawrence O'Donnell tried
Speaker 1: to take Countdown away from me while my dad was
Speaker 1: dying in early twenty ten, and if you think that
Speaker 1: was a problem, I had a friend who was a
Speaker 1: gossip columnist for The New York Post, and she showed
Speaker 1: me where emails that she had sent to Aaron Sorkin
Speaker 1: while they were dating wound up word for word in
Speaker 1: the script in the mouth of the gossip columnists in
Speaker 1: the Newsroom series. I just want to point one thing
Speaker 1: out about this. Unlike The Newsroom, unlike the previous series
Speaker 1: Sports Night, in which two characters based on me but
Speaker 1: both looked like Craig Kilbourne, he did not borrow this
Speaker 1: idea for me, thank god. I'd also like to emphasize,
Speaker 1: after reading this particular idea that it's ever more clear
Speaker 1: that the West Wings succeeded because of Marty Sheen and
Speaker 1: Brad Whitford and John Spencer, the late John Spencer and
Speaker 1: Janelle Maloney and Alison Janney and Richard Shift and all
Speaker 1: the rest in spite of Aaron Sorkin written entirely by
Speaker 1: Aaron Zorkin, except those parts written by somebody else. The
Speaker 1: runner's up a tie worser. Olivia Newsey of New York
Speaker 1: Magazine and Katie Terror of MSNBC start with Newsy first,
Speaker 1: although I believe she may be now pronouncing her name
Speaker 1: NUTSI or who knows, it's a Tuesday. It could be anything.
Speaker 1: By now. A decade ago, Olivia was the most promising
Speaker 1: young writer in political media, the most promising barely got
Speaker 1: out of high school, thrown out of two colleges, and
Speaker 1: ascended quickly through the ranks to New York Magazine, where
Speaker 1: she has been ever since and is now the world's
Speaker 1: youngest seventy five year old access journalist. For the first time,
Speaker 1: she has actually thought about what it is she is covering.
Speaker 1: This is a person who has gone into the White
Speaker 1: House and asked if Trump was there, and then sat
Speaker 1: down and interviewed him, and never asked him any of
Speaker 1: the questions of the day, but just reported on what
Speaker 1: his desk looked like, the definition of access journalism. But finally,
Speaker 1: with this issue of Biden leaving the ticket and the
Speaker 1: election that is upcoming, that is an existential struggle for survival,
Speaker 1: and the reality that I don't know, perhaps has dawned
Speaker 1: on her that they will put her in the camps
Speaker 1: with the rest of us too. No matter how glowingly
Speaker 1: she portrayed Trump's desk, she has for the first time
Speaker 1: thought beyond what a good sentence would look like here
Speaker 1: into the meaning of what she's covered, and she got
Speaker 1: it wrong. The Democratic Party told its voters that they
Speaker 1: could not be trusted to select the nominee when they
Speaker 1: effectively shut down their primary process. Now they're installing the
Speaker 1: new nominee. American voters happened to like Democracy Ivred Dixon backlash.
Speaker 1: Another tweet from the moments right after the big event,
Speaker 1: and if you really have let your idea of what
Speaker 1: reality looks like outside of Washington, d C. If your
Speaker 1: big goal in life is to get mentioned in the
Speaker 1: spotted at portions of the Politico playbook, if your goal
Speaker 1: in life is to get a six part video interview
Speaker 1: series for Bloomberg Online, and one of the guests is
Speaker 1: Eric Adams, who could walk into any station in this
Speaker 1: city and offer himself live to anchor the six o'clock news,
Speaker 1: and all the news directors would go, no, dude, we
Speaker 1: want viewers. We don't want them to go away. If
Speaker 1: that's your goal, the idea should be that if there
Speaker 1: is a big event, shut up, wait twenty four hours
Speaker 1: before you write anything, because you're going to write something
Speaker 1: as stupid as the Democratic Party told its voters that
Speaker 1: they couldnot be trusted to select a nominee when they
Speaker 1: effectively shut down their primary process. They didn't, that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen, And there were other candidates and they
Speaker 1: got the crap kicked out of them. And in one
Speaker 1: case where Biden wasn't on the ballot, he still won
Speaker 1: by right. INDs Now they are installing a new nominee.
Speaker 1: Well they aren't, because the current one stepped away from
Speaker 1: the nomination before he was nominated. American voters happen to
Speaker 1: like democracy. Well, you work in Washington. How on the
Speaker 1: hell would you know that? How would anything you've written
Speaker 1: in the last ten years suggest you know anything about that?
Speaker 1: I predict some backlash. The other tweet read the big
Speaker 1: lesson here bullying works. Oh good god. It's the president
Speaker 1: of the United States. For months and months, people have
Speaker 1: been asking him nicely if he perhaps is not calibrated
Speaker 1: correctly to assess where or not he is healthy enough
Speaker 1: to run for president, or more importantly, to get re
Speaker 1: elected president under these circumstances. And finally, over the weekend,
Speaker 1: he decided, you know what, all of these people are
Speaker 1: probably right. If it's a billion to one. They're probably
Speaker 1: right and I'm wrong. That's not bullying, that's common sense.
Speaker 1: They're going to build a statue to Joe Biden. If
Speaker 1: there's a statue to Olivia Newsy, it will be the
Speaker 1: Scales of Injustice or giant what Aboutism statue. She still
Speaker 1: writes an okay sentence. She has no clue where she is.
Speaker 1: She is on her way to becoming the Chris Solisza
Speaker 1: of Ryan Lizza's of Olivia Newzy's. Oh and by the way,
Speaker 1: that reminds me she has a book coming up with
Speaker 1: her fiance Ryan Liza on Trump. It'll be coming out
Speaker 1: soon in the year twenty twenty. She's tied with Katie Turr.
Speaker 1: That's a coincidence. Someone wrote on Twitter yesterday that actor
Speaker 1: Katie Turr asked this would have been yesterday whether Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris was the kind of person voters would want to
Speaker 1: have a beer with. I'm never watching MSNBC again. I
Speaker 1: want a president who weren't turning our country into a
Speaker 1: fascist Healscape. I'm not looking for a barstool partner. Apart
Speaker 1: from the fact that that question by Urr is right
Speaker 1: out of the two thousand and two thousand and four
Speaker 1: presidential elections, and she hasn't figured it out since then.
Speaker 1: Apart from the stupidity of the question, let's see, the
Speaker 1: entire world is on fire, But would you want to
Speaker 1: have a beer with Kamala Harris? You know what, Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris is a wicked sense of humor and does impersonations
Speaker 1: of senators. I would like to have a beer with
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. How's that for an answer, Katie. Apart from that, though,
Speaker 1: as a political barometer, whether or not you'd like to
Speaker 1: have a beer with that candidate or the candidate would
Speaker 1: like to have a beer with you is particularly irrelevant
Speaker 1: and stupid because Donald Trump, for all the other things
Speaker 1: he does, does not drink. I mean, we're beginning to
Speaker 1: get reason to believe, with the constant references to Hannibal Lecter,
Speaker 1: that there's a small chance that Donald Trump has eaten
Speaker 1: human flash at some point in his life. He keeps
Speaker 1: talking about it, and yet even knowing that is a
Speaker 1: small possibility, and I'm saying one one millionth of one
Speaker 1: percent chance that he's been a cannibal. That he calls
Speaker 1: him good Old or the late great Hannibal Lecter, that
Speaker 1: there's a reason for that, somewhere in that mice or
Speaker 1: loose they got out of the wheel inside his brain.
Speaker 1: Brain of his just accepting that as a one to
Speaker 1: one millionth of a percent possibility, Donald Trump cannibalism. Even then,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump does not drink. He cannot have a beer
Speaker 1: with you. I will again ask, plead that Katie Turr
Speaker 1: withdraw from the twenty twenty four presidential campaign. Wherever there's
Speaker 1: still somebody who has top these three nominees, our winner,
Speaker 1: the gold medalist, Brian Stelter network whereabouts unknown, no one,
Speaker 1: not Terr, not Solissa, not Liza. Without this, not Newsy,
Speaker 1: not Nutsy, not Nuzzy could have written this literally, I
Speaker 1: believe twelve minutes after Biden with Drew. I expected that
Speaker 1: Biden with pathide, but I never imagined that he would
Speaker 1: do it by a paper statement on a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 1: Does this timing and format make anyfense. Brian kind of
Speaker 1: got ratioed on this. And here's the issue, President of
Speaker 1: the United States becoming an eternal hero with one decision. Yes,
Speaker 1: it took him months to do it. He had to
Speaker 1: listen to a lot of arguments. He was stubborn, He
Speaker 1: was the stubborn Joe Biden. Many of us have, oh
Speaker 1: had a beer with just a coincidence. He was all
Speaker 1: that and yet finally he did the right thing, didn't he?
Speaker 1: But not for Brian Stelter, because he didn't do it correctly.
Speaker 1: He didn't fill out the right forms. He didn't hold
Speaker 1: the news conference, he didn't say, Hey, Kamala, would you
Speaker 1: get be Brian Stelter on the phone. I'd like to
Speaker 1: give him an exclusive. Well, I'll tell you after I'd
Speaker 1: tell him, no, no, just get Stelter on the phone.
Speaker 1: He'll know what it's about. Oh my good god. What
Speaker 1: sense of this timing and format could there be for
Speaker 1: an eighty one year old president who was just decided
Speaker 1: to make himself a lame duck and retire when all
Speaker 1: he ever wanted to be was president and he believes
Speaker 1: in his heart he could be re elected president. What
Speaker 1: sense could there be an eighty one year old president
Speaker 1: with COVID choosing not to fulfill Brian's fantasies and hold
Speaker 1: a news conference or to do a live interviewer, do a video,
Speaker 1: but to continue to rest and in the notes say
Speaker 1: I will address the nation later in the week. Oh
Speaker 1: and by the way, doing it the way he did
Speaker 1: it protected the story from leaks. Was there one leak
Speaker 1: that he was going to announce it today five minutes
Speaker 1: from now Biden is composing the tweet as we speak. No,
Speaker 1: it was the most given the degree of difficulty and
Speaker 1: the number of people certain was going to happen, it
Speaker 1: was the most protected story in the world. Who said
Speaker 1: Sunday morning, He's going to announce he's leaving the ticket
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon. Who said it? NOONSA nobody said it. There
Speaker 1: is a chance that when I asked him to do
Speaker 1: it on Friday, and I was waiting till the last
Speaker 1: possible minute, I can tell you that I might have
Speaker 1: come closest and I didn't come close at all. I
Speaker 1: was off by two days. Joe Biden not only did this,
Speaker 1: not only did this for his party, not only did
Speaker 1: this for democracy, not only did this for the nation,
Speaker 1: not only did this for the future of the planet,
Speaker 1: but he kept the story under seal all this time.
Speaker 1: Does this timing and format make any sense? The most
Speaker 1: sense of anything that's happened in Washington in like eight years,
Speaker 1: and you're complaining about it. Brian Stelter bs the initial
Speaker 1: say it all who peeked in the year two thousand
Speaker 1: and five two days ah, worse person done the word.
Speaker 1: I told you at the start of this episode that
Speaker 1: this one would be particularly ragged, more so than usual.
Speaker 1: More or so then is the selling point of the series.
Speaker 1: And I told you why my pack of dogs is
Speaker 1: down to three again. Menee died on Sunday afternoon at
Speaker 1: about five fifteen pm natural causes. He was seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: and his story is extraordinary, and I wanted to tell
Speaker 1: it to you because I only know the last two years,
Speaker 1: at about two months of it. I have joked previously,
Speaker 1: but contained within that joke is a very sincere thought.
Speaker 1: I would pay sometimes, I say, five thousand dollars, ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, one hundred thousand dollars to see a full
Speaker 1: length documentary program about the first fifteen years of Mene
Speaker 1: Germain Olderman's life. I know he was born in New
Speaker 1: York on July fifteenth, two thousand and seven, and that
Speaker 1: you help me celebrate his seven teenth birthday just a
Speaker 1: week and a day ago. And until I encountered him
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, I knew nothing of him, and
Speaker 1: all the records, all the anecdotes, almost all of the
Speaker 1: verbal stories are gone because his human got sick and
Speaker 1: sicker and began to lose much of her cognitive function
Speaker 1: and declined, and one day went to the hospital and
Speaker 1: did not come back, and had made no arrangements for
Speaker 1: what was to happen to Mene and other dogs. She
Speaker 1: had at least two Malteses. We don't know what happened
Speaker 1: to them. I've heard stories that suggested they were left
Speaker 1: to fend for their own in an apartment for a while. Happily,
Speaker 1: I know that the neighbor and a former student of
Speaker 1: messer Man who taught French, a man named Keith Peterson,
Speaker 1: came across Menee and knew of Mine from the neighborhood
Speaker 1: and from his teacher, and knew she had gone away,
Speaker 1: and wondered what happened to the dogs, and he began
Speaker 1: to feed them, and he was prepared in the summer
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two to adopt me Nee, and then
Speaker 1: something changed in his life and he was going to
Speaker 1: be traveling once a month or so, perhaps more often,
Speaker 1: and the whole premise fell through. In addition to the
Speaker 1: fact that he recognized that Mine was not well. Something
Speaker 1: had happened to him. He kept bumping into things, he
Speaker 1: didn't walk correctly, His back looked a little crooked. It
Speaker 1: looked like something bad had happened to him neurologically, and
Speaker 1: he did not know what would be next or if
Speaker 1: he could care for Menee. So he went looking for
Speaker 1: an organization that might take care of malteses. There must
Speaker 1: be some sort of Maltese rescue association. Well there are
Speaker 1: two of them. One, the one I would recommend to
Speaker 1: you is American Maltese Association Rescue. It is run by
Speaker 1: a dear friend of mine named Sue Levitt, and we
Speaker 1: take care of Maltese's. That's where I got my little
Speaker 1: boy Ted, who had a very bad heart and was
Speaker 1: not really believed to be a likely candidate to last
Speaker 1: ten months. And Ted just turned six years old. And
Speaker 1: where we got Mishu, whose story I've told you before,
Speaker 1: who had tetrology of fullow, a disease barely treatable in
Speaker 1: large dogs, let alone four or five pound malteses. And
Speaker 1: he had a brilliant, happy brief life. And he died
Speaker 1: in my arms at five and a half months old.
Speaker 1: And that happened in November of twenty twenty one, which
Speaker 1: is when I discovered I could handle four dogs at
Speaker 1: the same time. And again I didn't have a dog
Speaker 1: in my life until twenty twelve. I didn't know when
Speaker 1: I broke up with my girlfriend in twenty fifteen if
Speaker 1: I could take care of two dogs by myself, And
Speaker 1: suddenly I had four, including one who was a hospice puppy.
Speaker 1: So after that, I was offered by the people who
Speaker 1: had bred Mishu one of his brothers from a later litter,
Speaker 1: and they came in here and they were monsters. Mishu
Speaker 1: was a wonderful dog who liked to start fights, had
Speaker 1: no energy, couldn't really oxygen eight He couldn't. He could
Speaker 1: breathe fine, he just could not. Once the oxygen got
Speaker 1: into his bloodstream, he could not pass it anywhere around
Speaker 1: his body or insufficiently. So he would start fights and
Speaker 1: then sit back and watch the other dogs fight. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, he also was communal. He brought the
Speaker 1: dogs together literally and figuratively. He was a lovely boy,
Speaker 1: and he just didn't live very long. But I was
Speaker 1: offered his brothers, and his brothers had all the strength
Speaker 1: in the world, and they were like something out of
Speaker 1: a horror film. They could climb up walls. The first
Speaker 1: one bit me, bit each of the other dogs, then
Speaker 1: came back and bit us all in the genitals. The
Speaker 1: next one was trouble. He was able to climb up
Speaker 1: out of his cage. He had the most beautiful marbles,
Speaker 1: like blue eyes I've ever seen on a dog, and
Speaker 1: he was a sign killer. These two dogs later found
Speaker 1: homes in which they were either the only male or
Speaker 1: the only dog, and they have had happy lives ever since.
Speaker 1: They did not have the same heart disease that felled
Speaker 1: poor Michho. In any event, After Mishu's passing, and after
Speaker 1: the failed two weeks with Kubush and Snowy, Mishu's brothers,
Speaker 1: there were three of us again here in the household,
Speaker 1: three dogs and me. They're human. And one day my
Speaker 1: friend Sue Levitt texted me and said, we've got a
Speaker 1: terrible case. We had a woman in Hell's kitchen and
Speaker 1: she died in her eighties and she didn't take care
Speaker 1: of the dogs. And there's one dog left, and I mean,
Speaker 1: he's fourteen, and he has dementia and he has bad teeth,
Speaker 1: and who's going to adopt that, and I sent back
Speaker 1: the raised hand emoji. Because you know, as I've said previously,
Speaker 1: you don't know till you have a dog. That the
Speaker 1: answer to the question what is the meaning of life?
Speaker 1: Is not fully answered by the word dogs, but it's
Speaker 1: partially answered by that word. One of the reasons of life,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons for life, one of the reasons
Speaker 1: for putting up with life, one of the reasons for
Speaker 1: putting up with other humans is dogs. And honestly, the
Speaker 1: only thing I can think of in the column of
Speaker 1: what's good about mankind is we've lots of us taken
Speaker 1: care of dogs and other pets too. Other than that,
Speaker 1: I don't know what purpose we have. Other than that,
Speaker 1: I don't know what good, what net good, we have
Speaker 1: done this planet, or where we would fit into some
Speaker 1: sort of scheme, whether it is intentional, created or accidental.
Speaker 1: The through line to all the theories about why we
Speaker 1: are on Earth, from atheism to the most pure religious
Speaker 1: doctrinaire theories, all have this one through line. As the
Speaker 1: Great Bill Hicks said, people suck. I can prove it
Speaker 1: on an etche sketch. In any event, I'm andering on
Speaker 1: this to try to avoid the topic of poor Mine.
Speaker 1: So I raised my hand and the warning was mine
Speaker 1: is not going to interact with you. Something happened to him.
Speaker 1: He has dementia. He really doesn't know where he is.
Speaker 1: He's okay outside, but he's really confused. His human went
Speaker 1: away after fourteen nearly fifteen years, and he doesn't know
Speaker 1: what happened to her. And Maltese is particularly attached to
Speaker 1: one human for life, and if something happens to that human,
Speaker 1: something will happen to the Maltese. So came a day
Speaker 1: in June of twenty twenty two when Keith Peterson brought Mine.
Speaker 1: And it's a French name, m I n et. It
Speaker 1: means kitty in French colloquial French, Mine is kitty. And
Speaker 1: as I said, right then, this must have led to
Speaker 1: extraordinary confusion in his first fifteen years. Something else to
Speaker 1: put in the documentary. Me Nay and Keith Peterson and
Speaker 1: I met up outside one of the entryways into Central
Speaker 1: Park and I picked me May up and sat him
Speaker 1: on my lap and noticed two things. One was his
Speaker 1: teeth smelled from a distance from feet they were so
Speaker 1: bad away from feet away, his teeth smelled. He was
Speaker 1: a thin dog but not scary thin. He just was very,
Speaker 1: very wiry, and he was standing there on my lap,
Speaker 1: and he decided he didn't want to do that anymore,
Speaker 1: so he leaped to the pavement. And I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: let's not leave him up in places where he can leap,
Speaker 1: because he doesn't have any idea when not to leap,
Speaker 1: which proved to be another through line in his existence.
Speaker 1: So fingers crossed and hoping to improve his lot. For
Speaker 1: however many months or years he had left in came
Speaker 1: me nay to join the rest of my pupps. They
Speaker 1: really didn't know what to make of him. They didn't
Speaker 1: interact much. Mine did a lot of sleeping. He was,
Speaker 1: after all, a month shy of his fifteenth birthday and
Speaker 1: not in good health, and the rest of the time
Speaker 1: was heartbreaking. Minee walked around the house always, this could
Speaker 1: be said of him. He did his steps, and he
Speaker 1: hydrated a lot. He must have walked every day a
Speaker 1: mile or two miles indoors, and sadly, when he got here,
Speaker 1: you could have traced the pattern, having watched him do
Speaker 1: it once or twice, exactly where he would walk in
Speaker 1: my apartment, where he would bump into walls, and it
Speaker 1: became pretty evident to me that he was retracing the
Speaker 1: steps at Madame Germain's house, that he could not adjust
Speaker 1: to a new apartment. He could not adjust to new walls.
Speaker 1: The other dogs, well, there were other dogs, but they
Speaker 1: weren't the right dogs. And then there was the smell
Speaker 1: of his teeth. My vett came to look at him,
Speaker 1: and Minee slept a lot and didn't really interact. He
Speaker 1: ate pretty well, He ate okay, And then my vet
Speaker 1: came in and said, I'm looking at his teeth and
Speaker 1: some of these teeth are in such bad shape that
Speaker 1: I'm afraid they will begin to infect his airways. There's
Speaker 1: no sign of this spreading. His heart is great. His
Speaker 1: heart is extraordinary for a fourteen fifteen year old dog.
Speaker 1: It would be a good heart for a six year
Speaker 1: old dog or a six month old dog. He's got
Speaker 1: a strong ticker. He's going to live a while, but
Speaker 1: these teeth will kill him if you don't do something
Speaker 1: about it. I think you need to get a hold
Speaker 1: to day of the veterinary dentists, the dental experts at
Speaker 1: the Animal Medical Center. In the interim, I think I
Speaker 1: can take a few of these teeth out right now
Speaker 1: with a little topical and maybe just my fingers. I've
Speaker 1: been through a lot with my dogs, and I've been
Speaker 1: surprised at how much I have been willing to be
Speaker 1: there for them, and they have been in excruciating pain
Speaker 1: or fear. This is the only time in twelve years
Speaker 1: with dogs that I had to leave the room. The
Speaker 1: noises Minee made when he had barely spoken before, when
Speaker 1: he never barked, howls of incredible pain and fear. And
Speaker 1: she only took out three or four of the teeth
Speaker 1: that were literally loose to the touch. So she stopped
Speaker 1: after I think six, and then we went into the
Speaker 1: animal medical center and all his teeth were removed. I
Speaker 1: had my other dogs checked. Some of them lost half
Speaker 1: of their teeth. My little girl Rose had no symptoms
Speaker 1: of it, but she had advanced periodontal disease. She was
Speaker 1: very sick. She was about to have be in the
Speaker 1: same situation mine was. Without symptoms, it would have happened overnight.
Speaker 1: We took out half of her teeth, she woke up
Speaker 1: from the anesthesia, all of her allergies disappeared. Within weeks,
Speaker 1: her curvy puppy figure was back and she was eight
Speaker 1: years old. I went into my dentist and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I need to be about twenty percent smarter. Can you
Speaker 1: pull some of my teeth out? And the guy goes,
Speaker 1: I've got very bad news for you. You have an
Speaker 1: absolutely clean checkup, and I said, this is the first
Speaker 1: one since nineteen sixty eight. Sorry. Menay, having had all
Speaker 1: of his teeth removed, woke up from the anesthesia, came
Speaker 1: home to my house, fell asleep, woke up again. Now
Speaker 1: it's about eight ten, twelve hours after we got him
Speaker 1: back from the hospital, and he got up, left the
Speaker 1: little bed in my bedroom next to my bed, and
Speaker 1: wandered out and came over and started to stare at
Speaker 1: me like who the hell are you? Or, since I
Speaker 1: always envisioned him speaking in a French accent, who the
Speaker 1: hell are you? And he looked at the other dogs,
Speaker 1: like who the hell are you? Where am I? And
Speaker 1: where did these other dogs come from? It was instantaneous.
Speaker 1: Did not have dementia. He might have had a little
Speaker 1: He was the equivalent then of a ninety five year
Speaker 1: old man. He might have been a little slow. I
Speaker 1: know this hasn't been a topic anywhere in public discourse,
Speaker 1: lately he might have been a little slow, but the
Speaker 1: problem he had was he had these terrible teeth, and
Speaker 1: the moment they were out and the blood stopped, which
Speaker 1: was pretty quick, he started to get younger. And I
Speaker 1: mean he started to get younger every day. He was
Speaker 1: a little sharper, a little bit more interactive, still on
Speaker 1: his own, still sleeping sixteen eighteen hours a day in
Speaker 1: a bed that I found for him by accident, that
Speaker 1: he treated like the womb. He would curl up in
Speaker 1: there and the blissfulness of his sleeping experience made me jealous.
Speaker 1: And then I took him out for the first time
Speaker 1: because my last experience with him was he jumped off
Speaker 1: onto the hard pavement outside Central Park. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he's a good walker. His serenity upon hearing the
Speaker 1: sounds of New York City is indescribable. A look would
Speaker 1: come across his face. And whereas indoors, he didn't really
Speaker 1: particularly like you picking him up or holding him, and
Speaker 1: he certainly didn't like a vet prying at his teeth
Speaker 1: or anything like that. If you wanted to pick him
Speaker 1: up and sit him on your lap, as long as
Speaker 1: you were on a park bench, he was the happiest
Speaker 1: creature on this earth. He'd walk with you for two hours,
Speaker 1: he'd sit with you for two hours. If you were
Speaker 1: walking him with another dog, he would immediately sink up
Speaker 1: with that dog's pace. If it was just you and him,
Speaker 1: he would sync up with your pace. I swear there
Speaker 1: were times when I had not stopped or slowed down,
Speaker 1: and he was slowing down because he knew I was
Speaker 1: going to And gradually through that winter and into the
Speaker 1: spring of twenty twenty three, he got more and more interactive,
Speaker 1: one tenth of one percent every day, and finally came
Speaker 1: the day when we went for a walk, and he
Speaker 1: would sometimes walk with me and my number one girl, Stevie,
Speaker 1: when we would walk over to the Animal Medical Center
Speaker 1: about forty forty five minutes. He'd walk just for the walk.
Speaker 1: Perfect companion dog. Other dogs walk to pee or to poop.
Speaker 1: Mine walked to walk and to walk with you or
Speaker 1: walk with another dog. An extraordinary creature. And finally, not
Speaker 1: long after his sixteenth birthday last year, the most extraordinary
Speaker 1: thing I have ever experienced with my dogs, and the
Speaker 1: first time Stevie ever relieved herself on a walk. It
Speaker 1: was under a marquee that read Fox News, and I
Speaker 1: picked her up and said, I will always love you.
Speaker 1: So I've seen some extraordinary things, even though I only
Speaker 1: have twelve years in the world of dog. The most
Speaker 1: extraordinary thing I ever saw began sometime in the late
Speaker 1: summer last year, maybe about this time, right after mine
Speaker 1: turned sixteen. I saw it briefly out of the corner
Speaker 1: of my eye and didn't believe what I'd seen. The
Speaker 1: stripes on the New York City streets are crosswalks. They're
Speaker 1: almost a barber pole effect, usually white on the black
Speaker 1: tarmac surface, and sometimes the stripes are two three inches thick.
Speaker 1: And Menae was seeing them with his one really good
Speaker 1: eye and leaping over them. Consider this for a second.
Speaker 1: Mine had been a year before unable to negotiate his
Speaker 1: way around a new apartment, half because of vision problems,
Speaker 1: half because of neurological problems that were in fact dental problems,
Speaker 1: almost one hundred percent, and now he was, for some reason,
Speaker 1: leaping in the air. I thought he was sick. I
Speaker 1: thought there was some new neurological problem. And then he
Speaker 1: did it again on a different stripe, and then he
Speaker 1: did it again up onto a curb, and then we
Speaker 1: went out on a walk, and he did it ten times,
Speaker 1: and I began to hear people laughing behind me, and
Speaker 1: getting over my natural paranoia, thinking what's on the back
Speaker 1: of my pants? I realized people who were not expecting
Speaker 1: this were seeing this tiny, skinny, eight pound dog who
Speaker 1: sometimes had to wear a sweater in the summer, jumping
Speaker 1: up in the air, sometimes reaching I would say, ten
Speaker 1: inches off the ground. Last October, I ordered God help
Speaker 1: me a selfie stick. I wanted to see from his
Speaker 1: level what in the hell he was doing, and try
Speaker 1: to figure out why. I put the selfie stick and
Speaker 1: put the phone on it, hung it down at his level,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I shot in slow motion and sometimes in
Speaker 1: full speed, and I recorded me nay, and I saw
Speaker 1: something even more startling. There was no question that this
Speaker 1: was premeditated and intention and he was enjoying it because
Speaker 1: after each jump, he would locate the camera and look
Speaker 1: at it and stare it down like James Hardened the
Speaker 1: basketball player backing away after a successful shot. What do
Speaker 1: you think of that? Pal Mena, of course, without any teeth,
Speaker 1: had a tongue that hung out of his mouth, adding
Speaker 1: to his extraordinary cuteness, and this leaping ability, which got
Speaker 1: better and better the more he tried it, and it
Speaker 1: was clear he must have done it before. You don't
Speaker 1: suddenly after years of neurological problems decide to start becoming
Speaker 1: an Olympic jumper at sixteen, at the equivalent of ninety
Speaker 1: five now as a dog as a human years he
Speaker 1: would do this forty or fifty times on a trip,
Speaker 1: sometimes when there were no white stripes, when we weren't
Speaker 1: crossing anything, When we were in the park, he to
Speaker 1: jump over the grooves in the pavement. And I discovered
Speaker 1: from the videos and from careful analysis that he had
Speaker 1: three different jumps. He had your standard I'm running and
Speaker 1: moving fast, and I'm using my own propulsion to just
Speaker 1: spring upwards and then down and stick the landing by
Speaker 1: the way each time. And he had another one where
Speaker 1: he knew he was going up onto a curb and
Speaker 1: he angled himself. His launch angle, baseball fans was about
Speaker 1: five percent higher. And then he introduced the third one,
Speaker 1: the standing jump. He'd be walking across the street and
Speaker 1: stop and see how far he could go without any momentum.
Speaker 1: He did this all of last winter. As spring approached,
Speaker 1: it became evident he was beginning to slow down a
Speaker 1: little bit of his own accord as his seventeenth birthday neared,
Speaker 1: and he didn't do as many jumps at first. His
Speaker 1: extraordinary longevity and his extraordinary stamina on walks continued. If
Speaker 1: we wanted to go to two hours in the park, sure,
Speaker 1: maybe you could give me a left gone up the hill.
Speaker 1: That was his only problem. And the leaps became fewer
Speaker 1: and farther between, and sometimes a little shorter, And sometimes
Speaker 1: when he wasn't quite in the mood, he'd just do
Speaker 1: a little hop. He'd just clear it, basically to say, yeh,
Speaker 1: I can still do this, and then on he'd go.
Speaker 1: The most extraordinary thing I have ever seen with a dog,
Speaker 1: and I saw Stevie poop under the Fox News sign
Speaker 1: me nay. We had him examined neurologically in March, just
Speaker 1: to see if there was something to make whatever time
Speaker 1: he had left more enjoyable easier to get through. Because
Speaker 1: he bumped into things. He was beginning to lose control,
Speaker 1: and he'd never had full control of his limbs, which
Speaker 1: made these jumps even more extraordinary. It's not quite he
Speaker 1: got up out of a wheelchair and did these leaps,
Speaker 1: but neurologically speaking, it was almost like that the neurologist
Speaker 1: had no explanation for this other than he liked it,
Speaker 1: a very good reason to keep doing it. But he
Speaker 1: would bump into things, and we thought, well, maybe there's
Speaker 1: something that would help him, and there wasn't. But they
Speaker 1: did determine. They were confident that at some point in
Speaker 1: the past he'd actually had a stroke. So he had
Speaker 1: a little dementia and a stroke, and he was an
Speaker 1: Olympic level hurdler and leaper. He began to bump into
Speaker 1: things a lot more in the last few months, and
Speaker 1: I thought, what do I do about this? Well, I'm
Speaker 1: the only person, I think, in the city of New
Speaker 1: York whose walls are baby proofed at a height of
Speaker 1: about four inches or so. They worked wonderfully. Now when
Speaker 1: he would bump into a wall, instead of maybe getting
Speaker 1: a concussion, he would just bounce into some rubber far
Speaker 1: In fact, he learned how too, when he didn't have
Speaker 1: full control of his legs, guide himself along by putting
Speaker 1: his head intentionally against the rubber foam and just kind
Speaker 1: of pushing. He ate like a horse without teeth. He
Speaker 1: loved the soft meals that I got for him, and
Speaker 1: he thrived on them. And he would still eat the
Speaker 1: hard treats that he liked. The kibble, and often he
Speaker 1: would take a piece of kibble and put it in
Speaker 1: the water bowl, let it soak for a while, and
Speaker 1: come back for it later and suck on it like
Speaker 1: a cough drop. Dementia, my ass, it's one of the
Speaker 1: smartest beings I have ever met in my life. I
Speaker 1: don't think I was honest with myself about how mine
Speaker 1: began to slow down. Early in the summer. We didn't
Speaker 1: get to walk that much because we went directly from
Speaker 1: spring into hell. This year in New York. As I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've experienced too, it got really warm, really fast.
Speaker 1: He didn't like really warm, and he didn't like really cold. Well. Hell,
Speaker 1: he was basically one hundred years old now, and as
Speaker 1: his seventeenth birthday approached, it began to be evident that
Speaker 1: he was slowing down a little bit. I had to
Speaker 1: carry him a little bit more. There were occasionally hops,
Speaker 1: but mostly it was just a good forty minute walk.
Speaker 1: Was a delight for him. We had one last Thursday.
Speaker 1: It didn't end that well. He seemed to be having
Speaker 1: real trouble controlling his back legs. Of course, when I
Speaker 1: got him home, the back legs had gotten stiff and
Speaker 1: he was kind of folding over them. I got him home,
Speaker 1: he was fine. He walked around the house for two hours,
Speaker 1: but he didn't eat that night, and he didn't eat Friday,
Speaker 1: and he was listless. I will say this for him.
Speaker 1: In the last four or five months, he had suddenly
Speaker 1: uniformly accepted all of us. Where he was always hanging
Speaker 1: back in my bedroom in his little womblike bed, now
Speaker 1: he would greet me with the other dogs at the
Speaker 1: front door when I came home. He would often give
Speaker 1: me a kiss with that big hanging out tongue of his.
Speaker 1: And in the last few months particularly, he stopped living
Speaker 1: in the bedroom and would often just stagger out into
Speaker 1: the living room where the dogs and I were working.
Speaker 1: I was working the dogs, really weren't I have to
Speaker 1: confess that he would come out, come over and give
Speaker 1: me a kiss on the ankle. If I wanted to
Speaker 1: pick him up and he wanted to be picked up,
Speaker 1: he'd come and sit with us for a while, and
Speaker 1: then he'd sort of motion like he wanted to get
Speaker 1: down back on the floor and he'd go over to
Speaker 1: his bed in the living room and sleep out here
Speaker 1: with us for eight hours, just out of a sense
Speaker 1: of community. So he was still doing that and then
Speaker 1: wandering back in to sleep on the floor next to
Speaker 1: the bed because obviously I couldn't keep him in the
Speaker 1: bed with the other dogs and me. He tended to
Speaker 1: fall off things like that, no matter how good a
Speaker 1: jumper you are, you're not a good job, or if
Speaker 1: you don't know you're about to jump. And then last
Speaker 1: Thursday he wasn't really eating, and last Friday he was
Speaker 1: very listless, and I took him in my arms and
Speaker 1: I went outside and sat on the balcony and had
Speaker 1: a long conversation with him, and I said, you're just
Speaker 1: wearing out. And the feeling I got back was yeah,
Speaker 1: but I have some time. He didn't urinate at all,
Speaker 1: and this was one of his major hobbies. He tried
Speaker 1: so hard. He had been so good at the pad,
Speaker 1: and he tried so hard, and I think he thought
Speaker 1: he was doing real well. Unfortunately, his definition of what
Speaker 1: the pad was became a little broader than it should
Speaker 1: have been. Any soft surface became the pad. But he
Speaker 1: wasn't peeing. He didn't pee Friday, and he didn't eat.
Speaker 1: And you don't have to be a twelve year dog
Speaker 1: owner or a one year dog owner to know if
Speaker 1: your dog stops eating and he's old, he's checking out.
Speaker 1: And so I envisioned this Friday night, having just celebrated
Speaker 1: his seventeenth birthday, an extraordinary accomplishment for any dog, but
Speaker 1: particularly wanted out a stroke and neurological problems, and was
Speaker 1: nearly starved to death. At some point, I think he's
Speaker 1: done a great job. We'll let him go. We don't
Speaker 1: have to do anything about it. He'll go on his own,
Speaker 1: particularly if he's not eating. And then Saturday morning he
Speaker 1: had getting up out of bed because he was still sleeping.
Speaker 1: He called to me a couple of times to come
Speaker 1: out and just hold him for a little bit, and
Speaker 1: he had a surprisingly high little bark. His I'm hungry
Speaker 1: bark was very French. His hello was a puppy, a
Speaker 1: high pitched puppy bar. He barked and got up to
Speaker 1: greet me, and he fell over and wriggled like a
Speaker 1: dead bug on the floor for about a minute. It
Speaker 1: was a miniature seizure, and given his neurological history, I
Speaker 1: actually thought it was good news. Because it suggested maybe
Speaker 1: there was something to fix here. Maybe it wasn't just
Speaker 1: placidly saying okay, time you know it. I know it.
Speaker 1: Took him into the Animal medical center, took him, at
Speaker 1: the advice of all the people I know over there,
Speaker 1: into the emergency room. Treated wonderfully. They said, he's low
Speaker 1: on fluids. We can do this much for him. Leave
Speaker 1: him here overnight, we'll assess in the morning, we'll get
Speaker 1: him fluids. We'll get him a little shunt here and
Speaker 1: get in take his blood work and see how his
Speaker 1: kidneys are doing. Because he had kidney problems his whole life,
Speaker 1: apparently anecdotally, that's in the documentary. They won't let me
Speaker 1: see about him kidding. Sunday morning, I got a phone
Speaker 1: call saying he'd had a good night. Nothing had changed.
Speaker 1: He wasn't any better, he wasn't any worse. He was alert.
Speaker 1: An hour later I got a call from the internal
Speaker 1: medicine people who had taken over his case from the
Speaker 1: emergency room. They said, no, he's not. Things have not
Speaker 1: gone well. His kidney values are down to zero, his
Speaker 1: temperature is down, he's developed a heart murmur, and his
Speaker 1: heart was his strongest organ. He's not really responding, he's
Speaker 1: not standing on his own. You ought to consider this
Speaker 1: is the end, and you may want to hasten the end,
Speaker 1: because there's no evidence it hurts. But if your organs
Speaker 1: are going to start shutting down, it may begin to
Speaker 1: hurt fairly soon and in very very unpleasant ways, in
Speaker 1: addition to the fear and the shock and the confusion.
Speaker 1: And so I made the decision to do that. Sunday afternoon,
Speaker 1: I went over, picked him up and thought, well, it's
Speaker 1: not like there's a rush here or anything. What is
Speaker 1: it he likes most in the world outdoors in the
Speaker 1: city near the Animal Medical Center is the fifty ninth
Speaker 1: Street Bridge, or for you out of towners, the Edward
Speaker 1: and Kotch Bridge Queensboro. We don't even like to call
Speaker 1: it the Queensboro Bridge. That's for people in Queens US manhattanites,
Speaker 1: we call it the fifty ninth Street Bridge. There's a song,
Speaker 1: the fifty ninth Street song, fifty ninth Bridge strong song.
Speaker 1: So we went and sat in the new park that
Speaker 1: they built in some I don't know, I think abandoned
Speaker 1: exit from the FDR drive, and the breeze was perfect.
Speaker 1: It was a little warm, but the breeze was perfect
Speaker 1: in me nay, barely able to raise his head, sat
Speaker 1: there and took little SIPs of water from water that
Speaker 1: I put on his tongue with my finger, and he
Speaker 1: would stretch, stretching like he was asleep and just stretching,
Speaker 1: getting comfortable and sitting there with me and communing. Supposed
Speaker 1: to be there. I think my plan was, I guess
Speaker 1: half an hour or an hour and then take him
Speaker 1: inside and give him the medication that would end his life. Well,
Speaker 1: we were there three and a half hours. Again, what's
Speaker 1: the rush there is? I will say this for any
Speaker 1: dog owner who worries about their dog, and I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say owner, anybody owned by a dog who worries about
Speaker 1: their dog. There is an extraordinary liberation to a time
Speaker 1: like that. Make it three and a half hours. Take
Speaker 1: him out of the hospital. What's the difference. Give him
Speaker 1: a cigarette. You're not going to hurt him, That's what
Speaker 1: I said. They said, Well, if he begins to have it,
Speaker 1: he has another seizure, bring him back. I was like, why,
Speaker 1: what's gonna harm him? We want him to die painlessly.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm concerned about. Is he in pain? Doesn't
Speaker 1: look like it. So we sat out there for three
Speaker 1: and a half hour and it was a period of
Speaker 1: time with no fear or anxiety or stress or how
Speaker 1: can I screw this up? And he seemed to enjoy
Speaker 1: it too. The breeze was wonderful. He always loved the
Speaker 1: breeze in New York City. And the sounds of the
Speaker 1: FDR drive and the river and the bridge and the
Speaker 1: tram going overhead. My god. And then I reached put
Speaker 1: some water on his tongue and he didn't really respond
Speaker 1: to it. And he hadn't stretched in probably twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five minutes. A couple of birds flew by, and I thought,
Speaker 1: it's time the rest of it. If you've ever been
Speaker 1: through it fairly routine, me nay, good to the last drop,
Speaker 1: gets the injection and one last convinced moment. But he
Speaker 1: was at the peapad. He peed on my pants. I
Speaker 1: actually smiled. He broke the tension. A wax philosophical at
Speaker 1: a later time about the value of adopting for being
Speaker 1: adopted by a geriatric dog not just a senior dog,
Speaker 1: but a senior dog is okay too, But a dog
Speaker 1: that needs a home nothing like it. A wax philosophical
Speaker 1: and poetic about that at some future time, spare me
Speaker 1: doing it now. I will give him credit for extraordinary timing.
Speaker 1: I got to seventeen. Anything else you need, all right,
Speaker 1: check please mine. Jermaine Oberman, July fifteenth, two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven to July twenty first, twenty twenty four. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. I've done all the damage I can do here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and
Speaker 1: John Phillip Shaneil arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Speaker 1: Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums. Mister Chanelle
Speaker 1: handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
Speaker 1: Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged
Speaker 1: and performed by the group No Horns Allowed to music
Speaker 1: is the Old Woman theme from ESPN two, written by
Speaker 1: Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN, Inc. If we ever
Speaker 1: run sports again, talk to me about it in November.
Speaker 1: Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Faust,
Speaker 1: the best baseball stadium organist ever. My announcer today is
Speaker 1: my friend Dennis Leary. Everything else was pretty much my
Speaker 1: fault and everything else was dedicated to me. Nay, that's
Speaker 1: countdown with this the one hundred and sixth day until
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four presidential election, the two hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety third day since convicted Feldon Donald Trump's first attempted
Speaker 1: coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Speaker 1: Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the mental health system.
Speaker 1: You've got it, mister president. Use presidential immunity to stop
Speaker 1: the crazy old man from doing it again while we
Speaker 1: still can, while you still can. And Republicans, please stop
Speaker 1: shooting at Trump. By the way, I will never be
Speaker 1: not convinced that mine stuck around to hear that President
Speaker 1: Biden had made the courageous decision that he'd made. For
Speaker 1: all I know, mine caused it. Look, come over here,
Speaker 1: you can jump with me. The next schedule countdown is tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Bulletins as the news requires. Until then, I'm Keith Aldreraman.
Speaker 1: Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
Speaker 1: Keith Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
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