Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Is
Speaker 1: there a way we can get Trump involuntarily committed to
Speaker 1: a psychiatric institution. No, Seriously, I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1: I suspect the answer is no. Not even after the
Speaker 1: video he put out in which he proudly covers America
Speaker 1: in shit from the air, which he thought was some
Speaker 1: kind of flex as opposed to being the confirmation of
Speaker 1: everything that was being protested at No Kings. This AI
Speaker 1: video of him and the jet which defines Trump as president,
Speaker 1: as leader, as father, as human being, sort of a
Speaker 1: shit show with a crown, and he has to wear
Speaker 1: an oxygen mask, and the magas are standing below as
Speaker 1: it rains down upon them, just hoping to catch some
Speaker 1: of it, maybe with their mouths. Trump shitting on America
Speaker 1: the only thing he is good at. And in the
Speaker 1: limited coverage it gets in the media, they have sanitized
Speaker 1: it for your protection, literally in the New York Times,
Speaker 1: not referencing what it was flying out of the airplane.
Speaker 1: In Trump's Freudian video, in his confession in the climax
Speaker 1: of his life on this earth. After that, let me
Speaker 1: say it all again. Trump is insane and unchecked. He
Speaker 1: is going to kill us all because nothing matters to
Speaker 1: him but him, and nothing about him matters to him. Besides,
Speaker 1: what is happening right this moment. He's insane, he's psychopathic,
Speaker 1: he's murderous, he's mass murderous. He's a terrorist, he's vile,
Speaker 1: he's deranged, he's damaged, he's dysfunctional. He's on top of
Speaker 1: everything else. There he is discharging his inner self all
Speaker 1: over New York and all the No Kings protesters and
Speaker 1: all over all of America. And my final thought was,
Speaker 1: if that AI video were real and he really got
Speaker 1: rid of all that shit, what what would he be
Speaker 1: left to think with? So is there a way we
Speaker 1: can get Trump involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it's probably a slippery slope anyway, certainly is after
Speaker 1: that video. But in a scenario in which Trump does
Speaker 1: that promulgates that thinks that is the response after America
Speaker 1: holds its largest political protest since Earth Day in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: when the best estimate now seven million of US took
Speaker 1: to the streets at No Kings, with no violence, no terrorists,
Speaker 1: no anti americanism, no arrests in New York, no arrests
Speaker 1: in Chicago, one arrest in Los Angeles, a handful in Denver.
Speaker 1: Complementary posts from the heads of the police department in
Speaker 1: the key cities. After that call and response No Kings
Speaker 1: followed by no shit, we have to explore all options. Now,
Speaker 1: is there a way we can get Trump involuntarily committed
Speaker 1: to a psychiatric institution, because frankly, if we bid him out,
Speaker 1: we could make billions. The man is insane. If he
Speaker 1: had not been insane before putting out that video, if
Speaker 1: he had been healed at Lord's Saturday morning and then
Speaker 1: he put that video out, it would be clear he
Speaker 1: had gone insane a second time. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: he was better this morning. Say now he's re insane. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: No Kings gets no coverage from the political cognizanti. By
Speaker 1: midday yesterday, the entirety of the protest was just hanging
Speaker 1: on to a tiny spot on the front page of
Speaker 1: The New York Times and other publications and other websites,
Speaker 1: saved in most cases by being most shared on most sites,
Speaker 1: which still is not a clue. Even Trump responded to
Speaker 1: No Kings and the majority of newspapers and news organizations
Speaker 1: failed to do so sufficiently. It was not just the
Speaker 1: lead story yesterday and should be today. It should be
Speaker 1: the only story. It is America grabbing all of that
Speaker 1: from the AI video and shoving it back up Trump's ass.
Speaker 1: In the New York Times, No Kings was just barely
Speaker 1: ahead of police break up Lego theft ring recovering hundreds
Speaker 1: of beheaded figurines. The story was dwarfed by Times analysis
Speaker 1: of how the Democrats are flailing. It's twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: and Democrats are still running against Trump. Then there's a
Speaker 1: story about Trump commuting the sentence of George Santos, because
Speaker 1: that's entirely a normal thing. Then a Democratic mayor who
Speaker 1: thinks cities are handling Trump wrought not one piece about
Speaker 1: It's twenty twenty five and the New York Times ownership
Speaker 1: is still terrified of Trump and carrying water for him
Speaker 1: or something else of a liquid nature for him, and
Speaker 1: not realizing we live on a precipice because of him. Democrats.
Speaker 1: I don't know strike that Americans organized and conducted the
Speaker 1: largest political protest in this country in fifty five years
Speaker 1: without one significant negative moment, but the anti Trump message
Speaker 1: bores American news media. It bores the New York Times
Speaker 1: because there are the times Trump isn't dropping ai shit
Speaker 1: storms on them. They live in the Hamptons. The case
Speaker 1: was dismissed. The Washington Post underplayed it. They even took
Speaker 1: Trump almost entirely out of the story of Marco Rubio's
Speaker 1: promise quote to betray informants to get Trump's prison deal
Speaker 1: with l Salvador to secure US access to President Nayabucl's
Speaker 1: notorious Seacot prison, Rubio agreed to turn over several ms
Speaker 1: thirteen leaders central to a long running Justice Department investigation.
Speaker 1: You know, they did the moral equivalent of shoe ing
Speaker 1: prisoners who had just surrendered. And it was all Rubio,
Speaker 1: not Trump. That was Rubio's idea. That's why he's in
Speaker 1: the headline Trump's prison deal all. But it's all Rubio.
Speaker 1: I'm not defending Marco Rubio here. Marco Rubio is the
Speaker 1: stuff that came out of Trump's plane. But it's Trump's plane. Politico,
Speaker 1: which is also the stuff that comes out of Trump's plane,
Speaker 1: didn't even mention no Kings in its daily newsletter headline
Speaker 1: round Up yesterday, never mind not mentioning Trump's shit jet.
Speaker 1: Confess you thought I had been finished using the four
Speaker 1: letter version of this, hadn't you As disgusting as that
Speaker 1: video was, It is, in fact, the greatest thing Trump
Speaker 1: has ever done in a way I am sitting here
Speaker 1: applauding him. It is greater than all the other accomplishments
Speaker 1: of his life. His thorough corruption of the government, his
Speaker 1: opening of a Pandora's box, which turned out to be
Speaker 1: full of millions of other Pandora's boxes, His greasy, chintzy,
Speaker 1: falling apart apartment buildings, his ludicrous personal appearance, his eternal
Speaker 1: peace in the Middle East that has already fallen apart.
Speaker 1: His crimes, his craft, his grift, his Espionage Act violations,
Speaker 1: his liability for assaults, his convictions, his makeup, his hot
Speaker 1: and cold running lying. Of all the things Trump has
Speaker 1: ever done, nothing has ever been greater than that video.
Speaker 1: It is the embodiment of the last decade in America.
Speaker 1: It is Donald Trump's America. It is Donald Trump. And
Speaker 1: he is so crazy. He posted that video himself, thinking
Speaker 1: the video expressed some kind of triumph. He's not just crazy,
Speaker 1: He's he's that shit crazy. He in fact is something
Speaker 1: new to this earth. He is, as the video showed,
Speaker 1: he is Trump shit crazy. You may have noticed the
Speaker 1: scratch in my voice and a little cough earlier. I'm sick,
Speaker 1: So what you're hearing now is the last of what
Speaker 1: I've been able to concentrate long enough on to write.
Speaker 1: I can talk with some discomfort, but that's my problem,
Speaker 1: not yours. The writing not so much. So let's enjoy
Speaker 1: instead the adventure of me ad libbing my way through
Speaker 1: the other headlines and through an entire second segment devoted
Speaker 1: to one story rather than worse persons, but going through
Speaker 1: all this with slightly less than a clear head. Fasten
Speaker 1: your seat belts, and if you look out the left
Speaker 1: window of the Trump shit jet, you'll see why it's JD.
Speaker 1: Vance in the vice presidential mini shit copter. The other
Speaker 1: thing about that video is that it represents in its
Speaker 1: own way Trump's policy on the quote narco terrorists quote
Speaker 1: and the kinetic strikes unquote by the Secretary of brill
Speaker 1: Cream taking place off Venezuela in the Caribbean. As the
Speaker 1: news story reads, the US released the two survivors of
Speaker 1: Thursday's military strike on a suspected drug vessel. Thank you
Speaker 1: for putting in suspected. Half of the media in the
Speaker 1: world just says, oh, yes, that has to have been
Speaker 1: narco terrorist because there's no evidence one way or the other.
Speaker 1: And why would the President of the United States lie
Speaker 1: about that. It's a minute that ends in a number.
Speaker 1: That's why the two survivors were released to their home countries,
Speaker 1: Ecuador and Colombia. President of Colombia says US government officials,
Speaker 1: this is a separate strike. Have committed a murder and
Speaker 1: violated our sovereignty in territorial waters. Fisherman Alejandro Caranza had
Speaker 1: no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity
Speaker 1: was fishing. The Colombian boat was a drift and had
Speaker 1: its distress signal up due to an engine failure. The
Speaker 1: president of Columbia, who we of course threw out of
Speaker 1: the country because he dared to criticize Trump at the
Speaker 1: UN even though we don't own the UN. Sorry we
Speaker 1: threw him out, He now says Trump murdered Alejandro Caranza.
Speaker 1: The US government murdered Alejandro Caranza, and that in fact
Speaker 1: the boat was sitting there having had engine failure. It
Speaker 1: was literally a sitting duck. It was even a more
Speaker 1: innocent target than we have previously presumed. I mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: the idea of shooting prisoners who have just surrendered on
Speaker 1: the battlefield. This is the next step beyond that sitting
Speaker 1: there engine failure kill them. The New Republic added this.
Speaker 1: The other day. President Trump announced that he had bombed
Speaker 1: yet another boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
Speaker 1: He's now struck six twenty seven dead bombings widely denounced
Speaker 1: as illegal, probably because they are. New York Times reports
Speaker 1: the head of the military Southern Command, Alvin Holsey, is
Speaker 1: stepping down amid unclear circumstances. Not Admiral Halsey, but Alvin Holsey.
Speaker 1: You would think we would want to retain somebody whose
Speaker 1: name was that close to Halsey's. Meanwhile, much of this
Speaker 1: country continues to believe that Trump almost saved Ukraine. Oh,
Speaker 1: he came so close, We almost saved Ukraine. And then
Speaker 1: he changed his mind almost Maybe next time.
Speaker 2: It's a.
Speaker 1: Stall. It has been nothing but a stall. The whole
Speaker 1: thing has been a performance, dating back to the session
Speaker 1: in the Oval office, with the media there and JD.
Speaker 1: Vance trying to act tough as they browbeat Zelenski and
Speaker 1: Zelensky to his credit did not kick Trump in the balls.
Speaker 1: It's a stall. He has tried every different angle to
Speaker 1: buy Putin another couple of weeks because Trump is Putin's whore.
Speaker 1: I'll repeat that for those in the back. Trump is
Speaker 1: Putin's whore. And apparently somehow Putin waded through Trump's brown liquid,
Speaker 1: as the New York Times would call it, and got
Speaker 1: through to him with this message. Just keep doing different
Speaker 1: things that make it look like you're about to force
Speaker 1: me to do something else. This time it was Tomahawk missiles.
Speaker 1: In a phone call last week with Trump, Russian President
Speaker 1: Putin demanded Kiev surrender control of the Dunetsk region as
Speaker 1: a condition to ending the war in Ukraine. This is
Speaker 1: according to the Washington Post. During the Friday meeting with Zelensky,
Speaker 1: Steve Whitkoff, the forty two IQ guy that Trump has
Speaker 1: decided is the Middle East envoy reportedly pressed the Ukraine
Speaker 1: delegation about seeding Donetsk, and Trump is to meet with
Speaker 1: Putin in Hungary in the coming weeks. I will have
Speaker 1: a nightly prayer vigil that they all stay in Hungary forever.
Speaker 1: So the theory here is Trump was going to give
Speaker 1: Zelensky tomahawks instead, he's going to give Putin Dunnetsk. But
Speaker 1: he almost did it. Let's give him a Nobel Peace
Speaker 1: Prize for almost doing the right thing as opposed to
Speaker 1: the completely wrong thing. Because it's Trump. And if the
Speaker 1: world does not end because of something he's done and
Speaker 1: the sun rises in the morning, well that was restraint.
Speaker 1: The fellow on CNN Van Jones is about to say
Speaker 1: that this is the day Trump became president. Another report
Speaker 1: from the Washington Post, Putin got his relationship with Trump
Speaker 1: back on tracking one phone call. I'll bet he did,
Speaker 1: dashing the prospect of the US imminently granting long range messing.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. It was the latest swing, writes Robin
Speaker 1: Dixon of the Washington Post in Trump's back and forth
Speaker 1: positions on the Russian Ukraine War that often changed following
Speaker 1: contact with Putin. No, it wasn't, Robin Dixon. It's an act.
Speaker 1: It's a stall for Putin. My god, I am a
Speaker 1: semi retired former SportsCenter anchor and the one time field
Speaker 1: reporter for the Nicket Night nineteen eighty six celebrity retired
Speaker 1: TV star Golf Open, and even I can figure this out,
Speaker 1: and it seems as if not one political or governmental
Speaker 1: writer in this country can figure it out. Just me
Speaker 1: so to the media experts, to the expert experts who
Speaker 1: believed Trump was coming around this time on Ukraine, even
Speaker 1: though each previous time you thought that now he was
Speaker 1: just stalling as Putin's horror, Oh, it turned out this time,
Speaker 1: Oh he was just stalling. What was he doing last time?
Speaker 1: Just stalling? What will he be doing next time? Oh,
Speaker 1: he might be seriously negotiating. He's going to put pressure
Speaker 1: in Putin this time, one hundred and forty seventh time.
Speaker 1: Is the charm to all of you who still think
Speaker 1: that this is not a stall, He is not Putin's whore,
Speaker 1: and you did not just fall for it again, go
Speaker 1: f yourselves and quit your jobs. I don't feel well,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to end with the funnies at least
Speaker 1: this segment before we move on to one long telling
Speaker 1: of one really really weird story involving somebody trying to
Speaker 1: go from the sports world to the political world, who
Speaker 1: I've discussed before, talking about a phony, talking about fooling people.
Speaker 1: I do want to end this segment with a couple
Speaker 1: of laughs. I have a delightful audio clip to play
Speaker 1: for you. And you might not have seen this because
Speaker 1: it's from the mayor's debate here in Fun City, the
Speaker 1: New York mayoralty debate Zoran mom Donnie who is leading
Speaker 1: in double figures in the worst of his polls over Cuomo,
Speaker 1: and Curtis Sliwa, who took off his hat. And apparently
Speaker 1: all this time Curtis's problem was his little red beret
Speaker 1: was on too tight because once the circulation started going
Speaker 1: in his brain again, Curtis bless him dunked on Andrew
Speaker 1: Cuomo owned him dunked. The subject is standing up to
Speaker 1: Trump demanding money or allowing ice in, or any of
Speaker 1: the other demands that Trump will make of the Mayor
Speaker 1: of New York, including Cuomo, who he has in his
Speaker 1: back pocket. Trump this is has a prosecution of Cuomo
Speaker 1: in his back pocket, but he would never ever pressure
Speaker 1: Cuomo into doing what he wanted rather than what's good
Speaker 1: for the city of New York. And Curtis Sliwa, on
Speaker 1: this topic, picked up what Mario Cuomo's son said and
Speaker 1: stuffed it down his throat. This is one of the
Speaker 1: great political sound bites of all time. Listen carefully and
Speaker 1: listen carefully for one guy in the back, adding the
Speaker 1: bond mo at the very end, I give you Curtis
Speaker 1: Sliwa when he's not wearing the hat that's cutting down
Speaker 1: his circulation in his brain. I said to him, don't
Speaker 1: you dare, We don't need it.
Speaker 3: And he backed down and he will again, so that
Speaker 3: proves a good religit. Wait, the president is going to
Speaker 3: back down.
Speaker 1: To you, angew Cuomo.
Speaker 3: I know, yeah, you think you're the toughest guy.
Speaker 1: But let me tell you something.
Speaker 3: You lost your own primary, right, you were rejected by
Speaker 3: your Democrat. You have a difficult understanding what the term
Speaker 3: don't is. You're not gonna stand up to John Can.
Speaker 1: I agree with Curtis Here, Cuomo is thinking, to paraphrase
Speaker 1: Bart Simpson. Now Slee was scoring off me. Oh that
Speaker 1: is it. My god, you lost your own primary. You
Speaker 1: don't know the meaning of the word no, Oh, my god.
Speaker 1: Curtis Slee was authenticity cartoon character to politician in a suit.
Speaker 1: Absolutely validated by that one remark. He's now just an
Speaker 1: unsuccessful candidate for mayor. He's not a clown. There can
Speaker 1: be growth in old age, I'm hopeful. And what makes
Speaker 1: mom Danny a great and intuitive politician who will rise
Speaker 1: as far as his place of birth will permit him,
Speaker 1: because he was not technically born in this country and
Speaker 1: kind not run for higher office. Although I haven't checked
Speaker 1: the Constitution since I came in here to record this,
Speaker 1: maybe that's changed so Milania can be the Trump successor.
Speaker 1: I had forgotten about somebody trying that. What makes mom
Speaker 1: Donnie a great intuitive politician is if you heard his
Speaker 1: voice in there, he said only I agree with Curtis.
Speaker 1: He got out of the way. If mom Donnie had
Speaker 1: said that about Sliwa something similar, Cuomo would have tried
Speaker 1: to come in and bigfooted and claim the moment for
Speaker 1: his own. I think Sliwa would have done the same
Speaker 1: if mom Donni had said that, or Cuomo had said
Speaker 1: that about Mam Donni. But Mam Donnie's political skill, the
Speaker 1: unteachable political skill that has put him in this position
Speaker 1: at this age, with this level of experience, and with
Speaker 1: the gigantic baggage that he's carrying. Even in New York.
Speaker 1: Some of the stuff he's carrying to the Mayor's office
Speaker 1: to Gracie mansion is a little heavy, and people are going, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know about that, but listen to him, he's actually
Speaker 1: gonna do the job. The sense that he's going to
Speaker 1: do the job is an intuitive political skill that is
Speaker 1: summed up by the fact that as this car wreck
Speaker 1: is happening to Cuomo courtesy of Sliwa, he stands in
Speaker 1: the back and simply says, with a big smile on
Speaker 1: his face, I agree with Curtis, and then you can
Speaker 1: see him buttoning his lip or putting the zipper across
Speaker 1: his lips. He is an intuitive political genius. Lastly, it
Speaker 1: let me circle back to no Kings because I should
Speaker 1: cover it twice since everybody else covered it. Nuns my
Speaker 1: favorite two signs, well, probably about twenty signs, all of
Speaker 1: them the same way, the same phrase, one of them
Speaker 1: in a street sign somebody was carrying no Foe king
Speaker 1: way once again, words to live by. And then the
Speaker 1: last one. And I think this should be printed up
Speaker 1: on a T shirt given to every Democratic congressman and senator.
Speaker 1: I'm beginning to see little glimmers of hope in Jeffreys.
Speaker 1: Maybe he will take this advice and print this up
Speaker 1: and give it to every member of the Democratic House Caucus,
Speaker 1: because there's nothing much else for him to do at
Speaker 1: the moment, maybe even once in a while. I think
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer would do this. Chuck Schumer wouldn't do this.
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer would do this. Somebody in Chuck Schumer's office
Speaker 1: might do this. Somebody in Chuck Schumer's Office's grandson might
Speaker 1: do this. There is a new expansion of the acronym
Speaker 1: GOP that showed up on a sign at one of
Speaker 1: the No Kings protests GOP Guardians of the Pedophiles. Oh, oh,
Speaker 1: I want every Democrat in the House wearing that on
Speaker 1: a T shirt by Thursday. I shouldn't have tried that, Okay,
Speaker 1: As I said off the cuff here, I do want
Speaker 1: to talk about something very curious that happened with one
Speaker 1: of these how should we call him? Clown celebrities? Who's
Speaker 1: doing the Oh? I don't want to run for president.
Speaker 1: I'll never run for president, but if there's nobody else,
Speaker 1: he's hoping that people will draft him to run for president.
Speaker 1: And he decided to make headlines by walking off a
Speaker 1: public television stage in protest of some average American guy
Speaker 1: pleading for help from the TV audience. And the story
Speaker 1: don't add up, and not everybody noticed. In fact, very
Speaker 1: few people notice the story just don't add up. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say who this clown celebrity who wants
Speaker 1: to be talked into running for president is, but his
Speaker 1: name rhymes with sneeze and k stith. That's next.
Speaker 2: This is goddam as promised in lieu of the worst
Speaker 2: persons in the world.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you a story about which I have
Speaker 1: some doubts. I don't know what the truth is here,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to claim to even offer percentage
Speaker 1: chances as to what is true and what may be
Speaker 1: a stunt, however, or to say it correctly as the
Speaker 1: person I'm talking about would say it. However, last Wednesday
Speaker 1: night the News Nation Network, which is by itself a fraud.
Speaker 1: It is a right wing operative of the Sinclair Broadcasting family.
Speaker 1: It is posing as a neutral it is posing as
Speaker 1: a news operation. It is, as I've mentioned many times,
Speaker 1: the nick at night for newscasters. Chris Cromo has a
Speaker 1: show there. A guy who got fired from Fox named
Speaker 1: Vittert had a show there. Dan Abrams had a show there.
Speaker 1: Ashley Banfield has a show there. One of the ABC
Speaker 1: World news anchors who ran into trouble, she had a
Speaker 1: show there. I don't know who has shows there, because
Speaker 1: fortunately this is not a very widely watched network, but
Speaker 1: it is premised on the idea that it is telling
Speaker 1: you that these people are telling you just the news,
Speaker 1: that it's neutral and fair and no, we can't say
Speaker 1: balance because that would make you think it's about like
Speaker 1: a Fox, which it is. It's right wing, only they
Speaker 1: are not honest enough to say we're a right wing network,
Speaker 1: so they are in the last ring of hell. Last Wednesday,
Speaker 1: they held a town hall about the shutdown. And during
Speaker 1: this town hall, which was conducted at the Kennedy Center
Speaker 1: in DC, itself a suspicious locale right now, the Kennedy
Speaker 1: Center in the District of Columbia. The panel over the
Speaker 1: air two hour special included from Congress Madeline Dean and
Speaker 1: Roe Conna, Jim Jordan, Senator John Fetterman, Bill O'Reilly, that's right,
Speaker 1: he's still alive, Chris Cuomo, that's right, he's still on television,
Speaker 1: and Stephen A. Smith from ESPN. I have talked about
Speaker 1: Stephen a lot because it doesn't surprise me that he
Speaker 1: is as News Nation is pretending not to be a
Speaker 1: right wing network, he is running for president while pretending
Speaker 1: not to be running for president because he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to face the embarrassment when people go, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: He thinks there will be a draft Stephen A. Smith
Speaker 1: motion and movement, and he believes he needs to be
Speaker 1: ready for it and exposed. And so as he continues
Speaker 1: to go on ESPN and fill hour upon hour about
Speaker 1: sports and saying nothing in the process, a remarkable skill
Speaker 1: for which he is extraordinarily well paid and deserves every
Speaker 1: penny of it. As he does that, he sidelines in politics,
Speaker 1: offering perhaps so far anyway, the shallowest point of view
Speaker 1: on politics that I have heard absolutely anywhere. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's amazing. Let me interrupt with two ancillary
Speaker 1: facts about Jack Chris Junior before we go back to
Speaker 1: the narrative. The two ancillary facts are there is a
Speaker 1: social media profile for this guy, as there is for
Speaker 1: almost all of us these days, whether we like it
Speaker 1: or not, and it lists him as air traffic controller
Speaker 1: and pilot. And then there's the second thing, which is
Speaker 1: that at ESPN dot com there is a profile, usually
Speaker 1: in the kind of profile that is reserved for players,
Speaker 1: former players, college players of all sports. You may have
Speaker 1: one if you ever played. Normally, statistics would be there,
Speaker 1: data trades, teams played for in this case, it's just blank,
Speaker 1: but there is one four at ESPN dot com, a
Speaker 1: profile of Jack Chris Junior. Just two little hints to
Speaker 1: keep in the back of your mind as I resume
Speaker 1: the narrative, which I will right now. Well, all of
Speaker 1: these elements about which I had doubts came together last
Speaker 1: week when News Nation held it it's town hall for
Speaker 1: two hours in Washington. And I keep emphasizing in Washington
Speaker 1: to see if you can get ahead of the storyteller here.
Speaker 1: A good detective story or good mystery always allows the
Speaker 1: possibility of the reader or listener to get out ahead
Speaker 1: of the narrator and the characters. You may solve it
Speaker 1: before they do. I'm going to give you that chance here.
Speaker 1: Listen carefully to this story. At this event about the
Speaker 1: shutdown and how it's hurting ordinary people. There were only
Speaker 1: vague and veiled accusations that it's all the Democrats fault.
Speaker 1: That's the News Nation trick to make it seem as
Speaker 1: if it's not a right wing network. They don't scream
Speaker 1: about how the Democrats are to use recent descriptions communists terrorists,
Speaker 1: the devil. I mean. Several people call Democrats demonic and
Speaker 1: their main evidence was, well, democrats and demonic each start
Speaker 1: with the same first three less Unfortunately this works with
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who believe in this crap
Speaker 1: in any event. To get back to the point, at
Speaker 1: one point in this town hall in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: A man stood up and asked a question and told
Speaker 1: a story. His name was Jack Chris Junior, and he
Speaker 1: said that when he gets off work from his sixteen
Speaker 1: year long job at air traffic Control in Dallas, Texas,
Speaker 1: he now has to drive for door Dash because because
Speaker 1: of the slightly democratic cause shutdown, he's not getting paid
Speaker 1: as an air traffic controller. Just to pay for his
Speaker 1: daughter's tuition, he has to deliver food. A man with
Speaker 1: a tense, intense, important, highly skilled life and death job
Speaker 1: of air traffic controller has to then deliver food to
Speaker 1: make ends meet. Which point Stephen A. Smith freaked out.
Speaker 1: This is why he said, you have so many Americans
Speaker 1: excuse my language, so pissed off at Washington, because somehow,
Speaker 1: some way you get to have these conversations, engage in
Speaker 1: specific elements of it to talk about what we need
Speaker 1: to do to get things better. Well, that's the problem
Speaker 1: with Stephen A. Smith. If you ever wrote down what
Speaker 1: he said about sports, it would make no sense whatsoever,
Speaker 1: just as that did. Why they're so pissed off, because
Speaker 1: we can have specific anyway. Our debt is thirty seven
Speaker 1: point eight trillion. Somehow, some way, the taxpayer has been
Speaker 1: paying this, this throwing money. Because we all look at
Speaker 1: our check and it's been going to the government, and
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be doing something constructive and productive enough
Speaker 1: to make sure that we don't have that kind of deficit.
Speaker 1: It isn't happening. As a translation, I'll point out Stephen
Speaker 1: does not know what the deficit is. Nearly everything that
Speaker 1: he's addressed thus far in politics is, as I said before,
Speaker 1: as shallow analysis as anything possibly could be. But the
Speaker 1: deficit is more shallow than all the other things are
Speaker 1: shallow combined. He's not understanding that the issues cannot simply
Speaker 1: be sort of fiddlebustered the way he would who's the
Speaker 1: number two guard on the Oklahoma City thunder on which
Speaker 1: he could spend three hours saying things like, somehow, some way, however,
Speaker 1: the taxpayer has been paying this, been throwing money because
Speaker 1: we all look at our check, and it's been going
Speaker 1: to the second string guard on the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 1: He went on to say, I don't think Washington understands
Speaker 1: how ticked off we truly are. A young man walked
Speaker 1: up to the microphone and said that he had to
Speaker 1: leave here to go and work on door dash to
Speaker 1: help pay for his daughter's tuition. Meanwhile, everybody up here
Speaker 1: getting paid, but he ain't. A government shut down is
Speaker 1: going on right now. A man has to work on
Speaker 1: door dash when he's really an air traffic controller that
Speaker 1: we applauded. And we're up here talking about how much
Speaker 1: some money is going to cost, and the only person
Speaker 1: that don't have a check coming is him. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm going to do. I'm going to take a break,
Speaker 1: At which point Steven Smith got up from his chair
Speaker 1: at the Kennedy Center in Washington and walked off, or,
Speaker 1: as the News Nation account of The News Nation town
Speaker 1: Hall put it, the scenario prompted panelist Steven A. Smith
Speaker 1: to walk off the stage in disgust, or perhaps according
Speaker 1: to script, Okay, did you catch it? I didn't put
Speaker 1: too many of one clue in here, but I put
Speaker 1: about sixteen of the other clue in this. First off,
Speaker 1: it's News Nation, so you should doubt that Bill O'Reilly
Speaker 1: was there. Therefore, you should doubt that Chris Cuomo was there.
Speaker 1: And it's Bill O'Reilly, Cris Cuomo, Times News Nation plus
Speaker 1: Stephen A. Smith. If you're not doubting, you're not breathing.
Speaker 1: But my biggest concern is about this air traffic controller.
Speaker 1: I imagine that there is some other explanation for this. I
Speaker 1: looked again and again to make sure that the details
Speaker 1: are correct. I don't understand what the other possible explanations are,
Speaker 1: but maybe there is one. And if so, I apologize
Speaker 1: to him, and to Stephen and to News Nation, to
Speaker 1: everybody in this equation except O'Reilly. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The air traffic controller Jack Chris Junior says he has
Speaker 1: been working for sixteen years at Air Traffic Control in Dallas, Texas,
Speaker 1: and now has to deliver door dash just to pay
Speaker 1: for his daughter's tuition. And Steven A. Smith made a
Speaker 1: big studied I'm so pissed off, I'm walking off the
Speaker 1: set here. Apart from the audience benefiting from that, who
Speaker 1: would know the difference? First of all, But secondly, wait,
Speaker 1: a minute. Anybody noticed something inconsistent about this story? Where
Speaker 1: have I said now sixteen times? This town hall took
Speaker 1: place the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Where does Jack
Speaker 1: Chris say? He works as an air traffic control Dallas,
Speaker 1: but he has to work because you can't not work,
Speaker 1: but he's not getting paid, so he has to drive
Speaker 1: for door Dash in Washington. I mean, Stephen A. Smith said,
Speaker 1: a young man walked up to the microphone and said
Speaker 1: that he had to leave here to go to work
Speaker 1: on DoorDash to help pay for his daughter's tuition. So
Speaker 1: he's working in Dallas, and then at the end of
Speaker 1: the workday in Dallas he what flies to Washington to
Speaker 1: deliver door day or even if there's some muddle here
Speaker 1: in Steven A. Smith's mind, Oh fat chance of that.
Speaker 1: But even if there's some muddle in Steven A. Smith's mind,
Speaker 1: he's in Dallas, and he's driving in Dallas, and he's
Speaker 1: an air traffic controller in Dallas, and yet somehow he
Speaker 1: is at the Kennedy Senator in Washington. Either he found
Speaker 1: his own way to Washington paid for that with money
Speaker 1: that he doesn't have because of the shutdown. That is
Speaker 1: kind of the Democrats ball or or what. They flew
Speaker 1: him there to tell this story, so they knew in
Speaker 1: advanced the story he was going to tell. This man's
Speaker 1: story was not a surprise to the people at News Nation,
Speaker 1: which immediately raises the possibility that his story was not
Speaker 1: a surprise to the people who were on stage, like
Speaker 1: Chris Cuomo, Bill O'Reilly and Steven A. Smith, who and
Speaker 1: walked off to show how much a man of the
Speaker 1: people he is. I am suggesting that perhaps this was
Speaker 1: not as ad libbed an ad lib as it seemed
Speaker 1: a gesture of frustration. Oh, Stephen A. Smith cares about you?
Speaker 1: Scenario prompted panelist Stephen A. Smith to walk off the
Speaker 1: stage and discust. I do notice in all of the
Speaker 1: News Nation commentary on this, and it was covered in
Speaker 1: other publications like The Hill, there was an element of
Speaker 1: he responded to this and was so thrown by that
Speaker 1: he was responding in some way to the surprise of this,
Speaker 1: And that's not what News Nation says. It just prompted
Speaker 1: him to walk off the stage the way a prompter,
Speaker 1: like something written on the prompter would prompt you to
Speaker 1: walk off the stage. I'm just saying, I like Steven
Speaker 1: I worked with him at ESPN before they fired him,
Speaker 1: and as somebody who came back to ESPN after quitting
Speaker 1: and after having a contract run out and worked three
Speaker 1: separate times there. I admire anybody who goes back to
Speaker 1: work there. It means that there was a connection and
Speaker 1: the audience wanted you, and the employers were happy to
Speaker 1: have you back one way or the other. I admire him.
Speaker 1: I used to know him in the local New York
Speaker 1: news media when he was working at the ESPN New
Speaker 1: York station, and we once were at a New York
Speaker 1: Knicks game together along with the president of ESPN, and
Speaker 1: had had a very good conversation and he didn't play
Speaker 1: me at all, and he didn't try any of the
Speaker 1: big steven A. Smith stuff. And I like him, but
Speaker 1: I do think this ends. And first off, it's a
Speaker 1: violation of every tenant ESPN has had since it went
Speaker 1: on the air in nineteen seventy nine, to which I
Speaker 1: subscribed at all times, which was not not to mix
Speaker 1: politics and sports on the air in a high profile way.
Speaker 1: In other words, I was when I was a television
Speaker 1: political commentator. My ESPN work was radio only. I didn't
Speaker 1: go on TV and when I was on ESPN doing TV,
Speaker 1: I did not do any politics at all anywhere else,
Speaker 1: I just did sports. This is something else. And I
Speaker 1: think this ends up with Stephen not getting the presidential
Speaker 1: nomination of whichever party he's seeking it from, because I
Speaker 1: can't tell. And it does not get with him becoming
Speaker 1: a prominent political commentator, because even this lack of depth
Speaker 1: will not resonate with the dumber audiences that cover or
Speaker 1: are interested in the coverage of politics. And I wonder
Speaker 1: if it ends up with him losing his job at ESPN,
Speaker 1: or at least his influence at ESPN, or at least
Speaker 1: his prominen city ESPN, because if he's now involved in
Speaker 1: things like a fake oh, hold me back, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really want to ever run for president, but
Speaker 1: if there's no other choice, I guess I'll be forced
Speaker 1: to do it. Well, then maybe I'll consent to it.
Speaker 1: Maybe if he's doing that, that's bad enough. Many men, though,
Speaker 1: have done that before, and some women. But the panelist
Speaker 1: walks off after it turns out that the audience member
Speaker 1: is a sixteen year veteran of air traffic control in Dallas.
Speaker 1: But he's got to go do his door dash job
Speaker 1: now just to pay for his daughter's tuition because of
Speaker 1: this damn democratic shutdown of the government. Except the guy
Speaker 1: is in Washington, d C. At the moment, but he's
Speaker 1: from Dallas. If Stephen had knowledge a forethought of this,
Speaker 1: Good night, Stephen A Smith, a little Thurber when we
Speaker 1: come back. I believe the first time I ever heard
Speaker 1: James Thurber read aloud, it was by William Windham, the
Speaker 1: great actor who did so much serious stuff, drama, comedy.
Speaker 1: He's a Star Trek Original series key figure. He did
Speaker 1: a lot of great acting in so many different roles.
Speaker 1: And he did a special on PBS when I was
Speaker 1: in college in which he performed as James Thurber, narrated
Speaker 1: some of the drawings, recited from memory, many of the
Speaker 1: short stories and many of the longer ones too, And
Speaker 1: I later had the pleasure of telling him that he
Speaker 1: was my inspiration for reading James Thurber aloud, and we
Speaker 1: corresponded about how to possibly improve some of the diceier
Speaker 1: parts of some of the Thurber stories and make them
Speaker 1: useful for twenty first cent for America. Mister Wyndham died
Speaker 1: about ten years ago, and I lament him still. I
Speaker 1: recorded on tape His Thurber Special on PBS, and I
Speaker 1: still have it, not videotape, audiotape, a cassette. We didn't
Speaker 1: have home videotape, although I'm proud to say he sent
Speaker 1: me a copy of a DVD of the performance, and
Speaker 1: one of the stories he reads, or in fact recites,
Speaker 1: I will now read for you it is. I like
Speaker 1: it very much. It's not considered part of the great
Speaker 1: canon of James Thurber, but I think it's terrific. And
Speaker 1: it's called Shake Hands with Bertie Dogget by James Thurber.
Speaker 1: John Bertie Dogget, known as Bertie to the few people
Speaker 1: who speak to him, must be fifty three now, but
Speaker 1: he wears his years with a smirk, and he has
Speaker 1: as bad a practical joker as ever. Other American cutups
Speaker 1: in the Grand Tradition began to disappear in October Night
Speaker 1: twenty nine, and they are as hard to find now
Speaker 1: as Bison. But Dogget's waggishness has no calendar. You must
Speaker 1: have run into him at some party or other. He's
Speaker 1: the man whose right hand comes off when you try
Speaker 1: to shake it. The late George Bancroft once pulled that
Speaker 1: gag in a movie but that was so long ago.
Speaker 1: The picture must be a cherished item in the Museum
Speaker 1: of Modern Arts Film Library even now, when everybody else
Speaker 1: was running the gamut of bomb fear from A to H.
Speaker 1: Birdie Dogget was at Grand Central with one roller skate,
Speaker 1: which he managed to attach to the shoe of a
Speaker 1: man sleeping on a bench. When the fellow woke and
Speaker 1: stood up, he described a brief, desperate semi circle clutched
Speaker 1: a woman shopper about the knees, dragged her and her
Speaker 1: bundles to the cold floor, and was attacked by her
Speaker 1: muzzled Scottie Dogget, as always, was the first to lend
Speaker 1: a hand, helping the woman to her feet, and then
Speaker 1: turning to the man, where the hell's your other skate?
Speaker 1: He demanded, sharply, that's what caused all this trouble. He
Speaker 1: took his skate off the victim's foot and disappeared into
Speaker 1: the crowd that had begun to gather. What's the matter
Speaker 1: over there, a small man asked him apprehensively. Dogget shrugged, Uh.
Speaker 1: They found a woman with a ticking package, he said.
Speaker 1: The other man turned and left the station, missing the train.
Speaker 1: He had told his wife he would take. Doggett's pranks
Speaker 1: usually have the effect of involving people on their far edges,
Speaker 1: one or two of whom have been divorced as a result.
Speaker 1: A publisher I know thinks dogget would make a good story.
Speaker 1: I disagree, because I don't think there's anything good about
Speaker 1: the fellow, but I have done some checking up on
Speaker 1: him out of force of habit. His father, the late
Speaker 1: Carol Lamb Dogget, was a Methodist minister, and his mother
Speaker 1: was a witch, born Ata June Birdie. When her son
Speaker 1: was only ten, she taught him how to set stranger's
Speaker 1: umbrellas on fire. After an April shower, she would sally
Speaker 1: forth with the little Hellion. They lived in Dayton in
Speaker 1: search of a citizen with a floppy umbrella. After an
Speaker 1: April shower, Dayton men lower their umbrellas without bothering to
Speaker 1: roll them. Missus Dogget would hunt until she found a
Speaker 1: man waiting for a street car, his umbrella sagging open
Speaker 1: at his side. She would then surreptitiously fill the umbrella
Speaker 1: with paper, several dozen kitchen matches, and perhaps one or
Speaker 1: two ping pong balls. As the street car approached, she
Speaker 1: would drop a lighted match into the umbrella. Now, hell
Speaker 1: hath no dismay like that of a gentleman whose wet
Speaker 1: umbrella suddenly bursts into flame. Instead of rolling the thing
Speaker 1: to smother the blaze or simply throwing it away, nine
Speaker 1: out of ten men, according to Dogget's statistics, will flail
Speaker 1: it around in the air, thus increasing the conflict. Many
Speaker 1: of Missus Doggett's victims were arrested for disturbing the peace
Speaker 1: or for arson. Bertie Doggett has never been much interested
Speaker 1: in the exasperating paraphernalia of the trick and puzzle shops.
Speaker 1: He still uses the wax hand, and he has tried
Speaker 1: out dribble glasses, whoopee cushions, the foul smelling stuff you
Speaker 1: put on chair bottoms to make people think they've just
Speaker 1: sat on a lighted cigarette, and other such juvenile props,
Speaker 1: but they never got a real hold on his fancy.
Speaker 1: He likes the elaborate rib involving a lot of people,
Speaker 1: the more the better. He will take a sack full
Speaker 1: of cold poached eggs to some crowded Fifth Avenue store
Speaker 1: at Christmas time and slip them one at a time
Speaker 1: into the pockets of shoppers husbands, and he dreams of
Speaker 1: bumping into a woman visitor in the ancient glass and
Speaker 1: crystal room of some museum, dropping an ordinary table tumbler
Speaker 1: on the tile floor, and sweet God, lady, you have
Speaker 1: broken the sacred chalice of King Alexander and making her
Speaker 1: believe it. He has pulled this gag over and over
Speaker 1: since nineteen twenty four, but never successfully, with the result
Speaker 1: that he has appeared sixteen times in Jefferson Market Court
Speaker 1: alone on charges of disturbing the peace, jostling, and molestation.
Speaker 1: What dogget probably enjoys more than anything else is following
Speaker 1: a couple of women along Fifth Avenue or Madison, keeping
Speaker 1: discreetly out of sight but well within earshot, until he
Speaker 1: hears one of the two ladies call the other by name.
Speaker 1: He says that women are fond of using each other's
Speaker 1: full name, as in Marriam Shirtle. I never heard of
Speaker 1: such a thing in all my born days. As soon
Speaker 1: as miss Shirtle let us say has thus been fully identified,
Speaker 1: Doggett will walk briskly ahead for several blocks and then
Speaker 1: retrace his steps. This soon brings him face to face
Speaker 1: with his quarry, upon whom he will pounce with a
Speaker 1: delighted why Miriam Shirtle, fancy meeting you here uncross those
Speaker 1: lovely eyes and tell me I have been a young
Speaker 1: woman he wants accosted like this in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, asked
Speaker 1: him to her house for cocktails in the hope that
Speaker 1: some member of her family would know who he was,
Speaker 1: but nobody was home. His hostess turned out to be
Speaker 1: a bore, so Bertie put knockout drops in her second martini,
Speaker 1: and after she had passed out, he stole a marble
Speaker 1: plaque of kitchener from her mother's room and he went away.
Speaker 1: The next day it arrived at the Shirtles, beautifully wrapped
Speaker 1: and bearing a card with the simple legend Married Christmas
Speaker 1: from the President of the United States. John Bertie Doggett
Speaker 1: married a tapioca brain one afternoon twenty years ago, possible
Speaker 1: because he had lost a bet nobody knows. He took
Speaker 1: her to his house and told her to wait in
Speaker 1: the living room while he went upstairs and quieted his
Speaker 1: two great danes. He put a record of a dog
Speaker 1: fight on a phonograph he kept in his bedroom and
Speaker 1: slipped quietly out the back door. At three in the morning,
Speaker 1: he showed up in the living room with two match players,
Speaker 1: lou Gettling and Vic Talbot. Who's this disconsolate female? Talbot
Speaker 1: demanded fairly, using an incurable antipathy to games of chance
Speaker 1: and cunning, The bride drew herself up stiffly. I am
Speaker 1: Missus John Berdie Doggett, she said, striving for a outeur.
Speaker 1: The name will not sustain. I forgot about her wind Doggett.
Speaker 1: After all, we haven't been married twenty or thirty years.
Speaker 1: I've only been married eleven hours, Missus Doggett, the former
Speaker 1: ann Queeley, went home to her mother, Missus Paul Coueleie,
Speaker 1: and never saw Bertie again. I join her in the
Speaker 1: fervent hope that he may someday choke on his candied
Speaker 1: dice and pass forever out of our consciousness. He is
Speaker 1: a hard man to forget, though. I never start to
Speaker 1: get out of a chair no matter where I am,
Speaker 1: without glancing at my shoes to see if I am
Speaker 1: wearing one roller skate and feeling in my pockets for
Speaker 1: old cold eggs. I've done all the damage I can
Speaker 1: do here. Thank you for listening to this unfocused edition
Speaker 1: of the program. Due to illness and other issues, most
Speaker 1: of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed by
Speaker 1: Brian Ray and John Phillip shaneil. Our musical directories of
Speaker 1: Countdown produced by TKO Others Mister Ray on guitars, bass
Speaker 1: and drums, Mister Chanelle handling, orchestration and keyboards. Now our
Speaker 1: satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball
Speaker 1: stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Oldraman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is
Speaker 1: the sports music. Other music ranged and performed by the
Speaker 1: group No Horns Allowed. Everything else was as always my fault,
Speaker 1: including what happens when I just sit here and ramble.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll walk off the stage now and protest. That's
Speaker 1: countdown for today. Day two hundred and seventy four of
Speaker 1: America held hostage, just one and eighty nine days until
Speaker 1: the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and lame brained
Speaker 1: term unless he is removed sooner by MAGA or the
Speaker 1: Psychopathy Test or Tile and All or No Kings or
Speaker 1: who knows. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. I expect
Speaker 1: to have written that one in advance till then. I'm
Speaker 1: Keith Oldraman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck,
Speaker 1: and I agree with Cardiff's Countdown with Keith Olderman is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.