Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. What
Speaker 1: did you think Epstein was stealing those women for? This
Speaker 1: is how Trump's press briefing ended. What did you think
Speaker 1: Epstein was stealing those women for? Trump then walks out
Speaker 1: the open door and the feed cuts off. Sometimes there
Speaker 1: is nothing like a great unanswered rhetorical question. One question
Speaker 1: like that every day, just one, and Trump is as
Speaker 1: the baseball announcers say, meet, what did you think Epstein
Speaker 1: was stealing those women? Four? Trump now confesses he broke
Speaker 1: with Epstein not over the child rape, but because Epstein
Speaker 1: hired rape victims away from him, was stealing Virginia Giuffrey
Speaker 1: away from him. Trump paints a picture of mary a
Speaker 1: Lago where the tragic Miss Giuffrey, who just killed herself
Speaker 1: worked for. Trump paints it not as Epstein Island, but
Speaker 1: as the recruiting station and waiting room four Epstein Island.
Speaker 1: Trump calls going to the island to quote privilege. He
Speaker 1: keeps reigniting trump Stein and finding new things to admit
Speaker 1: to involuntarily. And after ten years of watching the fascists
Speaker 1: beat democracy to within an inch of its life using
Speaker 1: democracy's own loopholes, Senate Democrats finally found a loop all
Speaker 1: of their own, which may force the Justice Department to
Speaker 1: release the trump Stein files, including whatever deal with the
Speaker 1: devil Trump's man Todd made with the pedophile pimp Cleane
Speaker 1: Maxwell last week, or at minimum, take Trump and his
Speaker 1: inflatable rubber attorney general and tie them up in court
Speaker 1: forever and thus keep the Trumpstein scandal alive forever. What
Speaker 1: did you think Epstein was stealing those women for? Also,
Speaker 1: the Republicans have begun their coup to try to fix
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty six mid terms. I'll get to that,
Speaker 1: but first I have now lost track of how many
Speaker 1: times Trump has confessed to, at minimum covering up the
Speaker 1: Epstein scandal, the Trumpstein scandal, but if somehow you missed it,
Speaker 1: he has now confessed that he disavowed Jeffrey Epstein, not
Speaker 1: because he was a child rapist, human traffick procure pimp.
Speaker 1: That was apparently all fine with Trump. I know you're stunned,
Speaker 1: not because of that, but because he had had the
Speaker 1: nerve to steal some of Trump's employees at Mara e
Speaker 1: Fing Logo.
Speaker 2: Epstein has a certain reputation, obviously, but just curious were
Speaker 2: some of the workers that were taken from you were
Speaker 2: some of them young women, Some of them were some
Speaker 2: of them young women.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't want to say, but everyone knows the
Speaker 3: people that would take it, and it was the concept
Speaker 3: of taking people that.
Speaker 4: Work for me as man.
Speaker 3: But that story has been pretty well out there and
Speaker 3: the answers, yes, they.
Speaker 4: Were, Yes, they were yet of it.
Speaker 3: In the spot, in the spot, yeah, people that work
Speaker 3: in the spy a great spot, one of the best
Speaker 3: spas in the world at Marlaca.
Speaker 1: And then, as they say, in certain circles with which
Speaker 1: people like Epstein and Trump are familiar, the money shot.
Speaker 1: Even though the reporter mispronounces the poor woman's.
Speaker 2: Name one of those stolen you know, persons that include
Speaker 2: from Virginia Jeffrey.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think she worked at the spam.
Speaker 5: I think so.
Speaker 4: I think that was one of the people with him.
Speaker 4: He stole her.
Speaker 3: And by the way, she had no complaints about us,
Speaker 3: as you know, none whatsoever.
Speaker 1: The late Virginia Giffrey always insisted she was recruited into
Speaker 1: the Epstein pedophilia trafficking cartel from Trump's Mary Lago. Trump
Speaker 1: has now confirmed that miss Giffrey one of the alleged
Speaker 1: victims of Prince Andrew also always insisted she would fight
Speaker 1: back to the end, and yet her stunning suicide three
Speaker 1: months ago has not gotten nearly the attention or the
Speaker 1: doubt that Epstein's suicide still does. Perhaps that needs to change.
Speaker 1: Perhaps some Democratic leader will demand a full investigation of that,
Speaker 1: or at least more commentators will, or at least more
Speaker 1: commentators will ask why there's such a disparity in interest
Speaker 1: when she said she would fight to the end and
Speaker 1: never give up. And this does not in the least
Speaker 1: dishonor her, It would only underscore that. Still, with rape
Speaker 1: and pedophilia and death all on Donald Trump's table, even
Speaker 1: if conceivably not among the accusations against him, he has
Speaker 1: never expressed the slightest remorse about Virginia Giuffrey or any
Speaker 1: other victim, nor promise to any of them justice. He's
Speaker 1: just mad. He's still mad that Epstein hired away his employees,
Speaker 1: stole them, stole her, stole Virginia Geffrey, stole her. He
Speaker 1: even told them that in Scotland.
Speaker 3: For years, I wouldn't talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn't
Speaker 3: talk because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired
Speaker 3: help and I said, don't ever do that again. He
Speaker 3: stole people that work for me. I said, don't ever
Speaker 3: do that again. He did it again. I never had
Speaker 3: the privilege of going to his island.
Speaker 1: Going to epstein island was a quote privilege. What did
Speaker 1: you think Epstein was stealing those women for you, scumbag?
Speaker 1: Another reminder that people other people. That's you, me, Virginia, Geoffrey,
Speaker 1: Trump's own daughter, his own support. They are not people
Speaker 1: not to him, they are commodities. We are all commodities
Speaker 1: to Trump, except those who become obstructions. Jeffrey Epstein was
Speaker 1: not a monster to Trump. He was an obstruction because
Speaker 1: Virginia Jeffrey, who was also not a person to Trump,
Speaker 1: was to Trump a commodity. And oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: this whole callous. This wasn't pedophilia or sex trafficking was
Speaker 1: an HR issue bullshit from Trump. The timeline also doesn't work.
Speaker 1: The impeccable Ryan Goodman of NYU Law recognized at first
Speaker 1: this started in the nineties, when Epstein first hired people
Speaker 1: away from marri Lago and raised Trump's ire than in
Speaker 1: two thousand, Epstein and Maxwell quote took Virginia Giuffrey from
Speaker 1: marri A Lago. In two thousand and two, Trump said
Speaker 1: the most infamous thing he ever said, as Goodman notes
Speaker 1: about Epstein being a terrific friend and liking younger ones.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, Trump and Epstein broke Oops
Speaker 1: hard to believe.
Speaker 5: Huh.
Speaker 1: Trump's lie contains another lie, contains another lie, contains another
Speaker 1: lie within that. But there it is. He was so
Speaker 1: outraged about Epstein hiring them away again, except he's now
Speaker 1: lying about the timeline. Poor Virginia Giffrey was the again.
Speaker 1: Four years later, he broke with Epstein. Anything to keep
Speaker 1: this story in the news. Tragic, heartbreaking or uncomfortable as
Speaker 1: that will be, will hasten the end of Trump and
Speaker 1: MAGA and say our democracy, we have to do it.
Speaker 5: We have no choice.
Speaker 1: I think it is possible. Even Democrats have realized this,
Speaker 1: I mean even Chuck Schumer. A month into this scandal,
Speaker 1: the first Trump scandal to last a month, and somebody
Speaker 1: finally issued a demand under Title five US Code two
Speaker 1: nine five four information to Committees of Congress on Request,
Speaker 1: which is a law that has been on the book
Speaker 1: since nineteen twenty eight, which reads briefly, and starkly quote,
Speaker 1: an executive agency on request of the Committee on Government
Speaker 1: Operations of the House of Representatives, or of any seven
Speaker 1: members thereof, or on request of the Committee on Governmental
Speaker 1: Affairs of the Senate, or any five members thereof, shall
Speaker 1: submit any information requested of it relating to any matter
Speaker 1: within the jurisdiction of the committee. This is not particularly vague.
Speaker 1: If just five members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
Speaker 1: demands information from any executive agency, like say, the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, that department has to turn the information over
Speaker 1: by law. Know if this or when that? Just give
Speaker 1: it seven Democrats and that's forty percent more Senators than
Speaker 1: needed if you're scoring at home, or even if you're alone.
Speaker 1: Seven members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which is
Speaker 1: now the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, are now
Speaker 1: demanding the DOJ turnover all the trump Stein files, indeed
Speaker 1: all the Epstein files. There are two obstacles. Obviously, for
Speaker 1: every legal nuance the Democrats find, the Republicans have been
Speaker 1: storing up loopholes out of them since about nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: So after they deny this request, it will go to court,
Speaker 1: presumably eventually to the Supreme Court, where sam Alito will
Speaker 1: invent something about Trump's right to declare anything a national
Speaker 1: security risk and deny anybody, even in the Senate or
Speaker 1: the House, the right to see anything, even if it
Speaker 1: would exonerate him. As we all know, the stuff Trump
Speaker 1: is desperately covering up would exonerate him. That's why he
Speaker 1: won't release it. The second problem, of course, is that
Speaker 1: we brought out the big guns to sell this, Chuck
Speaker 1: Schumer and Dick Blumenthal and Gary Peters. I like Dick Blumenthal,
Speaker 1: I've known him a long time. But wow, it's like
Speaker 1: the rack pack is live again in Vegas now. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand these are the senators and they are doing
Speaker 1: something finally to try to move the needle. And what
Speaker 1: they're not gonna trot out Fetterman to announce this. To
Speaker 1: Fetterman's credit, he signed the filing. But can we glow
Speaker 1: up the stage craft maybe just a little. Schumer and
Speaker 1: Blumenthal and Peters and the others referred to this as
Speaker 1: a letter to the attorney general. How about a demand?
Speaker 1: How about legal notice? How about an ultimatum? How about
Speaker 1: eating the law out loud to the reporters and saying,
Speaker 1: under this federal law. There is no negotiation and no
Speaker 1: room for Trump to escape. And whatever Trump is hiding,
Speaker 1: that ends now. PAMBONDI will shall turn over this material immediately,
Speaker 1: or we will hold her in contempt of the Senate
Speaker 1: and we will find a venue to prosecute her under
Speaker 1: Title five US Code two nine five four. And she
Speaker 1: damn well better contemplate what has happened to all the
Speaker 1: other attorneys general who broke federal law. Maybe go home
Speaker 1: and watch all the president's men tonight. Find out which
Speaker 1: prison John Mitchell went to. No, we sent a letter.
Speaker 1: You can see the thought bubble. Did you remember to
Speaker 1: put on enough postage? Okay, I'll stop. They did something.
Speaker 1: Let's see if they can get traction with this approach.
Speaker 1: We are all members of the stern Letter Writers Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame. In fact, in fact, Blumenthal was elected unanimously.
Speaker 1: What's maddening the most about this is the Republicans continue
Speaker 1: to flail at every turn on Trumpstein. The missing minute
Speaker 1: from the Trumpstein tape. It's not missing, the DOJ says, no.
Speaker 1: The machine just numbers things wrong, changes the time, except
Speaker 1: there's one hundred newly discovered other things wrong with that tape.
Speaker 1: According to a forensic exam by CBS, and a mysterious
Speaker 1: orange blob has been seen near Epstein's cell on the
Speaker 1: tape right before he died. The jokes are too easy,
Speaker 1: write them yourselves. More practically, Maxwell has now demanded immunity
Speaker 1: or clemency in exchange for her testimony to Congress. And
Speaker 1: while on a human level, I am glad House Republicans
Speaker 1: have refused, used, on a political level, I am stunned.
Speaker 1: How else will they get her to lie for Trump
Speaker 1: in public? Even now? If Trump says f this and
Speaker 1: pardons her and she lies for him as part of
Speaker 1: the pardon, the first reaction will become the House didn't
Speaker 1: trust her enough to give her limited immunity. Trump just
Speaker 1: pardoned her. Who can believe a thing she says?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 1: Bad bad strategy fascists? Thanks. Meanwhile, Trump somehow managed to
Speaker 1: not repeat his confession yesterday that he has a list
Speaker 1: and could show it to you, or that he only
Speaker 1: got mad at Epstein overproaching his employees, not you know,
Speaker 1: raping them. He didn't mention that again. He just walked
Speaker 1: out of the room while the rhetorical question was going.
Speaker 1: He did manage to conflate his favorite conspiracy theory with
Speaker 1: his clown Cash Betel's newest conspiracy theory, the one about
Speaker 1: burn bags in his secret FBI room somewhere containing quote
Speaker 1: Russia Gate unquote material. He was asked about the burn
Speaker 1: bags and instead Trump answered about how the Democrats wrote
Speaker 1: the Epstein files or something. Nobody knows what he's saying anymore,
Speaker 1: at least of all him. I mentioned the Republicans have
Speaker 1: begun coup twenty twenty six, filing to Jerrymander Texas only
Speaker 1: the twenty first thousandth time since Tom DeLay's days there.
Speaker 1: It would add five Republican seats. Gavin Newsom replying in
Speaker 1: California to add five or more California seats. Jd Vance
Speaker 1: reacting with Umbradge because he can't add single digits. The
Speaker 1: relevant part the good news is from all places Politico,
Speaker 1: the most wired in Republicans privately concede political rights that
Speaker 1: they're not going to win the midterms through redistricting efforts alone.
Speaker 1: If we are relying on redistricting to hold the majorities,
Speaker 1: we have bigger issues. Set a Republican operative close to
Speaker 1: the White House who works on Senate and House races Epstein.
Speaker 1: That would be your bigger issue. What did you think
Speaker 1: he was stealing them for? That should be the entire
Speaker 1: banner at the Democratic convention in twenty twenty eight. If
Speaker 1: we are relying on redistricting to hold the majorities, we
Speaker 1: have bigger issues. Set a Republican operative close to the
Speaker 1: White House who works on Senate and House races. Still,
Speaker 1: this operative defended the push frankly Democrats to it, So
Speaker 1: we are giving them a dose of their own medicine. That,
Speaker 1: by the way, is the philosophy, the false philosophy under
Speaker 1: which Republicans have worked for fifty years. Well, the Democrats
Speaker 1: did it in eighteen twelve. The bad news on this
Speaker 1: is from all places. Politico. House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries
Speaker 1: will arrive in Austin and huddle with Texas Democratic legislators tonight.
Speaker 1: That's last night. This is a moment that requires a
Speaker 1: force full on the ground spots, and that is why
Speaker 1: I am traveling to Texas to convene with members of
Speaker 1: the Texas House and Senate delegations, as well as our
Speaker 1: Democratic members representing Texas in Congress. The translation of a
Speaker 1: Keem's statement there is we don't have a plan in
Speaker 1: Texas Happily, the Republicans continued to screw things up back
Speaker 1: at the ranch. When Trump is not out there digging
Speaker 1: his own bottomless pit and now being able to do
Speaker 1: so without saying a word, his faithful morons are helping
Speaker 1: him do it. Congressman Eric Burlson, m Missouri, the m
Speaker 1: is for moron was on CNN and even Wolf Blitzer
Speaker 1: had a question. It's the same open ended, meaningless question
Speaker 1: he's been asking since nineteen eighty one, but it was
Speaker 1: a question. Quote Trump said that Epstein stole young women
Speaker 1: who worked as employees at his marri Lago spa, including
Speaker 1: Virginia Jeffrey, who died by suicide earlier this year. What's
Speaker 1: your real action to Trump's comments, to which Burlson answered,
Speaker 1: Trump did not visit Epstein Island. I take him at
Speaker 1: his word for that. Well, Congressman, he didn't have to
Speaker 1: go to Epstein Island, dummy. Epstein delivered. Plus, as I
Speaker 1: said before, Mary Lago was the waiting room for Epstein Island.
Speaker 1: It has now happened twice in the last forty eight
Speaker 1: hours that I have been asked essentially the same question
Speaker 1: by two entirely different people. The question is why have
Speaker 1: almost no Trump's staffers, not supporters, not advocates in Congress
Speaker 1: or in the Senate or around the country, or public
Speaker 1: mouthpieces or the idiots you see on TV or other
Speaker 1: people at Fox News. But why have staffers in the
Speaker 1: Trump administration in key position not resigned in protest over
Speaker 1: any of the last one hundred moral turpitudes perpetrated by Trump. Specifically,
Speaker 1: this came up in the context of the comments about
Speaker 1: hiring away that poor woman, Virginia Geoffrey and treating it
Speaker 1: so offhandedly, like we were talking about Jeffrey Epstein taking
Speaker 1: away his favorite chambermaid. Why has there not been umbrage?
Speaker 1: Why have there not been people fleeing? Why has there
Speaker 1: never been a realization that Donald Trump is, no matter
Speaker 1: how long it's taken for the goddamn thing to sink
Speaker 1: the captain of the Moral Titanic, that he is a
Speaker 1: man who, if it is legal to mention his name,
Speaker 1: fifty years from now, will be remembered very much the
Speaker 1: way the Germans remember Hitler. And I am answered to
Speaker 1: both people who asked this question in essentially the same way.
Speaker 1: I'm reasonably good at explaining what I have seen and
Speaker 1: how long I have seen it. And the number one
Speaker 1: answer is these are people who have listened to the
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaughs of this world, and the Carl Roves of
Speaker 1: this world, and the George W. Bush people of this
Speaker 1: world for the entirety of their lives. Mike Johnson Speaker
Speaker 1: of the House of Representatives, not that he should be
Speaker 1: resigning from the administration he is not in but Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson as a representative. I've pointed out before the timeline
Speaker 1: of Mike Johnson's life is he was just starting law
Speaker 1: school when Fox News went on the air. There are
Speaker 1: people in the Trump dictatorship whose parents were raised on
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh. That has how long this has been going on.
Speaker 1: I have been warning of this change in the fundamental
Speaker 1: perception of what America is, of the two party system.
Speaker 1: I have been warning about the Reportublicans intending to destroy
Speaker 1: this and speaking of it as if it is something
Speaker 1: that Republicans need to correct since nineteen ninety eight. That's
Speaker 1: just me, and I was far from the first to
Speaker 1: do so. This has been going on since the eighties.
Speaker 1: Its precursors occurred during the McCarthy era in the fifties,
Speaker 1: and the precursors to McCarthy occurred in the Palmer Raids
Speaker 1: right after the First World War, and the precursors to
Speaker 1: the Palmer Raids were in the anarchy raids of the
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties. There has always been part of this country
Speaker 1: ready to embrace autocracy one party rule, and it's almost
Speaker 1: always been conservatives trying to snamp out liberals. You saw
Speaker 1: the Ann Coulters before they became jokes, the Laura Ingram's
Speaker 1: before they became unrecognizable, and I mean that literally, after
Speaker 1: all that work. You saw what they were pitching in
Speaker 1: the nineties, that being liberal was a disease, that liberals
Speaker 1: were traders, that the natural party of government was the
Speaker 1: Republican Party. According to Karl Rove, they have been trained
Speaker 1: for this. They have been trained for autocracy and party
Speaker 1: rule for decades upon decade. They have inherited it from
Speaker 1: their parents and in now some cases grandparents. They do
Speaker 1: not understand that this has been a two party country
Speaker 1: since its founding, and more than two parties at times.
Speaker 1: They do not understand that a minority is not permitted
Speaker 1: to rule without the consent of the majority and the
Speaker 1: cooperation of the majority, and they believe that it is
Speaker 1: necessary for the minority because the minority is better than
Speaker 1: the majority to stamp out any opportunity, the majority would
Speaker 1: have to rule. Therefore, why would they leave Trump. They
Speaker 1: believe he is right, no matter how it is achieved,
Speaker 1: no matter if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue every day.
Speaker 1: They don't care. They have been told that this is
Speaker 1: about eliminating the choice. This is about making it impossible
Speaker 1: for those schevee minorities to have any real say here.
Speaker 1: And you can pick whatever minority they don't like this week,
Speaker 1: and they're the targets. In twenty sixteen, Trump started with
Speaker 1: the Hispanics and pivoted very quickly to anybody who is
Speaker 1: Arabic in nature and to anyone who is Muslim in nature.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter who they are. It could be the
Speaker 1: same people with different names. They are the guilty party,
Speaker 1: and he is going to use them as the rationale
Speaker 1: to take away the votes and the rule of anyone
Speaker 1: who supports them, let alone of the members of those groups.
Speaker 1: They are largely homeschooled, so the opportunity to go and
Speaker 1: meet members of other groups and associate with them, and
Speaker 1: you know the statistics if there is an other group
Speaker 1: in your awareness of the world and you'd know nobody
Speaker 1: from that group. The odds are ten to ninety that
Speaker 1: you will accept them or like them. If you meet
Speaker 1: somebody and interact with them, the odds become ninety ten
Speaker 1: that you will like them and interact with them and
Speaker 1: not brand them as some other group. You realize that
Speaker 1: just as big assholes as everybody else, and just as
Speaker 1: big nice guys as everybody else, and that all the
Speaker 1: groupings you were raised on are artificial and meaningless. But
Speaker 1: they're homeschooled. That's a way of indoctrinating people. It's not choice,
Speaker 1: it's not even given the variety of life that a
Speaker 1: private school gives you or a religious school gives you.
Speaker 1: I used to wonder about the kids who would leave
Speaker 1: every Wednesday afternoon for Catholic school. Then they came back
Speaker 1: and went to regular school four and a half days
Speaker 1: a week. They started to laugh at Catholic school. Well,
Speaker 1: the ones who had Catholic school full time to go
Speaker 1: a little longer for them to laugh at Catholic school,
Speaker 1: and they did anyway. But just getting out of the house,
Speaker 1: these are kids who've never been out of the house before.
Speaker 1: These are people who will say they forced them into
Speaker 1: the subways in New York. Ten years ago, Nut Gingrich
Speaker 1: was saying, the elites right around in the subways of
Speaker 1: New York. It's like pick one. There's also a considerable
Speaker 1: opioid problem in all of the areas that have supported
Speaker 1: Trump in twenty sixteen, twenty and twenty four. That was
Speaker 1: a statistic that was absolutely valid and proven. The country's
Speaker 1: fifty three top counties with opioid problems in twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: all went for Trump. Do you think that's not a
Speaker 1: factor in this? Do these people seem like they're a
Speaker 1: little strung out. Not to pick on anybody or accuse anybody,
Speaker 1: but have you ever looked at half of the members
Speaker 1: of the Republican cohort in Congress? Have you ever wondered,
Speaker 1: I wonder what she's on? Steroids, opioids, who knows what else. Homeschooled,
Speaker 1: been in the military, taught to believe that there's always
Speaker 1: an other outside waiting with a gun. These are the
Speaker 1: people working for Donald Trump. Where is the moral courage
Speaker 1: going to come from? Never mind that, where is the
Speaker 1: moral disagreement going to come from? So somebody said, then, well,
Speaker 1: what about the idea that you know he's eighty years old.
Speaker 1: He's in terrible health. He's declining rapidly. He's declining physically.
Speaker 1: He regained some mental power once or twice a week,
Speaker 1: but the rest of the time it's pretty much a
Speaker 1: straight slide down a mountain, and he's just wearing shoes,
Speaker 1: not skis. Well, what do you think they think of that?
Speaker 1: They think of that as opportunity. Somebody is going to
Speaker 1: inherit this movement. It may not be the same movement
Speaker 1: once Trump is gone. It probably will not go to
Speaker 1: any of Trump's children because they're morons. And the people
Speaker 1: in the MAGA movement understand they're morons. They've been out
Speaker 1: there in front of every single Trump venture. And is
Speaker 1: there any Eric Trump ground Swell? Is there a Donald
Speaker 1: Trump junior ground Swell? Is there a Lara Trump brown Swell?
Speaker 1: And I know she's just a in law, But none
Speaker 1: of the Trump children have anything that would be needed
Speaker 1: to rule this thing. So all the younger people inside
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, they don't see this as a disaster,
Speaker 1: or if they see it as something that's going to
Speaker 1: claim Trump's presidency, if they're finally going to catch him,
Speaker 1: if these Epstein files are going to come out, if
Speaker 1: the Trumpstein record shows him and Epstein in bed with
Speaker 1: children and Russian hookers. Well, that's just an opportunity for
Speaker 1: the younger ones in the Trump administration to take over
Speaker 1: next time, isn't it. And the last thing that I
Speaker 1: raised with each of the people who have ask me
Speaker 1: this question, where is the moral outrage? Where are people
Speaker 1: fleeing to avoid being associated with this in the years
Speaker 1: and decades to come. Where's the thirty five year old
Speaker 1: staffer saying I got to get out of here because
Speaker 1: you know someday this is going to come back to
Speaker 1: haunt me. Well, first off, likely is not. Trump is
Speaker 1: going to appoint him to a federal judgeship somewhere or
Speaker 1: maybe the Supreme Court. I mean, what do you think
Speaker 1: email Bove is going to walk out. He's going to say, nah,
Speaker 1: I don't feel right about this. He doesn't know right
Speaker 1: from wrong. He believes in Trump and he doesn't really
Speaker 1: believe in Trump. He believes in power. They've achieved it.
Speaker 1: Why would they ever give it back? They're just trying
Speaker 1: to find ways to lock it in permanently. And the
Speaker 1: last part of it is I've pointed out to a
Speaker 1: couple of these people who asked me this question in
Speaker 1: this context with that unbelievably harrowing remark about poor Virginia Giffrey,
Speaker 1: What did we do to them as a nation or
Speaker 1: just as the Democratic Party after George W. Bush? What
Speaker 1: did we do to them? Before he even took office,
Speaker 1: Obama said he would never prosecute for the violations of
Speaker 1: the constitution that were the hallmark of the Bush administration.
Speaker 1: George W. Bush, sho should have been in prison all
Speaker 1: this time. Certainly, Dick Cheney should have been in prison
Speaker 1: all this time. Certainly all the people who approved of torture,
Speaker 1: and it was torture and waterboarding people and terrifying them
Speaker 1: and the manipulation of terror alerts in this country, all
Speaker 1: of those people should still be in prison where they
Speaker 1: should have been sentenced in two thousand and nine and
Speaker 1: twenty ten for the crimes they committed during the Bush administration.
Speaker 1: What happened to them? We need to heal and we
Speaker 1: can't have political prosecutions, to which the Republican said, oh good,
Speaker 1: they're not going to prosecute that us. We can prosecute
Speaker 1: them when it's our turn, and it'll be our turn,
Speaker 1: and we'll never make the mistake they did and be
Speaker 1: nice about it. And what did we do to Trump
Speaker 1: after Trump won? I think we know the answer to
Speaker 1: that all too frequently in a situation that required a
Speaker 1: unprecedented and it wouldn't have been unprecedented if Obama had
Speaker 1: prosecuted the Bushies, but an unprecedented response to an attempt
Speaker 1: to overthrow the effing government of the United States, an
Speaker 1: internal coup led by a psychopath who was president of
Speaker 1: the United States and would not leave office peacefully, which
Speaker 1: is what Donald Trump is and was in the response
Speaker 1: to that. Instead of a vigorous prosecution with some kind
Speaker 1: of confidence in an area of truth and reconciliation on
Speaker 1: the one hand, and vigorous criminal prosecution on the other hand,
Speaker 1: what did we give them? Instead? We gave them Rick Garland.
Speaker 1: So the answer to boil it down to two words,
Speaker 1: why aren't people resigning from the Trump administration in protest
Speaker 1: over at Trump's bestiality? The easiest two word answer is
Speaker 1: Merrick Garland. Also, Kamala Harris is not running for governor
Speaker 1: of California?
Speaker 5: Would you?
Speaker 1: And I don't think this means she's in the presidential
Speaker 1: mash pit either? I mean again, would you? One more
Speaker 1: off topic note, Brian Bouler from Off Message, and if
Speaker 1: I could hire five people to run strategy for the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party, he'd be one of them. Has another brilliant
Speaker 1: point about Columbia, or as it might better be known,
Speaker 1: Capitulation University, is suggesting some Columbia students should right now
Speaker 1: be demanding their money back. Suing. Maybe maybe class action suing.
Speaker 1: I'll just read from his newsletter to which you should subscribe.
Speaker 1: When you were applying to colleges a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: you received multiple acceptance letters, but chose Columbia because you
Speaker 1: were impressed by the commitments to diversity and autonomy, the
Speaker 1: way the university promoted and represented itself in its literature
Speaker 1: and other public relations. Then over the summer, you learned
Speaker 1: the Columbia has reached a settlement with the US government
Speaker 1: prohibiting the university from preferencing applicants based on race, color,
Speaker 1: or national origin and admissions throughout its programs, or using
Speaker 1: proxy for racial admission, personal statements, diversity narratives, or any
Speaker 1: applicant reference to racial identity in considering applicants. As you
Speaker 1: work toward your degree, Columbia will have a minder called
Speaker 1: a Resolution Monitor who will look over its shoulder and
Speaker 1: police compliance with the settlement. The school will have to
Speaker 1: provide the Resolution Monitor and the United States with admissions
Speaker 1: data showing both rejected and admitted students, broken down by race, color,
Speaker 1: grade point average, and performance on standardized tests in a
Speaker 1: form permitting appropriate statistical analyzes by October one of each
Speaker 1: year the agreement, As Brian Boiler writes, Columbia isn't becoming
Speaker 1: wide enough for Donald Trump and Steven Miller's tastes back
Speaker 1: into the barrel? Is this really the same autonomous and
Speaker 1: diverse institution you were led to believe you'd attend so
Speaker 1: long as you forked over tens of thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: a year. If it's enforced in a way that infringes
Speaker 1: on student and faculty speech, the settlement may ultimately give
Speaker 1: rise to First Amendment, claims Brian Boiler writes. But simply
Speaker 1: if by signing it Columbia falsified representations it made to
Speaker 1: its students, it owed independence to every student who agreed
Speaker 1: to matriculate there, and in a moral sense, if not
Speaker 1: a legal one, it owed those students its best effort
Speaker 1: to retain its reputation for excellence and integrity. Not every
Speaker 1: Columbia student, he concludes, will feel swindled. But if I
Speaker 1: were an undergrad there, I would. I'd want my money back.
Speaker 1: I might even want damages for the opportunity cost. I
Speaker 1: could have attended any number of prestigious universities that didn't
Speaker 1: sign such an agreement. I'll never get my lost time back,
Speaker 1: and my degree will now be tainted in the eyes
Speaker 1: of many prospective employers. Unquote. But I could hire five
Speaker 1: people to run strategy for the Democratic Party. Brian Boitler
Speaker 1: would be one of them. Off message is his subscription
Speaker 1: newsletter and worth twice what he charges Colombia and my
Speaker 1: ex friend and colleague, Claire Shipman, they think they faced
Speaker 1: consequences from Trump? How about from lawsuits by students they
Speaker 1: have now bilked? How about when the Ivy League starts
Speaker 1: unofficially claiming it now only has seven members. Also of
Speaker 1: interest here, the podcast is three years old now tomorrow,
Speaker 1: just six hundred and thirty two episodes and thirty six million,
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand downloads and something like thirty seven million
Speaker 1: YouTube views since we started that in the middle of
Speaker 1: the second year. Towards the beginning of the second year,
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm expecting to be back Monday for the
Speaker 1: start of season four and to soon be announcing an
Speaker 1: enlarged footprint, and not just because my size fourteen feet
Speaker 1: are still growing, which they are for some nightmarish reason,
Speaker 1: but more immediately, on this all new edition of Countdown,
Speaker 1: me and George Steinbrenner and separately Christin nom goes to
Speaker 1: Argentina and takes Corey Lewandowski with her so she can
Speaker 1: ride on top to her heart's content, ride on top
Speaker 1: of Argentinian horses. What did you think I meant? That's next?
Speaker 1: This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman stell
Speaker 1: ahead on this all new edition of Countdown. I was
Speaker 1: talking to a relatively new friend about George Steinbrenner the
Speaker 1: other day, the late owner of the New York Yankees,
Speaker 1: the guy who was the owner of the New York
Speaker 1: Yankees the last time they won the World Series, who
Speaker 1: bought the team when I was fourteen for nine million
Speaker 1: dollars from CBS, but agreed to pretend it was twelve
Speaker 1: million dollars to makes CBS look better. Forbes says the
Speaker 1: Yankees are now worth eight billion dollars. George said he
Speaker 1: knew that was going to happen in advance, or he would.
Speaker 1: My friend could not believe that George Steinbrenner and I
Speaker 1: were cordial, let alone friends, or let alone that he
Speaker 1: wrote fan letters and greeted me with hugs and used
Speaker 1: to ask how my mom was my friend George next
Speaker 1: in things I promised not to tell first. Believe it
Speaker 1: or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about.
Speaker 1: The roundup of the miscreants, morons and dunning Krugriffek specimens
Speaker 1: who constitute today's other worst persons in the world. Honorable
Speaker 1: mention one of my many elm the Waters MSNBC I
Speaker 1: read from Status by Oliver Darcy. In the coming weeks,
Speaker 1: moving boxes will begin to arrive at thirty Rockefeller Plaza.
Speaker 1: MSNBC staffers, long spread across multiple floors of the iconic
Speaker 1: building will pack up decades of history and prepare for
Speaker 1: a symbolic leap into the future. Well, they've only been
Speaker 1: in thirty Rocks since two thousand and seven, it's not
Speaker 1: decades yet. By mid September, the network will trade it's
Speaker 1: longtime home thirty Rock, you know, where NBC has always
Speaker 1: been except when MSNB was in secaucas because they didn't
Speaker 1: want us to sort of, you know, possibly pee on
Speaker 1: the carpet or something.
Speaker 5: At thirty Rock.
Speaker 1: It will trade its longtime home for new offices in
Speaker 1: Times Square, a two floor setup in the former BuzzFeed headquarters,
Speaker 1: connected by dual staircases. We are not going to some
Speaker 1: closet in five die one, senior staff equipped, noting that
Speaker 1: the modern space on floors will include new studios, a
Speaker 1: central newsroom, and for the first time, a single contiguous
Speaker 1: home base. Unquote translation, NBC kick them out of thirty Rock.
Speaker 1: They're going to the disused former headquarters of BuzzFeed. Thank god.
Speaker 1: It was like when MLB Network took over our old
Speaker 1: studios in thirty Rock two thousand and nine. He hadn't
Speaker 1: been there in two thousand and seven. Guy goes into
Speaker 1: my old office who I knew, and I called him up,
Speaker 1: or he called me up, and he said, what is
Speaker 1: this in your old office that I've just taken over?
Speaker 1: It was trash. I had left there the day we
Speaker 1: moved out. They hadn't even cleaned the place. Now they're
Speaker 1: going into the old BuzzFeed offices. What I mean, you
Speaker 1: couldn't get the old New York Herald Tribune location. The
Speaker 1: translation is NBC has kicked them out of thirty Rock,
Speaker 1: and what's next is they'll start cutting staff and after
Speaker 1: that they'll sell the place, maybe to Murdoch or to Trump.
Speaker 1: And as MSNBC gradually disappears because it just couldn't be
Speaker 1: bothered to fight for the people that were being laid off,
Speaker 1: who were of color, or who had unpopular opinions, or
Speaker 1: who would just not repeat democratic doctrinaire bullshit, all of
Speaker 1: these failures when they all come together into one vanishing point,
Speaker 1: when MSNBC gradually disappears, until like the cheshire Cat, there's
Speaker 1: nothing left but the grin of Rachel Meadow fading in
Speaker 1: the trees. You will not hear a peep from her
Speaker 1: or Hayes or O'Donnell, or especially Scarborough, because they got
Speaker 1: their money. Here are the actual nominees. Runner up is
Speaker 1: worse Andrew Cuomo, who is still running for mayor of
Speaker 1: New York because being humiliated seventeen times a day is
Speaker 1: apparently insufficient. Zenith Poles and public progress out with the
Speaker 1: latest New York City polling, as the nation, including misled
Speaker 1: governors like Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, continue to view Zoran
Speaker 1: Mamdani as some sort of alien force, when in point
Speaker 1: of fact, he's a kid from the Bronx. Here's the
Speaker 1: latest polling, So I go from the top down or
Speaker 1: the bottom up. Adams the current mayor seven percent undecided,
Speaker 1: five percent, Curtis Sliwa, who owns a beret, thirteen percent,
Speaker 1: Cuomo twenty two percent, mam Dani fifty percent fifty percent.
Speaker 1: The Democratic nominee is Mamdani. He is beating the Republican
Speaker 1: fifty to thirteen, despite the presence of what is nominally
Speaker 1: a Democratic mayor and the former Democratic disgraced governor of
Speaker 1: New York, who are sucking up twenty nine percent of
Speaker 1: the vote that would otherwise almost automatically go to the
Speaker 1: Democratic nonee selected by the people of the city, who
Speaker 1: Cuomo is trying to invalidate. So what would happen according
Speaker 1: to this poll, if Adams were to drop out and
Speaker 1: Sliwa and the other combinations, Okay, if Adams did not
Speaker 1: run for mayor as an independent and these were the candidates,
Speaker 1: who would you vote for? Ma'm Danny goes up a point. No, Adams,
Speaker 1: It's now ma'mdanny fifty one to twenty five over Cuoto.
Speaker 1: Sleewood gets two points. Cuomo only goes up three points.
Speaker 1: If the race was just mamdanny versus Eric Adams, mamdanny
Speaker 1: would win fifty nine to thirty two. This man would
Speaker 1: get sixty percent of the vote in this city if
Speaker 1: Cuomo did not run. Please Lord, Please Lord, who would
Speaker 1: you vote for ma'm donnie fifty five percent? I guess
Speaker 1: this proves that Adams is still more unpopular than Cuomo.
Speaker 1: You got that going for you, Andrew, ma'm danny fifty five.
Speaker 1: Slee was sixteen, Adams fourteen. So with no Cuomo, mam
Speaker 1: donnie then beats the Republican nominee fifty five sixteen. Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But yeah, dude, all you Democrats who aren't sure like
Speaker 1: Josh Shapiro, Oh, I don't know. He's got a scary name.
Speaker 1: His name starts with the Z. Could he change his
Speaker 1: name to Zeke? If he changed his name to Zeke,
Speaker 1: ma'm donnie, maybe I could vote for him?
Speaker 5: Then?
Speaker 1: Why why don't you? Why don't you support John Fetterman again?
Speaker 1: Mam donnie would win at least half the vote in
Speaker 1: this city, despite the nation's efforts to unseat him. Led
Speaker 1: by The New York Times, which can melt in the
Speaker 1: hot sun as far as I'm concerned. You know the
Speaker 1: shooting on Park Avenue here where the guy who apparently
Speaker 1: believed he had CTE and it was the National Football
Speaker 1: League's fault walked in with a long gun to a
Speaker 1: Park Avenue building. The New York Times covered that. I
Speaker 1: believe it was the first local news story the New
Speaker 1: York Times covered about New York in maybe seventeen or
Speaker 1: eighteen years. New York is just a brand name. That's
Speaker 1: where their offices are. They could be the Altuona Times,
Speaker 1: no offense, Altuon. I wouldn't wish the Times on you
Speaker 1: under any circumstances. Speaking of bad media, the runner up
Speaker 1: worser Brendan Carr, or as you may know him, Yusuf
Speaker 1: goubus He, the director of advocacy at the Freedom of
Speaker 1: the Press Foundation Seth Stern again. This is according to
Speaker 1: Oliver Darcy has filed a disciplinary complaint against Brendan Carr,
Speaker 1: saying that he has quote blurred the line between law
Speaker 1: and politics, reviving baseless investigations into major news networks, threatening
Speaker 1: companies over their diversity initiatives, and slow walking approval of
Speaker 1: Paramount Global's merger with Skydance Media while Donald Trump pursued
Speaker 1: an absurd sixty minutes lawsuit against the company. I'm sure
Speaker 1: the response to this for mister Carr was, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a why I got the job. The complaint does not
Speaker 1: say this, but basically it's absolutely the case. The Paramount
Speaker 1: Skydance CBS was approved by the FCC after CBS paid
Speaker 1: Trump sixteen million and installed a Trump allegiant in house
Speaker 1: monitor to make sure they don't do anything to offend Trump.
Speaker 1: I understand they're hiring from Columbia University. Trump's shakedown, said
Speaker 1: mister Stern, who has filed this complaint of Paramount could
Speaker 1: not have worked without a credible threat that the administration
Speaker 1: would not approve Paramount's merger with Skydance unless it paid up.
Speaker 1: This is again to Oliver Darcy. Here's the punchline. It
Speaker 1: seems obvious to us that a licensed attorney should not
Speaker 1: be able to help his boss make a mockery of
Speaker 1: the legal system by laundering bribes through the courts without consequence.
Speaker 1: So he has written to the Office of Disciplinary Council
Speaker 1: at the DC Court of Appeals asking the body to
Speaker 1: investigate the head of the FCC, Brendan Carr, and potentially
Speaker 1: disbar him. May him an on lawyer. That should be
Speaker 1: the start. Then he should need to get several lawyers
Speaker 1: to keep him out of prison. But the winner, speaking
Speaker 1: of which, the Secretary of Homeland Security for her own dalliances,
Speaker 1: Christie Nome, Christy Garden Gnome, she went to Argentina. She
Speaker 1: went to Argentina and rode a big horsey there because well,
Speaker 1: she has a cowboy hat. And what two people who
Speaker 1: own cowboy hats do they ride horses. Little known thing
Speaker 1: about this taxpayer funded that is, you paid for this
Speaker 1: vacation horsey trip, during which, to her credit, Christy Nome
Speaker 1: did not kill anybody's dog. Christy Nome was accompanied on
Speaker 1: this taxpayer trip by her quote virtual chief of staff
Speaker 1: and her ADVA Guyzor Cory lou and Dawski. No, she
Speaker 1: only rode the horse that we know of, But this
Speaker 1: was also a taxpayer expense. Now brought Lauren Lewandowski along
Speaker 1: for the ride. Now, if you bring you know you're
Speaker 1: going on a taxpayer funded trip, you might as well
Speaker 1: bring the guy with you, because that way there's more
Speaker 1: bang for the buck. Christy, It's not cheating if the
Speaker 1: taxpayers are paying for it. No. Two Day's other worst Parson.
Speaker 3: In the.
Speaker 1: To the number one story and things I promised not
Speaker 1: to tell and things I promised not to tell about
Speaker 1: George Steinbrenner. George Steinbrenner, the late owner of the New
Speaker 1: York Yankees, the last owner of the New York Yankees,
Speaker 1: under which the New York Yankees won the World Series,
Speaker 1: the New York Yankees being, despite all evidence and claims
Speaker 1: to the contrary, the most underachieving franchise in all of
Speaker 1: baseball and probably in all of sports, every last resource.
Speaker 1: Number one on the list, and they haven't gotten it
Speaker 1: done since George died in two thousand and nine. George
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner was a professional friend of mine. It is still,
Speaker 1: to this day so unlikely an outcome that I find
Speaker 1: it hard to believe sometimes and I have to double
Speaker 1: check myself and think, did I dream that? And the
Speaker 1: answer is no. George Steinbrenner used to write fan letters
Speaker 1: to my bosses. George Steinbrenner, who did not like television
Speaker 1: people criticizing his team, but liked me, and who was
Speaker 1: a rock ribbed Republican who used to give free tickets
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump because Donald Trump's so rich. Of course
Speaker 1: he's free tickets. And used to let Rudy Giuliani sit
Speaker 1: there and go on the field because of course, the
Speaker 1: one thing you want more than anything else is a
Speaker 1: divisive fascist. As a fan of your team, loved my
Speaker 1: political shows, loved them. We once sat in Cleveland in
Speaker 1: the bowels of the stadium there during a playoff series
Speaker 1: in which the Yankees were in some peril, and George
Speaker 1: talked to me about how much he loved my show,
Speaker 1: and I said, George, I'm a liberal, I know, but
Speaker 1: it's a great show. That was George Steinbrenner. People who
Speaker 1: worked for him would say they never heard anything that
Speaker 1: nice from him in their lives. And that is if
Speaker 1: you ever read Bill Madden's biography of George Steinbrenner, the
Speaker 1: overarching theme, if you worked for George, kiss your life goodbye.
Speaker 1: If you never worked for George or used to work
Speaker 1: for George, he was your best friend. I met him
Speaker 1: first when I was a teenager and my dad had
Speaker 1: season tickets to the Yankee Stadium and there was some
Speaker 1: sort of open house for season ticket holders and I
Speaker 1: was I don't know, fourteen or fifteen, and we just
Speaker 1: said hello.
Speaker 5: That was it.
Speaker 1: The next time, in a story I have told here,
Speaker 1: Charlie Steiner, my boss and my second job in radio
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one, tasked me and the producer named
Speaker 1: John Martin was trying to find out when a meeting
Speaker 1: involving Steinbrenner would take place during the nineteen eighty one
Speaker 1: baseball strike. And after a day of getting absolutely nowhere,
Speaker 1: to the point that John and I called the same
Speaker 1: executive we did not know looking for information at the
Speaker 1: same time, to the point where the man had to
Speaker 1: put one of us on hold to answer the call
Speaker 1: from the other one. I gave up, said if Charlie
Speaker 1: doesn't like it, he can fire me. Walked home, cross
Speaker 1: the street, and as I crossed the street, opens a
Speaker 1: door from a bar and outsteps George Steinbrenner in a
Speaker 1: tucks walking to his limo, turns around, looks back at
Speaker 1: the bar, and shouts all the information about the meeting
Speaker 1: that we've been trying to get all day to the
Speaker 1: owner of the Baltimore Orioles down to the point where
Speaker 1: I said, jeez, he's given me everything but the cross street,
Speaker 1: at which point George screams, Eddie, what's the cross Street?
Speaker 1: And I knew there was a god that was nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one. Nineteen eighty two was the beginning of my
Speaker 1: friendship with George Steinbrenner, and what a friendship it was.
Speaker 1: If I really were in financial trouble, if I were
Speaker 1: arrested at some point, I think I might have called
Speaker 1: him for bail money, or at least a lawyer. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two, George reached his pinnacle of firing managers.
Speaker 1: The Yankees had not fired a manager in mid season
Speaker 1: since nineteen ninety, which brought on all of these reminiscences
Speaker 1: about George Steinbrenner. I believe the total was in my
Speaker 1: first seven years in the business, he changed managers ten times,
Speaker 1: six of those in mid season, and one year he
Speaker 1: did it twice. So we're in nineteen eighty two. He's
Speaker 1: already fired the starting manager, Bob Lemon once and replaced
Speaker 1: him with Gene Michael, and now in August, I think
Speaker 1: he's fired Geen Michael and he holds a new conference,
Speaker 1: which is significant not for him having fired two managers
Speaker 1: in one season, but for him not showing up. George
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner did not attend the firing of Gene Michael. This
Speaker 1: stunned everybody there. George loved to fire managers and loved
Speaker 1: to be there because he put him on TV and
Speaker 1: on the front pages of the newspapers. That was when
Speaker 1: he began to tire of the whole process, and he
Speaker 1: later changed into a man who never fired a manager
Speaker 1: mid season again after about well after nineteen ninety, and
Speaker 1: he was not actually running the ball club during that season.
Speaker 1: So we're standing there just gawking at the idea that
Speaker 1: we've got a George Steinbrenner fires another manager story, and
Speaker 1: no George Steinbrenner. When the late Mike Shalen, who was
Speaker 1: then writing for the New York Post and had been
Speaker 1: one of my dear friends in my first job at
Speaker 1: United pres International, saunters over to me as the rookie
Speaker 1: CNN sports reporter in New York, and standing with me
Speaker 1: is the aforementioned producer from the RCAO radio network, John Martin,
Speaker 1: and Mike says with his little sibilant ss, you know,
Speaker 1: if I was an enterprising reporter, I might wander up
Speaker 1: to Yankee Stadium's press box and don't go into the office,
Speaker 1: but go into the press box where the window is
Speaker 1: to George Steinbrenner's hallway and office and just stand there
Speaker 1: for a little while on some pretext and look in
Speaker 1: to see if he's there, because he might have already
Speaker 1: been there and talked to a reporter from the New
Speaker 1: York Post. Well, they didn't have to tell us twice.
Speaker 1: Then Mike says, don't two of you don't leave together?
Speaker 1: So John and I left, and we went up separately,
Speaker 1: and we went out into the press box under the
Speaker 1: premise that John was working with me and I needed
Speaker 1: the press box as a backdrop for my on camera
Speaker 1: report about George Steinbrenner not being at the press conference.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, while we're standing there setting up the camera,
Speaker 1: George Steinberner wanders through a hallway visible through a glass,
Speaker 1: very thin glass which he could speak through, and I
Speaker 1: saw him tapped on the glass with my CNN microphone
Speaker 1: and kind of waved optimistically with it, like you want
Speaker 1: to come out and do an interview, and he gave
Speaker 1: a very enthusiastic yes, and came out into the press
Speaker 1: box and gave John Martin and I an exclusive. John
Speaker 1: had the radio exclusive, I had the television exclusive, and
Speaker 1: Mike Shanon, who had already interviewed him, had the newspaper exclusive,
Speaker 1: and everybody else's story was Steinbrenner doesn't comment on the
Speaker 1: firing of a manager, and we said, oh, yeah, he did.
Speaker 1: He just didn't come into you outcome of this under
Speaker 1: any other circumstances at Yankee Stadium. Now, if you tried that,
Speaker 1: they would arrest you. You would be banished for life.
Speaker 1: The Yankees are now very much a fascist organization. They
Speaker 1: enforced the rules and don't really care about anything else,
Speaker 1: obviously not about winning. Enough of that, I am now
Speaker 1: a Yankee hater after forty two years of being a
Speaker 1: season ticket holder. Okay, setting that aside for a point.
Speaker 1: And by the way, that change also coincides with the
Speaker 1: passing of George Steinbrenner at his succession by his not
Speaker 1: two bright sons, Hank, who was smart enough to go,
Speaker 1: I'm not smart enough to do this and turn it
Speaker 1: over to his brother, Hal, who was so bad at
Speaker 1: it and is so bad at it that I once
Speaker 1: wrote an article on the MLB dot com website saying,
Speaker 1: I'm going to need to see the paternity test before
Speaker 1: I really believe that Hank Steinbrenner is George Steinbrenner's son.
Speaker 1: He seems to have inherited nothing of his father's intelligence.
Speaker 1: Yankees banned me for that all right back to the
Speaker 1: story of nineteen eighty two. About a week after this interview,
Speaker 1: which the CNN people were startled by, because in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, Ted Turner, who founded and owned the network,
Speaker 1: could not get an exclusive interview with the America's cup
Speaker 1: yacht captain for US. But I got an exclusive interview
Speaker 1: with George Steinbrenner after he fired a manager and wouldn't
Speaker 1: talk to anybody about it. I get a call from
Speaker 1: the president of Cnnsports, one of the immortals of television
Speaker 1: sports management, one of the great innovators, the man who
Speaker 1: co invented Monday night football, and went to his bosses
Speaker 1: at CBS and said, I have this great idan for
Speaker 1: Monday night football, and they went, Who's gonna watch Monday
Speaker 1: night football? Who's gonna watch primetime TV football. The last
Speaker 1: network that tried that was Dumont and they went out
Speaker 1: of business. You're fired. And so Pete Roselle, the commissioner
Speaker 1: of the NFL with whom he co invented Monday night football,
Speaker 1: took the idea instead to ABC, thus saving the ABC
Speaker 1: Television network and creating the mess we have at ABC
Speaker 1: and Disney and Bob Iger right now. If it hadn't
Speaker 1: been for Monday Night Football, Bob Iger would be a
Speaker 1: local weatherman in Binghamton, New York, because ABC probably would
Speaker 1: have gone out of business. I'm meandering is always in
Speaker 1: telling this story. Bill mcphil calls me. Bill mcvail, who
Speaker 1: who invented not just Monday Night Football, but also the
Speaker 1: entire system by which you watch football today, the show,
Speaker 1: the local games and a network game back to back.
Speaker 1: He invented that for CBS. NBC copied it, and that's
Speaker 1: why every NFL game is broadcast by one organization at
Speaker 1: a time. They do deals with many of them, but
Speaker 1: it's sold by the league, not by the teams. And
Speaker 1: that's why the NFL never had to really push to
Speaker 1: put in salary caps or anything else, because the principal
Speaker 1: source of income was automatically shared. Because Bill mcveil and
Speaker 1: Pete Rosell figured this out in nineteen Flipping fifty six,
Speaker 1: Bill mcvhil calls me in the office in New York,
Speaker 1: and I can hear the startled in his voice. Keith
Speaker 1: I just got a note from George Steinbrenner complimenting you
Speaker 1: on your great work and complimenting me on having such
Speaker 1: an enterprising young reporter in the New York office. And
Speaker 1: I was reading it thinking, I wonder who he means,
Speaker 1: and I went, thanks Bill, and he goes, no. I
Speaker 1: was wondering what this could possibly be about, and then
Speaker 1: he said he had the presence of mind to not
Speaker 1: just follow the rules, but come up and without violating
Speaker 1: any rules, solicit me for an interview, which I was
Speaker 1: happy to give him. And he asked great question He
Speaker 1: asked me philosophical questions about why I changed managers, rather
Speaker 1: than why did you do this? And how dare you?
Speaker 1: And doesn't He asked great questions and he showed pluck
Speaker 1: and I said, well, yeah it was I didn't plan
Speaker 1: it that way, it just worked out. Well, congratulations, we're
Speaker 1: going to send you a bonus. The bonus turned out
Speaker 1: to be twenty five dollars. On the other hand, my
Speaker 1: salary was twenty six thousand dollars, so twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: actually was like two meals worth in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: So that was my first experience with George. He wrote
Speaker 1: a fan letter to my boss at CNN. Now I
Speaker 1: go and leave CNN and go and work in local
Speaker 1: news in Boston where he would not have seen me,
Speaker 1: and going work in local news in Los Angeles where
Speaker 1: he would not have seen me. But now when I
Speaker 1: go to ESPN A decade later, in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: one of my first big assignments for them was to
Speaker 1: anchor the Major League Baseball Expansion Draft that gave birth
Speaker 1: to the Florida Marlins and the Colorado Rockies. November seventeenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, and sure as hell a fan appears,
Speaker 1: a copy of which has been sent to me by
Speaker 1: the secretary to Steve Bornstein, the president of ESPN, who
Speaker 1: did not really like talent, and who dreamed at night
Speaker 1: of finding some way to make ESPN talent free, so
Speaker 1: that there just be highlights, no announcers, just highlights and
Speaker 1: games without announcers, hopefully having the players described themselves as
Speaker 1: they ran down the field. Steve and I later became
Speaker 1: okay friends because politically we were aligned, But when I
Speaker 1: worked for him, Steve used to say things like that, oh,
Speaker 1: if I could only get away with not having talent
Speaker 1: and mean them well, Sure enough, his office sends me
Speaker 1: a copy of a letter, a fan letter on Yankee
Speaker 1: stationery from George Steinbrenner complimenting me and the rest of
Speaker 1: the team. And the team included Peter Gammons and Ray
Speaker 1: Knight and ten other announcers, including our play by play
Speaker 1: men John Miller and Joe Morgan just sort of dismissed
Speaker 1: as the team. But I was the anchor of this
Speaker 1: hour broadcast, and George was just gushing about what a
Speaker 1: great job I did. To the president of ESPN, there
Speaker 1: was a post it to this and it basically said,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily believe any of this, but it's nice
Speaker 1: to have SB Steve Bornstein. That's nineteen ninety two. The
Speaker 1: next year, George Steinbrenner came back off suspension and he
Speaker 1: was granting a few long form interviews to various news organizations,
Speaker 1: and ESPN approached him and he said, I don't want
Speaker 1: to really do a sit down TV for any length,
Speaker 1: but is that guy Olderman still working for you? Is
Speaker 1: he still with the radio network in addition to the
Speaker 1: Sports center stuff? And they said, yes, why I'll sit
Speaker 1: down with him for an hour if you want to
Speaker 1: schedule something on a weekend sure enough. We do an
Speaker 1: hour about the Yankees and about suspension and if it's
Speaker 1: changed him, and what he thinks about baseball and the
Speaker 1: expansion draft and politics and the Commissioners Office and getting
Speaker 1: rid of Buie Kun and was what about bart Cham
Speaker 1: I mean, and dozens and dozens of issues. And now
Speaker 1: we're live and we're coming to the end of the hour,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, we're out of time, and oh no, really,
Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying this. I said, well, if you want
Speaker 1: to wait ten minutes, we'll come back after the top
Speaker 1: of the hour. We could do some more. I was kidding.
Speaker 1: George said, sure, I'm just going to go out to
Speaker 1: the bathroom. Call me back on that number. Your producer
Speaker 1: has it. Ten minutes later, we come back from the
Speaker 1: news break. I'm not even supposed to still be on
Speaker 1: the air. Good evening, and Keith Olberman ESPN Radio Sports
Speaker 1: Radio ESPN, and here's our second hour with George Steinbrenner,
Speaker 1: who went for another twenty minutes. So now I leave
Speaker 1: ESPN in nineteen ninety seven and go to MSNBC, And
Speaker 1: by the beginning of nineteen ninety eight it becomes an
Speaker 1: all political show. And at first people were not sure
Speaker 1: if I was a liberal or I was a conservative,
Speaker 1: because I tried to treat that story of Clinton and
Speaker 1: Lewinsky right down the middle, and the more and more
Speaker 1: it became obvious that it was in a Republican plot
Speaker 1: to try to remove both the president and the vice
Speaker 1: president and somehow install that idiot Knut Gingrich as the
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House and the last man standing as
Speaker 1: the acting president. Before that became evident, I seemed kind
Speaker 1: of neutral, and a lot of conservatives thought that I
Speaker 1: had given them a fair shake and they didn't care
Speaker 1: what I said after I stopped giving them a fair shake.
Speaker 1: And in the bowels of that stadium in Cleveland, George
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner and I talked about my TV show with Bud Selig,
Speaker 1: the Commissioner of Baseball and an equally conservative man and
Speaker 1: an equally unlikely friend and fan, and the two of
Speaker 1: them were gushing fanboys about my original MSNBC show, The
Speaker 1: Big Show and The White House in Crisis. I got
Speaker 1: a note from George when I left to go to
Speaker 1: Fox Sports. I have previously told you about how I
Speaker 1: got thrown out of a riotous game at Yankee Red
Speaker 1: Sox playoffs at Fenway Park in nineteen ninety nine by
Speaker 1: an angry head of security at Fenway Park, the van
Speaker 1: started to throw bottles on the field, and I was
Speaker 1: told by my boss to get out on the field
Speaker 1: and stand in front of the camera and the security
Speaker 1: people's gout the f off the field gets it right there.
Speaker 1: I'm throwing you out of the park. And the place
Speaker 1: he put me in was the chair right next to
Speaker 1: George Steinbrener, who greeted me with Hi. So George and
Speaker 1: I were in touch rather frequently, and in two thousand,
Speaker 1: of course, my mother got hit by a throw from
Speaker 1: the ailing Yankee second baseman Chuck Knobloch, and George sent
Speaker 1: a note asking how she was. And when they won
Speaker 1: the World Series that fall, I was anchoring for Fox
Speaker 1: and I was the talking head and the presentation in
Speaker 1: which he was handed the World Series trophy, and George
Speaker 1: showed up a minute beforehand and started to weep in
Speaker 1: my presence. I'm so happy for your mother. My mom
Speaker 1: was a Yankee fan and she'd gotten hit by a
Speaker 1: throw at Yankee Stadium, and he was happy for my mother.
Speaker 1: Is she here to see this? And I went, George,
Speaker 1: where it's Shay stadium. We had to come here in
Speaker 1: the seventies when you played here for two years while
Speaker 1: they were renovating Yankee Stadium. Mother hates Shay Stadium more
Speaker 1: than you do. She wouldn't come here if you let
Speaker 1: her play third base. And George's face crumbled like some
Speaker 1: cartoon and he just burst into tears and went, I
Speaker 1: love her more than ever. The next year, after I
Speaker 1: had left Fox Sports, George approached me late in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one and said, I want you to be
Speaker 1: the voice of my new TV network. I want you
Speaker 1: to be the face and the voice of my two
Speaker 1: new TV network that carries the Yankee games and other
Speaker 1: games in years to come, the Yes Network. And I said, George,
Speaker 1: I adore you. I adore you too. You're a great,
Speaker 1: great broadcaster and a good decent guy. And I said, George,
Speaker 1: I would say exactly the same thing to you. Why
Speaker 1: would we want to spoil this by me working for you?
Speaker 1: And he looked at me shocked and then laughed and went,
Speaker 1: you're right again. And we didn't ever work together, and
Speaker 1: thus maintain the friendship for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: The pinnacle of this was one of two things. Later on,
Speaker 1: I'm at a news conference in the bowels of Yankee
Speaker 1: Stadium where the Yankees have just obtained a pitcher. I
Speaker 1: believe it was Jeff Weaver. I believe it was from
Speaker 1: the Detroit Tigers, and there was some doubt as to
Speaker 1: whether or not he could handle the pressure in New York.
Speaker 1: And in this crowded news conference the door. I'm standing
Speaker 1: at the back by the door, hundreds of reporters crammed
Speaker 1: into a space designed for about fifty people. The door
Speaker 1: opened silently behind me, but I see out of the
Speaker 1: corner of my eye George Steinbrenner comes in. Nobody turns
Speaker 1: to greet him. I come over. We get a two
Speaker 1: handed handshake, and he whispers, how's he doing? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: so far, very good. But he hasn't thrown any pitches yet.
Speaker 1: Suddenly George bursts into laughter, and now everybody turns around
Speaker 1: and sees him, and Weaver has the presence of mind
Speaker 1: to applaud or something like that, and George, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: willing my cover give me a report on this afterwards,
Speaker 1: and I'm ushered into his box later in that day,
Speaker 1: and I said, I have some doubts. I think he'll
Speaker 1: be okay. Well, he wasn't. He wasn't okay, And George
Speaker 1: never accepted the idea that it wasn't my fault. I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't trade for him. George came out once in
Speaker 1: a game in which Weaver gave up like seven hits
Speaker 1: in the first inning, and came out into the press box,
Speaker 1: into the area with just the radio reporters which was
Speaker 1: adjacent to his box, and started screaming. I said, George,
Speaker 1: I don't mind this at all. It's a great story.
Speaker 1: And the radio guys, I'm sure don't mind at all.
Speaker 1: But you do know that the newspaper guys are just
Speaker 1: like ten feet away. That's not a soundproof booth that
Speaker 1: you're in here. They're going to see you doing this.
Speaker 1: Oh once again, thanks Keith, And then he scurried back
Speaker 1: into his office. It's not if it's not that the
Speaker 1: great topping moment of this. In two thousand and what
Speaker 1: was the year of the tsunami five, the tsunami in
Speaker 1: the Indian Ocean. George Steinbrenner raised a million dollars or
Speaker 1: so for the tsunami really fund headed by Bush and
Speaker 1: Clinton and Bill Clinton for a million dollars went to
Speaker 1: Yankee stadium to pick up the giant oversized check before
Speaker 1: a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Pittsburgh Pirates whose
Speaker 1: broadcasters brought all of their announcers to New York for
Speaker 1: a special three day trip some sort of thing. So
Speaker 1: the press box is filled with Pittsburgh Pirates producers. It
Speaker 1: sounds like a tongue twister, but it was actually the case.
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Pirates producers with pretzels. So there's nowhere to sit
Speaker 1: except in one seat for me in the radio press
Speaker 1: box adjoining George Steinbrenner's private box, which is empty except
Speaker 1: for George. And then in about the third inning in
Speaker 1: walks President Bill Clinton to sit with George. About an
Speaker 1: inning later, after President Clinton, who I had met once,
Speaker 1: waved at me and Steinbrenner waved at me, he sent
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner that is Randy Levine, who was the president of
Speaker 1: the Yankees, or would be and still is and had
Speaker 1: been Rudy Giuliani's deputy mayor. That's where that connection came from.
Speaker 1: George sent Randy out into the radio press box, where
Speaker 1: most of these radio guys who'd never seen him in
Speaker 1: the flesh, were like, it's somebody important. And Randy said
Speaker 1: mister Steinbrenner, who was wondering if you would like to
Speaker 1: sit with him in President Clinton for a few innings,
Speaker 1: And I made some sort of pretensive well, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if I have the time to do that. When
Speaker 1: does he want to go now? It'd be good. Let
Speaker 1: me just close my score book, and I was invited in,
Speaker 1: and for several innings, I had the singular experience of
Speaker 1: watching a Major League Baseball game in the owner's box
Speaker 1: with the owner and the former president of the United States,
Speaker 1: who I, as I said, barely knew and would not
Speaker 1: have known me from my work at MSNBC yet, because
Speaker 1: that really hadn't turned the corner yet. Instead, George Steinbrenner,
Speaker 1: who had hit his head at some point and had
Speaker 1: suffered some kind of cerebral event that they never ever diagnosed,
Speaker 1: or at least did not make public. It eventually would
Speaker 1: lead to his passing. He was beginning to have some
Speaker 1: of the effects of this, and it was very, very complicated.
Speaker 1: As I told you once. Head injuries are such that
Speaker 1: when I had mine in nineteen eighty, I could remember
Speaker 1: my father's name, Theodore, but could not, for the life
Speaker 1: of me remember my middle name Theodore. That's how specific
Speaker 1: a head injury can be. George was having trouble remembering
Speaker 1: certain things but not others. President Clinton, let me tell
Speaker 1: you about this young man. I met this young man
Speaker 1: when he was fourteen was it fourteen or fifteen? And
Speaker 1: I said, how do you remember that? I remember those things?
Speaker 1: At an open season ticket holder. His father and mother
Speaker 1: were devoted Yankee fast Remember that throw the other year
Speaker 1: that hit the fan, and that was his mother and
Speaker 1: his mother came back the next day. What a great fan.
Speaker 1: I love her, And on and on and on, and
Speaker 1: stories about how you know right in this very box.
Speaker 1: He came up. And when I tried to avoid a
Speaker 1: press conference where I changed managers, he found me and
Speaker 1: game me and did a great interview with great questions
Speaker 1: about the philosophy of firing man Everything from nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: two rolled out as if it had happened the day
Speaker 1: before yesterday, and this is two thousand and five, on
Speaker 1: and on the story about the two thousand World Series
Speaker 1: event my mom and the Chuck Knoblock throw that hit her,
Speaker 1: other events. He once gave me advice on a trade,
Speaker 1: and he did this, and he did that, and things
Speaker 1: I had completely forgotten, and every time he referred to me,
Speaker 1: he referred to me as this young man. And it
Speaker 1: became evident. And Bill Clinton is barely containing his laughter
Speaker 1: at the folsomeness of George Steinbrenner's affection for me. Every
Speaker 1: time we go into another story, it becomes more and
Speaker 1: more apparent that for all the things that George remembers
Speaker 1: about me, he can't summon my name, and it can't
Speaker 1: be because he doesn't remember it or know it. He's
Speaker 1: telling stories about my mother, he's telling stories about me
Speaker 1: as a teenager. I said, rookie TV reporter, he couldn't
Speaker 1: remember my name the way I couldn't remember my middle
Speaker 1: name right after I hit my head. It was tragic.
Speaker 1: But after telling Bill Clinton twenty five minutes worth of
Speaker 1: Keith Olberman stories, George Steinbrenner says, that's who this young
Speaker 1: man is. And now he's in your field and you
Speaker 1: get to deal with him. And Bill Clinton said, and
Speaker 1: God bless him for saying this, and God blessed George
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner wherever he is. Bill Clinton says, well, it's pretty
Speaker 1: obvious that George, you really like this guy. I'd keep
Speaker 1: my eye on you. Keith. The first time I really
Speaker 1: knew George was a fan was when he interrupted my
Speaker 1: sign off on a live shot for CNN outside Yankee
Speaker 1: Stadium in the dark, in the freezing dark, in the
Speaker 1: freezing dark, in the kind of dangerous Bronx of December sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. He had just appointed his latest new
Speaker 1: Yankee manager, Yogi Bearra, and they were both out there
Speaker 1: with me doing the live shot for CNN Sports. I'll
Speaker 1: never know why, but there they were. And as I
Speaker 1: thanked them and I threw it back to Atlanta, George
Speaker 1: knocked my microphone back towards him. He didn't grab the
Speaker 1: mic out of my hands, he just sort of pushed
Speaker 1: it towards him so we'd all hear what he said.
Speaker 1: And what he said was sorry, Keith. First off, he
Speaker 1: knew my name. Then secondly he stared into the camera
Speaker 1: and said, hey, Ted Turner, stop trying to sign my
Speaker 1: free agents. Thanks Keith, I still miss George. I've done
Speaker 1: all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: Three years of this. I think we're set to continue
Speaker 1: on Monday. We'll find out as I recorded this, the
Speaker 1: deal is not done, but it's very close. And there
Speaker 1: may be footprint enlargement which we will be able to
Speaker 1: announce next week. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel, our
Speaker 1: musical directors of Countdown. I'm jinxing it by doing that,
Speaker 1: by saying that about footprints. Never mind when I said
Speaker 1: about footprints. Just remember what I said about Christy Nome.
Speaker 1: It was produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Ray on guitars,
Speaker 1: bass and drums. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration on keyboards. Our
Speaker 1: satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball
Speaker 1: stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Olderman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is
Speaker 1: our sports music. Other music arranged and performed the group
Speaker 1: No Horns Allowed. My announswer today is my friend Larry David.
Speaker 1: Everything else was, as always my fault. If you hear
Speaker 1: a rasp in my voice Canadian wildfires. We're not saying, oh,
Speaker 1: how dare you send Canadian wildfires to New York. We're
Speaker 1: not saying, oh, look, it must be a real problem now.
Speaker 1: We're just saying this is how bad it is. We
Speaker 1: never had Canadian wildfire smoke in the air here, thousands
Speaker 1: of miles away until recently. I wonder why that's changed.
Speaker 1: Oh is that why they call it change? That's countdown
Speaker 1: for today, Day one hundred and ninety three of America
Speaker 1: held hostage, and just one two hundred and seventy eight
Speaker 1: days until the scheduled end of Trump's lane duck and
Speaker 1: lame brained term unless he is removed sooner by MAGA
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey Epstein and climate change. The next scheduled countdown
Speaker 1: is Monday till then. I'm Keith Oldermman. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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