Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
Speaker 1: will get to the murder of Charlie Kirk and the
Speaker 1: hot and cold running hypocrisy coming from all directions about
Speaker 1: it and about political violence in this country in a moment.
Speaker 1: But there is a more important story. Rather than reacting
Speaker 1: to Russia's drone attack on Poland the way that he did,
Speaker 1: what's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go.
Speaker 1: It could have been worse. Trump could have done the
Speaker 1: Martin Sheen bit from the movie Dead Zone, whereas the
Speaker 1: messianic psychopathic president Greg Stilson he starts World War three
Speaker 1: and announces the missiles are flying, Hallelujah, hallelujah. That would
Speaker 1: be worse, although to be fair, it would indicate that
Speaker 1: Trump had had some idea what was happening. What's with
Speaker 1: Russia violating Poland's airspace? Seriously, asshole, that's your job, you
Speaker 1: great decaying pile of burger grease. You are the one
Speaker 1: who is supposed to know what's with Russia violating Poland's airspace?
Speaker 1: And if you don't know, get the f out. Get
Speaker 1: the f out now, turn the government over to a
Speaker 1: general or an ex general or somebody who understands that
Speaker 1: your owner Putin played you again, and that when everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody in this country with an IQ greater than forty seven,
Speaker 1: had said that we have to support Ukraine because if
Speaker 1: we do not stop Putin in Ukraine, his next stop
Speaker 1: would be Poland. And you twisted your bulbous, useless face
Speaker 1: into that stupid forty five degree angled smirk. You were wrong,
Speaker 1: and everybody else in America, everybody else in America, oh,
Speaker 1: three hundred and one hundred and eleven thousand of us,
Speaker 1: we were right. Trump, There are ten thousand American troops
Speaker 1: in Poland. Did you know that what would have happened
Speaker 1: if mere debris from one of the Russian drones destroyed
Speaker 1: in mid air had hit a US base in Poland
Speaker 1: or hit one US soldier in Poland? What would you
Speaker 1: have done? Then, Trump tweet out a shrug emoji. Does
Speaker 1: it even register anymore that, even in the narrowest of
Speaker 1: possible views of this disaster, Trump is the commander in chief.
Speaker 1: He is responsible for keeping American soldiers safe in Poland.
Speaker 1: In many respects, it not only could be worse than this,
Speaker 1: Trump not realizing Putin had attacked Poland. Attacked Poland, just
Speaker 1: did his test marketing for an attempt to rebuild the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties Soviet Union. Attacked Poland to see if he
Speaker 1: could get any response from Trump besides d ye. It
Speaker 1: not only could be worse than that, it is in
Speaker 1: fact worse than that. For the second time in two days,
Speaker 1: somebody Trump thinks is his friend on the international stage
Speaker 1: deliberately attacked an American ally, an American ally whom Trump
Speaker 1: had personally just been shown with the President of Poland
Speaker 1: was at the White House last week, and Putin sent
Speaker 1: drones over his country this week, just like the way
Speaker 1: Trump took the bribe of a free jet that'll actually
Speaker 1: cost a billion from Qatar in May, and then Netanyahu
Speaker 1: bombed Qatar this week while Katar was trying to negotiate
Speaker 1: a ceasefire, and Trump's inert response to this was to
Speaker 1: say he disapproved. Trump does not realize that Netnyahu first
Speaker 1: and now Putin have attacked him by proxy. They needed
Speaker 1: to see just how brain dead he is, how unfit
Speaker 1: for a true international crisis that they could provoke he
Speaker 1: would be. And the answer is, you have no flippin' idea.
Speaker 1: I mean in the past, Trump has at least pretended
Speaker 1: to be opposed to Putin taking over all of Western
Speaker 1: Europe and then having too much strength for us to
Speaker 1: stop him taking over anything else he wanted on any
Speaker 1: other continent he wanted. I thought there would be something,
Speaker 1: at least pretending to be furious, something that indicated he
Speaker 1: understood the grave implications of what Putin did in Poland,
Speaker 1: even if it were somehow an accident, which it was not.
Speaker 1: The Russian dictator attacked mainstream Europe Tuesday night, and Trump
Speaker 1: couldn't even be bothered to come up with good phony
Speaker 1: outrage or yet another toothless deadline by which Putin had
Speaker 1: better make nice, or or Trump will sanction Russia's import
Speaker 1: of American catchup or gold plated toilet something something. There
Speaker 1: are a thousand problems with having a deteriorating, low iq
Speaker 1: narcissist as the leader of your country, and we discover
Speaker 1: a new one every day. But this is the real problem.
Speaker 1: When the problems he has to confront are not something
Speaker 1: that come from the diseased mind of Stephen Miller nor
Speaker 1: the half baked one of Sean Hannity, he has no
Speaker 1: idea what to do Poland attacked what up debt? You
Speaker 1: would think that at some point even the drunkards and
Speaker 1: religious nuts and terminal PTSD cases who make up the
Speaker 1: Republican caucuses in the House and Senate would realize that
Speaker 1: the you know, future of the planet is at stake.
Speaker 1: You know, when all the President can come up with
Speaker 1: as a response to Russian aggression five hundred miles east
Speaker 1: of Berlin is here we go. Even the Tim Burchett's
Speaker 1: and Derek van Orden's and Tim Scott's would have to
Speaker 1: realize that, never mind the world being exponentially more at
Speaker 1: risk today than it was Tuesday afternoon, that their own
Speaker 1: asses are exponentially more at risk today than they were
Speaker 1: Tuesday afternoon. But who am I kidding? A Democratic congresswoman
Speaker 1: reminds the House yesterday that gender affirming care that they
Speaker 1: want to eliminate includes quotes, boob jobs, and botox, And
Speaker 1: she seriously and steadfastly announces that she supports boob jobs
Speaker 1: and botox. And Nancy Mays starts screaming, literally shouting on
Speaker 1: the floor of the House because she's a little sensitive
Speaker 1: that her ex communications director outed her boob job. I
Speaker 1: think the ex communications director meant the boob job they
Speaker 1: did between Nancy's ears. That's what Republicans are worried about.
Speaker 1: That and Charlie Kirk not Putin going over the edge
Speaker 1: and the Poles having to shoot down the drones. He
Speaker 1: lobbed into their country just to see if anybody, anybody
Speaker 1: would react appropriately. We were just tested. Trump failed. As
Speaker 1: always with Trump and Putin, I am reminded of Nebel,
Speaker 1: Chamberlain and Hitler, but this time it is something new.
Speaker 1: Among the dozens of stupid, gullible mistakes the pre war
Speaker 1: British Prime Minister made was his assumption that his appeasement
Speaker 1: of Hitler meant the Germans would always view russ Usha
Speaker 1: as the enemy, and if war came, Germany and England
Speaker 1: would somehow work together to fight Russia and not each other. Then,
Speaker 1: on the twenty third of August nineteen thirty nine, the
Speaker 1: Nazi foreign minister Ribbentrop flew to the Kremlin and signed
Speaker 1: a non aggression pact with the Soviets. The Malotov ribbentropped pack.
Speaker 1: Chamberlain had a trusted advisor and met even more naive
Speaker 1: than himself, Sir Horace Wilson, And the legend goes that
Speaker 1: as Molotov and ribent Trop were meeting in Moscow, Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Chamberlain was on vacation up country somewhere fishing, and
Speaker 1: that's where Horace Wilson rushed to find Chamberlain the shocking
Speaker 1: news that the Communists and the Nazis were suddenly on
Speaker 1: the same side and England was screwed. He rushed there
Speaker 1: to tell Chamberlaine this. The story goes that Wilson found
Speaker 1: Chamberlain in a stream in waist high boots, waiters trying
Speaker 1: to catch I don't know minnows. Chamberlain blandly asked him,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here, Horace, and Wilson shouted, Hitler
Speaker 1: has done a deal with Stalin. They've signed a non
Speaker 1: aggression pact, and Chamberlain laughed, Oh no, Horace, you must
Speaker 1: have misheard. Wilson then screamed, Ribbentrop is having dinner with
Speaker 1: Molotov in the Kremlin right now, And it finally sunk
Speaker 1: in on Chamberlain that for years Hitler had been playing
Speaker 1: him like the proverbial two dollars banjo. His response then
Speaker 1: supposedly was great, Scott, we must recall Parliament immediately, and
Speaker 1: Chamberlain wasn't deranged or a foreign agent, or another imbecile
Speaker 1: or in mental decline or all of the above like Trump,
Speaker 1: He was just wrong. We have a Chamberlain who doesn't
Speaker 1: even have the presence of mind to shout great Scott
Speaker 1: when Putin attacks Poland my god, Putin could launch nuclear
Speaker 1: missiles at this country, and they could interrupt Trump rereading
Speaker 1: the Epstein files while ketchup bonging, and Trump would say
Speaker 1: here we go, or I disapprove, or oh no, General,
Speaker 1: you must have misheard. And then the next sound would
Speaker 1: have been the astronauts on the space station looking out
Speaker 1: the portholes and one of them saying, hey, what was
Speaker 1: that noise down there? Speaking of nobody noticing anybody noticed
Speaker 1: that Galene Maxwell's previous lawyer went on CNN and admitted
Speaker 1: that there was a quid pro quo that got her
Speaker 1: moved from a high teen Florida prison to club fed
Speaker 1: in Texas. Anybody noticed that at all? But now there
Speaker 1: is yet another trump Stein cover up already in progress.
Speaker 1: Anybody Arthur Aidala, Maxwell's attorney in her sex trafficking trial
Speaker 1: three years ago, Yeah, that went well for both of them,
Speaker 1: goes on CNN and is asked about why Maxwell suddenly
Speaker 1: got better digs after she lied to Trump's ex lawyer,
Speaker 1: the Assistant Attorney General, about how he had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with Epstein, and how she had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with Epstein, and how nobody had nothing to do with Epstein.
Speaker 1: Mister Idala then says, when anybody who's represented by a
Speaker 1: lawyer who knows what they're doing, there's always a quid
Speaker 1: pro quo. The larger context of that quote is important,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't materially change what mister Idallas said, and
Speaker 1: everybody has foolishly skated past. He is asked and he responds,
Speaker 1: here's the full quote. Well, there are things I'm not
Speaker 1: allowed to talk about, right, So there are things I
Speaker 1: can't talk about. Obviously, I can talk in generalities. Anybody
Speaker 1: who's represented by a lawyer who knows what they're doing,
Speaker 1: goes in and meets with the government, there's always a
Speaker 1: quid pro quo. Anytime the government wants information from a citizen,
Speaker 1: the citizen says, well, I have a right to remain silent.
Speaker 1: If you want me to give up that right, I
Speaker 1: need something in return. Usually it's a plea bargain. Usually
Speaker 1: your charges are going to be lowered and your exposure.
Speaker 1: That's the confirmation that Trump has already made a deal
Speaker 1: with Klain Maxwell about the Epstein files. Never mind pardoning
Speaker 1: her later or I muting the sentence, or whatever is
Speaker 1: to come. Trump has already made a deal as part
Speaker 1: of the Trumpstein cover up. And we have as the
Speaker 1: source for this Maxwell's former attorney, which takes us to
Speaker 1: the other new Trumpstein cover up of the week, the
Speaker 1: Birthday book. A. It's his signature. I've already posted my
Speaker 1: letter from Trump online. It's the same signature. He has
Speaker 1: written thousands of suck up letters. I got one. They
Speaker 1: are all his signature. He calls in news crews now
Speaker 1: to watch him sign his name. He loves signing his name.
Speaker 1: It's his signature. There are two forms of it. One
Speaker 1: he just signs Donald and the other he signs Donald Trump. B.
Speaker 1: If you think it isn't his signature, it has to
Speaker 1: have been forged in two thousand and three by Epstein. Bah.
Speaker 1: Somebody actually suggested Epstein forge that whole disgusting drawing and
Speaker 1: maybe the whole book with obviously great prescience. I know
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen twenty two years from now, after I'm
Speaker 1: dead and Trump is re elected president. I mean the
Speaker 1: same kind of prescience that fits the Trump theory that
Speaker 1: the Obama birth certificate was faked in Hawaii in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one. That's some long term planning. Man, We need
Speaker 1: those guys running the government. Caro Lyon Levitt said, the
Speaker 1: book isn't fake and the letters aren't fake, but that's
Speaker 1: not Trump's signature. And you could see something new on
Speaker 1: her face as she said that. It was a pout
Speaker 1: of annoyance that she so obviously had to bullshit on
Speaker 1: his behalf once again. I posit that, for whatever perverse reason,
Speaker 1: the guy most interested in keeping the Trumpstein saga alive,
Speaker 1: because part of a predator's nature is to compulsively boast,
Speaker 1: is Trump himself quote. I don't comment on something that's
Speaker 1: a dead issue. I gave all comments to the staff.
Speaker 1: It's a dead issue. Yeah, except Trump had existed. The
Speaker 1: letter from him to Epstein didn't exist. Not I've seen it.
Speaker 1: It's a fake. Jeffrey had that printed up. It didn't exist. Oh,
Speaker 1: it exists, but it's not his signature. But it exists,
Speaker 1: But it didn't exist, but it's not his signature. But
Speaker 1: On and on and on. It's a dead issue. The
Speaker 1: only dead issue around here is the naive belief that
Speaker 1: Trump isn't the star of the Epstein files. Trump can't
Speaker 1: help himself. The other day he said crime in Washington
Speaker 1: would be literally down to zero if only they stopped
Speaker 1: calling those problems that a man and wife have in
Speaker 1: the home crimes, in other words, decriminalized domestic violence. A
Speaker 1: call to decriminalize domestic violence is a look for a
Speaker 1: guy who buried his first wife out back on the
Speaker 1: golf course. The magas who actually cared about the Epstein
Speaker 1: prosecution for whatever reason, Tom Massey and such are still
Speaker 1: pushing to force a House vote to release all the
Speaker 1: DOJ files, a vote by the end of the month.
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson, you know, Mike Trump was an FBI informant,
Speaker 1: But I want to emphasize I never said Trump was
Speaker 1: an FBI informant. Johnson. He can manipulate the rules to
Speaker 1: prevent that vote as is about to happen on that day,
Speaker 1: which of course will only inflame the case again and
Speaker 1: anew at the end of his month. It's as if
Speaker 1: Trump is planning ahead to make sure this story never
Speaker 1: goes away. And once again some of the denials are hilarious.
Speaker 1: You'd think with this much of a story they would
Speaker 1: have worked on them. Just take a day and everybody
Speaker 1: come up with a good denial. President Trump's legal team
Speaker 1: will continue to aggressively pursue litigation, Levitt wrote, that does
Speaker 1: not mean they are suing about this story. Continue to
Speaker 1: aggressively pursue litigation about what and anyway in this story
Speaker 1: they can't sue. There's discovery. And never mind Trump being
Speaker 1: deposed about Epstein and girls. Any records, any records, any letters,
Speaker 1: anything on a computer somewhere would immediately be in the
Speaker 1: hands of Rupert Murdoch. Then there was the denial from
Speaker 1: Congressman Derrick Van Orden, whose CTE seems to be getting worse.
Speaker 1: He called the signature the book the drawing a quote fallacy.
Speaker 1: Fallacy is not only the wrong word. A fallacy is
Speaker 1: an erroneous belief, not a fake item of some kind.
Speaker 1: But fallacy is also a partial hominem for the word phallic,
Speaker 1: nice Freudian slip. Derek, And most interestingly, did you see
Speaker 1: any defense of Trump about this book, about his poem
Speaker 1: about the drawing, about the signature, from his children, from
Speaker 1: his wife, from his friends if he has any. The
Speaker 1: only time the family factored into this was when my
Speaker 1: former ESPN colleague Molly Knight finished the week's adventures in
Speaker 1: trumpstein Land with the searing most that this was an
Speaker 1: awful tough way for Don Junior to find out that
Speaker 1: his dad does two send birthday cards. Lastly, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not in favor of shooting commentators. I'm a commentator, but
Speaker 1: my god, can we stop with the hypocrisy about this.
Speaker 1: This is America. All we have done for virtually all
Speaker 1: of our history isshoot political opponents. The biggest politically based
Speaker 1: entertainment hit of this century is a play about Alexander Hamilton,
Speaker 1: who was shot by the vice president of the United States.
Speaker 1: Add to that two hundred and twenty year legacy, this
Speaker 1: new America that MAGA wanted, where the military is politicized
Speaker 1: and politics are militarized, and the fact that Trump has
Speaker 1: spent the last decade stochastically encouraging terrorism against and assassination
Speaker 1: of his opponents, where conservatives repeatedly call for the killing
Speaker 1: of Trump's opponents. I mean, Trump was shot a year ago,
Speaker 1: and not one of his supporters was willing to support
Speaker 1: meaningful gun restrictions. Well, guns have no place in America.
Speaker 1: We might as well be a gun on the flag.
Speaker 1: So you can have many reactions to the death of
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk, and I hope sorrow and disgust are among
Speaker 1: them for you, as they are for me. But what
Speaker 1: should not be among them is surprise. And again, you
Speaker 1: can be utterly opposed to shooting people without repeating America's
Speaker 1: age old lie to itself, that comforting lie that violence
Speaker 1: has no part in our political system. It is woven
Speaker 1: in as surely as the stars on the flag. Sorry,
Speaker 1: are you opposed to this? I am say you're opposed
Speaker 1: to it. Don't pretend this is some great shock for
Speaker 1: the record, To be fair, I don't think anybody shouted
Speaker 1: kill yourself at me in public since seventeen, maybe eighteen.
Speaker 1: But do you think the death threats to me have
Speaker 1: ever stopped the ones that started in two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: They have not, and each one of them has not
Speaker 1: surprised me. We've had forty six different presidents, and four
Speaker 1: were killed by guns, and a fifth was injured by
Speaker 1: a gun, and two were shot while campaigning to return
Speaker 1: to office, and at least twelve others were the targets
Speaker 1: of credible assassination plots, almost always involving guns. That's nineteen
Speaker 1: hell Gerald Ford was shot at from close range twice
Speaker 1: in a span of seventeen days. Fifty years ago. This month,
Speaker 1: pick any day on your calendar, and it's the anniversary
Speaker 1: of somebody getting shot or shot at in the political
Speaker 1: environment of this country. And what have we had in
Speaker 1: this country during those times when we haven't just had
Speaker 1: a president or politician shot or shot at, or a
Speaker 1: commentator shot or shot at, we've had a constant, escalating
Speaker 1: call for violence and murder. And the latest rage among
Speaker 1: right wing commentators public executions quote, death penalty should be public,
Speaker 1: should be quick, it should be televised. I think at
Speaker 1: a certain age it's an initiation. One commentator said in
Speaker 1: February of last year. He proposed making kids above the
Speaker 1: age of twelve watch making them watch public executions. He
Speaker 1: suggested guillotines be used. He suggested pay per view television
Speaker 1: of these things sponsored by Coca Cola, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to broaden the definition of capital offenses. The same commentator
Speaker 1: also wanted the death penalty for opposing Trump. Quote. As
Speaker 1: far as other death penalties, I think what some of
Speaker 1: those guys did to Donald Trump to use the instruments
Speaker 1: of government to destroy the constitutional order that should be
Speaker 1: under consideration. And the same commentator thought it was just
Speaker 1: too bad that there's this estimated three hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: three million guns in this country and that there would
Speaker 1: be gun deaths always, but that that was a fair
Speaker 1: trade off because that was the way to protect the
Speaker 1: Second Amendment. And that quote and the one before it,
Speaker 1: and the one before that, those all are from Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 1: This is from April fifth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: You will never live in a society when you have
Speaker 2: an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death.
Speaker 2: That is nonsense, it's drivel. But I am I think
Speaker 2: it's I think it's worth it. I think it's worth
Speaker 2: to have a cost of fortunately some gun debts every
Speaker 2: single year so that we can have the Second Amendment
Speaker 2: to protect our other God given rights. That is a
Speaker 2: prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They
Speaker 2: live in a complete alternate universe.
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk, April five, twenty twenty three. Did he deserve
Speaker 1: to get shot because he said that? No? I have
Speaker 1: a very ask not for whom the bell tolls. It
Speaker 1: tolls for the assessment of this situation, particularly when it
Speaker 1: comes to political commentators. No, we should not kill commentators
Speaker 1: with guns. We should not kill presidents with guns. We
Speaker 1: should not kill Americans with guns. Say it, dedicate yourself
Speaker 1: to it, Live it, act to make America into the
Speaker 1: other place, maybe for the first time in two hundred years.
Speaker 1: But please, the cliches and the empty words and the
Speaker 1: how could this happen in America? And we are in
Speaker 1: a bad place and it's getting worse. They are meaningless.
Speaker 1: We have always been in this place. They are as
Speaker 1: meaningless words as are the insulting fallbacks about thoughts and prayers.
Speaker 1: I wish it were otherwise. In many ways I have
Speaker 1: dedicated my life to trying to make it otherwise. But
Speaker 1: this is who we are. This is Countdown with Keith
Speaker 1: Oberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown twenty four years.
Speaker 1: Using the old midpoint theory of making your jaw drop
Speaker 1: about how long ago something actually was twenty four years
Speaker 1: since nine eleven, The midpoint theory notes that twenty four
Speaker 1: years before nine to eleven would have been September eleventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, I was eighteen, Carter was president. I
Speaker 1: was in college covering World Trade Center future hero Amon
Speaker 1: mckenay as he starred in lacrosse and football. He was
Speaker 1: only twenty two. I covered nine to eleven for forty
Speaker 1: days without a break, on TV, on radio locally, and
Speaker 1: on networks. And I don't know how many people I
Speaker 1: met or stories I covered on the streets of New
Speaker 1: York in those stricken months. But for all the time
Speaker 1: since one guy who that day did not get closer
Speaker 1: than seventy five blocks away from ground zero, his story
Speaker 1: still resonates with me in the way no other story
Speaker 1: from that day does. Let me tell you about Thomas Reyes,
Speaker 1: the man who wasn't there. Next in things I promise
Speaker 1: not to tell first, believe it or not, there's still
Speaker 1: more new idiots to talk about the roundup of the miscrants,
Speaker 1: morons and dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's other
Speaker 1: worst persons in the world, the bronze worse. Remember when J. V.
Speaker 1: Vance wrote quote, killing cartel members who poison our fellow
Speaker 1: citizens is the highest and best use of our military. Well,
Speaker 1: he was raked over the coals for that, and appropriately so,
Speaker 1: except by someone named Jennifer M. Greenberg, who retweeted this
Speaker 1: and added it would be wise for those criticizing jd
Speaker 1: Vance to recall that his mother was a drug addict
Speaker 1: who nearly died mu little times right in front of him.
Speaker 1: This issue is extremely personal to him and he cannot
Speaker 1: be expected to have any sympathy with cartels. Okay, look,
Speaker 1: I get it. We all have something in our lives
Speaker 1: that we view out of proportion, and it's a good
Speaker 1: thing that we do that advocating for something that is
Speaker 1: not the most important thing in the world or the
Speaker 1: most important factor in how the world should be conducted.
Speaker 1: Having people advocate for these things is essential, or these
Speaker 1: things will never get addressed or done or even known about.
Speaker 1: And this is not to diminish addiction or opioids or
Speaker 1: fentanyl or the damage that they can do secondhand to
Speaker 1: a child if their parents succumbs to these things. But
Speaker 1: functioning in the real world, being a real human being,
Speaker 1: is knowing when the greater issue you are dealing with
Speaker 1: is so large and your personal responsibility for that greater
Speaker 1: issue is so large that you have to for a
Speaker 1: moment put your own history aside or at minimum, you
Speaker 1: have to not let it be the decisive part of
Speaker 1: your actions or even of your public pronouncements. For JD. Vance,
Speaker 1: who I think is a failed I think is an
Speaker 1: irreparably failed human being. I grieve about his mother. For JD. Vance,
Speaker 1: Vice President of the United States, you do not have
Speaker 1: the right to violate the constitution turn the US military
Speaker 1: into a death squad against people who may have been
Speaker 1: criminals and may have just been guys on a boat.
Speaker 1: And you certainly do not have the right to glory
Speaker 1: in the war crime you have just participated in because
Speaker 1: of what happened to your mother. War crime, mister Vance,
Speaker 1: war crime, Miss Greenberg, when he goes to trial someday,
Speaker 1: they are not going to let JV. Vance off with
Speaker 1: probation because of what happened to his mother. Tragic as
Speaker 1: it is, on that level, this is almost as stupid
Speaker 1: as pointing to Trump's crazy mother and father and saying
Speaker 1: you want to know what's wrong with them, take a
Speaker 1: look at them. At some point they don't factor into it.
Speaker 1: Vance is long past that point. So no, Miss Greenberg,
Speaker 1: I have no sympathy for the cartels either, and we
Speaker 1: have no evidence the people our government murdered in the
Speaker 1: Caribbean were part of any cartel. So miss Greenberg kindly
Speaker 1: shut the f up, and mister Vance, if that was
Speaker 1: a factor in what she wrote, resign and turn yourself
Speaker 1: in to the International Court of Justice. Runner up. Rarely
Speaker 1: it is that I get surprised by these anymore. But
Speaker 1: this is from a host on the Ben Shapiro shit show,
Speaker 1: The Daily Wire. This guy used to work for Glenn
Speaker 1: Beck's The Blaze, and he's an author of some kind,
Speaker 1: and I'll identify him after I read his quote, which
Speaker 1: I think will speak for itself in many respects. Quote.
Speaker 1: So much of what is tyrannical in this country arose
Speaker 1: from the post Civil War of men and the civil
Speaker 1: rights laws that have been taken over by the left
Speaker 1: and used to silence people and strip us of our
Speaker 1: free association rights. I'm obviously in favor of civil rights
Speaker 1: and that everybody gets treated fairly, but the left takes
Speaker 1: over every social issue, and the Civil War kind of
Speaker 1: left us in many ways less free than we were. No,
Speaker 1: this was not written by Robert E. Lee Back from
Speaker 1: the Dead, nor Jefferson Davis. So opposing political violence with
Speaker 1: all my heart, I still want to say that I
Speaker 1: believe the Second Amendment is as important today as when
Speaker 1: it was written. The Second Amendment was enacted because the
Speaker 1: States asked the question, if the federal government is going
Speaker 1: to have an army, how would we defend ourselves against
Speaker 1: the federal government?
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, despite that last minute, tangent off into a real
Speaker 1: understanding of what the Second Amendment is. The guy is
Speaker 1: arguing that the Civil War weakened personal freedom, you know,
Speaker 1: abolition and the right to vote for all, first males
Speaker 1: and then people above a given age, and then they
Speaker 1: lowered the age, and then you know, anti segregation and lynching.
Speaker 1: Yet those are all apparently impositions on his rights. The
Speaker 1: subtext here is the ku Klux Klan and the National
Speaker 1: Rifle Association and the Federalist Society, Supreme Court, the leaders
Speaker 1: in domestic terrorism since eighteen sixty five. At how they
Speaker 1: have been mistreated by the Libs. When we gave them
Speaker 1: the right not to be slaves anymore, we never said
Speaker 1: they could be president. Now, the name of the speaker
Speaker 1: of that, Andrew Claven, seventy year old something, son of
Speaker 1: Gene Claven. A lot of people of a certain age
Speaker 1: from the same area that I'm from gasped just now.
Speaker 1: Gene Claven, for forty years was one of the great, generous,
Speaker 1: inclusive people of New York City radio, a legend, a
Speaker 1: brilliant comedian, maybe a creative genius, and a creative genius
Speaker 1: on a morning radio show when most people, myself included
Speaker 1: from a personal experience, most people are zombies on morning radio,
Speaker 1: not Gene Claven. So when they say the apple didn't
Speaker 1: fall far from the tree, sometimes the apple shrivels and
Speaker 1: rots and turns into Andrew Claven. Everything would have been
Speaker 1: fine if we hadn't had that Civil war. But our winner,
Speaker 1: Jeff Schell. I've told my story with Jeff Shell before.
Speaker 1: The short version is this one of three executives at
Speaker 1: Fox Sports working for Rubert Murdoch whom I could trust
Speaker 1: not to lie to me or to everybody else every hour.
Speaker 1: Really enjoyed his company. He gave me advice that benefited
Speaker 1: me at the expence of the company. Sometimes. When he
Speaker 1: switched to NBC and I was leaving MSNBC in twenty
Speaker 1: ten and eleven, he tried to talk me out of it.
Speaker 1: When they made him chairman of NBC in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: I reached out the night the rumor broke and he
Speaker 1: reached back like two hours later said he wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about having me go back on the air anchoring
Speaker 1: at MSNBC, And then we went back and forth. There
Speaker 1: was that little pandemic that slowed things down, But after
Speaker 1: the pandemic ended, we still went back and forth for
Speaker 1: nearly two years, with him scheduling meetings with me and
Speaker 1: then canceling the meetings, and then scheduling meetings with me
Speaker 1: and the head of NBC News and him, and then
Speaker 1: canceling those meetings, and then the whole thing finally blew up,
Speaker 1: and ten years of negotiations of various seriousness came to
Speaker 1: a final end in the fall of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: and Shell put out a statement to a media reporter
Speaker 1: because it leaked after ten years of secrecy, that he
Speaker 1: was never really thinking of having me come back to
Speaker 1: MSA NBC and it was all my fault because I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that he was lying, and I should have
Speaker 1: known he was lying. Now that's a flex. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, NBC fired Jeffschell on the spot for cause,
Speaker 1: and he was chairman for a really sleazy affair and
Speaker 1: job manipulation thing with a CNBC talent, and he went
Speaker 1: to sue them and all the lawyers in the world.
Speaker 1: He went to my lawyer and she began the process
Speaker 1: of representing him and vetting the case. And I never
Speaker 1: even said anything to her. I didn't say, you can't
Speaker 1: represent him, I will go somewhere. I didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: We never talked about it. I found about it in
Speaker 1: the papers that he was going there. The next thing
Speaker 1: I know, there's no lawsuit. My lawyer sends me a
Speaker 1: quick email going in case you were worried, I'm not
Speaker 1: representing him. He didn't get any money. He was just done.
Speaker 1: They fired him, and in that rare case of somebody
Speaker 1: getting fired from a job like that, it was and
Speaker 1: don't let the door hit you in the ass on
Speaker 1: the way out. Jeffs. Shell and then these fascists, these
Speaker 1: Ellisons who are merging CBS and their company and bringing
Speaker 1: in the ridiculous Barry Weiss hired Jeffschell to run CBS
Speaker 1: and Jeff Shell from whom I have email after email
Speaker 1: after email in which he agrees from twenty nineteen to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty that Trump is going to kill us all
Speaker 1: and Trump must be stopped. Jeff Shell has become a
Speaker 1: Trumpest inside man at CBS. Like the parasite, he actually
Speaker 1: is collaborating with the insertion of a Trumpest plant inside
Speaker 1: CBS News to oversee what CBS News reports from here
Speaker 1: on and what it is no longer permitted to report.
Speaker 1: CBS has appointed a man named Kenneth Weinstein to be
Speaker 1: the new CBS News ombudsman. Could have been worse, could
Speaker 1: have been Stephen Miller. Otherwise, this is as bad as
Speaker 1: it gets. Kenneth Weinstein never worked in news. He was
Speaker 1: CEO of the Hudson Institute, another fascist think tank. Oliver
Speaker 1: Darcy in Status wrote Weinstein's record includes a stream of
Speaker 1: alarmist rhetoric popular in right wing media circles. In February,
Speaker 1: for example, he declared in a New York Post column
Speaker 1: that women in Europe quote can no longer walk safely
Speaker 1: at night in cities because of the influx of Muslim migrants.
Speaker 1: In the same piece, he mocked quote media elites for
Speaker 1: warning about NATO's future, while deriding the alliance as one
Speaker 1: that caters to the interests of progressive elites and insisting
Speaker 1: it needs to undergo a radical shift. So Kenneth Weinstein
Speaker 1: is a to use a phrase similar to that a
Speaker 1: radical shit. The New York Times added installing an ombudsman
Speaker 1: at CBS News was one of sky Dance's commitments to
Speaker 1: the Trump administration. That's a nice way of saying bribe
Speaker 1: this year, when the company sought approval for its merger
Speaker 1: with Paramount. The agreement, in fact, is to keep that
Speaker 1: am boodsman in place, telling on people and preventing things
Speaker 1: Trump does not like from getting on the air or
Speaker 1: punishing the people who somehow managed to get those things
Speaker 1: on the air. That job has to be filled for
Speaker 1: at least two years. That is what CBS gave to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, not just the money. The money is for show.
Speaker 1: The money is for him to boast. The money is
Speaker 1: for him to stroke his mentally ill ego. The power
Speaker 1: is Donald Trump now by proxy runs CBS News. More
Speaker 1: from The Times, Weinstein donated roughly forty thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: Republican and pro Trump political groups last year, according to
Speaker 1: federal disclosure forums. That's right, CBS News, You're worth forty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Mister Weinstein has served on federal advisory boards
Speaker 1: under both Democratic and Republican presidents. In twenty twenty, mister
Speaker 1: Trump nominated him to serve as ambassador to Japan. They
Speaker 1: never voted on that. He didn't become ambassador. Hmmm. A
Speaker 1: statement from Paramount said, mister Weinstein will serve as an
Speaker 1: independent internal advocate for journalistic integrity and transparency. Unquote, no, no,
Speaker 1: he will not. He will serve as a Trump spy
Speaker 1: inside CBS News And unfortunately, for the vast majority of
Speaker 1: people there who want to tell you the truth, this
Speaker 1: is the death of CBS News. So what has this
Speaker 1: got to do with Jeff Shell, the aforementioned worst person
Speaker 1: in the world today? Mister Weinstein quote will report to
Speaker 1: Jeff Shell, the new president of CBS's parent company, Paramount,
Speaker 1: which recently merged with the Hollywood studio Skydance. Quote. I've
Speaker 1: known him for many years and have great respect or
Speaker 1: his integrity, sound judgment, and thoughtful approach to complex issues,
Speaker 1: Jeff Shell liar said in a statement, also praising his
Speaker 1: quote calm measured perspective. Those quotes from Jeff Shell, who
Speaker 1: says you should have known he lies all the time.
Speaker 1: Some men are born whoes, some men achieve hoaring, and
Speaker 1: others have horedem thrust upon them. And then there are
Speaker 1: creatures like Jeff Shell, whose best defense for betrayal is
Speaker 1: to publicly say you should have known they were lying,
Speaker 1: so it's your fault who achieve the goal of a
Speaker 1: lifetime running NBC even in these days. And then they
Speaker 1: f it up so badly that they not only don't
Speaker 1: get any severance, but no lawyer thinks they have ground
Speaker 1: for a lawsuit or even a settlement, or even a
Speaker 1: free uber home. And then they're somehow offered a similar
Speaker 1: job at another network with one little catch. The little
Speaker 1: catch is they have to become a fascist. They have
Speaker 1: to participate in the dismantling of freedom of the press
Speaker 1: in this country from the position of power in their
Speaker 1: own industry, which is supposed to defend freedom of the
Speaker 1: press of their own country, the dismantling of their own
Speaker 1: country traitor, just so they can claim they can be
Speaker 1: president or leader of something again when they should be
Speaker 1: cleaning out toilets. And after five years, as the old
Speaker 1: joke goes, they give them a brush like Quizzling or
Speaker 1: Marshall Patan or Jeff Sheell parasite today's other worst person.
Speaker 2: And Lord.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't learn I was lying. Nothing of importance happened to
Speaker 1: me on September eleventh, two thousand and one. I mean,
Speaker 1: against statistical probability. I had friends acquaintances in each of
Speaker 1: the two towers and three out of the four planes,
Speaker 1: and I only learned of the death of one of
Speaker 1: them from the missing posters. I rather unexpectedly became a
Speaker 1: street news reporter for old friends, one who ran an
Speaker 1: LATV station and one who ran an LA all news
Speaker 1: radio station. I felt more keenly that day than any
Speaker 1: other in my life that I was the descendant of
Speaker 1: countless New York cops and firefighters. My grandfather, my mother's
Speaker 1: father drove a hook and ladder in the Bronx. I
Speaker 1: have his badge. I was taken by cops for a
Speaker 1: series of harrowing behind the police line walks behind ground zero.
Speaker 1: I can still hear in my head the matter of
Speaker 1: factness of a dispatcher's voice coming across one of the
Speaker 1: radios saying body parts found on fourteenth floor of the
Speaker 1: World Financial Center, and another equally weary and broken voice
Speaker 1: repeating it body parts found on fourteenth floor of World
Speaker 1: Financial Center. I didn't see the attacks my apartment then
Speaker 1: only faced uptown. When I woke up that morning, all
Speaker 1: I saw was as beautiful a sky as I had
Speaker 1: ever seen before and to this day have ever seen since.
Speaker 1: By the time I got down to the street, there
Speaker 1: were already people with glazed eyes and dust covered shoes
Speaker 1: and pants who were just reaching my neighborhood from their
Speaker 1: walk from the Trade Center. The Trade Center was seventy
Speaker 1: five blocks south of where I lived. I was the
Speaker 1: witness who didn't see anything. However, I had already been
Speaker 1: on the radio in La three times, and I was
Speaker 1: on my way to Times Square for a television shot
Speaker 1: when I realized it was now hours later and I
Speaker 1: had neton, and I was just passing one of my places,
Speaker 1: a restaurant called Red Eye Grill, and unbelievably it was open,
Speaker 1: half a dozen waiters, familiar faces, hugs, tears. They made
Speaker 1: me my regular meal, they didn't charge me for it.
Speaker 1: Then I went to the restroom to wash up, and
Speaker 1: there was an attendant in there, and I recognized him too.
Speaker 1: And after I was finished, being even more embarrassed than
Speaker 1: usual at the whole process of somebody handing me a
Speaker 1: washcloth in a bathroom, I reached to give him a tip,
Speaker 1: and I found exactly three quarters in my pocket and
Speaker 1: a fifty dollars bill in my wallet, and the attendant said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll take those quarters. I can't use the payphone with
Speaker 1: a fifty And I didn't understand what he meant, so
Speaker 1: I asked him, what do you mean? He introduced himself.
Speaker 1: His name was Thomas Reyis, he explained. Two weeks earlier,
Speaker 1: Thomas Reyess said he had been laid off by an
Speaker 1: investment firm that he had worked for downtown. They liked him,
Speaker 1: he liked them, but jobs like his came and went,
Speaker 1: and he was out fired on August twenty fourth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. But he said they told him that
Speaker 1: if he wanted to, he could keep his desk for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. He could
Speaker 1: come in and use their computer and call around looking
Speaker 1: for work, maybe even pick up a shift at the
Speaker 1: firm here and there freelance. But to that point, in
Speaker 1: large part because labor Day had been the previous Monday,
Speaker 1: and in New York you leave for labor Day a
Speaker 1: week before and you come back a week after. There
Speaker 1: were no openings yet for him in the investment business
Speaker 1: or anything else that he could find. But years before
Speaker 1: he had worked odd jobs at that place, the Red
Speaker 1: Eye Grill, including as the attendant in the men's room,
Speaker 1: and this was the only place where they had offered
Speaker 1: him a paycheck to do anything. He was still going
Speaker 1: to his old job and his old desk every day
Speaker 1: except when Red Eye called and said they needed him
Speaker 1: in the men's room he had been on Wall Street.
Speaker 1: He was now not just the men's room attendant. He
Speaker 1: was the backup men's room attendant at a restaurant in Midtown.
Speaker 1: And that morning, seven am, seven point thirty, he was
Speaker 1: going out the door to his desk in the investment
Speaker 1: firm to work the phones again when his cell phone rang.
Speaker 1: The guy doing the mid day shift in the men's
Speaker 1: room at Red Eye Grill on Seventh Avenue had called
Speaker 1: in sick. He had, if he wanted it, eight hours
Speaker 1: of work coming to him sixty bucks seventy five with
Speaker 1: tips if he wanted it. And so that was how
Speaker 1: Thomas Reyis was in the men's room at the Red
Speaker 1: Eye Grill at fifty seventh Street and sixth Avenue, handing
Speaker 1: out very few towels to very few customers. On September eleventh,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one rather than sitting at his desk
Speaker 1: in the World Trade Center, And that is also why
Speaker 1: he wanted my quarters and not my fifty dollars bill,
Speaker 1: because he was trying to use the restaurant payphone to
Speaker 1: call his friends who still worked at the investment firm's office,
Speaker 1: which was on floors one hundred and one, one hundred
Speaker 1: and two, one hundred three, one hundred four and one
Speaker 1: hundred five of World Trade Center Building number one, because
Speaker 1: his old firm was Canter Fitzgerald, and he was not
Speaker 1: there that day only because the full time men's room
Speaker 1: attendant at the restaurant had called in sick, and I
Speaker 1: wished him luck with his phone calls, and I got
Speaker 1: out of there as quickly as I could because I
Speaker 1: had seen the video and he clearly had not seen
Speaker 1: the video. They were all dead at Canter Fitzgerald, including
Speaker 1: two classmates of mine from college, Amon mcaaney Mike Tanner.
Speaker 1: They were dead in the pyre of the building in
Speaker 1: which I had started my television career twenty years and
Speaker 1: a month before. The brother of another friend of mine
Speaker 1: was in the other tower. I had a friend, one
Speaker 1: of my cameramen on my show at Fox Sports, who
Speaker 1: I'd worked with literally three months before, Tom Peccarelli. He
Speaker 1: was on one plane. The former MSNBC guest Barbara Olson
Speaker 1: was on another. A hockey acquaintance of mine, Garnet Ace Bailey,
Speaker 1: was on a third plane. I went to the bar
Speaker 1: at the Red Eye Grill, and I asked the bartender
Speaker 1: to change the fifty for me and to give me
Speaker 1: all the coins he could spare. It's probably five dollars worth,
Speaker 1: and I kept two tens for myself just in case.
Speaker 1: And I went back to the men's room and I
Speaker 1: gave the rest and all the coins to Thomas Reyes
Speaker 1: for his phone calls. Apparently the battery was gone on
Speaker 1: his cell, and I hope I did a good job
Speaker 1: not letting him know that none of his friends would
Speaker 1: be answering. I mentioned Mike Tanner. I did not know
Speaker 1: he was dead until much later. September twenty fourth About
Speaker 1: Amon Mcanany, I knew right away that morning he had
Speaker 1: been one of the heroes of the nineteen ninety three
Speaker 1: attack on the Trade Center. On that day, he had
Speaker 1: guided a human chain of survivors one hundred flights of
Speaker 1: smoky stairwells. He worked on one of the uppermost floors,
Speaker 1: but this time, in two thousand and one, there were
Speaker 1: no chains for him to lead, though no one who
Speaker 1: knew him has ever had a seconds doubt that he tried.
Speaker 1: Mike Tennor was the starting quarterback and Amon Mcananney the
Speaker 1: starting wide receiver. In the first sporting event I ever
Speaker 1: covered for money fifteen dollars from United Press International to
Speaker 1: cover a Cornell football game in nineteen seventy six. And
Speaker 1: wouldn't you know the only thing that happened all day
Speaker 1: was Amon dropping a punt setting up the other guy's
Speaker 1: field goal. Cornell loses three to nothing, and I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to write two hundred words about it and telling this
Speaker 1: story as methodically as possible. I only summon up about
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten words, and the UPI man in
Speaker 1: Albany taking in my story says, no, that's okay. You
Speaker 1: don't have to pad it out with ninety words on
Speaker 1: the early fall weather. We'll still send you the fifteen
Speaker 1: bucks kid. And I found out about Mike Tanner the
Speaker 1: way too many people found out about loved ones or
Speaker 1: friends or fellow alumni, or just anonymous to them, smiling
Speaker 1: faces who suddenly counted every bit as much as those
Speaker 1: we knew. In that horrible month. Mike's face and name
Speaker 1: were on a missing poster on Canal Street in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: I stopped and stared at it for five minutes. I
Speaker 1: missed a report I was supposed to file for KFWB
Speaker 1: radio in Los Angeles. Somehow the circumstances of finding out
Speaker 1: that way foretold accurately how much shock and pain there
Speaker 1: was yet to come. But the point is I had
Speaker 1: a nine to eleven story, and you did too, probably
Speaker 1: even at remote distances, even friend of a friend of
Speaker 1: a friend. Some lucky ones don't. Some went through their
Speaker 1: entire lives and go through their entire lives still unaffected
Speaker 1: by nine to eleven. And now with time, more and
Speaker 1: more people think of it Pearl Harbor, like World War two,
Speaker 1: like the assassination of Lincoln. Then it has to be
Speaker 1: that way, or we would never survive. But for those
Speaker 1: of us who still have the stories, Democrats have them
Speaker 1: and Republicans have them, and those who thought the Iraq
Speaker 1: War made sense have them, and those who knew it
Speaker 1: for what it was have them. We were all in
Speaker 1: that sad thing together, and we always will be. But Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: as the anniversaries of nine to eleven began, President Bush
Speaker 1: and the Republicans were making it clear that somehow their
Speaker 1: part of this enforced tragic togetherness was more important than
Speaker 1: the part of their critics. The only positive of nine
Speaker 1: to eleven and the days and weeks and years that
Speaker 1: so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity
Speaker 1: here in New York and throughout the country. The government,
Speaker 1: the president in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Speaker 1: Those who did not belong to the President's party tabled
Speaker 1: that reality. Those who doubted the mechanics of his election
Speaker 1: the year before ignored that. Those who wondered about his
Speaker 1: qualifications forgot that nearly unanimous support of his government was granted.
Speaker 1: And that is something that cannot be taken away from
Speaker 1: that government by its critics. It can only be squandered
Speaker 1: by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds,
Speaker 1: but to take political advantage of them. Terrorists did not
Speaker 1: come and steal our newly regained sense of being American
Speaker 1: first and political fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats, nor did
Speaker 1: the media, nor did the people. The president and those
Speaker 1: around him, and those who followed him in his party.
Speaker 1: They did that. They promised bipartisanship and showed that to
Speaker 1: them bipartisanship meant that their party would rule and the
Speaker 1: rest of us would follow, or be branded with ever
Speaker 1: escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as
Speaker 1: those who, in Vice President Cheney's words, validate the strategy
Speaker 1: of the terrorists. These men promised protection and then showed
Speaker 1: that to them protection meant going to war against the
Speaker 1: despot whose hand they had once shaken, who did not
Speaker 1: have WMD, who did not have a damn thing to
Speaker 1: do with nine to eleven, against whom plans have been
Speaker 1: laid many years before nine to eleven. The polite phrase
Speaker 1: for how so many of us were duped into supporting
Speaker 1: a war, or at least acquiescing to it on the
Speaker 1: false premise that it had something to do with nine
Speaker 1: to eleven, is lying by inference. The impolite phrase is
Speaker 1: war crime. The America we live in now, in which
Speaker 1: one party believes its hatred is love, its fascism is freedom,
Speaker 1: it's depravity is purity. That began as the nine to
Speaker 1: eleven anniversaries began to follow one upon the other, after
Speaker 1: taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and the love and
Speaker 1: transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously
Speaker 1: transforming it into fear and suspicion, and turning that fear
Speaker 1: into the campaign slogan of election after election, we arrived
Speaker 1: in a world in which when Trump enacted the worst
Speaker 1: imaginable cliche wrapping himself in a flag, wrapping himself in
Speaker 1: an American flag, the morons thought that proved he loved America.
Speaker 1: So two have they succeeded in this and are still succeeding,
Speaker 1: and still, although they don't call it that, this government, well,
Speaker 1: the government of Trump, the government in waiting of Trump,
Speaker 1: uses nine to eleven, uses the hatreds of nine to
Speaker 1: eleven as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans. This
Speaker 1: is an odd point at which to site a television program,
Speaker 1: especially one from March nineteen sixty. But long ago, a
Speaker 1: series called The Twilight Zone broadcast a riveting episode called
Speaker 1: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. In brief, a
Speaker 1: meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extraterrestrials disguised as humans.
Speaker 1: The electricity goes out in a neighborhood. One neighbor pleads
Speaker 1: for calm. Suddenly his lights and only the lights in
Speaker 1: his house, go back on. Someone therefore suggests he must
Speaker 1: be the alien. Then another man's car starts suddenly. As
Speaker 1: charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are
Speaker 1: inevitably produced, an alien is shot. He turns out to
Speaker 1: be just another neighbor who was returning from going for help.
Speaker 1: The camera then pulls back to a nearby hill where
Speaker 1: two extraterrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can
Speaker 1: jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no
Speaker 1: need to actually attack, you just turn off a few
Speaker 1: of the human machines, and then quote, they picked the
Speaker 1: most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves. And then,
Speaker 1: in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums
Speaker 1: it up with words of remarkable prescience, Given where we
Speaker 1: have found ourselves in ever increasing measures since September eleventh,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, the tools of conquest do not
Speaker 1: necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fall out. There
Speaker 1: are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices to be
Speaker 1: found only in the minds of men. For the record,
Speaker 1: prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless,
Speaker 1: frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its
Speaker 1: own for the children, and the children yet unborn. I've
Speaker 1: done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. I will never forget mister Rayes. Most of
Speaker 1: our Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian
Speaker 1: Ray and John Phillip Shaneil, our musical directors of Countdown.
Speaker 1: It was produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Ray was on
Speaker 1: the guitars, bass and drums. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboard.
Speaker 1: Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best
Speaker 1: baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Olderman theme from
Speaker 1: ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtis CVSPN Inc.
Speaker 1: Is our sports music. Other music arranged and performed by
Speaker 1: the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today is my
Speaker 1: friend Tony Kornheiser, who has just re upped for another
Speaker 1: three years, co hosting Pardon the Interruption on the Worldwide Leader.
Speaker 1: One of the great fun days of my life. I
Speaker 1: co hosted that show with Tony. I guess three or
Speaker 1: four times. He said it was one of the great
Speaker 1: thrills of his career, and I said, boy, you haven't
Speaker 1: had much of a career, have you. In any event,
Speaker 1: congratulations my friend. I'm delighted to see you will still
Speaker 1: be working at age two hundred and six. Everything else was,
Speaker 1: as always my fault. And that's countdown for today. Day
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty five of America held hostage again,
Speaker 1: and just one two hundred and thirty seven days until
Speaker 1: this scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and lame brained term,
Speaker 1: unless he is removed sooner by Maga and Epstein, or
Speaker 1: the pavement on his hand, or wherever his signature turns
Speaker 1: up next. In any event, the next schedule countdown is Monday.
Speaker 1: Until then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
Speaker 1: and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.