Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Orleans
Speaker 1: Parish District's Attorney Jason Williams must indict and issue arrest
Speaker 1: warrants for the White House ICE henchman Tom Holman and
Speaker 1: his boss ICE director Todd Lyons and his boss, Homeland
Speaker 1: Security Secretary Christy Nome now with eight action dress up outfits,
Speaker 1: and for that matter, for her boss, President Donald ted
Speaker 1: Bundy Trump. The charges Attorney General Williams must bring someone
Speaker 1: estimated there could be twenty seven different charges include kidnapping
Speaker 1: of a United States citizen, deprivation of Fifth and fourteenth
Speaker 1: Amendment rights, and child trafficking. Because Trump and Nome and
Speaker 1: Lions and Homan and the agents involved, and in fact,
Speaker 1: the entire of Trump's government of the undead, by the
Speaker 1: undead for the undead, kidnapped a two year old child,
Speaker 1: a native of this country, a native of Louisiana, a
Speaker 1: native of New Orleans and Friday. They deported her, renditioned her,
Speaker 1: in fact to Honduras because they were sending her Honduran
Speaker 1: born mother there, and the mother allegedly wanted the child
Speaker 1: with her, although there is mounting circumstantial evidence that this
Speaker 1: is untrue, that this is a Trump administration lie designed
Speaker 1: to cover up the fact that somebody disconnected a call
Speaker 1: from the mother to the child's father as he frantically
Speaker 1: began to talk about getting lawyers involved. No hearing, no lawyers,
Speaker 1: no ethics, no responsibility, no morality, no attempt to verify
Speaker 1: whether a note about the mother's intent written in Spanish
Speaker 1: was actually written by her, or even that it exists,
Speaker 1: not even time for the father to talk to the
Speaker 1: mother for more than one minute before Trump's gestapo broke
Speaker 1: virtually every law and violated virtually every word of the Constitution,
Speaker 1: and the toddler, identified only by her initials VML, was
Speaker 1: not alone. Two mothers and three young children were disappeared
Speaker 1: out of New Orleans late last week, according to the
Speaker 1: ACLU of New Orleans. The ACLU says all are US citizens.
Speaker 1: The ACLU says one of the children four years old
Speaker 1: as a rare form of cancer in stage four, and
Speaker 1: the child was deported without medical consultation and without their medication.
Speaker 1: The ACLU says one of the mothers is pregnant. It
Speaker 1: is child trafficking, Mister Attorney General. People need to be arrested,
Speaker 1: Mister Attorney General. That is your job, sir, and you
Speaker 1: are a Democrat, therefore you are not a Trump whore.
Speaker 1: His bullies need to be metaphorically kicked in the groin
Speaker 1: because the United States of America is now officially kidnapping
Speaker 1: its own infants one's born in this country and with
Speaker 1: the full rights of citizenship, and sending them to foreign
Speaker 1: countries on hearsay. And you, mister Attorney General, are an
Speaker 1: official of the government of the fifty third largest city
Speaker 1: in this country, and one of your constituents was just kidnapped,
Speaker 1: and she's two years old, and you goddamn better do
Speaker 1: something about it. Indict them and have them arrested, preferably
Speaker 1: dragged into court in New Orleans by their feet. More practically,
Speaker 1: indict them and issue warrants for their arrest, knowing full
Speaker 1: well that dress up Barbie Nome would ever be seen
Speaker 1: in Louisiana again if you do this, nor will the others.
Speaker 1: But you can drag in the local ice goons, and
Speaker 1: even if the whole thing gets thrown out in two hours,
Speaker 1: you will have at least done something to indicate that
Speaker 1: democracy is going to fight back. And after we have
Speaker 1: seen that Trump's fascists are not just fascists, they are
Speaker 1: worse than we expected. You will show we are not
Speaker 1: going to continue to roll over as the degenerates in
Speaker 1: Ice now reportedly go on to a military base and
Speaker 1: grab a serviceman's immigrant wife while she is on duty
Speaker 1: at sea, and while the kilmar Abrego Garcias and the
Speaker 1: gay hairdressers, and the two year old New Orleans girl
Speaker 1: known by the initials VML, and the four year old
Speaker 1: New Orleans girl with cancer get disappeared like we were
Speaker 1: living in Chile in nineteen seventy three. If the Trump
Speaker 1: administration of Nazi adjacents can make up a law to
Speaker 1: allow them to walk into a Wisconsin courtroom and arrest
Speaker 1: a local judge because she would not hand over someone
Speaker 1: who was there in her court room to receive actual
Speaker 1: American justice hand that person over to a bunch of
Speaker 1: armed thugs, then the Ice thugs in New Orleans are
Speaker 1: fair game for arrests, as is the leadership, as is
Speaker 1: the painting witch Gnome, as is the psychopath at the
Speaker 1: head of the dictatorship, And whoever arrested the Milwaukee judge
Speaker 1: should themselves be arrested for obstructing illegal proceeding and menacing
Speaker 1: an officer of the court. Just consider the raw facts
Speaker 1: of the abduction of VML as if it were in
Speaker 1: the prism of inside the Trump cult, an innocent two
Speaker 1: year old American girl stolen by her Honduran mother and
Speaker 1: taken to Honduras and nobody stopped them, they would indict
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. In an America where the judges are subject
Speaker 1: to arrest by Ice as part of Stephen Miller's paranoid
Speaker 1: fever dream that we are under attack by by anybody,
Speaker 1: then Gnome and Trump and the rest of these shit
Speaker 1: stains are also subject to arrest as part of a gang,
Speaker 1: a kidnapping gang, a human trafficking gang. And by the way,
Speaker 1: obviously the case in New Orleans would be better handled
Speaker 1: by the Louisiana Attorney General Liz Morrill. But all you
Speaker 1: need out of her bio to abandon all hope is
Speaker 1: former Executive Council to Governor Bobby Jindall. I don't know, Madam,
Speaker 1: Attorney General. Surprise me. The judge in the case of VML,
Speaker 1: who tried to stop this horror, who protested this, who
Speaker 1: publicized this, is Terry Dowdy, the chief judge of the U.
Speaker 1: S District Court of the Western District of Louisiana. And
Speaker 1: he is not only a Trump appointee, but he is
Speaker 1: such a Trump appointee that he wrote that he had
Speaker 1: become aware independently that by the time he tried to
Speaker 1: talk to the mother in the case, the plane she
Speaker 1: was in was already quote above the Gulf of America
Speaker 1: unquote even he gets it. Judge Dowdy also scheduled a
Speaker 1: hearing for sixteen May quote in the interest of dispelling
Speaker 1: our strong suspicion that the government just deported a US
Speaker 1: citizen with no meaningful process, and just for that tears
Speaker 1: of gratitude well in my eyes. But no, Trump, don't
Speaker 1: do anything about the US born child with cancer you
Speaker 1: just sent to Honduras without even a hearing. Don't do
Speaker 1: anything about VML now arrest the judge in Wisconsin trying
Speaker 1: to keep people, any people. I don't give it f
Speaker 1: where they were born, out of the hands of these sadists.
Speaker 1: You have given uniforms and weapons too. Don't question that
Speaker 1: report Publican senators, don't question that Speaker Mike Closets Johnson,
Speaker 1: don't question that flag waving imbeciles, kidnapping American babies with
Speaker 1: cancer and arresting the judges who try to stop such
Speaker 1: moral cannibalism as you and Trump march towards ethnic cleansing
Speaker 1: in America. Remember, Republicans, as this unfolds, before the rest
Speaker 1: of us stop you, your only hope is that all
Speaker 1: or most of the world's religions are wrong, because if
Speaker 1: they are not wrong, you are all going to hell.
Speaker 1: Of course, as ever, the cruelty, the moral cannibalism is
Speaker 1: the point. After Judge Dugan in Milwaukee was arrested, the
Speaker 1: second choice attorney general, the one who, by the Trump
Speaker 1: terrorist's own definition, is a dei hire, Pam Bondi went
Speaker 1: out and said of America's judges, the judges the backbone
Speaker 1: of our nation and the group that includes the shrinking
Speaker 1: subset of those officials who actually put the law first
Speaker 1: in this country. Bondi said, quote, they are deranged. She insisted,
Speaker 1: we are sending a very strong message. We will come
Speaker 1: after you, and we will prosecute you. We will find you.
Speaker 1: It amazes me even now as I read this that
Speaker 1: Pam Bondy and the others who have applauded the arrest
Speaker 1: of one judge and the placing of symbolic crosshairs over
Speaker 1: the lives of all the other judges in the country,
Speaker 1: including the ones they like. Bondy and the other idiots
Speaker 1: have not once considered that the road they are on,
Speaker 1: the road to complete authoritarianism, where all the judges serve
Speaker 1: only if they rubber stamp all the Trump commandments. That
Speaker 1: road goes across countless bridges that may or may not
Speaker 1: support them, or may or may not still be there,
Speaker 1: or may or may not even exist. What happens to you, Pambondi,
Speaker 1: What happens to you Cash Patel? What happens to you
Speaker 1: Tom Holman? If you don't get to the other side
Speaker 1: of that goddamned bridge. What is the one thing you
Speaker 1: are guaranteed to see when Trump falls and America is
Speaker 1: restored to the United States of America? What is the
Speaker 1: one thing you will see a judge? I haven't spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in courtrooms in my life, thank goodness,
Speaker 1: but I did once sue the company part owned by
Speaker 1: the former Vice President of the United States for the
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars he and his co owner owed me.
Speaker 1: And one of the many pieces of advice one of
Speaker 1: my lawyers gave me that led to such a gloriously
Speaker 1: successful outcome there was don't piss off the judge. But
Speaker 1: for now, of course, pissing off the judge is Pambondi's purpose,
Speaker 1: the first purpose of her useless, bleached fifty six years
Speaker 1: long or more life, Pissing them off and moreover, scaring them,
Speaker 1: Scaring the judges by arresting one in Wisconsin, Scaring their
Speaker 1: own staff by firing their senior trade official, George Bogden
Speaker 1: because he went to Les Taylor's wedding six years ago,
Speaker 1: Scaring political opponents by ordering the investigation of the pro
Speaker 1: democracy fundraising outlet Act Blue, Scaring would be donors to
Speaker 1: the campaigns of actual American candidates by twisting the fact
Speaker 1: that Act Blues sight successfully caught and rejected foreign donation
Speaker 1: attempts and turning that into an international influence plot, as
Speaker 1: opposed to Trump just taking billions directly in international influence
Speaker 1: through his companies and the gyrations of the stock market.
Speaker 1: Scaring those who would defend those persecuted by Ice and
Speaker 1: the other Trump brownshirts by having rapacious idiots like Sebastian
Speaker 1: Gorka claimed that defending them is aiding and abetting criminals,
Speaker 1: Scaring the actual leaders of the opposition party, like Representative
Speaker 1: Acasio Cortes, by virtually accusing them of the crime of
Speaker 1: defending the accused and having your own propaganda outlets literally
Speaker 1: accuse them of that and scaring those who would speak
Speaker 1: out against Trump in any way by circling back to
Speaker 1: that idiot Gorka's claim that to do so is sudging
Speaker 1: with the tedodists. These will fail. These will fail. We
Speaker 1: will not be scared. We will be enraged. These will fail,
Speaker 1: And the Bondies and the Gnomes and the Gorkas will
Speaker 1: be charged for whatever laws they may have broken, and
Speaker 1: they will get defense attorneys, and we will not try
Speaker 1: to prosecute the defense attorneys, and they will get defenders,
Speaker 1: and we will not try to prosecute those who defend
Speaker 1: them in public. And they will be charged by the
Speaker 1: people they are now trying to scare, and they will
Speaker 1: come before judges, hopefully Judge Dougan. I would settle for
Speaker 1: Judge Doughty. But their real threat here is that in
Speaker 1: the time before they fail, they will succeed in chilling
Speaker 1: the debate. Those for whom the consequences can be real
Speaker 1: and devastating may hesitate to fight back on behalf of
Speaker 1: justice and the law and the nation, journalists in a
Speaker 1: time of corporate journalistic failure and cowardice and greed, judges
Speaker 1: in a time of political assassination threats by the right
Speaker 1: and that other most dangerous group to the far right
Speaker 1: two and four year old Americans from New Orleans. The
Speaker 1: Trump terrorism is that the hesitation will be enough to
Speaker 1: give Trump the time to do as much damage to
Speaker 1: this country as possible, because that is how he should
Speaker 1: be perceived and reported on. It doesn't matter if he's
Speaker 1: doing this damage on behalf of another nation. Doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if he has reached the nineteen eighty four stage and
Speaker 1: decided the object of power is power. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if he's doing it because he's insane. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: why he's destroying the nation. It only matters that he
Speaker 1: is destroying the nation and depending on institutions and individuals
Speaker 1: that would defend that nation to fold. And if you
Speaker 1: don't think they will fold, ask Zuckerberg and Bezos and
Speaker 1: the Washington Post and Columbia University and ABC and Bob
Speaker 1: Iger and CBS, which is reportedly going to let a
Speaker 1: mediator judge Trump's lawsuit this week. The one demanding bribes.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry the one demanding damages because the sixty minutes
Speaker 1: interview of Kamala Harris damaged him in the election that
Speaker 1: he checks Notes one. It remains irrelevant, but it is
Speaker 1: explanatory and could be useful. The other possibility that Trump
Speaker 1: is destroying this nation because those around him are not
Speaker 1: letting him see the new Associated Press poll where his
Speaker 1: approval is thirty nine and his net approval disapproval is
Speaker 1: now nineteen points underwater, and all the specific policy measures
Speaker 1: are underwater, and he is instead being told he really
Speaker 1: is saving this nation, and his semi human mind seems
Speaker 1: to be able to process the value of being perceived
Speaker 1: as savior. That they are telling him these things. Over
Speaker 1: here in the real world, we call this lying to
Speaker 1: him was underscored anew by this batshit crazy interview with
Speaker 1: Time Magazine. I mean batshit crazy, even in the Trump
Speaker 1: world of twenty four to seven. Batshit crazy. I could
Speaker 1: parse this for literally weeks, but the Time magazine interview
Speaker 1: suggests that the primary rule in the new Trump crazy
Speaker 1: machine is to tell him whatever is likely as to
Speaker 1: keep him from yelling at you. The Supreme Court ruled
Speaker 1: nine nothing that in the case of kilmar Abrego Garcia,
Speaker 1: the administration had to facilitate and effectuate the Maryland father's
Speaker 1: return with a deadline of three weeks ago. Today, since
Speaker 1: it has done the exact opposite, Trump was asked by
Speaker 1: Time magazine if he is therefore disobeying the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: which he is. Quote, that's not what my people told me.
Speaker 1: They didn't say it was. They said it was the
Speaker 1: nine to nothing was entirely different. Clearly, they never told
Speaker 1: him about the facilitate and effectuate part. Only that the
Speaker 1: court did not literally use a phrase like we ordered
Speaker 1: Trump to bring him back to the United States immediately.
Speaker 1: These moments of clarity clarity about how they are handling Trump,
Speaker 1: not clarity from Trump, for God's sakes, they fall from
Speaker 1: the Time interview like dust falling off the top shelf.
Speaker 1: Quote one final question, mister President, you were showing us
Speaker 1: the new paintings you have behind us. You put all
Speaker 1: these new portraits. One of them includes John Adams. John
Speaker 1: Adams said, we're a government ruled by laws, not by men.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with that? Trump? John Adams said that
Speaker 1: where was the painting right here? We're a government ruled
Speaker 1: by laws, not by men. Well, I think we're a
Speaker 1: government ruled by law. But you know, somebody has to
Speaker 1: administer the law. So therefore men, certainly, men and women
Speaker 1: certainly play a role in it. I wouldn't agree with
Speaker 1: it one hundred percent. We are a government where men
Speaker 1: are involved in the process of law, and ideally you're
Speaker 1: going to have honest men like me. John Adams said
Speaker 1: that where was the painting? Oh my god. On the
Speaker 1: bright side, he seemed to know who John Adams was. Quote.
Speaker 1: You were harshly critical of what you called the weaponization
Speaker 1: of the Justice Department under Biden. You recently signed memos. Well, sure,
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't be if this were Biden. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, he wouldn't do an interview because he was
Speaker 1: grossly incompetent time. We spoke to him last year, mister
Speaker 1: President Trump. Huh, we spoke to him a year ago. Trump.
Speaker 1: How did he do? Trump? You can read the interview yourself, Olderman.
Speaker 1: As an aside, I wouldn't bet on that. Trump not
Speaker 1: too good. I did read the interview. He didn't do well.
Speaker 1: He didn't do well at all. He didn't do well
Speaker 1: at anything, And he cut that interview off to being
Speaker 1: a matter of minutes, and you weren't asking questions like
Speaker 1: you're asking me. Rule one of Trump, there's always a
Speaker 1: nemesis when he has lost, failed, or has no other answer.
Speaker 1: Just bring up the nemesis. When Trump started to go
Speaker 1: crazy and run for president as revenge, it was against Obama,
Speaker 1: so everything was Obama. Then he realized sometime during twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen that he wasn't running against Obama. He was actually
Speaker 1: running against somebody named Hillary Clinton who knew, so everything
Speaker 1: became Hillary. Then he realized Biden was the front runner
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty, not Hillary. And since then, especially since
Speaker 1: he lost to Biden, since Biden humiliated him, and since
Speaker 1: therefore most of Trump is forever frozen in that moment
Speaker 1: trying to undo the loss. Therefore, nemesis is now Biden.
Speaker 1: This came up again about Ukraine. You remember his pathetic
Speaker 1: bleeding at Putin which didn't work. I'm not happy with
Speaker 1: the Russian strikes on Kiev, not necessary and very bad timing.
Speaker 1: Vladimir stop, Vladimir stop. Having failed to settle Ukraine in
Speaker 1: a day or let's see counting in the ninety nine
Speaker 1: of them, he had to blame Biden. Let me parse
Speaker 1: this next thing for the Biden part, and other notable inferences.
Speaker 1: This is the truth social post ready about Ukraine quote,
Speaker 1: this is sleepy Joe Biden's war, not mine. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: there's the Biden part already. It was a loser from
Speaker 1: day one and should have never happened, and wouldn't have
Speaker 1: happened if I were president at the time. I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to clean up the mess that was left to
Speaker 1: me by Obama and Biden, and what a mess it is.
Speaker 1: With all that being said, there was no reason for
Speaker 1: Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities, and
Speaker 1: towns over the last few days. Even Chuck Grassley had
Speaker 1: written President Trump, please put the toughest of sanctions on Putin.
Speaker 1: You ought to see from clear evidence that he is
Speaker 1: playing America as a patsy. Back to the Trump tweet,
Speaker 1: it makes me think that maybe Putin doesn't want to
Speaker 1: stop the war. He's just tapping me along. CBS News
Speaker 1: further shot its pants yesterday, putting the Russian Foreign Minister
Speaker 1: Lavrov a snake on face the nation, seriously on face
Speaker 1: the nation. I don't know if that was part of
Speaker 1: the Sherry Redstone bribe deal with Trump, or if that
Speaker 1: was Trump's reply from Putin, if Lavrov basically saying f
Speaker 1: U Trump was Putin's way of saying I didn't like
Speaker 1: that post, which ended, as you will recall, with him
Speaker 1: suggesting that maybe Putin has to be dealt with differently
Speaker 1: through banking or secondary sanctions. Too many people are dying.
Speaker 1: This could be in summation, a setup for Putin to
Speaker 1: allow Putin to propose his own deal in Ukraine, still
Speaker 1: utterly unacceptable, but maybe ten percent less unacceptable than all
Speaker 1: of his current demands. Whereupon Trump says he got Pootin
Speaker 1: and to make a deal. Owen Zelensky rejected it. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: perhaps the most interesting thing in that entire post, perhaps
Speaker 1: the most frightening thing in that entire post, perhaps the
Speaker 1: most revelatory thing in that entire post, is that one
Speaker 1: phrase in there makes me think that maybe he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to stop the war, He's just tapping me along.
Speaker 1: I am thirteen years younger than Trump, but I am
Speaker 1: from the same metropolitan area. The generation before me grew
Speaker 1: up here as his generation before him did. I went
Speaker 1: to a private school that played sports against the military
Speaker 1: school they were forced to send him to instead. Of
Speaker 1: the Juvie Home juvenile detention Home. I went to Ivy
Speaker 1: League University as he did, and for vastly different reasons.
Speaker 1: I probably actually went to fewer classes than he did.
Speaker 1: In my defense, I graduated in seven semesters. Also, I
Speaker 1: cut a lot, and like him, I have lived in
Speaker 1: New York or the immediate suburbs for roughly fifty three years,
Speaker 1: including the last twenty four uninterruptedly. I have also studied
Speaker 1: and loved language and slang and slanguage for the whole
Speaker 1: of my life. And I have never before heard the
Speaker 1: phrase he's just tapping me along, Nor can I find
Speaker 1: any reference to it anywhere. I thought, well, maybe that's
Speaker 1: a British expression. It is not. Maybe it translates from
Speaker 1: the German or the Russian. It does not. I mean,
Speaker 1: it could be a regional variant specific to Jamaica estates
Speaker 1: in Queens, New York. It could be a variant of
Speaker 1: the slang meaning of tapping. Tapping is a little sleeker
Speaker 1: sounding version of blinking and related terms. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've never heard this phrase before. There's no evidence, if
Speaker 1: you do a search for it, that anybody has ever
Speaker 1: used this phrase before. I mean, anybody. Maybe it's pre Internet,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a famous phrase from Queens in nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 1: But he writes it with the same confidence that everybody
Speaker 1: knows what he means, in which he writes all his
Speaker 1: otherwise simple, childish communications. There is no doubt in his
Speaker 1: own quote mind unquote that everybody knows. Everybody says ten
Speaker 1: times a day, He's just tapping me along. Martha, You're
Speaker 1: just tapping me along. You're just tapping me along, Officer.
Speaker 1: I think, and I will so far unsuccessfully hold my
Speaker 1: glee until this is confirmed that Trump has in fact
Speaker 1: manufactured this phrase inside his disordered, damaged mind. If you
Speaker 1: remember kofeve CoV f EFI was a major typo or
Speaker 1: maybe narcole xp or maybe he was typing it out
Speaker 1: on Twitter, slipped, fell his head, hit send the end.
Speaker 1: But tapping me along, that's from a language only Trump
Speaker 1: has ever heard. I think his illness or injury or
Speaker 1: malformation or whatever it is, might might might have just
Speaker 1: reached the stage where he he is making up his
Speaker 1: own words, speaking in tongues. Personal neologism, a phasia, accelerating
Speaker 1: mental or intellectual malfunction. You know that moment when your
Speaker 1: brain starts tapping you along. I have once been in
Speaker 1: the company of a relative who was suffering from acute
Speaker 1: attack of bipolarity and began to make up his own words.
Speaker 1: It is one of the more terrifying things to have
Speaker 1: ever witnessed. And even he did not say, you're just
Speaker 1: tapping me along. Headlines on Day ninety nine of America
Speaker 1: held hostage the Trump dictatorship. If the Canadian Liberals beat
Speaker 1: the Conservatives in the election today, remember to thank Trump
Speaker 1: and thank the fact that the creepy Conservative candidate has
Speaker 1: some kind of weird iguana thing going where he can't
Speaker 1: fully open his eyes. In the Maga answer to the
Speaker 1: White House Correspondence dinner Saturday, like you needed to answer that,
Speaker 1: the scum drank cocktails with what passes for witty names
Speaker 1: in their world. None of them were named just tapping
Speaker 1: me along, although I would have given them credit for
Speaker 1: doing that. One of the drinks was called leakers and Liars,
Speaker 1: meaning the Maga were drinking what happens when you take
Speaker 1: a leak fitting And yes, Trump fell asleep at the
Speaker 1: Pope's funeral, upright on camera, with his rubbery lips beginning
Speaker 1: to slide apart and this week's Milania did not wake
Speaker 1: him well. Given the choice, would you also of interest?
Speaker 1: Here in this all new edition, Bill Maher comes back
Speaker 1: at Larry David, saying Larry's implication that going to the
Speaker 1: White House for dinner with Trump was like going to
Speaker 1: the old Chancellery for dinner with Hitler. Bill says you
Speaker 1: should never invoke Hitler and says Larry had insulted six
Speaker 1: million dead Jews, which might be an answer if Bill
Speaker 1: Maher had not made the exact same comparison on his
Speaker 1: own show in twenty fifteen. That's next. This is Countdown.
Speaker 1: This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead. On this
Speaker 1: all new edition of Countdown. Somebody wrote something in fond
Speaker 1: remembrance of doctor Carl Sagan the other day and it
Speaker 1: reminded me and I had forgotten about this that forty
Speaker 1: seven years ago. Last week he won the Pulitzer Prize,
Speaker 1: and when our radio station at Cornell called him on
Speaker 1: the off chance he'd do an interview with us since
Speaker 1: he was also at Cornell, he said yes, but only
Speaker 1: if it's with your sportscaster Keith. I was nineteen totally unknown,
Speaker 1: and he became the first famous person I ever interviewed.
Speaker 1: Why he asked for me explained next in things I
Speaker 1: promised not to tell. First of all, eve it or not,
Speaker 1: there's still more new idiots to talk about the roundup
Speaker 1: of the misgrints, orons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who
Speaker 1: constitute the latest other worst persons in the Cosmos world.
Speaker 1: Let me dedicate this to Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. They
Speaker 1: are talking about promoting her to a cabinet position. I
Speaker 1: do not think it is a coincidence that this is
Speaker 1: because perhaps her first name contains the letters of the
Speaker 1: word lie and her last name contains the letters of
Speaker 1: the word lie. Here's a tip to the news network
Speaker 1: stop airing her so called press briefings live. Exceeding even
Speaker 1: the Sean Spicers and Dana Perinos of this world, she
Speaker 1: is lying well over half the time. It is pure
Speaker 1: propaganda and racism and idiotic and moral cannibalism. As I
Speaker 1: suggest earlier. Kudos to the BBC, which, after ninety plus
Speaker 1: days of carrying these things lives, seems to have figured
Speaker 1: out this whole idea and now just replays later on
Speaker 1: anything she says that is either relevant or true. It's
Speaker 1: usually about a twelve second clip. The domestic networks continue
Speaker 1: to run it live at least on occasion because it
Speaker 1: is the cheapest possible live programming. And in say MSNBC's case,
Speaker 1: do you prefer this or forty five minutes of Katie Terror?
Speaker 1: I have already submitted my answer to the judges. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the bronze works. It goes to Trump, President Scrooge McDuck himself.
Speaker 1: He does something stupid or cheap or both, and his
Speaker 1: stupid cheap supporters go crazy over it. He's installing two
Speaker 1: one hundred foot flag poles at the White House to
Speaker 1: further ruin the landscaping. All I know he intends to
Speaker 1: put them one atop the other. But he's paying for
Speaker 1: them himself. Oh boys, say the talking skunks of trump'sburrow, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: He's paying for them big flag polies himself. That must
Speaker 1: be billions. Even a one hundred foot flagpole sells for
Speaker 1: only twenty nine thousand dollars retail, so President Scrooge McDuck
Speaker 1: is shelling out fifty eight grand. Wow, big spender if
Speaker 1: he ever pays the bill. Listen, one hundred foot Flagpole
Speaker 1: Company of Alexandria, Virginia or wherever get it in cash
Speaker 1: up front. I'm just saying, maybe maybe nome and eight
Speaker 1: action dress up sets. Maybe she has it in cash
Speaker 1: in her wallet, in her bag. The runner up worser
Speaker 1: Ed Martin, nominee for Gulag Meister of the Capitol Military
Speaker 1: dis No, I'm sorry, nominee for US Attorney in DC
Speaker 1: and serving now as Acting US Attorney in d C.
Speaker 1: Let me just read this headline about Ed from the
Speaker 1: Jewish Forward Quote exclusive. Trump nominee apologizes for praising Nazi
Speaker 1: sympathizer while awaiting Senate confirmation hearing. US Attorney pick Ed
Speaker 1: Martin said he was unaware of Timothy Hale Qsinelli's views
Speaker 1: and white supremacist ties, which he now denounces. That headline,
Speaker 1: Trump nominee apologizes for praising Nazi sympathizer while awaiting Senate
Speaker 1: confirmation hearing. But did he do it in the hallway?
Speaker 1: By the way, I'd like to apologize. I have to
Speaker 1: go in here in a minute, but I do apologize.
Speaker 1: That's a headline New York Times. One of the keys
Speaker 1: to never letting on that you are one of the
Speaker 1: batties is to never ask any questions about the other batties.
Speaker 1: Nor believe any of the answers that you are avoiding
Speaker 1: in the first place. This guy Hale Cusinelli that ed
Speaker 1: Martin first praised, then denounced while awaiting confirmation, then said
Speaker 1: he knew nothing about him. That's the stupid looking kid
Speaker 1: who tried to pose on the internet as Hitler with
Speaker 1: the little mustache and the hair combed that way and
Speaker 1: the hand at his chest. But instead of looking tough
Speaker 1: or like a candidate for the Trump Cabinet, he just
Speaker 1: wound up looking like one of the rejected actors in
Speaker 1: the Producers and he might sink ed Martin. Good work,
Speaker 1: baby Dolf, but our winner, same topic yet again, Bill.
Speaker 1: Another way to avoid the consequences for doing something really, really,
Speaker 1: really stupid is to change the narrative and pull a
Speaker 1: bit of len aboutism against your critic. Mar went back
Speaker 1: on the air and dragged Al Gore, for whom I
Speaker 1: worked the living definition of the cliche the road to
Speaker 1: Hell is paved with good intentions, dragged Gore into defending
Speaker 1: Mar's Dinner with Air Trump. Mar also attacked Larry David
Speaker 1: for his soon to be Pulitzer Prize winning satire My
Speaker 1: Dinner with Adolph by trying to make Larry appear like
Speaker 1: he's an anti Semite. No offense, Larry, but Bill would
Speaker 1: have more success trying to make you appear like you're
Speaker 1: a Boston Red Sox fan. In an interview with Piers Morgan,
Speaker 1: which I assume Bill did just in case he had
Speaker 1: not destroyed his career by going to have dinner with Trump,
Speaker 1: mar said of Larry's epic evisceration of him, quote fans
Speaker 1: de Ball, it's kind of insulting to six million dead Jews.
Speaker 1: It's an argument you kind of lost just to start it. Look,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not completely logically fair, but Hitler has really
Speaker 1: kind of got to stay in his own place. He
Speaker 1: is the goat of evil. We're just going to have
Speaker 1: to leave it like that. I don't want to make
Speaker 1: it constantly personal with me and Larry. We might be
Speaker 1: friends again. Bill doesn't want to make that constantly personal.
Speaker 1: But he just accused Larry David of insulting six million
Speaker 1: dead Jews. Because that's not personal. It's comedy quoting again,
Speaker 1: I can take a shot, and I can also take
Speaker 1: it when people disagree with me. That's not exactly the
Speaker 1: way I would have done it. Again. The irony, let's
Speaker 1: go back to what my original thing was. There's got
Speaker 1: to be a better way than hurling insults and not
Speaker 1: talking to people. If I can talk to Trump, I
Speaker 1: can talk to Larry David too. Wait so wait wait
Speaker 1: wait wait wait wait wait. You don't want to hurl insults.
Speaker 1: So you said, Larry insulting six million dead Jews. That's
Speaker 1: not an insult. That's not personal. It's not an insult,
Speaker 1: it's comedy. Gold another quote, This wasn't my favorite moment
Speaker 1: of our friendship. I think the minute you play the
Speaker 1: Hitler card, you've lost the argument. Come on, man, Hitler
Speaker 1: nazis a hem from the transcript of HBO's Real Time
Speaker 1: with Bill Maher the eighteenth of September two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: in which Bill Maher says, quote I try to resist
Speaker 1: comparisons to Hitler because there's only one Hitler. He broke
Speaker 1: them all. But you know what, if you're stirring up
Speaker 1: xenophobic hate among an angry, humiliated population and talking about
Speaker 1: rounding up minorities, it's a little Hitler adjacent talking about Trump.
Speaker 1: And if you say, oh, he didn't compare Trump to
Speaker 1: Hitler ten years ago, he just called him Hitler adjacent,
Speaker 1: that's not comparing him. And then he responded to Larry
Speaker 1: by saying, I think the minute you play the Hitler card,
Speaker 1: you've lost the argument if you think those are not
Speaker 1: exact matches. From the transcript of HBO's Real Time with
Speaker 1: Bill Maher three weeks earlier, August twenty eight, twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: Bill Maher talks about Trump's rhetoric about China. Again, this
Speaker 1: is nearly a decade ago. The anniversary party at the
Speaker 1: Bill Mahers set will be August twenty eighth of this year.
Speaker 1: On the show in August twenty eight, twenty fifteen, Mars says, quote,
Speaker 1: that's the way Hitler talked about the Jews. See as
Speaker 1: Bill has just demonstrated yet another way to avoid the
Speaker 1: consequences for doing something really, really, really stupid is to
Speaker 1: have completely forgotten you did the exact same thing yourself
Speaker 1: on your own show in twenty fifteen. Bill. I know
Speaker 1: you claim to have done a lot of drugs, but
Speaker 1: that much drugs you don't remember twenty fifteen. Bill, when
Speaker 1: somebody else compares Trump to Hitler, they've immediately lost the
Speaker 1: argument and insulted six million dead Jews. But when I
Speaker 1: compare Trump to Hitler, it's avant garde, edgy humor. Look
Speaker 1: how far ahead of the curve? I was mar two
Speaker 1: days other worst person. There's the word to the number
Speaker 1: one story on the countdown and a change in mood
Speaker 1: and a quick break. And the other day somebody mentioned
Speaker 1: the work of doctor Carl Sagan. The name may ring
Speaker 1: a bell. At one point, Carl Carl Sagan was easily
Speaker 1: the most famous scientist in America, up there with doctor
Speaker 1: Salk of the vaccine, up there with Freud. You name
Speaker 1: the scientist. Carl Sagan was probably more famous because Carl
Speaker 1: Sagan was on TV every couple of weeks. He was
Speaker 1: also and that was the joke. He was also a
Speaker 1: professor of astronomy and related sciences at Cornell University. When
Speaker 1: I was a student there. I did not take his course.
Speaker 1: I suppose I could have gotten into it. As it
Speaker 1: turned out, he knew who I was. I'll get to
Speaker 1: that story in a moment. This is about interviewing Carl Sagan.
Speaker 1: I have interviewed a lot of famous people, and I
Speaker 1: don't think of myself as a good interviewer. I don't
Speaker 1: think of myself as an interviewer. I have to do it,
Speaker 1: and I used to do three or four interviews a
Speaker 1: night on my television shows, but I've never been comfortable
Speaker 1: doing it. I often don't have any questions. I'm often
Speaker 1: not interested in what the guest has to say. That's
Speaker 1: why there has never been an actual guest here on
Speaker 1: this podcast. I will break this President someday. We are
Speaker 1: approaching the third anniversary as I record this, but I
Speaker 1: haven't done it yet, have I Well, so it's easier
Speaker 1: if it's just you, then you can say at the
Speaker 1: end of it, all of it was my fault. I've interviewed,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, six presidents, none of them while
Speaker 1: they were president, either before or after, and for a
Speaker 1: long time I used to say that my first president
Speaker 1: was Ronald Reagan, who I interviewed in nineteen ninety two
Speaker 1: on radio for ESPN about a football player who'd suffered
Speaker 1: a damaging injury and a neck conclusion that left him briefly, thankfully,
Speaker 1: briefly paralyzed, And the head of ESPN Radio was a
Speaker 1: not that sophisticated sports fan who thought that we could
Speaker 1: appeal to a non sports audience on sports stations around
Speaker 1: the country on the weekends by having Ronald Reagan on
Speaker 1: you forget in the context of the time nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan got elected, Yes, because he was a reactionary
Speaker 1: governor from California, and he'd been governor two times there.
Speaker 1: And yes, he was a famous TV guy who hosted
Speaker 1: a rather low grade TV show that appealed to low
Speaker 1: grade people. And he was only the first of two
Speaker 1: presidents who could be said to have done that. And
Speaker 1: he was a sportscaster, and he was an iconic figure
Speaker 1: from a couple of sports movies, the one about the Gipper.
Speaker 1: The Gipper is from a sports movie. It's complete nonsense,
Speaker 1: the story about the dying player George Gip, but it
Speaker 1: gave him a sports context. So I interviewed Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 1: and I had to tell the story in my questions
Speaker 1: so he knew what I was talking about. That's nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, he'd only been out of office three years,
Speaker 1: and he was already insignificant decline that I had to
Speaker 1: help him in the interview. Fortunately it was pre recorded.
Speaker 1: I interviewed though, as it turned out, and I've told
Speaker 1: the story and don't want want to go through it again.
Speaker 1: I interviewed Trump in nineteen eighty three, and I will
Speaker 1: recall this part of it and tell it to you
Speaker 1: again that the cameraman on that shoot. I ran into
Speaker 1: him maybe in twenty sixteen or seventeen after not seeing
Speaker 1: him for decades, and he said, remember when we interviewed
Speaker 1: that guy? And I went sure do. He goes, remember
Speaker 1: what you said after we did the interview and I
Speaker 1: went no. He said, well, we were walking back to
Speaker 1: the truck and you didn't say anything, and we were
Speaker 1: really worried because that was you. You always said something
Speaker 1: all the time. I went, yeah, that's me. He said,
Speaker 1: when we got back to the truck, you finally set
Speaker 1: down the sticks the tripod which I was carrying, and
Speaker 1: he said, you said, uh, what the f was wrong
Speaker 1: with that guy? And that's all you said. Got that
Speaker 1: one right. I later interviewed in order Obama when he
Speaker 1: declared his candidac here just before he declared his candidacy
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six. He was a live guest
Speaker 1: on Countdown Obama and Biden at a Democratic semi debate
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven Biden separately during the campaign
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. I interviewed Bill Clinton several
Speaker 1: times in two thousand and six, seven, eight, and I
Speaker 1: think ten. And Jimmy Carter I met at the Democratic
Speaker 1: National Convention in two thousand and eight and interviewed him
Speaker 1: the first of many times. And as I've mentioned with
Speaker 1: great pride, the late Jimmy Carter was a Countdown junkie.
Speaker 1: He and his family used to watch every night and
Speaker 1: would rearrange their schedules and sometimes DVR the show so
Speaker 1: they could all watch at the same time, and they
Speaker 1: would often pause it during the commercials so they could
Speaker 1: have group discussions with people who weren't with them about
Speaker 1: what they've just heard. If you ever need reassurance that
Speaker 1: you know what you're doing, take it from Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 1: I vaguely and viscerally understand why the people at Fox
Speaker 1: News line up and Newsmax and the others line up
Speaker 1: and so desperately respond to Trump's support and recognition of them.
Speaker 1: I under stand it in a visceral sense. There is
Speaker 1: a certain element of egotism involved in this. I felt
Speaker 1: it myself about one hundred percent or so. I've interviewed
Speaker 1: countless actors and actresses and movie stars and comedians, and
Speaker 1: George Carlin by personal I don't know that he's the
Speaker 1: most famous person I ever interviewed. But I interviewed Robert
Speaker 1: Redford once and he was a viewer, and the indescribable happened.
Speaker 1: We're having a great conversation about the environment. Robert Redford
Speaker 1: is at his home in Colorado, and we're coming towards
Speaker 1: the end of the show at nine o'clock and he's answering,
Speaker 1: and he goes, excuse me, And I hadn't said anything.
Speaker 1: Did somebody say, wrap the producer? Who will? I know
Speaker 1: her name, but I'll leave her out of this. The
Speaker 1: producer actually got in Robert Redford's ear during his final answer,
Speaker 1: and rather than let him go thirty seconds long so
Speaker 1: that the show would bleed over into the nine o'clock hour,
Speaker 1: she tried to get Robert Redford to shut up. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: a great interview, and all the athletes ali three times.
Speaker 1: I think Mickey Mantle, I've told that story the interview
Speaker 1: that ended with the comment that he made about how
Speaker 1: if he'd known he was going to live, he would
Speaker 1: have done better and tried harder. And I said, you
Speaker 1: did pretty well, and he said, with the most remorse
Speaker 1: I ever heard anybody say anything. I could have done more.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. And I knew when I did that
Speaker 1: interview in Christmas Time nineteen eighty five, that that would
Speaker 1: be the last SoundBite in the obituary I would do
Speaker 1: for him whenever he passed. And it was a decade
Speaker 1: later Willie Mays who answered the phone in the voice
Speaker 1: of his own housekeeper, straight out of Gone with the Wind,
Speaker 1: He did an impression of Hattie McDaniel. I will not
Speaker 1: repeat it. And one of the greatest regrets I ever
Speaker 1: had was that radio interview. I used to follow the
Speaker 1: old rules, which is, don't record till they tell you
Speaker 1: it's okay. So I did not record him answering the phone.
Speaker 1: Everybody else would hit play and record while the phone
Speaker 1: was ringing. I waited until he said it was okay,
Speaker 1: and I missed having a copy of Willie Mays as
Speaker 1: Hattie McDaniel as his own made and then dropping out
Speaker 1: of that voice in mid sentence and going this is
Speaker 1: Willie Ted Williams I interviewed in Boston. I mentioned Ali.
Speaker 1: I once had to do Ali on the radio and
Speaker 1: I had to basically repeat what he was saying, and
Speaker 1: Ali nodded along like I got that right, And I
Speaker 1: actually saw him several times thereafter, and we had friendly conversations,
Speaker 1: one of which he never actually said anything out loud.
Speaker 1: I just sort of heard him. I think through esp
Speaker 1: and I don't believe in ESPA, but if it happened
Speaker 1: in any context, that was the time it happened. So
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of interviews, but to this day,
Speaker 1: the most famous person I ever interviewed relatives, certainly to myself,
Speaker 1: was doctor Carl Sagan. The Cosmo's series in the the
Speaker 1: early eighties was one of the first American created in depth,
Speaker 1: serious and entertaining scientific series in television history. It was
Speaker 1: one of the most popular shows in television, even though
Speaker 1: it was not on NBCABC or CBS, it was on PBS.
Speaker 1: It made Carl Sagan, who was already a kind of
Speaker 1: glib and tvgenic guy, it made him into a superstar
Speaker 1: who appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson every
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. That was the joke in the late
Speaker 1: seventies at Cornell it was yes, doctor Carl Sagan, the
Speaker 1: head of the astronomy department at the Tonight Show, who
Speaker 1: visits us here in his satellite office in Ithaca, New York.
Speaker 1: Well that's what we all thought about. I didn't take
Speaker 1: the class. I'd taken an astronomy class in high school,
Speaker 1: and I could not shake the reality that, as great
Speaker 1: as it was taught by one of my favorite high
Speaker 1: school teachers, a man named Randy McNaughton. The class started,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, at eleven twenty five, and the
Speaker 1: first thing he would do would be shut off the lights.
Speaker 1: And this is a bunch of kids who probably didn't
Speaker 1: need a big breakfast, including me, who were waiting for lunch.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many times I fell asleep during
Speaker 1: that class, not because it was bad, but because I
Speaker 1: was so hungry. I was basically briefly starving. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: know it to look at me, but I was, and
Speaker 1: I just didn't want to take it. And knowing me
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, I wasn't going to take
Speaker 1: a tough course. What's the point of that. I'm here
Speaker 1: to get the degree. So in any event, I went
Speaker 1: and look this up. It was Monday, April seventeenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, and I was at WVBR at Cornell in
Speaker 1: late afternoon preparing my sports cast in our big time
Speaker 1: thirty minute World newscast and that we did every day
Speaker 1: and was a pretty good newscast world report, and I
Speaker 1: did the sports cast most nights as the sports director
Speaker 1: of the station. And I'm just sitting there looking at
Speaker 1: the wire copy and looking at the local news that
Speaker 1: we might put in the sportscast. And it was an
Speaker 1: ordinary day at the beginning of spring, this time of
Speaker 1: year in nineteen seventy eight. I was nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: Didn't have aspirations to do anything other than sports. I
Speaker 1: had done news for the station. I had done live
Speaker 1: reporting for the station, in news and in sports, but
Speaker 1: I didn't have any aspirations to be an interviewer or
Speaker 1: anything else. When the newscaster on duty that day says,
Speaker 1: are you up for interviewing Carl Sagan? He just won
Speaker 1: the Pulitzer Prize, And I went sure and get President
Speaker 1: Carter on the phone, like he'd do an interview with me. No, No,
Speaker 1: we're serious, And I said, what do you mean you're serious? Well,
Speaker 1: he just won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. I said, well,
Speaker 1: good for him. And we just called his office, you know,
Speaker 1: just to see if he'd do an interview, and he said,
Speaker 1: I'll do an interview, but it must be live, and
Speaker 1: is your sportscaster there today? And you know we we
Speaker 1: went what our sportscaster? Yes, Keith is? Is he in
Speaker 1: the studio? I like him? He seems to get it.
Speaker 1: That was what I was told, Carl Sagan said. And
Speaker 1: they relate this to me and I went, oh, come on,
Speaker 1: because now apparently he listens to the station all the time.
Speaker 1: He loves the rock and roll, and he likes you
Speaker 1: doing the sports. He says, he's not a big sports fan,
Speaker 1: but he enjoys your work. Well again, I can't possibly
Speaker 1: describe how much space there was between us in terms
Speaker 1: of renown. I was in April nineteen seventy eight, a
Speaker 1: year and three months away from getting my first paycheck
Speaker 1: for my first full time job in broadcasting, which would
Speaker 1: pay me at an annual rate of sixteen five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: I had not made ten thousand dollars in broadcasting in
Speaker 1: my entire life. To this point, I was pretty well
Speaker 1: known at the radio station. There were occasionally, maybe once
Speaker 1: every other month, fan letters, but literally the pile of
Speaker 1: them was less than ten high. In my entire career,
Speaker 1: I'd been paid to cover Cornell football Games by United
Speaker 1: Press International for fifteen dollars a game, and trust me,
Speaker 1: I was underpaid, but it was pretty good money. Fifteen
Speaker 1: dollars to go watch that. Oh but Carl Sagan, Carl
Speaker 1: Sagan knew Johnny Carson was on his show all the time,
Speaker 1: had done not just the Cosmos series, but series after
Speaker 1: series for PBS. Follow ups they sold in those early days,
Speaker 1: they sold bootleg copies of Cosmos, which would appear, I
Speaker 1: guess in nineteen eighty. So he was already famous before
Speaker 1: Cosmos when this story takes place. And he'd done countless
Speaker 1: shows for PBS already, and as I said on the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show, all the time joking about the origins of
Speaker 1: the universe, and he wanted to do an interview only
Speaker 1: with me, and only live, and I said, well, when
Speaker 1: are we going to do it? As soon as you
Speaker 1: get in the booth, he's on hold. So one of
Speaker 1: the things I did discover in that moment of what
Speaker 1: should have been panic was a sense of calm, which
Speaker 1: was okay. He won the Pulitzer Prize. What's the name
Speaker 1: of the book, something about dragons. The book was called
Speaker 1: The Dragons of Eden. Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence.
Speaker 1: This was not his forte. His forte was The Cosmos.
Speaker 1: But Carl Sagan had won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction
Speaker 1: and his first interview, as it turned out, his first interview.
Speaker 1: He hadn't called anybody else back yet, He hadn't called
Speaker 1: the Associated Press or CBS News. He wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to Keith Alderman, the nineteen year old sportscaster who he'd
Speaker 1: never met and in fact would never meet. And I
Speaker 1: got in the booth and they dropped a record, and
Speaker 1: whoever was the disc jockey said, we have some breaking news.
Speaker 1: Doctor Carl Sagan of Cornell has won a Pulitzer prize.
Speaker 1: Keith Olderman is here with an interview with him live
Speaker 1: on WVVR. And I went, yes, I am doctor Sagan.
Speaker 1: Are you there, Yes, I am Keith. It's a pleasure
Speaker 1: to talk to you. And he sounded excited by talking
Speaker 1: to me, And I then learned the other lesson, which is,
Speaker 1: there is a possibility that you are as big a
Speaker 1: deal to the interviewee as he is to you, as
Speaker 1: unlikely as this fame gradient would have suggested. And it's
Speaker 1: still to me, as I said, it's still it's bigger
Speaker 1: than me interviewing Muhammad Ali. Because I was a professional
Speaker 1: in a field that was much smaller than it is now,
Speaker 1: and I was with the worldwide cable news network CNN.
Speaker 1: I had some chops. This was basically Carl Sagan being
Speaker 1: interviewed by somebody who who could have been a kid
Speaker 1: in his class, but wasn't on his favorite radio station.
Speaker 1: I would have assumed that would have been I don't know,
Speaker 1: km ET in Los Angeles or something, or at least KNX.
Speaker 1: So we talked about this, and I said, what do
Speaker 1: you think the impact is on our understanding of human
Speaker 1: evolution and the intelligence evolution of you winning a book
Speaker 1: that now will have a Pulitzer Prize sticker on it
Speaker 1: and be sold to people who don't know anything about it,
Speaker 1: but just you're buying it because it says Pulitzer Prize.
Speaker 1: And he prayed with laughter. He went, yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the first thing I thought of. Obviously, it's going to
Speaker 1: make me some more money, but my god, how many
Speaker 1: people will now read this book just because it won
Speaker 1: this stupid prize. And he said he was shocked that
Speaker 1: it won this because he thought it was a good
Speaker 1: book and he enjoyed talking about the subject, but he'd
Speaker 1: never really seriously considered it until he'd been asked to
Speaker 1: talk about a few years before, I think at the
Speaker 1: University of Toronto, and he went off on a riff
Speaker 1: and what you know, I should study this and try
Speaker 1: to find out what would this make a good show.
Speaker 1: And this was part of the thing that I guess
Speaker 1: generated the big picture idea of cosmos and the evolution
Speaker 1: of the universe leading to the evolution of man, and
Speaker 1: the evolution of man being dependent on the evolution of
Speaker 1: his own intelligence. So we must have gone on for
Speaker 1: ten minutes, and he was charming and funny and self deprecating,
Speaker 1: and I saw immediately that as good an interviewer as
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson was the key ingredient in the joyfulness and
Speaker 1: the fun of the Johnny Carson interviews with Carl Sagan
Speaker 1: was not some sort of great preparation on Johnny Carson's part,
Speaker 1: not some sort of great level of experience on Johnny
Speaker 1: Carson's part, but the fact that Carl Sagan liked to
Speaker 1: talk and was open and funny, and listened to the
Speaker 1: questions carefully and said things that were almost designed to
Speaker 1: let you come up with a follow up question. That
Speaker 1: was when I realized that one of the greatest processes
Speaker 1: for doing a good interview is to not have an
Speaker 1: awful lot of time to prepare for it, to have
Speaker 1: maybe no more than two or three questions in mind
Speaker 1: that you can jot down in case you freeze. This
Speaker 1: will force you to listen to what the other guy
Speaker 1: is saying and then say, tell me more about that.
Speaker 1: This fascinates me. Whether or not it fascinates you is irrelevant.
Speaker 1: He wants to talk about it. He just told you so.
Speaker 1: So at the end of this interview, I said, congratulations
Speaker 1: again and on everything, and please give my regards. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I said this, Please give my regards
Speaker 1: to Johnny Carson the next time you are out there.
Speaker 1: This is one of the great ambitions of my life
Speaker 1: to be on the Tonight Show. Oh, I'll see if
Speaker 1: I can arrange for you to be a guest. Ha
Speaker 1: ha ha. I was a guest on The Tonight Show
Speaker 1: twenty five years later. Like to the day, it wasn't
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson, but it was still The Tonight Show. But
Speaker 1: the punchline to this is having discovered and one of
Speaker 1: the most famous professors at any American University in the
Speaker 1: late twentieth century, maybe in the whole of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan, one of the pioneers of cosmetics, cosmetology, one
Speaker 1: of the guys who mainstreamed the whole idea of the
Speaker 1: Big Bang, one of the people who brought everything from
Speaker 1: physics to creationism together in one unified TV shtick, was
Speaker 1: a fan of mine, having discovered this, having seen this,
Speaker 1: and knowing that his course was majors only except by
Speaker 1: professor Professor's permission, Do you think I went to him
Speaker 1: or called his office as I approached my last two
Speaker 1: semesters at Cornell in the fall of nineteen seventy eight
Speaker 1: and spring of nineteen seventy nine, and said, Hey, I'd
Speaker 1: love to take the course. Can't you have room for
Speaker 1: one more? I'll sit in the back. Do you think
Speaker 1: I did that, having had, by the way, in case
Speaker 1: I was worried about whether or not i'd pass. I
Speaker 1: know had a personal relationship with the professor. I was
Speaker 1: his favorite sportscaster. I was his favorite person at the
Speaker 1: Carnell radio station. I was the only person he'd do
Speaker 1: the interview with. He didn't want to talk to the newscaster.
Speaker 1: He wanted to talk to me, and when, by the way,
Speaker 1: I asked him about the other condition that it be live,
Speaker 1: I said, can I use parts of this again later
Speaker 1: in an edited form so we can run the whole
Speaker 1: thing again, but I'd like to use Oh, of course
Speaker 1: it's you. You did a great job. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: and of course what would you do? That's four credits
Speaker 1: sitting out there, even on the most basic, greedy, selfish
Speaker 1: level imaginable four gut credits with doctor Carl Sagan. Do
Speaker 1: you think I scheduled the course? No? Can you guess
Speaker 1: why I did not schedule the course when I needed
Speaker 1: byway wherever he fit into this? I had leftover requirements
Speaker 1: in the Agriculture College, in physics, in biology, and I
Speaker 1: forget in chemistry. Those three areas I needed four more
Speaker 1: credits in each of them. Do you think I took
Speaker 1: the course? No? And the answer to why I did
Speaker 1: not take the course and did not ever meet doctor
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan, my fan, the course met at nine o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning, and I didn't want to get up
Speaker 1: that early. Still true, you make crazy decisions when you're
Speaker 1: nineteen years old and just trying to get out of
Speaker 1: Cornell and seven semesters. What can I tell you? I've
Speaker 1: done all the damage I can do here. I am
Speaker 1: remorseful than I never met him though. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel, the musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration
Speaker 1: and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums.
Speaker 1: It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy
Speaker 1: musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever
Speaker 1: in the Cosmos, Nancy Faust. The sports music is the
Speaker 1: Ouldroin theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis
Speaker 1: courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by
Speaker 1: the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was the
Speaker 1: Eternal Universal Traveler, my friend Stevie van zandt Wondering why
Speaker 1: there's no tape of me interviewing doctor Sagan. I couldn't
Speaker 1: find it. It's there somewhere. Everything else was as ever.
Speaker 1: My fault, my fault, and Carl Sagan's for encouraging me.
Speaker 1: That's Countdown for today, Day ninety nine. Of America, held
Speaker 1: host just three hundred and sixty four days until the
Speaker 1: scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term.
Speaker 1: Unless Musk removes him sooner, or the actuarial tables due,
Speaker 1: or the Attorney's General due. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday.
Speaker 1: As always, bulletins, as the news warrants, remember, impeach Trump.
Speaker 1: It will not work now. It will, however, win the
Speaker 1: Democrats the midterms. If there are midterms and I want
Speaker 1: polling on a presidential recall vote, let's put some pressure
Speaker 1: on here, even if you can't have a presidential recall
Speaker 1: vote until next time. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldreman is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcasts