Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
Speaker 1: am convinced Sam Alito is lying about who put the
Speaker 1: flags up, and I am convinced I can prove it.
Speaker 1: And I am convinced. The proof is contained not in
Speaker 1: the upside down American flag in Virginia and not in
Speaker 1: the Appeal to Heaven flag in New Jersey. The proof
Speaker 1: is contained in the other flag. Quote, my wife is
Speaker 1: fond of flying flags. I am not. She was solely
Speaker 1: responsible for having flagpoles put up at our residence and
Speaker 1: our vacation home. Alito writes to fifty members of the
Speaker 1: House who had asked him to recuse himself from trump
Speaker 1: an election cases before the Supreme Court, and who he
Speaker 1: has refused in the case of the Virginia Distress flag. Quote,
Speaker 1: she has flown other patriotic flags, college flags, flags supporting
Speaker 1: sports teams, et cetera. In Virginia, quote, I had nothing
Speaker 1: whatsoever to do with the flying of the flag. My
Speaker 1: wife and I own our Virginia home jointly. She therefore
Speaker 1: has the legal right to use the property as she
Speaker 1: sees fit. In New Jersey quote, our vacation home was
Speaker 1: purchased with money she inherited from her parents and is
Speaker 1: titled in her name. I had no involvement in the
Speaker 1: decision to fly that flag, etc. Et cetera, et ceta. Wait,
Speaker 1: what was that one part in the middle there? She
Speaker 1: has flown other patriotic flags, college flags, flags supporting sports teams.
Speaker 1: In that photograph in the New York Times of the
Speaker 1: Alito's vacation home in New Jersey, well her home, she
Speaker 1: just lets him live there. I suppose there are three
Speaker 1: flags seen flying Shae Alito, a flag of the town
Speaker 1: that the house is in that stopped, the steel appeal
Speaker 1: to Heaven flag and the third flag saluting your two
Speaker 1: thousand and twenty two National League champion Philadelphia Phillies. Martha
Speaker 1: and Alito is an Air Force brat Florida, Maine, the Azores.
Speaker 1: She moved around a lot as a kid. She wound
Speaker 1: up at the University of Kentucky, grad school and undergraduate.
Speaker 1: Later moved to Jersey, where she met her husband. Samuel.
Speaker 1: Alito is from Trenton, the New York end of the
Speaker 1: Philly suburbs. He has said that while he was at
Speaker 1: Prince also outside Philly, quote, my real ambition at the
Speaker 1: time was to be the Commissioner of Baseball. He attended
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Phillies fantasy camp in nineteen ninety four. He
Speaker 1: had baseball cards made up of himself showing him in
Speaker 1: a Phillies uniform. At the Phillies fantasy camp. He threw
Speaker 1: out the ceremonial first pitch at a Phillies game in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, wearing his own Phillies uniform. He
Speaker 1: threw out another ceremonial first pitch at a Phillies spring
Speaker 1: training game a year later. There are professional photos of
Speaker 1: imposing in a Phillies uniform in front of a Phillies locker.
Speaker 1: There is another one with him with his arm around
Speaker 1: the Philly fanatic who is the mascot of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Speaker 1: He has refused to answer reporters questions and has laughed
Speaker 1: at them happily as to whether or not he has
Speaker 1: ever worn a Philadelphia Phillies uniform under his judicial robes
Speaker 1: while in court. Quote he DVRs nearly every Phillies game,
Speaker 1: reported Yahoo Sports in twenty thirteen, and keeps up on
Speaker 1: the fightings via MLB Network. The Los Angeles Times wrote
Speaker 1: of Alito, those who know Alito best say he has
Speaker 1: just three. Loves baseball, his family, and the law. Quote.
Speaker 1: If you said to me where is sam Alito, I
Speaker 1: would guess at the ballpark, home with his family, or
Speaker 1: at the library. Those are the three places he lives
Speaker 1: his life. A former Alito clerk told the La Paper,
Speaker 1: but it was his wife who put up the Phillies flag,
Speaker 1: not him, Not him, the Phillies fan. He knew nothing
Speaker 1: about that either. He knows nothing about flags. His wife
Speaker 1: does all the flags. His wife chose, of all things,
Speaker 1: not just any Phillies flag to fly, but the flag
Speaker 1: of the two twenty two Phillies, the second most ill
Speaker 1: starred Phillies team in lifelong Phillies fans sam Alito's long life.
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty two Phillies written off for dead early
Speaker 1: in the season, who fired their manager, and then, under
Speaker 1: the guidance of an interim manager who was intending to
Speaker 1: retire from baseball that fall, they somehow won the Wild Card,
Speaker 1: upset the favorite Cardinals, upset the favored Braves in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: upset the favorite Padres, reached the World Series and almost
Speaker 1: impossibly won two of the first three games against the
Speaker 1: favorite American League champion Astros, and then in the fourth game,
Speaker 1: two games away from a World championship, the Phillies were
Speaker 1: no hit. They got no hits, and before they and
Speaker 1: their fans did, I ment chin Sam Alito is a
Speaker 1: Phillies fan. Before they and their fans had managed to
Speaker 1: notice what had happened, the Phillies managed to score a
Speaker 1: total of just three runs in the last three games
Speaker 1: of the series, and instead of leading the World Series
Speaker 1: two games to one, they lost the World Series in
Speaker 1: just six games. And no team has disappeared like that
Speaker 1: in the middle of any World Series since the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three Philadelphia Phillies. And even die hard Phillies fans
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two wept, But there were true Phillies fans,
Speaker 1: lifelong Phillies fans who were still willing to show their
Speaker 1: pride and put up flags celebrating that cursed twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two Phillies team. And yeah, it was missus Alito who
Speaker 1: put up the twenty twenty two Phillies flag. Not missed Alito,
Speaker 1: my wife is fond of flying flags, I am not.
Speaker 1: Next you'll be saying, my wife is fond of the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia Phillies. I am not. Now, there are lots of
Speaker 1: other points to make about sam Alito and these goddamned flags,
Speaker 1: like how he has now changed his Virginia story three
Speaker 1: times already, and the one constant that there was a
Speaker 1: verbal confrontation involving the Alitos and somebody with an f
Speaker 1: Trump sign, and then missus Alito flew the American flag
Speaker 1: upside down. It's an international side of distress. Well, the
Speaker 1: people in the neighborhood dispute said, no, that's not the
Speaker 1: way it happened. She flew the flag upside down in
Speaker 1: the beginning of January, and the name calling incident that
Speaker 1: took place six weeks later, and maybe she spit at
Speaker 1: their car. And there's that little problem of the bitter
Speaker 1: irony of some of his language in his refusal letter
Speaker 1: to the fifty representatives who demanded he recuse. My wife
Speaker 1: is an independently minded, private citizen. She makes her own decisions,
Speaker 1: and I honor her right to do so. That was
Speaker 1: written by the man who made sure Roe V. Wade
Speaker 1: was overturned. He won't interfere in his wife's decisions. He's
Speaker 1: happy to interfere in your wife's body. All that tells
Speaker 1: me sam Alito is a goddamned liar who is lying
Speaker 1: about these flags and everything they imply and everything you
Speaker 1: can imagine. But you can throw all of that out
Speaker 1: as far as I am concerned, and just stick to
Speaker 1: one piece of evidence, and I will stake my case
Speaker 1: on that one piece of evidence, A flag saluting the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two Philadelphia Phillies. The peak quad of baseball
Speaker 1: teams was not flown the next summer by Martha an Alito.
Speaker 1: Speaking of staking your case, jury gets the Trump Stormy
Speaker 1: Daniel's election interference case, and within hours they are asking
Speaker 1: the judge for a copy of his instructions and a
Speaker 1: copy of David Pecker's testimony from the beginning of that trial.
Speaker 1: And anybody who has ever covered more than two trials
Speaker 1: in their life knows that juries that want to have
Speaker 1: testimony re read to them the first day are looking
Speaker 1: to confirm their intention to convict the guy. More importantly,
Speaker 1: they are not looking to confirm some doubts about Michael Cohen.
Speaker 1: And doubt about Michael Cohen was basically the only defense
Speaker 1: Trump offered. The testimony they want to see again has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Michael Cohen, So whether he lied
Speaker 1: or didn't lie, and to whom and when incidental show
Speaker 1: me the pecker. This jury has its equivalent of a
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two Phillies flag. So maybe in that courthouse
Speaker 1: the question isn't what, but when, which means the only
Speaker 1: questions outside the courthouse begin with what is the Biden
Speaker 1: campaign's plan in the event of a guilty verdict or
Speaker 1: verdicts against Trump? What are the Democrats' plans? What are
Speaker 1: they going to do with this? Is somebody going to
Speaker 1: call for Trump to drop out, for the Republicans to
Speaker 1: throw him out? Because the idea of running a convicted
Speaker 1: felon who interfered with a presidential election and was just
Speaker 1: convicted of it, running that man for president is on
Speaker 1: any party line, sorry, antithetical to every concept of law
Speaker 1: and order ever floated from any time in our political
Speaker 1: history or from anywhere along our political spectrum. Is the
Speaker 1: Biden campaign going to make sure that every Democrat, from
Speaker 1: the President to all the governors, to the senators, to
Speaker 1: Obama to the deputy assistant associate temporary high school intern
Speaker 1: in the White House Press Office calls him convicted felon,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump convicted felon, and Republican nominee Donald Trump convicted
Speaker 1: felon and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Anybody got a plan? Anybody,
Speaker 1: because it sure seems like even Trump is confident that
Speaker 1: the jury is going to nail him. Because even for him,
Speaker 1: even on the way out of a courtroom, this was
Speaker 1: a goddamned strange name check, Mother Teresa. You say, Mother Teresa,
Speaker 1: what were you banging her too?
Speaker 2: I mean that mother's racially don't be their judge.
Speaker 1: But we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 2: How we.
Speaker 1: Does that mean you think of yourself as more holy
Speaker 1: than Mother Teresa? Now that, ma'am is a brilliant, goddamned question.
Speaker 1: Back to Trump's inexorable march towards ethnic cleansing, with the
Speaker 1: concept of ethnic being very fluid and basically being replaced
Speaker 1: by people who have thwarted him. The general heading of
Speaker 1: Trump deportations, Trump concentration camps, Trump deploying the military against
Speaker 1: citizens and non citizens alike. Two reports, one from the
Speaker 1: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Crew is the first.
Speaker 1: It has completed an analysis of more than thirteen thousand
Speaker 1: Trump social media posts spanning all of twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: through April first of this year, and the totals are staggering.
Speaker 1: Twenty five of those posts have included direct threats to
Speaker 1: deploy FBI raids, general investigations, DOJ, indictments, and jail time
Speaker 1: against the President of the United States twenty five. And
Speaker 1: that total does not include the reposting of threats made
Speaker 1: by others, including images of violence like the one of
Speaker 1: President Biden bound and gagged in the back of a
Speaker 1: pickup truck, hypothetically kidnapped or already murdered. And also this
Speaker 1: total does not include the redistribution of a post by
Speaker 1: the sadist Marjorie Taylor Green demanding that Biden quote should
Speaker 1: be handcuffed and hauled out of the White House. Crew
Speaker 1: notes in its report that Trump has also threatened senators, judges,
Speaker 1: non governmental organizations, members of Biden's family, and of course
Speaker 1: the entire world. The post from last August fourth, you
Speaker 1: may have forgotten quote if you go after me, I'm
Speaker 1: coming after you. If that were not bad enough, there
Speaker 1: is a different kind of report, the second one I
Speaker 1: referred to from the Washington Post following up on Trump's
Speaker 1: threat to deport student protesters any students quote one thing
Speaker 1: I do is any student that protests I throw them
Speaker 1: out of the country. There was seeming vagueness in Trump's
Speaker 1: statement to donors that statement from whom he was demanding
Speaker 1: twenty five or fifty million dollars apiece to keep their
Speaker 1: taxes down, about whether he meant American students or foreign
Speaker 1: students studying here. But the Post has uncovered evidence that
Speaker 1: while in office, Trump did deport illegally American citizens. To quote.
Speaker 1: An analysis conducted by the Government Accountability Office determined that
Speaker 1: hundreds of likely US citizens were detained by immigration officials
Speaker 1: during Trump's presidency and that dozens were deported. That number
Speaker 1: includes at least five children. These two reports are not
Speaker 1: mentioned today randomly because they mainline into another report from
Speaker 1: Semaphore News, which is based on polling polling by Navigator
Speaker 1: Research about how many voteers know about Trump's Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, The plan to first fire virtually all civil
Speaker 1: service employees, replace the government as we know it with
Speaker 1: Trump approved Trump loyalists, and begin an immediate program of
Speaker 1: mass detention and then deportation, presuming they bother with the deportation. Because,
Speaker 1: of course, history teaches us that once you open concentration
Speaker 1: camps in your country and force people into them. The
Speaker 1: concentration camps tend to stay open, and what happens is
Speaker 1: you begin looking for more people to force into them
Speaker 1: to replace the original people. The results of the polling
Speaker 1: about who knows what about Project twenty twenty five is
Speaker 1: almost as disturbing as Project twenty twenty five. Seventy six
Speaker 1: percent of voters say they know little or nothing about
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five. That's all voters, every demographic and
Speaker 1: political group. Perhaps more disturbing than that, seventy one percent
Speaker 1: of Democrats know little or nothing about Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: More shattering, eighty one percent of Independence know little or
Speaker 1: nothing about Project twenty twenty five, and eighty one percent
Speaker 1: of Republicans in whose name this will be done, no
Speaker 1: little or nothing about Project twenty twenty five. In only
Speaker 1: one group surveyed is the complete unawareness of a Trump
Speaker 1: attack extensively game planned already in writing. In only one
Speaker 1: group is the lack of knowledge at less than seventy percent.
Speaker 1: Only one group is even three tenths aware of what
Speaker 1: could be to come. Project twenty twenty five has been
Speaker 1: heard of by thirty one percent of Hispanic Americans. Happily,
Speaker 1: time for your daily comic relief provided by something utterly
Speaker 1: unexpected from Trump. Apparently, there has been electron interference. I
Speaker 1: don't want to alarm you, but if Joe Biden and
Speaker 1: Juan Mayr, Sean and the globalists and the invisible monkey
Speaker 1: frogs are interfering with the electrons, oh, there goes electricity
Speaker 1: and magnets, mah, Trump will have been right. No electrons.
Speaker 1: You get a magnet, wet it will stop working. Also,
Speaker 1: no electrons, there will be no chemistry now, no thermal conductivity.
Speaker 1: And who the hell knows where we're gonna get gravity
Speaker 1: without electrons? How do we know that there has been
Speaker 1: electron interference? A primary Trump spokesman has told us so.
Speaker 1: Not just a Trump spokesman, but is go too, tough
Speaker 1: guy spokesman. I have avoided this comp but after this
Speaker 1: clip played, the comp is everywhere now there is no
Speaker 1: further avoiding it. The statement was made by the Trump spokesman,
Speaker 1: who looks like the late Hawaiian wrestler and actor Harold Sakata,
Speaker 1: who portrayed Auric Goldfingers hatchetman Odd Job in the James
Speaker 1: Bond film Goldfinger. He's Stephen Chung and I do not
Speaker 1: think he has appeared on camera before the press briefing
Speaker 1: that produced this startling revelation about our electrons being interfered with.
Speaker 1: And so, without further ado, here is Trump spokesman Stephen Chung,
Speaker 1: himself a former high school football player and an employee
Speaker 1: of Ultimate Fighting Group, Stephen Chung explaining that there's been
Speaker 1: electron interference.
Speaker 2: Make no mistake, this is electron interference of the highest order.
Speaker 2: Crooked Joe Biden and his campaign are in complete freakout mode,
Speaker 2: and that's why they've gone back on the word. And
Speaker 2: now they've gone in bed with a highly conflicted, conflicted judge,
Speaker 2: and now they're making a political mockery of this entire thing.
Speaker 2: The fact remains that President Trump will overcome. He'll fight
Speaker 2: these charges up and down, and there's nothing to stop
Speaker 2: the truth from coming out. Thank you.
Speaker 1: As I said, I believe that was mister Chung's first
Speaker 1: on camera appearance, or even appearance in front of a microphone,
Speaker 1: at least in this campaign. I can't find anything else
Speaker 1: of him talking online, though you have seen him quoted
Speaker 1: endlessly and constantly, angrily and virulently on Trump's behalf and frankly,
Speaker 1: Stephen Chung needs to speak about Trump on a daily basis. Oh, hell,
Speaker 1: never mind having him speak about Trump. They need to
Speaker 1: give him his own hour on Newsmax or AN or Fox.
Speaker 1: Let's shoot the works here. He needs to have his
Speaker 1: own hour on all the networks simultaneously, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC,
Speaker 1: PBS newsbas Fox, all of them, because well, I need
Speaker 1: to know more about who is interfering with our electrons
Speaker 1: and what the hell Trump's gonna do about it before
Speaker 1: the gravity shuts off and we all float up into
Speaker 1: the sky. Stephen Chung included electron interference also interest here. Well,
Speaker 1: the New York Times has done it again. Electron interference.
Speaker 1: Is it real or was it a typo? No, they
Speaker 1: haven't gone that far yet, But The New York Times
Speaker 1: has done it again twice in one edition. Who else
Speaker 1: would you ask to defend Trump in an op ed
Speaker 1: during a trial that has, at its core is paying
Speaker 1: off a pornographic actress one hundred and thirty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: the week before the election? Who would you choose to
Speaker 1: write that op ed rather than the editor of a
Speaker 1: Catholic church magazine who once attacked paw Patrol as the
Speaker 1: depiction of a fascist state. I wish I were kidding.
Speaker 1: You know I am not kidding. Do you see what
Speaker 1: happens when you interfere with electrons? Larry? Do you see
Speaker 1: what happens? That's next?
Speaker 2: This is Countdown.
Speaker 1: This is Countdown with Keith Obert still ahead of us.
Speaker 1: On this edition of Countdown, based on two stories you
Speaker 1: are about to hear about comedy based talk shows and
Speaker 1: the declining quality of executives running news organizations. I want
Speaker 1: to tell you the story of Walter Isaacson, who, in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one combined these two things. He wanted
Speaker 1: to sound me out about a CNN newscast that might
Speaker 1: include humor, and I thought, he gets it, That's what
Speaker 1: I want to do, that's what this network needs. And
Speaker 1: it turned out he wanted me not to host such
Speaker 1: a show, but just to give him my opinion on
Speaker 1: the guy he really wanted, who would never have done
Speaker 1: it in twenty five billion years. Things I promised not
Speaker 1: to tell next, but first, as ever, there are still
Speaker 1: more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of
Speaker 1: the miss Grants, morons, Undonning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
Speaker 1: today's worst persons in the world. There's been electron interference,
Speaker 1: the runner up worse, Pat say Jack. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know I shouldn't be complaining that he's retiring from Wheel
Speaker 1: of Fortune next month.
Speaker 2: Thank god.
Speaker 1: Pat Sajack has a public persona. In private, he's a
Speaker 1: fascist and a liar and a credit grabber, and he's
Speaker 1: so lazy that when I guested for the second of
Speaker 1: two times on his long ago CBS late night talk show,
Speaker 1: I got there about an hour ninety minutes before taping began,
Speaker 1: and I asked to say hi to him, and they said, oh,
Speaker 1: he's not here yet. He's been coming in late. And
Speaker 1: I thought it was an excuse to blow me off
Speaker 1: because Pat didn't want to see me or something, until
Speaker 1: I saw him through the window of my dressing room
Speaker 1: drive up to the studio, and then he popped in
Speaker 1: a few minutes later to my dressing room and he said, Hey,
Speaker 1: just got here, Thanks for coming in tonight. Later. And
Speaker 1: this is nineteen eighty nine, this guest appearance, both of them.
Speaker 1: I think the later part is like two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: Pat Sajack decided that he had discovered me and he
Speaker 1: had put me on national television, and I owed him
Speaker 1: my career. The Pat Sajack Show lasted fifteen months. It
Speaker 1: didn't really qualify as national television. I know this because
Speaker 1: I was on the newscast in LA that preceded it,
Speaker 1: and everybody turned off our already lousy ratings. We did
Speaker 1: like twice the audience he did in LA. Also, it
Speaker 1: had Rush Limbaugh on as a guest host, and then
Speaker 1: the audience mutinied and they canceled the whole thing. And oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, I had first gone on national television
Speaker 1: eight years earlier at CNN every day for three years. Anyway,
Speaker 1: with say Jack retiring, it turns out that the primary
Speaker 1: non sports vehicle of political advertising on television, especially conservative
Speaker 1: political advertising, it may disappear the average one of the
Speaker 1: eight million nightly Wheel of Fortune viewers is in the
Speaker 1: sixty five to dead demographic. I can really get away
Speaker 1: with making that joke. Now, that's the key demo though,
Speaker 1: for political ads, the most engaged voters are sixty five
Speaker 1: to dead, and it is kind of by Potterson. Congressman
Speaker 1: Jeff Jackson, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: has posted a video on TikTok explaining that the most
Speaker 1: bang for your political advertising dollar is he like to
Speaker 1: salve the puzzle, pat.
Speaker 3: Want to take you behind the scenes on something. Last year,
Speaker 3: from my campaign, I had to buy a lot of
Speaker 3: advertising on TV, so I learn how much it cost.
Speaker 3: Running One ad on Judge Judy cost me three hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: One ad on Chicago Fire was five thousand dollars because
Speaker 3: it's a big primetime show. One ad during a Panthers
Speaker 3: football game was fifty thousand dollars. I could afford zero
Speaker 3: of those, but Wheel of Fortune. Ads during Wheel of
Speaker 3: Fortune cost three thousand dollars. But they come with a
Speaker 3: pretty big audience, so I bought a lot of those.
Speaker 3: I loaded up on Wheel of Fortune and some other
Speaker 3: shows at similar price points. The effect was immediate. It
Speaker 3: was amazing. It was like, all of the sudden, I
Speaker 3: existed to a bunch of people I had never existed
Speaker 3: to before. Here's why I'm telling you this because last
Speaker 3: week we were all on the House for to vote
Speaker 3: on the debt ceiling. This was the big vote to
Speaker 3: avoid default. And I'm standing next to a congressman who's
Speaker 3: been there for a while, and I say something to
Speaker 3: him like, I hope the country understands that we can't
Speaker 3: keep getting this close to disaster. It's not good. And
Speaker 3: he looked at me and said, how much are you
Speaker 3: willing to spend to teach them? And I knew what
Speaker 3: he meant. He was talking about Wheel of Fortune.
Speaker 1: Liberals have helped maga's scumbag Pat Sajack make millions cool cool,
Speaker 1: all right, But let's be smart here, oh, Biden, campaign
Speaker 1: by out Wheel of Fortune all the spots between now
Speaker 1: and November fifth, all of them, even when Ryan Seacrest
Speaker 1: takes over, by every commercial, every availability, Do it, do
Speaker 1: it now? Do it now? The bronze were Sir Brenda Ramer.
Speaker 1: Brenda Ramer is the owner of the aquarium and shark
Speaker 1: Lab by Team Echo in Hendersonville, North Carolina. In February,
Speaker 1: Brenda Ramer announced the impossible. Her aquariums California round ray
Speaker 1: Charlotte was pregnant and had been pregnant since last September,
Speaker 1: and she was due any day now. In captivity, births
Speaker 1: are rare for these rays, but this was even stranger
Speaker 1: because Charlotte Charlotte hadn't had a date in many years,
Speaker 1: and that met either. The father was a bamboo shark
Speaker 1: that shared her tank, which one biologist compared to a
Speaker 1: person mating with an anaconda or it was immaculate conception.
Speaker 1: Now it can happen. It's like really really rare. Well,
Speaker 1: here it is almost June, and nothing further onto pregnancy,
Speaker 1: which is now approaching nine months, more than twice the
Speaker 1: normal pregnancy and gestation for a ray And when a
Speaker 1: reporter asked to see Charlotte, the owner Ms. Raymer told
Speaker 1: him to buy a ticket to the Little Aquarium. And
Speaker 1: then while he was in there, and he saw Charlotte
Speaker 1: and she looked happy and spelt. While the reporter was
Speaker 1: in there, Ms Ramer called the cops, claimed he was
Speaker 1: harassing customers. The reporter also says he saw no baby
Speaker 1: ray Or, and you knew this had to be coming
Speaker 1: at some point. No, no baby shark. Do doo doo
Speaker 1: do doo doo doo doot do But the winner the worst.
Speaker 1: Publisher A. G. Selzberger and his editor Joe con and
Speaker 1: Today's edition of the accelerating self immolation of The New
Speaker 1: York Times. The Times decided it needed to have an
Speaker 1: op ed by the editor of a Catholic literary journal
Speaker 1: who is also a fellow at Catholic University, to defend
Speaker 1: Trump in a case which has at its center him
Speaker 1: paying for the silence of a porn star he had
Speaker 1: sex with right after his wife gave births.
Speaker 2: I guess this is a.
Speaker 1: Different Catholic church than the one I'd heard about all
Speaker 1: my life. Yeah, whatever, AnyWho, Matthew Walter writes, quote, the
Speaker 1: most obvious antecedents for the current prosecution of mister Trump
Speaker 1: date from his time in the White House. The two impeachments,
Speaker 1: the wide ranging investigation of Russian quote collusion that consumed
Speaker 1: roughly half of his term, the speculation about violations of
Speaker 1: the Logan Act, the Logan Act, speculation about violations of
Speaker 1: the Logan Act and the Emoluments Clause, and the suggestion
Speaker 1: that he'd be removed from office under the dubious terms
Speaker 1: of the twenty fifth Amendment. Whatever their merits, these efforts
Speaker 1: were all in their animating spirit, partisan attempts to negate
Speaker 1: the outcome of the twenty sixteen presidential election. Or Trump
Speaker 1: is a Russian asset who sold this country out for
Speaker 1: his own personal gain. You want to both sides this,
Speaker 1: that's the other side of it, asshole. Quoting again, mister Walter,
Speaker 1: It seems as if no one any longer quote accepts
Speaker 1: the outcome of an election. If he disagrees with it,
Speaker 1: an unwelcome result becomes ipso facto evidence of some devious
Speaker 1: attempt to upend the foundations of quote our democracy, one
Speaker 1: to which the proper response is not running a better
Speaker 1: campaign next time, but trying to use whatever legal weapons
Speaker 1: are available to force the victor outside the political realm entirely,
Speaker 1: or at least to render him powerless within it. Well,
Speaker 1: that would be good if you were confessing to this,
Speaker 1: mister Walter. Quote mister Bragg has accused mister Trump of
Speaker 1: conspiring to corrupt a presidential election. In this case, that
Speaker 1: is a tautology. All elections are corrupt in the sense
Speaker 1: of being unavoidably tainted by unlikable personalities, moral failings, dubious coalitions,
Speaker 1: venal motivations, unlovely compromises in the other thousand natural shocks.
Speaker 1: That flesh is heir too. That last part is so
Speaker 1: that you at home will know. Mister Walter read some
Speaker 1: Hamlet once. Pretending that mister Trump's worthiness to serve a
Speaker 1: second term is a matter of criminal law rather than
Speaker 1: a political question, is typical of our American insistence. Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, blah blah, you got the idea. New York
Speaker 1: Times op ed semi colon Trump is immune from prosecution
Speaker 1: unless he shoots somebody, and maybe not. Then if you
Speaker 1: don't get the idea, I'll add this. Three years ago,
Speaker 1: this Walter character published a piece and it was not parody,
Speaker 1: nor satire, nor even something stripped out of the pages
Speaker 1: of the onion. The headline the fascist state of paw Patrol.
Speaker 1: There is no society or even commerce, just the relentless
Speaker 1: force of the police. By the way, the Times was
Speaker 1: not done with us. The headline writers are very jealous
Speaker 1: of the opinion section's ability to both sides American democracy
Speaker 1: into an early grave quote emerging portrait of judge in
Speaker 1: Trump document's case prepared prickly and slow. Judge Eileen Cannon's
Speaker 1: handling of court hearings offers insights into how the case
Speaker 1: has become bogged down in unresolved issues. Unresolved issues like
Speaker 1: how she's deliberately slow walking the Trump trial because he
Speaker 1: effing appointed her and she has the morals of California
Speaker 1: round ray. Publisher ag Selzberger of The New York Times
Speaker 1: all the news that's fit to print unless it throws
Speaker 1: off the number of angels who can dance on the
Speaker 1: head of a both sides's pin and changes it from
Speaker 1: the mandatory even number to an unacceptable odd number. Two
Speaker 1: days worst publisher in the world. Walter Isaacson was editor
Speaker 1: of Time magazine back when that was like a full
Speaker 1: time paying job. Then Time and CNN merged and they thought, well, hey,
Speaker 1: this guy does news make him like president of CNN
Speaker 1: or something. And in his first three months, Walter decided
Speaker 1: CNN needed a comedy news show, but as I will
Speaker 1: tell you, he never thought I would be right for that.
Speaker 1: Then he decided CNN needed a new eight pm news
Speaker 1: cast from somebody outside of the company actually signed me
Speaker 1: to a contract to maybe do it. Then decided now
Speaker 1: I wasn't right for it. Then he had to oversee
Speaker 1: CNN's nine to eleven coverage, and then he had to
Speaker 1: make a crucial decision that the future of CNN was
Speaker 1: Anderson Cooper, who has done as much as anybody to
Speaker 1: make sure that CNN has in that time sunk from
Speaker 1: first place in the field to last. The part about
Speaker 1: the humorous news show put Walter Isaacson back in the
Speaker 1: news early this year because Chris licked and honestly, CNN
Speaker 1: ought to build a statue to him, and I have
Speaker 1: a festival every year like La Tamatina in Italy, where
Speaker 1: everybody stands around and throws tomatoes at the statue. Chris
Speaker 1: licked was per Semaphore News is reporting quote considering hiring
Speaker 1: a comedian to host one of CNN's primetime shows to
Speaker 1: fill the primetime nine to eleven PM hours with a
Speaker 1: non traditional version of the news. Five people with the
Speaker 1: planning said executives have floated names including Bill Maher, Trevor Noah,
Speaker 1: Arcinio Hall, and John Stewart and have looked at other
Speaker 1: comedic focused talk shows for inspiration. And as I read
Speaker 1: this story, I found myself transported back in time to
Speaker 1: the office of Walter Isaacson, President of CNN, Friday, August third,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. His big office was filled with
Speaker 1: the brilliant late summer sun. He called me in. He
Speaker 1: said how much he had enjoyed how I had used
Speaker 1: humor in my work at ESPN and MSNBC, and that
Speaker 1: he had what he thought was a great idea, and
Speaker 1: he wanted my thoughts. What if we took an hour
Speaker 1: in primetime and instead of being deadly serious CNN or
Speaker 1: conversational CNN, or even point counterpoint CNN. What if we
Speaker 1: were funny CNN? Satirical CNN sounded familiar to me because
Speaker 1: I had pitched this exact idea to Walter and his
Speaker 1: bosses not a month before. I still have the email
Speaker 1: in my computer. I had done a version of it
Speaker 1: for CNN in my sports reporting when I started in
Speaker 1: TV two decades before, and then I had raised it
Speaker 1: to something higher and more of a proven success at ESPN,
Speaker 1: and I did it at MSNBC in nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 1: and nineteen ninety eight. More sardonic than satirical, more bitter
Speaker 1: than humorous, but it got some laughs. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, I happened to be back with CNN as
Speaker 1: a scheduled freelancer filling in on the show. Jeff Greenfield
Speaker 1: was supposed to host at eleven o'clock every night. Then
Speaker 1: he broke his ankle or something. My agent was negotiating
Speaker 1: to get me the eight pm hour that they were
Speaker 1: going to give to somebody who was not currently on
Speaker 1: the network, and I had said, obviously, you couldn't have
Speaker 1: a comedian do the news, but you could have a
Speaker 1: newscaster with a decent sense of comedy bring a humorous
Speaker 1: starting point to it. And not only was I qualified,
Speaker 1: but as I said to Walter, right then I can
Speaker 1: do the key thing. That is the only way you
Speaker 1: can get away with this idea. I can be the
Speaker 1: guy on the air doing the slightly funny news when
Speaker 1: a bridge suddenly collapses, or Ronald Reagan dies or there
Speaker 1: is a terrorist attack, and I can swerve back into
Speaker 1: serious coverage before the network crashes, because you know, it
Speaker 1: had a comedy show on when the world ended. Walter
Speaker 1: nodded politely. What would you think of John Stewart? He asked,
Speaker 1: do you think the audience would buy John Stuart doing that?
Speaker 1: I think he's great, don't you, I said frankly, Walter, No,
Speaker 1: mostly for the reason I just outlined. I mean, if
Speaker 1: John Stewart is doing your funny news one night and
Speaker 1: then there's unfunny news, you are And then I said
Speaker 1: a word that rhymed with duct And I also said
Speaker 1: that I didn't know him well, but everybody I knew
Speaker 1: who did said John Stuart was insufferable, impossible to work with,
Speaker 1: A dreadful and dreary person notorious for stealing other people's
Speaker 1: ideas and pretend they were his. I said his point
Speaker 1: of view was closer to my own, but that, frankly,
Speaker 1: the closest personality comp in cable News to John Stewart
Speaker 1: was actually Bill O'Reilly. I saw my words bounce off
Speaker 1: Walter's head and float out the window of his CNN
Speaker 1: top floor office. Do you think John would do it
Speaker 1: to be fair? I don't think they asked him In
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, the previous time, a CNN president
Speaker 1: thought of this idea and mistakenly believed he was saying,
Speaker 1: let's have John Stewart do the news, when in fact
Speaker 1: what he was saying was let's have John Stewart's ratings
Speaker 1: between nine and ten every night, because that's what Chris
Speaker 1: Lick was thinking, as it was what Walter Isaacson was thinking,
Speaker 1: and why Chris Licked immediately moved the idea from impossible
Speaker 1: crash and burn to feasible. No on Stewart, Let's call
Speaker 1: Arsenio Hall. He's alive.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The longest than a common Many News Hybridge show can
Speaker 1: be is about thirty minutes, and one can argue based
Speaker 1: on audience retention for the John Stewart Daily Show and
Speaker 1: the Colbert Raport. It's actually closer to about fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: as Clicked must have remembered from his days running Colbert's
Speaker 1: amazingly unfunny CBS program. No late night comedy show that
Speaker 1: dabbled in news in a monologue or even multiple desk
Speaker 1: segments has ever done more than about ten twelve minutes
Speaker 1: of it a night. And I mean the superstars limited
Speaker 1: themselves to ten minutes of it to night. David Letterman,
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson, even Jay Leno others have tried ten minutes
Speaker 1: of news humor and were never heard from again. And
Speaker 1: if you doubt me, ask yourself if you remember the
Speaker 1: Pat Sayjack Show on CBS at eleven thirty every night,
Speaker 1: or Comedy Central's The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, or frankly,
Speaker 1: what do you remember of the third incarnation of the
Speaker 1: Daily Show with Trevor Noah, who kept the franchise alive
Speaker 1: after Stewart retired. But my god, it was just barely
Speaker 1: and Chris Lickt of the We thought they were paced eaters.
Speaker 1: Lichts supposedly brought up Trevor Noah and did bring up
Speaker 1: John Stewart in an interview with The New York Times
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, and so then somebody thought of
Speaker 1: Charles Barkley and my old college colleague Bill Maher, a
Speaker 1: semaphore noted, Marr is a potentially more realistic prospect. The
Speaker 1: host of HBO's long running weekly show that bears his
Speaker 1: name is already in house at Warner Bros. Discovery. CNN's
Speaker 1: parent company. Puck reported this week that CNN is in
Speaker 1: talks to begin airing some of Marr's weekly extra HBO segments.
Speaker 1: There were several problems with Bill Maher. Of course, for
Speaker 1: twenty five years, he has been abhorred by conservatives. They
Speaker 1: got him canceled from his original nightly show on ABC
Speaker 1: politically incorrect after nine to eleven. That's fine, Conservatives are
Speaker 1: not going to watch CNN no matter what is fascist
Speaker 1: owner John Malone might do. But the issue here is
Speaker 1: Mar has also gradually spent nearly all of his goodwill
Speaker 1: and reputation with liberals. They may not all abhor him yet,
Speaker 1: but he stopped being appointment viewing for liberals perhaps as
Speaker 1: long as a decade ago. Also, if the quality of
Speaker 1: the humor in his once a week HBO show is
Speaker 1: an indicator. Putting him on nightly on CNN starting say,
Speaker 1: next Monday, would mean he would be out of material
Speaker 1: by next Thursday, maybe next Wednesday. I also know Bill
Speaker 1: since literally nineteen seventy eight, and I used to be
Speaker 1: on the HBO show often, and he invariably told me
Speaker 1: that the best thing that ever happened to him was
Speaker 1: getting away from having to do a TV show every night,
Speaker 1: that six days of prep for one show was a
Speaker 1: tough enough ratio. Finally, CNN had the brilliant idea it
Speaker 1: would solve that problem by putting mar just once a
Speaker 1: week on in his timeslot, his regular favorite time slot,
Speaker 1: late nights on Fridays. It took the segment he used
Speaker 1: to do after his HBO show was over that they
Speaker 1: would put online, and instead they put it in the
Speaker 1: eleven pm Friday night CNN newscast, and it got an
Speaker 1: audience literally half the size of this podcast. I think
Speaker 1: they've canceled it for good, but who knows, because honestly,
Speaker 1: who'd notice. And Lastly, while it is assumed people actually
Speaker 1: watch Bill Maher's show, there is no proof of that.
Speaker 1: HBO does not produce ratings for the programs it puts
Speaker 1: on cable. It's not in the ratings game. It's in
Speaker 1: the subscription game. As I suggested just now, we don't
Speaker 1: know how many people watch mar We know there aren't
Speaker 1: maybe any conservatives. We don't know if there are still
Speaker 1: any liberals, And that, of course, is the other fundamental
Speaker 1: flaw here. The cover story for Chris Lichts actual job
Speaker 1: was he was to bring back balanced a political news Well, quick,
Speaker 1: name me the last a political news comedian or satirist.
Speaker 1: I'll wait. Even if you think the foppish guy they
Speaker 1: have on Fox, Blowfeld or Gutworm or whatever his name
Speaker 1: is is actually funny, is he a political letterman? Was
Speaker 1: actually kind of a political Yet most of his political
Speaker 1: stuff wound up mocking Republicans because they do things that
Speaker 1: are easier to laugh at, like John McCain lying to
Speaker 1: him and not showing up for that two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight hour long interview we were supposed to get just
Speaker 1: before the election, and they had to bring in me. Sorry,
Speaker 1: when Colbert, who is far more conservative than he wants
Speaker 1: you to know, could cover up his intent by pretending
Speaker 1: he was just pretending he was far more successful than
Speaker 1: he is now. And it needs to be remembered that
Speaker 1: until Trump's ascension, CBS, with that guy Licked in charge
Speaker 1: of it, was about to swap him and the a
Speaker 1: political and a funny James Cordon and Relegate Colbert at
Speaker 1: twelve thirty at night. And even if you disagree with
Speaker 1: my comedy analysis, the bottom line is you cannot do
Speaker 1: comedy about news without being political. And you can't put
Speaker 1: a comedian in the driver's seat of a real newscast
Speaker 1: because one day he will have to segue into live
Speaker 1: coverage of the massive explosion down at the Goiter clinic.
Speaker 1: If you really wanted to do an hour or just
Speaker 1: half an hour of comedy news, it would have to
Speaker 1: be political, and it would have to be hosted by
Speaker 1: somebody able to turn on a dime. From the Chuckle
Speaker 1: Hut to Good Evening, there are dead ex presidents. You're
Speaker 1: talking Al Franken or maybe maybe me, and CNN is
Speaker 1: not going to hire Al Franken. And guess what, CNN
Speaker 1: is definitely definitely not going to hire me. So let
Speaker 1: us go back in time again to Walter Isaacson's office,
Speaker 1: long before before anybody heard of God damned Elon MUCKs.
Speaker 1: Back to Walter's office at CNN and the dear innocent
Speaker 1: free Deluge days of August two thousand and one, and
Speaker 1: when Walter Isaacson was the president of CNN after Rees
Speaker 1: Schoenfeld had been it, and Bert Reinhardt, whom I worked for,
Speaker 1: and Tom Johnson, who I did not but I knew,
Speaker 1: and Rick Kaplan, who I did work for later, and
Speaker 1: Walter was before John Klein who tried to bring me
Speaker 1: back to CNN in two thousand and six but got
Speaker 1: overruled by Jim Walton, who had been the backup Chiron
Speaker 1: guy on my CNN sports cast in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: and Jim was also president, and then Jim fired John,
Speaker 1: and then somebody fired Jim, and then they brought in
Speaker 1: Jeff Zooker and he tried to bring me back in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, and then they fired him, and then it
Speaker 1: was Chris Licked and then they fired him. And now
Speaker 1: I got that British guy who once bit a producer
Speaker 1: because he thought it was funny. I can't actually recall
Speaker 1: how long I was in Walter Isaacson's office that summer day,
Speaker 1: so long ago. He had a lot of questions he
Speaker 1: wanted to ask me, and he continually refer heard to
Speaker 1: my experience mixing humor and serious coverage in sports, and
Speaker 1: even right then when I was filling in for Jeff Greenfield,
Speaker 1: and the longer I was in there, the more it
Speaker 1: seemed like he was leading up to asking me if
Speaker 1: I wanted to try it, and he never asked. And
Speaker 1: what made that even crazier was not long after CNN
Speaker 1: offered me the job of lead anchor and managing editor
Speaker 1: at its CNNSI Sports network, and a different contract as
Speaker 1: a full time salaried host and essayist on news and
Speaker 1: sports for the regular CNN network, and a third contract,
Speaker 1: a holding contract, which would really just be a pre
Speaker 1: negotiation in case they chose me from the finalists for
Speaker 1: their main eight o'clock anchor flagship show, and it turned
Speaker 1: out a month later they shuddered CNNSI, but we did
Speaker 1: proceed on the anchor essayist contract and we signed that
Speaker 1: holding contract. So I had two contract with CNN, and
Speaker 1: then at eight o'clock they never executed my other contract
Speaker 1: because they gave the show two Connie Chung Connie Chung
Speaker 1: and then they canceled her show one year later. Walter
Speaker 1: left CNN in January two thousand and three, and a
Speaker 1: month later I returned to MSNBC and we started Countdown.
Speaker 1: Politics and commentary gradually squeezed out the time I had
Speaker 1: devoted to the humor and satire. But originally Countdown was
Speaker 1: as much satire as it was controversy. And one day
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, a call was transferred into
Speaker 1: my office from one of our guest bookers who said
Speaker 1: somebody that they tried to get to be on the
Speaker 1: show was not going to do it, but he wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to me. While he was on the line, Keith,
Speaker 1: it's Walter Isaacson. I've been meaning to call you for
Speaker 1: a couple of months. I don't know if you remember this.
Speaker 1: In fact, I kind of hope you don't. But in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, do you remember I asked you
Speaker 1: about doing a newscast with a comedy element to you,
Speaker 1: and I must have asked you about John Stewart, and
Speaker 1: everybody liked John Stuart and I just wanted to say
Speaker 1: I watch Countdown every night, and every night I say
Speaker 1: to myself, this is exactly the show I wanted. And
Speaker 1: the guy was sitting on the other side of my
Speaker 1: goddamn desk and I didn't even see him because I
Speaker 1: was looking at it backwards, and I just kicked myself.
Speaker 1: This is the man who just fixed the Elon Musk
Speaker 1: quotes what Walter Isaacson said next in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: Should be a lesson to anybody else who wants to
Speaker 1: try Walter Isaacson's idea from two thousand and one and
Speaker 1: claim it is their idea. You don't get a comedian
Speaker 1: to do funny news, Walter said, as if I had
Speaker 1: not told him this. You get a newsman who's kind
Speaker 1: of funny to do news that's kind of funny. I've
Speaker 1: done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. Countown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip
Speaker 1: Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister
Speaker 1: Ray was on guitars, bass and drums. Mister Shanelle handled
Speaker 1: orchestration and keyboards, and they're doing very well despite the
Speaker 1: electron interference. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music,
Speaker 1: including some of the Beethoven, arranged and performed by the
Speaker 1: group No Horns Allowed sports music when we play it
Speaker 1: is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch
Speaker 1: Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN inc. Our satirical and fifthy
Speaker 1: musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium
Speaker 1: organist ever. Our announcer was my friend Tony Kornheiser, and
Speaker 1: everything else was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this,
Speaker 1: the one hundred and sixty first day until the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four presidential election, the fortieth day since Dictator Jay
Speaker 1: Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
Speaker 1: the United States. Use the legal system, use the mental
Speaker 1: health system, huge presidential immunity of that happens, use the
Speaker 1: not regularly given elector objection option. Use electron interference to
Speaker 1: stop him from doing it again. While we stell ten.
Speaker 1: The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolletins is the news
Speaker 1: warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck.
Speaker 2: This is electron interference of the highest order. A yai ya.
Speaker 1: These are the flags of elito insurrection. Appeal to have
Speaker 1: been sad. You know a damn thing. Why don't you
Speaker 1: ask them what dad? Yai I am Martha an ELITEO. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's my flag.
Speaker 2: It's my world.
Speaker 1: I deny you excess. It's an international signal.
Speaker 2: Love.
Speaker 1: Distress Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.