Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Now
Speaker 1: the Trump has started down the path to purges of
Speaker 1: the military, to political prosecutions, and to show trials. Now
Speaker 1: that his fascists have actually leaked plans to court martial
Speaker 1: and even seek treason charges against army leadership and even
Speaker 1: retired generals, President Biden has to proactively pardon all of them.
Speaker 1: In point, in fact, President Biden must now assemble a
Speaker 1: list of thousands of people to pardon. People in the military,
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party, in state and local governments, in elections,
Speaker 1: supervision in the media, in the protest movements, in the
Speaker 1: climate movement, people in any of the fields this psycho
Speaker 1: path Trump thinks wronged him and against which he is
Speaker 1: not only plotting retribution but is now actively planning it.
Speaker 1: Thousands of pardons, tens of thousands of pardons. They should
Speaker 1: be as easy and as available from the Biden administration
Speaker 1: as vaccinations, and they should be as free of stigma
Speaker 1: in exactly the same way the vaccinations are to those
Speaker 1: who understand the mortal danger that the worm eaten side
Speaker 1: show Bob F. Kennedy Junior represents to this country. It
Speaker 1: is a moral imperative that Joe Biden literally prioritize this
Speaker 1: list of pardons above everything else right now, everything else
Speaker 1: except perhaps his own consideration of the larger question that
Speaker 1: Trump's desire to purge anybody from the military who isn't
Speaker 1: personally loyal to him, and desire to purge anybody from
Speaker 1: government who isn't personally loyal to him, and Trump's intention
Speaker 1: to starve any city or county or state that does
Speaker 1: not become personally loyal to him. Joe Biden must ask
Speaker 1: himself if it is morally defensible to turn this country
Speaker 1: over to a madman not just talking about destroying this
Speaker 1: country and killing its people by astonishingly varietous means, but
Speaker 1: one who is already starting to make this happen. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden must ask if there are other actions to take
Speaker 1: rather than hand Trump the weapons with which to institute
Speaker 1: dictatorship and mass death. That is for the President and
Speaker 1: his conscience and his prayers and his God to decide
Speaker 1: as for the immediate crisis before us. Right now, NBC
Speaker 1: News is reporting quote the Trump transition team is compiling
Speaker 1: a list of senior, current and former US military officers
Speaker 1: who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and
Speaker 1: exploring whether they could be court martialed for their involvement.
Speaker 1: According to a US official and a person familiar with
Speaker 1: the plan, officials working on the transition are considering creating
Speaker 1: a commission to investigate the twenty twenty one withdrawal and
Speaker 1: whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as
Speaker 1: serious as treason. They're taking it very seriously, the person
Speaker 1: with knowledge of the plan said. Matt Flynn, a former
Speaker 1: Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counter Narcotics and Global Threats,
Speaker 1: is helping lead the effort. The sources said. It is
Speaker 1: being framed as a review of how the US first
Speaker 1: got into the war in Afghanistan and how the US
Speaker 1: ultimately withdrew. Quoting NBC News, the lawyer for this Flynn, this,
Speaker 1: Flynn denies any involvement in this or in the Trump
Speaker 1: transition team. The answer to how we got in, of course,
Speaker 1: is that George W. Bush correctly sent troops to Afghanistan
Speaker 1: after nine to eleven to destabilize Al Qaeda's base there,
Speaker 1: and then he saw the chance to pretend that the
Speaker 1: real culprit was Iraq, and the mission was thereafter doomed
Speaker 1: to incompleteness. The answer to how we withdrew from Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: of course, is that, in order to look like a
Speaker 1: peacemaker and to win a few votes somewhere, Trump made
Speaker 1: a nightmarishly bad deal with Taliban terrorists, having already invited
Speaker 1: them to go to Camp David, and arranged for five
Speaker 1: thousand of their worst scum to be released from captivity,
Speaker 1: which left Afghanistan undefended in essence, and left Joe Biden
Speaker 1: with no chance other than to get out as fast
Speaker 1: as he could. If there should be anybody on trial
Speaker 1: for Malfeasan's or misconduct or tree reason over the Afghanistan withdrawal,
Speaker 1: it is Trump, And that, of course is part of
Speaker 1: the point. In a dictatorship, there is not just one
Speaker 1: man rule, but anybody but that one man blame. All
Speaker 1: those who recognize the dictator's failures must be silenced, and
Speaker 1: some of them must publicly take the fall for him,
Speaker 1: no matter how many lies must be told to make
Speaker 1: that happen. But even that is not the largest point.
Speaker 1: The largest point is that these are the first notes
Speaker 1: of the symphony of destruction that Trump intends to create.
Speaker 1: A commission is to create a kind of permanent platform
Speaker 1: for show trials. Show trials of the military first because
Speaker 1: loyalty and conduct there are so easily assessed, then later
Speaker 1: show trials for civilians in any field. The perpetual rooting
Speaker 1: out of supposed loyalty and treason and not failure but
Speaker 1: sabotage has been part and parcel of every dictatorship since
Speaker 1: ancient Rome. It was the essence of the Soviet state.
Speaker 1: It was the backbone of Hitler's Reich. It was previewed
Speaker 1: for us in the endless hearings by Jamie Comer in
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives in the last two years. But
Speaker 1: still further, as NBC reports, to recall former military leaders
Speaker 1: in order to court martial them is a step beyond
Speaker 1: that is done to smear the entirety of the non
Speaker 1: Trump history of this country, to make distinctions not just
Speaker 1: between Republicans and Democrats, and Trumpets and never Trumpers, but
Speaker 1: between Trump and every other political and governmental figure in
Speaker 1: at least our recent history. If the NBC report is correct,
Speaker 1: and the Afghanistan Star Chamber would address not just the
Speaker 1: withdrawal but also the decision to go in all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, Trump's scapegoat hunters will be going after George W.
Speaker 1: Bush and the neo cons and Liz Cheney's father, and
Speaker 1: doing so for what might have been the one thing
Speaker 1: they actually got right. And even beyond that, there is
Speaker 1: in this the opening salvo in the attempt to do
Speaker 1: to the military what Trump has long since promised to
Speaker 1: do to the federal government and to local police around
Speaker 1: the country, to make them loyal to him and him alone.
Speaker 1: I'll quote again from the NBC story. It's not clear
Speaker 1: that Trump administration would pursue treason charges and instead could
Speaker 1: focus on lesser charges that highlight the officer's involvement. They
Speaker 1: want to set an example, said the person with knowledge
Speaker 1: of the plant. They would in fact be setting multiple
Speaker 1: kinds of examples, not just to military personnel who might
Speaker 1: hesitate someday to commit the illegal acts and murders Trump will,
Speaker 1: no doubt order through his minions, but also an example
Speaker 1: of how to frighten and purge and make political hay
Speaker 1: out of anybody in any public position and eventually in
Speaker 1: any private position in this country. This Afghanistan story is
Speaker 1: a blueprint for governmental terror in this country starting two
Speaker 1: months from Wednesday. This is why Biden must act immediately
Speaker 1: pardon anybody who will accept one blanket, blanket pardons for
Speaker 1: all acts. I want so many pardons that they have
Speaker 1: to open up the government printing office twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: I want them so commonplace that each of my dogs
Speaker 1: gets one, and the onus is erased by the sheer
Speaker 1: number of pardon recipients. And yes, the president needs to
Speaker 1: pardon everybody in his own face family, and in Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton's family, and Barack Obama's family, and Kamala Harris's family,
Speaker 1: and god knows how many other loyal families. Incidentally, it
Speaker 1: is not a coincidence that this obscure, greasy scumbag heg Seth,
Speaker 1: whom Trump wants as Secretary of Defense, wrote a book
Speaker 1: blaming Pentagon leadership for the heartrending Afghanistan withdrawal. Heg Seth is,
Speaker 1: as I record, this still Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense,
Speaker 1: but it certainly looks like he is the first of
Speaker 1: the team of trifles that Trump would throw under the bus.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post reports that Hegseth, quoting them, paid a
Speaker 1: woman who accused him of sexual assault as part of
Speaker 1: a non disclosure agreement, though he maintained that their encounter
Speaker 1: was consensual. According to a statement from his lawyer's Saturday
Speaker 1: and other documents obtained by The Washington Post, heg Seth
Speaker 1: agreed to pay an undisco closed amount to the woman
Speaker 1: because he feared that revelation of the matter quote would
Speaker 1: result in his immediate termination from Fox, where he worked
Speaker 1: as a host, the statement said. The statement came after
Speaker 1: a detailed memo was sent to the Trump transition team
Speaker 1: this week by a woman who said she is a
Speaker 1: friend of the accuser. The memo, a copy of which
Speaker 1: was obtained by The Post, alleged he raped the then
Speaker 1: thirty year old Conservative Group staffer in his room after
Speaker 1: drinking at a hotel bar. Unquote. This all was said
Speaker 1: to transpire in twenty seventeen. This Hegseth has been on
Speaker 1: the ropes since Trump leaked his name, not the least
Speaker 1: for this series of tattoos, generously described by Vice President
Speaker 1: elect Vance as quote a Christian motto tattooed on his
Speaker 1: arm less generously described as part of a series of
Speaker 1: tats including symbols used by the Christian crusaders of the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages and more recently and more dangerously by the
Speaker 1: Proud Boys and the Three percenters. The tattoos on heg
Speaker 1: Seth were so alarming he was flagged as an internal
Speaker 1: risk by a fellow service member and left the service
Speaker 1: as a result. Heg Seth and his fellow Cockroach Vance,
Speaker 1: whose entire understanding of the works and words of Jesus
Speaker 1: seems to be some garbled conclusion that you can get
Speaker 1: very popular if you seem to have been martyred, exchanged
Speaker 1: social media posts in which they dismissed the reporting of
Speaker 1: that little white supremacist convert or kill everybody in the
Speaker 1: Middle East issue as quote anti Christian bigotry in the
Speaker 1: media unquote. Hegseth then added exactly the kind of agenda
Speaker 1: setting statement you would expect from an incoming head of
Speaker 1: the Pentagon quote they can target me. I don't give
Speaker 1: a damn, but this type of targeting of Christians, Conservatives, patriots,
Speaker 1: and everyday Americans will stop on day one at Djt's
Speaker 1: DoD which you could dismiss as typical q Andon lunacy,
Speaker 1: except for the fact that the man who wrote that
Speaker 1: may actually yet wind up in control of the largest
Speaker 1: military force in the world, along with a remit from
Speaker 1: the man who appointed him to use that force. Against
Speaker 1: the citizens of the United States, like maybe when the
Speaker 1: public were to protest treason show trials and presumably treason
Speaker 1: show executions of generals who were making the best out
Speaker 1: of Trump's butchering of our exit from Afghanistan. Heg Seth
Speaker 1: may meet his bus, a bus named Crusade. Not because
Speaker 1: he's an unqualified lunatic who's inked up like a fanboy
Speaker 1: of the Spanish Inquisition, but because it is human nature
Speaker 1: to think, well, we didn't stop Gates, the least we
Speaker 1: got rid of heg Seth. As if there weren't another
Speaker 1: fifty heg seths lined up behind the original. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could even give the new one the same tattoos
Speaker 1: wouldn't take more than a few days. Quote Trump wants
Speaker 1: Gates confirmed one hundred percent. A source told CNN he
Speaker 1: is not going to back off. He's all in, reads
Speaker 1: the money. Quote from a CNN report which has Jamie
Speaker 1: Gangel's name and sources all over it, quoting again, he
Speaker 1: views Gates as the most important member of the cabinet.
Speaker 1: He considers the nomination of the former Florida congressman an
Speaker 1: urgent priority for the incoming GOP mind. Already in the Senate,
Speaker 1: it's the lady you or the tiger here. I think
Speaker 1: you notice the word used there was confirmed. Trump wants
Speaker 1: Gates confirmed one hundred percent. Trump has always been so slipshod,
Speaker 1: so inherently confused by human language that confirmed by the
Speaker 1: Senate and confirmed as a recess appointment could in fact
Speaker 1: mean the same thing to him, depending on the hour
Speaker 1: of the day and the day of the week. He
Speaker 1: may or may not still care that there's a difference
Speaker 1: between those things. But as I said last week, Gates
Speaker 1: is Trump's personal kind of favorite immoral cockroach, and yet
Speaker 1: he still means much more to him. Symbolically, he is
Speaker 1: Caligula's apocryphal horse appointment. Trump wants Gates to use the
Speaker 1: DOJ as a loaded gun against anybody Trump doesn't like.
Speaker 1: He doesn't care gives him the gun. But Trump's ego
Speaker 1: also demands that the Republican senators he views as his
Speaker 1: slaves stand up and applaud what he's doing. In short,
Speaker 1: Gates is and nobody has better embodied this. Gates is
Speaker 1: the living embodiment of Trump saying I will defecate, you
Speaker 1: will eat it. So there is your tiger right now.
Speaker 1: It is clear from all reporting a majority of Republican
Speaker 1: Senators would not vote to confirm Matt Gates if there's
Speaker 1: a vote, if there's a hearing. Trump's utter insecurity can
Speaker 1: only be assuaged by a hearing and a vote. Does
Speaker 1: he continue to demand it? If he demands it, he
Speaker 1: may kill his dictatorship before it even starts. If he
Speaker 1: sublimates his desire and is satisfied the course of least
Speaker 1: resistance for these more advanced insects in the Senate Republican
Speaker 1: Caucus think still cockroaches, but in suits and ties. Their
Speaker 1: course of least resistance is clear, letting the recess appointment happen,
Speaker 1: and then just pretending, as they have pretended for eight years,
Speaker 1: that Trump is not Hitler. I will echo what David French,
Speaker 1: of all people wrote in The New York Times. America
Speaker 1: has twice elected Trump, the outsider, the bull in the
Speaker 1: china shop, the chaos agent, but he has stood for
Speaker 1: office only once as the actual guy in charge, the
Speaker 1: buck stops here guy, and America rejected him and humiliated him.
Speaker 1: In the long term, this could be a good augur
Speaker 1: The United States may simply get fed up with Trump
Speaker 1: failing at everything, or it could hasten his full implementation
Speaker 1: of dictatorship, in which he never makes that mistake again.
Speaker 1: He never makes the mistake of letting America again have
Speaker 1: anything to say about who runs America, in which case
Speaker 1: I refer you back to my opening remark. Joe Biden
Speaker 1: must immediately pardon everybody he can think of, just in
Speaker 1: case this weekend was not worrisome enough those Trump will
Speaker 1: not court martial, nor have Gates prosecute, nor have hag
Speaker 1: Seth shoot. He will kill by accelerating the climate catastrophe.
Speaker 1: His new energy secretary designate is not just a fossil
Speaker 1: fuels prostitute. He's a fracking prostitute. Liberty energies Doug Wright.
Speaker 1: Liberty from breathing, I believe is their motto. Doug writes,
Speaker 1: tombstone someday will read there is no climate crisis and
Speaker 1: we're not in the midst of an energy transition either,
Speaker 1: which he said on tape. It will read that until
Speaker 1: that tombstone is submerged under a new ocean or burned
Speaker 1: to a cinder by a five hundred thousand acre wildfire.
Speaker 1: There are two more new nightmares to recount. Trump wants
Speaker 1: his personal attorney John Sower as Solicitor General. Sour is
Speaker 1: the one who argued before the Supreme Court for presidential immunity.
Speaker 1: You know, the lawyer who said that, yes, the president
Speaker 1: would be immune from criminal prosecution even if he had
Speaker 1: directed the military to assassinate a political rival just by coincidence.
Speaker 1: A reminder here to President Biden at the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: agreed with the Solicitor General designate about that bang bang.
Speaker 1: And this final reminder from Elon Musk, one of Twitter's
Speaker 1: Nazi tech bros, wrote, Trump received a clear mandate. He's
Speaker 1: going to win by one and a half percent. Trump
Speaker 1: received a clear mandate from the people to assemble an
Speaker 1: extinction level event administration with respect to spending, bureaucracy, and
Speaker 1: inefficiency in the federal government, which Musk retweeted to his
Speaker 1: decreasingly populated ex echo chamber, and Musk added one word
Speaker 1: quote true extinction level event administration. This makes me remind
Speaker 1: you of two of my earlier assertions here today, One
Speaker 1: that it is now a matter for Joe Biden and
Speaker 1: his maker to decide if turning the government over to people,
Speaker 1: now boasting that they are beginning the process of destroying
Speaker 1: that government, and destroying all of this nation's freedoms, and
Speaker 1: him Biden and eventually you and me, whether or not
Speaker 1: that really is the lesser of any number of evils,
Speaker 1: That's one reminder. The other one is a reminder of
Speaker 1: this Keteman is a hell of a drug. Also of interest,
Speaker 1: here in an all new edition of Countdown. I've been
Speaker 1: waiting for the right moment. I don't know if it's now,
Speaker 1: but if it isn't, it'll be soon. So let's go
Speaker 1: how to proactively defend this country, this democracy, and yourself.
Speaker 1: As Trump in night falls, as the big fat guy
Speaker 1: blots out the sun, Have you got half an hour?
Speaker 1: Because I have a half an hour's worth of instructions.
Speaker 1: That's next. This is Countdown. Nearly eight years ago, I
Speaker 1: was asked to give the keynote speech to the first
Speaker 1: fundraiser for a new group called Democracy Matters, created by
Speaker 1: the people who did Media Matters and other organizations that
Speaker 1: ended in Matters, which had vowed to throw up every
Speaker 1: barricade and every speed bump and every sliver of resistance
Speaker 1: possible to the Trump craypocracy that would take power the
Speaker 1: next day. I was preceded by the former governor of
Speaker 1: a Midwestern state who actually thought that Trump had won
Speaker 1: because we had all neglected the auto workers. This governor
Speaker 1: really bought into the this is about economic anxiety and
Speaker 1: economic anxiety alone. Also speaking before me a local Florida
Speaker 1: mayor who somehow had concluded that the lesson of the
Speaker 1: election of Trump was we needed more non politicians running
Speaker 1: for office and doing retail politics, knocking on doors the
Speaker 1: way he had got an elected mayor of a city
Speaker 1: that had ten thousand people in it, and I thought,
Speaker 1: my god, they have had no clue as to what happened,
Speaker 1: and they, more importantly have no clue as to what
Speaker 1: is going to happen. The man who asked me to
Speaker 1: give this speech was David Brock, and he said, give
Speaker 1: me one of your resistance videos, only in person. I
Speaker 1: want Fire and Brimstone. And I said, well, happily I
Speaker 1: happened to be the East Coast distributor of that. I
Speaker 1: read the speech again a couple of months ago, and
Speaker 1: I find so little of it wouldn't fit exactly today
Speaker 1: except for the dates that I think, in offering it
Speaker 1: to you again, the number of words I've had to
Speaker 1: alter in this rereading is less than five. I haven't
Speaker 1: even changed the dates. I have cut out the opening
Speaker 1: reference to crickets, but it's true. This was given outside
Speaker 1: in the garden of a Fort Lauderdale hotel at night,
Speaker 1: and when you are at the podium outside in Florida
Speaker 1: at night in January and you pause, you can literally
Speaker 1: hear crickets. As I gave this speech, there was almost
Speaker 1: no reaction. I later found out there was no reaction
Speaker 1: because everybody there was trying to convince themselves that it
Speaker 1: was about retail politics or ignoring the auto workers, and
Speaker 1: this was the first person they had heard who actually
Speaker 1: said to them, no, the building is on fire. It
Speaker 1: is not a false alarm. So there were crickets throughout this,
Speaker 1: but not after it. In any event, I stand by
Speaker 1: every word of this speech. Only now I would suggest
Speaker 1: that what I will reread to you is nothing more
Speaker 1: than the starting point the keynote speech to Democracy Matters,
Speaker 1: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, January nineteenth, twenty seventeen. It's an honor
Speaker 1: to be here. It's an honor to see my old
Speaker 1: friends and to meet many new ones. And now that
Speaker 1: my affable remarks are over, let me get down to
Speaker 1: the raw meat. Let me begin with the worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: or one of them. In any event, imagine it is
Speaker 1: not now January nineteenth, twenty seventeen, but instead it's January nineteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. You and I are here in these same circumstances,
Speaker 1: right here, and I repeat to you then what I
Speaker 1: am going to say to you now, and as I finish,
Speaker 1: or earlier, or even as I begin, I am arrested,
Speaker 1: or I am detained, or I am put on a
Speaker 1: watch list somewhere, or I am audited, or I am
Speaker 1: denounced by someone somewhere, or I am who knows what
Speaker 1: happens to me one year, And that is just an estimate.
Speaker 1: Your punishment may vary. It could be two years from now,
Speaker 1: It could be two months from now, It could be
Speaker 1: tomorrow afternoon after the inauguration. And of course, if and
Speaker 1: when it happens, it will not be me alone for
Speaker 1: the act of listening to me. You could also be
Speaker 1: arrested or detained or who knows what I see some
Speaker 1: concern on some faces political science fiction hyperbole a paranoid,
Speaker 1: ustopian view of January nineteenth, twenty eighteen, A work of fiction.
Speaker 1: If one year ago tonight we had been here on
Speaker 1: January nineteen, twenty sixteen, And I had told you that
Speaker 1: in one year's time, a deranged, infantile, imbecilic, paranoid, sexist, racist, militaristic, fascist, perverted, vulgar, stupid,
Speaker 1: paper thin skinned man baby would not merely be nominated
Speaker 1: for president by a major political party in this country,
Speaker 1: but would swamp all his rivals, including the brother and
Speaker 1: son of one former president. And if I then told
Speaker 1: you that after unleashing all that is worst in America,
Speaker 1: he would be able to conjure the perfect electoral storm
Speaker 1: inside the electoral college, storm to defeat in the election
Speaker 1: the wife of another president, a woman who would get
Speaker 1: two million, nine hundred thousand more popular votes than he did.
Speaker 1: And I told you further that in one year's time,
Speaker 1: all we would be left asking here was not whether
Speaker 1: or not the Russians had tampered with our sacred election,
Speaker 1: but how much they had tampered with it. Would you
Speaker 1: have called that political science fiction? Because I would have.
Speaker 1: And I like to think I'm smarter than I have
Speaker 1: turned out to have been on this, So it is important.
Speaker 1: It's not happy, but it's important to remember that we
Speaker 1: need to not assume the nightmare ends in some way.
Speaker 1: When Donald John Trump puts his hand on the Bible
Speaker 1: tomorrow and John Robert says, do you solemnly swear that
Speaker 1: you will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the
Speaker 1: United States, And, presuming the Bible does not leap from
Speaker 1: his hand or spontaneously combust, Trump replies to this call
Speaker 1: of our history and our democracy by answering, whatever, this
Speaker 1: is not the last scene of the Manchurian candidate, nor
Speaker 1: the last scene of seven days in May, nor the
Speaker 1: last scene of it can't happen here. There are countless
Speaker 1: possible nightmare scenarios ahead of all of us. We have
Speaker 1: seen some of them before, the last time we let
Speaker 1: the antiquated math of the Founders elect a Republican president
Speaker 1: in defiance of the will of the people. We also
Speaker 1: have seen a terrorist act and flames and collapses and
Speaker 1: ashes and pyres, and the immediate exploitation of that act
Speaker 1: by Republicans who demanded that what we should do was
Speaker 1: what they called patriotic bipartisanship, which was in fact monopartisanship,
Speaker 1: in which they were to make all the decisions, and
Speaker 1: our role was to acquiesce to them, or to be
Speaker 1: branded disloyal. We know what they will do if that
Speaker 1: opportunity presents itself again. And we know from a year
Speaker 1: of his lies and calumnies and gas lighting and or
Speaker 1: well grade perversions of light into dark and fiction into fact,
Speaker 1: that they are all now practiced and prepared and ready
Speaker 1: to create an opportunity if none presents itself, a phony
Speaker 1: threat that requires a curtailment of liberties, some plot he
Speaker 1: and he alone could stop. And we must be prepared
Speaker 1: to call such a stunt exactly what it is, and
Speaker 1: to be patriots and to wrap ourselves in the flag
Speaker 1: that we love and shout from the hills. Why what
Speaker 1: has happened to this country two months from now, six
Speaker 1: months from now, two years from now. Why that has
Speaker 1: happened was because there is a Donald John Trump. And
Speaker 1: we know that this time they have tilted the playing
Speaker 1: field against us in advance in these areas. They have
Speaker 1: spent eight years delegitimizing a president so that we might
Speaker 1: look foolish delegitimizing an actual, illegitimate president. They have spent
Speaker 1: the length of a campaign refusing to promise to recognize
Speaker 1: a defeat on the premise that it could only have
Speaker 1: been obtained by chicanery and dishonesty, so that we might
Speaker 1: look foolish, refusing to honor a defeat that was actually
Speaker 1: obtained by actual chicanery and dishonesty. They have month after
Speaker 1: month insisting the election, the media, the opinion polls, now,
Speaker 1: the polls about the transition, that these are rigged and fixed,
Speaker 1: so that we might look foolish, insisting that an election,
Speaker 1: the media, the opinion polls are actually rigged and fixed.
Speaker 1: And we know that now we will and must play
Speaker 1: by rules that sicken us, against which our souls cry out,
Speaker 1: But we must our moral force, our moral high ground,
Speaker 1: our patriotic self defense is simple. We did not seek
Speaker 1: any of these rules. We did not seek this battle.
Speaker 1: We did not seek this treachery. The rules and the
Speaker 1: battle and the treachery are Trump's. We will fight him
Speaker 1: on his terms, and we will defeat him, and we
Speaker 1: will restore democracy, and we will defeat Trump's Russian masters.
Speaker 1: Some of us have been warning since the beginning of
Speaker 1: the presidential campaign that Trump's connection and the connection of
Speaker 1: those around him to a dictator who has had the
Speaker 1: foresight to replace expensive and very complicated human war with
Speaker 1: the far more efficient cyber war invasioned by remote control.
Speaker 1: We have noted that Trump's connection was not mere admiration
Speaker 1: nor the perverted envy of a sick American monster gazing
Speaker 1: at a sick Russian monster. And we were right. The
Speaker 1: Russians did this. All we need to learn, and we
Speaker 1: will learn it, is how much they did, how many
Speaker 1: acts of war they directed against this country, how much
Speaker 1: they had on Trump, how much they expecked him to deliver.
Speaker 1: How many of the mainstream Republicans will remain loyal not
Speaker 1: to the Constitution of the United States, but to Vladimir
Speaker 1: God damned Putin. I wish to quote three men, and
Speaker 1: only three men tonight, Sidney A. Chayefsky, John Lewis, and
Speaker 1: first of these three Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill speaking after
Speaker 1: what was in his time in his country, in his context,
Speaker 1: his Trump election. We know it in history as Munich
Speaker 1: and from the wilderness of his parliament, with a coalition
Speaker 1: government cheering itself deafeningly for having averted war, with the
Speaker 1: formal leadership of this nation shunning him and marginalizing him
Speaker 1: and giggling at him, say nothing of his nation shunning
Speaker 1: him and marginalizing him and giggling at him. When everybody
Speaker 1: roared how well they had done, Churchill began in all
Speaker 1: to whisper. The people should know that we have sustained
Speaker 1: a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will
Speaker 1: travel far with us along our road. They should know
Speaker 1: that we have passed an awful milestone in our history.
Speaker 1: And here I will briefly update Churchill's words. If I
Speaker 1: could make that offense, when the whole equilibrium of the
Speaker 1: free world has been deranged, and that the terrible words
Speaker 1: have for the time being been pronounced against the American democracy,
Speaker 1: thou Art weighed in the balance and found wanting. And
Speaker 1: don't suppose Churchill said that this is the end. This
Speaker 1: is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only
Speaker 1: the first sip, the first fore taste of a bitter cup,
Speaker 1: which we will be proffered to us year by year,
Speaker 1: unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor,
Speaker 1: we arise again and take our stand for freedom as
Speaker 1: in the olden time, Churchill, Tonight, in our country, which
Speaker 1: we all love in words and in ways that we
Speaker 1: cannot express, tonight is the end of the olden time.
Speaker 1: In the comparison to what Churchill said in nineteen thirty eight,
Speaker 1: Tonight is the night before disaster. Tonight is the night
Speaker 1: that we will look back at with some longing and
Speaker 1: some nostalgia. Tonight is the night to which the whole
Speaker 1: of our beings, and all of our priorities, and all
Speaker 1: of our efforts must now be focused on getting our
Speaker 1: country back to democracy as we have known it. With
Speaker 1: the rules by which we have played ends at noon.
Speaker 1: The fight. Our fight begins one second later, and it begins,
Speaker 1: as you will hear at this conference this weekend, on
Speaker 1: a series of fronts. The fight can begin in the media.
Speaker 1: You everybody here can confront anybody, reporter, anchor, spokesman, shill,
Speaker 1: anybody who tries to publicly characterize all this as just
Speaker 1: some sort of political swing, as if it was not
Speaker 1: the seizure of power by the worst possible person to
Speaker 1: be found to serve as president, as if that person
Speaker 1: had not appointed the worst possible candidate to run each agency,
Speaker 1: As if Betsy de Vos was just some sort of
Speaker 1: an alternative to traditional education. Once she really is an
Speaker 1: alternative to traditional education, in the same way stupidity is
Speaker 1: an alternative to traditional education. This weekend we will will
Speaker 1: show you ways to make this clear to the media,
Speaker 1: and it will introduce you to people whose job it
Speaker 1: will be to shine a constant daily light on every
Speaker 1: broken promise, every shady nominee, every awful policy, and everything
Speaker 1: you can do to help directly. The fight can also
Speaker 1: begin in the courts. Trump will come as close to
Speaker 1: privatizing the presidency as anybody in our history before sunset tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and whether he believes it or not, much of what
Speaker 1: he will try to do is actually illegal, and there
Speaker 1: are still laws. And this weekend will show you ways
Speaker 1: to pursue him and to have at the head of
Speaker 1: this fight a cliche Justice with her shining sword. Or
Speaker 1: you can look at all this more practically. Trump is
Speaker 1: coming for your money. You might as well spend some
Speaker 1: of it to prevent him from taking all of your money.
Speaker 1: And this fight certainly begins with a state of mind.
Speaker 1: More than nine years ago, I ran into John Kerry
Speaker 1: in line to pick up World Series tickets at Fenway
Speaker 1: Park in Boston, and as we came past each other
Speaker 1: in the line, he congratulated me and he said thanks
Speaker 1: to me, and I said, you're welcome for what By
Speaker 1: the way, he said, it was you who decided to
Speaker 1: run headfirst into the brick wall of the Bush administration.
Speaker 1: You said, this terror color code system was uncomfortably in
Speaker 1: sync with Bush's political needs. And then you said, I
Speaker 1: think they may be doing this deliberately, and just enough
Speaker 1: of that wall fell down and the rest of us
Speaker 1: could storm through and start talking about it. And that's
Speaker 1: what turned around the two thousand and six midterms. And
Speaker 1: I said, ah, I doubt it, but okay, I'll defer
Speaker 1: to you on it, Senator. So never think, no matter
Speaker 1: what has happened in the last few months, that you
Speaker 1: individually don't matter, or that an opportunity for you to
Speaker 1: prevail over this will not arise, or that your state
Speaker 1: of mind does not matter, or that even an act
Speaker 1: of symbolism by you does not matter. And to that point,
Speaker 1: John Lewis, I will contend that something he did on
Speaker 1: January thirteenth, twenty seventeen was just as important, or nearly so,
Speaker 1: and certainly just as dangerous and will in the end
Speaker 1: prove just as saving and redemptive as was his agony
Speaker 1: on the Edmund Pettis Bridge. As you know, Congressman Lewis
Speaker 1: was asked if he planned to try to forge a
Speaker 1: relationship with Trump, and he said, I believe in forgiveness.
Speaker 1: I believe in trying to work with people. It's going
Speaker 1: to be hard, it's going to be very difficult. I
Speaker 1: don't see the president elect as a legitimate president. I
Speaker 1: think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected,
Speaker 1: and they helped roy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I
Speaker 1: don't plan to attend the inauguration. You cannot be at
Speaker 1: home with something that you feel is wrong. The questioner
Speaker 1: was stunned. That's going to send a big message, said
Speaker 1: my ex friend Chuck Todd, a message to a lot
Speaker 1: of people in this country that you don't believe he's
Speaker 1: a legitimate president. And John Lewis, as always, would not
Speaker 1: back down, would not equivocate, would not protect himself. I
Speaker 1: think it was a conspiracy on the part of the
Speaker 1: Russians and others to help him get elected. That's not right,
Speaker 1: that's not fair, that's not the open democratic process. And
Speaker 1: John Lewis in thirty seconds, moved legitimacy center stage. In
Speaker 1: the week since, he said that more than sixty elected
Speaker 1: Democrats followed him. It should have been all of them.
Speaker 1: John Lewis leads us yet again, And there is the
Speaker 1: organizing principle of resistance. It is simple, as hard as
Speaker 1: it may be to believe and to put into proper
Speaker 1: historical contexts. And just because none of us have seen
Speaker 1: it before does not mean it cannot be true. It
Speaker 1: is simple. This is not a legitimate president. This was
Speaker 1: a conspiracy involving, to great or small degree, another country.
Speaker 1: This is not the open democratic process. And John Lewis
Speaker 1: said it perfectly. You cannot be at home with something
Speaker 1: that you feel is wrong. Every day we bring up Russia.
Speaker 1: Every day we shout Russia. Every day we scream Russia.
Speaker 1: Never do we speak this man's name without invoking what
Speaker 1: Churchill called the defeat without a war. Never do we
Speaker 1: criticize or discuss or analyze his actions or those of
Speaker 1: his White House filled with the crew of a pirate ship,
Speaker 1: without reminding everyone that the Russians put him there, and
Speaker 1: that the Republicans who enable him to stay there are
Speaker 1: passively collaborating with a foreign enemy of the United States
Speaker 1: of America. At the other end of the extreme in
Speaker 1: terms of simplicity versus complexity, never ever do we refer
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump as president he is Trump. Certainly that
Speaker 1: is sufficient and accurate, and it is also easier for
Speaker 1: when it is finally time for us to erase his
Speaker 1: name from American history. For now, it is our task
Speaker 1: to erase what is left of his legitimacy. I don't
Speaker 1: see the president elect as a legitimate president. John Lewis said,
Speaker 1: you cannot be at home with something you feel is wrong.
Speaker 1: Wise words stand the test of time and the test
Speaker 1: of struggle, And these words from John Lewis R. Wise,
Speaker 1: this weekend will be devoted to many means, practical and
Speaker 1: philosophical with which we can fight this nightmare on the
Speaker 1: terms the Republicans and their coalition partners, the American fascists
Speaker 1: and the neo Nazis have chosen, and to consider the
Speaker 1: first of the Republican hammers, which which we can grab
Speaker 1: from their hands, and which we can then use to
Speaker 1: chase them to hell. This weekend will be devoted to
Speaker 1: many means, practical and philosophical, with which we can resist Trump,
Speaker 1: reproach Trump, and ultimately repeal and replace Trump. Already we
Speaker 1: see the outlines of this. The boycott against the Bright
Speaker 1: part advertisers was a spectacular success. It can be easily repeated,
Speaker 1: and it's fun for the entire family. There are other
Speaker 1: media inroads to make. As I mentioned, my GQ series
Speaker 1: crossed one hundred million views a network. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is a pipe dream of mine that is
Speaker 1: largely liberal in its orientation. That I could speak to
Speaker 1: you from every night would be a nice thing to have,
Speaker 1: But I don't know if we could ever see that.
Speaker 1: But why does it sound so vaguely familiar? But practically again,
Speaker 1: with or without networks, we now know that we are
Speaker 1: under no obligation to be nice or cooperative or vs
Speaker 1: or bipartisan. That we can fight just as dirty and
Speaker 1: just as viciously, and we will beat them at their
Speaker 1: own game, because, as I have observed many times in
Speaker 1: my commentaries, democracy has survived not so much through the
Speaker 1: efforts of those who would protect it as it has
Speaker 1: survived because of the stupidity of those who would destroy it.
Speaker 1: And this time side which would destroy it includes Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 1: We know the twenty eighteen midterms must be fought on
Speaker 1: a wedge issue. You Congressman Roora Bacher, You Congressman Chafits,
Speaker 1: You Congressman Ryan, do you believe in democracy, or do
Speaker 1: you support Russia and General Lisimo Francisco Trump. You can
Speaker 1: tone that down as the circumstances warrant district by district
Speaker 1: as you please. We also know those midterms are of
Speaker 1: an importance that cannot be overstated, because while the Republicans
Speaker 1: may realize soon or late, maybe by this time tomorrow,
Speaker 1: that they themselves might have to impeach Trump or use,
Speaker 1: more likely the twenty fifth Amendment on him because he's crazy,
Speaker 1: we must take no chances. We must have a democratic
Speaker 1: Congress to impeach him two years from tonight. And we
Speaker 1: know that in the interim we must adopt the fighting
Speaker 1: style of Muhammad Ali. Yes they will hit us, Yes
Speaker 1: it will hurt. Yes it has already begun to hurt.
Speaker 1: But each time they come in to land a blow,
Speaker 1: we hit them back. As Richard Pryor phrased it, voicing
Speaker 1: Ali's inner dialogue during a fight, Boom, there you go.
Speaker 1: You take that with you, And we know that, yes,
Speaker 1: that means that Trump, the man baby, the stay puffed
Speaker 1: marshmallow man whose psychosis can be inflamed by trolling him
Speaker 1: on Twitter, must hear the words and phrases weak soft
Speaker 1: lost the popular vote twice no mandate, Russia putin assange, disloyal,
Speaker 1: treachery video tape. He must hear these words and phrases
Speaker 1: every time he turns around, and we know that, yes,
Speaker 1: that means we shall actually have to learn from what
Speaker 1: we watched him and them due to Barack Obama. So
Speaker 1: never again should Trump or this Russian operative guy of his,
Speaker 1: Michael Flynn, or the native of the country of Exxon,
Speaker 1: mister Tillerson, or Kelly Ann Khan Job or any of them.
Speaker 1: Never again will they get to speak in public without
Speaker 1: somebody rising and yelling, not necessarily rudely to interrupt them,
Speaker 1: although you can do that if you want, but somebody
Speaker 1: rising somewhere when they say these things and responding with
Speaker 1: every fiber in their being before, during, or after they speak,
Speaker 1: and responding by shouting, you lie. And yes, we know
Speaker 1: that nothing has ever changed for the good in the
Speaker 1: history of man without men and women rising up and saying,
Speaker 1: whether they whisper it or yell it, but by starting
Speaker 1: by saying this is wrong. However, behind all this, behind
Speaker 1: every strategy, behind every plan made this weekend, behind everything
Speaker 1: we can do and everything we must do to restore
Speaker 1: our bloodied democracy. There must be one emotion with which
Speaker 1: our side of the political pendulum is seldom associated. This
Speaker 1: emotion must now, in some ways become our animating principle,
Speaker 1: and about that animating principle, and penultimately, in my remarks,
Speaker 1: having already quoted Churchill and Lewis, I want to now
Speaker 1: quote again, with revisions formissible, I hope Sidney Chaiefsky. Who
Speaker 1: the hell is Sidney Chaiefsky. You may know him by
Speaker 1: his nickname Patty, or you may know the name of
Speaker 1: a character he wrote for the movie Network A mister Beeal,
Speaker 1: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody
Speaker 1: knows things are bad. It's a coupe detas. Everybody's out
Speaker 1: of home or scared of losing their freedom. Foreign governments
Speaker 1: by influence at the White House. Businesses are terrified of
Speaker 1: a Twitter account. Shopkeepers keep a clan hood under the counter.
Speaker 1: White supremacists are running wild in the street, and there's
Speaker 1: nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and
Speaker 1: there's no end to it. We know Trump is unfit
Speaker 1: to pass a sanity test, and his enablers are unfit
Speaker 1: to lead. And we sit watching our TVs while some
Speaker 1: local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen attacks
Speaker 1: on Obamacare and sixty three racist bills, as if that's
Speaker 1: the way it's supposed to be. We all know things
Speaker 1: are bad. Worse than bad, they're crazy. It's like everything
Speaker 1: everywhere has gone crazy. So we don't go out anymore.
Speaker 1: We sit in the house and slowly the world we're
Speaker 1: living in is getting smaller. And always say is please
Speaker 1: at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let
Speaker 1: me have my steady income and my sanctuary cities and
Speaker 1: my warm Obama memories, and I won't say anything, Just
Speaker 1: leave us alone. Well, I'm not going to leave you alone.
Speaker 1: I want you to get mad. I want you to protest.
Speaker 1: I want you to write. I want you to call
Speaker 1: a Republican congressman, because we all know exactly what you
Speaker 1: should say to him. I know what to do about
Speaker 1: the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the
Speaker 1: corporate graft in the street. And I know that first
Speaker 1: you've got to get mad. You've got to say I'm
Speaker 1: an American citizen, goddamn it, my democracy has value. So
Speaker 1: the rest of it, the part about going to the
Speaker 1: window opening, it's sticking your head out and yelling the
Speaker 1: rest of it, you know, but to keep you motivated,
Speaker 1: and to keep you mad, and to keep you unwilling
Speaker 1: to take it anymore. As Howard Beale said, let me
Speaker 1: close by noting one overarching fact that has occasionally gotten
Speaker 1: lost since November eighth, twenty sixteen, And that is the
Speaker 1: essence of everything, to my mind, Even with this nightmare
Speaker 1: that comes at sunrise, even with the temporary end of
Speaker 1: much of our democratic experience in this country, even with
Speaker 1: a gold dollar sign spray painted on every American flag
Speaker 1: and spit on the grave of every American patriot, even
Speaker 1: with the confluence of Komi and the Russians and the
Speaker 1: lies and the greatest grifter in the history of this country,
Speaker 1: Even with the worst possible outcome that all of that
Speaker 1: could produce, even with the greatest possible grief, no matter
Speaker 1: what we have to face, no matter what we have
Speaker 1: to do, no matter how long the trip back is
Speaker 1: from tomorrow, remember and take strength from and remind all
Speaker 1: those who forgets, and remind all those who deny, and
Speaker 1: remind all those who lie. Remember one thing, we are
Speaker 1: the majority. January nineteenth, twenty seventeen. After that, there was
Speaker 1: silence seemed like it went on for quite a while.
Speaker 1: Apparently not. I've heard a recording of this speech. It
Speaker 1: was only two or three seconds. And then there was
Speaker 1: an anguished roar, and then I must immodestly note there
Speaker 1: was cheers and applause. Wasn't a big crowd. Standing ovation
Speaker 1: is a generous term, but whatever it was, it helped.
Speaker 1: We fought and fought, and we won the midterms, and
Speaker 1: we won in twenty twenty, and we minimalized the damage
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, and somewhere along the line we
Speaker 1: assumed he would go away. So now today anyway, we
Speaker 1: are exhausted. We have been defeated, although every day that
Speaker 1: defeat gets a little smaller, doesn't it, statistically? And from
Speaker 1: somewhere we must summon the energy of twenty eighteen and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and twenty twenty two. And when we defeat
Speaker 1: them this time, we must not make a mistake. We
Speaker 1: must destroy them because I'm not going to leave you alone.
Speaker 1: I want you to get mad. So I haven't done
Speaker 1: one of these since the election because there hasn't been
Speaker 1: a lot to laugh about, so there's probably a need
Speaker 1: to laugh about something. And thus we returned to the
Speaker 1: old familiar topic things I promised not to tell. And
Speaker 1: I was speaking a couple of days ago about the
Speaker 1: coverage of the two thousand and eight presidential election. You
Speaker 1: remember two thousand and eight, ancient history, back when there
Speaker 1: was an American democracy, back when there was hopey, changey things,
Speaker 1: as opposed to I hope you change into something other
Speaker 1: than the president of the United States. I was talking
Speaker 1: about two thousand and eight and was asked a series
Speaker 1: of questions about our coverage at MSNBC, and the person
Speaker 1: asking me questions had yet to mention the most significant
Speaker 1: roadblock to getting things done, to getting that broadcast and
Speaker 1: the other broadcasts that we did politically at MSNBC all
Speaker 1: those years ago off the ground and then again safely
Speaker 1: on the ground when it was all done. The assets
Speaker 1: we had were extraordinary. Through most of the primary campaign
Speaker 1: that year, and through all of two thousand and six
Speaker 1: in the midterms, we'd had Tim Russert, who would come
Speaker 1: on and after the network coverage was completely over, would
Speaker 1: just sit there with us for another hour on the air.
Speaker 1: What a pleasure that was. And then we'd go out
Speaker 1: in the hallway and talk about baseball. The good part
Speaker 1: of it, plus dozens of people and that then knew
Speaker 1: and sincere Rachel Matdow, other people who really knew what
Speaker 1: they were talking about and were trying to make a
Speaker 1: point and make an inroad in what was then all
Speaker 1: conservative corporate media, even at NBC. But the person had
Speaker 1: not asked me one question about the major impediment, and
Speaker 1: the major impediment was my co anchor for almost all
Speaker 1: of this was Chris Efing Matthews. Over the years, I
Speaker 1: have made allusions to Chris Matthews and just how rare
Speaker 1: it was when he was actually in the same plane
Speaker 1: of existence as the rest of us in the universe.
Speaker 1: And I know Chris never heard me say any of
Speaker 1: these things, because Chris never listened. If Chris listened, Chris
Speaker 1: would probably still be on the air every night with
Speaker 1: a nightly show on MSNBC. There's a Dorian Gray picture
Speaker 1: of him somewhere because he hasn't changed in appearance since
Speaker 1: the late nineteen nineties, even though he's now well you
Speaker 1: know how old he is. He's two hundred and six.
Speaker 1: The story I want to tell about Matthews, though, that
Speaker 1: I think symbolizes and summarizes the entirety of my experience
Speaker 1: with him, which began in two thousand and three. I
Speaker 1: was on the set with him when he discussed the
Speaker 1: fact that this was George Bush's day and mission accomplished
Speaker 1: was not an exaggeration. And look at how well he
Speaker 1: fits in that flight man's uniform, and he was talking
Speaker 1: about how he looked good in the pants. That was
Speaker 1: the beginning of it. And I said, don't you think
Speaker 1: there's something about bringing up the whole flying experience and
Speaker 1: the Texas Air National Guard and that whole question. You
Speaker 1: think that's a bad idea or declaring mission accomplished while
Speaker 1: American servicemen's lives are still at risk in Iraq and
Speaker 1: will be no. No, this is his day, This is
Speaker 1: his day. Chris can always point to being right about
Speaker 1: any issue that ever came a cross his desk, because
Speaker 1: he took every possible point of view on every possible issue.
Speaker 1: He was anti Bush, pro Bush, anti Trump, pro Trump.
Speaker 1: He was everything at all times. And the way you
Speaker 1: do that is the way Trump does it. You just
Speaker 1: don't remember what you said last time, You don't think
Speaker 1: it's relevant, you don't think that anybody else is going
Speaker 1: to remember it. There's a lot of similarity. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of overlap in the ven diagrams of Chris Matthews
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump. But I'm diverging. I promised you the
Speaker 1: Chris Matthews story I could have before I sat down
Speaker 1: in front of the microphone gone and looked this up
Speaker 1: to get the exact date. I'm sure it was two
Speaker 1: thousand and six or two thousand and seven, doesn't matter much.
Speaker 1: It was cold, it was the winter. It was deep
Speaker 1: in the winter, probably January or February. And I had
Speaker 1: traveled to Washington on short notice because they wanted me
Speaker 1: to co anchor with Matthews. The the memorial coverage of
Speaker 1: the funerals, two of them a former president Gerald R. Ford.
Speaker 1: Gerald Ford ultimately is down there with what Harrison and
Speaker 1: a couple of other really short term presidents like Chester
Speaker 1: Allen Arthur who just didn't make a huge impact except
Speaker 1: for in his case one event the pardoning of Nixon.
Speaker 1: Really didn't do much as president of the United States
Speaker 1: and yet president of the United States state funeral. Plus
Speaker 1: they were also going to give him a second funeral
Speaker 1: the next day in Michigan, back in his home state
Speaker 1: Grand Rapids, if I remember correctly. So we were there
Speaker 1: for two days, me and Matthews all day doing the
Speaker 1: state funeral one day, and then the next day the
Speaker 1: funeral in Michigan. The state funeral was just a typical
Speaker 1: day with Chris Matthews. I would say something and he
Speaker 1: would then repeat it as if he had heard it
Speaker 1: in his own head rather than coming out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: Chris heard things that were said, he just never heard
Speaker 1: who had said them. So he tended to repeat a
Speaker 1: lot of the things I had just mentioned, and he
Speaker 1: would jump in on interviews that he was not supposed
Speaker 1: to be a part of, and all the rest of
Speaker 1: the usual nonsense. He would read things on the teleprompter
Speaker 1: that said Keith. He would read everything except the word Keith,
Speaker 1: the usual stuff. So that was a good day. The
Speaker 1: next day, when we moved to Michigan, that was not
Speaker 1: quite as good a day. The Michigan part of the
Speaker 1: two days of the burial, Gerald Ford was, well, I'll
Speaker 1: make the joke now that I made off set then
Speaker 1: and off air then, which was took two days to
Speaker 1: bury him. What he wouldn't stop moving. The second day
Speaker 1: was conducted out of a Protestant church in Grand Rapids.
Speaker 1: If I remember correctly, that had an overhead window. And
Speaker 1: I forget the technical terms. Although my dad was an architect,
Speaker 1: I don't think he did a lot of churches. But
Speaker 1: there was an overhead length of the church glass ceiling,
Speaker 1: and it provided extraordinarily bright and mood altering light. And
Speaker 1: on that day, in the middle of winter, at the
Speaker 1: middle of the day, the light came in at such
Speaker 1: an angle that it really did look kind of otherworldly,
Speaker 1: if not heavenly. And so as all the leading Michigan
Speaker 1: politicos and many of the national politicos who had traveled
Speaker 1: to Michigan to attend both halves of the doubleheader of
Speaker 1: the burial of Gerald Ford, as they filed in, and
Speaker 1: to his credit, Chris Matthews knew every one of them
Speaker 1: by sight, even if they were on the monitor in
Speaker 1: front of us half an inch tall. He knew that
Speaker 1: that was the dog catcher from Grand Rapids, Michigan from
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight who convinced football star Gerald Ford to
Speaker 1: go into politics and not football. He knew every one
Speaker 1: of them. He knew the former mayor, He knew the
Speaker 1: Attorney General of Michigan seventeen attorneys General Wigo. And that
Speaker 1: was great. That was why when they once gave me
Speaker 1: the opportunity in two thousand and eight, I think it
Speaker 1: was to go solo and leave Matthews out. I said, no, See,
Speaker 1: he's too valuable for stuff like that. You couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: get a researcher to give me that information. It would
Speaker 1: not be genuine and it would not be timely. Chris
Speaker 1: Matthews knows off the top of his head who that is.
Speaker 1: He has no idea why he's important. He has no
Speaker 1: idea whether he has served democracy or undermined it. But
Speaker 1: he knows who the hell that guy is. Why that's
Speaker 1: Milton j. Erseg the twenty third still Solicitor General of
Speaker 1: Michigan one hundred and six. So, now, when the former governor,
Speaker 1: then the governor of Michigan came into this church at
Speaker 1: high noon with light coming in above her, the great
Speaker 1: former governor of Michigan came in, he knew exactly obviously
Speaker 1: who she was. We all knew who she was. She
Speaker 1: was Jennifer Granholm. Jennifer Granholm, whose public career began as
Speaker 1: the woman contestant on an episode of the Dating Game.
Speaker 1: Jennifer Granholm was then on the Dating Game in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Was in two thousand and six seven at the funerals
Speaker 1: of Gerald R. Ford. Is today a most attractive woman, fetching, handsome, beautiful,
Speaker 1: whichever word you would like to use that is both
Speaker 1: complimentary and yet not sexist. Well, on that day she
Speaker 1: appeared in a very formal kind of mourning hat and
Speaker 1: a black dress, and the light shining from above her
Speaker 1: was perfect, and she hit a perfect hair day. All
Speaker 1: the things that could combine to render one essential element
Speaker 1: to this story. He wasn't wrong. Matthews was reeling off
Speaker 1: the names of these other people. And there's the front
Speaker 1: row in which the former deputy assistant dogcatcher of Kalamazoos.
Speaker 1: And then he saw Jennifer Granholm walk in, and he said,
Speaker 1: and now we see coming down the aisle the former governor,
Speaker 1: the governor of a He started to pant on the air.
Speaker 1: It's Governor Jennifer Granholme and she's perfectly attired. This went
Speaker 1: instantaneously from the usual Chris Matthews high speed patter to
Speaker 1: something akin to Robert F. Kennedy Junior on FaceTime. There's
Speaker 1: no other way to describe it. If you were just
Speaker 1: listening to Chris Matthews and everybody but me was just
Speaker 1: listening to him. I was seated next to him in
Speaker 1: a studio at NBC headquarters in Washington. I could see
Speaker 1: the look on his face, the look of astonishment, him
Speaker 1: putting his head down next to the monitor so he
Speaker 1: could see her better. And as again I noted, she
Speaker 1: was extremely fetching that day. In all of her great
Speaker 1: days of fetch she was very fetched that day. This
Speaker 1: is absolutely true. On the other hand, we are covering
Speaker 1: the burial of the former President of the United States,
Speaker 1: Gerald R. Ford, and Chris Matthews is panting about the
Speaker 1: pulkratude of the governor of Michigan and stop, look at
Speaker 1: the shape of the dress and how the light comes
Speaker 1: in through the whatever the word was for it, of
Speaker 1: the church. And she's this event is he began to
Speaker 1: lose the ability to form sentences. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: in the normal way that he would lose the ability
Speaker 1: to form sentences. I mean he would get to that.
Speaker 1: They were clearly telling him to stop doing this because
Speaker 1: it was not just sexist and not just inappropriate. But
Speaker 1: we were covering the burial of Gerald R. Ford, I
Speaker 1: mean in the front row next to as we continued
Speaker 1: the shot of Governor Granholm on a pool camera. I
Speaker 1: must admit that nobody at NBC said, yeah, I got
Speaker 1: me more of that hot governor. As the pool shot
Speaker 1: gave us this of Governor Granholm, there was a coffin
Speaker 1: out there with Gerald R. Ford inside, and he's talking
Speaker 1: about Governor Granholm and how great she looks. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine that anytime. She should just hope they took photographs
Speaker 1: of her for her next campaign for whatever. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh my good God. And they're clearly talking to him
Speaker 1: from the control room telling him to stop, because every
Speaker 1: once in a while he stops and speaks to them
Speaker 1: like no, no, I won't. And finally the producer of this,
Speaker 1: Court Harson, who was the producer of Hardball Matthew's show
Speaker 1: on MSNBC, gets into my ear and says, for God's sake,
Speaker 1: is there anything you can do? Can you stop him?
Speaker 1: And I just looked at the camera and shook my
Speaker 1: head and put my arms up in what would be
Speaker 1: the hands up. Nothing I can do about it emoji.
Speaker 1: I may have been the model for that emoji. This
Speaker 1: is two thousand and six or seven, after all, And
Speaker 1: they said, can you try can you write him a
Speaker 1: note or something? So I took a piece of script
Speaker 1: and I wrote on the back of it, Chris stopped
Speaker 1: talking about Grand Holme that way, we are at a
Speaker 1: presidential funeral, and I underlined we are at one two
Speaker 1: three line at one two three lines a one to
Speaker 1: three presidential one two three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
Speaker 1: ten lines under that funeral circled and I slipped it
Speaker 1: to him, and he kept talking about her, and he
Speaker 1: looked at me, paused and nodded yes, like I was
Speaker 1: asking him a question. About five minutes later, we threw
Speaker 1: to a break, and I saw one of the executives
Speaker 1: of MSNBC come out and tell Chris that he had
Speaker 1: to go and prepare hardball for later that afternoon, and
Speaker 1: that the rest of the thing would be anchored by me.
Speaker 1: So every time and they did the pool camera go
Speaker 1: back to reaction shots of Governor Granholm. I made sure
Speaker 1: that that piece of paper that I had handed Chris
Speaker 1: to which he thought was some sort of some sort
Speaker 1: of question chestian like are we at a president at funeral,
Speaker 1: not an admonition that he was making an absolute jack
Speaker 1: wad out of himself. I kept that note in front
Speaker 1: of me, just in case I veered back into this.
Speaker 1: I later told this story to Governor Granholm, who was
Speaker 1: briefly a colleague of mine. Although you wouldn't remember this
Speaker 1: because the network no longer exists, and I don't know
Speaker 1: by that point if ten thousand people were watching our
Speaker 1: shows on it, but it was a colleague of mine
Speaker 1: on current TV. Even as I was trying to explain
Speaker 1: to her, don't take this job. They're never going to
Speaker 1: pay you. They're already running out of money. Jennifer Granholme
Speaker 1: laughed coquettishly and said, Oh, that's not the first time
Speaker 1: that's ever happened. I've done all the damage I can
Speaker 1: do here. Thank you for listening. Yes, yes it is,
Speaker 1: he said, with his eyes like I didn't know. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Follow me on the podcast, promo videos on
Speaker 1: Blue Sky YouTube, Facebook, Instagram threads for the moment, Twitter
Speaker 1: x and Tickface. I got banned from TikTok, so I
Speaker 1: went to Tickface. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanel, the
Speaker 1: musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced and performed most of
Speaker 1: our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
Speaker 1: was on the guitars, bass and drums, and it was
Speaker 1: produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
Speaker 1: are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
Speaker 1: The sports music is the Olderman theme for me ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy BESPN Inc. Other music
Speaker 1: was arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
Speaker 1: Countdown for day just one, five and twenty five days
Speaker 1: until the scheduled end of the term of lame duck
Speaker 1: Dictator Trump. Probably the next scheduled countdown is Thursday, still
Speaker 1: playing the scheduling by ear, especially since the heart surgery
Speaker 1: for my rescue pop kit is Tuesday. And yes, I'll
Speaker 1: post developments on social media and hopefully I will rejoin
Speaker 1: you on this platform early Thursday morning. As always, Bolton says,
Speaker 1: the news wars till the next one. I'm Keith Aldremman.
Speaker 1: Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
Speaker 1: Keith Oldremman is a production of iHeartRadio. More podcasts from
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