Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: is a Bulletin Countdown update after the Wall Street Journal's
Speaker 1: stunning story. It is no longer feasible nor safe for
Speaker 1: this country to permit Elon Musk to continue to have
Speaker 1: access to any project involving the government of the United States,
Speaker 1: nor for Musk to remain at large in this country.
Speaker 1: The government must sever all connections with him, immediately, seize
Speaker 1: all his technological assets, including SpaceX, Starlink and Twitter X,
Speaker 1: and if need be, detain him, to port him, or
Speaker 1: if it comes to that level, arrest him. The safety
Speaker 1: of the nation may depend upon it. A team of
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal writers led by Thomas Grove has now
Speaker 1: reported to quote them. Elon Musk, the world's richest man
Speaker 1: and a lynchpin of US space efforts, has been in
Speaker 1: regular contact with Russian President Vlatnerin since late twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: The discussions, confirmed by several current and former US, European
Speaker 1: and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions.
Speaker 1: The Journal cites two sources who say that Musk's relationship
Speaker 1: was far more than just conversational. They claimed putin asked
Speaker 1: Musk to not activate his Starlink satellite internet service over
Speaker 1: Taiwan as quote a favor to Chinese leader shi Jinping
Speaker 1: that the journal reports happened late last year. The journal source,
Speaker 1: it says, is a former Russian intelligence officer. Starlink, part
Speaker 1: of Musk's SpaceX, won a classified contract with the American
Speaker 1: Space Program in twenty twenty one that was worth one billion,
Speaker 1: eight hundred million dollars our government taxpayer dollars fund elon Musk,
Speaker 1: you will recall that after initially deploying fifteen thousand Starlink
Speaker 1: units at no cost to Ukraine, after Russia's invasion of
Speaker 1: that nation, some of the starlinks there suddenly became inoperative. Quote.
Speaker 1: Later in twenty twenty two, the journal rights Musk was
Speaker 1: having regular conversations with high level Russians. According to a
Speaker 1: person familiar with the interactions, at the same time, there
Speaker 1: was pressure from the Kremlin on Musk's businesses and quote
Speaker 1: implicit threats against him, the person said, unquote. Ukraine has
Speaker 1: asserted this year that it is now the Russians using
Speaker 1: Starlink in eastern and southern Ukraine. The journal says that
Speaker 1: since Musk has quote a security clearance that allows him
Speaker 1: access to certain classified information. His continuing contact with Putin
Speaker 1: triggers quote potential national security concerns among some in the
Speaker 1: current administration. That is putting it mildly, Musk's fingers reach
Speaker 1: into almost every aspect of American security, and particularly its
Speaker 1: communications and space programs. If he is now accepting requests
Speaker 1: from the dictator of Russia, if he is entertaining doing
Speaker 1: favors for the dictator of China, Elon Musk can no
Speaker 1: longer be trusted to be anywhere near these extraordinarily important
Speaker 1: aspects of our national defense. The Wall Street Journal team
Speaker 1: also reports the disheartening news that while some in the
Speaker 1: Biden administration appear to have been aware of Musk's connection
Speaker 1: to Russia and Putin, many, maybe most, have not been aware.
Speaker 1: Several White House officials said they weren't aware of them,
Speaker 1: per the Journal. The journal also quotes a Kremlin spokesman
Speaker 1: who says Putin has spoken just once to Musk. That
Speaker 1: appears to match Musk's denial, as the Journal rights. In
Speaker 1: October twenty twenty two, Musk said publicly that he had
Speaker 1: spoken only once to Putin. He said on x that
Speaker 1: the conversation was about space, and that it occurred around
Speaker 1: April twenty twenty one. The journal contends that is not true.
Speaker 1: It reports Musk has engaged in quote dialogues with other
Speaker 1: high ranking Russian officials path twenty twenty two and into
Speaker 1: this year. One of the officials was Sergey Kiriyenko, Putin's
Speaker 1: first deputy chief of staff. Un quote. The journal identifies
Speaker 1: Sergei Kiriyenko as the same man named in a Justice
Speaker 1: Department Affidavid as the Russian agent who had created thirty
Speaker 1: Internet domains with which to spread Russian disinformation, some of
Speaker 1: them via Musk's Twitter x platform designed to quote, erode
Speaker 1: support for Ukraine and manipulate American voters ahead of the
Speaker 1: presidential election. And that, of course, is where the Journal's
Speaker 1: Musk Putin story turns into an even more terrifying nightmare.
Speaker 1: One current and one former intelligence source. The journal writer's
Speaker 1: conclude said that Musk and Putin have continued to have
Speaker 1: contact since then and into this year, as Musk began
Speaker 1: stepping up his criticism of the US military aid to
Speaker 1: Ukraine and became involved in Trump's election campaign. Musk is
Speaker 1: in bed with Trump with a platform he has purchased
Speaker 1: since he began to exchange ideas and who knows what
Speaker 1: else with putin a platform, he has gradually transformed into
Speaker 1: propaganda and disinformation and conspiracy theories for the direct benefit
Speaker 1: of the Trump campaign. There are few more dangerous combinations
Speaker 1: of money, politics, dishonesty, and foreign influence imaginable, and President
Speaker 1: Biden must act against Musk and do so immediately. Due
Speaker 1: to production deadlines, the rest of this edition of Countdown,
Speaker 1: recorded before the Wall Street Journal Musk story broke, now
Speaker 1: followed as originally planned. Texas What the f is Vice
Speaker 1: President Harris doing in Texas? Eleven days before the election? Texas,
Speaker 1: where the five point thirty eight average of polls is
Speaker 1: Trump by six and a half and has only briefly
Speaker 1: dropped down into the fives. Where the best of the
Speaker 1: polls this month is Trump by four and the most
Speaker 1: recent was Emerson and it closed Monday with her down
Speaker 1: by seven. I think she may know more than we
Speaker 1: do now I get it. That same Emerson poll has
Speaker 1: Colin Allred within two of Ted Cruz for the Texas
Speaker 1: Senate seat. A week before that it was within one.
Speaker 1: In Morning consult the average remains cruised by three and
Speaker 1: a half. That's still a long shot for an upset
Speaker 1: in a medicense. You may also well ask that even
Speaker 1: if one rally, even one rally with Beyonce, actually were
Speaker 1: to get you that Senate seat, is it worth it
Speaker 1: if it contributes to losing the presidency to a guy
Speaker 1: who will at some point at least try to arrest
Speaker 1: all the Democratic senators, including potential Senator Allread Because people
Speaker 1: really haven't thought through just how far Trump would go
Speaker 1: to stay in power. Still, maybe she knows more than
Speaker 1: we do. I'm beginning to think so, because if you
Speaker 1: were calculating this mathematically, you could put together a formula
Speaker 1: of some kind in which you recognize that in the
Speaker 1: Internet age, all campaigning is national, and a Friday night
Speaker 1: Democratic infomercial carried by god knows how many networks and
Speaker 1: streaming outlets starring Beyonce with Kamala Harris is valuable enough
Speaker 1: to take the day and go to Texas or Toronto
Speaker 1: or timbuck too, because a Beyonce Aamala event maybe as
Speaker 1: valuable in Pennsylvania as a Kamala event in Pennsylvania, although
Speaker 1: I still don't know how she has not done one
Speaker 1: at four seasons total landscaping. Yet add in those slim
Speaker 1: senate upset prospects and the underrated importance of giving the
Speaker 1: candidate and energy producing thrill justice, things begin to get
Speaker 1: unbearably tense. And maybe it makes sense. It sure as
Speaker 1: hell beats going to Scranton and hearing from somebody in
Speaker 1: Scranton about how they have more funeral homes per capita
Speaker 1: than any other city in the country, even if one
Speaker 1: of them is the dissentist funeral home out in the
Speaker 1: suburbs of Scranton. If you're paying attention to the forces
Speaker 1: of evil and death Party weekend Schedule two, you may
Speaker 1: remember Trump is also in a state he cannot win,
Speaker 1: New York Sunday night. At first, I thought this was
Speaker 1: a comp and I thought it entered the Harris trip
Speaker 1: to Texas even less explicable and defensible and meaningful. Then again,
Speaker 1: Trump is not doing a campaign event Sunday with Beyonce
Speaker 1: or anybody else you'd care to hear from. He's doing
Speaker 1: a combination worship me and fundraising org. All the Republican
Speaker 1: leadership will be there bowing, and some seats will cost
Speaker 1: nine hundred and twenty four thousand, six hundred dollars a
Speaker 1: peace almost as much as a freakin' Knicks ticket. And
Speaker 1: Trump can talk about how much he hates New York
Speaker 1: City now, but he's always wanted a headline Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1: His real issue going into this thing is he's so
Speaker 1: old he may go to the wrong address, because he
Speaker 1: may not remember that the garden moved to thirty third
Speaker 1: and seventh from fiftieth and eighth fifty six years ago. Still,
Speaker 1: I quiver a little at Kamala Harris's Texas trip, unless,
Speaker 1: unless she knows more than we do, Unless the internal
Speaker 1: polls the Harris campaign has are way better than the
Speaker 1: ones we mere civilians get to see. I mean, I hope,
Speaker 1: for the sake of human existence that there are better
Speaker 1: quality wise, But I also mean I hope their numbers
Speaker 1: show the shapes of a win. And I suspect this
Speaker 1: is the case. I don't mean Texas, though I think
Speaker 1: Trump is wobblier there than the numbers suggests. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, I think the swing stains, I
Speaker 1: think the I think the independence in the swing swing
Speaker 1: States is going to go for her. I have mentioned
Speaker 1: already two numbers we have seen that hint at this
Speaker 1: the late deciders, those who have chosen between them in
Speaker 1: the last week or the last month are breaking per
Speaker 1: that same Emerson poll sixty to thirty seven Mars, we
Speaker 1: have seen voters under thirty five go from supporting Harris
Speaker 1: by just forty six percent to now favoring her by
Speaker 1: sixty percent. Now we have three more sets of numbers. Again,
Speaker 1: they are glimmers, they're hints. There are something smaller than returns,
Speaker 1: but bigger than vibes. There is early voting data, and
Speaker 1: it is like trying to read an eye chart through
Speaker 1: a fog bank. But follow me here. The University of
Speaker 1: Florida Elections Lab reports that the early vote in the
Speaker 1: state of North Carolina is basically split three ways. That
Speaker 1: in North Carolina more Republicans have voted early than Democrats
Speaker 1: thirty four point two percent to thirty four percent, with
Speaker 1: unaffiliateds and third party registrations making up the other thirty
Speaker 1: one percent of the voters, a three way split that
Speaker 1: blows one cliche out of the water. But despite the
Speaker 1: parody of the registrations of those vote early, Republicans actually
Speaker 1: in a slight lead. Maris Polling says in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: Harris is ahead of Trump among early voters by fifty
Speaker 1: five to forty three. Among those who have already voted,
Speaker 1: the polling is Harris fifty five forty three in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: but the registrations are Republicans thirty four point two to
Speaker 1: thirty four. In Arizona, Republican early voters outnumber Democratic early
Speaker 1: voters forty two percent to thirty six. Yet in the
Speaker 1: Maris poll of Arizona early voters, Harris leads Trump fifty
Speaker 1: five to forty four. In Nevada, again, Republican early voters
Speaker 1: outnumbered Democrats forty to thirty five and a half, and
Speaker 1: the Marist polling of early voters in Nevada is a
Speaker 1: toss up. The national Marist polling of early voters is
Speaker 1: fifty five forty three Harris, meaning she is running ahead
Speaker 1: of state affiliations where we know them. That is an
Speaker 1: important caveat. Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin do not release the
Speaker 1: party affiliation of the early voters in those states, and Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: which does, is useless as a predictive because early voters
Speaker 1: there are sixty percent Democratic. There is a micro poll
Speaker 1: of just the Pennsylvania seventh that is a little bit
Speaker 1: bigger for Harris than expected. She is ahead by four
Speaker 1: in Northampton County. She is a head by seven in
Speaker 1: Lehigh and those margins are bigger than those by which
Speaker 1: Biden beat Trump in those counties in twenty twenty. No
Speaker 1: reason to play the theme there. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: give you a second to catch your breath amid all
Speaker 1: these numbers. Any of it decisive? No, any of it
Speaker 1: enough to cut school to go sing with Beyonce. Maybe,
Speaker 1: But there's something else from that Florida vote lab before
Speaker 1: we weighed completely out of the numbers, hopefully with our
Speaker 1: limbs intact, that you should listen to. Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and Virginia report the early voters identities by
Speaker 1: gender and put together. Out of more than eight million
Speaker 1: votes cast just in those states, fifty four point forty
Speaker 1: three percent of the early votes have been cast by women,
Speaker 1: just forty four percent by men. And as you of Florida,
Speaker 1: election lab professor Michael McDonald concludes, if this is what
Speaker 1: is happening elsewhere and the polling is right about the
Speaker 1: big gender gap, Trump is going to need the world's
Speaker 1: largest sausage party on election Day, somewhere the late Arnold
Speaker 1: Palmer is saying, did someone mention the world's largest sausage? Okay,
Speaker 1: last pole thing. This is a vibe. As tight as
Speaker 1: the polling is and the campaign seems to be, there
Speaker 1: also is the start of an emerging consensus that the
Speaker 1: electoral college will not be close. Who wins in the
Speaker 1: electoral college that is far from clear, but Nate Silver,
Speaker 1: who remains reliable as long as all he says is.
Speaker 1: Here are the numbers the computer printed out. Sir Nate
Speaker 1: Silver reported something bizarre from their simulations of the swing
Speaker 1: state electional votes. There are one hundred and twenty eight
Speaker 1: different possible combinations in the seven swing states. She wins Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: he wins the other six, she wins the other six.
Speaker 1: He wins Pennsylvani, she wins three, he wins four, she
Speaker 1: wins a different, et cetera. The likeliest of all the
Speaker 1: simulations twenty four percent of the time, Trump swept all
Speaker 1: seven swing states. The second likeliest of all the simulations
Speaker 1: fifteen percent of the time, Harris swept all seven swing states.
Speaker 1: So that's Nate Silver. Then. CNN's Harry Enton said his
Speaker 1: outfits computer simulations have concluded that there is a sixty
Speaker 1: percent chance that the winner gets at least three hundred
Speaker 1: votes in the electoral College. Well, how in the hell
Speaker 1: would you do that by sweeping or nearly sweeping the
Speaker 1: Swing states? Again, who is the winner in that equation?
Speaker 1: He doesn't know that, But what he does, though, is
Speaker 1: actually kind of valuable. Twenty twelve, Enton pointed out ninety
Speaker 1: two percent of the polling averages in the Swing States
Speaker 1: underestimated Obama's vote in those states twenty sixteen, eighty three
Speaker 1: percent of them underestimated Trump's vote in those states in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, one hundred percent underestimated Trumps. So this breath
Speaker 1: taking data from the swing states too close to call
Speaker 1: half a point between them that could take weeks, is
Speaker 1: probably totally incorrect. Somebody the figure Phil suggest is going
Speaker 1: to win big if you put that prediction together with
Speaker 1: those little nuggets of data from the early voting, plus
Speaker 1: whatever the Harris campaign has locked away in its polling
Speaker 1: safe while it travels around. Maybe you two would take
Speaker 1: Friday night off to go to a state you aren't
Speaker 1: going to win and go party with Beyonce the other news.
Speaker 1: Trump says he'd fire Jack Smith in the first few hours,
Speaker 1: and he'd eliminate all taxes on January twentieth, So stand
Speaker 1: by for a stock market crash on January twenty first,
Speaker 1: add an even greater depression on January twenty second, and
Speaker 1: starvation in the Red States on January twenty third. Oh,
Speaker 1: and Trump again said Obama is currently president. Right, it's
Speaker 1: all coming through Iran, and Obama wants to He doesn't
Speaker 1: want to talk about it. He doesn't want to mention.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even mention them in a statement. It's all
Speaker 1: coming through Iran. Well, you mean President Biden. So Trump's
Speaker 1: accelerating brain problem as heard again, there will not move
Speaker 1: the needle or the arrow. Even though the arrow is
Speaker 1: one of those props Steve Martin used to use, and
Speaker 1: it goes in one side of Trump's head and comes
Speaker 1: out the other. The latest model groping accusation is not
Speaker 1: going to move the needle. John Kelly has not called
Speaker 1: the Hitler news conference to move the needle, and so
Speaker 1: I think we can pretty much discount the October or
Speaker 1: really early November surprise. I usually bashed the website Axios,
Speaker 1: but I give them credit. They actually listed the top
Speaker 1: ten Trump scandals and contextualize them, and I want to
Speaker 1: read it just as they published it. Quote. Pull any
Speaker 1: one of these ten Trump scandals out of a hat
Speaker 1: and apply it to any other politician, or even just
Speaker 1: a typical American. More likely than not it would end
Speaker 1: their career. Good evening, and welcome to the end of
Speaker 1: our careers. Number one. Trump was found guilty on thirty
Speaker 1: four felon accounts in New York for paying illegal hush
Speaker 1: money to a porn star. Two he refused to concede
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election and spread baseless claims of voter
Speaker 1: fraud that inspired a violent mob to attack the capitol
Speaker 1: On January sixth, twenty twenty one. Three, he was indicted
Speaker 1: on federal charges of illegally retaining classified documents that included
Speaker 1: nuclear secrets. The case was dismissed, but could be reinstated
Speaker 1: upon appeal. Four. He was impeached twice. I'd forgotten that. Four.
Speaker 1: He was impeached twice, once for his actions on January sixth,
Speaker 1: and once for withholding military aid to pressure Ukraine's government
Speaker 1: to investigate his political opponents. Five he has publicly praised
Speaker 1: dictators and sided with Vladimir Putin over US intelligence agencies
Speaker 1: that assessed that Russia had interfered in the twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 1: Six he was found liable for sexually abusing writer E.
Speaker 1: Gen Caron has been accused of sexual misconduct by at
Speaker 1: least twenty five other women. He was caught on tape
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five bragging about grabbing women by
Speaker 1: their genitals. Seven He and his company were ordered to
Speaker 1: pay three hundred and fifty million dollars in a New
Speaker 1: York Civiyl fraud trial for artificially inflating his net worths
Speaker 1: to secure favorable loan terms. Eight he placed full page
Speaker 1: ads in the New York Times in nineteen eighty nine
Speaker 1: calling for the death penalty for five black and Latino
Speaker 1: teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of raping the jogger in
Speaker 1: Central Park. He has refused to apologize. Nine he promoted
Speaker 1: the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn't born in
Speaker 1: the United States. And ten he made more than thirty
Speaker 1: thousand false or misleading claim during his four years in office,
Speaker 1: according to Washington Post factcheckers. Finally, Axios is showing some
Speaker 1: astonishment at all of this, though sadly no recognition that
Speaker 1: part of the reason none of these things have ended
Speaker 1: Trump's candidacy or his career is axios and ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of the rest of the American political media industrial
Speaker 1: complex have never portrayed these corruptions as things that should
Speaker 1: have ended Trump's candidacy. All Right, something different here. The
Speaker 1: regular edition of Worse Persons is still to come. It's
Speaker 1: double Worst Person's Day. It will be complete with the
Speaker 1: general manager of the New York Yankees trying to blame
Speaker 1: his failure on cheaters on other teams. But for a change,
Speaker 1: here is a special edition of the Worst Journalists in
Speaker 1: the World, number three. And yes, the term journalists is
Speaker 1: being applied kind of loosely in two of these three
Speaker 1: of these three cases Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon Schong,
Speaker 1: who is one typo away from being known as Patrick
Speaker 1: Soon Schlong. He killed the LA Times editorial sections planned
Speaker 1: endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. The editorial's editor of
Speaker 1: The Times, Mariel Garza, quit on the spot. Good for her.
Speaker 1: That is the kind of ethical rage that is almost
Speaker 1: extinct today. They should put her in charge of CNN
Speaker 1: or the Washington Post, not just bring in another recycled
Speaker 1: British loser. I am resigning because I want to make
Speaker 1: it clear that I am not okay with us being silent.
Speaker 1: Garza says in dangerous times, honest people need to stand up.
Speaker 1: This is how I'm standing up. The crazy thing about this,
Speaker 1: of course, quoting her again. I didn't think we were
Speaker 1: going to change our reader's minds. Our readers, for the
Speaker 1: most part, are Harris supporters. We're a very liberal paper.
Speaker 1: I didn't think we're going to change the outcome of
Speaker 1: the election in California. And this idiot who owns The
Speaker 1: Times killed the editorial. We should run him out of
Speaker 1: the country. Number two. Dana Bash of CNN, speaking of
Speaker 1: being run out, she should change her name to hapless
Speaker 1: because she is, in fact hapless Dana Bash. Maybe you
Speaker 1: could hyphenate it hapless Dana or hapless Dana hyphen Bash.
Speaker 1: Immediately after the Harris town hall on CNN Wednesday night,
Speaker 1: I mean immediately, the Vice President was still on the
Speaker 1: stage when Bash blurted, I'll just tell you what I'm
Speaker 1: hearing from people that I've been talking to. If her
Speaker 1: goal was to close the deal, they're not sure she
Speaker 1: did that. Ah well, there you have it. Call off
Speaker 1: the election. So people Dana Bash had been talking to
Speaker 1: what kind of people Republicans, Democrats, ones who only had
Speaker 1: three or four fingers, Trump family members, CNN executives, whoever
Speaker 1: was stupid enough to have not fired her after CNN's
Speaker 1: credibility destroying Biden Trump debate that she co moderated. I mean,
Speaker 1: not even characterizing your sources here, I'll just tell you
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing from people that I've been talking to.
Speaker 1: Her goal was to close the deal. They're not sure
Speaker 1: that she did that. Relatives, christ Bash, you might as
Speaker 1: well have been quoting the voices in your head. You
Speaker 1: you hapless Dana Bash. Maybe she was. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: empty enough. But the winner, the even more hapless. Eric Erickson.
Speaker 1: The man was two erics and forty two necks. Say
Speaker 1: what you will about but he has a type blonde.
Speaker 1: This lady who waited until now, meaning the latest assertion
Speaker 1: of being groped by Trump in the nineties, This lady
Speaker 1: who waited until now does not fit Trump's type. He
Speaker 1: is a type blonde. This lady who waited until now
Speaker 1: does not fit Trump's type meaning blonde. No, I do
Speaker 1: not believe it. Thirteen days before the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 1: My surprise is that her last name is not Ford
Speaker 1: nor her first name Christine. Uh? Eric, what's uh? What's
Speaker 1: the name of Trump's current missus or you know, the
Speaker 1: woman he hired to portray his wife in public? And
Speaker 1: what's her hair color? She a blonde? She's not a blonde.
Speaker 1: You didn't notice this, You haven't deleted the tweet or anything.
Speaker 1: Did you hate a column on it? Did you do
Speaker 1: his show on it? I mean, if you want to
Speaker 1: be a Trump whore, Eric, that's fine. Could you at
Speaker 1: least fact check something as easy as the hair color
Speaker 1: of the previous contractually obligated First Lady of the United States?
Speaker 1: Eric Erickson, Today's worst journalist in the world. Christ also
Speaker 1: of interest here if you think that's bad. Hey, Lara Trump,
Speaker 1: how many states are there? I mean in the United States,
Speaker 1: United United States where you are at the moment. Are
Speaker 1: there forty eight? Are there? Fifty? More than fifty? More
Speaker 1: than seventy? My young pup, Kit who you hear in
Speaker 1: the background, Kit knows is it more than eighty? Are
Speaker 1: there more than eighty states? Lara Trump? Is the correct number?
Speaker 1: On number so high it cannot be measured by Man
Speaker 1: only by puppy. That's next. This is countdown. This is
Speaker 1: countdown with Keith Oberman. Oberman still ahead of us on
Speaker 1: this edition of Countdown. So you're an artist Therefore, as F.
Speaker 1: Scott Fitzgerald said, an artist is someone who can hold
Speaker 1: two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional. You want
Speaker 1: to stop hearing about politics, yet you need to keep
Speaker 1: hearing about politics. I understand. So I have an ideal compromise.
Speaker 1: The collection of the best political fables from the fast
Speaker 1: Collection of the Master Fridays with Thurber the political fables
Speaker 1: coming up first. There are still more new idiots to
Speaker 1: talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons
Speaker 1: and Dunning kruegriff X specimens who constitute today's non journalistic
Speaker 1: worst persons in the world to the bronze worse. Brian Cashman,
Speaker 1: general manager of Larry David's New York Yankees, who you
Speaker 1: heard Larry doing an impression of Bob Sheppard, the late
Speaker 1: Great Pa announcer at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees who have
Speaker 1: won one Worlds Championship in the twenty four years since
Speaker 1: Brian Cashman squeezed out the real architects of the last
Speaker 1: Yankee dynasty of the nineties, Geen Michael, and Bob Watson.
Speaker 1: Somebody interviewed Cashman on the eve of the Yankees first
Speaker 1: World Series since two thousand and nine and mentioned that
Speaker 1: it was the Yankees first World Series since two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, and he's not happy with the reality that
Speaker 1: that represents. Quote. I hate the fifteen year thing because
Speaker 1: it completely forgets and discounts that some other organization cheated
Speaker 1: us when we were already in the end. If you
Speaker 1: knew what was going on, I don't think they would
Speaker 1: be advancing during that time thing. I think we would
Speaker 1: have been advancing. I hate that fifteen year thing because
Speaker 1: I don't think it accurately reflects history. The thing Cashman
Speaker 1: is referring to is the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal
Speaker 1: of the preceding decade, which is a valid point, but
Speaker 1: which does assume that the Astros would not have beaten
Speaker 1: the Yankees without the cheating, which is just an assumption,
Speaker 1: and which also assumes that the Yankees never cheated in
Speaker 1: that span, which is inaccurate. The last time the Yankees
Speaker 1: won the World Series, in two thousand and nine, they
Speaker 1: were led by Alex Rodriguez, who, while publicly denying for
Speaker 1: the next decade that he ever used steroids, in fact
Speaker 1: publicly staging protests with protesters he had high to carry
Speaker 1: signs supporting him. Rodriguez in fact testified under oath to
Speaker 1: federal drug agents and prosecutors that actually he was using
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars worth of steroids per month. Also in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven, after I published a series of
Speaker 1: photographs of Alex Rodriguez looking sort of at me but
Speaker 1: actually behind me to a guy in a Yankee coat
Speaker 1: wearing a headset who was flashing him signs with fingers
Speaker 1: and cards, the Yankees were reprimanded by Baseball for a
Speaker 1: form of cheating in which a guy, an employee in
Speaker 1: the stands, was giving Alex Rodriguez information about the pitches.
Speaker 1: You can't contact a player from the stands if you
Speaker 1: are a team employee. But that's not cheating, is it.
Speaker 1: Prior to that, the Yankees' last World Series wins had
Speaker 1: been in nineteen ninety nine and two thousand, when noted,
Speaker 1: Performance enhancing drug and stimulants enthusiast Roger Clemens was the
Speaker 1: winning pitcher in two of the World Series these games.
Speaker 1: Those two years, and he won two other games in
Speaker 1: preliminary rounds those two years, and he later won three
Speaker 1: more games for the Yankees in the postseasons, during which
Speaker 1: Cashman implies the Yankees didn't cheat because if we're going
Speaker 1: to go on a this completely forgets and discounts that
Speaker 1: some other organization cheated us. Ride the nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 1: Atlanta Braves and the two thousand Mets in the two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine Phillies would like to have a word,
Speaker 1: mister Cashman, say nothing of the nineteen ninety six Braves
Speaker 1: and maybe the nineteen ninety eight Padres as well. Mister Cashman,
Speaker 1: We we cheated. That's why we suck. The runner up
Speaker 1: worser Nicole Shanahan, who apparently believes she's still a candidate
Speaker 1: for vice president with the JFK junior ticket of the
Speaker 1: I Don't Know Pantsiless Party. The Washington posted a long
Speaker 1: piece on her nit wittedness and how it has led
Speaker 1: her from getting a lot of money after a failed
Speaker 1: marriage to being a Trump stooge. One segment in it
Speaker 1: jumps out Elizabeth with Dwaskin, Ashley Parker, Merrill Cornfield, and
Speaker 1: Aaron Schaeffer write quote, Shanahan became aware of reporting for
Speaker 1: this article when she and Kennedy were still campaigning. In June,
Speaker 1: she texted an associate who had been contacted by the
Speaker 1: Post to suggest a deal. Shanahan said, she would pay
Speaker 1: your friend that would be the Post reporter quote half
Speaker 1: a million dollars to be a whistleblower to expose people
Speaker 1: Shanahan claimed were spreading false information about her unquote. See now,
Speaker 1: the failure here is not just about Shanahan's morals. The
Speaker 1: Post reporters they missed a golden opportunity. Five hundred thousand ridiculous,
Speaker 1: especially since Shanahan got a reported one billion in her
Speaker 1: divorce from Sergey Brinn, the Google co founder. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of money, even for having to cope with seeing
Speaker 1: Elon Musk naked and stoned. What the Post reporter should
Speaker 1: have done was say five hundreds are you crazy? Try
Speaker 1: five hundred million and you got a deal, and then
Speaker 1: use the five hundred million to buy the Post from
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos so the Post would have an actual journalist
Speaker 1: in charge and not be sitting there two fridays before
Speaker 1: the efing election without having endorsed a presidential candidate like
Speaker 1: the Washington Post was just the goddamned useless La Times,
Speaker 1: but the winner the worst Lara Trump. One looks at
Speaker 1: her marriage to Qusa Trump and wonders which of them
Speaker 1: is the NEPO baby. Did Lara or her hubby who
Speaker 1: goes by the name Eric get the job with the
Speaker 1: campaign based on being related to the other, Which one
Speaker 1: of them is the I mean, Eric is an idiot,
Speaker 1: an amazingly shallow guy, even in that family, who apparently
Speaker 1: thought that the word charity meant raising money, taking a
Speaker 1: percentage of it for himself and letting other people have
Speaker 1: what was left over. Years ago, when I pointed out
Speaker 1: to him that the word charity actually meant giving something
Speaker 1: value you had to somebody else who did not have
Speaker 1: it because they needed it and you had too much,
Speaker 1: he blocked me on all social media platforms. Still Lara
Speaker 1: Trump his wife and co chair of the RNC, just
Speaker 1: eight years after she was still a producer on Inside Edition.
Speaker 1: Lara really is a dim bulb. Here she is on
Speaker 1: Newsmax with Coincidentally enough, somebody else Fox News also fired
Speaker 1: Eric Puffy Dad bowling to these poll workers, We're gonna
Speaker 1: have lawyers in all the major polling locations across the country.
Speaker 1: We have lawsuits in eighty one states right now. We
Speaker 1: won about a week and a half ago. As Democratic
Speaker 1: voting legal eagle Mark Elias notes, the Republican National Committee
Speaker 1: actually has voting suppression lawsuits in nineteen states. In the
Speaker 1: week preceding that interview with Lyarra Trump, eight cases were
Speaker 1: decided by the courts and the Trump campaign lost all eight.
Speaker 1: And oh yeah, yeah, by the way, there aren't eighty
Speaker 1: one states in this country. The Republicans are still talking
Speaker 1: about Obama slipping in May two thousand and eight and
Speaker 1: saying he'd been to fifty seven states when he meant
Speaker 1: he'd been to forty seven states. But Trump's co chairman
Speaker 1: and double NEPO baby can say eighty one states. And
Speaker 1: that's fine, Lara, unless she was including the state of depression,
Speaker 1: the state of anxiety, the state of obliviousness, the state
Speaker 1: of denial, the state of lip botox overdose, the fugue state, or,
Speaker 1: since we are talking Trump, the state of incontinence. Trump
Speaker 1: two days worst person. I like that one in the world.
Speaker 1: Fridays with Thurber and I have not done a bunch
Speaker 1: of the political fables lately, So let's dive right in.
Speaker 1: Some of these got him into huge trouble in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, and I'm happy to think that they would
Speaker 1: get him into huge trouble in the twenty twenties. We
Speaker 1: start with the least political of them, just the fun one.
Speaker 1: The Mouse who Went to the Country by James Thurber.
Speaker 1: Once upon a Sunday there was a city mouse who
Speaker 1: went to visit a country mouse. He hit away on
Speaker 1: a train the country mouse had told him to take,
Speaker 1: only to find that on Sundays it did not stop
Speaker 1: at Beddington. Hence the city mouse could not get off
Speaker 1: at Beddington and catch a bus for Siebert's Junction, where
Speaker 1: he was to be met by the country mouse. The
Speaker 1: city mouse, in fact, was carried on to Middelburg, where
Speaker 1: he waited three hours for a train to take him back.
Speaker 1: When he got back to Beddington, he found out that
Speaker 1: the last bus for Seebirch Junction had just left, so
Speaker 1: he ran, and he ran, and he ran, and he
Speaker 1: finally caught the bus and crept aboard, only to find
Speaker 1: out that it was not the bus for Siebert's Junction
Speaker 1: at all, but was going in the opposite direction through
Speaker 1: Pell's hollow and grum to a place called Whimberbee. When
Speaker 1: the bus finally stopped, the city mouse got out in
Speaker 1: a heavy rain and found that there were no more
Speaker 1: buses that night going anywhere. To the hell with it,
Speaker 1: said the city mouse, and he walked back to the
Speaker 1: city moral. Stay where you are, you're sitting pretty. The
Speaker 1: Very Proper Gander by James Thurber. Not so very long ago,
Speaker 1: there was a very fine gander. He was strong and
Speaker 1: smooth and beautiful, and he spent most of his time
Speaker 1: singing to his wife and children. One day somebody who
Speaker 1: saw him strutting up and down in his yard and singing, remarked,
Speaker 1: there is a very proper gander. An old hen over
Speaker 1: this and told her husband about it. That night in
Speaker 1: the roost they said something about propaganda. She said, I
Speaker 1: have always suspected that, said the rooster, And he went
Speaker 1: around the barnyard next day telling everybody that the very
Speaker 1: fine gander was a dangerous bird, more than likely a
Speaker 1: hawk in gander's clothing. A small brown hen remembered a
Speaker 1: time when, at a great distance she had seen the
Speaker 1: gander talking with some hawks in the forest. They were
Speaker 1: apt to no good, she said, A duck remembered that
Speaker 1: the gander had once told him he did not believe
Speaker 1: in anything. He said, to hell with the flag too,
Speaker 1: said the duck. A guinea hen recalled that she had
Speaker 1: once seen somebody who looked very much like the gander
Speaker 1: throw something that looked a great deal like a bomb. Finally,
Speaker 1: everybody snatched up sticks and stones and descended on the
Speaker 1: gander's house. He was strutting in his front yard, singing
Speaker 1: to his children and his wife. There he is, everybody cried,
Speaker 1: hawk lover, unbeliever, flag hater, bomb thrower. So they set
Speaker 1: upon him and drove him out of the country. Moral
Speaker 1: anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to
Speaker 1: overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of
Speaker 1: the country. The very proper Gander by James Thurber. The
Speaker 1: Moth and the Star, and I have a tattoo pertaining
Speaker 1: to this one by James Thurber. A young and impressionable
Speaker 1: moth once set his heart on a certain star. He
Speaker 1: told his mother about this, and she counseled him to
Speaker 1: set his heart on a bridge lamp instead. Stars aren't
Speaker 1: the thing to hang around, she said. Lamps say the
Speaker 1: thing to hang around. You get somewhere that way, said
Speaker 1: the moth's father. You don't get anywhere chasing stars. But
Speaker 1: the moth would not heed the words of either parent.
Speaker 1: Every evening, at dusk, when the star came out, he
Speaker 1: would start flying toward it, and every morning at dawn
Speaker 1: he would crawl back home, worn out with his vein endeavor.
Speaker 1: One day his father said to him, you haven't burned
Speaker 1: a wing in months, boy, and it looks to me
Speaker 1: as if you're never going to. All your brothers have
Speaker 1: been badly burned flying around street lamps, all your sisters
Speaker 1: have been terribly singed flying around house lamps. Come on, now,
Speaker 1: get out there and get yourself scorched. Big strip and
Speaker 1: moth like you without a muck on him. The moth
Speaker 1: left his father's house, but he would not fly around
Speaker 1: street lamps, and he would not fly around house lamps.
Speaker 1: He went right on trying to reach the star, which
Speaker 1: was four and one third light years or twenty five
Speaker 1: trillion miles away. The moth thought it was just caught
Speaker 1: in the top branches of an elm. He never did
Speaker 1: reach the star, but he went right on trying night
Speaker 1: after night, and when he was a very very old
Speaker 1: moth he began to think that he really had reached
Speaker 1: the star, and he went around saying so. This gave
Speaker 1: him a deep and lasting pleasure, and he lived to
Speaker 1: a great old age. His parents, and his brothers and
Speaker 1: his sisters had all been burned to death when they
Speaker 1: were quite young. Moral who flies afar from the sphere
Speaker 1: of our sorrow is here today and here tomorrow. The
Speaker 1: Moth and the Star by James Thurber. Another one, the
Speaker 1: owl who was God. Once upon a starless midnight, there
Speaker 1: was an owl who sat on the branch of an
Speaker 1: oak tree. Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by unnoticed,
Speaker 1: You said the owl. Who They quavered in fear and astonishment,
Speaker 1: for they could not believe it was possible for anyone
Speaker 1: to see them in that thick darkness, You too, said
Speaker 1: the owl. The moles hurried away and told the other
Speaker 1: creatures of the field and forest that the owl was
Speaker 1: the greatest and wisest of all animals, because he could
Speaker 1: see in the dark, and because he could answer any question.
Speaker 1: I'll see about that, said a secretary bird, And he
Speaker 1: called on the owl one night, when it was again
Speaker 1: very dark. How many claws am I houlding? Up, said
Speaker 1: the secretary bird, too, said the owl, and he was right.
Speaker 1: Can you give me another expression, for that is to
Speaker 1: say or namely? Asked the secretary bird, to wit, said
Speaker 1: the owl. Why does a lover call on his love?
Speaker 1: Asked the secretary bird to woo, said the owl. The
Speaker 1: secretary bird hastened back to the other creatures and reported
Speaker 1: that the owl was indeed the greatest and wisest animal
Speaker 1: in the world, because he could see in the dark,
Speaker 1: and because he could answer any question. Can he see
Speaker 1: in the daytime? Asked a red fox, Yes, echoed a
Speaker 1: dormouse and a French poodle. Can he see in the daytime? Too?
Speaker 1: All the other creatures laughed loudly at this silly question,
Speaker 1: and they set upon the red fox and his friends
Speaker 1: and drove them out of the region. Then they sent
Speaker 1: a messenger to the owl and asked him to be
Speaker 1: their leader. When the owl appeared among the animals, it
Speaker 1: was high noon and the sun was shining brightly. He
Speaker 1: walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity,
Speaker 1: and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which
Speaker 1: gave him an air of tremendous importance. He's God, screamed
Speaker 1: a Plymouth rockhand, and the others took up the cry
Speaker 1: He's God, He's God. So they followed him wherever he went,
Speaker 1: and when he began to bump into things, they began
Speaker 1: to bump into things too. Finally, he came to a
Speaker 1: concrete highway, and he started up the middle of it,
Speaker 1: and all the other creatures followed him. Presently, a hawk,
Speaker 1: who was acting as an outrider, observed a truck coming
Speaker 1: toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported
Speaker 1: to the secretary bird, and the secretary bird reported to
Speaker 1: the owl. There's danger ahead, said the secretary bird. Too. Wit,
Speaker 1: said the owl. The secretary bird told him, aren't you afraid,
Speaker 1: he asked, woo, said the owl calmly, for he could
Speaker 1: not see the truck. He's God, cried all the creatures again,
Speaker 1: and they were still crying, He's God, He's God, when
Speaker 1: the truck hit them and ran them down. Some of
Speaker 1: the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including
Speaker 1: the owl, were killed. Moral you can fool too many
Speaker 1: of the people too much of the time. The owl
Speaker 1: who was God by James thurberd two more of Thurber's fables,
Speaker 1: Political of nature, the birds and the foxes. Once upon
Speaker 1: a there was a bird sanctuary in which hundreds of
Speaker 1: Baltimore orioles lived together happily. The refuge consisted of a
Speaker 1: forest entirely surrounded by a high wire fence. When it
Speaker 1: was put up, a pack of foxes who lived nearby
Speaker 1: protested that it was an arbitrary and unnatural boundary. However,
Speaker 1: they did nothing about it at the time because they
Speaker 1: were interested in civilizing the geese and ducks on the
Speaker 1: neighboring farms. When all the geese and ducks had been
Speaker 1: civilized and there was nothing left to eat, the foxes
Speaker 1: once more turned their attention to the bird sanctuary. Their
Speaker 1: leader announced that there had been foxes once in the sanctuary,
Speaker 1: but that they had been driven out. He proclaimed that
Speaker 1: Baltimore orioles belonged in Baltimore. He said furthermore that the
Speaker 1: orioles in the sanctuary were a continuous menace to the
Speaker 1: peace of the world. The other animals cautioned the foxes
Speaker 1: not to disturb the birds in their sanctuary, So the
Speaker 1: foxes attacked the sanctuary one night and tore down the
Speaker 1: fence that surrounded it. The orioles rushed out and were
Speaker 1: instantly killed and eaten by the foxes. The next day,
Speaker 1: the leader of the foxes, a fox from whom God
Speaker 1: was receiving daily guidance, got under the rostrum and addressed
Speaker 1: the other foxes from it. His message was simple and sublime.
Speaker 1: You see before you, he said another Lincoln, we have
Speaker 1: liberated all them birds. Moral government of the orioles by
Speaker 1: the foxes, and for the foxes must perish from the earth.
Speaker 1: And lastly, the peace like mongoose by James Thurber. In
Speaker 1: cobra country, a mongoose was born one day who did
Speaker 1: not want to fight cobras or anything else. The words
Speaker 1: spread from mongoose to mongoose that there was a mongoose
Speaker 1: who didn't want to fight cobras. If he didn't want
Speaker 1: to fight anything else, it was his own business, But
Speaker 1: it was the duty of every mongoose to kill cobras
Speaker 1: or be killed by cobras. Why, asked the peace like mongoose,
Speaker 1: And the word went around that the strange new mongoose
Speaker 1: was not only pro cobra and anti mongoose, but intellectually
Speaker 1: curious and against the ideals and traditions of Mongoosism. He
Speaker 1: is crazy, cried the young mongoose's father. Hey is sick,
Speaker 1: said his mother. He's a coward, shouted his brothers. He
Speaker 1: is a mongoose sexual, whispered his sisters. Strangers who had
Speaker 1: never laid eyes on the piece like mongoose, remembered that
Speaker 1: they had seen him crawling on his stomach, or trying
Speaker 1: on cobra hoods, or plotting the violent overthrow of Mongoosia.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to use reason and intelligence, said the strange
Speaker 1: new mongoose. Reason is six sevenths of treason, said one
Speaker 1: of his neighbors. Intelligence is what the enemy uses, said another. Finally,
Speaker 1: the rumor spread that the mongoose had venom in his
Speaker 1: sting like a cobra, and he was tried, convicted by
Speaker 1: a show of pause, and condemned to banishment. Moral ashes
Speaker 1: to ashes, and clay to clay. If the enemy doesn't
Speaker 1: get you your own folks, may the peace. Like mongoose
Speaker 1: by James Thurber, I've done all the damage I can
Speaker 1: do here. Thank you for listening. We're now back to
Speaker 1: five episodes a week, posting nightly just after mid night Eastern.
Speaker 1: Follow me for the podcast promo videos as well, which
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Speaker 1: Once again, there is a Monday countdown. Please listen to it.
Speaker 1: Also send this podcast or the link to it to
Speaker 1: somebody who does not know that they really need to listen.
Speaker 1: Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneil, the musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Chanel handled orchestration
Speaker 1: and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums,
Speaker 1: and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and
Speaker 1: pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
Speaker 1: Nancy Faust. Sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
Speaker 1: music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
Speaker 1: My announcer today is my friend Larry David, Yankees fan fan.
Speaker 1: Everything else was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for today.
Speaker 1: One weekend, four days until the twenty twenty four presidential election,
Speaker 1: the one and eighty ninth day since convicted felon associated
Speaker 1: fugue Jay Trump's first attempted coo against the democratically elected
Speaker 1: government of the United States, use the election, use the
Speaker 1: mental health system, use presidential immunity to keep him from
Speaker 1: doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled
Speaker 1: countdown is Monday. Bulletin says the news requires till then,
Speaker 1: I'm Keith Oulberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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