Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump
Speaker 1: is losing his mind, and even more new polling suggests
Speaker 1: now because of the convictions, he is losing the election
Speaker 1: his mental unwellness first to the degree he still had it.
Speaker 1: There is now no question that Trump is losing his mind.
Speaker 1: Tell me where we would be to day if the
Speaker 1: following sequence of events had occurred in just the last
Speaker 1: five days. One if Joe Biden had met with dozens
Speaker 1: of business leaders who had been supporting him, and the
Speaker 1: business leaders walked out of the meeting shocked by his
Speaker 1: inability to complete a thought or stay on one topic,
Speaker 1: and the attendees reported they were shaken and now doubting
Speaker 1: he could do the job, and now no longer supporting him.
Speaker 1: Two if the next day Biden had celebrated a high
Speaker 1: numbered birthday. Three if the day after that, Biden had
Speaker 1: gone to a quote black church in Detroit, unquote, and
Speaker 1: his surrogates claimed there were eight thousand African American supporters there,
Speaker 1: when in fact, there were about one hundred people and
Speaker 1: they were nearly all white guys. Four if Biden had
Speaker 1: then joined a panel discussion in which he said that
Speaker 1: Trump was such a weak opponent that he Biden was
Speaker 1: considering losing next week's debate on purpose. Five if Biden
Speaker 1: had again said he might not accept the outcome of
Speaker 1: the election, only this time he had added that if
Speaker 1: he lost, he would start an investigation of some kind.
Speaker 1: Six if Biden's campaign had then doctored, altered, falsified video
Speaker 1: of Trump doing ordinary things successfully to make him look
Speaker 1: like he was hallucinating or lost. And then seven if
Speaker 1: Biden had then given a speech in which he claimed
Speaker 1: everybody agreed he was in full robust mental health because
Speaker 1: he had passed a test administered by doctor Anthony Hopkins,
Speaker 1: or doctor Anthony Bourdain or Anthony Michael Hall, any Anthony
Speaker 1: except the doctor who had given him the theoretical test,
Speaker 1: doctor Anthony Fauci. If that had happened to Joe Biden
Speaker 1: in five days, if half of that had happened to
Speaker 1: Joe Biden in five days, there would be nothing else
Speaker 1: on television or on the internet. The snowball effect in progress.
Speaker 1: Trump is losing his mind, and losing it fast. And
Speaker 1: part of the problem is Trump is so crazy already,
Speaker 1: so loudly, so often, that it all runs together and perversely,
Speaker 1: each trump mental disaster stops seeming like it's part of
Speaker 1: a sequence or part of the fabric of his being.
Speaker 1: Each Trump mental disaster simply replaces the one before it.
Speaker 1: I have a thought experiment about that I want to
Speaker 1: do in real time in a few minutes to underscore
Speaker 1: how that's even more true than you or I might realize.
Speaker 1: But first, Trump is out of control, going downhill and
Speaker 1: so fast that when he dropped the name of the
Speaker 1: doctor who gave him the cognitive test, he mistakenly thinks
Speaker 1: he he aced. He not only got the name wrong,
Speaker 1: but he got it so wrong that even the Associated
Speaker 1: Press noticed it and wrote a big story about it.
Speaker 1: It's doctor Ronnie Jackson Jackson as in Jackson, I took
Speaker 1: a cognitive test, and I ASTI doc Ronnie, Doctor Ronnie Johnson.
Speaker 1: Does everyone know Ronnie Johnson, congressman from Texas. That was
Speaker 1: a huge story Sunday. It dropped off the map because
Speaker 1: nobody will connect the dots to every other piece of
Speaker 1: Trump insanity, like the author of the new book on
Speaker 1: the Apprentice TV series saying yesterday that Trump granted him
Speaker 1: a one hour long interview in May twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: when nobody wanted to talk to Trump and then gave
Speaker 1: him another interview a few months later, and Trump had
Speaker 1: no memory of him or the interview or the topic.
Speaker 1: And these pieces, this chain, this collapse, it goes back
Speaker 1: not just weeks, not just months, not just years, but decades.
Speaker 1: Given my analogy of Jackson and Johnson to Fauci and
Speaker 1: anybody else named Anthony, there is this irony, more evidence
Speaker 1: of the madness of Trump, and it is from Fauci,
Speaker 1: and it is coming in his new memoir, which is
Speaker 1: coming out next week. In it, Fauci details Trump's COVID
Speaker 1: behavior and put it on the pile of things we've forgotten.
Speaker 1: Trump knew how bad, how easily transmitted my air COVID
Speaker 1: was in February twenty Remember he's on tape telling Bob
Speaker 1: Woodward all that, and they lied about it for the
Speaker 1: rest of his term, killing thousands of Americans who should
Speaker 1: still be alive now. Fauci says, on June third, twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: he had reminded a journalist that a vaccine, then still
Speaker 1: in the developmental stages, would need boosters. That evening, he writes,
Speaker 1: my cell phone rang and the caller, the President started
Speaker 1: screaming at me. The President was irate, saying I could
Speaker 1: not keep doing this to him. According to Fauci, Trump
Speaker 1: told Fauci he had cost the US economy quote one
Speaker 1: trillion fing dollars. Trump is losing his mind. This must
Speaker 1: be the drum beat of the rest of the campaign.
Speaker 1: Now there is good news, and at the risk of
Speaker 1: sounding like Eric Blair, George orwell, it's triple plus good news.
Speaker 1: The mainstream political media has just discovered something it evidently
Speaker 1: did not know. A that elderly first offender Trump is
Speaker 1: getting killed in the polls now because of the stormy
Speaker 1: Daniel's election interference conviction, and b that this is actually
Speaker 1: a headline story that they should write about and not
Speaker 1: some PostScript and see that the Biden campaign yesterday took
Speaker 1: the big leap forward and actually called Trump a quote
Speaker 1: convicted criminal. New Ipsos poll for Politico yesterday, one third
Speaker 1: of all voters one third say they are now less
Speaker 1: likely to support Trump because of the convictions. Moreover, the
Speaker 1: idea of a Trump persecution bounce is so obviously untrue.
Speaker 1: Politico wrote this up as if it always knowed that
Speaker 1: that was the case, rather than acknowledging that it and
Speaker 1: the rest of the mainstrea in political media had served
Speaker 1: as vessels for this nonsense that he was going to
Speaker 1: improve his position by being convicted, a vessel for the
Speaker 1: rest of that malarkey to use a term. Thirty three
Speaker 1: percent less likely to vote for Trump because of convictions. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: seventeen percent said more likely those are Republicans who are
Speaker 1: going to vote for him anyway. Among independents, the same
Speaker 1: number a third less likely to vote for him, but
Speaker 1: only twelve percent of independents more likely. IPSOS also dug
Speaker 1: a little deeper, are the convictions important in your decision
Speaker 1: whether or not to vote for Trump? And twenty two
Speaker 1: percent say the convictions are important and make them less
Speaker 1: likely to vote for him. That is a loss of
Speaker 1: one in five Trump voters. YPSOS did a separate poll
Speaker 1: for ABC looking for and grilling double haters voters who
Speaker 1: do not like Trump and do not like Biden, well
Speaker 1: beers don't like and theirs don't like. Two thirds of
Speaker 1: those who will vote while holding their nose, two thirds
Speaker 1: think that after the convictions, Trump should drop out of
Speaker 1: the presidential race. Not just they don't support him that
Speaker 1: much anymore or they're less likely blah, blah blah. Two
Speaker 1: thirds of double haters want Trump off the ballot. More
Speaker 1: new polling. Actually it's old polling. Bet somebody at the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal gets fired for reporting this in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, Trump won the vote of sixty five
Speaker 1: and up. He got fifty one percent of it. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, the Journal cites its own polling nationally and
Speaker 1: in the swing states showing Trump has lost about a
Speaker 1: tenth of that support. He is down to forty six percent. Biden,
Speaker 1: who had forty eight percent of US old timey voters
Speaker 1: four years ago, Biden still has forty eight percent of US.
Speaker 1: That is now the winning score. And one last set
Speaker 1: of polls, wider content, narrower geography, Vote Hub has found
Speaker 1: enough swing state polls to come up with a swing
Speaker 1: state pole average, and after the conviction, they continued to crawl.
Speaker 1: Swing would honestly be too strong a term, but they
Speaker 1: continue to crawl towards President Biden. On average, he is
Speaker 1: up by a point in Michigan, by two tenths of
Speaker 1: a point in Wisconsin. He has closed within two and
Speaker 1: a half in Pennsylvania, three in Arizona, six in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: and he's inside seven in Nevada and Georgia. Is it optimal? No?
Speaker 1: Is it improvement. It's about twice as good as it
Speaker 1: was before. And finally, finally, the Biden campaign has gone
Speaker 1: gloves off on the central issue. If you didn't hear it,
Speaker 1: here is the money shot. And I do mean money,
Speaker 1: in part of a fifty million dollars Biden ad buy
Speaker 1: just for the rest of this This election is between
Speaker 1: a convicted criminal who's only out for himself and a
Speaker 1: president who's fighting for your family. I'm Joe Biden, and
Speaker 1: I have proved this message a convicted criminal. Amen, hallelujah.
Speaker 1: Now I need to hear the president say that himself.
Speaker 1: This is a hunch. There is no source for this,
Speaker 1: just a hunch. I expect Joe Biden will call Trump
Speaker 1: a criminal, but on the theory that you might as
Speaker 1: well save that metaphorical shot for point blank range, and
Speaker 1: also that Biden still has something almost extinct in politics
Speaker 1: called standards and the knowledge that he would prefer to
Speaker 1: say something like that to the man's face. I suspect,
Speaker 1: I guess I hope President Biden will call Trump a criminal,
Speaker 1: and he will do it at the debate A week
Speaker 1: from Thursday, that, of course, if Trump shows up. Of course,
Speaker 1: one of the main problems with the latest Trump story
Speaker 1: is that by this time tomorrow we may not remember
Speaker 1: the latest Trump story. If the man actually has one skill,
Speaker 1: it is indefatigability. He has an infinite capacity to find
Speaker 1: something new to send the rest of us to hell
Speaker 1: with every day. And the reality is the rest of
Speaker 1: us have lives that do not focus solely on ourselves
Speaker 1: and are not as obsessive and neurotic and not quite
Speaker 1: as human as his is. And therefore we cannot process
Speaker 1: everything he does, and we certainly can't retain it. To
Speaker 1: prove this, I want to do a real time thought experiment.
Speaker 1: I have fished out of the closet the scripts for
Speaker 1: the last two months of this podcast, So going back
Speaker 1: to the middle of a and I'm going to read
Speaker 1: just some of the headlines, just some of the cover
Speaker 1: sheets from the last two months. And I want to
Speaker 1: know you don't have to actually tell me, but I
Speaker 1: want you to answer for yourself. How many of these
Speaker 1: stories do you even remember, let alone remember how mad
Speaker 1: they made you feel? And to address this issue of
Speaker 1: why we cannot carry over our anger from one story
Speaker 1: to the next. I guess each story is so appalling
Speaker 1: and would have in previous incarnations of this country. Each
Speaker 1: one of these stories would have been disqualifying for life.
Speaker 1: And whoever did this, we would have never heard from
Speaker 1: them again. And we will start at the top of
Speaker 1: the pile. Last Thursday. So this was in Friday's episode,
Speaker 1: but this is from last Thursday. Do you even remember this?
Speaker 1: The headline on the cover sheet is the Trump plot.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to talk to Capitol Hill Republicans about
Speaker 1: overturning his convictions in ste dead he insulted Milwaukee. Remember this,
Speaker 1: Trump to House Republicans. Milwaukee, where we are having our convention,
Speaker 1: is a horrible city. Where did this go? Where did
Speaker 1: the truth behind that that he had intended to talk
Speaker 1: to all of them about what he said in his
Speaker 1: May thirty first phone call to the Speaker of the House,
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson, which was about his convictions on the Stormy
Speaker 1: Daniel's election interference case here in New York we have
Speaker 1: to overturn this. Where did that story go that he
Speaker 1: wants the House of Representatives to somehow overturn his convictions
Speaker 1: in a New York State criminal case retroactively. I might add,
Speaker 1: that's last Thursday. Where did that story go? What memory hold?
Speaker 1: Did it drop into the Wednesday story the day before
Speaker 1: how Congress was holding Garland in contempt for refusing to
Speaker 1: turn over the tapes of his conversations Robert Hurri's conversations
Speaker 1: with Biden, which of course they would have leaked and
Speaker 1: used in campaign ads. Where did that story go? It
Speaker 1: was last time Tuesday, and was my headline on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Trump floats planned to reinstate military draft. The entire lengthy
Speaker 1: story in the Washington Post about this idea of mandatory
Speaker 1: national service, including exams for every high school student male
Speaker 1: or female aged seventeen eighteen, nineteen twenty and to be
Speaker 1: assessed for which service they should go into and what
Speaker 1: their military aptitudes would be. And if you didn't take
Speaker 1: the exam, you wouldn't graduate, and if the school wouldn't
Speaker 1: administer the exam, it wouldn't get federal funds. That story
Speaker 1: happened a week ago today, and it's already disappeared. It
Speaker 1: didn't even get any pickup just because Trump denied this
Speaker 1: was his idea, as if he didn't use other people's
Speaker 1: ideas at any point in his life, like every five minutes,
Speaker 1: the story was denied and it was dropped, including by
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. On the other hand, a Washington Post
Speaker 1: does remain in the middle of a five alarm fire
Speaker 1: inside its own building, But where are the other stories
Speaker 1: about it? Last Monday polling, more polling on the convictions.
Speaker 1: You remember the convictions? You remember the political impact of
Speaker 1: the convictions? Twenty eight percent said the convictions would be
Speaker 1: a major factor in their votes, and another seventeen percent
Speaker 1: said it would be a minor factor. The Morning Consule
Speaker 1: weekly tracking poll a week ago yesterday, let me quote
Speaker 1: what I said then New York trial hurt Trump's image.
Speaker 1: This is how Morning consult had phrased it. This is
Speaker 1: the sixth successive week in which Biden's net favorability rating
Speaker 1: has bettered Trump's, a trend that began as legal proceedings
Speaker 1: in New York ramped up. The latest data shows Trump's
Speaker 1: worst net favorability rating since late January. Where did that
Speaker 1: polling go this one? Oh well, this is not about Trump,
Speaker 1: so perhaps it registered a little bit longer. June sixth
Speaker 1: timing is perfect in order to jail on d Day. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was from last Thursday. Convictions cost Trump seven percent
Speaker 1: in the polls, and the more important question, did he
Speaker 1: do a quid pro quo with the Wall Street Journal?
Speaker 1: Remember that extraordinary Wall Street Journal piece about how everybody's
Speaker 1: worried again about Biden's age, except only Republicans were quoted
Speaker 1: in it, and several Democrats by name Senators came out
Speaker 1: and said, we were interviewed by the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: and we said Biden's been fine, and our quotes were
Speaker 1: not included in the article. The Wall Street Journal deliberately
Speaker 1: skewed an article in Biden's detriment to Biden's detriment in
Speaker 1: Trump's favor. At the same time, but Trump was saying
Speaker 1: that he would free the reporter from the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: Evan Gershkovich, after he was elected, a clear indication that
Speaker 1: there had been some contact between Trump and Putin to
Speaker 1: prevent the release of an American hostage. This is from
Speaker 1: the fifth of this month, and this story, with the
Speaker 1: exception of a couple of tweets and occasional references by
Speaker 1: the impeccable Brian Boutler, who I always cite here, this
Speaker 1: story has disappeared. On the fourth Biden did call him convicted,
Speaker 1: fellon Donald Trump and a story about from Pro Publica
Speaker 1: that day about nine witnesses who spoke in favor of
Speaker 1: Trump in some context who then got new jobs, more money,
Speaker 1: stake in truth, social Boris Epstein, campaign manager, Susie Wiles,
Speaker 1: various lawyers and spokespeople. That story's vanished. From the morning
Speaker 1: of Saturday, June first, the new first polls after the convictions,
Speaker 1: ten percent of GOP voters, eight percent of ardent Trump
Speaker 1: supporters want him to drop out of the campaign. Where
Speaker 1: did that story go? That's from the first of this month.
Speaker 1: We figured out on May thirty first that if Trump,
Speaker 1: as my headline wrote, Trump incredibly guilty, if verdicts cost
Speaker 1: him two percent, he just lost the election. The flag story, well,
Speaker 1: the flag story has lasted because you can only have
Speaker 1: so many sam Alito stories at the same time. That
Speaker 1: was May twenty ninth, And then moving on to the
Speaker 1: point about ethnic cleansing, the story about Trump posting reposting
Speaker 1: a video a fig Leaf deniable video. He didn't make
Speaker 1: the video, he just posted the video. It was the
Speaker 1: guy encountering Joe Scarborough at the New York Airport, rolling
Speaker 1: his camera phone, swearing at Scarborough for twenty three seconds
Speaker 1: and as I said, we've all done that, Joe Scarborough.
Speaker 1: But the point was the quote was healed, get rid
Speaker 1: of all you fing liberals. You liberals are gone. When
Speaker 1: he efing wins, you efing blowjob liberals are done. Uncle
Speaker 1: Donnie's going to take this election. Landslide, landslide, You fing
Speaker 1: half a blowjob, landslide. Get the f out of here, scumbag.
Speaker 1: And then Trump posted it so that people want to
Speaker 1: know who are supporting him, that he is serious about
Speaker 1: deporting people, and that well, we will start with immigrants,
Speaker 1: but we will also move on, as he has said previously,
Speaker 1: to those he wants retribution against and to terrorists and
Speaker 1: potential terrorists. And if you are a one man government
Speaker 1: and you run on a platform that you are going
Speaker 1: to deport everybody who is a threat to this country,
Speaker 1: all you have to do is point at somebody, could
Speaker 1: be me, could be you could be Joe Scarborough, and
Speaker 1: say you are a threat to this country. I am
Speaker 1: having you arrested, especially if on their first day in office,
Speaker 1: on January twentieth of next year, you have invoked the
Speaker 1: Insurrection Act, which would legally give you the right to
Speaker 1: do that. Trump moves towards f cleansing. May twenty eight,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, already off the radar. There is nothing
Speaker 1: much particularly on May twenty seventh, but the week before
Speaker 1: the sam Alito flag stories emphasized throughout the day. There
Speaker 1: is a story from May twenty first about blowback against
Speaker 1: Trump's third term talk. The Rematch wrote Bloomberg between Joe
Speaker 1: Biden and Donald Trump draws near and political professionals are
Speaker 1: detecting an unusual concern among some undecided voters that if
Speaker 1: Trump returns to the White House, he'll refuse to step
Speaker 1: down when his term is up. Sag Carpenter, vice president
Speaker 1: at David Bender Research, noticed this fear in early April
Speaker 1: while conducting focus groups of people who had voted for
Speaker 1: Biden in twenty twenty but became disillusioned and we're considering
Speaker 1: switching sides. We were talking to Latino men and Asian
Speaker 1: American Pacific Islander women in battleground states, and they went
Speaker 1: straight to the issue of what if Trump won't give
Speaker 1: up power. It's not something we'd been testing for, but
Speaker 1: we've been singing it so far, indicating a real concern there.
Speaker 1: This is somebody who's done focus groups for Democrats for
Speaker 1: ten years, and they were unprepared for the subject of
Speaker 1: whether or not Trump would be willing to relinquish power
Speaker 1: if he has given it again. That's May twenty first,
Speaker 1: those quotes that story's vanished. Trump violated the gag order twice.
Speaker 1: The Trump witness in the waning days of the case
Speaker 1: in New York enrages the judge. We had more on
Speaker 1: the Alido flag story May seventeenth, were the Michael Cohen
Speaker 1: quotes the testimony at the trial May sixteenth, and now
Speaker 1: we are a week and two days away from the
Speaker 1: first of the two scheduled debates debates, and as I
Speaker 1: said on the May sixteenth podcast, Trump lays groundwork to
Speaker 1: back out of the debates he just agreed to. There
Speaker 1: is always the chance I might be misreading this, I
Speaker 1: said on the podcast episode one seven six from May sixteen,
Speaker 1: But if you go through what happened yesterday, I don't
Speaker 1: think I am. They agree to ABC and CNN as venues,
Speaker 1: and Biden makes his video taunting Trump. CNN reports Trump
Speaker 1: is irked that Biden has taken control of the debate narrative.
Speaker 1: Trump then posts, please let this truth, meaning his post
Speaker 1: serve to represent that I hereby accept debating Biden on
Speaker 1: Fox News. The date will be Wednesday, October second. The
Speaker 1: host will be Brett Baar and Martha McCallum. Thank you
Speaker 1: the use of the word hereby. I noted indicated to
Speaker 1: the Rubes that this was some sort of legal document
Speaker 1: when it was not. There is no Fox debate. There
Speaker 1: was not one scheduled, even when they announced the debates
Speaker 1: originally in the middle of May. Not even Fox claimed
Speaker 1: there was one. And then Biden's campaign statement came out
Speaker 1: from Jen O'Malley Dylan. Trump has a long history of
Speaker 1: playing games with debates, complaining about the rules, breaking those rules,
Speaker 1: pulling out at the last minute. He said he would
Speaker 1: debate President Biden anytime, anywhere, any place. In fact, he
Speaker 1: said and posted it dozens of times, with varying degrees
Speaker 1: of comprehension and basic grammar. President Biden made his terms
Speaker 1: clear for two one on one debates, and Donald Trump
Speaker 1: accepted those terms. No more games, no more chaos, no
Speaker 1: more debate about debates. We'll see Donald Trump on June
Speaker 1: twenty seventh in Atlanta. If he shows up so as
Speaker 1: I said, then between now and June twenty seventh, my
Speaker 1: prediction was he demands Biden reconfirm his commitment to this
Speaker 1: apocryphal October second debate on Fox, Biden says, I never
Speaker 1: agreed to that, and I never said anything up close
Speaker 1: to agreeing to that, whereupon Trump says he has violated
Speaker 1: the agreement. That is, Biden has violated the agreement. So
Speaker 1: there won't be any debates. We'll see what happens. But
Speaker 1: I just want to point out that was Wednesday, May fifteenth,
Speaker 1: from the day before that Senator Tommy Tuberville confirmed the
Speaker 1: Trump plot to evade the gag order. You remember those
Speaker 1: senators and congressmen and other Republican derelicts showing up at
Speaker 1: the courthouse in New York and being interviewed outside of it.
Speaker 1: Anybody remember that story Going to the preceding week. Here's
Speaker 1: something of a lighter note from the ninth of May.
Speaker 1: Never hire a lawyer with a rating of three and
Speaker 1: a half stars. This is a reference to Susan Necklace,
Speaker 1: who managed to lose the Stormy Daniels during the second
Speaker 1: day of cross examination in trump On trial. I did see,
Speaker 1: and this is the first story. We have to go
Speaker 1: back to May ninth to have seen an actual follow
Speaker 1: up to this story, there's something about Susan necklace. Has
Speaker 1: not had any connection nor made any comment about Trump,
Speaker 1: has not been referred to by anybody in Trump's circles,
Speaker 1: and has not appeared on any Trump documents relating to
Speaker 1: the New York case since the trial ended. So that
Speaker 1: was the only following up of anything that we've seen
Speaker 1: in here on any serious basis. And it's about one
Speaker 1: of his lawyers. From May eighth, This was the day
Speaker 1: of the RFK junior brainworm story, and yet people are
Speaker 1: still taking him seriously. Stormy Daniels testifies May seventh, Gnome
Speaker 1: Trump and the MAGA belief they have the right to kill.
Speaker 1: May sixth, the Christy Gnome murder of her daughter's puppy?
Speaker 1: Where did that story go in one month and one week?
Speaker 1: Wasn't she on one of the major Sunday shows a
Speaker 1: week ago? Did anybody ask her about that? She said
Speaker 1: over the weekend that she was being prosecuted and persecuted
Speaker 1: by Democrats and liberals because they were afraid of her. Well,
Speaker 1: perhaps what they were afraid of was that she would
Speaker 1: shoot their dog. And yet where's the Christy Nomes story?
Speaker 1: She is now being taken seriously to some degree. The
Speaker 1: rehabilitation tour has continued sufficiently so that she's not going
Speaker 1: to have to resign as governor in whichever Dakota she's
Speaker 1: the governor of. Trump lies claims gag order prevents him
Speaker 1: from testifying. May second, That got a little bit more, Carrie,
Speaker 1: But again, is it front of mind? Trump violates d
Speaker 1: C bail and DC gag order by attacking witness Cassidy Hutchinson.
Speaker 1: That was the first of May the gag order and
Speaker 1: bail violation. Then Trump confessed to the meaningful part of
Speaker 1: her testimony that as his scum organized to attack the
Speaker 1: capital and begin his coup attempt, he wanted to join
Speaker 1: them and watch. He said, if you remember, in a SoundBite,
Speaker 1: that he wanted to go to the capital on January sixth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Tried to talk the Secret Service into it,
Speaker 1: but that Cassidy Hutchinson was a liar because he never
Speaker 1: tried to strangle one of the members of the Secret Service.
Speaker 1: From the May first edition of this podcast, Trump all
Speaker 1: but promises twenty twenty four election violence. Mershn threatens to
Speaker 1: say and send him to jail. Trump does not dismiss
Speaker 1: the possibility of political violence around the election, the interview
Speaker 1: with Time magazine, the cover story with Time Magazine, Where
Speaker 1: did that go? That's six weeks ago? Quoting Trump? If
Speaker 1: we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends
Speaker 1: on the fairness of the election. The author asks him
Speaker 1: about his social media posts in which Trump claimed a
Speaker 1: stolen election allows for the termination of all rules, regulations,
Speaker 1: and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Trump then denies,
Speaker 1: he said that I never said that at all. I
Speaker 1: never said that at all. Within moments of this lie,
Speaker 1: it turned out he merely wrote it on truth social
Speaker 1: on December third, twenty twenty two. Within moments Time Magazine,
Speaker 1: he declares that the current government has quote broken the constitution.
Speaker 1: They have gotten very far astray from our constitution. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the fascists and the people in our government
Speaker 1: right now because I consider them the enemy within. I
Speaker 1: think the enemy within in many cases, is much more
Speaker 1: dangerous for our country than the outside enemies, et cetera.
Speaker 1: About the twentieth time he had said something like that,
Speaker 1: and he said that twice since then, and nobody flashed
Speaker 1: back to the Time magazine cover from the end of April,
Speaker 1: An Extraordinary Document, a revelation and the beginning of the
Speaker 1: indication that Trump is in fact losing his mind at
Speaker 1: a faster pace than ever before. We need a special
Speaker 1: council to investigate the Supreme Court. I suggested on April thirtieth.
Speaker 1: I suggested on April twenty six that Alito should wake
Speaker 1: up and get mo all right, that's my pet project
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with Trump, really, and April
Speaker 1: twenty fifth. From April twenty fourth, so this is the
Speaker 1: end of April. Trump has already won the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: presidential immunity case beginning today. I don't mean I said
Speaker 1: at the time. They're actually going to make up an unconstitutional,
Speaker 1: nonsensical political science fiction thing called presidential immunity know to
Speaker 1: do its part in Trump's cover up of his January
Speaker 1: sixth treason. The Supreme Court only has to do what
Speaker 1: it has done, pretend, just like Trump is, pretending that
Speaker 1: the concept of presidential immunity is just plausible enough that
Speaker 1: it has to be debated and adjudicated. They've already done that.
Speaker 1: The Samuel Alito conspiracy to delay justice to save Trump
Speaker 1: is well underway. If only I had said he had
Speaker 1: signaled it or raised a flag and then April twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: the last one of these scripts in this stack, Trump
Speaker 1: could face a month in jail for contempt of court
Speaker 1: what the judge had said in the New York case,
Speaker 1: and we never heard anything else about the gag order
Speaker 1: or the violations of the gag order, or whether or
Speaker 1: not he's going to spend time in jail, or well,
Speaker 1: we'll hear more about that one. That is one of
Speaker 1: the few cases, one of the few stories about Trump
Speaker 1: that has to be revisited again because there is a
Speaker 1: sentencing date. But all the other ones, which are just
Speaker 1: as important, die on the vine because they don't have
Speaker 1: sentencing dates or other official contexts to them. And this
Speaker 1: is the real danger. We don't appreciate how much we
Speaker 1: appreciate how bad Trump is, but we don't appreciate the
Speaker 1: volume and the linkages between stories, and the repetitiveness of
Speaker 1: these stories again and again, talking about the enemy within,
Speaker 1: preparing his people for violence at the election one way
Speaker 1: or the other, before the election, after the election, if
Speaker 1: he loses, if he wins. All of this has been
Speaker 1: laid out, and yet we have forgotten it because there's
Speaker 1: just so much to process. That's the last two months.
Speaker 1: Shall I get the last two years worth of scripts
Speaker 1: out and do this. Have you got a day and
Speaker 1: a half to listen? I will flash back now to
Speaker 1: the old GQ series. First it was called The Closer
Speaker 1: before the twenty sixteen election, and then when it didn't
Speaker 1: turn out to be much of a closer, it was
Speaker 1: called The Resistance. The first piece that I proposed to
Speaker 1: do for GQ when I met with them in August
Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen was a simple list of all of
Speaker 1: the disqualifying things Donald Trump had done in his life
Speaker 1: and in his campaign only to August that year, any
Speaker 1: one of which I thought should have been enough to
Speaker 1: make you not vote for him. The piece and the
Speaker 1: GQ people were appalled at This was seventeen minutes long,
Speaker 1: and no story was covered as fully in depth as
Speaker 1: I just covered everything from the last two months. They
Speaker 1: were all between five and fifteen seconds. It was a
Speaker 1: list that was the point when possible, I dropped unnecessary verbs.
Speaker 1: I wrote that thing as tightly as I could, and
Speaker 1: the producers were well, could you make it three minutes?
Speaker 1: And I went no. The point is that it takes
Speaker 1: seventeen minutes of me talking as fast as I can
Speaker 1: to get this entire list out. We put it out
Speaker 1: at seventeen minutes and it got something like seventeen million
Speaker 1: views the first week. This is the problem. Each atrocity
Speaker 1: in Trump's life crowds out the previous one for those
Speaker 1: who believe in him, for those who are taken in
Speaker 1: by him, there is this sense of excitement and continual
Speaker 1: change and something new, which they need because we are
Speaker 1: living in a world of short attention spans, and his,
Speaker 1: of all people in this country, have the shortest attention spans.
Speaker 1: And the saddest part is that this election will be
Speaker 1: decided by people who know almost none of this, none
Speaker 1: of the negatives. Certainly they see the constant activity, They
Speaker 1: see the vitality, and some degree this idea that Trump
Speaker 1: is vital and energetic and young or younger anyway, and
Speaker 1: Biden is the opposite. That's not a physical thing. That's
Speaker 1: as simple. How much stuff are you doing? How much
Speaker 1: are your arms flailing in the air? How much meaninglessness
Speaker 1: is seen by the public. President of the United States.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden has a job to do. It's a job
Speaker 1: I could never do for one hour, and he does
Speaker 1: it every day at an older age. But most of
Speaker 1: it requires meetings and trips and conversations and debate and
Speaker 1: thought internally in private, dealing with the most secure and
Speaker 1: sensitive issues. Trump can just get in front of a
Speaker 1: podium and ad lib and say anything he wants, no
Speaker 1: matter how much it contradicts what he previously said, and
Speaker 1: it can be as vile and virulent as he wants.
Speaker 1: And what many people who will design this election see is, oh,
Speaker 1: he's giving another speech. He flies around a lot, He
Speaker 1: must have great stamina. So what do we do about this?
Speaker 1: Are we doing enough? Am I doing enough to stop
Speaker 1: this from happening? Are you? I do not want to
Speaker 1: reduce my point here to a self promotional effort, but
Speaker 1: I will say that there is something low effort that
Speaker 1: you might be able to do. I have taken certain
Speaker 1: steps in the last couple of days in which I
Speaker 1: have swallowed my pride and asked for help from people
Speaker 1: who I have not been in contact with for years,
Speaker 1: who are perhaps avenues of publicity and distribution for this podcast.
Speaker 1: When I asked a couple of weeks ago for everybody
Speaker 1: who listens to this to take the episode they were
Speaker 1: listening to and forward to somebody who did not listen
Speaker 1: to it, I thought we might see some sort of response.
Speaker 1: The download total increased by ten percent that day. At
Speaker 1: it has maintained that we gained I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: many thousand new subscribers to this podcast based on my
Speaker 1: asking you to hit forward on the link to this
Speaker 1: podcast to somebody you know who doesn't listen to it
Speaker 1: and should not necessarily some Trump supporter. I'm not asking
Speaker 1: you to start with a duel tomorrow morning in which
Speaker 1: you can take ten paces and then say I support
Speaker 1: Keith Alderman's podcast and the other one says I don't,
Speaker 1: and then you see what happens, and maybe we get
Speaker 1: Aaron Burr all over again. I'm not asking you to
Speaker 1: do anything like that. I'm not saying send it to
Speaker 1: somebody who supports Trump. If you can do that, so
Speaker 1: much the better. But I'm just saying send it to
Speaker 1: somebody who supports democracy in the United States, because I
Speaker 1: think the point of this entire podcast is not so
Speaker 1: much supportive Joe Biden, but support of, you know, representative
Speaker 1: government here. So, as I said last time I asked you,
Speaker 1: we went up ten percent. That's all we can do
Speaker 1: right now, longest damn promo I've ever done, and Honestly,
Speaker 1: that's not the point of it. The point of it is,
Speaker 1: for the first time in my life, I actually think
Speaker 1: a week in review, the cheapest form of journalism, A
Speaker 1: week in review, might be of some value to remind
Speaker 1: everybody as we continue to weigh waste high in the
Speaker 1: oak meal that is Trump's mind, just to remind us
Speaker 1: that it's snowing, and it's not just snowing. These aren't
Speaker 1: just flurries. It's not just a couple of inches. Trump
Speaker 1: is an ongoing avalanche. Anyway. Also have interest here the
Speaker 1: daily example that the democracy survives not by our efforts,
Speaker 1: but by the stupidity of those who would destroy it.
Speaker 1: A Republican Senate candidate puts out a map on social
Speaker 1: media purporting to show violent crime out of control in
Speaker 1: his state. The map supposedly graphically shows where all the
Speaker 1: shots have been fired, except it doesn't. Somehow, some way,
Speaker 1: this idiot did not use the where all the shots
Speaker 1: were fired map? He used the where are all the
Speaker 1: water fountains map? Water fountains are out of control in
Speaker 1: our state. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown,
Speaker 1: with Keith Olberman still ahead of us. On this edition
Speaker 1: of countdown. After thirty five years, the national sports behemoth,
Speaker 1: started by my old boss, Ted Turner, is about to
Speaker 1: lose its rights to carry the games of the National
Speaker 1: Basketball Association. Charles Barkley gone, although he can go to
Speaker 1: another network if he wants. But this got me thinking
Speaker 1: about the time Ted Turner not only nearly got the
Speaker 1: National Football League games for Turner Sports, he nearly got
Speaker 1: the entire National Football League, like he would have owned
Speaker 1: the whole thing. It was a little quick sonic. It
Speaker 1: was a long shot, but it could have happened instead
Speaker 1: of getting the NFL. Though all Ted actually wound up
Speaker 1: in sports that year was one hundred CNN Sports baseball caps.
Speaker 1: That story coming up in Things I promised not to tell.
Speaker 1: But first there are still more new idiots to talk about.
Speaker 1: The daily roundup of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger
Speaker 1: effects specimens who constitute two days rife person's in the
Speaker 1: world's but Ted Turner impression dishonorable mention to start Nut
Speaker 1: Gingrich back again, Nut demanded that whoever flew the Palestinian
Speaker 1: flag over the US Treasury Building on Sunday should be
Speaker 1: summarily fired. What is it with these idiot Republicans and flags,
Speaker 1: just to shut up about the flags. You failed about flags,
Speaker 1: you are flagging about flags. It was the Pride flag
Speaker 1: on Pride Day. It took new twenty four hours to
Speaker 1: kill the post because he's not good at social media either. Again,
Speaker 1: this is the same Nut Gingrich who said the New
Speaker 1: York City subway is used only by quote elites, The
Speaker 1: same one in nineteen ninety eight who planned to impeach
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, and then the new president Al Gore would
Speaker 1: pardon Bill Clinton, so he would impeach al Gore and
Speaker 1: that would make Speaker of the House Nut Gingrich president.
Speaker 1: And who was the only guy who lost his job
Speaker 1: after all that. The same Newt Gingrich who last week
Speaker 1: called the Vice President Kamala Harris quote really shallow, uneducated
Speaker 1: and uneducatable person, Newt and a mirror wildly untrue. But
Speaker 1: at minimum, Newt, we know this. The vice president can
Speaker 1: tell the difference between a four color Palestinian flag and
Speaker 1: a ten color rainbow Pride flag. The brons worse Anthony Hudson.
Speaker 1: You may remember him from such failed bids for office
Speaker 1: as running for president as a Republican this year. Now
Speaker 1: he's trying to get the Republican nomination for Congress from
Speaker 1: the Michigan eighth el Sir Anthony has a problem. The
Speaker 1: primary is August sixth, and his biggest supporter, at least
Speaker 1: the guy he thinks is his biggest supporter, will not
Speaker 1: be there. The guy Anthony thinks is his biggest supporter,
Speaker 1: he says, his biggest supporter is Martin Luther King Junior.
Speaker 1: I have another dream. Yes, it is me, Martin Luther King.
Speaker 2: I came back from the dead to say something.
Speaker 1: As I was saying, I have another dream that Anthony
Speaker 1: Hudson will be Michigan's eighth District's next congressman. Yes, I
Speaker 1: have a dream again. Okay, Now I am going back
Speaker 1: to where I came from, Dubai. My name is Anthony
Speaker 1: Hudson and I approved this message. Anthony, who wears a
Speaker 1: trucker's cap all the time because his head almost literally
Speaker 1: comes to a point, looks kind of like a cartoon.
Speaker 1: Anthony first responded to the backlash by writing a volunteer
Speaker 1: gave my social media credentials to one of his friends,
Speaker 1: who then posted an AI video without my knowledge. It
Speaker 1: appears they not only used AI for MLK Junior's voice,
Speaker 1: but also with my voice to make it appear more authentic.
Speaker 1: He also says he fired that staffer. Well, then he
Speaker 1: changed his mind. If MLK were alive today, he said
Speaker 1: the next day, I do believe he would endorse me
Speaker 1: and my vision for a better Michigan. Hodson says he's
Speaker 1: given that staff for a raise. I'm gonna go out
Speaker 1: on a limb here and say there is no staffer.
Speaker 1: It was only Anthony himself or his staffer is Tim
Speaker 1: Scott's fiance. Where the staffer goes to a different school,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know them. The runner up worser the Associated Press, Yes,
Speaker 1: they noted the Jackson for Johnson for Jackson Trump gaff
Speaker 1: and treated it like the big story it was. This
Speaker 1: is only after they did it again. They've been doing
Speaker 1: this a lot, as so many imperiled news organizations have
Speaker 1: been doing, you know, preparing for fascism just in case.
Speaker 1: By sucking up to Trump after he met with Senate
Speaker 1: and House Republicans, you know, the Milwaukee is horrible meeting there.
Speaker 1: I followed up on a story the AP tweeted Donald
Speaker 1: Trump made a triumphant return to Capitol Hill on Thursday,
Speaker 1: his first with lawmakers since the January sixth, twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one attacks, embraced by energized House and Senate Republicans who
Speaker 1: find themselves reinvigorated by his bid to retake the White House. Unquote.
Speaker 1: The AP fortunately did not add quote. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you this, and you're getting it straight from the horse.
Speaker 1: Trump was better looking than Churchill. He was a better
Speaker 1: dresser than Churchill. He had more hair than Churchill. He
Speaker 1: told fun of your jokes, and he could dance the
Speaker 1: pants off of Churchill. But our winner the worst, everybody's
Speaker 1: favorite Republican candidate for Senator from Minnesota, Royce White, the
Speaker 1: former pro basketball player whose career lasted exactly eight minutes
Speaker 1: and fifty nine seconds. The publication The Minnesota Reformer reports
Speaker 1: that White tweeted out a map showing that quote crime
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis out of control. Turned out it was a
Speaker 1: map of minneapspless, all right. It was a map of
Speaker 1: all the drinking fountains in Minneapolis. When this was pointed
Speaker 1: out to him that very few crimes in Minneapolis have
Speaker 1: been committed by those drinking fountains, mister White deleted the
Speaker 1: tweet and called everybody who had mocked him a quote
Speaker 1: cuck unquote. He then tweeted out an actual map of
Speaker 1: shots fired in Minneapolis, still insisting that crime here is
Speaker 1: out of control, even though those shots showed the map
Speaker 1: itself showed that shots are down seventeen percent year over
Speaker 1: year and down one third from the three year average.
Speaker 1: What a shot though, A guy who played in the
Speaker 1: NBA but only for eight minutes and fifty nine seconds
Speaker 1: wouldn't know anything about shots and shot averages. And remember
Speaker 1: the real perpetrators there. Do not turn your back on
Speaker 1: those Minnesota water fountains. Man Republican Minnesota Senate hopeful Royce White,
Speaker 1: whose career in politics may not last as long as
Speaker 1: his career in the NBA two days, worst person.
Speaker 2: In the world, Get a man, fellow.
Speaker 1: I have one more story to tell you about covering
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty two National Football League players strike, and
Speaker 1: this is less about the strike itself and more about
Speaker 1: the man for whom I covered it, Ted Turner. Ted
Speaker 1: Turner had put CNN on the air just two years earlier,
Speaker 1: and his sports guy Bill McPhail had interviewed me for
Speaker 1: a job as their New York sports reporter. Even earlier
Speaker 1: than that May of nineteen eighty and when I did
Speaker 1: not get it, I was genuinely relieved, because I was
Speaker 1: convinced there was no way they would ever get CNN
Speaker 1: on the air, no chance. Ever. Obviously I did not
Speaker 1: account for Ted Turner's stubbornness. Anyway, I wound up going
Speaker 1: their freelance in nineteen eighty one, as I have related
Speaker 1: in some detail here, when Lou Dobbs and his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: the New York Sports reporter, had to get out of
Speaker 1: town fast at the existence of missus Lou Dobbs. Eight
Speaker 1: months later, as the nineteen eighty two NFL strike loomed,
Speaker 1: they had made me staff and given me a contract, first,
Speaker 1: offering me one thousand dollars less a year than they
Speaker 1: were paying me freelance. Even CNN of nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: acknowledged the absurdity of that mathematical proposition. So I was
Speaker 1: a vested already whining about Ted Turner, employee of CNN
Speaker 1: when the football players walked out in strike in September
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, and that strike was my beat every
Speaker 1: day from March to November. A day or so after
Speaker 1: the strike began, we set up an interview with the
Speaker 1: president of CBS Sports Neil Pilson about the effect that
Speaker 1: the strike would have on TV Sports in general and
Speaker 1: CBS Sports in particular, And as the camera crew and
Speaker 1: I filed into his office, Pilson wearily said, nothing against
Speaker 1: you guys, but I've done so many interviews already about
Speaker 1: this strike that if you actually come up with a
Speaker 1: question I haven't been asked already, I'll give you. Well.
Speaker 1: We all leaned in towards him. Give us what the job?
Speaker 1: A job interview at least fifty dollars, I'll give you
Speaker 1: CBS Sports caps man. Not exactly a job, but better
Speaker 1: than nothing. So we rolled tape and I said, so,
Speaker 1: mister Pilson, in light of the strike, do you wish
Speaker 1: CBS Sports did not have the Super Bowl this year?
Speaker 1: As it does? And he laughed, and he took off
Speaker 1: his mic, and he went over to his office phone.
Speaker 1: He buzzed his assistant, bring in three caps, will you?
Speaker 1: And he sat back down. He said, you guys, did it?
Speaker 1: Nobody asked me that yet, and it's like the only
Speaker 1: question that really interests me. You're still rolling. Neil Pilsen
Speaker 1: then proceeded to give a lengthy and thoughtful answer about
Speaker 1: how as long as the season was not canceled. It
Speaker 1: was probably better to have the next Super Bowl because
Speaker 1: people would be so grateful that after the strike they
Speaker 1: wound up playing in any way. So now a week
Speaker 1: goes by after that interview, and the bargaining sessions between
Speaker 1: the players and the owners are taking place in a
Speaker 1: Manhattan hotel, the Lows on Lexington Avenue, a dump with
Speaker 1: a nice lobby. All that matters to me is the
Speaker 1: Lows with the dump and the nice lobby is literally
Speaker 1: three blocks from my apartment. The players and the owners
Speaker 1: just march through a long hallway into private rooms. That's
Speaker 1: all we see of them. It is not heavy lifting.
Speaker 1: There are nice seats at least in that lobby, but
Speaker 1: it is enlivened one day by news that our boss,
Speaker 1: Ted Turner has asked the union if he can come
Speaker 1: in and meet with their twenty odd player negotiating team
Speaker 1: because he wants to pitch them on something. He was
Speaker 1: in fact due there yesterday but was unavoidably detained. The
Speaker 1: rumor the players told me never confirmed, was that while
Speaker 1: changing planes in Chicago, Turner and an air hostess had
Speaker 1: ensconced themselves in a dumpster or the other version was
Speaker 1: in a janitor's closet for twelve hours of whoopee, and
Speaker 1: that's why he was a day late. Anyway, I walk
Speaker 1: into the Lows that morning and if somehow I had
Speaker 1: not been able to recognize my camera crew, sure enough
Speaker 1: it is the same two guys who had been with
Speaker 1: me at Neil Pilson's office at CBS when I asked
Speaker 1: him the question he had not been asked before, earning
Speaker 1: us free CBS sports caps, and the cameraman and the
Speaker 1: deck operator are of course wearing their CBS sports caps
Speaker 1: and understand. In nineteen eighty two, CNN was not an upstart.
Speaker 1: It was not the feisty outsider, It was not the
Speaker 1: future of news. We were called pretend TV. It was
Speaker 1: said that CNN stood for Chicken Noodle News. One day,
Speaker 1: I called somebody up and asked for press credentials for
Speaker 1: Cable News Network and the guy said, Cable News Network
Speaker 1: either people own the news stands downtown. I had no
Speaker 1: idea what he was talking about, so I went to
Speaker 1: one of the newstands and I asked the guy who
Speaker 1: owns this place? And he pointed to a plaque and
Speaker 1: it said owned by Cabbell News Company. The Cabell News Company,
Speaker 1: owner of downtown newstands, was better known than Cable News Network.
Speaker 1: We got scoffed at in some arenas and venues like
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden in New York. Our crews were not
Speaker 1: admitted because they were not in the Union, So the
Speaker 1: CBS sports caps were an important, albeit borrowed touch of
Speaker 1: legitimacy and dignity, especially for my cameraman and my deck guy.
Speaker 1: So the three of us position ourselves in that long
Speaker 1: haul in the lobby waiting for my boss, Ted Turner,
Speaker 1: me holding the mic with the big red CNN logo
Speaker 1: on the mic flag, and the crew wearing their gaudy
Speaker 1: CBS sports caps, and in Ted walks emerging from the
Speaker 1: brilliant early autumn sunshine, filtering in from behind him from
Speaker 1: the street like this was a perfectly lit movie scene.
Speaker 1: And he sees me and recognized me and smile and
Speaker 1: comes over and beams hot, damn, it's my CNN crew,
Speaker 1: And he shakes my hand and we roll tape and
Speaker 1: I start to asking my first question, and suddenly the
Speaker 1: joy drains from his face and he stops me. Old
Speaker 1: it what they wearing on their heads? He gestures at
Speaker 1: the cameraman and the deck guy, and I explained the baxter,
Speaker 1: I don't give a damn who gave him them. This
Speaker 1: is a CNN crew. They wearing CBS sports caps. Get
Speaker 1: them off they damn heads, and he pushes me, I
Speaker 1: mean really shoves me and strides past us. Now, even then,
Speaker 1: I'm five six inches taller than Ted Turner and twenty
Speaker 1: five pounds heavier at least, and maybe I can live
Speaker 1: with my employer embarrassing me in public, but I do
Speaker 1: not have to let him shove me in front of
Speaker 1: all the other reporters. So for a second, I think, Ah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna run down the hall and catch him
Speaker 1: and horse collar the bastard from behind. About a year
Speaker 1: into my TV career, I have already accepted that there
Speaker 1: are positives to television, but I've also already learned nearly
Speaker 1: all all the negatives. And not three months earlier, I
Speaker 1: had gone over to ABC to interview with them about
Speaker 1: going back to do radio sports. Seems to me, given
Speaker 1: what I know about Ted Turner, dragging him to the
Speaker 1: ground and then quitting TV forever would be a pretty
Speaker 1: appropriate farewell. And then one word popped in my head.
Speaker 1: Rent ah right, right, Rent, So quickly I go to
Speaker 1: Plan B to be fair in thought, if not an action,
Speaker 1: Ted Turner was right. Look pretty silly to have the
Speaker 1: CNN camera crew wearing CBS sports caps while interviewing the
Speaker 1: founder and owner of CNN, who, by the way, was
Speaker 1: in the newspaper constantly because he kept saying he was
Speaker 1: going to buy CBS. Plus, I still had a story
Speaker 1: to do that day, and that crew is going to
Speaker 1: have to go back into the room where Turner would
Speaker 1: be meeting with the players about an hour later for
Speaker 1: the proverbial spray shot that would give us some video
Speaker 1: to use of their meeting, and simply having my guy
Speaker 1: take their caps off was not going to suffice. So
Speaker 1: I ran the three blocks back to my apartment to
Speaker 1: grab the only bit of merch or swag produced in
Speaker 1: the first two years of CNN, something they had and
Speaker 1: apparently inexhaustible supply of CNN bumper stickers. I must have
Speaker 1: had a hundred of them in my place alone, and
Speaker 1: there were boxes and cartons and boxes and cartons of
Speaker 1: them in the New York Bureau, which was funny enough
Speaker 1: as it was, since I don't think all the people
Speaker 1: who worked at CNN in New York in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: two owned six cars among them. Anyway, I trimmed a
Speaker 1: couple of the stickers down to just the CNN logos
Speaker 1: and raced back to the Crappy Low's hotel, and just
Speaker 1: as they were calling for the crews to come in
Speaker 1: to get the spray shots of Ted meeting with the players,
Speaker 1: I put those CNN logo stickers over the CBS logos
Speaker 1: on my guys caps, and to my delight, they stuck
Speaker 1: in place a little large, but it worked. Minutes later,
Speaker 1: the boys came out of the meeting room and the
Speaker 1: cameraman was in hysterics. He wound the video back and
Speaker 1: had me watch it through the viewfinder of the camera.
Speaker 1: As soon as they had walked in, Turner started to
Speaker 1: give them dirty looks, and then suddenly one of the
Speaker 1: NFL players said, Hey, Ted, there's your crew. There's your
Speaker 1: CNN crew. Hey CNN over here. Everybody was laughing, and
Speaker 1: now Ted was beaming that them. That's my CNN crew,
Speaker 1: all right, good work boys. When his meeting with the
Speaker 1: players broke up an hour later, I got a message
Speaker 1: from Ted's assistant to wait for him around a corner
Speaker 1: from the main lobby so he could give me give
Speaker 1: CNN exclusive details about what he was trying to sell
Speaker 1: the players on. It was a series of exhibition games
Speaker 1: so the striking players could make a little money on
Speaker 1: the side that he could televise, and there would be
Speaker 1: a pitch to the National Labor Relations Board that the
Speaker 1: strike had been forced on the players by the owners,
Speaker 1: which would have meant the players would have all become
Speaker 1: free agents. Ted wanted them, all of them, every player
Speaker 1: in the National Football League to sign instead with him.
Speaker 1: He would create a twenty four team league. He would
Speaker 1: give the Union half ownership of every team, he would
Speaker 1: find backers for the other half, and all he wanted
Speaker 1: was the TV rights. It didn't happen, obviously, but what
Speaker 1: a breathtaking scheme. Anyway. Turner was all smiles when he
Speaker 1: came out of the meeting to tell me before he
Speaker 1: met with the rest of the press, and he said,
Speaker 1: great with the hat, good work, but I have to
Speaker 1: get you guys some real sea in ed sports has
Speaker 1: for Christmas. Ted stayed another fifteen or twenty minutes doing
Speaker 1: god knows what with God knows whom. I didn't see
Speaker 1: any dumpsters in the hotel and then he left by
Speaker 1: the main exit as the rest of the camera crews
Speaker 1: and reporters trailed him. I went along just to see
Speaker 1: if there was anything he hadn't told me, And as
Speaker 1: he went out the doors to his car, he said,
Speaker 1: see overman, and I said, don't forget the hats, and
Speaker 1: Ted Turner gave me one of the dirtiest looks I
Speaker 1: have ever gotten in my life. Sure enough, couple of
Speaker 1: days before Christmas, I get a call from my boss
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. I mean, just got a box of one
Speaker 1: hundred CNN Sports Truckers caps from Ted Turner's office. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the hell this is all about, but
Speaker 1: his assistant says, if we wanted to know, we should
Speaker 1: call you. I was very proud of making the correct
Speaker 1: choice between correcting mistake and getting us all hats and
Speaker 1: dissaulting him. There is one PostScript. Ted talked the players
Speaker 1: into the exhibition games. I mentioned only two of them,
Speaker 1: one at RFK Stadium in Washington, which I went to
Speaker 1: on assignment. Seated next to Ted Turner. He had two
Speaker 1: flasks with him. Anyway, the crowd was so small at
Speaker 1: RFK Stadium in Washington that at one point they got
Speaker 1: on the PA system and asked all the fans to
Speaker 1: go sit down behind the player benches so the TV
Speaker 1: shots of the game wouldn't show all those empty seats.
Speaker 1: The other game was in the Los Angeles Coliseum. They
Speaker 1: drew even less, maybe a thousand, probably more like five hundred,
Speaker 1: five hundred fans in the LA Coliseum. Five hundred fans
Speaker 1: looks like the raisins and rice pudding. But it was
Speaker 1: the name of his ad hoc league with these games
Speaker 1: in Washington and LA that still sticks with me. Forty
Speaker 1: years later. Ted named it himself. I'm pretty sure he
Speaker 1: did this deliberately. I know nobody else noticed it until
Speaker 1: I made a big deal about it. Ted Turner called
Speaker 1: his ill fated venture his Erzatz National Football League the
Speaker 1: quote all Star Season, and I said, perfect. The acronym
Speaker 1: you have built for it is a s S. Years later,
Speaker 1: they gave Ted Turner a Lifetime Sports Emmy and I
Speaker 1: a tribute to him on the ESPN two Show. And
Speaker 1: a few days after that, a fan letter showed up
Speaker 1: in my home mailbox. And I never used my home mailbox,
Speaker 1: didn't want to give out my home address, and it
Speaker 1: was a fan letter about the Turner Report and about
Speaker 1: Ted Turner, and it ended keep up the good work,
Speaker 1: signed Donald Trump, I swear I've done all the damage
Speaker 1: I can do here. Thank you for listening. As the
Speaker 1: first sign he was losing his mind, thank you for listening. Countdown.
Speaker 1: Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on
Speaker 1: the guitars, bass and drums. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
Speaker 1: He was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some
Speaker 1: of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by the group
Speaker 1: No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme
Speaker 1: from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of
Speaker 1: ESPN Inc. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by
Speaker 1: Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer
Speaker 1: today was my friend Stevie Bands. Everything else was pretty
Speaker 1: much my fault. And that's countdown for this. The one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty second day until the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: presidential election. The two hundred and fifty ninth day since
Speaker 1: convicted fellon Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
Speaker 1: elected government of the United States, use the July eleventh
Speaker 1: sentencing hearing, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity
Speaker 1: if it happens. Use the Biden campaign budget to stop
Speaker 1: him from doing it again while we still can. Thanks
Speaker 1: for your inquiries about the dogs and their dental work.
Speaker 1: Everything went aok. Stevie lost two teeth, Ted didn't lose
Speaker 1: any They're fine, just a little sore. The next scheduled
Speaker 1: countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin says the news warrants till then,
Speaker 1: I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
Speaker 1: good luck. Countdown with Keith Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.