Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. More
Speaker 1: people were arrested in LA after the Lakers won the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty NBA title than were arrested in LA on
Speaker 1: Sunday during the protests during the Ice Riot during the
Speaker 1: Gestapo invasion of Southern California. This is not some sort
Speaker 1: of metaphor or analogy. October eleventh, twenty twenty, after the
Speaker 1: COVID delayed NBA Finals ended with the LA Lakers winning
Speaker 1: the championship, in LA, there were seventy six arrests Sunday,
Speaker 1: the day Trump now says that without him and his
Speaker 1: Brown Shirts, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated. There
Speaker 1: were forty two arrests seventy six to forty two vandalism,
Speaker 1: unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, bottles thrown at cops, vehicles
Speaker 1: set on fire, flash bangs and projectiles fired at civilians,
Speaker 1: graffiti covering buildings, property damage, a crowd of at least
Speaker 1: two thousand out of control, Downtown LA streets closed. No,
Speaker 1: that was also all after the Lakers won. The Lakers
Speaker 1: victory celebration five years ago was measurably a greater risk
Speaker 1: to security and safety than were the protests against Trump's
Speaker 1: unconstitutional kidnapping of civilians, often citizens, almost always law abiding
Speaker 1: this past Sunday, And if that raw final score is
Speaker 1: not stark enough Lakers seventy six protests for due process
Speaker 1: forty two. It's a final. You knew this will true.
Speaker 1: Once Trump declared victory yesterday, at midnight, our hitler was posting,
Speaker 1: looking really bad in La, bring in the troops. At noon,
Speaker 1: our hitler was posting that the governor and the mayor
Speaker 1: who just fire five things are not insane fascist dictators
Speaker 1: quote should be saying thank you, President Trump. You are
Speaker 1: so wonderful. We would be nothing without you? Sir? Is
Speaker 1: he an insane narcissist or calculating monster? Why can't we
Speaker 1: have both? Right after congratulating himself, Trump mobilized five hundred
Speaker 1: members of the Marines to join the National Guard in La.
Speaker 1: Some say it's seven hundred members of the Marines to
Speaker 1: take care of the rapidly expanding nothing. It is not
Speaker 1: just unnecessary, it is illegal, and I will get to
Speaker 1: the California lawsuit against all of it presently, which has
Speaker 1: now been filed. The other content, though, that Sunday was
Speaker 1: nothing seventy six Laker arrests forty two Trump riot arrests.
Speaker 1: Was when Trump insisted, quote, I wouldn't call it quite
Speaker 1: an insurrection, but it could have led to an insurrection
Speaker 1: on quote, And there was disappointment in his voice because
Speaker 1: of course he wants one. As we will analyze in
Speaker 1: a moment, the powers he has awarded himself when federalizing
Speaker 1: the National Guard turned out to be enough for him
Speaker 1: to literally install his dictatorship to day. But let's first
Speaker 1: finish the clean up on the near complete obliteration of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Ah, what a shame. I like the place
Speaker 1: this could reignite at any point. You could know more
Speaker 1: about this than I do, because I recorded this earlier
Speaker 1: than you're listening to it. The rumor within local government
Speaker 1: was ICE would be kidnapping people off the streets of
Speaker 1: LA and southern California for the next twenty eight days
Speaker 1: to a month. They were at multiple home debas yesterday,
Speaker 1: And of course Trump wants it reignited, because that is
Speaker 1: the point of it. The deportations are not only an
Speaker 1: end in themselves raw meet to the racists and the
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller grade psychos, but they are also a means
Speaker 1: for him to control anything he wants, especially foremost the
Speaker 1: midterm elections, but that there was nothing approaching what he
Speaker 1: told his cult had happened was underscored when Rick Caruso,
Speaker 1: the lifelong Republican who lost the election for mayor to
Speaker 1: Karen Bass in November twenty twenty two and has since
Speaker 1: criticized her every move, when he wrote, quote, there is
Speaker 1: no emergency, widespread threat, or out of control violence in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of
Speaker 1: the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the
Speaker 1: streets of this or any other Southern California city. Local
Speaker 1: law enforcement is capable of handling the situation and should
Speaker 1: arrest anyone causing violence in the streets. We must call
Speaker 1: for calm in the streets, and deployment of the National
Speaker 1: Guard may prompt just the opposite. Lifelong Republican lost the
Speaker 1: mayor's race, hates the mayor. Caruso reiterated all of that yesterday,
Speaker 1: just in case you missed it, live in drivetime on
Speaker 1: local radio news just before noon Eastern. For the record,
Speaker 1: Caruso was the Republican head of the Police Commission in
Speaker 1: LA for many years, and he has a little money
Speaker 1: behind him that race for mayor. He blew forty one
Speaker 1: million on the primary around the country as much as
Speaker 1: Trump is selling the idea that la is a cauldron
Speaker 1: and he alone can save it, even though no, no,
Speaker 1: that's right. I saved it yesterday, so everybody should call me, sir.
Speaker 1: It's not Landing. Polling by the Last King of five
Speaker 1: thirty eight Elliott Morris confirms Trump has been hurt by
Speaker 1: the deportations and especially the case of kilm Are of
Speaker 1: Rego Garcia, and people like him and the Democrats have
Speaker 1: been helped, not that they're doing anything with it, except
Speaker 1: for Newsome. New CBS polling says fifty five percent in
Speaker 1: this country supports the general idea of these deportations, but
Speaker 1: fifty six percent dislike how Trump is doing it, and
Speaker 1: no matter how they feel about the kidnappings and the renditions,
Speaker 1: sixty three percent want due process. The problem, of course,
Speaker 1: is that Trump doesn't have to convince anybody but his
Speaker 1: supporters and the news media and the Republican political wars
Speaker 1: he terrorizes into submission. He doesn't need fifty one percent
Speaker 1: of voters. He doesn't need fifty one percent of Americans.
Speaker 1: He just needs one hundred percent of his voters. They are,
Speaker 1: in short, a mob, a gang, an organized crime family,
Speaker 1: a cult, a suicide cult. Trump stumbling up those airplanes
Speaker 1: step Sunday is the perfect metaphor. You and I correctly
Speaker 1: see a deranged, delusional, elderly creature rapidly losing control not
Speaker 1: just of his mind but of his bloated carcass. They
Speaker 1: see him triumphantly getting up the stairs anyway and overcoming
Speaker 1: all the obstacles anyway, and saving Los Angeles from a
Speaker 1: crisis that he completely provoked and escalated. And matter of fact,
Speaker 1: the son of a bitch didn't even manage to create
Speaker 1: a real crisis, did he. I need a couple of
Speaker 1: moments of humorous relief. One North Carolina congressman, a Republican
Speaker 1: named Moore who does not appear to have his own neck,
Speaker 1: let alone a brain, retweeted a Homeland Security post insisting
Speaker 1: California politicians must call off their rioting mob. More added,
Speaker 1: La is being burned down by lawless mobs who support
Speaker 1: foreign criminals. The photo from DHS that he has reached
Speaker 1: tweeted shows one car on fire, one not even very
Speaker 1: on fire. There's some smoke There's about a dozen people
Speaker 1: around this car. One is standing on top of it.
Speaker 1: He is shirtless. He is wearing a Mexican flag, because
Speaker 1: of course you never see a Mexican flag in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: It's the apocalypse again. Lakers arrests seventy six, Trump Ice
Speaker 1: riot arrests forty two a final score. Then there is
Speaker 1: the foppish conservative grifter, Scott Presler, you know, the guy
Speaker 1: with the shoulder length hair, the one Politico reported had
Speaker 1: sex in an office shared by the Republican National Committee
Speaker 1: and the Republican Party of Virginia while he was working
Speaker 1: for the latter group, and took pictures of himself having
Speaker 1: sex in the office and posted the pictures on Craigslist.
Speaker 1: Political outreach. I suppose well trump ists, mister Pressler is
Speaker 1: ready to meet you at the barricades. Quote if Ice
Speaker 1: needs more bodies on the ground, I'm willing to temporarily
Speaker 1: stop my political work to help. I studied criminal justice
Speaker 1: in college. I am physically fit and want to make
Speaker 1: sure that the mission is a success. I'm very serious,
Speaker 1: ready and willing to serve. Oh, Scott will save you.
Speaker 1: He has a degree from George Mason University. Now about
Speaker 1: the real danger behind this danger. Governor Gavin Newsom has
Speaker 1: filed the Attorney General has filed a federal lawsuit by
Speaker 1: the State of California against the Department of Defense and
Speaker 1: Warrior Ethos and hair Products devotee Pete Hegseth for violating
Speaker 1: the states' rights in the tenth amend, specifically the provisos
Speaker 1: that state control of the National Guard is in the
Speaker 1: hands of the states, or as somebody else put it
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, quote, we have laws. We have to
Speaker 1: go buy the laws. We can't move in the National Guard.
Speaker 1: We can't call in the National Guard unless we're requested
Speaker 1: by a governor unquote and you know who said that,
Speaker 1: then President d Mensha Trump. As straightforward as this would seem,
Speaker 1: especially with Trump providing this unintentional testimony against himself, there
Speaker 1: is a darker element to this, as outlined yesterday by
Speaker 1: the impeccable Ryan Goodman, the co editor in chief of
Speaker 1: Just Security and CNN analyst. Mister Goodman notes what most
Speaker 1: of us had not had time to see because of
Speaker 1: the spectacle of Trump's terrorist attack against la The memorandum
Speaker 1: from Saturday, which federalizes the National Guard is almost unbelievably
Speaker 1: almost completely vague. I encourage you to read Ryan Goodman's
Speaker 1: thread on Blue Sky. It is harrowing and detailed. These
Speaker 1: are the eight bullet points, and unfortunately that term may
Speaker 1: never have been more appropriate than now. Points one and two.
Speaker 1: The definition of rebellion, which used to mean, you know,
Speaker 1: at least January sixth, rebellion, now means peaceful protests. The
Speaker 1: part of the combined Pentagon and Homeland Security Memo Goodman
Speaker 1: highlighted reads to the extent that protests or acts of
Speaker 1: violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws. They constitute
Speaker 1: a form of rebellion against the authority of the government
Speaker 1: of the United States. So if you protest, the National
Speaker 1: Guard is in theory entitled I shoot you. The second
Speaker 1: point he makes is that one use of that word
Speaker 1: or to the extent that protests or acts of violence,
Speaker 1: so they're both covered. If you protest or you commit
Speaker 1: an active violence, they can shoot you. Goodman's third and
Speaker 1: fourth points this memo authorizes the use of preemptive force
Speaker 1: and the use of preemptive force for quote protests. I
Speaker 1: hereby call into Federal service members and units of the
Speaker 1: National Guard under ten USC one two four oh six
Speaker 1: to temporarily protect ice and other United States government personnel
Speaker 1: who are performing federal functions, including the enforcement of federal law,
Speaker 1: and to protect federal property at locations where protests against
Speaker 1: these functions are occurring or are likely to occur. Based
Speaker 1: on current threat assessments and planned operations, Your non violent
Speaker 1: protest doesn't even have to have happened, yet they can
Speaker 1: bring in the National Guard. Goodman's fifth point no geographically,
Speaker 1: this is not an authorization to use the Guard in
Speaker 1: southern California. In June of twenty twenty five, it's all purpose.
Speaker 1: It's a magic, evil wand of all people. Bill Crystal
Speaker 1: noted this first to quote him. The presidential memorandum never
Speaker 1: mentions Los Angeles or California. It's a blank check for
Speaker 1: mobilizing National Guard and active duty troops to deploy anywhere
Speaker 1: to protect federal personnel or functions wherever protests are occurring
Speaker 1: or are likely to occur. It gets worse and worse.
Speaker 1: Goodman six point authorizes regular armed forces. It does not
Speaker 1: tell you under what authority a president can use the
Speaker 1: military in an emergency that is established, but he has
Speaker 1: to invoke the Insurrection Act first, except this memo does
Speaker 1: not say that. It just says members of the regular
Speaker 1: Armed Forces, as determined appropriate in his discretion. So much
Speaker 1: for the Insurrection Act, so much for any review of
Speaker 1: what a president does. Goodman's seventh point expressly overrides the
Speaker 1: governor's authorities, changing Title ten, Section one two four oh
Speaker 1: six from orders for these purposes shall be issued through
Speaker 1: the Governors of the States to saying only that the
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense should quote coordinate with the governors of
Speaker 1: the States. For the record, before we finish these points,
Speaker 1: this whole thing is, or at least should be, incredibly illegal,
Speaker 1: but amazingly Trump has already violated it. His own new
Speaker 1: illegal rules, according to Governor Knusimi, not only ignored the
Speaker 1: governor's rights regarding the National Guard, he didn't even bother
Speaker 1: with that lip service instruction to coordinate with the governor. Lastly,
Speaker 1: Ryan Goodman's eighth point not a last resort. The Department
Speaker 1: of Justice has a policy which is at least as
Speaker 1: old as the policy that you can indict a candidate
Speaker 1: around election time, that the military can only be deployed
Speaker 1: legally in this country. As a last resort. This whole thing,
Speaker 1: quite clearly and You don't need to be Ryan Goodman
Speaker 1: to realize this, and you don't need to read the
Speaker 1: entire memo from Homeland Security and the Pentagon to realize this.
Speaker 1: This whole thing authorizes the use of the military as
Speaker 1: a first resort. This is why Gavin Newsom in California
Speaker 1: are suing. This is why, ultimately that lawsuit may be
Speaker 1: more important than anything that happens on the streets of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles this entire month. This is why Newsom is suing.
Speaker 1: It is not just about what Trump is doing in LA,
Speaker 1: and it won't be resolved fast enough to likely impact
Speaker 1: Trump is doing in LA. It is that it provides
Speaker 1: a template for Trump to institute a police state, a
Speaker 1: military dictatorship in this country today. You can use the
Speaker 1: National Guard and the military against peaceful protests, or just
Speaker 1: the threat of peaceful protests, or your threat assessment that
Speaker 1: there may be peaceful protests, or you can use it
Speaker 1: against anything really, or as we are seeing in LA,
Speaker 1: you can use it against nothing. CNN should have mister
Speaker 1: Goodman on to cover this twenty four to seven and
Speaker 1: said it will show you an empty intersection in downtown
Speaker 1: LA and insists hell may break loose at any moment.
Speaker 1: Right after this message from yet another insurance firm specializing
Speaker 1: in mesothelioma, which leads me to one dark bit of humor.
Speaker 1: I am glad CNN televised George Clooney's good Night and
Speaker 1: good Luck over the weekend, which I mentioned I saw
Speaker 1: the first night of previews. I hope they rerun the
Speaker 1: live presentation again. It has many flaws, not the least
Speaker 1: of one is fairly hilarious. George Clooney is not as
Speaker 1: an actor as good a newscaster as his father, Nick
Speaker 1: Clooney was, largely because Nick Clooney was a newscaster in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles when I was a sportscaster there. It has flaws,
Speaker 1: but it is invaluable right now. Except I couldn't help
Speaker 1: notice that CNN ran it Saturday night just as the
Speaker 1: events in LA were beginning to snowball, and CNN kept
Speaker 1: with it, kept showing it and a postgame show for
Speaker 1: three hours anyway. In short, CNN was showing a play
Speaker 1: about news instead of showing you know news, which sadly
Speaker 1: is the CNN story in a nuts Next now to
Speaker 1: Musk and Trump, and why follow me closely here? Why
Speaker 1: I think their fight probably proves no. Musk did not
Speaker 1: rig the voting machines last November. That's next. This is
Speaker 1: countdown now. Two things that may have slipped off your
Speaker 1: plate in the last ten days of constant chaos. Okay,
Speaker 1: last ten years of constant chaos. They are beginning to
Speaker 1: talk about a military draft again. Bluntly, nothing, nothing, not
Speaker 1: even the Blue state tax strike I mentioned yesterday, could
Speaker 1: bring Trump down faster than if he imposed a draft
Speaker 1: on the families of American youth in the twenty first century.
Speaker 1: Sean Hannity, one of the oldest and most obvious distributors
Speaker 1: of Trump's trial balloons, said on his radio show last week, quote, Look,
Speaker 1: Israel's safety today depends on the brave men and women
Speaker 1: of the IDF. Well that's also bullshit, but we'll pass
Speaker 1: on that for the moment. Every citizen, by the way,
Speaker 1: is required to serve. I actually think we should adopt
Speaker 1: this in Thish country. It'd be so good for our
Speaker 1: young people. Required to serve. That means a draft, or
Speaker 1: it means compulsory registration and service, which is a draft
Speaker 1: where everybody is drafted and sent to La to rendition
Speaker 1: the brown people. We should a competition Nish country. You first, Sean,
Speaker 1: see if we can find a military suit of paratroopers
Speaker 1: outfit that would fit you. Trump hit it at this
Speaker 1: during the campaign. Last June, his former Secretary of Defense
Speaker 1: Christopher Miller, told The Washington Post that a national service
Speaker 1: requirement should be quote strongly considered. He described the concept
Speaker 1: as a common right of passage, one that would create
Speaker 1: a sense of quote shared sacrifice among America's youth unquote.
Speaker 1: A little article, not much play, and it went over
Speaker 1: so badly. Trump had to publicly deny it, to say
Speaker 1: he'd never even thought about a draft, never, not once,
Speaker 1: just as I'm certain he's not thinking about it now.
Speaker 1: I'm certain Sean Hannity the Renfield to Trump's Dracula, the
Speaker 1: man who has not had an original idea since nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six. I'm sure Sean Hannity dreamed that up all
Speaker 1: on a jan and he wasn't told to shay it
Speaker 1: by his master. And the second news story that you
Speaker 1: may have missed Musk and Trump. Remember Elon Musk, Remember
Speaker 1: when it was not just the lead story but the
Speaker 1: only story. Are you old enough to? I mean it
Speaker 1: was Czech's calendar three thousand years ago, oh no, sorry,
Speaker 1: I read that wrong. It was last Friday. And one, yes,
Speaker 1: it's a distraction, certainly by now it is a distraction.
Speaker 1: But two, I think it's a meaningful distraction. And three
Speaker 1: to understand its meaning, you really have to turn off
Speaker 1: your sanity and your filters for a moment and infer
Speaker 1: what crazy people do in such circumstances. And also four,
Speaker 1: I told you so if you miss this or have
Speaker 1: forgotten it, because after all, there's only so much space
Speaker 1: in our brains for the latest asshole thing Trump has done.
Speaker 1: Overnight Friday, Musk deleted his Trump is in the Epstein
Speaker 1: files tweets and the Trump should be immediately impeached tweets,
Speaker 1: But Musk did not delete his I won the election
Speaker 1: for Trump tweets. Now again, it's trivia. That's why it's
Speaker 1: at the back end of the segment here, and it
Speaker 1: could wait till Tuesday. But the tea leaves I think
Speaker 1: are important. When this erupted, Musk went almost immediately to
Speaker 1: Epstein and impeachment and President Vance. And I suppose it's
Speaker 1: possible Elon was hit by lightning over the weekend and
Speaker 1: suddenly his head cleared and he removed those tweets because
Speaker 1: he wanted to de escalate like a you know, human
Speaker 1: being would. But Musk and Trump aren't human beings in
Speaker 1: the sense the rest of us understand the term. They
Speaker 1: don't de escalate in an emergency. They may occasionally run
Speaker 1: away in fear, but they can't be strategic or remorseful
Speaker 1: or corrective even in self interest, and screenshots be damned.
Speaker 1: They just try to burn the evidence and hope nobody notices.
Speaker 1: And since the mottos of the Republican Party and the
Speaker 1: Association of MAGA disease Victims have long since become I
Speaker 1: haven't seen what he posted, said wrote on the sidewalk
Speaker 1: in his own blood, so I can't comment on it.
Speaker 1: Burning the evidence usually works. What I notice is that
Speaker 1: he did not delete quote. Without me, Trump would have
Speaker 1: lost the election, Dems would control the House, and Republicans
Speaker 1: would be fifty one to forty nine in the Senate.
Speaker 1: And adopting for a moment the crazy think that prevails
Speaker 1: in the vast empty caverns of Musk's mind, I would
Speaker 1: suggest this confirms Musk did not rig the voting for Trump,
Speaker 1: and that Trump's infamous remark about Musk knowing those vote
Speaker 1: counting computers was just more of Trump's imbecilic imprecision. Now, look,
Speaker 1: I don't diminish or demean anybody who thinks otherwise. I
Speaker 1: don't doubt that people could listen to that and think
Speaker 1: Trump just confessed that Musk rigged the election. To you
Speaker 1: and me, vote counting computers that means elections and devoled
Speaker 1: company machines switching votes in Florida in two thousand, from
Speaker 1: Gore to Bush, but to Trump, who is more like
Speaker 1: a semi sentient vegetable of some kind. Vote counting computers
Speaker 1: could mean anything, anything from that actual election rigging to
Speaker 1: computers that produce polling results to tell Trump how many
Speaker 1: votes he's going to get. It could mean that or
Speaker 1: the other thing. It could mean, Siri. Trump used the
Speaker 1: word counting, and sometimes to Trump, counting means counting out loud.
Speaker 1: It didn't say the out loud. Party just says counting.
Speaker 1: And we're supposed to assume we know what he means.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to assume he knows what he means. That's
Speaker 1: the way Trump is. His relationship to language, to human
Speaker 1: language is like that of chance the gardener from being there.
Speaker 1: Trump only uses words that could mean ten different things.
Speaker 1: In any event, The reason I think all this sturm
Speaker 1: Undran with the two worst people in this country actually
Speaker 1: confirms there was no Musk effort to fix the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four election is that when things with Trump got
Speaker 1: so bad that Musk was willing to invoke Epstein not
Speaker 1: only accused Trump of pedophilia or knowledge of pedophilia, but
Speaker 1: of using his government to cover up evidence of pedophilia.
Speaker 1: When things with Trump got so bad so fast that
Speaker 1: Musk went to each faster than well, faster than I do,
Speaker 1: Musk did not say I rigged the election for him.
Speaker 1: His post, which is still up, is about the things
Speaker 1: we know about immoral, unforgivable but largely legal things. Two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five million dollars in funding putting onto
Speaker 1: the campaign trail is not inconsiderable appeal as a stupid
Speaker 1: person's idea of a smart person throwing his social media
Speaker 1: site completely behind Trump, because if you are willing to
Speaker 1: apply to idiots who believe all Liberals are part of
Speaker 1: a cannibalistic pedophilia ring that their hero, the sitting president
Speaker 1: of the United States and semi Jesus is in a
Speaker 1: report about a pedophilia ring, and that's why he hasn't
Speaker 1: released it to you the way he promised. And if
Speaker 1: you're willing to say flat out, he should be immediately impeached.
Speaker 1: What on God's green earth would stop you from saying,
Speaker 1: by the way, I rig the election for him. To
Speaker 1: Trump's supporters, the idea that you rig the election for
Speaker 1: him is like seventeenth on the list of great admissions.
Speaker 1: Oh you did tell us how, so we can do
Speaker 1: it without you next time. I mean, nuclear war is
Speaker 1: nuclear war. You don't hold anything back, And Musk didn't
Speaker 1: hold anything back. He may have rolled some of it
Speaker 1: back over the weekend, but the claim he won the
Speaker 1: election for Trump is still out there. And the only
Speaker 1: reason I can think of for why what he wrote
Speaker 1: is not stronger than it is is that what he
Speaker 1: did was not stronger than it was. Musk Thursday was
Speaker 1: reaching for things with which to kill Trump, at least metaphorically,
Speaker 1: Epstein impeachment. Then he suddenly said, oh, rigging the election.
Speaker 1: I won't throw that at him. Nonsense. Also, if Musk
Speaker 1: or anybody else actually rigged all or part of the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four election, why didn't he rig the Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Supreme Court election two months ago. I mean he spent
Speaker 1: twenty million on it. He went there, humiliated himself, campaigned
Speaker 1: in his ketamineupopt Clip's way, and his guy, Brad, lost
Speaker 1: by ten percent. It's a lot, but ten percent in
Speaker 1: a statewide special election is less than two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty nine thousand votes, and Musk would have literally had
Speaker 1: to flip only one hundred and twenty thousand votes and
Speaker 1: Brad wins. And if you can't do that, how can
Speaker 1: you rig several swing states in an actual presidential election?
Speaker 1: And by the way, one of them you would have
Speaker 1: had to have rigged would have been Wisconsin. The Musk
Speaker 1: vote rigging machine broke, did it between November and April.
Speaker 1: Couldn't get the Wi Fi starlink, failed gelon, you got
Speaker 1: a blue screen on your Dell. So there is the
Speaker 1: rather serpentine backwards logic that says to me, the Musk
Speaker 1: Trump fight kind of proves the election wasn't rigged, because
Speaker 1: given what Musk wanted to do to Trump last week,
Speaker 1: if he had that rock, he would have dropped it
Speaker 1: on Trump like Trump was while e Coyote, which brings
Speaker 1: me to my last point about this. I did tell
Speaker 1: you so. When the podcast promos dropped last Wednesday night,
Speaker 1: Musk attacks Trump, there was blowback from every corner. No
Speaker 1: he didn't. No, you're making too much of one retweet.
Speaker 1: No I got that one right. I am not an insider.
Speaker 1: I do not have sources. Even on TV, I really
Speaker 1: didn't have sources. They all looked at me funny in Washington,
Speaker 1: like how does this guy know stuff? But what I
Speaker 1: might lack in those and even lack in insight at
Speaker 1: times I make up for in old age Trump as
Speaker 1: the coyote and Musk as the road runner. Okay, Trump
Speaker 1: is the coyote and Musk as a different coyote might
Speaker 1: be new, but the formula ain't. These are narcissists with
Speaker 1: brains that don't work. Right. I have covered them half
Speaker 1: of my career, and I have worked for them half
Speaker 1: of my life. And oh, by the way, there will
Speaker 1: be another round to this fight, at least another round. Trump,
Speaker 1: drifting off from reality like ooh, a metallic balloon let
Speaker 1: go by a child in southern California callback to the
Speaker 1: last episode, has threatened Musk with more king Lear consequences
Speaker 1: if now he helps Democrats instead. Howell Musk respond who
Speaker 1: knows other than that he will respond. These are mad
Speaker 1: men with basses who cannot conceive that their cult leader
Speaker 1: is wrong. They will fight. As I suggested online, we
Speaker 1: can only hope that when they fight, it's a duel,
Speaker 1: which brings me to the chef's kiss here. The Washington
Speaker 1: Post buried this in its thumbsucker on the Musk Trump brawl.
Speaker 1: It got a little play on Sunday because it's such
Speaker 1: a dramatic image. They didn't deny it at the White House,
Speaker 1: but literally, The Washington Post put this in paragraph twenty two,
Speaker 1: long past the point Bezos or his whorees would fallen
Speaker 1: asleep and thus missed it. It was about a sub
Speaker 1: fight between Musk and Scott Bessant, the Treasury Secretary, who
Speaker 1: I am still not convinced actually exists, who I am
Speaker 1: still not convinced isn't just a character played by the
Speaker 1: impeccable actor Barry Bostwick, who used to portray the mayor
Speaker 1: on Spin City. The term fight here is used literally,
Speaker 1: quoting the Post quoting Steve Bannon, and yes, we will
Speaker 1: accept Steve Bannon as a source for anything this much
Speaker 1: fun quote. In mid April, Musk and Besson had gone
Speaker 1: into the Oval Office to make their respective cases about
Speaker 1: their preferences for acting IRS Commissioner. Trump decided to support
Speaker 1: Besson's choice. That disagreement was first reported by The New
Speaker 1: York Times. Actor Bessant and Musk exited the Oval office
Speaker 1: and began walking down the hallway. The two men started
Speaker 1: to exchange insults, Bannon said, adding that Bessant brought up
Speaker 1: Musk's claims that he would uncover more than one trillion
Speaker 1: dollars in wasteful and fraudulent government spending, which Musk had
Speaker 1: not succeeded at doing. Quote, Scott said, You're a fraud.
Speaker 1: You're a total fraud, Bannon said in an interview. Musk
Speaker 1: then rammed his shoulder into Besson's ribcage quote like a
Speaker 1: rugby player, Bannon said, and Bessont hit him back. Multiple
Speaker 1: people stepped in to break up the scrum who rugby
Speaker 1: term as the two men reached the National Security Advisor's
Speaker 1: office and Musk was shuffled out of the White House.
Speaker 1: So we are now at this point in this bizarre timeline.
Speaker 1: The Treasury Secretary is physically attacked by the mad scientist
Speaker 1: spacey guy outside the National Security advisor's office. Thus the
Speaker 1: movie Doctor Strangelove is real. Gentlemen, you can't fight in here.
Speaker 1: This is the war room. Finally, the number one story
Speaker 1: on the countdown, and my favorite topic me and things
Speaker 1: from my career and my life. And it is to
Speaker 1: me amazing, even after all this time, that you could
Speaker 1: meet somebody just once in your life, but years later
Speaker 1: be moved to tears upon learning of their death. Then again,
Speaker 1: the man in question was named Walter Mathow, and if
Speaker 1: he was not the most popular American comedic actor of
Speaker 1: the last half of the twentieth century, he was close
Speaker 1: to it. And maybe more importantly, he was the most skilled,
Speaker 1: minimal touch American actor of the last half of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. In other words, he was the man who,
Speaker 1: on stage or on camera, seemed to be doing the
Speaker 1: least amount of actual acting while still keeping you utterly
Speaker 1: convinced that the guy you saw on the screen was
Speaker 1: not Walter Mathow, but was Oscar Madison, and was not
Speaker 1: Walter Mathow, but was Max Goldman, and was not Walter Mathow,
Speaker 1: but was Willie Gingrich, and was not Walter Mathow but
Speaker 1: was Mel Miller, even though mel Miller had a Southern accent,
Speaker 1: smoked a pipe, had horn rim glasses, and supposedly went
Speaker 1: to Vanderbilt. We all knew Walter Mathow. It felt like
Speaker 1: we knew him personally because he managed a miracle. Every
Speaker 1: time he performed it was all him up there, and
Speaker 1: yet at the same time it was not him at
Speaker 1: all anyway. October first was his birthday, which is what
Speaker 1: brought this extraordinary man to the front of my mind again.
Speaker 1: I will get to my meeting with him first. Walter
Speaker 1: Mathow's best friends as an adult were his partner in
Speaker 1: half a dozen films, Jack Lemon and my dear friend
Speaker 1: Norman Lloyd, the one man history of Hollywood, who he
Speaker 1: lost in twenty twenty one at the age of one
Speaker 1: hundred and six. Norman loved Walter, and Norman loved talking
Speaker 1: about Walter, and there was an amazing amount of things
Speaker 1: to talk about about Walter. Norman told me that on
Speaker 1: the last of the Grumpy Old Men movies that he
Speaker 1: and Lemon made together, I think it was called Grumpy
Speaker 1: Old Men were doing this for the money. Mathow wanted
Speaker 1: to wrap up one day of shooting quickly. He was
Speaker 1: scheduled to film a scene in a water slide made
Speaker 1: up to look like a sewer through which his character
Speaker 1: was escaping. As the lunch break was called, he said
Speaker 1: to lemon, come on, Jack, let's go rehearse the water
Speaker 1: slide thing. This way. We can do it in one take.
Speaker 1: Get the hell out of here anyway. Don't you have
Speaker 1: to wait an hour after eating before you can shoot
Speaker 1: through a sewer. They went to the sewer water slide set.
Speaker 1: Walter Mathow grabbed the raft he was supposed to ride,
Speaker 1: and he jumped in. As he went through it, he
Speaker 1: studied all the corners and where the cameras would be,
Speaker 1: so he knew where to make his faces. And seconds
Speaker 1: later he was shooting out the far end of the
Speaker 1: water slide onto the giant inflatable twelve foot square air
Speaker 1: mattress placed there to break his fall. Or he would
Speaker 1: have been doing that, except it was lunch and the
Speaker 1: teamsters had deflated the mattress then moved it away because
Speaker 1: the set was on lunch break. So Walter Mathow, then
Speaker 1: seventy three years old, came flying out of the water
Speaker 1: slide onto the pavement. He broke his collarbone, which is
Speaker 1: just about as painful a thing as you can break.
Speaker 1: No Walter Mathow screamed. Jack Lemon raced over to him. Walter, Walter,
Speaker 1: are you all right? No? Not Jack? Call nine one one?
Speaker 1: Oh how Lemon panicked? Can I help you, Walter? Can
Speaker 1: I Can I get you something? Walter? Yes, Jack, get
Speaker 1: me nine one one ow o. Lemon continued to panic
Speaker 1: but till they come. Are you okay, Walter? Are you comfortable?
Speaker 1: Walter Mathow was in sheer agony, but he realized through
Speaker 1: the fog of pain that one of the oldest jokes
Speaker 1: in show business was actually happening to him. Finally, in
Speaker 1: real life. Am I comfortable? I make a nice living?
Speaker 1: Jack ow O? My friend Norman Lloyd used to go
Speaker 1: hiking with Walter Mathow in the Hollywood Hills, and he
Speaker 1: told me that one day Walter was unusually quiet. The
Speaker 1: two had gone a mile or so, and Mathow suddenly
Speaker 1: stopped and grabbed Norman by the arm. Nomy, did you
Speaker 1: know at the end and Beethoven was so deaf he
Speaker 1: thought he was painting. Norman smiled, snorted, and started to
Speaker 1: say that it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard.
Speaker 1: But halfway through norman sentence, Mathow had already turned away
Speaker 1: from him and was back walking again. Another mile passed
Speaker 1: in silence, and now Mathou slowed down and faced his
Speaker 1: friend Norman. This is important. I have something to tell you,
Speaker 1: Norman said. His heart skipped. He thought there was something wrong.
Speaker 1: What is it, Walt did you know at the end
Speaker 1: Beethoven was so deaf he thought he was painting? Now
Speaker 1: Norman just shook his head. As they completed their five
Speaker 1: mile hike through the hills, Mathou stopped roughly once every
Speaker 1: mile and repeated the same line, did you know at
Speaker 1: the end Beethoven was so deaf he thought he was painting?
Speaker 1: Norman told me it totally unnerved me. When we got
Speaker 1: back to where we parked our cars, I felt like
Speaker 1: I had to avenge myself somehow, so I blurted out
Speaker 1: to him, WALTA, did you know at the end Beethoven
Speaker 1: was so deaf he thought he was painting, Norman said.
Speaker 1: Mathow looked at him, screwing his great craggy face into
Speaker 1: a resentful sneer as he did, what the hell are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Thought he was painting? That's the dumbest
Speaker 1: thing I ever heard, As I said, I met Walter
Speaker 1: Mathow once when I was a local sportscaster in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I was invited to host a charity event at the
Speaker 1: Hollywood Park Racetrack. I ordinarily did not do these things
Speaker 1: because to do them I would have to take the
Speaker 1: day off. But when the organizer said, oh, and Walter
Speaker 1: Mathow will be there, I just asked for directions. First
Speaker 1: time I had ever imagined what it was like to
Speaker 1: be a sportswriter or to be a sports broadcaster. It
Speaker 1: was when I was nine years old and I saw
Speaker 1: Walter Mathow portray Oscar Madison in the movie The Odd Couple.
Speaker 1: It was exactly what I wanted to be and where
Speaker 1: I wanted to live and how I wanted to eat.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to get a chance to tell him that.
Speaker 1: So at the charity dinner, I screwed up my courage,
Speaker 1: I introduced myself. I told him all that, and he replied,
Speaker 1: I hate you. I was so crushed I almost passed out,
Speaker 1: and clearly Walter Mathow recognized this. No, no, no, I
Speaker 1: don't hate your work. I watch you every night on
Speaker 1: Channel two Action News, you and Jim Lampley and Bree
Speaker 1: Lampley and Jim Lampley. But I hate the fact that
Speaker 1: you don't have an accent of any kind. Where are
Speaker 1: you raised? Iowa? I did not know where this conversation
Speaker 1: was going. I said, I was from the Bronx originally,
Speaker 1: Is that right? I'm from Brooklyn? Could you tell the
Speaker 1: hell kind of speech teacher did you have? You? You
Speaker 1: sound like Iowa? I explained, my father had said that
Speaker 1: if I wanted to go into broadcasting, I could not
Speaker 1: talk quote like the rest of us. Walter looked away
Speaker 1: from me and then back, and he said, very wise words.
Speaker 1: Your father was a speech teacher. No, I said, architect.
Speaker 1: His eyes flared. How in the hell does that work?
Speaker 1: I started to explain, when it suddenly dawned on me
Speaker 1: that we were discussing this only because he said he
Speaker 1: hated the fact that I did not have an accent.
Speaker 1: I asked him, why no accent means I can't do
Speaker 1: an impression of you? Well? This caused me to pause. Impressions.
Speaker 1: This is nineteen ninety one. In nineteen ninety one, Walter
Speaker 1: Mathow was one of the top five most impersonated voices
Speaker 1: in America. Anybody who did impressions, good or bad, professional
Speaker 1: or amateur. Anybody did a Walter Mathow? You did your
Speaker 1: Sammy Davis, your Howard Cosell, your Walter Mathow. Wait, I
Speaker 1: said to him, you do impressions of sportscasters? Yes, he said, proudly.
Speaker 1: Would you like to hear them? I said, I'll pay cash.
Speaker 1: Don't normally do these, but seeing you are in the business,
Speaker 1: I will just for you. I practiced these a lot.
Speaker 1: By the way, twenty years later, Norman Lloyd confirmed for
Speaker 1: me Mathou did do sportscaster impressions. He did practice them
Speaker 1: a lot. This was not some sort of bit. Now
Speaker 1: back in nineteen ninety one, Mathow cleared his throat, he
Speaker 1: shook his shoulders. Let's start with the best, and it
Speaker 1: sounds something like this, Hello, everybody, this is Vin Scully
Speaker 1: at Dodger Stadium. What do you think? It sounded exactly
Speaker 1: like Walter Mathow. Didn't sound like Vin Scully. It didn't
Speaker 1: even sound like a bad impression of Vin Scully. It
Speaker 1: didn't even sound like a bad impression of Walter Mathow.
Speaker 1: It was just Walter Mathow talking. Thinking quickly, I said, uncanny,
Speaker 1: mister Mathow, thank you. I work on Vinnie especially hat
Speaker 1: he's my favorite. Now the big mouth. Hello again, this
Speaker 1: is Howard co Sell at ringside. How about that one?
Speaker 1: I think I got most of the inflection. Goodness, mister Mathow,
Speaker 1: It's like he's in the room with us. This went
Speaker 1: on for many minutes, Kurt Goudie, Chick, hern Al Michaels,
Speaker 1: several local LA radio announcers. I cursed myself for not
Speaker 1: having brought a tape recorder with me. Walter Mathow did
Speaker 1: impressions of sportscasters, and they were all terrible, but he
Speaker 1: said he couldn't do one of me because I had
Speaker 1: no accent. I was complimented and crushed after a very
Speaker 1: nice event, saluting his friend and neighbor in the front
Speaker 1: row seats at the Laker Games, doctor Robert Curlin. We
Speaker 1: called it an evening, and as everybody got up to leave,
Speaker 1: I asked Walter Mathow to autograph my program from the
Speaker 1: dinner my pleasure. He said, nice work tonight. But I
Speaker 1: still don't get how your father, the architect was also
Speaker 1: a speech teacher. But never mind. In the program he
Speaker 1: wrote this listen, Keith quit kidding around, No, don't. Walter
Speaker 1: mathowt it was lovely, and then he did something that
Speaker 1: took my breath away, something I have tried to do
Speaker 1: anytime circumstances permitted me to. He picked up his program,
Speaker 1: he handed it to me, and he said, no, you
Speaker 1: sign mine. Can you believe that I only met him
Speaker 1: the one time, but that gesture stayed with me to
Speaker 1: such a degree that this happened. Nine years later. I
Speaker 1: woke up at the crack of dawn to go host
Speaker 1: the baseball Game of the Week at Fox Studios in
Speaker 1: LA It was Saturday morning, July first, two thousand. It
Speaker 1: was nine years and about two weeks after I met
Speaker 1: Walter Mathow and on the all news radio station. There
Speaker 1: was one big story that morning in Los Angeles. Overnight
Speaker 1: the great actor Walter Mathow had died heart attack, aged
Speaker 1: seventy nine. To tears, I've done all the damage I
Speaker 1: can do here. Thank you for listening. Most of our
Speaker 1: Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray
Speaker 1: and John Phillip chaneil musical directors of Countdown. This is
Speaker 1: my all purpose Walter Mathow Bernie Sanders' voice. It was
Speaker 1: produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Ray was on the guitars,
Speaker 1: bass and drums. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration in keyboards. I'll
Speaker 1: stop now. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by
Speaker 1: the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Olberman
Speaker 1: theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy
Speaker 1: of ESPN, Inc. Is our Sports Music. Other music arranged
Speaker 1: and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. That's countdown
Speaker 1: for today, Day one hundred and forty two of America
Speaker 1: held hostage just one and twenty two days until the
Speaker 1: scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term
Speaker 1: unless putin or musk remove him sooner, or the actuarial
Speaker 1: tables do, or we do the next scheduled countdown. He
Speaker 1: is Thursday until that next one. I'm Keith Olderman, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good morning, good evening, good night, and was the last
Speaker 1: part of that all right, good luck Countdown with Keith
Speaker 1: Ouldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.