Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Here
Speaker 1: are the Monday Countdown headlines. Trump is now threatening to
Speaker 1: imprison everybody who is opposing him in this election, from
Speaker 1: voters to donors, to vote counters who produce results he
Speaker 1: does not like. He is now threatening to kill any
Speaker 1: immigrants he cannot expel and promising quote getting them out
Speaker 1: will be a bloody story. And he is now trying
Speaker 1: to get Kamala Harris impeached as vice president. And none
Speaker 1: of that made the front page of the New York Times,
Speaker 1: and all of it was prioritized below Trump's merchandise sales
Speaker 1: numbers by the Washington Post. Our nation is dying of
Speaker 1: an utter consuming, fatal lack of courage. When no one
Speaker 1: will tell the truth, the guy who lies loudest wins.
Speaker 1: For eight years, I have been talking and writing about
Speaker 1: Trump's desire not just to purge America of immigrants, documented
Speaker 1: or otherwise. Also he gets to decide who is an immigrant,
Speaker 1: and if you try to defend one of his targets,
Speaker 1: you become his new target. Not only to do that,
Speaker 1: but also to purge them with violence, concentration camps, swat
Speaker 1: team raids, informants, military weaponry, bloodshed. And now even he
Speaker 1: is saying it that bluntly, he is promising it out
Speaker 1: loud at his rallies, that it will be a bloody story.
Speaker 1: He is blaming them and will kill them in Colorado.
Speaker 2: They're so brazen, They're taking over sections of the state,
Speaker 2: and you know getting them out will be a bloody story.
Speaker 2: Should have never been allowed to come into our country
Speaker 2: to be easy, but we'll do it.
Speaker 1: And here on CNN to discuss the pros and cons
Speaker 1: of the mass murder of immigrants by the United States government.
Speaker 1: This is madness. To accept the debate is to validate
Speaker 1: the debate. To ignore Trump's words is to sanitize him
Speaker 1: ordering people murdered. The response, the only response, is to
Speaker 1: debate whether Trump has lost the ability to conceal his
Speaker 1: insanity and his desire to kill people, or whether he
Speaker 1: has decided that this is a strategy he needs to
Speaker 1: employ right now. Those are the only two options. If
Speaker 1: you are an American and you are asking any question
Speaker 1: about this besides is he an insane mass murderer or
Speaker 1: a strategic mass murderer, you are now a Trump enabler.
Speaker 1: He has just promised not threatened but promised mass bloodshed.
Speaker 1: Congressman Roe Kanna actually said yesterday that he has upset
Speaker 1: that his fellow Democrats have been calling the Republicans weird.
Speaker 1: We should lead with respect and make our case through
Speaker 1: persuasion of having a better vision for the nation. Fine,
Speaker 1: congressoon because that's worked real well since twenty fifteen. And
Speaker 1: when we do it again and Trump regains power as
Speaker 1: a result and he decides that all immigrants are illegal
Speaker 1: immigrants and anybody whose parents were not born in this
Speaker 1: country are immigrants, I'll do what I can for you
Speaker 1: when Trump sends the National Guard to imprison you because
Speaker 1: your parents were not born here. But by then I'll
Speaker 1: already be in prison because of the other thing Trump
Speaker 1: did over the weekend that nobody is taking seriously. Even
Speaker 1: though after Judge Merschaan gutted the rule of law Friday
Speaker 1: here in New York, Trump has decided he can also
Speaker 1: get away with this quote cease and desist. I, together
Speaker 1: with many attorneys and legal scholars, am watching the sanctity
Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty four presidential election very closely, because
Speaker 1: I know better than most the rampant cheating and skullduggery
Speaker 1: that has taken place by the Democrats in the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty presidential election. It was a disgrace to our nation. Therefore,
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four election, where votes have just started
Speaker 1: being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny, And
Speaker 1: when I win, those people that cheated will be prosecuted
Speaker 1: to the fullest extent of the law, which will include
Speaker 1: long term prison sentences, so that this depravity of justice
Speaker 1: does not happen again. We cannot let our country further
Speaker 1: devolve into a third world nation, and we won't. Please
Speaker 1: beware that this legal exposure extends to lawyers, political operatives, donors,
Speaker 1: illegal voters, and corrupt election officials. Those involved in unscrupulous
Speaker 1: behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels
Speaker 1: unfortunately never seen before in our country. Trump put that
Speaker 1: out at seven oh one pm Saturday night, just in
Speaker 1: case you missed it, and the New York Times missed it.
Speaker 1: He put it out again Sunday afternoon. So this one
Speaker 1: does not overtly promise there will be blood. Is Trump pivoting?
Speaker 1: It just warns America not to get in his way.
Speaker 1: Don't vote against him, don't donate to campaigns, against him,
Speaker 1: don't act politically against him, don't take legal action against him,
Speaker 1: And not to mistake this as some kind of bluster,
Speaker 1: because he started it with the words cease and desist,
Speaker 1: and those in the throes of narcissistic delusion love to
Speaker 1: wrap their threats in legal terms. And that one is
Speaker 1: the favorite of the fascists and businessmen, and he's both. Oh,
Speaker 1: and as I said, he has also targeted the vice
Speaker 1: president for immediate impeachment. This one won't happen. It does, however,
Speaker 1: give away part of his debate strategy for tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: He will tomorrow night try to build a conspiracy theory
Speaker 1: in real time that Kamala Harris is only there at
Speaker 1: the debate because of this vast plot against him, quoting
Speaker 1: I will support modifying the twenty fifth Amendment to make
Speaker 1: clear that if a vice president lies or engages in
Speaker 1: a conspiracy to cover up the incapacity of the President
Speaker 1: of the United States, if you do that with a
Speaker 1: cover up of the President of the United States, its
Speaker 1: grounds for impeachment immediately and removal from office. Because that's
Speaker 1: what they did. I hope to God the vice president
Speaker 1: is ready for all this, and that she's ready to
Speaker 1: call Trump insane and to say that he is a
Speaker 1: man lusting for the blood of thousands, if not hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands, if not millions, of American immigrants, and that
Speaker 1: he's ready to say that this is a man promising
Speaker 1: to put anybody who stands in his way in prison,
Speaker 1: because everybody else in a position to call Trump that
Speaker 1: is too terrified, or too inert, or just too morally
Speaker 1: bankrupt to take the chance of doing it. I mean, yesterday,
Speaker 1: after promising to kill you or imprison you, he put
Speaker 1: this out and nobody even blinked. An interview by Tucker
Speaker 1: Carlson of an election expert indicates that twenty percent of
Speaker 1: the mail in ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent. Here we
Speaker 1: go again. Where is the US Attorney General and FBI
Speaker 1: to investigate? Where is the Pennsylvania Republican Party. We will
Speaker 1: win Pennsylvania by a lot unless the Dems are allowed
Speaker 1: to cheat. The RNC must activate now activate news team assemble.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris comes into the race, gets an explosion of support,
Speaker 1: and the major media coverage of her since has been
Speaker 1: unanimously degrading and insulting clickbait. She hasn't done enough press conferences,
Speaker 1: not like Trump. He did a press conference last week.
Speaker 1: He did a press conference and a town hall in
Speaker 1: the same week, and he didn't take a single question
Speaker 1: in either one of them. So what he held them?
Speaker 1: And where are her policies? He's out there with policy
Speaker 1: promising to kill immigrants and jail reporters and donors. Where
Speaker 1: are her policy proposals? Does she want to counter Trump?
Speaker 1: And perhaps oh, jail immigrants but kill reporters. Where is
Speaker 1: her policy press conference? She hasn't mentioned accounnibal once Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris is hit for one month by condescending angry reporting
Speaker 1: by reporters who are actually thinking only one thing in
Speaker 1: this marketplace. My job may not exist next year. My
Speaker 1: news outlet may not exist next year. I have to
Speaker 1: surprise people. Trump isn't a surprise anymore. Let's attack this
Speaker 1: new Harris instead. That's a surprise. Then after they succeed
Speaker 1: in driving down her poll numbers, they have a new
Speaker 1: story or poll numbers are down. The honeymoon is over.
Speaker 1: Midwestern voters seem to like this tariffs and mass murder combo.
Speaker 1: Trump is pitching to that vital demographic, white males with
Speaker 1: kids who are likely to become school shooters. By the way,
Speaker 1: twenty eight percent of respondents to the Times Shock poll
Speaker 1: yesterday that has Trump in front by a point. By
Speaker 1: the way, the margin of error there is three points.
Speaker 1: They say they feel like they still don't know enough
Speaker 1: about Vice President Harris to decide about her. This includes
Speaker 1: more than half of all voters under the age of thirty,
Speaker 1: and the Times national poll contradicts all of its own
Speaker 1: swing state polls. But yeah, Trump ahead, so that's the
Speaker 1: only story, not his. You know, promise to kill you
Speaker 1: or arrest you, depending on which demographic group you belonged to.
Speaker 1: By the way, Emerson polling for the Hill out yesterday
Speaker 1: has her within three of him, counting leaners in Florida
Speaker 1: and in Texas, and the Hill average of one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty six different polls has her ahead nationally by
Speaker 1: three and a half, and the five point thirty eight
Speaker 1: average has her ahead by three. But go on about
Speaker 1: the New York Times, which long ago revealed that its
Speaker 1: understanding of the election is you may vote, but we
Speaker 1: decide Ohen Trump called Elon Musk Leon forty eight hours ago,
Speaker 1: and at the age of seventy eight, he is complaining
Speaker 1: that voting in Georgia, or maybe it was the prosecution
Speaker 1: in Georgia. It wasn't clear, but it was corrupt in
Speaker 1: Georgia because of who signed relevant documents. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: you have people that are in their eighties, would you
Speaker 1: sign here? He's seventy eight. And he continues to talk
Speaker 1: every day for hours on end, like a drug addict
Speaker 1: minutes away from an overdose. And he's quoting Tucker Carlson
Speaker 1: now and now promising bloodshed. But let's just see how
Speaker 1: all this plays out in the next time siena poll.
Speaker 1: And as this vital week begins, if you had to
Speaker 1: say it is or it is not, you would have
Speaker 1: to say this nation is dying from a lack of courage.
Speaker 1: Individual personal I'm looking at you, courage. Let's go in
Speaker 1: ascending order, from the least surprising of the various timidities,
Speaker 1: so I will get to the astonishing, criminally negligent cowardice
Speaker 1: of Judge Wan Mershan, last, the least surprising, the most predictable.
Speaker 1: Even Dick Cheney has now endorsed Kamala Harris. Yes, George Bush,
Speaker 1: his office tells NBC News President Bush retired from presidential
Speaker 1: politics years ago. Shocking, asshole. This isn't presidential politics, it's
Speaker 1: American citizenship. Have you retired from American citizenship? If so,
Speaker 1: say so and get the f out of here. George W.
Speaker 1: Bush has always been shit. He's shit right now. And
Speaker 1: our media knows what to do when it needs to
Speaker 1: take a stand, even if it's just a stand of
Speaker 1: you know, self defense against those who would literally kill
Speaker 1: everybody in it. This is what to do in a
Speaker 1: time of crisis. Nothing. The hacked Trump emails are still
Speaker 1: being hidden by the Times, by the Post, by Politico,
Speaker 1: even as they still quote the Hillary Clinton emails from
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. And I will again read you the great
Speaker 1: flaming Ball of cowardice from the publisher of the New
Speaker 1: York Times, Ag Sulzburg, printed by The Washington Post last Thursday.
Speaker 1: Sealzburger quite clearly sees our crisis of courage and bravely says, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's not my job. Quote. As someone who strongly
Speaker 1: believes in the foundational importance of journalistic independence, I have
Speaker 1: no interest in waiting into politics. I disagree with those
Speaker 1: who have suggested that the risk Trump poses to the
Speaker 1: free press is so high that news organizations such as
Speaker 1: mine should cast aside neutrality and directly oppose his reelection.
Speaker 1: It is beyond shortsighted to give up journalistic independence out
Speaker 1: of fear that it might later be taken away. At
Speaker 1: the Times, we are committed to following the facts and
Speaker 1: presenting a full, fair and accurate picture of November's election
Speaker 1: and the candidates and issues shaping it. Our democratic model
Speaker 1: asks different institutions to play different roles. This is, we
Speaker 1: can have him put out the Concentration Camp newspaper when
Speaker 1: we all wind up there. The way this reads, mister
Speaker 1: Selzberger might be trying to sell The New York Times to,
Speaker 1: unfortunately the youngest women voters, who are also showing an
Speaker 1: utter lack of courage. This is from Rachel Janfaza writing
Speaker 1: in the latest issue of Glamor magazine. Don't laugh, Glamor Magazine,
Speaker 1: it may be the most important political data you hear
Speaker 1: this election. Which group do you think would be most
Speaker 1: brutalized by another Trump presidency or a Trump dictatorship, or
Speaker 1: a realization of the Handmaid's Tale? It would be women
Speaker 1: aged eighteen to twenty nine. However, miss Janfaza writes, quote
Speaker 1: the results a political untethering that could reverberate for generations.
Speaker 1: According to the Glamour you gov poll, just fifty six
Speaker 1: percent of eighteen twenty nine year olds are registered and
Speaker 1: intend to vote. This is the lowest percentage of any
Speaker 1: age group by a wide margin, and at the time
Speaker 1: of the poll, twenty five percent of that group said
Speaker 1: they still didn't know who they would vote for if
Speaker 1: the election was held that day, which brings us all
Speaker 1: to the biggest coward of them all. Let us not
Speaker 1: mince words with Judgwan Mershan. He has been bullied, he
Speaker 1: has succumbed. He has failed the law. He has, to
Speaker 1: paraphrase Thurber, bent so far backwards that he might as
Speaker 1: well have fallen flat on his face. Mere Shawn has
Speaker 1: interfered with the election. He has interfered with the jury verdict.
Speaker 1: He has prostituted himself and his court. The law requires
Speaker 1: the imposition of sentence following a guilty verdict without on
Speaker 1: reasons delay. He writes, the public's confidence in the integrity
Speaker 1: of our judicial system demands a sentencing hearing that is
Speaker 1: entirely focused on the verdict of the jury and the
Speaker 1: weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors free from distraction or distortion.
Speaker 1: The members of this jury serve diligently on this case,
Speaker 1: and their verdict must be respected and addressed in a
Speaker 1: manner that is not diluted by the enormity of the
Speaker 1: upcoming presidential election. Likewise, if one is necessary, the defendant
Speaker 1: has the right to a sentencing hearing that respects and
Speaker 1: protects his constitutional rights. So Judge Merschaan insists that the
Speaker 1: law must be enforced, the court and the jury respected,
Speaker 1: despite all other factors, and then he promptly says he
Speaker 1: won't do a damn thing about that. Either imposition of
Speaker 1: sentence will be adjourned to avoid any appearance, however unwarranted,
Speaker 1: that the proceeding has been a affected by, or seeks
Speaker 1: to effect, the approaching presidential election in which the defendant
Speaker 1: is a candidate. The Court is a fair, impartial, and
Speaker 1: a political institution. It was till you wrote this idiot.
Speaker 1: Adjourning decision on the motion and sentencing, if such is required,
Speaker 1: should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued
Speaker 1: any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage
Speaker 1: to or to create a disadvantage for, any political party
Speaker 1: and or any candidate for any office. Adjournments for sentencing
Speaker 1: are routinely granted, often several times, in any number of
Speaker 1: other criminal matters pending in this courthouse, particularly when unopposed,
Speaker 1: for reasons ranging from personal circumstances to the scheduling needs
Speaker 1: of the parties involved. Given the unique facts and circumstances
Speaker 1: of this case, there is no reason why this defendant
Speaker 1: should be treated any differently than any other. This is
Speaker 1: not a decision that the Court makes lightly, but it
Speaker 1: is the decision which, in this Court's view, best advances
Speaker 1: the interests of justice. Yeah, the interests of justice, Juan Mershan,
Speaker 1: It does the exact opposite. Trump will not be sentenced
Speaker 1: because he is running for president. You want to kill somebody,
Speaker 1: get away with it, run for president. The law somehow
Speaker 1: does not apply to him, and it will not be
Speaker 1: applied to him. In fact, we are bending over backwards
Speaker 1: to make sure that what would happen to you or
Speaker 1: me does not happen to him. And this was the
Speaker 1: goal of what Trump did in the first place to
Speaker 1: wind up indicted and convicted. He tried to pay his
Speaker 1: way out of the political consequences of his an affair
Speaker 1: with a pornographic actress. During an election. This was the
Speaker 1: goal also of Trump's threats against this man, Mrshawan and
Speaker 1: his family and the others. This is the goal of
Speaker 1: the entire trumpst movement to put him at his thugs
Speaker 1: and gangs and militia above the law. Juan Mereshan has
Speaker 1: just enabled them to do exactly this. Terrorizing a judge works.
Speaker 1: Jose Pollieri is the political investigations reporter for the Independent
Speaker 1: News website. Notice he sees through all this to quote
Speaker 1: him as a reporter who has spent months in court
Speaker 1: with this judge. I can tell you he is stoic.
Speaker 1: He's a traditional guy. He's reserved, he's really composed, and
Speaker 1: yet he'd shudder when he'd address Trump directly. He'd go pale,
Speaker 1: his voice would shake. It's hard to convey the power
Speaker 1: dynamics at play when things got hot in his courtroom.
Speaker 1: Here is a state judge addressing a former president who's
Speaker 1: must to seek revenge if he returns to the White House.
Speaker 1: The stakes are supremely high. Mershan understands that. Mershan understandably
Speaker 1: says that sentencing Trump before the election would inevitably force
Speaker 1: him to consider or make it look like he's considering
Speaker 1: the fact that Trump is campaigning and could be behind
Speaker 1: bars in the closing days of the election. But how
Speaker 1: did we get here, mister Pollieri asks. Trump's incessant delay
Speaker 1: tactics pushed back the trial by nearly a month. His
Speaker 1: defense in court went a lot longer than it reasonably
Speaker 1: could have. He leaned on holidays and breaks to stretch
Speaker 1: out the trial, and his federal immunity appeals and Scotis'
Speaker 1: allies created the decision delay end quote. So now Merchan
Speaker 1: puts himself in the position of sentencing Trump after the election,
Speaker 1: having already impacted the election through his own personal cowardice.
Speaker 1: The judge may now have to sentence the president elect
Speaker 1: or not sentence him through more personal cowardice. Back to
Speaker 1: Jose Pollieri, the reporter. In making his historic decision, Merchan
Speaker 1: has decided that punishing Trump ahead of the election is
Speaker 1: worse than punishing him after. In doing so, he deprives
Speaker 1: American voters of knowing Trump's fate before they decide whether
Speaker 1: he is fit to be US president. This result, an
Speaker 1: exercise in damage mitigation, reminds me of a James Baldwin
Speaker 1: essay I read recently. Quote. It is true that two
Speaker 1: wrongs don't make a right, as we love to point
Speaker 1: out to the people we have wronged. But one wrong
Speaker 1: doesn't make a right either. And in turn I will
Speaker 1: again quote Jean renoirre the French filmmaker. He created an
Speaker 1: extraordinary film, La Regel Trujeu The Rules of the Game.
Speaker 1: It premiered on July seventh, nineteen thirty nine, three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty four, days before France fell to the Nazis.
Speaker 1: It was written and directed by Renoir himself, and in
Speaker 1: it he plays the hero's buddy Octav, and at one point,
Speaker 1: Octav says something about the corruption and the lack of morals,
Speaker 1: and the lack of courage and just playing lack of
Speaker 1: effort to stand up for what is right. He says
Speaker 1: that everybody has a self interest that's far more important
Speaker 1: to them than his courage or self sacrifice or bravery.
Speaker 1: And it's a quote that has come to symbolize the
Speaker 1: France that folded like a card table to the hitler
Speaker 1: onslaught and the vchy France full of more collaborators than
Speaker 1: the Germans believed possible. The quote is translated, you see,
Speaker 1: in this world, there is one awful thing octav says,
Speaker 1: seemingly fighting back, and then he gives up, and he
Speaker 1: himself shrugs, and that is that everyone has his reasons.
Speaker 1: We may yet steer out of this, electing Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: as the best outcome, but even that does not suddenly
Speaker 1: fix the New York Times, or get gen Z women registered,
Speaker 1: or make Wan Merschan realize that everything he thinks he
Speaker 1: is preventing, he is in fact creating. Even if we
Speaker 1: destroy Trump again, we may still be the twenty first
Speaker 1: century version of pre Hitler France, because as this vital
Speaker 1: Week starts, we all have our reasons to just shrug
Speaker 1: some business to mention. I'll be live on YouTube after
Speaker 1: the debate tomorrow night, and I'll be doing and these
Speaker 1: compact editions of this podcast every Monday through the election,
Speaker 1: so there will be something five days a week. They
Speaker 1: post by twelve to fifteen am Eastern each night. The
Speaker 1: YouTube version posts by about six am Eastern. You're welcome.
Speaker 1: So that's countdown for this, the fifty eighth day until
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four presidential election and the one three
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty six day since convicted felon dementia. J
Speaker 1: Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
Speaker 1: the United States till the next edition on Keith Olderman.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good Luck. Countdown
Speaker 1: with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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