Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Todd Blanche.
Speaker 1: Some of the reporters with which you had close relationships
Speaker 1: were Chris Cuomo, Michael Cohen, Yes, Todd Blanche, Katie Turr,
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen. Yes. Let me just interject this comment at
Speaker 1: this moment. Every day I struggle with these, particularly with
Speaker 1: choosing the lead, because often the most important story is
Speaker 1: the most interesting story, but not always like yesterday, like
Speaker 1: this edition, this is not the most important story. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: Adam Klassfeld reporting from the courthouse. Quote. Cohen says he
Speaker 1: had a strong professional relationship with Chris Cuomo, Katie Turr,
Speaker 1: and Maggie Haberman. Kyle Cheney reporting from the courthouse. Quote.
Speaker 1: Cohen also name checked Chris Cuomo and Katie Urr. Hugo
Speaker 1: Lowell reporting from the courthouse. Quote Katie Urr drink, Well,
Speaker 1: it's not forced me to start that again. That's what
Speaker 1: I get for telling you that I would soon stop
Speaker 1: talking about my exes. Actually, I find myself in a
Speaker 1: very strange position here Urr and Maggie Haberman and Chris
Speaker 1: Cuomo actually have to be defended somewhat. Trump's lawyer did
Speaker 1: ask Trump's ex lawyer, if he had close relationships with
Speaker 1: those three, including my ex and Trump's ex lawyer, did
Speaker 1: say yes. But and we'll know this with certainty later
Speaker 1: today when the official transcript of yesterday's testimony comes out.
Speaker 1: The most widely circulated thing supposedly testified to about Katie
Speaker 1: Turr and Haberman and Cuomo and at least I ever
Speaker 1: lived with Haberman or Cuomo. The most widely circulated supposed
Speaker 1: quote was not said. Ron philip Kowski of Midas Network,
Speaker 1: usually extremely reliable, got it wrong, tried to correct it
Speaker 1: long after the horse was out of the barn. He
Speaker 1: and he alone wrote that quote. Cohen testified that his
Speaker 1: main media contacts to get positive stories run about Trump
Speaker 1: were you know. The clear implication in that quote is
Speaker 1: that when Trump needed good press, Cohen would first call
Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman, then Katie Turr, then Chris Cuomo. And that
Speaker 1: is not what he said. He only said he had
Speaker 1: good relationships with them. Is that distinction without a difference.
Speaker 1: If Michael Cohen testified or believed or comes back when
Speaker 1: court goes back into session next Monday and says I
Speaker 1: knew I could get Trump positive stories from the new
Speaker 1: York Times by calling Haberman, or I knew I could
Speaker 1: get Trump positive stories from CNN by calling Cuomo, or
Speaker 1: I knew I could get Trump positive stories from NBC
Speaker 1: by calling terror. Those guys are in the fireable offense zone.
Speaker 1: Those guys are in the your career is over zone.
Speaker 1: Those guys are in the what's your second act going
Speaker 1: to be? Zone? But they're not there now. Not that
Speaker 1: they might not get there, but they are not there now.
Speaker 1: They are to be viewed dubiously because what Cohen did
Speaker 1: say is damaging enough. But he never said these were
Speaker 1: the three people I called first to carry my water
Speaker 1: for me. He was asked about three people by name,
Speaker 1: and he said yes to all three. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: those were his only three or his first three. Philip
Speaker 1: CASKI really screwed this up. To his credit, he killed
Speaker 1: his tweet. He reached out to at least me who
Speaker 1: had set out a screenshot of his tweet, and said
Speaker 1: I should take it down to And he was right,
Speaker 1: And I know The New York Times reached out to
Speaker 1: Philip Kowski about the implications for Haberman. The problem for
Speaker 1: all three, of course, is the context. CNN fired Chris
Speaker 1: Cuomo after a disastrous journalistic fail in which he consulted
Speaker 1: for his brother on how to get away with the
Speaker 1: scandal that would ultimately cost his brother his governorship. More importantly,
Speaker 1: CNN fired Cuomo because his coverage of his brother's scandal
Speaker 1: was utterly indefensible. You do not say I can remain
Speaker 1: impartial by not covering my brother the governor. You do
Speaker 1: say I can remain impartial because when we should cover
Speaker 1: my brother the governor, I will hand the newscast off
Speaker 1: to one of my colleagues and I will stay out
Speaker 1: of it. I mean, I was asked by CNN and
Speaker 1: Cuomo's executive producer in real time how to do this,
Speaker 1: and that's what I told them to do, and they
Speaker 1: ignored me, and everybody got fired. Simply saying I won't
Speaker 1: cover his story just serves to reduce the amount of
Speaker 1: negative coverage of his story. It's not neutral in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form anyway. After Cuomo got fired, he went
Speaker 1: to News Nation, where he's become a bitter reactionary. He
Speaker 1: was never seen as particularly smart, either at CNN or
Speaker 1: at the job before that at ABC News, but now
Speaker 1: he's just another right winger with no ratings. The last
Speaker 1: thing he needed was for Michael Cohen to say he
Speaker 1: had a close relationship with him. As to Haberman, she
Speaker 1: has been successfully skating on thin ice for years now,
Speaker 1: so I doubt The New York Times sees her in
Speaker 1: any worse a light today than it did this time yesterday.
Speaker 1: The Times, as I think most news organizations in trouble do,
Speaker 1: always becomes defiant when challenged. We're the Times. The Times
Speaker 1: defended a guy named Jason Blair even as evidence mounted
Speaker 1: that he had fabricated quotes, fabricated entire stories, fabricated the
Speaker 1: people in the stories. The Times defended Judith Miller during
Speaker 1: the Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction disaster time and time again.
Speaker 1: It's not going to fire Maggie Haberman, even though Michael
Speaker 1: Cohen testified under oath that he asked Haberman to write
Speaker 1: nice things about him, and Michael Cohen testified under oath
Speaker 1: that surreptitiously he recorded lots of conversations, including about forty
Speaker 1: with reporters, and he played one of the recordings of
Speaker 1: somebody to Haberman for a story. And by the way,
Speaker 1: Haberman is sitting out there in court covering the trial.
Speaker 1: The Times probably is that every month or so. Now
Speaker 1: there's another story about Maggie Haberman trying to walk that
Speaker 1: tightrope of being friendly with sources without being friendly two sources.
Speaker 1: Cohen actually denied that he gave her stories in exchange
Speaker 1: for good spin, but her own colleagues did not exactly
Speaker 1: help her out. Jonathan Swan of The New York Times
Speaker 1: wrote on Twitter X yesterday that those condemning Haberman for
Speaker 1: talking to Cohen were wrong. And as I said, obviously
Speaker 1: that's that's true. I'm defending I'm defending Maggie Haberman. It's true.
Speaker 1: But talk about damning her with faint praise. Swan wrote,
Speaker 1: nowhere did Cohen say he succeeded in getting Maggie to
Speaker 1: write positive stories about Trump? And we've been shown exhibits
Speaker 1: in court of Trump attacking Maggie publicly unquote, what do
Speaker 1: you mean attempted murder? The problem is that quote. Nowhere
Speaker 1: did Cohen say he succeeded in getting Maggie to write
Speaker 1: positive stories about Trump? Well, that makes you stop and think.
Speaker 1: Has Maggie Haberman written positive stories about Trump in the Times?
Speaker 1: The answer is yes, And now you have to wonder why.
Speaker 1: And now again, this is not the lead story. I
Speaker 1: want to get to Michael Cohen's testimony about important things,
Speaker 1: but I can't. I mean, how often do my exes
Speaker 1: come up in the news? Well, actually, rather a lot.
Speaker 1: As to Katie Turr, the problem is, as I noted
Speaker 1: here long ago, as far back as twenty sixteen, she
Speaker 1: was calling me from the campaign trail to defend Kelly
Speaker 1: Ann Conway. And when the first book with her name
Speaker 1: on it came out, even though Katie had asked me
Speaker 1: to write it for her, and I had given her
Speaker 1: all the Trump research material I had for free, and
Speaker 1: we had, you know, lived together for three years. And
Speaker 1: when we broke up, when I asked her to leave,
Speaker 1: I paid her rent for a year so she could
Speaker 1: stay in New York. The only mention of me in
Speaker 1: that book was as somebody who she had dated briefly
Speaker 1: in her twenties, and even that was part of another
Speaker 1: anecdote in which she defended Kelly An Conway. Which is
Speaker 1: the point. This didn't just happen recently. She's been I
Speaker 1: guess Stockholm syndromed after her terrible experience, and it was
Speaker 1: a terrible experience. Her life was repeatedly threatened on the
Speaker 1: Trump campaign trail in twenty sixteen. I mean, it's only
Speaker 1: days since Nancy Pelosi slammed her seriously as a Trump apologist.
Speaker 1: Her work covering this trial and other Trump stories has
Speaker 1: not been neutral, It has not been appropriate. What was
Speaker 1: actually said about her on the stand by Cohen, and
Speaker 1: we'll get the transcript sometime today was damaging. The erroneous
Speaker 1: exaggerated version would be disqualifying if it were true, even
Speaker 1: not true, it may be disqualif and as pissed off
Speaker 1: by her and as ashamed of her as I have
Speaker 1: been and am, the exaggerated version is neither fair nor
Speaker 1: correct in her case and in Haberman's. The bottom line is,
Speaker 1: if there were to be a sourced story, an investigative
Speaker 1: story with off the record sources, a Watergate style source
Speaker 1: story that would actually break Trump, that would cause him
Speaker 1: to end his campaign today and flee the country, where
Speaker 1: do you think that story would come from? From somebody
Speaker 1: around Trump talking to somebody at the New York Times
Speaker 1: that the Michael Cohens of this world hated or did
Speaker 1: not know, somebody who used to work on the sports
Speaker 1: desk before they eliminated sports at the New York Times,
Speaker 1: Or would it come from somebody they liked, like Maggie Haberman.
Speaker 1: I mean deep throat. After all, the strong of trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who deep Throat was in the Watergate story.
Speaker 1: Bob Woodward's primary source who set him off on half
Speaker 1: of the stuff he found about Watergate and confirmed the
Speaker 1: other half. He was the deputy director of the FBI.
Speaker 1: People are saying, you can't have Maggie Haberman talking to
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen would have been saying you can't have Bob
Speaker 1: Woodward talking to Mark Felt. So what do you do?
Speaker 1: Do you have somebody else other than Maggie Haberman cover
Speaker 1: this trial, somebody else cover Trump? Do you fire Chris Cuomo?
Speaker 1: I mean he has the largest audience on News Nation,
Speaker 1: which means two episodes of this podcast gets a combined
Speaker 1: audience that's about forty three percent larger than one episode
Speaker 1: of his TV show, which is not good. The problem
Speaker 1: for Katie, her own failures plus this unfairly amplified perception,
Speaker 1: is ad for her own, good for the network's own good.
Speaker 1: MSNBC has got to do this, get her out of
Speaker 1: a position, get her out of the time slot where
Speaker 1: she is anchoring live Trump coverage of any kind, to
Speaker 1: continue to throw her out there is professionally suicidal, and
Speaker 1: the end result of it will be something real that
Speaker 1: resembles what wasn't true yesterday, that, on top of everything else,
Speaker 1: put me in the position of defending her. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: the actual lead the case against Trump did not collapse yesterday.
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen was not proven to be a liar, hard
Speaker 1: as the networks tried to make it happen. No sorry,
Speaker 1: and boy did see Ann try hard Anderson Cooper lost
Speaker 1: his spit. But a lawyer screaming liar does not make
Speaker 1: it so, especially if he's screaming liar at another lawyer.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post got it pitch perfect. I bashed them
Speaker 1: all the time too. The central witness against Donald Trump
Speaker 1: withstood a withering cross examination Thursday from the former president's
Speaker 1: defense lawyer, who accused Michael Cohen of lying as recently
Speaker 1: as two days ago to realize his dreams of revenge
Speaker 1: against his ex boss. Eleven paragraphs later. The angriest and
Speaker 1: potentially most consequential moment in Thursday's testimony came when Todd
Speaker 1: Blanche confronted Cohen over his claim that he spoke to
Speaker 1: Trump on the evening of October twenty fourth, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: when he called the phone of Trump's security chief Keith Schiller.
Speaker 1: Cohen testified Tuesday that during the phone call, he told
Speaker 1: Trump the plan to pay hush money to Daniels was
Speaker 1: moving forward. Blanche, however, presented text messages between Schiller and
Speaker 1: Cohen that preceded that call and suggested an entirely different
Speaker 1: reason for the conversation. In those texts, the Washington Post writes,
Speaker 1: Cohen complained about getting harrising phone calls and asked for
Speaker 1: Schiller's help call me, Shiller replied. After hours of mild
Speaker 1: mannered and patient questioning of Cohen, Blanche erupted as he
Speaker 1: confronted Cohen over the Shiller texts, accusing Cohen of fabricating
Speaker 1: key evidence against his client. The lawyer angrily grabbed the
Speaker 1: microphone and raised his voice. That was a lie. You
Speaker 1: did not talk to President Trump that night, Blanche bellowed
Speaker 1: the paragraph twelve as opposed to what the TV networks did,
Speaker 1: which was lead this. Blanche suggested the call was simply
Speaker 1: too short for it to have included Schiller handing his
Speaker 1: phone to his boss so he and Cohen could discuss
Speaker 1: a financial transaction that would ultimately be the genesis of
Speaker 1: criminal charges against Trump. Unquote, Well, the last part is nonsense.
Speaker 1: I once fired a manager and an agent in one
Speaker 1: phone call that, including the pleasantries and the goodbye, lasted
Speaker 1: a total of thirty six seconds. What matters is trial
Speaker 1: resumes Monday. I mean, it's off now right. We're all
Speaker 1: going to Baron's commencement tomorrow, aren't we. You got your invitation?
Speaker 1: You didn't. That's funny, I didn't either. Cross examination of
Speaker 1: Cohen will be followed Monday by what the prosecutors said
Speaker 1: would be maybe one hour of redirect. Ce and n said,
Speaker 1: the jury's going to spend the weekend thinking only of
Speaker 1: Blanche screaming, having proven he's a liar. He just said
Speaker 1: he was a liar. The prosecutors nobody noticed. We'll spend
Speaker 1: the weekend thinking how to undo whatever scuffing Cohen got yesterday.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if they've already planned out that,
Speaker 1: they're going to need only about an hour more in redirect.
Speaker 1: They know what they're going to say, they know how
Speaker 1: they're going to the degree it's necessary rehabilitate Michael Cohen.
Speaker 1: And the key point was the key point that the
Speaker 1: Washington post made, and all the networks had made this
Speaker 1: the day before yesterday, but forgot it somehow yesterday. How
Speaker 1: would Cohen respond when this inevitably happened that he was
Speaker 1: called a liar by Trump's lawyer, and he responded calmly
Speaker 1: and succinctly. He won, He was not destroyed. So they'll
Speaker 1: spend the weekend trying to finalize what to ask him about,
Speaker 1: and by the way, they'll talk about it in advance,
Speaker 1: and then oops, maybe Trump testifies before this thing closes down.
Speaker 1: Nothing could help the prosecution more. If you are a
Speaker 1: praying person, pray that Trump testifies, because he'll say something
Speaker 1: under oath that will be a lie and they can
Speaker 1: open up another prosecution of him. The final arguments will
Speaker 1: be early as Tuesday. The other headlines from the court
Speaker 1: the daily Visit from the Unwashed and the Unloved included
Speaker 1: Matt Gates and Lauren Bobert. If I am ever on
Speaker 1: trial for anything, please ask them to stay the f home.
Speaker 1: Bobert skipped her own son's criminal hearing to go to
Speaker 1: New York and grandstand to give Trump a hand, as
Speaker 1: it were, And what happened to Lauren Bobert? She was
Speaker 1: shouted down by the crowd of onlookers during the news
Speaker 1: conference that Gates and she and the others held jeering
Speaker 1: crowds as the other members of Congress walked away from
Speaker 1: the microphone, leaving her standing near by herself in all
Speaker 1: her three foot eight inch glory. And what did the
Speaker 1: jeering crowds chant in the background? Beetlejuice? What's the reference
Speaker 1: to beetlejuice? Oh, the play she was at with the
Speaker 1: guy during the gropathon. Let's hear it for the boy.
Speaker 1: Let's give the boy a hand beetlejuice? How all the
Speaker 1: news too sure asking the question what is the crime?
Speaker 1: Because everyone in this court has not been informed of
Speaker 1: what the crime has been invented, does not know the
Speaker 1: crime that was committed. Reader, I thought no crowds were
Speaker 1: allowed near the courtroom. I thought that millions of people
Speaker 1: protesting were being held back by every police officer east
Speaker 1: of I don't know that theater that she saw beetlejuice in,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, no, I guess not. Meanwhile, Gates, a scumbag,
Speaker 1: went very dark. He tweeted a photo of himself standing
Speaker 1: behind Trump and it reads standing back and standing by
Speaker 1: mister President. Oh, that's very funny, Matt, associating yourself with fascist,
Speaker 1: racist militias. Well, a confession is good for the soul,
Speaker 1: isn't it? Once again? Not too smart? Also, if that
Speaker 1: were not enough of a confession. Again, the first thing
Speaker 1: these guys do, and they get in front of a microphone,
Speaker 1: is confess that this is an operation in which they
Speaker 1: say what Trump has been told not to say, and
Speaker 1: they have implicated themselves in a plot to violate the
Speaker 1: gag order, for which only Trump will be punished. Justice
Speaker 1: Merrechaan has got to get these hangers on to testify
Speaker 1: about what Gates says right here. We're here of our
Speaker 1: own volition because there are things we can say that
Speaker 1: President Trump is unjustly not allowed to say. And then
Speaker 1: there was the saddest moment, as reported by Norm Eisen
Speaker 1: of the Brookings Institution. Jeffrey Clark, the environmental lawyer who
Speaker 1: almost made himself the Attorney General of the United States
Speaker 1: in the waning days of the Trump dictatorship, one who
Speaker 1: was the one willing to use the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: to seize all the ballot boxes and all of the results, was,
Speaker 1: per Norm Eisen, Trump, Fulton County criminal co defendant and
Speaker 1: accused coup plotter Jeffrey Clark, sitting in back row must
Speaker 1: have snuck in after lunch, stands up to be seen
Speaker 1: by Trump on way out ignored. Never mind the testimony
Speaker 1: about Katie Terror. I would have paid money to see that,
Speaker 1: because then you turn to Jeffrey Clark and you say, sorry, pal,
Speaker 1: that's why there's an insurrection act. Okay, my voice is
Speaker 1: feeling a little bit better. I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: three other headlines, two of which totally totally damning about
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Unless you've been paying attention. New York
Speaker 1: Times says that after the election in twenty twenty, while
Speaker 1: many Trump supporters were claiming that Biden had stolen the presidency,
Speaker 1: they used the upside down American flag the sign of distress,
Speaker 1: as a stop the steel logo. So the sign of
Speaker 1: distress that has always been represented by flying the flag
Speaker 1: upside down was appropriated by these scumbag anti democracy Republicans,
Speaker 1: and they would hang their flags upside down at their
Speaker 1: homes or wherever they had a flag. The Times reports
Speaker 1: one of the homes flying an inverted flag during that
Speaker 1: time was the residence of Supreme Court Justice samuel A
Speaker 1: Alito Junior in Alexandria, Virginia. According to photographs and interviews
Speaker 1: with neighbors aloft on January seventeenth, unbelievable Biden's inauguration was
Speaker 1: three days away. Alarmed neighbors snapped photographs, some of which
Speaker 1: were recently obtained by The New York Times. Word of
Speaker 1: the flag filtered back to the court. People who worked
Speaker 1: there said in interviews. While the flag was up, The
Speaker 1: Times notes, matter of factly, the court was still contending
Speaker 1: with whether to hear a twenty twenty election case, with
Speaker 1: Justice Alito on the losing end of that decision. So
Speaker 1: how did Alito reply to the fact that they were
Speaker 1: flying their freak flag at the Alito household? He used
Speaker 1: the Bob Menendez maneuver. I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 1: Talk to Missus Justice Alito quote. I had no involvement
Speaker 1: whatsoever in the flow of the flag. It was briefly
Speaker 1: placed by Missus Alito in response to a neighbor's use
Speaker 1: of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs. Well,
Speaker 1: we know, Alito, that personally insulting language on yard signs
Speaker 1: could have been congratulations. President elect Biden Alito's nuts. We
Speaker 1: know he's a fascist, we know he's a theocratic fascist,
Speaker 1: we know he's an utterly devoid of morals fascist, but
Speaker 1: he's also just nuts. Of course, Alido won't resign, and
Speaker 1: there is no legal way to get him off the court.
Speaker 1: But if you have any doubts who he is or
Speaker 1: what he will do when the time comes, you can
Speaker 1: erase them now because one of two things is true.
Speaker 1: Either he put that flag upside down, or for what
Speaker 1: appears to be a period of at least a week,
Speaker 1: he didn't know that the flag outside the front door
Speaker 1: of his own house was upside down. Also, the misses
Speaker 1: should probably divorce him now. And I know this is
Speaker 1: low for the daily ration of Supreme Court sucks stories.
Speaker 1: There's another one. The Department of Justice really does need
Speaker 1: to take the lead here. I know that's a ridiculous
Speaker 1: statement to make too. These are all theoreticals, these are
Speaker 1: all hopes, but it needs to open an investigation, a
Speaker 1: criminal investigation. In the Clarence Thomas from the New York Republic,
Speaker 1: Thomas is still refusing to reveal whether he repaid the
Speaker 1: principle on the two hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars
Speaker 1: loan that he received from Anthony Welters, a wealthy healthcare executive,
Speaker 1: a wealthy healthcare Welters and a personal friend to purchase
Speaker 1: his RV in nineteen ninety nine, according to a letter
Speaker 1: that Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse have sent to
Speaker 1: an attorney for Justice Thomas. But he's not corrupt. He's
Speaker 1: just getting what he deserves and a little levity at
Speaker 1: the end. The quote of the day, the debates. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the debates. Remember the story about the debates. That's so yesterday,
Speaker 1: Kaylee mcinaney on Fox at the debates, Trump will stick
Speaker 1: to the issues, Trump, Kaylee mcinaney says, will be disciplined.
Speaker 1: Trump will be disciplined, You say, presumably with one of
Speaker 1: Stormy daniels rolled up magazines. I also of interest here
Speaker 1: the man who defines journalism, the quintessence of ethics, the
Speaker 1: modern Edward R. Mureau and Richard Harding Davis combined. He
Speaker 1: has issued something out of Citizen Kane's finest moment, the
Speaker 1: Statement of Principle for the front page, a mission statement,
Speaker 1: how to report, how to be a reporter, how to
Speaker 1: write responsibly. Perhaps this will refresh your memory Maggie Haberman.
Speaker 1: A mission statement has been crafted by the man most
Speaker 1: qualified to do it in the entire journalistic world, Chris Solissa.
Speaker 1: But Chris her emails. I'll read this unbelievable document to you.
Speaker 1: That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
Speaker 1: Olberman host scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,
Speaker 1: some stark, some predictions. Dateline, Washington d of C. Chris
Speaker 1: Solissa has issued a mission statement. No no, no, mission,
Speaker 1: not emission. I don't know how many times I've talked
Speaker 1: about Chris Solissa, who used to be when he worked
Speaker 1: for the Washington Post, a semi regular on Countdown on MSNBC,
Speaker 1: and then he developed an unfortunate habit of both sides
Speaker 1: everything except stuff that didn't really matter. No one reporter
Speaker 1: is responsible for but her emails. The obsession with the story,
Speaker 1: which we think of is twenty sixteen, but actually started
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen and went on for more than a year.
Speaker 1: That moment of obsession, which may yet be the official
Speaker 1: start of the day that American democracy caught its fatal illness.
Speaker 1: That doesn't owe to one guy being a bad reporter,
Speaker 1: just not understanding what it was he was supposed to
Speaker 1: do or how he was supposed to evaluate truth from falsehood.
Speaker 1: Simply because both of those things was said by people
Speaker 1: wearing ties didn't mean you had to give equal balance
Speaker 1: to them. It owes in a larger sense to a
Speaker 1: combination of decreasing training and decreasing intelligence among reporters, because
Speaker 1: I don't know how many more good reporters there are
Speaker 1: now than there were in nineteen seventy, but the number
Speaker 1: of outlets that can give them prominence is about ten
Speaker 1: times as large for all of the contractions in the
Speaker 1: news industry, and there have been so many, so many
Speaker 1: great news organizations that have gone right out the window
Speaker 1: and under the bus and into the toilet and all
Speaker 1: the other cliches you want to use for everyone that's
Speaker 1: gone out of business. There's been one hundred new ones
Speaker 1: and they've all been crap, but they do give jobs
Speaker 1: or at least platforms to people, and one of them
Speaker 1: was Chris Silizza. And in addition to sort of overall
Speaker 1: stupidity in the news media that's gradually taken over in
Speaker 1: the last fifty years, the second part is fomo fear
Speaker 1: of missing out on somebody else's story. If you look
Speaker 1: at someone else's newspaper, newscasts, podcasts, twitter feed, and there's
Speaker 1: something on there that you have not emphasized, and they
Speaker 1: have and they're all excited about it. Your instant reaction
Speaker 1: is to get excited about it too. I look at
Speaker 1: it and go, this is not interesting. Sorry, that's unfortunately
Speaker 1: not what most of them do. And when they write
Speaker 1: the history, if after butt her emails there is any
Speaker 1: history and anybody is allowed to write it, the book
Speaker 1: that comes out about butt her emails may very well
Speaker 1: have Chrys Siliz's picture on it. Just in the middle
Speaker 1: six months of the year twenty fifteen, just in those
Speaker 1: six months, he wrote fifty different pieces and blog entries
Speaker 1: and articles for The Washington Post on her emails, Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton's emails and the headlines. And again he may or
Speaker 1: may not have composed these blog posts are different than
Speaker 1: newspaper articles. You can always depend on the idea that
Speaker 1: a newspaper article headline was not written by the person
Speaker 1: who wrote the article, but that's not necessarily true on
Speaker 1: a blog post. Every blog post I ever wrote, I
Speaker 1: wrote my own headlines. And these were just some of
Speaker 1: the headlines in that segment that he did for The
Speaker 1: Washington post called the Fix between March and I guess
Speaker 1: September of twenty fifteen, you ready. March third, The Fix,
Speaker 1: hillary Clinton's private email address at State reinforces everything people
Speaker 1: don't like about her. March fourth, The Hillary Clinton email
Speaker 1: story just keeps getting worse for her. August twelfth. This
Speaker 1: email story just keeps getting worse for Hillary Clinton. And
Speaker 1: you'll notice that's the same thing he said the previous time,
Speaker 1: only with the words in different order. Then let's see
Speaker 1: this is August ninth. Hillary Clinton's email problem isn't going away.
Speaker 1: August eleventh, Hillary clinton email issue is not going away
Speaker 1: anytime soon. September fourteenth, Hillary Clinton's email issues have become
Speaker 1: a massive political problem. July thirtieth, Hillary Clinton as honest
Speaker 1: and trustworthy as Donald Trump. April twenty eighth, Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: has answered seven questions as a candidate. Here are seven
Speaker 1: more she should answer. But of course I'm only scratching
Speaker 1: the surface here because it's a podcast, and the amount
Speaker 1: of time I have available to me is infinity. It's
Speaker 1: kind of majestic when you read the headlines together like that,
Speaker 1: when you look at the big picture, it's like that
Speaker 1: scene in the movie The Right Stuff about the founding
Speaker 1: of the America in Space program where they set up
Speaker 1: and lift off trial rocket after trial rocket, and they
Speaker 1: all collapse. Some of them get like three feet off
Speaker 1: the pad and then implode upon themselves, and they show
Speaker 1: the reflections of everything going up in flames and the
Speaker 1: eyeglasses of the scientists behind it, and Verner von Brown
Speaker 1: looks very unhappy, and machine after machine blows up in
Speaker 1: the air on the launch pad while they're carrying it out,
Speaker 1: while they're drawing it, the drawing blows up. It's like
Speaker 1: that looking at those emails, especially ones like the Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton email story just keeps getting worse for her, followed
Speaker 1: by this email story just keeps getting worse for Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: followed by Hillary Clinton's email problem isn't going away anyway.
Speaker 1: The man who was behind all that, Chris Saliza, who
Speaker 1: eventually left the Washington Post to go to work for
Speaker 1: CNN only did he get fired there and has been
Speaker 1: independent ever since, has now issued a mission statement. And
Speaker 1: this is the crux of what I want to talk
Speaker 1: about here. He wrote this apparently about a week ago.
Speaker 1: I only saw it yesterday, so it's news to me
Speaker 1: because this Chris Sili is a mission statement, story isn't
Speaker 1: going away. I watched Jerry McGuire over the weekend. That's
Speaker 1: another movie. And I know I make too many movie references,
Speaker 1: but at least the ones that I refer to don't suck.
Speaker 1: I refer to the right stuff. He's watching Jerry maguire
Speaker 1: over the weekend with my wife and kids. It's a
Speaker 1: little cheesier than I remember. Okay, a lot cheesier. Something
Speaker 1: that's often said about Chris's work, But one thing stuck
Speaker 1: with me. Jerry's mission statement, a vision of what he
Speaker 1: wanted to do and why, how he could be different
Speaker 1: and better. So I wrote my own on journalism. Now,
Speaker 1: before you say that this must be fiction, let me
Speaker 1: read it to you bullet point. I will hold politicians
Speaker 1: to account when they lie, when they obfuscate, or when
Speaker 1: they try to play too cute with their words or
Speaker 1: their actions. I will be tough but fair on Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I will be tough but fair on Joe Biden. I
Speaker 1: will not conclude that something is good solely because Democrats
Speaker 1: do it, or something is bad solely because Republicans do it,
Speaker 1: or vice versa. I will never write things for clicks
Speaker 1: or to add subscribers. Who want red meat thrown at them.
Speaker 1: I will always show my work and how I got
Speaker 1: to my conclusions. I will admit when I got it
Speaker 1: wrong and explain how and why it happened. I will
Speaker 1: never talk down to you or assume I know better.
Speaker 1: I will always work to foster kindness and civility in
Speaker 1: our community. No, no, no, no, no, None of this
Speaker 1: is meant ironically anyway. That's the short version. Well, I've
Speaker 1: gotten hold of the law version. It has all that,
Speaker 1: and then it goes on to say, I will not
Speaker 1: hold politicians to account when they lie. I will not
Speaker 1: be tougher fair with Donald Trump. I will not be
Speaker 1: tougher fair with Joe Biden. I will conclude that something
Speaker 1: is good solely because Democrats do it. I will always
Speaker 1: write things for clicks. I will never admit when I
Speaker 1: got it wrong. I will always talk down to you
Speaker 1: and assume I know better you. See what I did there.
Speaker 1: He's both scientists, So the first half of his mission
Speaker 1: statement would consist of all those noble statements, but my
Speaker 1: satirical second half in that he would contradict all those
Speaker 1: noble statements. See what I did there. This caused me
Speaker 1: to text a couple of my old MSNBC colleagues with
Speaker 1: a variation of this basic message. Remind me why we
Speaker 1: used to book this guy on the show. Did he
Speaker 1: drive himself into the office? Did he bring the crew
Speaker 1: food instead? I was reminded that the stuff from I
Speaker 1: remember in two thousand and six, seven eight, As I
Speaker 1: said out here once when we used to have real
Speaker 1: trouble getting guests on MSNBC, Chrystalizza was already He's always
Speaker 1: ready to go. Probably brought food to the crew. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just then or with the email stuff. It's keeping
Speaker 1: good pace to this day. I was reminded by somebody
Speaker 1: that during the Super Bowl, remember the RFK Junior ad
Speaker 1: where they stole his uncle's nineteen sixty presidential campaign ad
Speaker 1: word for word and had him voice it. Oh the class.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a frog that's been kidnapped and being
Speaker 1: held for ransom. They spent fifteen million dollars on it.
Speaker 1: But of course he had nothing to do with it. It
Speaker 1: was done by an outside group. There was no coordination.
Speaker 1: He put it at the head of his Twitter feed.
Speaker 1: He pinned it, so the FCC got involved or FEC
Speaker 1: got involved, and the family, the Kennedys denounced him right
Speaker 1: after it aired during the Super Bowl. Somebody had tweeted
Speaker 1: the Robert F. Kennedy Junior ad was brilliant, and Chrys
Speaker 1: Salizzis saw that about this commercial that the world would
Speaker 1: condemn within minutes, and he got there first and retweeted
Speaker 1: it and added quote, totally agree Hillary Clinton as honest
Speaker 1: and trustworthy as Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton has answered seven
Speaker 1: questions as a candidate. Here are seven more she should answer.
Speaker 1: There is nothing out there that Chris Siliza cannot get
Speaker 1: wrong or get right and then correct himself, so he
Speaker 1: remains wrong, or get wrong and right, or get right
Speaker 1: and then correct it and then correct the correction, so
Speaker 1: he winds up being wrong seventy five percent of the time.
Speaker 1: He insisted that the models said Trump had not even
Speaker 1: the slightest chance of reelection. He wrote this at the
Speaker 1: end of September twenty twenty. The models must have been
Speaker 1: Zulander and Giselle Bunchin. He predicted a Republican red wave
Speaker 1: weeks before the twenty twenty two mid terms. He said
Speaker 1: that when she would not put Jim Jordan and Jim
Speaker 1: Banks on it, Nancy Pelosi, let me get the exact
Speaker 1: quote doomed the already tiny chances of the January sixth
Speaker 1: committee actually mattering. And then the first time we mentioned
Speaker 1: him here in this podcast November of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: the House Majority whip Jim Clyburn, south Carolina history degree
Speaker 1: from South Carolina State history teacher in high school, said
Speaker 1: on Fox the facts are very clear. I've studied history
Speaker 1: all of my life. I've taught history, and I'm telling
Speaker 1: you what I see here are parallels to what the
Speaker 1: history was in this world back in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: in Germany and in Italy. And Chris Silizza knew better
Speaker 1: than Jim Clyburn because Chrystaliza is a very serious political reporter.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at all the extensive coverage he did
Speaker 1: of the Hillary Clinton email story and how decisive that
Speaker 1: was in the election. That proves he was right right. Also,
Speaker 1: he hosts Political Trivia Night, and he went to Georgetown.
Speaker 1: Chrystal is A wrote after Jim Cliburn said, Hey, this
Speaker 1: looks like Nazi Germany, like in nineteen thirty two, so
Speaker 1: pre Nazi Germany or Italy before Mussolini started wearing the
Speaker 1: uniform and killing people. Krystal Is a wrote less than
Speaker 1: a year and a half ago. I guess about a
Speaker 1: year and a half ago. Rule Number one of politics
Speaker 1: goes like this, don't compare anything to Nazi Germany. Just don't.
Speaker 1: Before we go any further, it's worth voting here that
Speaker 1: comparing anything to the Nazi regime, which led to the
Speaker 1: systemic murder of more than six million Jews is a mistake.
Speaker 1: It just is. There is nothing in our current moment
Speaker 1: that suggests we are anywhere close to that. Well, of course,
Speaker 1: the whole point of what Cliburn was saying was he
Speaker 1: was not comparing Hitler to the current moment of November
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. He was comparing it to our immediate future.
Speaker 1: He was comparing the Hitler of nineteen thirty to our
Speaker 1: America of twenty twenty two, and thus of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: what is ahead for us? What I see here are
Speaker 1: parallels to what the history was in this world back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties in Germany, in Italy. He didn't
Speaker 1: mention the Nazis. Chris Eliza did. Then. At about the
Speaker 1: same time, there was this tweet that went out, America
Speaker 1: needs a total cleansing. Only Trump can do with the
Speaker 1: help of true patriots. Herschel Walker sent that it was
Speaker 1: in response to the nut job lawyer Lynn Wood, who
Speaker 1: had tweeted calling for the execution of Mike Pants by
Speaker 1: a firing squad in November twenty twenty two. The response
Speaker 1: from Chrystalizit of that was the election deniers like Herschel
Speaker 1: total cleansing of America Walker quote, represent a serious threat
Speaker 1: to our way of life. After all, if we can't
Speaker 1: accept that our leaders were fairly elected and have faith
Speaker 1: in the system, it's very hard to imagine how we
Speaker 1: can expect anyone to effectively govern. That's see, that's what
Speaker 1: would be wrong with a fascist coup to overturn a
Speaker 1: democratic election and install a loser as winner, and do
Speaker 1: heaven knows what to the actual elected president. That's the
Speaker 1: problem there. It would interfere with governance. The lines at
Speaker 1: the Department of Motor Vehicles would quadruple if there were
Speaker 1: a civil war going on or a coup, or if
Speaker 1: there were tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue and chrys Salissa
Speaker 1: was at the DMZ. Imagine the inconvenience for Americans trying
Speaker 1: to report for jury duty. Now, I'm not going to say,
Speaker 1: ignored the idea that there might be a fascist coup.
Speaker 1: He did address this another fascist coup, which is bad
Speaker 1: exclamation point very bad. See. You know it's more important
Speaker 1: because he used it very on the second reference. But
Speaker 1: it's also worth remembering that democracy held in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: even while it was under active assault from Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and his minions. Again, the man who helped bring you
Speaker 1: but her emails is saying, what do you mean attempted murder?
Speaker 1: He's not dead, is he? Quote. We absolutely should be
Speaker 1: vigilant about the potential rise of authoritarian politicians who would
Speaker 1: wipe out things like the rule of law to further
Speaker 1: their own political ambitions. But let's stop making the Nazi
Speaker 1: Germany comparisons for all of our sakes politicians who would
Speaker 1: wipe out things like the rule of law, because there's
Speaker 1: lots of other things they could do that would have
Speaker 1: as much damage as wiping out the rule of law. Again,
Speaker 1: tanks blocking Chris's way into the DMV, that would really
Speaker 1: be a tragedy. I mean, what would happen. What would
Speaker 1: happen if he was going back to the world's only
Speaker 1: remaining blockbuster with that copy of Jerry Maguire that he'd
Speaker 1: watched with his wife and kids and found it a
Speaker 1: little bit corner. What if he was trying to return
Speaker 1: it and they were cooping out there in the street
Speaker 1: and he couldn't return the VHS. I mean, it's probably
Speaker 1: the only VHS copy. What if it got damaged. What
Speaker 1: if they shot up his car and you know, nobody
Speaker 1: was hurt, But the VHS copy, the videotape of Jerry
Speaker 1: maguire were the last living copy of Jerry McGuire. I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't anybody going to think of Tom Cruise? Won't somebody
Speaker 1: think about Tom Cruise's work gone forever because of this coup?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is what we have to worry about,
Speaker 1: politicians who would wipe out things like the last copy
Speaker 1: of Jerry McGuire. But let's stop making the Nazi Germany
Speaker 1: comparison for all of our sakes. Even though Trump keeps
Speaker 1: quoting Hitler, even though Trump kept a copy of Hitler's
Speaker 1: speeches by his bed. The next day, after Solissa wrote
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk told his one hundred and fifteen million
Speaker 1: followers to vote Republican, and then responded to a quote
Speaker 1: that was falsely attributed to Voltaire that was actually spoken
Speaker 1: by an American neo Nazi pedophile, and the day after that,
Speaker 1: Musk tweeted a photo of a Nazi soldier from nineteen
Speaker 1: forty Chris Solissa Mission statement. Hillary Clinton finally apologizes for
Speaker 1: her private email server. What took so long? September eighth,
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. Hillary Clinton's apology interview annotated September ninth, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton's worst week in Washington August twenty first, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Now you know what, the whole fifty two fifty six
Speaker 1: sixty weeks stretch from about that headline through November of
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, those are all tied Hillary Clinton's worst week
Speaker 1: in Washington, and in fact, those are all tied for
Speaker 1: to that point America's worst week in Washington, and people
Speaker 1: like chrystal As are responsible for it, and never in
Speaker 1: their lives will they ever understand this. If you could
Speaker 1: actually claim that your mission statement should include I will
Speaker 1: never write things for clicks or to add subscribers who
Speaker 1: want red meat thrown at them. I will always show
Speaker 1: my work and how I got to my conclusions. I
Speaker 1: will admit when I got it wrong and explain how
Speaker 1: and why it happened, Chrystal is a literally nine years
Speaker 1: after he was as wrong as anybody in American journalism
Speaker 1: could be wrong. Doesn't he even know that this is
Speaker 1: where he was wrong and will not admit that he
Speaker 1: got it wrong and cannot explain how and why it
Speaker 1: happened because he doesn't believe he got it wrong. I
Speaker 1: will never talk down to you or assue I know better.
Speaker 1: Except for these fifty articles about Hillary Clinton's emails in
Speaker 1: just that six month period, that's not even the whole list.
Speaker 1: So reading all this, I was thinking about asking Chrys
Speaker 1: salis If for a comment to put in this podcast
Speaker 1: about how these stories Hillary couldn't finally apologizes for a
Speaker 1: private email server, what took so long? And the upcoming
Speaker 1: looking back at the ten year anniversary of Hillary Clinton's
Speaker 1: email servers, my best fifty seven articles on Hillary clinton emails,
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I could ask him about that.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of sending him an email. What do
Speaker 1: you think to the number one story on the Countdown?
Speaker 1: And it's Friday and the weekend edition, so that means
Speaker 1: a little more James Thurber for you. James Thurber had
Speaker 1: many full time jobs. He was a street reporter, for
Speaker 1: the Columbus Dispatch and later the New York Post, and
Speaker 1: he was an editor of The New Yorker long before
Speaker 1: he was a writer or cartoonist there, and people kept
Speaker 1: trying to make him into a radio star, leading to
Speaker 1: a short story which is understandably one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: A lot of it speaks of broadcasting in another world
Speaker 1: and of course another century. But it is amazing how
Speaker 1: much of what you will hear now is still true today.
Speaker 1: From the May fifth, nineteen thirty four edition of The
Speaker 1: New Yorker, How to Relax while Broadcasting by James Thurber,
Speaker 1: the evening I went up to the studios for my
Speaker 1: first radio broadcast. I got off by mistake, at the
Speaker 1: sixteenth floor instead of the seventeenth. I decided not to
Speaker 1: wait for the elevator, but just run up the stairs
Speaker 1: to the seventeenth floor, because elevators in broadcasting buildings are
Speaker 1: always crowded with small Italian musicians carrying cellos. And furthermore,
Speaker 1: when the up sign above the elevators in these buildings
Speaker 1: lights the operator of the car that stops where he
Speaker 1: usually says down, and before you can think, you find
Speaker 1: yourself on the first floor again without any way of
Speaker 1: getting back up, because you surrendered your pass to the
Speaker 1: man at the desk in the lobby the first time
Speaker 1: you went up. I walked to a door on the
Speaker 1: sixteenth floor, marked stairs, and stepped out into a cold,
Speaker 1: dark staircase shaft and walked up one flight. I found
Speaker 1: that the door on that floor wouldn't open. It was
Speaker 1: after seven o'clock in the evening and the door had
Speaker 1: been officially locked. I hurried back down to the sixth
Speaker 1: eighth floor and discovered that the door there had locked
Speaker 1: behind me too. I began to beat on it and
Speaker 1: kick it from far off. A faint voice came to me,
Speaker 1: finally saying, cut that out. The only thing to do
Speaker 1: was walk down fifteen flights to the main floor, which
Speaker 1: I did, but the door out into the lobby was
Speaker 1: also locked, and nobody answered my screams and poundings. Screaming
Speaker 1: and pounding is not radio, as the broadcasting people say.
Speaker 1: I went down into the basement, which was dark and gloomy,
Speaker 1: and hunted for the elevator shaft. I found it, but
Speaker 1: there was no bell to push, so I sat on
Speaker 1: an old chair until the car came down. The operator
Speaker 1: was surprised to see me and asked me for my pass.
Speaker 1: I told him I didn't have a pass. He thought awhile,
Speaker 1: and then asked if mister Hayman knew I was down there.
Speaker 1: I said I didn't think so. He was pretty much
Speaker 1: alarmed by the but he took me up to the
Speaker 1: seventeenth floor after warning me never to come down to
Speaker 1: the basement again without a pass. There was nobody on
Speaker 1: the seventeenth floor who understood my case, although the people
Speaker 1: I talked to were patient and courteous. They said the
Speaker 1: seventeenth floor was entirely given over to the business department
Speaker 1: and had no studios or microphones. What I probably wanted
Speaker 1: was the twenty seventh floor. Up there, I found some
Speaker 1: people I had met before, but they were pretty busy
Speaker 1: and seemed to think it was the wrong night. I
Speaker 1: sat down in a chair, and presently a man came
Speaker 1: up to me and asked me if I was mister Tartherer.
Speaker 1: I said I wasn't sure, and he said to follow him.
Speaker 1: I was shown into an office where there were some
Speaker 1: officials I knew and some friends of mine. One of
Speaker 1: the officials was denying a story somebody had been telling
Speaker 1: about a man who fell dead in front of the microphone.
Speaker 1: It seems he had merely had a stroke. In a
Speaker 1: little while, I was led in a solemn march to
Speaker 1: a small and lonely studio, heavily draped and silent. I
Speaker 1: took out a cigarette, but saw a sign saying no smoking,
Speaker 1: so I put the cigarette away again. Some men in
Speaker 1: the glass in control room began to look at me.
Speaker 1: I could see their lips move, but I couldn't hear anything.
Speaker 1: A man tiptoed into the room where I was and
Speaker 1: shook hands with me, and tiptoed out again. He never
Speaker 1: came back. I walked over to a regular microphone, such
Speaker 1: as I had talked over once or twice before and
Speaker 1: had got used to. But somebody led me away from
Speaker 1: that said I was to talk over a table microphone
Speaker 1: because it would help me to relax. This turned out
Speaker 1: to be a table about the size of a card table,
Speaker 1: with a microphone set innocently in its center, face up,
Speaker 1: more or less like an ash tray. It studied simplicity
Speaker 1: caused me to tighten up slightly, and I meant this
Speaker 1: to a man. Be it your ease, he said. I
Speaker 1: stood over the table, grasped its edges firmly and leaned
Speaker 1: down toward the microphone. Someone grasped me, no, no, he said,
Speaker 1: you just sit down at the table, as if you
Speaker 1: were sitting in a chair at any table and talk.
Speaker 1: I sat down, trying to remember how I sit in
Speaker 1: a chair at a table, especially a card table at
Speaker 1: which nobody else is sitting. Relax, said someone with a
Speaker 1: note of command. I slumped back in the chair and
Speaker 1: placed on the table the papers I was going to
Speaker 1: use and began fussing with them. Sh somebody hissed, don't
Speaker 1: rustle them. This is a very highly sensitized mic which
Speaker 1: picks up every slightest sound. It would sound like a
Speaker 1: waterfalls if you rustled them. I began to drum my
Speaker 1: fingers on the tabletop, but a courteous official put his
Speaker 1: hand on mine and stopped that tapping would sound black
Speaker 1: cavalry crossing a bridge to your listeners, He explained, just
Speaker 1: take it easy. I leaned back in my chair and
Speaker 1: adjusted my tie, doubtless giving the effect of someone trying
Speaker 1: to take a leather belt away from a bulldog. In
Speaker 1: a moment, an announcer came in and said we were
Speaker 1: all ready to go. Okay, I said, standing up, let's
Speaker 1: get out. He smiled with calm assurance and said no.
Speaker 1: He meant that we were about to start the program.
Speaker 1: Everybody but him tiptoed out of the room. I sat
Speaker 1: down at the table again. I could see them all
Speaker 1: watching me from the control room. Somebody in there raised
Speaker 1: his hand sharply and let it drop sharply. I expected
Speaker 1: to hear the faint hiss of lethal gas escaping into
Speaker 1: the chamber, but instead the announcer started to talk. I
Speaker 1: creaked nervously in the chair at this, and the listeners heard,
Speaker 1: along with his calm announcement, the sound of a buckboard
Speaker 1: falling over a cliff. Finally, he pointed a finger at me.
Speaker 1: I sat bolt up and began to talk to the ashtray.
Speaker 1: When it was all over, everybody tiptoed whisperingly into the
Speaker 1: room and congratulated me on being only five seconds too slow.
Speaker 1: Not bad for a beginner. The record is one five
Speaker 1: hundredth of a second. I got up and started it
Speaker 1: out of the room, but a man followed me and
Speaker 1: took me by the arm. Where are you going, he asked,
Speaker 1: Let's all go out and get a drink. I said,
Speaker 1: but you haven't got time, he said. All this has
Speaker 1: just been the rehearsal. I must have tightened up horribly
Speaker 1: at that, for he said soothingly, take it easy. You
Speaker 1: got plenty of time to relax in He looked at
Speaker 1: his wristwatch. You got four minutes. I've done all the
Speaker 1: damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown.
Speaker 1: Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars,
Speaker 1: bass and drums, and mister Shanelle handled the orchestration and
Speaker 1: the keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music,
Speaker 1: including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by
Speaker 1: the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the
Speaker 1: Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis
Speaker 1: courtesy of ESPN Inc. ESPN ESPN. How could you misspell
Speaker 1: ESPN or mispronounce it? It's spelled very similarly to the
Speaker 1: way it sounds ESPN ESPN. Our satirical and pithy musical
Speaker 1: comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Speaker 1: At our announcer today was my friend Nancy Faust, everything
Speaker 1: else pretty much my fault as usual. That's countdown for
Speaker 1: this the one hundred and seventy third day until the
Speaker 1: two tenty twenty four presidential election, the two and twenty
Speaker 1: eighth day since Dictator Jay Trump's first attempted coup against
Speaker 1: the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
Speaker 1: legal system, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity
Speaker 1: if the Supreme Court makes it up. Use the not
Speaker 1: regularly given elector objection option to stop him from doing
Speaker 1: it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
Speaker 1: is Tuesday. The throat may be on the mend, the
Speaker 1: sinus infection may be on the run. Hopefully I'll be
Speaker 1: at seventy five percent by then. Whenever the next one
Speaker 1: is till the next one, I'm Keith Olverman. Good morning,
Speaker 1: good afternoon, good night, and what about her emails? Countdown
Speaker 1: with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.