Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump
Speaker 1: has now finally, inevitably, inescapably, and overtly threatened to shut
Speaker 1: down the free press in this country. Repeated that threat
Speaker 1: in a speech at Detroit and then descended in the
Speaker 1: same speech to meandering gibberish, the kind of incoherence that
Speaker 1: would get you institutionalized, whether you were twenty eight or
Speaker 1: like him, seventy eight. First, the threat to news. Sixty
Speaker 1: minutes is a major part of the news organization of CBS,
Speaker 1: which has just created the greatest fraud in broadcast history.
Speaker 1: CBS should lose its license, and it should be bid
Speaker 1: out to the highest bidder, as should all other broadcast licenses,
Speaker 1: because they are just as corrupt as CBS, and maybe
Speaker 1: even worse. Another Trump post reads a fake news scam
Speaker 1: which is totally illegal, take away the CBS license. Once again,
Speaker 1: he means this. The intent is to punish, to bankrupt,
Speaker 1: to prosecute anybody who criticizes him. That includes CBS, That
Speaker 1: includes me, and like all ttalitarians and dictators, that threat
Speaker 1: to destroy critics will soon or late include you. He
Speaker 1: wants to punish sixty minutes on CBS because he did
Speaker 1: an interview with Kamala Harris, even after he chickened out
Speaker 1: of the interview with them to which he had agreed
Speaker 1: in his mindless rage. Trump believes his cowardice and his
Speaker 1: dishonesty is not the problem, but that CBS underscoring his
Speaker 1: cowardice and his dishonesty is the problem. But there is
Speaker 1: within this threat something almost disfrightening. As I've mentioned before,
Speaker 1: CBS does not have a license. News organizations do not
Speaker 1: have licenses. Individual over the air TV and radio stations
Speaker 1: have licenses. But if he somehow really managed to take
Speaker 1: their licenses, CBS Television would still exist, so would sixty Minutes,
Speaker 1: so would CBS News. He does not understand this. He
Speaker 1: is wrong about it, and as we have seen for
Speaker 1: a decade, when he is wrong, there is only one
Speaker 1: way out. What he is wrong about must be changed
Speaker 1: so that he is right about it. After all, what
Speaker 1: Trump is saying, one way or the other is if
Speaker 1: he regains power, there will be licenses for news organizations,
Speaker 1: and the constitution be damned.
Speaker 2: The other big news is the fraud committed by sixty
Speaker 2: Minutes in CBS together with the Democrat Party working together
Speaker 2: with them which will go down as the single biggest
Speaker 2: scandal in broadcast history. I predict it's a big story.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen it yet. Happened. They
Speaker 2: learned about it yesterday evening.
Speaker 1: Trump's speech to the Economic Club of Detroit. And how
Speaker 1: stupid are these people that they don't know that there
Speaker 1: are no news licenses. The speech did not stop there
Speaker 1: before he again tried to bribe voters with something preposterous
Speaker 1: and financially disastrous, in this case making all automobile loan
Speaker 1: payments fully tax deductible. He raged over Monday's peace in
Speaker 1: The New York Times that tiptoed around his metal condition
Speaker 1: and cited his continuing obsession with a nonexistent Michigan Man
Speaker 1: of the Year award as some of the evidence of
Speaker 1: his cognitive decline. Trump, in the speech said his staff
Speaker 1: had finally found the proof that he was right. He
Speaker 1: pulled from his pocket a computer print out of an
Speaker 1: article from a small Michigan paper, The Press quote. It
Speaker 1: was like nineteen years ago. It was a long time,
Speaker 1: but I was honored. And guess what they found it?
Speaker 1: I was so, here's your article right here. Oakland County
Speaker 1: gop to honor Donald Trump, former president, to speak at
Speaker 1: upcoming Lincoln Day fundraising dinner former president from nineteen years ago.
Speaker 1: The article is from June of twenty twenty three. It
Speaker 1: references a local dinner from two thousand and thirteen. Trump
Speaker 1: says it proves he was Michigan's Man of the Year
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five or two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: Trump has the year wrong, the decade wrong, the award wrong,
Speaker 1: and the geography wrong. He was very happy about this.
Speaker 1: He is very, very sick. What's worse, the paper has
Speaker 1: now deleted and corrected its account at that dinner in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen that they wrote about. In twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: there was no Man of the Year award, not even
Speaker 1: just Man of the Year in Oakland County. Trump literally
Speaker 1: does not remember what he got wrong then or what
Speaker 1: he is getting wrong now. And this was before his
Speaker 1: speech descended into madness. Trump has taken to calling his
Speaker 1: inability to focus on any one, two or twenty topics
Speaker 1: at a time weaving, and there is some evidence that
Speaker 1: he often hears the connections others don't, as his mind
Speaker 1: wanders around like a roomba. Yesterday in Detroit, though there
Speaker 1: seemed a new suggestion that even he no longer knows
Speaker 1: what he is talking about or what he has been
Speaker 1: trying to talk about. This seemed to have started with
Speaker 1: factory closings, god knows where it ends, the very big plant.
Speaker 2: Many countries they do that, and then all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you hear that they're leaving Milwaukee, or they're leaving
Speaker 2: wherever they may be located. It's very sad to see it.
Speaker 2: And it's so simple. I mean, you know, this isn't
Speaker 2: like Elon with his rocket ships that land within twelve
Speaker 2: inches on the moon where they wanted to land, or
Speaker 2: he gets the engines back. How was the first I realized?
Speaker 2: I said, who the hell did that? I saw engines
Speaker 2: about three or four years ago. These things were coming cylinders,
Speaker 2: no wings, know nothing, and they're coming down very slowly,
Speaker 2: landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean
Speaker 2: someplace with a circle boom. Reminded me of the Biden
Speaker 2: circles that he used to have. Right, he'd have eight
Speaker 2: circles and he couldn't fill them up. But then I
Speaker 2: heard he beat us with the popular vote. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, couldn't fill up the eight circles. I
Speaker 2: always loved those because they were so beautiful. They were
Speaker 2: so beautiful to look at. In fact, the person that
Speaker 2: did them, that was the best thing about his The
Speaker 2: level of that circle was great. But they couldn't get people,
Speaker 2: so they used to have the press stand at the
Speaker 2: circles because they couldn't get the people. Then I heard
Speaker 2: we lost. Oh we lost. No, We're never going to
Speaker 2: let that happen again. But we've been abused by other countries.
Speaker 2: We've been abused by our own politicians really more than
Speaker 2: other countries.
Speaker 1: As Dan Ackroyd said while portraying the chef Julia Child
Speaker 1: on Saturday Night Live years ago, as she lost consciousness
Speaker 1: due to a cut while preparing a chicken save the liver,
Speaker 1: I remember when I was a little girl and worse
Speaker 1: was yet to come. As an aside, this actually might
Speaker 1: have been the highlight of Trump's speech.
Speaker 2: Is a catastrophe for the American dream and the dire
Speaker 2: crisis from commerce to labor.
Speaker 1: There are no words, yet Trump still said them again bluntly,
Speaker 1: nothing President Biden has ever said, not in the worst
Speaker 1: moments of the debate, approached that this is how you sound.
Speaker 1: As the anesthesia begins to take effect or the dementia
Speaker 1: or the drugs, or the booze or the stroke, that
Speaker 1: this ever more rapid loss of coherence is not getting
Speaker 1: the publicity it should, nor that the one to one
Speaker 1: hundredth as disturbing hesitations of President Biden did is the
Speaker 1: crisis of this campaign. Trump is going crazy before the
Speaker 1: media's eyes, and the media is virtually ignoring it. And
Speaker 1: the combination of the media cowering and Trump's inability to
Speaker 1: function rationally, and his rage at anybody criticizing him, especially
Speaker 1: about his inability to function rationally, that can be fatal
Speaker 1: to this country. Just yesterday, the Washington Post scooped that
Speaker 1: early this year, on a strategy conference call, a Trump
Speaker 1: aide named James Blair was asked how to fight back
Speaker 1: against news stories that said the campaigns get out the
Speaker 1: vote effort was insufficient. Blair was quoted by The Washington
Speaker 1: Post as replying, we are going to beat the reporters
Speaker 1: into retardation, unquote. The real problem is that there remains
Speaker 1: the possibility that Trump will not remember the CBS license
Speaker 1: idiocy after whatever next enrages him does enrage him. The
Speaker 1: real problem is that this goon Blair might have merely
Speaker 1: been being metaphorical on that call. The real problem is
Speaker 1: that prospective Trump Attorney General Mike Davis might be, as
Speaker 1: he claims, just trolling Democrats when he explains he wants
Speaker 1: to imprison reporters at Guantanamo Bay or in a gulag somewhere.
Speaker 1: That could all be true, but the real problem is
Speaker 1: the Trump cultists who hear these threats do not take
Speaker 1: them metaphorically. Politico's Adam Wrenn profiled this Mike Davis and
Speaker 1: his quote trolling unquote. Wren Now writes that at the
Speaker 1: Republican Nazi Convention this summer, he was permitted by Davis
Speaker 1: to shadow him. They went to a hotel bar where
Speaker 1: Trump's idiot sons and hangers on were waiting to laud Davis.
Speaker 1: He writes, quote, as I pecked notes on my phone,
Speaker 1: a woman who had told us to stop staring, scolded
Speaker 1: me for chronicling the exchange and began recording me. She
Speaker 1: demanded that I delete the notes or give her my phone.
Speaker 1: When I tried to leave, she recruited four men to
Speaker 1: block the elevators. They stared menacingly at me and demanded
Speaker 1: I turn over my phone or delete my notes. I
Speaker 1: was trapped. I wouldn't delete my notes, and I was
Speaker 1: getting nervous. I called Mike Davis, who had disappeared. He
Speaker 1: asked me where I was, and I told him. I
Speaker 1: explained to the woman I had to catch a flight
Speaker 1: to go home to my family in the next few hours. Quote.
Speaker 1: You should have thought about your kids before you did
Speaker 1: what you did, she replied. After roughly fifteen minutes of
Speaker 1: this standoff, he writes, I searched for another exit. I
Speaker 1: ran down a hallway into a stairwell. Two people followed me.
Speaker 1: When I was out on the street, Davis called me.
Speaker 1: By this point, Davis had confronted the aid near the
Speaker 1: elevators and dressed her down. You don't ask a reporter
Speaker 1: to delete their notes, he told her. According to both
Speaker 1: Davis and a second person, he recounted his remarks too
Speaker 1: briefly after this isn't North Korea unquote, this isn't North Korea,
Speaker 1: not yet. And that it is not North Korea not yet,
Speaker 1: is not Trump's doing. And there is the flip side
Speaker 1: of the same thing. Threatening licenses, threatening networks, threatening journalism,
Speaker 1: threatening the First Amendment, threatening reporters again, and again and
Speaker 1: day after day, makes them censor themselves in advance, makes
Speaker 1: them cooperate in advance, makes them weary of just the
Speaker 1: thought of the confrontation. And it is measurable. There are metrics.
Speaker 1: Media Matters analyzed. Coverage in the LA Times, The New
Speaker 1: York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Washington Post.
Speaker 1: How many stories were written in the week after Judge
Speaker 1: Chutkin unsealed Jack Smith's filing in the Trump cou case
Speaker 1: the week that ended on Wednesday, twenty six stories in
Speaker 1: those five major papers. How many stories were written in
Speaker 1: the same five newspapers in the week after the James
Speaker 1: Comey letter eight years ago this month about Hillary Clinton's
Speaker 1: emails one hundred, one hundred email stories, twenty six Jack
Speaker 1: Smith filing stories, literally four times as much coverage in
Speaker 1: some of the supposedly liberal newspapers of this country, but
Speaker 1: her emails ominously. Judge Chutkin now says she will release
Speaker 1: Smith's second filing the supporting evidence for his first filing,
Speaker 1: delaying it for a week to give Trump a chance
Speaker 1: to investigate litigation to stop it. When she releases the evidence,
Speaker 1: Let's see if those five newspapers give this the same
Speaker 1: one quarter of the coverage because the phrase but her
Speaker 1: emails is now paired in reporters and editors minds with
Speaker 1: the phrase but trumpists will threaten me. A quick pulling
Speaker 1: roundup two fascinating interior numbers from the IPSOS poll for
Speaker 1: Reuter's gr reverses Trump's leads in suburbs and among middle
Speaker 1: class voters. Reuter's IPSOS polls show I'm indebted to my
Speaker 1: former colleague Carl Kintonia for doing this exclusive Harris up
Speaker 1: forty seven to forty one among suburban voters, nine points
Speaker 1: better than Biden. Harris up forty five forty three in
Speaker 1: households earning fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars per year,
Speaker 1: also nine points better than Biden. Now the other stuff
Speaker 1: I have mentioned before, you should expect down the stretch
Speaker 1: a flood of bad, cooked pro Trump polls. They not
Speaker 1: only are there to screw up the polling averages, but
Speaker 1: the more outlandish ones like Trump plus two by active vote,
Speaker 1: like Trump in Rasmussen up way over Biden. They are
Speaker 1: there to serve as props if Trump loses and when
Speaker 1: he tries to foment violence and he pulls another article
Speaker 1: from his pot as he did in Michigan yesterday and screams,
Speaker 1: but I was winning in all the polls. The other
Speaker 1: purpose is to screw with the heads of Democrats. It's working.
Speaker 1: Social media is a wash with Trump is gaining. What
Speaker 1: are we gonna do? The five thirty eight polling average
Speaker 1: is Harris forty eight point four, Trump forty six point zero.
Speaker 1: That is Harris by two point four points. On the
Speaker 1: twenty fifth of last month, it was Harris by two
Speaker 1: point six points. On August eleventh, it was Harris by
Speaker 1: two point three points. The polling average at the split
Speaker 1: ticket website is Harris by two point seven points. On
Speaker 1: the eighth of September, it had been Harris by two
Speaker 1: point six Getting the point here, she's ahead by a little,
Speaker 1: she's ahead by a little. Wess, she's ahead by a
Speaker 1: little more. She needs to be head by even more.
Speaker 1: This was true the day she took over the ticket,
Speaker 1: and it was true most of the day since it's
Speaker 1: around two and a half. And yes, there are even
Speaker 1: some badly done or less sympathetically perhaps even deliberately badly
Speaker 1: done poles being mixed in there now, even by reputable outlets.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most panic in the past week was after
Speaker 1: a Tip poll for American Greatness. They've done pretty good
Speaker 1: work nationally, but they did for Pennsylvania a poll that
Speaker 1: showed Harris trailing Trump by a point and a half
Speaker 1: among likely voters. As professor Aaron astor If Maryville College
Speaker 1: noted and several polling experts agreed, going diving into the
Speaker 1: cross tabs is rarely anything more than the equivalent of
Speaker 1: sticking your finger down your throat or emulating the Trumpists
Speaker 1: looking for an excuse. But it turns out that in
Speaker 1: the cross tabs for the Tip Pennsylvania pole, there is
Speaker 1: one genuinely shocking bit of pulling malpractice in the same
Speaker 1: pole in the same state in which Tip concludes Trump
Speaker 1: leads Harris by a point and a half among likely voters,
Speaker 1: their data shows him trailing her Kamala Harris ahead by
Speaker 1: four points in Pennsylvania among registered voters. Do you know
Speaker 1: what you have to do to make your own poll
Speaker 1: swing five and a half points towards Donald Trump? You'd
Speaker 1: have to like eliminate virtually all voters from Philadelphia from
Speaker 1: your likely voter Pennsylvania sample, which is exactly what Tip did.
Speaker 1: The crosstabs show this. There were one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: four voters from Philadelphia among tips registered voters for Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: when they refined this and sorted them out into likely
Speaker 1: voters and not likely voters and the weighted averages here
Speaker 1: in the non weighted averages there, I went from one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty four voters in Philadelphia in the registered
Speaker 1: voters count that had Harris ahead by four to twelve
Speaker 1: voters from Philadelphia in the likely voters poll that has
Speaker 1: Trump ahead by a point and a half. That's a lot.
Speaker 1: That's eliminating nine tenths of the voters from the biggest
Speaker 1: democratic city in the state and one of the biggest
Speaker 1: democratic cities in the country. So so much for the
Speaker 1: tip pole of Pennsylvania. I'm going to go out on
Speaker 1: a limb here and say they may have made that
Speaker 1: one to be stuffed into Trump's jacket pocket. On that one,
Speaker 1: at least take a deep breath. Quick correction here. I
Speaker 1: mentioned yesterday that the grandfather of Looney Tunes, Florida congress
Speaker 1: woman an ex Maxim model Anna Paulina Luna real name
Speaker 1: Anna Meyerhoffer, was drafted into the Nazi Worldorld War two
Speaker 1: Air Force. The Wehrmacht. I want to apologize to Congresswoman
Speaker 1: Luna for my appalling mistake. Her grandfather was not drafted
Speaker 1: in the Nazi air Force. Nazi air Force was the Luftwaffa.
Speaker 1: Her grandfather was drafted into the Nazi military, the Wehrmacht.
Speaker 1: So I apologize. Congresswoman Luna's grandfather was not a Nazi flyer.
Speaker 1: He was just a Nazi soldier. Also of interest here,
Speaker 1: Carrie Lake thinks nephews are girls, and says so at
Speaker 1: her debate. And she thinks that the miracle that parents
Speaker 1: turned to to help bring them to life is called
Speaker 1: UVF the Ulster Volunteer Army. I guess or did she
Speaker 1: mean UVA at the University of Virginia. If you're going
Speaker 1: to take somebody from Tell Division and run them for senator,
Speaker 1: never ever ever make it the ex weekend weather person.
Speaker 1: That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1: Let me peel back the curtain for a second. I
Speaker 1: don't think the man whose voice you just heard there,
Speaker 1: the Hall of Famer Larry David, will object to this.
Speaker 1: But twice in the last two weeks he and I
Speaker 1: have corresponded by email about this music. It is the
Speaker 1: Chakata and Fugue by Bach, and to Larry's great surprise,
Speaker 1: And Larry has been a supporter and friend of mine
Speaker 1: for almost twenty years now, and I have appreciated every
Speaker 1: moment of his support, every moment of his friendship. And
Speaker 1: I might add, if you ever get a chance to
Speaker 1: actually sit down with him, he is the most delightful
Speaker 1: audience you will ever meet. He will laugh at almost
Speaker 1: anything that is slightly funny, as the great humorists tend
Speaker 1: to be. He's an easy laugh. Having put that aside,
Speaker 1: Larry emailed me with some urgency and astonishment because watching
Speaker 1: a New York Yankees playoff game on TV, he heard
Speaker 1: this playing at a critical moment, the Bach Takata and
Speaker 1: Fugue playing in a critical moment at Yankee Stadium during
Speaker 1: a ballgame, and he wanted to know if indeed his
Speaker 1: ears were playing tricks on him, if the Yankee Keys
Speaker 1: were suddenly playing the music the organ music from my podcast.
Speaker 1: I am delighted that it has now taken on that name.
Speaker 1: I think the composer Bach had something to do with
Speaker 1: it much earlier. And now we push the curtain back
Speaker 1: with thanks to Larry for bringing that up. Jim Boughton,
Speaker 1: my late friend, who wrote Ball for the best baseball
Speaker 1: book ever written, said that after a few years his
Speaker 1: youngest child, few years of going to baseball games, heard
Speaker 1: the national anthem played at a parade or a rodeo
Speaker 1: or something like that, and said, Dad, they're playing the
Speaker 1: baseball song. Wonderful still ahead of us. On this edition
Speaker 1: of Countdown, it may seem as if we just got
Speaker 1: stupid in the last ten, fifteen, fifty years. Nah. It
Speaker 1: may seem as if only recently the stupid people somehow
Speaker 1: all gained enough money to travel somehow to the major
Speaker 1: cities of the world, where they somehow intuitively know where
Speaker 1: the most crowded spots on the most crowded sidewalks are
Speaker 1: and stand there for hours and simply stare at the
Speaker 1: tall buildings, because evidently, where they live they do not
Speaker 1: have tall buildings or buildings of any kind or sidewalks.
Speaker 1: This idea that this is new is palpably untrue. As
Speaker 1: James Thurber will explain, all this happened no later than
Speaker 1: October two, nineteen thirty seven, when he published in The
Speaker 1: New Yorker his saga of one of these international travelers
Speaker 1: who he met in the Lake country of England, where
Speaker 1: she was complaining to him that Macbeth by Shakespeare was
Speaker 1: unbearably bad because it did not follow the rules of
Speaker 1: suspense paperbacks like in the later you know Mickey Spallaine
Speaker 1: stories the woman who believed Shakespeare fingered the wrong murderer
Speaker 1: in Macbeth. Coming up on Fridays with Thurber First, there
Speaker 1: are still many more new idiots to talk about in
Speaker 1: the daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning
Speaker 1: Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's weis poisons in the world.
Speaker 1: The Bronze Well, we've already invoked the Yankees, so why
Speaker 1: not the New York Mets, specifically New York Mets Radio. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm a Mets fan and I'm delighted they beat the
Speaker 1: Phillies and will begin the National League Championship Series on Sunday,
Speaker 1: and maybe we will have a World Series in New
Speaker 1: York for the first time since twenty fifteen. I like
Speaker 1: going to the World Series. It's fun. I'm even glad
Speaker 1: that when Mets relief pitcher Edwin roller Coaster Diaz came
Speaker 1: in in the ninth inning of the deciding game with
Speaker 1: a three run lead, and then walked the first two
Speaker 1: men that he faced and then steered out of the
Speaker 1: skin and the Mets won. I'm delighted for Mets play
Speaker 1: play man Howie Rose, who was in the press box
Speaker 1: in the first game I ever covered as a full
Speaker 1: time professional network radio reporter in New York in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine. It was the Mets and the Phillies. Just
Speaker 1: like this game I'm talking about now. Howie was at
Speaker 1: dinner with me in the press room the first time
Speaker 1: I covered a New York Knicks game at Madison Square
Speaker 1: Garden as a pro. A few months later, Howie and
Speaker 1: I go back. But as the pitcher Diaz entered the game,
Speaker 1: his appearance was somehow sponsored by an advertiser, and not
Speaker 1: only was there a radio commercial for it, but my
Speaker 1: friend Howie Rose had to read this commercial live. The commercial,
Speaker 1: as the relief pitcher warmed up, was for a suction
Speaker 1: device that is designed to prevent you from choking. As
Speaker 1: the relief pitcher is entering the game in the final
Speaker 1: of the series deciding contest, the device to keep you
Speaker 1: from gagging. I mean right then, not in the second inning,
Speaker 1: but in the ninth inning at the moment the disaster
Speaker 1: prone relief pitcher enters the game. I mean, why not
Speaker 1: just say worried you might choke like Edwin Diaz as
Speaker 1: we used to say in a different context. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: runner up, speaking of well, you know, getting all the
Speaker 1: oxygen cut off, there's Carrie Lake, her debate against Reuben
Speaker 1: Diego and the Arizona Senate race is over now, and frankly,
Speaker 1: so is she. If you've ever asked yourself, is this
Speaker 1: lady strung out or something? I think you now have
Speaker 1: your answer, or in this case, answers two of them.
Speaker 3: First of all, I'm astounded that he actually knows the
Speaker 3: difference between a woman and a man, because I thought
Speaker 3: there were what one hundred and forty seven different genders.
Speaker 3: I do care about women's rights. I come from a
Speaker 3: family of women, and I have a daughter of my
Speaker 3: own and many nieces and nephews. I want to make
Speaker 3: sure that UVF is protected. I have many friends who
Speaker 3: are here, they're my friends today because of UVF. And
Speaker 3: I have many of my friends who have had children
Speaker 3: and experienced the joy of motherhood and parenthood because of UVF.
Speaker 1: To take those in reverse order, UVF Now everybody thinks
Speaker 1: she meant IVF in vitro fertilization, but of course she
Speaker 1: could have also meant UHF ultra high frequency television like
Speaker 1: Channel forty five in Phoenix. I mean Lake used to
Speaker 1: do TV. Or maybe she meant SPF as in sunscreen,
Speaker 1: which if you've ever seen one of her interviews, when
Speaker 1: one of the six camera filters she uses has broken,
Speaker 1: it's clear she could have used more of pro tip
Speaker 1: for the Republicans, never run the weekend weather person as
Speaker 1: your candidate for anything other than maybe weekday weather person.
Speaker 1: She sounds good. She has no idea what she's say
Speaker 1: As to the other answer about the male nieces. I
Speaker 1: don't know what to tell you, but it sure seems
Speaker 1: like that moderator's next question to Carrie Lake should have
Speaker 1: been to borrow one of the far right self martyrdom catchphrases,
Speaker 1: what is a woman nephews and nieces or women but
Speaker 1: our winner? The New York Times expect the world all
Speaker 1: the news that spit to print when they actually question
Speaker 1: Trump's mental problems Monday. We should have seen this coming
Speaker 1: no later than Friday. Analysis in interviews, Kamala Harris continues
Speaker 1: to Bob and Weave. Her media swing showed how she
Speaker 1: often responds to uncomfortable questions by acknowledging them yet not
Speaker 1: fully answering them. In remarks about min Donald Trump invoked
Speaker 1: his long held fascination with genes and genetics. The Harris
Speaker 1: story noted that sometimes she answers questions directly, but sometimes
Speaker 1: she doesn't. This is news because apparently The New York
Speaker 1: Times fires all its writers and headline composers and editors
Speaker 1: every year or two, so that everything that happened that
Speaker 1: also happened last year and the year before that, and
Speaker 1: the decade before that, and in fact happened in the
Speaker 1: year eighteen sixty seven, all that seems fresh and new
Speaker 1: to all the new editors and writers and headline writers.
Speaker 1: Oh golly, a politician didn't completely answer my question. That's
Speaker 1: against the law, isn't it. Well, at least we should
Speaker 1: all mock her, but not Trump, because he does it
Speaker 1: every day, every hour, and every question. So that's not
Speaker 1: news anymore. Right, that's the way it works. If it's
Speaker 1: happened a thousand times, it's not news. If it just
Speaker 1: happened once, it's news. He's done it all already. See
Speaker 1: how this works. The headline about in remarks about migrants,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump invoked his long held fascination with genes and genetics.
Speaker 1: Is The Times reverting to sanea washing Trump's latest madness
Speaker 1: when he said that murdering people is genetic. It's in
Speaker 1: the genes, and especially it's genetic in migrants coming to
Speaker 1: this country. And we've got a lot of bad genes
Speaker 1: in this country. And he's talking about eugenics, about ruling
Speaker 1: people out of staying here, or maybe incarcerating them or worse,
Speaker 1: based on their racial history. It's hitler. It's not fascination
Speaker 1: with genes and genetics. He is, of course criminally insane.
Speaker 1: But The New York Times is, in fact even more
Speaker 1: criminally insane than is Trump. That headline is the equivalent
Speaker 1: of To apply it to Trump's fictional role model. In
Speaker 1: remarks about census, Hannibal Lecter invoked his long held fascination
Speaker 1: with faba beans and a nice kiante or to send
Speaker 1: it back to its source. In headlines about Trump, the
Speaker 1: New York Times invoked its long held fascination with seeing
Speaker 1: what woul happened to America if it went fascist and
Speaker 1: a dictator decided to shut down the free press and
Speaker 1: jail everybody at the New York Times. This on the
Speaker 1: part of what is nominally the nation's leading news organization,
Speaker 1: is not just perverse and petulant and stupid and anti journalistic,
Speaker 1: it's suicidal. Nobody's asking for The Times to openly campaign
Speaker 1: against Donald Trump, or for Kamala Harris or anybody else,
Speaker 1: but the desire to make it seem as if this
Speaker 1: manifestly insane man is just the equivalent of a pyromaniac
Speaker 1: who likes to see how well his own clothes will
Speaker 1: burn and therefore is fascinated with heating devices, is at
Speaker 1: the heart of this. Once again, I will note that
Speaker 1: the summary the best summary of where we stand with Trump,
Speaker 1: comes from a New York Times article and a quote
Speaker 1: from the Yale historian Tim Snyder. Trump is in the
Speaker 1: classic dictatorial position. He needs to die in bed holding
Speaker 1: all executive power to stay out of prison. This means
Speaker 1: that he will do whatever he can to gain power,
Speaker 1: and once in power, will do all that he can
Speaker 1: to never let it go. This is a basic incentive
Speaker 1: structure which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent with democracy.
Speaker 1: In point of fact, what Tim Snyder said there should
Speaker 1: be The Times headline on every article it writes about Trump,
Speaker 1: or as whoever wrote that Trump invoked his long held
Speaker 1: fascination with genes and genetics headline. Trump invoked his long
Speaker 1: held fascination with serving America along with faba beans A
Speaker 1: nice canty. The New York Time. James Hitler invoked his
Speaker 1: long held fascination with significant rebuilding programs for European cities.
Speaker 1: Two Days, Worst Persons, All Fridays with Thurber and the
Speaker 1: Works of the Master, and one I have not read
Speaker 1: to you here before, but is one of my favorites
Speaker 1: because it is well you'll hear. Fridays with Thurber and
Speaker 1: the Macbeth Murder Mystery by James Thurber. It was a
Speaker 1: stupid mistake to make, said the American woman I had
Speaker 1: met at my hotel in the English Lake Country. But
Speaker 1: it was on the counter with the other Penguin books,
Speaker 1: the little sixpenny ones, you know, with the paper covers,
Speaker 1: and I supposed, of course, it was a detective story.
Speaker 1: All the others were detective stories. I'd read all the others,
Speaker 1: so I bought this one without really looking at it carefully.
Speaker 1: You can imagine how mad I was. When I found
Speaker 1: it was Shakespeare, I murmured something sympathetically. I don't see
Speaker 1: why the Penguin Books people had to get out Shakespeare's
Speaker 1: plays in the same size and everything as the detective
Speaker 1: stories went on. My companion, I think they have different
Speaker 1: colored jackets. I said, well, I didn't notice that, she said. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I got real comfy in bed that night and all
Speaker 1: ready to read a good mystery story. And here I
Speaker 1: had the Tragedy of Macbeth, a book for high school
Speaker 1: students like Ivan Hoe or Lorna Doone, I said, exactly,
Speaker 1: said the American lady, And I was just crazy for
Speaker 1: a good Agatha Christie or something. Ercule Poirot is my
Speaker 1: favorite detective. Is he the Rabbity one? I asked? Oh? No, oh,
Speaker 1: said my crime fiction expert. He's the Belgian one you're
Speaker 1: thinking of, mister Pinkerton, the one that helps Inspector Bull.
Speaker 1: He's good too. Over her second cup of tea, my
Speaker 1: companion began to tell me the plot of a detective
Speaker 1: story that had fooled her completely. It seems it was
Speaker 1: the old family doctor all the time. But I cut
Speaker 1: in on her. Tell me, I said, did you read Macbeth.
Speaker 1: I had to read it, she said. There wasn't a
Speaker 1: scrap of anything else to read in the whole room.
Speaker 1: Did you like it, I asked, no, I did not,
Speaker 1: she said decisively in the first place. I don't think
Speaker 1: for a moment that Macbeth did it. I looked at
Speaker 1: her blankly. Did what I asked? I don't think for
Speaker 1: a moment that he killed the king? She said. I
Speaker 1: don't think the Macbeth woman was mixed up in it either.
Speaker 1: I suspect them the most, of course, but those are
Speaker 1: the ones that are never guilty, or shouldn't be anyway.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I began that I but don't you see,
Speaker 1: said the American lady. It would spoil everything if you
Speaker 1: could figure out right away who did it. Shakespeare was
Speaker 1: too smart for that. I've read that people never have
Speaker 1: figured out Hamlet, so it isn't likely Shakespeare would have
Speaker 1: made Macbeth as simple as it seems. I thought this
Speaker 1: over while I filled my pipe. Who do you suspect?
Speaker 1: I asked suddenly Macduff she said promptly. Good God, I
Speaker 1: whispered softly. Oh McDuff did it all right, said the
Speaker 1: murder specialist Ercio Paro would have gotten him easily. How
Speaker 1: did you figure it out, I demanded, Well, she said
Speaker 1: I didn't right away. At first I suspected Banquo, and
Speaker 1: then of course he was the second person and killed.
Speaker 1: That was good right in there, that part the person
Speaker 1: you suspect of the first murder should always be the
Speaker 1: second victim. Is that so, I murmured, Oh, yes, said
Speaker 1: my informant. They have to keep surprising you. Well after
Speaker 1: the second murder, I didn't know who the killer was
Speaker 1: for a while. Uh, how about Malcolm and Donald Bain,
Speaker 1: the King's sons, I asked, As I remember it, They
Speaker 1: fled right after the first murder. That looks suspicious. Too suspicious,
Speaker 1: said the American lady. Much too suspicious. When they flee,
Speaker 1: they're never guilty. You can count on that, I believe,
Speaker 1: I said, I'll have a brandy, and I summoned the waiter.
Speaker 1: My companion leaned toward me, her eyes bright, her teacup quivering.
Speaker 1: Do you know who discovered Duncan's body? She demanded. I said,
Speaker 1: I was sorry, but I had forgotten McDuff discovers it,
Speaker 1: she said, slipping into the historical presence. Then he comes
Speaker 1: running downstairs and shouts, confusion has broke open the Lord's
Speaker 1: anointed temple, and sacrilegious murder has made his masterpiece, and
Speaker 1: on and on like that. The good lady tapped me
Speaker 1: on the knee. All that stuff was rehearsed. She said,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't say a lot of stuff like that offhand,
Speaker 1: would you, if you'd found a body? She fixed me
Speaker 1: with a glittering eye. I began, you're right, She said,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't unless you had practiced it in advance. My god,
Speaker 1: there's a body in here is what an innocent man
Speaker 1: would say. She sat back with a confident glare. I
Speaker 1: thought for a while, But what do you make of
Speaker 1: the third murderer?
Speaker 2: I asked.
Speaker 1: You know, the third murderer has puzzled Macbeth's scholars for
Speaker 1: three hundred years. That's because they never thought of McDuff.
Speaker 1: Said the American lady was McDuff. I'm certain you couldn't
Speaker 1: have one of the victims murdered by two ordinary thugs.
Speaker 1: The murderer always has to be somebody important. But what
Speaker 1: about the banquet scene, I asked, after a moment, how
Speaker 1: do you account for Macbeth's guilty actions there when Banquo's
Speaker 1: ghosts came in and sat in his chair. The lady
Speaker 1: leaned forward and tapped me on the knee again. There
Speaker 1: wasn't any ghost, she said. A big strong man like
Speaker 1: that doesn't go around seeing ghosts, especially in a brightly
Speaker 1: lighted banquet hall with dozens of people around. Macbeth was
Speaker 1: shielding somebody. Who was he shielding, I asked missus Macbeth.
Speaker 1: Of course, she said. He thought she did it, and
Speaker 1: he was going to take the rap himself. The husband
Speaker 1: always does that when the wife is suspected. But what
Speaker 1: I demanded about the sleepwalking scene, then the same thing,
Speaker 1: only the other way around, said companion. That time she
Speaker 1: was shielding him. She wasn't asleep at all. Do you
Speaker 1: remember where it says enter lady Macbeth with a taper? Yes,
Speaker 1: I said, Well, people who walk in their sleep never
Speaker 1: carry lights, said my fellow traveler. They have a second sight.
Speaker 1: Did you ever hear of a sleepwalker carrying a light? No,
Speaker 1: I said, I never did. Well, then she wasn't asleep.
Speaker 1: She was acting guilty to shield Macbeth. I think. I said,
Speaker 1: I'll have another brandy, and I called the waiter when
Speaker 1: he brought it I drank it rapidly and rose to go.
Speaker 1: I believe, I said that you have got hold of something.
Speaker 1: Would you lend me that? Macbeth. I'd like to look
Speaker 1: it over tonight. I don't feel somehow as if I've
Speaker 1: ever really read it. I'll get it for you, she said,
Speaker 1: but you'll find that I'm right. I read the play
Speaker 1: over carefully that night, and the next morning, after breakfast,
Speaker 1: I sought out the American woman. She was on the
Speaker 1: putting green, and I came up behind her silently and
Speaker 1: took her arm. She gave an exclamation. Could I see
Speaker 1: you alone? I asked in a low voice. She nodded
Speaker 1: cautiously and followed me to a secluded spot. You've found
Speaker 1: out something, she breathed. I've found out, I said, triumphantly,
Speaker 1: the name of the murderer. You mean it wasn't McDuff,
Speaker 1: she said. McDuff is as innocent of those murders, I said,
Speaker 1: as Macbeth and the Macbeth woman. I opened the copy
Speaker 1: of the play which I had with me, and turned
Speaker 1: to act too scene to hear. I said, you will
Speaker 1: see where lady Macbeth says, I laid their daggers ready.
Speaker 1: He could not miss them. Had he not resembled my
Speaker 1: father as he slept, I had done it. You see, no,
Speaker 1: said the American woman bluntly. I don't. But it's simple,
Speaker 1: I exclaimed. I wonder I didn't see it years ago.
Speaker 1: The reason Duncan resembled Lady Macbeth's father as he slept
Speaker 1: is that it actually was her father. Good God, breathed
Speaker 1: my companion softly. Lady Macbeth's father killed the king, I said,
Speaker 1: and hearing someone coming, thrust the body under the bed
Speaker 1: and crawled into the bed himself. But said the lady,
Speaker 1: you can't have a murder who only appears in the
Speaker 1: story once. You can't have that. I know that, I said,
Speaker 1: and I turned to Act two, Scene four. It says
Speaker 1: here enter Ross with an old man. Now that old
Speaker 1: man is never identified, and it is my contention that
Speaker 1: he was old mister Macbeth, whose ambition it was to
Speaker 1: make his daughter queen. There you'll have your motive. But
Speaker 1: even then, cried the American lady, he's still a minor character, not,
Speaker 1: I said, gleefully, when you realize that he was also
Speaker 1: one of the weird sisters in disguise. You mean one
Speaker 1: of those three witches. Precisely, I said, listen to this
Speaker 1: speech of the old man's. On Tuesday last a falcon
Speaker 1: towering in her pride of place was by a mousing owl,
Speaker 1: hawked at and killed. Who does that sound like? It
Speaker 1: sounds like the way the three witches talk, said my
Speaker 1: companion reluctantly. Precisely, I said, again, Well, said the American woman.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're right, but I'm sure I am, I said,
Speaker 1: And do you know what I'm going to do now?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: She said, what buy a copy of Hamlet? I said,
Speaker 1: and solve that. My companion's eyes brightened. Then she said,
Speaker 1: you don't think Hamlet did it? I am? I said,
Speaker 1: absolutely positive he did not. But who? She demanded, Who
Speaker 1: do you suspect? I looked at her cryptically, everybody, I said,
Speaker 1: and disappeared into a small grove of trees as silently
Speaker 1: as I had come. The Macbeth Murder Mystery by James Thurber.
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. We're now back to five episodes a week.
Speaker 1: We post nightly just after midnight Eastern. Follow me for
Speaker 1: the podcast promo videos on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram,
Speaker 1: and instacart. Oddly enough, once again there is a Monday countdown.
Speaker 1: Please send this podcast to somebody who does not know
Speaker 1: that they need to listen, but needs to listen. Brian
Speaker 1: Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration
Speaker 1: and keyboards, Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums,
Speaker 1: and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and
Speaker 1: fifthy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
Speaker 1: Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
Speaker 1: ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Speaker 1: Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
Speaker 1: My announcer today was my friend Larry David. Everything else
Speaker 1: was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for today. Three
Speaker 1: weeks and four days until the twenty twenty four presidential
Speaker 1: election and the three and seventy fifth day since convicted
Speaker 1: felt dementia j Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
Speaker 1: elected government of the United States. Use the election, use
Speaker 1: the metal health system, use presidential immunity. If we have
Speaker 1: to do it that way to keep him from doing
Speaker 1: it again, probably so can. The next schedule Countdown is
Speaker 1: Monday bulletins as the news requires. Until then, I'm Keith Aulderman.
Speaker 1: Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
Speaker 1: with Keith Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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