Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
Speaker 1: words were barely out of my mouth before they came
Speaker 1: out of President Biden's mouth. A former president that is
Speaker 1: a convicted felon, is now seeking the office of the presidency,
Speaker 1: Biden said at a fundraiser ten minutes from my high school.
Speaker 1: He added that after the twenty twenty election, something snapped
Speaker 1: in this guy. For real, it's literally driving him crazy.
Speaker 1: Call crazy Donald Trump, a convicted felon. Mission accomplished. Call
Speaker 1: convicted felon Donald Trump. Literally crazy, mission accomplished. Now do
Speaker 1: it on camera. I want sound bites, because now there
Speaker 1: is more evidence it's working at It cannot be said
Speaker 1: too often, and it cannot be said by too many
Speaker 1: different democratic leaders, and it needs to be said by
Speaker 1: the President of the United States loudly and confidently and repeatedly.
Speaker 1: He's convicted felon Donald Trump. And oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: he is literally insane. I am not betting democracy on
Speaker 1: one poll, on any poll, and particularly this one. It's
Speaker 1: conducted by a Canadian firm called Lege. Much of the
Speaker 1: sampling was before the guilty verdicts. Even if Leger is
Speaker 1: right on the money, it's not conclusive, but it is
Speaker 1: an indicator, another indicator, another big neon read letters flashing
Speaker 1: kind of indicator to keep calling him convicted felon. Leger's
Speaker 1: polls says one out of three Republicans wishes they were
Speaker 1: nominating somebody else. Among Republicans under the age of thirty five,
Speaker 1: it's nearly half wishing they were nominating somebody else. The
Speaker 1: actual numbers are outliers. The point is not, like the
Speaker 1: thirty four convictions of Trump shattered at least part of
Speaker 1: the baseline assumption in his cult that all but a
Speaker 1: handful of Americans, those evil Demo socia fascia commucrats, all
Speaker 1: but them, they all support God Trump. The fact that
Speaker 1: he is a convicted felon hits Trump cultists viscerally. It may,
Speaker 1: in fact be the closest they ever come in their
Speaker 1: entire lives to an honest understanding that they are in
Speaker 1: thrall to a criminal. It costs them sleep, it makes
Speaker 1: them angry, it makes them uncertain. Now there is other
Speaker 1: polling suggesting that Trump's apologists are far more fired up
Speaker 1: about these convictions than are the Democrats and the Independents,
Speaker 1: that their fantasies of nowen gunning all of us may
Speaker 1: be as stupid as they sound, but their desire to
Speaker 1: symbolically machine gun all of us is being reflected in
Speaker 1: the pressure they are putting on the House and their
Speaker 1: state attorney's general to do something, anything, to strike back.
Speaker 1: And ultimately that boils down to more donations, more soft
Speaker 1: voters going to the polls after all, more oomph, and
Speaker 1: more of a need for Democrats to pressure their electeds
Speaker 1: to hammer home the fundamental point here. So, once again,
Speaker 1: I cannot say this too often. Biden cannot say this
Speaker 1: too often because even the concept of Trump as convicted
Speaker 1: fellon Donald Trump is only a component of a bigger issue.
Speaker 1: The President has sat down with Newsweek. Why who knows
Speaker 1: who in the White House still thinks Newsweek is some
Speaker 1: sort of access route to undecided voters or to anybody
Speaker 1: for that matter, But he sat down with two of
Speaker 1: their writers and they published the transcript, and in it
Speaker 1: the President comes as close as he ever has to
Speaker 1: an admission that the whole mindset of his incoming administration
Speaker 1: was wrong, maybe even naive, and that a lot of
Speaker 1: that mindset remains in place, and that it is as
Speaker 1: much an obstacle to him defeating Trump again and saving
Speaker 1: democracy again, as Trump himself is an obstacle. Biden recounted
Speaker 1: for Newsweek his first G seven meeting quote, I said, well,
Speaker 1: America's back. Macron of France, by the way, looked at
Speaker 1: me and he said for how long? For how long?
Speaker 1: And then Schultz and bill off Schultz of Germany said
Speaker 1: to me, what would you say, mister President, if tomorrow
Speaker 1: you pick up the London Times and found out that
Speaker 1: thousands of people stormed the British Parliament, broke down the doors,
Speaker 1: killed two Bobby to prevent the implement the swearing in
Speaker 1: of a prime minister, a choice of prime minister. And
Speaker 1: it made me realize just how fundamentally what he allowed
Speaker 1: to happen, sitting in this room looking at that television
Speaker 1: for three hours and didn't do a damn thing said
Speaker 1: about America, and how much confidence people lost in America.
Speaker 1: There's not a I'm going to say, be careful what
Speaker 1: I say. There's not a major international meeting. I attended
Speaker 1: that before it's over, and I've attended many, many more
Speaker 1: than most presidents have in three and a half years.
Speaker 1: That a world leader doesn't pull me aside as I'm
Speaker 1: leaving and say he can't win. You can't let him win.
Speaker 1: My democracy and their democracy is at stake. Exactly You're
Speaker 1: goddamned exactly right. Say that. Say it again. Say it
Speaker 1: at rallies, say it in speeches, say it in tiktoks,
Speaker 1: say it in case campaign commercials, say it in TV interviews,
Speaker 1: say it in photo ops. And when you say it,
Speaker 1: when you say the world needs America to save its
Speaker 1: own democracy and thus to save all the other democracies,
Speaker 1: say that the first step to doing that is to
Speaker 1: defeat convicted felon Donald Trump. Two further convictions. All right,
Speaker 1: a step back in Georgia, but a step forward in
Speaker 1: Wisconsin now, in which the fake Elector's prosecution has just
Speaker 1: grazed Senator Ron Johnson and may yet nail him felony
Speaker 1: charges of forgery against Kenny the Cheese, the Trump attorney
Speaker 1: Ken Chesbro and attorney and ex judge Jim Troopis, and
Speaker 1: the Trump muscleman Michael Roman, who started the landslide against
Speaker 1: Fonnie Willis in Georgia. This is the fake Elector's scheme
Speaker 1: as it played out in Wisconsin. They did not indict Trump,
Speaker 1: They did not name him as an unindicted co conspirator.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Call
Speaker 1: told a news conference yesterday that the investigation is ongoing
Speaker 1: and he may seek further indictments. The key here is
Speaker 1: that while this has not been specified in those charges
Speaker 1: just says forgery, but the charging documents indicate that Chesbrote, Troopus,
Speaker 1: and Roman were attempting to get the fake elector's documents.
Speaker 1: The forgeries to Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson on January sixth. Johnson,
Speaker 1: you will recall, initially admitted somebody tried to get him something,
Speaker 1: but having the intelligence of a hairbrush, he was too
Speaker 1: stupid to realize that the trying part there was illegal
Speaker 1: and he was one of the illegals. And then somebody
Speaker 1: told him so he denied everything as it is again
Speaker 1: optics visceral reactions. The first court appearance in Wisconsin will
Speaker 1: be September nineteenth, And if further reporting on this begins
Speaker 1: to dirty up Trump and Johnson, it can only help.
Speaker 1: In a vital swing state unlikely to have a trial
Speaker 1: before the election, you may not need one. Just get
Speaker 1: it in the headlines. And also on the subject of
Speaker 1: the law, I will report this and only this from
Speaker 1: the Hunter Biden trial in Delaware on charges of possessing
Speaker 1: the name Biden. You may recall that the little Peter
Speaker 1: Navarro Aaron Boys scumbag Garrett Ziegler was one of the
Speaker 1: lynch pins in the laptop scam. Garrett Ziegler showed up
Speaker 1: to the courtroom in Wilmington yesterday and Hunter Biden's wife,
Speaker 1: Melissa Cohen Biden, later explaining that Ziegler has called her
Speaker 1: quote the most horrific Jewish slurs, went up to Ziegler
Speaker 1: and said, quote, you have no right to be here,
Speaker 1: you Nazi piece of shit. Mister chairman, I'd like to
Speaker 1: nominate Melissa Cohen Biden for whatever office she's willing to
Speaker 1: run for. Speaking of the Garrett Zieglers and the Ron
Speaker 1: Johnsons and the Kenny the Cheeses, why have they done it?
Speaker 1: Why have they sold out this nation? For convicted fellon
Speaker 1: Donald Trump? At least we may have an answer. It
Speaker 1: may be the answer if you're like me. That has
Speaker 1: been the drum beat behind all of these crises, whatever
Speaker 1: the latest crisis is, whatever the motives specific to that
Speaker 1: crisis might be, that's the drum beat in the background.
Speaker 1: Why why do they sell their souls for an idiot
Speaker 1: like Trump? Why do they sell out their country to
Speaker 1: lie to take the fall for an idiot like Trump?
Speaker 1: Why do they wore themselves out and do so for
Speaker 1: a guy who started as a moron and has since
Speaker 1: worked his way down to near total mental incapacitation. Why
Speaker 1: why do they buy his excuses and then sell his
Speaker 1: excuses and ultimately provide his excuses? Why were they willing
Speaker 1: to try to steal an election for him, and when
Speaker 1: that didn't work, to try to foment a revolution for him,
Speaker 1: and when that didn't work, to simply put their own
Speaker 1: asses in jail, to try to interrupt the peaceful transfer
Speaker 1: of power? Why? And behind that? Why for this guy?
Speaker 1: For this guy, a guy Hitler would have been embarrassed
Speaker 1: by a guy Stalin wouldn't have given two minutes to
Speaker 1: And finally, finally, finally, finally we have an answer why Cash.
Speaker 1: The Pulitzer Prize winning journalism nonprofit Pro Publica is now
Speaker 1: reporting that for at least eight of Trump's witnesses in
Speaker 1: the criminal cases against him, and the daughter of one
Speaker 1: of those eight, the look is bad, real real bad.
Speaker 1: Can't yet prove cause and effect in court can't yet
Speaker 1: prove the witness tampering side of this, can't yet prove
Speaker 1: Trump ordered anything here or even knew about these let's
Speaker 1: use the word emoluments, that he even knew anything about
Speaker 1: these emoluments. But these nine people have to quote the
Speaker 1: Pro Publica seminal report received significant financial benefits, including large
Speaker 1: raises from him campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a
Speaker 1: grant of shares and cash from Trump's media company unquote.
Speaker 1: From reading the report, and I encourage you to read
Speaker 1: it and reading the reaction to it, the story not
Speaker 1: only obviously hit the nerve in Trump world, but it's
Speaker 1: also obviously the string to pull on because, in advance
Speaker 1: of publication, one of Trump's infinite number of lawyers, all
Speaker 1: whom suck, warn that if Pro Publica quote continue their
Speaker 1: reckless campaign of defamation, Trump will evaluate all legal remedies. Ooh,
Speaker 1: that'll stop them. All of Trump's legal remedies, the ones
Speaker 1: that have so far all turned out to be snake oil. Ooohoo.
Speaker 1: Here's the nine and what they got either connected to
Speaker 1: what they did for him or just an incredible coincidence
Speaker 1: of timing. Boris Epstein the timeline Pro Publica reports twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two Georgia case grand jury. He testifies favorably about
Speaker 1: Trump April twenty twenty three interviews with the Special Council.
Speaker 1: August twenty twenty three, Trump's campaign goes from paying Epstein
Speaker 1: on average of twenty six thousand dollars a month to
Speaker 1: a new high of fifty three thousand, five hundred a
Speaker 1: month last October. Susie Wiles, Trump campaign manager, daughter of
Speaker 1: high I'm Pat Summer All. She's on the tape when
Speaker 1: he's showing off the top secret military maps. Remember that
Speaker 1: warns her she should not get too close to the maps,
Speaker 1: like they had cooties or something. From Pro publica May
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, she gets a twenty percent raise. June eighth,
Speaker 1: news of the tape comes out same month, or political
Speaker 1: consulting firm got a record high payment from the Trump
Speaker 1: campaign seventy five thousand dollars. And then later the Trump
Speaker 1: campaign hired somebody and made her the four highest paid
Speaker 1: staff around the campaign and twenty two thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: Her name Caroline Wiles. Well, that's a coincidence. It's not
Speaker 1: a coincidence. What do you mean, it's not a coincidence. Oh,
Speaker 1: she's Susie Wiles's daughter. Margo Martin, also an alleged witness
Speaker 1: to Trump, showing people how big his classified document cash
Speaker 1: really was. The Pro Publica report making one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty five thousand dollars a year, and then called to
Speaker 1: testify to the grand jury, and then suddenly making one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty five thousand dollars a year. Dan Scavino,
Speaker 1: Trump's anti social media guy. Pro Publica's timeline for Dan Scavino.
Speaker 1: Congressional investigators call him in August twenty twenty one. He stalls. Later,
Speaker 1: they give him a subpoena. He keeps stalling half a
Speaker 1: dozen extensions. Later there's a subpoena to go talk to
Speaker 1: the criminal grand jury. After that, Dan Scavino has given
Speaker 1: a seat on the board of Trump's Truth. Stalls again
Speaker 1: until May twenty twenty three, and according to SEC filings,
Speaker 1: then he gets a four million dollar executive promissory note
Speaker 1: paid in shares and a six hundred thousand dollars retention bonus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder what he was retaining. Jennifer Little, a Trump lawyer,
Speaker 1: called to the grand jury to talk about when she
Speaker 1: was there and they wanted the documents back, and Trump said,
Speaker 1: shouldn't they just not play ball? And wouldn't it be
Speaker 1: better if we just told them we don't have anything here? Little,
Speaker 1: according to ABC News, testifies and says she didn't remember
Speaker 1: him saying anything about not playing ball before she testified.
Speaker 1: Per Pro Publica, she'd never been paid higher than one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in one month March
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, two hundred and eighteen thousand since
Speaker 1: she testified, at least a million three in total. Evan Corcoran,
Speaker 1: the other Trump lawyer at the Don't Play Ball meeting.
Speaker 1: He testifies in March twenty twenty three. Pro Publica reports
Speaker 1: just days later his firm gets quote two payments to
Speaker 1: his firm, totaling seven hundred and eighty six thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: The firm brought in a total of one point four
Speaker 1: million in that four week span, more than double its
Speaker 1: payments from any other comparable period. Steve Whitkoff, expert witness
Speaker 1: for Trump defending Trump's real estate valuations in the Trump
Speaker 1: Organization real estate fraud trial last year from Pro Publica
Speaker 1: quote two months after Wittcoff's testimony, Trump's campaign for the
Speaker 1: first time started paying his company for air travel three
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy thousand dollars. Alan Weiselberg, Oh you know
Speaker 1: who Alan Weisselberg is and where he is right now?
Speaker 1: Four months after the New York Attorney General sued Trump
Speaker 1: for financial fraud in his real estate business, Pro Publica reports,
Speaker 1: Weisselberg got a two million dollars severance agreement with a
Speaker 1: non disparagement clause and language keeping him from voluntarily cooperating
Speaker 1: with investigators. Wow. Justin incredible coincidence, well, actually nine nine
Speaker 1: incredible coincidences, and they kind of dovetail into this other
Speaker 1: story about the Epoch Times. Did you see this? A
Speaker 1: pretend news organization that spent more money promoting Trump on
Speaker 1: Facebook than any other group, that says, yeah, there'll be
Speaker 1: a rapture, and in the rapture, all non Trump supporters
Speaker 1: will die, one of whose reporters breached Whitehouse security and
Speaker 1: handed Trump a still unexplained envelope in twenty eighteen. The
Speaker 1: Epoch Times that funded Larry Elders race for president this
Speaker 1: year up to five million dollars, and elder got approximately
Speaker 1: how many primary votes approximately approximately none Okay, the chief
Speaker 1: financial officer of the Epoch Times has now been indicted
Speaker 1: and charged with participation in an international money laundering scheme
Speaker 1: worth at least sixty seven million dollars. All you need
Speaker 1: is cash. Just a coincidence. Oh and one other incredible coincidence.
Speaker 1: You didn't see any of this from pro Publica in
Speaker 1: newspapers this week because the new editorial level at most
Speaker 1: of our newspapers a they are British. If the president
Speaker 1: would like to issue an order on immigration, they should
Speaker 1: stop British newspaper men from showing up in this country.
Speaker 1: I think we would have learned that with Murdoch. The
Speaker 1: new editorial level of all the newspapers think it's not
Speaker 1: worth it to run the news if their paper can't
Speaker 1: take credit for that news, or it's not worth it
Speaker 1: if taking credit for the news could get them in
Speaker 1: trouble with somebody, you know, like how the Washington Post
Speaker 1: broke and then hid the Alito flag scandal. And as always,
Speaker 1: where possible, a little comic relief, speaking of newspapers screwing
Speaker 1: themselves into the ground of The New York Times printed
Speaker 1: a focus group about the campaign, evidently under the mistaken
Speaker 1: belief that this is nineteen eighty eight and we all
Speaker 1: want to know what the focus groups are thinking. Worse yet,
Speaker 1: it was a focus group moderated by Frank Lunz. The
Speaker 1: Times evidently under the mistaken belief that it has not
Speaker 1: been alleged that Frank's hair is not his own. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to read these excerpts, which I'll remind
Speaker 1: you were commissioned by and printed in the New York Times.
Speaker 1: And I just hope somebody did this in hopes of
Speaker 1: slipping it past an editor so that the rest of
Speaker 1: us would conclude that you know, we're doomed if we
Speaker 1: don't get out and vote, raise money, convict Trump. We
Speaker 1: don't do that, democracy is dead, and that if we
Speaker 1: want to start worrying about twenty twenty eight, we better
Speaker 1: start giving all voters a ten question sanity test before
Speaker 1: letting them vote. Ahem. Quoting moderator Frank Luntz, Ben Europe,
Speaker 1: can you explain why undecided? Ben forty two, Texas White
Speaker 1: college advisor. A couple of people have mentioned a massive
Speaker 1: judicial conspiracy of everybody going after him. Okay, let's talk
Speaker 1: conspiracy math. Here. The sheer number of people who would
Speaker 1: have to be working together to get something like this
Speaker 1: working just boggles the mind. And have you ever tried
Speaker 1: to get four people to agree on what to order
Speaker 1: for pizza? I just don't see this working out. And
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Okay, fine, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to side with Jonathan on this one, saying, what's
Speaker 1: the big deal about bribing Stormy Daniels? But I want
Speaker 1: to president, who's going to be able to cover up
Speaker 1: a one hundred and thirty thousand dollars bribe to Daniels.
Speaker 1: If he can't pull that off, I'm not gonna trust
Speaker 1: him with the nuclear football. This seems like such an
Speaker 1: easy thing for him to screw up. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: leaning towards Biden. Now, Ben continued, We're all regular people
Speaker 1: with regular jobs. If any of us all did like
Speaker 1: one thousandth of what this guy did for being on trial,
Speaker 1: the financial stuff, the forms, the bribes, the meeting with people,
Speaker 1: we all would have been fired. We all would have
Speaker 1: been out on our butts applying for jobs at grocery
Speaker 1: stores or driving uber or whatnot. You're saying it's all
Speaker 1: like a political theater and farce and whatnot. But he
Speaker 1: was having an affair with a porn star, and not
Speaker 1: a particularly attractive one at that. There are so many
Speaker 1: wonderful porn stars out there. End quote. Ben advises college students,
Speaker 1: we are doomed. Last note, Hey, Frank Lenz, did you
Speaker 1: ask Ben his opinion of the phrase convicted fellon Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: who did not get away with covering up his scandal
Speaker 1: with a not so wonderful porn star out there too wordy,
Speaker 1: not enough pictures for Ben. Also of interest here, sure,
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball just banned a twenty four year old
Speaker 1: utility infielder for life for betting on baseball games involving
Speaker 1: his own team. But of course that has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the main advertising on all baseball broadcasts now
Speaker 1: being for betting on baseball games. But more importantly, anybody
Speaker 1: noticed that Baseball also suspended for a year for gaming
Speaker 1: on baseball games a guy who pitched in three of
Speaker 1: the five World Series games last year. Anybody worried about that?
Speaker 1: By any chance? That's next? This is Countdown. This is
Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Overman stell ahead of us on this
Speaker 1: all new edition of Countdown. Well, hell, I just mentioned
Speaker 1: Frank Luntz before the break. Why not take this opportunity
Speaker 1: to tell you all of my Frank Luntz stories, from
Speaker 1: the story in which he inadvertently got me the job
Speaker 1: anchoring Countdown on MSNBC to the story where he inadvertently
Speaker 1: got the president of CNN fired in things I promised
Speaker 1: not to tell coming up, but first, as ever, there
Speaker 1: are still more new idiots to talk about. The daily
Speaker 1: roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens
Speaker 1: who constitute two days worse person in the world. The
Speaker 1: runner up worse the Republican National Committee Lara idiot, daughter
Speaker 1: in law Trump proprietor. The Boston Globe reported yesterday realized
Speaker 1: is probably a better term that for days. For weeks,
Speaker 1: four months. The website for the rnc's Republican convention in
Speaker 1: Milwaukee next month, you know the thing that's on convicted
Speaker 1: fellon Donald Trump's schedule right after the sentencing. That website
Speaker 1: has used a beautiful background image depicting the skyline of
Speaker 1: Milwaukee where they're going to have the convention Milwaukee. Except
Speaker 1: Globe reporter Sam Brody noted, hey, that you don't look
Speaker 1: a thing like Milwaukee, And he did a little googling,
Speaker 1: and boy was he right. The backdrop photo of Milwaukee
Speaker 1: being used by the Republican Party was actually a photo
Speaker 1: of Ho Chi Min's city in Vietnam, Ho Chia Min's city. Now,
Speaker 1: if you post a photo of Milwaukee and somebody screws
Speaker 1: up and it's actually not Milwaukee, but it's Minneapolis or
Speaker 1: Miami or something else that fits alphabetically near Milwaukee, Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it. You didn't get enough sleep, you screwed up.
Speaker 1: You typed in them, and you got Miami instead of Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: But you googled Milwaukee and your computer memory corrected it
Speaker 1: to men as in Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: and so you get a variety of great photos of
Speaker 1: the place they no longer call Saigon. What exactly have
Speaker 1: you been googling, Lara Trump and why they've changed it now?
Speaker 1: It is really Milwaukee? My god, how great would it
Speaker 1: be if all the Republicans left next month for Ho
Speaker 1: Chi Minh City? The runners up my old employers. I know,
Speaker 1: like that gives you anything resembling a clue about what
Speaker 1: network I'm talking about? Well, I mean ESPN. Look, I
Speaker 1: understand that the boys are really really invested in this.
Speaker 1: Pat McAfee, the challenged guy they have on the air
Speaker 1: every day. Now, he's the latest thing that they think
Speaker 1: will prove that, No, the network isn't going to have
Speaker 1: to accept smaller audiences and older demographics for everything except
Speaker 1: live games forever and ever and ever to come, even
Speaker 1: though that's the reality. Lower the profit expectations. Boys, But honestly,
Speaker 1: anybody else who ever worked there, if they had called
Speaker 1: the brand new savior of one of the few growth
Speaker 1: sports there is, the WNBA, if they had called quote
Speaker 1: one white bitch for the Indiana team who is a
Speaker 1: superstar unquote, that person would have been at minimum suspended
Speaker 1: or fired or suspended then fired. Trust me, talk about
Speaker 1: ESPN suspensions, I know what I'm talking about, especially with
Speaker 1: this guy Pat McAfee's record of platforming that's psycho Aaron
Speaker 1: Rodgers and attacking executives. I don't know how long has
Speaker 1: he been there, a year. He's got a longer rap
Speaker 1: sheet at ESPN than I did in three different tenures.
Speaker 1: But now McAfee went on and he said that calling
Speaker 1: the Indiana fever rookie Caitlin Clark the B word, well,
Speaker 1: he meant that as a compliment about how she and
Speaker 1: nobody else has invigorated the league, but the use of
Speaker 1: the word was a massive f up by him. He
Speaker 1: said he meant it as a compliment, which is look
Speaker 1: a lie. There's no other word for it. You can't
Speaker 1: drop the B word into a discussion about the WNBA
Speaker 1: and mean it complimentarily. But management said, okay, now he's
Speaker 1: made it worse. McAfee says he said a personal apology
Speaker 1: to Caitlin Clark via her team's media department, and he
Speaker 1: heard back at quoting him who was all good, amended
Speaker 1: as a compliment. Those are my attentions. Caitlin Clark did
Speaker 1: not fail disrespected, but a lot of people said I
Speaker 1: was disrespecting her. So McAfee has now used the B
Speaker 1: word on the air as part of his coverage of
Speaker 1: women's basketball on a network that carries women's basketball that
Speaker 1: was the original home of national coverage of women's college
Speaker 1: national basketball. Then he has insisted it was a compliment.
Speaker 1: Then he apologized to the player for it even though
Speaker 1: he insisted it was a compliment. Now he's insisting the
Speaker 1: player is not offended by it. So who knows how
Speaker 1: this Pat McAfee will change the story today or what
Speaker 1: he will do next. Time to embarrass ESPN and the
Speaker 1: people who hired him there, one of whom will eventually
Speaker 1: get fired for hiring him, fired by the other two
Speaker 1: people who hired him. I got a track record knowing
Speaker 1: about this stuff do over there, But our winners the
Speaker 1: worst Major League Baseball Commissioner, Rob Manfred, we all accept him.
Speaker 1: I guess saw this coming once baseball embraced legalized gambling.
Speaker 1: It's new advertising when there ain't much new advertising. And again,
Speaker 1: there isn't a corporation in the world, particularly in sports,
Speaker 1: that's willing to say, hey, maybe the growth period is
Speaker 1: over for now. But for those of us who really
Speaker 1: didn't see this coming when baseball embraced legalized gambling, maybe
Speaker 1: that story of Shohei Otani and his interpreter and the
Speaker 1: interpreter's quarter billion dollars worth of bets on other sports
Speaker 1: that his interpreter got Otani to partially pay for, maybe
Speaker 1: that made the rest of us see it coming. Except
Speaker 1: Rob Manfred. Baseball has now banned twenty four year old
Speaker 1: Venezuelan infielder outfielder took apeda Marcano of the Padres for
Speaker 1: life because he placed just a few bets with a
Speaker 1: legal sports book, a legal sports book bets legal bets
Speaker 1: on baseball, and baseball rules are you can bet on
Speaker 1: the other sports, but you can't ever bet on baseball.
Speaker 1: But just a few, only two hundred and thirty one
Speaker 1: of them in October twenty twenty two, and then the
Speaker 1: back half of last year more than one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars in bets in totals, and the reason
Speaker 1: he was banned for life. Twenty five of the bets
Speaker 1: were on the Pittsburgh Pirates, and at that time he
Speaker 1: was also on the Pittsburgh Pirates automatic lifetime ban. But
Speaker 1: Baseball also suspended yesterday three other players for one year
Speaker 1: each for betting on games legally not involving their own teams.
Speaker 1: And I swear I am way more disturbed by one
Speaker 1: of those stories than I am about Marcano. Last year,
Speaker 1: in the postseason, on eleven different occasions, the Arizona Diamondbacks
Speaker 1: called in a rookie lefty relief pitcher out of India
Speaker 1: University named Andrew Salfrank, and the commentators were extolling him,
Speaker 1: and he registered holds in four of his first eight
Speaker 1: postseason appearances. And you'd only come to the majors a
Speaker 1: month earlier, and he got a hold in the game
Speaker 1: that sent Arizona to the World Series. And then he
Speaker 1: pitched in three straight games out of the five games
Speaker 1: they played in the World Series, and he didn't give
Speaker 1: up a run, he only gave up one hit. And
Speaker 1: he's banned for a year now because in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one and twenty twenty two, when he was still in
Speaker 1: the minor leagues, he bet once on a college ball game,
Speaker 1: and he made four bets on his big league teams games.
Speaker 1: His baseball bets totaled four hundred and forty five dollars
Speaker 1: and eighty seven cents. I'm not making excuses for him,
Speaker 1: No betting on baseball four hundred and forty five dollars
Speaker 1: and eighty seven cents four hundred forty five million dollars
Speaker 1: in eighty seven cents doesn't matter. But why did he
Speaker 1: bet on these games? Until this guy Marcano got banned
Speaker 1: for life yesterday, there had not been an active player
Speaker 1: banned for wagering or even talking about wagering on his
Speaker 1: own team since Jimmy O'Connell of the New York Giants
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty four. Why has there been a sudden
Speaker 1: explosion of betting by baseball players on sports on baseball.
Speaker 1: Why did this poor idiot, Salve Frank just lose a
Speaker 1: year because he legally bet four hundred and forty five
Speaker 1: dollars and eighty seven cents. Do you think it might
Speaker 1: have something to do with the fact that I am
Speaker 1: every other commercial on every sports telecast at every baseball
Speaker 1: telecast tells you bet on this game. Right now, here's
Speaker 1: how you will win. You will win, you will win.
Speaker 1: Marcano's done for life, Salve Frank. He should be okay
Speaker 1: in a year. But next time, when it isn't a
Speaker 1: utility infielder, or it isn't a guy who bet four
Speaker 1: hundred and forty five dollars and eighty seven cents while
Speaker 1: he was in the minors, When it's a star, or
Speaker 1: it's an umpire, or it's a World Series umpire, what
Speaker 1: do they do? Then? Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob I said,
Speaker 1: bet on game games, not baseball games, Manfred two days,
Speaker 1: worst person in the world that hods up sixty five?
Speaker 1: All right? Since I brought up Frank Lunz and his
Speaker 1: focus group for The New York Times at the end
Speaker 1: of the A Bloc today, It's probably a good day
Speaker 1: to assemble my best Frank Lunz stories in one place,
Speaker 1: because Frank's gift and he's like one step removed from
Speaker 1: practicing alchemy without a license. Frank's gift actually turned out
Speaker 1: to be accidentally essential in putting me on a new
Speaker 1: show called Countdown on MSNBC twenty one years ago and
Speaker 1: everything that followed at MSNBC and Yeah, you're welcome things
Speaker 1: I promised not to tell our number one story on
Speaker 1: the Countdown and all my Frank Lunz stories. Let's flash
Speaker 1: back to that article by the writer Tim Alberta in
Speaker 1: The Atlantic that ended the Chris Licked presidency at CNN
Speaker 1: in early June twenty twenty three, although the damage will
Speaker 1: continue to shrink that network, and one of the moments that,
Speaker 1: had the piece been a video, would have gone viral
Speaker 1: was the scene in which Tim Alberta, the writer, is
Speaker 1: in the apartment of a USC professor who has convinced
Speaker 1: Chris Licked, head of CNN, to talk to sixteen students.
Speaker 1: What follows is both maudlin and terrifying. To quote the piece,
Speaker 1: Chris was absolutely, positively, without question the right choice for CNN.
Speaker 1: The teacher told his students, motioning them toward the man
Speaker 1: seated in front of them. There is nothing more important
Speaker 1: in America to than trust. I'm praying that Chris is successful.
Speaker 1: I want him to have this job for ten years,
Speaker 1: because anything less than ten years will not give him
Speaker 1: the opportunity to make the most important changes to the
Speaker 1: most important news source on the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: Now I have every faith that he will succeed, and
Speaker 1: every fear for this country if he doesn't. He turned
Speaker 1: to face licked. The teacher's eyes were watery. His voice
Speaker 1: was joked with emotion. My hopes and dreams are embodied
Speaker 1: in you, he said. This was quite an introduction, especially
Speaker 1: considering the man who gave it, Frank Lunce unquote, Frank Lunce,
Speaker 1: Frank Lunz, Frank Lunz. Could there be somebody else out
Speaker 1: there named Frank Lunz besides that? Frank Lunz, The rabbit biased, subjective,
Speaker 1: Republican pollster who can make a focus group defend any
Speaker 1: conservative idea and then get up and sing, who let
Speaker 1: the dogs out? The mercenary who has worked for every
Speaker 1: news organization, The man who every eighteen to twenty four
Speaker 1: months goes through a phase or an act in which
Speaker 1: he pretends to not be a conservative but just a
Speaker 1: middle of the road surveyor of the American landscape and
Speaker 1: a professor at USC close USC. Immediately that was Chris
Speaker 1: Licht's mentor, the great flaming fraud that is Frank Lunz,
Speaker 1: the whore that is Chris LICKT Well, that's the missing piece,
Speaker 1: I guess in the Chris licked story, adored by beholden
Speaker 1: to one of the great confidence tricksters of America media
Speaker 1: and American politics. And let me tell you how I
Speaker 1: know that Frank Lunz once did his horror act on
Speaker 1: my behalf, or at least ultimately for my bade of it.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, I had gone back to
Speaker 1: work for NBC Sports for a second time. I was
Speaker 1: going to do the Olympics for them from Greece the
Speaker 1: next year, and as a peace gesture towards my still
Speaker 1: angry ex employers at MSNBC, the head of NBC Sports,
Speaker 1: Dick Eversol, said, Look, they're having problems over there filling
Speaker 1: their shifts. They've got a couple of sick anchors and
Speaker 1: the guys are too stretched with the war coming up,
Speaker 1: Why don't you go over there and fill in for
Speaker 1: the poor guy who's sick. While I was there February
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, absolutely no belief that I would
Speaker 1: stay at MSNBC for more than a week, they told
Speaker 1: me about a new show they were going to launch
Speaker 1: called Countdown. And Phil Griffin, who had produced my original
Speaker 1: MSNBC show in nineteen ninety seven at nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: who was my first producer in television at CNN in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, who is now pretty much running primetime
Speaker 1: at MSNBC, in two thousand and three, he told me
Speaker 1: they were deep in negotiations to buy from ABC News
Speaker 1: the contract of their ideal host for this new show, Countdown,
Speaker 1: Sam Donaldson. I blanched. Apparently, I was at the time
Speaker 1: working at ABC News in radio, and although I loved
Speaker 1: Sam Donaldson's work, especially when he was the White House correspondent,
Speaker 1: I knew firsthand that ABC was so desperate to get
Speaker 1: Sam Donaldson to quit that they had taken him completely
Speaker 1: off TV and they had stuck him on ABC Radio,
Speaker 1: and when that had not worked, they had just relegated
Speaker 1: his radio show to internet only. This is two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, Internet only radio. I knew this because I
Speaker 1: had filled in for him on his Internet only radio
Speaker 1: show where we took calls for two hours, or should say,
Speaker 1: where we took call for two hours one person called in.
Speaker 1: The producer said that was about half the normal total.
Speaker 1: Now it was Phil Griffin who had told me this story.
Speaker 1: He blanched the job offers on Sam Donaldson's desk and
Speaker 1: on my bosses. He looked around the room. Would you
Speaker 1: do the show? Would you ever do another nightly show
Speaker 1: for us? Would you do this this countdown thing? I shrugged.
Speaker 1: I guess sure. I mean it's so far it hasn't
Speaker 1: been as bad as it was five years ago. But
Speaker 1: you know, they're gonna have me go to the Olympics
Speaker 1: and do other sports stuff. I'll need the time off
Speaker 1: for the Olympics. You'll have to have a guest host.
Speaker 1: It's not till next year, right, It's like, yeah, not
Speaker 1: till next year. Oh oh god? Thanks? Okay, all right, well,
Speaker 1: well I know how to make this happen. Rainy, get me,
Speaker 1: Frank Lunz. I only heard Phil Griffin's end of the
Speaker 1: Frank Lunz conversation. He told Frank Lunz and again I
Speaker 1: could not swear that it was Frank Luntz on the
Speaker 1: other end, But why would he make it up? Say
Speaker 1: you're calling I don't know Uma Thurman, just to pick
Speaker 1: a name out of a hat. Rain you get me,
Speaker 1: Uma Thurman, He told Frank Lunz of the crisis, He
Speaker 1: invoked the name of the then president of NBC News,
Speaker 1: Neil Shapiro. You know Neil loves focus groups. Frank, give
Speaker 1: me a focus group that says it hates Sam Donaldson,
Speaker 1: that we should never hire Sam Donaldson. Give me another
Speaker 1: focus group that says it loves Keith Overman. Can you
Speaker 1: do it? By day after tomorrow? Great Frank Neil Shapiro's
Speaker 1: office called my agent to offer me the job as
Speaker 1: the host of Countdown, with the word with Sam Donaldson
Speaker 1: crossed out and with Keith Overman written in in crayon.
Speaker 1: Three days later, Frank Luntz has lingered in American politics
Speaker 1: like a rash that won't quite go away. Remember the
Speaker 1: time Trump inadvertently revealed that when he says he believes
Speaker 1: in God, if he isn't just making that up. What
Speaker 1: he believes in basically is a god who works for
Speaker 1: Trump as a vice president. Vice President of I don't know,
Speaker 1: vice President of Creation something. When they asked Trump about
Speaker 1: his faith at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa
Speaker 1: in July twenty fifteen. The moderator of the Family Leadership
Speaker 1: Summit in Ames, Iowa was Frank Lunz. He's ubiquitous. Trump said,
Speaker 1: people are so shocked when they find out I am Protestant.
Speaker 1: I am Presbyterian, and I go to church, and I
Speaker 1: love God and I love my church. Frank Lunz then
Speaker 1: followed up with a softball of literally biblical proportions. He
Speaker 1: asked whether Trump had ever asked God for forgiveness for
Speaker 1: his own actions. I'm not sure I have, Trump answered,
Speaker 1: I just go on and try to do a better
Speaker 1: job from there. I don't think so. I think if
Speaker 1: I do something wrong, I think I just try and
Speaker 1: make it right. I don't bring God into that picture.
Speaker 1: I don't. Trump then explained to Frank Lunce that Holy
Speaker 1: Communion would suffice such situation. When I drink my little wine,
Speaker 1: which is about the only wine I drink, and I
Speaker 1: have my little cracker, I guess that is a form
Speaker 1: of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often
Speaker 1: as possible. Because I feel cleansed, cleansed. I think he's
Speaker 1: mistaken the Holy Wafers for colon cleans. I think in
Speaker 1: terms of let's go on and let's make it right,
Speaker 1: the art of the deal. Indeed, Frank Luntz was there,
Speaker 1: polls and focus groups and research. They are the balloon
Speaker 1: animals of politics, and Frank Lunz he's just the balloon
Speaker 1: animal guy, guy who has seniority in the park. Right
Speaker 1: about now, I've done all the damage I can do here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Please send this edition of Countdown
Speaker 1: to somebody who doesn't listen. Don't send it to Frank Luntz.
Speaker 1: Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel Arrange
Speaker 1: produced and performed most of our music. Mister Ray on guitarist,
Speaker 1: based in drums, Mister Chanelle on orchestration and keyboards. It's
Speaker 1: produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the
Speaker 1: Beethoven compositions, arranged unperformed by the group No Horns Allowed.
Speaker 1: Sports Music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It
Speaker 1: was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of v ESPN inc.
Speaker 1: Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Faust,
Speaker 1: the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today is
Speaker 1: my friend Howard Feineman. Everything else this is pretty much
Speaker 1: my fault. So that's countdown for this the one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty fifth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election,
Speaker 1: the forty sixth day since convicted felon Donald Trump's first
Speaker 1: attempt at coup against the democratically elected government of the
Speaker 1: United States. Let's do what we can now to stop
Speaker 1: him from doing it again while we still can. The
Speaker 1: next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news warrants
Speaker 1: until next time, I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Ouldreman is
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Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.