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Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: I Am actually startled. The State of the Union Address

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Speaker 1: has long since become an anachronism. Over the last twenty

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Speaker 1: five years, it has become a series of insiders talking

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Speaker 1: to other insiders and occasionally pointing to ordinary citizens in

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Speaker 1: the gallery as if they were creatures on display at

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Speaker 1: a zoo. It has become a ritual with the meaning

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Speaker 1: sucked out of it, and with increasing regularity, it has

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Speaker 1: become a stage for Republican simpleton's to disrespect the office

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Speaker 1: and the officer with stunts and shouts and heckling, and

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Speaker 1: winter after winter, it has doubled the argument for resuming

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Speaker 1: what President Thomas Jefferson first thought to do, to just

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Speaker 1: write the damned speech and have somebody else drop it

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Speaker 1: off at the House chamber door. And under those cynical

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Speaker 1: circumstances and with those diminishing caveats, Joe Biden absolutely killed

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Speaker 1: it last night, at his finest, at his most robust,

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Speaker 1: at his most combative, in his element in the proverbial arena,

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Speaker 1: throwing punches, blocking hecklers, and unashamedly exploiting the undeniable advantage

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Speaker 1: of having the only microphone in the room. Biden absolutely

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Speaker 1: killed it. And I am an utter cynic on political speeches.

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Speaker 1: I do not know how many of these I have heard,

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Speaker 1: and how many of the claims and promises and attitudes

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Speaker 1: and platitudes and catchphrases and applause lines I have heard

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Speaker 1: at nine thirty and forgotten by eleven. But this speech

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Speaker 1: I will remember. I will remember roads and infrastructure, and

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Speaker 1: education and insulin caps and unfair taxes and hidden service

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Speaker 1: fees and cable costs and raising teachers pay and quadrupling

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Speaker 1: the stock buy back tax and non compete clauses for

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Speaker 1: fast food cashiers and the talk and something good must

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Speaker 1: come from this, and do something and ban assault weapons now.

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Speaker 1: And I will remember Biden throwing away the ritualistic talk

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Speaker 1: down to them speechifying in order to cut through and

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Speaker 1: talk to the audience not in front of him but

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Speaker 1: the one at home, and to be conversational, and to

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Speaker 1: throw around that silly word, folks, and make it sound

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Speaker 1: sincere and serious, and then, best of all, baiting the

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Speaker 1: Republicans into loudly and embarrassingly denying what they have been

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Speaker 1: murmuring about all week, all year, all decade, all century,

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Speaker 1: baiting the Republicans into insisting loudly that no, they don't

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Speaker 1: want to gut Social Security and Medicare, and then inspiring

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Speaker 1: a chant of Usa Usa from Democrats for Democrats masterful.

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Speaker 1: And thank you George Santos for standing there beforehand, trying

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Speaker 1: to bull your way through, as Mitt Romney repeatedly said,

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Speaker 1: embarrassing or embarrassed to you. And thank you Lauren Bobert

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Speaker 1: for tweeting mid speech that when schools were closed in

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Speaker 1: it was Biden who closed them somehow while Trump was president.

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Speaker 1: And thank you Marjorie Taylor Green for wearing your bath

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Speaker 1: mat around your shoulders like it was suddenly Halloween and

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Speaker 1: you'd forgotten and you tried to build her own Coruella

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Speaker 1: Deville costume. And thank you Kirsten Cinema for dressing up

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Speaker 1: like Tweetie Bird after its car airbags had deployed, or

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Speaker 1: maybe the banana phone. And thank you to speaker McCarthy

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Speaker 1: for sitting there like a dyspeptic escaped owl. And thank

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Speaker 1: you Sarah Huckabee Sanders for sounding like a broken p

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Speaker 1: a system speaker in a nineteen fifty three bus station

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Speaker 1: with a mouth provided by Senor Wentzes and proving that

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Speaker 1: the rule of NEPO babies has now extended to the

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Speaker 1: State of the Union minority response. To be fair, President

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Speaker 1: Biden also had the help of somebody outside the room.

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Speaker 1: I want to thank Donald Trump for deflating all Republican

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Speaker 1: arguments hours before that speech, for completely overshadowing every criticism

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Speaker 1: of the State of the Union address, of silencing in advance,

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Speaker 1: every Republican who would try to insult Joe Biden, of

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Speaker 1: shadow banning every tweet by Jim Jordan about how much

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Speaker 1: the country Mrs Trump, of pomping every play of the

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Speaker 1: video of Marjorie Taylor Green holding a kid's balloon, And

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Speaker 1: what did I tell you yesterday? What did I tell

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Speaker 1: you about the need for props as the only mean

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Speaker 1: to communicate with the stupid demographic. So yes, thank you

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump for choosing yesterday to accuse Governor Ron De

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Speaker 1: Santis of quote grooming high school girls with alcohol as

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Speaker 1: a teacher by recirculating a blurry photo on social media

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Speaker 1: with his own caption that's not Ron, is it? He

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Speaker 1: would never do such a thing. And when that did

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Speaker 1: not get enough play, thank you Trump for recirculating it

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Speaker 1: a second time, adding no way and before you knew it.

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Speaker 1: Thank you de santis Is supporters, who then accused Trump

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Speaker 1: of traveling quote aboard Jeffrey Epstein's lead to express thank

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Speaker 1: you all for reminding us in real time that the

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Speaker 1: essence of Trump, and the essence of the Republican Party,

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Speaker 1: and the essence of American fascism in the twenty one

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Speaker 1: century is ask not what your country can do for you,

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Speaker 1: ask what your country can do for Trump. The State

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Speaker 1: of the Union address has in this last quarter century

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Speaker 1: devolved into not just a ritual, but into a string

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Speaker 1: of interlocking rituals. The President says a dozen or two

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Speaker 1: dozen or three dozen meaningless, vague things. The opposition party

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Speaker 1: grimaces or eye rolls or yells. A thousand pundits miss

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Speaker 1: the point in a thousand different ways, now nearly all

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Speaker 1: of them on CNN. It is partisan when it should

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Speaker 1: be nonpartisan, it is nonpartisan when it should be partisan.

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Speaker 1: And most importantly, words are chosen and they are spoken

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Speaker 1: in a specific way, a sublime meaninglessness. Then, after twenty

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Speaker 1: five years of having to listen to these addresses, it

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Speaker 1: finally struck me last night what I have been reminded

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Speaker 1: of since night, or maybe earlier, half a century ago,

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Speaker 1: there was an episode of the old TV series Star

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Speaker 1: Trek called The Omega Glory. And they land on some

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Speaker 1: planet like every other episode, and there are these rival

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Speaker 1: groups like every other episodes, and they're called the Yangs

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Speaker 1: and the Calms, and they're at each other's throats and

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Speaker 1: their codes for living are these meaningless, ritualistic holy words,

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Speaker 1: speeches of nonsense, syllables, the meaning of which none of

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Speaker 1: them know. They just notice say the words. And finally,

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Speaker 1: Captain Kirk, and yes, I understand, I'm invoking William Shatner

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Speaker 1: to explain American presidential politics and government nonsense. Finally, Captain

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Speaker 1: Kirk recognizes these ritualistic holy words for what they once

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Speaker 1: were centuries earlier before the meaning had been lost and

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Speaker 1: only some of the sounds remained and became distorted, and

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Speaker 1: the Yanks became the Yangs, and the Commies became the Calms.

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Speaker 1: They were speaking the Pledge of Allegiance and the U

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Speaker 1: S Constitution and your average State of the Union address

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Speaker 1: sounded like the Yangs and the Calms. That is what

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Speaker 1: American politics in general and the State of the Union

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Speaker 1: specifically have been moving towards since the nineties, and that

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Speaker 1: they have not yet gotten there, and we can hang

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Speaker 1: on to some small sliver of hope that they never

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Speaker 1: actually will get there. Is because of that once in

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Speaker 1: a decade or once in forever speech like the one

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Speaker 1: last night in which President Joe Biden sang and shouted

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Speaker 1: and whispered and bellowed and demanded and pleaded and most

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Speaker 1: of all believed stunning startling a masterpiece. Still had another

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Speaker 1: State of the Union quite a long time ago, the

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Speaker 1: day they handed the keys to covering that epic addressed

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Speaker 1: just as the Clinton Lewinsky scandal started to some guy

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Speaker 1: who had no idea he was going to have to

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Speaker 1: do it until the day before, and who had been

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Speaker 1: giving the baseball scores just eight months earlier. Things I

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Speaker 1: promised not to tell. Coming up. There is a Republican

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Speaker 1: dark horse presidential candidate, but he has a major problem.

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Speaker 1: He does not know if he is running for the

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Speaker 1: nomination in the year or I've seen this and I

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Speaker 1: still don't believe it. Worst persons ahead and Flacco. The

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Speaker 1: missing Central Park Zoo Eagle owl goes back to the

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Speaker 1: Central Park Zoo and then leaves again. Owl Watch twenty

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Speaker 1: three continues, that's next. This is countdown. This is countdown

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Speaker 1: with Keith Olberman. Postscripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,

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Speaker 1: some snarks, some predictions. Date line, Central Park, New York City,

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Speaker 1: Breaking owl watch twenty three news. Flacco, the eagle owl

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Speaker 1: is home. He is inside the Central Park. Wait wait,

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Speaker 1: there's more Flacco breaking news. Oh no, he's not at

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Speaker 1: large since last Thursday, when somebody broke into his inn closure.

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Speaker 1: Flacco began Tuesday right outside the Central Park Zoo grounds.

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Speaker 1: Then he flew eastwards to a pine tree actually inside

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Speaker 1: the grounds, and then to a birch and appeared to

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Speaker 1: be headed home to his enclosure. But then at sunset

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Speaker 1: he who did a couple of times and flew to

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Speaker 1: the women ice skating rink, evidently astonished by the price

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Speaker 1: gouging costs of renting skates there. Flacco flew north of

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Speaker 1: the rink, and at last word he might be resuming

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Speaker 1: a tour of the neighborhood. This is Sports Center. Wait,

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Speaker 1: check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith. You know,

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Speaker 1: I might not be taking my news responsibilities as seriously

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Speaker 1: as I should. In sports Aaron Rodgers is just out there. Huh.

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Speaker 1: Last year, the once popular quarterback of the Green Bay

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Speaker 1: Packers revealed he kind of lied when he intimated in

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Speaker 1: public that he had been vaccinated against COVID, but then

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Speaker 1: said he'd actually only been immunized, which meant he'd eating

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Speaker 1: ants or bugs or I don't know, a horse or something.

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Speaker 1: And then he revealed that he'd taken a t containing hallucinogens. Now,

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Speaker 1: Rogers says he is going to go on a four

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Speaker 1: day fournight darkness retreat right after the Super Bowl, which

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Speaker 1: sounds great, we could all use that, but listen to

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Speaker 1: this quote. We rarely even turn our phones off or

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Speaker 1: put the blinds down to sleep in darkness. Rogers said, well,

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Speaker 1: who in the hell doesn't took the blinds down? I mean, seriously,

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Speaker 1: did you not think of that that they come down?

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Speaker 1: That's why, so it could be dark in there. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this guy went from being the spokesman for a multimillion

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Speaker 1: dollar insurance ad campaign to a weird I think he's

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Speaker 1: already been in a darkness retreat for a while now,

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Speaker 1: and this one is almost as weird as Lebron James

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Speaker 1: approached the all time NBA scoring record. My old ESPN

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Speaker 1: colleague Michelle Beatle revealed on a basketball podcast that lebron

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Speaker 1: quote tried to actually have me fired from ESPN's basketball

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Speaker 1: coverage and replaced by another one of my old ESPN

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Speaker 1: and Turner colleagues, Rachel Nichols. Beatles said he even direct

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Speaker 1: messaged her once on Twitter asking why are you so

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Speaker 1: mean to me on television? And Michelle is as mystified

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Speaker 1: as the rest of us as to why he would

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Speaker 1: bother and I'm jealous. The only people ever tried to

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Speaker 1: get me fired on television were Dick Cheney and George W.

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Speaker 1: Bush and Chris Matthews and Lawrence Donald and Joe Morgan

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Speaker 1: and the Undergone and Rupert Murdoch. Now the daily round

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Speaker 1: up of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Krueger effect specimens

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Speaker 1: who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze,

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Speaker 1: the House Weaponization Subcommittee, Washington Post ABC News poll indicating

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Speaker 1: the country has a little bit of a problem with

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Speaker 1: the new McCarthy ism. Is the new committee just an

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Speaker 1: attempt to score political points? Respondence to the Post ABC poll,

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Speaker 1: No percent, It's not just there to score political points.

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Speaker 1: Yes it is. Fifty second question, our government agencies actually

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Speaker 1: biased against conservatives? Yes, no, wrap it up, boys, You

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Speaker 1: lost before the ball game even started. The runner up,

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Speaker 1: former Congressman Lee Zelden, you knew that eventually, with the

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Speaker 1: lives of George Santos now being measured by the number

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Speaker 1: of freight trains it would take to carry them all,

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Speaker 1: that there would be collateral damage. And it looks like

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Speaker 1: it may be Zelden, as GOP bosses acknowledge, whatever is

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Speaker 1: left of the House Ethics Committee is going to investigate

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Speaker 1: Santos for what looks like that rare, one corrupt campaign

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Speaker 1: fundraising process. One little detail jumps out dozens and dozens

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Speaker 1: of Santos campaign expenses, all identified as costing one cents

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Speaker 1: because you only have to keep receipts and present them

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Speaker 1: for campaign expenses of two hundred dollars or more. Guests

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Speaker 1: whose campaign expenses turn out to also be filled with

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Speaker 1: deductions that all cost a hundred and nine cents each.

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Speaker 1: Ex Congressman Lee Zelden twenty one of them on one

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Speaker 1: day punchline. The Zelden and Santos campaign has had the

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Speaker 1: same treasurer by Felicia, but the winners Steve Laughy, Emily Gooden,

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Speaker 1: and as she has identified as the senior US political

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Speaker 1: reporter for the British sleazy tabloid The Daily Mail and

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Speaker 1: Gooden's publication The Daily Mail. The Daily Mail made a

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Speaker 1: big deal yesterday about some sort of exclusive interview with

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Speaker 1: this small town ex mayor Laughy, who is trying to

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Speaker 1: position himself as the next quote Republican breakout presidential candidate.

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Speaker 1: His name is Steve Laughy, and Ms Gooden writes, quote

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Speaker 1: his plan to charge onto the New Hampshire debate stage

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Speaker 1: and demand Republicans talk about ways to reform social security. Fine,

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Speaker 1: I guess, except Ms Gooden and The Daily Mail and

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Speaker 1: Mr Laffey apparently cannot decide on which year he is

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Speaker 1: running for president. In the first version of this story

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Speaker 1: posted online, read in order, quote is this the breakout

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Speaker 1: Republican candidate? Then quote in four Steve Laffey hopes person

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Speaker 1: that will be him, then quote he could be the

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Speaker 1: candidate to catch fire during primary Emily Gooden The Daily

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Speaker 1: Mail and Steve maybe he's a time traveler, Laughy, Today's

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Speaker 1: worst persons and the word still ahead on countdown. It

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Speaker 1: is twenty five years now since they basically pulled somebody

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Speaker 1: off the street and had him host national coverage of

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Speaker 1: the State of the Union address on cable news, and

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Speaker 1: that somebody was me Things I Promised not to tell

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Speaker 1: coming up first. In each addition of Countdown, we feature

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Speaker 1: a dog in need you can help. Every dog has

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Speaker 1: its day. Back to New York and Nigel. The last

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Speaker 1: weeks of a dog killed in a pound are almost

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Speaker 1: always the story of a self fulfilling prophecy. Nigel arrived

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Speaker 1: last week of January, friendly, soft bodied, sociable, and then

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Speaker 1: when playing he nipped at one of the hand wish

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Speaker 1: not at their skin, he nipped at the waistband of

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Speaker 1: their pants. So thereafter they refused to let him out

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Speaker 1: of his cage. So now he's claustrophobic and panicking. So

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Speaker 1: now they'll kill him because he's claustrophobic and panicking, and

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Speaker 1: they'll do it as early as tomorrow. He needs our

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Speaker 1: pledges to defray the cost of a rescue to save

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Speaker 1: his life. You can find Nigel on my Twitter feeds.

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Speaker 1: I thank you and Nigel thanks you. Now to the

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Speaker 1: number one story on the Countdown and Things I Promised

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Speaker 1: Not to Tell and the State of the Union nine.

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Speaker 1: When I left ESPN and signed with MSNBC the first

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Speaker 1: time in was not to become a political commentator nor

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Speaker 1: even anchor. I went there to do with the president

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Speaker 1: of NBC News America needed most a live, hour long

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Speaker 1: news magazine show from Cecaucus, New Jersey. So unfocused that

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Speaker 1: on consecutive nights we led with the threat of a

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Speaker 1: terrorist group called al Qaeda, and then the next night

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Speaker 1: we lad with the publication of the Farmers Almanac. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this was the news at eight p m. The lead

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Speaker 1: story that published the Farmers Almanac. Again, here's our live guest,

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Speaker 1: the publisher. Here's a going to rain next year. I

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Speaker 1: had regrets. Anyway, the good part of the job was sports.

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Speaker 1: I hosted baseball in the World Series and even did

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Speaker 1: some Super Bowl stuff for NBC, and in mid January

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Speaker 1: I flew to the West Coast to work on that

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Speaker 1: and do this magazine show, the Big Show on MSNBC

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Speaker 1: from entertainment venues in l A, most of them associated

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Speaker 1: with NBC. On the afternoon of Tuesday, January, were on

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Speaker 1: the set of Third Rock from the Sun preparing to

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Speaker 1: interview it's star John Liscow when my producer Phil Griffins citled,

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Speaker 1: over you, my little friend, are about to become a

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Speaker 1: political host, the President got caught with some chippy in

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Speaker 1: the White House. Chippy, oh not sex. Sex looks like

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Speaker 1: just you know, and then he lied about it in

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Speaker 1: the deposition Saturday. I asked him how in the hell

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Speaker 1: anybody knew about what the deposition said when it was

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Speaker 1: just four days after he gave the deposition, and those

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Speaker 1: things are supposed to be you know, secret preach me.

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Speaker 1: Drudge put it out yesterday, and I asked him if

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Speaker 1: credible news organizations like NBC were actually quoting an internet

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Speaker 1: guy best known for his hat about what was a

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Speaker 1: potentially impeachable offense. A lot of people were close on

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Speaker 1: this story. Griffin said, we were close. Lisa Myers almost

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Speaker 1: had at Sunday night. Newsweek finally put out a more

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Speaker 1: detailed version about ninety minutes ago. It was their scoop.

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Speaker 1: Judge just stole it from them. I think it was

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Speaker 1: Isakov who wrote it. You'll have to interview Tim Russer

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Speaker 1: to lead the show. The president may resign. We'll do

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Speaker 1: it from right here. Back that up. What was that

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Speaker 1: you said, we'll do it from right here? None part

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Speaker 1: about the president resigning. The president might resign. Thus, half

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Speaker 1: an hour later, I was hooked up by satellite with

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Speaker 1: Tim Russer from the Washington Bureau, listening to him outline

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Speaker 1: the possibilities that the president might resign before sunrise. I

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Speaker 1: nodded with as much gravitas as I could fake, despite

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Speaker 1: the elements of farces that were apparently obvious only to

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Speaker 1: me in the story and in where I was seated.

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Speaker 1: In the background of my close up stood the refrigerator

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Speaker 1: from the kitchen set of Lithgos show Third Rock from

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Speaker 1: the Sun, and on the refrigerator, complete with its decorative magnets,

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Speaker 1: speaking there silent and suddenly completely hip gag. The magnets

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Speaker 1: were a banana surrounded on either side by a strawberry.

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Speaker 1: Phil I said to Phil as we tried to plan

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Speaker 1: a smooth transition from that taped Russer interview about the

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Speaker 1: possibil impeachment of resignation of the president to a taped

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Speaker 1: interview with John Lithgow, and then back to the live

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Speaker 1: speculations of a couple of political writers for the rest

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Speaker 1: of the hour. We're not gonna have to do this

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Speaker 1: every day, are we, Griffin laugh, of course not. What

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Speaker 1: do you think this is the end of the world?

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Speaker 1: He was right, We did not do it every day.

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Speaker 1: We did it for two and eighteen consecutive shows, starting

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Speaker 1: that night with the Banana and the strawberry magnets over

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Speaker 1: my shoulder. Our ratings kept doubling. Following Tuesday, my thirty

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Speaker 1: eight birthday, I was back in New York hoasting a

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Speaker 1: round table of political heavyweights in the hour leading up

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Speaker 1: to Bill Clinton's State of the Union address. That night,

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Speaker 1: Andy Lack of NBC News and Phil Griffin had decided

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Speaker 1: that I should host a second live report once the

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Speaker 1: NBC Network guys Russer, Tom Brokaw a couple of others

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Speaker 1: had wrapped up their analysis, which we were also carrying

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Speaker 1: on MSNBC, so I would come on at eleven o'clock

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Speaker 1: after Brokaw and Russert two hours. My little friend, this

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Speaker 1: is our nightline. I was doing my best to keep

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Speaker 1: a straight face when during a commercial break it maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe midnight, halfway through my wrap up show, Griffin materialized

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Speaker 1: next to my anchor desk. He had this stunned but

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Speaker 1: not unhappy look, like when he used to smoke a

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Speaker 1: lot of dope when we worked together in the eighties.

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Speaker 1: We have the preliminary ratings, My little friend, I hope

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Speaker 1: you're sitting down. I pointed at myself, seated in the chair.

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Speaker 1: The pregame show that did a one point one. Our

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Speaker 1: average rating at MSNBC before this presidential stuff came up

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Speaker 1: had been an O point three. This was now four

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Speaker 1: times the previous ratings. In the past week, it had

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Speaker 1: searched to an O point six, and Griffin had insisted

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Speaker 1: to me that Andy Lack was so happy he had

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Speaker 1: wet his pants. But this is the kicker here, buddy.

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Speaker 1: We have the immediate Since the president finally stopped talking speech,

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Speaker 1: did an oh eight, Broke on Russer, they wrap up,

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Speaker 1: did an O six. Since eleven o'clock you've been doing

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Speaker 1: a one point seven. You have had three times the

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Speaker 1: audience of Tom Broke, three times the audience of the

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Speaker 1: old man himself. This isn't just people crossing over from

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Speaker 1: NBC to watch more. This is people watching the speech,

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Speaker 1: turning off the old man, then turning back at eleven

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Speaker 1: to watch you. I tried to assimilate what he was

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Speaker 1: telling me. For the first time in my life, my

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Speaker 1: ego refused to cooperate. The stage manager barked his queue

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Speaker 1: of thirty seconds until the end of the commercial break,

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Speaker 1: Phil Griffin shook my hand. Oh, and by the way, um,

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Speaker 1: that thing you said at the start of the hour

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Speaker 1: about it was as if the Intern had opened the

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Speaker 1: door to the chamber and said, Mr Speaker, the President

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Speaker 1: of the United States. Um, that's already included in the

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Speaker 1: Associated Press store one point seven, My little friend, don't

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Speaker 1: f it up. Actually you can't f it up. We're

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Speaker 1: in for the long haul now. Revel in it me

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Speaker 1: quoted about the Clinton Lewinsky story in the main coverage

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Speaker 1: of the State of the Union address on the Associated

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Speaker 1: Press wire. Eight months after I stopped giving the scores

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Speaker 1: of the Greater Stuttgart Invitational tennis tournament on ESPN, I

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Speaker 1: had this sudden, horrible feeling that the usually slow to

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Speaker 1: decide American viewing public had instantly concluded that, for some

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Speaker 1: reason elusive even to me, they really like to hear

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Speaker 1: me talk about the whereabouts of the president's penis. If

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Speaker 1: I could have figured out how to f up the

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Speaker 1: rest of the hour, I would have done it right then.

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Speaker 1: I didn't. The next day it got worse. The ratings

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Speaker 1: were so great last night, buddy, they want us to

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Speaker 1: go live every night at eight and eleven only about

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Speaker 1: the president. The eleven is gonna be called crisis in Washington.

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Speaker 1: Finally we get what we want. Phil Griffin was dancing around,

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Speaker 1: it'll be our nightline. Since joining MSNBC, I had not

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Speaker 1: taken any time off, and I actually had a vacation

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Speaker 1: booked in Hawaii the next week with a young lady.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah about that. Phil finally announced, well, that's what

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Speaker 1: we have to talk about, Keith. They want you to

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Speaker 1: commit to this release six weeks, so it's this or Hawaii.

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Speaker 1: I explained Hawaii to fill. Black said he'd probably pay

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Speaker 1: for you to go do that whenever this is over.

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Speaker 1: I said, in my opinion, that probably would not be

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Speaker 1: good enough, and Griffin said neither did he, but that

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Speaker 1: it was just for openers, and Lack told him that

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Speaker 1: I could have three wishes and I could anchor NBC

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Speaker 1: nightly News at least on the weekends and a couple

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Speaker 1: of times during the week just personally, I'd recommend you

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Speaker 1: do it. I got the impression that the show is

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Speaker 1: gonna happen whether we agree to it or not. Griffin said.

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Speaker 1: He mentioned something Brian Williams or maybe John Gibson being

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Speaker 1: poor second choices but viable ones, he said, viable ones.

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Speaker 1: I told Phil I had some calls to make. Griffin

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Speaker 1: suggested Lack needed a decision within the hour, that he

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Speaker 1: wanted white House and Crisis on the air that night. Wait,

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Speaker 1: that didn't sound like what he'd called it before, Phil,

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Speaker 1: Is it white House in crisis or crisis in Washington?

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Speaker 1: Phil Griffin seemed introspective for a moment, then got in

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Speaker 1: touch with the news executive within what's the difference, It's

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Speaker 1: going to be our nightline? I almost suggested to him

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Speaker 1: that that should be the title MSNBC presents, It's going

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Speaker 1: to be our nightline. On and on. This went for weeks,

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Speaker 1: for months. I mocked the story. The ratings went up.

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Speaker 1: I tried to quit the show. The ratings went up.

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Speaker 1: I gave a speech insulting the network for covering the story.

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Speaker 1: The ratings went up. Fox Sports approached me and offered

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Speaker 1: me five times when NBC was paying me to go

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Speaker 1: out to l A to do their sportscasts l A,

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Speaker 1: which was kind of near Hawaii, nowhere near the Clinton

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Speaker 1: Lewinsky story. And the ratings went up, and I was

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Speaker 1: debating all this and the fact that I had a

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Speaker 1: contract and I had agreed to do it, and then

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Speaker 1: one night in early spring, I got home after another

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Speaker 1: night of this crap, I put my feet up. I

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Speaker 1: was half watching something on NBC while really just staring

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Speaker 1: off into the distance, wondering what I had done to

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Speaker 1: deserve this, mulling my own future, when the snare drum

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Speaker 1: and the violent string section of an NBC news promo

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Speaker 1: interrupted me Wednesday, on a very special edition of Nightline,

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Speaker 1: Jane Polly and the former Miss America. There she was,

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Speaker 1: for a second, head tilted, her look grave, journalistic, even scholarly,

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Speaker 1: Jane Paully, the ten year host of NBC's landmark Today Show,

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Speaker 1: the one who had then switched to prime time because

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Speaker 1: the journalism had slowly ebbed out of morning television and

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Speaker 1: she couldn't do it anymore. She was sitting there in

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Speaker 1: a two shot with a Miss America from too many

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Speaker 1: Miss America's ago, the former brunette, former redhead, now former

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Speaker 1: blonde whose jet black hair made her look a little frightening.

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Speaker 1: Why the hell was Jane Paul interviewing her on the signature,

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Speaker 1: albeit superficial NBC thrice weekly magazine show Nightline No less well,

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Speaker 1: in a split second, the promo gave me my answer, Jane,

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Speaker 1: did you have sex with the President of the United

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Speaker 1: States X Miss America? Yes, Yes, I did, announcer that's

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Speaker 1: Wednesday on a very special edition to Nightline only on

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Speaker 1: NBC America's news source. With genuine terror, I screamed, I

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Speaker 1: shouted aloud to no one check please, and I called

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Speaker 1: my agent to talk about Fox. The state of the

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Speaker 1: Union is Alderman wants quit his job. Countdown has come

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Speaker 1: to you from the studios of Alderman Broadcast the Empire

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Speaker 1: World Headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Here the credits. Most of the music,

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Speaker 1: including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced and

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Speaker 1: performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Shanelle, who are

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Speaker 1: the Countdown musical directors. Guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,

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Speaker 1: all orchestration and keyboards by John Philip s Chanelle, produced

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Speaker 1: by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been

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Speaker 1: arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The

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Speaker 1: sports music is the Alderman theme from ESPN two, and

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Speaker 1: it was written by Mitch Warren Davis. Courtesy of ESPN inc.

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Speaker 1: Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.

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Speaker 1: Our announcer today was Kenny Maine, and everything else is

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Speaker 1: pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this the

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Speaker 1: seven undred and sixty fourth day since Donald Trump's first

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Speaker 1: attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.

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Speaker 1: Arrest him now while we still and the next scheduled

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Speaker 1: countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Alverman. Good morning,

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Speaker 1: good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Alverman

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Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

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Speaker 1: from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.