Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I Dissent.
Speaker 1: President Biden took off the gloves last night, insisted the
Speaker 1: American people should dissent from the Supreme Court decision inventing
Speaker 1: presidential immunity. Said he agreed with Justice Sotomayora's descent and
Speaker 1: that he too dissented. He attacked Trump by name. He said,
Speaker 1: because the Supreme Court had done a terrible disservice to
Speaker 1: this nation by preventing a Trump trial on January sixth,
Speaker 1: before the election, that therefore the people must decide on Trump.
Speaker 1: He acknowledged, there are virtually no limits to what a
Speaker 1: president can do. It was a clear declaration of war
Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court. It was a clear repositioning of
Speaker 1: Trump from just an unprincipled political opponent to a genuine
Speaker 1: menace to our form of government and our form of life.
Speaker 1: Any president will be free to ignore the law, Biden said.
Speaker 1: He closed with may God help preserve our democracy. It
Speaker 1: was strong, it was good, I believe in the references
Speaker 1: to both the Supreme Court and trumpet was unprecedented, and
Speaker 1: I hope it was just to start a start of
Speaker 1: this president forcefully defending the democracy because it is far
Speaker 1: from enough. Whether it knows it or not, the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court has handed Joe Biden the same nearly limitless power
Speaker 1: it had created for the use of the Trader Trump.
Speaker 1: It was nice that he said he would respect the
Speaker 1: limitations of the presidency, but bluntly he should not. How
Speaker 1: about pointing it a big print out of presidential immunity
Speaker 1: and say I'm issuing an executive order establishing six more
Speaker 1: seats on the Supreme Court and the mandatory Supreme Court
Speaker 1: ethic Code that goes into effect now, and here are
Speaker 1: the nominees, and the hearings start tomorrow. And if you
Speaker 1: want to make a big deal out of it, mister
Speaker 1: Chief Justice, they will be escorted to their chairs at
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court by Secret Service or the National Guard
Speaker 1: or whoever. But look, I'm not threatening you current justices.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want any trouble here. I know
Speaker 1: mister Alito has his own flag. Why not show what
Speaker 1: presidential immunity means? What, as he said last night, Trump
Speaker 1: could do with it. But instead of doing the kinds
Speaker 1: of things Trump intends to do, doing something only one
Speaker 1: millionth as impactful, something intended for the good of the
Speaker 1: nation pack the Court put the whorehouse of Alito and
Speaker 1: Thomas out of business. I am delighted the President dissents
Speaker 1: and is willing to say so now to put dissent
Speaker 1: into actions. As to the legal implications, as you know,
Speaker 1: I am always a glass half full, upbeat, hopeful kind
Speaker 1: of guy. So what I saw in yesterday's corrupt Supreme
Speaker 1: Religious Court creating presidential Official Act immunity and transforming a
Speaker 1: democratic republic into a monarchy the Kingdom of America, I
Speaker 1: saw the problem solving it, promises President Joe Bid. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: King Biden, the first has the s from the debate
Speaker 1: last week to deal with a little renomination thingy you
Speaker 1: may have heard about, continuing pressure to end his bid
Speaker 1: for reelection because maybe he's not sharp enough to beat
Speaker 1: Trump or to continue being president. And now this short
Speaker 1: and not sweet eye dissent creed decur he gave last night.
Speaker 1: He can fix all of this in a couple of
Speaker 1: quick steps. If the Court is going to make the
Speaker 1: President of the United States omnipotent, Joe run with it.
Speaker 1: Just make up a terrorist threat. If you can't think
Speaker 1: of one called George W.
Speaker 2: Bush.
Speaker 1: He probably still has a few leftover, then officially order
Speaker 1: Homeland Security Secretary Majorcus to officially postpone the election. And
Speaker 1: as that mock New York Times editorial headline that appeared
Speaker 1: yesterday reads, bring in Secretary of Defense Austin and to
Speaker 1: serve his country, President Biden should drone strike Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: All right, that's harsh. Just detain Trump, no election, no Trump,
Speaker 1: no need for a new nominee, no need for any nominee.
Speaker 1: To me, that's a win, win win, as long as
Speaker 1: it's official. Oh and if King Biden wants to preclude
Speaker 1: any further blowback or friction, arrest Chief Justice Roberts and
Speaker 1: Justices Alito and Thomas and gorstch Cavanaugh and Barrett and
Speaker 1: everybody in the Federalist Society and Kirsten Constitutional Karen Cinema,
Speaker 1: who stopped filibuster reform, and the New York Times editorial board.
Speaker 1: And what the hell those pods save America bastards. Arrest
Speaker 1: those pods, save America bastards. Plenty of seats in the
Speaker 1: bus boys. Oh on, cat Turd, Arrest cat Turd. I mean,
Speaker 1: who's going to stop him? That's the whole point. Official
Speaker 1: means official. I know what you're saying, you're being hyperbolic,
Speaker 1: aren't you, Gabby Alderman, am I am? I really? When
Speaker 1: the President quote uses his official powers in any way,
Speaker 1: under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from
Speaker 1: criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy sealed Team six to assassinate
Speaker 1: a political rival, Immune organizes a military coup to hold
Speaker 1: on to power. Immune takes a bribe in exchange for
Speaker 1: a pardon Immune Immune, Immune Immune from as you already know,
Speaker 1: Justice Sodomyor's dissent, with which the President agreed, the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court has now thrown out two hundred and forty eight
Speaker 1: years of American history. More really, and done so at
Speaker 1: the start of the week in which we are to
Speaker 1: celebrate that two hundred and forty eighth birthday. As Sotomayor
Speaker 1: also noted, Alexander Hamilton himself was specific about the necessity
Speaker 1: to have a former president all former presidents, be subject
Speaker 1: to possible prosecution for any crimes he committed in office,
Speaker 1: because that would be one of the key distinctions between
Speaker 1: the new United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain,
Speaker 1: from which we had to stage a revolution to free ourselves.
Speaker 1: Their king was sacred and inviolable, our president would be
Speaker 1: subject to personal punishment and disgrace. It's as if Alexander
Speaker 1: Hamilton met Trump. But that's all gone now. We are
Speaker 1: a monarchy. And if you can't prove that the president
Speaker 1: was not acting in an official capacity when he killed
Speaker 1: that guy or threatened that Georgia secretary of State, or
Speaker 1: lied about how deadly COVID was, you can't prosecute him.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you think that, like seven
Speaker 1: eighths of the Supreme Court's corruptly partisan task here was
Speaker 1: to stall for Trump, that's true, but it may be
Speaker 1: a little low as a figure because they managed to
Speaker 1: pack in two further stalls for Trump that could postpone
Speaker 1: the election subversion case not only into next year, but
Speaker 1: maybe beyond that. The new legal standard for prosecuting him
Speaker 1: is no longer can you prove there is reasonable evidence
Speaker 1: that he tried to foment an insurrection against the peaceful
Speaker 1: transfer of power where he tried to prevent an election counting.
Speaker 1: It's whether or not you can prove he thought he
Speaker 1: was acting officially, And how will you do that? Well?
Speaker 1: Trump can sue over every action that a court declares
Speaker 1: was unofficial. Each count based on unofficial conduct. He can
Speaker 1: just sue another stall, add months to the delay Trump,
Speaker 1: and add months more after that. Because the time bomb
Speaker 1: hiding behind that hidden time bomb is the additional finding
Speaker 1: by this court that would make the government of Iran blush.
Speaker 1: If you do somehow sneak a charge past the giant
Speaker 1: rubber that John Roberts just wrapped around Trump's head, if
Speaker 1: you do find something unofficial with which to charge him,
Speaker 1: you cannot use as evidence anything that he did related
Speaker 1: to that charge that was itself part of an official act.
Speaker 1: The easiest comp for this is Richard Nixon's strenuous exertions
Speaker 1: to get himself a pardon and Gerald Ford's disastrous career
Speaker 1: ending stupidity to give him one. They were utterly unnecessary.
Speaker 1: The Watergate cover up was based on the lie that
Speaker 1: there was a national security element, so the CIA had
Speaker 1: to tell the DOJ to drop the investigation. That was
Speaker 1: a crime in nineteen seventy two. As of yesterday, it's
Speaker 1: not a crime anymore. It's an official act. And then
Speaker 1: anything Nixon did to get those departments to stop the investigation,
Speaker 1: every part of the cover up, like every meeting he
Speaker 1: had with John Dean, all the ones Nixon moronically recorded
Speaker 1: for posterity all those times he bugged himself. A prosecutor
Speaker 1: could not use any of that as evidence against Nixon,
Speaker 1: as John himself posted yesterday, When the president does it,
Speaker 1: that means that it is not illegal. Richard Nixon nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, affirmed US Supreme Court twenty twenty four. The response.
Speaker 1: Besides the presidents, the official Senate Judiciary Committee social media
Speaker 1: feed sent out three strongly worded posts. And when I
Speaker 1: say strongly worded, I mean not strongly worded. Breaking. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Justice Thomas and Justice Alito brazenly refuse to accuse themselves
Speaker 1: from Donald trump immunity case, despite repeated calls to do so.
Speaker 1: Mister Chief Justice, we need an enforceable code of conduct
Speaker 1: for all Supreme Court justices. Oh did you send this
Speaker 1: out before you finished it? You left out pretty please
Speaker 1: while you were begging. Not only does that sound like
Speaker 1: it was sent by a eunuch like Judiciary Committee Chair
Speaker 1: Dick Durbin, but it was not posted until roughly five
Speaker 1: hours after the ruling was posted. There is no easier
Speaker 1: dystopian view of the future than to predict the one
Speaker 1: in which Trump does what he says he's going to
Speaker 1: do if he has returned to power, and about which
Speaker 1: the court indemnified him yesterday. Government assassinations of his rivals,
Speaker 1: the military on the streets of this country, arresting peaceful
Speaker 1: civilian protesters, other arrests of critics, roundups, camps or at
Speaker 1: minimum prisons, bribes for pardons. Oh yeah, Guliani said, Trump
Speaker 1: already did that last time, and we haven't even started
Speaker 1: talking about the deportation of millions of Americans. These crazy, unbelievable, unimaginable,
Speaker 1: unretractable things are going to happen now in America, now
Speaker 1: in the immediate future. The only remaining details are who
Speaker 1: is going to do them and whether they will or
Speaker 1: will not be done for the good of the people.
Speaker 1: President Biden, they might as well be done by the
Speaker 1: good side in order to prevent them from being done
Speaker 1: by the bad side. I mean, I wonder what motives
Speaker 1: Roberts and Alito and Thomas thought they would be leaving
Speaker 1: you to turn over the government to Trump if it
Speaker 1: comes to that next January. I mean, if you can
Speaker 1: make it sound official, you can do anything anything. Lincoln
Speaker 1: violated the Constitution to save it. You should do the same.
Speaker 1: If that's where we are, I'd rather have you doing
Speaker 1: it than Trump doing it. You heard the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: mister president. When the president does it, that means that
Speaker 1: it is not illegal. So long as it's official. You
Speaker 1: heard Justice Sodoma or she obviously resonated with you. It's
Speaker 1: her read You can right now order Navy Sealed Team
Speaker 1: six to assassinate a political rival. Certainly you thought about
Speaker 1: that since the debate ended last Thursday. I mean, she
Speaker 1: may have said a political rival, but I bet if
Speaker 1: you have made her the new Chief Justice and you
Speaker 1: got her some extra Yankees tickets, she'd agree. It's an
Speaker 1: unlimited number of political rivals. Let's get cracking. Round them up,
Speaker 1: keep them dogies rolling, move them on, hit them, uphait
Speaker 1: them up, move on. Sealed Team six is going to
Speaker 1: have a lot on its plate, and you're going to
Speaker 1: need at least six new Supreme Court nominees, the six
Speaker 1: additional seats I suggested, and six new ones to replace
Speaker 1: the ones who were headed to the Huscal. I mean.
Speaker 1: On Sunday, Trump reposted somebody else's graphic with a picture
Speaker 1: of her and quote, Elizabeth Lynn Cheney is guilty of
Speaker 1: treason read truth if you want televised military tribunals. Hey,
Speaker 1: Trump and the fascists want televised military budals, Let's give
Speaker 1: him some televised military tribunals anchored by Jake Tapper and
Speaker 1: Dana Bash. I'm sure they'd be happy to do it,
Speaker 1: as long as you promised to type out on little
Speaker 1: index cards what they're supposed to say and when they're
Speaker 1: supposed to allowed to say it. Rollin', rollin' rulin. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll stop, and now we have a new king unless
Speaker 1: he abdicates and lets the vice King have the nomination.
Speaker 1: I remain agnostic about this Biden nomination crisis. Is it
Speaker 1: still the lead story after yesterday? I want what wins?
Speaker 1: Newest polling from Morning Consult data obtained over the weekend,
Speaker 1: the percentage of Democratic voters who believe Joe Biden is
Speaker 1: mentally fit is down nine points to sixty eight percent.
Speaker 1: They have not polled since last night's speech. I suspect
Speaker 1: it would bounce back up again. USA Today and Suffolk
Speaker 1: University poll. Forty one percent of Democrats want a different nominee.
Speaker 1: Of course, of those who say they're going to vote
Speaker 1: for him, thirty seven percent of Democrats want a different nominee.
Speaker 1: Nine percent of Democrats are more likely to back a
Speaker 1: third party candidate now. And if those numbers don't tell
Speaker 1: you everything you need to know about the way things are,
Speaker 1: I don't know what could. We may want to replace him,
Speaker 1: but we'll vote for him. We are treating him like
Speaker 1: the Republicans treat Trump. I believe they consider themselves pragmatic.
Speaker 1: The punchline in the USA Today poll, Americans of all
Speaker 1: political persuasions want Biden replaced on the ticket fifty four
Speaker 1: percent to thirty seven, and they want Trump replaced on
Speaker 1: the other ticket fifty one percent to forty six. One
Speaker 1: of the more intriguing and under publicized arguments for changing
Speaker 1: horses is the idea that Trump has been way too
Speaker 1: quiet about Biden since the debate, that you would have
Speaker 1: expected him to be pushing for Biden to drop out.
Speaker 1: That if the scenario was the way I tend to
Speaker 1: see it, that barring new information, Biden remains the strongest opponent.
Speaker 1: That if that's true, Trump would be trying to get
Speaker 1: a different opponent, trying to get him to drop out.
Speaker 1: But there is evidence that while Trump has had the
Speaker 1: animal cunning to largely stay out of it and to
Speaker 1: let Biden potentially self destruct. So far that Trump has
Speaker 1: been veering towards not staying out of it any longer. Firstly,
Speaker 1: the Republicans have tried to find some excuse to get
Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee to drop out during the presidential campaign,
Speaker 1: during every presidential campaign since at least two thousand and eight. Moreover,
Speaker 1: on Saturday, Trump himself posted that not only did Biden's
Speaker 1: debate performance raise the question whether America can survive four
Speaker 1: more years of him, but he added the fact is
Speaker 1: I don't know if it can survive five more months.
Speaker 1: We are in great danger during what will be a
Speaker 1: transition period unquote. That is the typical Trump plausible denial opaqueness.
Speaker 1: But obviously he's trying to dure up some kind of
Speaker 1: unstoppable demand for if he wins, Biden resigning immediately and
Speaker 1: letting Trump take over in November. So no, he's not
Speaker 1: actively arguing for Biden to leave the ticket. He's just
Speaker 1: actively arguing for Biden to leave the White House before
Speaker 1: the end of his term. Which reminds me about a
Speaker 1: point I wanted to make yesterday, which I wanted to
Speaker 1: make after the live podcast Thursday Night, which I originally
Speaker 1: did make in February before the State of the Union. Bluntly,
Speaker 1: if you want Joe Biden to quit the ticket, I
Speaker 1: cannot help but suggest that you also need to argue
Speaker 1: that he should quit the presidency. If the argument is
Speaker 1: that the Biden we saw Thursday night actually has appeared
Speaker 1: with frequency at moments of great import in the last six, eight,
Speaker 1: ten months. And it's bad enough whatever it is to
Speaker 1: make a presidential nomination change unprecedented in the history of
Speaker 1: our country. If it's that bad, why do you want
Speaker 1: somebody so compromised running the country? Additionally, if you are
Speaker 1: going to be cold enough and calculating enough to shive
Speaker 1: the sitting president of the United States in July one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty seven days before the election, or ask
Speaker 1: him to shive himself, actually, and if history proves that
Speaker 1: being president already is the easiest way to win a
Speaker 1: presidential election, does it not necessarily follow, no matter how
Speaker 1: cruelly that If you are going to argue Biden can't
Speaker 1: be the nominee because he can't win the election, and
Speaker 1: he can't be president next January, he also can't be
Speaker 1: president right now. And you have to optimize the advantages
Speaker 1: of whoever replaces him on the ticket, since the only
Speaker 1: morally justifiable choice is the vice president anyway, and removing
Speaker 1: Biden and then removing her would make the Democrats experience
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight look like something between a laugh
Speaker 1: in and a love in. Don't we need both in
Speaker 1: terms of whose safeguards the nation and in terms of
Speaker 1: the political advantage of incumbency? Don't we need in this
Speaker 1: construction President Kamala Harris immediately, I mean, isn't that the
Speaker 1: logical extension of those arguing for Biden to quit the ticket? Yes,
Speaker 1: quit the ticket. Oh, oh, by the way, stay on
Speaker 1: as a lame duck. So we have a democratic president
Speaker 1: of the United States and a would be Democratic president
Speaker 1: of the United States who was still his vice president.
Speaker 1: In any event, there is still no indication that Biden
Speaker 1: has any intent on leaving voluntarily, and there was a
Speaker 1: big screw up on the official nomination process reported by
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News yesterday that you may have been confused by.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reported that the Democratic National Committee was considering formally
Speaker 1: nominating President Biden as early as the middle of this
Speaker 1: month to preclude any attempt to remove him from the nomination,
Speaker 1: as a flood of DNC folk then pointed out, no,
Speaker 1: a game of telephone has obviously been played on the
Speaker 1: story of the online nomination of Joe Biden two weeks
Speaker 1: ago in order to beat the State of Ohio's deadline,
Speaker 1: the ballot deadline there to get your name on the
Speaker 1: ballot in Ohio August seventh, the deadline with which Ohio
Speaker 1: fascists were trying to knock Biden off the ballot entirely. Lastly,
Speaker 1: I promised during Sunday's bulletin, and I had a story
Speaker 1: from the Democratic debate that I moderated in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven that seemed relevant to this crisis, though I
Speaker 1: will admit I'm not sure exactly how it's relevant. This
Speaker 1: was officially not a debate. It was the afl CIO
Speaker 1: candidates forum at Soldier Field in Chicago, outdoors in the
Speaker 1: middle of August, with temperatures at about two hundred and
Speaker 1: six degrees, air conditioning vents placed on the floor shooting
Speaker 1: upwards literally between the legs of all eight candidates and
Speaker 1: your personable moderator, who, by the way, during a commercial break,
Speaker 1: was convinced that his suit had melded with his skin
Speaker 1: during that break or another break. Senator Joe Biden, who,
Speaker 1: as I have mentioned previously, I had informally counseled about
Speaker 1: speaking angry over a delightful lunch months earlier, he came
Speaker 1: over to me, and he spoke angry. He felt he
Speaker 1: had not gotten the chance to reply to the mischaracterization
Speaker 1: by one of the other candidates of his answer to
Speaker 1: an earlier question. I said that while I did not
Speaker 1: disagree with him, we were going to that commercial break
Speaker 1: that we were now in, and there was literally nothing
Speaker 1: I could have done about it, and that we had
Speaker 1: moved on from the topic and I wasn't coming back
Speaker 1: to him on it. He then said that when I
Speaker 1: next did ask him something anything, he was going to
Speaker 1: go back and bring up where he had been misquoted.
Speaker 1: By now, I had already begun to feel like I
Speaker 1: was interfering on behalf of one candidate, or maybe against him.
Speaker 1: I really couldn't tell either way. I thought I'd better
Speaker 1: stop here, but for the sake of the entire debate
Speaker 1: and the broadcast, and for the sake of not starting
Speaker 1: a war among the candidates. When it was already two
Speaker 1: hundred and six degrees out when my only goal in
Speaker 1: that entire campaign was getting anybody but John McCain elected president.
Speaker 1: I reminded Senator Biden what all the candidates had been
Speaker 1: told beforehand, and what I had just teased going into
Speaker 1: the commercial break. There had been a terrible mind accident
Speaker 1: in West Virginia weeks earlier. This was a union forum.
Speaker 1: The AFLCIO sponsored the thing, rented Soldier Field, something like
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand union members, sweating it out in the
Speaker 1: baking Chicago summer heat. One of the widows of one
Speaker 1: of the dead West Virginia mind was going to ask
Speaker 1: one of the questions from the audience. Biden knew all this.
Speaker 1: The other seven knew this. I felt that it was
Speaker 1: bending the rules, but just still barely within my reasonable
Speaker 1: discretion to tell him that he was an obvious choice
Speaker 1: to be one of the candidates who got to try
Speaker 1: to answer her question and interact with her. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's from Scranton, that's mine country in Pennsylvania. Who better
Speaker 1: to talk about a mining accident to a mining widow
Speaker 1: and to address her and then suddenly switch from her
Speaker 1: grief to something else about I don't know, terrorism, banking.
Speaker 1: That was not going to look good for the party,
Speaker 1: for the debate or for Senator Biden. Sure enough we
Speaker 1: came back. The woman asked her question, I don't think
Speaker 1: it went to Biden first. I don't think I called
Speaker 1: upon him first. But I did go to him as
Speaker 1: we had planned. He offered her his sincere condolences, and
Speaker 1: then he promptly changed the subject back to terrorism or
Speaker 1: banking or banking terrorism or whatever it was, and he said,
Speaker 1: you'll remember earlier, And it was by that point six seven,
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen minutes earlier nobody remembered. He is stubborn,
Speaker 1: and when he gets his game face on, something else
Speaker 1: happens behind that face, especially at debates. Once it was
Speaker 1: him concluding that part of world history in which anybody
Speaker 1: took Rudy Giuliani seriously. He was the one who finished
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani. He was the one who said everything Giuliani
Speaker 1: said was a noun a verb in nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: One other time it was him basically blowing off the miners' widow,
Speaker 1: and one other debate was last Thursday. What it means
Speaker 1: in this context, I am again not sure. I did
Speaker 1: think whatever it means, it might flesh out your understanding
Speaker 1: of him, just at the moment, a moment when he
Speaker 1: has a few options on his plate. Make himself a
Speaker 1: lame duck, or resign as candidate or resign as president,
Speaker 1: or f both of those ideas and fight on. Or,
Speaker 1: like I said before, do what increasingly seems like a
Speaker 1: pretty good idea, and perhaps a much simpler one. The
Speaker 1: Supreme Court says, you can do this. Joe, postpone the election.
Speaker 1: Put Trump in military detention somewhere, move them on, hit
Speaker 1: him up, hit him up, move on, write him in,
Speaker 1: write them out. Problem solved. Also of interest here, ruling, ruling, ruling. Okay,
Speaker 1: I give up. The situation is too grim for any
Speaker 1: more of my stupid singing today, which is exactly why
Speaker 1: I definitely must start singing today.
Speaker 3: Oh Nancy, keep rolling, rolling, rolling, the Supreme COURTI you go, swollen,
Speaker 3: keep them fascist, rolland Joe, Biden, Neil and Sam and.
Speaker 1: Thomas are kissing Trump. He's fatass. They gave the Constitution.
Speaker 2: Big words from all these thugs, judicial declar and acts official.
Speaker 1: They're over when you arrest John Roberts being from Rye.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Nancy Faust. Also of interest here, so many
Speaker 1: people have said so many stupid things about the Biden
Speaker 1: and presidential immunity stories that I've had to expand the
Speaker 1: worst person's field yet again today starring Ralph Nader and
Speaker 1: another fathead at NBC News and no less than the
Speaker 1: all time champion of the world of worst Billow himself,
Speaker 1: Bill Riley. Right you are, mister Maylhoffer. That's next. This
Speaker 1: is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead
Speaker 1: of us on this edition of Countdown, A little break
Speaker 1: from all this. I always think of this one subject
Speaker 1: as the Fourth of July approaches. I got hired. I
Speaker 1: had an edge on anybody who might have competed with
Speaker 1: me for the network radio job with which I began
Speaker 1: my broadcasting career because the week the senior guy quit
Speaker 1: that job and the job opened up, the fourth of
Speaker 1: July was on a Wednesday, and they needed somebody in
Speaker 1: a hurry, and they he needed somebody who was unemployed,
Speaker 1: and that was me. The proof of the theory of
Speaker 1: being in the right place at the right time from
Speaker 1: just forty five years ago. This week coming up in
Speaker 1: things I promised not to tell, But first there are
Speaker 1: still more new idiots to talk about, and Wow, have
Speaker 1: these two stories brought them out of the woodwork. The
Speaker 1: daily roundup of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger Effects specimens,
Speaker 1: including one all time great returning for continuing honors who
Speaker 1: constitute today's worst persons in the world. First dishonorable mention
Speaker 1: to Justice and Intelligence reporter Kendalanian of NBC News. He writes,
Speaker 1: it's extraordinary that a presidential candidate is running after being
Speaker 1: convicted of felonies. It's also extraordinary that the sitting president
Speaker 1: reportedly is taking advice about his political future from a
Speaker 1: son who has been convicted did a felonies. Oh, you
Speaker 1: can't slip anything past Ken, can you? Ken? Delanian long
Speaker 1: ago gave up any prechense of being a reporter at NBC.
Speaker 1: He is a right wing propagandist.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: I'd just like to note in passing that his may
Speaker 1: be the saddest Wikipedia entry I have ever read. Quoting it,
Speaker 1: he is a nineteen ninety one graduate of Williams College,
Speaker 1: where he majored in Political Silence Science. Should have been
Speaker 1: political silence. Let's go in and edit that so it
Speaker 1: says he is a nineteen ninety one graduate of Williams College,
Speaker 1: where He majored in political silence who likes to edit
Speaker 1: Wikipedia pages. Dealanian the actual entry reads played football at
Speaker 1: Williams and is credited with a major role in helping
Speaker 1: the f Men achieve their first unbeaten and untied season
Speaker 1: in a century. Ooh, Where'd you get drafted? Kenny deans
Speaker 1: Fir's position after graduating from Williams was at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Speaker 1: According to Delaney, in his first published article at the
Speaker 1: Inquirer was a story on a pet funeral. See when
Speaker 1: you find what you're good at that early in your career,
Speaker 1: you should stick to it. Don't get in over your
Speaker 1: head on justice and intelligence, especially not intelligence if you
Speaker 1: don't have any. The Bronze Matthew Beloney of Puck News
Speaker 1: and editor in chief Ben Smith of Semaphore News. When
Speaker 1: you and I worry that the established legacy media in
Speaker 1: this country is out of touch and disconnected from reality
Speaker 1: and it's lost, we know we can turn to the newcomers,
Speaker 1: the digitals, the rule benders, and we get exactly the
Speaker 1: same crap from the newcomers, the digitals and the rule benders.
Speaker 1: I've written for Beloney and the venue may be new,
Speaker 1: but the sentiment is still the disaster. That is, we
Speaker 1: know everything about the story, but nothing about what it
Speaker 1: means in real life. He has tweeted that he and
Speaker 1: Smith were to share a podcast in which they would
Speaker 1: discuss the real news in the Joe Biden crisis quote.
Speaker 1: It's an election year, but CNN has been in a
Speaker 1: ratings free fall. That Joe Biden's situation could finally provide
Speaker 1: a story with massive general interest. Listen, Yes, that's what's
Speaker 1: important here CNN's ratings. How the Biden story could impact
Speaker 1: CNN's ratings, because that's what they've been missing, a good story.
Speaker 1: There hasn't been a good story at all during the
Speaker 1: prosecution of the former president of the United States in
Speaker 1: four different venues. There hasn't been a good story at all.
Speaker 1: With climate change, there's been a good They don't have
Speaker 1: any good anchors on CNN, and they lurched right words
Speaker 1: two years ago. That's why the ratings tanked. But you
Speaker 1: know what would be even better for CNN than just
Speaker 1: Biden and the nomination issue. That could just shoot their
Speaker 1: ratings up to mediocre. Like if there were a really
Speaker 1: big asteroid with a ninety nine percent chance of hitting
Speaker 1: Earth Man the CNN ratings would just explode. Of course,
Speaker 1: we'd never actually see those final CNN ratings because the
Speaker 1: planet would have exploded by then too. But think of
Speaker 1: the demos. The runner up, Ralph Nader. You remember, Ralph.
Speaker 1: You remember two thousand when Bush beat Gore in Florida
Speaker 1: by five hundred and thirty seven votes, which led to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision that took the election for Bush.
Speaker 1: But Ralph's vanity third party campaign earned him ninety seven
Speaker 1: thousand votes in Florida, and research, repeated research has suggested
Speaker 1: an overwhelming majority of them were drawn from likely Gore voters. Ralph, though,
Speaker 1: has apparently forgotten about that or forgotten that he ran
Speaker 1: for president in two thousand, because he responded to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court yesterday by blaming a different presidential candidate, not himself.
Speaker 1: A dictatorial unelected majority in the Supreme Court has just
Speaker 1: rendered America a dictatorial president above the law. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, whose blundering campaign let the dictatorial Trump become
Speaker 1: president and led to a right wing dictatorial majority on
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Honestly, as Ellie Mistyle pointed out, you know,
Speaker 1: the Conservatives have been running the Supreme Court since the
Speaker 1: Bush years. Right, at least if Ralph had not run
Speaker 1: his useless, cynical, dynamite juggling third party campaign in two thousand.
Speaker 1: As Ellie pointed out, maybe Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed
Speaker 1: by Bush is not there to write yesterday's swill. Honestly,
Speaker 1: this so pisces me off. The unbelievable blaming of Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton for this that I would wish harm on Ralph
Speaker 1: for writing that. Bud ninety And you know, since age
Speaker 1: is everything these days, Tick tick tick, buddy, But our
Speaker 1: winner the worst. And I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: I need this burst of nostalgia Billow the clown. Here's
Speaker 1: a Biden update from billoreilly dot com news headquarters. The
Speaker 1: decision has been made that the President will quit the
Speaker 1: campaign two reasons. Democrat internal polling says he cannot recover
Speaker 1: from the debate and fundraising is drying up. So it's
Speaker 1: over for Joe, but the White House doesn't yet know
Speaker 1: how or when to make the announcement. Stay close, Stay close,
Speaker 1: is what he used to say to his producers, the women. Okay,
Speaker 1: what are the odds that Billow doesn't realize He's not
Speaker 1: on Fox every night anymore? And that he puts on
Speaker 1: makeup anyway around seven forty five PM. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not on TV anymore either, but I still don't
Speaker 1: make stuff up like a Biden up. From Billoreilly dot
Speaker 1: com News headquarters. It's a tent in the yard, except
Speaker 1: when we live stream from iHeart headquarters. I do the
Speaker 1: Countdown podcast in this converted walk in in my home,
Speaker 1: which by the way, has the best acoustics I've ever
Speaker 1: gotten to use. And I do not call it Countdown
Speaker 1: with Keith Olderman dot comnewsheadquarters because that would be stupid.
Speaker 1: It's where I keep a few suits, keep a few
Speaker 1: more than I need, largely to improve the sound quality
Speaker 1: in here. Since I saw this Bill o Biden update,
Speaker 1: I have spent way too much time wondering what the
Speaker 1: physical layout is like at Bill Oreilly dot com News headquarters.
Speaker 1: I really don't have a good picture in my mind.
Speaker 1: But if I refer back to the lawsuit, the testimony
Speaker 1: and the Andrea Macris sexual harrissment suit against Billow, I
Speaker 1: suspect that whatever the rest of it looks like, Bill
Speaker 1: O'Reilly dot com News headquarters is equipped with some falafels
Speaker 1: and at least one very well used vibrator.
Speaker 2: Bill O'Reilly.
Speaker 1: The crowds may be gone, but the lies linger forever
Speaker 1: Today's worst person the loved right job, mister Merrihoffer. On Monday,
Speaker 1: July second, nineteen seventy nine, a man named Maury Trumbull
Speaker 1: walked into his boss's office at United Press International in
Speaker 1: the old Daily News Building in New York and quit.
Speaker 1: He had been offered a real job as the sports
Speaker 1: director of the NBC Radio network, and he would happily
Speaker 1: finish out the next two weeks as this sports director
Speaker 1: of UPI's radio network, and then by and Maury's boss
Speaker 1: was screwed. Maury's boss had three sportscasters. Trumbull was not
Speaker 1: just the boss. He also did the evening sportscasting shift,
Speaker 1: like four or five days a week, And just four
Speaker 1: months earlier they had moved one of the sportscasters over
Speaker 1: to be the new business reporter, and to replace him,
Speaker 1: they had to listen to the audition tapes of two
Speaker 1: hundred sportscasters from across the country, and not one of
Speaker 1: them was really any good, not even as good as
Speaker 1: Mary Trumbull, And so they hired the least bad of
Speaker 1: them and they were hoping for the best, and suddenly
Speaker 1: the new guy was the second senior man on the staff.
Speaker 1: And even though you have not heard of UPI's radio
Speaker 1: network except when I've mentioned it in this series, it
Speaker 1: was a very big deal. On July second, nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: there were about one thousand radio stations affiliated with it
Speaker 1: in this country, and though few of them were in
Speaker 1: the top fifty city and fewer still ran the sports
Speaker 1: cast that Mary Trumbull and Sam Rosan and Jack Russell
Speaker 1: did in those fifty cities, the smaller the market was,
Speaker 1: the bigger the star Moury and Sam and now Jack were.
Speaker 1: And what made it worse, of course, was that it
Speaker 1: was Monday, July second, which meant the actual Fourth of
Speaker 1: July holiday was Wednesday, which meant that nobody, but nobody
Speaker 1: would be in the office almost anywhere in American radio
Speaker 1: for at least the next few days. And in those
Speaker 1: times when the long three day weekend when he had
Speaker 1: got Monday off, was just becoming acceptable, this thing July fourth,
Speaker 1: in the middle of the week was an excuse for
Speaker 1: a four day weekend or a five day weekend, or
Speaker 1: I'll just take the whole week off and that meant
Speaker 1: whoever would be doing Mary Trumble's UPI sports casts as
Speaker 1: of Monday, July sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine. He basically could
Speaker 1: not currently have a job because he'd have to quit
Speaker 1: because when he quitted, he would have to give two
Speaker 1: weeks notice. And even if Maury's boss figured out who
Speaker 1: to hire in the next hour and got him approved
Speaker 1: by his own boss, there was literally no way the
Speaker 1: new guy could start on the sixteenth, and he'd have
Speaker 1: to get his boss's approval. Then he didn't know where
Speaker 1: his boss was because his boss was taking like an
Speaker 1: eight day weekend. So now Maury Trumble's boss was looking
Speaker 1: at the new guy starting no sooner than July twenty third,
Speaker 1: or he suddenly realized, with a shudder, what if the
Speaker 1: new guy had to move to New York from anywhere
Speaker 1: further away from them than like Albany or Jersey or something.
Speaker 1: So that's when Maury Trumble's boss, well, he thought that
Speaker 1: wasn't true anymore. He was Mary Trumble's ex boss, wasn't he.
Speaker 1: For all the trouble Maury had just caused him, at
Speaker 1: least that part was good news. Maury Trumble's X boss
Speaker 1: made his decision. I'll just hire that kid from Westchester.
Speaker 1: Stan Sabek said to himself, I don't know how I'll
Speaker 1: convince Shortino to take on a kid with absolutely no
Speaker 1: full time professional experience, but I'll figure it out. Stan
Speaker 1: Sabek was the bureau chief of UPI Audio, and Shortino
Speaker 1: was his boss, Frank Shortino the network general manager. And
Speaker 1: Frank was already old enough to really dislike anybody much
Speaker 1: younger than he was, which is why the youngest person
Speaker 1: in the New York headquarters that day was thirty three,
Speaker 1: and Schortino didn't really trust her. And suddenly it came
Speaker 1: to him, and Stan Sabek smiled. He rolled that phrase
Speaker 1: over in his head, no full time professional experience, and
Speaker 1: he smiled again. My god, we only have to pay
Speaker 1: the kids sixteen thousand a year. We'll save thirty grand
Speaker 1: on salary. My mother did not even step out into
Speaker 1: the warmth and the bright sunshine of the pre holiday afternoon.
Speaker 1: Keith Phone, I was lying there on our very sketchy
Speaker 1: front lawn, listening to my home built walkman and working
Speaker 1: on my tank, and trying not to think of the
Speaker 1: fact that it was now the week of July fourth,
Speaker 1: which was the deadline I had given myself for just
Speaker 1: sitting around working on my tan after I surprised myself
Speaker 1: and my family and my friends, and especially my professors
Speaker 1: by actually graduating from Cornell on time in seven semesters,
Speaker 1: the last of which contained twenty eight credits in ten
Speaker 1: different courses, a juggling act so arduous that I will still,
Speaker 1: all these years later have dreams in which it is
Speaker 1: graduation morning, May twenty eighth, nineteen seventy nine, and I
Speaker 1: suddenly realized I have forgotten an entire course, and I
Speaker 1: must read three thousand pages or write five hundred pages
Speaker 1: or both before noon, or I will not graduate on time,
Speaker 1: and I will have to go back and start all
Speaker 1: over again. In well, if it's a really stressful period
Speaker 1: of time in my life, I will have to go
Speaker 1: back and start all over again in the third grade
Speaker 1: as an adult in those chairs, missus Weiner, I'm stuck
Speaker 1: in the chair again, possibly because I'm sixty four years old, Keith,
Speaker 1: it's Roger Norum. My heart suddenly raced. Roger Norum was
Speaker 1: my contact at a radio network i'd basically known nothing
Speaker 1: about even three months earlier. It was called UPI Audio
Speaker 1: a friend of a friend of a friend of a
Speaker 1: friend had referred me to a news editor there named
Speaker 1: Art Mcalloon. And I went into the UPI Audio offices
Speaker 1: on forty second Street in my best suit, with absolutely
Speaker 1: no worry that I'd ever forget a name like Art Mcalloon,
Speaker 1: And out came a very quiet man with a kind
Speaker 1: face and a big round beard and a big round,
Speaker 1: curly head of hair. And he proceeded to explain very
Speaker 1: quietly that he was not Art Mcalloon. And Art had quit,
Speaker 1: but not before passing me on to him Roger Norum.
Speaker 1: Before I knew it, Roger had in turn passed me
Speaker 1: on to a sportscaster named Sam Rosen. I have introduced
Speaker 1: you to him here before. He made such an impression
Speaker 1: on me that my last Cornell English paper was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a quick profile of somebody interesting I had
Speaker 1: just met, and I chose Sam over somebody else I
Speaker 1: had met the same day, and the other guy was
Speaker 1: named Bob Iger. Anyway, Sam had been startled at the
Speaker 1: tape of my college sports casts and had pronounced it
Speaker 1: twice as good as the guy they had just hired,
Speaker 1: who was now Stan Sabek's second senior sportscaster. And before
Speaker 1: I knew it, Sam had given the tape to Stan,
Speaker 1: and Stan had invited me back into New York for
Speaker 1: a formal interview. And Stan had said, you will hear
Speaker 1: this a lot in this business, but give me a
Speaker 1: little time. I think I can guarantee you six seven
Speaker 1: weeks of vacation relief this summer, some sports, some news,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind doing both. Roger Norm had some
Speaker 1: interesting news for me on that phone call. You may
Speaker 1: have guessed it was about Mary Trumbull resigning from UPI
Speaker 1: and going to NBC. It's the talk of the place
Speaker 1: right now. He's already packing. They'll have to move fast,
Speaker 1: and then with the holiday, there's no way they can
Speaker 1: bring in people for interviews or have a full search
Speaker 1: to replace him. You should give him till Thursday the
Speaker 1: fifth and then and call Stan unless he calls you first.
Speaker 1: I mean, they really loved your tape. Stan told people
Speaker 1: about it. He was very excited. It's the old cliche
Speaker 1: Keith about being in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you can make it over,
Speaker 1: you are cordially invited to the annual Norham Family Fourth
Speaker 1: of July Bash. We're in Westchester two. I never once
Speaker 1: spoke to Roger Norham that he did not invite me
Speaker 1: to a Norum bash. He had them for all major holidays,
Speaker 1: and I believe for lesser events like the Westminster Dog
Speaker 1: Show and Moroccan Independence Day. He was a lovely man,
Speaker 1: and while he was a fine newsman, he was far
Speaker 1: better at kindness and favor. He's like the one he
Speaker 1: was doing me on that July afternoon so long ago.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, I was silent and pretty much breathless
Speaker 1: for the rest of July second, nineteen seventy nine. As
Speaker 1: hard as that might be for you to believe, I
Speaker 1: explained to my folks what might be going on, how
Speaker 1: just as I was going to make myself start worrying
Speaker 1: about actually getting a job, maybe in Atlanta, I might
Speaker 1: have just gotten a job a forty minute train ride away.
Speaker 1: Based on what Stan Sabeg had said about getting me
Speaker 1: vacation relief work. I suspected he would offer me something
Speaker 1: on a temporary basis to see if I could actually
Speaker 1: do it. But still, if even that actually happened, this
Speaker 1: was my chance to break into professional radio. At probably
Speaker 1: the peak of professional radio's post war importance and competitiveness
Speaker 1: and expansion, and to break in in New York City
Speaker 1: at a network. My rivals for every job I would
Speaker 1: seek for the next twenty years, or thirty years or
Speaker 1: fifty years, would be happy to be breaking in in Keyakok, Iowa.
Speaker 1: No offense, Kyokook, and I would be on the network,
Speaker 1: they would hear as they arrived to do the morning
Speaker 1: shift at four thirty am in Kyokook. I do not
Speaker 1: remember sleeping that night, certainly well, still, I am confident
Speaker 1: that I remember this correctly. On Tuesday, July third, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine, I was back out on the Olderman family
Speaker 1: tanning lawn twenty feet from the driveway just afternoon when
Speaker 1: the front door opened and Mom said it again, Keith phone,
Speaker 1: someone named Stan, Keith Stan Sabek. He laughed, Stan laughed
Speaker 1: a lot. Stan and I had a loud fight fourteen
Speaker 1: months later that got me fired and then unfired hours later.
Speaker 1: Stan laughed in the middle of all that twice tired
Speaker 1: of lying around the pool, yet I lied and said, yes,
Speaker 1: of course, there was no pool, just my lawn. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've heard. He said it in such
Speaker 1: a way that confirmed that he was confident. I had heard,
Speaker 1: and noram or Rosen or somebody had called to tell me.
Speaker 1: But my sports director quick to go to NBC. I
Speaker 1: need a full time sportscaster to replace him. You interested
Speaker 1: prepared as I was for the offer of part time work.
Speaker 1: I was stunned. On top of stunned. Full time stand
Speaker 1: Did you say full time? Stan laughed, yes, sixteen thousand,
Speaker 1: No negotiations. Mostly nights, some mornings, some ball games. You
Speaker 1: get to cover split days off. You're not going to
Speaker 1: have a weekend for a couple of years. Probably. Can
Speaker 1: you come in Thursday to fill out the job application
Speaker 1: for the job I just hired you for? He laughed again.
Speaker 1: Ever since, I have associated the fourth of July with
Speaker 1: the start of my career, but especially those years when
Speaker 1: the week with the fourth in it is in the
Speaker 1: middle of the week, just like that, and makes it
Speaker 1: more difficult for employers to hire anybody except the cheap
Speaker 1: and the unemployed. Turns out that Wednesday, July fourth calendar
Speaker 1: is not a frequent thing. Happened in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: Happened again in nineteen ninety, two thousand and one, two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, twenty eighteen, not scheduled to happen again
Speaker 1: until twenty twenty nine, barring major breaking news developments. A
Speaker 1: week to the day that stan sebek had called, I
Speaker 1: was on the air at UPI. I wasn't supposed to be.
Speaker 1: I was just supposed to be watching the morning shift
Speaker 1: with Sam Rosen. And then finally he said, so, do
Speaker 1: you think you got the hang of it? And I said,
Speaker 1: m I guess so. He said, good, because you're on
Speaker 1: at nine forty five. I was so scared. I had
Speaker 1: an out of body experience. Thirty days after stan Sebic
Speaker 1: called on July third, I was on my own on
Speaker 1: the night shift, maybe the seventh time, when the Yankee
Speaker 1: catcher Thurman Munson was killed when he crashed his private plane,
Speaker 1: and I had to call his teammates for interviews and
Speaker 1: still do the sports cast every hour. By October, they
Speaker 1: had put me on a plane to go cover the
Speaker 1: National League playoffs. Six months after he called, Stan and
Speaker 1: Sam Rosen and I were covering the nineteen eighty Winter
Speaker 1: Olympics for UPI Radio, and our stuff was playing on
Speaker 1: radio stations around the world. But all these years later,
Speaker 1: none of that compared to the sensation of that phone
Speaker 1: call and the realization that my career had really started.
Speaker 1: At forty eight hours later, I was walking into UPI's
Speaker 1: offices as a pro plus, I got the first shock
Speaker 1: of my career. Good news, Stan said and laughed. That's
Speaker 1: stringing work you did for UPI. All those Cornell football
Speaker 1: games you covered for fifteen dollars a game. The union says,
Speaker 1: guess what they count towards your professional experience, So you
Speaker 1: won't be starting at just sixteen thousand. You get credited
Speaker 1: with experience for all that stringing. You got exactly six
Speaker 1: days worth of credit. Congratulations, you'll be starting at sixteen thousand,
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars a year, and Stan sabc laughed, I've
Speaker 1: done all the damage I can do here. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips
Speaker 1: Chanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister
Speaker 1: Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister Shanelle
Speaker 1: handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
Speaker 1: Another music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and
Speaker 1: performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music
Speaker 1: is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch
Speaker 1: Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy
Speaker 1: musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium
Speaker 1: organist ever, and once again my accompanist. Our announcer was
Speaker 1: my friend Larry David. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
Speaker 1: So that's countdown for this the one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: seventh day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy fifth day since convicted felon Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
Speaker 1: the United States. You the July eleventh sentencing hearing. Use
Speaker 1: the mental health system. You've got it now, mister President
Speaker 1: hughes presidential immunity to stop Trump from doing it again
Speaker 1: while we still.
Speaker 3: Came.
Speaker 1: The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins is the news
Speaker 1: warrants until then, I'm Keith old Rimmond. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck.
Speaker 3: Keep rolling, rolling, Rolling, the Supreme Courtio swollen, keep them
Speaker 3: fascist rolling.
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, Neil and Sam and Thomas are kissing Trump.
Speaker 2: He's badass. They gave the constitution big herds from all
Speaker 2: these thugs. Judicial declar an axe official. They're over when
Speaker 2: you are restaurant Robert theme from Rothyde Countdown with Keith
Speaker 2: Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
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