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Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. There

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Speaker 1: is absolutely no indication that the Jack Smith grand Jury

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Speaker 1: actually indicted Donald Trump yesterday, well other than Trump's cryptic

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Speaker 1: social media post at four point thirty three Eastern, literally

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Speaker 1: minutes after the grand jury went home for the day,

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Speaker 1: reading quote, so let's get this straight. The Democrats slimeballs

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Speaker 1: in Congress impeached me and are now indicting me over

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Speaker 1: their continuing, illegal, and long running witch hunt. Unquote. Saner

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Speaker 1: people than you and I have gone mad trying to

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Speaker 1: parse Trump's three quarters of a century long tortured relationship

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Speaker 1: with both the English language and all of human speech.

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Speaker 1: But Trump posted that, complete with those four keywords, are

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Speaker 1: now indicting me? And then an hour later he reposted

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Speaker 1: it would Trump know more about what was going on

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Speaker 1: in that grand jury room yesterday than the rest of us? Well,

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Speaker 1: presumably only if when he was offered in the second

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Speaker 1: Target letter the opportunity to testify to or ask for

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Speaker 1: others to testify to the DC grand Jury, he had

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Speaker 1: actually availed himself of it and sent an attorney with

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Speaker 1: a witness or with evidence to submit, and they happened

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Speaker 1: to be there yesterday. It is still damned fascinating, though,

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Speaker 1: that he would post such a thing literally minutes after

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Speaker 1: the grand jury broke for the day. Then again, the

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Speaker 1: odds against that happening drop significantly when you realize the

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Speaker 1: volume of crap Trump can post in one day. The

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Speaker 1: last time I looked, about nine pm Eastern last night,

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Speaker 1: he had posted fifty six different things, and he had

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Speaker 1: not started posting yesterday until twelve thirty yesterday afternoon fifty six.

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Speaker 1: Trump posted an article yesterday about how somebody thought he

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Speaker 1: did real good in the CNN town Hall, which was

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Speaker 1: Check's sundial just seventy seven days ago. Trump also posted

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Speaker 1: a claim that Joe Biden stole documents while he was

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Speaker 1: a senator and that John Durham was the victim of

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Speaker 1: a cover up, and there were also a dozen or

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Speaker 1: so ads warning about the horrible fate of Chong from

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Speaker 1: Cheech and Chong. Trump did not post for the first

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Speaker 1: time in several days, and he of a series of

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Speaker 1: memes that read the January sixth was quote the day

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Speaker 1: the government staged a riot, and there is speculation that

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Speaker 1: somebody finally pointed out to him that on January sixth

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Speaker 1: he was the government, and that just because the meme

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Speaker 1: was posted by an authoritative source like Ted Nugent, that

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Speaker 1: was no reason anybody should believe it back on this planet.

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Speaker 1: The New York Times has reported it has confirmed Monday's

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Speaker 1: report that the former acting Deputy Attorney General Rich Donahue

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Speaker 1: had confirmed on the record that he did subject himself

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Speaker 1: to an interview with Smith's attorneys. Topics he wouldn't say, individuals,

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Speaker 1: he wouldn't say. We can only hope Donahue was asked

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Speaker 1: what the House Committee asked him about the possible appointment

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Speaker 1: of Jeffrey Clark as Attorney General so he could make

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Speaker 1: up the fraud Trump wanted and seize the voting machines

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Speaker 1: as Trump wanted, And we can only hope Donahue told

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Speaker 1: them what he told the committee and what he told

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Speaker 1: Clark in the time quote, you're an environmental lawyer. How

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Speaker 1: about you go back to your office and we'll call

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Speaker 1: you when there's an oil spill. It was also a

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Speaker 1: minor development in the Georgia case, but of course Georgia

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Speaker 1: may hinge on whether or not charges specifically about Georgia

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Speaker 1: are included in Jack Smith's charges, and presumably in that case,

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Speaker 1: Jack Smith actually would go first. The Guardian, whichever the

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Speaker 1: case is, quotes two sources briefed Onne the matter is

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Speaker 1: saying that Fani Willis has narrowed potential charges against Trump

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Speaker 1: in Georgia and or other defendants in Georgia to quote

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Speaker 1: criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and conspiracy to commit

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Speaker 1: election fraud, as well as solicitation of a public or

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Speaker 1: political officer to fail to perform their duties and solicitation

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Speaker 1: to destroy, to face or remove ballots. And there was

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Speaker 1: also a minor development from Erie, Pennsylvania. Trump is holding

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Speaker 1: one of his clan rallies there Saturday, and Erie's mayor

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Speaker 1: wants as much as thirty five thousand dollars up front

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Speaker 1: because a twenty eighteen Trump Clan rally in Erie ran

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Speaker 1: up that much in extra costs for the city that

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Speaker 1: had to be picked up by its taxpayers. And Trump's

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Speaker 1: campaign is still stiffing the good citizens of Erie for

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Speaker 1: a reimbursement on that thirty five large and Erie mayor

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Speaker 1: Joe Schember assumes Trump is going to do it again,

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Speaker 1: so there is no reason to expect news of any

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Speaker 1: indictments today. The first set the stolen documents indictments were

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Speaker 1: revealed to Trump right after they were handed up on

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Speaker 1: Thursday Thursday, June eighth, and the Washington Grand Jury has

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Speaker 1: also met Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we have the day off.

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Speaker 1: There is a hearing scheduled today though, an Oversight Subcommittee

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Speaker 1: hearing on UFOs, whereas they are now called UAPs. And

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Speaker 1: what a plot twist it would be if the UFO

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Speaker 1: hearing is really about Trump, or at least we might

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Speaker 1: hold out hope that we will get to the bottom

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Speaker 1: of why Congressoan Tim Burchett of Tennessee is not sharing

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Speaker 1: that hearing as planned, and what did the aliens do

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Speaker 1: with Burchett's beard? Trump did come up yesterday at the

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Speaker 1: sentencing of one of his stochastic Patsy's, Ryan Gunderson, the

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Speaker 1: nimrod who wore his high school letterman's jacket to the

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Speaker 1: coup pro tip don't prosecutors asked Quote, what happens the

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Speaker 1: next time a criminal indictment comes down against someone he likes,

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Speaker 1: and noted that the person for whom Gunderson stormed the

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Speaker 1: capitol quote is still out there telling lies about the election.

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Speaker 1: I wonder who they mean? Gunderson eighteen months. However, Trump

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Speaker 1: stayed mostly off stage. He did manage to underscore from

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Speaker 1: off stage just how much he owns much of the

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Speaker 1: House Republican Fascist Caucus and how much they in turn

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Speaker 1: own Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. So, thus how

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Speaker 1: much he Trump owns Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.

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Speaker 1: House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri has

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Speaker 1: filed a brief in Federal District Court in Delaware seeking

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Speaker 1: to prevent the plea deal that the Justice Department and

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Speaker 1: Hunter Biden agreed to which the judge in the case

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Speaker 1: was to consider today. Smith and others are still pushing

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Speaker 1: the testimony of that DOJ agent who set his demands

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Speaker 1: for more serious tax prosecutions of the President's son were

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Speaker 1: suspiciously rejected by the department's actual tax experts, and he

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Speaker 1: was then forced to admit under oath that nearly all

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Speaker 1: of his demands for more serious tax prosecutions of everybody

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Speaker 1: he investigated were rejected by the Department's tax experts. If

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Speaker 1: the Trumpian fascination with Hunter Biden is not explicable to

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Speaker 1: you here, it is in brief. Trump is corrupt. He

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Speaker 1: was impeached twice his adult sons are corrupt, and at

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Speaker 1: least one is widely publicly suspected of rampant substance use.

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Speaker 1: In Trump's world for half a century. The best defense

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Speaker 1: against truths like that is to locate your most dangerous

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Speaker 1: rival and fabricate evidence that he and his family are

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Speaker 1: just as guilty as you are or more guilty, or

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Speaker 1: permit your cultists to believe the other guys are guilty

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Speaker 1: and you aren't, and that the claims about you have

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Speaker 1: been fabricated to deflect the evidence against them. So that's

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Speaker 1: the Chairman of Ways and Means, as to the Speaker

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Speaker 1: of the House, reduced from being second in the presidential

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Speaker 1: line of succession to diverting attention from Trump's poop stains

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Speaker 1: by spreading other poop in other directions, even as his

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Speaker 1: House caucus continues to spectacularly self own on these keystone

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Speaker 1: cops likes investigations of Biden and son continually stepping on

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Speaker 1: rakes like one secret witness turning out to be a

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Speaker 1: fugitive Chinese agent running guns to Iran, and another secret

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Speaker 1: witness who keeps forgetting to show up to testify and

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Speaker 1: now will not testify under oath if he shows up,

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Speaker 1: even though the entirety of the billion dollar right wing

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Speaker 1: imitation news machine has been devoted and dedicated to this

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Speaker 1: cause and has managed to move nothing into the actual

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Speaker 1: news media. Despite all that, Kevin McCarthy continues to try

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Speaker 1: to play Renfield to Trump's dracula by impeaching or seeming

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Speaker 1: to impeach Joe Biden and to somehow unimpeach Trump. Monday night,

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Speaker 1: McCarthy told Sean Hannity that, quote, this is rising to

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Speaker 1: the level of impeachment inquiry. But by yesterday morning, McCarthy

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Speaker 1: was saying that when he said this is rising to

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Speaker 1: the level of impeachment inquiry, he wasn't saying it is

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Speaker 1: rising to the level of impeachment inquiry. He was saying

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Speaker 1: it would be rising quote the actions that I'm seeing

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Speaker 1: by this administration withholding the agencies from being able to

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Speaker 1: work with us, that would rise to the level of

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Speaker 1: an impeachment inquiry. And then he posited if evidence continues

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Speaker 1: to rise to the level and impeachment inquiry, House Republicans

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Speaker 1: will act just in case this was still too clear.

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Speaker 1: McCarthy then added, We've got a number of people coming

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Speaker 1: in they could come forward with all the information these

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Speaker 1: committees are requesting, and we wouldn't have to rise to

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Speaker 1: that it is rising. It might rise, it doesn't have

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Speaker 1: to rise. So even for the notoriously wind blown Kevin McCarthy,

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Speaker 1: the man with the perpetual look of a low rent

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Speaker 1: bald eagle who can't quite figure out whether gusts are

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Speaker 1: coming in from the southeast or the northwest, this is Amazingly,

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Speaker 1: eat your cake and keep it too, Fox's congressional reporter writes, quote,

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Speaker 1: Fox is told those are something of high level trial balloons.

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Speaker 1: The reason is that McCarthy wants to get a sense

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Speaker 1: of what gopeers want to do, to ask those go peers,

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Speaker 1: and most importantly, where the votes may lie for impeaching anyone. Unquote, Look, Kevin,

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Speaker 1: you're missing the obvious. You've got this UFO hearing today,

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Speaker 1: This would be perfect for an impeachment. Think of all

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Speaker 1: the aliens you can impeach. Also of interest here, so,

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Speaker 1: of course, climate change is worse than we thought, or

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Speaker 1: anybody thought, or anybody saw it coming. In one way,

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Speaker 1: we are discovering how in Italy, where it is not

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Speaker 1: only one hundred and fifteen degrees on the coast, but

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Speaker 1: the way to serve ve that which we call air

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Speaker 1: conditioning is not working there because one hundred and fifteen

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Speaker 1: degrees also will collapse your electrical infrastructure. And speaking of collapsing,

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Speaker 1: there's this guy Greg Gutface on Fox who just defended

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Speaker 1: his network's agreement with Ron DeSantis that slavery really helped

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Speaker 1: the slaves by teaching them skills. He defended that by

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Speaker 1: saying that those with useful skills were the ones who

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Speaker 1: survived the Holocaust and the Nazi death camps. And no,

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Speaker 1: the entirety of what he said is actually far worse

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Speaker 1: than I am describing it right now. That's next. This

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Speaker 1: is countdown, you know, this is countdown with you know,

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Speaker 1: Keith Olberman. Most scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,

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Speaker 1: some snarks, some predictions, date line Catania in Italy. All right,

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Speaker 1: you can tell me you've thought about this. As the

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Speaker 1: climate crisis worsens and gets out of hand and the

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Speaker 1: atmosphere dies, you are not going to be the one

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Speaker 1: who voluntarily gives up the last air conditioner, are you.

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Speaker 1: I've thought about it. Well, we can let ourselves off

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Speaker 1: the gilt hook, because the air conditioning will probably die

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Speaker 1: long before we will in Catania, on the Sicilian coast,

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Speaker 1: it hit one hundred and fifteen degrees over the weekend,

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Speaker 1: and the city was not built for one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifteen degrees, literally not built that way. Much of the

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Speaker 1: underground electrical grid melted. It is called underground climate change.

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Speaker 1: There is evidence of it under shak right now. But

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Speaker 1: to what happened over the weekend in Italy, three hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand residents without air conditioning or anything else electrical for

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Speaker 1: a while or water. The wiring for the pumping stations

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Speaker 1: also melted. Power ration throughout most of the city. They

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Speaker 1: did fix the water pumps, but the best so far

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Speaker 1: in the ac is special air conditioned rooms for the elderly, which,

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Speaker 1: if you have seen the movie, is something predicted in

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Speaker 1: the seventies climate disaster and inforest government organized cannibalism film

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Speaker 1: Soilent Green with Charlton Heston.

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Speaker 2: You know you tell everybody, you gotta tell them Silent

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Speaker 2: Greenner's people, it's paper, Thank you, Nancy Faust Yum Yum

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Speaker 2: dateline Galveston, Texas full on McCarthyism at Texas A and

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Speaker 2: M University, Professor Joy Alonso had given a routine lecture,

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Speaker 2: but One of the students was the daughter of the

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Speaker 2: Texas State Land Commissioner, and she narked on Professor Alonso

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Speaker 2: to her mother because the professor had allegedly, and we

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Speaker 2: don't know how, but had allegedly disparaged Texas Lieutenant Governor

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Speaker 2: Dan Patrick.

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Speaker 1: Within hours, the professor had been placed on administrative leave

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Speaker 1: for being critical of the Lieutenant governor. Couple things. Wasn't

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Speaker 1: that the guy who said he was willing to die

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Speaker 1: to preserve the Texas economy for his grandchildren during COVID, Well,

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Speaker 1: we're waiting. Also, the creeping fascism in Texas can be addressed.

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Speaker 1: Colleges and universities in other states simply should not recognize

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Speaker 1: Texas high school diplomas, and employers in other states should

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Speaker 1: not recognize Texas college and university degrees. Also this sidebar.

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Speaker 1: Imagine my surprise when I read the Texas Tribune headline

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Speaker 1: for this story quote Texas A and M put professor

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Speaker 1: on leave for allegedly criticizing Dan Patrick. Go on dateline

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Speaker 1: the White House. Well, the secret is out. The Great

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Speaker 1: Biden scandal has been proved. It is time to impeach

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Speaker 1: Commander Commander the first German shepherd. He is gone on

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Speaker 1: a one dog rampage against the Secret Service, and all

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Speaker 1: of it has been on earthed by America's top defender

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Speaker 1: of truth, justice and something. Tom Fitten, the non lawyer

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Speaker 1: chief of Judicial Watch, the guy who ironically given his name,

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Speaker 1: can't find a shirt that fits him.

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Speaker 3: Judicial Watch President Tom fitting here with some news. The

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Speaker 3: Secret Service just gave us documents that show that Joe

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Speaker 3: Biden's dog commander has a tax Secret Service personnel repeat

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Speaker 3: at the White House at least ten incidents, one of

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Speaker 3: which led to a uniform Secret Service officer being sent

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Speaker 3: to the hospital. I don't know what's going on over

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Speaker 3: there in the Biden White House that the family thinks

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Speaker 3: that their dogs should be able to attack ten or

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Speaker 3: so Secret Service agents, the folks who are defending their lives,

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Speaker 3: without much being done about it.

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Speaker 4: Well, something was done about it. The Secret Service tried

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Speaker 4: to cover it up, and it was Judicial Watch heavy

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Speaker 4: lifting in court that exposed this scandal of abuse of

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Speaker 4: Secret Service personnel by the Biden family. And now we

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Speaker 4: know by the Secret Service itself some terrible personal, dark

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Speaker 4: corruption going on over there in the Biden White House.

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Speaker 1: That's Tom Fitton doing the Lord's work. That's the non

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Speaker 1: lawyer Trump gets his key legal advice from. And I

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Speaker 1: just want to say this once again, Tom keep telling

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Speaker 1: Trump exactly what he wants to hear. You are our

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Speaker 1: best hope still ahead on countdown. Tomorrow is Uma Thurman Day,

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Speaker 1: twelve years to the day of the day that looked

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Speaker 1: like it was going to be one of the best

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Speaker 1: days of my life but turned out to be one

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Speaker 1: of the most underwhelming, imaginable things I promised not to

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Speaker 1: tell I had first time for the daily round up

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Speaker 1: of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who

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Speaker 1: constitute two days worse persons in the world. Lebron's shared

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Speaker 1: by Elon Musk and Sean Hannity, And when you think

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Speaker 1: of them together like that, at least Hannity knows he's

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Speaker 1: an idiot. After Lebron James's son Bronni, suffered cardiac arrest

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Speaker 1: while at a college basketball practice. He's apparently fine now.

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Speaker 1: Both Musk and Hannity suggested it was caused by the

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Speaker 1: COVID vaccine, because no basketball player ever suffered cardiac arrest

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Speaker 1: before COVID or the vaccine other than Reggie Lewis. When

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Speaker 1: he died in nineteen ninety three, Hank Gathers in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety Pete Marivitch in nineteen eighty eight, Len Bias in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, John Postly in nineteen seventy. It never

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Speaker 1: happened before. The runner up, Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee,

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Speaker 1: co author with Senator Mike I didn't do. January sixth,

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Speaker 1: lee of a resolution trying to prevent the media from

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Speaker 1: quote sensationalizing mass murderers. Try to keep the media from

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Speaker 1: giving them the publicity they crave when they're dead. The

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Speaker 1: Breitbart article complementing these two slugheads on this resolution uses

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Speaker 1: the term glorification of mass murderers, as Tennessee State Rep.

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Speaker 1: Justin Jones noted on Twitter or whatever it's called this week.

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Speaker 1: Last Christmas, Congressman don't sensationalize mass murderers, Ogles posted a

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Speaker 1: Christmas card showing himself, his wife, and two of his

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Speaker 1: three children carrying long guns. The smallest child instead carries

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Speaker 1: a sign saying peace, which I presume has meant ironically. Incidentally,

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Speaker 1: neither the resolution nor the bright Bart article about mass

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Speaker 1: murderers and this resolution mentions the word gun, but the

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Speaker 1: winner Greg Guttfeld, the new ten PM host on Fox

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Speaker 1: quote news unquote. First, Fox defended slavery in this country

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Speaker 1: because it supposedly taught useful skills to the slaves who

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Speaker 1: didn't die, and all the slaves became blacksmiths, just like

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Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis says, hundreds and thousands of blacksmiths in the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Now Fox has moved on to this Gutfeld idiot,

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Speaker 1: implying that Jews who were tortured and murdered in the

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Speaker 1: death camps had simply failed to become quote useful, and

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Speaker 1: thus they did not survive the Holocaust, while the useful

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Speaker 1: Jews did quote did you ever read Man's search were meaning?

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Speaker 1: Gutfeld asked. Another Fox loser, Victor Frankel, talks about how

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Speaker 1: you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills.

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Speaker 1: You had to be useful utility. Utility kept you alive unquote,

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Speaker 1: which is not at all what Frankel says. Frankel noted

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Speaker 1: that when it came to Jews and others that the

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Speaker 1: Nazis could use as slave labor or slave servants, they

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Speaker 1: killed them. Last, The Daily Beast quotes a Fox staffer

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Speaker 1: saying that in any other television outlet, Gutfeld, who poses

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Speaker 1: as an intellectual by perching his glasses at the end

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Speaker 1: of his nose and also amazingly considers himself a comedian,

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Speaker 1: would have been fired and his career would have been

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Speaker 1: over Greg, but not at Fox Fox rationalizing the Holocaust

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Speaker 1: since nineteen ninety six. Gutfeld two days, worst person in

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Speaker 1: the world, and now to the number one story on

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Speaker 1: the Countdown and my favorite topic me and I saw

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Speaker 1: her on TV recently, so I flashed back and shuddered

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Speaker 1: all over again. Yes, it's things I promised not to tell.

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Speaker 1: I suspect that until the day I actually die. No

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Speaker 1: day will have started so well with such promise, yet

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Speaker 1: ended so badly with such a clanging thud as Wednesday,

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Speaker 1: July twenty seventh, twenty and eleven did. Near midnight two

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Speaker 1: nights earlier, I had just entered my New York apartment

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Speaker 1: back from a New York Yankees game, when the last

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Speaker 1: landline telephone I ever owned began to ring. Hi, Keith,

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Speaker 1: it's Uma, Yeah, how many UMAs could there be? It

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Speaker 1: was the actress Uma Thurman. We had texted briefly, we

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Speaker 1: had never met. We had never spoken. We spoke for

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Speaker 1: ninety minutes, and she was self deprecating and vulnerable and

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Speaker 1: razors sharp and warm, and she invited me to coffee.

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Speaker 1: On the afternoon of D Day, Wednesday, July twenty seven,

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Speaker 1: twenty eleven, one of the producers I had hired to

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Speaker 1: do the new version of Countdown on Al Gore's network,

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Speaker 1: Current TV, happened to know Uma Thurman from the gym.

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Speaker 1: Erica Ferrari was her name, and she was great, and

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Speaker 1: she and Uma Thurman had become close enough that Uma

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Speaker 1: had unloaded all her relationship issues on Erica. And the

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Speaker 1: next thing I knew, Erica was in my office explaining

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Speaker 1: to me that when she explained to Uma where she

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Speaker 1: worked and with whom Uma said, the Keith Alderman. And

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Speaker 1: now I was being set up for drinks or dinner

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Speaker 1: or coffee or something with Uma Thurman. So this seemed

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Speaker 1: like a good day. Then two nights earlier we had

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Speaker 1: finally had had this marvelous, warm conversation and whom A

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Speaker 1: Thurman had suggested coffee and Wednesday in two thirty or

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Speaker 1: so in one of the two or three places in

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Speaker 1: Midtown near my studio, and she'd text me with details

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Speaker 1: and she couldn't wait. Simultaneously with this, the CEO of

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Speaker 1: the Current TV network, Mark Rosenthal, called me up and

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Speaker 1: invited me to dinner on Wednesday, July twenty seventh, twenty eleven,

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Speaker 1: going to be a busy day. Al Gore and Current

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Speaker 1: had hired me even before I left MSNBC. That was

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Speaker 1: what that was all about. And I had met and

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Speaker 1: gotten to know everybody in the organization over the following

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Speaker 1: six months before we finally got the show on the

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Speaker 1: air in June. We got off to a good start,

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Speaker 1: even though Current TV was available only in low def

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Speaker 1: digital cable. On its first night, Countdown on Current beat

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Speaker 1: both MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell's Show and CNN's Elliott Spitzer Show,

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Speaker 1: and the so called demo ratings measuring viewers eighteen to

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Speaker 1: fifty four. But by July twenty seventh, twenty eleven, so

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Speaker 1: like two months later, it was evident to me that

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Speaker 1: the network was run by four kinds of people. One

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Speaker 1: the CEO Rosenthal, who used to be at MTV and

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Speaker 1: knew what he was doing. Two some dilettants who did

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Speaker 1: not know how to plug in a television, let alone

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Speaker 1: put stuff on one. Three co owner Al Gore, who

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Speaker 1: meant well but who had absolutely no judgment when it

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Speaker 1: came to business partners. And four in a class by himself,

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Speaker 1: Gore's business partner Joel Hyatt, who had made one superb

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Speaker 1: business decision in nineteen seventy seven that earned him billions

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Speaker 1: of dollars and he sold everything and then earned him

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Speaker 1: billions of dollars again. But he had literally never gotten

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Speaker 1: anything right since nineteen seventy seven, while at the same

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Speaker 1: time thinking he had never gotten anything wrong since nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy seven. He was a liberal. Unfortunately he was a

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Speaker 1: liberal Donald Trump. What was worse was that of all

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Speaker 1: these people, only Mark Rosenthal understood how ruinously incompetent Joel

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Speaker 1: Hyatt really was. Rosenthal had been president of MTV from

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six through two thousand and four, and whatever

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Speaker 1: you thought of all those reality shows and the Real

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Speaker 1: World and stuff like that, they were successes. He knew

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Speaker 1: what he was doing, and he knew Joel Hyatt didn't.

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Speaker 1: And Mark Rosenthal had invited me to dinner as soon

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Speaker 1: as my show was over on Wednesday night, July twenty seven,

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Speaker 1: twenty eleven, about seven hours after I was scheduled to

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Speaker 1: have coffee with Uma Thurman as a dry run for

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Speaker 1: a date, and Rosenthal told me he had figured out

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Speaker 1: how we could in effect take control of the Current

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Speaker 1: TV network away from this Joel Hyatt and not only

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Speaker 1: exploit the good start Countdown had made, but build on

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Speaker 1: it and make Current TV into the liberal news network

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Speaker 1: we had been intending to create and knew would be

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Speaker 1: a success. Dinner would be our chance for him to

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Speaker 1: explain it to me, to hatch our plan. It was

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Speaker 1: a big, big day. Without me going into detail, you

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Speaker 1: intuitively get the Uma Thurman part of what July twenty seventh,

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Speaker 1: twenty eleven was supposed to be. But I need to

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Speaker 1: put a little bit more meat on the bones of

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Speaker 1: why it was so important at Current TV. This is

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Speaker 1: who this guy Hyatt was, that same producer who was

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Speaker 1: doing her best to set up Uma Thurman and me Erica.

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Speaker 1: She walked in one day, white as the sheet of

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Speaker 1: paper she was carrying at arm's length, as if it

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Speaker 1: had been printed in bubonic plague. She had found while

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Speaker 1: surfing around internet archives a New York Times article about

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Speaker 1: this Joel Hyatt, an article from April thirteen, nineteen ninety.

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Speaker 1: You remember the movie Philadelphia where the evil head of

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Speaker 1: law firm portrayed by the actor Jason Robards had fired

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Speaker 1: the head of his Philadelphia office played by Tom Hanks

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Speaker 1: because the Hanks character had AIDS and Hanks's character got

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Speaker 1: as his lawyer, a character played by Denzel Washington. Well,

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Speaker 1: this guy who co owned Current TV with Al Gore,

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Speaker 1: he was the Jason Robard's character he had fired from

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Speaker 1: his law firm Hiatt Legal Services, the head of his

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Speaker 1: Philadelphia office, Clarence B. Kin, after finding out Clarence B.

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Speaker 1: Kin had AIDS. In fact, reality was actually worse than

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Speaker 1: the Philadelphia movie. In real life, Clarence B. Kane was

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Speaker 1: also African American. The time story that Erica Ferrari handed

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Speaker 1: me like it was printed on razor blades, recounted how

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Speaker 1: a federal judge had not only ordered Hyatt Legal Services

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Speaker 1: to pay mister Kane one hundred and fifty seven thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars plus costs, but how it had ordered them to

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Speaker 1: pay him immediately, like in the next couple days. This

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Speaker 1: was harrowing enough, but the final paragraph made my head swim. Quote.

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Speaker 1: What pained him most, mister Hyatt said, was the notion

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Speaker 1: that his firm discriminated. He noted how it had, after all,

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Speaker 1: named a gay black man to run one of its

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Speaker 1: major offices, something no law firm its size has ever

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Speaker 1: knowingly done. Quote it's totally lost in the shuffle is

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Speaker 1: that this is an organization in which anyone can succeed,

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Speaker 1: he said. No one has written about that. That was

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Speaker 1: this guy Hyatt in a nutshell. He fired a gay

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Speaker 1: black man who was dying of AIDS. But he knew

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Speaker 1: who the real victim here was himself. And it's not

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00:29:24,315 --> 00:29:26,955
Speaker 1: like Hyatt had improved over the years. As I mentioned.

430
00:29:26,995 --> 00:29:30,995
Speaker 1: The Night Countdown premiered on Current TV June twentieth, twenty eleven.

431
00:29:30,995 --> 00:29:33,915
Speaker 1: We beat MSNBC and CNN in the ratings, but we

432
00:29:33,955 --> 00:29:37,915
Speaker 1: didn't know it. The next day, our ratings showed that

433
00:29:37,955 --> 00:29:42,115
Speaker 1: we had beaten CNN and just missed beating O'Donnell on MSNBC.

434
00:29:42,955 --> 00:29:45,075
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, one of those networks got a

435
00:29:45,075 --> 00:29:47,955
Speaker 1: friendly reporter to write a story about how since the debut,

436
00:29:48,275 --> 00:29:51,155
Speaker 1: our ratings on Current had sunk, which was to be

437
00:29:51,195 --> 00:29:53,835
Speaker 1: expected and which was a totally legitimate competitive thing for

438
00:29:53,875 --> 00:29:57,435
Speaker 1: the MSNBC guys to do. But the numbers were all wrong.

439
00:29:58,275 --> 00:30:01,675
Speaker 1: The ratings for Countdown that were included in the pro

440
00:30:01,875 --> 00:30:06,835
Speaker 1: CNN pro MSNBC story were somehow well higher than the

441
00:30:06,915 --> 00:30:10,275
Speaker 1: ratings we saw every day at current. If I'm not

442
00:30:10,395 --> 00:30:13,675
Speaker 1: clear about this, the story said that, say, on Monday

443
00:30:13,715 --> 00:30:17,075
Speaker 1: July eleventh, we had one hundred thousand demo viewers, but

444
00:30:17,195 --> 00:30:19,875
Speaker 1: our ratings, the ratings we got from the Nielsen company,

445
00:30:20,755 --> 00:30:22,595
Speaker 1: they said that on Monday July seventh, we didn't have

446
00:30:22,595 --> 00:30:24,915
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand demo viewers when we had seventy five

447
00:30:24,955 --> 00:30:29,355
Speaker 1: thousand demo viewers. Well, something was really really wrong here.

448
00:30:29,795 --> 00:30:32,555
Speaker 1: So when Hyatt called me for our weekly phone chat,

449
00:30:32,635 --> 00:30:35,595
Speaker 1: I said, look, there's something wrong with the ratings. And

450
00:30:35,635 --> 00:30:37,515
Speaker 1: I explained the article to him and he said, oh,

451
00:30:37,555 --> 00:30:39,555
Speaker 1: I knew they were going to do that, show how

452
00:30:39,555 --> 00:30:42,115
Speaker 1: your ratings had dropped. And I said, no, you're missing

453
00:30:42,195 --> 00:30:44,955
Speaker 1: my point. They say we had higher ratings than we

454
00:30:45,035 --> 00:30:45,675
Speaker 1: actually did.

455
00:30:45,835 --> 00:30:45,995
Speaker 3: Oh.

456
00:30:45,995 --> 00:30:47,955
Speaker 1: I knew they were going to do that too, he said,

457
00:30:47,955 --> 00:30:50,635
Speaker 1: with even more condescension. And I said, why would they

458
00:30:50,635 --> 00:30:52,955
Speaker 1: do that? Why would they try to make us look better?

459
00:30:53,315 --> 00:30:53,395
Speaker 3: Oh?

460
00:30:53,435 --> 00:30:56,075
Speaker 1: I knew they were going to do that too, just too.

461
00:30:57,355 --> 00:30:59,715
Speaker 1: Then there was a long pause while Joel Hyatt made

462
00:30:59,715 --> 00:31:03,955
Speaker 1: something up just to mess with us. I asked him,

463
00:31:04,275 --> 00:31:07,075
Speaker 1: since he had personally purchased the ratings package from the

464
00:31:07,155 --> 00:31:09,915
Speaker 1: Nielsen Company, the first ratings in the history of current TV,

465
00:31:10,155 --> 00:31:12,595
Speaker 1: if he could just review for me what he remembered

466
00:31:12,635 --> 00:31:15,195
Speaker 1: of the process. Well, I went in and made an

467
00:31:15,235 --> 00:31:17,995
Speaker 1: excellent deal. I saved two thousand dollars on their initial

468
00:31:18,035 --> 00:31:21,155
Speaker 1: price point. This man was worth a couple of billion dollars.

469
00:31:21,635 --> 00:31:25,515
Speaker 1: They wanted us to buy not just the live ratings,

470
00:31:25,515 --> 00:31:30,955
Speaker 1: but something called live plus Divver. I thought for a moment, Divver,

471
00:31:31,835 --> 00:31:38,915
Speaker 1: I said, you mean live plus DVR. He laughed, Yes,

472
00:31:39,195 --> 00:31:42,035
Speaker 1: that's it Divver. What the hell is divver? You just

473
00:31:42,315 --> 00:31:46,195
Speaker 1: use the live ratings and TV everybody knows that. I

474
00:31:46,275 --> 00:31:50,235
Speaker 1: explained to him that divver ratings were comparatively new, about

475
00:31:50,435 --> 00:31:53,595
Speaker 1: three four years old at that point. They added to

476
00:31:53,715 --> 00:31:56,235
Speaker 1: the live rating people who would watch the show on

477
00:31:56,315 --> 00:32:00,475
Speaker 1: their DVR within twenty four hours of having recorded it.

478
00:32:01,155 --> 00:32:03,475
Speaker 1: He had bought the ratings that did not include all

479
00:32:03,555 --> 00:32:06,035
Speaker 1: of those people, so that when we got what we

480
00:32:06,235 --> 00:32:08,795
Speaker 1: thought were our ratings for our premier night when we

481
00:32:08,835 --> 00:32:11,755
Speaker 1: beat CNN and almost beat MSNBC but just missed, we

482
00:32:11,795 --> 00:32:15,435
Speaker 1: didn't just miss. The ratings package this idiot Hiatt had

483
00:32:15,435 --> 00:32:18,195
Speaker 1: bought did not include anybody who watched the show on

484
00:32:18,235 --> 00:32:21,315
Speaker 1: their DVRs, And that cost us the chance to come

485
00:32:21,355 --> 00:32:23,835
Speaker 1: out and say we beat CNN at MSNBC the first

486
00:32:23,915 --> 00:32:26,435
Speaker 1: night with this crappy, low deaf picture down on CHA

487
00:32:26,675 --> 00:32:30,515
Speaker 1: channel hundred and three. But more importantly, it saved this

488
00:32:30,635 --> 00:32:39,475
Speaker 1: billionaire idiot Hiatt two thousand dollars. So Mark Rosenthal was

489
00:32:39,515 --> 00:32:42,995
Speaker 1: taking me to dinner hours after I was to have

490
00:32:43,115 --> 00:32:46,275
Speaker 1: coffee with Uma Thurman to explain how we could get

491
00:32:46,355 --> 00:32:52,515
Speaker 1: rid of this idiot who thought DVR meant divver. Thus

492
00:32:53,195 --> 00:32:56,395
Speaker 1: was July twenty seventh, twenty eleven going to be one

493
00:32:56,395 --> 00:33:01,835
Speaker 1: of the turning points in my life. And then about

494
00:33:01,875 --> 00:33:04,315
Speaker 1: one forty five, just when Uma said she was going

495
00:33:04,315 --> 00:33:05,955
Speaker 1: to text me to tell me where to meet her

496
00:33:05,955 --> 00:33:08,795
Speaker 1: for coffee, she texted me. All right, She texted me

497
00:33:08,835 --> 00:33:10,995
Speaker 1: to explain her rehearsal was running along and she had

498
00:33:10,995 --> 00:33:14,515
Speaker 1: to postpone. And while I was reading between those lines

499
00:33:14,555 --> 00:33:16,435
Speaker 1: and knowing that that actually met she was going back

500
00:33:16,475 --> 00:33:18,875
Speaker 1: with her boyfriend or her husband or whoever he was,

501
00:33:19,115 --> 00:33:22,315
Speaker 1: a company email came into all of our inboxes and

502
00:33:22,435 --> 00:33:25,515
Speaker 1: Even before I opened it, I could hear mass groaning

503
00:33:25,875 --> 00:33:30,555
Speaker 1: coming from my newsroom, Mark Rosenthal seven hours before our

504
00:33:30,595 --> 00:33:34,555
Speaker 1: dinner to plot how to root around Joel Divver slash

505
00:33:34,715 --> 00:33:39,235
Speaker 1: Jason Robard's in Philadelphia slash. I saved two thousand dollars Hyatt.

506
00:33:39,555 --> 00:33:44,115
Speaker 1: Mark Rosenthal had been fired and he'd been replaced as

507
00:33:44,115 --> 00:33:51,875
Speaker 1: CEO of Current TV, effective immediately by co owner Joel Hyatt. Well,

508
00:33:52,075 --> 00:33:58,595
Speaker 1: Holy Divver. It'd be a better story if I never

509
00:33:58,635 --> 00:34:01,435
Speaker 1: saw Mark Rosenthal or Uma Thurman again in my life,

510
00:34:01,435 --> 00:34:04,195
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't be true. I saw Mark many times.

511
00:34:04,195 --> 00:34:06,075
Speaker 1: And then years later, I was at a New York

512
00:34:06,115 --> 00:34:09,515
Speaker 1: recording studio doing the voice of the newsman character Tom

513
00:34:09,595 --> 00:34:13,195
Speaker 1: Jumbo Grumbo on the Great animated series BoJack Horseman when

514
00:34:13,235 --> 00:34:19,435
Speaker 1: one of the other studio doors opened and outstepped Uma Thurman, radiant, elegant.

515
00:34:20,195 --> 00:34:23,635
Speaker 1: I introduced myself. She smiled, she said she was a fan.

516
00:34:23,995 --> 00:34:28,235
Speaker 1: She laughed, and she said, you know, we must have

517
00:34:28,355 --> 00:34:44,475
Speaker 1: coffee sometime. I've done all the damage I can do here.

518
00:34:44,515 --> 00:34:46,595
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of

519
00:34:46,595 --> 00:34:49,355
Speaker 1: the music arrange produced and performed by Brian Ray and

520
00:34:49,435 --> 00:34:53,475
Speaker 1: John Phillip Schanelle They are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars,

521
00:34:53,515 --> 00:34:56,835
Speaker 1: bass and drums by Brian ray All, orchestration and keyboards

522
00:34:56,875 --> 00:35:01,195
Speaker 1: by John Phillip Shanel, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven

523
00:35:01,235 --> 00:35:04,195
Speaker 1: selections have been arranged unperformed by the group No Horns Allowed.

524
00:35:04,715 --> 00:35:07,795
Speaker 1: Sports Music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It

525
00:35:07,875 --> 00:35:10,955
Speaker 1: was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.

526
00:35:11,515 --> 00:35:15,195
Speaker 1: Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.

527
00:35:15,635 --> 00:35:18,395
Speaker 1: Our announcer today was my friend Richard Lewis, and everything

528
00:35:18,395 --> 00:35:22,075
Speaker 1: else was pretty much my fault. Remember. Countdown now also

529
00:35:22,115 --> 00:35:25,795
Speaker 1: available on YouTube. That's countdown for this the nine hundred

530
00:35:25,795 --> 00:35:28,915
Speaker 1: and thirty second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup

531
00:35:29,235 --> 00:35:32,515
Speaker 1: against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest

532
00:35:32,635 --> 00:35:36,475
Speaker 1: him again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown

533
00:35:36,555 --> 00:35:39,875
Speaker 1: is tomorrow Bolton's as the news warrants till then, I'm

534
00:35:39,955 --> 00:35:44,555
Speaker 1: Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

535
00:35:56,555 --> 00:36:00,515
Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For

536
00:36:00,715 --> 00:36:05,755
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app app podcasts,

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00:36:05,875 --> 00:36:07,835
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts,