Countdown with Keith Olbermann

SERIES 2 EPISODE 189: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The New York Times tried to minimize it but late yesterday it re-surveyed 2,000 voters its previously polled who had Trump up by three. It asked them their opinions after the convictions. The new number is Trump by just ONE. That translates to a loss of SEVEN PERCENT OF TRUMP VOTERS, three percent of which says it will vote for Biden with the other four destined for him or somebody else who isn't Trump. And a quarter of Trump's support among disaffected Biden-2020 voters is gone. And a fifth of double-haters. The convictions CONTINUE to have an impact. And so does calling him "Convicted Felon Donald Trump." MEANWHILE: Has Convicted Felon Donald Trump completed a quid pro quo with Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal? Is he THAT low to trade the life of an American hostage for a big anti-Biden newspaper story?  What would the editors of The Wall Street Journal do if Convicted Felon Donald Trump went to them and said I can get Putin to send home his American hostage, your reporter Evan Gershkovich?What would the editors then do if Trump paused and added: "I would like you to do us a favor, though."And what would the editors do if Trump then paused again and said ‘you need to help get me elected. i need you to join our Biden Age Plot. I need you to write a piece that restarts this Biden Age thing. I'm a convict. I need to change the topic immediately. I need you to publish this by Wednesday.’ At 9 PM Eastern Tuesday Night The Wall Street Journal's genuinely unbelievable attempt to reignite what even Politico termed "The Republicans' Biden-Age-Plot" - for whom editors on my high school newspaper would've been fired and probably expelled - dropped like excrement from Rupert Murdoch's soul. And WHAT had happened EARLIER Tuesday? WHAT had happened at 11:22 A-M Eastern, involving Trump and The Wall Street Journal? A video in which Trump, out of the blue, for the first time in two weeks, again promised that Putin would return the WSJ's Gershkovich to Trump - and Trump alone. Is it possible it was a quid pro quo? You know, like the other time Trump offered to save somebody from Putin's evil, if they did his dirty work? Well the writers quoted Kevin McCarthy while dismissing his quotes about Biden's sharpness as "tactical" lying, never thinking maybe he was tactically lying to them. They also interviewed at least three Democrats who said on-the-record that Biden is fine (Pelosi, Patty Murray, Jack Reed) and used not one quote from any of them. Why use quotes that bust your narrative? Or Trump's narrative. Plus the careers of the writers makes the prospect of a Trump/WSJ deal realistic. One was the idiot who mocked Biden's 2021 trip to the cemetery in which his son, daughter, and wife are buried, and who put a front page piece on Hillary Clinton's "coldness" on the front page of The Boston Globe in 2016. The other? Assigned to get reaction to Obama's 2013 SOTU address, she interviewed Ted Nugent. It's the worst thing I've ever even half-believed of any American news organization. But I think The Wall Street Journal may have really whored itself out for Trump. B-BLOCK (32:29) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Mike Johnson misunderstands what "The House Intelligence Committee" means and names to it two of his least intelligent members. Speaking of members, Matt Schlapp with an all-time Freudian slip about Trump's slipping polls. And first Byron Daniels gets nostalgic for Jim Crow, and then he says Biden has taken away black men's... spears. C-BLOCK (39:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since I've attested to the corruption of all Rupert Murdoch news organizations, I might as well tell you of the day I was fired by Rupert - personally - for doing exactly what he told me to do.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Biden calls Trump a convicted felon and crazy, leading to public reaction. Wisconsin Fake Electors Scheme draws felony indictments. Loyalty rewards in Trump's inner circle unveiled. Media mishaps, controversy, and baseball's stance on legalized gambling discussed.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 187: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The light bulbs may have finally gone off over the heads of the Biden Campaign at 2:03 P-M Eastern yesterday. They had USED the phrase before and they had said the phrase before but it was at THAT moment that they sent it out into the world alone: a Twitter-X post reading simply “Convicted Felon” and under it the close-up, sweating, mottled-face, golf picture of Convicted Felon Donald Trump that looks it was the before shot in a before-and-after about your grandpa’s risk of having a stroke. Elections are not decided by social media posts and they are not decided by nicknames and they are not decided by bad photos but you can probably decide ONE PERCENTAGE POINT in an election with them. Or two. Or five. We may hate it, but we live in America where the name “Crooked Hillary” stuck, and the phrase “Lock Her Up” stuck, and the acronym “MAGA” – one of the stupidest and discordant acronyms of all time – stuck. And here Joe Biden has an answer to every insult and every meme and every catchphrase used by Trump and his cult and it’s not only a GREAT answer but it has the added benefit of being entirely true and it has the even GREATER benefit of utterly deranging Trump’s whores. They have spent every day since the conviction screaming, shouting, whining, crying “don’t say that” like you did the day the kids gave you your first mean nickname in the 3rd or 4th Grade. Now they have to make it show up in the polling. In the newest poll, CBS/You Gov, the number of Republicans saying he’s not fit to be president is up to 10 percent and the number of Independents saying he’s not fit to be president is FIFTY percent. Echelon Insights, run by the conservative Kristen Soltis Andersen, went back to 477 people it previously polled who had had it 47-47 and after the verdict asked them again and they came back 49-47 for Biden.  So keep calling him “Convicted Felon Donald Trump.” Every time. Like he legally changed his name to it. And that means Joe Biden, personally. Say it. Put it in campaign ads. Can you imagine the political media freakout? It would be indelibly attached to Trump.  MEANWHILE: The Supreme Court is coming apart at the seams: The civilian victim in the Alito Flag Scandal now says that both IN late 2020/early 2021 AND two weeks ago, a black S-U-V from the Alito security detail parked in front of her mother’s home in Alexandria Virginia. “I couldn’t say who was in the car because of the tinted glass,” Emily Baden told The Guardian, “and nobody ever said anything. I took it as a general threat. The message was, we could do terrible things to you, and nobody would be able to do anything about it. When it comes to justices at the supreme court, they make the laws, but the laws don’t apply to them.” But Congressman Jamie Raskin has a solution, if only Merrick Garland will get off the dime. B-Block (27:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The publishers and distributors of "2000 Mules" repudiated the film, apologized to one of the people they slandered, and blamed it all on Dinesh D'Souza (who would now be meat). Josh Hawley either made up a story about an illicit use of American troops abroad, or he revealed military secrets - prosecute him! And once again the right wingers explain how they'll show us, they'll avenge Trump by shooting everybody. Why does it never occur to them that they may have lots of guns but who has all the tanks and military bases again? Meet Carl Higbie of NewsMax. Carl's bonkers. C-Block (35:06) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO COME: With the 80th Anniversary of D-Day looming I flashed back to the 60th Anniversary and the then-new MSNBC president who pulled out all the stops and went wall-to-wall live from Normandy and with all his big stars working a Saturday to impress his bosses...and then breaking news cancelled all of it!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 186: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN There are early signs of a potential tidal wave of disastrous polling indicators for Convicted Felon Donald Trump after he was found guilty of all 34 felony charges Thursday here in New York; 10% of registered GOP voters say they are now less likely to vote for him. More startlingly; 8% of those identifying as Trump supporters and 15% of registered GOP voters say he should drop out of the presidential race These are from separate polls, by Ipsos for Reuters, and by Morning Consult. Remember - based on Trump's 2020 vote totals - each percentage point of voters who peel away from him, would cost Trump roughly 750,000 votes and two to three electoral college votes. Just as importantly, the Biden Campaign seems to have switched strategies and is itself referring to Trump as "Convicted Felon Donald Trump." (This is a Bonus Bite-Sized Bulletin edition of Countdown. It's a new briefer format - eight minutes - that will appear in addition to regular episodes - and because of that I'm going to ask you to do me a favor and FORWARD it to somebody who is unaware of it, or unfamiliar with the Podcast. Thanks)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 185: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Do not be fooled by the dismissive attitude of the media of the impact on Trump voting support of the jury's finding of Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, and not NOT-Guilty. If, as the most circumspect pre-verdict polling suggests, 2% of his voters would peel away, that (based on 2020) is 1,500,000 voters and at least 5 electoral votes, and (based on 2016) would have been enough to throw Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to Clinton.  It reminds us that we should stop looking for the game-ender for Trump and rely instead on the incrementals, because they - and the justice that invoke them - will defeat him. Also, can the Trump cultists explain to me: are these 34 verdicts election interference that will stop Trump from winning, or are they a political gift that just gave him the election? Because you keep saying BOTH. PLUS: If you missed it, John Roberts just told Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse to go F themselves. He's king for life and he won't even talk to them about the Alito Scandal, or the OTHER Alito Scandal, or the Roberts scandal. Fine. Subpoena him. And if he ignores that, arrest him. This country is changing and those who act will decide whether it changes for the good or the bad, and we are the good guys. B-Block (32:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Clay Travis goes entirely racist on The View's Sonny Hostin (and even on the WNBA's Caitlin Clark). Minnesota GOP Senate likelihood Royce White (who played eight minutes and 55 seconds in the NBA and don't you forget it) is in trouble again. And the book sale numbers are in for Kristi Noem's Puppy Murder Diary book and I don't want to say they're not moving but the fall off from Week 1 to Week 3 is 9275% C-Block (41:25) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Only one story to tell on this day after: Thurber prophesying the life of Trump in something he wrote... in 1931!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Uncovering the truth behind Justice Alito's flag controversy, questioning his honesty and wife's involvement. Insights on Trump's trial and Pecker's testimony. Delving into challenges of reintroducing music in Afghanistan under Taliban restrictions. Exploring the intersection of comedy and politics in news shows, reflecting on the complexities of merging humor with serious news content.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 183: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is becoming increasingly obvious that Trump and the authoritarians seeking to overthrow democracy in the United States and install him as dictator for life and then enact the equivalent of ethnic cleansing… have made the choice to let everybody KNOW… that they are seeking to overthrow the democracy in the United States and install him as dictator and then enact the equivalent of ethnic cleansing. You may recall him summoning most of the fossil fuel industry of this country to Mar-a-Lago in April and essentially demanding they put one billion dollars into his campaign so he can eliminate virtually all the restrictions on their businesses as they try to destroy the planet faster. Now The Washington Post reports that early THIS month he summoned most of the big money donors to the Republicans and other fascists to the Pierre Hotel here in New York and was essentially demanding they increase THEIR donations by a factor of 25 or 50 so he can eliminate virtually all TAXES on their businesses and incomes… A businessman, he told them, had offered a donation of a million dollars to his campaign, in exchange for lunch. The Post’s sources quote Trump as replying “I’m not having lunch. You’ve got to make it 25 million.” Then there was the donor who normally gave two to three million. “He told the donor that he wanted a 25 million dollar or 50 million dollar contribution or he would not be, quote ‘very happy’. It’s blackmail. Give me the money I want – 25 times as much as you planned – or else. It's kinda Robert DeNiro, in "The Untouchables," playing Al Capone, carrying around a baseball bat. Which is funny because who showed up at the trial yesterday but DeNiro and suddenly the Trumpists are enraged that anybody would dare bring people TO the courthouse! If this unvarnished, unrestrained, undeniable corruption were not obvious enough that Trump just doesn’t GIVE a shit any more – you’re not going to shame him, you’re not going to restrain him, you’re not going to prosecute him – he’s decided it’s us or him… there’s the SECOND part. Trump posted a video – another one of these fig leaf deniable videos: HE didn’t MAKE the video, he just POSSSSSSTED this video. And so the threats in the video, nominally directed at Joe Scarborough, that Trump will "get rid of all you offing liberals; you liberals are gone" aren't Trump's threats.  Except, of course they are. Because Trump has called his opponents vermin and vowed to get rid of them. And expel all the immigrants. And put them in concentration camps. And use the army. And use the cops. And if you can do that, you can point at Joe Scarborough and say "YOU are now defined as an immigrant. Get in the camp." And that... is ethnic cleansing. B-Block (30:49) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Renfield-ification of Lindsey Graham is complete. Speaker Mike Johnson is stalling on the installation of a Capitol plaque honoring the police from January 6th. And Pastor Shane Vaughn has news for you: Jesus was a millionaire. C-Block (41:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since yesterday was the saga of the 45th anniversary of my college graduation, today must be the saga of the class I nearly failed because the professor was mad because the quarterback of his favorite football team fumbled away a victory in the final minute. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 182: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Today would be a good day to convict Donald J. Trump. The jury in his Stormy Daniels Hush Money/Election Interference case may get the case as soon as this afternoon and then they could deliver the only verdict not materially interfered with by a judge – or JUDGES – that Trump himself appointed. The country, the world, keeps emphasizing in succession the unprecedented nature of Trump’s indictment, arrest, arraignment, mugshot, trial, artist sketch, jury selection, defense, witnesses, objections, fart-naps and today, closing statements… but for some reason they leave the other unprecedented reality OUT – that our court system IS rigged, that it IS rigged, BY Trump, FOR Trump, with three judges HE put on the Supreme Court until they die or resign delaying and subverting justice in THOSE cases, and an unqualified former Yoga Correspondent for the Miami Neuvo Herald he appointed to FEDERAL Court brazenly and openly stalling and trying to SABOTAGE the espionage case against him in THAT case. THAT is what is unprecedented about the prosecution of Donald Trump. THAT his appointees are interfering with the attempts to bring him to justice and we may never know if he appointed them only on the assurance that they would do EXACTLY what they are doing now when and if it came to this… and what Trump means when he says the New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office and Justice Juan Merchan’s courtroom are rigged against him – what he MEANS is… they are NOT rigged for him. I'll look at the legal stuff as the case moves inexorably towards the jury. ALSO: We get comic relief from the Libertarian Party (Trump came close to - in an Aphasia haze - calling them The Libyan Party) and we find out that The Washington Post was good enough to sit on the Alito Flag story for just 1,222 days (the final nine AFTER The New York Times had already broken it) and wouldn't even run it even on the soft premise that it really WAS Martha-Ann Alito's dispute with the neighbors.  I will sing about it. B-Block (29:47) SPORTSCENTERCENTRAL: In memory of perhaps the most beloved man in sports: Bill Walton. Everyone has their Bill Walton story, I'll tell you mine. (36:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rishi Sunak's campaign handlers clearly want him to lose reelection in the UK. Nick Fuentes complains J.D. Vance isn't white enough (never realizing that none of the Trumpist really think anybody named 'Fuentes' could be white). And Fred Trump praised Hitler? I heard it on C-SPAN! C-Block (43:35) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 45 long years ago today I shocked my professors and relieved my suspicious parents by graduating from Cornell University. And I've had the dream where I DON'T graduate an average of once a week every year since. It used to be a stress dream. Lately it's turned into an amazing revelation about how your mind really works (or at least: how mine does).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 181: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The would-be dictatorships are stacked up so thick they have to wait for permission to land. We rightfully fear a Trump dictatorship. Right now, however, we are being RULED by a Samuel Alito dictatorship. And now we have to take measures to overthrow it. Caught flying one insurrectionist flag at his VIRGINIA home – while he was adjudicating cases that could have benefitted the Trump Coup Attempt – Alito simply lied about it, claiming he had no role in it, then contradicted himself by telling a backstory of petty personal recrimination involving neighbors – a backstory which had its OWN set of lies. And now we know that THAT entire story was – at best – a lie of omission, because when Alito was caught improperly flying a disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his primary home in 2021, he was continuing to hide the fact that through much or all of last summer he was flying a DIFFERENT disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his vacation home in New Jersey. It is, as you know, the Appeal to Heaven flag, stolen by groups of Christo-Fascists from its historical role in our founding revolution and re-purposed to rationalize a fundamentalist religious dictatorship replacing representative government. As the New York Times noted in reporting this story, quote, “the phrase ‘appeal to heaven’ comes from the 17th century philosopher John Locke, who wrote of a responsibility to rebel, even use violence, to overthrow unjust rule. ‘It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms,’ Anthony Grafton, a historian at Princeton University said in an interview,” unquote. It's a paraphrase for trial by arms, and it’s been flying in public view from Samuel Alito’s home. And now we have to figure out how to stop Alito from completing his plan to turn this country into a religious dictatorship - a kind of westernized Iran. On the other hand: In a surprise announcement, Donald Trump has declared himself dead. “They were authorized to shoot me!,” begins his email to try to con more money out of his dumbest cult members. Quote: “I nearly escaped death!”Uhhhh…. So… you… DIDN’T… escape death? Metaphorically, Trump may be right. The words used by the President and those around him about Trump's "Unified Reich" video are a sea change. They are calling him an antisemite. Next they need to call him a Nazi. B-Block (27:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, apparently cannot afford a weather app. It rained so hard on him he became Rishi Sunk. Larry Hogan, a Republican, insists he's always protected women's rights. Of course he's lying. And as we realize just how corrupted and unsalvageable the Supreme Court is, Jim Jordan provides some comic relief by saying something that provides an immediate opportunity to insult Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito. C-Block (34:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I ran into Al Roker the other day, so naturally I have to tell you all my Matt Lauer stories. These are the obnoxious, vanity ones, as opposed to the assault-y ones.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 180: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: We may have had a breakthrough with the electorate. Democratic AND Republican pollsters are finding a shocking number of undecideds or Republicans who will not vote for Trump because of his talk of trying to make himself eligible for a third term, or eliminating term limits entirely, or elections entirely. The fundamental lesson of January 6th - that he will never leave office voluntarily - has sunk in. And which ever way the cult is trying to position it, these voters are taking it seriously. More over, these seem pollsters are finding a sudden surge in independent and even Republican backlash against The Supreme Court because the gutting of Roe-V-Wade has caused countless voters to reconsider what kind of havoc a corrupted Trump-owned Court would be willing to do to fraudulently bring about the America the fascists want. It's stunning news and combined with additional polling showing Biden running far behind Democratic Senators in the swing state, it suggests not only that there are margins of victory to be added to his vote totals in those states, but that there is a straightforward way to get them: campaign AGAINST dictatorship, third terms, and a rogue Court. PLUS: THE DEFENSE RESTS at the Trump Trial. Literally, in his case. All you need to know about what happened was that on Trump's Tuesday posse was comedian Joe Piscopo, who was very good on his last hit, Saturday Night Live, which he just left recently. Well, no, not recently - FORTY YEARS AGO THIS MONTH. B-Block (30:47) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Marco Rubio doesn't know what the phrase "last name" means. Chris Cillizza has just discovered people have been diagnosing mental acuity of presidential candidates from afar (it started a decade ago, by Trump. Chris thinks it started earlier this week with Stuart Stevens). And having burned through CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and Fox News, Tucker Carlson premieres on Russia-24. C-Block (37:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: At 5:40 AM he told me he was going to get my fired from our radio station, and kill me. At 6:40 AM he was promising me a multi-year contract as a new sportscaster on our radio station. It's more than four decades ago and it is still as scary an experience as I've had in my career. The Ted Brown Story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.