← Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
AFTER THAT VIDEO, CAN WE GET TRUMP COMMITTED TO A PSYCH WARD - 10.20.25
00:54:31
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Keith Olbermann
This is an iHeart podcast.
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- [02:03]
Keith Olbermann
Learn more@probane.com Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartRadio. Is there a way we can get Trump involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution? No. Seriously, I don't know the answer. I suspect the answer is no. Not even after the video he put out in which he proudly covers America in shit from the air, which he thought was some kind of flex as opposed to being the confirmation of everything that was being protested at no Kings. This AI video of him in the jet which defines Trump as president, as leader, as father, as human being, sort of a shit show with a crown and he has to wear an oxygen mask. And the magas are standing below as it rains down upon them, just hoping to catch some of it, maybe with their mouths. Trump shitting on America, the only thing he is good at. And in the limited coverage it gets in the media, they have sanitized it for your protection, literally in the New York Times, not referencing what it was flying out of the airplane, in Trump's Freudian video, in his confession, in the climax of his life on this earth. After that, let me say it all again. Trump is insane and unchecked. He is going to kill us all because nothing matters to him but him. And nothing about him matters to him besides what is happening right this moment. He's insane, he's psychopathic, he's murderous, he's mass murderous, he's a terrorist, he's vile, he's deranged, he's damaged, he's dysfunctional, he's on top of the above everything else. There he is discharging his inner self all over New York and all the no Kings protestors and all over all of America. And my final thought was, if that AI video were real and he really got rid of all that shit, what, what would he be left to think with? So is there a way we can get Trump involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution? I appreciate it's probably a slippery slope anyway. Certainly is after that video. But in a scenario in which Trump does that promulgates that thinks that is the response after America holds its largest political protest since earth day in 1970, when the best estimate now 7 million of us took to the streets at no Kings with no no violence, no terrorists, no anti Americanism, no arrests in New York, no arrests in Chicago, one arrest in Los Angeles, a handful in Denver. Complimentary posts from the heads of the police department in the key cities. After that call and response, no Kings followed by no shit. We have to explore all options now. Is there a way we can get Trump involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution? Because, frankly, if we bid him out, we could make billions. The man is insane. If he had not been insane before putting out that video, if he had been healed at Lords Saturday morning and then he put that video out, it would be clear he had gone insane a second time. No, no, no, no. He was better this morning. Now he's re insane. Meanwhile, no Kings gets no Coverage from the political cognoscenti. By midday yesterday, the entirety of the protest was just hanging on to a tiny spot on the front page of the New York Times and other publications and other websites. Saved in most cases by being most shared on most sites. Which still is not a clue. Even Trump responded to no Kings and the majority of newspapers and news organizations failed to do so sufficiently. It was not just the lead story yesterday and should be today, it should be the only story. It is America grabbing all of that from the AI video and shoving it back up Trump's ass. In the New York Times, no Kings was just barely ahead of police break up Lego theft ring, recovering hundreds of beheaded figurines. The story was dwarfed by TIME's analysis of how the Democrats are flailing. It's 2025 and Democrats are still running against Trump. Then there's a story about Trump commuting the sentence of George Santos cuz that's entirely a normal thing. Then a Democratic mayor who thinks cities are handling Trump wrong. Not one piece about. It's 2025 and the new York Times ownership is still terrified of Trump and carrying water for him or something else of a liquid nature for him and not realizing we live on a precipice because of him. Democrats strike that. Americans organized and conducted the largest political protest in this country in 55 years without one significant negative moment. But the anti Trump message bores American news media. It bores the New York Times because they're the Times. Trump isn't dropping AI shitstorms on them. They live in the Hamptons. The case was dismissed. The Washington Post underplayed it. They even took Trump almost entirely out of the story of Marco Rubio's promise, quote, to betray informants to get Trump's prison deal with El Salvador to secure US access to President Naya Bukele's notorious Sea Cot prison, Rubio agreed to Turn over several Ms. 30:13 leaders central to a long running Justice Department investigation. You know, they did the moral equivalent of shooting prisoners who had just surrendered and it was all Rubio, not Trump. That was Rubio's idea. That's why he's in the headline Trump's prison deal all but it's all Rubio. I'm not defending Marco Rubio here. Marco Rubio is the stuff that came out of Trump's plane. But it's Trump's plane. Politico, which is also the stuff that comes out of Trump's plane, didn't even mention no Kings in its daily newsletter headline Roundup yesterday never Mind not mentioning Trump's shit jet. Confess. You thought I had been finished using the four letter version of this, hadn't you? As disgusting as that video was, it is in fact the greatest thing Trump has ever done. In a way, I am sitting here applauding him. It is greater than all the other accomplishments of his life. His thorough corruption of the government, his opening of a Pandora's box which turned out to be full of millions of other Pandora's boxes. His greasy, chintzy, falling apart apartment buildings, his ludicrous personal appearance, his eternal peace in the Middle east that has already fallen apart. His crimes, his graft, his grift, his espionage act violations, his liability for assaults, his convictions, his makeup, his hot and cold running lying. Of all the things Trump has ever done, nothing has ever been greater than that video. It is the embodiment of the last decade in America. It is Donald Trump's America. It is Donald Trump and he is so crazy he posted that video himself, thinking the video expressed some kind of triumph. He's not just crazy, he's. He's bat shit crazy. He, in fact, is something new to this earth. He is, as the video showed, he is Trump shit crazy. You may have noticed the scratch in my voice and the little cough earlier. I'm sick. So what you're hearing now is the last of what I've been able to concentrate long enough on to write. I can talk with some discomfort, but that's my problem, not yours. The writing, not so much. So let's enjoy instead the adventure of me ad libbing my way through the other headlines and through an entire second segment devoted to one story rather than worse persons. But going through all this with slightly less than a clear head. Fasten your seatbelts, and if you look out the left window of the Trump shitjet, you'll see why it's JD Vance in the Vice Presidential mini shitcopter. The other thing about that video is that it represents, in its own way, Trump's policy on the narco terrorists and the kinetic strikes by the Secretary of Brilcream taking place off Venezuela in the Caribbean. As the news story reads, the U.S. released the two survivors of Thursday's military strike on a suspected drug vessel. Thank you for putting in suspected. Half of the media in the world just says, oh yes, that has to have been narco terrorists because there's no evidence one way or the other. And why would the President of the United States lie about that? It's a minute that ends in a number. That's why the Two survivors were released to their home countries, Ecuador and Colombia. President of Colombia says US Government officials, this is a separate strike. Have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters. Fisherman Alejandro Carranza had no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity was fishing. The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure. The president of Colombia, who we of course threw out of the country because he dared to criticize Trump at the U.N. even though we don't own the U.N. sorry we threw him out. He now says Trump murdered Alejandro Carranza, the US Government murdered Alejandro Carranza, and that in fact, the boat was sitting there having had engine failure. It was literally a sitting duck. It was even a more innocent target than we have previously presumed. I mentioned earlier the idea of shooting prisoners who have just surrendered on the battlefield. This is the next step beyond that sitting there, engine failure. Kill them. The New Republic added this. The other day, President Trump announced that he had bombed yet another boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea. He's now struck 6, 27 dead. Bombings widely denounced as illegal, legal, probably because they are. New York Times reports the head of the military's Southern Command, Alvin Holsey, is stepping down amid unclear circumstances. Not Admiral Halsey, but Alvin Halsey. You would think we would want to retain somebody whose name was that close to Halsey's. Meanwhile, much of this country continues to believe that Trump almost saved Ukraine. Oh, he came so close. We almost saved Ukraine. And then he changed his mind. Almost. Maybe next time. It's a stall. It has been nothing but a stall. The whole thing has been a performance dating back to the session in the Oval Office with the media there and JD Vance trying to act tough as they browbeat Zelensky. And Zelensky, to his credit, did not kick Trump in the balls. It's a stall. He has tried every different angle to buy Putin another couple of weeks because Trump is Putin's whore. I'll repeat that for those in the back. Trump is Putin's whore. And apparently, somehow Putin waded through Trump's brown liquid, as the New York Times would call it, and got through to him with this message. Just keep doing different things that make it look like you're about to force me to do something else. This time, it was Tomahawk missiles. In a phone call last week with Trump, Russian President Putin demanded Kyiv surrender control of the Donetsk region as a condition to ending the war in Ukraine. This is according to the Washington Post. During the Friday meeting with Zelensky, Steve Witkoff, the 42 IQ guy that Trump has decided is the Middle east envoy reportedly pressed the Ukraine delegation about ceding Donetsk. And Trump is to meet with Putin in Hungary in the coming weeks. I will have a nightly prayer vigil that they all stay in Hungary forever. So the theory here is Trump was going to give Zelensky Tomahawks, instead he's going to give Putin Donetsk. But he almost did it. Let's give him a Nobel Peace Prize for almost doing the right thing as opposed to the completely wrong thing because it's Trump. And if the world does not end because of something he's done and the sun rises in the morning, well, that was restraint. The fellow on cnn, Van Jones, is about to say that this is the day Trump became president. Another report from the Washington Post. Putin got his relationship with Trump back on track in one phone call. I'll bet he did. Dashing the prospect of the US Imminently granting long range message, blah, blah blah. It was the latest swing, writes Robin Dixon of the Washington Post, in Trump's back and forth positions on the Russian Ukraine war that often change following contact with Putin. No, it wasn't Robin Dixon. It's an act. It's a stall for Putin. My God. I am a Semi retired former SportsCenter anchor and the one time field reporter for the Nick at Night 1986 celebrity retired TV star, Golf Open and even I can figure this out. And it seems as if not one political or governmental writer in this country can figure it out. Just me. So to the media experts, to the expert experts who believed Trump was coming around this time on Ukraine even though each previous time you thought that and now he was just stalling as Putin's whore. Oh, it turned out this time. Oh, he was just stalling. What was he doing last time? Just stalling. What will he be doing next time? Oh, he might be seriously negotiating. He's going to put pressure on Putin this time. 147th time is the charm. To all of you who still think that this is not a stall, he is not Putin's whore and you did not just fall for it. Again, go F yourselves and quit your jobs. I don't feel well and I'd like to end with the funnies at least this segment before we move on to one long telling of one really, really weird story involving somebody trying to go from the sports world to the political world who I've discussed before talking about a phony, talking about fooling people. I do want to end this segment with with a couple of laughs. I have a Delightful audio clip to play for you. And you might not have seen this because it's from the mayor's debate here in Fun City, the New York mayoralty debate. Zoran Mamdani, who is leading in double figures in the worst of his polls over at Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa, who took off his hat. Apparently, all this time, Curtis's problem was his little red beret was on too tight because once the circulation started going in his brain again, Curtis, bless him, dunked on Andrew Cuomo owned him. Dunked. The subject is standing up to Trump demanding money or allowing ice in or any of the other demands that Trump will make of the mayor of New York, including Cuomo, who he has in his back pocket. Trump, this is, has a prosecution of Cuomo in his back pocket, but he would never, ever pressure Cuomo into doing what he wanted rather than what's good for the city of New York. And Curtis Sliwa, on this topic, picked up what Mario Cuomo's son said and stuffed it down his throat. This is one of the great political soundbites of all time. Listen carefully and listen carefully. For one guy in the back adding the bon mo at the very end, I give you Curtis Sliwa. When he's not wearing the hat, that's cutting down his circulation in his brain. I said to him, don't you dare. We don't need it. And he backed down, and he will again. So that proves a good relationship with the President.
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Keith Olbermann
To you, Andrew Cuomo, for I know you think you're the toughest guy alive, but let me tell you something. You lost your own primary, right? You were rejected by your Democrats. Why did you have a difficult understanding that what the term no is? You're not going to stand up to Donald Trump. I agree with Curtis here. Cuomo is thinking, to paraphrase Bart Simpson, now, Slee was scoring off me. Oh, that is it. My God. You lost your own primary. You don't know the meaning of the word no. Oh, my God. Curtis Sliwa's authenticity, cartoon character to politician in a suit. Absolutely validated by that one remark. He's now just an unsuccessful candidate for mayor. He's not a clown. There can be growth in old age. I'm hopeful. And what makes Mamdani a great and intuitive politician who will rise as far as his place of birth will permit him because he was not technically born in this country and cannot run for higher office? Although I haven't checked the Constitution since I came in here, to record this. Maybe that's changed so Melania can be the Trump successor. I had forgotten about somebody trying that. What makes Mamdani a great intuitive politician is if you heard his voice in there, he said, only, I agree with Curtis. He got out of the way. If Mamdani had said that about Sliwa, something similar, Cuomo would have tried to come in and bigfooted and claim the moment for his own. I think Sliwa would have done the same if Mamdani had said that or Cuomo had said that about Mamdani. But Mamdani's political skill, the unteachable political skill that has put him in this position at this age, with this level of experience and with the gigantic baggage that he's carrying, even in New York, some of the stuff he's carrying to the mayor's office, to Gracie Mansion is a little heavy, and people are going, yeah, I know about that. But listen to him. He's actually gonna do the job. The sense that he's going to do the job is an intuitive political skill that is summed up by the fact that as this car wreck is happening to Cuomo, courtesy of Sliwa, he stands in the back and simply says, with a big smile on his face, I agree with Curtis. And then you can see him buttoning his lip or putting the zipper across his lips. He is an intuitive political genius. Lastly, let me circle back to no Kings, because I should cover it twice since everybody else covered it. Nonce. My favorite two signs. Well, probably about 20 signs. All of them the same way, the same phrase. One of them in a street sign. Somebody was carrying no faux King way. Once again, words to live by. And then the last one. And I think this should be printed up on a T shirt given to every Democratic congressman and senator. I'm beginning to see little glimmers of hope in Jeffries. Maybe he will take this advice and print this up and give it to every member of the Democratic House Caucus, because there's not much else for him to do at the moment. Maybe even once in a while, I think Chuck Schumer would do this. Chuck Schumer wouldn't do this. Chuck Schumer would do this. Somebody in Chuck Schumer's office might do this. Somebody in Chuck Schumer's office's grandson might do this. There is a new expansion of the acronym GOP that showed up on a sign at one of the no Kings protests. GOP Guardians of the Pedophiles. Oh, Oh. I want every Democrat in the house wearing that on a T shirt by Thursday. I shouldn't have tried that. Okay, as I said off the cuff here. I do want to talk about something very curious that happened with one of these how shall we call him? Clown celebrities. Who's doing the oh, I don't want to run for president. I'll never run for president. But if there's nobody else, he's hoping that people will draft him to run for president. And he decided to make headlines by walking off a public television stage in protest of some average American guy pleading for help from the TV audience. And the story don't add up. And not everybody noticed. In fact, very few people noticed. The story just don't add up. I'm not gonna say who this clown celebrity who wants to be talked into running for president is, but his name rhymes with sneezing K Stith. That's next. This is countdown.
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Keith Olbermann
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- [30:55]
Keith Olbermann
As promised, in lieu of the worst persons in the world, let me tell you a story about which I have some doubts. I don't know what the truth is here and I'm not gonna claim to even offer percentage chances as to what is true and what may be a stunt. However, or to say it correctly, as the person I'm talking about would say it, however, last Wednesday night, the News Nation network, which is by itself a fraud, it is a right wing operative of the Sinclair Broadcasting family. It is posing as a neutral. It is posing as a news operation. It is, as I've mentioned many times, the nick at night for newscasters. Chris Cuomo has a show there. A guy who got fired from Fox named Vittert had a show there. Dan Abrams had a show there. Ashley Banfield has a show there. One of the ABC World News anchors who ran into trouble, she had a show there. I don't know who has shows there because fortunately this is not a very widely watched network. But it is premised on the idea that it is telling you that these people are telling you just the news, that it's neutral and fair and oh, we can't say balance because that would make you think it's about like a Fox, which it is. It's right wing only they are not honest enough to say we're a right wing network. So they are in the last ring of hell. Last Wednesday they held a town hall about the shutdown and during this town hall which was conducted at the Kennedy center in D.C. itself a suspicious locale right now, the Kennedy center in the District of Columbia. The panel over their two hour special included from Congress Madeleine Dean and Ro Khanna, Jim Jordan, Senator John Fetterman, Bill O'Reilly. That's right, he's still alive. Chris Cuomo. That's right, he's still on television. And Stephen A. Smith from espn. I have talked about Stephen a lot because it doesn't surprise me that he is, as News Nation is pretending not to be a right wing network. He is running for president while pretending not to be running for president because he doesn't want to face the embarrassment when people go, are you kidding me? He thinks there will be a draft Stephen A. Smith motion and movement, and he believes he needs to be ready for it and exposed. And so as he continues to go on ESPN and fill hour upon hour about sports and saying nothing in the process, a remarkable skill for which he is extraordinarily well paid and deserves every penny of it, as he does that he sidelines in politics, offering perhaps so far anyway, the shallowest point of view on politics that I have heard absolutely anywhere. I mean, it's, it's, it's amazing. Let me interrupt with two ancillary facts about Jack Chris Jr. Before we go back to the narrative. The two ancillary facts are there is a social media profile for this guy, as there is for almost all of us these days, whether we like it or not, and it lists him as air traffic controller and pilot. And then there's the second thing, which is that@espn.com there is a profile, usually in the kind of profile that is reserved for players, former players, college players of all sports. You may have one if you ever played. Normally, statistics would be there, data trades, teams played for. In this case it's just blank. But there is one for@espn.com a profile of Jack Chris Jr. Just two little hints to keep in the back of your mind as I resume the narrative, which I will right now. Well, all of these elements about which I had doubts came together last week when NewsNation held its town hall for two hours in Washington. And I keep emphasizing in Washington to see if you can get ahead of the storyteller here. A good detective story or good mystery always allows the possibility of the reader or listener to get out ahead of the narrator and the characters. You may solve it before they do. I'm going to give you that chance here. Listen carefully to this story at this event about the shutdown and how it's hurting ordinary people. There were only vague and veiled accusations that it's all the Democrats fault. That's the News Nation trick to make it seem as if it's not a right wing network. They don't scream about how the Democrats are, to use recent descriptions, communists, terrorists, the devil. I mean, several people called Democrats demonic and their main evidence was, well, Democrats and demonic each start with the same first three letters. Unfortunately, this works with a lot of the people who believe in this crap. In any event, to get back to the point, at one point in this town hall in Washington D.C. a man stood up and asked a question and told a story. His name was Jack Criss Jr. And he said that when he gets off work from his 16 year long job at Air Traffic Control in Dallas, Texas, he now has to drive for doordash because because of the slightly democratic cause shutdown, he's not getting paid as an air traffic controller just to pay for his daughter's tuition. He has to deliver food. A man with a tense, intense, important, highly skilled life and death job of air traffic controller has to then deliver food to make ends meet. At which point Stephen A. Smith freaked out. This is why he said, you have so many Americans, excuse my language, so pissed off at Washington because somehow, some way you get to have these conversations, engage in specific elements of it, to talk about what we need to do to get things better. Well, that's the problem with Stephen A. Smith. If you ever wrote down what he said about sports, it would make no sense whatsoever. Just as that did. Why they're so pissed off because we can have specific. Anyway, our debt is 37.8 trillion. Somehow, someway, the taxpayer has been paying this, this throwing money because we all look at our check and it's been going to the government and you're supposed to be doing something constructive and productive enough to make sure that we don't have that kind of deficit. It isn't happening. As a translation, I'll point out, Stephen does not know what the deficit is. Nearly everything that he's addressed thus far in politics is, as I said before, as shallow analysis as anything possibly could be. But the deficit is more shallow than all the other things are shallow combined. He's not understanding that the issues cannot simply be sort of filibustered the way he would who's the number two guard on the Oklahoma City Thunder on which he could spend three hours saying things like somehow, someway, however, the taxpayer has been paying this been throwing money because we all look at our check and it's been going to the second string guard on the Oklahoma City Thunder. He went on to say, I don't think Washington understands how ticked off we truly are. A young man walked up to the microphone and said that he had to leave here to go and work on door dash to help pay for his daughter's tuition. Meanwhile, everybody up here getting paid, but he ain't. A government shutdown is going on right now. A man has to work on doordash when he's really an air traffic controller that we applauded and we're up here talking about how much some money is going to cost and the only person that don't have a check coming is him. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take a break. At which point Stephen Smith got up from his chair at the Kennedy center in Washington and walked off. Or as the News Nation account of the News Nation town hall put it, the scenario prompted panelist Stephen A. Smith to walk off the stage in disgust. Or perhaps according to script. Okay, did you catch it? I didn't put too many of one clue in here, but I put about 16 of the other clue in this. First off, it's News Nation, so you should doubt that Bill O'Reilly was there. Therefore, you should doubt that Chris Cuomo was there. And it's Bill O'Reilly. CHRIS CUOMO, Times News Nation Plus, Stephen A. Smith, if you're not doubting, you're not breathing. But my biggest concern is about this air traffic controller. I imagine that there is some other explanation for this. I looked again and again to make sure that the details are correct. I don't understand what the other possible explanations are, but maybe there is one. And if so, I apologize to him and to Stephen and to News Nation, to everybody in this equation except O'Reilly. But here's the thing. The air traffic controller, Jack Crist Jr says he has been working for 16 years at Air traffic control in Dallas, Texas, and now has to deliver doordash just to pay for his daughter's tuition. And Stephen A. Smith made a big studied I'm so pissed off, I'm walking off the set here. Apart from the audience benefitting from that, who would know the difference, first of all? But secondly, wait a minute. Anybody notice something inconsistent about this story? Where have I said now 16 times this town hall took place? The Kennedy center in Washington, D.C. where does Jack, Chris, say he works as an air traffic control? Dallas. But he has to work because you can't not work. But he's not getting paid, so he has to drive for doordash in in Washington. I mean, Stephen A. Smith said a young man walked up to the microphone and said that he had to leave here to go to work on door dash to help pay for his daughter's tuition. But so he's working in Dallas. And then at the end of the workday in Dallas, he what, flies to Washington to deliver doordash or even if there's some muddle here in Stephen A. Smith's mind, Fat chance of that. But even if there's some muddle in Stephen A. Smith's mind, he's in Dallas and he's driving in Dallas and he's an air traffic controller in Dallas and yet somehow he is at the Kennedy senator in Washington. Either he found his own way to Washington, paid for that with money that he doesn't have because of the shutdown that is kind of the Democrats fault or what they flew him there to tell this story so they knew in advance the story he was going to tell. This man's story was not a surprise to the people at News Nation, which immediately raises the possibility that his story was not a surprise prize to the people who were on stage like Chris Cuomo, Bill O'Reilly and Stephen A. Smith, who then walked off to show how much a man of the people he is. I am suggesting that perhaps this was not as ad libbed an ad lib as it seemed a gesture of frustration. Oh, Stephen A. Smith cares about you. The scenario prompted panelist Stephen A. Smith to walk off the stage in disgust. I do notice in all of the News Nation commentary on this and it was covered in other publications like the Hill, there was an element of he responded to this and was so thrown that he was responding in some way to the surprise of this. And that's not what News Nation says. It just prompted him to walk off the stage the way a prompter, like something written on the prompter would prompt you to walk off the stage. I'm just saying I like Stephen. I worked with him at ESPN before they fired him. And as somebody who came back to ESPN after quitting and after having a contract run out and worked three separate times there, I admire anybody who goes back to work there. It means that there was a connection and the audience wanted you and the employers were happy to have you back one way or the other. I admire him. I used to know him in the local New York news media when he was working at the ESPN New York station. And we once were at a New York Knicks game together along with the president of espn, had a very good conversation and he didn't play play me at all. And he didn't try any of the big Stephen A. Smith stuff. And I like him. But I, I do think this ends and first off, it's a violation of every tenet ESPN has had since it went on the air in 1979, to which I subscribed at all times, which was not, not, not to mix politics and sports on the air in a high profile way. In other words, I was when I was a television political commentator, my ESPN work was radio only. I didn't go on tv. And when I was on ESPN doing tv, I did not do any politics at all anywhere else. I just did sports. This, this is something else. And I think this ends up with Stephen not getting the presidential nomination of whichever party he's seeking it from. Cuz I can't tell. And it does not get with him becoming a prominent political commentator because even this lack of depth will not resonate with the dumber audiences that cover or are interested in the coverage of politics. And I wonder if it ends up with him losing his job at ESPN or at least his influence at ESPN or at least his prominence at espn. Because if he's now involved in things like a fake oh, hold me back. I don't really, I don't really want to ever run for President, but if there's no other choice, I guess I'll be forced to do it. Well, then maybe I'll consent to it. Maybe. If he's doing that, that's bad enough. Many men though have done that before. And some women. But the panelist walks off after. Turns out that the audience member is a 16 year veteran of air traffic control in Dallas. But he's got to go do his doordash job now just to pay for his daughter's tuition because of this damn democratic shutdown of the government. Except the guy is in Washington D.C. at the moment. But he's from Dallas. If, if Stephen had knowledge, a forethought of this. Good night Stephen A. Smith. A little Thurber when we come back.
- [47:27]
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Keith Olbermann
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- [50:03]
Keith Olbermann
I believe the first time I ever heard James Thurber read aloud it was by William Windham, the great actor who did so much serious stuff, drama, comedy. He's a Star Trek original series key figure. He did a lot of great acting in so many different roles and he did a special on PBS when I was in college in which he performed as James Thurber, narrated some of the drawings recited from memory many of the short stories and many of the longer ones too, and I later had the pleasure of telling him that he was my inspiration for reading James Thurber, and we corresponded about how to possibly improve some of the dicier parts of some of the Thurber stories and make them useful for 21st century America. Mr. Windham died about 10 years ago and I lament him still. I recorded on tape his Thurber special on PBS and I still have it. Not videotape, audio tape, a cassette. We didn't have home videotape, although I'm proud to say he sent me a copy of a DVD of the performance and one of the stories he reads, or in fact recites, I will now read for you. It is. I like it very much. It's not considered part of the great canon of James Thurber, but I think it's terrific. And it's called Shake Hands with Bertie Doggett by James Thurber. John Birdie Doggett, known as Birdie to the few people who speak to him, must be 53 now, but he wears his years with a smirk, and he has as bad a practical joker as ever. Other American cutups in the grand tradition began to disappear in October 1929, and they are as hard to find now as Bison. But Doggett's waggishness has no calendar. You must have run into him at some party or other. He's the man whose right hand comes off when you try to shake it. The late George Bancroft once pulled that gag in a movie, but that was so long ago, the picture must be a cherished item in the Museum of Modern Art's film library. Even now, when everybody else was running the gamut of bomb fear from A to H. Birdie Doggett was at Grand Central with one roller skate, which he managed to attach to the shoe of a man sleeping on a bench. When the fellow woke and stood up, he described a brief, desperate semicircle clutched a woman shopper about the knees, dragged her and her bundles to the cold floor, and was attacked by her muzzled Scotty. Doggett, as always, was the first to lend a hand, helping the woman to her feet and then turning to the man. Where the hell's your other skate? He demanded sharply. That's what caused all this trouble. He took his skate off the victim's foot and disappeared into the crowd that had begun to gather. What's the matter over there? A small man asked him apprehensively. Doggett shrugged. Ah, they found a woman with a ticking package, he said. The other man turned and left the station, missing the train. He had told his wife he would take Doggett's pranks usually have the effect of involving people on their far edges, one or two of whom have been divorced as a result. A publisher I know thinks Doggett would make a good story. I disagree because I don't think there's anything good about the fellow, but I have done some checking up on him out of force of habit. His father, the late Carroll Lamb Doggett, was a Methodist minister, and his mother was a witch, born Etta June Birdie when her son was only 10 she taught him how to set strangers umbrellas on fire. After an April shower she would sally forth with the little hellion they lived in Dayton in search of a citizen with a floppy umbrella. After an April shower Dayton men lower their umbrellas without bothering to roll them. Mrs. Doggett would hunt until she found a man waiting for a streetcar, his umbrella sagging open at his side. She would then surreptitiously fill the umbrella with paper, several dozen kitchen matches and perhaps one or two ping pong balls. As the streetcar approached she would drop a lighted match into the umbrella. Now hell hath no dismay like that of a gentleman whose wet umbrella suddenly bursts into flame. Instead of rolling the thing to smother the blaze or simply throwing it away. Nine out of 10 men, according to Doggett's statistics will flail it around, thus increasing the conflagration. Many of Mrs. Doggett's victims were arrested for disturbing the peace or for arson. Birdie Doggett has never been much interested in the exasperating paraphernalia of the trick and puzzle shops. Ah, he still uses the wax hand and he has tried out dribble glasses, whoopee cushions, the foul smelling stuff you put on chair bottoms to make people think they have just sat on a lighted cigarette and other such juvenile props. But they never got a real hold on his fancy. He likes the elaborate rib involving a lot of people. The more the better. He will take a sackful of cold poached eggs to some crowded Fifth Avenue store at Christmas time and slip them one at a time into the pockets of shoppers husbands. And he dreams of bumping into a woman visitor in the ancient glass and crystal room of some museum, dropping an ordinary table tumbler on the tile floor and sobbing Sweet God lady, you have broken the sacred chalice of King Alexander. And making her believe it. He has pulled this gag over and over since 1924 but never successfully with the result that he has appeared 16 times in Jefferson Market Court alone on charges of disturbing the peace, jostling and molestation. What Doggett probably enjoys more than anything else is following a couple of women along Fifth Avenue or Madison, keeping discreetly out of sight but well within earshot until he hears one of the two ladies call the other by name. He says that women are fond of using each other's full name as in L. Miriam Shirtle. I never heard of such a thing in all my born days. As soon as Ms. Shirtle, let us say, has thus been fully identified, Doggett will walk briskly ahead for several blocks and then retrace his steps. This soon brings him face to face with his quarry, upon whom he will pounce with a delighted why, Miriam Shirtl Fancy meeting you here. Uncross those lovely I's and tell me how you've been. A young woman he once accosted like this in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, asked him to her house for cocktails in the hope that some member of her family would know who he was, but nobody was home. His hostess turned out to be a bore, so Bertie put knockout drops in her second martini, and after she had passed out, he stole a marble plaque of Kitchener from her mother's room and he went away. The next day it arrived at the Shirtles, beautifully wrapped and bearing a card with the simple legend Merry Christmas from the President of the United States. John Bertie Doggett married a tapioca brain one afternoon 20 years ago, possibly because he had lost a bet, nobody knows, he took her to his house and told her to wait in the living room while he went upstairs and quieted his two Great Danes. He put a record of a dog fight on a phonograph he kept in his bedroom and slipped quietly out the back door. At three in the morning he showed up in the living room with two match players, Lou Getling and Vic Talbot. Who is this disconsolate female? Talbot demanded, fairly oozing an incurable antipathy to games of chance and cunning. The bride drew herself up stiffly. I am Mrs. John Birdie Doggett, she said, striving for a hauteur the name will not sustain. I forgot about her, whined Doggett. After all, we haven't been married 20 or 30 years. We've only been married 11 hours. Mrs. Doggett, the former Ann Queeley, went home to her mother, Mrs. Paul W. Queeley, and never saw Birdie again. I join her in the fervent hope that he may some day choke on his candied dice and pass forever out of our consciousness. He is a hard man to forget, though I never start to get out of a chair, no matter where I am, without glancing at my shoes to see if I am wearing one roller skate and feeling in my pockets for old cold egg. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening to this unfocused edition of the program. Due to illness and other issues, most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chenale, our musical directors of countdown, produced by TKO brothers Mr. Ray on guitars, bass and drums, Mr. Chenale handling orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Foust. The ollerman Theme from ESPN2, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Is the sports music other music arranged and performed by the group no horns allowed. Everything else was, as always, my fault, including what happens when I just sit here and ramble. Maybe I'll walk off the stage now in protest. That's Countdown for today. Day 274 of America held hostage. Just 1,189 days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and lame brained term. Unless he is removed sooner by MAGA or the Psychopathy test or Tylenol or no Kings or who knows. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. I expect to have written that one in advance. Till then, I'm Keith Olbermann. Good morning, good afternoon, good night and good luck. I agree with Curtis. Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [61:23]
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- [61:54]
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- [62:24]
Ryan Reynolds
Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should 1. It's $15 a month.
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Keith Olbermann
2.
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Ryan Reynolds
Seriously, it's $15 a month.
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Keith Olbermann
3.
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Ryan Reynolds
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Keith Olbermann
4. 4.
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Ryan Reynolds
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Keith Olbermann
5.
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Ryan Reynolds
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Keith Olbermann
Are you.
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Ryan Reynolds
Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try@mintmobile.com switch upfront.
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Keith Olbermann
Payment of 45 for 3 month plan 15 per month equivalent required new customer offer first 3 months. Only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world. The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? For me, Emily Maitliss and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast, the News Agents dropping daily, covering everything you need to know about politics and current affairs. And The News Agents USA listening to the News Agents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the News agents to start listening. This is an iHeart podcast.