← Countdown with Keith Olbermann
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- [00:00]
Sophia Donner
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [00:05]
Keith Olbermann
Most people think their insurance will cover them when disaster strikes. The truth? Many are wrong. You pay premiums and assume you're protected until the fine print hits exclusions, limits, loopholes. Suddenly that coverage isn't coverage at all. My policy advocate reviews your policies home, auto, life and breaks them down in plain English. They show what's really covered and what isn't. It costs just 27 cents a day less than a cup of coffee. For peace of before you assume you're covered, go to mypolicyadvocate.com you might be shocked at what you find. Mypolicyadvocate.com support for the show comes from
- [00:43]
Public Investing Ad
Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures the
- [01:43]
NFL Schedule Promo
wait is almost over. Get ready for the NFL season with the highly anticipated 2026 NFL Schedule release Every rivalry, every rematch and every rookie debut with matchups locked and kickoffs confirmed, be there for every can't miss moment. The full NFL Schedule release coming in May. Get all the details@NFL.com schedule release.
- [02:13]
Amazon Ad
Amazon presents Laura vs Fruit Flies Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen, these little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say yo Chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes and fly traps. Hey fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon Countdown with
- [02:43]
Keith Olbermann
Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartradio. The Emperor not only has no clothes. He has no clue. Is the Strait of Hormuz open or is it closed? Are there peace talks with Iran in Pakistan tomorrow or nah. Is JV Vance going to them? Is Iran going to them? Has Trump scheduled peace talks where we're the only ones there? Will it make any difference if we're the only ones there? Doesn't blowing a hole in the engine room of an Iranian cargo ship yesterday mean we are not honoring Trump's own ceasefire he keeps boasting about? Are we paying $20 billion for the Iranian uranium and the hostages? The same uranium and hostages Obama bought for 400 million and Trump called him a traitor? Or is that a no? Don't ask Trump. He doesn't know, but that won't stop him from answering anyway. Yes then no, then yes again, then all of the above. In 48 hours, Trump went from 13 posts congratulating himself on winning to insisting he would stop being Mr. Nice Guy and blow up all of Iran. And by the way, exactly when was he Mr. Nice Guy? TRUMP is entirely full of shit. It is as if you took all the shit in the world, squeezed it into a bag and made it president. He insists he has opened Hormuz and Iran's leaders fire on ships and insists it's closed. He insists there are talks. Iran's leaders say they know nothing about them. We are losing the war in Iran. And as of today, a total idiot is still president and Commander in chief. He gets questions about this pointless war. He started to divert attention from Epstein and the economy. He has crashed. So he then orders the reporters out of the Oval Office and sits there with hapless munchkin Little Joe Rogan standing behind him, the shine off his mottled cue ball noggin blinding cameras and journalists alike. Trump has set off a chain of events over which he no longer has any control except to withdraw and flee. And to withdraw and flee would be to acknowledge he has screwed up, and this man would jump off the roof of the White House before admitting he screwed up. It is so bad. It is so bad. The Trump administration has so utterly jumped the shark that the truthers are coming out and the truthers are coming out from inside. MAGA Alex Jones now insists Trump has done all this deliberately because he has made a deal with the Deep State to throw the election to the Democrats. Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the Trump assassination truthers, and Trump himself has floated a kind of conspiracy theory about himself. He wrote, Praise be to Allah on Easter morning to, quote, seem as unstable and insulting as possible. He Wanted to seem as unstable as possible. Mission accomplished, buddy. You finally done something you promised Trump. You have unsuspected depth. So is, is that idea he's doing this deliberately, is that the basis of the Alex Jones theory of tds? That would be Trump defenestration syndrome. I mean, listen to this. We're supposed to sit here and love this crap? It's just poll numbers go straight down and all the polls show the Republicans are gonna lose the midterms in seven months by a landslide. A disaster. A total and complete disaster. Trump is not that stupid. He's made some deal with the deep state to throw the election to Democrats. That's the only thing this can be. Only possible explanation. The one about Trump being stupid. That just doesn't work, right? Did Jones read this quote in the Wall Street Journal or did somebody at the Journal hear what Jones said? There? Quote, Aides fielded calls from Republican senators and Christian leaders. They asked, why would he say praise be to Allah on Easter morning? Why would he use the F word? When one adviser later asked Trump about it, he said he came up with the Allah idea himself. He said he wanted to seem as unstable and insulting as possible, believing it could bring the Iranians to the table. Good thinking, chief. And then there's Marjorie Greene. Three separate social media posts, one of them a retweet of Tucker Carlson's son who just quit as Vance's deputy press secretary in protest of the entire administration. The three posts go deeply into Trump truther ism. One of them is a repost of a 750 word screed from a self pronounced Trump 2024 delegate from Texas questioning the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Butler Truther ism is now coming into focus. It is pinned on three questions. If somebody out there in the fields has been in the last couple minutes trying to kill Trump with a rifle, why on earth did the Secret Service let him stand up and raise his arm over his head and shout fight? And why on earth did a crane reposition a giant American flag during the shooting so it would be in all the photos of Trump standing like a duck at a county fair shooting gallery? And whoever in the Secret Service who totally screwed up that day, why didn't Trump fire him and instead made him the head of the Secret Service? Marjorie Taylor Greene calls this, quote, extremely important. Trump, of all people, should be leading the charge. Why isn't he? That's the question. Why the COVID up and the final dose before you go full truther on anything? Quote, I'm not calling the Butler Assassination a hoax. But for what doth it profit a president if he regaineth baldy Joe Rogan but loseth mtg and Alex Jones, which takes us back to Iran and the fact that Trump is not only losing in Iran, he's losing about Iran. Politico polled on it, and he's cratering. Support for Trump's war there is down to 38%. No improvement despite the weeks that Trump and his noise machine have had to try to sell this crap. Only 27% say he has a plan for resolving Iran one way or the other. Only 15% think he's achieved his goals in Iran, whatever the f they were. And on the overall subject of Iran, an NBC News poll came out yesterday. He's a net 34 points underwater, by the way. He's a net 36 on cost of living. So Iran is a relative highlight at this point. Oh, and Trump extended the Russian oil license for a month 48 hours after the foppish Secretary of Commerce Scott Beth Innocent insisted they were not going to do that. So at least somebody is coming out of this in good shape. Unfortunately, that somebody is Vladimir Putin. And despite that, treason. Trump is aiding an enemy of this country, an enemy of this country that is itself aiding another enemy of this country. That's. That's, that's treason. The head of the International Energy Agency now says Europe is down to its last six weeks of jet fuel. Quote, the largest energy crisis we have ever seen. He says $2 gas. Well, Trump can still achieve that. It's an easy fix. Here's how you do it. Instead of quoting the price per gallon, you quote the price per ounce. $2. Speaking of liquids and ounces. That incredible Besant and somebody nailed it. Somebody this week said Scott Besant seemed to be doing a bad impression of Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live, doing an impression of Har to which somebody else said, no, no, no, no, no, it's worse than that. Bessant seems to be doing a bad impression of himself. Speaking of liquids and ounces, Scott Besant managed to add comic relief to this nightmare by calling the straight of Hormuz the Strait of Vermouth, providing a delightful sidelight to the sizzle reels of Pete Hegseth getting drunk live on Fox News, which are now accompanied by the new mashups of Hegseth reading what he thought was a Bible quote to officers and others at the Pentagon, when in fact, he was reading from Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, and all of it serving as an aperitif to the Atlantic Profile of Cash Patel, the head of your FBI, the Federal Bureau of Intoxication. The Patel story provided the first proof of life from that bug eyed bastard who then had to go on Fox yesterday. Hey, look, there's been a Cash Patel sighting. He insisted he is laser focused on the 2020 election. Keeping an eye firmly fixed on it. Maybe two eyes if the Atlantic story about Patel is accurate and he's not just a drunk, but he's such a drunk that he is a risk for spontaneous combustion. The fact is, most of the traction for that story has been provided by his own department and his own attorneys. They keep retweeting it. They have shouted at such length and such volume about suing about this article. Their lawyer letters are filled with each report of each bout of intoxication or paranoia or paranoid intoxication. They have truly proved the Streisand effect is real. I mean, how do you possibly erase the image of Patel jock sniffing his way through the U.S. olympic hockey dressing room in Milan? Well, just make sure everybody in America now has a mental picture of Patel so impaired that he can't remember his password for his FBI computer. And he then fails to enter it correctly so many times the computer automatically locks him out. And he then reaches the only possible conclusion that Trump has fired him and locking him out of his computer is the way Trump is letting him find out. The second saddest part of the Atlantic saga after that little, you know, risk to national security that a drunken FBI chief would represent. The second saddest part is the profound, damaging, incapacitating alcoholism that, that possibility that he's, he's literally a flammable drunk. That that would be the happiest of all the possible explanations for the self destruction of Kash Patel. And by the way, Patel, Hegseth and Besant, they are all still more sober and more sane than Trump is. Bad news everybody. The President's brain is missing. Let's just let Trump roll on three great sound bites. Famous things the Pope never actually said, but he thinks he did this new invention that he made, the corner store. And the best yet, just because you have no legs doesn't mean you can't run.
- [15:07]
Donald Trump
The Pope made a statement. He says Iran can have a nuclear weapon. I say Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. So I can disagree with the Pope. I have a right to disagree. I have a right to disagree with the Pope. Restaurants, dry cleaners, corner stores. What is a corner store? I've never heard that term. I know what a corner store is, but I've never Heard it described a corner store. Who the hell wrote that? When you see soldiers or others, but soldiers generally walking around with no legs, with no arms, a face that's been smashed. That was Soleiman. That was Iran that did that.
- [15:37]
Keith Olbermann
Holy crap. Really? Running around with no legs. Ah, he's fine. And don't sleep on that other line about this term. He doesn't know corner stores. They don't have any corner stores in, in, in Queens. They have nothing but corner stores in Queens. We are finally beginning to see the pattern emerge and define itself. The odds are about three to one that at some point in the next week or month, Trump will enc that term again and claim, oh, corner stores. I just invented that. This is now revealing itself as a pattern that is familiar to those who have dealt with others, who have declining mental function of any kind, people who invent new words and insist everybody knows what they mean, that tends to suggest bipolar disorder. But if somebody forgets a common word or phrase and then suddenly remembers it or hears it, they can only rationalize their own confusion by claiming they just invented that phrase or word. And those people are mentally coming apart at the seams. For over a decade this has been happening, and I don't think it's been happening frequently enough to be a pattern. I think with this, it is now a pattern. Trump insisted he invented the term priming the pump. He insisted he invented the word caravan. Last year he came up with the quote, new word equalize. He has said that there is a new word, affordability. He's claimed he invented the term fake news, except fake news dates to the 1890s and even his greatest linguistic concoction, make America great again. That of course, bears no connection to the Ronald Reagan campaign slogan from 1980, let's Make America great again. Totally different. Totally different. While we are here on the subject of Trump's amazing dissolving brain, good news from the White House, where, as predicted, Trump is not building a ballroom nobody wants or needs, but he has brought it up. Turns out, every third day this year on average, Trump is building a ballroom atop a deep underground bunker. Because building deep underground bunkers is what all hated dictators do. The underground portion is wedded to and serves the upper portion, including the bomb shelters, a state of the art hospital and medical facilities, protective partitioning, top secret military installations, structures and equipment. Protective missile resistant steel columns, roofs and beams, drone proof ceilings and roofs, military grade venting and bullet, ballistic and blast proof glass. These are the things I look for in a nice ballroom. It's all tied together as one big, expensive and very complex unit which is vital for national security and military operations of the United States of America. Exclamation point, A bunker Ballroom. A vast underground bunker ballroom. Christ. Because the last White House underground bunker that Trump went and hid in, if you will remember, in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protest. Where's the President? He's in the underground bunker. Uh, okay. Apparently that image was not Hitlerian enough. If this boast of his come from the ballroom, but stay for the invocation of where Adolf and Ava met their end. If that boast was not weird enough, Trump also used a really strange and perhaps telling phrase about television and media careers during one of his diatribes against the Fox token liberal Jessica Tarlov. Quote, get her off the air. She is bad for our country. And then here we go. I hear Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens are dying fast. Yeah, dying, dying fast. You say Donald Trump. Then this quick circle back to that Trump is Jesus image that will haunt him no matter what happens next. Axios reporting that the image mainline back to two of the towering mental giants of maga, World housing finance chief Bill Pulte and the Australian born, unintentionally hilarious tweet machine, Nick Adams. Nick Adams apparently first boasted and posted Trump, Jesus, Jesus, Trump. Although Axios, in its greatest reporting in years, reassures us that the flying horned thing in the Jesus Trump that looked like the evil Statue of Liberty flying through the air, that was not in the Adams version. That's what was added later. As to Pulte, who is of course the guy who tried to prosecute Letitia James and others over procedural uncertainty in mortgage applications, which it turned out his own parents did in identical fashion and is usually treated with a fine. He reportedly showed the Jesus H. Trump meme to Trump may or may not have actually forwarded it to Trump, but they talked about it at Mar a Lago, where Pulte is a member. You may remember Bill Pulte from such in House Trump disasters as Scott Besant walking up to Pulte and saying, I'm going to punch you in the effing face. Speaking of effing, I cannot skip the greatest commentary on Trump from the week past. Ladies and gentlemen, stand by for the adult comments from Congresswoman Sidney Kalager Dove, who would have been the representative for the district next to mine when I still lived out there and was a local sportscaster in la. Oh, Congresswoman, are you concerned about the impact that this war in Iran is having on our national debt? Oh, My God, yes, of course I am. You would be. Stevie Wonder can even see how much this is costing us. So gas prices are going up. It's almost $10 in California, and fertilizer is going up. I mean, you name it, the prices have gone up. And this dude, Dr. Jesus, okay, is wanting to spend $2 billion of your money every single day rather than help you get health care. Fuck. Which leads us finally to this question. What would be the dumbest thing Trump could do right now with Congress people not only dropping F bombs on him, but adding, quote, his ass? With MTG and Alex Jones leading the anti Trump conspiracy theories, with the Iran saga making George W. Bush and Iraq look like FDR and Truman and Germany, what would be the worst, dumbest thing Trump could do right now? Invade Cuba? Seize Greenland? While sure, those would be disasters of biblical proportions, but I would aver that the dumbest thing Trump could do right now would be. Well, it's under discussion. Let me just read this selection from Politico magazine, quote. Asked about the chances of a pardon, attorney David Oscar Marcus appeared somewhat bullish despite the massive political fallout for Trump that would surely follow. But he wouldn't give a firm number. I don't know what the percentages are. He said. There's a good chance, and for good reason, that she would get a pardon. Marcus said he had not yet spoken to the administration about a clemency request. He does not believe this is the right moment. With the heat on the administration over its handling of the release of the Epstein files. She obviously wants clemency. There's no secret about that. Who's this she? Who's this client of his? Who's this woman that this lawyer Marcus wants Trump to pardon soon or late? This guy Marcus, a professional friend of the acting Attorney General Trump, ambulance chaser Todd Blanch. This guy Marcus, who says you'll be pressing this idea soon, if not immediately? Who are we talking about Trump pardoning? Glenn Maxwell. This guy Marcus represents Ghislaine Maxwell. Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyer expects Trump will eventually pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. I think this will go over real well. You're right, Mr. President. Let's do it immediately. Or just drop her over Iran. Bomb Iran with Ghislaine Maxwell after you pardon her. This is a story Trump considering pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell. This should be mentioned every week, every day, every hour. I'm doing my part, now you do yours. Also of interest here, Lauren Boebert thinks Congress has gotten too horny. We'll get her firsthand account. And if you think the American news media isn't committing suicide fast enough, this just in. Standby for the return of Brian Williams. Thanks, Keith. That's next. This is Countdown. Most people think their insurance will cover them when disaster strikes. The truth? Many are wrong. You pay premiums and assume you're protected until the fine print hits exclusions, limits, loopholes. Suddenly that coverage isn't coverage at all. My policy advocate reviews your policies, Home, Auto, Life and breaks them down in plain English. They show what's really covered and what isn't. It costs just 27 cents a day, less than a cup of coffee. For peace of mind before you assume you're covered, go to mypolicyadvocate.com youm might be shocked at what you find. Mypolicyadvocate.com Support for the show comes from
- [25:55]
Public Investing Ad
Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra NSIP Advisory Services by Public Advisors, LLC SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures the
- [26:55]
NFL Schedule Promo
wait is almost over. Get ready for the NFL season with a highly anticipated 2026 NFL schedule release. Every rivalry, every rematch and every rookie debut with matchups locked and kickoffs confirmed. Be there for every can't miss moment. The full NFL Schedule release coming in May. Get all the details@NFL.com ScheduleRelease.
- [27:24]
Amazon Ad
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- [27:56]
Keith Olbermann
This is Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Still ahead on this edition of Countdown, this all new edition of Countdown. It is decade now since I went into Netflix with the president of a major Hollywood production company and a high powered agent and said to them, I can offer you the entire news business, the entire online and streaming news business. I will audition it for you, do my own commentaries, my own videos for you. You will see that you can have in addition to Netflix, you can have news flicks, little corner, little.in the corner of your main screen and take over the news business, have all the commentators and breaking news and we will be the test case. I will be the test case to show you you can do this. And their response was, what about the Italian subtitles? And how could people binge watch the news if you're only going to have one show up at a time? And I thought these people are going to continue to make a lot of mistakes, aren't they? And now they've made a really big mistake. They're going to get into news with the future of news online, the future of streaming news. The man who will lead us into the middle years of the 21st century, Brian Williams. Next. And another thing, I promise not to tell my own saga of Brian Williams and the day he imploded while I watched in my efforts to save him and his refusal to be saved. All that ahead in the interim, we always have more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscreants, morons and dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world. And this edition is dedicated to baseball commissioner Rob Manfred. The San Diego Padres are being sold. The reported price is $3,900,000,000, which is twice what the New York Mets sold for just over five years ago. Now I know what you're saying. Of course it's twice what the Mets sold for. The Padres are a professional baseball team, not a semi pro organization. Still, the Mets make more money. So when you hear about that price 3.9 billion, remember that before the next New Year's day, after their contract with the players union expires, Commissioner Rob Manfred and the owners will threaten to lock the players out and to even cancel the 2027 season. A gigantic eff you to the fans. Because the owners will demand a salary cap. Because small markets are dying. Because competitive imbalance, because disparity. Because owners don't make enough billions, because management still thinks they can make it 1970 again, the Padres, who are worth $3.9 billion, never mind profits or losses or how much salaries have gone up or how much the Dodgers spend compared to the Kansas City Royals. The San Diego Padres just sold basically for 4 billion bucks. They play in the 12th smallest market in big league baseball. It's like 15th or 16th smallest in all of professional sports. Not a knock against San Diego, which is a wonderful place, but you shouldn't be able to make any money in San Diego compared to New York or Los Angeles. And right now, the Padres are more valuable than the LA Dodgers and the New York Mets maybe put together. The Padres have never won the World Series. They last played in one in 1998. They got swept. They played in literally, what, nine World Series games and lost eight of them in their entire history. And the owners will spend the rest of this year crying that imbalance is killing the sport. And the small market teams like the Padres can't win or make any money. They can't win because the owners of the small market teams won't spend the money. They keep the money. The Padres owners somehow either didn't like the economics of baseball or just decided to get out. And they got out for $3,900,000,000. This team, they bought in 2012 for $800,000,000. Now, if math is really problematic for you, let me explain this. In 14 years, they made a profit of $3,100,000,000 on the sales. But the owners are getting crushed. They'd rather cancel the season. Major League Baseball dates back to 1857. There were disorganized and vague rules about how you became champion in 1857. But. But there was big time baseball that people paid money to go see. And it dates back to the President before Abraham Lincoln. And one thing has remained unchanged in all of that time since 1857. It is exemplified by Commissioner Rob Manfred and by the Padres being sold for a profit of $3 billion over 14 years, plus whatever they made during the season. This is the sale profit for the entire business. The one thing that's remained unchanged since 1857, baseball owners are greedy bastards anyway. The Medalists, some hockey owners, the Brons, Worse, they're also greedy bastards. New York City's two hockey teams, the Rangers, whose surveillance prison, Madison Square Garden, is finally getting some national attention, whose owner, Jimmy Dolan, tries to call local cops on people who write mean tweets about his teams. Dolan, reportedly, according to the New York Post, has met secretly with Trump about maybe moving Madison Square Garden so they can rebuild that roach motel. Under it that the city hilariously calls Penn Station. Trump supposedly offered Dolan help getting a new Madison Square Garden built if Dolan would help him get the new Penn Station named after him. Trump. And of course, Trump didn't understand why Penn Station was named after Penn, why it's called Penn. It's for the railroad that built the original Penn Station. He thinks it's about Pennsylvania. As I've said frequently, you want to call it Trump Station, as long as it's Trump Memorial, I'm in. Or let's go the whole route. Let's call the hockey and basketball arena Mad Trump Square Garden. I like that. Meanwhile, the other New York hockey team, the Long Island Islanders owner John Ledecky, are being criticized after putting a promo up on their jumbotron for a fundraiser for a New York City police sergeant, Eric Duran. Was he injured? Was he tragically hurt in service to his community? God forbid. Killed on duty the way other cops who are honored by sports franchises are honored. Why they are honored for these tragedies. No, no, no. The fundraiser is to help Eric Duran. Convicted killer. Eric Duran was convicted of causing the death of a man who tried to escape arrest during a routine drug raid. And Eric Duran was sentenced last week to three to nine years in prison. The civilian was getting away on a scooter, so the killer, Sergeant Duran, threw a cooler full of ice at him and it hit the man. He lost control of the bike. He crashed into a tree and was killed almost immediately. And now he's been convicted and sent to jail. And the Islanders put up a fundraiser for him, also giving a quarter of their 5050 raffle to the legal fund for the convicted killer. All this also according to the New York Post. So remember, New York Islander fans, if you get killed by a New York City police officer, even though you had no weapon and you committed no violence, the New York Islanders will give money to your murderer. Or you could switch to the Rangers, whose fascist owner is meeting with Trump. Hard to believe there are two people worse than that. But there are the runner up worser. Vivek Ramaswamy. Wondering what happened to Vivek Ramaswamy after he didn't make the cut and somehow didn't make it into Trump's administration. Did you just assume he has spent the last 18 months trying to comb his hair? Nah. He's running for governor of Ohio. He's trying to also, at that same time, erase any sense that he might be a human being. Vivek Ramaswamy's opponent is named Amy Acton. Now I'll play this clip of Ramaswamy first and then reveal the extraordinarily subhuman sentiment Ramaswamy is expressing here, because this confirms it. If you had any doubt, Vivek Ramaswamy is just an effing scumbag. You have a chance to elect the governor who I hope I'll lay it out for you, a positive vision for our state versus a governor who has none at all other than to complain about what someone else did to her. So you heard it. He dismissed Amy Acton, his opponent. He dismissed her life story as her quote, complaining about what someone else did to her. What someone else did to her was rape her when she was a child. What she's complained about, what she has mentioned so she can explain to people her background is a childhood of extreme privation and sexual abuse. That to this sleazy, disturbed fascist, Vivek Ramaswamy is just somebody complaining. But the winner worser. And yes, there is an element of comic relief that goes into the judgment on these things. Lauren Boebert is probably not worse than Vivek Ramaswamy or the owners of the two New York hockey teams supporting cops who murder citizens and supporting Donald Trump. But Boebert is just so beautifully unaware. There are violent scumbag liars in Congress like Eric Swalwell. Well, he was in Congress, but unlike the Republicans who would have put him in the cabinet, made him Attorney General, probably Democrats get rid of their scumbags as quickly as possible. But there is still an extra Republican advantage in the competition here for overall scumbaggery because the Republicans have a monopoly on this subject. I just mentioned self unawareness. Who decided to judge Swalwell on his sexual misconduct and underrate what he did, Undervalue, just not damn with faint praise at the same time. How could you do both Judge Swalwell and sort of dismiss his crimes? Who could do that? Lauren Beaupre, your sex expert in Congress. You remember Lauren Boebert from such live theater spectacles as the security video from Betelgeuse. Yeah, go to church, find Jesus. Like, I mean, why is everybody so horny here? Seriously, 39 year old grandmother and chairperson of the Boulder Welcome Wagon. Congress is too horny for you, Lauren Boebert. Don't worry though, if Congress is too horny. Don't worry. Lauren Boebert will get a grip on it because she has a firm grasp on the situation. Lauren, her vast experience in this area will come in handy. Boebert, today's other worst person in the world. Most people think their insurance will cover them when disaster strikes. The truth? Many are wrong. You pay premiums and assume you're protected until the fine print hits exclusions, limits, loopholes. Suddenly that coverage isn't coverage at all. My policy advocate reviews your policies home aut life and breaks them down in plain English. They show what's really covered and what isn't. It costs just 27 cents a day less than a cup of coffee. For peace of mind before you assume you're covered, go to mypolicyadvocate.com you might be shocked at what you find. Mypolicyadvocate.com support for the show comes from
- [41:34]
Public Investing Ad
Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities. Possibilities completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures the
- [42:34]
NFL Schedule Promo
wait is almost over. Get ready for the NFL season with a highly anticipated 20 NFL schedule release. Every rivalry, every rematch and every rookie debut with matchups locked and kickoffs confirmed. Be there for every can't miss moment. The full NFL Schedule release coming in May. Get all the details@NFL.com ScheduleRelease.
- [43:04]
Amazon Ad
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- [43:39]
Keith Olbermann
So Netflix Stock network tanked late last week and this was attributed to the co founder Reed Hastings saying he would be stepping down. I think it was another announcement that Netflix made. Netflix is going to start a podcast, a news podcast once a week, a podcast on Netflix with Brian Williams. Since, since Brian Williams left, was fired from MSNBC's 11th hour, he's appeared once. He did election night on Amazon. No, no, seriously, there has not been a second edition of the News with Brian Williams on Amazon. Now these days, this is not a big deal. Hell, CBS changes its evening News anchor like every six months. They're overdue. But as late as 2015, it still mattered who was fronting the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News World News Tonight. During my first spin on MSNBC in the 90s, they had me anchor NBC Weekend Nightly twice. And I remember that for a show that had maybe four and a half, five minutes of on camera time for the anchor me, they had six, six writers. Six writers, like a separate writer for every 30 seconds. And two of them literally spent the entire day, the whole time, six, seven hours I was in their office with them preparing this show, arguing. These two guys argued over whether that should be an and or an or in the lead in to our reporter Soledad o', Brien, who was live from that weekend's hurricane somewhere. When they tried to get me not to leave NBC News in 1998 over the Clinton Lewinsky story, the main carrot was if I stayed, I could do Saturday or Sunday Nightly every week. I would be the second backup during the week to Tom Brokaw. I would do in 1999 and the years to come, NBC Nightly News. And if anything happened to the number one backup, Brian Williams, I would be Tom Brokaw's heir apparent. Well, guess what? Something happened to Brian Williams. Okay, to the number one story on the Countdown and the day Brian Williams imploded the other day when I tried to save Brian Williams and the day I found out why NBC did not fire him even after he imploded. But first, we start on Thursday, January 29, 2015, after I finished my late afternoon sportscast on ESPN2, I walked the 10 blocks to New York's Madison Square Garden to see the New York Rangers Montreal Canadiens hockey game. And within two hours, not only was I convinced I had a profound brain injury or illness, but a catastrophe would occur so all encompassing in its sweet that it would end the then very active negotiations to what else put Countdown back on msnbc? Also, the Rangers got shut out one nothing. I went to the game with Bill Wolfe, a former ESPN colleague from 20 years earlier, whom I had met again at MSNBC and who was in fact, the first executive producer of the Rachel Maddow Show. We had not seen each other in a while and he had just left that job. And so, as the skilled youth of many nations cavorted below and us threatening each other with sticks and razor sharp skates, we caught up on things. And that's when it happened. At least once per period in a National Hockey League game, an ordinary stoppage of play is turned into a lengthy delay during which the television broadcasters catch up on any unplayed commercials. The TV timeout. And during one of these TV timeouts, the public address announcer at the Garden, Joe Tolleson, said, ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the video screen at center ice where the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams, will I didn't actually hear the next part. At hearing Brian's name, my friend Bill Wolfe shouted f me. And I let out a low Groan. Since 1997, I have done my absolute best to like Brian Williams. I have stuck my neck out for Brian Williams. I have advocated for Brian Williams. I have forgiven Brian Williams. And none of it has been enough. No person in my 43 years as a full time professional broadcaster has been as insecure nor as mocked behind his back as has Brian. It is too bad. He is brilliantly talented and this will never be enough for him. He is one of those who can only be successful if he has convinced himself he has taken away some of the success from those around him. I've been accused of many, many things, but never that. In the 90s, Brian Williams used to appear in the middle of my MSNBC show with a promo for his MSNBC show which followed mine. One night I said that in five minutes we'd be previewing President Clinton's itinerary in Africa. Nairobi Addict, Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg. But first, with a preview of the news with Brian Williams, here's Brian Williams. Brian Williams and he said, thanks Keith. As someone who's actually been to those places all the time with this Anyway, when Wolf and I came out of our respective rages, we heard this over the Garden PA system. During the Iraq invasion, US Army Command Sergeant Major Tim Turpak was responsible for the safety of Brian Williams and his NBC News team after their Chinook helicopter was hit and crippled by enemy fire. I began to sweat. Command Sergeant Major Tirpak was awarded three Bronze Stars for combat valor in Iraq and recently retired after 23 years in the U.S. army. Both men, both Rangers fans, have been reunited for the first time in 12 years. For tonight's game. Please welcome Command Sergeant Major Tim Turpak and Brian Williams. Bill Wolf swore again. My reaction was different. I started to get light headed and then immediately, very, very worried. Bill, I said in a voice so low that Bill had to lean in to hear me, do you know a good neurologist? Bill laughed. For Brian, it wasn't a pleasant laugh. He won't go to a neurologist, good or otherwise, unless he can get videotape of it and put it on the effing screen here at Madison Square Garden. And I said, no, no, that's, that's not what I, what I mean, I mean, I mean one, for me, I, I was anchoring on MSNBC the, the night the Brian Williams story about the, the helicopters and the, and the RPG in Iraq. I went on to tell Bill that that's all I did my first month back at MSNBC in 2003. They rehired me only because they did not have enough anchors to cover a war. And I was on that night. And that story about Brian's chopper getting hit, that's not the way I remember it, Bill. My brain is going. I remember a different story. And I mean, I don't even remember leading the show with it. My God, if the heir apparent as the anchor of NBC Nightly News was shot down over the desert in the middle of the Iraq war, we would have left with it. And I don't remember leading with it. I'm only 56. I'm way too young for dementia. It must be a tumor or something. Do you know a good neurologist palace? Bill Wolf was, as usual, pretty cool under the circumstances. And he said, I think maybe you should relax because I don't think it's you. I think it's him because I remember that story too. Bill said, and that's not the way he told it in 2003. I think Brian has changed the story. When I got home after the Rangers lost that night, I looked up everything I could about March 26, 2003, and the fact that. Fact that Brian Williams was an NBC News field reporter embedded with troops in Iraq and in the helicopters with them, and that this was not some sort of PR stunt. We had another prominent anchor named David Blum, who hosted the Today show on the weekends and had succeeded Brian as our NBC White House correspondent. And David Bloom had died in Iraq because after weeks of twisting himself into the shape of a pretzel to fit inside a tank, he suffered deep vein thrombosis. And he was dead because they couldn't Treat him in time. I even found a video cassette with the hours I anchored on MSNBC on March 26, 2003. And I saw Brian's report, and I heard him say that he and an NBC analyst, retired General Wayne Downing, had been on the ground preparing to take off as part of the last helicopters in a convoy flying over an Iraqi desert when they got word that a chopper an hour ahead of them had been threatened by gunfire and was then forced to make an emergency landing because of a sandstorm. I remember thinking then in 2003, then in 2015, and now in 2022, that being in the helicopter when they are shooting at the helicopters is an act of sufficient bravery that you could brag on yourself forever. I would have been bragging, hey, I'm a civilian. I went up in the chopper anyway, and I did not crap my pants. The end. I would have been stopping passersby to tell them that. As I continued to research this, I realized that in the ensuing dozen years, Brian Williams had slowly changed the story almost imperceptibly, almost every time he had retold it, it soon the chopper was hit by the RPG that actually missed it. Then the chopper that was hit was not an hour ahead of them. It was the one right in front of them. Soon they were all part of the group that could claim we were the northernmost Americans in Iraq. And by 2013, Brian was claiming it was his chopper that got hit in real time. The next day, Friday, January 30, 2015, we found out why Brian had done the thing at the hockey game with Command Sergeant Major Turpak. He played a clip of it on NBC Nightly News. And that is when a lot of Iraq vets began to speak up with memories that agreed with Brian on one detail only. Yeah, it happened in Iraq. I saw the clip from the Rangers game, and I saw the train wreck coming up behind it for Brian and for NBC News. And I started emailing my remaining friends at NBC. Get him drunk, I wrote to one executive. Then take him into his office and scatter empty liquor bottles all around and call in photographers from the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and then explain he's going to rehab. You don't have to say anything else. Rehab is the get out of jail free card. He comes back in a month and they'll throw a freaking parade for him. To a former boss still at NBC, I sent this email, put him on tonight and at the start of Nightly, have him say this. I'm taking a voluntary leave of absence for fill in the blank days. And during that time the entirety of my salary will be donated to fill in the Blank with any military charity. Because while I did not intend to exaggerate my experience in Iraq in 2003, being hit by small arms fire is bad enough. Being behind the helicopter that got hit with an RPG is worse. Nevertheless, I did exaggerate it. And a newsman cannot make a mistake like that without consequences. Thank you for your forbearance. Now for the rest of tonight's newscast, here is Fill in the name of NBC employee number Whatever I added a postscript to my old boss. Do this and he could still swerve out of this. But everybody in management at NBC News was asleep at the switch during this crisis. They're in action by News President Deborah Turnis, who now runs BBC, apparently did not bring the Williams catastrophe to the attention of Comcast News chief Pat Philly, and that would eventually cost both of them their jobs. Since I was at that exact moment negotiating directly with Pat Philly to put Countdown back on msnbc. That also went down over the desert. Philly's successor was Andy Lack. He resumed the Countdown negotiations with me at the Essex House the following fall. That was in New York on October 29, 2015, just past the anniversary of that. Lack was moaning to me about Brian, whom he said he was ready to resign outright and was willing to go without much of a stink and without demanding much of a settlement. But it was Brian's wife, Lack said, who pointed out that there was a termination clause which was written by the self same Andy Lack the previous time Andy Lack ran NBC News. That meant if Brian were fired for cause, he would be owed twice whatever salary was left on his contract. His wife, Lack said, is a goddamn Pat Nixon in this. So instead of firing him and owing him twice as much money for some reason, nice contract. Lack of Lack reassigned Bryan to cover any breaking news during the Little Watch daytime hours of MSNBC and then eventually gave him his own show there at 11pm the punchline, of course, is that back In February of 2015, when it turned out Brian had lied about Iraq and also maybe lied about seeing a dead body float past him during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and about being mugged while selling Christmas trees when he was in high school and about saving a puppy when he was a volunteer firefighter fighter, I felt dreadful for him. I thought this might be fixable. And you know who else felt it might be fixable and felt dreadful for him? Our mutual friend David Letterman. And I was going on Dave's show. And I said to Dave, listen, I think Brian's career should not end because of this. He just needs help. He's a compulsive exaggerator. If you want to give me the opening to say that while I'm on with you, just do it. If you don't, don't, I won't bring it up myself. Dave is a very loyal man. And Dave gave me the opening. And then after I defended Brian, he joined me. And at that point we were literally the only two people working in television to speak out for Brian. Not only was it six weeks before Brian as much as sent me an email of thanks, but David told me he never heard from Brian. And I haven't heard from Brian since 2015. And there is another punchline. As I came off the Letterman stage that night that he and I both defended Brian Williams. A producer took me aside and said it was a nice thing to do, but was I sure I wanted to get involved in this? And I shrugged my shoulders and I said, who knows? Why do you ask? And he said, because one night when Brian was coming on the Letterman show, it was the anniversary of the Iraq helicopter story. And in the pre interview, Brian explained to this producer that when they got hit by the rpg, which didn't happen, this command Sergeant Major Tirpak had been injured, which didn't happen. And when they landed on the desert floor, which didn't happen, Brian treated Tirpak's injury and dressed Tirpak's wound himself. But then Brian said, maybe I should keep that between us. I guess we were lucky. Brian Williams never claimed that he saved the helicopter crew by catching the missile with his teeth. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Happily, after the damage was done, the chopper pilot and I made it to the desert floor and saved 3,000American soldiers. Our musical directors of Countdown are John Philip Chenale on keyboards and handling orchestration and Brian Ray on guitars, bass and drums. And their work is produced by TKO Brothers. Nancy Foust, the best baseball stadium organist ever, is responsible for the satirical and pithy musical comments. When we use the sports music, it's from the old Olbermann Show. Theme from the Old Olbermann show by old Olbermann from ESPN2 written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group no horns allowed. And my announcer today was my friend Tony Kornheiser, also provided by ESPN Inc. This program was produced by Ted. Everything else was, as always, my fault. It's countdown for today, day 446 of America held hostage again, but just 1007 days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and lame brained term, unless he is removed sooner by Jesus or the New York Rangers or Iranian nuclear dust or by corner stores. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Bulletins as the news merits until the next one. I'm Keith Olbermann. Good morning, good afternoon, good night and good luck.
- [61:56]
Donald Trump
When you see soldiers or others but soldiers generally walking around with no legs.
- [62:01]
Keith Olbermann
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- [62:52]
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- [63:20]
Sophia Donner
this is Sophia Donner from OK Storytime this summer. Find your next obsession on Prime Video and listen. We're not saying you need another obsession, but there could be a lot worse ones. Steamy romance, addictive love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice, so why not watch them a third time? Off campus? Elle, the Love Hypothesis and more. Slow Burn Second Chances Chemistry you can feel through the screen and it makes you wish you were actually in that movie. We've got binge worthy series can't miss movies. Perfect for when you're ignoring your own own problems or procrastinating as one does. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.
- [63:56]
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- [65:09]
Sophia Donner
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