I'M NOT SAYING IT WAS STAGED! YOU'RRRE SAYING IT WAS STAGED - 4.27.26

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Episode: I'M NOT SAYING IT WAS STAGED! YOU'RRRE SAYING IT WAS STAGED
Date: April 27, 2026
Host: Keith Olbermann
Produced by: iHeartPodcasts

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Main Theme / Purpose

This episode is dominated by Keith Olbermann’s detailed, provocative examination of the recent security incident involving Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Olbermann explores the intense public and political speculation around whether the event was a real assassination attempt, a staged incident, or something in between—emphasizing his own skepticism of conspiracy but acknowledging the abundance of doubt and distrust in Trump-era America. Blending dark humor, pointed political commentary, and historical context, he reflects on the state of political violence in the US and the hyperbolic reactions from “Trump’s cult” and rivals. The episode also features the recurring "Worst Persons in the World" segment and a reading from James Thurber, providing humorous and literary interludes amid the heavy political discourse.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Was the Incident Staged?

• Olbermann’s Position:

  • He repeatedly clarifies: “Frankly, I think it’s a coincidence. I don’t think that event Saturday night was staged, but I am beginning to think that among my fellow Americans... I may be in the minority.” (03:03)
  • Despite the logical arguments against staging, he sympathizes with those who have doubts due to Trump-world’s pervasive dishonesty and chaos.

• Meta-Analysis of Conspiracy Thinking:

  • Explores a series of “coincidences” and suspicious details: press secretary’s “shots fired” phrasing, security lapses, media reactions, and Trump’s ability to use the incident for political theater.
  • Questions why the White House is pushing both “assassination attempt” and “not-really-an-assassination attempt” narratives: “The acting Attorney General said the attempted gunman was stopped before he got anywhere near the President. That means it was not an assassination attempt.” (05:08)
  • Details Trump’s obsession with building a private ballroom and how instantly the incident was spun to justify it.

• Historical Context:

  • Points to past security failures (like Butler, Pennsylvania), lack of proper investigations, and the general erosion of trust.

• Emotional Exhaustion:

  • “I confess, I don't have the energy anymore required to say no, no, we must give them the benefit of the doubt here.” (14:43)
  • A recurring motif: Americans have become so jaded by lies and manipulation that it’s hard to dismiss even the wildest theories.

2. On Political Violence in America

• Myth vs. Reality:

  • Skewers the idea that violence has no place in American politics: “God damn it, Van Jones and every other hand-wringer on the air, stop with ‘There is no room for violence in our politics’. Holy crap. This is at best the second most frequently used way we do resolve our political differences.” (15:49)
  • Offers a litany of historical examples—Reagan, Ford, Kennedy, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, McKinley, Garfield, Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, plus RFK, Martin Luther King, and others.

• Blunt Appraisal:

  • “For 250 years we have done often the best we possibly could. And sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes you can’t control lunatics. But don’t say it doesn’t have a place in our politics. Say you wish it didn’t.” (18:01)

3. Media, Outrage, and Disinformation

• Republican Reactions and Paranoia:

  • Highlights how extreme and conspiratorial the pro-Trump right has become, such as Rep. Nancy Mace reacting to an unrelated Ben Stiller basketball tweet with paranoid suspicion. (17:22)

• The “Zombie Movie” Analogy:

  • “Those Walking Dead shows and the 10 million zombie movies—they are actually documentaries.” (18:01)

• Ongoing Internal Purging in Trump World:

  • Reports on Trump’s staff disorder: Cash Patel rumored to be next on the firing list, with leaked humiliating stories surfacing.

4. Mockery & Dissection of Trump’s Rhetoric

• Trump’s Iran-Vietnam Analogy:
  • Ridicules Trump’s justification for the duration of his Iran entanglement by comparing it to Vietnam: “God, is he stupid.” (22:34)
• Capital Punishment Misunderstanding:
  • Trump confuses “capital punishment” with punishment “in the capital city,” further demonstrating his ignorance. (23:20)
• “Art of the Deal” Fact-Check:
  • Calls out Tom Cotton’s false claim that Trump authored ‘The Art of the Deal’: “Trump didn’t write the Art of the Deal... Ghost written by Tony Schwartz, who ghost wrote apparently all of it.” (30:26–31:27)

5. “Worst Persons in the World” Segment (27:00–36:00)

• Bronze: Officer James Giovannsanti – NYPD officer with hundreds of traffic violations.
• Silver: Jeff Bezos – The Washington Post refuses a Teamsters letter critical of Bezos, essentially acting as a “house organ” for Trump.
• Gold: Senator Tom Cotton – Lies about Trump’s negotiation skills, falsely credits him with writing ‘The Art of the Deal.’

6. James Thurber Reading: “The Black Magic of Barney Howler” (36:09–46:50)

• Offers comic relief and literary diversion, sharing Thurber’s unique blend of humor and the supernatural. “Barney never came back to work for me after that day. Of course. I figured out what he meant about the Garret and the Warbs. He had simply got horribly mixed up in trying to tell me that he was going up to the Garret and clear out the wasps...” (46:22)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Olbermann on public skepticism:
  • “I am beginning to think that among my fellow Americans who are not in the Trump mass hypnosis cult, I may be in the minority.” (03:06)
• On violence in American politics:
  • “This is at best the second most frequently used way we do resolve our political differences. Reagan was shot. Ford was shot at point blank. Kennedy was shot and killed.” (16:24)
• On media complicity:
  • "They're now rewriting the letters to the editor. They're no longer letters to the editor then, are they? They're letters from the editors, you journalistic bastards." (31:28)
• On exhaustion from conspiracy and manipulation:
  • “There’s sure cynical and then there’s also sure exhausted and I am now the latter.” (15:44)
• On Trump's ignorance:
  • “Capital, capital punishment. If somebody kills somebody in the Capitol, Washington D.C…” (23:22)
• On zombie movies:
  • “Those Walking Dead shows and the 10 million zombie movies—they are actually documentaries.” (18:01)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Main Commentary on “Non-Assassination Attempt” & Conspiracies: 02:31–15:44
• Reckoning with Political Violence in America: 15:44–18:01
• Trump World Derangement & Media Paranoia: 18:01–21:15
• Trump’s Iran-Vietnam and “Capital” Punishment Gaffes: 21:15–24:34
• “Worst Persons in the World”: 27:00–36:00
• James Thurber Reading (“The Black Magic of Barney Howler”): 36:09–46:50

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Tone & Style

• Highly satirical, caustically witty, mixing exasperation with world-weary gravitas.
• Wide-ranging: shifts swiftly from political analysis to personal anecdotes, mocking asides, and literary content.
• Combines dark humor with genuine alarm about America’s political and cultural decline.

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Useful for Listeners Who Haven’t Heard the Episode

This episode delivers a blistering, skeptical, but ultimately nuanced take on the “was it staged?” debate surrounding a recent Trump security scare. Olbermann balances historical perspective, media analysis, and sharp political commentary with moments of literary humor. While firmly rejecting conspiracy theories himself, he uses his trademark sardonic style to highlight why so many Americans are now conditioned to question everything—especially anything involving Donald Trump or his inner circle. The episode serves both as catharsis for the politically burned-out and a dense, entertaining primer on the current American predicament.

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Keith Olbermann]

Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartradio.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Sure.

[Keith Olbermann]

Coincidence. It'll be funny. It'll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight. The press secretary to the President of the United States about an hour before what a coincidence. Shots were fired. I'm guessing you might have doubts about Saturday night's not really an assassination attempt theater was what she said coincidence or a slip? Frankly, I think it's a coincidence. I don't think that event Saturday night

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

was staged, but I am beginning to

[Keith Olbermann]

think that among my fellow Americans who are not in the Trump mass hypnosis cult, I may be in the minority. Did Caroline Levitt use that phrase because she was thinking about shots being fired or just because she's so stupid and gross? I mean that's a head scratcher of a choice, huh? Did her 60 year old husband tell a Fox reporter before the non assassination

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

attempt that you need to stay safe because he slipped or because he was

[Keith Olbermann]

just hitting on another woman? And while she was reporting what he

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

had told her on Fox, did her phone line suddenly go dead because somebody

[Keith Olbermann]

cut her off or because cell phones go dead? Would Trump really stage some sort of non assassination theater? Maybe. Again, would you think that was possible just because it's the Secret Service that's in charge of security wherever the President is? And somehow the Secret Service never thought to see if psychos already staying at

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

the D.C. hilton wouldn't have had to

[Keith Olbermann]

go through half of the checkpoints everybody else had? Is it suspicious that when CBS actually asks the acting attorney General how the

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

guy got across state lines with a small arsenal of firearms arms, Todd Blanche

[Keith Olbermann]

says I don't think that's something we

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

should be focused on. Does that remind you of the fact

[Keith Olbermann]

that there's never been an investigation of the security disaster at Butler, Pennsylvania, never mind anything else? And reportedly Trump has been the one to make sure of that.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Do you wonder why they took so long to go and get Trump Saturday and when they got him they basically dropped him and he face planted. Do you wonder why the White House is selling this as both an assassination attempt and not an assassination attempt at the same time?

[Keith Olbermann]

Why?

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

White House's protocol chief said this was

[Keith Olbermann]

the hand of God saving Trump.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

And the White House Chief of staff tried to start a USA USA chant and failed.

[Keith Olbermann]

But the acting Attorney General said the

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

attempted gunman was stopped before he got anywhere near the President. That means by definition that was not an assassination attempt. You have to be near. Todd Blanche confirmed it. Not an assassination attempt, a security incident and serious one. And by the way, it was contained by the pros with no fatalities. Obama had more than 15 of these in his presidency, by the way. But back to the point, if you have doubts, and a reminder, I don't. Even though I'm the guy who said Bush was manipulating the terror threats 20 years ago for political advantage. And everybody looked at me like I had three heads. And then years later his first chief of homeland security said no, they were manipulating the terror threats for political advantage.

[Keith Olbermann]

I don't have doubts.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

But if you have doubts, might you have them just because two in a row now a guy with long guns somehow got through all the outer Security Trump perimeters. Would you consider your doubts possible just because this, this Saturday night defined it? This is Donald Trump's America, Donald Trump's America where violence is the primary currency or the threat of violence? Or because Donald Trump eliminated the peaceful transfer of power in this country? Or because on January 6th Donald Trump started the coup attempt by shouting fight like hell. And then in Pennsylvania Trump shouted fight, fight. But at his news conference after the non assassination attempt Saturday night, he changed it back to claiming he fought like hell. It's a coincidence. Or because Trump's instinct was to take what he wants you to believe was his near martyrdom and you should feel guilty, you libtard and turn that event into a homily at his news conference about insecure locations and how this is the final word as the reason for him to build his God damned ballro room he is obsessed with. Is it coincidence that Trump has been obsessed, deranged, in other words, worse than his usual self about what he is now actually calling his quote, militarily top secret ballroom. And one night he goes to another DC ballroom like why are you going there? And the ballroom security doesn't cut it. And there's an incident in the ballroom and then he and literally dozens of his social media sock puppets from Katie Miller to Meghan McCain to John Effing Fetterman were ready with posts incesting. This settles it forever. No more discussion. You have to build the ballroom and you're a communist and you want Trump dead if you don't support the ballroom and we have to have a ballroom and then they sing the national anthem and they get the words wrong. As if any reporters association ever would agree to hold its annual banquet at a government military facility no matter who the President is. Unless it had decided to let the government take over control of the reporters association. Or the government simply announced it was taking over control of the reporters association. That's why you would have it at the White House. Of course, half the magath thought when they saw White House Correspondents association that it was at the White House. They also thought it was correspondence, as in writing letters. Or maybe the point is maybe you would say, you would say aloud or silently for a second or for a week that one word. Sure, because these people have lied so many times about so many things that it's no longer worth the energy required to say no, no, we must give them the benefit of the doubt. Lives were at stake. People suffered emotional trauma Saturday night while they are literally whining that the New York Times did not Put their little dog and pony show on its front page in the edition of the paper that was published half an hour before the event. Because Psychic hotline. Are we all beginning to think maybe, maybe a lot, maybe most of Trump's cult, they believe Butler, Pennsylvania, was staged. And some of them are so past the point of caring that it might have been staged. It doesn't matter to them if it was staged or if Saturday was staged, because anything for the cause. But this reaction, their reaction to this, not an assassination attempt, is so over the top that it is clear they are desperate to convince people this was the real thing when the acting attorney general says it wasn't. And by the way, the people they are most desperate to convince are themselves. Maybe the real point is it doesn't even matter if it was staged or it wasn't. It's the reality that I would defy you to tell me with certainty that you are confident that nobody in that administration suggested something like this, discussed something like this during the 2024 campaign or now. Now, as he's hemorrhaging support, trapped in a war he doesn't have the intellect to get out of, still facing the Epstein outcomes. And 55% say he no longer has the mental soundness to serve as president. When it was only 48% late in the campaign. And 57% say he doesn't have the judgment to be president. And 60% say he doesn't have the temperament to be president. And 63% say, no, as president, he does not care about me. And all of those numbers are from a Fox News poll. There's no chance they sat there and thought, ah, White House correspondence dinner. That'd be so easy to do it there. Ever been to the Hilton? I could bring a tank in there

[Keith Olbermann]

and nobody would notice.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

The gun doesn't even have to get anywhere near the president. And then somebody else would have said, you're crazy. And somebody else would have said, all the reporters will be drunk and they're scared anyway and they'll be unable to report and they'll all try to get the limited cell phone service, notoriously bad at that D.C. hilton. And if we're lucky, we can wind up blaming all of this, not just on the left, but on those scum reporters. You sure there's no chance of that? Matter of fact, as I have said,

[Keith Olbermann]

I don't think it was staged.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

I think security perimeters do have holes. I think the Secret Service is overworked, unimaginative. I think the screening equipment is not anywhere close to Infallible, as the experts like to pretend.

[Keith Olbermann]

Most importantly, I think there are coincidences. I mean, I said it here and on social media over and over again for more than a week. Do not correspondents go to the White House Correspondents Dinner. And if you do, be prepared to storm out of the dinner because of Trump. Now, because I said that, does it mean I knew that was going to happen, that it even crossed my mind? It didn't. There are coincidences. I was talking about. Don't go there because you soil yourself whenever you're in Trump's presence. As it turned out, as many of them have learned, if you're at this security breach and you try to report and you've had about six glasses of wine and you go on CNN and you can't say anything other than, and

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

then

[Keith Olbermann]

perhaps that's not doing your career any good, Jake. And yes, I think what Caroline Levitt said about shots will be fired was a coincidence. Although how will she ever live that down? Not that I want her to, but it was coincidence because people say shit like that every day, especially violent, stupid people like Caroline Levitt and Donald Trump who are losing their grip on power and are panicking and beginning to understand what happens to them unless the Republicans never lose the White House ever again. And maybe some of them, like Levitt and Cash Patel, are shorting out. And Politico has just reported Saturday morning, in fact, that Cash Patel is going to be the next one Trump fires. I don't think it was staked, but goddammit, these putrid, despicable pond scum people, Trump and the retread failures he surrounds himself with, they have long since erased my confidence that nobody would ever try something stupid and this risky and this deceitful with the life of the President of the United States, even if he is the worst one we've ever had, because he is the President of the United States. And the FAFO rule actually applies. And this is a country that two centuries ago tried a 21 gun salute for an admiral at a dock and they put the guns too close to the admiral and guess what? They never found the admiral's body. So you're not supposed to play FAFO games with a president, even if he thought it was a good idea. And yet now, I confess, I don't have the energy anymore required to say no, no, we must give them the benefit of the doubt here. Lives, lives were at stake. I now do not have the energy to at least try to put up the pretense that something that callous and that cynical. To say nothing of something that dangerous and st could never be attempted in my America. My America. When was the last time you thought of it like that? If there is a tear in your eye about your America, it ain't out of pride anymore and a confidence that we are always at bare minimum the worst country in the world except for all the other countries. That is no longer why the tier is there. So about the Correspondent's Dinner thing, there's sure cynical and then there's also sure exhausted and I am now the latter.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Sure. Oh, and one other thing I've lost

[Keith Olbermann]

the energy to argue about anymore. Nobody is in favor of political violence in this country and shooting Charlie Kirk remains indefensible. But God damn it Van Jones and every other hand wringer on the air. God damn it, stop with There is no room for violence in our politics and this is not how we resolve our differences in this great country. Holy crap. This is at best the second most frequently used way we do resolve our political differences. Reagan was shot.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Ford was shot at point blank. Kennedy was shot and killed.

[Keith Olbermann]

Franklin Roosevelt was shot at. Teddy Roosevelt was shot. As an ex president running for reelection, so was Trump.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

McKinley was shot and killed. Garfield was shot and killed. Lincoln was shot and killed.

[Keith Olbermann]

Andrew Jackson was targeted by a man

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

with two guns, both of which jammed

[Keith Olbermann]

as he shoved them at him.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Count all the credible plots that didn't get to a gun being drawn.

[Keith Olbermann]

And more than a quarter of all

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

presidents have faced assassination attempts. RFK was shot and killed.

[Keith Olbermann]

Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Mayor Harrison of Chicago, Mayor Cermak of Chicago, Mayor Moscone of San Francisco, Harvey

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Milk, Huey Newton, Huey Long. What do you think the goddamn Civil War was? It became many things, but it started and it ended with political violence. There is no room for violence in our politics.

[Keith Olbermann]

There should be no room. But that list that I just read,

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Those are just the dead ones. No room for violence in our political system. My God, there is room for almost nothing else.

[Keith Olbermann]

Just don't be hypocritical about it. Just don't pretend that we are better than we are. For 250 years we have done often the best we possibly could. And sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes you can't control lunatics. But don't say it doesn't have a place in our politics. Say you wish it didn't. And by the way, how desperate are they? Nancy Mace, the last of her cheese whiz sliding off her Ritz cracker, sees a tweet from Ben Stiller Saturday night reading just three words, got it done. And she jumps on it with a furiously paranoid reply. Got what done? Turned out the tweet was the last of a series by Ben about the New York Knicks beating the Atlanta Hawks in a playoff game. I don't know what's wrong with Mace, but you have to remember that literally these people are nuts or impaired or drugged up or all the veterans have PTSD or cte. Look, Ben Stiller is, is, is. Is celebrating the non assassination attempt where Trump was never in danger according to his own Attorney General. Jesus suffering F. I have found in these last 11 years that the safest and most emotionally economical way to think of it is to think of it this way. Those Walking Dead shows and the 10 million zombie movies, they are not horror films. They are actually documentaries. I have to repeat the Politico report that Patel will be the next one fired. This is because of the rash of bad stories about him which now appear to be being fed to receptive outlets deliberately. The intercept, which still has friendly connections to lots of Republicans, usually never Trumpers, got hold of a letter that Patel wrote a decade and a half ago about two public urination incidents. If you had gotten a list of all the possible crimes that he could have committed, you would have drafted public urination either with the first or second draft choice, wouldn't you? Public urination incidents and arrests and encounters with cops when he was a young idiot as opposed to the older idiot he has become. It'll be sad though, if the public peeing does cash Patel in, because bluntly, that was the most intelligent thing ever to come out of him. I have two clips I have saved now that I want to play that are like all the Trumpian streams. See what I did there? Streams of stupidity crossing. God bless him. Every time you think Trump might wriggle out of this bottomless pit in Iran, he does something new and stupid about it. First it was to invoke Vietnam, which

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

is still a third rail, still our

[Keith Olbermann]

measuring stick for forever wars with no moral justification and no truth. And which, oh, by the way, Vietnam, which Trump dodge duh. Now he has in the way his mind works, or more accurately, the way his mind does not work, managed to

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

convince himself that because we had people,

[Keith Olbermann]

military advisors, I don't know, tourists in Vietnam. He says for 19 years because Vietnam happened and it was 19 years.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

That means 19 years is an acceptable

[Keith Olbermann]

length for his undeclared illegal war in Iran.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

And now, because he's convinced himself, he

[Keith Olbermann]

is getting pissed when nobody agrees with him.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

And he keeps comparing Iran to Vietnam. The worst comparison he could make. The comparison between Iran and the war he personally dodged.

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How long are you willing to wait until you get a response?

[Jeff (interviewer or guest)]

Don't rush me, Jeff. You know, guys like you, you want to say, oh, so we're in Vietnam, like for 18 years.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

What do you say to the American people who question how much longer this will take? Obviously, you know that they are having

[Jeff (interviewer or guest)]

you hear such a disgrace. Did you hear what I just said? Vietnam. How many years was Vietnam?

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

God, is he stupid.

[Keith Olbermann]

Wait, it's worse than that. You heard the new plan to expand

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

the numbers of means of executions

[Keith Olbermann]

for death penalty cases that they want to

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

bring back the firing squad, which I remember they used in Utah when I was a teenager against that murderer Gary Gilmore. The firing squad, a very efficient means of execution. Well, this led to the resurrection of a clip of Trump from last August, which somehow I missed. Top 10 Trump, in which it is clear that this ignoramus believes that the phrase capital punishment has something to do with the nation's capital.

[Keith Olbermann]

Oh, God, is he stupid.

[Jeff (interviewer or guest)]

Anybody murders something in the capital, capital punishment. Capital capital punishment. If somebody kills somebody in the Capitol,

[Keith Olbermann]

Washington, D.C. that was last August.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

How did I miss that? The next stage, of course, would be

[Keith Olbermann]

Trump insisting we have to have capital

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

punishment for serious corporate crimes because of course, those involve business capital.

[Keith Olbermann]

Also of interest here it is one of the great dumb quotes of 21st century politics. And for once, it's not Trump. Another bullying Republican elected announcing that Iran is going to meet its match not on the battlefield, but in the bargaining room. They've never won a war but never lost a negotiation. They've never sat across the table negotiating with the guy that wrote the art of the deal. Sparky, I hate to break this to you, but Trump didn't write the art of the deal. Who said that? All time. Great quote. That's next. This is countdown.

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the making and we want everyone in America, from Maine to Montana, from Alabama to Alaska, to be a part of it.

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This year marks America's 250th anniversary and we're coming together from coastal to coast at star spangled events, live performances and the largest day of giving in American history.

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Join the nationwide celebration at america250.org

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[Keith Olbermann]

This is COUNTDOWN with Keith Olbermann. Still ahead on this edition of countdown, gonna take a break from reality and the possibility of the 2028 election actually being the 2020 election and white House obey in advance dinners and and let's all get a photo with a Nazi knight and skip things I promise not to tell and instead read you some Thurber Mondays with the black magic of Barney Howler. Partly more brilliant Thurber humor and partly more fun being made of German Americans. And as one of them, I say you can never have enough of that. 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. The medalists. The bronze worse. James Giovannsanti of Staten Island, New York. You need more than the fact that he's from Staten island, okay? The news site streets blog NYC reports that since the year 2022, the city's quote traffic cameras have caught his pickup truck blasting through school zones or running red lights more than 547 times. In that one borough he received 187 camera issued tickets in 2025 alone, an average of one every other day. The blog also points out that the cameras can't prove he's always the one driving, but what, he just loans his vehicle to other people who also like to be menaces to life and limb on Staten Island. So there's a bad human on Staten Island?

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Oh no.

[Keith Olbermann]

Whatever shall we do now there's a twist to this one. Streets Blog NYC reports that Mr. Giovannsanti is actually Officer Giovannsanti, NYPD 120th Precinct on Staten Island. He's a cop since 2019. Officer Giovannsanti as Streets Blog NYC summarized it quoting again to protect and swerve I would like to offer as a riposte NYC Blue through the intersection there are honor up were Sir Jeff Bezos, dictator in chief of the Washington Post and chief supplier of plastics to Lauren Sanchez. We have to recognize now that the

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Post's path is to become maybe at

[Keith Olbermann]

best at least damaging to America.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

A kind of small letters version of the Wall Street Journal occasional journalism when

[Keith Olbermann]

Bezos doesn't know about it and it doesn't cost him up to $30 somewhere. But editorially, it's going to be fascism today, USA fascism today. Eric Wemple, the New York Times, formerly

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

of the Post, pushed out there for being good, reports this little journalistic felony

[Keith Olbermann]

from Bezos toilet paper with pictures.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

The paper blasted a bill called the

[Keith Olbermann]

Faster Labor Contracts Bill, which would have allowed the government to pressure management when

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

it is stalling to weaken a union or just avoid talking contract. And when we're talking about stalls here, they're talking about stalls of multiple years. Well, the Post wrote an editorial condemning this.

[Keith Olbermann]

They're in favor of stalling labor negotiations

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

cause it's Jeff Bezos and the Teamsters wanted to write a letter to the editor in reply. Now we're talking a letter to the

[Keith Olbermann]

editor of a newspaper. I don't know the last time you

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

read a letter to the editor from a union about how fast labor contracts should be negotiated.

[Keith Olbermann]

Important I don't think, though it would

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

be on my top 100 things to read if I had the moment. It couldn't be, practically speaking, a big deal even to Jeff effing Bezos, could it? Even to the Post. Even to old cue ball noggin Bezos.

[Keith Olbermann]

Oh, sure it could.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

The Teamster's letter, you see, contained two criticisms, two paragraphs that actually mentioned Bezos by name and detailed his stalling maneuvers at Amazon. Again, this is sharp edged, but it's not going to start riots and it's not going to knock Amazon's price down. The Post refused to print the letter to the editor refused to print an opposing opinion to one of its editorials in the Letters column unless the Teamsters took out the references to Bezos. The Teamsters pointed out they weren't being gratuitous. They weren't just taking cheap shots at Bezos like I do. Amazon's ability to just bury its unions and would be unions, is already the stuff of labor legend. They didn't include him just to embarrass him. They included Jeff Bezos. Because to not include Jeff Bezos in an article about stalling labor contract negotiations would be like writing about baseball and leaving out Shohei Ohtani and Babe Ruth. And the Post still refused. They returned the letter to the Teamsters with the parts about Bezos edited out and said, we'd be happy to print this letter. They're now rewriting the letters to the editor. They're no longer letters to the editor then, are they? They're letters from the editors, you journalistic bastards. The Teamsters withdrew the letter. The Post, fulfilling its new role as a house organ for Trump, behaved exactly the way Trump's organ would. It was small about things, but the winner the worst. Worse than Bezos, worse than Officer Speedo, Tom Cotton, senator from Arkansas, and Trump whore. I mean, this guy will say stupid things just to please Trump, and he will say untrue things just to please Trump, and he will say racist things just to please Trump. And they look at him like he could take over as Secretary of State tomorrow, probably because he has a pretty good haircut for a Republican and a Trumpist. But Tom Cotton has now topped himself on Fox News. He pushed some of the racism subtly, namely that those from the Middle east aren't as smart as Americans. Let me know when that's been true over the last, say, six weeks. Tommy. He said something dumb and he said something untrue, but this time it was hilariously untrue. Tom Cotton went on Fox News and predicted Iran's imminent defeat, not just on the battlefield, but in the boardroom. They've never won war, but never lost a negotiation. Cotton twanged. They've never sat across the table negotiating with the guy that wrote the Art of the Deal. Tom Trump didn't write the Art of the Deal. It's kind of amazing. It's hard to believe that Tom Cotton, who apparently did not cheat or plagiarize or bribe his way through Harvard, doesn't know this. So my guess would be he's just lying about it. He knows this. He just doesn't care enough about America to not tell his cult a gratuitous lie. Maybe it's PTSD from Iraq. I don't know. Maybe it's the cost of having a good haircut. Maybe he's just good on exams at Harvard and he failed at everything else. The Art of the Deal was written for Trump. Ghost written by Tony Schwartz, who ghost wrote apparently all of it. There isn't anything in there that Trump actually wrote. There's just a few sentences Trump allegedly took out cuz they insulted some of his friends. That's the only thing Trump had to do with it. They gave Schwartz co author credit on the early editions. Tony Schwartz wrote the Art of the Deal, not Donald Trump. So unless Tony Schwartz is negotiating with Iran. Well, you know, come to think of it, if it's Kushner and this business clown witless Witkoff wit shit, whatever his name is, might as well be Tony Schwartz negotiating on behalf of this country. In fact, I think that might be an improvement. What am I saying here, Tom? Okay, they've never sat across the table negotiating with the guy that wrote the sequel. Trump Surviving at the top. No Tom, that was Ghost written for him by Charles Leerson Cotton, today's other worst person in the world.

[Keith Olbermann]

After this White House stenographer's dinner bull squat, the last thing you need is another media guy talking about himself. So let's do Monday with Thurber instead. One of the greatest realizations of reading everything from an author as skilled and prolific as James Thurber is to realize he could have specialized in something else and excelled at that. Instead, Thurber was already America's top active short form humor writer when his second career as a cartoonist was literally rescued from the garbage by his colleague Andy White at the New Yorker. Thurber liked to draw these stream of consciousness. Pencil never really leaves the page. Drawings mostly of dogs, but he didn't think anything of them. Threw them all away. White saw one of them one day at the New Yorker office that he really liked as Thurber finished it. And as soon as he said something, Thurber neatly crumpled it up into a ball and tossed it into the nearest garbage can. What are you doing? White shouted one New Yorker art meeting later. And everybody there had agreed. Thurber was a true, gifted, natural, unforced, stylish, hilarious cartoonist who could also put them out like a dozen a day. Everybody but him. He didn't get it for a long time. It was still a subject half of embarrassment and half his conviction that they were playing a practical joke on him until they started to Publish them every week in the New Yorker. Then there are the other forms of writing Thurber could have done. There are some dark Thurber stories. I mean, there are implied hatchet murders and not, not like the ones in his drawings where one fencer has clearly completely cut off his opponent's head while calmly saying touche. But you know, the victim, whose only emotion and reaction to this is surprise, is simply going to grab his loose noggin and promptly snap it back into place. There's no blood. There's no guts. There's just laughs.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

I mean, though, that there are stories

[Keith Olbermann]

out there by James Thurber that are full of murder murders and guys who sing the same song obsessively day and night as they drift from depression to anger to violence. And, and, and, and those stories are chilling and just as well done as the humor. And Thurber never gave up trying to be upbeat and funny and write that stuff instead. And then there's another part, a third area he could have gone into. The spooky part of Thurber. Spooky as it was, the great master only occasionally delved into the supernatural. Lots of Thurber's characters, like his fictionalized version of his own mother, claim to get messages from beyond the grave and stuff like that. But rarely did Thurber ever go occult in the first person. This is not true in one of my all time favorites of his stories, the Black Magic of Barney Howler, in which a slight accent turns into something that is just right up against the line of being actually a little scary, but still hilarious. The Black Magic of Barney Haller by James Thurber. It was one of those hot days on which the earth is uninhabitable. Even as early as 10 o' clock in the morning. Even on the hill where I live, under the dark maples, the long porch was hot and the wicker chair I sat in complained hotly. My coffee was beginning to wear off and with it the momentary illusion it gives that things are right and life is good. There were sultry mutterings of thunder. I had a quick feeling that if I looked up from my book, I would see Barney holler. I looked up and there he was, coming along the road, lightning playing about his shoulders, thunder following him like a dog. Barney is, or was, my hired man. He is strong and amiable, sweaty and dependable, slowly and heavily confident. But he is also eerie. He traffics with the devil. His ears twitch when he talks. But it isn't so much that as the things he says once in Late June, when all of a moment, sabers began to flash brightly in the heavens and bowling balls rumbled, I took refuge in the barn. I always have a feeling that I am going to be struck by lightning and either riven like an old apple tree or left with a foot that aches in rainy weather and a habit of fainting. These things happen. Barney came in not to escape the storm to which he is or pretends to be indifferent, but to put the scythe away. Suddenly he said, the first of those things that made me, when I was with him, faintly creepy. He pointed at the house. Once I see dis boat come down the rock, he said.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

It is phenomena like that of which

[Keith Olbermann]

I stand in constant dread. Boats coming down rocks, people being teleported, statues dripping blood, old regrets and dreams in the form of luna moths fluttering against the windows.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

At midnight.

[Keith Olbermann]

Of course, I finally figured out what Barney meant, or what I comforted myself with believing he meant something about a bolt coming down the lightning rod on

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

the house, a commonplace and utterly natural thing. I should have dismissed it, but it had its effect on me. Here was a stolid man smelling of hay and leather who talked like somebody out of Charles Fort's books or like a traveler back from Oz, and all the time the lightning was zigging and zagging around him. On this hot morning, when I saw

[Keith Olbermann]

Barney coming along with his faithful storm

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

trudging behind him, I went back frowningly to my copy of Swan's Way. I hoped that Barney, seeing me absorbed in a book, would pass by without saying anything. I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book.

[Keith Olbermann]

A church, a quartet, the rivalry between

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Francis I and Charles V. I could feel Barney standing, looking at me, but I didn't look at him. Dis morning Bime by, said Barney. I go hunt grotches in de vids. That's fine, I said, and turned a page and pretended to be engrossed in

[Keith Olbermann]

what I was reading.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Barney walked on. He had wanted to talk some more, but he walked on. After a paragraph or two his words began to come between me and the words in the book. Bime by, I go hunt grotches in de Voods. If you are susceptible to such things, it is not difficult to visualize grotches. They fluttered into my mind, ugly little creatures about the size of whippoorwills, only covered with blood and honey and the scrapings of church bells. Grotches. Who and what, I wondered, really, was this thing in the form of a hired man that kept anointing me ominously in passing with Abracadabra. Barney didn't go toward the woods at once. He weeded the corn. He picked apple boughs off the lawn. He knocked a yellowjacket's nest down out of a plum tree. It was raining now, but he didn't seem to notice it. He kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and I

[Keith Olbermann]

kept looking at him out of the

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

corner of my eye. What dime is it, please? He called to me finally I put down my book and sauntered out to him. When you go for those grotches, I said firmly, I'll go with you. I was sure he wouldn't want me to go. I was right. He protested that he could get the grotches himself. I'll go with you, I said stubbornly. We stood looking at each other, and then abruptly, just to give him something to ponder over, I quoted I'm going out to clean the pasture spring. I'll only stop to take the leaves away and wait to watch the water clear.

[Keith Olbermann]

I may.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

I shan't be gone long.

[Keith Olbermann]

You come, too.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

It wasn't, I realized, very good abracadabra. But it served. Barney looked at me in a puzzled way. Yes, he said vaguely. It's five minutes of 12, I said, remembering he had asked. Then we go, he said, and we trudged through the rain over to the orchard fence and climbed that and opened a gate and went out into the meadow that slopes up to the woods. I had a prefiguring of Barney at some proper spot deep in the woods, prancing around like a goat, casting off his false nature, shedding his hired man's garments, dropping his Teutonic accent, repeating diabolical phrases, conjuring up grotches. There was a great slash of lightning and a long bumping of thunder as we reached the edge of the woods. I turned and fled.

[Keith Olbermann]

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Barney

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

standing and staring after me. It turned out on the face of it to be as simple as the boat that came down the rock. Grotches were crotches, crotched saplings, which he cut down to use as supports under the peach boughs, because in bearing time they become so heavy with fruit that there was danger of the branches snapping off. I saw Barney later putting the crotches in place. We didn't have much to say to each other. I can see now that he was beginning to suspect me, too.

[Keith Olbermann]

About 6 o' clock next evening I was alone in the house and sleeping upstairs. Barney rapped on the door of the front porch. I knew it was Barney, because he called to me. I woke up slowly. It was dark for 6 o'.

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

Clock.

[Keith Olbermann]

I heard rumblings and soft flickerings. Barney was standing at the front door with his storm at heel. I had the conviction that it wasn't storming anywhere except around my house. There couldn't, without the intervention of the devil or one of his agents, be so many lightning storms in one neighborhood. I had been dreaming of Proust and the church at Cambrai and Madeleine's dipped in tea and the rivalry between Francis the First and Charles V. My head whirled and I didn't get up. Barney kept on rapping. He called out again. There was a flash followed by a sharp splitting sound. Now I leaped up. This time I thought, he is here to get me. I had a notion that he was standing at the door, barefooted, with a wreath of grape leaves around his head and a wild animal's skin slung over his shoulder. I didn't want to go down, but I did. He was, as usual, solid, amiable, dressed like a hired man. I went out onto the porch and looked at the improbable storm, now on in all of its fury. This is getting pretty bad, I said meaningly. Barney looked at the rain placidly. Well, I said irritably. What's up? Barney turned his little squinty blue eyes on me. We go to the gaddock now and become warbs, he said. The hell we do, I thought to myself quickly. I was uneasy. I was, you might even say, terrified. But I determined not to show it. If he began to chant incantations or to make obscene signs, or if he attempted to sling me over his shoulder, I resolved to plunge right out into that storm, lightning and all, and run to the nearest house. I didn't know what they would think at the nearest house when I burst in upon them, or what I would tell them. But I didn't intend to accompany this angel, amiable looking fiend to any Garrick and become a warb. I tried to persuade myself that there was some simple explanation, that warbs would turn out to be as innocuous as boats on rocks and grotches in Davids. But the conviction gripped me in the growling of the thunder that here at last was the moment when Barney Holler, or whoever he was, had chosen to get me. I walked toward the steps that led to the lawn and turned and faced him grimly. Listen. I barked suddenly. Did you know that even when it isn't brillig I can produce slithy tobes? Did you happen to know that the mome rath never lived. That could outgrade me. Yeah, and furthermore, I can become anything I want to. Even if I were a warb, I wouldn't have to keep on being one if I didn't want to. I can become a playing card at will, too. Once I was the Jack of Clubs. Only I forgot to take my glass glasses off and some guy recognized me. I Barney was backing slowly away toward the petunia box at one end of the porch. His little blue eyes were wide. He saw that I had him. I think I go now, he said, and he walked out into the rain. The rain followed him down the road. I have a new hired man now. Barney never came back to work for me after that day. Of course. I figured out finally what he meant about the Garruk and the Warbs. He had simply got horribly mixed up in trying to tell me that he was going up to the Garret and clear out the wasps, of which I have thousands. The new hired man is afraid of them. Barney could have scooped them up in his hands and thrown them out a window without getting stung. I am sure he trafficked with the devil. But I am sorry I let him go. We go to the Garret and become Vorbs. The hell we do. One of my favorite Thurber couplets. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Let me just remind you again, I don't think it was staged. I'm just worried about the possibility that you think it's staged and need to have it discussed for you. So maybe we'll do this again on Thursday and every Thursday thereafter. Couldn't have staged it. Look at what I mean. They dropped Trump on the way out. You could break him at any point just by trying to pick him up. I just don't think they had enough Secret Service men to try to pull that off. How many guys do you got on assignment? No, I mean in all of the Capitol. 307. Well, maybe that'll be enough. Our musical directors of Countdown, who have nothing to do with my remarks, are John Philip Chenale on keyboards, handling orchestration, and Brian Ray on guitars, bass, and drum. Their work is produced by TKO Brothers. Nancy Foust, the best baseball stadium organist ever, is responsible for the satirical and pithy musical comments. The sports theme is from the old Olbermann show on ESPN2, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group. No horns allowed. And my announcer today was my friend Kenny Main, who was also produced by ESPN2 at least. Originally, this program was produced by Ted. Everything else was, as always, my fault. That's Countdown for today. Day 453 of America held hostage again, but exactly 1000 days. 1000 until the scheduled end of his

[Keith Olbermann (alternate or extended commentary)]

lame duck and lame brained term. As of tomorrow, we have made it

[Keith Olbermann]

to just triple digits. Hooray for us. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Bulletins as the news merits. Until that next one, I'm Keith Olbermann. Good morning, good afternoon, good night and good luck. Countdown with Keith Ulberman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Keith Olbermann]

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[Keith Olbermann]

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