← Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Loading summary
Transcript43 lines
- [00:00]
Keith Olbermann
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Time for a sofa upgrade. Visit washablesofas.com and discover Annabe where designer style meets budget friendly prices. With sofas starting at $699, Annabe brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly. Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anime is the only machine washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain resistant fabrics that cleaning easy liquid simply slides right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high resilience foam lets you choose between a sink in feel or a supportive memory foam blend. Plus our pet friendly stain resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality for price. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your living space today with no risk returns and a 30 day money back guarantee. Get up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions Good morning.
- [01:06]
Today Show Host
Welcome to today. From back to school to tackling your to do list, the Today show is your best start to the day. It's a new season and every morning we're here to help you take it all on. As the forecast calls for football all across the country, blockbuster stars, live concerts, and so much more. Wake up to where it's all happening.
- [01:25]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
We're getting back to all of it and the best way to start is together.
- [01:30]
Today Show Host
Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC.
- [01:35]
Brian Christopher
The U.S. electric grid is approaching a breaking point. As demand soars from data centers and home energy use, our aging infrastructure can't keep up. And the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn more@propain.com hey, it's Brian Christopher.
- [02:07]
Today Show Host
Ready to chill this summer? You're in luck. I'm hanging out at Champa Casino and you're in for a treat. Chillax. With hundreds of games, daily bonuses, exciting spins and epic prizes, it's all here. Always free to play, kick back, have fun and head to chumpacasino.com let's make this summer legendary. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group Void where prohibited by law. CTNC's 21 + Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartRadio Protect Elon Musk at all costs. Also indict Elon Musk now. Also, don't let Elon Musk leave the White House. Yeah, I know someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional. I'm an artist since Tuesday night. Anyway, three opposing viewpoints. For two days now, I've been wondering whether to try to get Elon Musk arrested in Wisconsin or to send him a gift basket of ketamine and acid, all the while meanwhile, fearing that Politico is right and even Trump now realizes Musk couldn't be helping us more if he were actually George Soros in a Musk mask. And Trump has told cabinet members they're going to phase Musk out by the end of May. And first, the press secretary of softball scholarships denied this, but by late yesterday, the fascists were leaking it out via Murdoch's New York Post. Musk is on the way out. No, no, no. No more Musk. Give him all the drugs that he can do. Cuz all he wants to do is. All he wants to do is dance while wearing a cheese head and shaking the Trump cult out of its hypnotized coma. Sure, it's a felony to offer people money to vote or to not vote or to vote your way. And sure, he offered two giant $1 million checks. And sure, he offered $20 bills for selfies, holding up photos of the unabashed fascist MAGA judge candidate at the polling places where it is illegal to campaign like that. On the other hand, if all that didn't win us the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, I don't know what could have. Oh, wait, maybe it was when Musk went on Fox and said losing this judge race has good chance of causing Republicans to lose control of the House. You lose control of the House, there will be nonstop impeachment hearings and subpoenas and America, real America, democracy America, heard that and said yes, God damn it. Yes, exactly. You, sir, are the son of a bitch we've been looking for all this time. Yes, Republicans lose the House, nonstop impeachment hearings and subpoenas. Woo. Effing. Ooh, send that man some horse. I think Elon Musk doesn't really know it yet. Couldn't understand it if he did. Can't intuitively process America or any polyglot. Society is so far inside his own bubble that he never has to confront anybody who would tell him any of this. But he may be our way out of Trump. What we saw Tuesday night was America versus Elon Musk, democracy versus Elon Musk. Life versus Elon Musk. Just when the anti Trump message has been repeated so often that it barely registers with you and me, worn down with a decade of that stupid son of a bitch Trump and that stupid son of a bitch Trump somehow finds an even stupider son of a bitch named Musk. And Musk has all of Trump's failures. Plus that apartheid accent and the pastiness of the Ozempic addict and the onstage rhythm of a victim of St. Vitus's dance. Can we run against Elon Musk not only in Wisconsin, please can we run against Elon Musk everywhere? You know what Elon Musk's disapproval number is among Democrats in Wisconsin now? It's 97%. 97%. You can't get 97% of Democrats to agree. How to spell the word Democrats? 97% disapproval. He's 94 points underwater on approval. More Musk spending more millions more Musk outspending George Soro 10 to 1. I want Musk in every House and Senate race in this country next year. I want him trying to buy the school board of Hastings on Hudson, New York. I want him in a cheesehead in Wisconsin and in foam cowboy hats in Texas and in Gulf of America trucker caps near the Gulf of Mexico. And now he may be leaving the White House. There is still hope. The Musk is on the way out story evolved this way yesterday. Yesterday morning Politico reported, quote, Trump has told his inner circle, including members of his cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man, and that this would be pegged to the deadline to terminate the so called special government employees. They're only allowed 130 days. That would be May 30th unless the drugs were to put somebody in suspended animation or something. I guess that, however, is just the excuse. This is not tied to SGE 130 day limits. It's tied in fact to Elise Stefanik, Politico again, quote, trump is increasingly mindful of next year's midterms and making sure he doesn't jeopardize his House majority. He's kept a careful eye on the town hall outrage over Doge even as Republicans have chalked those scenes up to coordinated liberal stagecraft. His discussions about next steps for Musk came just days before he grew so worried about the GOP's narrow House margin that he withdrew New York Rep. Elise Stefanik's nomination to be ambassador to the UN. This has nothing to do with 130 days. This has something to do with a two vote margin. By late afternoon yesterday, one Trump minion had told another Trump minion to print in the New York Post a story headlined the real reason behind Elon Musk's departure from Doge and why it was always part of the plan. That's the story. That sentence repeated again and again with different constructions, that it was always to be four months and out. White House sources said the plan has always been to let Musk return to civilian life after his SGE status expires. Bullshit. This is the first time they've mentioned this. And anyway, as I said, there is hope. Politico. One senior administration official said Musk is likely to retain an informal role as an advisor and continue to be an occasional fellow face around the White House crowds. Oh, thank Jesus. Another caution that anyone who thinks Musk is going to disappear entirely from Trump's orbit is fooling themselves. Great. I promise I won't fool myself. Keep him around photo ops, nothing of substance. Just keep his great uncontrollable ego and his perpetual fugue state front and center often enough that the Democrats can keep running against him until at least the midterms. And if Trump stops pushing Musk, if Musk stops blowing up like some of his own rockets, we have to take over. We then have to keep rebuilding the link between the two of them, shackled to a corpse, each of them. Musk and Trump. Musk and Trump. Trump and Musk. Trusk and Mump truck and Mumps. Yeah, I want Elon Musk indicted in Wisconsin because I want them all indicted in Wisconsin and 49 other states. I want Stephen Miller on the next plane to effing El Salvador. But more than that, I want Elon Musk to win all our races for us. And if he's gonna do that, he's gonna need our help one way or the other. Informal or still at dz, he's going to need that little extra to keep him campaigning 24 7. The Trump part is easy. Just keep Trump convinced Musk is funneling attention to Trump and Trump will make sure he grabs him whenever possible. But Musk himself, Musk's going to need all the drugs he can find. So won't you help? Won't you gather all the drugs you can find and send them on to him More Musk all Musk, all the time. Musk today, Musk tomorrow, Musk forever. I want Musk's face with that crooked eyes, unfocused the stuff just kicked in smirk of his visible at every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, hen house, outhouse, doghouse and white house in America. In light of the first 10 minutes of today's podcast, I would like to point out that I was the breaking news anchor for MSN, and for one week, about 20 years ago, every night I was on for six hours talking about how the Pope was dying. Not with that inflection. All right, let me explain some of the other headlines briefly. Trump's day of liberation actually means his liberation from paying taxes. That is the substance to this, though the root cause in Trump's brain dead head for tariffs is far dumber. 10% tariffs on all trading partners, 54% on China, 24% for the European Union, which Trump still thinks is a country. 26 on India, ET cetera. After hours. Gee whiz, who would have expected this? The market crashed, which is not just the standard response from betrayed Trump supporters. I didn't expect him to eat my face. This is something beyond that. This is other leopards learning that the leopard eating faces party are also cannibals and will eat leopards faces too. This will not end well for Trump. And just how not. Well, we will get an idea very quickly. I might actually watch the opening bell of the stock market for the first time in my life just to see if some fascist CEO unfurls a flag that reads impeach Trump today. Tariffs are madness, of course. They will destroy tourism to this country, probably raise domestic prices 5 to 10%, kill international trade, destroy American farming worldwide. Depression. Absolutely possible now. And the ultimate reason for doing this, as he learned to mimic human behavior, which is, as we know, not natural to Trump. Trump obviously and early on in his existence became fixated with the idea and the color of gold. He doesn't really understand gold. He does not know the difference between gold and gold plate, or gold plastic and gold rust oleum, which is why his buildings look like that. So cheap and why his bronzer looks so bad and why his hair looks so fake. It's one of the reasons people who knew him believed in the pee tape, the color. So the 1890s he found out, and apparently relatively recently, or he just remembered it recently, were called the Gilded Age Gilded gold cupboard. And it sort of looks like the word gold Guild gold, gold gil Gold good, 1890s good. 1890s gold rich, super rich. No taxes in the 1890s, only tariffs. So bring back tariffs. Big tariffs, Big beautiful tariffs. Bingo. 54% tariff on Chinese goods. Because this human like multi Celled parasite once learned Gold. Good. Okay. The disappearing by our government of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. They sent a man who was legally entitled to be here, whom this country, in fact ruled during Trump's first presidency. We were protecting from going back to El Salvador because he would be tortured and killed there. And Trump sent him back because of what they now claim is a clerical error by ice, which it cannot correct because it can't force El Salvador to return him. Which is bullshit because all it has to do is threaten to money off going to the corrupt El salvador strongman. And Mr. Abrego will be home for breakfast. And if Tom Homan and Pete Hegseth and the insufferable child JV Vance and that inflatable rubber device known as Kristi Noem claim they can't extract him, you go to them and you say you get him back or you have to go get him personally. They are still doing this deliberately to that man and others because it's part of the plan. And there is no legal retribution against these scumbags, especially in this deviant flotation device Gnome. That will be too extreme, and it will come soon or late. Hope you got a good look at that prison, Christie. Poor Mr. Abrego was in line looking for day labor in 2019, and the cops picked him up. And they claimed a confidential informant who may or may not have ever existed, said he was in the MS.13 gang in another state in which the man never lived. And they claim this because he was wearing Chicago Bulls clothing, which is really bad news for, like, Michael Jordan. I want Tom Holman and Kristi Noem and J.D. vance, who is still slandering this man. I want them in the El Salvadoran prison instead of Mr. Briggs. And in 2029, I want the President to say, ah, well, they're in there now. I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do about getting them back. They're out of our control now. The president in 2029. President Booker. Sure, that's fine. President Ocasio Cortez. President. President. Whoever is narcing on Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth, I'll take him. That is not over. Leaks last week about Hegseth bringing the wife to sensitive international intelligence meetings. Leaks this week about WA and staff using Gmail for technical conversations and for his schedule. Once again, amateurs like Waltz and Hegseth don't realize that your schedule tells the spies when you will be somewhere and when other people will be somewhere. In case, you know, they want to blow you up or just to access all the places you won't be. And don't tell me that your Gmail is secure. I once heard from the Gmail people that the Russian state actors had hacked my Gmail Waltz and Hegseth is not over and the third term stuff is not over. Again. A reminder, this is not going to be a bid to let any president get a third term. This will only be Trump, not Obama, not Clinton, not Bush, just Trump and Grover Cleveland who's been dead since 1908, whether on the non consecutive terms bullshit or some other bullshit Sam Alito dreams of and Lawrence Tribe has another hole in the defensive line they can drive a Mack truck through just to haunt your dreams a little further. Quoting him anyone discounting a third Trump term per the 22nd amendment and the 12th amendment is thinking magically the 22nd doesn't bar serving a third term only being elected three times. The 12th doesn' running for VP unless ineligible to serve as President. But Trump isn't ineligible. Qed so like last year, the easiest scenario Trump runs says try and stop me and his Supreme Court doesn't. And Trump can almost taste this. I mean, listen to him. He's dying to say it.
- [20:45]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
You said you were not joking about a third term, about possibly wanting a third term. Does that mean you're not planning to leave office on June?
- [20:53]
Today Show Host
I'm not looking at that. But I'll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which is in a way a fourth term. Because the other election, the 2020 election, was totally rigged. So it's actually sort of a fourth term in a certain way. I just don't want the credit for the second because Biden was so bad. He did such a bad job. And I think that's one of the reasons that I'm popular. If you want to know the trut and from what passes for our news media and our serene political discourse, Bill Maher has lost whatever small amount of self control he had left. Oh my God. Just as Maher is killing off every last one of his fans with his tiny bare hands, Bill thinks he's some kind of healing deity from Fox and the statesman who made all this happen. Ambassador Kid Rock Trump took Maher at the White House Monday night to see the Lincoln Bedroom and to see a copy of the Gettysburg Address. Bill, I hate to break this to you at this late date, but as a member of the class of Cornell 79 and you as a member of the class of Cornell 78, you do know that Cornell has had a copy of the Gettysburg Address hand copied by Lincoln at the request of Ambassador George Bancroft. They've had it since the 19th century. It was in a house at Cornell. Bancroft's grandson. And then they bought it back and it was donated and they keep it right now under Uris Library, and they show it to classes at Cornell. But, but, but of course, you never went to class. And, and they also show it, though. They show it to alumni they like.
- [22:49]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Oh.
- [22:53]
Today Show Host
Okay, ego trip over. This is the operative part from Fox. Kid Rock said that he told Mar before the meeting, some of this Hollywood stuff, it would be great for you to get thrown out. Probably be great for you to double down. You know, I can't stand this guy Mar. Kid Rock said, told him. I'm not going to sabotage something that could potentially bring us and other people together. Oh, my God. It's the beginning of the predicted 2000 years of universal peace when Bill Maher and Donald Trump are brought together and they unzip and stage an actual battle with their tiny little egos. I'm not going to sabotage something that could potentially bring us and other people together. Oh, God, Bill, for crying out loud. If you just tell the truth and say, look, my new boss is this idiot David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery and the fascists who now own CNN and HBO and him, and if I don't go as far pro Trump as I can, they'll fire me and they'll replace me with, With. With Chris Cuomo or somebody who's an even bigger whore than I am. Just admit it and we go, fine, we get it. Go ahead. Nobody's watching anyway. Chris Cuomo on stage on Long island with what used to be Bill O'Reilly and the new giant of American political analysis, Stephen A. Smith. Three Americans, they called this. This is how little Stephen A. Smith knows of the world going on around him. He attacked Bill O'Reilly on stage, which, trust me, was pretty much exhausted by the year 2011. You and I got into it when we were on Cuomo's show a couple of weeks ago, Steve Bannon comes on national television with a straight face first and then smirk thereafter, talking about violating the Constitution of the United States, the 22nd Amendment. Two terms, he said. 3. Chris Cuomo says, Yo, you understand what the 22nd Amendment says, right? He said, yeah, no, we're working on it. Everybody just glosses over it. That's right, Stephen. Everybody's been glossing over it. No, but nobody's been talking about Trump's claims, plots to get a third term. Nobody's been mentioning this other than all of us who've been saying it since 2015, or the actual movement within the conservative ranks and the scholarly reinterpretations of the 22nd Amendment that began on the far right in 2023 to get him a third term. Just you. You're the first one who noticed. Stephen also reports there's something called the National Basketball Association. Thank you for mentioning that, Stephen. None of the rest of us do. Although I'm beginning to smell a new host for HBO Real Time with Stephen A. Smith. Or put him on MSNBC in the mornings. God knows it's that or cartoons in black and white. From Oliver Darcy's status, the quarter one ratings are in for cable news. Ooh. MSNBC averaged 1.02 million viewers in prime time, down 18% year over year. CNN averaged 558,000 viewers in prime, down 6% over the same period. One interesting nugget. I'm told that CNN's News Central beat MSNBC's Morning Joe in the advertiser coveted 25 to 54 demographic for the first time since 2022. A sign Oliver is really in self control here. A sign that the Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski led show still hasn't recovered after the Mar a Lago pilgrimage aimed at cozying up to Trump. Let me give you a quick pro tip. It's not going to recover. They're going to have to fire Joe Scarborough or at least bring in a new Joe Scarborough. Somebody else playing the role of Joe Scarborough. Call Lawrence o' Donnell Joe Scarborough. Who will notice the difference except Mika. Maybe the Morning Joe ratings have always been bad. They are what a loss leader. That's a very niche audience. Everybody in that niche. It's like the White House correspondents dinner with more lights and better food I might add. That's true. True. But below cnn, this is how bad it is. I have been in television since 1981. I started at CNN in 1981 in its second full year and as I'm reading this I went Wait, CNN's morning show is called News Central? Since when? I didn't even know the name of the show and it's now beating Morning Joe. The name of the CNN morning show could have been CNN Tonight and I would have went oh, it's novel. Below CNN is amazing. But the MSN Vichy morning show is not sufficient to explain the overall collapse here, averaging 1.02 million in prime time. Total viewers in prime time. That's like what we were doing in 2004, the new company and whoever is buying it or going to buy it wants this. That's the point. They're tanking it. They're tanking it the way Warner Bros. Tanked cnn. And Maher, whether he knows it or not, the way Maher is tanking. There's one more move MSNBC can make to seal the deal. No, it's not Stephen A. Smith. I think he should be doing the CBS Evening News, actually. Chuck Todd in the mornings. I'm serious. No, I'm not serious. But there was a New York Times story yesterday about Chuck. A scoop they claimed. I've read it three times. I still don't get it though. I think now if you told me that Chuck Todd has spent all this time writing all headlines in the New York Times, those both sidesist headlines, I would believe you. And the Payoff was this 1314 paragraph story about. I still don't know what this story is about. Quote. After leaving the corporate home of Meet the Press in January, he got fired. Mr. Todd is embarking on a career as a media entrepreneur. He has a podcast and a YouTube channel. I've had a podcast for two and a half years. I've had a YouTube channel for five years and guess what? I am not. I'm not a media entrepreneur. I have a podcast and a YouTube channel. This makes me part of the majority in this country, I believe. He has a podcast and a YouTube channel and plans to hire other hosts for a podcast and video network focused on politics and culture. He also said he was working with an advisor from a major financial firm to build or acquire a company focused on Community News. Mr. Todd's business plan, the Times goes on, calls for a constellation of local sites owned by their communities, like his beloved Green Bay packers and anchored by coverage of local youth sports, local ute sports utes. The growing popularity of athletics and their importance to families who view them as a gateway to college make them an ideal subject to build around. No matter your politics, Mr. Todd said, you care about local coverage of your child's latest game. Like all parents, Chuck thinks everybody else is also a parent. The number of kids in scholastic sports in this country is approximately 175 million. No, it's 8 million. 8 million kids. High school and grammar school sports and college. 8 million. If a quarter of all parents of scholastic athletes in this country use Chuck's network of websites, that's 4 million people. If it's a brilliant, almost total success, the ceiling is 4 million people. Maybe. And here is, here is what he thinks that's worth. Mr. Todd and the bank he is working with are eyeing a purchase that could cost up to $2 billion, he said. He declined to say whether he had lined up any backers or specify the company they were looking at. But he ruled out major newspaper publishers. You know what major newspapers you could get for $2 billion? All of them. That's $2 billion for podcasts or websites about high school sports scores or podcasts where the first guest is as his first podcast guess was John Fetterman couldn't get Chris Cuomo and Stephen A. Smith $2 billion for podcasts. Chuck, for $2 billion, you better be getting 2 billion podcasts. Ah, also of interest here. If we're gonna talk about Chuck, I'm gonna talk about Chuck about when then I hit the wall and had enough of him. It's going on six years now. I'm very proud. I was a trendsetter because this is the way he thinks. He thinks he can get $2 billion to go into this new field of podcasting about high school sports. Everybody has a kid playing sports. Also ahead, one of the worst human beings of the 20th century is now dead. He transcends the stories of transphobia, politics, sports, fascism, television news, Renee Richards and Tucker Carlson. He's part of all of those stories, and he's dead. And I unapologetically say I'm glad because I'm a believer in for whom the veil tolls. But I will remain until my death unconvinced. This guy was ever actually for one minute, a human being. That's next. This is countdown.
- [34:39]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with anabe, you never have to stress about Messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Anibe Sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out. Starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Good morning.
- [35:39]
Today Show Host
Welcome to today from back to school to tackling your to do list. The Today show is your best start to the day. It's a new season and every morning morning, we're here to help you take it all on as the forecast calls for football all across the country, blockbuster stars, live concerts, and so much more. Wake up to where it's all happening.
- [35:59]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
We're getting back to all of it and the best way to start is together.
- [36:03]
Today Show Host
Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC.
- [36:09]
Brian Christopher
The U.S. electric grid is approaching a breaking point as demand soars from data centers and home energy use our aging infrastructure can't keep. And the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn more@probane.com hello, it is Ryan.
- [36:40]
Ryan
And we could all use an extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we? Just to make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes, counting your steps, you know, know all the mundane stuff. That is why I'm such a big fan of Chumba Casino. Chumba Casino has all your favorite social casino style games that you can play for free, anytime, anywhere with daily bonuses. So sign up now@chumbacasino.com that's chumbacasino.com no.
- [37:04]
Today Show Host
Purchase necessary vgw group void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply. This is Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Still ahead in this new edition of Countdown. Well, I mentioned Chuck Todd, podcast billionaire. He owns a mansion and a yacht. He's going to start a 2 billion dollar podcast network based on high school sports scores or something. I wasn't quite clear and I read the article 113 times. But it has to be true. It's in the New York Times. And I think we finally now know who's been writing all those headlines in the New York Times these last few plague years. It's been Chuck Todd. Have I ever told you my Chuck Todd story? Actually, I have. Well, eff it. I'm gonna tell it to you again in things I promise not to tell Next. First, believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscreants, morons and dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute the latest other worst persons in the world. Here are the nominees. The bronze Worst BBC News. Now I'm kind of soft pedaling this, because if I thought it was not an accident, just a one of those things, I would have led the show with it. As you know, there are at least 2,500 people dead in Myanmar after the horrible earthquake that was so destructive it knocked down buildings in Thailand, one of the most affected cities in Myanmar. And details are still being withheld by the military dictatorship. There is Mandalay. If you know anything about Mandalay, if you've heard the name of the city of Mandalay, it's probably from a song. There is a Rudyard Kipling poem On the Road to Mandalay from 1890 that they set to music 20 years later. And it is classic British imperialist cornball nonsense with lyrics centered around on the Road to Mandalay. I won't sing the whole thing, but it's on the road to Mandalay where the flying fishies play and the dawn comes up like thunder Outer China cross the bay on the road to Mandalay Then there was another song called the Road to Mandalay by Robbie Williams, like 20 years ago. And the same lyric is in that. That totally different context. On the road to Mandalay. So this is the key to the thing, that there are songs that have been sung for literally 115 years that have this lyric on the road to mandalay. So the BBC's otherwise extraordinary report, including hard to smuggle out video of Myanmar after the earthquake, their report on Tuesday from their correspondent, somehow reporting from behind the lines, opened with that reporter narrating video of the destruction that was shot from a moving vehicle. And he began with the opening line was on the road to Mandalay. And I bet a million viewers worldwide involuntarily thought, where the flying fishies play. It's not what you want to think during a terrible earthquake aftermath, but there it is. As I said, I'm sure it had to have been accidental. So I'm leaving the reporter's name out, but somebody still should have said, no, no, just erase that opening line or cut out the on. So he just says the Road to Mandalay. I mean, that's kind of an invocation of the line, but it's not. I'm going to start this tragic story with a quotation from a song from two songs. To be fair, as I said, I'm sure it's an accident. The reporter, not a native English speaker, was in fact on the Road to Mandalay, the runner up, worser Matt Taibbi, who has no such excuse. You remember him when he was an independent journalist, before he became a stooge for Elon Musk, who then did Musk's bidding, then got banished by Musk and is now on the fringes of right wing conspiracy theory. It's a shame. He was a good kid. He did good work for me on Countdown. His dad was a great reporter. He's turned into like Joe Paranoia. In a great illustration of what Democrats should do when the fascists staged their show hearings in Congress over bullshit California Congresswoman Sidney Kamlagher Dove decided to have Matt Taibbi for lunch here. They have called him to testify as they turned the first hearing of the subcommittee on south and Central Asia into instead a hearing on how conservatives are are censored. This is the fifth of these hearings they've already had into how they never get to talk at hearings after this from Congresswoman Kanlagger Dove. I don't think Matt Taibbi will be willing to testify at any more of these God damned hearings.
- [42:53]
Keith Olbermann
Majority is relitigating a made up conspiracy theory about a part of the State Department that no longer exists to distract from the dumpster fire foreign policy this administration is pursuing and elevating a serial sexual harasser as their star witness in the process. Mr. Chair, I request unanimous consent to enter into the record two articles about the Republican witness Matt Taibi. The first is a Chicago Reader article entitled 20 Years Ago in Moscow, Matt Taibbi was a misogynist, a hole and possibly worse. And a Washington Post article titled the two Expat Bros who terrorized women Correspondents in Moscow. Without objection, this hearing could not be more out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans. People's retirement savings are being decimated as Trump's arbitrary temper tariffs tank the stock market. They are staring down the barrel of cuts to their Social Security and Medicare care because the Republican majority wants to give a tax break to billionaires like Elon Musk who have deep financial ties to our adversaries. Meanwhile, Trump is siding with Putin against our national security interests and risking the lives of American soldiers in a signal group chat. I've been to the State Department and I do have concerns about censorship. Censorship of the employees who are terrified to say the wrong thing, to say anything or have the wrong word in their job title and be terminated by an administration that publicly relishes punishing people for their speech. If we want to talk about censorship, we should begin with Trump's unprecedented assault on the First Amendment and rule of law.
- [44:34]
Today Show Host
Hey Matt, were all those clippings in the Twitter files, huh, bro, we'll help you scoop the rest of your reputation. Up with this spoon and this terrine, and you can just carry it out with you. But the winner, the worst, a man named Richard Carlson. You've never heard of Richard Carlson, but a long time ago, he was a scumbag posing as a journalist in TV in California, mostly San Diego and la. As the New York Times noted the other day, Carlson, quote, collaborated with another journalist, Lance Brisson, on an expose for look magazine in 1969 that accused Mayor Joseph Alioto of San Francisco of having ties to mafia figures. Mr. Aliotto sued Look's owner, Cowles Communications, for libel. In 1977, six years after look magazine had folded, and following four trials in federal court, a judge awarded Mr. Aliotto $350,000 in damages. Mr. Carlson and Mr. Burson were not defendants. In 1975, Mr. Carlson Carlson exposed a transgender automobile executive on TV in Los Angeles, even though the real story was all the lies about her claims about her special car that got, I don't know, 70 miles per gallon. So she sued, too. And when Carlson testified against her, he continually referred to this woman as he and him after he got fired in la. After that, he had to move down to San Diego as a sportscaster. Somebody told him that the doctor who just won a local women's tennis tournament was also transgender. So he phoned her and said he was going to expose her on his Sportscast. She replied, Mr. Carlson, I am a private person. You can't do that. He replied, Dr. Richards, you were until you won that tournament in La Jolla yesterday. She pleaded with him to respect her privacy. He went on the air anyway and announced, a man has just won the La Jolla women's tennis tournament. She hurriedly called a news conference and had to explain not just her story to the media, but the premise of transsexuals and transgenders as a whole, because then people didn't really understand what it was all about. Her name is Dr. Renee Richards, and to this day, she remains not only one of the very best doctors I've ever had the privilege to consult, she's eyes specialist, although she just retired at the age of 90. Eye muscles and eye muscle surgery. The best in the world, probably. I've known her 43 years, but she's also one of the best and funniest people I've ever known. And she taught me more about what it is. Like when one of us does a story on. Somebody taught me, yeah, it's my story, but guess what? It's their life. You've got to try to consider that I am happy to say I had the privilege of informing Rene Richards that Richard Carlson is now dead. He died March 24. She was dignified and restrained and did not even make a big deal out of the fact that she won. I did. Maybe she didn't because she and the rest of the world knew that this bad, unqualified, unprincipled, unsuccessful, successful, hate filled, dead bastard did something even worse than involuntarily outing transsexual women and then trying to make up excuses for some public right to know for doing so about tennis. Richard Carlson did something worse than that because Richard Carlson was the father of Tucker Carlson, probably more of a fascist and probably more unhinged and dangerous even than his sick dead father. I would add that under ordinary circumstances it is disturbing to feel oneself expressing anything but sadness at the death of another human being or at the mourning of those humans they have left behind. But you would first have to convince me that Richard and Tucker Carlson were ever human beings before I would feel that way. I feel none of what I normally do. None of this for whom the bell tolls stuff. That bell is not tolling for me. Richard Carlson left television a year after he outed Renee. He later told San Diego Magazine that he considered television news, quote, insipid, sophomoric and superficial. Oddly, that's a pretty good summary of his life and his sons put it this way, Renee Richards was twice the the man that Richard Carlson ever was and probably 200 times the woman Richard Dick Carlson. And the name Dick was just a remarkable coincidence. I will note that though he died on March 24, his son announced it over last weekend and it got wide public play this past Monday, which was the National Transgender Day of Visibility. Revenge is a dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold. Dick Carlson, today's worst person in the world. Well, not really. He's not here anymore, is he? So at least that corner of this country is now better.
- [50:11]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Time for a sofa upgrade. Visit washablesofas.com and discover Annabe where designer style meets budget friendly prices. With sofas starting at $699, Anabe brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly. Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anibe is the only machine washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy. Liquid simply slides right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high resilience foam lets you choose between a sink in feel or a supportive memory foam blend plus our pet friendly stain resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality for price. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your living space today with no risk returns and a 30 day money back guarantee. Get up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Good morning.
- [51:12]
Today Show Host
Welcome to today. From back to school to tackling your to do list, the Today show is your best start to the day. It's a new season and every morning we're here to help you take it all on as the forecast calls for football all across the country, blockbuster stars, live concerts, and so much more. Wake up to where it's all happening.
- [51:32]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
We're getting back to all of it and the best way to start is together.
- [51:36]
Today Show Host
Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC.
- [51:41]
Brian Christopher
The U.S. electric grid is approaching a breaking point as demand soars from data centers and home energy use our aging infrastructure can't keep. And the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn more@probane.com hey, it's Brian Christopher.
- [52:13]
Today Show Host
Ready to chill the summer? You're in luck. I'm hanging out at Chumpa Casino and you're in for a trip. Greet Chillax with hundreds of games, daily bonuses, exciting spins and epic prizes. It's all here. Always free to play. Kick back, have fun and head to chumbacasino.com let's make this summer legendary. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group Void where prohibited by law. CTNCs 21 + it is unlikely that you have ever been able to do anything about Chuck Todd. So I wanted to tell you of the day that I did do something about him. That day was August 11, 2019. I knew Chuck for about 15 years, early in his career when he was with the DC Insider publication the Hotline. He was a frequent guest on countdown and in 2007, when Tim Russert was thinking of hiring him at NBC News, mine was one of dozens of temperatures Tim took. As Chuck later wrote to me, you certainly were a tremendous advocate and cheerleader for me over the years and I don't forget that. Yeah, well, that wasn't true. He forgot it all right, but I'm veering away from the main story. In 2008, a couple of Washington political types started a fantasy football league. If you don't think fantasy football leagues are important, you should know that last spring, a major league baseball player in uniform walked up to another major league baseball player in uniform on a major league baseball field with thousands of people already in the stands, and he slapped him in the face over a roster move that the second player had made in their fantasy football league. The second guy had managed to retain the rights to an injured player, and the first guy was upset about this. So six months after their fantasy season ended, this major league baseball player walked up and slapped the other major league baseball player player. If slaps or duels or kidnappings are not everyday occurrences in fantasy football, they do represent the kind of baseline intensity of the thing. So when I and others were approached about this Washington centric league in 2008, it was already a big deal, even before we were all sworn to secrecy because a spot in the league was being held open for some DC guy named Barack Obama. It turned out he did not join our league. Some excuse about too much work when obviously he was just afraid of my fantasy football skills. But some people in his White House did join the league, and I still will not identify them because the premise of this league was the first rule of fantasy football club is you do not talk about fantasy football club. I will say that Chuck Todd, like me, was an original player. We call ourselves owners because we are nuts and it's a fantasy. It's in the title fantasy football, Fantasy football owners. And one year, I think it was 2010, I had assembled in this league, mostly by accident, a team that was almost perfect. It literally lost one game all season, and that was in the middle of the year to Chuck Todd's team. And the night after I lost to Chuck Todd's team, he was giving a speech, I think, at the University of Virginia. And witnesses called to tell me that. He began his speech by saying, I have much to tell you, but first I have to tell you that I am in a fantasy football league with Keith Olbermann, and he has a great team this year. And I upset him by a final score of 143 to 141 or whatever the score was. I thought it was pretty dumb. But by 2010, Chuck was the NBC News White House correspondent, and we all cringed whenever we saw he was going to be on with one of us on msnbc. See, some people respond well to pressure and success, and some people do not. And Some people become entirely different people. So when Chuck violated the prime directive of this fantasy football league and talked about it, I shrugged. The other guys in the league did not. Chuck was actually punished. The commissioner of the league ordered that he had to skip his fourth choice in the following year's player draft. Chuck was bereft. He believed this would destroy his chances. He apologized to me like every week. And finally I said, you know guys, maybe this is too much. And as the supposed victim in the equation, I got final say and Chuck got keep his fourth draft choice. By 2016, Chuck was. Because Tim Russert died, Tom Brokaw retired, and David Gregory flamed out. Chuck was the host of Meet the Press. He was also political director of NBC News and other part of Russert's old portfolio. But whereas Tim was a master who could convince the Republicans, he was ordering that I be punished for what I said, when in fact he would be calling me and asking me what stupid, meaningless thing I could think of to tell the Republicans he was punishing me with or for. He was sublime. Subtlety, not Chuck. No subtlety there. In 2016, Chuck was preparing to not name my ex libin girlfriend Katie Turr as the new NBC White House correspondent, even though she had suffered as the primary NBC correspondent covering the Trump campaign. And out of nowhere, Chuck emails me that he's going to be in New York and he wants to take me to dinner. I had known him more than a decade by then. We had never as much as shared pieces of the same pizza. I had not seen him in the flesh in more than than five years. And I knew as we sat down that Chuck's idea was to get me to tell Katie that she was not gonna be White House correspondent. So he did not have to. He kept bringing it up. What do you think Katie would think? And then I'd switch the topic to fantasy football. And then he'd say, but let me ask you about Katie in the White House job. We did this for 90 minutes. And finally I said, okay, Chuck, I've avoided it long enough. Maybe I could call her and soften the blow for her. And that's when he said, said, well, I'm going back to D.C. tonight, so if I want to catch that last train, I better leave. Bye. Chuck is not subtle. I'll spare you the other crap from the fantasy league. Suffice to say I was reminded of how annoyingly and obviously he used to conduct himself. When I read that last May, one of Chuck's guest bookers for the now no longer on TV Meet the Press Daily show had emailed the office of Alaska Congressman Don Young, hoping to get Young to appear the next day, which would have been the ultimate great guest get, because Don Young had died two months earlier. Anyway, this fantasy football league was fun and unique in that there had only been one change in its composition in all that time. Chuck's team defeated mine in the fantasy football super bowl one year. And mostly he was just annoying, like he was on the air. Nothing worse than that. And then on June 19, 2019, Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Cortez, AOC ripped the Trump administration's migrant policies. She said, quote, the United States is running concentration camps on our southern border. And that is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps, end quote. Chuck went on MSNBC and said the following in response, quote, you can call our government's detention of migrants many things depending on how you see it. It's a stain on our nation, maybe a necessary evil to others to deal with an untenable situation. Perhaps. But do you know what you can't call? Chuck then played the clip of AOC calling it concentration camps. And Chuck resumed, if you want to criticize the shameful treatment of people at our southern border, fine. You'll have plenty of company. But be careful comparing them to Nazi concentration camps, because they're not at all comparable in the slightest. A lot of people, me included, were stunned. Ocasio Cortez never mentioned the Nazis. And concentration camps did not begin with the Nazis or Hitler. They began with the British in the Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Yet here was Chuck putting a word in her mouth and that word was Nazi. And then he attacked her for something she never said. He lied about her. He lied. Chuck Todd made it up on the news. I was furious enough to email him that night. I thought by now somebody at NBC would have pointed out that concentration camps and Nazi death camps are not the same thing. But no. NBC had simply tweeted out the clip of Chuck lying about the congresswoman and putting the word Nazi in her mouth as if it were something NBC News should be proud of. Chuck was furious at me. He emailed back, come on, own up. That she invoked the wrong image and should have simply walked the imagery back. I wrote him back that the person who had to walk back imagery here was him, since he had said Nazi and she had not said Nazi. On my angriest day, he now replied, I'd like to think I treated you with more respect than this. Sad. I Feel like we won't recover from this. And we had recovered from a lot. I wrote back to Chuck that we weren't going to recover from anything if he insisted that all concentration camps were Nazi death camps and that somebody who never said Nazis owed somebody else an apology. For what? Not saying Nazis. There was no getting past the reality that Chuck had no idea that he was 100% in the wrong here. Historically wrong, factually wrong, ethically wrong. Not a leg to stand on. So I, of course, began to contemplate the year ahead in fantasy football. I couldn't face it. I'm sorry. I let real life and fantasy sports mix, and I just. I just couldn't spend another autumn having to deal with Chuck tomorrow. Chuck had often said that he was now just too busy to play in the league anymore and he would have to leave it this year. So on August 11, 2019, more in sadness than in anger, I asked the commissioner of the league if Chuck was coming back for the 2019 season. I don't know, maybe not, was the answer. I said, look, this is not him or me. I'm not asking you to not let him come back. It's not like that. But if he tells you one way or the other, let me know, because I just can't stand another year of him. He takes all the fun of it out of it for me. I understand, said the commissioner. It's a shame, but why do it if it's not fun? At 8am on the morning of August 14, 2019, the official email notifying everybody of the new fantasy football season went out. I was not listed among the players. 19 minutes later, I got an email from Chuck Todd. Subject line, it's just a game. Content quote, just play. I won't speak to you. And please do me the same courtesy. Grow the F up. And no, I am not ed editing this. He really wrote, grow the f up. I wrote back that I thought he'd become part of the problem that imperils our nation and I didn't want to have anything more to do with him. I ended it with, quote, do not contact me again. At 10:13am he contacted me again. Amazing how you believe what you believe about me. I'm sorry for ever helping you get credibility. I did not reply. At 10:18, he wrote me again. Again. Again. I'm happy to never speak with you again. I'd prefer to pretend you don't exist. Don't make me care about you. Oh, boy. When Chuck Todd asks you to not make him care about you, you are in deep and dangerous waters. Boy. Another chuck email at 1029. You are truly a tiny little man. I don't even feel sorry for you anymore. You have done this to yourself. And here I made a mistake. I did not ask him what he felt sorry for me about and what I had done to myself. I assume it was about losing the 2018 fantasy football Super bowl to him at 1109. Another email quote. You deliberately misinterpreted what I said shot first and then rationalized the mistaken shot with some convoluted full of bleep explanation. This, presumably was the silly little detail about him lying and saying Representative Ocasio Cortez had referred to Nazi concentration camps. Then he wrote that what she said evokes gas chambers. And I think that's where we should leave it. A fantasy sports league is just a fantasy sports league. And having been in various kinds of them since 19 Good God 85, I often wonder if they aren't a kind of therapeutic cathartic pressure valve for our inner demons. I do know this. This you find out a lot about the other people in a fantasy sports league. So when that baseball player slapped the other baseball player over the reserve running back that he kept on his roster and most people said, I just don't understand why he slapped him, I said, oh, I understand why he slapped him. Chuck Todd, Billionaire I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Brian Ray and John Philip Chenale, the musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced and performed most of our music. Mr. Chenale handled orchestration and keyboards. Mr. Ray was on the guitar's bass and drums. It was produced by TKO Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Foust. The sports music is the olderman theme from ESPN2, written by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group no Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend Kenny Main. Everything else was, as ever, pretty much much my fault. One plug before I go on October 7th of this year at 11:15pm Eastern Daylight, it will be the exact 50th anniversary of the day I made my debut on an actual radio station that people paid money to put commercials on. WVBR fm, the student owned student run commercial station at Corner Cornell. Now the community owned commercial station of Cornell and Ithaca, New York and Tompkins county and the World Online, operating from the palatial Olbermann Cornelius Studios on East Buffalo Street, Ithaca, N.Y. and if October 7th is my 50th anniversary. That means that this Saturday, April 5th, is the date that my friend John Rodin is celebrating his 50th anniversary hosting WVBR's oldie show, Rockin Remnants. Only John was able to keep his show on WVBR, whereas mine was canceled in 1979. So congrats, John. You're a better man than I am. And I hope that's a new windbreaker by now. Rockin Remnants, the big five O Saturday night WBBRFM. Be there. Aloha. That's Countdown for today. Just 1,389 days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term. Unless Musk removes him sooner. Please don't remove Musk, Trump. Please leave Musk. Put him out there every day. Have him stand next to you during the speeches. Have him there all the time. All the time. We want him there all the time. 97% disapproval in Wisconsin. 97%. The next scheduled countdown is Monday, or as we're calling it here, Musk Day. Tuesday is also going to be Musk Day. Wednesday will be Musk Day. You get the point. As always, bulletins as the news warrants. Remember, impeach Trump. It won't work now. It will win the Democrats the midterms. If there are midterms. If they're just Musk terms. Till next time, I'm Keith Olbermann. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of I Heart Raise. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [68:54]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Anabe, you never have to stress about Messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Annabe Sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, Our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [69:53]
Today Show Host
Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world. The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current affairs. And The News Agents USA listening to the News Agents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
- [70:18]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.
- [70:24]
Ryan
Hello, it is Ryan. And we could all use an extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we? Just to make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes, counting your steps with, you know, all the mundane stuff. That is why I'm such a big fan of Chumba Casino. Chumba Casino has all your favorite social casino style games that you can play for free anytime, anywhere with daily bonuses. So sign up now@chumbac casino.com that's chumbacasino.com no purchase necessary.
- [70:50]
Today Show Host
VGW Group void. We're prohibited by law. 21 plus terms and conditions apply. December 29, 1975 LaGuardia Airport.
- [71:01]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage. Kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then everything changed.
- [71:09]
Today Show Host
There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.
- [71:14]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged. Terrorism. Listen to the new season of law and criminal justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you eat too many ultra processed foods, you could be starving your gut microbes and they'll get hangry. That's one of many things I learned after working on a new audio course.
- [71:41]
Today Show Host
About the gut microbiome.
- [71:43]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
You can learn how to keep your gut happy by listening to Try this.
- [71:46]
Today Show Host
From the Washington Post.
- [71:48]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
I'm Christina Quinn. I host Try this.
- [71:50]
Today Show Host
Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges. Follow.
- [71:54]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Try this right now, wherever you're listening.
- [71:56]
Today Show Host
Listening.
- [71:57]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Seriously, try it.
- [72:00]
Today Show Host
This is an iHeart podcast.