
Loading summary
Keith Olbermann
This is an iHeart podcast.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Annabe, 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.
Keith Olbermann
Good morning, 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 along. 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.
Podcast Host/Announcer
We're getting back to all of it, and the best way to start is together.
Keith Olbermann
Watch the Today's show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC. 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 how to have fun anytime, anywhere. Step 1 Go to chumbacasino.com chumbacasino.com Got it.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Step 2 Collect your welcome Bonus.
Keith Olbermann
Come to papa. Welcome bonus.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Step 3 Play hundreds of casino style games for free.
Keith Olbermann
That's a lot of games all for free.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Step 4 Unleash your excitement.
Keith Olbermann
Woo hoo.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Chumba Chumba Casino has been delivering thrills for over a decade. So claim your free welcome bonus now and live the chumba life. Visit chumbacasino.com no purchase necessary.
Keith Olbermann
VGW Group void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply. Countdown with Keith Olberman is a production of iHeartRadio. Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others. We are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness. Only power. Pure power. What pure power means, you will understand. Presently we are different from all the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that. That no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution. One makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me? 1984 by George Orwell, the pen name of Eric Blair, published on 8June 1949. Sometime today or this week, Donald Trump will again prove George Orwell, Eric Blair a prophet. Orwell prove that he read 1984, but read it as an instructional manual. And he will do something his advisers will have told him this week not to do. And he will do it because Trump seeks power entirely for its own sake, that he knows no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it at an end. That power is not a means to Trump, that the object of power is power. Even two fascist imbeciles who surround him, Hegseth, his secretary of defense and vodka and garden gnome, the secretary of dress up dolls. They will officially tell him not to do this, that it is not necessary, that the problem is resolving itself, that he can take credit for that, and he will do it anyway. Because in his reptilian brain he will think, I am not establishing a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution. I am making a revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. And Trump will, despite the advice, invoke the Insurrection act of 1807. And if I'm wrong about this, if something else in his reptilian brain tells Trump to defer to Nome and Hegseth, he will only defer and delay now, because doing it later will hurt more. He will invoke the Insurrection act of 1807, and then we will be inside his dictatorship soon or late. And that's why the most important person in this country today right now, the person who is most likely to be able to save the country or begin to that person may be Senator Lisa Murkowski. Because like so many of us before her, Lisa Murkowski just realized what George Orwell meant when he wrote that in his novel 1984. What do you have to say to people who are afraid or who represent.
Podcast Host/Announcer
People who are afraid? We are all afraid, Daniel.
Keith Olbermann
It's quite a statement.
Podcast Host/Announcer
But we are.
Keith Olbermann
We're in it.
Podcast Host/Announcer
We're in a time and a place where.
Keith Olbermann
I don't know.
Podcast Host/Announcer
I certainly have not. I have not been here before.
Keith Olbermann
And I'll tell you, I'm. I'm.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Oftentimes very anxious myself about. About using my v. Because retaliation is real.
Keith Olbermann
That which I suspect you have heard before was at a conference in front of people from nonprofit groups at Anchorage, Alaska. And it's a damn shame the audio is so bad there, because it is the most important thing yet said by a Republican in any office this year. And thus Lisa Murkowski may be the most important person in this country right now. She said that she is afraid. She has reached the exact baseline state Trump has sought. It is the exact premise of O' Brien's speech in the torture chamber to Winston Smith in 1984, that the object of torture is torture and the object of power is power. She is afraid. She is afraid of retribution. She is afraid of the mob. She is afraid of what is next. She vows to be confrontational, to use her voice in public in front of the rest of us. And to her, I say, forget the rest of us, Senator. Use your voice in private. Use it among your Republican colleagues in the Senate, you and 13 other Republican senators and at most four Republican representatives, can stop all of this cold. You, Senator Murkowski, can save the country. You can impeach Trump. Or if you still can't get over the last hump, if you still think that his power is somehow Republican Party power, or that his power is somehow conservative power, or that his power is somehow your power, or that his power is somehow anything but his power. The 18 of you can use the threat to impeach him, to virtually fetter him, to at least control the width and breadth of the damage he does, to make him know at all times the Senate, and if necessary, the House, will vote against him. You only need three other Senate Republicans to join you, just to rein him in. Thirteen others. And you can literally destroy this man. And there is reason to hope this might actually happen before the iron curtain of dictatorship descends. Later, in her confession of fear at Anchorage, Lisa Murkowski hinted at doing exactly what I just suggested, using my mother's.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Charm that I learned as a young girl and in direct communication with those.
Keith Olbermann
That I made relationships with and am able to affect some change that way.
Podcast Host/Announcer
But I've got to figure out how I can.
Keith Olbermann
Do my best to help the many who are so anxious and are so afraid. Murkowski was driven in fear to this point, not by the pending decision on the Insurrection act, nor by the rendition of an innocent Maryland father without due process, nor by the attempted rendition of hundreds of others, nor by the tariff disaster, nor by Trump ignoring the courts, but by people she knows in the federal government. Career people, summarily fired through the efforts of this stoned fascist foreigner, Musk, their bodies symbolically piling up in front of her Senate office door. Fired just so Trump can exercise the power that is exercised for its own sake. That's what has made this visceral to her. That is her specific cred. That is what she is afraid of. It doesn't matter if she's just afraid of the one thing and acting on just the one thing. It is a start and it is a breakthrough, and it is one lit match in the darkness that is conservatism and the Republican Party in this country right now. Because Murkowski will now find what all of us have found. Start down this path of resistance, and you will discover there are only two routes there is to be presented to you. The false promise of compromise and appeasement and partial dissent while retaining your power. And that route goes directly over a cliff behind the woods. That was the one Gretchen Whitmer took the other week. That was the one dozens of Republicans have taken. Look down below at the pile at the bottom. It's Lindsey Graham. And then there is the only other path, utter resistance. To stop this, you must stop this. As Trump wields power solely in order to wield power forever, you must become such that you resist solely to resist him forever. Senator. Because the voice of the scared Senator Lisa Murkowski may be the most important voice in the nation right now. She's going to use her charm. She's going to have conversations. There are so many conversations Senator Murkowski can have that can save the nation. I don't dream of her joining the Bernie and AOC tour. But God damn, would that be something. But there is one advantage to having a Republican feel this way. When Republicans don't believe in the rules the rest of us do. Republicans have had no squeamishness for decades now about meeting the justices of the Supreme Court. Senator, take some of your colleagues with you, the ones who are even more afraid than you are, too afraid to even admit it the way you did. And go and see Amy Coney Barrett. I will always be suspicious of Amy Coney Barrett, but her voting record shows it is undeniable. There is a human being in there. There is somebody who holds at least some of the law sacred in there. Go see Chief Justice Roberts. I'm not sure what's inside of him, but it is clear he lives in abject terror of the executive branch, subsuming and perverting the judiciary. And it looks like it has just dawned on him that Trump doesn't just intend to ignore the courts out there somewhere, the inferior courts, the district courts, the local courts. On those minor things, the minor things, the Supreme Court can survive and still claim it is in charge. It looks like the idea is forming in John Roberts head that Trump means to kill him. Metaphorically, of course, or worse. Friday night, in the middle of the night, the Supreme Court took its second unmistakable shot across Trump's bow. It is one of the other signs of hope besides the fear inside Lisa Murkowski. The court stepped in, not waiting for inferior courts to rule, not waiting for one of its own justices to rule, just stepping in as the whole court in saying no, you will not kidnap and disappear anybody from the soil of the United States of America using the Alien Enemies act, at least until further notice. We will get back to you, President Fatso. They put this out so late. I was already asleep. They put this out at 1:00am Eastern Daylight Time Friday night, Saturday morning. It is a very polite, very legalistic FU to Donald Trump. Very much of a piece with Senator Van Hollen spitting the truth yesterday that Trump is already ignoring the courts and already ignoring the Supreme Court. And thus we are already in a constitutional crisis. And guess who doesn't like getting ignored or being the victims of a constitutional crisis. Well, surveys say seven out of nine members of the Supreme Court don't like this quote. AARP et al. V. Trump, President of US Et al. There is before the court an application on behalf of a putative class of detainees seeking an injunction against their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. The matter is currently pending before the Fifth Circuit. Upon action by the fifth Circuit, the Solicitor General is invited to file a response to the application before this court as soon as possible. That's shoving the 5th Circuit Court out of the effing way. The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court. C28 USC1651A. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito dissent from the Court's order. Statement from Justice Alito to follow now the Court could undo this today, even though it's pretty obvious it was 7 to 2 with even Kavanaugh and Gorsuch saying no more renditions, no more using 19th century laws designed to protect the nation when it is next literally invaded by Britain or France and armies with muskets rendezvousing with their spies who already live here and are wearing tricorn hats to try to blend in. No more Alien Enemies act asshole. This is especially pertinent because last week refugees from Afghanistan here legally after working with us at their own peril against the Taliban there, they got emails from the Trump regime telling them they had seven days to quote self deport in their case to go back to Afghanistan and get killed. These are the same people Trump treated like martyrs when the withdrawal he arranged from Afghanistan went predictably tragic under Biden. We're so sorry for them, let's send them home to be killed. This is also especially pertinent because of Hegseth and Nome and the Alien Enemy Act's cousin, the good old Insurrection act of 1807. The day Trump returned from Elba and seized power again, he directed those two clowns to submit a report in 90 days advising him on conditions at the southern border and whether or not he should invoke the Insurrection Act. And guess what he expected them to say. Yesterday was day 90. Friday, CNN reported the Hegseth Noem report will conclude border crossings are low lower and they do not need the additional authority provided by the Insurrection Act. You know, authority like suspending much of the Constitution over a large part of the country or effort over all of the country. I don't doubt the CNN reporting. I also don't doubt that if that's what they're going to do, it will enrage Trump and he might even fire Hegseth and Noem and invoke the act anyway because the object of power is power and Trump cannot process why these other carbon based life forms in the room with him would delay grabbing more power. As I said, he will do it or try it if it be now. Tis not to come if it Be not to come. It will be now. If it be not now yet, it will come. The readiness is all, Senator Murkowski. It is also clear, I think, that those in Trump's inner circle have recognized something is wrong with Trump. I mean extra wrong with him. You see it now in every public statement of fealty and those televised cabinet meetings that would make Kim Jong Un blush. They are soft soaping him whenever possible. They are, so to speak, throwing small fish at his mouth to keep him happy and to keep him from trying to attack the Pequod. They are forcing him or massaging him into doing a series of climb downs. There's no mistaking it. He has even started some of the climb downs himself. Iran is a climb down. The tariff disaster was in mismanagement, lies and changes. Of course, the 21st century equivalent of how the Johnson administration managed Vietnam only condensed into like three weeks. They climbed down on it. They made money off the climb down, but they climbed down off of it. He's climbed down on Musk erratically sometimes. There have been climbs back ups, but Musk is on the periphery again. There are even the vague shadows of a climb down about Ukraine, the attack on the universities. Climb down. Why would you admit the threatening letter to Harvard was sent without authorization if you didn't realize that Harvard had now decided to retaliate in a fight it will win? This reported recommendation against the Insurrection act, that's a climb down. The National Intelligence Council, the reader's digest version of our 18 intelligence agencies, wrote a secret assessment earlier this month that. No, sorry, sorry, Trump. Venezuela is not directing an invasion of the US and using the Trend Aragua gang as its mercenaries. So Trump can't use that as his excuse to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. The whole attempt to stage manage Senator Van Hollen's visit to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a climb down. First of all, who decided to let Van Hollen see him after insisting he could not possibly be seen two countries were aligned against. Oh yeah, he's over there. Go see him. Who made that decision? The dictator of El Salvador, who draws his hair on Trump made the decision. Who thus confirmed to America that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not dead or mutilated? Trump did that. Who tried to make it look like this guy was at a resort passing the time, chain drinking Bloody Marys? Trump did. Who has panicked over how this has turned out? Trump did. This is why Lisa Murkowski might be the most important person in this country right now, because Trump's people are experts in one thing only. Making people afraid. By putting up a seemingly impregnable front. By insisting that one day rebounds by the stock market in the middle of a crash. Oh, no, that's the single best day in market history. By sending out Stephen Miller to sound crazier and crazier, and for the sweat on his cue ball noggin to shine worse and worse under the TV lights. Never let him see his sweat. Steve. Oh, sorry, I guess I should have told you that before. But inside the White House, the people who replaced the deep state suddenly have realized there's nobody left to do the things that the Trumpists are too incompetent competent to do. And those people have now been building a new deep state. But it is hardly all positive, because for every Lisa Murkowski over whose head not one light bulb went on, but all of the light bulbs in Times Square on New Year's Eve all went on at the same moment. Lisa's scared. It's hardly all positive, because for every Lisa Murkowski, this truth is still true. Trump is not the only impaired stupid person who has achieved power for its own sake. There is still Gavin Newsom. As I have said Previously, I knew 20 years ago he was a, as John Madden once dismissed, a famous CBS sportscasting colleague of his, just a hairdo. Hell, Newsom married Kimberly Guilfoyle, didn't he? How stupid do you have to be to do that? Trump Jr. Didn't even do that. This disastrous Gavin Interviews Satan's Minions podcast. This seems to have vanished, but not before it ended Gavin Newsom's career. I'm going to be president in 2028 of my building association. But now, after this, Gavin Newsom, frankly, should be recalled. California Democrats should start a recall petition and a recall election to remove their own Democratic governor because he's not a Democrat. He's also not a small D Democrat. He's an idiot. He thinks defending the Constitution and the people, including citizens of his own state, whom he has sworn an oath to protect. He thinks defending people from being disappeared is a political distraction, a distraction du jour. And he said it in front of effing cameras. Yeah, it's a, you know, this is the distraction of the day. The art of distraction. Don't get distracted by distractions, we say, and here we zig and zag. This is the debate they want. This is their 8020 issue as they've described it. You know, those that believe in the rule of law, defending it. But it's a tough case because people are really. Are they defending MSR 13? Are they defending, you know, someone who's out of sight, out of mind in El Salvador? I mean, we're perfect sheep. So I want to answer your question. I don't know. I add much value answering it. I mean, are you kidding me? When a judge adjudicates, it's not a question. How in the hell are we even debating that? It's Orwellian that you're debating that. And it's exactly the debate they want because they don't want this debate on the tariffs. They don't want to be accountable to the markets today. They don't want to answer for Nvidia taking a $5.5 billion charge. They don't want to have a real conversation with Christine and what's going on in terms of the export uncertainty here in the Valley. They want to have this conversation. Don't get distracted by distractions. We're all perfect sheep. Thank you guys very much. Fraud. Great, flaming, boneheaded, power hungry, stupid Gavin fraud. Newsom, resign. Mr. Newsome, save us the trouble. Flee California. Go to. I don't care where you go, but do stop off in Michigan and pick up Gretchen Whitmer. Tell her no, she was right. If she puts a folder in front of her face at the White House and she can't see anybody, nobody can see her selling out her state, selling out her party, selling out her nation. Why don't you both resign and take a vacation, A nice trip, some nice warm place, like to El Salvador, maybe. Go have some Bloody Marys with Bukele. Ask him how he draws his hair on. Oh, and before you go, identify and out whoever the House Democrat was who provided these next quotes to Axios, these House Democrats are specifically identified as Congressional Democrats. So the top suspects for this kind of quote, which would be Schumer and Fetterman and Newsom. They're out. It's none of them. I want to know who this is and I want him or her primaried because we don't put people in public stocks anymore. I don't care if this person changes parties and joins the Congressional Republican Caucus because he's a Republican anyway. And by the way, hell is coming for Republicans as it is. Here's the quote from Axios. Reality check. The sentiment within the Democratic Party about rallying behind deportees. They're not deportees, they're kidnap victims. It's human trafficking. Deportation is a legal process. The sentiment within the party about rallying behind victims is not universal. The second House Democrat who spoke anonymously. A centrist. Centrist is political ease for asshole. A centrist called the deportation issue a soup du jour. Huh? Sounds kind of like what Gavin Newsom said, arguing Trump is setting a trap for the Democrats and like usual, we're falling for it. Rather than talking about the tariff policy and the economy, the thing where his numbers are tanking. We're going to go take the bait for one hairdresser, they said, likely referring to Andre Hernandez Romero. Who could it be? Let's start with homophobic Democrats in the House, bald homophobic Democrats in the House. And let's also look for somebody who doesn't realize the great truth of America. In the age of the Internet and in the age of hundreds of Democrats who are nationally known one way or the other, you want to talk about the tariff policy and the economy and the constitutional rights and the disappearing of people off the streets, we can do all of this at the same time, you effing moron. Launch four podcasts, one on each topic. There is, though, some hope within the Democratic Party. There are some Democrats to whom I listen rather than try to instruct because they are smarter than I am and they know what they are doing. There is one who should be the Democratic leader in the Senate. One Senator has done something very smart or is going to do it. It's kind of in a twilight zone at the moment. He has soft peddled this, I guess with the reason of why try to put this front and center now. And all the rest of this stuff about the Constitution is cresting right now, but this will be big when it hits. I haven't even seen a lot of coverage of this. The impeccable Scott McFarlane of CBS put it out. I haven't seen a lot of coverage of this. Who did this? Who should be the Senate majority or Minority leader and Majority leader when the time comes? Ed Markey of Massachusetts. It's a simple sense of the senate resolution number 154. All we have is the number and the title, but it has already been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. It is, like all such resolutions, symbolic. But it proves again that you can draw a line in the sand and in the process use only 36 words, 1 comma and a period. Sen. Res. 154 from Mr. Markey of Massachusetts. A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that Donald Trump is ineligible in any future elections to be elected Vice President or President or to serve as President beyond the conclusion of his current term. Ed, you're God damned right this personal note. So I took last week's second episode off to catch up after these intestinal treatments that actually has been going really well. And the day I took off I broke my foot and I was in a doctor's office anyway. Well, not all of my foot, more like three quarters of an inch of my foot. But where's the drama in saying I broke three quarters of an inch of my foot? And I might add that that's, That's a total 3/4 of an inch. There are two fractures, stress fractures. That's the approximate combined measurement of how much, how much is kind of kind of broken. But it meets therapy and office visits and meds and wraps and compression and I've been through this before, my third and fourth stress fractures and they appeared on April 15, 2025, the previous one. Number two in the series, April 15, 2011. 14 years to the day. I guess my God damned warranty on my foot expired. It should not affect this podcast unless the little cracks the three quarters of an inch in total lengthen. Just a heads up for you or a foots up. Plus this hurts. I want sympathy. Also of interest here in an all new edition, the memo from Hegseth and Gnome telling Trump not to invoke the Insurrection Act. This all depends on Hegseth still being Secretary of Defense later this week. If you missed it, the Times reported last night he shared the bomber flight schedule times against the Houthis in Yemen on a different signal chat. This one included the Mrs. Mrs. Secretary of vodka. Also on the chat, his brother who works at the Pentagon. I think maybe in the mailroom. If they're smart, they'll fire Pete and replace him with his brother so they don't have to explain the change to Trump. And they can still tell him it's still Secretary Hegseth misses Brother and lawyer on the chat, but surprisingly not Hegseth's bartender. Also, Trump banning the Associated Press from the White House led me into a conversation about all the times I've been banned as a reporter and the answer appears to be I've been banned eight times. And the Pennsylvania congressman whose heart goes out to Governor Shapiro because of that whole, you know, attempt to incinerate the governor and his on Passover. But says Congressman Dan Muzer.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Let'S be real. Life happens. Kids spill, pets shed and accidents are inevitable. Find a sofa that can keep up@washablesofas.com starting at just $699. Our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out, so you can say goodbye to stains and hello to Worry Free living. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, they're kid proof, pet friendly and built for everyday life. Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment. Plus, they're earth friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers. It's time to upgrade. Upgrade to a stress free mess proof sofa. Visit washablesofas.com today and save. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Good morning.
Keith Olbermann
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 off. 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.
Podcast Host/Announcer
We're getting back to all of it and the best way to start is together.
Keith Olbermann
Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC. 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@probane.com hey, it's Brian Christopher. 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 chumbacasino.com let's make this summer legendary. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW group void where prohibited by law. CTNCs21 plus he did kind of have it coming. Maybe next time he should tone it down and not criticize Trump and his policies. And if you think I'm kidding, it's on radio and thus it's on tape. And then he doubled down on it. That's next. This is countdown. This is COUNTDOWN with Keith Olbermann. Still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown. With Trump moving into round two of trying to ban the Associated Press? You've come to the expert on this banning reporters bullshit. How many times have I been banned? You mean this century? Or in the 1900s? Next? In things I promise not to tell. And yet I am not the world record holder in getting banned from places first. Believe it or not, there are 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. The bronze. Worse. The guy with the musk cybertruck, that thing that whatever else it does or doesn't do looks broken. The guy who has one of these 21st century Ford Edsels without the charm, who parked it on 76th street in Manhattan just off Second Avenue. Look, you want to buy one of these? Have fun. Our complaint isn't with you wasting your money and possibly having the thing blow up while you're driving it. It's with the psycho who owns the company and is raping the country. All because he may or may not have had botched implant surgery. But you, 76th street, sir, you have our condolences. But I must note you're going to increase your chances of being mocked if you do what you did and park it there and put on the back of your musk crapper truck a large decal, perhaps 2ft wide in decal lengths, reading in a script like font Girl Dad. Girl dad on the back of a muskmobile. It speaks for itself. Somebody called Child Protective Services. Look for the guy driving around with the cybertruck with Girl dad on the back. He may be looking out the back window or driving it in reverse or upside down or how the hell could you tell? It looks broken. The runner up werser. Speaking of looking broken, Congressman Dan Mauser of Pennsylvania who twisted the old cliche after the attack on the official residence of the governor of his own state, Dan Mauser. And I'm thinking I'm mispronouncing it. Yes, I am. It's. It's Mewser. M E U S E R Muser. To twist the old cliche around. Congressman Muser praised the attack with faint condemnation. He's on one of those fascist radio shows where they keep playing music in the background during the interviews. Just to add to the hypnotic. This is actually being emanated by the mullahs in Iran. Quality. Here is an elected Pennsylvania congressman soft peddling an assassination attempt by fire of the governor of his own state. Absolutely awful. It needs to be condemned. But you know, it just kills me and I hate to have to go back to this, but there's been so many Tesla dealerships firebombed. There was a firebomb GOP headquarters out west, and. And then meanwhile, you got, you got those on the left you know, continuing to, you know, make kind of, you know, violent type of hostile commentary. And this happens and we all jump right on board saying, this is horrible, this needs to be condemned by all. And, you know, so the left got to, you know, look and look in the mirror here too, and our hearts go out to the Shapiro family on this. But, you know, they got to, they gotta tone it down, too. I mean, every action Josh Shapiro has taken so far against the President has either been a lawsuit or a falsehood. And, you know, that's not helpful either. That's not helpful either. I had thought at first that Mr. Muser meant that liberals needed to tone it down, which is bullshit, but at least it's not psychotic bullshit. No, no, he literally meant Governor Shapiro was kind of asking for it. A point he made when. Because his passive aggressive advocacy of, you know, burning the Jewish governor and his family to death on Passover, that's too much even for maga. Now, when he posted the by now obligatory Republican clarification for justifying attempted group murder, he doubled down on this idea that it really is Shapiro's fault. He cited the vandalism of Teslas again. He cited the Trump assassination attempts again, a reminder, half of which were in fact conducted by Trump supporters. He said liberals had called his party fascists and Nazis, which I think is perfectly reasonable since the President did keep Hitler's speeches by his bed at night and he is acting as a fascist and Nazi would. But he doubled down on Shapiro, having asked for it. His cleanup quote was, what frustrates me is when leaders make outrageous false claims, like the governor stating President Trump's policies would make Pennsylvanians go hungry. We now know his claims were entirely inaccurate. I'm looking at both sides of the paper to see if there's more than just that. No, those are his rationalizations for this, because those things are cause and effect. Criticize Trump's policies about food kitchens and what do you expect will happen? Somebody will try to incinerate you and you blame MAGA for that? Just remember to never criticize Trump's policies again. What's the problem? And we won't firebomb the official state residence for its governor again with you and your family in it, probably. And when I say we oops, I misspoke. I meant they. Representative Dan Meweser pronounced Like Muse, spelled like Mauser, like the rifles the Nazis used in World War II. Just to keep it clear, it's mewser. But the winner, the worst, it's a tie. Riley Gaines, the one time fifth rate college swimmer who has turned being a sore loser into a full time profession. And Pam Bondi, a bubblehead who under the definition of the term by her own employers, the Trump administration is herself a DEI hire as Attorney General. I mentioned this. Let me say it again. The home of the Governor of Pennsylvania, a Jewish man was firebombed in the middle of the night on Passover with him and his family in it by a man who later told authorities that he went into the house and looked for Governor Shapiro in hopes of killing him with a hammer because he didn't like Shapiro's politics and his religion. Open and shut hate crime, terrorism perhaps assassination attempt. And Attorney General Pam Blondy hasn't even devoted a minute to it publicly. Nothing. Might as well have said what the anti Semite blame the victim Congressman Muser said. But Attorney General Blondie in one of her twice a day appearances on the Fox News wafa threw the weight of the Justice Department into the Shapiro case. New into any of the other crimes going on into the President repeatedly violating the Constitution and the courts. No threw the weight of her Justice Department into altering high school and college swimming records in Maine because there may have been one or two transgendered swimmers in competition there in the last 25 years. Might have been. The NCAA estimates there are 10 transgendered athletes in all of college sports in the whole country. 10. Maybe there is a transgender mane swimmer. Maybe there's been one in 25 years. The odds would say it's about 100,000 to one against. But Riley Gaines, a mediocrity with extra eyelashes, once finished behind one of them in a swim meet and has thus turned herself into a living breathing 247 martyr. And once again on Easter weekend and this idiot Bondi goes on Fox and paints Riley Gaines as the Jesus of college swimmers. Quote, Riley Gaines started training for swimming when she was four years old. She made it to the Olympics. Spoiler alert. Riley Gaines did not make it to the Olympics and she had nothing to do with a transgender swimmer. In her failure, the reason she didn't go to the Olympics is the fact that Rally Gaines sucks. The swim meet at which all of this began, at which all of this thinly veiled attack on transgender people began, when this dark undercurrent became overt, was in March 2022 at the NCAA Freestyle Championships. Lia Thomas of the University of Pennsylvania won. Lia Thomas was assigned male at birth, Riley Gaines, her life destroyed by Lea Thomas. Riley Gaines was in that meet too, and she finished fifth. In the race that Lia Thomas won, Riley Gaines finished tied for fifth. If Lia Thomas had never existed or never transitioned, Riley Gaines would have finished fifth or maybe tied for fourth. And as to this idiocy, by Attorney General Bondi, a parrot who happened to be in the right place at the time. The right time as Matt Gaetz flamed out. Riley Gaines didn't go to the Olympics. She went to the Olympic trials. She qualified for the 2016 Olympic Trials and at the 2016 Olympic Trials, she finished 85th out of 185th. She was invited then to try out for the 2024 Olympic Trials and she didn't even make it past the qualifier event. 85th place was her Olympic best. Her Olympic record is closer to yours and mine than it is to people who have gone to the Olympics. Her career best, her career best was the fifth place tied finish in the race won by Leah Thomas, the best she ever did. The day Riley Gaines became America's favorite fifth place martyr, the day she was denied finishing only one spot off the medal stand instead of two was the best she ever got in big time swimming. And it didn't have a God damned thing to do with Lia Thomas or transgendered people or MAGA or Donald Trump or liberals or American culture. It had to do with the fact that Riley Gaines was a flash in the pan or a splash in the pool with at best 85th place talent. The Attorney General lying about Riley Gaines going to the Olympics is probably low on the list of this administration's lies. Like, I don't know, number just to pick a number at random, number maybe 85th this week. But this whole fake debate, this whole scapegoating and othering and persecuting transgendered people and the debate over their role in sports is legitimate. My friend Dr. Renee Richards says so, says it should be debated. But it's about literally maybe, maybe a dozen athletes in this country. It's as if we started passing laws and threatening people and electing people over whether it's illegal, whether it should be a federal crime to let a baseball team somewhere use a pitcher who can pitch with his left arm and his right arm. It's literally that specific and small and stupid and resolved solvable. This whole debate is actually about one failure. Riley effing Gaines, who's lucky she's always gotten out of the water and remembered not to try to live there. Riley Gaines is being advocated for by another total human failure. Pam Blondie, Pam Dei, DOJ, Bondi and Riley I was 85th Gaines Today's other worst persons in the world. Duh.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? WashablesOfAs.com has your back. Featuring the Annabe Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out. Where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anna Bay sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back Upgrade now@washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Good morning.
Keith Olbermann
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.
Podcast Host/Announcer
We're getting back to all of it, and the best way to start is together.
Keith Olbermann
Watch the Today show weekday mornings at 7am on NBC. 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@probane.com Looking for excitement? Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime. Play anywhere. Play on the train. Play at the store. Play at home. Play when you're bored. Play today for your channel to win and get daily bonuses when you log in. So what are you waiting for? Don't delay. Chumba Casino is free to play.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Experience social gameplay like never before. Go to Chumba Casino right now to play hundreds of games including online slots, Bingo, Slingo and more. Live the chumba life@chumbacasino.com no purchase necessary.
Keith Olbermann
VGW Group voidware prohibited by law. 21/ terms and conditions apply. And finally, on this all new edition of countdown, I was thinking about and talking with a friend about the banning of the Associated Press by the White House from the White House coverage, from the White House pool coverage, the ignoring of the court orders ordering that the Associated Press be permitted back into White House news coverage in place of the Daily Nazi or whoever they gave the AP space to. And I was thinking about the premise that this idiot ex softball player from St. Anselm's College who is now the press spokesperson and looks like she flunked out of an audition for the Price is Right as a card girl that she's banned the Associated Press. I have. Finally, after years of being the UPI guy who looked at all Associated Press people as sort of the enemy, I've become an Associated Press fan. They don't do a great job, but they rarely screw it up. That's about the most you can ask from the media at the moment. And in any event, I was thinking talking about being banned as a reporter, and my friend asked me, wait, you've been banned, haven't you? And I went, oh my, yes. And so to the number one story on our countdown, me and banishment, the number of times I have been banned as a member of the media or I guess in other contexts, sometimes by the media, sometimes as the media. And they all make fairly entertaining stories. But of course, you'll be the judge of that. I think the first time I was ever banned, I was at KTLA in Los Angeles as the sports director of the station that carried the games of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. You have to understand that as competitive as the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team has been in the last few years and how they have sponged their ownership disaster of the racist Donald Sterling. This was right after they moved to Los Angeles from San Diego and they were the worst team in professional sports and one of the worst teams in professional sports history. I have the record in front of me of how they performed on the court the first three years that I worked at the station that carried their games. And I did not feel like I was obligated to make excuses for them because the first year they played 82 games and lost 50 of them and finished in fourth place. This would turn out to be not just the high point, but the high point by basically double the next year 1986-87, the Los Angeles Clippers played 82 games and lost 70 of them. They went 12 and 70. That's not very good. You only win 12 times in a season that stretches from October into April. It was a long winter. And then the last year that I worked at their station, more or less 87, 88, they improved from 12 and 70 to 17 and 65. So there was a bad team there. And they did stupid, stupid things. And many of them were on the court, but it seemed like more of them were off the court. And I used to upbraid them every night. And I often, when they were on our air and the Lakers of Los Angeles were playing on the same night, I would lead the sports cast with the Lakers highlights. Now, if the Clippers won, which, as you can tell from those numbers I just gave you, was not very often, I would lead with them, as in, my God, the Clippers won. Let's look at these highlights before they disappear. Needless to say, at Clipper hq, they were not fond of me. Many attempts were made to get me, what would be the right word, fired. But finally, after one incident In, I think, 1986, the then president of the team, his name was Alan something, I can't remember, he went on to be involved in soccer, suspended me, banned me from covering the Clippers. And the incident was this. One of the players, children, died in a tragic accident in a swimming pool. And the Clippers for weeks had been rumored to be firing their head coach. And an announcement was going to be made, finally about this poor guy who'd been twisting in the wind, as the Nixon administration would have called it. They were going to announce this on Wednesday. And. And then on Tuesday night, there was this tragedy involving. Or Tuesday during the day sometime, one of the players, children, and the Clippers used this as a reason not to hold the news conference about the coach. They canceled the news conference about the coach, citing humanitarian reasons and respect for the tragedy. And they didn't postpone it. They didn't say, we're gonna have a moment of silence at it. They didn't say, okay, it's not gonna be Wednesday, we'll do it Thursday. They canceled it. And they never had a press conference about this poor coach. They just issued a press release saying this guy who they had leaked about every day for weeks, that he was terrible and he was the problem and they were gonna fire him. All these stories coming out, it went on for day after day after day and week after week. And this poor guy who'd been in the NBA since, I don't know, the 1950s, had had to read about himself this way every day in the papers and couldn't say anything. Cuz if he did, they'd fire him for cause and not owe him any money. The cause being speaking to the media without authorization. He had to read that he was about to be fired and here was gonna be the news conference at least which he'd be able to stand up up and say something about it. Even if it was just thanks for the opportunity to restore the image of himself as a human being and not the cause of this disastrous franchise's disasters. Instead of there being a news conference he had to read, finally he had been fired in a one page press release. And also no press conference meant the coach not only couldn't meet the press and say whatever he wanted to say about the Clippers and Clippers management, such as it was. And I always suspected the Clippers were run by a couple of lawn chairs. Not guys in lawn chairs, run by actual lawn chairs. The Clippers could avoid any questions about how they fired this guy, but only after leaking for weeks and destroying his reputation. And they could avoid any questions about how in a city like Los Angeles, with the amount of money this guy Sterling had, who owned them, they could win only 29 games over two seasons. How'd you do? Played 160 games. How'd you do? Won 29 of them. Can't have that news conference out of respect. Well, I said there may have been an element of respect to it, but that principally the Clippers had exploited the child's death to avoid holding a news conference. It was an excuse. They didn't plan it, it wasn't their responsibility. But they saw the opportunity to not have to face the media or let this coach face the media. That it was cheap, that it was irresponsible, that it insulted their player at a time of tragedy, that insulted his family, insulted his grief, insulted the child's passing. And that it was like everything else the Clippers had ever done, just another excuse. And the Clippers erupted in rage. How dare you invoke this poor man's dead child? And I was like, well no, you did that. That's what I was complaining about. And they banned. I got a letter saying, you are hereby banned from all games and practices of the Los Angeles Clippers. And in a postscript from the president of this team to the general manager, one of the all time great basketball players for the LA Clippers, for the LA Lakers. But then General manager of the LA Clippers, Elgin Baylor. P.S. elgin, make sure he's taken off the mailing list, too. I'm like, oh, no, what am I gonna do without the press releases about the latest promotional night when they're giving away socks? Well, of course, number one, I should point out with glee that what the result of that postscript was was that I started to receive two of everything on the mailing list because whoever Elgin Baylor told to remove me from the Clipper publicity mailing list got it wrong and added my name a second time. And as to the suspension and the denial of the privilege of attending Clipper's practices or games, as I wrote back to the president of the team, you have made me the envy of every other reporter in town. I have been asked by my colleagues how they can be suspended from Clipper basketball, hopefully for life. So that was my first experience with the attempt to ban me from somewhere or from some team or from something. It was hilarious. And needless to say, I put it on KTLA, Channel 5 news at 10, and they liked me even less. The next time I think I was banned was after I worked for ESPN. The first time I actually left ESPN in 1997, under pretty good circumstances, given that they had stupidly, as they later admitted, suspended me over a joke I made about the city of Bristol, Connecticut, and what was supposedly an unauthorized appearance on the Craig Kilborn show to promote a book for which they'd given me universal permission to promote the book that Dan Patrick and I had written about SportsCenter, that got to the New York Times bestseller list and added to the patina of ESPN and SportsCenter. Even as I was leaving it, I left to go somewhere else. We agreed on that. It was mutual. As I went out the door, we reconsidered the possibility of my doing one show a week for them as long as they would let me work somewhere else full time. They thought about it and then decided against it. And when I left under those circumstances, the vice president in charge of things there, Howard Katz, said, look, we can't make this work. It's not gonna work. If we let people work on other networks, we can't control you. And I said, truer words have never been spoken. But he said, if you want to come on as a guest on an ESPN show or on radio, we'd love to have you. Good luck on the new gig at NBC. What happened was that blew it up and then turned it into nuclear war, was an ESPN executive decided in the fall of 1997 after I left to leak the ratings of my new MSNBC show, which were then almost non existent because it was a terrible show and a new show on a new network to the USA Today sports media writer who of course promptly called me up and told me that this executive had done that. This kind of enraged me. So I took shot after shot at ESPN and I did it publicly. And this led to them saying he didn't just burn the bridges, he napalmed them. And I said, no, that's insufficient. I didn't just burn the bridges, I burned the river. And on and on it went. Years later, perhaps 2005, it was some of those same executives called and asked me to help Dan Patrick out. His radio show was not doing well. They thought he was overworked and needed a spark. They wanted it to do better, they knew it could. He just seemed uninspired. And they thought if they brought me on for an hour a week and later an hour a day, he would perk up. He did. And I think the radio show that he took out on his own in 2007 has largely succeeded because he perked up. Things were at a pivotal moment in his career at that point. I'm not claiming credit for his show or his work or his success. That's all his. I'm just saying that at a critical moment. It was bad enough that the ESPN people who were furious at me and it was still nuclear war and I'd gone to work for competition against them that was trying to do a fox version of SportsCenter and constantly made fun of ESPN whenever I could, and got Fox's name and Fox Sports News into every story about espn. And I did that job terrifically, I might add, although the ratings were terrible. In the middle of that, they called and asked me to help out and I said yes. And that was largely the end of the active shooting in that war. However, at some point I said, maybe if you want to have real fun, why don't I come up there and do a couple of shows in person with him? And the executive in charge said, and this is 2006, probably. He said, well, you can't do that. You've been banned from the ESPN campus. And I said, I have. And apparently this was well known at espn. And I later found out by many people in the industry, folks at NBC knew it and nobody told me because they thought my reaction was going to be violent. I went to somebody at NBC Sports who knew about this and had known about this and apparently it had been done 10 years earlier and nobody told me. And I said what's the point of suspending me or banning me from a place? They banned me from campus and told you but you didn't tell me, what's the point of it? It's the Dr. Strange Love line about the doomsday device. What's the point of having an automatic nuclear weapon if you don't tell anybody that you have it? What's the point of banning a guy from a campus if you don't tell him? And I and they said well, they didn't want to exacerbate the situation further and blah blah blah. And I said but banning me from a television studio in the middle of Bristol, Connecticut that is itself a 10 or 12 minute drive from the nearest line highway line that is wider than two lanes. What was the chance that I was going to go there anyway? Did they think I was going to stop by for some nostalgia? The only time between 1997 when I left ESPN and went back to work there in 2018, the only time I came within a 15 minute drive of actually getting to the campus from which I had been banned, the only time was when I was being chauffeured in a limo from Boston to New York for FOX for a baseball broadcast in which I would be in the dugout for FOX during the World Series because my banishment from the ESPN campus had caused me such professional collapse. Needless to say, my ban from the Bristol campus was removed and all of those problems. The nuclear war was not only ended but paved over and I went back to work with the Dan Patrick show in 2005 and then I went back to work full time in 2013 for ESPN and it turned out that the nuclear war and the forever wars between Olbermann and Bristol lasted 16 years. In fact, I went back to work for ESPN another time, 2018 and my most recent sports forays for the FanDuel Sports Network. That's all run by three or four executives who rehired me at ESPN twice. So that's how that banishment ended. I think. I have been banned from the press box at Yankee Stadium, at least when I'm not on assignment from a network, and that's not likely to happen again. I went back without incident a couple of times, but when I have gone onto the field at Yankee Stadium, there's been a guard standing behind home plate whose only responsibility for that day was to make sure I did not come near the Yankee dugout like I was going to firebomb it or something. I don't know what that was all about? I do know, and I will tell you why they banned me. But I do know that it was an incredible surprise to them that after they banned me and stopped giving me sort of courtesy credentials to the press box to just sit there even when I wasn't on assignment for a particular game, access to the field, when I wasn't working for ESPN or NBC or Fox, that that was, that preceded my decision to stop buying season tickets at Yankee Stadium after 41 years of my father and I buying season tickets there. And they were surprised that I stopped spending it and this amount was in six figures. And they were shocked that I stopped buying the tickets. And for eight or nine years after this, the Yankees kept sending me letters and emails and phone calls. Hi, I'm the new season ticket director. We know that you miss your Yankee tickets. And I went, I'm not going back there. I wouldn't go back there if you paid me to sit there. And in fact, I have vowed and still maintain that I will never walk into Yankee Stadium, having paid for the privilege of going in there again. You pay me to go there. It's a job. I'll go and do that. So what precipitated this was, and I need to set this up by saying I did indeed take over the season tickets at Yankee Stadium from my dad, mostly for my mom's edification in I think, 1993. So I paid for the season tickets for 30 seasons from when they were $17 a ticket to when they were $2,500 a ticket. Most of those high end tickets went to the Make a Wish foundation and other charities. But that's the point. And one of the things they used to have me do was on Old Timers Day, I used to assist the late great announcer Bob Wolf, who would sit there during Old Timers Day at Yankee Stadium when they bring back the old players. And I would help him do the play by play of the game. And it was a fun game just to see the old Timers pitch and swing and try to run and, and hopefully not trip over the bag at first base. And I was Bob's friend and he relied on me for things he couldn't see in the corners, in the outfield. And I did this for 10 years and it was great fun. Those were my Yankee players and the guys I liked the most. And it's, there's no reason to be fanciful about this or to undersell it. It's a hoot to get on the public address system at Yankee Stadium. And talk to 40 or 50,000 people. And one day the Yankees fired me from that job by leaking that news to the New York Post. The Yankees were mad at me because I had found a guy sitting near me in the front row who was signaling to Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees what the speed and the nature of the preceding pitch had been. Because where he stood on the other side of me, this guy was sitting on one side of me, and Alex Rodriguez was standing in the on deck circle on the other side of me. Almost a line bisecting this line was my seat. He was telling Alex Rodriguez what that last pitch was because Alex Rodriguez, being perhaps the highest paid player in baseball at the time, couldn't figure it out on the field, what that was and how fast it was. And I took a picture of this and published it. And it became a huge story. And the Yankees literally got a hand slap and they assured me there'd be no ramifications. And then right before Old Timer's Day, they dropped me as the Old Timer's Day color announcer in the PA system. So, of course, not being one who would leave well enough alone under any circumstances. When the next Yankee controversy arose and I still had a column that appeared on the MLB website, mlb.com, i mentioned that I didn't think Yankee management was quite what it used to be. That when it was my late friend George Steinbrenner running the place, there were lots of things wrong, and I like to point out what they were, but efficiency and fairly good management skills and certainly an idea of when to stir the pot and when not to stir the pot. That was pretty well done by George, his son Hal. I wasn't sure that Hal Steinbrenner, as I said, was. Well, the phrasing was, I'm going to need to see a paternity test. For some reason, the Yankees responded to this by banning me from the press box at Yankee Stadium. So there's that one. The Yankees then helped ban me from the MLB Network when MLB Network offered me a job in 2012, a story I've told here many times. They were going to give me a show, and then the Yankees found out about it. And the message, as I understood it, was, if you even talk to him further about this, we will shut off all the MLB Network equipment in Yankee Stadium and we will not help fund the network any further. So that when my agent got on the phone with the president of MLB Network, who was going to make the offer, when he said, and so how about Keith? The guy literally went Silent. Not. I can't talk about it. Not. We have to withdraw the offer. He literally did what the Yankees told him do to do. Do not talk about this again. He took it perhaps a little too literally. So I got banned from MLB Network, which is kind of unfortunate for one reason only, which is that MLB Network is. Although they will be moving, apparently MLB Network is located in what was the original MSNBC studio. So going back there was always like this time travel thing because everything was the same except the 80 or 90 million dollars they spent on improving the studios and the control rooms. All the technical guts of the place they spent money on that. They literally did not change the signs on the backs of the bathroom doors that told you what number to call in case the john overflowed. All they did was change the extension. And they did this by taping a piece of paper with the new number over the actual plaque. They did not spend the $3 on the plaque. I always found this entertaining and the whole experience was like having a dream about your childhood home. And everything is exactly the same down to each creak of each floorboard, except for the fact that in the middle of your living room there's a nuclear reactor that you never noticed before. Now I can't go there anymore because the Yankees banned me from MLB Network. Similarly, I believe I've been banned by msnbc. If they haven't banned me, they can give me a buzz. We could stop by and maybe, you know, join forces, which is what I would do if I was in the business of being anti Trump and there was an anti Trump asset out there who was familiar to my audience, who was willing to not even address the subject of bygones be bygones, but just ignore them. Because we have a bigger mutual enemy. You know, the Americans and the Soviet Union were allies during the Second World War. And then as soon as that was over, they went back to threatening to blow each other and the world to bits. I think that could be the relationship with msnbc, but I've been banned by them. I may have been banned by cnn. Jeff Zucker insisted I was banned as a possible host, but not as a guest. But I was in fact booked and then canceled by a CNN show several years ago so that I might be banned by cnn. I know I've been banned by Stephen Colbert because I caught Stephen Colbert, who is a reprehensible human being hiding behind a smile. Stephen Colbert changed or had somebody change or somebody in management changed the introduction to a pre taped bit that I did for him that Wasn't funny. But I came over in the morning and did this bit for him and he changed the intro. The intro that I heard as he introduced me was, here's the man who's had more jobs than you've had hot dinners. Keith Ulberman. And I played some sort of stupid game that they pre taped in the morning. When I saw it on the air that night, the introduction was, here's a man who's been fired or suspended or thrown out of more jobs than you've had hot dinners. They changed it and they changed it after I left the building. And I called him a weasel, and I called him a weasel in public places. And then that was the end of my Stephen Colbert career, which, by the way, I wasn't going to go back anyway. I assume I have been banned by Madison Square Garden. I have hit up the owner of the New York Knicks and Rangers, the Trumpist, James Dolan, several times for being generally a slob and a guy who delights in humiliating the people who pay his team's salaries, the customers. Ironic that, because it was his brother with whom I worked at CNN for many years, Pat Dolan, who was then in charge now of Cabletown or whatever it is that they owned and made all their money off of because they were in this unprofitable business when it suddenly became the only thing in town. Now, that's my history, and it's obviously 25 minutes worth of history. I've been banned a lot. That's me. But I will say this. For all the banning that has happened to me, I need you to know this is true. I know a newscaster, a late newscaster with whom I worked early in my career who was banned from going into the state of Maryland. Later, when I went into television, I discovered a sportscaster who was also banned from going into the state of Maryland. And the punchline to this is, the two men unrelated, both had the same name. I don't mean they both had the same first name. I mean they had the same professional name. One was the newscaster such and such, and the other was the sportscaster such and such. So I believe the state of Maryland has some sort of law making it illegal for people with that name to enter the state. Now that's being banned. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening and for not banning me. The Clippers one is still the best. Oh, no, I can't go to see the worst team in professional sports. What will I do? I had never gone to any of their games or practices. Who would go to see their practice other than to try to confirm this team? Practices. Practice. We're talking about practice. Brian Ray and John Philip Chenale, the musical directors of Countdown, who barely need practice, arranged, produced and performed most of our music. Mr. Chenale handled orchestration and keyboards. Mr. Ray was on the guitar as bass and drums. He did all his practicing when he was a kid. 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 older theme from ESPN2, written by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc. From whose campus I am not banned. Other music well, I better check that. Other music arranged and performed by the group no horns allowed. My announcer today was my friend from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and Airplane, Jonathan Banks. Everything else was as ever my band self fault. That's Countdown for today. Just 1,371 days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term. Unless Musk removes him sooner or the actuarial tables do, or Lisa Murkowski does. I'm telling you Senator, the world is in your hands. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. If I don't break anything else or get sick again. As always, bulletins as the news warrants, remember, impeach Trump. It will not work now. It will win the Democrats the midterms. And I want polling right now on a presidential recall vote just to see how pissed off everybody really is. Till next time, I'm Keith Olbermann. Good morning, good afternoon, good night and good luck. Ted. Stevie, do you want a treat? You want a treat? Tell me, do you want a treat? Yes or no? Do you want a treat? Thank you, Rose. Do you want a treat? Where's Kit? Oh Kit. Do you want a treat? Kit doesn't know how to bark yet. For treatment treats, Stevie. Stevie does. Okay, we're gonna stop recording now. You can stop barking. 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.
Podcast Host/Announcer
There's nothing like sinking into luxury. At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Annabe sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom. Starting at only $699. The stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style. Whether you need a single chair loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop now@washablesofas.com Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
Keith Olbermann
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. Open your free iHeart app and search.
Podcast Host/Announcer
The newsagents to start listening.
Keith Olbermann
Hello, it is Ryan and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on jumbaccasino.com I looked over the person sitting next to me and you know what they were doing? They were also playing Chumba Casino. Everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumba Casino is home to hundreds of casino style games that you can play for free anytime, anywhere. So sign up now@chumbacasino.com to claim your free welcome bonus. That's chumbacasino.com and live the Chumba Life Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group Void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply. December 29, 1975 Laguardia Airport the holiday Rush.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Parents hauling luggage. Kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then everything changed.
Keith Olbermann
There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.
Podcast Host/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.
Keith Olbermann
Foods, you could be starving your gut microbes and they'll get hangry. That's one of many things I learned.
Podcast Host/Announcer
After working on a new audio course.
Keith Olbermann
About the gut microbiome. You can learn how to keep your.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Gut happy by listening to Try this.
Keith Olbermann
From the Washington Post. I'm Christina Quinn.
Podcast Host/Announcer
I host Try this.
Keith Olbermann
Dig in with me on practical advice for life's common challenges. Follow.
Podcast Host/Announcer
Try this right now, wherever you're listening.
Keith Olbermann
Seriously, try it. This is an I Heart podcast.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann (iHeartPodcasts) — April 21, 2025
In this episode, Keith Olbermann delivers a scathing, urgent analysis of the United States’ current political crisis, with a focus on Senator Lisa Murkowski’s potential to catalyze a Republican revolt against Donald Trump’s increasingly autocratic actions. With the threat of Trump invoking the Insurrection Act looming, Olbermann weaves in historical references, personal anecdotes, critiques of both parties, and a characteristic dose of biting humor. The episode highlights the critical moment facing American democracy and explores the unique leverage that Murkowski and a handful of Republican lawmakers have to shape the nation’s future.
[02:31 – 07:47]
Opens quoting 1984: “The party seeks power entirely for its own sake… Power is not a means, it is an end.”
Olbermann asserts Trump has treated Orwell’s dystopian warning as “an instructional manual.”
Predicts Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, consolidating dictatorial power.
“He will do it because Trump seeks power entirely for its own sake, that he knows no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it at an end.” — Keith Olbermann [04:33]
Notes Trump’s advisers (Hegseth, Noem) advised against such action, but suspects he’ll go ahead due to his compulsion for control.
[07:47 – 12:00]
Plays a key audio clip of Lisa Murkowski expressing anxiety about using her voice out of fear of retribution.
“Oftentimes very anxious myself about… using my v[voice]. Because retaliation is real.” — Lisa Murkowski [08:24]
Olbermann hails this confession as the most important Republican statement of the year: Murkowski articulates the chilling effect Trump has had within the GOP.
Urges Murkowski to act not only publicly but privately—to rally GOP Senators (he cites 14, plus four House Republicans) to reign in Trump or initiate impeachment.
“You, Senator Murkowski, can save the country. You can impeach Trump… The 18 of you can use the threat… to fetter him, to at least control the width and breadth of the damage.” — Keith Olbermann [10:10]
Suggests the mere threat of impeachment could force Trump to moderate or halt autocratic measures.
[12:00 – 16:30]
Argues that for Republicans, true resistance is the only option; partial dissent leads nowhere.
“There are only two routes… The false promise of compromise and appeasement… goes directly over a cliff. And then there is the only other path: utter resistance.” — Keith Olbermann [13:28]
Highlights that Murkowski isn’t alone in her fear, and calls on her to “have conversations” with swing colleagues—and even Supreme Court Justices (Coney Barrett, Roberts)—to bring pressure or leverage moderation.
[16:30 – 25:30]
Analyzes a late-night Supreme Court order halting deportations/kidnappings under the Alien Enemies Act—a rebuke to Trump’s executive overreach.
Reads directly from the court order, noting Justices Thomas and Alito’s dissent.
Interprets it as a 7–2 warning to Trump: “No more Alien Enemies Act, asshole.” [18:20]
“This is a very polite, very legalistic FU to Donald Trump.” — Keith Olbermann [18:00]
Connects the court’s order to Trump’s recent moves to expel Afghan refugees and considers a possible invocation of the Insurrection Act, even as his handpicked officials recommend against it.
[25:30 – 33:45]
Details examples of backtracking within Trump’s administration: on tariffs, Musk, Ukraine, and now the Insurrection Act.
Suggests Trump’s inner circle is performing “small fish” appeasement and “massaging” his ego to prevent rash escalations.
“They are soft soaping him… throwing small fish at his mouth to keep him happy and to keep him from trying to attack the Pequod.” — Keith Olbermann [27:52]
Argues the White House’s “impregnable front” hides incompetence and internal panic.
[33:45 – 36:45]
Lambasts Gavin Newsom and “centrist” Democrats for treating mass deportations and autocracy as “distractions.”
“Great, flaming, boneheaded, power hungry, stupid Gavin fraud. Newsom, resign.” — Keith Olbermann [35:39]
Reads Axios quotes from an anonymous “centrist” House Democrat echoing GOP framing, calls for primary challenges.
Praises Democratic Senator Ed Markey for submitting a Senate resolution declaring Trump ineligible for future office.
“Ed, you’re God damn right.” — Keith Olbermann [36:28]
[57:51 – 81:05]
[39:15 – 55:23]
Critiques a Musk Cybertruck driver ([40:54]).
Congressman Dan Meuser for victim-blaming after an attack on PA’s Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro.
“He literally meant Governor Shapiro was kind of asking for it.” — Keith Olbermann [42:20]
Attorney General Pam Bondi for ignoring the Shapiro attack to focus on anti-transgender sports crusades.
Riley Gaines, ex-swimmer, for leveraging victimhood and being propped up by Bondi ([53:55]).
[87:00 – End]
Ends with a passionate appeal for Murkowski and colleagues to take action:
“Just 1,371 days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term. Unless Musk removes him sooner or the actuarial tables do, or Lisa Murkowski does. I’m telling you, Senator, the world is in your hands.” — Keith Olbermann [86:30]
Asks Democrats to push for Trump’s impeachment and to poll a presidential recall vote.
On Power and Autocracy:
“We are not interested in the good of others. We are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness. Only power.” — George Orwell, quoted by Keith Olbermann [02:45]
On Murkowski’s Fear:
“She has reached the exact baseline state Trump has sought. It is the exact premise of O’Brien’s speech in the torture chamber to Winston Smith in 1984… the object of torture is torture and the object of power is power.” — Keith Olbermann [09:05]
On Resistance:
“As Trump wields power solely in order to wield power forever, you must become such that you resist solely to resist him forever, Senator.” — Keith Olbermann [15:53]
On GOP Cowardice:
“Look down below at the pile at the bottom. It’s Lindsey Graham.” — Keith Olbermann [13:56]
On Gavin Newsom & Centrist Democrats:
“Centrist is political ease for asshole.” — Keith Olbermann [36:12]
Supreme Court’s Coded Message to Trump:
“No more Alien Enemies act asshole.” — Keith Olbermann [19:13]
The episode is classic Olbermann: incisive, sardonic, and unflinching, with moments of black humor breaking up grim political analysis. He openly mocks public figures he deems cowardly or complicit, turns personal grievance stories into stand-up-level bits, and sustains a sense of urgency throughout. The language is conversational, direct, and often acerbic.
For listeners and non-listeners alike, this episode is a call to recognize a unique inflection point in U.S. history—one that still holds out hope for a Republican-led stand against autocracy, if those with courage act quickly.