TRUMP, A WHITE SUPREMACIST, IS SICK THE WAY WOODROW WILSON WAS - 12.4.25

Summary

Podcast Summary: "TRUMP, A WHITE SUPREMACIST, IS SICK THE WAY WOODROW WILSON WAS"

Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Aired: December 4, 2025
Host: Keith Olbermann (iHeartPodcasts)

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Main Theme & Purpose

Keith Olbermann’s episode is an urgent, unsparing political commentary on the mental fitness and openly racist conduct of President Donald Trump, drawing historical parallels to Woodrow Wilson’s incapacitating illness in the presidency. Olbermann argues Trump is not only unfit for office due to what he asserts are neurological symptoms—anosognosia in particular—but that Trump is now outwardly embracing white supremacy, especially with recent attacks on Somali-Americans and explicit racist rhetoric.

The episode further critiques Trump’s inner circle’s complicity, the legality of military orders issued, media failures, and the broader moral unraveling of American public life under Trump and his enablers. Olbermann weaves in signature segments such as "Worst Persons in the World," eulogizes a former sports colleague, and delivers a scathing postscript on recent political and journalistic scandals.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump's Mental Fitness and Anosognosia

• [02:58–11:33] Olbermann begins by comparing Trump’s present state to President Woodrow Wilson after his stroke—a state defined by anosognosia (a neurological condition where a patient cannot comprehend or acknowledge their own illness).
  • Trump demonstrates symptoms through cognitive decline, bizarre behavior in cabinet meetings, and confusion over medical procedures (e.g., not knowing which part of his body got an MRI).
  • Quote at [05:33]:

    "He really believes the test they gave him was for admission to Mensa, just like he really believes the MRI does not have to be for a specific body part. He really believes this because he has the disease that keeps you from processing that something is physically wrong with your brain."

  • [07:59] Donald Trump (clip):

    "I have no idea. It was just an MRI. What part of the body—it wasn’t the brain, because I took a cognitive test and I aced..."

  • Olbermann contextualizes with Wilson’s denial after his stroke:

    "To casual observers, anosognosiac patients may appear quite normal and even bright and witty when not on the subject of their disability." [08:41]

  • Claim: “Our president has significant damage to his brain. He unintentionally confesses to it nearly every day…” [07:32]

2. Trump’s Explicit Embrace of White Supremacy

• [12:13–16:15] Olbermann states Trump’s latest attacks on Somali-Americans prove he is an unrepentant white supremacist and that even the pretense of denial is gone (“The hood is off.”)
  • Quote at [12:13]:

    “…the attack on the Somalis, it is not only nauseating, it is not only confirmation of every allegation of racism against Trump... It is another indicator of mental illness.”

  • Ephemeral boundary between mindless and open hatred, and the societal implications of a president vilifying American citizens by ethnicity.
• Plays an extended Trump rant [14:02–15:42], where Trump says:
  • “These Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country... Ilhan Omar... She should be thrown the hell out of our country... The Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country...”
  • Olbermann: “F you, pal. F you and everybody who supports you.” [15:42]
  • Olbermann, [16:03]:

    “He has this white trash reflex about people of color. Woodrow Wilson had that too.”

3. Illegal Orders and the Crisis of Cabinet Complicity

• [17:00–22:43] Discussion of the Democrats’ “Do Not Obey Illegal Orders” video, referencing a September 2nd “kill the boat survivors” order exposed as an illegal act.

  • Cabinet’s role: pressured to obey or risk retaliation; Hegseth (Secretary of War Crimes) singled out.
  • [19:29]:

    "Whether they have heard the word anosognosia or not... they probably have been briefed. They know what's going on in Trump's brain..."

• Historical analogy: Cites the suicide of former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal as a metaphor for people like Hegseth being cornered with no way out.

4. The Aftermath of D.C. Shooting and Foreign Policy Catastrophes

• [22:55–32:05] Covers the D.C. shooting, attempted Trump deflection of blame, and the Venezuela war buildup.
  • Trump blamed for the climate leading to such violence, and for the dangerous, lawless way the administration is managing intelligence and military action.
  • Skewers John Ratcliffe (CIA Director), Tulsi Gabbard, Cash Patel (Trump loyalists) for complicity in failures, hypocrisy, and abandonment of U.S. allies.
  • [26:44]:

    "Don't hide behind laws you spend the rest of your lives breaking. Penis head Miller."

  • Argues recent tragedies (e.g., death of National Guard troops) are the direct result of Trump’s and his loyalists’ incompetence and lack of moral responsibility.

5. Media and Culture Rants—“Worst Persons in the World”

• [34:24–53:59]
  • Targets government incompetence and bigotry (e.g., Nazi-adjacent imagery in Department of Labor tweets) [39:10].
  • Mocks Bari Weiss for alleged “centrist” ambitions at CBS while actually platforming right-wing figures ([41:46–44:23]).
  • Bill Maher is the “worst person” of the day for shifting right, supporting Trump apologists, and being out-of-touch—particularly lampooning a podcast with Lara Trump and Maher’s self-perception of political centrism.
  • [47:46]:

    “Holy effing F. I mean, honestly, holy effing F. This is the CBS Evening News with Alan Dershowitz and Bill Maher...”

6. Remembrance of Steve Pickman

• [57:18–62:43]
  • Olbermann eulogizes Steve “Sarge” Pickman—a talented former ESPN colleague, stand-up comic, and sports personality who recently passed away.
  • Tells stories exemplifying Pickman’s care, creativity, and impact, juxtaposing his loss with the episode’s wider themes of decline and wasted potential.

7. Media Ethics/Journalism Scandal Postscript

• [62:48–87:56]
  • A lengthy segment on the Olivia Nuzzi-RFK Jr. journalism scandal, book backlash, and media malpractice.
  • Olbermann rails against Nuzzi’s ethical violations: passing opposition research to RFK, destroying evidence, writing off-the-record info as fact, and burning former journalistic credibility.
  • [83:29]:

    “She had suddenly switched to the other side of this equation and become shit, as somebody put it online. She was trying to knock off one presidential candidate by destroying the incumbent president while screwing the third presidential candidate. That's quite a hat trick.”

  • Quotes from Tina Brown summarize the “crash and burn comeback” and failures of accountability in media.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trump's Condition

  • “Our president has significant damage to his brain. He unintentionally confesses to it nearly every day...” (Olbermann, 07:32)
  • “He’s the sickest person ever to be in the Oval Office.” (Paraphrased summary throughout)

• On Trump’s Racism and White Supremacy

  • “The hood is off after yesterday. The attack on the Somalis… is confirmation of every allegation of racism against Trump…” (12:13)

• On Cabinet Dynamics

  • “They know what's going on in Trump's brain, or at least the degree of how bad it is and how they can never confront him with the reality of just how sick he is.” (17:32)

• On Moral Responsibility

  • "The people whose failures led to two brand new untrained National Guard troops being shot by this creature Lachenwalls are John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, Cash Patel, Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and all who serve them. And they can go straight to hell." (32:41)

• On Media Culture

  • “She was trying to knock off one presidential candidate by destroying the incumbent president while screwing the third presidential candidate. That's quite a hat trick.” (83:29)
  • “American Canto is Ezra Pound in Hair Extensions.” (Tina Brown quote via Olbermann, 86:10)

• Eulogy for Steve Pickman

  • “This is the simple element of genius, the one through line among all people, successful and many who are not. But the thing that keeps you going is this conviction that it's your work. Do it well.” (61:09)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Trump’s Mental Condition & Wilson Comparison: 02:58–11:33
• Trump’s Speech, Somali-American Attacks (Trump Audio): 14:02–15:42
• Cabinet Meeting & Illegal Orders: 17:00–22:43
• D.C. Shooting, Venezuela, and Cabinet Complicity: 22:55–32:05
• Worst Persons in the World (Maher/Weiss): 34:24–53:59
• Steve Pickman Eulogy: 57:18–62:43
• Olivia Nuzzi Scandal & Media Critique: 62:48–87:56

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Podcast Tone and Style

Olbermann is biting, profane, sardonic, and blends the personal with political urgency. His analogies are often historical, his tone outraged and sometimes darkly humorous (“F you, pal. F you and everybody who supports you.” [15:42]). There are frequent asides where he mocks, scolds, or grieves, but all build toward the thesis: American democracy is at risk from an unfit, openly racist leader, and a crumbling socio-political structure that tolerates such decay at the top.

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Summary for the Uninitiated

This is an uncompromising, alarm-sounding episode for listeners concerned about U.S. democracy under Trump—asserting not just political but medical unfitness for office and the normalization of white supremacy at presidential levels. The episode doubles as a case study in the perils of unchecked power, media malfeasance, and institutional collapse, with historical parallels, righteous anger, and moments of personal reflection. Olbermann’s signature blend of sharp humor, media critique, and eulogizing for lost talent is fully on display, making the show both a clarion call and cultural chronicle of a dark moment in American history.

Transcript

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There are three critical headlines. Trump has now convinced me he is sick the way President Woodrow Wilson was sick. And the Tuesday circle jerk cabinet meeting was another one where cabinet members were probably warned. Praise him today because he may not recognize you tomorrow. Secondly, with his nauseating attack on Somali Americans in Minnesota yesterday, we will no longer accept any debate on this point. Donald Trump is a full on white supremacist, a racist bastard who is no longer hiding it, who cannot hide it anymore, who is so out of control of his own mind that it is all pouring out now and thus who cannot continue as president. The hood is off.

And thirdly, it is increasingly obvious that the Democrats must have put out the do not obey illegal orders video when they did, because there is a chain of evidence that has come to light suggesting that the September 2nd kill the boat survivors order from the Secretary of War crimes. That was an illegal order. Right?

Okay, Anno sagnosia First, that's what Woodrow Wilson had and that's what I have gone on about at least five times since 2016. I hope I am not boring you. It is what Woodrow Wilson had when as part of the strokes he suffered in office he could not accept. He literally could not. His brain could not process the idea that he had any significant physical damage to his brain. That is the disease. That is part of the damage to the brain after some strokes. Trump showed it at least three different times this week. Most harrowingly at that cabinet meeting Tuesday first with the makeup covered gravel pit atop his right hand. The makeup has now been replaced with a giant flesh colored bandage which we saw while he fell asleep 10 times while he retained consciousness only when his name was mentioned, while he was boasting about acing that test that if you fail they issue you a drool cup.

Oddly, the giveaway is not the boasting. It is in a painful truth. It is that he is as sincere and earnest about this God damned test as anything he's ever talk in his life. He really believes the test they gave him was for admission to Mensa, just like he really believes the MRI does not have to be for a specific body part. He really believes this because he has the disease that keeps you from processing that something is physically wrong with your brain. That is anosognosia. They have told him what is wrong with him. They have showed him, they may have showed him the MRIs, they have given him the tests and told him why and his mind has blocked out his acceptance of the reasons. And that is why he is so convinced these other nonsensical explanations must be the truth.

And this is also anosognosia. There is no way anybody who has ever had an MRI has not known what part of the body the MRI was of, unless they were unconscious or sedated or high on hallucinogens or alcohol or something, or. Or they had anosognosia. I don't mean if you have an MRI on a bone in your leg and you don't know if it's the tibia or the fibula. I mean, if you have an MRI and you say the doctors told you you had an MRI and they told you how great you did, and you then act as if it was the most normal thing in the world to act, as Trump did aboard Air Force One, like it could have an MRI on your neck or your ankle. How would you know the difference?

Like everybody who's ever had an MRI only had to worry whether it was good or bad or the greatest MRI in the history of the letters M, R and I.

And not only not know, but have no curiosity about what part of the body it was.

Our president has significant damage to his brain. He unintentionally confesses to it nearly every day, and then he boastfully pretends he's pretending to him himself, that of course he doesn't know what part of the body. Nobody knows what part of the body an MRI is for. Of course he literally can't tell his ass from his elbow.

[Donald Trump]

I have no idea. It was just an mri. What part of the body it wasn't the brain, because I took a cognitive test and I aced and I got a perfect mark, which you would be incapable of doing. Goodbye, everybody. You too. Thank you.

[Keith Olbermann]

Forget for a moment the insults in there. It is the certitude, the confidence, the absolute unshakable conviction he has in the moment that nobody ever gets told what part of the body his MRI is of, that's anosognosia.

And don't be deceived by him saying it wasn't the brain, during which, by the way, he pointed at his brain, because, of course, only he is smart enough to know where the brain is.

That's just the anosognosiac patient doubling down on his insistence that he alone knows reality, that he alone can fix it. I'll read this quote one more time. Following his stroke, the outstanding feature of the President's behavior was his denial of his incapacity. The President referred to as Woodrow Wilson. The author is the neuropsychiatrist Edward Weinstein, who half a century ago was granted access to the Woodrow Wilson papers and studied them scientifically. Quoting again, to casual observers, anosognosiac patients may appear quite normal and even bright and witty when not on the subject of their disability. They are quite rational, and tests of their intelligence may show no deficit.

Wilson, after his stroke, when he could barely speak, when he was reduced to a whisper, he insisted that the only thing that was wrong was that he had a little bit more trouble walking. But his brain was fine, and anybody who contradicted him got fired. He was confined to his bed for weeks. He was unable to swallow solid food. He often refused to take the liquid diet they had to give him. He could not sit upright on his own. He could not speak above a whisper. And he insisted that he still wanted to run for a third term.

And one day, President Wilson motioned to his White House physician, Admiral Grayson, to lean down to put his ear virtually next to Wilson's mouth so that Wilson could whisper something to him. And Grayson's meticulous notes include what Wilson told him word for word, quoting them, quoting the President of the United States at the end of the first World War. Woodrow Wilson, president and anno sagnosiak, speaking in a raspy whisper, said.

A wonderful bird is the pelican. His bill will hold more than his belly can. He can take in his beak enough food for a week. I wonder how in the hell he can.

They told Trump what his MRI was for. They told him what the other one and the other ones we don't know about were for. They told him about every other test they've given him and what they were looking for. They have to. But these things would have been proof to him of brain damage from a stroke or fluid aphasia or Alzheimer's or God knows what. It doesn't matter. And so this disease, this consequence, this side effect that keeps you from acknowledging you have a disease that is kind of a self defense mechanism, but a biologically based one blocked it out. He did not hear that part.

The President of the United States has now convinced me he has anosognosia. He is unaware of his own mental and intellectual incapacity. He will never acknowledge it. And he is unfit to serve in office for another minute.

And even were this not the case. Get him the F out of here. The hood is off after yesterday. The hood is off after yesterday and Tuesday. The hood is off. The attack on the Somalis, it is not only nauseating, it is not only confirmation. Of every allegation of racism against Trump since he and his goddamned father kept blacks out of their apartment buildings 50 years ago. It is another indicator of mental illness. At the same time, the scumbag Nick Fuentes is boasting, and there are actually some receipts, that he is the one who got Trump to turn on the Somalis in Minnesota, that his racist rant precipitated Trump's racist rant only Fuentes is a scumbag with a microphone and a tie. Trump is president and he cannot continue to be one. Talking about Americans like this, putting bullseyes on Americans like this, using the R word about the governor of Minnesota generally setting new highs in low, even for him.

It is one thing to hate mindlessly. Lord knows we've probably had about 50% of our presidents who've hated something mindlessly in this country or someone. But it is another to hate mindlessly out loud. It is no longer societal guardrails that have broken and failed here. It is the ones inside Trump's head, the ones that kept him from saying things that would make his own people run for their pitchforks and torches. For him or against him, those guardrails are now broken too.

Flatly. Listen to this and you answer my question. Is the voice you hear coming still from an actual human being or not?

[Donald Trump]

These Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country. They've taken billions and billions of dollars. They have a representative, Ilhan Omar, who they say she married her brother. It's a fraud. She tries to deny it now, but you can't really deny it because, you know, it just happened. She shouldn't be allowed to be a congresswoman, and I'm sure people are looking at that. And she should be thrown the hell out of our country. And most of those people, they have destroyed Minnesota. Okay, Minnesota, you have an incompetent governor. You have a crooked governor. He's crooked as hell, but he's incompetent.

Waltz is. He should be ashamed. That beautiful land, that beautiful state, it's a hellhole right now. And the Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country, and all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her. She's always talking about the Constitution provides me with.

Go back to your own country and figure out your Constitution. All she does is complain about this country. And without this country, she would not be in very good shape. She probably wouldn't be alive right now. So Somalia is considered by many to be the worst country on earth. I don't know. I haven't been there. I won't be there anytime soon, I hope. But what Somalia, what the Somalian people have done to Minnesota is, Is not even believable. It's not even believable. And a lot of it starts with the governor. A lot of it starts with Barack Hussein Obama.

[Keith Olbermann]

F you, pal. F you and everybody who supports you.

Barack Hussein Obama can't resist it. Total unmitigated racism. White supremacy from like all other white supremacists, white trash Donald, white trash Trump.

It is funny, he has this white trash reflex about people of color. Woodrow Wilson had that, too. Series of strokes. Woodrow Wilson had.

By the way, when this ends and Trump is gone, institutionalized, living under 24. 7 observation somewhere, who knows? And Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem and Bovino and Bungino and Homan, they're all on trial for obeying Trump's illegal orders. This, incidentally, will be their defense. But the president was mentally incompetent. But they were, as members of his Cabinet, legally obligated to follow his instructions as commander in chief. And they were caught between a legal rock and a legal hard place because obviously Trump was issuing illegal orders. But it's not like they could just ignore him without risking being prosecuted by him.

And that's one of the reasons they were so exercised by the Mark Kelly Slotkin video about refusing to obey illegal orders. So furious about that story, so furious about Hegseth clearly obeying them and issuing them and all of them clearly egging Trump to keep suggesting sedition trials and hangings and killings. Because every Republican accusation is a confession, especially if it is the thing the entire Cabinet is talking about at the moment.

Whether they have heard the word ano sagnosia or not. I mean, imagine Cash Patel trying to say anno Sagnosia. They know. Hell, they probably have been briefed. They know what's going on in Trump's brain, or at least the degree of how bad it is and how they can never confront him with the reality of just how sick he is. Just don't disagree with him, whatever you do.

That's what the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday was just like the cabinet meeting on August 26, the three hour and 17 minute cabinet meeting. Somebody, a doctor or Susie Wiles or somebody, God knows who, must have said, we're not sure if he's ever going to be this clear again as he is right now. This may be it. Say your compliments to him now before he doesn't know who the hell you are anymore. He's going in for another MRI in.

A month. You see the patch on his hand?

And as to the illegal order video from the Democrats, the other reason it hits so many Republicans nerves is clearly there have been illegal orders. You can read it on the worm like face of Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War Crimes, Secretary with two S's, second S on his name plate at that meeting Tuesday was for scotch or because it does spell out ss, doesn't it?

I mean, that has to be it, right? That's why the video is out now.

Mark Kelly, ain't shooting in the dark here. They didn't choose now to put out that video at random.

In the wake of it, a couple of Republicans have decried whistleblowers in the Pentagon who revealed the kill the survivors order that Hegseth is trying to squirm out from under. Who said anything about whistleblowers?

This is how quickly Hegseth is unraveling. This is where his defenders are. Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, who is a brick with a beard on it and a human body supporting the brick, says, quote, if there was a second strike, it wouldn't be to just simply take out the survivors. It's because there was still a threat or opportunity for them to run.

Yes, Mark Wayne, the two guys whose ship just got blown up in the middle of the ocean out from under them. They were then going to run.

Atop the water. Somebody else suggested they were going to get all the other narco terrorists to come save them.

Marquane Mullen is a big man in the Oklahoma plumbing game.

Can you tell.

How does this end? I mean, after the internal review at the Pentagon came down and confirmed Hesketh actually risked the lives.

Of American soldiers with his unencrypted signal chat after this Hegseth fiasco in the Caribbean, after the forced resignation of general after general because they weren't Trumpian or Hegsethian enough, After Hegseth's wild, increasingly manic monologues that have gradually changed from threatening to what the hell is wrong with this guy? Holy crap. I'll just turn to history here and I'm saying in advance, I'm not advocating for this. And boy, oh boy, I hope this never happens. However, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, one of Hegseth's predecessors, retired from the Truman administration on 28th March, 1949 due to ill health. This is from the New York Times of May 23, 1949. So not quite two months later, Washington, May 22. James Forrestal, former Secretary of Defense, jumped 13 stories to his death early this morning from the 16th floor of the National Naval Medical Center. Suicide had apparently been his plan from early evening. The plunge that caused Mr. Forstall's death occurred at 2am Hospital authorities announced it with a brief statement. Clad in a dressing gown, he pushed open a screen held only by thumb latches and plummeted to the third floor projection. After hitting a narrower projection at the fourth floor, the sound of the fall was heard by Lt. Dorothy Turner, the nurse on duty on the seventh floor. Mr. Forrestal, 57 years of age, retired as Secretary of Defense on March 28, and on April 2 he entered the naval hospital at nearby Bethesda, Maryland, a victim of what his doctors later diagnosed as excessive occupational fatigue.

Not unlike that suffered by servicemen in battle.

Not wishing this on anybody, I am suggesting a failing, flailing loser who sees no way out like Hegseth gets cornered, which is where he is now. And this is among the possible results. Those who care about him need to pull him out of this scenario immediately before something like that.

Becomes genuinely possible.

Can't let this go without comment. The D.C. shooting, which Trump and his scum are somehow now trying to tie to Somalis. It's Trump's fault. If you were a conspiracy theorist, you could say maybe it might have been Trump's plan.

And the war Trump is bullshitting us into in Venezuela is not only obviously Trump's fault, but it is based on exactly the kinds of illegal military orders Mark Kelly and Melissa Slotkin and the other Democrats warned about in the video.

And by the way, the Epstein files cannot be both a red herring which contains nothing damaging about Trump while at the same time being a Democratic hoax to damage Trump if there is nothing in them damaging to him.

The hoax cannot clear the victim of the hoax and Trump's gutter trash used of the ablest slur towards Governor Walz and the latest insult towards another woman reporter, this time from cbs. They are indicative of growing an uncontrollable rage that matches exactly what elderly people suffering from various forms of dementia and mental incapacity suffer and inflict on others. Anosognosia Woodrow Wilson got violent and that's just the obvious stuff. There is something subtler in play back of this that we need to consider at this moment. It pertains especially to Venezuela and whatever atrocity Trump is cooking up now. And it is between them, Trump and his CIA director, the fool John Ratcliffe, are going to get us all killed. Between them, Trump and the CIA director Ratcliffe have done more damage to this country in five days than a thousand Ramana Lackinwalls could do in five years.

Ratcliffe, who still had leftover shards of public service instinct left within him during the last Trump regime. He is now utterly lost, utterly corrupted by politics and this psychological slavery to the Trump culture.

It is only about how an event, any event, can be spun to advance Trump's lust for power and fomentation of a society in which the only currency is vengeance. That's all that is left to these people now. And it's claimed Ratcliffe, no danger is meaningful, no threat to the country needs to be prioritized. No logic must be followed. The only thing this government is about is somehow polishing Trump.

That our country cannot be safe if it does not have the trust of people living in other countries, people we may need the next time there actually is conflict in their country in which our interests are at stake.

That fact that our country cannot be safe if it does not have their trust is obvious, unless you have lost your mind like Donald Trump or lost your soul like John Radcliffe, the alleged D.C. shooter. Lackenwalls served with a CIA marksmanship unit in Afghanistan under Trump's presidency. He was vetted by the Trump administration for that post. His path to this country was opened by Trump's horrific capitulation to the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was granted amnesty this past April by the Trumpists and by the Stephen Miller scum squad. And I don't want to hear shit from Trump or Miller about how difficult laws.

Made to get people like lacking walls out of this country are. The law is one thing that Trump has never worried about before, especially when it pertains to immigration. Don't hide behind laws you spend the rest of your lives breaking. Penis head Miller.

So put all the debate aside. Lackinwall's is Trump. The death of Sarah Beckstrom is Trump. Yet after Lackinwall's committed heinous and indefensible acts, this dangerous buffoon John Ratcliffe could only think of how to blame someone, anybody but Trump. And more relevantly, how to second guess and thus how to hurt the United States. Ratcliffe's reaction, Trump's reaction. Tell those people in those other countries who have helped us, who would help us in the future, who would never fight against us to go F themselves because one of them out of tens of thousands committed a heinous act as he went through his own mental deterioration. Throw out all the babies with the bathwater.

Back when there still was representative government in this country. Ratcliffe's statement would have been cause for immediate dismissal for the rooting out of anybody sharing his opinion in the intelligence community, for the commencing of congressional hearings about how this was, what our government's position had become, why people like the CIA director had become determined to make certain that the United States will always be seen as the enemy, why he has decided he wants our soldiers and other representatives always to be seen as the people. Not to help when they come to your country, but to harm in the next Afghanistan. Maybe that's Venezuela. Ratcliffe's statement is literally the starting point in a chain of events that will lead not to two National Guard troops being shot, two troops who are only in harm's way because Trump is insane and petty and stupid. Not just that, but it will lead to untold Americans being opposed, being betrayed, being killed in foreign countries in the next Afghanistan.

John Ratcliffe does not understand how the world works. He only understands that Trump liked what he said, which was, quote. In the wake of the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the US government, including CIA, as a member of the partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation. This individual and so many others should never have been allowed to come here. Our citizens and service members deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden administration's catastrophic failures. God bless our brave troops.

Leaving apart the fact that the fault in each of the instances that Ratcliffe cites there is Trump's shorter version of what Ratcliffe said was you from Afghanistan or you from Venezuela or wherever else.

We may wind up helping you to help us and helping us to help you in the next conflict. You people there, you need to understand that whatever protection we offer or promise you, we are lying.

The United States under Trump and Ratcliffe and the rest of these dishonorable, worthless Trumpist ass lickers, they're not only promising to betray you from Afghanistan, from Ukraine, from Venezuela, from wherever we may need to actually send troops or not need to, and do it anyway. We're not only promising to betray you, but we are putting that in giant letters so you know in advance.

On top of which, the sheer gall to blame the shooter's presence here.

As if it could have been foreseen or even guessed at by nitwits like Tulsi Gabbard and Cash Patel and John Ratcliffe and Trump and the bozos they have employed not for skill, but for mindless political fealty to Trump, the sheer gall to blame the shooter's presence here on Biden When Mamanala Lackenwalls served with the US Forces in Afghanistan under Trump.

When the withdrawal from Afghanistan that brought Lacknwalls here was signed by Trump in February 2020. When Lackingwals was granted asylum in the US this April by Trump. When the National Guard troops were pointlessly and cynically put in harm's way by Trump. The gall of it. The stupidity of it. The amoral, condescending mindlessness of it.

Under Donald Trump, this country has gone from often troubled, often wrong, but almost always well intentioned and well informed to a clown car full of people who seem dedicated to avoid the word responsibility in every one of its different meanings.

Face it on top of the evil Trump, Ratcliffe, Patel, Gabbard and the others are too stupid to handle the responsibility of what to do to prevent shootings like the one in D.C. and what to do to respond to such shootings and what not to do to guarantee that the response will not immediately inspire hundreds of thousands of enemies of this country around the world.

Just importantly, Trump, Ratcliffe, Patel, Gabbard and the others, they do not have a shred of moral fiber within their souls. Not one. Never mind enough to accept the responsibility for the results of their unjustifiable boastfulness and unerringly moronic lack of judgment.

Now we restart this cycle again. Trump wants to bomb Venezuela so the oil companies can ravage what's left of the failed state. Just as he wants to give Russia Ukraine, so Russia will give American oil companies a cut of Russian oil reserves. Because no one on this earth mattered to Donald Trump when he wasn't crazy.

No one matters. The only time someone matters is if they are at that moment giving him cash.

The people whose failures led to two brand new untrained National Guard troops being shot by this creature Lachenwalls are John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, Cash Patel, Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and all who serve them. And they can go straight to hell. Which sadly is where the rest of us are headed if we do not swerve away from this cult worshipping stupidity masquerading as a government.

Okay, so the laryngitis not good when the ENT looks in your mouth and says wow, my God. Happily, as you hear the inflammation, the infection have been managed sufficiently that I could read this. You heard it as one long part? Trust me, it was not one long part.

It was pretty long. Speaking of way too long a script. Turns out Ryan Lizza has written as many as eight different volumes of Living with Livy or oh oh Olivia or Stop trying to make Felch happen. Turns out we are at volume four of the newsy Lizza Odyssey. Plus one document, the Odyssey that's also known as War and Peace. And I have notes about the cliffhanger that implied that she might have suppressed information or RFK might have suppressed information about the Trump assassination attempt and also notes about that much more serious, much more disturbing reality. 88 articles.

So the next Ken Burns documentary is going to be a 16 hour 10 parter about her.

Also, it hasn't gotten any play, but it appears that she's out of work at the end of this month. She will not be with vanity fair on January 1st of 2026. Now worst persons Bill Maher won again. Vanish act. That'll be first.

Then at the end of the show, the last thing Olivia again.

That's next. This is Countdown. Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

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Most people think their insurance will cover them when disaster strikes. The truth? Many are wrong. You pay premiums and assume you're protected until the fine print hits exclusions, limits, loopholes. Suddenly that coverage isn't coverage at all. My policy advocate reviews your policies, Home, auto, life and breaks them down in plain English. They show what's really covered and isn't. It costs just 27 cents a day less than a cup of coffee. For peace of mind. Before you assume you're covered, go to mypolicyadvocate.com you might be shocked at what you find. Mypolicyadvocate.com this is Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Still ahead on this all new edition of countdown. Well, the word is there could be eight chapters all told to Ryan Lizza and the scissor he's taken two Olivia Newsey's career. I have some notes notes on chapter three. I will do it at show's end. 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 today's other worst persons in the world, the morons Worst the Department of Labor. It put out a tweet reading, the fight for Western civilization has begun and Americanism will prevail. The fight for Western civilization. The message is weird enough. This is the Department of Labor, like in guaranteeing sick days and making sure if your employer is responsible for your arm getting cut off at work, your employer can't just say tough. Here's a bill for the cleanup. And the Department of Labor is doing this nativist Nazi stuff for some reason.

Well, worse, they've got that tagline Americanism will prevail. It's written over a picture of Lincoln's statue at the Lincoln Memorial. There are two graphic decisions of note here. First, they have got Lincoln's head in their meme, if you will, ringed by 11 stars. 11 stars in a circle in a kind of laurel wreath dealio around his head, which is really odd because that logo, 11 stars in a circle. That's what's on the blue field in the upper left hand corner of the flag of the Confederate States of America. So you're combining Lincoln and the traitors he defeated and the traitors who defeated assassinated him. It's a choice. But then there is the lettering they used the font for the Americanism will prevail. It's.

Might be Antika and it might be fraktur and it might be one of the gothic Germanic fonts. But.

One way or the other, it's a Nazi font. It's one of the fonts the Nazis used for all their publications.

It's one of the family of fonts on the COVID of Mein Kampf. Nobody's being unfair here. Nobody's reading anything into this. It's the Nazi font. So Americanism will prevail if we let Lincoln be taken over by the Confederacy and we spell it all out in Hitler type. I'm never just going to say I told you so, but.

The runner up worser Barry Weiss of CBS News, adding to that theory that she has been hired to make sure CBS News goes out of business as quickly as possible. And she's the one who takes the blame for that. This is just not a bright person. More importantly, this is a person on the fringes of American discourse who thinks they are at its center. This is somebody who's wearing not eyeglasses, but you know, those telescopes through which she looks at the wrong end. Early last month, Bari Weiss addressed a leadership conference in New York and the video went viral last week. And it's, it's, it's, this is what she wants for her new CBS News. She wants less Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson on her CBS News. She wants the middle 40 yards of American discourse, whatever the hell that means. Of course Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson aren't on cbs. This reminds me of the guy I've often mentioned here, Rick Kaplan, who was president of MSNBC for two years without having cable for the first year. And then in the second year he didn't know what DVR was, so he used to to tell us about things that wasn't part of the show or that we would mention things that were changed a year previously and he hadn't seen yet because he didn't have cable. This is who Barry Weiss is. I think we should get less Nick Fuentes on cbs. You don't have Nick Fuente. It's not that bad yet. All right, there's more I'm reading now from Oliver Darcy in Status. Weiss said she wants to position CBS News to appeal to viewers on both the center right and center left, describing her approach as redrawing the lines of what falls in the 40 yard lines of acceptable debate.

As an example of that discourse, she pointed to a recent debate hosted by the Free Press between.

Alan Dershowitz and Dana Lasch, saying it showed that people that have wildly different opinions can have good faith, very passionate, very charismatic disagreements and still like each other at the end of the day.

Wait, who had the wildly different opinions? Alan Dershowitz and Dana Lash.

I mean, Dana Lash could just be Alan Dershowitz in a wig.

My God. Also, I didn't know Dana Lash was still alive. I'm not. I mean, that's an old joke. I didn't know they were still alive. I really hadn't heard her name in like five years. And I was not disappointed by this fact, as you may be able to tell. But, but, but Bari Weiss thinks that this is. Those are the 40 yard lines of America. Alan Dershowitz, who is hated by almost everybody except people like Dana Lash. And Dana Lash, who is hated by almost everybody except people like Alan Dershowitz.

This is the CBS Evening News with Alan Dershowitz. Tonight, part 179 of our I in America investigative series on Mr. Dershowitz being shunned on Martha's Vineyard for defending Trump. And part 374 of Mr. Dershowitz's series about how age of consent laws unfairly make criminals out of millions of those who are really just healthy.

And Steve Hartman on the road.

Alan Dershowitz, but very charismatic. Disagree. She called Alan Dershowitz very charismatic. That's the word that comes to my mind about him, too. You know, sometimes you see these right wing flavors of the month like Bari Weiss, and you get it. You say, well, they're skills. I hate Tucker Carlson. I hate Bill O'Reilly. I hope I always will. But 20 years ago, I was not denying that each had certain almost unmatchable TV skills. But this Bari Weiss is an idiot. She's just detached. It's like a D.

And yet there is still somebody worse. Our winner, Bill Maher. I get asked a lot about why Bill is killing himself professionally and especially why he's killing himself so slowly. And I can only suggest that he's always been a weathervane, so this is not a total shock. And that his company is run by the guy who killed cnn, David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery. And it may soon be sold to the Ellisons, meaning that Bill Maher's show may soon be owned by Bari Weiss.

That might be explain why he's doing this and so repeatedly and so slowly. Well, he does a podcast and his podcast episode, his latest one is with Lara Trump because he'd already done Cheryl Hines and Jillian Michaels and Tim Pool. As usual, a group of marr quotes from his own podcast is all you need to know where Bill stands. Let's put it this way, Dana Lash and Alan Dershowitz are actually closer to the 40 yard line of American whatever.

By the way, in these quotes, you will notice Bill is still complaining about stuff from last spring about his dinner with Adolf. I mean, Trump, of course, I don't give any corner to the leftists who just constantly downgrade America. It's another reason why they hate me. I mean, this is what I said to him, your father in law in the text, father in law being Trump. It's like, you know, if I'm so captured by the lunatic left, why do they hate me too?

Listen, pal, you're not captured by the lunatic left. I hate to, I hate to break this to you, but if you have not been paying attention and I've seen the show since the ABC show a quarter of a century ago, you're not paying attention. The entirety of the United States, including most conservatives, have moved to the left of you. They've continued to grow while you seem to be getting shorter.

You're not captured by the lunatic left. We repudiated you at least five years ago. Maybe you didn't look away from your mirror long enough to notice this. Maher also says his fans are people in the middle who just have had enough of people in their bubble. You know, I find it very frustrating that I cannot get the full story anywhere in the old media. It's very, I mean, I love the new Free Press. My girl, Barry Weiss, who started that, now she runs cbs. You know, you're seeing a change there that's more fair.

Holy effing F. I mean, honestly, holy effing F. This is the CBS Evening News with Alan Dershowitz and Bill maher. And part 374 of Mr. Maher's series on why Mr. Dershowitz is being shunned over age of consent laws. And Steve Hartman on the road.

By the way, Bill's remarks about CBS becoming more fair under Bari Weiss. Lara Trump agreed. I think that's very positive, she said, despite having plastic lips and Rule 1 Bill Maher, if Lara Trump agrees with you, you have just made a terrible, terrible mistake. Maher then said, I mean, I've been very tough on the media and the biases is. And I cry no tears. We're losing NPR and pbs.

Bill didn't get that memo either. We're not losing npr, pbs. They're just not getting funding from the Trump regime. And once again, at this point, at this juncture, Lara Trump jumped in with something compelling and intelligent to say. After I cry no tears, we're losing NPR and pbs. She said, quote, yeah, don't cry any tears over that.

I don't. Bill rejoindered, adding, I don't know why you need the Kennedy Center.

Then Lara Trump asked Bill a question. Do you like the independent journalists in the pressroom?

What does that mean? He answered, that mean your press room. Bill Maher honestly did not know that Trump has now packed the White House press room with propagandists from ultra right Trumpist sites, ringers, frauds, liars, who they call independent journalists, which actually just means independent of journalism. And then finally, Maher got back to his favorite topic. Don't put it in the paper that I'm mad. No, put it in the paper I'm mad, mad still about Larry David, about Larry's vivisection of Mar, about for dining with Trump, the New York Times article, my Dinner with Adolf, which was on April 21, which is like last April for those of you who've never used a calendar. Last April. I mean, I don't even keep my own wounds open that long. Bill. This is so childish, so purely emotional that people got all butthurt because I had dinner with him, you know, Cause he's Hitler, except he's not so unhelpful and dumb. Trump is the most supportive president Israel and the Jews ever had.

No, Bill said that. He was not quoting Mike Huckabee or one of the pastors, one of Trump's pastors who's just arrested for child molestation. So Bill, you think that's the only comparison? And just to be clear, one of the Trumpian religious advisors was arrested for child molestation. So Bill, you think the only comparison between Hitler and Trump was respective attitudes towards Israel?

The rest of it, I mean the.

Non denominational part, the rest of the Supreme Court, oppression of human rights and the marginalizing of minorities of all kinds and, you know, disappearing people off the streets and leading to their deaths and the erasure of the Constitution and laws by fiat and the growing insanity of the man in charge. So you just think this is about.

The specifics. Would it be all right then if Larry's article about you had been my dinner with you, Stalin.

Bill was still complaining about this. Every year I used to ask Larry David to do real time and he'd always say, bill, I can't. I'm not smart enough about politics to do your show. Yeah, I get that now.

Bill, I'm gonna. I'm going to literally stop the music for just a second.

Because I want to break something to you and I want you to listen carefully because I know this is going to shock you because it clearly has not previously occurred to you. I've never talked to Larry David about this, so I could be mistaken, but I've been talking to him about politics for 15 years now, longer. And he's very bright about politics. I mean, he is one of the announcers on this podcast. I don't have him come in and do commentaries here, but that's kind of an endorsement of the point of view here, at least of me.

Now, this is just me saying this.

But if Larry won't go on your show when he tells you I'm not smart enough about politics to do your show.

Bill, I'm going to go way out on a limb and suggest that for however many years he's been telling you that's smart enough about politics to do your show. As long as you've been saying that, Larry's just been being polite to you. He was trying to not hurt your feelings, and then you had to go and spoil it all by having dinner with. Well, having dinner with our Hitler, Bill, and talk about how nice Hitler I'm sorry Trump was to you, Bill. See, the real problem is. Bill, Bill, you're not smart enough about politics to do your show. Mar today's other worst person.

In the world.

Shh.

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[Keith Olbermann]

Most people think their insurance will cover them when disaster strikes. The truth? Many are wrong. You pay premiums and assume you're protected until the fine print hits. Exclusions, limits, loopholes. Suddenly that coverage isn't coverage at all. My policy advocate reviews your policies, Home, auto, life and breaks them down in plain English. They show what's really covered and what isn't. It costs just 27 cents a day less than a cup of coffee. For peace of mind, before you assume you're covered, go to mypolicyadvocate.com you might be shocked at what you find. Mypolicyadvocate.com.

Struggling to the finish line with postscripts to the news. Some headlines, some updates, some snark.

This is the Countdown podcast and these are the places where there's news. Dateline Boca Raton, Florida. We'll get to Newsy in a moment, but this is important. I was shocked to learn the other night of the death of Steve Pickman. I knew Steve Pickman for a very brief time, a very long time ago, and he was only 56 years old. And it's really unlikely that you knew him, although maybe you knew him by his stage name, Sarge. Comedian named Sarge. He was also a talent rep for a while, a Fox Sports figure in the early days of this century. A sports radio host, a recovery advocate and speaker, and a standup comedian who worked last week and was supposed to work next week. And he died late last month, and they haven't said what happened. He was as talented a guy as I ever knew. And when I knew him, he was a production assistant on SportsCenter at ESPN. It was probably 1995, watching games and editing highlights in a room full of dozens of other kids trying to break into the business via Bristol's screening room.

Also known as the Black Hole of Calcutta.

One day, the phone at my desk rings and it's Steve Pickman. He introduces himself. He introduces himself, and he asks if I am actually doing that night's oh, Yankees Royals highlights, because the show rundown has already changed a couple of times. And first it was me doing the Yankees Royals, and then it said it was Dan doing the Yankees Royals, and then it's me again, and he wants to know, and he apologized for bothering me if I knew if that was the final decision. And I said I thought so, but now I was curious. No production assistant, and by this point, I've been there three years. I probably dealt with 300 of them. None had ever called about this. Why do you ask? And then he began. Well, a highlight package for you is utterly different than one for Dan. You like different shots. You like different lengths of shots, pacing, cutaways, replays, angles, sound, folds, guys in the stands, how often I show the manager, you, for instance, two minutes on this without a breath about what I like to put in my highlights, what I did well, what I responded well to. He told me things about my own broadcasting habits that I had never thought of before, let alone realized. And I thanked him and I said, if he had any more insights like that to please call him back. And I said, I try to be subtle, but I would also try to get him assigned to my highlights from that point on.

Because he took more care with them than I did. We talked a couple of times, but not often, not like every day at espn. He was also a master impersonator. And in those days when you could just pick up the phone and page anybody at ESPN, usually it was just something like Keith Olbermann called 2149. Keith Olbermann, 2149. When Steve was the one doing the paging, he did it in their voice. Dan Patrick, 2156. Dan, 2156, gone. And unlike mine, Steve's impressions were perfect. I told Steve once he was on the wrong side of the equation. And he agreed and ESPN agreed. He was the best production assistant they ever had. He cared about every single highlight. He thought it wasn't much of a creative expression, but it was his creative expression and he was going to do the best he could. This is the simple element of genius, the one through line among all people, successful and many who are not. But the thing that keeps you going is this conviction that it's your work. Do it well.

At the seven month mark, when they decided if the PAs stayed or went in the ESPN of the 90s, they could just say goodbye or gone and you were gone. He went. He stood out like a sore thumb. Not only his style but his visual appearance. He just was different because he was talented and he had ideas and he called the talent and asked them what they wanted in the highlights. And off he went. I think if I have the timing right, to the Lee Strasberg School. He was serious about everything. I saw Steve once later when he was doing a lot of stuff with Fox and with baseball and with comedy. And then Howie Rose, the Mets announcer, tweeted out the link to his obit the other night. Howie loved Steve. They used to text during Howie's broadcasts. I've known Howie since 1979. He's a little difficult to text during broadcasts. Anyway, I'm not saying this is far up on his life accomplishments, but I knew Steve Pickman for seven months 30 years ago and I had never forgotten him. Howie says Steve Sarge was in a great place in his life, personally, professionally happy and content, but only 56. I'm glad he was happy and content. A lot of us are not. Some of us are not. And it's in the papers every day.

And he was as talented as anybody I've ever met.

Rest in peace, Steve Pickman.

Dateline, the Department of Health and Human Services in this story, looks even more stupid than usual in the context of the passing of Sarge. Okay, newsy. There's actually three pieces of newsy news in this. Not gossip, revenge or my stories, which I hope go right up to the line of being too much, but never quite stay there. If you're asking when Vanity Fair is going to get this over with and fire her, they probably aren't. As I've alluded to before, the magazine hired a dozen or so big names, big names in magazines anyway, and they threw some minor cash at them just to use their names and maybe an article or two. And I heard four figures. But Lachlan Cartwright at Breaker casually mentioned the other night that Olivia's deal expires at the end of this month. It must have been a four month deal and then they would talk further. They don't have to fire her. They can just let her disappear because I don't think they're gonna talk further. And Semaphore reports that in the age when just ignoring something can at least make it disappear for a while, as appears Vanity Fair intends to do with Olivia. The real culprit in all this, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Who is apparently extracting some kind of revenge against us by trying to kill us all, will not comment on any of the allegations, including the one in which Newsy says the politician is using ketamine and was aware of what Ryan Leza claims was the clandestine attempt by Newsy to secretly and probably illegally record Trump during the campaign. This is solely about book sales and revenge. Book sales for her and revenge for him. And there's zero upside in engaging here. Semaphore quotes a source Bobby and Cheryl and the administration moved on from this a year ago. Moved on has changed in meaning since I was a younger person. It now means moved on means you're gonna lie about it and deny it, including denying it to yourself, Cheryl, Bobby, Olivia and Ryan.

Overnight, Tuesday, Wednesday, this is the third piece of actual news. Ryan Lizza began to print source material. My God, there will be footnotes.

It's a campaign strategy memo to Kennedy. He says she wrote it on June something 2024. The gist is this is a quote. You are Rocky while the other candidates are Rocky and Bullwinkle. This fits. Olivia enjoyed laughing. A couple of our friends were connected with Book of Mormon, but often she completely missed funny stuff. I don't mean she didn't quite enjoy some things she literally did not know it was supposed to be funny. Professional humor.

It would never have dawned on her that today in this environment, if Rocky and Bullwinkle actually ran as the vice presidential and presidential candidates in any combination, they would win 2/3 of the vote over anybody else.

Including Rocky. As in Sylvester Stallone, including Trump, including Kamala Harris, including Gavin Newsom. Your new president, Bullwinkle. See people like Rocky and Bullwinkle.

All right, so the rest of it. I have suggested earlier in this podcast that the next Ken Burns documentary will now have to be a 16 hour epic about Olivia Newsi.

4. Or depending on your definition, five Ryan Lizza segments down, maybe four more to go.

I have to confess, I do these long form updates on this story because it's too easy. My throat hurts. I don't have to work hard at this. I don't have to go research this. She lived with me for three years. Apparently, there was some sort of complicated plot to disentangle her, which my end consisted of her coming in saying, we're both miserable. I've spent my entire adult life with you. I just need to change.

Okay. Do you want to come back and see the dogs? Yes, I do. Can you arrange that? Can we remind me, please, press me to do it. Okay. You're stalking me. That was the whole thing. Some plan. So I do this story because it's. It's kind of easy and there's less of a strain on both my voice and my brain. I do know it well. Again, I'm the character who gets shot in the opening scene, like in Police Squad. But I am beginning actually to feel bad for her, not just because she's the mother of my dogs, and I just thought her book came out literally on the 12th birthday of our dog Rose, who was Olivia's favorite, and she missed 11 of those birthdays, and that could have been her life. Not me. I get the part about not wanting to be with me for all that time. It's Rose. Living with Rose for the last 11 years would have been much more fun than whatever she's been through. In any event, I am beginning to feel bad about it because she's already finished in journalism anyway, and I'm not sure she knows it, even though she cried on a podcast. Podcast, apparently, the other night.

Let's start with the finish. The firing is unlikely. Still, that must have crossed the editor's mind when X number two accused her of erasing an audio tape that might have contained evidence supporting revisionist histories of the Trump assassination attempt and of burying the dead bear Cub story on JFK's behalf, and of other utterly good disqualifying corruption. It's the only word for it. Corruption.

Anyway, that happened one day, and then the next day her book came out and it was savaged by reviewers. An old Chevy Chase joke from Saturday Night Live. They're not going to publish a paperback edition. It's going to go straight to confetti. The Washington Post called it Olivia Newsies Tell Nothing Memoir.

Oh, my good God. Tell Nothing Memoir. That is a brutal but classic line. Newsy rails against those who urge her to tell all. I do not wish to be understood, she writes, which no one seems to understand. This, writes the reviewer, is a very good reason not to write and publish a memoir.

A separate column about her in the Washington Post began. I am told that Writers used to be interesting.

Oh.

She should have benefited from the traditional New York Times approach to everything. Both sidesing it somehow. They did not both sides. Her book, quote Newsy's memoir is self serious and altogether disappointing. Published amid a scandal over the journalists alleged romantic entanglements with politicians she covered offers many scenes but little sense.

But Slate was the worst.

American Canto was the last real opportunity for Newsy to talk about what happened tangibly, what she did to torpedo her career and her personal life. It could have been a pulpy tell, all that explains how she fell in love with the worst Kennedy, or a political book opening up her reporter's notebook to share from a vantage point few people ever reach.

After these brief weeks around Christmas, already a chaotic time to publish a book, the interest around her will ebb. American Canto could have helped redeem her, if only it were interesting.

These are the worst words she could hear. People are going to forget her.

And then the conclusion. Never mind the dog shit writing, the self mythologizing, the embarrassing metaphors. How can you make this story so incredibly dull?

About the only good review she got was not a review at all. It was the New York Post's rather surprisingly entertaining decoding of the blind items and unidentified political figures she wrote about without naming, either to avoid the prospect of legal action or because she didn't want you to think of anybody's name besides hers. That little game was far more entertaining than the book.

The Post piece was outstanding.

I got a text from somebody saying, is that my ex yelling at your ex?

So anyway, as to the other side of the equation, Liz's living with Livy. I think he's run out of steel here or steam here. That cliffhanger to part three of his this rejoinder was about something that might change our understanding of the attempt to shoot Trump. The cliffhanger for part four was the revelation that Olivia's relationship with RFK was discovered by a friend of his named Kara Swisher. If you don't know who Kara Swisher is, and the odds are really big, you don't. She's a podcaster and writer, and I gather there's something special about her work, but I'll be damned if I've ever been able to find out. Anybody who knows what.

So the episode three cliffhanger kind of fizzled out. Olivia sent a rolling audio recorder in in the bag of the sketch artist who had joined her at Mar a Lago for a Trump interview last year. Now this is a total violation of minimal journalistic standards it is down there with the British voicemail hacking scandal, and it's probably against the law in Florida anyway. The artist believed she heard Trump say something about the assassination that contradicted what we have been told, but the tape wasn't clear.

Liz's version from there is. According to Olivia, Izzy thought.

Trump had said something that cast doubt on the official story behind Trump's bloody ear, which was injured on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Thomas Crooks tried to kill Trump. I assume the context of what Izzy thought she overheard was about whether it was one of the eight rounds fired by Crooks that nicked Trump's ear or something else, ricocheting glass or a bullet fragment. But that's just speculation. What I know from Olivia is that the quality of the audio recording was poor, that she couldn't corroborate Izzy's recollection that she discussed the recording with Bobby and that after a phone call with Bobby while he was on vacation with his wife in Baja, Olivia erased the recording.

So Olivia was involved in the destruction of evidence.

That's what Ryan Lizza claims. And Ryan Lizza claims secondhand. I almost called him Ryan Cillizza.

He exclaims secondhand that Bobby Kennedy had something to do with the erasure, or at least knew about the erasure of evidence. Question mark. By the way, the sketch artist, Izzy, is the same one who did the disastrously bad nude sketch of Olivia included in the print edition in her debut in Vanity Fair with the excerpt from the book. It was commissioned by Olivia. It is not complimentary. I hope you did not pay a lot for that muffler.

Between the book and Liz's commentaries, it appears that the key word here in the last 10 years of Olivia's life is stalker. We've discussed this before. She writes that RFK Jr called Lizza a stalker, and RFK Jr apparently called her a stalker. Lizza says Olivia called me a stalker. And as I've mentioned, in 2013 or 14, she called a reader of hers a stalker. And. And she told me several times about this guy in Washington who would not leave her alone when she went down there to cover stories, and his name was Ryan Lizza. Now, she has not called you a stalker. Please do not feel left out.

Okay, a couple of other points from the various writings, and frankly, I hate to say this because it's not that good and it's also not that journalistic, but Liz's writing is way better than Olivia's. In August 2024, she is obsessed with the RFK Junior Dead Bear Cub story, angry that it's in the New Yorker trying to get an advance copy. Lizza thinks she's mad because she didn't have the story. Now, she had missed a major scoop about the candidate whom, behind the scenes and without much explanation, she insisted would be the next president. What I didn't know at the time was that she was secretly working to help make Bobby the next president. And she didn't want to get her hands on that New Yorker profile because she envied the bear scoop. In fact, I later learned she already had it. Olivia had heard the strange story from a confidential source. But instead of writing it herself and owning what would become one of the most infamous stories of 2024 or handing it off to a colleague at New York the magazine, Olivia outed the source to Bobby and told him everything she had learned. Together, they plotted ways to kill it, or at the very least, get ahead of it. Bobby eventually preempted Claire's peace with a video about the bear story after a New Yorker fact checker called him. As she later revealed to me during hours of conversations, Olivia did this regularly throughout 2024, canvassing sources who trusted her, obtaining their opposition research on Bobby, and then feeding it directly to the candidate. Well, she's done. I mean, journalistically, I have been asked, even by the people who were our friends, what Olivia thinks now is her future. And first I thought she was just detached from reality and completely misjudged. What would put her back in the upper echelon of long form political writers. I don't think she's that lost. I don't think she's that lost. The crying on the podcast out of nowhere. Maybe this is all a surprise to her. Maybe not. I hope she's not that lost. I mean, she can almost literally leave reality and come back hours later with no idea where she's been or what's happened in the interim. But it's not like this.

I think that a year ago, Liz is right. A year ago she thought she would be Mrs. RFK Jr Jr and bear his children, RFK Jr Jr and RFK Jr Jr and I don't know, maybe she'd wind up talking like him. I think that's passed. I think she's writing about how she got exploited and lied to by Kennedy. I think that's what the excerpt of the book is. Helen Lewis of the Atlantic of the Tell Nothing memoir line may have accidentally hit the worm on the head when she added the book was, quote, a first draft hastily typed into a Smartphone, a bargaining chip to gain favorable news coverage. A down payment on a post scandal career. Yes, that's it, isn't it? This is setting up something else. All this, including the nudity, suggests she is leaning in and trying to create something new out in the media world. What amounts to a celebrity interviewer, literally or figuratively in the nude. A naked Barbara Walters, if you will.

Or maybe it's simpler than that. I don't know what. What is MAGA and FOX and Trump and all the rest if not a home for people who were canceled totally, justifiably, irretrievably, usually for lack of talent, but for other reasons too. Like the stuff Olivia did, violating every journalistic norm.

The Trumpists said. James Wood, John Voight, Mark Halperin, General Flynn, Donald Trump, come on down. You were dead and now you are alive.

We not only don't care about your transgressions, we celebrate them.

I mean, we celebrate them.

What would you like to be secretary of? I mean, look at Pete Hegseth.

Of course. Of course. To do this, you now have to swear to carry our message because we will keep the remaining blackmail material we have on you and use it against you and utterly destroy you if you don't do what we say. Lindsey Graham, Mike Johnson. So you have to carry our message and only our message. But you get to be famous and make all that money.

Olivia Newsy on Fox News. Or maybe Olivia News on Fox Newsy.

Something else from Lizzie. In June, Olivia was working on two big things. A profile of Joe Biden's cognitive decline and a strategy memo to help Bobby revive his dying campaign.

A week after Bobby's event, Olivia published her piece about Biden savaging him as a drooling invalid. I was shocked when I read the piece because she had included an anecdote about Biden not remembering the name of a Democratic mega donor that I knew had been told to her off the record.

How did you get that in there? I asked. I just sort of Michael Wolfed it, she replied, which was jarring to me because previously she was scrupulous about sourcing. Her piece was promoted as an account of the conspiracy of silence to protect Biden.

I should explain the idea here, Michael Wolft and all this. Journalists have a kind of.

Self flagellating but very useful series of rules about when they will and will not publish something. If somebody tells you off the record that the world is going to end tomorrow at 3:30, you can probably break the confidence. Somebody tells you tomorrow that somebody's going to get arrested at 3:30, off the record, you probably can't. Now, there are ways you can find out. You can use that information to get somebody else to tell you the same thing on the record. And then you have a source, maybe even a source and a half.

But you have to do that dance. And many a story, and many an inaccurate story has died because we do that dance. She didn't do the dance. She just printed the off the record story. It was about that time, incidentally, that I rose from the dead as a character in all this. Before Politico fired him, Lizza used to edit the Playbook newsletter. And every Saturday he would produce a list of long reads. And one day the first one was a link to a story about wakeful dreaming, people who went into the fugue state, who did things, sometimes for hours, days even, with no realization that they were actually awake. Ambien is supposed to be able to produce this. There was a whole episode of Breaking Bad about this.

There's another thing that produces this, a psychological problem called dissociative behavior. And having seen Olivia during what the prose suggested to me was an episode of dissociative behavior, and having cleaned it up for her because she escaped, I don't know how many different disasters that could have befallen her during it. I knew it right then. Liz's fiance came home one day with no memory of, say, the preceding 24 hours, or she'd done something of which she had no memory or was shocked to discover was not something she thought had been a dream or whatever. And he was online looking for a story or an article or a book to explain this.

Trying to understand it. And then he put the link in the long reads, trying to understand it. Well, he's understood it now, hasn't he? She had deliberately altered the news after 11 or 12 years as one of the most nos in the air. Holier than thou about journalistic ethics writers in media. She once yelled at me that I had never been a reporter. I didn't go out and report stories, I just was an anchor.

I then had to explain to her that I started as a reporter. I was an anchor because I hated being an in the field reporter and was smart enough not to do it anymore.

But anyway, after all this time just telling everybody else they were shit.

She had suddenly switched to the other side of this equation and become shit, as somebody put it online. She was trying to knock off one presidential candidate by destroying the incumbent president while screwing the third presidential candidate. That's quite a hat trick.

Lizza says quote, Kennedy's aides believed he was using drugs again, and Kennedy confessed to Olivia that he was using ketamine, unquote. She probably should have told the voters about that before the election. That's one of those confidential I don't think so. And then there is the tape.

Here's how somebody else put the whole thing. Tina Brown, the great magazine editor and publisher Newsies crash and burn, Comeback does everyone have to lose their minds in this era of blinding excess and heartless self dealing, including the people who cover it? I was always a fan of political journalist Olivia Newsey's vivid, irreverent coverage in New York magazine and enjoyed her unabashed bravura.

In the last decade there's been so much tiresome moral tyranny on office slacks from purse list publishing nuns passing judgment on anyone who dared to question newsroom pieties or exhibited the slightest hint of flipness or iconoclasm. Not unlike my feelings towards her when I met her. She wrote that way when she was 18 years old.

But then came Newsy self immolating sexting scandal with former presidential candidate RFK Jr. Whom she had profiled on the 2023 campaign triple her flagrant professional line crossing was not a good look, a good idea, or a good career move. I've always had a weakness for people, tina Brown writes, who make epic mistakes, having made a few myself. But this one had real world implications for trust in the press, which at 28% is already lower than that in Congress. Newsy's only hope for redemption, Brown suggests, was to come roaring back with a witty mea culpa memoir that would also defenestrate her insatiable in all ways former crush. She even loved his brain worm, for God's sakes, who now in the hugely influential role of Secretary of Health and Human Services, is wielding reckless power over the life and death of 342 million Americans. But no Newsy has, alas, blown it with the absurdly pretentious American Canto.

The memoir's opaque staccato paragraphs, the recurring gusts of Didian derivative Santa Ana winds, the clunking literary aperus from the likes of Carl Jung thrown around.

Wtf, Olivia. American Canto is Ezra Pound in Hair Extensions.

When Tina Brown asks what the f.

I'm wrapping this up. One more outside comment which addresses what might be the ultimate meaning of this maybe eight parts, according to Lachlan Cartwright opus Coming from Liza, especially if episodes five through eight don't exactly match the drama of the first two.

This was written by attorney Andrew Fleischmann. I think we've all learned a valuable lesson about staying faithful to Ryan Lizza. Oh man.

And lastly, while she's somehow not acting as mature towards me as she did when she was 18 and I really don't understand why when there's nobody else left.

You would not just refuse help or support from somebody you used to love, but you'd decide to go out and particularly insult them.

This much is clear. I got all the sweetness and dogs and good writing and Ryan Lizza and her readers and those interested in the future of democracy in this country got all the infidelity and Adderall and ethical corruption.

And it's a goddamn shame on many levels because down micro focusing on her. What a talent. What a talent she was.

Just contrast that briefly to the death of Steve Pickman.

Some of us go onto our stage, some of us never get onto our stage, some of us never get fully seen on the stage. And some of us get fully seen on the stage and are gone as quickly as we got there. Rest in peace, Steve Pickman.

I've done all the damage I can do here. Hopefully no more to my throat. Have to admit.

I did come back strong. I finished up strong here. Well, my theory was my voice goes out again and never comes back. At least we want to leave one last long podcast. Thanks for listening. I hope it didn't sound too bad. Seems like it's okay. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chenale, our musical directors of Countdown. It was produced by TKO Brothers. Mr. Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mr. Chenale handled orchestration and keyboards. You'll notice what I did here is I've just sort of been kind of flat. I haven't been enthusiastic or done a lot of funny voices. Doesn't mean I'm not interested in the script. Just means it hurts less when I talk like this. In any event, our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Foust. The Olbermann theme from ESPN2 is the sports music. It's written by Mitch Warren Davis. ESPN Inc. Was nice enough to let it appear. Other music arranged and performed by the group, no horns allowed. And everything else was, as always, my fault.

That's Countdown for today. Day 318America held hostage just 1,145 days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term unless he's removed sooner by Maga and Epstein and Anosygnosia or the next mystery MRI or Tylenol or the next reporter he attacks or.

Laryngitis. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Guess what? There's a possibility I'll have to skip it. You've heard the voice. Don't be shocked. I'll put a note on at least the YouTube community notepad till whenever I'm Keith Olbermann. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

Countdown with Keith Ulberman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

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