TRUMP IS A LAME DUCK NOW - AND THE (LATEST) OLIVIA NUZZI STORY - 11.20.25

Summary

Podcast Summary: "TRUMP IS A LAME DUCK NOW – AND THE (LATEST) OLIVIA NUZZI STORY"

Countdown with Keith Olbermann | iHeartPodcasts | November 20, 2025

---

Main Theme and Purpose

This episode centers on two headline topics:

1. The sudden, dramatic weakening of Donald Trump's influence within the Republican Party and American politics, particularly following the "Epstein files" debacle and a wave of mainstream media labeling him a "lame duck."
2. The unfolding media and personal drama surrounding journalist Olivia Nuzzi's new book excerpt, her past relationships with Olbermann and others, and the biting intra-media spectacle that has ensued.

Keith Olbermann delivers his signature sharp political analysis (with comedic jabs) and inserts himself directly into the Olivia Nuzzi affair, offering unique insight, context, and personal anecdotes while skewering Trump, media cliches, and competitors alike. The tone alternates between sardonic and confessional, with a clear through-line of media criticism and political commentary.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Donald Trump’s "Lame Duck" Era Begins

[02:36 – 19:20]

• Media & Political Shift:
  Trump’s grip on the Republican Party and broader political narrative is described as drastically fractured post-Epstein vote. Mainstream and conservative outlets—NBC, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Semaphore, National Review—now use "lame duck" in headlines, signaling a new low for Trump.
• Caucus Rebellion:
  GOP figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) and Thomas Massie lead a rare intra-party rebuke on the Epstein files. Olbermann:

  "The Republican House caucus rebelling against him, handing him a rebuke so powerful so that he not only gave up, but he did a 180 and he made the speaker of the House do a 180 with him."
  (03:10)

• Polling Data:
  Polls show Americans overwhelmingly believe Trump knew about Epstein’s actions (60%), and only 20% approve of his handling of the case.

  "These are way worse than a disastrous new poll about the measly midterms... the generic Democrat in next year’s House election, 55%; generic Republican, 41%. And the Democrats are favored by 2 to 1 among independents."
  (07:16)

• Strategic Blunders:
  Trump’s political response—flip-flopping, blaming others, stalling full Epstein file release, blaming ongoing investigations—is dissected as a ploy to delay and obfuscate, one that only deepens public suspicion.
  • Result: The endless headlines and speculation fuel more conspiracy theories harmful to Trump.
• Quotable Moment:

  "He could probably have made political hay by being the hero to MAGA who released everything. And now instead, the number of Trumpstein conspiracy theories will increase daily and exponentially."
  (10:41)

• MTG and Internal MAGA Divides:
  Greene reportedly laments that the Epstein fight has "ripped MAGA apart." Olbermann gleefully riffs:

  “Rip them, mother of rippers. Rip them ripping. Rip suckers like the ripping players right downtown and print it.”
  (13:01) – Citing both old baseball lore and current right-wing schisms.

• Foreign Policy and Missteps:
  • Trump's remarks at the US-Saudi Investment Summit—suggesting thousands of Saudis would work at new Arizona factories, dismissing concerns from his base, and exonerating MBS in the Khashoggi murder.
  • His “solution” for Ukraine is simply Russia winning, betraying the “vibe” and substance of US policy.

---

2. Congressional Warning Video to Active Military

[19:20 – 20:42]

• Segment Overview:
  Olbermann spotlights a video featuring six Democratic lawmakers (all military/intelligence veterans) warning active service members to refuse illegal orders—framing this as a response to the atmosphere of Trump’s threatened return to absolute executive power.
• Core Message:

  “Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.” (20:06–20:15)
  The segment is direct, urgent, and unprecedented—a bellwether of “how bad things have gotten.”

• Olbermann’s Take:
  He questions what triggered the video, speculating on covert threats and the general paranoia that Trump could use the military for illegal/anti-democratic ends.

---

3. Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan Lizza, and The Media Spectacle

[23:37 – 65:36]

• Background:
  Olivia Nuzzi’s new book excerpt and the surrounding reactions open a floodgate of media, personal, and professional drama—much of which connects directly to Olbermann himself (as her ex) and journalist Ryan Lizza.
• The Players:
  • Olivia Nuzzi: Former prodigy, now ridiculed for style over substance, embroiled in personal controversy, accused of romantic entanglements with sources, unreliable narration, and missteps.
  • Keith Olbermann: Offers personal anecdotes, details their relationship, and fact-checks both Nuzzi’s book and Lizza’s public response.
  • Ryan Lizza: Nuzzi’s other ex, publishes a “rebuttal” to Nuzzi’s narrative, provides his own perceived “inside story,” is critiqued openly by Olbermann.
• Key Takeaways:
  • Nuzzi’s Writing Critiqued:
    Olbermann sharply critiques her "forced style," citing unintentionally funny or overwrought book excerpts.

    “She used to be as sharp and natural a writer as anybody I had ever [met]... and now she has written a book in which she appears to be attempting to make phone sex into Wuthering Heights...”
    (26:34)

  • Dysfunction and Recriminations:
    Olbermann accuses Nuzzi of telling her boyfriends that one another was a “stalker,” describes the end of their relationship, and disputes Lizza’s version of events, all with brutal candor.
  • Media Critique:
    The whole Nuzzi-Lizza affair is framed as “access journalism gone wild,” with Nuzzi’s career as case study for how personal entanglements and style-over-substance have undermined credibility in political media.

    “Under his tutelage, Olivia gradually crumbled from the most gifted, young, critical, but not cynical writer in American politics to just another Access journalist who never for a moment understood that the point of what she was writing was to inform, not to complete a great paragraph.”
    (53:45)

  • Memorable Moment:
    Olbermann deploys comedic asides, references to classic media, and self-effacing humor—playfully mocking himself for being part of the drama (“That’s me, I’m the red herring who gets shot and killed in the first scene” – 28:40).
  • Vanity Fair’s Dilemma:
    He openly questions whether Vanity Fair can keep Nuzzi in her editorial post after these revelations, suggesting her comeback is already undermined.

---

4. "Worst Persons in the World" Segment

[67:19 – 77:49]

• Bronze: Trump, for inventing a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 Census being rigged—against himself.
• Runner-Up: Bill O’Reilly, for repeatedly claiming on TV that Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration, even after being corrected—exposing habitual right-wing misinformation.
• Winner: Bill Maher, for declaring he’s done with live stand-up due to political “division,” with Olbermann mocking Maher’s claimed dangers as well as his comedic chops:

  "Did you know Bill Maher does comedy? ...The only people Bill is twice as funny as who sell twice as many tickets as him are the New York Jets.” (73:12)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trump’s Media Fallout:

  “Lame duck will follow Trump to his last minutes in office, hopefully all the way to next week sometime.” (05:47)

• On the Politico ‘lame duck’ listicle:

  “A lame duck listicle with bad puns. Oh my God. Trump might as well resign and flee for Argentina right effing now. Quack, quack.” (06:09)

• On Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Influence:

  “Watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart. Yes, please rip away... rip them mother of rippers!” (13:01)

• On the Democratic Veterans’ Video:

  “You must refuse illegal orders... No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.” (20:10–20:15)

• On Nuzzi’s Book Style:

  “She has written a book in which she appears to be attempting to make phone sex into Wuthering Heights.” (26:34)

• On the exes’ disputes:

  “Bottom line here is while Olivia was claiming to Lizza that I was stalking her, she was claiming to me that Lizza was stalking her. It’s a big tent.” (53:20)

• On Vanity Fair’s Editorial Dilemma:

  “This was her comeback. Now she’s gonna need an entirely new comeback back from her comeback.” (65:40)

• On Bill Maher:

  “First off, did you know Bill Maher does comedy? When I’d love to see that.” (73:12)

---

Noteworthy Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | Description | |-----------|---------|-------------| | 02:36 | Trump Analysis | Trump’s “lame duck” era begins, media shift, and Republican rebellion discussed | | 06:09 | Media listicles | Political media cliches ("lame duck") and their impact | | 07:16 | Polling | Poll numbers show collapsing support for Trump | | 10:41 | Strategic blunders | Trump’s handling of the Epstein files | | 13:01 | MTG’s comment | "Rip MAGA apart" - Olbermann’s gleeful riffing | | 19:20 | Veterans’ video | Direct message to military about refusing illegal orders | | 26:34 | Olivia Nuzzi | First assessment and critique of Nuzzi’s book excerpt | | 53:20 | Ex “stalking” claims | The tangled web of accusations among Olbermann, Nuzzi, Lizza | | 65:40 | Vanity Fair | Nuzzi’s job and comeback in peril | | 67:19 | Worst Persons | Segment begins – Trump, O’Reilly, then Maher “wins” | | 73:12 | Maher roasting | Olbermann’s comedic evisceration of Bill Maher’s stand-up |

Structure and Tone

Olbermann’s style is trademarked: rapid, sardonic, occasionally profane, deeply personal, and unfiltered. He balances sharp political critique with playful meta-commentary and self-referential humor.

For Listeners Who Missed the Episode:
This summary offers both a guide to the critical news and an inside look at media and personal dynamics shaping those headlines, with enough direct quotes, context, and color to capture the episode’s unique flavor. The Trump segment provides insight into his collapsing support and the wider party/media reaction; the Olivia Nuzzi saga is both media analysis and personal confession; and “Worst Persons” rounds out the show with Olbermann’s irreverent, pointed wit.

---

Further Listening or Reading

• For full context on the Olivia Nuzzi book excerpt and Ryan Lizza’s response, search for their original pieces, as Olbermann references but does not quote them in full.
• Olbermann’s references to polling and mainstream media headlines can be traced to November 2025 coverage of the Epstein files and Trump’s sagging political standing.

---

Transcript

[Keith Olbermann]

This is an iHeart podcast. Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to the bottom of the ocean. Where did that story come from? Book Dream? Nope. It came from a conversation. Meet Meco Mini plus, the AI companion that co creates personalized story adventures with your child in real time. What color was the hamster's cape and what did he pack for lunch? Unlock your child's imagination. Discover Mikomini Pl us and the Magic of AI Exclusively at Costco.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

What would you do if your insurance didn't show up when you needed it most? It happens more than you think. Every year, millions of claims are denied because a hidden exclusion's buried in the fine print and most people only find out after disaster strikes. That's where my policy advocate comes in. They review your policies, uncover gaps, and explain them in plain language. No jargon, no sales pitch, just clarity. Visit mypolicyadvocate.com today and get peace of mind.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Nothing in life is free except this $10 that better picks is offering. Download the Better app, pick more or less on your favorite player's stats, watch the games and win some cash. It's that simple. Must be 21 or older. In a jurisdiction where Better Picks operates, terms and conditions apply. Better Picks Sports just got better.

[Keith Olbermann]

Life gets messy spills, stains and kid chaos. But with Anabe, cleaning up is easy. Our sofas are fully machine washable inside and so you never have to stress about messes again. 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. Get early access to Black Friday pricing Right now, sofas start at just $699. 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. I turned off news altogether.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage Bai.

[Keith Olbermann]

It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Anabe Sofas Advertiser]

If we got clear facts, maybe we.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartradio. Trump is now a lame duck. A lame Donald. A lame duck Donald. A lame Donald Duck. I like it. It's not just that Marjorie Taylor Greene stood up to him and her side won the Epstein fight nearly unanimously. It's not just that even when Trump switched sides so he could pretend, pretend he didn't lose by 427 to 1, one of his stalwart psychos, Clay Higgins, stood up to him in the opposite direction and voted against him from the other way. It's that there has been a sea change within the mainstream media. Trumpstein has damaged Trump probably irretrievably, but not in the way any of us expected. The Republican House caucus rebelling against him, handing him a rebuke so powerful so that he not only gave up, but he did a 180 and he made the speaker of the House do a 180 with him. That's something that even most of the Washington political media industrial complex of morons can understand, can process, can write using the cliches in which they trafficked until Trump and his unprecedented madness came along. A decade ago, this looked familiar to them, like they were back from a trip through the desert and they jumped on it with both feet and both cliches. Fortune in 2030, he's not gonna be the president. Even Republicans are warning of Trump's lame duck status as affordability. Epstein threatened to derail tenure. NBC News quote, lame duck Trump inside Trump losing his grip on the Republican Party after nearly a Dec. Wall Street Journal. Trump's grip on Republican shows first signs of slipping semaphore. The Epstein vote, quote, a sign that Trump, once all powerful in the Republican Party, is entering an early lame duck period. Nate Silver, is Trump a lame duck? Or if you prefer, cnn, is Trump a lame duck now? And worst of all, worse than you can possibly imagine in the case in which the vibe actually counts, the biggest media cliche of them all. Politico. One day with Donald, Trump enters his lame duck era. It's a two liner. So right under Donald was Duck, Donald Duck. And the next day came the dreaded politico listicle. 7 signs Trump is losing his groove. The President has faced a series of brush offs and brush backs that threaten his aura of invincibility. A lame duck listicle with bad puns. Oh my God. Trump might as well resign and flee for Argentina right effing now. Quack, quack. Yeah, but Politico, Wall Street Journal, NBC, Semaphore, Fortune, MAGA thinks they're all commies Spoiler alert. They're all fascist. Mostly. What about a right wing oh, quote the Epstein fight shows Trump inching Closer to lame duck status By Jim Garrity, National Review oh, in yesterday's column I suggested Trump is starting to look like a lame duck. Okay, Jim. Still, it seems to be lacking some final confirmation of this, some acknowledgement from the denizens of dead center, the deepest, mainstream, unshakably both sidesist cubbyholing institutional protectors. And we don't have that. Oh wait, it's official. Donald Trump is a lame duck president by Chris Cillizza. But what about Chuck Todd? Oh, the sub headline my weekly conversation with Chuck Todd. If you've lost Chris Cillizza and Chuck Todd, you're a lame duck if you think the Epstein story will now never go away. Now that the term lame duck has entered the conversation literally and entered the brains of the official Washington circle jerk led by Chief Jerks Cilizza and Todd, lame duck will follow Trump to his last minutes in office, hopefully all the way to next week sometime. But ok, does this mean anything? These are missionary position Washington pretend journalistic outlets to get them to line up in herd mentality. Michael how much could they cost? A hundred dollars? There actually is substance here. Morning Consult has a new poll asking Americans, do you think Trump knew, quote, what Epstein was up to? Which is a little vague, but the data is not vague. 15% said no, Trump did not know what Epstein was up to. 60% said, oh yes, yes he did. That's four times as many. That's a lot. That's like a number Trump would make up. A Reuters Ipsos poll is kind of worse. Only 20% of the country approves of how Trump has handled the Epstein case. Just 44% of Republicans. He's losing Republicans about Epstein. The total percentage of Americans who believe Trump's government is hiding info about Epstein's clients is now 70%, including 60% of Republicans. These are way worse than a disastrous new poll about the measly midterms. Pbs, npr, Maris the generic Democrat in next year's House election. And I have met the generic Democrat, by the way, 55% generic Republican 41. And the Democrats are favored by 2 to 1among independents. Strength in numbers. Verisite only has it 4742 Democratic, but and if this doesn't explain everything right now, I don't know, I don't know what will. If you then remind the people you are polling that the Republicans currently control the House and the Senate, the Democratic lead jumps from 4,742 to 4,841. They do. No kidding. The obviousness of the Trump play here on Epstein will make it certain that his Epstein numbers will in fact get worse. First he told Pam Bondi to investigate Democrats. Then he went after Larry Summers. Just proving the stop clock can weed out the scumbags twice a year. Thanks Trump. Now do Alan Dershowitz. Then Trump caved to Massie and Green and the Democrats and he called for an unnecessary vote to release the Epstein files that he spent a year promising to release personally. But now he wants somebody else on the record taking the responsibility for actually doing that. And of course, stage last, he can now keep almost anything he wants in the Trumpstein files from being released because they're auditing his tax returns. No, sorry, that was the old eternal excuse. Now he can keep almost anything from being released because it's part of an active investigation. Pam Blondi, when do you expect to have the active investigation concluded? The year 4000 chiefs. This has the practical impact of keeping some secrets hidden. Unfortunately, that impact can only be achieved if you repeat this effort daily, thereby keeping this story in the news daily forever. And the longer that goes on, the greater will be the belief that whatever there is about Trump in those files, it has to be fatal. He could probably have made political hay by being the hero to MAGA who released everything. And now instead, the number of Trumpstein conspiracy theories will increase daily and exponentially. Not to overweight Marjorie Taylor Greene's influence here with too much importance, but a month ago, could you have imagined Democrats seriously, even a couple of them, weighing the implications of letting her join their party? She has receded into the background of this. But not for long. Quote, this has been one of the most destructive things to maga. She now says watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart. Yes, please rip away, to paraphrase the immortal manager of the Chicago Cubs, Lee Elia, from the Gettysburg Address of baseball managerial detonations to the media from 1983, rip them mother of rippers. Rip them ripping. Rip suckers like the ripping players right downtown and print it. If you don't know who Lee Elia is and you don't know what I'm referring to there about rip them mother rippers. I was thinking, could I play the tape at the end of the show? I mean it's, it's a little much even now on the Internet to listen to. Better you go to YouTube or wherever you get your MFers, because he goes and he uses the word RIP. Rip MAGA apart. RIP them mother rippers. The next MAGA ripping rage against Trump. Let me just repeat that to savor the deliciousness of that phrase. The next MAGA ripping rage against Trump. It's so obvious. Even he said it would crash his poll numbers. Yesterday he told the US Saudi Investment Summit and he pronounced it Saudi as in bone saw that the Saudi's trillion dollar LOL investment their entire economy is a trillion point one. Thank you for giving us your country that the Saudi investment will generate thousands of jobs in Arizona for Saudis. Quote, you can't come in, open a massive computer chip factory for billions and billions of dollars like is being done in Arizona and think you're gonna h an unemployment line to run it. They're going to have to bring thousands of people with them and I'm going to welcome those people. This is maga. He then said anybody who didn't understand this was dumb. The Mags might take that personally. Also the idea that their swami sees them as just idiots on an unemployment line. Trump was also nice enough to clear the Saudi dictator Mohammed bin Sahn of the Khashoggi torture and murder, even though Trump's own intelligence community said he ordered it. Basically said the man had it coming. Besides that disaster, end immigration by increasing immigration and buy more bone saws. Almost no other current headline does not make Trump look like a limp putz diplomacy. Well, guess which war Trump isn't going to solve in the next 60 seconds like those other 8 trillion wars he solved this year? Ukraine. The deal is, oh look, it's the same shit Putin has told him to shove down Zelenskyy's throat since last February. Moscow will stop killing women and children in Ukraine and bombing its power grid if Ukraine just gives up the eastern Donbas, much of which it still controls. In other words, Trump's solution to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is Russia wins and Ukraine loses. I deserve the Nobel Prize, maga. And don't forget, the V in MAGA stands for vendetta. The government admitted the members of the grand jury never saw the indictments of James Comey that Trump legal spokesmodel Lindsey Halligan claimed the jury members had approved. Turns out the Trump DOJ strategy here was a cross between Franz Kafka's the Trial and Lionel Hutz from the Simpsons, telling the judge, I move for a bad court thingy. The case could now be dismissed with prejudice, as in no refiling, and Halligan could very easily lose her license. Is the Price is Right still on TV she could go work on the Price is Right pointing at the Plinko board. Thank you, Lindsay. Spay and neuter your Trump. It is amazing that in addition to attacking basically every other woman of color that he sees or hears about, the rule of thumb in knowing where Trump's virulent misogyny will come out is this does the woman's hair weigh more or less than a pound? Lindsay Halligan Looks like a pound. Melania a pound. Alina Hava a pound. Maria Bartiromo. Well, that's 60, maybe 70 pounds. ABC's Mary Bruce a few ounces. He attacked her at the Saudi news stunt, said the FCC should take away ABC's news license. Once again, he's yet to bother to create news licenses. Maybe I shouldn't remind him of that oversight. Kathryn Lucy, the Bloomberg reporter he called Piggy on Air Force One when she asked about the Epstein files. Her hair is also less than a pound. And I owe miss Lucy an apology. I heard that soundbite. I even used it here and I just thought he was saying Peggy. And what with his brain not working right and the clip being recorded amid all that airplane wine, he wasn't saying it well. I thought he was trying to say Peggy. I don't know who Peggy was. Peggy from a right wing outlet. I'm sorry, Ms. Lucy. I should have hit Trump for it Monday, especially for the simple fact of how appalling it is that he could call anybody else in the history of the world Piggy. One more headline disastrous for lame Donald Duck. Then we'll move on to the Olivia newsie. It's a doozy. How much more can she losey? All that's Newsy segment. I am as mystified by the video as you are. The video, if you have not seen it, is six Democratic lawmakers. All six are military veterans warning active service members that they are obligated to refuse illegal military orders. Senator Slotkin of the CIA in Iraq. Senator Kelly of the Navy and NASA. Congressman Crow, former Army Ranger. Representatives Goodlander and d' Aluzio of the Navy. Congresswoman Houlihan of the Air Force. The stage is yours.

[Keith Olbermann]

I'm Senator Alyssa Slotkin.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Senator Mark Kelly.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

Representative Chris d', Aluzio.

[Keith Olbermann]

Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander. Representative Chrissy Houlihan.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Congressman Jason Crow. I was a captain in the United States Navy, former CIA officer, former Navy, former paratrooper and Army Ranger, former intelligence.

[Keith Olbermann]

Officer, former Air Force.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

We want to speak directly to members of the military and the intelligence community.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

Who take risks each day to keep Americans safe.

[Keith Olbermann]

We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

This administration is pitting our uniform military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens like us. You all swore an oath to protect.

[Keith Olbermann]

And defend this Constitution.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

Right now the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.

[Keith Olbermann]

You can refuse illegal orders.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

You must refuse illegal orders.

[Keith Olbermann]

No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

We know this is hard and that it's a difficult time to be a public servant.

[Keith Olbermann]

But whether you're serving in the CIA.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

The army or Navy, the Air Force.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Your vigilance is critical.

[Keith Olbermann]

And know that we have your back. Because now more than ever, the American people need you. We need you to stand up for.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans. Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up.

[Keith Olbermann]

Don't give up.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

The ship. Here's a surprise. Stephen Miller called that Democrats openly calling for insurrection. Which is funny you know cuz Stephen Miller is a psycho. And the only insurrection here since 1865 he and his boss Trump caused and still own. But what prompted this video? I mean I get it, the threat level rises daily that Trump could will maybe use the military to do anything. Anything from ending democracy to just ending late night with Seth Meyers. But, but was there, was there something specific that caused you to make this? Maybe you could let us in on it. Senator Slotkin? Maybe. Is it. I mean should we go and, and, and raid the supermarkets and stash up on canned goods? Could you let us know Senator Slotkin about for why you did this? You know now ish. Also of interest here. Weeeeell. She had her say and then her ex Ryan Lizza, he had his say and then a new character was introduced into the saga. Mark, I just can't stay off that good old Appalachian Trail. Sanford. Gotta compliment Ryan Lizzo. And I never thought I'd say those words. That was a wacky ending. That was a twist dude. Now the New York Times is doing something about her that involves me in some way. So I guess it's my turn to have my say now. Look, I'm, I'm tangential. I only appear in the opening scenes of The Olivia Newsey RFK Jr. Ryan Lizza, do you have the license plate of the car you were hit by? Drama. I'm only in the opening scenes then I get killed off. And now that we're talking scenes, if you're wondering who plays Olivia in the upcoming inevitable streaming series. It's just too bad they are not the same age, because at 22, Olivia looked exactly like Julia Stiles when she was 22. Anyhoo, I'm mostly good for fact checking and guffawing at the book excerpt, which prompted one Internet wag to write okay, I read some of the newsy piece and I am pleased to announce that I will never feel bad about my own writing ever again.

[Keith Olbermann]

Oh.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

The newsy news. That's next in an all new edition of Countdown. Shh.

[Keith Olbermann]

You won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs. Is your child having conversations you never imagined? Are they learning without realizing it? It's not a tablet. It's not a toy. It's Meco Mini plus, the AI powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning. Hear the future of playtime. Meet the extraordinary Meco Mini Plus.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

Only at Costco, many people think they're covered until they find out that they're not. Every year, millions of insurance claims are denied not because people did anything wrong, but because policies are confusing and full of hidden gaps. That's why they built my policy advocate. Their platform reviews your current insurance, highlights risks and explains everything in plain English. No selling, no pressure, just education and transparency. Don't wait until it's too late. Visit mypolicyadvocate.com and take control today.

[Anabe Sofas Advertiser]

Have you ever turned $1 into $10,000? I doubt it, but now you can. On Better Picks Download the Better App, pick more or less on player stats, watch the games and win some cash. It's that simple. Better Picks is available in 33 states including Texas, California and Georgia. Download the Better app today. That's better B E T R and get a free $10. No deposit necessary. Must be 21 or older. In a jurisdiction where Better Picks operates, terms and conditions apply. Better Picks Sports Just got better Time.

[Keith Olbermann]

For a sofa upgrade. Introducing Anabe sofas where designer style meets budget friendly prices. Every Annabe sofa is modular allowing you to rearrange your space effortlessly. Perfect for both small and large spaces, Annabe is the only only machine washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy liquids simply slide right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high resilience foam lets you choose between a sink and feel or a supportive memory foam blend. Plus our pet friendly stain resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality for price. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your living space today. Sofas start at just $699 with no risk returns and a 30 day money back guarantee. Get early access to Black Friday now. The biggest sale of the year can save you up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. I turned off news altogether.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait.

[Keith Olbermann]

It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Anabe Sofas Advertiser]

We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America. The book is called American Canto, but there's still time to change the dust jacket so it can be retitled American Olivia Newsy Canto Write Anymore. This gives me less pleasure than I thought it might. Or I may have indicated in the first sentence, but my ex in exile, the mother of my dogs, the sharer of my complimentary tattoos and commitment rings, had a year long exile. And I must ask, this is the best you could do? Did you read it before you hit send? Did your editor? Was there an editor? Okay, so it's terrible. But you knew that already. It's terrible. Like the new name for MSNBC is terrible. You had all that time and you chose dumb and cliched. That really is the bottom line here. She used to be as sharp and natural a writer as anybody I had ever. I met her because I wanted to hire her to write the TV version of Countdown, even though she was not quite not yet 19 in the 140 character days of Twitter. Olivia Newsey's tweets were as politically insightful and funny as anybody's, and she usually left 50 or 60 characters unused. And now she has written a book in which she appears to be attempting to make phone sex into Wuthering Heights, a book in which she attempts to explain she's not an unreliable source of information who slept with a source and is tainted forever. And it was just true love and just that one time. And before her laugh out loud bad excerpt had been public for 12 hours, her other example came out with his own disastrously badly written rifost that made up for its awfulness by having as good a closing paragraph plot twist as I've ever read. He wasn't writing about when he found out his fiance Olivia blew up their engagement via sex with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In 2024. He was writing about when his fiance Olivia blew up their engagement via sex with Governor Mark Sanford in 2019. Huge if true. And if that's true, Olivia's explanation for her lies to Lizza and her employers and more important, everybody who read her RFK junior Profile or anything else she ever read, or whoever thought she was a reporter and a non lying reporter. That explanation of her lies was itself a lie. Oops. I'll get to that in a moment. First, back to Newsy and Lizza and me. And I'm the extraneous red herring character who gets shot and killed in the first scene like they used to do in every episode of the Leslie Nielsen TV version of Naked Gun. Police Squad show starts, guy gets shot, body gets rolled out of the car. That's me. I can add a lot of details and facts and corrections and I'm gonna. I will note, I did not start this edition of the podcast with this story. I stuck to my script and the news. And if you don't care about this story, to which I am oddly connected, but about which I might be the best informed outsider you're ever gonna find, feel free to hit stop. The two of you left. Let me start by explaining what happened to a woman so destined to dominate some form of journalism that her name was literally newsy, as if it had been spelled N E W S Y. Okay? As that corny reference confirms, at some point, every writer in every medium discovers their style, and they begin to apply it to all of their scripts or stories or plays or books. And just as certainly, we each face the day when we discover the material that day isn't all that compelling. And all you really got is your style. And suddenly you're forcing the material to fit your style. And if you don't correct this problem, this new way of doing things, soon or late, what you will be writing will be nothing but style. And it will, to use a professional term, suck. We had a great, entertaining sportscaster in New York here for 40 years named Warner Wolf. Lovely guy. And if you think I used catchphrases in my sportscasts, his boom. Swish. Let's go to the videotape. Give me a break. Turn your sets off there. Mr. G was at the game. Warner Wolfs were so numerous, no man could count that high. In fact, in college I took an audio tape of one of his sportscasts one night on Channel 2. I edited out all of the facts. Player names, scores, stuff that wasn't catchphrases. The whole sportscast, the original version of it was just under four minutes long. What was left after I edited out the actual sports news, when there was nothing but the catchphrases, what was left was still 2 minutes and 25 seconds long. More than 50% was just filler. This excerpt suggests Olivia has become a kind of Warner Wolf of political media. I did not like to think about it just as later. I would not like to think about the worm in his brain that other people found so funny. I loved his brain. I hated the idea of an intruder therein. Others thought he was a madman. He was not quite mad the way they thought, but I loved the private ways that he was mad. I loved that he was insatiable in all ways, as if he would swallow up the whole world just to know it better if he could. He made me laugh, but I winced when he joked about the worm. Baby, don't worry, he said. It's not a worm. A doctor he trusted had reviewed the scans of his brain obtained by the New York Times, he said, and concluded that the shadowy figure was likely not a parasite at all. He sighed. It was too late to interfere with what had already vaulted from the sphere of meme to the sphere of screwy legend. But at least I did not have to worry about the worm that was not a worm in his brain. If you had the worm and the points you lose. Boom. Swish. Gimme a break. Let's go to the videotape. Turn your sets off there. This is Warner Newsy. I may have made the last part up. Look, that quote was missing only one thing. It was a dark and stormy night. Again, this is not meant to be a literary review. Just adding in facts and context and something of a rebuttal. Stuff that she and Ryan Lissa both left out. Or in Liz's case, stuff she probably never told him. And I went looking. Honest I did. For somebody who really liked the book excerpt, I wanted to present the other side here. I wanted both sides this I literally couldn't find anybody. I found a couple people asking why everybody's yelling at her and not good old worm brain, but nobody who who didn't say this stuff read like somebody doing a parody of Olivia Newsy. I'll get to my modest additional info, but I do have one complaint about one other image quote. A few minutes later the planes swooped down to spray the flames in the bluffs. I watched from the Pacific coast high, as far away from my problems as I could get on land, which was not far enough. This is the editor in me speaking. I've never been really an editor. A paid editor. But I would have been the best of all time. She got the name of the highway wrong. Right there. It's Pacific Coast Highway. It is not the Pacific coast highway any more than my hometown is the Hastings on the Hudson. There's no the. It's not a major difference. Unless you lived in Southern California or you're liking books that reassure you that they have been carefully edited to minimize mistakes. Or if, like me, you used to live on Pacific Coast Highway. PCH, as it's also known. Not TPCH or Worm Street. That mistake was meant for me. Okay, back to the disaster already in progress quote. People ask me now about anger, about my lack of it. How. How could I not be enraged? I think this over. I scan the terrain of my body, My chest, my spine, behind my belly button. I look for pale pulses of idle fury waiting for the alarm to sound at the tripwire of my veins. There is nothing there. There is nothing there because I loaded a gun. I loaded a gun and set it on my nightstand. You recall the statistic that a gun in your home doubles your chances of dying by homicide? Still, I loaded a gun. I loaded a gun and set it on my nightstand. Context ad number one. Olivia didn't used to drive, let alone own a gun. Would you give me a weapon, like a car? She asked me once. Now she has a car. She lets the New York Times shoot glamour videos of her driving, and she has a gun. The woman who once felt a car was too dangerous a weapon to give her. She has a car. She has a gun. And yet, based on the publicity photos for this book, still with a gun, somebody managed to steal her eyebrows. All right, I lied. I have to read one more unbelievably bad paragraph. Like all men, but more so. He was a hunter in a literal sense. He used not a bullet, but a bird. It was not about a chase, but about a puzzle of logic and skill that amounted to a test of his self mastery. I don't like where this is going. I don't like the word mastery. He was the mouse and the architect of his maze, the giver of his own pleasure and torment. He desired, he desired. Desiring. He desired Being desired. He desired desire itself. I'm waiting here for the part about how he got caught doing this on a streetcar named Desire, but she didn't put that in there. I understood this just as I came to understand the range of his kinks and complexes and how they fit within what I thought I understood of his soul. The spark, the flame the rumor fulfilled. The Labyrinth on fire. The Palisades fire. Rain in places, fog patches on the coast. High in the mid-50s. Tonight in sports, Cowboys 33, Raiders 16. Now back to Kay Fog. Okay, now for the surprise, the editorial reply by her ex fiance Ryan Lizza. I never liked him. What I've said about his work predates Olivia and it didn't get meaner or worse because of Olivia. She's Olivia. He's standard issue number 37B16 robotic access journalist size medium. He got fired for unspecified sexual pesting by the New Yorker, but CNN kept him on for a while as a contributor. Before that he was a guest on Countdown, I think in 2009 or 2010. Highly recommended because he was a writer and editor at the New Yorker. Flat as a surfboard on tv. Not interesting. And I gather that is exactly how he felt about doing the show again or talking to me again. Fine, I met him remotely then 2009 2010. I had met Robert F. Kennedy Jr. When he phoned me in 2004 to call me his hero. Heady stuff that is in fact the only part of Olivia's I'll hang up and listen obsession with him that I can process. It turned out Kennedy thought me a hero because I had reported on some vote counting irregularity in Warren County, Ohio in the presidential election of 2004 and that fed his mainline addiction to conspiracy theories, which I. I guess I can understand as well given that his father and uncle were both murdered more or less live on television when he was a young boy. So anyway, there's much more from Lizza and his reply to which I can add stuff that is either relevant or true because Liza actually wrote about me. Quote she deceived me for a year and smeared me with false allegations. And not just little lies, but big fantastical falsehoods. Blackmail. A former child actor, Olivia always had a keen sense for the dramatic. She orchestrated a plot with the help of a senior Trump official to try to have me imprisoned. And now she's written what appears to be a largely fictitious and self serving account about it. All checks out. Couple things though bro. The facts are a little hazy, but Olivia used to proudly talk to me about having gotten her entire teenaged singing career scrubbed off the net. Offensive, vapid, frothy, bubblegum, outrageous, morally bankrupt and undeniably infectious. These are just some of the words that have been used to describe jail bait and the not yet legal mind behind it. 16 year old singer songwriter Livy. You know who Livy turned out to be, quoting her I know that people are going to hear the song once, see my photo and immediately come to the conclusion that I'm a brain dead blow up doll like so many pop Tarts before me. And that's great. It's fabulous. Livy says no intellect is necessary to listen to my music. It's pop, it's fun, it's danceable. But at its core, this so song is a social commentary. It just happens to be insanely catching. Though just a teenager, the press release about her goes on. Livy has had some experience in the world of entertainment. Or maybe that should be read. Livy has had some experience in the world of entertainment. Beginning her career as a child model at the age of five, she quickly moved into acting, ultimately appearing in a succession of commercials, films and television shows. The camera exposure had a profound effect on the young attention seeker. Livy became obsessed with Hollywood, MTV and subsequently with pop music. I'm not even going to try to address the potential serious consequences of this history about her that I did not know. Lord knows how many kids go into entertainment, especially girls at that age and do not come out the same person, if they come out at all. I hope none of that is true. I don't know because in my defense I saw that that I just read to you for the first time Monday. All right, back to Lizza. Since I want to stay largely to what I know firsthand and that's not firsthand, that press release, that's first time I saw it. Lizza writes, quote, silence was my preference and Olivia seemed to agree. Last year she asked to negotiate a non disclosure agreement. Earlier this year she sent a message to me by a mutual friend. I will never talk about any of this again and I hope you will do the same. I'm not sure if she delivered that before or after she had a publication date for her book, arranged a Vanity Fair excerpt and secured a profile in the New York Times. Either way it wasn't true and unfortunately, silence no longer seems advisable or even possible. End quote. Yeah, this is I, we're brothers on this was a consistency. Consistency is one politician Olivia has never met. The day we broke up, she looked at our two dogs, one of whom really adored her and would miss her. And I could see it and then I even have some proof of it. Would miss her for at least a year. And she said I hoped. I hope you mean it when, when you said I I can come visit them maybe once a week or every other week. And she said please keep on her about trying to arrange those visits. And also if I could please remind her that her closet in our apartment was still full of clothes. Please text, please call me, bug me about it. You know me. And when I did, both about the dogs and the clothes, she accused me of stalking her. As you will hear. Okay, more from Ryan Lizza I was used to cleaning up Olivia's messes. Not that long ago, I had helped her untangle herself from an unusual relationship with Keith Ulberman, the former MSNBC host. What it was was she and I lived together and we had dogs and complimentary tattoos and identical commitment rings. And I don't know what was unusual about that, besides obviously the age difference, which I'm not trying to undersell. Our first date was a dinner in October 2011. She was way too young, 18, getting towards 19, but not, you know, like not next week, 19. And I was way too old, 52 and not getting any younger. On the other hand, I always take relationships slow anyway. This one even more so. For that reason, until I was sure she really did, as cynical and hateful of people as we were, I wanted to make sure she really did love me like she said. And then I really did love her like I said. And we did. So I waited. We didn't wind up on, to use a phrase from somebody else who will appear in this mini series. We didn't wind up on the Appalachian Trail until the next spring or summer when she was like 19 and a half to keep the precise numbers in play. And by the way, RFK Jr. Is older than I am, so my favorite joke about all this is turned out I was too young for Olivia. It was not an unusual relationship. By the 14th month of the thing, her parents were having me over for family Christmas at their house in New Jersey. Them, Olivia, her brother, her brother's girlfriend, me, their dogs, our dogs. That was it. The family. It was almost impossibly domestic. I thought it was going well at that point. All right, back to Liza about me. She had messaged him out of the blue. Him is me in this sentence. They started talking and soon after, she fled her unhappy home in suburban New Jersey and started living with Keith in Manhattan. He paid for her to attend college, outfitted her in Tom Ford and Herve Leger dresses and some $15,000 worth of Cartier jewelry. I must interrupt here to say that I was a little surprised when I read this to find out that 10 years after Olivia Newsy and I broke up, her next ex boyfriend happened to have at his fingertips the amount of money I spent on her at Cartier. How in the hell does that happen? I, I, I barely can remember where I was working in 2015. Now, what Liz is missing here is that most of that $15,000, which sounds right to me, went to those matching commitment rings I keep mentioning. And so, like, half the money was actually me spending money on me. And so as to the rest of us, we were together for three years plus, but that included four of her birthdays, four Christmases, and three of our anniversaries. So in reality, I spent like $700 per celebration on her. And I was being paid a lot of money in my jobs. I mean, what's the, what's the Ryan Lizza, Norm here. What Ryan? I should have gotten her some Walmart gift cards. Merry Christmas. More Lizza later, he covered her rent and furnished her apartment in a doorman building in the West Village. All right, I gave her a chair and one picture to hang on the walls. He's left something key out of this that's probably more important than the chair or the picture. And I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here because largely his tone towards me was not as snarky as mine would have been about him, or I guess is about him. So good for him. I'll just assume he didn't know any of this. Next, stuff about the apartments, plural. Olivia lived with me, got her hair done in our apartment when my old friend from MSNBC used to come over to cut mine. She played with the dogs in our apartment. She got her pharmacy deliveries in our apartment. Ironically, it was in a Trump building. And then when she was going to Fordham University, she found she liked also having a dorm room, a place of her own. She never had that before. And then when she left Fordham, she told me they had asked her to leave in the same way she had told me Catholic University in Washington had asked her to leave. She managed somehow, though, she wasn't going to Fordham anymore. She managed to keep the Fordham dorm room for a while until they finally figured out. So now she asked if I would help her get a studio apartment on the west side where she could write and she could tell her friends who she didn't want to know about us. This is where I live. And I thought that was a good idea. And even if it wasn't, I'm big deal. We found something safe and relatively cheap. And then a couple months later, Olivia did something which I'm not prepared to share the details of it with you. Maybe it will be wise for me to do that later, but not now. It was. I think this is the best phrase I've ever come up to describe this. A behavioral event, an aberration where she kind of freaked out and the end result endangered her life and her career and maybe my career. And somehow none of those things happened. She beat the odds at every stage. But the landlord at her place was not happy with what happened and they terminated her lease. Yeah, bad. Then we got her the place in the West Village. Bad enough this was. That what it was eventually led to the end of the relationship because I spent the last five months with her insisting this wasn't aberration. This just wasn't. Drink or something. Or cold. I said, you need to see professionals about why this happened. I'm very worried for you. I love you and I want you to be okay. And that was not okay. You need to find out why what happened had happened and she wouldn't do it. And eventually she got tired of hearing me tell her to do it and to tell her she would always be at risk at any moment of a career ending event. Oh, no. Thank God that didn't happen with RFK Jr. Or threatening to get Lizza jailed. Or now Governor Sanford. Which among you is next? Back to Lizza. While Keith, who was 34 years older, was generous. There were strings attached. This is where Ryan Lizza loses me. First off, he's nearly 19 years older than Olivia. Plus he dyes his hair and he tries to look hip and cool. So I think that erases the actual difference in ages between him and me. Also, I have no idea what he's talking about with the. There were strings attached. The most invasive I ever got with Olivia was, let me know if you're staying here tonight or you're going to be at your place so I can turn the lights off or leave them on. Literally. Liza again. Olivia had concealed the relationship from me and other friends, but one day she told me everything. Too much, actually. And together we hatched a plan for her escape. Bout that phrase. Too much. It's funny that the premise of Ryan Liz's reply to Olivia Newsi is that she is an unreliable narrator and constantly lied to him. Yet it does not seem to have occurred to him at any point that she might have lied to him about me. I have no idea what plan there was for her to escape. This is what happened. Five months of me saying, please, please talk to somebody. That's not what you think it was. It's. It's serious stuff. Then one Thursday night, we argued about getting help, and I said, all right, I've done all I can do here. Maybe we should call this off. And she didn't want to. And then the next day, I had second thoughts and a lot of guilt about there being nobody there left to look out for her, and we made up. That's Friday. Then Saturday, she was back in Jersey with her folks. And then on Sunday, she arrived, announced we were both miserable and we were breaking up. And she left. And I haven't seen her since. I think we talked twice on the phone after that. I was trying to talk to her about the clothes and the dogs. Then she ghosted me, which made the clothes and the dogs thing impossible. And yes, am I angry at all? I'm still angry. And I have not forgiven her about the dogs. Rose, in particular, missed her. That was the plan, Ryan. Wow, this sounds more complicated than D Day. How did you remember all of it? Unless the plan was the one that let her keep all the stuff I gave her to outfit her apartment, a chair and a picture. Or maybe it was a different plan for her to get all of her clothes, only she never did that. And I wound up donating them to charity, which she complained to her mother about. And by the way, for a year after we broke up, her mother continued to come into New York to babysit the dogs whenever I would leave town. Her mother said, we're very upset that. That you guys have broken up. We always knew she was safe with you. Her mother and her father took my side in the breakup. More. Lizza. When friends asked why I never responded to Keith's public attacks on me and Olivia. He means tweets. I explained that she had felt stalked by Keith after she left him, and we had a strict policy of never engaging with him. Two things here. I don't read the replies, so it's the first time I ever found out that they didn't reply. And as I said, I attacked Ryan Lizza long before I ever heard of Olivia. Newsy, self satisfied, terrible in tv. It happens. And then, under his tutelage, Olivia gradually crumbled from the most gifted, young, critical, but not cynical writer in American politics to just another Access journalist who never for a moment understood that the point of what she was writing was to inform, not to complete a great paragraph. That she was not writing a story, she was writing information vital to the continuation of the American democracy. And she seemed to have forgotten that entirely while with Ryan. Lizard. Oh, and that word. Stalking. I didn't mention that first because I don't give it a lot of weight here and here Again, I feel a little sorry for Ryan because he's under informed. When Olivia went to the Daily Beast, they started sending her. And by the way, I negotiated her contract with them. They didn't know that at the time. Har har. They started sending her to Washington to cover stories there, and she would FaceTime me. Yeah, Olivia's a big FaceTime gal. Bobby Jr. Can you back me up on that? Anyway, she would say, there's this guy down here from the New Yorker. Do you know him? He's stalking me. Ryan Lizza. Ryan Lizza, my stalker. Bottom line here is while Olivia was claiming to Lizza that I was stalking her, she was claiming to me that Lizza was stalking her. It's a big tent. She also had a reader from her days at the Daily Beast and before that, that she insisted was stalking her. And then to my surprise, and when I say surprise, I mean not at all surprised, she and Lizzo were suddenly dating and writing sappy entries on Facebook together. And fine, I was dating, too. Not them, obviously. I was just dating. But the Facebook post somebody sent me was accompanied with, isn't this next to your house? The two of them were posing at their tree in Central park, which was not just near my house, but it was on the path I walked the dogs every day. For a moment, a fleeting moment, I thought, oh, good, now she's stalking me. I actually wrote on the Facebook page something like, I don't want to run into you any more than you don't want to run into me. I will avoid your tree, but just, you know, look out. You are literally hanging out three minutes from my new apartment, and the dogs and I go by there every day. One more Lizza quote. Olivia wanted to get married in the next few years. Before I'm old, she would say, meaning 30. And our Georgetown chapter was a test run for whether that might work. Well, I don't doubt that for a minute because it is almost word for word what she said to me. Either in 2013 or 14, before her behavioral event, her aberration pretty much crossed that off the list of possibilities. Living with me in the Trump building was our test run. She talked about kids, maybe, but marriage, definitely. Funny, though, her stories about RFK Jr are about kids and impregnating her. Definitely in marriage, maybe. Even though he's already married. Do you see a pattern here? The rest of Ryan Liza's story, part two is still pending. As I recorded. This was the surprise ending where he says, it turns out she did the whole RFK bit in 2019 with Governor Mark Sanford. And both of those echo the idea that her relationship with Lizza may have overlapped the one with me. But even if it didn't, she was telling him that I was stalking her and she was telling me that he was stalking her. Maybe part two will explain why he stayed with her. Liza does get props for setting up his surprise ending, though. It was pointed out to me also that really observant spectators to this 14 month long slow motion political media car crash will have already noticed that Lizza foreshadowed what he wrote this past Monday on October 15th of 2024, writer Nick Field took soundings in the legal filings when Olivia was trying to get Ryan indicted or tased by the FBI or God knows what. And Mr. Field noted this quote I did tell Ms. Newsy, Lizza writes, that I thought she should be responsible for paying back our book advance since this is the second presidential cycle in row where Ms. Newsy's personal indiscretions have sabotaged our book project. Mr. Field succinctly adds two words to this quotation and they are second time very good Nick Field, Very good. How can you not be a detective Nick Field with that name and that insight? Anywho, I don't know where all this leaves Olivia and that makes me sad. Maybe Liz's part two, if it ever happens, will clarify something. But media people hated them to begin with because they were so consciously and shamelessly trying to become a reporting power couple and he was so sadly trying to exploit her rising star as his declined from the New Yorker to overnight editing at Politico. I mean, I didn't try to piggyback on Olivia's work as she succeeded. I liked having a tiny part in this anonymously. More importantly, Olivia and I were literally watching the American version of House of Cards in bed one night when the Kate Mara reporter character started to sleep with the Kevin Spacey character. And Olivia said said, why does Hollywood assume women reporters sleep with their sources? And later she tweeted that she went from that to technologically sleeping with her source, her interviewee maybe twice. I mean two different interviewees. And then after a year out of the business because of this, she got another chance in a dying industry that's laying off hundreds of reporters who didn't sleep with their sources or alter the news or shill in exchange for acts to trump. And none of them got new jobs. Plus the Mark Sanford twist the book Excerpt the book the new job as a West coast editor at Vanity Fair doesn't know it's Pacific Coast Highway. I only did this once. I'm not unreliable. I can explain her semi Maya culpa her explanation for the lies about RFK Jr and to the audience reading her pieces. The explanation of the lies was itself a lie. This was the second politician she covered and covered. She told the old boyfriend that the boyfriend to be was a stalker. She told the boyfriend to be that the then incumbent boyfriend was a stalker.

[Keith Olbermann]

Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to the bottom of the ocean. Where did that story come from? Book Dream?

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Nope.

[Keith Olbermann]

It came from a conversation. Meet Miko Mini plus, the AI companion that co creates personalized story adventures with your child in real time. What color was the hamster's cape and what did he pack for lunch? Unlock your child's imagination. Discover Miko Mini plus and the Magic of AI Exclusively at Costco.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

Imagine this. Your house burns down or your partner passes away and you call your insurance company and the claim gets denied. No payout, no safety net, just loss. It sounds extreme, but it happens every day. Insurance policies are full of exclusions that leave people vulnerable. That's why my policy advocate exists. They review your coverage, uncover gaps and explain everything in plain English. They don't sell insurance. They help you understand what you already have. Visit mypolicyadvocate.com and protect what matters most.

[Anabe Sofas Advertiser]

Not everybody can be good at fantasy football and at Better. We understand that. That's why we're giving away a free ten dollar just for signing up. Download the Better App, pick more or less on player stats, watch the games and win some cash. It's that simple. Better Picks is available in 33 states including Texas, California and Georgia. Download the Better App today. That's better B E T R and get a free $10. No deposit necessary. Must be 21 or older. In a jurisdiction where Better Picks operates, terms and conditions apply. Better Picks Sports just got better Time.

[Keith Olbermann]

For a sofa upgrade. Introducing Anabe sofas where designer style meets budget friendly prices. Every anibe sofa is modular allowing you to rearrange your space effortlessly. Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anabe is the only machine washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy. Liquids simply slide right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high resilience foam lets you choose between a sink in feel or a supportive memory foam. Blue plus our pet friendly stain resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality. For price, visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your living space today. Sofas start at just $699 with no risk returns and a 30 day money back guarantee. Get early access to Black Friday now. The biggest sale of the year can save you up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now [e-mail] offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. I turned off news altogether.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait.

[Keith Olbermann]

It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Anabe Sofas Advertiser]

If we got clear facts, maybe we.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America. She called some other reader a stalker. How many politicians and how many stalkers are there? And what, God help us, about her profile of Rudy Giuliani. More seriously and more ominously after this excerpt and the Lizzo response and the response, the laugh out loud response to the excerpt, how can Conde Nast and Vanity Fair keep her employed now even in her phony baloney job? This was her comeback. Now she's gonna need an entirely new comeback back from her comeback.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

This is COUNTDOWN with Keith May Oberman.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown, Nothing. This is the last segment of the show. But first, believe it or not, there's still 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 bronze Trump. You may have missed this. Trump has a new conspiracy theory in which he has accused a new individual of rigging something in 2020. Rigging the 2020 census. It was rigged by himself. I will be strongly endorsing any state senator, House member, great state of Indiana votes against the Republican Party by not allowing for redistricting for congressional seats. United States House representative state in the news, Democrats are trying to steal our seats everywhere and we're not gonna let this happen. This all began with the rigged census. We must keep the majority at all costs. Republicans must fight back. Well, as, as an aside, we all know what he means when he says we must fight. We saw that on January 6th. This all began with the rigged census. The Census was in 2020 and the president was. Yep. He doesn't remember he was president in 2020. The runner up. Speaking of that, believe it or not, back from the Catacombs, Bill O'Reilly Billow this happened in July, otherwise he would have won. But I missed it because it was on News Nation, the Nickelodeon or Nick at Night for TV News, a show with Leland Vittert who was fired from Fox. Well, so was Bill. When Billow insisted that Jeffrey Epstein was tried and convicted during the Biden presidency by Attorney General Merrick Garland, he kept repeating this because Bill was, is and always be a moron who cannot admit he's mistaken. And now the old age is beginning to come in. Hold a press conference and invite former General Garland. If he doesn't come there, put an empty chair with his picture on it because Garland had the information that the Trump people have had for four years. What? Hold a press conference, invite former General Garland. If he doesn't come there, put an empty chair in this picture because Garland had the same information that Trump people had before you. This is what infuriates me about these people. Jeffries knew the Biden administration had exactly the same thing the Trump administration has on Epstein. Exactly. Because Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration. That's when even Leland Vitter on a network dedicated to letting right wingers say the most implausible things and doing nothing about it, not even making a big deal, not letting on that it was a right wing network pretending it was neutral. But Bellow said Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration. And Leland Vitter said. Hold on, Bill, you said Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration. Epstein committed, committed suicide during the Trump administration. Bill O'Reilly's response to this was, yeah, so he couldn't process it. He was not just wrong, he was wrong at the top of his voice, which isn't very top anymore. How do you convict a guy that is dead? Leland Vitterd wondered aloud. Answer came there, none. Bill O'Reilly just moved on because he had been caught in an inescapable mistake. Bill? No, like, I don't know. How do you convict a guy that's dead? How do you have a guest on who sounds like he's dead? Now, why doesn't Bill O win for something that stupid, that wrong, that Billow, that Hall of Fame quality? Well, it was in July. Again, sorry. Next time you want me to notice this, put it on tv. Tv. So our winner. It does continue a sweep by worst persons in the world's veterans. It's all stars, it's all time greats. On his podcast, Bill Maher reveals he is no longer interested in going on the road to do stand up comedy shows because of the country's intense political divide. First off, did you know Bill Maher does comedy? When I'd love to see that. It'd be such a change. I thought he's just there to help you sleep on Friday night and get ready for the weekend. I don't want to be out there in this country in this political atmosphere. I could get shot by the left or the right. It's a good time to not be out there. Oh my God, Bill, what liberal would shoot you? And now that you parrot all the Trump talking points and you write articles about what a great dinner you had with Trump, what conservative would bother to shoot you? I mean, I don't want to make a joke about people getting shot, particularly political commentators. Since I'm a political commentator, I'm opposed to political commentators getting shot. But of all the political commentators in America, maybe in the world who have no fear of this, it would be Bill Maher. Republicans don't trust him entirely, but he's no longer of any interest to the liberals. There's nobody watching. The only thing he ever gets quoted on is when he says something stupid like this. Why would anybody shoot him when he says something stupid and pro, you know, Nazi. The conservatives go, oh look, it's that liberal mar. Look what he said. We must be right. And liberals don't say anything because they don't hear about it because nobody's watching his effing show anymore. Variety. Quoting Variety, Mars says he's also tired of the travel and tired of being twice as funny as people who were selling twice as many tickets as me. He noted that because I'm on TV every week, it gives fans less incentive to go buy tickets to see him. First of all, the only people Bill is twice as funny as who sell twice as many tickets as him are the New York Jets. And the true disincentive for people to buy tickets to see him is he sucks. Not that I didn't sell a lot of tickets and do great theaters, but I didn't sell arenas. I, I was, I must confess, in exchange for the free travel, once again, I was the co host of the show between Bill Maher's version of the Friday night HBO show and a live performance he gave in Washington at an adjoining theater. And they needed like 45 minutes filled between that. Michael Moore and I sat up in the press box, part of the theater, one of the boxes up there, there, and acted like the two old guys from the Muppets, frankly. Anyway, we did that. I participated in this and I had to sit there and listen and I didn't laugh once. And he did both the show and a stand up show Unbelievable. Wait, there's more. Some people who did, meaning, sell arenas, frankly, are not that great. But, you know, when the audience is 35 to 45, they don't want to see somebody 70. I just did my 13th HBO special. I feel like that's a good body of work. I felt they all. They. They basically got better as it went along. I feel like the last one was the best one, which is a good way to get off. Wait, wait a minute. The last one was the best one, which is a good way to get off. Hmm. Well, sir, if anybody knows that topic, it's Bill. I meant the part about the last one was the best one. What's wrong with you? Dear listener, Mar today's worst person in the world. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for. Thank you for listening. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chenale, who are the musical directors of Countdown, and it was produced by TKO Brothers. Mr. Ray was on the guitars, bass, and drums, and Mr. Chenale handled the orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Foust. The olderman theme from ESPN2, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by the group. No horns allowed. My announcer today was my friend Larry David. The program was produced by Ted. Everything else was, as always, my fault. That's Countdown for today. Day 304 of America held hostage and just 1167 days until the scheduled end of what is now officially his lame duck term is in all the papers. Unless he is removed sooner by MAGA or by Jeffrey Epstein or the next mystery MRI or Tylenol or the next reporter he insults or he's removed by a duck. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Until then, I'm Keith Olbermann. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and. Wait, what was the rest of that? Oh, yeah, good luck. Rip them, mother. Rip them right downtown and print it. 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. Shh.

[Keith Olbermann]

You won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs. Is your child having conversations you never imagined? Are they learning without realizing it? It's not a tablet. It's not a toy. It's Meiko Mini plus, the AI powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning. Hear the future of playtime. Meet the extraordinary Meco Mini plus only at Costco.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

Imagine this. Your house burns down or your partner passes away and you call your insurance company and the claim gets denied. No payout, no safety net, just loss. It sounds extreme, but it happens every day. Insurance policies are full of exclusions that leave people vulnerable. That's why my policy advocate exists. They review your coverage, uncover gaps, and explain everything in plain English. They don't sell insurance. They help you understand what you already have. Visit my policyadvocate advocate.com and protect what matters most.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Have you ever turned a dollar into ten grand? I doubt it. But now you can. On Better Picks Download the Better App, Pick more or less on your favorite player stats, watch the games and win some cash. It's that simple. Better picks available in 33 states including Texas, California and Georgia. Download the Better App today. That's Better Betr and get a free $10. No deposit necessary. Must be 21 or or. In a jurisdiction where Better Picks operates, terms and conditions apply. Better Picks Sports just got better hi, I'm Xing Singh.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

And I'm Simon Jack and together we.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Host Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast exploring.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

How some of the world's richest people made their fortunes.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

And we are back with a brand new season of billionaires. Yes, movie megastar Arnold Schwarzenegger, America's richest self made businesswoman Diane Hendricks, and co.

[My Policy Advocate Advertiser]

Founder of snack chap Evan Spiegel to.

[Better Picks Advertiser]

Name just a few. And we're asking you to decide if they're good, bad or just another billionaire Good Bad billionaire from the BBC World Survey. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Keith Olbermann]

How do I do it all during the holidays? 4 words shipt same day Delivery. With Shipt, I can order groceries from Albertsons, decor from Michaels, even gifts for my furry friend from Petsmart. Plus my personal shopper brings everything I need that same day. That makes it a breeze to decorate, get my shopping done and make time for all the holiday parties. Do it all this holiday season with Shipt. Download the app or visit Shipt.com that's S-H ipt.com this is an iHeart podcast.