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Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures the
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wait is almost over. Get ready for the NFL season with the highly anticipated 2026 NFL schedule. Release every rivalry, every rematch and every rookie debut with matchups locked and kickoffs confirmed. Be there for every can't miss moment. The full NFL Schedule release coming in May. Get all the details@NFL.com schedule release.
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Amazon Pharmacy Presents Painful Thoughts of course I see my co worker in line at the pharmacy. Can you tell I'm picking up prescription hemorrhoid cream? I'm probably standing weird. Why is he smiling? He knows he's gonna call me Hemorrhoid Lloyd tomorrow. I know it. I gotta quit my job. Next time. Avoid awkward conversations and get fast free delivery with Amazon Pharmacy. Healthcare just got less painful Countdown with Keith Ulberman is a production of iHeartradio. I have figured out Trump's plan to try to stop steal a third term. He has given it away in one social media post and he's just crazy enough to think it'll work because he's just crazy enough to think all his ideas are genius and his farts carry the weight of law. It is in his rant claiming that the indictment of a political opponent means the 2020 presidential election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect. He's going to try to nullify the 2020 election and hold a new one. Hold another 2020 election in the future. I'll explain it in depth in a moment. But before that, if you think you want to just dismiss this outright as crazy, let me do the headlines first and you tell me if it's any crazier than the rest of what comes out of this batshit crazy, rapidly deteriorating, evil, insane old man. The newest is holding another 2020 election in 2028, only calling it 2020. Is that any crazier, really, than Trump insisting yesterday that we are in a war against Ukraine and we've sunk the Ukrainian navy and ruined Ukrainian nuke? Here we go, Ukraine. Militarily, they're defeated. Okay, you wouldn't know that by reading the fake news, but militarily, look there, Navy. So they had 159 ships. Every ship is right now underwater. Typically that's pretty good. What do you think, Jared? I mean, it's going to be hard for them to make a naval comeback. Okay? Now they have an air force. Every one of their planes has been shot down or has been decimated. They have missiles, about 82. Okay, who's going to tell them, Susie Wiles? I mean, they are all likelier and all cowardly enough to simply paraphrase George Orwell and insist we have always been at war with East Ukraine, is holding an election in 2028 and insisting it's the real 2020 election. Any crazier sounding than indicting the former FBI director on a threat to kill Trump with a seashell meme? Trump sees seashells shelling scenery. This is so panoramically stupid, even for this stupid man. Trump with his stupid sons and his stupid. And his stupid maga. This is so Caligula appoints his horse as the Roman consul, which didn't happen. Although give Trump some time to do this. This is so stupid that even Congressman Troy Nels called it a stretch. It is so stupid, even for Stupid Trump that on Fox. Bill Hemmer even noticed it was bullshit and was able to make a fool out of Jim Jordan over it. Jim Jordan goes on with Bill Hemmer and says, qu Jim Comey started the 10 year attack on President Trump. Remember the dossier? He leaked memos, he leaked classified information. Now he tells us he didn't do anything wrong. Bill Hemmer, Bill Hemmer, who might finish behind Trump in the stupid derby. Bill Hemmer comes back with, quote, everything you listed he's not being charged with in this case. Bill Hemmer was still at CNN when I worked there in 2001 and 2002, and the veterans there used to view him as a kind of a mascot or an equal opportunity hire. And I worked once with a sportscaster for whom Bill Hemmer was an intern, and he used to say, dumbest kid I ever met. And even he figured out that the indictment of Comey is so stupid that Jim freaking Jordan wouldn't be able to defend it on Fox. So is having a 2020 election do over any crazier than the Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee fig it out finally, and using their time yesterday to stuff Pete Hegseth full of time bombs by showing him posters of his new appointee Tim Parlatory criticizing Trump, knowing that Trump would be watching Hegseth testimony and probably not knowing that Parliament was appointed. I'm not even Hexeth's one brief moment of self awareness that he was being set up when Representative Sarah Jacobs asked him about Trump's lack of mental functionality and Hegseth was able to stammer. Auto pen. Auto pen. Not even that is going to save him. Pete Hegseth should quit today as Secretary of Defense War. Because Trump will fire him for yesterday. It may be at Christmas, but it'll happen. Barricade yourself in your makeup room, buddy. The end is nigh. If the end were not nigh, it will become nigh over the additional testimony that Trump has burned through $25 billion over this stupid, unnecessary, pointless war. And the Wall Street Journal report that Trump told his staff Monday to prepare for an indefinite blockade of Iran. In other words, it's a forever war. It's a forever war that's costing us about $4 billion a week. And it will be hung around the neck of every Republican running for the House or Senate or dog catcher this fall, no matter what the Supreme Court did to the Voting Rights act yesterday. And by the way, if you're in a panic over that verdict, remember that the MAGA scum who is predicting A perpetual Republican majority because of it is Brad Parscale, who we last saw being body slammed to his own driveway by cops and who seems to have not noted that Democrats can gerrymander as many seats as Republicans can based on the Supreme Court ruling. Is the potential 2020 election part due any crazier than Trump and especially his nitwit wife, the Rent a First Lady? If you don't like it here in Donald Trump's America, Melania, leave. Is it any dumber or crazier than the two of them insisting Jimmy Kimmel should be fired about a joke about Trump's death relative to her age? And then after the weekend, Trump gets up in front of King Charles on Tuesday and makes the same goddamn joke, only not nearly as well. You're going to fire Kimmel for doing that joke? He did it well. Fire Trump for doing that joke. Especially when the D word is almost the only thing America is talking about. Even though nobody wants to say it head on because of, I don't know, decorum. Like we had any left or a jinx maybe, or, I don't know, I guess if you're going to indict Jim Comey over 86, 47 seashells, if I say, you know what I was thinking about the other, don't say it, don't say it, they'll indict you. Maybe it's that nobody wants to say it head on. Social media is full every day of opaque allusions to it. We can't say it. Oh, no, you can't make a joke about it. I'm reminded of The Ken Burns 1985 documentary about Huey Long, and there is a cluster of sound bites. And you should see this documentary. It's not like baseball or the Civil War. It's not an epic, but it's called great. It's a little unrefined, but it's great. And it's real time with people who, who were alive and prominent in Louisiana in the 1930s. It's less than 50 years later, and they're all vital and vivid and they all talk about how they all talked about that. All they talked about was when Huey Long would die. The mother of the journalist Hodding Carter, Betty Carter, basically says that all they did in Louisiana in the 30s was sit around, make sure that they knew who was in the room with them and who wasn't. And they would sit around and talk about when Huey Long would die. And how is the idea that Trump wants an actual new election that he can call the 2020 election. Is that any crazier than what continues to pour out of the investigation into the White House Correspondent's Dinner incident? I mean, first it was Garrett Graff of Doomsday's Scenario, formerly of Politico, methodically analyzing the security video and the indictment and concluding that the alleged perp never fired a shot. And by the way, when was the last newscast you saw that mentioned that fact also that, you know, this guy never got within one floor of the building of Trump and yet they indicted him for discharging a weapon. Not guilty. And attempting to assassinate the President. You're going to assassinate everybody within a floor of Trump who would like, like him, you know, to be d. We indicted 52 million people today. Then the Washington Post repeated that analysis that Garrett Graff started with better video. And it's transparently obvious the worst they have this guy on is menacing a Secret Service agent with a weapon. Potentially. You could potentially charge him with attempted murder of a Secret Service agent. All the shooting that panicked a lousy journalism society dinner and cost dozens the opportunity to eat undercooked chicken and dubious shellfish. And I'm waiting to hear about refunds. All of the shooting was done by agents, one of whom fired four shots, one of which hit. Hit one of the other agents, and the others nearly hit the other agents but never got near the suspect. As Dave Troy, Publisher of America 2.0, summarizes our long national nightmare. One, Cole Allen never reached the ballroom. Two, he never fired a shot. Three, he was not shot. Four, he was going to use buckshot if he had reached the ballroom, but he didn't. Five, the shots fired were by Secret Service. One officer took friendly fire, but it was stopped by tactical gear. Six, Allen was apparently subdued, tackled. Seven officers recovered a handgun, a long gun and knives from Allen. Eight, the security perimeter was inside the hotel and functioned as designed. This was not the hand of God, unless God is now protecting Trump from morons. Well, Lord, maybe you should now beam your magic to saveth Trump from Hegseth. And by the way, in this context, the question of this being staged or not being staged, conspiracy theories. This becomes decreasingly meaningful the more you realize that the guy did a pretty good and imaginative job of getting around a few security layers. A fairly cheap lesson for the Secret Service relative to hotels and guests at hotels. But he really didn't have any plan whatsoever for, you know, the last five minutes to get to Trump. The last five minutes going down the escalator and into the ballroom and then all the way to the front of this ballroom, by the way, I've been in it. It's like the size of a football field. From the back door, the main entrance that he would have had to go through to the dais. I mean, really, you could, you could call an Uber to get you from that door to the dais. It's the One thing the D.C. hilton has is room. He had no plan to get down the escalator into the ballroom, then all the way to the front to get anywhere near Trump, while everybody would have been, you know, shooting at him, unless he had some wicked matrix moves planned. I mean, the Wall Street Journal editorial board came out with this and compared Trump to Lincoln. Presumably they meant running back Keith Lincoln of the 1963American Football League champion San Diego Chargers. After less than a day online, that entire editorial was changed and all the references to both Lincolns were pulled because it became apparent that the real threat to Donald Trump last Saturday night was when Secret Service dropped him. And is the second 2020 election any crazier than Trump still trying to use this non event as an excuse to get his Emmer effing ballroom built? And now stick us with the bill because the ballroom will save all presidents from all harm forever. Because what, they're all just gonna stay in the ballroom forever? They're never gonna lead like a hidey hole. They're gonna carry the ballroom around with them. What happens if Iran develops ballroom piercing ordinance? You ever think of that? It's not enough. 800 million to make the walls eleventy billion inches thick. There are so many sound bites of Trump insisting that the top feature of this crap was that it was going to cost the taxpayers no money. Can't he just admit it? Can't he just cop to reality? Once Trump could not raise the money, he failed. Somehow it has happened. People decided they want to stop bribing Trump for everything. He had to turn this into taxpayer funded because he couldn't come up with the money himself. If this was staged, it was staged because Trump ran out of cash. It's so bad, it's such a fraud that the House Majority Whip, Tom Emmer, had to make up an assassination attempt that never happened to try to justify it. This is not a man who suddenly jumps and runs. You saw after the Bedminster shooting, he stood up and pumped his fist in the air three times. The Bedminster attack, Tom, that happened while you were asleep and you dreamt it. Or do you mean Kellyanne Con job's apocryphal Bowling Green massacre terrorist attack? Is that what you're referring to there, where the only victims were Kellyanne's imaginary friends. By the way, there was a hint yesterday that Senator Jackie Rosen of Nevada is willing to listen on funding a ballroom. Senator. All Democrats. If you're a Democrat and you vote for this, you're out. You are right now literally on the same side as Libs of TikTok and Meghan McCain. And trust me, we can get Libs of TikTok to run for senator from Nevada on the Democratic ticket and be just as much of a Democrat as you are if you vote for this. In fact, you know what I want? I want legislation specifically prohibiting Trump from spending money, even his own, even the $231 he has on him on a ballroom or on altering the White House again in any effing way. I don't want him changing the bath mats. And I want him ordered to restore the White House to the condition it was in, including the east wing on January 19, 2025, and to remove that cheap shit plastic gold filigree he stuck on the walls and to remove it with his own te. Okay, finally to it. Trump's plan to MATA Make America 2020 again. I get it now. I get what Trump's third term plot is most likely to look like. Did you see this? The Southern Poverty Law center, he wrote one of the great political scams in American history, has been charged with fraud. As an aside, it's absolutely possible Trump does not understand the difference between charges and convictions. And in many respects it's clear his people don't. This is another Democrat hoax along with Act Blue and many others. Many others is when there aren't any others. If it is true. Oh, where did that come from? If it is true. What you're saying there, Donnie, is it's not true. If it is true, the 2020 presidential election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect. Exclamation point. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President DJT. The 2020 presidential election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect. Those who are late will not get fruit cup. Okay, I get it now. I get what Trump's third term plot is most likely to look like. Exactly like that. That's what it's going to look like. Never mind the phony charges against the Southern Poverty Law center that don't all to do with the validity of an election. Even if the charges weren't phony, this is his way of floating the latest mental fart to bubble out of the stale soup that is what's left of his brain. His third term plot is in there. His third term plot isn't repealing the 22nd amendment or some new amendment or some crap about he's still eligible until he served two consecutive terms. So he's eligible and Obama and Bill Clinton aren't. It's not a pure dictatorial overthrow. He's not. First, it's not some sham in which everybody else gets elected, then they resign and he gets appointed president. This is his third term plot. If you can somehow declare the 2020 election permanently wiped from the books, whatever that entails, I don't know. Then we've never had a 2020 election. And he can say, the Constitution says we must have a 2020 election. We don't have one anymore. And as president, he has sworn by holy oath to make sure we have one, even though he hasn't. So since there can't just be a blank space there between the 2016 and 2024 elections, Congress will have to pass legislation declaring that the 2020 election will now be held as mandated by the Constitution and Trump's personal friend, God, on November 7, 2028. That will be the 2020 election. And naturally, since the now wiped from the books first version of the 2020 election was Donald J. Trump of Florida versus Joseph R. Biden Jr. Of Delaware, the new 2020 election, the new and improved gold plated 2020 election on November 7, 2028 will again have to be Trump versus Biden. No substitutions permitted since the primaries and conventions have not been declared of no further force or. And it can only be Trump versus Biden, and thus it is decided and constitutionally decreed, and God said so. And a great wrong will be righted and a great wound will be healed. And thank you for your attention to this matter. I'm not crazy. Could it possibly work? Things. I mean, things do get undone in this country. Mostly it's college football awards for endless reasons and prosecutions when it turned out there was faked evidence. But to just erase an election and then on top of it, run it again only as a devious and illegal means of letting him be elected a third time. Not that he would be elected no matter what condition Joe Biden would be in in 2028. But we all said that before and we were wrong. To say nothing of him trying to fix it or then losing the second 2020 election in 2028 and, and. And somehow getting enough Republicans to lie about that one and storm the Capitol again. The point with Trump, as we now know, from having lost a decade of our lives to this animated pile of shit with bronzer on it, is that when you are like him and you have no conscience, no ability to perceive that the lives of other humans matter in the slightest, is that his greatest asset is to act first and let you try to undo what he's done later. So far, very few have succeeded. He is expert at finding weaknesses in people and in laws. That is how he made money, how he portrayed himself on his otherwise disastrous TV show, and the means by which, if he could have concentrated solely on enslaving us rather than spending half his time whining about not getting enough credit for if he had just focused, we would all be enslaved by now in a full fledged dictatorship. You and me in chains, working underground, harvesting rare minerals for him, rare earths in Greenland. Nobody has stopped Trump. His own ego and his thin skin, both metaphorical and the actual crap on his hands, that has stopped him. So what we do have though, is data on where he meets with the latest and least resistance to his schemes and plots. If Biden had had a living Attorney General, not the mummified cadaver of Merrick Garland, a series of laws with pretty good leak proofing would have and were starting to put Trump in prison for life. Trump barely presented a factual defense in any of his trials or to any of his indictments. He didn't have like real lawyers, he had like Alina Haba. He had Alina Haba a little mealy mouthed, whining about his ownership of the documents. Mine, mine, mine, mine. But that was more reflexive greed and less self preservational cries of innocence. Trump and his ambulance chasers instead fixated. On stalling. Donald Trump is in the White House rather than in the penitentiary today because every time the labyrinthine rules of pretrial process afforded his lawyers three weeks to prepare a document, they sued, saying that wasn't long enough. They needed six weeks. So suddenly there was the trial, and then there was also a hearing about a motion deadline for that trial. And as this began to work and the months of pretrial process became years of pretrial process, he simply repeated the trick over and over again. Jack Smith actually overcame the rabbit and tortoise race delay millstone that that idiot Garland hung around Jack Smith's neck. It was the endless delays over when the paperwork had to be filed that did him in, and did in America. So if Trump wanted to erase the 2020 election and hold another one, the 2020 election of 2028,™ what plot would belch out from his soulless existence? Presumably something in which he ordered it, his Congress approved it, and set up some legal bullshit to give it a temporary fig leaf and a phony electoral mechanism to get it started. Then everybody would sue him, of course, and sue that electoral mechanism to stop it, because it not only violates the Constitution, but it also violates the laws of time and space. And what would he do? He would do what he did in the prosecution of Donald Trump. He would move to dismiss each lawsuit. And at each stage in which a judge, whether it's Eileen Cannon or a real judge, in which the judge had a paperwork deadline, his side, presumably in the person of the 2020 election of 2028 organizing committee trademark they would sue to delay it. 60 days to respond. Now we need 120. Then they'd sue to delay the paperwork deadline for the suit, to delay it. Oh, no, we need 180 days to get the 120 days for the original suit. Then they'd sue over those paperwork. 240 days for the 180 days for the 120 days for the original lawsuit. And what would the increasingly frenzied opposition do? Go to the Supreme Court to get an emergency ruling that this illegal bullshit was illegal bullshit? Do you want to rely on that? Do you really want to rely on that when you know that he could force Alito and Thomas out tomorrow if he wanted to go nuclear on them? Never mind how easy it would be to force them out in our scenario in which we're talking about events of next year or in 2028, all of a sudden, it wouldn't just be an automatic majority of Trump appointees on the court. Then two of them would have just gotten there, presumably with the promise that they would rule for him on anything presented to them about letting him find a loophole big enough to run a 2020 through then having gotten his Supreme Court to give a collective emoji shrug, if Trump has correctly measured the time he had to kill off with endless motions, as he clearly did measure it correctly in 2022, 23, 24, and if things were still favorable to his threats and bribes and blackmail, as they are now and will be at least through the midterms, he would simply do it. I believe he would simply declare that the 2028 election is really the 2020 election, and it has to be Biden versus Trump, and he will abide by the final decisions of the courts, which will be coming in any Decade now, the 2020 presidential election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further for. He didn't write that because it temporarily stuffs crumpled up paper into the overflowing urinals that are his brain. He wrote that because he's doing early resistance tests because we think the Democrats are gonna win the House in the fall and we think they may even have the Senate and we think they have a puncher's chance to get the 60 Senate seats necessary to convict and remove him. Or he could use the new Supreme Court ruling, or he could stage an Iranian terror plot. Hell, he just got indictments against the Southern Poverty Law center on behalf of the racists, including the terrorists at Charlottesville. He's got January 6th insurrection, is working for ICE and running for Republican House seats and he just indicted Jim Comey over effing seashells when Jim Comey is probably the guy who got him elected in 2016. In that context, may I ask you this question? How much of a stretch is it really for him to get away with holding the 2020 election of 2028? Trademark. Also of interest here. Quick scheduling note. I'm taking next week off. The next scheduled Countdown podcast will be a week from Monday. That's Monday, May 11th. Everything is fine. I just need the week. In the interim. I have bad news for Bari Weiss and I have worse news for Bari Weiss. Sadly, nobody is watching her version of the CBS Evening News, but everybody is watching her Free Press reporter's correspondence dinner video in which she deliberately pointed the camera away from the news to instead point it at her own face and give us 52 seconds of herself silently looking alarmed. It's the new journalism that's next. This is Countdown. 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 polic 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 support for the show comes from
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Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable Index with AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your theories thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures the
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wait is almost over. Get ready for the NFL season with a highly anticipated 2026 NFL schedule release. Every rivalry, every rematch and every rookie debut with matchups locked and kickoffs confirmed. Be there for every can't miss moment. The full NFL schedule release coming in May. Get all the details@NFL.com ScheduleRelease.
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Amazon Health AI Presents Painful Thoughts why did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic source in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful.
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This is Countdown with Keith Olber.
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Still ahead on this edition of Countdown, Every once in a while I wonder why the hell I became a political commentator, an analyst, instead of remaining a simple showbiz sportscaster and just a country news anchor. And when I say once in a while, I mean o hourly. But how it happened. How I became that totally accidentally unplanned and thought to be temporary that I rarely ponder or recount. And when I do, I am astonished by it since I found myself doing exactly that, explaining the why the other day. I think I should go through the how right here. The day it went all horribly, horribly wrong, other than the fact that it was pretty much all Tim Russert's fault. Next in things I promised not to tell in the interim, we always have 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. This is dedicated to Katrina Perry, BBC newscaster who anchored the live coverage of the King's appearance and the speech to a joint gathering of Congress. She, she, let me put this politely. She struggled. She's from Ireland. She's not apologetic about it. She doesn't try to hide it. So each reference she made was to King Charles Turd. I am assuming even though she's Irish, she's not necessarily insulting him. That's just how th is said that way. I had Irish friends from the Bronx who said turd all the time. But more importantly, especially since the King chose not to meet with Epstein's survivors and Trump continues his cover up of Epstein, somebody gave her bad information. As speaker Johnson escorted the King through Statuary Hall, Ms. Perry called it on the BBC Statutory Hall. And then she said it again and a third time. See, Statutory hall in the current climate especially would presumably be on Epstein Island. Statutory hall, the medalist, the bronze worse. Barry Weiss. Boy oh boy, are the wheels coming off for her. It appears a video self own by one of her, quote, reporters, unquote, at the Free Press has gotten a larger audience than does the flagship newscast at her dying operation. Cbs. The new numbers are in from Nielsen, courtesy of Oliver Darcy's status newsletter. And they are not bleak. They used to be bleak. Now they are whatever is way down from bleak for the third consecutive week. Last week, the CBS Evening News with Tony decouple fell through the network news floor, which is 4 million total viewers. 4 million is the point you have to reach. 4 million is the point at which it is worth to, you know, not postpone the show and run an infomercial about stick vacuums or do it yourself at home. Butter churning. 3,700,000 viewers for the CBS Evening News for the week of April 20th. Only 467,000 in the advertising demo. We used to regularly top 467,000 on Countdown on cable, plus the lead newscast at 6:30. World news on ABC. Increased ratings doubles those averages. The evening news will eventually die and go away. CBS now ABC and NBC. Decades from now, CBS Mornings is also getting killed under Bari Weiss. Worst April on record, worst first quarter. The audience is less than a million eight every day. Now I'm going to deliberately leave the name of the country in question out because it's meaningful, it's relevant, but it's not really relevant to the TV considerations. If you altered the news on an American TV channel to slant it towards a foreign country, if you made the CBS evening News pro Canada. But by eliminating anti Canada stories or anti Canada facts or accepting Canadian government spin as reality, you'd get crushed in the same way CBS is getting crushed now. Same if you made it pro Liechtenstein or pro Bosnia and Herzegovina. It doesn't matter which country. That's not the point. People go, why am I watching the news about Bosnia Herzegovina on cbs? This is the CBS EVENING Bosnia and Herzegovina News. Barry Weiss and Tony decouple are making their news decisions based in large part on their personal commitments to another country. They can have personal commitments to another country. They can do all the charity work they want. They can do all the information dissemination they want. They just can't do it on the CBS Evening News. It's insane. And we're not even talking about the ethics of it. We're talking about the practical monetary considerations. They're getting destroyed for it. Happily, everything else is going so very well. The runner up, worser, Barry Weiss of the Free Press. This was my point. I don't know how many reporters beclowned themselves at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, Jake, but Barry's quote, reporter Olivia Rheingold probably won that competition. A lot of reporters at least tried. They put out videos, most of which showed nothing, some of which were useful, some of which at least did the minimum you're expecting from your favorite reporter. At a dinner full of reporters where something newsy happens, some kind of video of them narrating the scene. Even if it's just a bunch of empty tables, maybe you'll get lucky. You'll find some guy eating his salad and refusing to get under the table or even looking into their phone cameras and doing a stand up in hushed tones or a quick rap. Something. Something designed to try to tell the story. Something designed to show the news of that unnerving night. Olivia Reindold, the star of Bari Weiss's the Free Press. If somehow you have not seen it, you may be the only one who has not seen it. It's 52 seconds of her showing herself crouched under a table at the Washington Hilton, not her telling you what happened. It's basically silent, just a video of her facial expressions. Occasionally she'd look alarmed and silent, but she'd do it while looking to the left. Then she'd look alarmed and silent, but with her looking to the right, the versatility. And then. And then she'd look alarmed and silent directly into the camera. 52 seconds of Olivia Rheingold's emotions, which run the gamut from A to B. Terrifying, she wrote in the caption for this Emmy award winning, Pulitzer Prize winning video. Hell, give her the FIFA Nobel Prize, lady. You think it was terrifying, you should see the video from our perspective. Oh, you meant the events at the correspondence dinner. Well, we couldn't tell anything about that because you didn't show any of those events. A few ground shaking knocks by my seat, she wrote, unclear if shooting I am. Okay, we are trying to exit now. I would recommend you exit permanently from the TV news business or any news business. As many people noted, actual reporters are just civilians with brains in their head. Next time madam, point your camera at the news, not away from the news. To me, of course we are sleeping on the real imbecility here from Olivia Rheingold. Having recorded this, why did she then choose to post it? Why did she post it at full length? Maybe, maybe if you can't stop the compulsion to post this ridiculous self destructive video, trim it. You have an edit button on there, don't you? It doesn't have to be all 52 seconds showing you not knowing how to cover news. Just do five seconds showing your immediate reaction to it. Maybe people wouldn't laugh so hard. Fewer people would have guffawed. However, since the video was well lit and her makeup was undamaged as she went under the table, you know what's next in the semi functioning mind of Bari Weiss. This is the CBS Evening News with Olivia Rheingold. Now here is Olivia Reingold reporting from under the anchor desk. But the winner, Stephen A. Smith. I knew him for 15 years. Maybe I worked with him for like seven or eight at ESPN. I did not know he had a shovel collection. And he must, he must have a shovel collection because he just keeps friggin diggin'. I'm sorry, ESPN has to fire him. Tony Pitaro, Bob Iger, the new Disney guy. Stephen A. Smith has to go or you have to stop him from doing this anymore. He's done it again. He's gone on with Sean Hannity after that same White House Correspondents dinner while supposedly exploring a run for the Democratic presidential nomination. While pretending he's a liberal or a Democrat or even a moderate or just a mild conservative, while pretending he's not utterly uninformed about America and amazingly stupid about life. While utterly confident that the same windiness and time killing that works in TV sports will work in politics. ESPN is clearly not going to make him stop or cannot, or is as often the case, afraid of the talent. So somebody has to step in in Disney and fire him. You cannot have the face of your sports TV network, be a political commentator. And that is what he is trying to become. I know, I know. Funny me saying that, isn't it? Well, I didn't go and do it. When I worked for ESPN on TV I never appeared on SportsCenter or ESPN or ESPN2 once. Never did play by play for them. Never did did anything for them on television or anything else while doing political commentary at a different network. Didn't, didn't do a radio political commentary show while on ESPN tv. Didn't do a, didn't do MSNBC while being on ESPN TV didn't do videos, didn't do the resistance. Didn't do this podcast while working for espn. Not once. And when I felt I needed to, when I felt I needed to resume the commentary, the politics which was before the 2020 election, I literally retired from ESPN. I took retirement from my active contract because this side hustle that Stephen A. Is trying is not acceptable. If ESPN wants to reach its 50th anniversary as the self proclaimed worldwide leader in sports, this is sports TV suicide. Because if the face of your sports network and the wisdom of that is a whole different issue you guys in Bristol should probably, probably take a look at, is also a political hack. You are not competing with NBC Sports or Turner Sports or Amazon Prime Sports or whoever anymore. You are now competing with Clay Travis and Outkick and Barstool and that slow guy Portnoy and the rest of that fascist shit kicker stuff. You have dropped out of the primary level of sports TV Jimmy Pitaro and you are now going to be bidding for the the third junior NASCAR type stock car racing circuit, the one that only runs in the Carolinas. Stephen A. Smith will take you down to competing in the minor leagues. Especially if he continues to be utterly uninformed and reactionary and servile and he acts as a token on Fox News. Smith went off on his usual stream of unconsciousness drivel with Hannity. There was a time when the left left was quick to point to right wing extremism. But over the last year it's been left wing extremism. There's no absolving the left of the incendiary rhetoric they've been throwing at folks from the other side, primarily aimed at Donald Trump. That's Trump who wants his critics hanged, who wants them arrested? Who wants them tried for treason. Smith said the dinner had been great because he didn't see people throwing vitriolic rhetoric at each other during the salad. And there was no what he called Trump deranged syndrome, which is what he thinks the conservatives are saying. I mean, just Google it once Steve, look something up. He added inscrutably, we can't be taking sides. He's on Fox News. He says we can't be taking sides. After a decade of success in sports doing nothing but taking sides. On with Sean Hannity, we can't be taking sides. After admitting he was really worried when the gun incident occurred because he assumed it might be somebody trying to harm him or other media. And then he relaxed when he found out it wasn't. Brave words, sir. He got to his point. Hannity said everything wrong in the world was caused by Democrats and liberal commentators who called Trump quote, Hitler, fascist, racist, gestapo, wash, rinse, repeat. And Stephen A. Smith said Hannity was right. And he added, can't deny it, Stephen, you can't deny it. That's because you're a moron. The fire is caused by the people trying to put out the fire. Exactly. Brilliant, Stephen. It's not Trump being racist, launching a Gestapo, enacting fascism, perfecting his historical comp to Hitler in 1936 and now trying to get all of his critics fired or jailed or hanged. It can't be uninformed yahoos with public platforms trying to gain admittance to the white supremacists club so they can rule this country alongside their good friends like Sean Hannity. Can it? No, no. It's the people going, this is all effed up and we have to stop it. And it's Trump's fault. Because surprisingly enough, Stephen, it's Trump's fault. And espn, you are juggling flaming chainsaws here and you guys suck at that. From the beginning, Jimmy Pitaro has to make a choice. Does he want to have Stephen A. Smith's political delusions and lack of information hanging around his Pitaro's neck and ESPN's collective neck like millstones. Or is Pitaro going to force him to stop or take him off the air? Stephen A. If you think I'm overreacting here to him, guys, look at the CBS Evening News ratings that I just quoted. There is no fascist ESPN audience to win. They will not watch you. Jimmy Smith, today's other worst person in the world. Now to the number one story on the countdown and things I promised not to tell and the State of the union 1998 when I left ESPN and side with MSNBC. The first time in 1997 was not to become a political commentator nor even anchor. I went there to do what the president of NBC News America needed most. A live hour long news magazine show from Secaucus, New Jersey. So unfocused that on consecutive nights we led with the threat of a terrorist group called Al Qaeda. And then the next night we led with the publication of the Farmer's Almanac. I mean, this was the news at 8pm the lead story. They published the Farmer's Almanac again. Here's our live guest, the publisher Is it going to rain next year? I had regre 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. Coffee for Peace of mind. 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Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts I I can't stop scratching my downtown. Yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI. Chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24. 7 Healthcare just got less painful. Bretts Anyway, the good part of the job was sports. I hosted baseball in the World Series and even did some super bowl stuff for NBC. And in mid January of 1998 I flew to the west coast to work on that and do this magazine show, the Big show on MSNBC from entertainment venues in LA, most of them associated with NBC. On the afternoon of Tuesday, January 20, 1998, we were on the set of Third Rock from the sun, preparing to interview its star, John Lithgow, when my producer, Phil Griffin, sidled over. You, my little friend, are about to become a political host. The President got caught with some chippy in the White House. Chippy? Oh, not sex. Sex looks like just, you know. And then he lied about it in the deposition Saturday. I asked him how in the hell anybody knew about what the deposition said when it was just four days after he gave the deposition. And those things are supposed to be, you know, secret? Beats me. Drudge put it out yesterday. Then I asked him if credible news organizations like NBC were actually quoting an Internet guy best known for his hat about what was a potentially impeachable offense. A lot of people were close on this story, griffin said. We were close. Lisa Myers almost had it Sunday night. Newsweek finally put out a more detailed version about 90 minutes ago. It was their scoop. Judge just stole it from them. I think was Issachoff who wrote it. You'll have to interview Tim Russert to lead the show. The President may resign. We'll do it from right here. Back that up. What was that you said? We'll do it from right here. No part about the President resigning. Oh yeah, the President might resign. Thus, half an hour later, I was hooked up by satellite with Tim Russert from the Washington bureau, listening to him outline the possibilities that the President might resign before sunrise. I nodded with as much gravitas as I could fake, despite the elements of farce that were apparently obvious only to me in the story and in where I was seated. In the background of my close up stood the refrigerator from the kitchen set of Lithgow's show Third Rock from the sun, and on the refriger refrigerator, complete with its decorative magnets, speaking their silent and suddenly completely hip gag. The magnets were a banana surrounded on either side by a strawberry. Phil, I said to Phil as we tried to plan a smooth transition from that taped Russert interview about the possible impeachment or resignation of the President to a taped interview with John Lithgow, and then back to the live speculations of a couple of political writers for the rest of the hour. We're not going to have to do this every day, are we? Griffin laughed. Of course not. What do you think? This is the end of the world? He was right. We did not do it every day. We did it for 218 consecutive shows. Starting that night with the banana and the strawberry magnets over my shoulder, our ratings kept doubling. Following Tuesday, my 38th birthday, I was back in New York hosting a roundtable of political heavyweights in the hour leading up to Bill Clinton's State of the Union address that night, Andy Lack of NBC News and Phil Griffin had decided that I should host a second live report once the NBC network guys, Russert, Tom Brokaw, couple of others had wrapped up their analysis, which we were also carrying on MSNBC. So I would come on at 11 o' clock after Brokaw and Russert two hours, my little friend. This is our night launch. I was doing my best to keep a straight face when, during a commercial break at maybe 11:45, maybe midnight, halfway through my wrap up show, Griffin materialized next to my anchor desk. He had this stunned but not unhappy look like when he used to smoke a lot of dope when we worked together in the 80s. We have the preliminary ratings, my little friend. I hope you're sitting down. I pointed at myself seated in the chair. The pregame show that did a 1.1. Our average rating at MSNBC before this presidential stuff came up had been an 0.3. This was now four times the previous ratings. In the past week it had surged to an 0.6 and Griffin had insisted to me that Andy Lack was so happy he had wet his pants. But this is the kicker here, buddy. We have the immediate since the President finally stopped talking speech did an 08, Brokaw and Russert the wrap up did an 06. Since 11 o' clock, you've been doing a 1.7. You have had three times the audience of Tom Brokaw, three times the audience of the old man himself. This isn't just people crossing over from NBC to watch more. This is people watching the speech, turning off the old man, then Turning back at 11 to watch you. I tried to assimilate what he was telling me. For the first time in my life, my ego refused to cooperate. The stage manager barked his cue of 30 seconds until the end of the commercial break. Phil Griffin shook my hand. Oh, and by the way, that thing you said at the start of the hour about. It was as if the intern had opened the door to the chamber and said, Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States. That's already included in the Associated Press story. 1.7. My little friend. Don't F it up. Actually, you can't F it up. We're in for the long haul now. Revel in it. Me quoted about the Clinton Lewinsky story in the main coverage of the State of the Union address on the Associated Press wire. Eight months after I stopped giving the scores of the Greater Stuttgart Invitational tennis tournament on espn, I had this sudden horrible feeling that the usually slow to decide American viewing public had instantly concluded that for some elusive even to me, they really like to hear me talk about the whereabouts of the President's penis. If I could have figured out how to F up the rest of the hour, I would have done it right then. I didn't. The next day it got worse. The ratings were so great last night, buddy. They want us to go live every night at 8 and 11, only about the president. The 11's gonna be called Crisis in Washington. Finally we get what we want. Phil Griffin was dancing around. It'll be our Nightline. Since joining msnbc, I had not taken any time off and I actually had a vacation booked in Hawaii the next week with a young lady. Uh, yeah, about that. Phil finally announced. Well, that's what we have to talk about, Keith. They want you to commit to this for at least six weeks. So it's this or Hawaii. I explained Hawaii to Philip. Lack said he'd probably pay for you to go do that whenever this is over. I said in my opinion, that probably would not be good enough. And Griffin said neither did he, but that it was just for openers. And Lack told him that I could have three wishes and I could anchor NBC Nightly News, at least on the weekends and a couple of times during the week. Just personally, I'd recommend you do it. I got the impression that the show's gonna happen whether we agree to it or not. Griffin said. He mentioned something about Brian Williams or maybe John Gib being poor. Second choices, but viable ones, he said. Viable ones. I told Phil I had some calls to make. Griffin suggested Lack needed a decision within the hour, that he wanted White House in Crisis on the air. That night. Wait, that didn't sound like what he called it before. Phil Is it White House in crisis or crisis in Washington? Phil Griffin seemed introspective for a moment, then got in touch with the news executive with in what's the difference? It's going to be our Nightline. I almost suggested to him that that should be the title MSNBC presents. It's going to be our Nightline. On and on. This went for weeks, for months, I mocked the story. The ratings went up. I tried to quit the show, the ratings went up. I gave a speech insulting the network for covering the story. 247 the ratings went up. Fox Sports approached me and offered me five times what NBC was paying me to go out to LA to do their sportscasts, LA, which was kind of near Hawaii, nowhere near the Clinton Lewinsky story. And the ratings went up. And I was debating all this and the fact that I had a contract and I had agreed to do it. And then one night in early spring, I got home after another night of this crap. I put my feet up. I was half watching something on NBC while really just staring off into the distance, wondering what I had done to deserve this, mulling my own future, when the snare drum and the violent string section of an NBC News promo interrupted me Wednesday on a very special edition of Nightline. Jane Pauley and the former Miss America. There she was for a second, head tilted, her look grave, journalistic, even scholarly. Jane Pauley, the ten year host of NBC's landmark Today show, the one who had then switched to primetime because the journalism had slowly ebbed out of morning television and she couldn't do it anymore. She was sitting there in a two shot with a Miss America from too many Miss Americas ago, the former brunette, former redhead, now former blonde, whose jet black hair made her look a little frightening. Why the hell was Jane Paul interviewing her on the signature, albeit superficial NBC thrice weekly magazine show, Nightline, no less. Well, in a split second the promo gave me my answer. Jane, did you have sex with the President of the United States? Ex Ms. America? Yes. Yes I did. Announcer that's Wednesday on a very special edition of Nightline, only on NBC, America's news source. With genuine terror, I screamed, I shouted aloud to no one, check please. And I called my agent to talk about Fox. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Our musical directors of Countdown are John Phillip Chenale on keyboards and handling the orchestration, and Brian Ray on guitars, bass and drums, and their work is produced by TKO Brothers Nancy Foust, the best baseball stadium organist ever, is responsible for the pithy and satirical musical comments when we play the sports theme. That's from the old Olbermann show on ESPN2, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by no Horns Allowed. And my announcer today was my friend Larry David. This program was produced by Ted. Everything else was, as always, my fault. That's Countdown for today. Day 456 of America held hostage again, exactly 997 days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained turn. Unless he's removed sooner by his own lackluster construction standards at the ballroom. Or by a Jimmy Kimmel joke. Or by a lethal seashell attack. As mentioned, the next scheduled countdown will be a week from Monday. I'm fine. I just have too much to do next week to make sure I stay that way. Bulletins as the news merits until the next edition, I'm Keith Olbermann. Good morning, good afternoon, good night and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 this is Sophia Donner from OK Storytime this summer. Find your next obsession on Prime Video. And listen. We're not saying you need another obsession, but there could be a lot worse ones. Steamy romance, addictive love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice, so why not watch them a third time off campus. L the Love Hypothesis and More Slow but Burns second Chances chemistry you can feel through the screen and it makes you wish you were actually in that movie. 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Episode: TRUMP'S PLAN TO STEAL A THIRD TERM: THE 2020 ELECTION OF 2028
Date: April 30, 2026
Host: Keith Olbermann
Podcast Network: iHeartPodcasts
This episode centers on Keith Olbermann's sharp, sardonic analysis of Donald Trump's latest strategy to undermine the democratic process: a scheme to void the 2020 election retroactively and force a "re-do" in 2028, thus attempting to secure an unconstitutional third presidential term. Olbermann explores the absurdity and danger of Trump's pronouncements, contextualizing them amid the ongoing political chaos, GOP machinations, and media follies. The episode also features Olbermann’s trademark segments: “Special Comment,” “Worst Persons in the World,” and a personal anecdote about his career’s unlikely journey from sports to political commentary.
Timestamps: 02:12–22:00
Social Media Rant as Policy Trial Balloon:
Olbermann highlights a Trump social media post suggesting that, due to alleged fraud (citing the Southern Poverty Law Center case), the 2020 election “should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect.”
“He’s going to try to nullify the 2020 election and hold a new one. Hold another 2020 election in the future… only calling it 2020” (02:52)
Absurdity as Tactic:
Olbermann frames this plan as “so panoramically stupid, even for this stupid man. This is so Caligula appoints his horse as the Roman consul.” (04:24)
Process Parallels:
Trump’s strategy, says Olbermann, is not to formally repeal term limits, but to declare the 2020 election a nullity and assert that, constitutionally, it must be re-held, with the same candidates, in 2028 — thus giving Trump a pathway to a third term under the guise of legal necessity.
“If you can somehow declare the 2020 election permanently wiped from the books... then we’ve never had a 2020 election. And he can say, the Constitution says we must have a 2020 election... since there can’t just be a blank space... Congress will have to pass legislation... and Trump versus Biden it is, again.” (20:25)
Delays, Lawsuits, and “Govern by Chaos”:
Trump’s tried-and-true tactic is not outright victory in court, but endless litigation, delays, and confusion that allow him to act first and force America to try to undo his moves retroactively.
“His greatest asset is to act first and let you try to undo what he’s done later. So far, very few have succeeded.” (26:35)
Warning about Institutions:
Olbermann warns that Trump has already “measured the time he had to kill off with endless motions,” as evinced by his legal dodges in earlier years. He explicitly cautions against relying on the Supreme Court to quickly or decisively stop such schemes, given Trump’s influence there.
“Do you want to rely on [the Supreme Court]? … You know that he could force Alito and Thomas out tomorrow if he wanted to go nuclear on them.” (29:55)
Underlying Message:
Trump’s repeated, escalating absurdities are “early resistance tests” — ways of probing how far he can stretch reality and public compliance.
Timestamps: 04:50–13:30
Indictment Nonsense & Fantastical Claims:
Olbermann lampoons GOP talking points about various indictments (e.g., Jim Comey over a “seashell meme”), and mocks Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer for needing to point out their absurdity on air.
“Even Bill Hemmer... figured out that the indictment of Comey is so stupid... even Jim freaking Jordan wouldn’t be able to defend it on Fox.” (07:36)
“Forever War” with Iran:
Discussion of Trump’s self-inflicted $25 billion in military spending, a weekly $4 billion expense, indefinite blockades, and the political cost for Republicans.
Supreme Court & Voting Rights:
Olbermann address the recent erosion of the Voting Rights Act and dismisses doom-mongers predicting permanent GOP rule, noting the possibility for Democrats to counter-gerrymander.
Timestamps: 13:34–19:10
Shooting Misinformation:
Olbermann deconstructs the narrative around a supposed assassination attempt on Trump, pointing out that no shots were fired by the alleged assailant, and all actual shots came from Secret Service agents, one of whom was hit by friendly fire.
Trump’s Grift & the Ballroom:
Olbermann links Trump’s outrage over the incident to another scheme: using the “attack” as an excuse to demand taxpayer funding for an ostentatious and unnecessary presidential ballroom—illustrative, in Olbermann’s view, of Trump’s ongoing grift.
Timestamps: 36:00–45:00
Katrina Perry:
BBC newscaster who inadvertently called Statuary Hall “Statutory Hall” multiple times during King Charles’ visit.
Bari Weiss and Olivia Reingold:
Critiques Bari Weiss’s Free Press operation for a viral, content-less video of her reporter hiding under a table at the Correspondents’ Dinner, failing to actually report the news.
“Olivia Reingold... 52 seconds of her showing herself crouched under a table at the Washington Hilton, not her telling you what happened. Just a video of her facial expressions... Terrifying, she wrote in the caption for this Emmy award winning, Pulitzer Prize winning video. Hell, give her the FIFA Nobel Prize, lady.” (44:00)
Stephen A. Smith:
Blasts ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith for appearing on Fox News and equivocating on political extremism, while attempting to position himself as a future Democratic presidential candidate — all, in Olbermann’s view, bad for sports and journalism.
“You cannot have the face of your sports TV network be a political commentator. And that is what he is trying to become.” (47:55)
“If ESPN wants to reach its 50th anniversary... this is sports TV suicide.” (48:30)
Timestamps: 45:46–61:30
From Sports to Politics:
Olbermann recounts how his move to MSNBC, intended as a brief, non-political gig, coincided with the Lewinsky scandal and Clinton impeachment, thrusting him into the world of political commentary—“exactly that, explaining the why the other day. I think I should go through the how right here. The day it went all horribly, horribly wrong...” (35:46)
Anecdotes of Early MSNBC Days:
Details absurd moments: reporting on the Lewinsky scandal while sitting next to a banana-and-strawberry magnet on the set of Third Rock from the Sun, surging ratings whenever he mocked the story, and his own bemusement at how quickly the public embraced him as a political anchor.
Humor and Discomfort:
“I had this sudden horrible feeling that the usually slow to decide American viewing public had instantly concluded that... they really like to hear me talk about the whereabouts of the President’s penis.” (58:15)
On Trump’s “Plan”:
"His third term plot isn’t repealing the 22nd amendment... It’s not a pure dictatorial overthrow... This is his third term plot. If you can somehow declare the 2020 election permanently wiped from the books… then we’ve never had a 2020 election." (20:35)
On Trump’s tactics:
“When you are like him and you have no conscience... his greatest asset is to act first and let you try to undo what he’s done later. So far, very few have succeeded.” (26:35)
On legal trickery:
“It was the endless delays over when the paperwork had to be filed that did him in, and did in America.” (25:00)
On Trump’s grift:
“He had to turn this [ballroom] into taxpayer funded because he couldn’t come up with the money himself. If this was staged, it was staged because Trump ran out of cash.” (18:30)
On media spectacle:
“Actual reporters are just civilians with brains in their head. Next time madam, point your camera at the news, not away from the news.” (44:35)
Olbermann maintains his classic, biting sarcasm throughout the episode, using gallows humor and vivid imagery (“animated pile of shit with bronzer on it”; “stale soup that is what’s left of his brain”) to underscore the ever-escalating outrages of Trump-era politics. His tone walks a fine line between exasperation, incredulity, and urgency, leavened by self-deprecation and wry asides about media, sports, and his own career.
This episode delivers a thorough, pointed dissection of Trump’s ongoing strategies to undermine democracy, set against a backdrop of legal shenanigans, GOP complicity, and media absurdity. Olbermann’s humor and exasperation provide catharsis and context, while his personal anecdotes broaden the show’s appeal and underscore the absurdities of the American political-media ecosystem. If you missed the episode, this summary gives you the sharpest points, the best punchlines, and the gist of Olbermann’s warnings for the future.
Olbermann is taking a brief hiatus and will return May 11, 2026. The episode ends with a call for vigilance and scorn for political and media incompetence, true to his form.
End of Summary