Keith Olbermann (2:44)

Olbermann is a production of iHeartRadio. We now rejoin your originally scheduled Epstein scandal already in Progress. Iran attacked 10 Middle Eastern nations in retaliation. The old ayatollah from 1989 is being replaced by the new ayatollah from 2026, one of Trump's biggest idiot supporters, Senator Mullen thought he was the Ayatollah from 1979. And the polling was so bad 27% of Americans, only half of Republicans approved of Trump's war for regime change that Trump immediately stopped calling it a war and yesterday started saying it was just about regime change and it would be over in four weeks while Lindsey Graham started saying it wasn't about regime change but it was a war and they all leaked that. We were talked into it by the Saudis and the Israelis. It wasn't our fault. I didn't do it. And the Trumpstein story still broke through Donny's Iran go boom plan in new and unexpected and powerful ways. Startlingly from of all places, Albuquerque, New Mexico. There, the Albuquerque Journal reveals a new Trump Epstein scandal from the first Trump dictatorship, which sure reads like Trump's 2019 Department of Justice deliberately sabotaged the state of New Mexico's investigation of Epstein's Zorro ranch outside Santa Fe, which Epstein used as a base for sex trafficking and financial crimes. The paper quotes the then attorney general of New Mexico, Hector Balderas, who says he was asked by Trump's federal prosecutors in 2019, before Epstein was dead, before he was in jail, to stop New Mexico's investigation of that ranch so they could fold the prosecution of Epstein for his operations there into quoting Balderas, a multi jurisdictional, multi state focus that would prevent duplicative prosecution and conflicting statements. And the feds took all of the New Mexico Epstein information and all of the New Mexico Epstein evidence and took over the New Mexico Epstein investigation and promised to bring New Mexico into the national investigation investigation and give it its own cases to prosecute in New Mexico. And the feds then disappeared and disappeared all of it. According to ex Attorney General Balderas, Trump's people took the New Mexico investigation of Epstein and quote, gutted it Balderas and New Mexico went back to the Trump administration even after Epstein's death went back in 2020, urging the government to seize the Epstein ranch to preserve the evidence so they could at least prosecute his co conspirators who were still alive. And more crickets. In short, the Trump investigation of Epstein in New Mexico died before Epstein did. The Albuquerque Journal also reports the New Mexico State legislature has created a four member truth commission to investigate Zorro Ranch now and what Epstein did there. And the current Attorney General of the state is joining in and they might be able to salvage some prosecutions of co conspirators, but it's dicey after all this time. The point of course is that this is happening six years later because we all know Trump's people covered up Epstein. His first labor secretary, Alex Acosta was George W. Bush's U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida who cut the sweetheart deal with Epstein in the first place. And Pam Bondi was the Attorney General of the state of Florida who sat there inertly for the last eight years of Epstein's life. Their Republican and later MAGA Passive aggressive. Well, just passive. Handling of Epstein is well known, though often forgotten in this mess. But a lengthy analysis by the New York Times yesterday opened up yet another new vein in the Trumpstein scandal. Iran. Iran who? The British have arrested the former Prince Andrew, as you know, and the man who was British ambassador to this country specifically because he got along so well with Trump. Arrested on accusations that they each gave Epstein insider warnings and tips and heads ups on crucial governmental economic decisions and even changes in the Prime Minister. There are criminal investigations of prominent politicians in Norway and France who are connected to Epstein. A top French political figure had to quit a charity job and is up the creek without a paddle. A picture was released of Epstein with the now national security adviser of Slovakia. And oops, let me update that he's the now ex national security adviser of Slovakia here. Nothing. Certainly the point of the Times piece is the missed opportunities to prosecute the other men inside the Epstein sex ring and the women too. But like the Albuquerque Journal piece, it is now bigger than that. The Epstein scandal is about 25% bigger now than it was before Trump bombed Iran. What about all the banks? What about all the influence peddling? What about the international element? Who paid for whatever Epstein gave Andrew and Lord Mandelson for whatever they gave him? And who did Epstein give all of that British insider info to? And most importantly, what role did Trump and people working for Trump play in burying it? All of it in 2017, 18, 19, 20? And what role are they playing now in keeping it buried? England is prepared to put a member of its royal family, albeit a scandalized broken one in a country that believes in the Eurovision Song Contest. Despite those caveats, they're willing to put somebody in the royal family. This matters to them in prison for his connections to Epstein, our president and the people working for our president. Based on the Albuquerque Journal report and the former Attorney General of New Mexico quoted on the record. They are protecting Epstein even in death and God knows how many Epstein adjacents they are covering up for at this moment. What did Trump know and when did he know it and who did Trump know and how long has he known them and when will the national news organizationsthere are still some national news organizations aren't there going to jump on what came out of New Mexico yesterday? What about the ranch and the entire untapped field glimpsed at in the Times yesterday? What about the banks? What about the clients? What about the coconspirators? Like I said Saturday morning and woke up yesterday morning to find myself memed for it twice. Never for a moment forget Trump bombed Iran to keep a diseased, delusional criminal in power himself. And it's Operation Epic Fury because Operation Epstein Diversion is didn't sound war fighter y enough. Also it didn't work. The twin problems for Trump are the pressure against the side of his head provided by Epstein and every newly recognized tendril of the Epstein monster is strong enough that he can literally assassinate a universally hated Iranian cleric. And it can alter the Epstein power index so little that within 36 hours of the bombing run the likely chair of House Oversight if the Democrats win the midterms, Robert Garcia of California can be asked on national television if if he gets the gavel, he will pursue an interview with Trump about Epstein. Now that the idiot Jamie Comer broke the seal and interviewed President Clinton about Epstein and Garcia can not only answer without worrying about how's this going to look in light of Iran, he can answer with one word. Absolutely. That's the first twin. The second Trump twin problem is the sudden realization that Trump can suddenly back away, run away, pretend he was never at regime change and regime decapitation and war in Iran, say, as he did at sunset last night, there were three US Service members dead, quote, and sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That's the way it is. Everything but a shrug, emoji and a so what's for dinner? But that's not exactly how Orion sees it, or the rest of the Middle east or Latin America or almost every other country in the world, they would like to remind him. And you that the United States made the world, and to our more immediate concern, the United States, a desperately more dangerous place today than it was Friday night. By trying and failing to distract from Epstein. Because the problem with regime change and regime decapitation is you give everybody else the license to try it. I mean, the American doctrine now simply is if they tell Trump he can get away with it, he'll try it. Doesn't have to be legal internationally, doesn't have to be legal domestically, doesn't have to be necessary, doesn't necessarily have to not confirm he was lying the last time he attacked the country in question and said he destroyed everything there. The only thing they have to assess in Iran right now is can they get away with it? If you captured, killed, or frightened Trump to death, what would his successors do as retaliation? They're asking themselves in Iran. Or more likely, what would he do? Since your mission probably wouldn't work, although with Pig Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard in charge, you have to admit the chances are, as the kids say, non, zero. But the problem behind the problem with renditioning the President of Venezuelano matter how much of a scumbag he is, or killing the holy Poobah of Iran or whoever the hell he was, is that the message regime decapitation is on the table is heard, not just in Tehran. How many other enemies do we have in the Middle East? What are the odds Al Qaeda was just reinvigorated by Trump's decision to play Allah here? What about isis? And never mind the Middle East. What are you thinking in Cuba? What are they seeing from the headquarters of a desperate, flailing, bankrupt Cuban dictatorship? Saturday morning, Trump blew up the Iranian supreme leader. Three days earlier, somebody tried to run a kind of mini Bay of Pigs operation out of Key West. You're President Miguel Diaz Canel, and you're thinking, I can't go back and I can't stay where I am. I don't have any money. I'm not that popular. The Americans are threatening us. What are my choices? Well, flee is obvious. Negotiate. Negotiate's really dubious. Ask Kamani or whatever the name of the last of the ayatollahs was. Hell, ask the poor loser from Venezuela. She doesn't have a job or a Nobel. You have to have at least thought, we can get into Mar a Lago. We can get in there. Eight days ago, a guy got into the perimeter with a gun and a can of gas. A freaking gas can. And it was way Too long before two Secret Service and a deputy sheriff shot the guy, one guy on foot. President Diaz Canel is 300 miles from Mar a Lago and he has a vehicle. Although to be fair, the vehicle might be a 1951 Ford pickup that they had turned into a tugboat. If it is somehow not clear that. I am not advocating this, I am just emphasizing that if we start knocking off other world leaders, sooner or later one of them who thinks he's next on the list is going to say f this and go a little proactive. This does not ever seem to have crossed Trump's mind or Hegseth's. If it's switched on today, for all the paranoia about immigrants and foreigners and great replacementers and apocryphal invasions by foreigners, they really have not looked into what the end result is of our own. Their own provocation of other crazy leaders combined with the number of idiots we have nominally protecting our quote, leaders, combined with how hamstrung, how pinioned we would be if one of them other guys actually tried to decapitate the American government. If Cuba decided to take out Trump, what would we do? Nuke Cuba? That would be a bit of a surprise on South Beach. To say nothing of being a bit of a surprise for our Caribbean and Latin American allies and, you know, country with Russia, which still has nominal interest in Cuba. Exactly. What would we do? Hell, after that nutjob busted the perimeter at Mar A Lago, Trump decided to take it as a compliment. You know, you read about all these crazy shooters, but they only go after consequential presidents. They don't go after non consequential presidents. Congratulations, Donnie. Hey, great guy with a gas can was coming for you. If you're in Cuba or anywhere else and you're thinking, say, look how well this worked for Trump and Iran, maybe it could work for us in America. You're reading that quote from President Looney Tunes. They don't go after non consequential presidents. And you're thinking, I am not certain we would meet quite as much resistance as our generals are telling us. How would we respond? Well, there is history. There is recent history. Have you forgotten? I bet you've forgotten. Let's look at how we did respond last time somebody tried this. It is not generally included in the histories of this country. Specifically not generally included in the history of 911 because the reality was bad enough. Spoiler alert. The terrorists won. They accelerated the internal cold civil war here in ways of which not even Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh could have dreamed of. But the plane that crashed or was crashed in Shanksville, was headed for D.C. and we believe the White House. And if the only target wasn't Bush, bin Laden didn't direct it there because he wanted to level the East Wing so he could put up a ballroom. I mean, they did enough that horrible day. They wanted to decapitate the government or cripple it. And how did we respond to that? An attempt by foreigners to decapitate the American government. We went into Afghanistan two months later and we went into Iraq a year after that. I'm not saying that the first part of that was not a good idea. I'm just saying it's hardly fair to say we did nothing in response. But bluntly, we didn't do very damn much, did we? And back to Iran. And whether or not after Operation Epstein. Furry. Oh, Fury. Sorry. Or more seriously and more terrifyingly, if they might have an operation, what's the difference? Now, let's go ahead and try this. How much of a window are we providing? Hell, how much of a window have we built in for Iran to actually think about? This Saturday afternoon, Trump told one of his pet propagandists that he has off ramps. Now, I can go long and take over the whole thing or end it in two or three days until the Iranians see you again in a few years if you start rebuilding. And by rebuilding, he means the nukes and missiles, you know, the ones he obliterated last July and I guess last Friday. This does not sound like Trump wants the Iranians to live in constant fear of more or of invasion or anything whatsoever that might slow them down for more than four weeks in the slightest measure, if they decided. You might think this war ended Saturday morning. Fool if you think it's over. Plus the attempt to avenge our decapitation of their government by them decapitating our government does not have to land this Thursday or something. It used to be common knowledge in this country that the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 did not occur in a vacuum. It was not a lightning bolt. The average American used to have some vague awareness, at least, that before the Iranian theocratic lunatics overthrew their government, we overthrew their government. In 1941, the Allies, almost entirely Russians and British, forced out the then Shah, who was kind of a progressive, certainly a secular ruler. In 1953, we and the British absolutely overthrew the Prime Minister of Iran, the one who nationalized the oil industry and introduced Social Security. Social flipping security in 1953 in Iran, the coup was led by the CIA. And as if we needed to put any more American fingerprints on it for eternity. It was led by Teddy Roosevelt's grandson, Kermit. Sorry, Ho. Once again, I am not for a second saying Iran was right. Certainly it wasn't right in 1979 to seize almost nothing but ordinary embassy staffers, civilians, hold them hostage for a year, and then use them a life or death chip to fix the American election as part of the treason committed on Ronald Reagan's behalf. I'm not defending that or advocating it for a second, but I am saying the Iranians were responding to America having succeeded at regime change and decapitation in their country a quarter of a century earlier. I mean, honest to God, somebody on foot with a can of gasoline and a long gun got into Mar A Lago two weekends ago. And even if you believe conspir, another one got next to his golf course and another guy got within shooting distance of him. This is all in the last, what, 18 months? And, and Trump has hired the dumbest collection of department heads and he's purged the military and the intelligence communities of almost anybody who was good at, you know, military and intelligence. They put out the obligatory picture of Trump getting briefed by Marco Rubio and Susie Wiles and I think a couple of bartenders at Mar A Lago inside their blanket fort. And apart from the fact that Trump looks like he just crawled out from under his own bomb crater, right behind Trump in that photo is a giant map, a big map on an easel. And pinned on the map is the exact position of at least 10American vessels in the Gulfs and six American units in the theater, just in case anybody in Iran would like to attack them or write down in their diary, I saw where they are. If that wasn't bad enough, Friday afternoon a podcaster was at a restaurant down the street from the White House and four well dressed men were at a neighboring table talking about the plans to bomb Iran later that day. Trump himself thinks people trying to kill him means he's comparable to JFK and JFK was because he was there for a thousand days. As you know the book A Thousand Days, it is sometimes better to be lucky than good. Unfortunately, the Trumpists are neither. To use the old cynical cliche. I am not saying I am in favor of regime change in this country. Well, not in favor of violent or non electoral regime change, but from the perspective of the people who we just bombed, I think empathetically, I can understand it. And I'd say the odds are like 7 out of 10 that Trump and the morons around him have not thought for one minute that regimes in other countries saw Operation let's blow up what we told you last summer we'd already blown up or Operation Eric Furry or whatever it is. And somebody in one of those countries said, hey, wait, couldn't we do that too? They could be saying it about doing that now, or they could be saying it about doing it in 25 years from now. How does 2051 sound for you? For Iran's revenge? They could be saying it in Tehran or Caracas or Havana. Oh, and just as a punchline, you know who's supposed to preside over a United Nations Security Council meeting today as the US Takes over the presidency of the Council by rotation? Melania Trump. So the UN Security Council meeting she's going to chair is about Epstein. Which country will Melania be representing? By the way, got all the translators. Now, I understand that the state of American media is trivial compared to how many more people want to kill us today than wanted to kill us Friday night. But there is the little matter of CNN being sold to the fascists. Obviously, speaking as an Almost CNN original month. 15. God help me, I agree. Netflix owning CNN would have been better than Ellison's Barry Weiss Fascisti. I went to Netflix in 2016 and said you could own the news industry, could have a little dot in the corner of your main page that read news flicks and you could have all the commentators in all the political flavors you wanted. And they what about the Italian translations? I swear it still would be better having Netflix getting a second bite at that apple. But a reminder about CNN that since the Zaslav Chris Licht takeover, CNN has been running on fumes and it has been utterly unreliable, especially in its studio shows. They fired Jim Acosta and John Harwood. They forced Don Lemon to quit. They let Jake Tapper turn an actual newscast into Jake Tapper's Bash Biden Bookshop QVC network. And they started a Scott Jennings nightly hate fest hour with Abby Phillip as his announcer. Only they told her she was the anchor and she fell for it. So a Barry Weiss, CNN as opposed to the CNN we have now. It's still a loss, but it's not a fatal loss. Its audience was microscopic and it is being run by another one of these British fops who failed there and came here. Like the guy who drove the Washington Post into the ground. And this guy has apparently decided that the goal of CNN is to produce more 37 second long viral clips of Scott Jennings. 37, which I think matches the total audience size. CNN still does exceptional field reporting, especially of live big events. And the point is that there is very little even a bumbling moron like Bari Weiss can do about poisoning live events or even controlling what her personnel say about live events during live events. And truth be told, it's very unlikely that they'll actually put Barry Weiss in charge of cnn because she seems to need to devote all of her energy to concentrating on screwing up cbs. It takes a lot out of her. Omar El ayat wrote of CBS's special on Iran and its lineup Saturday. Quote, CBS News guests, a senator who wants to bomb Iran, a congressman who wants to bomb Iran, a general who bombed Iran dissident who wants Iran bombed and an NSC official who wants Iran bombed. All perspectives covered. The point obviously is whatever the Ellisons think will happen when they suddenly swerve the CNN audience for their newscasts into oncoming right wing traffic, what will happen is they'll all be killed metaphorically like what's happened at the Washington Post and cbs. Now they may still believe they can absorb that CNN audience into the Maga Borg, but so far there is nothing to support that they would think that as the fool Weiss does because these are people raised on 40 years of rush Limbaugh and Fox News. They were fooled. Doesn't that mean everybody else will be fooled? There is at heart the conviction that liberals, especially liberal news viewers, are liberal only because they are being brainwashed. Conservatives really think this way. It couldn't possibly be because conservatives are wrong and from hell and we are right. It couldn't be that. Saint Rush of Limbaugh told them. It couldn't be that. Speaking of hell, an exiting CBS veteran news producer named Mary Walsh wrote a reply all to her ex colleagues as she left. I think the term escaped might be appropriate here. Her note noted, quote, we've been told to aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum. Honestly, I don't know how to do that. This is something conservatives will never understand nor believe. Conservatism like Nazism is about indoctrination and obedience and you had better learn to believe that or else. Let me quote the Goebbels of our time. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr at a Semaphore conference about restoring confidence in media. Semaphore being a boutique news shop that slants right but pretends to be objective and inspires zero confidence. Carr about cbs, quote, I think they're doing a great job. One of the. I'm sorry, I think they're doing A great job. One of the things that I really enjoy about CBS is they're trying to do something different. So much of the legacy media can't stand that someone is trying to do something new. Too much of the national news media is simply drastically out of touch with where the American people are. It has not once occurred to Carr that CBS's audience has been dying for years because, well, television news has been dying for years. And cbs, when it was already in last place, decided it was going to try to dumb things down. This was in 2007, trying to dumb it down for conservatives and then again, and then a third time and then a fourth time, and now they're doing it again and they're off, what, 20% since the fascist takeover? 20% and less than a year. But it's new, it's got to work. Let me quote this car guy on Maria Bartiromo on her show. I'm sorry to put that image in your mind. These are two people whose combined IQ could fit into a box of matches. Bartiromo. Patriotism is spreading to On Air broadcasts. Mr. Chairman, you announced your Pledge America campaign encouraging broadcasters to air more pro America content such as starting each day with the Star Spangled Banner or Pledge of Allegiance. Tell us, FCC chairman Brendan Carr, we're in the midst of a great revival. President Trump is truly the political colossus of our time. Him. Firstly, sir, the colossus was a big statue, usually one that they'd build in water up to his. His shorts. The statue was way too big and it was made out of rocks, not alive. So that's a good description of Trump. Secondly, Bartiromo, do you remember when stations actually signed off every night after the last show, after the. The Late show movie, Million Dollar Movie. They where they would sign off with the Star Spangled Banner. They played the Star Spangled Banner and then it was boop. Remember that? That was the audience's cue to stop paying attention and just fall asleep. Now we don't need that. We have Maria Bartiromo. The real problem relative to politics, relative to cable news, relative to news news in American media right now is msnow sucks. I mean, at a time when thoughtful instructive protest is desperately needed, you need some guy out there going, sir, almost everything on the air is doctrinaire bullshit. Most of it presented in 1997. Six people talking at one style, featuring host anchors who are so outdated and anti diluvian and repeating themselves for the 748th time that the entire primetime lineup still consists of my former backup Hosts whom we spun off into their own shows like 15 years ago. But don't worry that there has not been one new msnow primetime show that has actually succeeded that I didn't create prior to 2010. That shouldn't make you worry. The new boss there, somebody named Rebecca Cutler, revealed to the LA Times that she had the solution. Almost did it. The new fresh face that would lead Ms. NOW prime time into the Armageddon battles upcoming in these midterms and in 2028, only to see her plan thwarted when the golden boy said no. Quoting the Times, Cutler revealed that she received a go ahead from her bosses at Versant to pursue Anderson Cooper, though he ultimately resigned with cnn. In three months, Anderson Cooper, who Ms. Now thought was the boy wonder in the Future, will turn 59 effing years old. He has been on the air at CNN since 2001. He got there, I believe, three, four months before I did. We were on the morning show together for a while, the two of us, Paul Azahn and Jack Cafferty. And boy, did we suck. Something like 17 different CNN presidents have spent untold millions of dollars promoting Anderson Cooper's various shows. And his reporting from the field has been good for the last quarter century, albeit superficial. But he. He's never won his time slot in the ratings. And more importantly, I would like to ask you this as you contemplate the idea that the head of Ms. Now thought he was the future of Ms. Now tell me one thing about Trump or politics or. Or anything important that Anderson Cooper has ever said on TV that you remember off the top of your head. I'll wait. Well, he did once say, back to you, Keith. Also of interest here. Yes, the rumors are true. He's back. Worst persons in the world is next. And the winner is Bill O'Reilly. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Right you are, Mr. Mayohoffer. 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 cover. 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 support for the show comes from

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Keith Olbermann (42:35)

credits, Mo used to host a TV show called Things I Hate about you. I'm sure I've seen that program. Only I believe it's now called Countdown with Keith Overman. Well, if we're back in war in the Middle east for no good reason, who better to bring back here than Cheney? Dick Cheney. It was a nickname. Still ahead on this volume of Countdown, I was telling the story the other day of the day that I met the great late American actor Walter Matthau, who died incredibly more than a quarter of a century ago. The only time I met him, he left such an impression on me that when he died nearly a decade after that, I burst into tears. On the list of the most memorable people you've ever met, he may be number one for me, certainly top five. The saga of now you sign mine next in things I promise not to tell first, however, we always have more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world. Featuring a reappearance by Bill O. The Clown first, the bronze worst okay, so the hockey thing and the Olympics. I think I've exhausted that topic. The fools the US Gold medal team made out of themselves both in the dressing room after they won the gold medal and laughing at the women's team when Trump made the misogynistic joke about that and then serving as political props, being trotted out like a bunch of meat puppets at the Trump State of the Union Marathon telethon that he gave and then turned out Cash Patel had made such a fool of himself in the dressing room after the gold medal game that even Trump was embarrassed. How stupid, how much of an asshole do you have to be, Cash Patel, that you embarrassed Trump? And Austin Matthews, Mexican American, captain of Canada's team, after Trump had threatened Mexico and Canada stood behind Trump and grinned like an idiot and somebody wrote thank God his hairline was not there to see it. Auston Matthews deserves all the shit he gets and boy is he going to. And then just to top it off, one of the stupidest athletes in the world, a guy named Tage Thompson, a brilliant hockey player and particularly goal scorer with the Buffalo Sabres, not only wore a MAGA cap and then complained about how we all made it political, wore the MAGA cap to the White House and then into the State of the Union address. And then when questioned about it, he his answer basically was but Jesus. Now just all you have to know about this is that Tage Thompson had a very brief career with the St. Louis Blues, his first National Hockey League team, played about 60 games there, did nothing, and was traded to the Buffalo Sabres. So I wrote, oh look, Tage Thompson just doubled down on his career ender and pretended it had something to do with his religion and linked to an US Magazine feature about Tage Thompson and how Jesus told him to wear the hat and someone from St. Louis, a proud American, CPA, wife, mom, former Mizzou cheerleader. Judging by the picture, it was were they doing intercollegiate sports then, or had we invented basketball already? Anyway, Andrea, Catherine, Andrea K. At St. Louis decided to retweet me and describe what I wrote about Tage Thompson. Keith ulberman attacking former St. Louis Blues legend Tage Thompson. And this is the only reason I quote all this. In his career with the St. Louis Blues, Tage Thompson scored three goals. One, two, three. Three goals. So becoming a St. Louis Blues legend doesn't take as much effort as it used to. The runner up, Trump flunky Alina Habba. Remember Alina Habba in the news every couple of days. First one of his attorneys got everything wrong as his attorney lost cases as his attorney turned out, her expertise was in parking lot law. She was improperly serving as a U.S. attorney. She was advocating for eliminating automatic birthright citizenship when she was the child of immigrants. She's pretty much vanished. However, she's back now having retweeted a violent threat on Twitter X a violent threat made against a sitting judge. See if you can spot the violent threat from Eric L. Daugherty, who is one of these kids who appears to be 14 or 15 years old but is apparently an adult. And he's part of a conservative think tank. And I know think tank is a brand name. It's an oxymoron. Eric Daugherty is the moron in this oxymoron breaking US Islamic judge Zahid Quraishi faces calls to be impeached after he. Well, the. Dougherty is the one putting out the calls to impeach him. He's not facing it. You're threatening him after he threatens to drag in Trump officials if DHS keeps preventing illegal alien criminals from being released into the community. Absolutely evil and depraved. It's called the law. Eric L. Doherty, 15 year old who's going on 30. Here we go. This is a capital letters judicial coup. Strike him down and remove him. Do you hear a threat there? Strike him down. That's not a judicial term. That's not a remove him from office. That's not a synonym for overrule him. That's strike his decisions down. No. Okay, strike him down. That is a threat against him. That is an encouragement, a stochastic terrorist threat. And Alina Haba retweeted this, adding, I know a thing or two about this judge. He has no business being on the bench. And Alina Haba, you're still a lawyer. I guess Technically, after retweeting a threat against a sitting judge, I'm gonna guess they're never gonna let you in a courtroom again. Parking lots, yes. Courtrooms, no. But the winner. Those are just the hors d'. Oeuvres. The worst. The winner, Bill O. The clown. Hello. Bill O'Reilly is now nine years removed from his firing by Fox for harassment, and harassment costs millions and millions of dollars. He's 15 years removed from his wife leaving him for a cop and then him going to the city to try to get the cop punished. He's 20 years removed. That's roughly since he complained on the air to John McCain about how there were attacks on what O'Reilly literally called the white power structure of this country. They're attacking the white power structure of this country, the white power structure that runs this country. So now Bill fulfills his need to be an asshole, misogynist white supremacist by stopping passersby and bothering them. And I guess to get. He also has a website. And on this website, Bill wants Robert De Niro imprisoned because he thinks Robert De Niro threatened the president or Jesus or John. I don't know who he thinks he threatened. This is not Eric L. Dougherty about the judge. Strike him down. That's one of the reasons Eric L. Dougherty and Alina Habba are on this list. For contrast, Remember, strike him down would be a threat, a physical threat. Listen to what he is complaining about and then I'll give you the backstory here. First, Robert De Niro once turned Bill O'Reilly down for an interview. And apparently Robert De Niro was, if not Bill O'Reilly's favorite actor, then one of his. Then he found out that De Niro was a fan of Countdown. So now he's been waiting for something to be able to say about De Niro. Also, De Niro is fathering children in his 80s anyway. So De Niro is now somebody, according to O'Reilly, who should be imprisoned. De Niro went on somebody's podcast and bashed Trump and as it was described by Mediaite, quote, was even brought to tears over the state of the country. De Niro urged the public to mobilize and continue protesting. And De Niro said of Trump, we've got to get rid of him. Is there a threat in there? You hear a threat if your paranoid 76 year old whose best friend Trump, your only friend Trump used to go to ball games with him, used to sit with him all night at Yankee Stadium drinking milkshakes. Your best friend Trump President of the United States. He no longer talks to you because you're too toxic. If that's your life, you hear a threat everywhere. Said billow quote of De Niro. He said the words, we got to get rid of him three times. Any interviewer other than Nicole Wallace would have said, what do you mean by that? He's elected. 77 million people voted for him. What's we've got to get rid of him. Are you talking about impeachment? What are you talking about? Of course, Nicole Wallace doesn't do that. No, she's a Republican. So if I'm watching this and I'm the head of the Secret Service, USC US code 871. It is a crime to threaten not only the President of the United States, but the vice president and everybody else in succession. The TV series that was actually about Fox and all, how they dealt with a TV host, an idiot asshole like O'Reilly. Oh, different I6 okay. That'd be the speaker of the House on down. You're getting this. Now, O'Reilly thinks that because Robert De Niro said to Nicole Wallace, who's not a government official, we got to get rid of him, that he threatened to assassinate the President of the United States and the vice president and the speaker of the House and everybody else in the chain of succession for President of the United States. That's where Bill O'Reilly's head is at. I use the term head carefully around Bill O'Reilly. Loofahs. Loofahs. Okay, so I'm the Secret Service director and I'm seeing this three times. We gotta get rid of him. I got agents pulling De Niro in for a Q and A, and he better have a lawyer. Now, you could charge him based upon his answers to the interrogation. If he takes the fifth a refused answer on the grounds, you could charge him. And if he were convicted, he'd get five years in prison under this code. But I'd make an example of this guy De Niro, and I wouldn't do it for Vince or politics. I wouldn't do that. But enough's enough on the threats. We got to get rid of him. All. All of Bill O'Reilly's attempts to undermine his opponents end up blowing up in Bill O'Reilly's face like he's Boris Badenough from Boris and Natasha and the Bullwinkle Show. Bill O'Reilly once started a petition to have the 8pm hour on MSNBC given back to Phil Donahue, who preceded me in it. He signed, had this petition up on the Fox website. So I got my staff to line up in front of a computer and we got everybody in the building so that as you, as you panned out from this computer, there was a line of like 200 people waiting to sign the petition to get rid of me, to put, to put the Lake Phil Donahue back on at 8 o'. Clock. My thinking was, and the last guy signing it was, of course, me. My thinking was if they got rid of me, they'd have to pay me the money anyway. And I was fine with that. And Bill. So one of the things that was said in there was we got to get rid of Olbermann Bill. The phrase, though, we got to get rid of him. That's what Rupert Murdoch said about you to his colleagues before he fired your ass over all the women. And by the way, don't, don't let De Niro know what you said about him because even at 86 years old, Bobby De Niro could kick your ass. One note about Bill. I'm glad to hear Bill is back on the, whatever he's on back stopping people on the street and saying shit like this to them. After four days in the hospital, he said he was stepping away from his work, which was a surprise to those of us who didn't know he had any work. Four days in the hospital due to a, quote, hereditary condition involving internal bleeding that took me down temporarily. I have the best medical team led by Dr. Ira Jacobson, trying to keep me on the field. I'll tell you someday the story about Bill's claim that he tried out for the Mets as a pitcher, but the Mets signed another guy instead, named Tom Seaver, who was warming up next to him. Only the Mets signed Tom Seaver in 1966. And Bill O'Reilly, if he had a tryout with the Mets, would have been 1971. He made the story up. Thank God we don't have socialized medicine in this country. I'd be in a dark container right now. Bill, you've been in a dark container your whole life. It's called your whole life. Bill O'Reilly trying to get Robert De Niro arrested because Robert de Niro is 1,000 times the person Bill O'Reilly was today's other worst person. Right you are, Mr. Vivian Hoffer in the world. I'm glad he's back. 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. 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Keith Olbermann (60:39)

Finally, the number one story on the countdown and my favorite me and things from my career and my life. And it is to me, amazing even after all this time that you could meet somebody just once in your life, but years later be moved to tears upon learning of their death. Then again, the man in question was named Walter Matthau. And if he was not the most popular American comedic actor of the last half of the 20th century, he was close to it. And maybe more importantly, he was the most skilled, minimal touch American actor, director of the last half of the 20th century. In other words, he was the man who on stage or on camera seemed to be doing the least amount of actual acting while still keeping you utterly convinced that the guy you saw on the screen was not Walter Matthau, but was Oscar Madison and was not Walter Matthau, but was Max Goldman and was not Walter Matthau, but was Willie Gingrich and was not Walter Matthau, but was Mel Miller. Even though Mel Miller had a southern accent, smoked a pipe, had horn rimmed glasses, and supposedly went to Vanderbilt. We all knew Walter Matthau. It felt like we knew him personally because he managed a miracle every time he performed. It was all him up there and yet at the same time, it was not him at all. Anyway, October 1st was his birthday, which is what brought this extraordinary man to the front of my mind again. I will get to my meeting with him first. Walter Matthau's best friends as an adult were his partner in half a dozen films, Jack Lemmon and my dear friend Norman Lloyd, the one man history of Hollywood, who we lost in 2021 at the age of 106. Norman loved Walter and Norman loved talking about Walter. And there was an amazing amount of things to talk about about Walter. Norman told me that on the last of the Grumpy Old Men movies that he and Lemon made together, I think it was called Grumpy Old Men Were Doing this for the Money. Matthau wanted to wrap up one day of shooting quickly. He was scheduled to film a scene in a water slide made up to look like a sewer through which his character was escaping. As the lunch break was called, he said to Lemon, come on, Jack, let's go rehearse the water slide thing. This way we can do it in one take. Get the hell out of here anyway. Don't you have to wait an hour after eating before you can shoot through a sewer? They went to the sewer water slide set. Walter Matthau grabbed the raft he was supposed to ride and he Jumped in. As he went through it, he studied all the corners and where the cameras would be so he knew where to make his faces. And seconds later, he was shooting out the far end of the water slide onto the giant inflatable 12 foot square air mattress placed there to break his fall. Or he would have been doing that, except it was lunch and the Teamsters had deflated the mattress, then moved it away because the set was on lunch break. So Walter Matthau, then 73 years old, came flying out of the water slide onto the pavement. He broke his collarbone, which is just about as painful a thing as you can break. No. Walter Matthau screamed. Jack Lemmon raced over to him. Walter. Walter, are you all right? No, I'm not. Jack, call 911. Ow. Ow. Lemon panicked. Can I help you, Walter? Can I. Can I get you something, Walter? Yes, Jack, get me 911. Ow. Ow. Lemon continued to panic. But till they come. Are you okay, Walter? Are you comfortable? Walter Matthau was in sheer agony. But he realized through the fog of pain that one of the oldest jokes in show business was actually happening to him finally, in real life. Am I comfortable? I make a nice living, Jack. Ow. Ow. My friend Norman Lloyd used to go hiking with Walter Matthau in the Hollywood Hills, and he told me that one day, Walter was unusually quiet. The two had gone a mile or so when Matthau suddenly stopped and grabbed Norman by the arm. Normie, did you know at the end Beethoven was so deaf he thought he was painting? Norman smiled, snorted, and started to say that it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. But halfway through Norman's sentence, Matthau had already turned away from him and was back walking again. Another mile passed in silence, and now Matthau slowed down and faced his friend. Normie, this is important. I have something to tell you. Norman said his heart skipped. He thought there was something wrong. What is it, Walter? Did you know at the end, Beethoven was so deaf he thought he was painting? Now Norman just shook his head. As they completed their five mile hike through the hills, Matthau stopped roughly once every mile and repeated the same line. Did you know at the end Beethoven was so deaf he thought he was painting? Norman told me. It totally unnerved me. When we got back to where we parked our cars, I felt like I had to avenge myself somehow. So I blurted out to him, walter, did you know at the end, Beethoven was so deaf he thought he was painting? Norman said. Matthau looked at him, screwing his great craggy face. Into a resentful sneer as he did. What the hell are you talking about? Thought he was painting. That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. As I said, I met Walter Matthau once when I was a local sportscaster in Los Angeles. I was invited to host a charity event at the Hollywood park racetrack. I ordinarily did not do these things, because to do them, I would have to take the day off. But when the organizer said, oh, and Walter Matthau will be there, I just asked for directions. First time I had ever imagined what it was like to be a sports writer or to be a sports broadcaster. It was when I was 9 years old and I saw Walter. Walter Matthau portray Oscar Madison in the movie the Odd Couple. It was exactly what I wanted to be and where I wanted to live and how I wanted to eat. And I wanted to get a chance to tell him that. So at the charity dinner, I screwed up my courage. I introduced myself, I told him all that, and he replied, I hate you. I was so crushed, I almost passed out. And clearly, Walter Matthau recognized this. No, no, no. I don't hate your work. I watch you every night on Channel 2 Action News. You and. And Jim Lampley. And Brie Lampley. And Jim Lampley. But I hate the fact that you don't have an accent of any kind. Where are you raised? Iowa. I did not know where this conversation was going. I said I was from the Bronx originally. Is that right? I'm from Brooklyn. Could you tell? The hell kind of speech teacher did you have yet? You sound like Iowa. I explained my father had said that if I wanted to go into broadcasting, I could not talk like the rest of us. Walter looked away from me and then back, and he said, very wise words. Your father was a speech teacher? No, I said. Architect. His eyes flared. How in the hell does that work? I started to explain when it suddenly dawned on me that we were discussing this only because he said he hated the fact that I did not have an accent. I asked him why no accent means I can't do an impression of you. Well, this caused me to pause. Impressions. This is 1991. In 1991, Walter Matthau was one of the top five most impersonated voices in America. Anybody who did impressions, good or bad, professional or amateur, anybody, did a Walter Matthau. You did your Sammy Davis, your Howard Cosell, your Walter Matthau. Wait, I said to him. You do impressions of sportscasters? Yes, he said proudly. Would you like to hear them? I said. I'll pay cash. I don't normally do these, but seeing you are in the business, I, I, I will just for you. I practice these a lot, by the way. Twenty years later, Norman Lloyd confirmed for me, Matthau did do sportscaster impressions. He did practice them a lot. This was not some sort of bit. Now, back in 1991, Matthau cleared his throat. He shook his shoulders. Let's start with the best. And it sounds something like this. Hello, everybody. This is Vin Scully at Dodger Stadium. What do you think? Think. It sounded exactly like Walter Matthau. Didn't sound like Vin Scully. It didn't even sound like a bad impression of Vin Scully. It didn't even sound like a bad impression of Walter Matthau. It was, it was just Walter Matthau talking. Thinking quickly, I said, Uncanny, Mr. Matthau, thank you. I work on Vinnie especially hard. He's my favorite now. The big mouth. Hello again. This is Howard Cosell at Rings. How about that one? I think I got most of the inflection. Goodness, Mr. Math. Now it's like he's in the room with us. This went on for many minutes. Kurt Gowdy, Chick Hearn, Al Michaels, several local LA radio announcers. I cursed myself for not having brought a tape recorder with me. Walter Matthau did impressions of sportscasters, and they were all terrible. But he said he couldn't do one of me because I had no accent. I was complimented and crushed after a very nice event, saluting his friend and neighbor in the front row seats at the Laker games, Dr. Robert Curlin. We called it an evening, and as everybody got up to leave, I asked Walter Matthau to autograph my program from the dinner. My pleasure, he said. Nice work tonight. But I still don't get how your father, the architect, was also a speech teacher. But never mind. In the program, he wrote this. Listen, Keith, quit kidding around. No, don't Walter Matthau. It was lovely. And then he did something that took my breath away, something I have tried to do anytime circumstances permitted me to. He picked up his program, he handed it to me, and he said, now you sign mine. Can you believe that I only met him the one time? But that gesture stayed with me to such a degree that this happened nine years later. I woke up at the crack of dawn to go host the baseball game of the week at fox Studios in LA. It was Saturday morning, July 1, 2000. It was nine years and about two weeks after I met Walter Matthau. And on the All News radio station. There was one big story that morning in Los Angeles. Overnight, the great actor Walter Matthau had died. Heart attack, aged 79. I burst into tears. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Why doesn't he hear me? I know I'm talking. I recognize my voice. Our musical directors of Countdown are John Philip Chenale on keyboards and handling the orchestration, and Brian Ray on the guitars, bass, drums, and of course, the whole violation. And their work is produced by TKO Brothers. Nancy Foust, the best baseball stadium organist ever, is responsible for the satirical and pithy musical comments. Whenever we play the sports music, it's the old Olbermann show. Theme from ESPN2 written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group no horns allowed. My announcer today was my lake enemy, Dick Cheney, because, well, we're bringing up Iran. Who better to remember about Iraq than Cheney, right, Dick? This program was produced by Ted. Everything else was, as always, my fault. So that's Countdown for today. Day 407 of America held hostage again. Just 1,054 days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame dungeon duck and lame brained term. Unless he is removed sooner by Epstein. We have not forgotten Epstein. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Bulletins as the news merits, until the next edition, I'm Keith Olbermann. Good morning, good afternoon, good night and good luck. Foreign. 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. 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 youm might be shocked at what you find. Mypolicyadvocate.com Kids, pets, life.

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Keith Olbermann (75:36)

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