← Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
WHY ARE THEY ACTING LIKE TRUMP DOESN'T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT AS PRESIDENT? - 10.13.25
00:55:40
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Keith Olbermann
This is an iHeart podcast. Do you like free money? Well, today's your lucky day. Better Picks is offering a free $10 just for signing up. Download the Better App, Pick more or less on your favorite player's stats, watch the games and win some cash. It's that simple. Better picks available in 33 states including Texas, California and Georgia. Download the Better App today. That's Better Betr and get a free $10. No deposit necessary. Must be 21 or older. In a jurisdiction where Better Picks operates, terms and conditions apply. Better Picks Sports just got better. Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.
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The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current.
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Keith Olbermann
Affairs and the newsagents USA.
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Emily Maitlis
Listening to the newsagents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.
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Keith Olbermann
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- [02:04]
Keith Olbermann
CementMobile.com Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartRadio. If Trump didn't have much time left, how would his cabinet behave? If Trump didn't have much time left as President, how would his henchmen behave? If Trump didn't have much time left as president, how would his Stephen Millers behave? If Trump didn't have much time left as president, how would he behave? Hallucinations about Watergate being a hoax. The straight up delusion that 1,448 days into his first presidency, it was Joe Biden's FBI on January 6, even though Joe Biden hadn't been president yet. I'm not saying he's dying. I'm not saying he's irretrievably sick. I'm not saying he's being raptured. I'm not saying he's resigning. I'm not saying he's fleeing. I'm not talking about cause, just effect. If Trump didn't have much time left as president because he was getting a promotion to something, how would they all behave? I think the answer is they'd all behave as they are behaving right now. They'd panic. They'd panic because if Trump didn't have much time left as president, none of them, none of them would have much left time in power. Because the dirty little secret is that Trump and MAGA and this administration and any future for any of them depends on Trump, on Trump alone, and on the weapon Trump alone has mastered which keeps MAGA alive. The implicit and often explicit threat of violence. The cherished fantasy of the authoritarians to be able to physically hurt their perceived enemies by the millions hurt and worse. If Trump didn't have much time left as president, who would become the embodiment of their evil? You think in Vance after George Stephanopoulos stuffed him into a locker yesterday, Vance JV how many Ls in JD you think it's going to be Junior Eric Stephen Miller, who sometimes look like Dr. Evil's mini me and sometimes looks like Nosferatu and the rest of the time just looks like a flaccid penis in a tie. Stephen Miller, who made the fatal mistake of using the first person pronoun to claim credit for something Trump did. Quote, if I put federal law enforcement and the National Guard into a nice sleepy Southern T, if who did that? Mini Me. So who do you see as the next fewer Tim Scott. If Trump didn't have much time left as president, how would Stephen Miller be behaving? How often and how thoroughly is Stephen Miller panicking? How often and how thoroughly are Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem and Mike Fake column Johnson panicking? Johnson panicking over Jeffrey Epstein? I'll get to the answer to that question in a moment. Some of them, of course, are not panicking. Some of them are just behaving desperately and chaotically. The 3 hour and 17 minute ultra fawning cabinet meeting of August 26th. This whole nonsense about the Nobel Peace Prize. As was pointed out in countless quarters, what could be more nonsensical than demanding the Nobel Peace Prize for a man who renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War? The man who threatened to invade and take over his nation's two geographically adjacent allies, who is sending the army into his own cities. But a campaign to get the Nobel Peace Prize for him, an international campaign, and then a sour grapes campaign when he didn't get it. Another international campaign that's capped off with a commiserating video from Vladimir Putin. You should have gotten the award, Donald. Love, Vladdy. Who's yous Daddy? A Vladimir Putin consolation prize video like, oh, we're sorry you didn't win, Donald, but here's Johnny Olson to tell you more about the home version of the Nobel Peace Prize board game. No, the others aren't panicking. They're just doing the usual fawning and flattering and fellating only at much higher speed. Trump announcing Friday that there are almost no stores still standing in Portland and those stores that are still there now being built out of plywood. And RFK Jr standing behind him nodding as if Trump weren't insane. Because I guess Kennedy thought, well, hell, this makes me sound less crazy when I link autism and circumcision when he says a woman carries her unborn child in her placenta. Trump insisting he can bring down drug prices 5,000%, a literal numerical impossibility. And Mehmet Oz nodding as he stood behind him as if Trump weren't insane. Because I guess that makes sure that nobody remembers Oz's crudite video. And maybe Oz was promised there would be no math, no, lots of them still out there demanding cuts and invasions and insurrection, declarations and indictment while they still can manipulate Trump into doing them. Because Trump declared, quote, the Biden FBI placed 274 agents into the crowd on January 6th. If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed. Big apologies. What a scam. Do something, President DJT now there is a lot to unpack, as the kids say in those few sentences, because it's, it's all wrong. It's not of this earth. There are only a couple of possible explanations. It's gotta be one or a couple of these things and they're all bad. He's forgotten who was president on January 6, 2021. He's trying to pretend he wasn't president on January 6, 2021. He's completely mentally unbalanced. He is lying poorly. He believes his cult will believe that 1,448 days into his presidency, it was somehow Biden's FBI, even though Biden hadn't. And he hadn't been vice president in two weeks shy of four years. Maybe the Biden FBI sabotaged his umbrella yesterday. That's the cause of this. And the last explanation is his cheese has slid fully off his Ritz cracker. Or what if he's not gonna be president much longer? That's where Trump is. Plus there was that signature President DJT thing yesterday, one of the only other times he used that. It was the message to Pam Bondi that he didn't realize he was broadcasting. Maybe this was another message intended for Pam Bondi. Which would explain the panicked. Do something. Help me, Jeebus. Even Trump is panicking. The others surely are panicking. You've seen this, haven't you? Felt happier recently? Panicking. They're all panicking. As if somebody told them that Trump won't be president much longer. Or they told themselves that. A judge stops illegal use of military for law enforcement. And Stephen Miller calls it legal insurrection and relentless terrorist assault. Organized terrorist attack on the federal government. Left wing terrorism, well organized and funded. Terror networks. A party that openly aids and encourages and foments violence. Quote, I do not look like a flaccid penis. All right, I made the last one up, but I didn't make the other ones up. He wrote all those in panic or he goes and screeches it on television in panic? He insists that what he says is the only truth. And if you disagree with him, you are being willfully blind to what he can see. For all of the bluster and the rage and the mental illness that Stephen Miller sprinkles, we're missing the biggest thing here. He's out of control. Why? Well, what's likeliest, what if he knew his meal ticket, who not only enables him, but is the only thing standing between him and a series of prosecutions? What if he knew his meal ticket was not going to be his meal ticket much longer? So then there are these panicked indictments. Prosecutions of Comey James Bolton, the first indictments in American history so thin that they have been handed down printed on toilet paper. But what does it matter if the indictments suck? If those who indicted them only care about the indictments because he wouldn't be president when each case got dismissed. And now Adam Schiff should be indicted over Watergate, the Ukraine, impeachment of me. Oh my God, that sounds so bad. Scam was a far bigger illegal hoax than Watergate I sincerely hope the necessary authorities, including Congress, are looking into this. Congress is shut down, sir. You shut Congress down. Remember, Adam Schiff was so dishonest. It's so with three O's and corrupt, so many laws and protocols were violated. Protocols and just plain broken. President djt as an aside, many conservatives do think Watergate was some kind of scam. I first heard this at ESPN in the 90s and I started laughing at the guy thinking this conservative, who otherwise seemed to be a functioning human being was kidding. And then he wasn't laughing because he really believed Watergate was just a conspiracy to run a palace coup against Nixon that Gerald Ford had cooked up with the Democrats and the Supreme Court and Woodward and Bernstein and, and, and, and, and, and. But regardless, what does it have to do with Adam Schiff? What does Watergate have to do with Adam Schiff? What does Watergate have to do with Ukraine? It's like he just remembered Ukraine and Watergate on the same day and he put them together because, I don't know, like maybe because there wasn' his brain. Which brings us back to the most important document of the Trump presidency thus far, that rarest of glimpses. We saw what they all see. We saw the Bondi direct message. The Bondi direct message, as confirmed by a Murdoch newspaper. Told you that was what that was. Even Trump has never written a social media post that starts with somebody's first name and a comma and addresses that person directly throughout and puts what was in essence an E signature at the bottom. President DJT Never before that. Not once. The Bondi direct message might be reasonably assumed to reflect how he is acting when we don't see him. One of the frightening realities about Trump that gets lost is that when you ask, why can't he control himself? This is him controlling himself. This is him recognizing the cameras are rolling. This is the best take. This is the sanest he gets, not the craziest. The craziest is the private stuff he inadvertently leaks after writing it to Pam Bondi. The private stuff that indicates how crazy he really is. Oh good, they're all gone. Now I can let my hair down, so to speak. The mask is off here and it is important to listen to what he wrote to her in the paranoid, urgent, threatening, you are failing me, I am losing because of you. Style that they must hear daily. And something about it has changed. And they all act like they believe he's not going to be president much longer cuz it's coming off the rails. And there is one word in this as we understand it now, private memo to Pam Bondi. That must have cut through Bondi's rage and her hair dye and her Botox and made what's left of her blood run cold. Pam, I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts say. Oh, God, he's reading posts again. Let's say essentially same old story as last time. All talk, no action, nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam, Shifty, Shift, Leticia? They're all guilty as hell, but nothing's going to be done. Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. attorney in Virginia with a really bad Republican past, awoke Rhino who was never going to do his job. That's why two of the worst Dem senators pushed him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit and that we had no case. No, I fired him and there's a great case and many lawyers and legal pundits say so. And then comes the sudden emotional, oh, that capillary is working again. Capillary number 348726 is working again. Blood flow has been increased. There's this sudden switch from rage to. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer and likes you a lot. Oh, that capillary broke again. Send a crew over. Clean up on aisle 3,272,116. We can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and credibility. They impeach me twice and indicted me parentheses five times over nothing. Justice must be served. Now, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, President DJT it's killing our reputation. Killing. And now with three exclamation points. The paranoia is evergreen. It's not the paranoia, it's the panic. As if he thinks he's not gonna be president much longer. Which is of course, what Speaker Johnson is doing to suppress the Epstein files. Seemingly recognizing maybe that's the way out of this. Because otherwise, what kind of endgame does Johnson have here? He's never gonna bring the House back into session. He's never going to end the Trump shutdown. He's never going to have the vote. He's never going to swear in Adelita Grijalva, so she can't be the last vote to force the vote on the Epstein files. So they can't release the Epstein files because Johnson knows whatever there is about Trump in the Epstein files, it is in the Epstein files. Just no more Congress. Ever. Whatever. No, ever. Mike. To paraphrase my friend Bill Daniels in the Graduate, Mike, this whole idea sounds pretty half baked. No, it's not. It's completely baked. If Johnson thinks there's a chance Trump won't be president much longer again, I'm not saying something bad is going to happen. I'm just saying why are they behaving like this? So why might they think Trump won't be president much longer? Well, sir, he has disappeared twice for five day stretches since the end of August and the trip to Walter Reed Friday, that was originally dismissed as his annual physical and they went for that for days. Annual physical? Annual physical. Oh, it's just his annual physical. And so somebody realized, oh, wait a minute, and we already used that one six months ago when he went in. There was annual physical. We can't have an annual physical every six months. That would make it something else. What's the word? And then they changed it and insisted they never said annual physical. And then they changed it again to pre trip vaccinations and semi annual physical. And perhaps in a few weeks when he goes back in for another time, it'll be the last of his annual three part physical. What? We always said he did it in three parts. And then when it becomes a weekly physical. Oh, no, no, he has a weekly physical. A 52 part annual physical. Weekly physicals, of course. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. He likes Walter Reed Hospital. He just wants the Oval Office to be in Walter Reed. Next question. Oh, who? We have the Stormer Olfson. There's one last and far more serious tentacle to this tale of panic and succession and people acting like they know the money printing machine is throwing out sparks and they better grab all the twenties before it blows. And this other part certainly would explain yet another element of right wing panic that still goes full blazes every once in a while. Because, while the because has been a mystery, doesn't resonate with us normies, isn't apparent here in the actual, you know, plane of human existence in this sort of real world. But. But it was the undercurrent on the far right and I don't think many of us knew after Charlie Kirk was killed, I noted that in a total shock to me, anyway, they didn't think of him as some kind of run of the mill lunatic manipulating audiences with the traditional right wing mix of religious bullshit and sadistic fantasies of executing Joe Biden in public, maybe with a guillotine, and forcing everybody over 12 to watch and selling the thing as a pay per view TV event with sponsors mixed in with racism and white supremacists and trying to undo every law in the book that protects anybody against anything. They didn't see him for what he was. They willfully ignoring half of Charlie Kirk's comments, half of Charlie Kirk's videos, half of Charlie Kirk's quotes, the Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Stu Peters, Pol Pot, Hitler, end of Charlie Kirk's comments. They didn't see him as the danger to real American people that he was. They saw him as a future president in a void. I'm beginning to think that even that does not sufficiently explain their rage and their panic in the wake of Charlie Kirk's indefensible assassination. I never added this up before. I mean, you know, you graduated third grade. You have to be 35 to be sworn in as president, right? My contention is there is nobody, nobody to take over for Trump now or January 20, 2029. And that's why they are all panicking, because they all think that date when a new Fuhrer must rise is suddenly a lot sooner than they were led. And here's the thing that ties it all together. Had he not been killed on October 14, 2028, Charlie Kirk would have turned 35 years old. They didn't think he was a future president. They thought he was the next president. Well, Politico needs a new White House bureau chief. Politico has been periodically insightful and even brave in some of its coverage of Trump, but its day to day stuff has been horrific, enabling, stenographic. And now a Rubicon has been crossed. Trump on Air Force One on the way to the Middle east yesterday, dissing the Politico White House bureau chief. So what? That's the way it goes. He only disses people who ask actual questions. She asked about rolling back Chinese tariffs after he crashed the market and his friends made money off that. He only insults people who get it right. That's the way it goes. If he insults you and demeans you, especially in front of people, it means you're a woman, probably. And he's terrified of you, certainly. And this is another part of that why is he acting like he's not got much time left as president thing. Dasha Burns, what you do not do in response to that is plead with him while people are recording it. And what you really do not do while people are recording it is plead with him that Caroline Levitt will vouch for you. Considering walking that back. Who are you with?
- [25:16]
Ryan Reynolds / Mint Mobile Advertiser
Politico.
- [25:17]
Keith Olbermann
Dasha Burns, sir. Dasha. Politico. Politico's gone bad. They've been so wrong about everything political. No, no. Politico has been so wrong about everything. Let's get somebody else to ask some questions. You mind? Is that all right? Ms. Politico is fake news. Thank you very much. Tell them to be honest and not honest. Sir. Talk to Caroline. She'll vouch for him. Thank you. That is called obeying in advance. It is disqualifying. It is career ending. It is worst of all, not going to work. Eventually somebody, either Carolyn or Trump, they will sell you out. Dasha Burns. They sell everybody out. ABC learned in time and swerved and now Iger has ignored Trump and Stephanopoulos has hung up on Vance. MIT and Harvard learned, Columbia did not. Politico needs to learn, but not with somebody who claims to be a reporter but insists that the corrupt Secretary of Propaganda, the bubble headed bleach bond at the press podium will vouch for her. This is not quite Bari Weiss territory. More on her in a moment. But Dasha Burns has got to quit or Politico has got to fire her. Now a second take and a goddamned brilliant one from Elizabeth Lopato of the Verge. A totally different viewpoint on the appointment of Barry Weiss as the Lord High Executioner at CBS News. You will have heard that Ms. Weiss, upon her appointment, wrote to every CBS News employee to ask them to reply with a tell me what it is you're doing here and are so proud of thing, which, based on the Elon Musk experience, is in fact asking every CBS News employee to give her enough rope with which to hang themselves or have her hang them. Their union has advised them not to reply. But Ms. Lopato's point of view on this is completely the opposite of mine. And she's right and I'm wrong. Barry Weiss is not there at CBS News to try to convert CBS News into a right wing rag or to become a real journalist for the first time in her life or something to please Trump. Or, or. Or she's there because. Good evening and welcome to the end of her career. The title of Ms. Lepato's piece explains it all. Quote, memo to Barry Weiss re CBS News. You're doomed. That's the start. I'd love to read the whole thing, but you know, there are limits and copyrights. You should read the whole thing at the Verge. Here are a couple of highlights. I'll try to limit myself to 400 words to Barry Weiss re Good luck, babe. Quote, I honestly cannot believe you've willingly decided to go into the worst kind of job that exists. Management at a dying company. This is the glass cliff to end all glass cliffs Managing sucks. It sucks even when you like the people you're managing. And it's a low stress position. And I'm sure I don't have to tell you, running CBS News is not a low stress position. You are going to get blamed by everyone above you for decisions that are made by people below you, and you're going to get blamed by people below you for the decisions that are made by people above you. You're also going to get blamed for your own decisions. Just for kicks. You have elected to take a job where the primary purpose is for you to eat shit and own the death of broadcast TV news, a thing that is going to die no matter what you do. Nice work. This is the glass cliff to end all glass cliffs. You have been hired as a SOP to a Trump administration that is actively hostile to the actual Free Press, and you will be made to oversee wave after wave of layoffs until you quit or get fired and the entire news division is shut down in a final spasm of cost cutting after the next inescapable media merger. No one can save CBS News because it was made for a media ecosystem that is now dead. Broadcast television is slowly circling the drain, its aging audience drifting toward the great inevitable. Younger people are getting their news from TikTok and Instagram in ever increasing numbers, and they trust institutional media less than ever. Cbs in particular, that's your new company, now has the oldest audience in primetime tv. These folks aren't the Free Press's assiduously courted classical liberals either. It's normie grandparents, a bunch of whom are planning to appear at the next no Kings rally. I might invoke Edward R. Murrow, but they remember him. They don't have any goodwill toward you. They don't know who you are at all, and they're not gonna defend you when you screw up. You are now stuck claiming your goal is to win back younger audiences, which you cannot do, while your real job is to manage decline. There is no way to win here, only slightly better ways to lose. It's actually even worse than that, Ms. Lapetto continues. You also have to manage talent, famous TV talent, the people your audience actually knows and likes who will eat you alive if they think you've screwed them over. And there I will leave Ms. Lopato's masterpiece to the right owner herself and again implore you to go to the Verge and read the whole thing. Try reading it aloud. You'll get the flavor of it much better that way, and you'll really enjoy thinking about what Bari Weiss has assigned herself to which living hell she has the choice among. The whole thing is five times as long as the excerpt I just read. And it gets better and better and better. Which means for Ms. Weiss, it gets worse and worse and worse. If I read something like that about a job I had just taken, I wouldn't just quit that new job, I would flee the country. One last quote, one last sentence, one last dart sticking Ms. Weiss forever to the bullseye. Ms. Lapato's final sentence, quote Congrats on that $150 million payout for the Free Press. Someone else owns it now. Elizabeth Lapato at the Verge on Barry Weiss on the Verge of the end at CBS. And also remind me not to get on Ms. Lapato's bad side. Also of interest here, Kristi Noem's double penetration of the worst persons in the World Championship list. And speaking of champions, how the Milwaukee brewers shamed themselves and made people actually feel sorry for the Ricketts family of fascists owned Chicago Cubs. The Milwaukee brewers, who have never won a World Series in 55 years in existence, eliminate the Cubs, then taunt them on social media. As the cliche goes, act like you've been there before, even if, like the brewers, you haven't. That's next. This is Countdown.
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- [34:32]
Keith Olbermann
Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.
- [34:36]
Emily Maitlis
The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily, Martin Maitlis and me John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and.
- [34:49]
Keith Olbermann
Current affairs and The News Agents USA.
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Emily Maitlis
Listening to the News Agents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the News Agents to start listening.
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- [35:33]
Keith Olbermann
This is Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Still ahead on this all new episode of Countdown, the death of the man who actually wrote the first story, the first Washington Post story about what was at least till recently the biggest scandal in American history in 1972. His name was Bart Barnes and I worked on another story with him for months a decade later. First, believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscreants, morons, undone Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world. The Tie at Bronze we start with baseball's Milwaukee Brewers. Yes, it's nice that they beat the Tom Ricketts family of fascists own Chicago Cubs in the NL Championship Series. And the Cubs can pound sand. So also, that means there's the chance that the brewers, who have never won the World Series, might play the Seattle Mariners, who have never won the World Series in the World Series. Which also would mean that because the brewers started history as the infamous one year expansion team that my late friend Jim Bouton immortalized in his book Ball Four, the World Series could pit the Seattle Mariners versus The Seattle Pilots. However, the brewers owe the Cubs and the baseball world before any of that. And they owe their late guiding light, Bob Uecker, a big apology. The Cubs have this annoying victory song. Hey hey Chicago, why don't you stay? Cubs are going to win today and they put up a flag on the flag pole with a big W on it when they win, which clearly was not as often as they should have this year, and they've been doing that for, like, a century, during which they've won one World Series. But after the brewers eliminated the Cub Saturday night, the brewers posted on social media an AI video of the Cloud Gate statue. That big, shiny, metallic thing looks like a giant computer mouse in Millennium park in Chicago with a flag with a giant L on it. They show this mouse. Well, a Cloud Gate statue and this giant Cubs W kind of flag, only it has a big L on it. And it lands. And the brewers captioned this video. Hey, Chicago, what do you say? Bob Uecker, though, as fierce a competitor as there was, and I know from a year working with him, as salty a guy as there was, he knew about the when and the where of things. And if you do that in public right after you won, guess what, brewers, you actually lost. Bob Uecker would slap you all silly. Come on, Brewers. Act like you've been there before, even though you haven't. The brewers are tied with Greg Abbott. Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, who was on with Will Kane on Fox. Have I ever told you about working with Will Kane at espn, we used to wonder who. Who guided him to the office every day, or who tied his ties for him or how he got the left shoe on the left foot. God, just dumb as a rock. Anyway, Abbott says this to Governor J.B. pritzker of Illinois, who, like me, is a plus sized gentleman. And you may remember some things about Greg Abbott that apply physically here. No, no ridicule intended, just reality. However, Greg Abbott said this Pritzker should stop complaining and do some push ups, Governor. Uh, really physical jokes, Governor. Push ups? You think I'm gonna say it? The hell am I gonna say it. Shame on you. What an embarrassment you are to humanity. I mean, seriously, at the current rate, in about three months or so, if things don't change in this country, something like this will be responded to by a string of 500,000 jokes about Greg Abbott, where all of us who would have restraint in this situation will go, no, F him. I'll just say the F him part. F Greg Abbott. He's an asshole. He's a fascist asshole. Stop complaining and do some push ups. Jesus Christ. Greg Abbott. Stop complaining and do some democracy. The runner up Trump paralegal Lindsey Halligan. The beauty pageant Miss Uncongeniality winner has screwed up yet again. Yes, we've learned she apparently indicted Letitia James independently of Pam Bondi just because she's a big girl now or something and has bigger hair and is trying to get Trump to fire probably Pam Bondi and replace her with younger Pam Bondi. Lindsay Halligan, beauty pageant contestant. Then I would think that in the Iraq. But in the filing against Letitia James, she put in defendant information. Juvenile. Yes. No, she got. No, she marked. No, she got that right. So the FBI number place is left blank appropriately. Defendant name, Letitia A. James. Address? Brooklyn, New Jersey. Ma', am, I'm gonna need to see your license. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not your driver's license. No, no, that's your. No, that's your dozen card at the hairstylist. You get the 13th bouffant free. No, the other, the law license. But the winner, we've got a Kristi Noem twofer. A fountain of worst person material turns out to be Kristi Noem's destiny. There is a video of Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the shutdown of the government, which is playing at TSA security checkpoints at airports across the country. Apparently, it is the choice of local officials at the local airports to run it. So if you see it, don't complain to the tsa, don't complain to Kristi Noem, don't complain to Corey Lewandowski. Complain to the local airport. Complain to the local governing authority. Complain to the local Democrats. I have one question about this video. It's a video of Kristi Noem. Is Lewandowski in the video with her? Oh, wait, there's more. Kristi Noem in the twofer told the latest cabinet meeting, the mayor said that Portland was perfectly safe, a beautiful city. And I said, why did you clear the streets for me today and build out a four block radius to make sure I can get in and out of here. Well, clearly Portland was just protecting its pets from you, witch. Secondly, so they built out a four block radius and you were able to get in and out of there in a hurry and nothing but. So you're saying your experience in Portland was totally safe? Also, as if we needed more Christi Nome material, there is video of those violent antifa protesters, the ones dressed up in the various animal costumes, catching Kristi Noem making one of her fascist porn videos on the roof of the ICE headquarters or the DHS headquarters in Portland or the, I don't know, discount shoe center in Portland or whatever. And the protesters are in front of the building playing over loudspeakers the theme from the Benny Hill Show, Yakety Sax, Boots Randolph. And she and the other members of American ISIS have no idea what to do. They just keep walking around on the roof. Like can anybody make the song stop? Because on top of everything else, Kristi Noem and Lewandowski and the others are bumbling morons and this ends up with them in jail. So Nome, next time they they play yakety sax by Boots Randolph the Benny Hill theme. We need to start calling it the Kristi Noem theme. You know, there is a theory, by the way, Christy, about injecting fluids like steroids or like Botox into a confined space in the body. Something self contained like the hip or the skull. And eventually, if you do it enough, you will squeeze out whatever is supposed to be inside that closed space inside the skull, inside the hips like veins or other blood vessels. Or if it's Botox, eventually your skull will be empty of brains and filled with nothing but Botox. Christy no brains, just botox. Yakety sacks. Gnome 2 days Other worst case person in the World.
- [45:50]
Ryan Reynolds / Mint Mobile Advertiser
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Public Rec / Better Picks Advertiser
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- [47:04]
Keith Olbermann
Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.
- [47:08]
Emily Maitlis
The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current.
- [47:22]
Keith Olbermann
Affairs and The News Agents USA.
- [47:24]
Emily Maitlis
Listening to the News Agents on America's number one podcast podcast network iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the news agents to start listening.
- [47:34]
Public Rec / Better Picks Advertiser
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- [47:56]
Keith Olbermann
The Washington Post reports that Bart Barnes has died eight days ago. He was 87 years old. Bart Barnes worked for the Washington Post for 50 years, and it is impossible to describe simply what he did there, but the range of his career was such that he was the rewrite man on the Post desk On Saturday, June 17, 1972, the man who put together who literally cut and pasted and typed and rewrote an article out of the various stuff that had been written by three different reporters about an almost inexplicable break in the night before the Friday the 16th at a local office complex. One of the reporters who sent in his stuff was named Woodward. Another was called Bernstein. The third was the Post's crime reporter, Alfred Lewis. The article was bylined Alfred Lewis and it carried a note of contribution at the bottom by Bart Barnes. He, in fact, was the man who wrot the first story, the first Washington Post story and the first story anywhere about the Watergate break in. That was a high mark for Bart. Or when he broke in in 1963 with the Post as part of the Post's crew at Martin Luther King's I have a Dream speech and the March on Washington. He contributed to their coverage of that or later writing the obituaries. And this is a legend around the Post of Orson Welles and Yul Brenner in 1985, on dead the same Day, from the sublime to the ridiculous. However, he also once found himself somehow assigned to cover the 1982 National Football League players strike. He was an experienced sports writer, especially on the business of sports, and they sent him to do this at the start of it, early spring. There were four Bart an AP sports and business guy, somebody from the Times, and a CNN rookie who was, as they say, expendable. Me. We, Bart Barnes and I and the other two. We worked on the same story, if not every day, then at least once a week until Thanksgiving of that year. He was a quiet, wry, supportive delight, often suggesting things you should follow up on, which was the way of him slipping me information or commenting that I had correctly or incorrectly emphasized something in one of my reports he had seen. He also, as I will mention shortly, in greater detail, played a role in the greatest practical joke of our times. Well, of my times. Well, about the New York Times. It was on a reporter from the New York Times whom we didn't dislike. He was a nice enough guy when not frantically on deadline, but when he was on deadline, none of us could stand him. I only found out later that Bart Barnes was the son and the grandson of two publishers of the Bristol Press. He was from Bristol, Connecticut. You know, ESPN land before there was an espn and I knew him a decade before I was at espn. Small world. Only found that out in reading his obituary. And I only found out that he eventually became the Post obituary factory. He wrote hundreds of them and that was a role I occasionally filled from my first job at UPI right through my last stint at espn. I noted this line in Bart's obituary, something a lot of us who have done this kind of work have wondered Will the obituary we just finished only be seen or read after the guy we wrote about is dead and after we're dead too? Here's what the Post's obituary guy wrote about the Post's former obituary guy. His byline will continue to appear in the Post long after his death. 17 of his pre written obituaries are still waiting to be published. You're all out there, right? I retired from ESPN in 2020. Literally, I'm a Disney retiree. I think they have at least one of my baseball obituaries left ready to go. No, I don't feel it's right for me to tell you who it is. Yes, it does feel really strange, but this is about Bart Barnes. A great, helpful, all purpose, held the Washington Post together until it collapsed kind of guy and his role. And he was the perfect, legit, calm, straight laced guy who helped sell the scam that we played on the guy from the Times. The last person, the guy from the Times, the victim here, the mark, the target, the last person that guy would suspect his last line of defense in a world gone mad before his eyes. As you will hear, In March of 1982, I went from scheduled freelancer to full time as CNN's national sports correspondent based in New York. I have mentioned previously that they rewarded me by offering me $1,000 less a year than they were giving me freelance, which tells everything you need to know about working in television. CNN also rewarded me by sending me to the first meeting of the NFL Players association and the NFL Management Council to negotiate a new contract and avert A strike that year kind of missed that target. But while I did lots of other stories in my first full year at cnn, I was the football strike guy until that strike was settled and a new deal was approved at a mass meeting in Washington. And the mass meeting in Washington occurred Thanksgiving, like 40 years ago today. And the damn story had started 40 years ago last March. There are probably 5,700 stories worth telling you of covering this thing nearly every day one way or the other for eight months. But this one might be my favorite. There were, I think, three other reporters at that first bargaining session in New York in March of 1982. And if these are not the three guys I'm thinking of, they became the three guys in the subsequent meetings later in March and then in April when we had some in Washington and throughout the early summer. They were Bart Barnes of the Washington Post, Ira Rosenfeld of the Associated Press, and Michael Janofsky of the New York Times. By October, the four of us had been joined by maybe 100 other reporters. 200. The problem with covering any strike, inside sports or outside of it, is you don't have a lot of news to cover. And the only news story your editors or producers or readers or viewers want anyway is this. Is the damn thing over yet? So there was a lot of competition among all of us for those few news nuggets and sources available to an ever increasing supply of reporters. Though I have to say, the others, at least the originals, were all great to me, and I to them, to the point that when they moved the talks to the Hunt Valley Resort complex in Maryland, United Press International and the networks like us called our location Hunt Valley, Maryland. But there was such a dearth of news that the Associated Press insisted there was no such place as Hunt Valley, Maryland. And we were all really in Cockeysville, Maryland. The same story would come across the UPI wire dateline, Hunt Valley, Maryland, and the same story on the AP wire, Cockeysville, Maryland. Then the Associated Press did a story on the dispute over the location name. I remember asking Ira Rosenfeld of the AP if they had used the dateline Cocky Spill, just so there'd be a dispute, just so he had something to write about. He started laughing and walked away anyway. Janofsky, the guy from the Times, was the most anxious of the bunch. Michael Janoski was a little abrasive, like literally elbowing you out of the way in the scrums with media spokesmen or trying to walk those spokesmen out of those gaggles and scrums in order to get a one on one. I'm from the New York Times, and the only thing the owners and the players and the rest of us reporters all agreed on was, oh, God, here comes Janofsky again. So one long night in the resort they were using in Cockeysville and or Hunt Valley, Maryland, one of the union guys was having a drink with a bunch of us media types and we started complaining about Janofsky. And I don't think the prank that was hatched was my idea, but I know I was the choreographer. The area I had to work with in the hotel in which we were permitted to roam ran from a swimming pool, around a corner, down a 100 foot hallway into the lobby, which was the press room and press conference venue. So we waited until we saw Janofsky go down that hall away from the main lobby and around the corner towards the hotel rooms themselves. And then at least a dozen of us waited like evil school kids in the main part of that hallway between the swimming pool and the lobby. We sent a spotter to stand near the pool to alert us. So as Michael Janoski of the New York Times turned the corner 100ft away, he saw the NFLPA press aide literally pushing some of us and everybody yelling and him saying, fine, it's true, it's true. It's over now. I can't say another goddamn thing. I quit. He's trying to get away from us. There are arms flailing through the air, voices raised, a lot of oaths and swear words. In short, we have convinced Mr. Janofski of the Times that he has just missed the end of the football strike. Janofsky sprints the hundred feet, grabs the union guy and says, tell me, tell me it's settled, it's over. Telling you. And this man, Dave, had also been a press staffer in the Kennedy administration, and this was not his first prank against a reporter. He says, I'm sorry, Mike, I don't work for the NFLPA anymore. I just quit. If you want this story, you better get it from the executive director, Ed Garvey, or the president, Gene Upshaw. So now Janofsky grabs Bart Barnes of the WaPo, who had to have been, I don't know, 10 years older than Janoski was. And he says, you have to tell me, Bart, I'll pay you. At which point, all of us lose it. I mean, me and the AP guy, Ira, we broke character. We doubled over with laughter. Now Janofsky froze. Dave from the union laughed so hard he turned red. And Janofsky marched off announcing he would get us and get us soon. I don't think he ever did, though. If I had to do a phoner for CNN when Janofsky was around that lobby or any other places we did this story. I always made sure I guarded the phone disconnect button with my free hand just in case. But what he did do was leave sports altogether for safer and more fun topics like covering the Environmental Protection Agency and getting writing stories about pesticides and recycling mercury. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening and rip Bart Barnes. And thanks for everything. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Shanan. Our musical directors have Countdown. I don't think. I don't think Bart Barnes wrote a no bit of me. He's writing them till 2005 or 6 though. Am I one of the 17? Are you? You know what? We'll never know, will we? Our musical directors of Countdown, Brian Ray and John Philip Chenale and the work produced by TKO Brothers, with Mr. Ray on guitars, bass and drums and Mr. Chennaial on hand. The orchestration and the keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Foust. The Older man Theme from ESPN2 written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Is the sports music, other music arranged and performed by the group. No horns allowed. My announcer today was my friend. And continuing the Watergate theme, John Dean. Everything else was, as always, my fault. That's Countdown for today. Day 267 of America held hostage yet again and just 1,196 days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and lame brained term. Unless he is removed sooner by MAGA and Jeffrey Epstein. Or the pavement on his hand, or a stuck escalator, or the psychopathy test, or the judge guy he doesn't like, or the judge girl he doesn't like. Or by Joe Biden's FBI. They're still out there. I can see them. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Till then, I'm Keith Oliver. 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. Have you ever turned a dollar into ten grand? I doubt it. But now you can. On better picks, download the better app, pick more or less on your favorite player's stats, watch the games and win some cash. It's that simple. Better picks available in 33 states including Texas, California and Georgia. Download the Better App today. That's Better B E T R and get a free $10. No deposit necessary. Must be 21 or older. In a jurisdiction where Better Picks operates, terms and conditions apply. Better Picks Sports just got better. Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.
- [62:38]
Emily Maitlis
The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current.
- [62:51]
Keith Olbermann
Affairs and The News Agents USA listening.
- [62:54]
Emily Maitlis
To the News Agents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the News Agents to start listening.
- [63:04]
Public Rec / Better Picks Advertiser
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- [63:34]
Keith Olbermann
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's Premium Wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk crazy weather we're having. No it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try@midmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
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Keith Olbermann
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Ryan Reynolds / Mint Mobile Advertiser
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