March 2, 2023 • 39 mins
EPISODE 145: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: The President must fire FBI Director Christopher Wray, and the Senate must conduct hearings into Fox "News" to see if it can be stopped and if the citizenships of Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, and the others, can be revoked.
The FBI: The Washington Post's reporting on the FBI's attempt to shut down the investigation, then the search, and finally the prosecution in the Trump case requires nothing less than the immediate dismissal of the director - if we can get him off Fox Non-News for a moment - and most of the now-rogue FBI Washington Field Office. Agents and then the Bureau Chief believed Trump and his attorney, instead of their bosses, and the judge, and the Constitution. Fire everybody.
Fox Non-News: Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries sent a searing six-paragraph letter to Murdoch et al. It demands they chose between "lying to their viewers" and "honest reporting." The money is in the former, and Rupert Murdoch made this decision in 1952. What is necessary is something to scare the crap out of Murdoch: charges against hm for an illegal contribution-in-kind to the Trump campaign, if Tucker Carlson shows any of the 1/6 video - and convening a hearing dragging these bastards before the Senate.
B-Block (20:53) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: I got Senator Mike Lee's twitter account suspended briefly yesterday. So THAT happened. And boring as he is, Merrick Garland still managed to blow up Ted Cruz yesterday. (25:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rep. Boebert forgets about them new states, Alaska and Hawaii; Rep. Donalds, who met with a 1/6 Seditionist INSIDE THE CAPITOL, and Ronda Santis, who has forgotten one detail in his scheme to dictate what Disney does and doesn't put in their movies and shows.
C-Block (30:15) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Poor Magnus got pulled out of the NYC pound only to come down with pneumonia. (31:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A sports fan so ardent he used to wager on baseball spring training games AND do impressions of sportscasters, including me. It's the story of the day I got to meet the late great actor Walter Matthau.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
President of the United States must fire FBI Director Christopher Ray,
(00:25):
and the Senate must hold hearings into Fox News to
see if it can be stopped and if the Murdoch's
citizenships can be revoked. The FBI first, because this is
an immediate, urgent, clear and present danger to the President
and to the democracy itself. There is, without question, a
significant element within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is
(00:49):
loyal not to the United States but to Donald Trump.
And this has been permitted to continue by Director Ray,
and it continues to grow under Director Ray, and if unchecked,
it will grow into something that will interfere with the
indictment of Trump and the prosecution of Trump and the
conviction of Trump. And we know this because it has
(01:11):
already happened, and the director, who turned a blind eye
to it as it happened, a Trump appointee, has to go,
has to be fired by this president right now, regardless
of the blowback. Extraordinary reporting by the Washington Post reveals
that starting last May, the FBI Washington Field office, including
(01:33):
it's now suddenly retired ex chief Stephen d'antoineo tried to
stop the criminal investigation of the hundreds of classified documents
Trump stole, including at least one document to telling the
nuclear capabilities of foreign power, tried to, as the Post
writers phrased it, shut her the criminal investigation altogether. In
early June, after Trump's team asserted a diligent search had
(01:57):
been conducted and all classified records had been turned over.
In short, these FBI agents, who must be identified and dismissed,
were willing to take a criminal suspect's word for it.
And despite the disloyalty of these agents and yet another
FBI bureau gone rogue this abrogation of their duties to
(02:19):
this country, there was something even worse. Again, quoting the Post,
two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of
leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and
proposed instead to seek Trump's permission to search his property.
(02:40):
So the original version from May twenty twenty two of
this planned criminal irresponsibility by the FBI in the Washington Bureau,
under the command of Bureau Director Christopher Ray, a Trump appointee,
was to simply refuse to conduct the search. The Department
of Justice and a judge had signed off on and
insist Trump's word Trump's lie should take precedence over all that,
(03:06):
and then the fallback position was to slow the investigation down.
And the next fallback position after that, a month later,
it was for two senior officials to refuse to execute
the search warrant unless Trump permitted them to enforce the
laws of this country, fire them all, and prosecute them
(03:28):
all where possible. Quoting again, some agents were simply afraid.
They worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or
even end their careers. What you are afraid the suspect
will say mean things about you on social media, so
(03:49):
you propose to prevent his prosecution? Is this a new policy?
Can I go out and steal a billion dollars tonight?
Provided I can make FBI agents fearful that I will
speak badly of them on this podcast quoting the FBI agents.
Caution was also rooted in the fact that mistakes in
prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proven damaging
(04:14):
to the FBI. The Post also writes, and the cases
subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans end quote.
Let me translate that the rogue FBI field office. No,
not the one in Washington. This is the one in
New York. The rogue FBI field office used the threat
of leaks to throw the twenty sixteen election two Trump,
(04:38):
and one of the lead New York agents was just
arrested for working for the Russian who employed Trump's campaign manager.
So naturally the FBI cannot do anything now because it
might damage Trump. The bureau also couldn't handle sustained public
attack from partisans. Seriously, criticism justifiable action, criticism, but still
(05:06):
just criticism was too much for the big g men
to handle. What are you running there, Chris Ray? The
nation's most important investigative force, or a bunch of snowflakes
worried about how many likes their tweets got and to
a larger question. The Post's account describes dialogue and running
(05:30):
arguments four weeks between the Department of Justice and the
senior FBI figures and within the FBI itself. Why was
this permitted? The argument should have gone like this, FBI,
we're the Department of Justice. You work for us and
the people of this country. Do the job, or you
are all fired. That's what the dialogue should have been
(05:54):
the one flaw in fact in the Washington Post reporting
here is to present thousands of words about what reads
like a decahedron of approaches or a kaleidoscopic jumble of
different options and a spectrum of reasonable options being debated.
There was no such spectrum. To use the old joke,
the gamut should have run from A to B. There
(06:17):
are missing classified documents. Trump is a known serial liar,
con man, kleptomaniac. They had tried to resolve this scandal
with him on officially and secretly for one year about
the documents. Trump and his lawyers lied and lied again,
and lied in writing. A search warrant was issued. Go
(06:38):
in and executed, or you're fired. The Post does not
report this, nor anything like this, but there is reason
to believe the FBI actually sort of did this. Soto
voce with this former head of the Milktoast agents working
in the Washington field office. In November, this Stephen d'antoino
(06:58):
went from the plum job running DC too retired. At
a meeting at the FBI in August, d'antuono was quote
adamant the FBI should not do a surprise search d'antuono
said he would agree to lead such a raid only
if he were ordered to. D'antuono also questioned why the
(07:19):
search would target presidential records as well as classified records.
This idiot wanted to call Trump's attorney, Evan Corcoran, and
asked him to let them do a voluntary search without
a warrant. They trusted Corcoran, who represented Steve Bannon. They
(07:39):
trusted Trump. Those they did not trust or did not
trust as much, were their own employers at the Department
of Justice, the judge who issued the search warrant, and
evidently the people who wrote the goddamned Constitution of the
United States of America. Quote. We are not the presidential
records police, d'antuono said, According to people familiar with the
(08:01):
exchange of goddamn right, you're the presidential records police, half wit,
You're the presidential records police, or the whatever police we
tell you to be, whatever the law tells you to be.
Jesus Christ, is there no way to recall this coward
d'antoino back from retirement so we can fire him and
take away his pension. You want money later in life, sir,
(08:23):
get it from Trump. There is often a robust discussion.
The Attorney General Merritt Garland said when asked yesterday at
that farcical Senate hearing about this nightmare scenario of the
FBI trying to overrule the Justice Department and thwart the
prosecution of somebody before it could even begin. He added,
(08:45):
and it's encouraged among investigators and prosecutors. I will say
this in passing before I get back to the larger
point about cleaning out this corrupted, preening, dilettantish element in
the bureau. Irrespective of the actual prosecution of Trump and
the special counsels and all that, Merrick Garland is as
(09:08):
useless a public servant as I have ever seen. This
is a man who seeks the middle in a time
in which the middle is exploited day and night twenty
four seven by the far right. When whoever said, and
it was not Edmund Burke that the only thing necessary
(09:28):
for evil to triumph in the world is that good
men do nothing. The good man he meant, was Merrick
Garland fire Merrick Garland and Christopher Ryan do it simultaneously,
or one after the other, or have Garland fire Ray
and then Biden fire Garland. But this bullshit over Trump
has to stop, and it has to stop now. And
(09:51):
if we need an entirely new FBI to make it stop,
so be it. Trump was sitting on top of a
cash of classified documents he had lied about having re
turned all of them. He did try to prevent their return.
He and his lawyers are almost certainly guilty of obstruction
(10:12):
of justice just about the searches, never mind the espionage
and the documents. The FBI agents who tried to slow
walk then stop the investigation were wrong, and the DOJ
Counter Espionage prosecutor J Bratt, who for a time humored them,
was right. So if the agents refusal to do their
(10:33):
jobs is not sufficient grounds for firing them, and if
the agent's attempts to interfere with their boss's decisions about
prosecution is also not sufficient grounds for firing them, And
if the agent's willingness to defer and remain loyal to
Trump is also not sufficient grounds for firing them. The
agents were also all wrong, and certainly that alone is
(10:55):
sufficient grounds for firing them. And where was Dentono's boss
during all this? Where was Christopher Ray? Why he was
on Fox News? Christopher Ray sat down and gave an
exclusive interview to Fox Non News. And he did it
(11:18):
the day after the second tranche of dominion defamation documents
was released, confirming finally and for all time that Fox
News is not merely just a brand name. It is
an oxymoron. It is not a news organization. And the
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the one who
(11:38):
put this Cipher d'antoino in charge of the Washington Field office,
should not have anything to do with Fox Non News.
He just thumbed his nose at every American who knows
the elemental fact Fox oxymoron. Included among the Americans who
know that elemental fact is Joe Biden, and Joe Biden
(12:00):
must fire Chris Ray, and fire him now and now
to Fox. And I'm afraid Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
does not see it and does not get it. Schumer
took to the Senate floory yesterday and said, quote, they
need to stop giving a platform to dangerous and entirely
unfounded conspiracy theories. They need to do that. Schumer's staff
(12:26):
released a copy of a six paragraph letter that he
and the House Minority Leader Akeem Jeffreys wrote to Rupert
and Lachlan Murdoch and their operational heads of Fox Non News,
Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace, and it was addressed direct
lead to Rupert Murdoch. As noted in your deposition released yesterday,
Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, and other Fox News
(12:47):
personalities knowingly repeatedly and dangerously endorsed and promoted the big
lie that Donald Trump won the twenty twenty presidential election.
This sets a dangerous precedent that ignores basic journalistic fact
checking principles and public accountability. They are just down the
street from me here. I can see the Murdocks and
(13:07):
Jay Wallace and Susanne Scott rushing now to google this
weird phrase in there that they had never encountered before
fact checking principles. To continue from the Schumer Jeffreys letter quote,
this is even more alarming after Speaker McCarthy is reportedly
(13:29):
allowing Tucker Carlson to review highly sensitive security camera footage
of the events surrounding the violent January sixth insurrection. We
demand you direct Tucker Carlson, another host on your network,
to stop spreading false election narratives and admit on the
air that they were wrong to engage in such negligent behavior.
Fox News executives and all other hosts on your network
(13:51):
have a clear choice. You can continue a pattern of
lying to your viewers and risking democracy, or move beyond
this damaging chapter in your company's history by siding with
the truth and reporting the fact a senator. That'll do it,
for sure. I'm confident Rupert and Lachlan and Tucker are
(14:12):
quaking in their boots right now a letter. Where are
the subpoenas? Where are the warnings about prosecution of Rupert
Murdoch for giving the Trump campaign an illegal donation in
kind when he let Jared Kushner look at the Joe
(14:33):
Biden commercials during the twenty twenty campaign before anybody else
had seen them. Where's the threat to Murdoch to put
his ninety one year old ass in jail if Carlson
shows or posts a second of the January sixth video.
Where is the request for all the above names first
available dates for a Senate hearing. Fox News executives and
(14:57):
all other hosts on your network have a clear choice.
Lying to your viewers or move beyond this damaging seriously,
Chuck Rupert Murdoch made that choice when his father died
and left him the Adelaide News in Australia in nineteen
fifty two. Rupert Murdoch already destroyed that country and Great Britain,
(15:19):
and he's done more damage to this one than Osama
bin Laden did. A choice, moved beyond this damaging chapter.
What do you mean Damaging News Corp Reported a profit
of one billion, seven hundred million dollars last year. A choice.
I hate to break this to you, Senator Schumer, but
Rupert Murdoch made that choice, and if he had to
(15:40):
make it a million times again, he would choose lying
to his viewers over moving beyond every single goddamned time.
Never mind giving Rupert Murdoch a choice, give him a subpoena,
give him a set of Senate hearings, Give him for
want something to be afraid of, because Senator, the horrors
(16:02):
you correctly describe in your letter to him did not
stop the other day. Tucker Carlson promoted the big lie
last Friday night, and he will do it again, and
they will all do it again. And if you are
not going to use your position of having a majority
in the Senate, you should go too with Christopher Ray
and turn that position over to somebody, anybody who is
(16:24):
willing to actually fight the Rupert Murdochs and the Tucker
Carlson's of this world and the Christopher Rays and the
Stephen Dan Twino's. We need fighters. Instead, we have Merrick
Garland and Chuck Schumer. Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel
like I'm taking crazy pails still ahead of us in
(16:55):
this edition of Countdown. I will give Merrick Garland credit
for something. He not only ruined several of Ted Cruz's
attempts to fashion soundbites for Fox News during that hearing yesterday,
he burned him big time when crews couldn't tell the
difference between a leak and a court filing. Okay, so
apparently I got the personal account of Senator Mike Lee
(17:17):
of Utah briefly suspended yesterday. Ironically, I was trying to
do him a solid and make him look like less
of an idiot than he really is, which is a
big idiot. Mike Lee details ahead, and I need a
break from this stuff, just for the time it takes
me to tell you the story of the day I
met the great actor Walter Mathow and discovered that this
(17:38):
most impersonated of Americans did impersonations of sportscasters, including me.
That's next, This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman,
(18:02):
Moose scripts to the news Larry, some head some updates,
some snarks, some predictions, dateline Twitter. An account called based
Mike Lee was the latest to repeat the Russian disinformation
about Ukrainian President Zelenski. Zelenski said he and his people
are fighting Russia in Ukraine now so that NATO and
America will not have to fight Russia elsewhere and send
(18:25):
its sons and daughters to die there. These Russian asset
accounts have been editing down the SoundBite, so it seems
as if Zelenski was saying America will have to send
its sons and daughters to die in Ukraine. So this
based Mike Lee account, with an avatar of Utah Senator
Mike Lee, repeated this crap twice yesterday, and an acquaintance
(18:47):
of mine, who was the BBC's reporter in Beijing, asked
me if that could really have fooled a sitting US senator,
and I said, not a chance, not even Mike Lee
is that stupid. I also pointed out that the account
was only started in July of last year, and whoever
had started it had paid eight dollars for a Twitter
blue check mark and used that moronic word based in
(19:10):
the handle. So I reported the account on Twitter as
impersonation of a sitting senator because who cares about Mike Lee?
But there really shouldn't be such accounts on Twitter, and
I thought nothing of it, And then at one thirty
two pm, Lee tweets from his official account quote, my
personal Twitter account based Mike Lee has been suspended. Twitter
(19:31):
did not alert me ahead of time, nor have they
yet offered an explanation for the suspension. My team and
I are seeking answers. Well I provided them. I tweeted
I did it, but instead of contacting me, Lee reached
out to the two guys who run Twitter, this guy
Musk and this other guy Cat Turd, And like an
(19:52):
hour later, Musk tweets this personal account was incorrectly flagged
as impersonation, which is not totally crazy since it is based.
I guess that's a joke. Who knows with Musk? But
I did, I got a senator's account it suspended. They
restored based Mike Lee, and Lee is very grateful, and
he's very very stupid staying in the Senate dateline. Washington
(20:16):
has suggested earlier if at his general purpose appearance in
front of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, the only way
Merrick Garland could have said anything less or anything dumber
would have been if he had been a senator himself.
But in the middle of an attempt by Ted Cruise
to create some nice soundbites for Fox News, Garland did
blow Ted Cruise up, which is nice. As you know,
(20:40):
the FBI rated Donald Trump's Smartlago home, and subsequent to
that raid, there have been multiple leaks about what was
discovered there, including a photograph of documents that were discovered there.
Did you know about the leaks? The photograph was a
filing in court in response to a motion filed by
(21:03):
mister Trump. It was not a as the kids say,
boom ahead. The late great actor Walter Matthau, who loved
sports so much he used to gamble on baseball spring
training games. Think about that for a second. He also
loved sports so much he did impressions of sportscasters, including me.
(21:24):
The Story of the Day I met the great star
of the movie The Odd Couple coming up. Thank you,
(21:45):
Nancy Faust before the Walter Matthau storytime for the daily
roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects best
(22:05):
who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The bronze
Congresswoman Lauren Bobert tweeting quote sometimes a meme that it best.
The meme is captioned maps showing the only place my
tax money should go to, And it's an image of Earth,
but with everything except the United States erased, well, everything
(22:28):
except the continental United States. Bobert apparently doesn't want her
tax money going to Alaska or Hawaii or Guam or
anything else not among the forty eight. And if that's
the new rule, I don't want my tax money going
to her district in Colorado, La runner up Congressman Byron
Donalds of Florida, who some are suggesting would be the
(22:49):
Republican nominee to succeed Ronda Santis as governor of Florida.
Problem is Donald's ain't too smart. He has confirmed to
Scott mcfrown of CBS News that he met with the
January sixth defendant, Victoria White. She was free on condition
that she would not return to Washington d C. In
the interim, and then she went to the Capitol to
(23:11):
meet with capital staffers and January sixth defendants and Byron Donalds,
who inside the capitol met with one of the firm
and accused of attacking the capital and trying to overthrow
the government. Byron Donalds was a part of But our
winner Ronda himself, Governor Ronda Santis, the man who wears
(23:33):
those high heeled boots so he doesn't look like the
shrimp he is. Not only did he use the levers
of Florida government to take away Disney's control of the
community in which it built Disney World in the early seventies,
but he's now appointed a board the Central Florida Tourism
Oversight District, to monitor not just what Disney does their
(23:54):
business wise, but what Disney puts in its entertainment products.
The board includes the head of a quote Christian ministry
and the president of the local cell the Federalist Society.
DeSantis has told them to force Disney to stop quote
trying to inject woke ideology. I think all of these
board members very much would like to see the type
(24:15):
of entertainment that all families can appreciate, like governor men
in high heels, Like all fascists, DeSantis has left the
final stage of his scheme to direct every Disney movie
and TV show and maybe espn to chance or God
because he thinks God works for him. DeSantis has left
out Disney's obvious solution here. How much would another community,
(24:39):
something in the Carolinas, I don't know, Louisiana, maybe San Juan.
How much would they give Bob Eiger and Disney to
close the current Disney World in Orlando, Florida and put
up a new disney World in their town, And what
would become economically of Orlando without Disney World. Then Iger
(25:01):
could take all the irreplaceable stuff from the old Disney
World and move it to the new place in San Juan,
and then invite De Santis up to the shell of
the old place in Orlando and let him watch as
Bob Iger burns the remnants to the ground. Supervise this ron. Wait,
(25:21):
my victim won't just stand still while I slap up
at him? To Santis. Two days worst Parsanda and still
(25:42):
ahead on countdown, A break from my trips through the
Fox files to instead tell the story one of the
nicest celebrities, probably the nicest I have ever met. First,
in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in
need you can help. Every dog has its day. Today
it is Magnus, and Magnus was saved from the New
York City Pound by Happy Go Lucky Mastiff Rescue. But
(26:06):
as often happens in that hellscape of the New York Pound,
Magnus caught pneumonia in the pound and is now at
an animal hospital being treated. And while they are hopeful
he will pull through, the expenses are piling up and
the rescue right now is stuck with all of those expenses.
If you can donate, you can find Magnus on my
Twitter feeds, or even just contact the Veterinary Emergency Group
(26:29):
directly at two one two two two two thirty five hundred.
It's two one two two two two thirty five hundred,
and just your retweet today will help him. I thank you,
and Magnus, thanks you. Finally, the number one story on
(27:05):
the Countdown and my favorite topic 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 Mathou, and if he
was not the most popular American comedic actor of the
(27:27):
last half of the twentieth century, he was close to it.
And maybe more importantly, he was the most skilled, minimal
touch American actor of the last half of the twentieth 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 in the screen was not Walter Mathou,
(27:49):
but was Oscar Madison, and was not Walter Mathou, but
was Max Goldman, and was not Walter math Out, but
was Willie Gingrich, and was not Walter math Ou but
was Mel Miller, even though mel Miller had a Southern accent,
smoked a pipe, had horn rimmed glasses, and supposed he
went to Vanderbilt. We all knew Walter Mathou. It felt
(28:09):
like we knew him personally, because he managed to 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 one 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 Mathou's best friends as an adult, where his partner
(28:31):
in half a dozen films, Jack Lemon, and my dear
friend Norman Lloyd, the one man history of Hollywood, who
he lost in twenty twenty one at the age of
one hundred and six. 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
(28:53):
he and Lemon made together, I think it was called
Grumpy Old Men were doing this for the money. Mathou
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 rehost the
water slide thing. This way. We can do it in
(29:14):
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 Mathou 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
(29:36):
of the water slide onto the giant inflatable twelve 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 Mathow,
then seventy three years old, came flying out of the
water slide onto the pavement. He broke his collar bone,
(30:00):
which is just about as painful a thing as you
can break. No, Walter Mathou screamed. Jack Lemon raced over
to him. Walter, Walter, are you all right? No? Not?
Jack called nine one oh oh? Lemon panicked, Can I
help you, Walter? Can I Can I get you something? Walter? Yes, Jack,
get me nine one one oh oh. Lemon continued to panic,
(30:24):
But until they come. Are you okay, Walter? Are you comfortable?
Walter Mathou 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? Oh? Oh?
(30:49):
My friend Norman Lloyd used to go hiking with Walter
Mathou in the Hollywood Hills, and he told me that
one day Walter was unusually quiet. The two had gone
a mile or so when Mathou suddenly stopped and grabbed
Norman by the arm. NORMI did you know at the
end Beetho and was so deaf he thought he was painting.
Norman smiled, snorted, and started to say that it was
(31:10):
the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. But halfway through norman sentence,
Matthou had already turned away from him and was back
walking again. Another mile passed in silence, and now Matthou
slowed down and faced his friend Norman. 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
(31:32):
he thought he was painting? Now Norman just shook his head.
As they completed their five mile hike through the hills,
Mathou 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
(31:53):
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. Mathow 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.
(32:14):
That's the dumbest thing I ever heard, as I said.
I met Walter Mathow 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,
(32:36):
and Walter Mathow will be there, I just asked for directions.
First time I had ever imagined what it was like
to be a sportswriter or to be a sports broadcaster.
It was when I was nine years old and I
saw Walter Mathou 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
(32:58):
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 Mathou recognized this. No, no, no,
(33:19):
I don't hate your work. I watch you every night
on Channel two Action News, you 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,
it's not right, I'm from Brooklyn. Could you tell the
(33:41):
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 quote 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?
(34:04):
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 nineteen ninety one. In nineteen ninety one, Walter
(34:28):
Mathou 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 math Ow You did
your Sammy Davis, you're Howard Cosell. You're Walter Mathou. Wait.
I said to him, you do impressions of sportscasters, Yes,
(34:53):
he said, proudly. Would you like to hear him? I said,
I'll pay cash. I don't normally do these, but seeing
you are in the business, I will just for you.
I practice these a lot. By the way, twenty years later,
Norman Lloyd confirmed for me math Ou did do sportscaster impressions.
(35:13):
He did practice them a lot. This was not some
sort of bit. Now back in nineteen ninety one, math
Ou 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?
It sounded exactly like Walter Mathou. Didn't sound like Vince Scully.
(35:37):
It didn't even sound like a bad impression of Vince Scully.
It didn't even sound like a bad impression of Walter
math Out. It was it was just Walter math Out talking.
Thinking quickly, I said, uncanny, mister math Ou, thank you.
I work on Vinnie especially odd. He's my favorite. Now
the big mouth. Hello again, this is Howard co Sell
at ringside. About that one. I think I got most
(35:59):
of the inflection. Goodness, mister Mathou. It's like he's in
the room with us. This went on for many minutes.
Kurt Goudie, Chickherne Al Michaels, several local LA radio announcers.
I cursed myself for not having brought a tape recorder
with me. Walter Mathou did impressions of sportscasters and they
(36:20):
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,
doctor Robert Curlin, we called it an evening, and as
everybody got up to leave, I asked Walter Mathow to
(36:42):
autograph my program from the dinner my pleasure. He said,
nice work tonight, but I still don't get how you 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 Mathou. It was lovely. And then he did something
(37:06):
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
signed mine. Can you believe that I only met him
the one time, but that gesture stayed with me to
(37:29):
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 first, two thousand. It
was nine years and about two weeks after I met
Walter Mathou and on the all news radio station. There
(37:51):
was one big story that morning in Los Angeles. Overnight
the great actor Walter Mathou had died heart attack, aged
seventy nine. I burst into tears. Thank you for listening.
(38:20):
Countdown has come to you from the studios of the
Olderman Broadcasting Empire, high atop its headquarters in the Sports
Capsule Building here in New York. Here are the credits.
Most of the music was arranged, produced and performed by
Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are the Countdown
musical directors. Produced by t Ko Brothers. All orchestration and
(38:40):
keyboards by John Philip Chanelle, guitarist, bass and drums by
Brian Ray. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed
by No Horns allowed. The sports music is the Alderman
theme from me ESPN two, and it was written by
Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by
Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer
(39:01):
today was Larry David. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
So let's countdown for this, the seven hundred and eighty
sixth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Until then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
(39:23):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
(39:45):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
President of the United States must fire FBI Director Christopher Ray,
(00:25):
and the Senate must hold hearings into Fox News to
see if it can be stopped and if the Murdoch's
citizenships can be revoked. The FBI first, because this is
an immediate, urgent, clear and present danger to the President
and to the democracy itself. There is, without question, a
significant element within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is
(00:49):
loyal not to the United States but to Donald Trump.
And this has been permitted to continue by Director Ray,
and it continues to grow under Director Ray, and if unchecked,
it will grow into something that will interfere with the
indictment of Trump and the prosecution of Trump and the
conviction of Trump. And we know this because it has
(01:11):
already happened, and the director, who turned a blind eye
to it as it happened, a Trump appointee, has to go,
has to be fired by this president right now, regardless
of the blowback. Extraordinary reporting by the Washington Post reveals
that starting last May, the FBI Washington Field office, including
(01:33):
it's now suddenly retired ex chief Stephen d'antoineo tried to
stop the criminal investigation of the hundreds of classified documents
Trump stole, including at least one document to telling the
nuclear capabilities of foreign power, tried to, as the Post
writers phrased it, shut her the criminal investigation altogether. In
early June, after Trump's team asserted a diligent search had
(01:57):
been conducted and all classified records had been turned over.
In short, these FBI agents, who must be identified and dismissed,
were willing to take a criminal suspect's word for it.
And despite the disloyalty of these agents and yet another
FBI bureau gone rogue this abrogation of their duties to
(02:19):
this country, there was something even worse. Again, quoting the Post,
two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of
leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and
proposed instead to seek Trump's permission to search his property.
(02:40):
So the original version from May twenty twenty two of
this planned criminal irresponsibility by the FBI in the Washington Bureau,
under the command of Bureau Director Christopher Ray, a Trump appointee,
was to simply refuse to conduct the search. The Department
of Justice and a judge had signed off on and
insist Trump's word Trump's lie should take precedence over all that,
(03:06):
and then the fallback position was to slow the investigation down.
And the next fallback position after that, a month later,
it was for two senior officials to refuse to execute
the search warrant unless Trump permitted them to enforce the
laws of this country, fire them all, and prosecute them
(03:28):
all where possible. Quoting again, some agents were simply afraid.
They worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or
even end their careers. What you are afraid the suspect
will say mean things about you on social media, so
(03:49):
you propose to prevent his prosecution? Is this a new policy?
Can I go out and steal a billion dollars tonight?
Provided I can make FBI agents fearful that I will
speak badly of them on this podcast quoting the FBI agents.
Caution was also rooted in the fact that mistakes in
prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proven damaging
(04:14):
to the FBI. The Post also writes, and the cases
subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans end quote.
Let me translate that the rogue FBI field office. No,
not the one in Washington. This is the one in
New York. The rogue FBI field office used the threat
of leaks to throw the twenty sixteen election two Trump,
(04:38):
and one of the lead New York agents was just
arrested for working for the Russian who employed Trump's campaign manager.
So naturally the FBI cannot do anything now because it
might damage Trump. The bureau also couldn't handle sustained public
attack from partisans. Seriously, criticism justifiable action, criticism, but still
(05:06):
just criticism was too much for the big g men
to handle. What are you running there, Chris Ray? The
nation's most important investigative force, or a bunch of snowflakes
worried about how many likes their tweets got and to
a larger question. The Post's account describes dialogue and running
(05:30):
arguments four weeks between the Department of Justice and the
senior FBI figures and within the FBI itself. Why was
this permitted? The argument should have gone like this, FBI,
we're the Department of Justice. You work for us and
the people of this country. Do the job, or you
are all fired. That's what the dialogue should have been
(05:54):
the one flaw in fact in the Washington Post reporting
here is to present thousands of words about what reads
like a decahedron of approaches or a kaleidoscopic jumble of
different options and a spectrum of reasonable options being debated.
There was no such spectrum. To use the old joke,
the gamut should have run from A to B. There
(06:17):
are missing classified documents. Trump is a known serial liar,
con man, kleptomaniac. They had tried to resolve this scandal
with him on officially and secretly for one year about
the documents. Trump and his lawyers lied and lied again,
and lied in writing. A search warrant was issued. Go
(06:38):
in and executed, or you're fired. The Post does not
report this, nor anything like this, but there is reason
to believe the FBI actually sort of did this. Soto
voce with this former head of the Milktoast agents working
in the Washington field office. In November, this Stephen d'antoino
(06:58):
went from the plum job running DC too retired. At
a meeting at the FBI in August, d'antuono was quote
adamant the FBI should not do a surprise search d'antuono
said he would agree to lead such a raid only
if he were ordered to. D'antuono also questioned why the
(07:19):
search would target presidential records as well as classified records.
This idiot wanted to call Trump's attorney, Evan Corcoran, and
asked him to let them do a voluntary search without
a warrant. They trusted Corcoran, who represented Steve Bannon. They
(07:39):
trusted Trump. Those they did not trust or did not
trust as much, were their own employers at the Department
of Justice, the judge who issued the search warrant, and
evidently the people who wrote the goddamned Constitution of the
United States of America. Quote. We are not the presidential
records police, d'antuono said, According to people familiar with the
(08:01):
exchange of goddamn right, you're the presidential records police, half wit,
You're the presidential records police, or the whatever police we
tell you to be, whatever the law tells you to be.
Jesus Christ, is there no way to recall this coward
d'antoino back from retirement so we can fire him and
take away his pension. You want money later in life, sir,
(08:23):
get it from Trump. There is often a robust discussion.
The Attorney General Merritt Garland said when asked yesterday at
that farcical Senate hearing about this nightmare scenario of the
FBI trying to overrule the Justice Department and thwart the
prosecution of somebody before it could even begin. He added,
(08:45):
and it's encouraged among investigators and prosecutors. I will say
this in passing before I get back to the larger
point about cleaning out this corrupted, preening, dilettantish element in
the bureau. Irrespective of the actual prosecution of Trump and
the special counsels and all that, Merrick Garland is as
(09:08):
useless a public servant as I have ever seen. This
is a man who seeks the middle in a time
in which the middle is exploited day and night twenty
four seven by the far right. When whoever said, and
it was not Edmund Burke that the only thing necessary
(09:28):
for evil to triumph in the world is that good
men do nothing. The good man he meant, was Merrick
Garland fire Merrick Garland and Christopher Ryan do it simultaneously,
or one after the other, or have Garland fire Ray
and then Biden fire Garland. But this bullshit over Trump
has to stop, and it has to stop now. And
(09:51):
if we need an entirely new FBI to make it stop,
so be it. Trump was sitting on top of a
cash of classified documents he had lied about having re
turned all of them. He did try to prevent their return.
He and his lawyers are almost certainly guilty of obstruction
(10:12):
of justice just about the searches, never mind the espionage
and the documents. The FBI agents who tried to slow
walk then stop the investigation were wrong, and the DOJ
Counter Espionage prosecutor J Bratt, who for a time humored them,
was right. So if the agents refusal to do their
(10:33):
jobs is not sufficient grounds for firing them, and if
the agent's attempts to interfere with their boss's decisions about
prosecution is also not sufficient grounds for firing them, And
if the agent's willingness to defer and remain loyal to
Trump is also not sufficient grounds for firing them. The
agents were also all wrong, and certainly that alone is
(10:55):
sufficient grounds for firing them. And where was Dentono's boss
during all this? Where was Christopher Ray? Why he was
on Fox News? Christopher Ray sat down and gave an
exclusive interview to Fox Non News. And he did it
(11:18):
the day after the second tranche of dominion defamation documents
was released, confirming finally and for all time that Fox
News is not merely just a brand name. It is
an oxymoron. It is not a news organization. And the
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the one who
(11:38):
put this Cipher d'antoino in charge of the Washington Field office,
should not have anything to do with Fox Non News.
He just thumbed his nose at every American who knows
the elemental fact Fox oxymoron. Included among the Americans who
know that elemental fact is Joe Biden, and Joe Biden
(12:00):
must fire Chris Ray, and fire him now and now
to Fox. And I'm afraid Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
does not see it and does not get it. Schumer
took to the Senate floory yesterday and said, quote, they
need to stop giving a platform to dangerous and entirely
unfounded conspiracy theories. They need to do that. Schumer's staff
(12:26):
released a copy of a six paragraph letter that he
and the House Minority Leader Akeem Jeffreys wrote to Rupert
and Lachlan Murdoch and their operational heads of Fox Non News,
Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace, and it was addressed direct
lead to Rupert Murdoch. As noted in your deposition released yesterday,
Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, and other Fox News
(12:47):
personalities knowingly repeatedly and dangerously endorsed and promoted the big
lie that Donald Trump won the twenty twenty presidential election.
This sets a dangerous precedent that ignores basic journalistic fact
checking principles and public accountability. They are just down the
street from me here. I can see the Murdocks and
(13:07):
Jay Wallace and Susanne Scott rushing now to google this
weird phrase in there that they had never encountered before
fact checking principles. To continue from the Schumer Jeffreys letter quote,
this is even more alarming after Speaker McCarthy is reportedly
(13:29):
allowing Tucker Carlson to review highly sensitive security camera footage
of the events surrounding the violent January sixth insurrection. We
demand you direct Tucker Carlson, another host on your network,
to stop spreading false election narratives and admit on the
air that they were wrong to engage in such negligent behavior.
Fox News executives and all other hosts on your network
(13:51):
have a clear choice. You can continue a pattern of
lying to your viewers and risking democracy, or move beyond
this damaging chapter in your company's history by siding with
the truth and reporting the fact a senator. That'll do it,
for sure. I'm confident Rupert and Lachlan and Tucker are
(14:12):
quaking in their boots right now a letter. Where are
the subpoenas? Where are the warnings about prosecution of Rupert
Murdoch for giving the Trump campaign an illegal donation in
kind when he let Jared Kushner look at the Joe
(14:33):
Biden commercials during the twenty twenty campaign before anybody else
had seen them. Where's the threat to Murdoch to put
his ninety one year old ass in jail if Carlson
shows or posts a second of the January sixth video.
Where is the request for all the above names first
available dates for a Senate hearing. Fox News executives and
(14:57):
all other hosts on your network have a clear choice.
Lying to your viewers or move beyond this damaging seriously,
Chuck Rupert Murdoch made that choice when his father died
and left him the Adelaide News in Australia in nineteen
fifty two. Rupert Murdoch already destroyed that country and Great Britain,
(15:19):
and he's done more damage to this one than Osama
bin Laden did. A choice, moved beyond this damaging chapter.
What do you mean Damaging News Corp Reported a profit
of one billion, seven hundred million dollars last year. A choice.
I hate to break this to you, Senator Schumer, but
Rupert Murdoch made that choice, and if he had to
(15:40):
make it a million times again, he would choose lying
to his viewers over moving beyond every single goddamned time.
Never mind giving Rupert Murdoch a choice, give him a subpoena,
give him a set of Senate hearings, Give him for
want something to be afraid of, because Senator, the horrors
(16:02):
you correctly describe in your letter to him did not
stop the other day. Tucker Carlson promoted the big lie
last Friday night, and he will do it again, and
they will all do it again. And if you are
not going to use your position of having a majority
in the Senate, you should go too with Christopher Ray
and turn that position over to somebody, anybody who is
(16:24):
willing to actually fight the Rupert Murdochs and the Tucker
Carlson's of this world and the Christopher Rays and the
Stephen Dan Twino's. We need fighters. Instead, we have Merrick
Garland and Chuck Schumer. Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel
like I'm taking crazy pails still ahead of us in
(16:55):
this edition of Countdown. I will give Merrick Garland credit
for something. He not only ruined several of Ted Cruz's
attempts to fashion soundbites for Fox News during that hearing yesterday,
he burned him big time when crews couldn't tell the
difference between a leak and a court filing. Okay, so
apparently I got the personal account of Senator Mike Lee
(17:17):
of Utah briefly suspended yesterday. Ironically, I was trying to
do him a solid and make him look like less
of an idiot than he really is, which is a
big idiot. Mike Lee details ahead, and I need a
break from this stuff, just for the time it takes
me to tell you the story of the day I
met the great actor Walter Mathow and discovered that this
(17:38):
most impersonated of Americans did impersonations of sportscasters, including me.
That's next, This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman,
(18:02):
Moose scripts to the news Larry, some head some updates,
some snarks, some predictions, dateline Twitter. An account called based
Mike Lee was the latest to repeat the Russian disinformation
about Ukrainian President Zelenski. Zelenski said he and his people
are fighting Russia in Ukraine now so that NATO and
America will not have to fight Russia elsewhere and send
(18:25):
its sons and daughters to die there. These Russian asset
accounts have been editing down the SoundBite, so it seems
as if Zelenski was saying America will have to send
its sons and daughters to die in Ukraine. So this
based Mike Lee account, with an avatar of Utah Senator
Mike Lee, repeated this crap twice yesterday, and an acquaintance
(18:47):
of mine, who was the BBC's reporter in Beijing, asked
me if that could really have fooled a sitting US senator,
and I said, not a chance, not even Mike Lee
is that stupid. I also pointed out that the account
was only started in July of last year, and whoever
had started it had paid eight dollars for a Twitter
blue check mark and used that moronic word based in
(19:10):
the handle. So I reported the account on Twitter as
impersonation of a sitting senator because who cares about Mike Lee?
But there really shouldn't be such accounts on Twitter, and
I thought nothing of it, And then at one thirty
two pm, Lee tweets from his official account quote, my
personal Twitter account based Mike Lee has been suspended. Twitter
(19:31):
did not alert me ahead of time, nor have they
yet offered an explanation for the suspension. My team and
I are seeking answers. Well I provided them. I tweeted
I did it, but instead of contacting me, Lee reached
out to the two guys who run Twitter, this guy
Musk and this other guy Cat Turd, And like an
(19:52):
hour later, Musk tweets this personal account was incorrectly flagged
as impersonation, which is not totally crazy since it is based.
I guess that's a joke. Who knows with Musk? But
I did, I got a senator's account it suspended. They
restored based Mike Lee, and Lee is very grateful, and
he's very very stupid staying in the Senate dateline. Washington
(20:16):
has suggested earlier if at his general purpose appearance in
front of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, the only way
Merrick Garland could have said anything less or anything dumber
would have been if he had been a senator himself.
But in the middle of an attempt by Ted Cruise
to create some nice soundbites for Fox News, Garland did
blow Ted Cruise up, which is nice. As you know,
(20:40):
the FBI rated Donald Trump's Smartlago home, and subsequent to
that raid, there have been multiple leaks about what was
discovered there, including a photograph of documents that were discovered there.
Did you know about the leaks? The photograph was a
filing in court in response to a motion filed by
(21:03):
mister Trump. It was not a as the kids say,
boom ahead. The late great actor Walter Matthau, who loved
sports so much he used to gamble on baseball spring
training games. Think about that for a second. He also
loved sports so much he did impressions of sportscasters, including me.
(21:24):
The Story of the Day I met the great star
of the movie The Odd Couple coming up. Thank you,
(21:45):
Nancy Faust before the Walter Matthau storytime for the daily
roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects best
(22:05):
who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The bronze
Congresswoman Lauren Bobert tweeting quote sometimes a meme that it best.
The meme is captioned maps showing the only place my
tax money should go to, And it's an image of Earth,
but with everything except the United States erased, well, everything
(22:28):
except the continental United States. Bobert apparently doesn't want her
tax money going to Alaska or Hawaii or Guam or
anything else not among the forty eight. And if that's
the new rule, I don't want my tax money going
to her district in Colorado, La runner up Congressman Byron
Donalds of Florida, who some are suggesting would be the
(22:49):
Republican nominee to succeed Ronda Santis as governor of Florida.
Problem is Donald's ain't too smart. He has confirmed to
Scott mcfrown of CBS News that he met with the
January sixth defendant, Victoria White. She was free on condition
that she would not return to Washington d C. In
the interim, and then she went to the Capitol to
(23:11):
meet with capital staffers and January sixth defendants and Byron Donalds,
who inside the capitol met with one of the firm
and accused of attacking the capital and trying to overthrow
the government. Byron Donalds was a part of But our
winner Ronda himself, Governor Ronda Santis, the man who wears
(23:33):
those high heeled boots so he doesn't look like the
shrimp he is. Not only did he use the levers
of Florida government to take away Disney's control of the
community in which it built Disney World in the early seventies,
but he's now appointed a board the Central Florida Tourism
Oversight District, to monitor not just what Disney does their
(23:54):
business wise, but what Disney puts in its entertainment products.
The board includes the head of a quote Christian ministry
and the president of the local cell the Federalist Society.
DeSantis has told them to force Disney to stop quote
trying to inject woke ideology. I think all of these
board members very much would like to see the type
(24:15):
of entertainment that all families can appreciate, like governor men
in high heels, Like all fascists, DeSantis has left the
final stage of his scheme to direct every Disney movie
and TV show and maybe espn to chance or God
because he thinks God works for him. DeSantis has left
out Disney's obvious solution here. How much would another community,
(24:39):
something in the Carolinas, I don't know, Louisiana, maybe San Juan.
How much would they give Bob Eiger and Disney to
close the current Disney World in Orlando, Florida and put
up a new disney World in their town, And what
would become economically of Orlando without Disney World. Then Iger
(25:01):
could take all the irreplaceable stuff from the old Disney
World and move it to the new place in San Juan,
and then invite De Santis up to the shell of
the old place in Orlando and let him watch as
Bob Iger burns the remnants to the ground. Supervise this ron. Wait,
(25:21):
my victim won't just stand still while I slap up
at him? To Santis. Two days worst Parsanda and still
(25:42):
ahead on countdown, A break from my trips through the
Fox files to instead tell the story one of the
nicest celebrities, probably the nicest I have ever met. First,
in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in
need you can help. Every dog has its day. Today
it is Magnus, and Magnus was saved from the New
York City Pound by Happy Go Lucky Mastiff Rescue. But
(26:06):
as often happens in that hellscape of the New York Pound,
Magnus caught pneumonia in the pound and is now at
an animal hospital being treated. And while they are hopeful
he will pull through, the expenses are piling up and
the rescue right now is stuck with all of those expenses.
If you can donate, you can find Magnus on my
Twitter feeds, or even just contact the Veterinary Emergency Group
(26:29):
directly at two one two two two two thirty five hundred.
It's two one two two two two thirty five hundred,
and just your retweet today will help him. I thank you,
and Magnus, thanks you. Finally, the number one story on
(27:05):
the Countdown and my favorite topic 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 Mathou, and if he
was not the most popular American comedic actor of the
(27:27):
last half of the twentieth century, he was close to it.
And maybe more importantly, he was the most skilled, minimal
touch American actor of the last half of the twentieth 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 in the screen was not Walter Mathou,
(27:49):
but was Oscar Madison, and was not Walter Mathou, but
was Max Goldman, and was not Walter math Out, but
was Willie Gingrich, and was not Walter math Ou but
was Mel Miller, even though mel Miller had a Southern accent,
smoked a pipe, had horn rimmed glasses, and supposed he
went to Vanderbilt. We all knew Walter Mathou. It felt
(28:09):
like we knew him personally, because he managed to 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 one 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 Mathou's best friends as an adult, where his partner
(28:31):
in half a dozen films, Jack Lemon, and my dear
friend Norman Lloyd, the one man history of Hollywood, who
he lost in twenty twenty one at the age of
one hundred and six. 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
(28:53):
he and Lemon made together, I think it was called
Grumpy Old Men were doing this for the money. Mathou
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 rehost the
water slide thing. This way. We can do it in
(29:14):
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 Mathou 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
(29:36):
of the water slide onto the giant inflatable twelve 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 Mathow,
then seventy three years old, came flying out of the
water slide onto the pavement. He broke his collar bone,
(30:00):
which is just about as painful a thing as you
can break. No, Walter Mathou screamed. Jack Lemon raced over
to him. Walter, Walter, are you all right? No? Not?
Jack called nine one oh oh? Lemon panicked, Can I
help you, Walter? Can I Can I get you something? Walter? Yes, Jack,
get me nine one one oh oh. Lemon continued to panic,
(30:24):
But until they come. Are you okay, Walter? Are you comfortable?
Walter Mathou 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? Oh? Oh?
(30:49):
My friend Norman Lloyd used to go hiking with Walter
Mathou in the Hollywood Hills, and he told me that
one day Walter was unusually quiet. The two had gone
a mile or so when Mathou suddenly stopped and grabbed
Norman by the arm. NORMI did you know at the
end Beetho and was so deaf he thought he was painting.
Norman smiled, snorted, and started to say that it was
(31:10):
the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. But halfway through norman sentence,
Matthou had already turned away from him and was back
walking again. Another mile passed in silence, and now Matthou
slowed down and faced his friend Norman. 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
(31:32):
he thought he was painting? Now Norman just shook his head.
As they completed their five mile hike through the hills,
Mathou 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
(31:53):
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. Mathow 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.
(32:14):
That's the dumbest thing I ever heard, as I said.
I met Walter Mathow 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,
(32:36):
and Walter Mathow will be there, I just asked for directions.
First time I had ever imagined what it was like
to be a sportswriter or to be a sports broadcaster.
It was when I was nine years old and I
saw Walter Mathou 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
(32:58):
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 Mathou recognized this. No, no, no,
(33:19):
I don't hate your work. I watch you every night
on Channel two Action News, you 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,
it's not right, I'm from Brooklyn. Could you tell the
(33:41):
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 quote 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?
(34:04):
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 nineteen ninety one. In nineteen ninety one, Walter
(34:28):
Mathou 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 math Ow You did
your Sammy Davis, you're Howard Cosell. You're Walter Mathou. Wait.
I said to him, you do impressions of sportscasters, Yes,
(34:53):
he said, proudly. Would you like to hear him? I said,
I'll pay cash. I don't normally do these, but seeing
you are in the business, I will just for you.
I practice these a lot. By the way, twenty years later,
Norman Lloyd confirmed for me math Ou did do sportscaster impressions.
(35:13):
He did practice them a lot. This was not some
sort of bit. Now back in nineteen ninety one, math
Ou 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?
It sounded exactly like Walter Mathou. Didn't sound like Vince Scully.
(35:37):
It didn't even sound like a bad impression of Vince Scully.
It didn't even sound like a bad impression of Walter
math Out. It was it was just Walter math Out talking.
Thinking quickly, I said, uncanny, mister math Ou, thank you.
I work on Vinnie especially odd. He's my favorite. Now
the big mouth. Hello again, this is Howard co Sell
at ringside. About that one. I think I got most
(35:59):
of the inflection. Goodness, mister Mathou. It's like he's in
the room with us. This went on for many minutes.
Kurt Goudie, Chickherne Al Michaels, several local LA radio announcers.
I cursed myself for not having brought a tape recorder
with me. Walter Mathou did impressions of sportscasters and they
(36:20):
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,
doctor Robert Curlin, we called it an evening, and as
everybody got up to leave, I asked Walter Mathow to
(36:42):
autograph my program from the dinner my pleasure. He said,
nice work tonight, but I still don't get how you 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 Mathou. It was lovely. And then he did something
(37:06):
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
signed mine. Can you believe that I only met him
the one time, but that gesture stayed with me to
(37:29):
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 first, two thousand. It
was nine years and about two weeks after I met
Walter Mathou and on the all news radio station. There
(37:51):
was one big story that morning in Los Angeles. Overnight
the great actor Walter Mathou had died heart attack, aged
seventy nine. I burst into tears. Thank you for listening.
(38:20):
Countdown has come to you from the studios of the
Olderman Broadcasting Empire, high atop its headquarters in the Sports
Capsule Building here in New York. Here are the credits.
Most of the music was arranged, produced and performed by
Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are the Countdown
musical directors. Produced by t Ko Brothers. All orchestration and
(38:40):
keyboards by John Philip Chanelle, guitarist, bass and drums by
Brian Ray. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed
by No Horns allowed. The sports music is the Alderman
theme from me ESPN two, and it was written by
Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by
Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer
(39:01):
today was Larry David. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
So let's countdown for this, the seven hundred and eighty
sixth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Until then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
(39:23):
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
(39:45):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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