October 16, 2024 • 53 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 50: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is now Day Three of Trump’s Fugue State Crisis – from Monday night at Oaks, Pennsylvania when Trump abruptly STOPPED the town hall inexplicably and began to slur and behave bizarrely, through his announcement that Kamala Harris is physically disqualified from being president because she has hay fever through his cancelling of a softball interview on CNBC the same day she was to be interviewed on Fox, to the question from the Economic Club of Chicago about whether or not google should be broken up which he answered by talking about voting in Virginia.
A survivor of and expert on cults, Matthew Remski, has a different idea. What happened in Pennsylvania "echoes MANY instances of cultic leaders who, exhausted, ill, and at the end of their cognitive rope, outsource their emotional dominance subroutines to canned music they personally find exquisitely sentimental... The leader of the group I was in for 3 years maintained a Trump-campaign-like schedule of daily 2-hour sermons. Over the years he increasingly relied on his DJ to fill the room with emotional overwhelm whenever he gapped out. He was 78 too. He air-conducted the tunes. He had a shrinking repertoire of melted talking points. But because there was never any substance to his schtick, he didn't struggle to remember details that were slipping away. He just turned to the music."
B-Block (21:45) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Though The Washington Post noted this alarming change in Trump with real words and realer headlines, some of the key people along the tattered broken remains of some of the key guard-rails, are still sane-washing it. The New York Times: “Trump Bobs His Head To Music for 30 Minutes in Odd Town Hall Detour. After multiple interruptions, Trump cut off questions and seemed to decide that it would be more enjoyable for all concerned – and it appeared, for himself – if he fired up his campaign playlist.”
Joseph Kahn, executive editor of the New York Times, has been interviewed at length by Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio. The result is almost as disturbing as Trump playing the hits from that radio station that broadcasts only in his own mind. I’m going to read a lot of it, verbatim, because Joe Kahn is almost as detached from reality as Donald Trump.
C-Block (43:45) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Russell Brand will sell you a $240 amulet to protect you from negative forces. Like Russell Brand? The report of a state poll that's 51-50 Trump ("do the math"). And just when you thought it was quieting down, the Olivia Nuzzi/Ryan Lizza/Robert F. Kennedy Jr scandal roars back to life as Lizza answers my ex's lawsuit against him by claiming she told him RFK wanted to "possess and impregnate her." Via FaceTime? That'd be some accomplishment! I'll have the details, if I can stop laughing long enough
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
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. It
is now day three of Trump's fugue State crisis from
(00:27):
Monday night at Oaks, Pennsylvania, when Trump abruptly stopped the
town hall inexplicably and began to slur and behave bizarrely
through his announcement that Kamala Harris is physically disqualified from
being president because she has hay fever, through his canceling
of a softball interview on CNBC the same day she
was to be interviewed by Fox to the question from
(00:49):
the Economic Club of Chicago about whether or not Google
should be broken up, which he answered by talking about
voting in Georgia. Day three of this and we still
have no official explanation for the series of episodes in
which Trump has seemed to recede from reality, though there
is an amazingly disturbing suggestion from an expert on cults
(01:13):
himself a cult survivor, who says, this is what cult
leaders do when they run out, when their repertoire shrinks
and their talking points melt. That explanation in a moment,
and the media reaction and non reaction and the one
news outlet that did not sainwash the start of the
(01:36):
Fugue state crisis, but first the start of the fugue
state crisis. As two people in the crowd fainted. Trump
cut off his town hall after four questions and then
stood there on stage for thirty nine minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Let's not do any more questions, Let's just listen to music.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Let's make it into it for music. Judah Hell wants
to hear questions. Music mixed number seven million went on
for thirty nine minutes. Thirty nine minutes, thirty nine minutes
of him standing there as music that he selected played,
(02:18):
music ranging from time to Say Goodbye to Nothing Compares
to You, to Ave Maria to Ymca to Elvis singing Dixer,
Thank you, thank you very much. The thirty nine missteps
for you, Hitchcock fans. Even the Washington Post noticed its
(02:40):
headline made its own headlines. Trump sways and bops to
music for thirty nine minutes in bizarre town hall episode.
Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump seventy eight unstable
and questioned his mental acuity. The Post used real words
and phrases like meandering, almost as if he were taking
(03:02):
a trip back to decades past, and it repeated bizarre
and bopped and presumably most odious to Trump. The post
said he quote stood on stage in his oversize suit. Ooh.
The Post, though, was alone in refusing to sainwash whatever
(03:25):
malfunctioned inside Trump, and by the way, continued to malfunction
in a series of posts later Monday night and throughout
the day. On Tuesday, Trump bobs his head to music
for thirty minutes in odd town hall detour The New
York Times. Of course, after multiple interruptions, Trump cut off
questions and seemed to decide that it would be more
(03:45):
enjoyable for all concerned, and it appeared for himself if
he fired up his campaign playlist. The Times can read
Trump's mind about how he seemed to decide and how
it appeared for himself that it would be better to
play music in the middle of a campaign event, but
it could never say something like it seemed an appear
he was lying through his effing teeth. Trump's Pennsylvania town
(04:10):
hall turns into impromptu concert after medical incidents. The headline
in the Associated Press turns into as if it were
transformed by magical potions from Harry Potter. Medical incidents, as
if Trump didn't clearly have one a day and the
(04:33):
worst of them all. Trump turned a town hall event
in front of supporters in Pennsylvania, wrote NBC News, into
an impromptu listening party Monday night. Somebody who did not
sinewash this listening party, my ass, was the Vice President
of the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
His staff won't let him do a sixty minutes interview.
Every president for the last half century has done on
anyone who's running for president. Everyone has done it except
Donald Trump. He will not debate me again. I put
out my medical records. He won't put out his medical records.
And you have to ask why is his staff doing that?
(05:16):
And it may be because they think he's just not
ready and unfit and unstable and should not have that
level of transparency for the American people.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
A man named Matthew Ramsky shook up the yoga world
five years ago with articles and a book called Practice
and All Is Coming, Abuse, Cult, Dynamics and Healing in
Yoga and Beyond about so called gurus turning yoga groups
into conspiracy riddled cults filled with sexual abuse. The Vice
(05:49):
President may have seen instability. The Washington Post may have
seen bizarre meandering, mister Ramsky saw something else, and it
was more familiar and more frightening to him. And I
quote him in full from Twitter X quote Trump surrendering
the Q and A to thirty minutes of his fave
songs while standing on stage awkwardly conducting at times echoes
(06:10):
many instances of cultic leaders who exhausted, ill and at
the end of their cognitive rope, outsource their emotional dominance
subroutines to canned music they personally find exquisitely sentimental. He continues,
as traumatized narcissists, they are seeking comfort and avoiding work,
(06:33):
but also assume that their core memories of pleasure will
make their power and soul transparent and accessible to their followers. Yes,
it's weird. No, the campaign gives no explanation because the
logic is a sealed system. Believers lose themselves in the choruses.
Handlers know there's nothing they can do but keep him
(06:55):
propped up. Christine Nome knows her inner circle status depends
on staying bright eyed. Mister Ramsky continues, The leader of
the group I was in for three years maintained a
Trump campaign like schedule of daily two hour sermons. Over
the years, he increasingly relied on his DJA to fill
(07:17):
the room with emotional overwhelm. Whenever he gapped out he
was seventy eight to two, he air conducted the tunes.
He had a shrinking repertoire of melted talking points. But
because there was never any substance to his stick, he
didn't struggle to remember details that were slipping away. He
just turned to the music. All he had ever done
(07:39):
was generated a mood. Then he died of a stroke.
It may be helpful he continues to keep in mind
for Trump followers, the default to pure emotionality can be
effective right up until the end. For some, the intensity
of their bond might increase because for them, as for him,
(08:00):
the affect was the point they weren't there for the platform.
There are people in the crowd who are uncomfortable, or
who can recognize the signs, or get bored and leave early.
But for those really caught up, that thirty minutes of
music and reverie might feel like the most direct and
intimate contact they've ever had with him. Geez, So when
(08:25):
you and I have thrown around the now familiar phrase
it's a cult, we may have been saying more than
we could have possibly known. Mister Ramsky also agreed that
whatever began on Monday night appears to have been touched
off when two attendees fainted in the warm close room.
A respondent to his thread noted that the last thing
(08:46):
someone like Trump tolerates is other people suffering. That two
people fell ill and cause his rally to be interrupted
was an intolerable affront to his being the only one.
He reacted to that with an extended primitive basking in
the wonder of him unquote, to which Ramsky replied on point,
(09:10):
So what began Monday night and continues at this hour?
Did Trump choose this or was it something else? Could
it have been a true psychiatric episode what the experts
are now calling dissociative fugue. If you've seen this or
heard about fugue fugue states dissociative fugue, dissociative episodes, it's
(09:30):
probably from a film or on television, most notably in
an episode of the old series Breaking Bad. It is
an event in which whatever binds us to the world,
even just our own world, loosens a bit or sometimes
breaks completely. Sufferers often just wander off physically or just metaphorically,
(09:51):
leave their homes and wind up hundreds thousands of miles
away with no idea how they got there. While in
the fugue state, they can't remember who they are, or
at least they can't fully remember that. They may not
know where they are or where they have been, but
they can do ordinary things like drive a car somewhere
without getting into an accident, or appreciate the breeze as
(10:14):
they wait for an uber. I have seen this happen
to someone close to me, and it is terrifying. And
it is not voluntary, and it is often followed by
an absolute refusal by the victim to acknowledge that it
was at all important, or by their making a rush
(10:35):
to find an excuse like I was impaired by drink
or drugs or illness, even if there was no drink
or drugs or illness, and Trump either entered into that
Monday night or into that end. Stage cult leader Meltdown
Matthew Ramsky described from his first hand experience with that
(10:56):
what may be the most frightening part here is that
when you abruptly end your campaign event, start a thirty
nine minute wobble on stage accompanied by shenade O'Connor go
into a kind of dictator waltz. And that's not the
most unstable thing you will do in the next twenty
four hour span. You are in real trouble, because within
(11:17):
a few hours, Trump went to his only true home,
his phone, and attacked Vice President Harris for refusing to
do interviews, even though she had just loudly agreed to
the sit down with Brett Baar on Fox News. But
Trump also attacked Harris for releasing her medical records and
(11:38):
for Harris asking why Trump had not released his, He
said he had and he's too busy anyway. I've put
out more medical exams than any other president in history,
flatly numerically untrue, and aced two cognitive exams. The doctor
stated that my cognitive exams were exceptional. I am far
(12:01):
healthier than Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, but especially Kamala. Also,
I am far too busy campaigning to take time from
the twenty two days left, as I am using every
hour of every day campaigning because we've got to take
our country twelve forty two am. I am far too
busy campaigning to take time from the twenty two days left,
(12:22):
as I am using every hour of every day campaigning,
but first the begs most disturbingly of all in this
part of the Crazy Time. Trump then said Harris is
physically disqualified from serving as president because her medical report,
(12:43):
which she released when he would not release his, shows
she suffers from erticaria, allergic rhinitis, and allergic conjunctive bitis.
Erdicaria is hives. Allergic rhinitis is hay fever. Allergic conjunctivitis
is allergy gees making your eyes itch. According to her
(13:08):
doctor's report, she suffers from urticaria, defined as a rash
of round, red welts on the skin that itch intensely,
sometimes with dangerous swelling. She also has allergic rhinitis and
allergic conjunctivitis, a very messy and dangerous situation. These are
deeply serious conditions that clearly impact her functioning. Maybe that
is why she can't answer even the simplest of questions
(13:29):
asked by sixty Minutes and others, what is this all about?
I don't have these problems. Urticaria is hives. Allergic rhinitis
is hay fever. Allergic conjunctivitis is allergies making your eyes itch.
You bastard. Trump either thinks or expects he can get
(13:51):
everybody else to think that these commonplace, everyday annoyances are fatal.
And then we moved to Chicago yesterday. Where to start.
He's close to winning, or at least being ahead in Michigan,
so he trashed Detroit. The Bloomberg British guy moderating the
(14:14):
event asks about Google. He answers about Georgia. Oh no,
I know where to start. Trump is pressed about talking
to Putin after he left office that report from last week,
and Trump gives the OJ Simpson Memorial answer, if I
did it?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Can you say yes or no whether you have talked
to Vladimir Putin since you stopped being president.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, I don't come into that, but I will tell
you that if I did, it's a smart thing. If
I'm friendly with people, If I have a relationship with people,
that's a good thing. Not a bit I think in
terms of a country.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Should Google be breaking up?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I just haven't gotten over something the Justice Department did
yesterday where Virginia cleaned up its voter rolls and got
rid of thousands and thousands of bad votes, and the
Justice Apartment sued them that they should be allowed to
put those mad votes and illegal votes back in and
(15:11):
let the people vote. So I haven't I haven't gotten
I haven't gotten over that. A lot of people have
seen that. They can't even believe that.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
The question is about Google preston Trump.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
If everything works out, if everybody gets out and votes
on January fifth.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Y, yes, Please Trump voters, if you're voting for Trump,
don't forget to vote for Trump on January fifth. January fifth.
If you need a lyft on January fifth, call me all.
This is nothing new. It is, in fact, so part
of the Trump baseline that to say he is acting
(15:45):
abnormally and bizarrely, even for him, even that's been reduced
to white noise. But even by that measure, this is
accelerating and dangerous. Because Trump may think, hey, fever, hives
and itchy eyes are fatal. Nobody thinks Trump's dissociative fugue
or late stage narcissistic collapse is fatal. Less it makes
(16:05):
him decide he can fly, or unless it is a
fore warning something actually going physically wrong inside his head. Well,
I hate to put it this way, but all that
is his problem. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, it
can easily be fatal, because this man, in this condition,
he could easily kill us all. And as noted before,
(16:33):
some of the key people along the tattered, broken remains
of some of our key guard rails are still sane
washing him. Joseph Khan, executive editor of The New York Times,
has been interviewed at length by Steve Inskeep of National
Public Radio. The result is almost as disturbing as Trump
(16:53):
playing the hits, playing the hits from that radio station
that broadcasts only inside his own mind. I'm going to
read a lot of the transcript of this interview verbatim
because jo Con is almost as detached from reality as
is Donald Trump. And unfortunately, jo Con is supposed to
(17:14):
be on our side. And when I say our side,
I mean on the side of defending democracy and opposing dictatorship.
I think we can ask that much of the New
York Times, mister Cohn does not understand anything of this,
as you will hear. That's next. This is oh oh
oh yeah. Newsy allegedly says RFK Junior wanted to possess
(17:40):
and impregnate her. Well, who doesn't. And this report is
from the Wall Street Journal. That's next. This is an
all new edition of Countdown, if I can stop horse
laughing first crowing, A pleasure to have you here, thank you.
(18:03):
This is the best news show. However, I toilet to
one of your producers, and I want you to know
that I've seen them all and it's just for especially
the first thirty five minutes. Thank you, it's just just unparalleled.
I got bad news between you and I. We got
six minutes to completely strow that in the back. Yet
that's good. Still ahead of us on this all new
(18:29):
edition of Countdown. Worst person? So what do you like? Worst?
The poll that has Trump up fifty one to fifty huh?
Or or my ex Olivia saying RFK Junior wanted to
impregnate her. According to the Wall Street Journal first postscripts
(18:51):
to the News Dateline, New York. Sometimes stuff happens and
you say, no, he can't be that stupid, he can't
be that naive, he can't be that disconnected Trump. Now,
I mean the editor of the New York Times. His
(19:12):
name is Joe Kahn, and Joe con did a lengthy
interview with Steve Enscape of NPR. And I don't normally
read transcripts of interviews, but it's not like I can
just play the whole interview. I mean, there are still
copyrights in this country. And the thing is the relevant
parts of that interview, the parts about how the Times
has drifted off to c and is headed towards Iceberg's
(19:34):
but everybody on board thinks they're still tied up at
Peer eighty three at forty second Street on the Hudson.
They're so startling. I kind of have to read it
and try to translate as we go along. So it
starts with the NPR guy in skeep noting that nobody
would have ever believed The Times would be under such
assault from the left, and Joe con says, and I'll
(19:58):
interrupt him when necessary. Quote. I struggle with it often
because the left has really high expectations of the New
York Time. I think some of them honestly distorted. There's
a desire to see one of the leading journalistic institutions
in American life be a full throated supporter of the
view that many on the left have, which is that
Donald Trump is an existential threat to our society and
(20:20):
that all of the New York Times coverage should be
uniform in emphasizing that point day in and day out,
how did you feel about Hitler? Well, we know how
the Times felt about Hitler. They downplayed the threat of
Hitler too until it was too late. Because this idea
of never taking an opinion, never ever deciding whether or
(20:41):
not it's actually raining, but deferring to some expert somewhere
who has his head out the window and is going,
I'm wet it's raining. We can quote him. That has
been part and parcel of this operation, but it's never
had to deal with this society being in jeopardy before.
And Joe con does not see the difference. If you
go back and look at how the New York Times
(21:02):
covered the Civil War, there was no question they agreed
that the South was an existential threat to our society
and that people were dying, and that Times coverage should
be uniform in emphasizing that point in and day out.
To resume quote, and then we would be playing the
role that some on the left see is our proper role.
(21:24):
We don't see that as our proper role, which is
not to say that we don't have really aggressive coverage
about the threats that Donald Trump and some of the
people around him would pose to norms in American society.
To the rule of law. Would he thinks it's would
would pose he's doing it now. He's destroying American society. Now,
(21:45):
even if he loses, he's already done untold damage to
the society. And you're still putting it in the theoretical
he's an election denialist and has a variety of plans
in place that would weaken some of the institutions of
democracy in American life. While one hundred percent is some,
ninety nine percent is some, one percent is not some.
(22:07):
We've made that very clear. What we've also made clear
is that he has the potential to win the twenty
twenty four election, either in the popular voter in the
electoral college. That a lot of people around the country
hear things from Donald Trump that they like and that
makes them very strong supporters of him, That his favorability
ratings have actually risen from the time that he ended
his presidency, and that he speaks for some of the
(22:28):
frustrations and grievances in American life, and we feel we
need to reflect those as well, because we need to
provide a full, fair and complete picture of the country
and its voters. And we're not ourselves voters. What we
are is an information source for voters who want good, accurate,
fair information about our country. I'll translate that, and I
(22:50):
don't think Joe Cohn would like it if he's covering Hitler.
What he's saying here is Hitler had some good ideas.
Trump has some good ideas, so we should listen to
the good ideas. Never mind that the good ideas inexorably
and utterly are connected to the disastrous ones that could
kill us. All. It is the Times in a nutshell.
(23:12):
They will point out, well, he speaks for a lot
of the country. Those people are crazy and they want
to destroy American democracy, but he speaks for them. I
don't know how about the Boston strangler, who speaks for strangling?
A question from Nskeep of NPR. Your publisher, Ag Selzberger
wrote an op ed that he submitted to The Washington
(23:33):
Post some days ago in which he talked about this
organization's thinking about the immediate future and the possibility of
a second Trump term, and he disclosed that You've spent
several months studying authoritarian countries and the way that the
press has been undermined there, to prepare for what possibilities
there might be here. What is the research that you've done,
(23:55):
Joe Con answers, Well, we've certainly covered this issue as
a news story around the world, and as you said,
the publisher devoted a team of people in a significant
effort to looking at the ways in which the rule
of law protections for the press could be worn away
by either authoritarian leaders or by populist leaders who rally
their supporters against independent media. Well, thank goodness you studied
(24:20):
it before they came up and shot your newspaper in
the head Joe, thank god. Don't try to defend it.
Just report on it. I've just been shot in the head.
Let me tell you what we saw before I blackout
and then die. I just was shot in the head.
Let me report on it like a good times man.
(24:43):
The question from innskeep and the question was how do
we survive in that environment, Joe con says. And one
of the answers to that is the publisher made the
decision to make it very clear that part of the
solution to that is building a strong coalition of people
in this country who are determined to maintain freedoms of
the press as they are in the constitution. Yes, I
(25:09):
think that strong coalition of people in this country as
opposed to Trump with all the military resources and the
desire to use the US military on US soil, especially
against the people he personally does not like, Like say,
everybody who's ever worked to with, or for or subscribe
to The New York Times. I think I think your
coalition will really stand up and defend American freedom of
(25:33):
the press and democracy and its role in democracy for
a solid sixteen seventeen minutes. You're an idiot, jo Con,
and he's not done yet. Quote. And we shouldn't pretend
that they're only vulnerable in a place like Hungary or Turkey,
except that's exactly what you're doing, pretending that they are
also vulnerable here unless there's a strong constituency of people
(25:55):
who are determined to protect them. That obviously includes, but
can't be limited to the media itself. It has to
include the vast majority of Americans who benefit form having
a vigorous and free press, So building popular support for
that is critical. Jo Con has actually said this, We're
going to rely on our readers and good, trustworthy, patriotic
(26:17):
Americans to come to our defense. When trust in the
news media as a whole has literally statistically never been
lower than it is right now. And that includes, and
this will surprise the people at the New York Times.
The American media includes the New York Times. The lack
of trust in the American media includes lack of trust
in the New York Times. They don't realize that they
(26:40):
think they are a separate entity. They think they are
a living statue. They think they are a living church.
They have some sort of monumental arch. Oh my god,
he's going to have a coalition. Your coalition is going
to be standing there defending freedom of the press with
a petition. If Trump gets back into office, it's going
(27:03):
to require a rebel to get him out of office
or his death. He's not leaving otherwise, he's not. Don't
you see this. You're in the news business. I would
think this would qualify his news. Oh no, no, Just
give me two wordles a day and I'll be happy.
Another question from Enskeep of NPR. People will write people
(27:26):
who are opposed to Donald Trump, and they will say,
why are you covering the election the way that you are?
You should be covering it the way I say, because
if Trump wins, you'll be in jail. Here was the
answer to that one yeah, we do hear that. And
you know, I should acknowledge that covering Donald Trump is
a challenge. It's a challenge every single day. Oh thank god,
(27:47):
jo Con, I didn't know you knew that. That's not
a joke. I literally did not know that anybody at
The New York Times understood that it was a challenge
every day. There are some moments in which we think
we need to present Donald Trump in a full, unfiltered
way so that people can hear the kinds of things
that he's saying in his wrath and saying on truth
Social his social media site, and not try to put
(28:08):
them in a kind of fact checked or you know,
overly contextualized context, because people should hear the raw Donald Trump.
And then there's criticism on the other side that you're
giving them a platform, that you're just allowing him to
say whatever he's going to say, steal the agenda. So
which way is right? Actually we struggle with that ourselves too.
I think people too need to hear to some extent,
(28:30):
the unfiltered Donald Trump, but they also need to have us,
you know, provide that kind of factual correction on page
b thirty two, And we need to be conscious about
not just providing Donald Trump with an open mic. Except
every headline about Donald Trump, except the one about his
(28:50):
mental condition from last Sunday, has provided him with an
open mic and an open mind and a sense that, no,
he's probably not crazy, No he's probably not hitler. No
he's probably not a dictator. Let's just quote him and
see if we can make it as d flavorized as possible. Quote.
I don't think there's any magic formula to doing it.
(29:12):
It's just a bunch of journalists talking to each other,
looking at the facts every day, trying to decide the
best way of conveying all the aspects of the Trump campaign.
And you know, do we always get it right? I
don't know if we always get it right. You don't
always get it right, moron. I know that we're always
trying our best to serve the broadest possible readership with
(29:35):
the best journalism about him that we can. I forget
who it was who said that. As the Democrats are
being led into the concentration camps, along with all of
the Hispanics and everybody from Haiti, and eventually all the
African Americans and eventually all the minorities and all the
Jewish people and everybody else. As we're all led into
(29:58):
the camps by Trump's I don't know s FS or
whatever he's going to call STS or STD. As we're
all let in there, one guy can turn to another
and said, well, on the other hand, at least we
followed all the rules. Would you argue he's asked that
you ought to cover the election in a straightforward way
(30:21):
as you see it, even if it does mean you
might end up in jail sometime. Quote, well, I mean
we've devoted a lot of resources to covering what you
would broadly refer to as kind of the fragility of
the legal system and the fragility of our democracy. I
don't consider that to be a partisan issue. I think
that is something that we will come at directly. It's
(30:43):
inside two weeks to the election, buddy, When is it
that you're going to come at this directly? We've put
it front and center in our election coverage, both the
election integrity issue and where the candidates stand on that.
What the election integrity issue? Do you mean that he's
(31:03):
going to try to steal the election again or his
claims that there's something wrong with the elections now are
in the past, and it's very clear that there's a
sharp difference between the candidates on that issue. The ability
of the legal system to withstand the kind of retribution
that Donald Trump is promising, you know, the resilience in
the judicial system, the issue of independence of the Department
(31:25):
of Justice and the FBI, which he would like to erode.
We've devoted a lot of resources to that. Did you
ever see the movie Monty Python's Meaning of Life where
they're having a board meeting at an American corporation and
Graham Chapman says, item number twelve on the agenda, the
(31:46):
Meaning of Life, Stan, I understand you've had a team
working on this, and Stan, played by Michael Palin, says, yes,
that's right, and we've found it divides into two observations.
Number one, people are not wearing enough hats. Two, matter
is energy. What we believe to be life is in
(32:07):
fact a series of vibration, on and on and on
and on and on and on and on and on
and on. He goes and finally, at the end of
this presentation, with the music swelling in the background, Terry Jones,
the late Terry Jones, my friend looks up from the
board table and goes, what was that about hats again?
And Palin goes back through his pages of notes about
the meaning of life and goes, uh, people are not
(32:30):
wearing enough of them, And Terry Jones, with rage in
his voice, goes, when you say enough enough for what purpose?
We've devoted a lot of resources to that, whether or
not you know Trump is going to take the legal
system and direct it say, you know, all of us,
including the New York Times, We've devoted a lot of
(32:52):
resources to that. What was that about hats again? New
York Times? Hats? I mean caps with our logo on it?
Does the logo have the wordle logo on the back?
Because that could really increase usage, especially while everybody's in jail.
You can get Wi Fi in jail, can't you. We've
(33:12):
devoted a lot of resources to that, said mister Cohn.
We had a very excellent piece looking at retribution and
how it played out through the judicial system in Trump's
first term and what he would do differently this time.
That makes that issue utterly clear. So I don't think
we're standing by while these threats exist. I don't think
that's the same thing as saying that we don't also
cover all the other issues on voters' minds. I think
(33:33):
we have to do both, and we are doing both.
I'm waiting for the headline in the Times if Trump wins.
The only thing I'll be reading after that. As I pack,
the only thing I will be reading is the following
the Times headline that reads, We're all going to hell comma,
(33:54):
some say from Steve Inskeep's interview with Joe con, executive
editor of the New York Times, who thinks he is
doing exactly what it is obvious to everybody else in
the world, including real journalism critics like NYU's Jay Rosen
and real journalists like the great James Follows what is
clear to them and everybody else that he is not doing.
(34:15):
And the through line is, no matter how bad it gets,
Joe CON's going to be fair and balanced between the
psychopath who would be Hitler, who wants to kill him,
and the other presidential candidate who doesn't because there will
always be in New York Times. That's the through line.
And his answers, They'll always be a New York Times.
(34:38):
It's a law. He didn't actually say there will always
be a New York Times, but he might as well.
That's the whole premise. Yes, there are many problems here,
but none of them are going to affect me. I
know the water is up to my neck, but it's fine.
I read this and I flashed back to November nineteen eighty.
One of my first bosses was the bureau chief of
(35:01):
another really important and venerable and at one point truly
respected news organizations that was part of the firmament as
clear and as regular as the moon in the nighttime sky,
United Press International. He was the bureau chief of United
Press Internationals radio network UPI Audio. His name was Stan Sabek.
(35:24):
I can never think of Stan Sabek without smiling. The
amount of crap he put up with from me I
can't count that high. But he once told me that
if he was ever remembered for anything in broadcasting, it
would be for giving me my first real job. And
I had to go in one day in November nineteen
eighty and tell him I would be leaving to go
(35:46):
and work for a different radio network. He was absolutely stunned.
Could you leave you, Pi, Stan? I'd work for you forever.
But two months ago your drunken boss came in here
drunk saw you and me arguing about something and laughing
at the same time, and he fired me. Had to
(36:08):
get the union involved. I would have been fired. But
how could you leave UPI Stan? This new job at
RKO pays me forty percent more for like forty percent
less work. That's one thing. And they're full of other
people my age, kids like me who want to do
things that'll make radio better and keep the business alive.
(36:30):
And I don't know if you noticed this, it's in
trouble now, Stan laughed. But RKDO has only been around
for one year. UPI's existed. We've been here since nineteen
oh seven, and we're full of kids working here. You're
a kid working here. Why would you ever leave UPI Stan?
How many people under thirty have left in the last
(36:52):
six months? I mean how many just from the from
the sports desk out there in the main newsroom. You're
not paying as much as a newspaper in New Jersey.
You just lost a guy into a newspaper in New Jersey.
I'm going to be twenty two and two months. The
next youngest person at the radio network is thirty four.
If your bosses keep treating young writers and young sportscasters
(37:14):
like you've treated me. There won't be a UPI in
ten years now, Stan Sabic braid with laughter. OK, seriously,
there will always be a UPI. Twenty months later, UPI
was sold and downsized, and the radio network was moved
(37:35):
from New York to Washington. Stan Sabek left to become
manager of a restaurant in Katona, New York. In New
Year two thousand, UPI was sold again to the Unification
Church of South Korea. To the Moonies, there will always
be a UPI, And from what I heard Joe Khn
(37:55):
say in that interview, he has that same certainty that
there will always be a New York Times, even if
it's printed by the prisoners in cell block. Eh. Nothing
Trump could ever do could change that. But first, here's
Pavarotti and guns n' roses, worsts and the exact moment
(38:20):
at which your ex and her ex become irresistibly funny
to you. That's next. This is countdown, messing with the
(38:50):
format today because there's so much news. There's too much news,
please please. I can only handle so much news, please,
But there's still more new idiots to talk about. The
daily roundup of the misgrants, morons, dunning Krueger effects specimens,
and ex girlfriends who constitute today's worse persons in the world.
(39:14):
I'm so tired the morons. Russell Brand. You remember Russell Brand.
He's now all king an amulet to protect you from
corrupting signals at airports. You wear it, or you stick
it on your phone, or you stick it up your
Russell Brand and it protects you from Wi Fi signals
(39:35):
and electronics and waves and other evil energies, he says,
evil energies. And it only costs two hundred and thirty
nine dollars and ninety nine cents. And you say it
protects me from all evil energies. You mean it protects
me from Russell Brand. What a bargain? The runner up
(39:57):
worser the Twitter x account. Politics polls now, I know
everybody thinks the Poles are better, or at least the
Polsters are trying harder this year, but coming down the stretch,
speaking only for myself, my confidence is shaken at politics
polls posted this yesterday Pennsylvania via American Pulse US poll
(40:18):
Trump fifty one percent, Harris fifty percent, one ninety three
likely voters tend to wait fifty one to fifty. Now,
I'm just a simple country lawyer who never got no
further than third grade advanced theory of relativity studies back
(40:39):
in school in my one room schoolhouse, but back where
I comes from, a prediction of a fifty one percent
to fifty percent outcome might be raising some eyebrowses. The award,
you'll notice, went to the Twitter aggregation account, not to
American Pulse Polling, even though they are wobbly right wingers,
(41:00):
because as American Pulse Polling says, somebody don't know how
to round up their numbers in Pennsylvania. Are actually Trump
fifty point five, Harris forty nine point five, And you
can't round up when you're already at one hundred. That's
how that works. Somebody went to fifty one and forty
(41:21):
nine and the man to fifty. You got it now? In
any event, don't tell that bizarre guy Kornaky about this,
who I also got started on TV at Current TV
on the recommendation of are You ready? Kornaki was recommended
to me by Olivia Newsy And then one day he
didn't show up because he'd signed a contract with MSNBC
(41:43):
and he didn't bother to tell any of us at
current if that twerp Kornaki, here's that there's a poll
out there that's fifty one fifty Trump over Harris. His
head may fall off. But our winner? Why Olivia Newsey
and Ryan Liza and Rfkate Junior? You choose, I'm too
(42:03):
busy laughing, truth be told, I was just beginning to
get tense about the election, and somebody had just asked
me that story with your ex and RFK Junior just
kind of petered out, didn't it. And I said, what
do you mean by peterd And then I said, don't worry.
It'll pick up again when New York Magazine fires her
and Politico fires him, And I guarantee you both of
(42:24):
those things are going to happen, and then they will
sue New York Magazine. She'll sue New New York Magazine
and he'll sue Political although it'd be much more interesting
if they switched then, and when Cheryl Hines sues him
for divorce, you watch it'll pick up, ben. But truth
be told, I was beginning to worry. I mean, I'd
really come to depend upon this story to cheer me
(42:47):
up and to make me believe in a caring universe
that clearly wanted me to get all the laughter and
vengeance I could ever eat without ever having asked for it.
And then there was a news story yesterday he you
may work. Call Olivia, who is the mother of my
two oldest dogs, sued her ex fiancee, Liza, the most
(43:12):
boring guest in the history of Countdown, claiming he had
hacked her phone and leaked the RFK story and tried
to blackmail her into getting back together. And you know
sex clearly, if the story is true, what he should
have done. He did this wrong strategically. What he should
have done was call her up on the phone. Am
(43:33):
I right now? Liza has responded. His court answer is
in and in it, he says, quoting a news report,
she admitted to having a romantic affair with Kennedy and
that she described the relationship as toxic, unhealthy, psychotic, and indefensible.
Liza said Newsy told him that Kennedy wanted to possess
(43:54):
control and impregnate her. Same so wait, RFK wanted to
impregnate her while the entirety of the relationship was conducted
on FaceTime. I know that's insane, but at least I
begin to understand what she may have meant when she
supposedly reportedly said his FaceTime sexual prowess was highlighted by
(44:18):
his stamina. Don't worry, Hun, I can impregnate you by
a long distance man. Her relationship with me when I
was I don't know, seven hundred years older than her,
it was like the most normal thing that ever happened
to her. I mean we had dogs. I mean it
(44:42):
was it's so in retrospect, so boring. It's unbelievable. You
went out with Attila the hun. Yeah, it was the
most boring relationship. Also from this story, long distance Liza
claims news he said quote there was a huge power
disparity between herself and RFK Junior. Lizia said he didn't
(45:05):
steal her hack any of Newsy's devices, as she claimed,
everything I know about her affair comes directly from Ms
Newzy herself, he wrote in a statement. Newsy's council also
said Liz's filing was full of salacious and irrelevant claims
that we will not dignify with a response and here denial.
The council said. Newsy, who was granted a temporary protection
(45:29):
order is taking legal action to ensure her safety and
be left alone. I hate to tell you this live
the be left Alone part. That ship has sailed circle
back on being left alone around the year twenty thirty
three four, The report says. A rep for RFK Junior says,
(45:52):
this description of his relationship with Olivia is quote not true.
I mean, what did you expect. What sort of statement
did you expect? He was going to say? Wait, which
phone number was she? He does sound like Krusty the clown?
What There was also a detail that they buried at
the end of their story. Liza says in the filing
(46:15):
that he broke off his engagement to Newsy in August,
after which Newsy pleaded to reconsider rekindling their relationship. Liza
also alleged that Newsy had a separate affair in twenty
twenty that allegedly compromised the pair's book deal. Now, this
is an observation. For two years, their bios said they
(46:36):
were working on this book on Trump. It was going
to come out in twenty twenty. Then in twenty twenty
their bios changed to they were working on a book
on Trump with no date on it. This idea that
she screwed around and screwed up their book deal is
so on point about their relationship that it is as
if it were scripted. You may have noticed my attitude
(46:58):
towards this has been in large part, in one word,
popcornian or on both your houses. And again, given RFK
Junior's involvement, this might be literally correct. About the pox,
I really haven't decided who I would help if asked.
And by the way, I know stuff I know, stuff
that they don't know I know. But I will say
(47:24):
they were perfectly matched. I mean Liza and Newsy. I
mentioned once that when we still lived together, Olivia Newsy
would go to Washington a lot on stories and she'd
always say, do you know this guy, Liza, he's stalking me,
although she used that word stalker very very very loosely.
As time elapsed and more and more of her issues
(47:45):
came to the fore, and eventually they led to our
breakup when I found out then later that she and
Liza were dating. And this is before he was fired
by the New Yorker, where she wanted to work, and
she wanted to work there with a passion that really
didn't seem rational. It was very extreme. I had half
a thought to send him a text saying, listen, Pal,
I don't want to alarm you, but if one day
(48:06):
she kills you and then wears your body into the
New Yorker offices and tells everybody she is you, don't
say I didn't warn you. Anyway. I haven't mentioned which
news outlet I've been quoting, because that may be the
funniest part of the whole thing. The story I have
been reading to you is from the Wall Street Journal,
The Wall Street Journal. This is in the Wall Street Turtle. Yes, uh,
(48:31):
my scandal has been covered by the American Academy of
Crossword Solving Artists magazine quarterly. My God, it's covered the
Wall Street Turtle. Now they played it kind of blot
to their credit, not the fellow Murdoch owned New York Post,
(48:54):
which of course put this on the front page again
and added something the journal did not have quote. The
couple spent a few weekends together following the breakup, where
e Liza describes a sobbing Newsy expelling her love and loneliness,
along with her fear that Liza would never contact her again.
The filing read Olivia, my ex Ryan, Liza and rfk
(49:17):
June wait expelling she was quote expelling her love. I'm
hoping the postwriters simply got the wrong word there, or
or I don't even want to know what the ore
could be. Two day's worse persons and the world ex spelling.
(50:14):
They've done all the damage they can do here. Thank
you for listening. We are now back to five episodes
a week, posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. Honest to god,
I was thinking of retiring after the election, but I
have to stick around just for this story, don't I
We post nightly just after midnight. Please follow me for
(50:34):
the podcast promo videos on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram,
and tube talk. Once again, I'll remind you there is
a Monday countdown. If I can be bothered to work
on a Sunday night, you can be bothered to listen
on a Monday. Please send this podcast, or at lease
the link to it to somebody who does not know
that they need to listen, but should You could send
(50:57):
it to Olivia. And the thing is I never actually
wished them ill. She brought me into the world of dogs.
That does not mean I'm not going to sit here
and laugh through all this, and I will testify if subpoenaed,
because Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical directors,
(51:19):
have kept down and arranged, produced and performed most of
our music. Also, you know, if you know any other
listeners to this podcast who bail out after the opening
segment or even after Worst Persons, which is usually in
the B block, you should tell them to listen to
the whole show today. I mean, even if it takes
a couple of days. Because there's a lot in this show,
(51:39):
isn't there this particular one, This one goes up on
the wall somewhere. I'd like to see it inscribed in tablets.
Mister Chanale of Ray and Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
Mister Ray on the guitars, bass and drums. It was
produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by the best baseball stadium organist, every Nancy Faust.
(52:01):
The sports music is the Old Woman theme from ESPN
two by Mitch Horren Davis Curtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed, or played
from the Donald Trump in his own head radio station playlist.
My announcer today is my late friend and hero, George Carlin.
(52:21):
Everything else was pretty much my fault, although today most
of it was not my fault. That's countdown for today,
two weeks and six days until the twenty twenty four
presidential election and the one three hundred and eightieth day
since convicted felon dementia j fugue state Trump's first attempted
(52:42):
coop against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the election, use the mental health system, use presidential
immunity to keep him from doing it again. Wow, we
still have a chance. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow
Bolton's as the news requires. Until the next one, I'm
Keith ol Ruman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and oh
(53:03):
look I can hit the post. Good Luck Countdown with
(53:25):
Keith Olderman is a production 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. It
is now day three of Trump's fugue State crisis from
(00:27):
Monday night at Oaks, Pennsylvania, when Trump abruptly stopped the
town hall inexplicably and began to slur and behave bizarrely
through his announcement that Kamala Harris is physically disqualified from
being president because she has hay fever, through his canceling
of a softball interview on CNBC the same day she
was to be interviewed by Fox to the question from
(00:49):
the Economic Club of Chicago about whether or not Google
should be broken up, which he answered by talking about
voting in Georgia. Day three of this and we still
have no official explanation for the series of episodes in
which Trump has seemed to recede from reality, though there
is an amazingly disturbing suggestion from an expert on cults
(01:13):
himself a cult survivor, who says, this is what cult
leaders do when they run out, when their repertoire shrinks
and their talking points melt. That explanation in a moment,
and the media reaction and non reaction and the one
news outlet that did not sainwash the start of the
(01:36):
Fugue state crisis, but first the start of the fugue
state crisis. As two people in the crowd fainted. Trump
cut off his town hall after four questions and then
stood there on stage for thirty nine minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Let's not do any more questions, Let's just listen to music.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Let's make it into it for music. Judah Hell wants
to hear questions. Music mixed number seven million went on
for thirty nine minutes. Thirty nine minutes, thirty nine minutes
of him standing there as music that he selected played,
(02:18):
music ranging from time to Say Goodbye to Nothing Compares
to You, to Ave Maria to Ymca to Elvis singing Dixer,
Thank you, thank you very much. The thirty nine missteps
for you, Hitchcock fans. Even the Washington Post noticed its
(02:40):
headline made its own headlines. Trump sways and bops to
music for thirty nine minutes in bizarre town hall episode.
Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump seventy eight unstable
and questioned his mental acuity. The Post used real words
and phrases like meandering, almost as if he were taking
(03:02):
a trip back to decades past, and it repeated bizarre
and bopped and presumably most odious to Trump. The post
said he quote stood on stage in his oversize suit. Ooh.
The Post, though, was alone in refusing to sainwash whatever
(03:25):
malfunctioned inside Trump, and by the way, continued to malfunction
in a series of posts later Monday night and throughout
the day. On Tuesday, Trump bobs his head to music
for thirty minutes in odd town hall detour The New
York Times. Of course, after multiple interruptions, Trump cut off
questions and seemed to decide that it would be more
(03:45):
enjoyable for all concerned, and it appeared for himself if
he fired up his campaign playlist. The Times can read
Trump's mind about how he seemed to decide and how
it appeared for himself that it would be better to
play music in the middle of a campaign event, but
it could never say something like it seemed an appear
he was lying through his effing teeth. Trump's Pennsylvania town
(04:10):
hall turns into impromptu concert after medical incidents. The headline
in the Associated Press turns into as if it were
transformed by magical potions from Harry Potter. Medical incidents, as
if Trump didn't clearly have one a day and the
(04:33):
worst of them all. Trump turned a town hall event
in front of supporters in Pennsylvania, wrote NBC News, into
an impromptu listening party Monday night. Somebody who did not
sinewash this listening party, my ass, was the Vice President
of the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
His staff won't let him do a sixty minutes interview.
Every president for the last half century has done on
anyone who's running for president. Everyone has done it except
Donald Trump. He will not debate me again. I put
out my medical records. He won't put out his medical records.
And you have to ask why is his staff doing that?
(05:16):
And it may be because they think he's just not
ready and unfit and unstable and should not have that
level of transparency for the American people.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
A man named Matthew Ramsky shook up the yoga world
five years ago with articles and a book called Practice
and All Is Coming, Abuse, Cult, Dynamics and Healing in
Yoga and Beyond about so called gurus turning yoga groups
into conspiracy riddled cults filled with sexual abuse. The Vice
(05:49):
President may have seen instability. The Washington Post may have
seen bizarre meandering, mister Ramsky saw something else, and it
was more familiar and more frightening to him. And I
quote him in full from Twitter X quote Trump surrendering
the Q and A to thirty minutes of his fave
songs while standing on stage awkwardly conducting at times echoes
(06:10):
many instances of cultic leaders who exhausted, ill and at
the end of their cognitive rope, outsource their emotional dominance
subroutines to canned music they personally find exquisitely sentimental. He continues,
as traumatized narcissists, they are seeking comfort and avoiding work,
(06:33):
but also assume that their core memories of pleasure will
make their power and soul transparent and accessible to their followers. Yes,
it's weird. No, the campaign gives no explanation because the
logic is a sealed system. Believers lose themselves in the choruses.
Handlers know there's nothing they can do but keep him
(06:55):
propped up. Christine Nome knows her inner circle status depends
on staying bright eyed. Mister Ramsky continues, The leader of
the group I was in for three years maintained a
Trump campaign like schedule of daily two hour sermons. Over
the years, he increasingly relied on his DJA to fill
(07:17):
the room with emotional overwhelm. Whenever he gapped out he
was seventy eight to two, he air conducted the tunes.
He had a shrinking repertoire of melted talking points. But
because there was never any substance to his stick, he
didn't struggle to remember details that were slipping away. He
just turned to the music. All he had ever done
(07:39):
was generated a mood. Then he died of a stroke.
It may be helpful he continues to keep in mind
for Trump followers, the default to pure emotionality can be
effective right up until the end. For some, the intensity
of their bond might increase because for them, as for him,
(08:00):
the affect was the point they weren't there for the platform.
There are people in the crowd who are uncomfortable, or
who can recognize the signs, or get bored and leave early.
But for those really caught up, that thirty minutes of
music and reverie might feel like the most direct and
intimate contact they've ever had with him. Geez, So when
(08:25):
you and I have thrown around the now familiar phrase
it's a cult, we may have been saying more than
we could have possibly known. Mister Ramsky also agreed that
whatever began on Monday night appears to have been touched
off when two attendees fainted in the warm close room.
A respondent to his thread noted that the last thing
(08:46):
someone like Trump tolerates is other people suffering. That two
people fell ill and cause his rally to be interrupted
was an intolerable affront to his being the only one.
He reacted to that with an extended primitive basking in
the wonder of him unquote, to which Ramsky replied on point,
(09:10):
So what began Monday night and continues at this hour?
Did Trump choose this or was it something else? Could
it have been a true psychiatric episode what the experts
are now calling dissociative fugue. If you've seen this or
heard about fugue fugue states dissociative fugue, dissociative episodes, it's
(09:30):
probably from a film or on television, most notably in
an episode of the old series Breaking Bad. It is
an event in which whatever binds us to the world,
even just our own world, loosens a bit or sometimes
breaks completely. Sufferers often just wander off physically or just metaphorically,
(09:51):
leave their homes and wind up hundreds thousands of miles
away with no idea how they got there. While in
the fugue state, they can't remember who they are, or
at least they can't fully remember that. They may not
know where they are or where they have been, but
they can do ordinary things like drive a car somewhere
without getting into an accident, or appreciate the breeze as
(10:14):
they wait for an uber. I have seen this happen
to someone close to me, and it is terrifying. And
it is not voluntary, and it is often followed by
an absolute refusal by the victim to acknowledge that it
was at all important, or by their making a rush
(10:35):
to find an excuse like I was impaired by drink
or drugs or illness, even if there was no drink
or drugs or illness, and Trump either entered into that
Monday night or into that end. Stage cult leader Meltdown
Matthew Ramsky described from his first hand experience with that
(10:56):
what may be the most frightening part here is that
when you abruptly end your campaign event, start a thirty
nine minute wobble on stage accompanied by shenade O'Connor go
into a kind of dictator waltz. And that's not the
most unstable thing you will do in the next twenty
four hour span. You are in real trouble, because within
(11:17):
a few hours, Trump went to his only true home,
his phone, and attacked Vice President Harris for refusing to
do interviews, even though she had just loudly agreed to
the sit down with Brett Baar on Fox News. But
Trump also attacked Harris for releasing her medical records and
(11:38):
for Harris asking why Trump had not released his, He
said he had and he's too busy anyway. I've put
out more medical exams than any other president in history,
flatly numerically untrue, and aced two cognitive exams. The doctor
stated that my cognitive exams were exceptional. I am far
(12:01):
healthier than Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, but especially Kamala. Also,
I am far too busy campaigning to take time from
the twenty two days left, as I am using every
hour of every day campaigning because we've got to take
our country twelve forty two am. I am far too
busy campaigning to take time from the twenty two days left,
(12:22):
as I am using every hour of every day campaigning,
but first the begs most disturbingly of all in this
part of the Crazy Time. Trump then said Harris is
physically disqualified from serving as president because her medical report,
(12:43):
which she released when he would not release his, shows
she suffers from erticaria, allergic rhinitis, and allergic conjunctive bitis.
Erdicaria is hives. Allergic rhinitis is hay fever. Allergic conjunctivitis
is allergy gees making your eyes itch. According to her
(13:08):
doctor's report, she suffers from urticaria, defined as a rash
of round, red welts on the skin that itch intensely,
sometimes with dangerous swelling. She also has allergic rhinitis and
allergic conjunctivitis, a very messy and dangerous situation. These are
deeply serious conditions that clearly impact her functioning. Maybe that
is why she can't answer even the simplest of questions
(13:29):
asked by sixty Minutes and others, what is this all about?
I don't have these problems. Urticaria is hives. Allergic rhinitis
is hay fever. Allergic conjunctivitis is allergies making your eyes itch.
You bastard. Trump either thinks or expects he can get
(13:51):
everybody else to think that these commonplace, everyday annoyances are fatal.
And then we moved to Chicago yesterday. Where to start.
He's close to winning, or at least being ahead in Michigan,
so he trashed Detroit. The Bloomberg British guy moderating the
(14:14):
event asks about Google. He answers about Georgia. Oh no,
I know where to start. Trump is pressed about talking
to Putin after he left office that report from last week,
and Trump gives the OJ Simpson Memorial answer, if I
did it?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Can you say yes or no whether you have talked
to Vladimir Putin since you stopped being president.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, I don't come into that, but I will tell
you that if I did, it's a smart thing. If
I'm friendly with people, If I have a relationship with people,
that's a good thing. Not a bit I think in
terms of a country.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Should Google be breaking up?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I just haven't gotten over something the Justice Department did
yesterday where Virginia cleaned up its voter rolls and got
rid of thousands and thousands of bad votes, and the
Justice Apartment sued them that they should be allowed to
put those mad votes and illegal votes back in and
(15:11):
let the people vote. So I haven't I haven't gotten
I haven't gotten over that. A lot of people have
seen that. They can't even believe that.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
The question is about Google preston Trump.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
If everything works out, if everybody gets out and votes
on January fifth.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Y, yes, Please Trump voters, if you're voting for Trump,
don't forget to vote for Trump on January fifth. January fifth.
If you need a lyft on January fifth, call me all.
This is nothing new. It is, in fact, so part
of the Trump baseline that to say he is acting
(15:45):
abnormally and bizarrely, even for him, even that's been reduced
to white noise. But even by that measure, this is
accelerating and dangerous. Because Trump may think, hey, fever, hives
and itchy eyes are fatal. Nobody thinks Trump's dissociative fugue
or late stage narcissistic collapse is fatal. Less it makes
(16:05):
him decide he can fly, or unless it is a
fore warning something actually going physically wrong inside his head. Well,
I hate to put it this way, but all that
is his problem. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, it
can easily be fatal, because this man, in this condition,
he could easily kill us all. And as noted before,
(16:33):
some of the key people along the tattered, broken remains
of some of our key guard rails are still sane
washing him. Joseph Khan, executive editor of The New York Times,
has been interviewed at length by Steve Inskeep of National
Public Radio. The result is almost as disturbing as Trump
(16:53):
playing the hits, playing the hits from that radio station
that broadcasts only inside his own mind. I'm going to
read a lot of the transcript of this interview verbatim
because jo Con is almost as detached from reality as
is Donald Trump. And unfortunately, jo Con is supposed to
(17:14):
be on our side. And when I say our side,
I mean on the side of defending democracy and opposing dictatorship.
I think we can ask that much of the New
York Times, mister Cohn does not understand anything of this,
as you will hear. That's next. This is oh oh
oh yeah. Newsy allegedly says RFK Junior wanted to possess
(17:40):
and impregnate her. Well, who doesn't. And this report is
from the Wall Street Journal. That's next. This is an
all new edition of Countdown, if I can stop horse
laughing first crowing, A pleasure to have you here, thank you.
(18:03):
This is the best news show. However, I toilet to
one of your producers, and I want you to know
that I've seen them all and it's just for especially
the first thirty five minutes. Thank you, it's just just unparalleled.
I got bad news between you and I. We got
six minutes to completely strow that in the back. Yet
that's good. Still ahead of us on this all new
(18:29):
edition of Countdown. Worst person? So what do you like? Worst?
The poll that has Trump up fifty one to fifty huh?
Or or my ex Olivia saying RFK Junior wanted to
impregnate her. According to the Wall Street Journal first postscripts
(18:51):
to the News Dateline, New York. Sometimes stuff happens and
you say, no, he can't be that stupid, he can't
be that naive, he can't be that disconnected Trump. Now,
I mean the editor of the New York Times. His
(19:12):
name is Joe Kahn, and Joe con did a lengthy
interview with Steve Enscape of NPR. And I don't normally
read transcripts of interviews, but it's not like I can
just play the whole interview. I mean, there are still
copyrights in this country. And the thing is the relevant
parts of that interview, the parts about how the Times
has drifted off to c and is headed towards Iceberg's
(19:34):
but everybody on board thinks they're still tied up at
Peer eighty three at forty second Street on the Hudson.
They're so startling. I kind of have to read it
and try to translate as we go along. So it
starts with the NPR guy in skeep noting that nobody
would have ever believed The Times would be under such
assault from the left, and Joe con says, and I'll
(19:58):
interrupt him when necessary. Quote. I struggle with it often
because the left has really high expectations of the New
York Time. I think some of them honestly distorted. There's
a desire to see one of the leading journalistic institutions
in American life be a full throated supporter of the
view that many on the left have, which is that
Donald Trump is an existential threat to our society and
(20:20):
that all of the New York Times coverage should be
uniform in emphasizing that point day in and day out,
how did you feel about Hitler? Well, we know how
the Times felt about Hitler. They downplayed the threat of
Hitler too until it was too late. Because this idea
of never taking an opinion, never ever deciding whether or
(20:41):
not it's actually raining, but deferring to some expert somewhere
who has his head out the window and is going,
I'm wet it's raining. We can quote him. That has
been part and parcel of this operation, but it's never
had to deal with this society being in jeopardy before.
And Joe con does not see the difference. If you
go back and look at how the New York Times
(21:02):
covered the Civil War, there was no question they agreed
that the South was an existential threat to our society
and that people were dying, and that Times coverage should
be uniform in emphasizing that point in and day out.
To resume quote, and then we would be playing the
role that some on the left see is our proper role.
(21:24):
We don't see that as our proper role, which is
not to say that we don't have really aggressive coverage
about the threats that Donald Trump and some of the
people around him would pose to norms in American society.
To the rule of law. Would he thinks it's would
would pose he's doing it now. He's destroying American society. Now,
(21:45):
even if he loses, he's already done untold damage to
the society. And you're still putting it in the theoretical
he's an election denialist and has a variety of plans
in place that would weaken some of the institutions of
democracy in American life. While one hundred percent is some,
ninety nine percent is some, one percent is not some.
(22:07):
We've made that very clear. What we've also made clear
is that he has the potential to win the twenty
twenty four election, either in the popular voter in the
electoral college. That a lot of people around the country
hear things from Donald Trump that they like and that
makes them very strong supporters of him, That his favorability
ratings have actually risen from the time that he ended
his presidency, and that he speaks for some of the
(22:28):
frustrations and grievances in American life, and we feel we
need to reflect those as well, because we need to
provide a full, fair and complete picture of the country
and its voters. And we're not ourselves voters. What we
are is an information source for voters who want good, accurate,
fair information about our country. I'll translate that, and I
(22:50):
don't think Joe Cohn would like it if he's covering Hitler.
What he's saying here is Hitler had some good ideas.
Trump has some good ideas, so we should listen to
the good ideas. Never mind that the good ideas inexorably
and utterly are connected to the disastrous ones that could
kill us. All. It is the Times in a nutshell.
(23:12):
They will point out, well, he speaks for a lot
of the country. Those people are crazy and they want
to destroy American democracy, but he speaks for them. I
don't know how about the Boston strangler, who speaks for strangling?
A question from Nskeep of NPR. Your publisher, Ag Selzberger
wrote an op ed that he submitted to The Washington
(23:33):
Post some days ago in which he talked about this
organization's thinking about the immediate future and the possibility of
a second Trump term, and he disclosed that You've spent
several months studying authoritarian countries and the way that the
press has been undermined there, to prepare for what possibilities
there might be here. What is the research that you've done,
(23:55):
Joe Con answers, Well, we've certainly covered this issue as
a news story around the world, and as you said,
the publisher devoted a team of people in a significant
effort to looking at the ways in which the rule
of law protections for the press could be worn away
by either authoritarian leaders or by populist leaders who rally
their supporters against independent media. Well, thank goodness you studied
(24:20):
it before they came up and shot your newspaper in
the head Joe, thank god. Don't try to defend it.
Just report on it. I've just been shot in the head.
Let me tell you what we saw before I blackout
and then die. I just was shot in the head.
Let me report on it like a good times man.
(24:43):
The question from innskeep and the question was how do
we survive in that environment, Joe con says. And one
of the answers to that is the publisher made the
decision to make it very clear that part of the
solution to that is building a strong coalition of people
in this country who are determined to maintain freedoms of
the press as they are in the constitution. Yes, I
(25:09):
think that strong coalition of people in this country as
opposed to Trump with all the military resources and the
desire to use the US military on US soil, especially
against the people he personally does not like, Like say,
everybody who's ever worked to with, or for or subscribe
to The New York Times. I think I think your
coalition will really stand up and defend American freedom of
(25:33):
the press and democracy and its role in democracy for
a solid sixteen seventeen minutes. You're an idiot, jo Con,
and he's not done yet. Quote. And we shouldn't pretend
that they're only vulnerable in a place like Hungary or Turkey,
except that's exactly what you're doing, pretending that they are
also vulnerable here unless there's a strong constituency of people
(25:55):
who are determined to protect them. That obviously includes, but
can't be limited to the media itself. It has to
include the vast majority of Americans who benefit form having
a vigorous and free press, So building popular support for
that is critical. Jo Con has actually said this, We're
going to rely on our readers and good, trustworthy, patriotic
(26:17):
Americans to come to our defense. When trust in the
news media as a whole has literally statistically never been
lower than it is right now. And that includes, and
this will surprise the people at the New York Times.
The American media includes the New York Times. The lack
of trust in the American media includes lack of trust
in the New York Times. They don't realize that they
(26:40):
think they are a separate entity. They think they are
a living statue. They think they are a living church.
They have some sort of monumental arch. Oh my god,
he's going to have a coalition. Your coalition is going
to be standing there defending freedom of the press with
a petition. If Trump gets back into office, it's going
(27:03):
to require a rebel to get him out of office
or his death. He's not leaving otherwise, he's not. Don't
you see this. You're in the news business. I would
think this would qualify his news. Oh no, no, Just
give me two wordles a day and I'll be happy.
Another question from Enskeep of NPR. People will write people
(27:26):
who are opposed to Donald Trump, and they will say,
why are you covering the election the way that you are?
You should be covering it the way I say, because
if Trump wins, you'll be in jail. Here was the
answer to that one yeah, we do hear that. And
you know, I should acknowledge that covering Donald Trump is
a challenge. It's a challenge every single day. Oh thank god,
(27:47):
jo Con, I didn't know you knew that. That's not
a joke. I literally did not know that anybody at
The New York Times understood that it was a challenge
every day. There are some moments in which we think
we need to present Donald Trump in a full, unfiltered
way so that people can hear the kinds of things
that he's saying in his wrath and saying on truth
Social his social media site, and not try to put
(28:08):
them in a kind of fact checked or you know,
overly contextualized context, because people should hear the raw Donald Trump.
And then there's criticism on the other side that you're
giving them a platform, that you're just allowing him to
say whatever he's going to say, steal the agenda. So
which way is right? Actually we struggle with that ourselves too.
I think people too need to hear to some extent,
(28:30):
the unfiltered Donald Trump, but they also need to have us,
you know, provide that kind of factual correction on page
b thirty two, And we need to be conscious about
not just providing Donald Trump with an open mic. Except
every headline about Donald Trump, except the one about his
(28:50):
mental condition from last Sunday, has provided him with an
open mic and an open mind and a sense that, no,
he's probably not crazy, No he's probably not hitler. No
he's probably not a dictator. Let's just quote him and
see if we can make it as d flavorized as possible. Quote.
I don't think there's any magic formula to doing it.
(29:12):
It's just a bunch of journalists talking to each other,
looking at the facts every day, trying to decide the
best way of conveying all the aspects of the Trump campaign.
And you know, do we always get it right? I
don't know if we always get it right. You don't
always get it right, moron. I know that we're always
trying our best to serve the broadest possible readership with
(29:35):
the best journalism about him that we can. I forget
who it was who said that. As the Democrats are
being led into the concentration camps, along with all of
the Hispanics and everybody from Haiti, and eventually all the
African Americans and eventually all the minorities and all the
Jewish people and everybody else. As we're all led into
(29:58):
the camps by Trump's I don't know s FS or
whatever he's going to call STS or STD. As we're
all let in there, one guy can turn to another
and said, well, on the other hand, at least we
followed all the rules. Would you argue he's asked that
you ought to cover the election in a straightforward way
(30:21):
as you see it, even if it does mean you
might end up in jail sometime. Quote, well, I mean
we've devoted a lot of resources to covering what you
would broadly refer to as kind of the fragility of
the legal system and the fragility of our democracy. I
don't consider that to be a partisan issue. I think
that is something that we will come at directly. It's
(30:43):
inside two weeks to the election, buddy, When is it
that you're going to come at this directly? We've put
it front and center in our election coverage, both the
election integrity issue and where the candidates stand on that.
What the election integrity issue? Do you mean that he's
(31:03):
going to try to steal the election again or his
claims that there's something wrong with the elections now are
in the past, and it's very clear that there's a
sharp difference between the candidates on that issue. The ability
of the legal system to withstand the kind of retribution
that Donald Trump is promising, you know, the resilience in
the judicial system, the issue of independence of the Department
(31:25):
of Justice and the FBI, which he would like to erode.
We've devoted a lot of resources to that. Did you
ever see the movie Monty Python's Meaning of Life where
they're having a board meeting at an American corporation and
Graham Chapman says, item number twelve on the agenda, the
(31:46):
Meaning of Life, Stan, I understand you've had a team
working on this, and Stan, played by Michael Palin, says, yes,
that's right, and we've found it divides into two observations.
Number one, people are not wearing enough hats. Two, matter
is energy. What we believe to be life is in
(32:07):
fact a series of vibration, on and on and on
and on and on and on and on and on
and on. He goes and finally, at the end of
this presentation, with the music swelling in the background, Terry Jones,
the late Terry Jones, my friend looks up from the
board table and goes, what was that about hats again?
And Palin goes back through his pages of notes about
the meaning of life and goes, uh, people are not
(32:30):
wearing enough of them, And Terry Jones, with rage in
his voice, goes, when you say enough enough for what purpose?
We've devoted a lot of resources to that, whether or
not you know Trump is going to take the legal
system and direct it say, you know, all of us,
including the New York Times, We've devoted a lot of
(32:52):
resources to that. What was that about hats again? New
York Times? Hats? I mean caps with our logo on it?
Does the logo have the wordle logo on the back?
Because that could really increase usage, especially while everybody's in jail.
You can get Wi Fi in jail, can't you. We've
(33:12):
devoted a lot of resources to that, said mister Cohn.
We had a very excellent piece looking at retribution and
how it played out through the judicial system in Trump's
first term and what he would do differently this time.
That makes that issue utterly clear. So I don't think
we're standing by while these threats exist. I don't think
that's the same thing as saying that we don't also
cover all the other issues on voters' minds. I think
(33:33):
we have to do both, and we are doing both.
I'm waiting for the headline in the Times if Trump wins.
The only thing I'll be reading after that. As I pack,
the only thing I will be reading is the following
the Times headline that reads, We're all going to hell comma,
(33:54):
some say from Steve Inskeep's interview with Joe con, executive
editor of the New York Times, who thinks he is
doing exactly what it is obvious to everybody else in
the world, including real journalism critics like NYU's Jay Rosen
and real journalists like the great James Follows what is
clear to them and everybody else that he is not doing.
(34:15):
And the through line is, no matter how bad it gets,
Joe CON's going to be fair and balanced between the
psychopath who would be Hitler, who wants to kill him,
and the other presidential candidate who doesn't because there will
always be in New York Times. That's the through line.
And his answers, They'll always be a New York Times.
(34:38):
It's a law. He didn't actually say there will always
be a New York Times, but he might as well.
That's the whole premise. Yes, there are many problems here,
but none of them are going to affect me. I
know the water is up to my neck, but it's fine.
I read this and I flashed back to November nineteen eighty.
One of my first bosses was the bureau chief of
(35:01):
another really important and venerable and at one point truly
respected news organizations that was part of the firmament as
clear and as regular as the moon in the nighttime sky,
United Press International. He was the bureau chief of United
Press Internationals radio network UPI Audio. His name was Stan Sabek.
(35:24):
I can never think of Stan Sabek without smiling. The
amount of crap he put up with from me I
can't count that high. But he once told me that
if he was ever remembered for anything in broadcasting, it
would be for giving me my first real job. And
I had to go in one day in November nineteen
eighty and tell him I would be leaving to go
(35:46):
and work for a different radio network. He was absolutely stunned.
Could you leave you, Pi, Stan? I'd work for you forever.
But two months ago your drunken boss came in here
drunk saw you and me arguing about something and laughing
at the same time, and he fired me. Had to
(36:08):
get the union involved. I would have been fired. But
how could you leave UPI Stan? This new job at
RKO pays me forty percent more for like forty percent
less work. That's one thing. And they're full of other
people my age, kids like me who want to do
things that'll make radio better and keep the business alive.
(36:30):
And I don't know if you noticed this, it's in
trouble now, Stan laughed. But RKDO has only been around
for one year. UPI's existed. We've been here since nineteen
oh seven, and we're full of kids working here. You're
a kid working here. Why would you ever leave UPI Stan?
How many people under thirty have left in the last
(36:52):
six months? I mean how many just from the from
the sports desk out there in the main newsroom. You're
not paying as much as a newspaper in New Jersey.
You just lost a guy into a newspaper in New Jersey.
I'm going to be twenty two and two months. The
next youngest person at the radio network is thirty four.
If your bosses keep treating young writers and young sportscasters
(37:14):
like you've treated me. There won't be a UPI in
ten years now, Stan Sabic braid with laughter. OK, seriously,
there will always be a UPI. Twenty months later, UPI
was sold and downsized, and the radio network was moved
(37:35):
from New York to Washington. Stan Sabek left to become
manager of a restaurant in Katona, New York. In New
Year two thousand, UPI was sold again to the Unification
Church of South Korea. To the Moonies, there will always
be a UPI, And from what I heard Joe Khn
(37:55):
say in that interview, he has that same certainty that
there will always be a New York Times, even if
it's printed by the prisoners in cell block. Eh. Nothing
Trump could ever do could change that. But first, here's
Pavarotti and guns n' roses, worsts and the exact moment
(38:20):
at which your ex and her ex become irresistibly funny
to you. That's next. This is countdown, messing with the
(38:50):
format today because there's so much news. There's too much news,
please please. I can only handle so much news, please,
But there's still more new idiots to talk about. The
daily roundup of the misgrants, morons, dunning Krueger effects specimens,
and ex girlfriends who constitute today's worse persons in the world.
(39:14):
I'm so tired the morons. Russell Brand. You remember Russell Brand.
He's now all king an amulet to protect you from
corrupting signals at airports. You wear it, or you stick
it on your phone, or you stick it up your
Russell Brand and it protects you from Wi Fi signals
(39:35):
and electronics and waves and other evil energies, he says,
evil energies. And it only costs two hundred and thirty
nine dollars and ninety nine cents. And you say it
protects me from all evil energies. You mean it protects
me from Russell Brand. What a bargain? The runner up
(39:57):
worser the Twitter x account. Politics polls now, I know
everybody thinks the Poles are better, or at least the
Polsters are trying harder this year, but coming down the stretch,
speaking only for myself, my confidence is shaken at politics
polls posted this yesterday Pennsylvania via American Pulse US poll
(40:18):
Trump fifty one percent, Harris fifty percent, one ninety three
likely voters tend to wait fifty one to fifty. Now,
I'm just a simple country lawyer who never got no
further than third grade advanced theory of relativity studies back
(40:39):
in school in my one room schoolhouse, but back where
I comes from, a prediction of a fifty one percent
to fifty percent outcome might be raising some eyebrowses. The award,
you'll notice, went to the Twitter aggregation account, not to
American Pulse Polling, even though they are wobbly right wingers,
(41:00):
because as American Pulse Polling says, somebody don't know how
to round up their numbers in Pennsylvania. Are actually Trump
fifty point five, Harris forty nine point five, And you
can't round up when you're already at one hundred. That's
how that works. Somebody went to fifty one and forty
(41:21):
nine and the man to fifty. You got it now? In
any event, don't tell that bizarre guy Kornaky about this,
who I also got started on TV at Current TV
on the recommendation of are You ready? Kornaki was recommended
to me by Olivia Newsy And then one day he
didn't show up because he'd signed a contract with MSNBC
(41:43):
and he didn't bother to tell any of us at
current if that twerp Kornaki, here's that there's a poll
out there that's fifty one fifty Trump over Harris. His
head may fall off. But our winner? Why Olivia Newsey
and Ryan Liza and Rfkate Junior? You choose, I'm too
(42:03):
busy laughing, truth be told, I was just beginning to
get tense about the election, and somebody had just asked
me that story with your ex and RFK Junior just
kind of petered out, didn't it. And I said, what
do you mean by peterd And then I said, don't worry.
It'll pick up again when New York Magazine fires her
and Politico fires him, And I guarantee you both of
(42:24):
those things are going to happen, and then they will
sue New York Magazine. She'll sue New New York Magazine
and he'll sue Political although it'd be much more interesting
if they switched then, and when Cheryl Hines sues him
for divorce, you watch it'll pick up, ben. But truth
be told, I was beginning to worry. I mean, I'd
really come to depend upon this story to cheer me
(42:47):
up and to make me believe in a caring universe
that clearly wanted me to get all the laughter and
vengeance I could ever eat without ever having asked for it.
And then there was a news story yesterday he you
may work. Call Olivia, who is the mother of my
two oldest dogs, sued her ex fiancee, Liza, the most
(43:12):
boring guest in the history of Countdown, claiming he had
hacked her phone and leaked the RFK story and tried
to blackmail her into getting back together. And you know
sex clearly, if the story is true, what he should
have done. He did this wrong strategically. What he should
have done was call her up on the phone. Am
(43:33):
I right now? Liza has responded. His court answer is
in and in it, he says, quoting a news report,
she admitted to having a romantic affair with Kennedy and
that she described the relationship as toxic, unhealthy, psychotic, and indefensible.
Liza said Newsy told him that Kennedy wanted to possess
(43:54):
control and impregnate her. Same so wait, RFK wanted to
impregnate her while the entirety of the relationship was conducted
on FaceTime. I know that's insane, but at least I
begin to understand what she may have meant when she
supposedly reportedly said his FaceTime sexual prowess was highlighted by
(44:18):
his stamina. Don't worry, Hun, I can impregnate you by
a long distance man. Her relationship with me when I
was I don't know, seven hundred years older than her,
it was like the most normal thing that ever happened
to her. I mean we had dogs. I mean it
(44:42):
was it's so in retrospect, so boring. It's unbelievable. You
went out with Attila the hun. Yeah, it was the
most boring relationship. Also from this story, long distance Liza
claims news he said quote there was a huge power
disparity between herself and RFK Junior. Lizia said he didn't
(45:05):
steal her hack any of Newsy's devices, as she claimed,
everything I know about her affair comes directly from Ms
Newzy herself, he wrote in a statement. Newsy's council also
said Liz's filing was full of salacious and irrelevant claims
that we will not dignify with a response and here denial.
The council said. Newsy, who was granted a temporary protection
(45:29):
order is taking legal action to ensure her safety and
be left alone. I hate to tell you this live
the be left Alone part. That ship has sailed circle
back on being left alone around the year twenty thirty
three four, The report says. A rep for RFK Junior says,
(45:52):
this description of his relationship with Olivia is quote not true.
I mean, what did you expect. What sort of statement
did you expect? He was going to say? Wait, which
phone number was she? He does sound like Krusty the clown?
What There was also a detail that they buried at
the end of their story. Liza says in the filing
(46:15):
that he broke off his engagement to Newsy in August,
after which Newsy pleaded to reconsider rekindling their relationship. Liza
also alleged that Newsy had a separate affair in twenty
twenty that allegedly compromised the pair's book deal. Now, this
is an observation. For two years, their bios said they
(46:36):
were working on this book on Trump. It was going
to come out in twenty twenty. Then in twenty twenty
their bios changed to they were working on a book
on Trump with no date on it. This idea that
she screwed around and screwed up their book deal is
so on point about their relationship that it is as
if it were scripted. You may have noticed my attitude
(46:58):
towards this has been in large part, in one word,
popcornian or on both your houses. And again, given RFK
Junior's involvement, this might be literally correct. About the pox,
I really haven't decided who I would help if asked.
And by the way, I know stuff I know, stuff
that they don't know I know. But I will say
(47:24):
they were perfectly matched. I mean Liza and Newsy. I
mentioned once that when we still lived together, Olivia Newsy
would go to Washington a lot on stories and she'd
always say, do you know this guy, Liza, he's stalking me,
although she used that word stalker very very very loosely.
As time elapsed and more and more of her issues
(47:45):
came to the fore, and eventually they led to our
breakup when I found out then later that she and
Liza were dating. And this is before he was fired
by the New Yorker, where she wanted to work, and
she wanted to work there with a passion that really
didn't seem rational. It was very extreme. I had half
a thought to send him a text saying, listen, Pal,
I don't want to alarm you, but if one day
(48:06):
she kills you and then wears your body into the
New Yorker offices and tells everybody she is you, don't
say I didn't warn you. Anyway. I haven't mentioned which
news outlet I've been quoting, because that may be the
funniest part of the whole thing. The story I have
been reading to you is from the Wall Street Journal,
The Wall Street Journal. This is in the Wall Street Turtle. Yes, uh,
(48:31):
my scandal has been covered by the American Academy of
Crossword Solving Artists magazine quarterly. My God, it's covered the
Wall Street Turtle. Now they played it kind of blot
to their credit, not the fellow Murdoch owned New York Post,
(48:54):
which of course put this on the front page again
and added something the journal did not have quote. The
couple spent a few weekends together following the breakup, where
e Liza describes a sobbing Newsy expelling her love and loneliness,
along with her fear that Liza would never contact her again.
The filing read Olivia, my ex Ryan, Liza and rfk
(49:17):
June wait expelling she was quote expelling her love. I'm
hoping the postwriters simply got the wrong word there, or
or I don't even want to know what the ore
could be. Two day's worse persons and the world ex spelling.
(50:14):
They've done all the damage they can do here. Thank
you for listening. We are now back to five episodes
a week, posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. Honest to god,
I was thinking of retiring after the election, but I
have to stick around just for this story, don't I
We post nightly just after midnight. Please follow me for
(50:34):
the podcast promo videos on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram,
and tube talk. Once again, I'll remind you there is
a Monday countdown. If I can be bothered to work
on a Sunday night, you can be bothered to listen
on a Monday. Please send this podcast, or at lease
the link to it to somebody who does not know
that they need to listen, but should You could send
(50:57):
it to Olivia. And the thing is I never actually
wished them ill. She brought me into the world of dogs.
That does not mean I'm not going to sit here
and laugh through all this, and I will testify if subpoenaed,
because Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical directors,
(51:19):
have kept down and arranged, produced and performed most of
our music. Also, you know, if you know any other
listeners to this podcast who bail out after the opening
segment or even after Worst Persons, which is usually in
the B block, you should tell them to listen to
the whole show today. I mean, even if it takes
a couple of days. Because there's a lot in this show,
(51:39):
isn't there this particular one, This one goes up on
the wall somewhere. I'd like to see it inscribed in tablets.
Mister Chanale of Ray and Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards.
Mister Ray on the guitars, bass and drums. It was
produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by the best baseball stadium organist, every Nancy Faust.
(52:01):
The sports music is the Old Woman theme from ESPN
two by Mitch Horren Davis Curtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed, or played
from the Donald Trump in his own head radio station playlist.
My announcer today is my late friend and hero, George Carlin.
(52:21):
Everything else was pretty much my fault, although today most
of it was not my fault. That's countdown for today,
two weeks and six days until the twenty twenty four
presidential election and the one three hundred and eightieth day
since convicted felon dementia j fugue state Trump's first attempted
(52:42):
coop against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the election, use the mental health system, use presidential
immunity to keep him from doing it again. Wow, we
still have a chance. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow
Bolton's as the news requires. Until the next one, I'm
Keith ol Ruman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and oh
(53:03):
look I can hit the post. Good Luck Countdown with
(53:25):
Keith Olderman is a production 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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