I WANT POLLING ON A PRESIDENTIAL RECALL VOTE - 4.7.25

SEASON 3 EPISODE 116: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: I want polling on a special, emergency, extra-constitutional Presidential Recall Vote.

I know there isn't going to BE a Presidential Recall Vote. I know we're not going extra-constitutional, we're not REPUBLICANS dammit. But they are always making up laws (inside the Supreme Court and outside of it) on the premise that the people really want it, so after this week of unprecedented insane unnecessary failure on the part of Trump and his Team of Imbecilic Rivals, I want to know where we stand.

Because the moment we get 10 Republicans in the House and 14 in the Senate to believe that if Trump stays in office, their careers are over, he's gone. Half of them think he's nuts already and a quarter have had doubts. They need to be pushed and I don't want to wait until the mid-terms for them to get the damned message

I want SOME pollster - independent, news-related, hired by the Democrats, SOMEBODY - to ask these questions: 1) if the election were re-run today would you vote for Trump or a Democrat. Or another Republican. Or a fairly intelligent farm animal.

2) would you support a special recall vote to potentially reverse the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

3) would you describe the current financial panic and the upcoming tsunami of inflation and unemployment as a national emergency.

4) do you think Donald Trump has lost his mind.

5) do you think Donald Trump is mentally fit to run the country.

6) do you think Donald Trump is acting to destroy the United States on behalf of a foreign country.

7) do you think it is necessary to act outside the constitution if necessary to save the United States of America FROM Donald Trump.

8) if the midterm elections for the Senate and the House were tomorrow would you vote Republican or Democratic?

WHATEVER the percentages are they could easily scare the crap out of 10 House Republicans and 14 Senate Republicans and the day they do, Trump vanishes. You doubt me? Ask Richard Nixon. Ask Abraham Lincoln, whom they were ready to get rid of seven months before Lee surrendered at Appomattox because they thought he wasn't going to be re-elected.

Also is it possible the Democrats are listening to me? Obama emerges to spout sense, as I've asked. The DNC Chair founds "The People's Cabinet." All we need now is POLLING ON A PRESIDENTIAL RECALL VOTE.

B-Block (31:28) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Pittsburgh Pirates rip a Roberto Clemente memorial off their outfield wall to make room for an ad for seltzer, a Republican influencer insists there are no tariffs on Russia because we don't import anything from Russia (we import $2.5 Billion a year from Russia), and the Secretary of the Treasury wants YOU to buy American while he buys British. (41:28) SPORTSBALLCENTER: Alexander Ovechkin DOES have more goals than Wayne Gretzky now, but no, that's still not the big league hockey record (and Gretzky managed to throw himself out another window during the celebrations) and the date of the first American, maybe the first human, to be photographed giving the finger to the cameraman has to be pushed back from 1886 to 1882 after a discovery this weekend about baseball Hall of Famer Old Hoss Radbourn.

C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I have been asked by a listener to expand on last week's news that Chuck Todd not only does not realize that his news career is over but he thinks investors are going to give him $2,000,000,000 to go buy a news organization now. The answer to the question "Chuck Todd: Why?"

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. As

(00:25):
Wall Street prepares for its worst stock market crash since
nearly Thursday. I want to see polling numbers on a
presidential recall vote. I know there is no such thing
as a presidential recall vote, but what the hell? The
Republicans are always making up laws these days, inside the

(00:47):
Supreme Court and out, demanding to have their way because
they say the public wants it, trying to scam the
Constitution for a third term, claiming the nation voted for Trump,
and if Trump wants national suicide, then the nation has
already pre approved national suicide. If they can do this crap,
so can we. Because I want Republican congressmen and senators

(01:10):
and state and city and village officials to understand right
now that if we put it to a vote tomorrow,
Trump and nearly all of them would be out on
their asses out of office by Wednesday. I don't want
to wait for the midterms and for this involuntary harakiri
to be complete, for the pressure to begin to mount

(01:33):
on Trump's prostitutes, who continue to insist the Emperor does
too have clothes and that the insane worm dictator is
actually a rational human being, and what someone called economic
Munchausen by proxy, in which you make a nation sick
in order to claim to be healing a sick nation,
is somehow survivable. I don't want to wait. I want

(01:57):
Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise and the House congressman with
the stronger instincts towards self preservation to understand and today
that in a parliamentary system, their public careers would already
be dead, That they are shackled to a corpse in
the White House, that there is no master plan, that

(02:19):
the country knows Trump is not playing some long game,
that the country suddenly understands, there is no Trump derangement syndrome,
only Trump is deranged syndrome. That the country knows. This
is an unmitigated, irredeemable by partisan national disaster, and Trump

(02:41):
caused it deliberately. And their only chance is for them,
the Republicans, to use the powers they have right now,
to extract him from office, or at minimum new to
him where he stands and pull all his powers from him,
or they, the Republicans, will perish from the earth. I

(03:01):
want them to know that in five months it's gone
from their futures, depending on enslaving themselves to Trump, to
their futures, depending on them removing him from office immediately.
Them the GOP, the MAGA cult, not Trump but his assholes.

(03:25):
They are the Roman senators, and metaphorically he is Julius
Caesar figuratively speaking, obviously, I want to see polling on
a presidential recall vote. I want one of these moribund, terrified,

(03:46):
formerly journalistic media outlets to ask voters of every possible
flavor if the election were rerun today, would you vote
for Trump or a Democrat? Or would you vote for
Trump or another Republican? Or would you vote for Trump
or a fairly intelligent farm animal. I want the poster

(04:09):
to ask, would you support a special emergency recall vote
to potentially reverse the outcome of the twenty twenty four
presidential election. I want them to ask, would you describe
the current financial panic and the upcoming tsunami of inflation
and unemployment as a national emergency? I want them to ask,

(04:34):
do you think Donald Trump has taken leave of his senses?
I want them to ask, do you think Donald Trump
is mentally fit to run this country? I want them
to ask, do you think Donald Trump is acting to
destroy the United States on behalf of a foreign country.

(04:56):
I want them to ask, do you think it is
necessary to act once and only once outside the constitution?
If necessary to save the United States of America from
Donald Trump? I want them to ask, if the midterm
elections for the Senate and the House, where tomorrow would

(05:17):
you vote Republican or Democrat. Let's see where we really
stand right now, because we're not going to have a
presidential recall vote. We're not going to rerun the election.
We're not going to just this once act outside the constitution.

(05:42):
We're not Republicans, but the Republicans without whose support Trump
could not remain in office past noon need to see
these numbers, need to see that they're elected offices, and
their hopes for reelection, and their hopes for higher office,
and their hopes for post governmental money are flying out

(06:06):
to the effing window because Trump wants to make America
eighteen ninety four again. Because Trump doesn't know what he's doing,
because Trump's mind is shattered beyond repair, shattered beyond rational thought.
They need to see Trump has summoned doomsday, and the
sooner they stick him with the bill for it, the
better chance they have of surviving it, because this is

(06:30):
neither as hopeless nor as complicated as it looks. A
quarter of Republicans in the House and Sented are full
kool aid drinkers. A quarter have doubts. The other half no,
damn well, he's nuts. They've always known he's nuts. They've
just enjoyed the power and the money and the popularity

(06:52):
too much to ever dream of letting it go unless
the choice became he goes or they go. In which
case he goes, they could force him to resign, more
likely to simply flee the country, to leave office and

(07:12):
avoid prison, avoid prison, flee the country, then resign. They
could force him to resign by making it clear that
after his travesty of a mockery of a sham, of
a mockery of two mockeries of a sham, there are
now enough Republican votes to impeach him in the House
and convict him in the Senate. They could force him
out by simply introducing the measure to impeach themselves. Because

(07:39):
there are two truths about American politics. Everything seems permanent
and isn't, and the other one is, and it's true
in this century. It was true last century. It's true
the century before that. It's that there are always lots
of politicians who will risk themselves for their leader, as

(08:00):
long as he demands, they do so one at a time,
or as long as the nation's business demands, they do
so one at a time. But there is no group
of politicians who will collectively risk themselves for their leader.
When the choices are, they go down with him, or
he goes down all by himself.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
It is always, always, always.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
He goes down by himself. Damn shame. He had a
great run. Where are we going to lunch? You don't
believe me? Ask Richard Nixon. The Democrats didn't finish Richard Nixon.
Republican Senate and House leadership finished Richard Nixon. Hell, ask

(08:48):
Abraham Lincoln. Two months before the eighteen sixty four presidential election,
the referendum on the future of the Civil War, Republican
leaders were trying to figure out how to remove Lincoln
from the ballot to two months because he was clearly
going to lose to McClellan in the election, and McClellan

(09:10):
was going to surrender days before Sherman took Atlanta. This
was seven months before Robert E. Lee surrendered the South,
seven months before. They were going to win the war,
and they were going to kick Lincoln to the curb. Oh, oh,
we got it, We got Atlanta. Okay, never mind, not

(09:31):
enough examples. Try other places. The British Conservatives were the
ones who knifed Margaret Thatcher, not the Liberals christ They
knifed David Cameron, then Teresa May, then Boris Johnson, then
Liz trust All while they were Prime Minister. In the
last fifteen years, Trump has an iron grip on MAGA,

(09:56):
on the Republican Party, on the House majority, on the
Senate majority, on the nation U untill eight maybe ten
Republicans in the House decide Trump is going to destroy
them personally, and they get together and they go, let's
not get destroyed personally until fourteen count them, fourteen Republicans

(10:19):
in the Senate decide Trump is going to destroy them personally.
Trump's iron grip is at its largest exactly twenty four
self interested, amorl disloyal Republicans wide twenty four and trust
me at least twenty four. House and Senate Republicans have

(10:40):
always hated Trump's guts and right now at least twenty
four House and Senate Republicans, probably closer to two hundred
and four of them hate Trump's guts. So I want
to see polling numbers on a presidential recall vote? Am

(11:26):
I expecting to see polding numbers on a presidential recall
vote commissioned by ABC, by cowering CNN, by MSNVC more
unlikely still commissioned by some aspect of the Democratic Party.
I am not. I mean, who listens to me? I

(11:51):
am right with surprising frequency, but who listens to me?
On the other hand, I have been pounding for weeks
the idea of a shadow Democratic Cabinet and a weekly
news conference every Sunday morning at eight am, which steals
the agenda for the Sunday morning news shows for all
of local television news all day Sunday, which steals the

(12:12):
news agenda for almost all of media for at least
part of Monday. And what did we get? The new
DNC chair Ken Martin announced the People's Cabinet to provide
stuff with which to hit the trumpests in the groin.
It still sounds a little diffuse to me. He's going

(12:35):
to have experts and random press conferences and data and
stuff that you at home? Can you I want prominent,
popular young Democrats in front of microphones outdoors every Sunday
raising hell but the people's cabinet. It's a start, do
you know, Ken Martin? I mean, tell him about polling

(12:58):
on a presidential recall vote and the impact symbolic at
least that a large number like seventy percent of the
public wanting a new vote or or forty seven percent
of the public wanting a new vote might have on
current events, namely our twenty four Republicans. I mean, for months,

(13:20):
I have been putting out apbs on Barack Obama, and
what happened? He emerged. He did a Q and A
at Hamilton College and not only spewed facts, spilled teas
of infinite variety, but he underscored why he is an essential,

(13:41):
maybe the essential messenger right now, even if it still
doesn't seem clear to him that he needs to get
out there at minimum every two weeks and he has
to stop avoiding calling Trump out by name. But this
message delivered this way is quietly, concisely, magnetically, brilliantly in inspirational.

(14:07):
Just sit for two minutes and listen.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Imagine if I had done any of this. Let me just,
I just, I just want to be clear about this.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
It may imagine that imagine if I.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Had pulled Fox News's credentials from the White House Press Court.
You're laughing, but no, that this is what's happening. It
may imagine if I had said to law firms that
were representing parties that were upset with policies my administration
had initiated that you will not be allowed into government buildings.

(15:01):
We will punish you economically for decent from the Affordable
caret or the Around Deal. We will ferret out students

(15:23):
who protest against my policies. It's unimaginable that the same
parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like

(15:44):
that for me or a whole bunch of my predecessors.
So and I say this. I say this not on
a partisan basis. This has to do with something more ruscious,

(16:06):
which is who are we as a country and what
values do we stand for?

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Now you know why he got elected twice. Additionally, very
matter of factly, President Obama noted that the divide in
the Democratic Party stick to the kitchen table issues, no,
stick to the democracy issues. They're the same issue. It's
one thing without democracy. Trump sets tariffs, and tariffs set

(16:32):
the prices of what's at your kitchen table. The cost
of everything is going up under fascism. Again, Obama remains
the best political speaker in this country. Clinton was once better,

(16:52):
but age has and I mean this literally hurt his
instrument and as an unavoidable aside for which I apologize.
Barack Obama's first political proto speech was also in New
York State at my high school, the one Will Bunch
and Chris Berman and I went to years earlier, obviously

(17:12):
nineteen ninety one, at the behest of the history teacher
who told me on graduation day the sportscasting thing was nice,
but someday I would wind up in politics, covering it
or running in it. I was sixteen. I laughed at him.
His name was Walter Schneller, and Walter was right about
me and more importantly about Obama. As he put him
on the train in Tarrytown, New York, he said, have

(17:34):
you considered running for office? Now? Back to the point,
put all these ideas together, the shadow cabinet, the Sunday
morning news agenda, setting press conference, and having the speaker
at it be at least once in a while Barack
Obama armed with polling on a presidential recall vote and
large protests like this past weekend, at least every other weekend.

(18:03):
Give Ken Martin my email or just a link to
the podcast. Christ Why is this such elabyrinth? Wouldn't it
have been nice to have had Obama doing news conference

(18:25):
yesterday morning instead of an event at Hamilton College yesterday
morning Sunday morning, and forced Trump's parade of idiots on
the Sunday shows to try to follow that, to have
the headlines now not be about disproving these awful, imbecilic
liars and their awful, imbecilic lies, but how awful and
imbecilic they sounded compared to Obama. Also that president will

(18:50):
recall vote. Dato. That's a stunner, isn't it? Steve Cornecki. Ordinarily,
even if you were Trump, you would keep radio silence
after a week in which you imposed tariffs based on
a formula that you dreamt up. That is basically the
ratio of our trade deficit with each country and that

(19:12):
country's total exports to this country, divided by two. In
Layman's terms, this is the equivalent of how much of
your money you have lost to one guy when you
play poker and he's better than you, are, divided by
how much money he actually won from you, divided by
two oh, and then you announce that number is the

(19:33):
cheated by winning. Ordinarily, after a week like that, you
keep radio silence after not only making up an unbelievably
bullshit excuse for how Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlanta got
added to the illegal signal chat about bombing Yemen. I'll
just read this explanation the way Hugo Lowell scooped it
in The Guardian. Hugo's got it right, but I still

(19:56):
think they just made it up. Are you ready you
have a drink nearby, because if you don't need alcohol
after this, at least you I want a drink so
you can do a spit take quote. According to three
people briefed on the internal investigation, Goldberg had emailed the
campaign about a story that criticized Trump for his attitude

(20:16):
towards wounded service members. To push back against the story,
the campaign enlisted the help of Mike Waltz, their national
security surrogate. Goldberg's email was forwarded to then Trump's spokesperson
Brian Hughes, who then copied and pasted the content of
the email, including the signature block with Goldberg's phone number,

(20:39):
into a text message that he sent to Waltz so
that he could be briefed on the forthcoming story. Waltz
did not ultimately call Goldberg, the people said, but in
an extraordinary twist, inadvertently ended up saving Goldberg's number in
his iPhone under the contact card for Hughes, now the

(21:00):
spokesperson for the National Security COUNCILOT. It took them thirteen
days to make that up. And you don't think they're
vulnerable to pressure from twenty four Republicans who would become
convinced that their careers depend on Trump leaving the White House.

(21:26):
Day seven, you got anything.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
No on anything.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Day nine, well, I may have something, something about something
about cutting and pasting. I'll put a team on it.
Thirteen days to make that up. The entire Cuban missile
crisis took thirteen days. We nearly blew up the world,
then steered it all back from the edge of doomsday

(21:51):
in thirteen days. And that's how long it took them
to make that bullshit up. Ordinarily, after that, you'd keep
radio silence, You keep all of your people off TV.
You deny there was an attorney general. Sorry, we don't
have one. No, I went out with that dodge stuff.
Ordinarily you'd keep radio silence. After you crashed the stock

(22:14):
market and the economy and then reposted a video saying
you crashed the stock market intentionally, leaving Janine Piro to say,
I don't really care about my four oh one K
today you know why I believe in this man, and
of course in wine, and you left Benny Johnson to

(22:35):
say losing money needs nothing digital ones and zeros. In
the end, you won't miss any of it. Losing your
country costs you everything. You'll never get that back. Your
kids will be slaved to foreign powers who hate us.
Without America First policies, we become slaves. Fight this after
promising Trump would make all his suckers rich, and Benny
doesn't have to worry about money. There's always Russia. This

(22:59):
reminds me of the famous line from the late great
comic genius Ernie Cooe. The money means nothing. The money
is nothing. Therefore the money means nothing. Ordinarily, after a
week like that, you'd shut the f up and shut
your cabinet, the f up, and not parade your dumbest

(23:20):
people in front of even the milk toast cowering Sunday shows,
not trumpy. I really can't decide who was dumbest. On Fox,
Pam Bondy, who is actually the Attorney General? When she's
so legally illiterate, she makes Alena Habba sound like Oliver
fing Wendell Holmes interviewer, do you believe there's a method

(23:41):
by which Trump could seek a third term? Bondy? I
wish we could have him for twenty years as our president,
maybe ninety eight, but I think he's going to be finished,
probably after this term. Interviewer, Probably, Bondy, we'd have to
look at the constitution. You do that, Pam, go look

(24:04):
for of the Constitution, and while you're at it, look
for a copy of your law degree, because I don't
believe that exists either, at least you don't have one.
On CNN, the Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins interviewer, you're imposing
a ten percent charge on the Herd and MacDonald Islands.
They have zero human inhabitants. Why are you putting tariffs

(24:26):
on islands that are entirely populated by Penguins. Brook Rollins,
Come on, Jake, whatever, listen. The people that are leading
this are serious, intentional, patriotic, the smartest people I've ever
worked with. When the nineteen ninety two Cotton Bowl, Queen
brook Rollins tells you that these are the most serious, intentional, patriotic,

(24:51):
smartest people she's ever worked with, you do realize, sir,
she's including the likes of Lou Holtz and George W. Bush.
Since we're invoking the sweeping stupidity of college football. Theres
coach Tommy Tubberville, still a senator on Fox. Tommy also
believes in brownies and elves. Tubberville quote, we have entire

(25:16):
men's teams crosses country now that are turning trans. Women's
teams are turning trans. That's gonna be a situation where
it's gonna pick up speed because these woke globalists are
pushing these kids. Tommy actually does very well, considering he

(25:37):
was born without a brain. There are, by the way,
an estimated nine transgendered athletes in American college sports. Nine.
And of course you remember when my eye doctor, Rene
Richards transitioned and played in the US Open starting in
nineteen seventy seven, and won twenty seven consecutive US women's titles,

(25:58):
and she destroyed the sport of women's tennis. And nobody
ever heard of, say Chris Evert or Martinez Averertalova, and
they don't play women's tennis any more. Oh right, you
don't remember any of that because it didn't happen, because
there are nine transgendered college athletes in this country in
high school. The only data we have is from Michigan,

(26:19):
where they say they have won. They might have a
second whole teams is women is changing into what would
the other one be? Man? Man could be changing into
the third gender? Tubberville on NBC. Scott besson the Secretary

(26:40):
of Treasury and if ever there was actually a reason
to go check if the gold is still at Fort Knox,
Scott Bessant, is it? Interviewer? The markets lost more than
six trillion dollars in value? Was this disruption always part
of the plan? Bessent. We had record volume on Friday,
and everything is working very smoothly, So the American people
can take great comfort in that record volume. Oh and

(27:08):
the machine didn't break great like the day of the
nineteen twenty nine crash. Well, it's every moment of it
as a disaster. But look, the machine is just ticking
out like nobody's business, those humming machines. Besson actually gets
two entries. He was also asked Trump promised he was
going to improve the economy starting on day one. What

(27:30):
is your message to Americans who want to retire right
now and have just seen their lifetime savings drop significantly?
Bessen't Most Americans who have put away for years in
their savings account don't look at the day to day
fluctuations of what's happening. My heroes, Bob Elliott and Ray
Goulding did a sketch that I heard first when I

(27:50):
was fourteen fifteen years old, about a paper clip factory
somewhere in Ohio, of all places. Their news reporter Wallybloo
played by Bob, is interviewing the owner of the place,
the handmade paper clip factory. Literally, they were handmade paper clips,
cut and bent into shape by hand. Ray, as the

(28:11):
owner explains, how's that possible, Blue asks they must cost
a fortune handmade. No, the owner says, they're ten cents
a box. Fob Akron, we just signed a ninety nine
year sweetheart deal with our union. We pay our employees
eight cents a week. Blue screams eight cents a week?

(28:32):
How do your people live on eight cents a week?
And the owner says, mister Blue, we don't pry into
the private lies of our employees. We don't pry into
the private lives of our employees. People don't have any
money in their checking account and savings account. They don't

(28:52):
know that. They don't look day to day fluctuations in
their account. To that point, possibly the dumbest person in
any cabinet ever, excluding Trump himself obviously on CBS, Commerce
Secretary Howard Lutnik, or as he has been unfortunately renamed

(29:13):
Howard nut Lick Lutnick, you realize tillions of dollars in
factories are going to be built in America. That's huge, GDP.
The factories being built in America are huge, interviewer. That
takes years. And you said that robots are going to
fill those jobs. So those aren't union worker jobs, Lutnick,

(29:34):
it's automated factories. The key is who is going to
build and operate the factories, interviewer, You said robots, Lutnik,
the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing
in little screws to make iPhones. That kind of thing
is going to come to America unquote oh child labor,

(30:05):
which they are moving to make legal in Florida, where
they can screw in little screws to make iPhones better
if you have little hands screwing in little screws ten
cents of box. Fob Ackron, the Bob and Ray sketch
had another punchline. When pressed on the living conditions of

(30:27):
his staff, the head of the handmade paper clip factory
explained that it was his understanding that most of his
employees wore old newspapers wrapped around their feet instead of shoes,
and that they lived in caves on the outskirts of town.

(30:49):
Twenty four Republicans I want pulling on a presidential we
call vote. Also of interest on this whole new episode,
the entire history of who was the first person an
ever to be photographed giving the cameraman the finger now

(31:10):
must be rewritten after discoveries from this weekend past and no,
sorry sports fans, Alexander Ovechkin did not set the all
time record for most goals scored in Big League hockey,
and I will answer an additional question from politics. The

(31:30):
question is Chuck Todd, Why that's next? This Discountdown? This
is Countdown with Keith Oldwoman still ahead in this all

(32:02):
new edition of Countdown now has more goals than Gretzky.
But contrary to what you've heard, that does not mean
Ovechkin now has the record for the most goals scored.
I will explain and the history of the flipped finger
has been entirely rewritten. And I received a question about

(32:26):
Chuck Todd, and I want to answer it at length.
The question is basically, why first believe it or not?
There's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup
of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who
constitute the latest other worst persons in the world. Here
are the nominees the Bronze Worse Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates. The

(32:52):
new season is upon us, and the little murders therein
are becoming visible, such as the Pirates ballpark, at which
they have understandably positioned as a shrine to the late
superstar Roverto Clemente, whose death during a humanitarian mission to
an earthquake in Icaragua is now fifty two years ago.
The Pirates have dozens of tributes to Clemente, including a

(33:15):
statue there's a bridge to the ballpark named after him,
but none were as prominent, at least to the television
audience for the games, than the official logo showing Clemente's
retired uniform number twenty one that rests high up on
the wall in the right field corner, just next to
the foul pole. If the ball was hit to right field,

(33:36):
you at home saw the Clemente logo, Well, it did
rest high up on that wall in the right field corner.
A fan noticed Saturday and posted a photo of that
corner at the Pirates ballpark, and the Clemente uniform number
plaque is gone, replaced by a very large advertisement for Celtze.

(34:00):
This was retweeted by Roberto Clemente Junior, who added one
word wow. The Pirates have confirmed that the Clemente tribute
had been taken down and the Seltzer ad put up
in its place, but they said the plaque had only
been temporary. It was only supposed to be there for
a short period of time before being taken down the

(34:20):
last three years, when evidently they couldn't sell the ad
space I guess. The pirates proceeded to list every tribute
to Clemente they did not take down and replace with
an ad for Celtza, which, of course only underscored the
fact that, yes, they did take the most universally visible
tribute to Roberto Clemente down so they could sell the

(34:43):
space for an ad for a giant can of celtza. Oh,
they never told the Clemente family in advance. They found
out on Twitter runner up worser a MAGA influencer named
Blair White, as in Blair White Project, another one apparently

(35:04):
functioning without thumbs, with which she could google herself or
google something before humiliating herself in public, but won't. Musician
and author Michael Jalet observed the obvious foreign influence behind
Trump's self destructive tariffs. He tweeted, Russia isn't on Trump's
tariff list and repeated that sentence six times. That's the tweet.

(35:28):
White retweeted Jalat and added, we don't import anything from Russia,
repeating that sentence four times and then adding quote you're
a retard unquote. Ms White was quickly community noted because,
according to the Trump Office of the US Trade Representative
the Trump US Trade Representative's office. US exports to Russia

(35:51):
last year totaled five hundred and twenty six million dollars
US imports from Russia, which she says there is none,
in fact total two and a half billion dollars. Slight
difference in the number here he says none. Trump says
two and a half billion dollars. The punchline from the
woman who dropped an R bomb on somebody who was

(36:12):
right when she was wrong. She's transgender, she's maga transgender.
Why do I think they're going to make her life
more complicated? And that she should be nicer to those
of us who won't because that doesn't make a difference
to us. She is a moron, but the winner worst
why he's making the rare two segment appearance. Scott besn't

(36:37):
the Treasury secretary the maga guy who looks like he's
been hitting the face with a shovel. Basically he has
a flat face. He's the one happily responding to the
crisis by insisting this is the ideal time to cut
taxes on the rich. He wasn't supposed to say that
out loud. That's the whole point of this that's the
whole plan. That's the whole idea. They get rid of

(36:59):
taxes for the rich. That's why Trump wants it to
be the eighteen nineties again, and we're in any track.
Taxes made money, kept, all the damn money. That's all
he wants. That's all he wants before he dies. He
wants all the damn money. Politico reports that hours after,
Secretary Bessont added to his series of ridiculous statements by
insisting that the correct American response to tariff disaster twenty

(37:21):
five and terifflation was to quote by American. Seen in
Scott Besson's driveway and scene parked there from months, according
to neighbor, was a range Rover, which is manufactured mostly
in Britain by a company based in India. Treasury Secretary
Scott when I say buy American, I mean you should

(37:46):
buy American, not that I have to buy American. Two
Day's other worst person.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
In the world.

Speaker 4 (38:18):
This is Sports Senate. Wait check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Ulberman.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown. The
answer to the question Chuck Todd first from the Sports
Balls Central Center newsdesk tonight Dateline, Washington on the twenty
first anniversary of the day the Washington Capitals won the
lottery for the first pick and the amateur draft in

(38:51):
which they selected him. Alexander Ovechkin broke Wayne Gretzky's goal
total of eight hundred and ninety four, scoring his eight
hundred and ninety fifth and a loss in which that
was the only goal for Washington and Gretzky, of course,
threw himself off another cliff. And oh, by the way,
Ovechkin did not set the record for most goals scored

(39:12):
in a big league career in hockey, no matter how
hard the National Hockey League and its partners are trying
to sell you on this idea so you will buy merchandise.
Gretzky first. When Ovechkin tied the mark Friday night in Washington,
Wayne Gretzky was there and he was shown on television
in a suite standing next to Popeye himself, Trump fixer,

(39:34):
conspiracy theorist, all around nut job FBI director in this
cheap horror film We're All in Cash Patel. The tying
of the eight hundred and ninety four total now became
Gretzky tied to Ovechkin, whose social media still shows imposing
with Putin, for whom he has campaigned, and Gretzky now
tied to Cash Patel. That's Gretzky, who three months ago

(39:59):
was still one of Canada's all time icons and now
flatley after his buddy Trump decided he's going to attack
Canada one way or the other. Gretzky is hated in Canada.
He attended Trump's victory party and inauguration event. He's been
wearing the hat, He's been playing the golf, he's been
distributing the kool aid. The depth of the heartbroken sense

(40:21):
of betrayal in Canada was already pretty much maxed out.
Then Canada had to watch as Gretzky's record was tied
while Gretzky was standing next to one of Trump's biggest hoares.
As Trump continues to threaten Canada with annexation, financial collapse,
and ultimately inevitably invasion. Patel added to this by tweeting

(40:42):
photos of himself with Gretzky and Ovechkin and the Washington
Capitol's team. Somehow they didn't get Putin in the photo.
Somehow they left Marshall Petan out of that shot anyway. Later,
one of Gretzky's most accomplished teammates, Hall of Famer Kevin Lowe,
posted about all this on Facebook, and I'm going to
read it because it starts as if klow is going

(41:03):
to end up crying leave Wayner alone into a pillow.
But then it takes quite a turn. Kevin Lowe, I've
been heartbroken, disillusioned, frustrated, furious, even from the moment the
witch hunt towards Wayne Gretzky's name began. I've known Wayne
for forty five years. We lived together, we grew up together.
We put our asses on the line to help Canada

(41:26):
win its first Olympic hockey gold medal in fifty years.
I'd say few people qualify to know Wayne as well
as I do. His character and loyalty to Canada have
always been and will always remain impeccable. One thing I
know for certain, Wayne may be the least political person alive,
and as you so astutely presented, shame on anyone who's

(41:47):
attempted to entrap him in Trump's maniacal orbit. Well, Sir,
Kevin Lowe, you have unsuspected depth, and I'm not sure
about the term witch hunt. Gretzky brought this on himself.
Nobody stitched the maga to his hair while he was
out cold. But Lowe leaves an intriguing question there. Shame

(42:10):
on anyone Who's attempted to entrap him in Trump's maniacal orbit.
Anyone well, who would that be, who could have influence
sufficient over Gretzky to entrap him to in essence, sell
out his country that he loves so very well. Another
social media post may have our answer. This is from

(42:32):
right after the election. Congratulations mister President Donald J. Trump.
Red heart, blue heart, American flag. You did it. You
deserved it, you earned every bit of it. The world
is a better place to have you as our leader.
Proud capital, p to be an American. Thank you for
being such a great friend. May God keep watching over you.
Red heart prayers, red heart love, our family to yours.

(42:56):
Space Explanation point Janet Jones Gretzky on Earth? Could any
of this be salvaged?

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Now?

Speaker 1 (43:07):
What can be inferred as the least political person alive
being entrapped in Trump's maniacal orbit as missus Gretzky destroying
mister Gretzky, How can we pull out of this nosedive. Well, sir,
how about this. Wayne Gretzky does not hold the record
for the most goals scored, not anymore. Matter of fact,

(43:31):
he never did. And matter of fact, Alexandrovtchkin also does
not hold the record for the most goals scored. Ovechkin
has eight hundred and ninety five goals in the National
Hockey League, but for nearly all of the nineteen seventies,
the National Hockey League did not have a monopoly on
that sport. In the US and Canada, there was the

(43:52):
World Hockey Association, in which nineteen future Hockey Hall of
famers worked and played, including Mark Messier, Bobby Hall, Jacques Plantch,
Bernie Parrott, Frank Mahablich. And this was only seven worth
of hockey. They had two national television contracts. The National
Hockey League also does not recognize World Hockey Association statistics,

(44:14):
which is arrogant, egotistical, nonsense, and utterly inconsistent. The National
Hockey League recognized the stats from its earlier rival leagues
like the Pacific Coast Association, the Western Canada League. NHL
champions played PCCHA and WCHL champions for the Stanley Cup.
Lost three times in the Stanley Cup. To them, the

(44:37):
NHL recognizes Stanley Cups won by teams that never played
in the NHL recognizes the Stanley Cups its teams won
against those teams that never played in the NHL. But
for some reason, to this day, the WHA still angers
some NHL owners and old timers, especially people even older

(44:59):
than me, and so they decided the WHA never happened,
which is even stranger considering that in nineteen seventy nine,
the NHL, although they would not use the word merge,
absorbed four of the teams from the WHA, and whatever
anybody thought of the quality of play in the WHA,

(45:21):
four WHA franchises immediately joined the National Hockey League, and
in fact all four franchises are still in the National
Hockey League. The Quebec NORDIQ now the Colorado Avalanche, the
Winnipeg Jets, who moved to Phoenix and have been succeeded
by a new Winnipeg Jets franchise, the Hartford Whalers of
late lamented memory now the Carolina Hurricanes, and the Edmonton Oilers.

(45:43):
Those four x WHA franchises have won nine of the
forty four Stanley Cups since since the NHL took them
in took the WHA over. That's several times the average
number of Cups won by any four NHL franchises. Oh
and by the way, those Edmonton Oilers, they came into

(46:04):
the NHL with a player on their roster named Wayne Gretzky.
His goals for the NHL Edmonton Oilers they count towards
his total, but his forty six goals for the WHA
Edmonton Oilers the same team and the WHA Indianapolis Racers
for some reason, those goals do not count. In point

(46:24):
of fact, while Ovechkin has eight hundred and ninety five
career goals right now, Wayne Gretzky actually has nine hundred
and forty career goals. Well, where does that put us?
What good does that do us? Now we're back in
the situation where Gretzky's in the spotlight and everybody hates Wayne. Well,
neither of them has the most career goals. Gordy Howe

(46:46):
scored eight hundred and one goals in the National Hockey
League and one hundred and seventy four more in the WHA.
That would be carry on nine hundred and seventy five.
Gretzky is irrelevant to this discussion, and Ovechkin is still
eighty short of Gordy Howe's all time goals scored record,

(47:07):
and that is probably the best solution here for putin
for a Vechkin, for Gretzki, for Missus Gretzky for Canada.
The all time leading goal scorer is Gordie Howe. He
put the biscuit in the basket. Period dateline, Kingston, New York,

(47:33):
flipping the bird history has been discovered in a sale
of sports memorabilia there by Love of the Game auctions.
For decades, it's been acknowledged that Baseball Hall of Famer
Charles old Hoss Radbourne, the pitcher who won sixty of
his team's eighty four victories as they won the Pennant
and the first World Series in eighteen eighty four. Yes,

(47:54):
his wins above. Replacement that year was nineteen point two.
Old Hass was the first American probably the first human
to appear in a photograph giving the finger. It's plain
as day. He posed with his Boston teammates with the
New York Giants at the Polo Grounds on opening Day
in the year eighteen eighty six, about what fifty blocks

(48:19):
north of my home. And there it is top row,
far left, left hand, middle finger cradled on the left
shoulder of the teammate in the row ahead of him,
Tom Porman. We believe it is the finger high eternity.
I'm Charlie, turns out, though, that is not the first

(48:42):
photo of anybody giving the one fingered salute to the photographer,
certainly not in sports auctioned Saturday Night, the eighteen eighty
two team photo of the Providence Grays, then a major
league team in the National League. There hea is Charlie
Old Hoss Radbourne again back row, second from the left,
his right hand at his belt and kind of kind

(49:04):
of hiding it sort of behind teammate George Wright and
pointed sort of sideways at team manager Harry Wright, kind
of in profile, Radbourne is again giving the finger, only
with the other hand. He was ambedextrous baseball and obscene gesture.
History is thus rewritten. The finger dates it is believed

(49:28):
to ancient rome. The photographed finger now moves back four
years in time, at least from eighteen eighty six to
eighteen eighty two. The price of this priceless photo seventy
two hundred dollars the year he started forty one of
his team's last fifty one games and won thirty five
of them, plus both that were won in the World Series.

(49:51):
When they won the first World Series. Charles Oldhaus give
him the finger. Radbourne apparently reportedly made a maximum of
five thousand dollars. Photo of him is worth seventy two
hundred dollars, which is why he's giving the finger. Finally,

(50:23):
on this all new edition of Countdown, things I promised
not to tell and has promised back to a topic
we addressed last week. I brought this up when news
came out that the former host of Meet the Press,
Chuck Todd, was bargaining with a bank and financiers to
spend up to two billion dollars to buy some sort

(50:44):
of media company, and I was thinking, who in the
hell would trust Chuck Todd with two dollars, let alone
two billion dollars. I've known him for nearly twenty years.
We were in fantasy sports leagues for half that time,
and we worked together at NBC News for the other

(51:06):
half of that time, and he was one of those
people who sort of descended in terms of how impressive
he was the more you got to know him, I'm
sure he would say the same thing about me. In
any event, I don't do an ask me anything or
any of that stuff. I don't solicit questions from the audience.
I don't ask you to tell me what you want

(51:27):
me to talk about, because well, if I needed you
to produce material for me, I would probably pay you
for it, or at least I should so. I feel
that my part of this equation is I come up
with the ideas, and you listen, and you listen to
the commercials, and the people who buy the commercials indirectly

(51:50):
pay me. I think that's fair. I don't have to
mention that you can usually skip through the commercials. In
any event, I don't do these amas. But occasionally a
friend or just a listener will get a question true
to me, and it occurs to me that I have
left out something extraordinarily interesting or apparently interesting to the

(52:11):
person at least who asked the question. Such a case
occurred last week when a friend asked about Chuck Todd,
not about Chuck Todd and the two billion dollars, not
about Chuck Todd, and putting the words in Alexandria Acasio
Cortes's mouth about the concentration camps. She said concentration camps.
He said Nazi concentration camps, quoting her when she never

(52:34):
said Nazi. And could not be convinced that there was
a difference or that he had done anything wrong. Not that,
and not the two billion dollars, and not what happened
to him at Meet the Press, and not the bad Combover. Well, no,
but nobody asked about the bad Combover, and I hadn't
mentioned the bad comb over till just now, So sorry.
This was something else and far more elemental. And it's

(52:56):
the kind of thing I just never think of, because
the number of times this question could have been asked
about somebody I worked with, it was probably by now
in the thousands. I'm sure it's been asked about me
many times. I've read it about myself. In fact, the
question was very simple, How in the hell did Chuck
Todd ever get into the position of being the host

(53:20):
of Meet the Press or anywhere else in which he
could have failed so spectacularly, and to be in a
position where he's so disconnected from reality that he would
think he could walk into a bank or some sort
of I don't know corporate investment fund or Trump's using

(53:41):
taxpayer money for no good reason. I don't know where
he thought he was going to get two billion dollars
or where he thinks he's going to get two billion dollars.
But the point was I was focused on the back
end of it. And my questioner asked that elemental one
that I didn't think about, and I thank him for
asking it. How did Chuck even get that far to

(54:03):
fail that bad? Well, sir, here's what I know between
what Tim Russert told me and what others told me
that Tim Russeer told them people whose confidence or in
whose confidence Tim was to a greater degree than he
was with me. We were friends, and he told me

(54:23):
lots of great stuff, But I'm sure he didn't tell
me everything, and he told other people things that he
I know he didn't tell me, and other things that
I've pieced together over the years, and other things that
people who didn't like Chuck just as much as I
didn't like Chuck told me. Here's what happened. There are,
as always in these situations, circumstances beyond anybody's control. That

(54:45):
played a huge factor. Tim Russeer told me once that
years and years ago, at the height of his earliest
success at NBC. And remember he was the host of
Meet the Press and the bureau chief of NBC News
in Washington. He ran the NBC News operation in Washington.
He did, I don't think put together the schedule for

(55:06):
the assignment editors, but I'm sure at some point he
was involved in those, maybe once a year. He did
bureaucratic work and then got on the phone and traded
horses with Republicans and Democrats, and met people for drinks
and tried to arrange guests, and then had to prep
to trip up the great and the not so great
on Meet the Press. And he did that job. No

(55:27):
matter what the criticisms might have been of him, he
did that job with surprising alacrity in a time in
which it began to vanish from the other networks, and
has not been seen since he died. He was also
a wonderful and engaging human being, and his death was
one of the great sadnesses of my life, truly, and

(55:47):
I responded to it the way I could, which was
to go on the air and relieve everybody else of
the responsibility of anchoring that night, And I do remember,
and we'll always remember that the guy who stayed up
in the middle of the night in Paris and went
to a street corner in Paris, France where he was
on vacation to join us four or five different times,

(56:08):
as late as I believe four am local time Paris
that night, was Bob Schieffer, who was the host of
the CBS equivalent to meet the Press face the nation.
They were very close friends, and his respect for his
friend and colleague and adversary his competitor, Tim Russert strikes

(56:29):
me to this day in any event, at the beginning
when I first knew Tim in the fall of nineteen
ninety seven and the Lewinsky story broke at the beginning
of nineteen ninety eight, I got to know Tim in
bursts where I'd spend an hour with him and he
would tell me three days worth of information and days
later I'd be process it. Wait a minute, Russer told

(56:50):
me this, I forgot all about that. I have to
start taking notes. Russer told me that that long term
he had plans to He wasn't sure which he would
get rid of first, but at some point he could
not envision doing both. Meet the press and running the
NBC News bureau, and more than likely he would give
up the bureaucratic job first because frankly, it didn't pay

(57:12):
as well and it was not nearly as much fun,
although it did allow him to influence so many things
at NBC News. Without that influence, NBC News slowly and
then with greater rapidity went to hell in a handbasket,
into the condition that you see it in now. But
Russert said that he was looking and was always on
the lookout for somebody with that attention to detail who

(57:34):
enjoyed dealing with details like the assignment editors' schedules that
he had had once and then finally had to farm
out as his on air responsibilities got more and more important.
But being the NBC News bureau chief in Washington was
a pretty damn good job to begin with, let alone
also hosting Meet the Press, So he thought he could

(57:55):
probably find somebody just right, just nuts enough, was the
way he put it, and yet talented enough and responsible
enough to do the job. So I left NBC News
and MSNBC late in nineteen ninety eight and never finished
that conversation with him. But I came back with his
Blessing in two thousand and three, and he quickly got
involved again in my show on MSNBC whenever he could,

(58:18):
and stayed late and talked baseball with me in the
middle of the night after election nights in the primary
season of two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
just before his passing, and he told me, and had
told me, I guess in two thousand and three or four,
that they had found a guy who was kind of
number obsessed, a fellow who worked for a news outlet,

(58:41):
a small news outlet called I believe he was with
Hotline and then The Hill, or it might have been
the other way around. But this guy who was a
pretty good guest. He had a kind of funky Fu
Manchuw mustache going for him and thinning hair. But his
name was Chuck Todd, and he was pretty good on
the air. And would I try him out on Countdown?
They were putting him on Hardball with Chris Matthews a lot.

(59:03):
Would I try him out and report back to Tim
what I thought of him, both in terms of his
capability on the air and if I had that sense
of whether or not he might make a good executive
being somebody who had a lot of opinions on what
made a good executive and what made a bad executive,
And he said, should we hire him full time? Don't

(59:24):
give me the answer right away, just thinking about it.
In the next couple of years. At some point he
called me back and he said, it's time for me
to make a decision. What's your vote? And I said yes,
I said, I think he was at his maximum position.
I think that he might learn a little bit more television,
that he might be a good guest, and maybe he

(59:44):
could be a contributor doing things like exit polls or
number crunching on election nights, very much the role that
Steve Kornacki later assumed at NBC News and MSNBC after
By the way, I started him on television at Court TV,
excuse me, at Current TV and never got any credit
from that from him because he's a little strange guy,

(01:00:06):
and apparently he forgot that he was on the air
with us at Current TV, and I was negotiating with
him to join us full time when one day he
did not show up for work and it turned out
he'd signed a deal with MSNBC and never told us
he was even negotiating it, and did not call to
say I will not be there tonight because I've signed
a deal with MSNBC. Quizzed on this later, he did

(01:00:27):
not understand why this was a problem, as I said,
a very very strange guy. The more positive aspects of
this were the sort of thing I thought Chuck Todd
might be good at. And Tim said, I'm glad to
hear you say that. I've tried and tried, and I
just don't see him being a kind of host. I mean,
he might be able to host a daytime show on MSNBC.

(01:00:48):
Maybe we could do something politically that could get him involved.
That's what he wants to do. I think he's better
suited for what you're talking about. Three or four minutes
at a stretch and I said, okay, he said, what
do you think of him as an executive? I'm thinking
maybe he could be political director of NBC News, or
he could be something in which we make him kind
of a bureaucratic figure who then has that cachet on

(01:01:09):
the air of being the political director of NBC News,
who only's on the air, say a total of seventeen
minutes a month. I said, I think that might be
a good thing. He does seem to be very detail oriented,
a little too detail oriented. Sometimes we have to steer
him out of the weeds when he's on as a
guest to talk about the substantial things. The bigger pictures
back them off a little bit from the topicality of

(01:01:32):
the moment to what it means and why we're having
him on as a guest. So that's where we left it,
and that's where Tim Russert died. Originally, Russert had talked
about as a possible successor as the host of Meet
the Press, the NBC News chief White House correspondent in
the late nineties, David Bloom. To lead towards this, they

(01:01:54):
had moved David Bloom to New York as the weekend
host of Today, and then David Bloom in two thousand
and two went to Iraq in late two thousand and
two the beginning of two thousand and three, obviously with
the conflict and the war there and our invasion of
it under mister Bush, and David Bloom died there. He
died there of deep vein thrombosis because he was riding

(01:02:16):
around in this extraordinary then for the time, live tank.
He could broadcast live from this tank, and it was
a great thing for television. Unfortunately it meant that for
several weeks he slept in a tank in a curled
position with his knees bent, and as he got sicker
and sicker and didn't know that it was a problem,
he was turning greener and greener, and those of us

(01:02:36):
who saw him on the air said, what's wrong with him? Oh,
it's it's just the feeds a little off color, and went, well,
everything else looks right, why does he look greenish bronze?
The next day he was dead. It was a tragedy
of unbelievable proportions. So David Bloom was gone, and then
there was no apparent successor lined up in Washington. A

(01:02:56):
lot of the people at NBC News who might actually
have been good successors for Tim Russard if he had
to pick somebody, moved off into different branches of the company.
Noura O'Donnell was one. Noura O'Donnell was considered for a
period of time as a possible successor to Russert on
that show, and then she eventually moved on to CBS
after Tim's death, and that didn't happen at NBC, but

(01:03:19):
the only person that they'd ever really sort of talked about,
maybe as a guest host, as a replacement if something
happened where Tim wanted to retire. Apart from the idea
that Tom Brokaw might make a good fill in, there
was this idea about David Gregory. And then came the
tragedy of the summer of two thousand and eight and

(01:03:41):
the death of Tom Brokaw rather of Tim Russard, and
the immediate replacement of him by Tom Brokaw on an
interim basis, while they tried to get David Gregory up
to speed to be the host to Meet the Press.
I didn't think David Gregory did a bad job as
the host of Meet the Press. Apparently I was in

(01:04:01):
a minority of this, but he was very, very tense.
The job weighed on him heavily, and he was very
difficult to work with by all the accounts I heard of.
And Rachel Maddow once played me the voicemail that David
Gregory left her after she had to cancel for family
reasons a trip to Washington to be on Meet the Press,

(01:04:22):
and it was two minutes of perhaps non stop scatological terms.
How dare you and then just words I won't even
repeat here, and then she said and that was only
the first message. He called right back and there was
another two minutes of it. So that's that's what she
played me. David, I don't think could handle the pressure
of it. David had already flailed out in his role

(01:04:43):
as the original replacement for Don iMOS when they fired
Imus and canceled that show. And because David didn't do that,
we got Joe Scarborough in the Mornings on MSNBC. And
because David didn't do Meet the Press, well, although that
lasted longer than he did on the Mornings, I believe
they gave him three or four weeks on the Morning
on MSNBC and then when next and we got Scarborough.

(01:05:06):
But the Meat the Press thing went on for several years.
I don't know. I wasn't at NBC News, I wasn't
connected to it. I do know that by about twenty
fourteen or so, they made that change. I do know
that Chuck Todd then took me out to dinner one time.
This was transparently designed to get me to convince Katie

(01:05:26):
Turr to accept a lesser assignment than she wanted. After
the twenty sixteen presidential campaign, and Chuck had turned completely
condescending and completely above himself and completely out of his depth.
And he had such a conviction that he and he
alone knew what to do next. It was extraordinary. Any

(01:05:47):
level of charm and maybe I don't have this right
had been gone for a long time. And I think
it was because Russert died. Because Russert was Chuck's rabbi.
He was, in fact the man who was guiding Chuck.
Still had hopes that Chuck might make an anchor, which
he didn't. But the origins of all of that are

(01:06:09):
as I told you. The reason that Chuck Todd got
into the position that he got into was Tim Russert
was looking for somebody to succeed him as bureau chief
of NBC News in Washington. Couldn't find anybody he thought
of that would be good. He was thinking of looking
for somebody eventually to take over Meet the Press, and
didn't really find anybody that he thought of, But he

(01:06:29):
certainly thought that David Gregory would be a good choice
and Chuck Todd would not. He took a poll of
all the people at NBC News and MSNBC who he
trusted as to whether or not he should hire Chuck
Todd for any capacity, and I guess we all voted yes,
and I apologize for that. What can I tell you
in any event? I keep saying in any event, But

(01:06:50):
that's the key operative word. Chuck Todd wound up in
a position to be the host of Meet the Press
because David Bloom died and Tim Russert died and David
Gregory did not succeed. When you are, in essence, maybe
the fourth choice, or the fourth reasonable choice, or the

(01:07:10):
fourth consensus choice. Sometimes that's just not good enough. And
that's what happened to Chuck. And I hope they ask
him those questions before they give him the two billion dollars.

(01:07:37):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the
musical directors have Countdown, have arranged, produced and performed most
of our music on this Programmy mister Chanelle handled the
orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars based
on drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical
and pithy musical comments are by the Best Baseball stadium

(01:07:59):
organist ever Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman
theme from ESPN, which was written by Mitch Warren Davis
and appears courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today
was my friend Jonathan Banks from Better Call Saw and
Breaking Bad and Airplane. Everything else was as ever, pretty

(01:08:23):
much my fault. Let's countdown for today, just three and
eighty five days until the scheduled end of his lame
doc lame brained term, unless Musk removes him sooner or
the actuarial tables due. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday.
As always boldens as the news warrants, remember impeach Trump.

(01:08:47):
It will not work well now. It will, however, win
the Democrats the mid terms, and I want polling on
a presidential recall vote. Let's put as they said in
the original British version of House of Cards, let's put
a bit of stick about until next time. I'm Keith Olberman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown

(01:09:27):
with Keith Olberman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.