January 30, 2025 • 53 mins
SEASON 3 EPISODE 91: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: While any culpability for the DC air disaster is still to be established and the dead are still in the water I want to withhold implying political or governmental meaning to it and focus instead on events we already can see with relative clarity.
Karoline Leavitt was already so stupid that she once on-air insisted there was a word pronounced "damaning" (as in 'the evidence is damaning') and pronounced the Nazi monster's name as "Hilter."
Now with one tweet she may have topped herself. How do you publicly announce that the spending freeze struck down by a federal judge wasn't withdrawn, only its ANNOUNCEMENT was withdrawn, and only in response to the judge's ruling, and the freeze is going on as planned?
That's called contempt of court. Trump's lawyers will literally have to talk their way out of spending a day behind bars. Besides which, another judge has said the conflicting statements about the freeze pause are irrelevant: it cannot proceed.
This all underscores what has been evident since Trump again seized power. He is burning through the relative approval and patience of an exhausted America far more quickly this time than last, and there is a reckoning coming. His disapproval number jumped SEVEN points from last Tuesday to this past Sunday. The judges are fighting back. His hirelings are idiots. The public doesn't want this. Hopefully what follows is not unprecedented.
B-Block (28:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Washington Post continues to trivialize and normalize the Madness of King Trump. Lauren Boebert is an actual expert on laboring with your hands, so I guess her opinion on how the minimum wage is too HIGH matters. And it's Anna Paulina Luna who finally gives in and proposes a bill to put Trump's head on Mt. Rushmore. Unfortunately she's phrased it in such a way that it could mean LITERALLY: put Trump's head ON Mt. Rushmore.
C-Block (36:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Nothing like the stream of consciousness that comes as you awake from the stream of UNconsciousness. On the way back from the endoscopy I saw the building in which I met Jim Thorpe's Olympic roommate from 1912, and I rediscovered the game "Midpoint" and I remembered the Twitter game from two years ago: "Hitler Handshakes."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Who
could have guessed that a press secretary whose previous public
(00:29):
speaking high watermark was either when she called the worst
person in human history hilter or when she insisted there
was a word damining, as in damining evidence. Who could
have possibly guessed that this press secretary could manage to
(00:51):
tweet her new administration into a position where some of
its lawyers might go to jail for contempt of court.
I mean, follow the components of this disaster in their
chronological order. The first time Trump shot himself in the foot. Here,
Trump issues this government shut down via the back door,
(01:13):
pausing virtually all domestic spending and closing all the medicaid portals,
utterly illegal, utterly unconscionable, utterly damaging to his own cult members.
A judge then issues a temporary restraining order against the
spending pause, whereupon Trump shoots himself in the foot. A
second time, Trump's lawyers back away from the pause and
(01:36):
insist the pause has been rescinded. The third time Trump
shoots himself in the foot. Even Trump supporters in the
cowering media realize Trump has just made himself look like
an idiot. The second dramatic dictatorial edict he has issued
and then had to back off of or emend in
(01:57):
like twenty four hours. Trump is wounded, damaged, laughed. At
the fourth time, Trump shoots himself in the foot, just
this one time, just this one case. The fourth time,
Press Secretary Caroline Levitt shoots him in the foot for
him her tweet, this is not a recision of the
(02:19):
federal funding freeze. It is simply a recision of themb memo.
Why to end any confusion created by the court's injunction,
the President's eos on federal funding remain in full force
and effect and will be rigorously implemented. So the Press
secretary says, Trump withdrew the memo about the funding freeze,
(02:43):
that the judge had unfrozen, but that the freeze is
still in effect no matter what some judge rules, and
that Trump deliberately rescinded just the memo in order to
evade the judge's ruling, and that's contempt of court, and
Trump's lawyers are going to have to explain to this
judge why he should not or in this case, why
(03:05):
she should not put them in jail. Overnight or you know, forever,
for deliberately ignoring her order and having this nitwit Levitt
boast about ignoring her order. Oh and just to bury Trump.
Still further on this, a second federal judge also ruled
that the recision is meaningless and he's issued a court
(03:28):
order that stays in effect, and Trump can call it
whatever he wants in Levitt can call it whatever she wants.
He can't freeze government spending just because he's president. Can't.
I have said countless times democracy is preserved less by
our efforts to save it than by the stupidity of
those who are trying to destroy it. And these people
(03:51):
are remarkably stupid. Trump is remarkably stupid. Caroline Levitt is
remarkably stupid. She really did think the name of the
Nazi guy was Hilter and that there was a word damining.
And if you saw her first news conference, she really
(04:13):
does smile vapidly at all the wrong times, like a robot,
only like a robot you bought used at Sam's Club.
Post warranty, I mentioned her public speaking high watermark. Her
career watermark was getting a softball scholarship to Saint Anselm
(04:34):
College in New Hampshire, or maybe it was revealing this
month that she had three hundred and twenty six thousand
dollars in unpaid campaign debts, two hundred thousand of which
were improper donations, violating the contribution limit. This is from
a congressional campaign from two years ago, when she got
smoked by eight points, possibly because she's a Sam's Club
(04:54):
robot who thinks it's damining about mister Hilter. Levitt makes
Kaylee mcananney look like Madame Cure, she makes Sean Spicer
look like honest Abe Lincoln. And she also factors into
yet a separate case of just keep shooting your own
foot off. The toes will be coming off any moment now,
(05:17):
The New York Times. I mean, if bad Dad Bob
had had a daylight Caroline Levitt had yesterday, Sodom Hussein
would have been trying to figure out a way to
ease him out, because as it unraveled for her, you
put who at risk of contempt of court. This headline
was still up at The New York Times about her quote,
(05:38):
white House Press Secretary makes steely and unflinching debut. Caroline
Levitt used her first briefing in the role to warn
veteran reporters that they were increasingly irrelevant. Well, I'll say
this much for her, She's not irrelevant. By the way.
(06:24):
As an aside, META, which is short for Mark Zuckerberg,
is Meta terrified of something Trump has on him. Meta
just got into the who can collaborate more contest yesterday
alongside the New York Times, Washington Post ABCCBS. Zuckerberg has
settled a nuisance suit from Trump about canceling his account
(06:50):
for twenty five million dollars. Because what you're gonna go
to the trouble of bribing Trump twenty five million dollars
when there's a subtle legal way to accomplish the same thing,
all right? With that? As an a side back to
the spending freeze chaos, there is a contrarian viewpoint about
it that you should know that this utter fiasco by
(07:13):
Trump order a freeze have a court overrule. You tell
the court you are trying to evade its order, and
how you are trying to evade its order, that they
meant to do that. Charlie Savage, one of the great
New York Times journalists, being buried by a couple of
headline editors who have apparently begun the quixotic quest to
drive the Gray Lady out of business. Charlie Savage wrote
(07:34):
last night that quote Trump abruptly fired dozens of officials
in the past few days, including inspectors general, a member
of the National Labor Relations Board, and career prosecutors, in
ways that apparently violated federal laws, setting up the possibility
of lawsuits. But the prospect of getting dragged into court
may be exactly what mister Trump's lawyers are hoping for.
(07:56):
There is a risk that judges may determine that some
of the dismissals were illegal, but any rulings in the
President's favor would establish precedents that would expand presidential power
to control the federal government. I mean his piece. Savage
does not mention this fiasco over the spending freeze, or
the other fiasco over the phony employee buyout program, or
(08:18):
any of the other fiascos of the first nine days,
but his point is clear. All of these freezes, included
are could be to set up test cases so that,
if there were any doubt, the Supreme Court could eventually
hear them and begin to specify what exact rights Trump
has as a dictator, freed from any checks and balances
(08:39):
and completely liberated from the possibility of criminal prosecution later. Still,
it's something of a Rube Goldberg way of doing this,
and once the Supreme Court made up presidential immunity, all
this as a four D chess kind of thing seems unnecessary.
(09:00):
But I suppose, I suppose it's possible, if they were smart,
if they had public support, which by the way, they don't.
For all the boasting, he cannot say it too often.
More people voted against Trump than for him last November,
(09:22):
and our drunken Friend polling is back with this rather
large outside the margin of error number. The Reuter's IPSOS
poll taken a week ago Monday and Tuesday, showed Trump
at his most popular only thirty nine percent disapproval. The
new Reuter's IPSOS poll, taken over the weekend the weekend
(09:42):
that followed Monday and Tuesday, shows his disapproval has ballooned
back to forty six percent, up seven points after five
days in office. I mean, that's impressive. Pardoning the January
sixth terrorist was a huge mistake, sixty two percent disapproval.
Another reason the Democrats should file impeachment bills about the
(10:04):
were he six pardons, trying to end birthright citizenship fifty
nine percent disapproval. Ending federal programs to hire women and
minorities if you don't say that's what DEI is fifty
nine percent disapproval. Pulling out of the Paris Climate Chords
(10:25):
fifty six percent disapproval, and in the stupid realm calling
it the Gulf of America seventy percent disapproval. Those geography
classes are more popular than you thought. These are omens,
auguries and four tents. Dire for Trump because this is
(10:48):
all he's got. I just ran through the essences of
his his worldview. He can't govern. He's still trying to
stop shooting himself in the foot. In this context, you're
problem with overthrowing democracy and replacing it with a dictatorial
kleptocracy dedicated to revenge, cruelty, threats, and the specter of violence.
(11:13):
Is that history teaches us when the components of this
are so unpopular that they score polling numbers like that
seventy percent against your nido idea and sixty percent over
against your substantive ideas, History teaches us that in every country,
in every century, such dictatorial kleptocracies are eventually met and
(11:36):
eventually disempowered by a defiance, a defiance better skilled at revenge,
better motivated to use cruelty, more gifted at targeting threats,
more exact with its violence or warnings of violence. Let
me say, at the outset, whatever form this takes here,
and I do not know what that form will be,
(11:57):
I truly hope it will not be violent. I do
not want this. I would rather limit protest defiance to
Thomas Jefferson's approach to slavery, hold the wolf by the ears,
because you can neither hold him nor safely let him go.
But in the last week it has seemed to me
(12:18):
that to avoid it, there would have to be a major,
nullifying intervention to remove Donald Trump and these moronic pirates
who adhere to him. I actually, and I'm not sure why,
have hopes such an intervention will take place, as unlikely
as it seems at this moment. What kind of interventional
it could be? A dozen Republicans saying enough the correct
(12:41):
dozen Republicans could topple this administration tomorrow afternoon, or just
two conservative Supreme Court justices saying enough, or even Trump's
supporters suddenly cut off from all those government grants and
aid saying enough, or it could be a financial rebellion
led by the key Blue states, or a tax strike,
(13:04):
general strike, or something worse. Any one of ten thousands
somethings worse that I do not like to think about,
and I think pretty much any one of them would work.
Trump says, believes others will believe, may believe it himself
(13:26):
keeps repeating that he turned on some sort of giant
spigot in California and made it rain. The only thing
that actually happened was just a reservoir undergoing maintenance coming
back online. Whoever wrote Secretary of Combover's Rubio's International Aid
(13:47):
freeze had to retract it and add a waiver or
two or seven life saving medicine, medical services, food shelter,
and subsistence, as well as essential supplies and reasonable cost
to deliver such assistance not covered by this. Whoever froze
the domestic aid and grants never realized everything they did
thing was illegal, That money authorized by Congress to be
(14:07):
spent must be spent, that not doing so is prohibited
by the Impoundment Control Acted nineteen seventy four. And even
if the Supreme Court were to again erase the law
and erase the Constitution and sided with Trump, even if
the Charlie Savage article is theoretically correct, all that Trump
has done in the first week will be tied up
(14:29):
in a thousand lawsuits in the lower courts. And whoever
in the administration at all, I mean, who offered this
non buyout buyout to every government employee A must be
too stoned to understand what would happen to the world
economy if you suddenly paid two million government union employees
(14:52):
a buyout tomorrow. And B they forgot that The Supreme
Court may have made the president immune from criminal prosecution
for what he did in office, but he didn't make
a goddamn one of Eli Musk and the Musk wannabes
immune from prosecution. And just as importantly, when you stop
(15:13):
all domestic government financial assistants, which is what Trump's Caroline
Levitt says they're still doing, guess who that affects Trump supporters,
civilian Trump supporters, and maybe more relevantly, Trump congressmen who
(15:34):
have to go and get the votes of those Trump supporters.
Just six hundred and forty four days from now and
even they are beginning to say, you idiots put eighty
undocumented immigrants on military planes that cost eight hundred and
fifty thousand dollars per flight. You idiots trying to cont
trillions from the government expenditures, reduce our tax burdens by
(16:00):
trillions of dollars. You decided to deport a million people,
so you're going to spend nine hundred and sixty seven billion,
nine hundred million dollars of my money on that instead
of spending it on me at all. The undocumented immigrants
say nothing of the documented immigrants stop showing up on
the farms and at the construction sites. And now a
(16:20):
tomato costs how far is it going to go? Forty
seven dollars each? Because nearly all of them are rotting
in the fields. Oh, and the building industry grinds to
a halt. It is all well and good to crash
the system until the system turns out to be a
clown car. And when you crash it, it bursts into
(16:40):
flames and lights everything on fire. Because every immigrant food
worker in this country is smarter and tougher than Trump,
and every immigrant construction worker in this country will survive
when tom Homan will not, and the Mark Millies, with
(17:01):
or without a security detail, will always bury the Pete
Keg breaths, if only because Mark Milly isn't an alcoholic,
and every New Yorker, every single New Yorker, is more
resilient and smarter than Christy effing Nome. An old woman
(17:22):
wearing too much makeup coast playing in an ice uniform
that looks like the vest belonging to a suicide bomber,
also known as what she wears when she leaves the
house to go murder the family dog seems to me.
(17:46):
The one real risk to my scenario of some peaceful
blowback is, of course, the cowardice of the Democratic Party,
as Robert F. Kennedy Junior yesterday denied at his hearing
everything except that his name was Robert F. Kennedy Junior,
denying he ever compared COVID lockdowns and vaccines to Nazi
(18:09):
death Camps said, I never said that. Raphael Warnock read
him the transcript of him saying it. Then Kennedy said, well,
I wasn't comparing then, I was just comparing their effect.
While Kennedy was doing that, they were still rumbling. Some
Democrats like his law school roommate, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse might
vote to confirm. Senator, I have always deeply respected and
(18:32):
admired you. This, though, is existential. Kennedy is a madman.
His irresponsibility will lead to Americans dying, especially children. If
you vote to confirm him, Sheldon Whitehouse, you are dead
in the Democratic Party dead. You are deader than Eric
Adams is. New York Times is reporting our beloved mayor
(18:53):
has gotten the Trump Department of Enforcers to consider dropping
the federal investigation of him. Senator, you would be deater
than Kathy Hochel, the soon to be ex governor of
New York, who, like Adams, has pledged cooperation with Ice
on these Trump gestapo raids in New York. Senator, you
(19:13):
would be better than Hakeem Jeffries, and I'm sorry right now,
Hakeem Jeffrey should be removed as minority leader NBC News quote.
Less than forty eight hours after Trump was inaugurated, House
Minority Leader A. Kim Jeffries held a closed door meeting
with Democratic lawmakers to issue a warning and a clarion call.
The new administration was going to flood the zone and
(19:35):
Democrats couldn't afford to chase every single outrage or nothing
was going to sink in for the American people, Jeffreys
told them. According to a person in the room who
requested an anemity to discuss the private meeting, Jeffreys urged
members to focus their message on the cost of living
along with border security and community safety. Quote. The House
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Republican Contract against America is an extreme plan that will
not lower costs for everyday Americans, Jeffreys told reporters the
next day, referring to the GOP agenda and spending cuts
it is weighing. It will make our country more expensive. Congressman,
the House Republican Contract against America. That's a line from
(20:18):
the nineteen ninety four midterms. If you're going to make
a mistake, at least make a new one. Bottom line, Congressman,
you are expected to do both of these things. If
you want to emphasize kitchen table issues along with Trump's
attempt to, you know, convert our form of government into
(20:40):
a monarchy. Cool. Cool, I guess it won't hurt if
you do the economy instead of the end of civilization
as we know it. You get the f out. I'll
support primarying you. Hell, I'll primary you myself, even if
it means I have to move to Coney Island. At
(21:01):
least they got a nice minor league ballpark in Coney Island.
As their confirmation hearings now begin. Tulsa Gabbard and Cash
Bettel were referred to by Russian TV propagandists as our
Tulsi and our Cash. And you somehow think you have
to campaign only on the price of eggs because you
(21:24):
couldn't successfully figure out how to campaign last year on
an anti dictatorship message. Get the f out of here.
You are all on the brink of collaborating with the
Nazis for the worst reason, because you're incompetent. Minority leader Jeffries,
(21:48):
the cliff is feet in front of you. My advice
is swerve. So here we are Republican stupidity versus democratic cowardice.
(22:13):
I feel like singing the national anthem, and yet I
still have hope our cowards will prevail over their morons,
because boy are they morons. You heard, of course, that
the wording in this government employee buyout program is almost
(22:35):
identical to the wording in Elon Musk's employee buyout program
for when he bought, crashed, and burned Twitter quote. Upon
review of the below deferred resignation letter. If you wish
to resign one select reply to this email. You must
reply from your government account. A reply from an account
(22:56):
other than your government account will not be accepted. To
type the word resign into the body of this reply
email hit send. Last day to accept the defird resignation
program is February sex, twenty twenty five. Firstly, you you
(23:16):
would accept a Trump buyout, a promise of money from
Trump with his track record of stiffing employees on contractors,
and as to this Muskian demand to unsubscribe from your job,
click this link. In other words, to resign. Press one
(23:40):
to accept as buyout compensation a previously owned Tesla instead
of money. Press two to join a general stripe to
unseat the fascists. Press three. Also of interest here in
this all new edition of Countdown, they are this close
(24:02):
to drinking kool aid for Trump. A congresswoman, and you
can take the break here to guess which one. There's
only like sixteen of them now. A congresswoman, A stupid congresswoman.
Haven't narrowed it down at all. Have a stupid congresswoman
has moved to add Trump to Mount Rushmore a bill
(24:28):
in Congress to add Trump to Mount Rushmore. Unfortunately for her,
her press release reads as if her bill says it's
to put Trump's actual head on Mount Rushmore, which, come
to think of it would be something we could all
get behind. That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown
(24:52):
with Keith Openman still ahead on an all new edition
(25:17):
of Countdown. I flashed back yesterday to the day I
met Jim Thorpe's roommate at the nineteen twelve Olympics at
a museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and that made
me flash back to the day I met someone who
knew someone who'd shaken the hand of Hitler. A lot
(25:38):
of strange things happen when you're coming out of anesthesia. Also,
this question related to all that, will we be playing
that handshake game someday with a current dictator? I'm not
shaking your hand ahead on things I promised not to tell.
Can't believe I shook this guy's freaking hand. First, there's
(25:59):
still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup
of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effets specimens
constitute two days. Other worst persons in the world, the
Bronze Worse, The Washington Post, Penny Saber and Hot Sex News.
Here's the new low and they find a new one
(26:20):
daily under the British idiot they brought in to destroy
the place. He's doing a great job. Anybody left, I
don't mean anybody left for another paper. I'm just asking
is there anybody left at the Washington Post? I mean
I spoke to a reporter last week. I think he's
still there. But it's been a week. This is the
latest farce from what the Washington Post has become. It's
(26:44):
an illustration. On one side is Bobby Kennedy, you know,
the man without pants who likes to masturbate on the
phone or on FaceTime. Bobby Kennedy, who would be in
charge of health and human services, as in ending health
and denying human services. He's on the left and he's
in a pink reason they made his picture pink. And
(27:06):
then over here on the other side is the is
looking right, Bobby's looking left. On the right side, it's
Michelle Obama and she's looking to the right and she's
mostly blue. And in between there's a carrot, and what
looks to be a radish, and either a strawberry or
heart is in Michelle Obama's hair. And this is what
this is the illustration for. Did RFK Junior or Michelle
(27:27):
Obama say it about food? Take our quiz? Did democracy
end in twenty seventeen or twenty twenty five? Take our quiz?
Are you still reading the Washington Post? Or are you
not seeing this? Take our quiz? Have we become collaborators
with an evil empire that may or may not be
(27:51):
willing to leave office when its term is over? Take
our quiz. I have a suggestion. Take your quiz and
shove it. Washington Post runner up Lauren Bobert, still congresswoman
from Colorado, from the particularly dumb place in Colorado where
they sent all the dumb people. She's complaining that that's right,
(28:15):
the minimum wage is too high that many of our
youth have lost the apportunity to mander the workforce. Do
the high minimum wage requirements seven dollars and twenty five
cents an hour? High taxes, insurance, and paid leave requirements
are a few of many issues. As well paid leave requirements.
Small business owners are unable to invest in first time workers,
(28:35):
or provide them with skills training for their future. This
was in response to a Thomas Massey tweet about how
you shouldn't charge kids who are working taxes. Not an
unreasonable suggestion from a lunatic like Thomas Massey, and then
Bobert takes it completely somewhere else, which is kids should
(28:55):
not have to work for minimum wage. They should work
for less manual labor, less than seven dollars and twenty
five cents an hour, stacking boxes, digging trenches, whatever it
is you want, working in shoe factories, whatever it is
she has in mind for manual labor, manual labor. Because
(29:17):
of course seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour,
that's still the minimum wage. That would be more than
Lauren Bobert charges for manual labor. Think about it, but
the winner worst another congresswoman who makes Lauren Bobert look
like Geraldine Ferraro, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. Real name Anna Meyerhoffer. Right,
(29:43):
your arm is Mayor Hoffer. I've officially introduced legislation to
put President Trump's face on Mount Rushmore. I swear to God,
this is actual, This is a real thing. His remarkable
accomplishments for our country and the success he will continue
to deliver, deserve the highest recognition and honor on this
iconic national monument. Let's get at carving. I do like
(30:07):
the imagery though, but let's get carving. So she has
a picture of Trump and a picture of her, and
that stupid pictures of her smile, that fake smile with
the fake lips and the fake face. And there it
is the revised Mount Rushmore, Washington on the left, Jefferson
looking over to the side, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and
(30:30):
in front of them all Trump. Of course, Trump when
he was like twenty eight years old. Breaking Representative Luna
introduces legislation to carve President Trump on Mount Rushmore. See
there's a problem with your language choice there, Congresswoman. You
want to carve President Trump on Mount Rushmore. Let's get carving,
(30:55):
she says, is that does the Secret Service know about this?
To put President Trump's face on Mount rush Race. See
I can go along with miss Luna here. Actually she
wants to carve Trump's face and stick it on Mount Rushmore. Well,
I believe reading this, Anna Paulina Luna means his face.
(31:18):
Let's go Anna, Paulina Luna, write your arm Missus Meyerhoffer
tick two days other worst person in the world. She
(31:38):
was the number one story on the countdown, and things
I promised not to tell on my way back from
the endoscopy. I'm fine. Just as importantly, I didn't wake
up during the endoscopy. Happily we did this once in
two thousand and five. That will last me the rest
(32:00):
of my life. I'm fine. Thank you for asking. It
was waytown in Manhattan, and it occurred to me that
although I've been there now twice in the last week
or so, I had not been passed the fabulous Frank
Lloyd WRIGHTE. Guggenheim Museum on Upper Fifth Avenue relative to
Manhattan anyway since nineteen eighty two. I've been there twice
(32:22):
in a week, and just because it's a downtown street
and I don't spend a lot of time uptown, and
it's passed the real museum row on Fifth Avenue. I'd
been as north as by eighty ninth Street, something like that,
but i'd never been as far as the Guggenheim for
forty two and a half years, and I've been passed
(32:43):
it twice in the last week, and it means only
one thing to me. Oh, great art itself is great art.
Frank Lloyd write all those stories the Guggenheim Museum means
to me Abel Kiviat. I'll explain able Kiviat, but I
also want to say that because my mind was emptying
(33:04):
the remainder of the sedations slash anesthesia, which was strong
enough so that I didn't wake up during it. This time,
I also thought of, for some reason, the Midpoint game.
You ever played the midpoint game? Like, this event happened
this far in my past? And if I double that,
what happened? You know, if it's ten years ago, what
(33:24):
happened ten years ago? Exactly before that happened? What was that?
The midpoint of relative is today? I think that's a
fun game, and it popped into my head too, because
strange things pop into your head as it's clearing, relatively speaking,
and that led me, of course to the famous handshake game.
We'll leave that for last. Let me tell you about
Abel Kiviat In the old days here in New York,
(33:48):
the New York Marathon, which now features like I don't know,
seventy five million people running on a Sunday as I've
described it many times, the New York Marathon, your worst neighbor.
They block all the streets, no matter where you go,
they're running there. They made the whole thing more and
more intricate over the years. This started back in the
(34:09):
old days, when there was no television, no radio, no publicity.
CNN once sent a live truck, the only live truck
they had to cover the start of the race on
the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and they got this great idea,
this unbelievable new idea, the first one perhaps ever in
cable television. Cover it live, but keep the truck moving
because the signal will work from all points of the
(34:31):
Verizona Narrows Bridge. You'll get a live, moving shot of
the start of the race. And they did it, and
they were so proud of themselves. And then they forgot
there was a toll booth and a low overhanging bridge
across the toll booth, and live on television. CNN, in
its first year, snapped its live truck's arm its mast
(34:55):
in half. Nobody was injured. Mary Alice Williams, who ran
the New York bureau for CNN, kept the destroyed sort
of knuckle of the mast in a frame on her
office wall, or as long as I knew her working
at CNN in New York in those old days, Yeah,
they got so little publicity for the New York Marathon
(35:16):
that they were happy to have the CNN truck drive
in front of the runners two thousand runners maybe in
the first ones in the early eighties, so happy to
have them there that they were willing to risk the
runners lives because the guy driving the CNN truck did
not think to stop at the toll booth. And I
believe it was Mary Alice Williams's brother, but that may
not be correct. I don't want to insult him. In
(35:38):
any event, it was true that in those days, nobody
cared about the New York Marathon unless nobody knew about
the New York Marathon, and so they called us up
one day. The head, the founder of the New York Marathon,
a little man named Fred Leebow, who ran with a
bicycle racer's cap from the eighties, a little tiny baseball
(35:59):
cap only shrunk to the head with the brim pushed upwards.
He walked around with that all the time, and he
was I forget from where somewhere in Europe and he
had a little European accent and he ran the marathon.
He is the founder of the marathon. I think there
is a statue to him, and it is deserved. He
built it out of nothing, and he built it out
of nothing. This way, I come back from a shoot
at CNN in nineteen eighty two and there is a
(36:20):
message for me, call Fred Libo at the New York
City Marathon. It's like, okay, fine, we need a story.
Maybe we can do something on the New York City Marathon.
I'm the sports reporter. Why not. I call up the
offices New York Roadrunners Club or whatever it was called,
and I get this, This is the switchboard New York
road Runners Club. Hi, Fred Libo's office, please, CNN returning
(36:41):
her call, speaking even though I called him her, he
was operating the switchboard. Well, it turned out that he said,
we're going to have an event at the Guggenheim Museum
for this man, Able Kiviat, and he's not actually going
to run in the nineteen eighty two New York Marathon,
but he's going to be like our starter and he's
(37:03):
going to run a little bit. Becase, because Able's ninety
four years old, and I said, I know exactly who
he is. Oh I doct you know who he is?
I said, he held like ten middle distance running records
in this country. Is the top middle distance runner sprints
and you know a thousand yards or whatever it was
how they measured them in those days. How do you
(37:24):
know that? I said, I have his his tobacco card
they made. They used to make cards of great athletes.
It was a set that had bowlers and golfers and
Abel Kiviat in it, and it was one of my
favorite sets of cards. So I knew who he was,
and I went, he's still alive, yes, and he's a
pis a pisser. And that's the first time I think
I ever heard that in publicity language. So we arranged
(37:47):
to go meet Abel Kiviat at this event. No other
television cameras were there, as I remember, and they sat
me next to Able Kiviat for lunch, and he was,
in fact, as Fred Liebo described him, a pisser was
Fred was not exaggerating. Abel talked like both my grandfather's
and he was from somewhere in Queens and he said
(38:08):
things like Tarty third Street and he was just marvelous,
and he had a full head of hair, and he
was shop as attack and he explained to me his
history as a runner, and I was enthralled by it.
A professional athlete from nineteen ten talking to me about
the Olympics, while he was not officially professional, but you
know what it was like then. This was marvelous to me.
(38:31):
This man had been on a baseball card, essentially a
track and field card. But it was like meeting I
don't know cy young Christy Matthewson, abel kiveat all of
an era. At some point we started talking about Abele's
role in the nineteen twelve Olympics, and he said, yeah,
I was Jim Thorpe's roommate, And I went, you what
(38:54):
probably the greatest natural athlete of all time in the
most different sports track and field basically invented professional football,
basically popularized college football. He could kick, he could pass,
he could block, he could receive. He sometimes did all
these things in the same game. He also played pro baseball.
He was also an actor, and he also achieved a
(39:15):
modicum of success anyway in a society that completely denigrated
the fact that he was a Native American, and he
survived the forcible translation of him from a native American
to a quote unquote modern American in the early twentieth century,
one of the great people in our history. And this
was his roommate. So he says, Abel does in his
(39:38):
wonderful way, sounding like both my grandfather is from the Bronx.
He says, Yeah, we went over to England to pick
up the team in a boat. Went big boat, I said,
like a cruise ship. Yeah, we're in a cruise ship.
And we get over there and we meet them in
Liverpool and they come on board, and then we go
to the Olympics and we're out there in the a
(39:59):
Sai Zephery. Was it Denmark? Was it Copenhagen? Was it Oslow?
I forgot what we were. He's mentioned like four countries
so far. But he's in there with them, and he says,
the night before all the lords and ladies of England
are there and all of our team and all of
their team, and we're they're we're all in tusas. I
had to borrow one. They had them on board this
(40:21):
ship and we're having this this party, and sooner or
later there's enough drink that every one of these athletes
decides they're gonna run up and grab this. They had
this huge chandelier and I went, my god, he could
be my grandfather. That's how both my grandfathers pronounced the
word chandelier. And in fact, one of my grandfathers was
named Charbonier. He pronounced it chabanir like that. He should
(40:45):
have been Charbonnier, and it should have been chandelier chandelier.
They had this big chandelier and I don't know how
high up that thing was, but it was huge, and
the bottom rung, the bottom sparkler on this chandelier, I
don't know, fifteen feet in the air off the ground,
twenty feet. Well, the more we drink, the more we
(41:05):
all start arguing which one of us can get up
there and touch the bottom of this damn thing. And
sure enough we try, and we put a hat down,
and everybody puts in a dollar or a pound or
five Bye, I forget what it was. There's a lot
of money in there for nineteen twelve, and all of
a sudden, we're doing this on nobody touches. And these
are the greatest athletes in the world, probably forty percent
of the greatest athletes in the world, and we're all
(41:26):
there and none of us come close to this damn thing.
And now the door opens to this banquet, and in
walks Thorp, and we hadn't even noticed, really thought, wasn't
there was a kind of a quiet guy. He's been
out on shore drinking and he wobbles in and he
looks at this, and he's wobbling past us, and he stops.
He goes, hebe what's this? And I explained it to him,
(41:49):
and he goes, how many of you have touched it?
And I had to tell him none of us that
touched it. And he said, you're kidding. How much is
in the how much is in the hat? And we
went through it was probably one hundred and fifty dollars.
He says, hold on, He takes off his hat, hold
my hat for me. We're j Abel, hold my jacket.
(42:11):
I can leave the vest on, but I'm gonna unbutton it,
and he says. Abel Kivat says. Jim Thorpe takes three
steps backwards and three steps forward and propels himself up
in the air towards this chandelier and not only touches
it on the first try in a suit, but grabs
(42:35):
it and we think, no, Jim, you're gonna bring down
the whole chandelier. We're all gonna get killed. The night
before the Olympics starts, Jim knew just when to let go.
He falls gracefully to the ground, like you were showing
a film backwards, lands almost in a bow. The hand
that was just holding the chandelier sweeps down to the hat,
(42:59):
picks it up, empties all the bills. He stuffs it
in the pockets of his vest and his pants, asks
me for on the night jacket and my hat, puts
the hat on, takes it off and dofts it to everybody,
and says, gentlemen, will see you in the morning, and
walks off. Abel Kiviat explained that Jim Thorpe could do
(43:22):
anything in athletics or anything else if you just showed
him once how to do it. He said he'd never
been a high jumper, certainly not a stationary high junker,
a high jumper, while inebriated, greatest athlete of all time.
He could take that microphone out of your hand, and
with a little practice, he could do a better job
than you could. And I said, well, this is my
(43:43):
second year on the job, so I have no doubt
anybody could do that. Ha ha, I like you, kid.
So now Abele agrees to go the mandatory shot of
the little old man running up Fifth Avenue and our cameraman,
who coincidentally his grandfather had played for the New York
Yankees briefly in nineteen twelve, Danny Danny Marra. Danny stands
(44:04):
out side and is expecting little old man, who still jogs,
to just sort of slowly waw, we're making fun of
the little Danny rolls and he's looking for a long
shot some b roll and Abel takes one step and
shoots past Danny so fast that Danny does not have
time to swing the camera around. The next thing I know,
(44:24):
Abel is crossing whatever it was eighty seventh Street onto
the other side. I have to go after him and
bring him back. So now we rearrange the shot and
able Kiveat runs in such a way that my cameraman
shoots him going past us. I said, Abel still runs,
and you see him take off, and the cameraman pans
and then stops where I'm standing as Abel disappears into
(44:46):
the distance. I said, he will not be running in
this year's New York City Marathon on whatever the date was,
which is good news for all of you who are
Keith Alerman, CNN New York. That's what I was reminded
of in the ten seconds we passed the Guggenheim Museum
on my way back from my endosc But that also, chandelieh,
(45:07):
that brought me to the midpoint game. You ever played
the midpoint game? Like the day I met Abel Caveat
and heard about Jim Thorpe and what truly a great
athlete he was was roughly forty two years and seven
months ago. So what happened forty two years and seven
months before that? You're applying that same timeframe to the
(45:29):
day I met him? How long ago is it since
I met him? How long ago was it to this
other event on the day I met him? So forty
two years and seven months is roughly eighty five years ago.
Forty two times two is eighty four and then seven
and say, okay, nineteen forty maybe late nineteen thirty nine.
Got a lot of World War Two vibes in those dates.
(45:51):
And this is the second time this week that happened.
Because I was texting with my friend Sam Rosen, my
first boss the Hall of Fame, voice of the New
York Rangers hockey team. And we figured out that in
six weeks or so, it will be exactly forty six
years since he and I met, and he listened to
my tape and he decided we should hire this idiot
(46:12):
kid from Cornell at twenty and forty six years March
nineteen seventy nine, forty six years at the midpoint game
forty six years before March nineteen seventy nine was March
nineteen thirty three, and it was almost exactly the day
FDR was sworn in for his first term as president.
(46:33):
That's how long ago it really is that Sam Rosen
and I met. That's how long ago it was that
Abel Kiviat and I met. And then, of course, now
we have two references to the Second World War in
Hitler and I had to go off in that direction.
Do you remember the Hitler handshake game on Twitter twenty
(46:54):
twenty two, twenty twenty three, where people were, you know,
trying to figure out how many hands stood between themselves
and Hitler, Like, okay, Queen Elizabeth obviously met her uncle
Edward the seventh, and Edward the seventh met Hitler. I
mean Queen Elizabeth at some point shook her uncle's hand,
(47:15):
and Edward the Seventh shook Hitler's hand. So Queen Elizabeth,
on this scale of how many people between you and
Hitler is a one, the one being her uncle Edward
the Seventh. But if you met Queen Elizabeth, she's standing
between you and her uncle, and her uncle met Hitler,
so that would be two people between you and Hitler.
(47:38):
You are a two on this scale. It's not limited
to meeting the Queen of England, though, because on March eighth,
talk about anniversaries nineteen thirty eight, Herbert Hoover, former President
of the United States, met Hitler forty minutes conversation and dinner.
Can't imagine how much fun either of those things was.
(48:02):
On the eighth of August nineteen fifty nine, and Herbert
Hoover went to the Yankees Cleveland then Indians game Yankee Stadium,
and they were holding Old Timer's Day where he met
Baseball Greats Hall of Famers Bob Feller and Joe DiMaggio,
and where Hoover threw out the first pitch. So Bob
Feller and Joe DiMaggio met Hoover, who met Hitler so
(48:25):
Feller and DiMaggio were each ones in this morbid game. However,
if you met Bob Feller, and there was a point
in this country where Bob Feller made so many personal
appearances that the odds were like six to five in
favor of you meeting Bob Feller and getting an autograph
from him, the old joke was the scarcest Bob Feller
item is an unautographed Bob Feller baseball. If you met
(48:48):
Bob Feller, you would also be a two. It would
be you, Bob Feller, Herbert Hoover Hitler two between you
and Hitler. Same thing for DiMaggio. Well I met, I
met Feller, so I would be at two. Except it
continues this way. Orson Wells met Hitler. Orson Wells knew
(49:13):
Joseph Cotton very well, and he knew my friend Norman
Lloyd very well. They worked together, and my friend Gil
Stratton they met a couple of times. Gil Stratton interviewed him,
so they shook hands with Wells, who shook hands with Hitler.
So they were ones on this. And I knew Gil
and Norman and Joseph Cotton. I shook all their hands,
(49:36):
so I would be a two, so try to top that.
See what you are, and of course you want to
be like a seventy four. You don't want to be
a two, and you certainly don't want to be a one.
And oddly enough, on a last note or next to
last note here, I'm a one with On Frank. Can
(49:58):
you believe that I knew a man very well, Peter Lesally,
the great late TV talk show producer, executive producer, inspiration
for David Letterman, the man who got Johnny Carson to
the extra heights that nobody ever thought he'd really achieve
to immortality in that field, and then worked with Letterman,
and then worked with Craig Ferguson, and then took me
(50:21):
out to dinner once because he was a huge fan
of mine. Peter Lesali kind of casually just sort of
threw out that he grew up going to school with
Anne Frank. Yeah, we're in the same class. Knew I
knew her brother. I think a little better, but yeah,
Peter Lesali, I shook his hand one on the on
(50:42):
Fronk scoreboard, which circles us back to the thought that,
of course, if we're playing the Hitler handshake game on
Twitter and other social media and other variations of that,
and other midpoints of that. Will we someday be playing
the Trump handshake game, in which case, unfortunately, if you
(51:09):
have met me, you are a one on the Trump
handshake gap. And the codicilt to that is always remember
(51:35):
to wash your goddamned hands. You never know where that
hand you just shook has been. I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening, especially
to this last part. May all your handshakes be unaffected
by infamy. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical
(51:55):
directors who Countdown, have had nothing to do with this
last segment, but they arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboard words. Mister
Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and it
was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and fifty musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two,
(52:17):
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today is my friend, Larry David. Everything else was,
as ever my fault, especially the part about the handshakes.
That's countdown for today, just and fifty two days until
(52:38):
the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term.
The next scheduled countdown is Monday. As always Bolton's, as
the news warrants remember in peach trumpet will not work
now it will win the Democrats the midterms. Until next time,
I'm Keith Oldraman good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
(53:11):
Countdown with 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. Who
could have guessed that a press secretary whose previous public
(00:29):
speaking high watermark was either when she called the worst
person in human history hilter or when she insisted there
was a word damining, as in damining evidence. Who could
have possibly guessed that this press secretary could manage to
(00:51):
tweet her new administration into a position where some of
its lawyers might go to jail for contempt of court.
I mean, follow the components of this disaster in their
chronological order. The first time Trump shot himself in the foot. Here,
Trump issues this government shut down via the back door,
(01:13):
pausing virtually all domestic spending and closing all the medicaid portals,
utterly illegal, utterly unconscionable, utterly damaging to his own cult members.
A judge then issues a temporary restraining order against the
spending pause, whereupon Trump shoots himself in the foot. A
second time, Trump's lawyers back away from the pause and
(01:36):
insist the pause has been rescinded. The third time Trump
shoots himself in the foot. Even Trump supporters in the
cowering media realize Trump has just made himself look like
an idiot. The second dramatic dictatorial edict he has issued
and then had to back off of or emend in
(01:57):
like twenty four hours. Trump is wounded, damaged, laughed. At
the fourth time, Trump shoots himself in the foot, just
this one time, just this one case. The fourth time,
Press Secretary Caroline Levitt shoots him in the foot for
him her tweet, this is not a recision of the
(02:19):
federal funding freeze. It is simply a recision of themb memo.
Why to end any confusion created by the court's injunction,
the President's eos on federal funding remain in full force
and effect and will be rigorously implemented. So the Press
secretary says, Trump withdrew the memo about the funding freeze,
(02:43):
that the judge had unfrozen, but that the freeze is
still in effect no matter what some judge rules, and
that Trump deliberately rescinded just the memo in order to
evade the judge's ruling, and that's contempt of court, and
Trump's lawyers are going to have to explain to this
judge why he should not or in this case, why
(03:05):
she should not put them in jail. Overnight or you know, forever,
for deliberately ignoring her order and having this nitwit Levitt
boast about ignoring her order. Oh and just to bury Trump.
Still further on this, a second federal judge also ruled
that the recision is meaningless and he's issued a court
(03:28):
order that stays in effect, and Trump can call it
whatever he wants in Levitt can call it whatever she wants.
He can't freeze government spending just because he's president. Can't.
I have said countless times democracy is preserved less by
our efforts to save it than by the stupidity of
those who are trying to destroy it. And these people
(03:51):
are remarkably stupid. Trump is remarkably stupid. Caroline Levitt is
remarkably stupid. She really did think the name of the
Nazi guy was Hilter and that there was a word damining.
And if you saw her first news conference, she really
(04:13):
does smile vapidly at all the wrong times, like a robot,
only like a robot you bought used at Sam's Club.
Post warranty, I mentioned her public speaking high watermark. Her
career watermark was getting a softball scholarship to Saint Anselm
(04:34):
College in New Hampshire, or maybe it was revealing this
month that she had three hundred and twenty six thousand
dollars in unpaid campaign debts, two hundred thousand of which
were improper donations, violating the contribution limit. This is from
a congressional campaign from two years ago, when she got
smoked by eight points, possibly because she's a Sam's Club
(04:54):
robot who thinks it's damining about mister Hilter. Levitt makes
Kaylee mcananney look like Madame Cure, she makes Sean Spicer
look like honest Abe Lincoln. And she also factors into
yet a separate case of just keep shooting your own
foot off. The toes will be coming off any moment now,
(05:17):
The New York Times. I mean, if bad Dad Bob
had had a daylight Caroline Levitt had yesterday, Sodom Hussein
would have been trying to figure out a way to
ease him out, because as it unraveled for her, you
put who at risk of contempt of court. This headline
was still up at The New York Times about her quote,
(05:38):
white House Press Secretary makes steely and unflinching debut. Caroline
Levitt used her first briefing in the role to warn
veteran reporters that they were increasingly irrelevant. Well, I'll say
this much for her, She's not irrelevant. By the way.
(06:24):
As an aside, META, which is short for Mark Zuckerberg,
is Meta terrified of something Trump has on him. Meta
just got into the who can collaborate more contest yesterday
alongside the New York Times, Washington Post ABCCBS. Zuckerberg has
settled a nuisance suit from Trump about canceling his account
(06:50):
for twenty five million dollars. Because what you're gonna go
to the trouble of bribing Trump twenty five million dollars
when there's a subtle legal way to accomplish the same thing,
all right? With that? As an a side back to
the spending freeze chaos, there is a contrarian viewpoint about
it that you should know that this utter fiasco by
(07:13):
Trump order a freeze have a court overrule. You tell
the court you are trying to evade its order, and
how you are trying to evade its order, that they
meant to do that. Charlie Savage, one of the great
New York Times journalists, being buried by a couple of
headline editors who have apparently begun the quixotic quest to
drive the Gray Lady out of business. Charlie Savage wrote
(07:34):
last night that quote Trump abruptly fired dozens of officials
in the past few days, including inspectors general, a member
of the National Labor Relations Board, and career prosecutors, in
ways that apparently violated federal laws, setting up the possibility
of lawsuits. But the prospect of getting dragged into court
may be exactly what mister Trump's lawyers are hoping for.
(07:56):
There is a risk that judges may determine that some
of the dismissals were illegal, but any rulings in the
President's favor would establish precedents that would expand presidential power
to control the federal government. I mean his piece. Savage
does not mention this fiasco over the spending freeze, or
the other fiasco over the phony employee buyout program, or
(08:18):
any of the other fiascos of the first nine days,
but his point is clear. All of these freezes, included
are could be to set up test cases so that,
if there were any doubt, the Supreme Court could eventually
hear them and begin to specify what exact rights Trump
has as a dictator, freed from any checks and balances
(08:39):
and completely liberated from the possibility of criminal prosecution later. Still,
it's something of a Rube Goldberg way of doing this,
and once the Supreme Court made up presidential immunity, all
this as a four D chess kind of thing seems unnecessary.
(09:00):
But I suppose, I suppose it's possible, if they were smart,
if they had public support, which by the way, they don't.
For all the boasting, he cannot say it too often.
More people voted against Trump than for him last November,
(09:22):
and our drunken Friend polling is back with this rather
large outside the margin of error number. The Reuter's IPSOS
poll taken a week ago Monday and Tuesday, showed Trump
at his most popular only thirty nine percent disapproval. The
new Reuter's IPSOS poll, taken over the weekend the weekend
(09:42):
that followed Monday and Tuesday, shows his disapproval has ballooned
back to forty six percent, up seven points after five
days in office. I mean, that's impressive. Pardoning the January
sixth terrorist was a huge mistake, sixty two percent disapproval.
Another reason the Democrats should file impeachment bills about the
(10:04):
were he six pardons, trying to end birthright citizenship fifty
nine percent disapproval. Ending federal programs to hire women and
minorities if you don't say that's what DEI is fifty
nine percent disapproval. Pulling out of the Paris Climate Chords
(10:25):
fifty six percent disapproval, and in the stupid realm calling
it the Gulf of America seventy percent disapproval. Those geography
classes are more popular than you thought. These are omens,
auguries and four tents. Dire for Trump because this is
(10:48):
all he's got. I just ran through the essences of
his his worldview. He can't govern. He's still trying to
stop shooting himself in the foot. In this context, you're
problem with overthrowing democracy and replacing it with a dictatorial
kleptocracy dedicated to revenge, cruelty, threats, and the specter of violence.
(11:13):
Is that history teaches us when the components of this
are so unpopular that they score polling numbers like that
seventy percent against your nido idea and sixty percent over
against your substantive ideas, History teaches us that in every country,
in every century, such dictatorial kleptocracies are eventually met and
(11:36):
eventually disempowered by a defiance, a defiance better skilled at revenge,
better motivated to use cruelty, more gifted at targeting threats,
more exact with its violence or warnings of violence. Let
me say, at the outset, whatever form this takes here,
and I do not know what that form will be,
(11:57):
I truly hope it will not be violent. I do
not want this. I would rather limit protest defiance to
Thomas Jefferson's approach to slavery, hold the wolf by the ears,
because you can neither hold him nor safely let him go.
But in the last week it has seemed to me
(12:18):
that to avoid it, there would have to be a major,
nullifying intervention to remove Donald Trump and these moronic pirates
who adhere to him. I actually, and I'm not sure why,
have hopes such an intervention will take place, as unlikely
as it seems at this moment. What kind of interventional
it could be? A dozen Republicans saying enough the correct
(12:41):
dozen Republicans could topple this administration tomorrow afternoon, or just
two conservative Supreme Court justices saying enough, or even Trump's
supporters suddenly cut off from all those government grants and
aid saying enough, or it could be a financial rebellion
led by the key Blue states, or a tax strike,
(13:04):
general strike, or something worse. Any one of ten thousands
somethings worse that I do not like to think about,
and I think pretty much any one of them would work.
Trump says, believes others will believe, may believe it himself
(13:26):
keeps repeating that he turned on some sort of giant
spigot in California and made it rain. The only thing
that actually happened was just a reservoir undergoing maintenance coming
back online. Whoever wrote Secretary of Combover's Rubio's International Aid
(13:47):
freeze had to retract it and add a waiver or
two or seven life saving medicine, medical services, food shelter,
and subsistence, as well as essential supplies and reasonable cost
to deliver such assistance not covered by this. Whoever froze
the domestic aid and grants never realized everything they did
thing was illegal, That money authorized by Congress to be
(14:07):
spent must be spent, that not doing so is prohibited
by the Impoundment Control Acted nineteen seventy four. And even
if the Supreme Court were to again erase the law
and erase the Constitution and sided with Trump, even if
the Charlie Savage article is theoretically correct, all that Trump
has done in the first week will be tied up
(14:29):
in a thousand lawsuits in the lower courts. And whoever
in the administration at all, I mean, who offered this
non buyout buyout to every government employee A must be
too stoned to understand what would happen to the world
economy if you suddenly paid two million government union employees
(14:52):
a buyout tomorrow. And B they forgot that The Supreme
Court may have made the president immune from criminal prosecution
for what he did in office, but he didn't make
a goddamn one of Eli Musk and the Musk wannabes
immune from prosecution. And just as importantly, when you stop
(15:13):
all domestic government financial assistants, which is what Trump's Caroline
Levitt says they're still doing, guess who that affects Trump supporters,
civilian Trump supporters, and maybe more relevantly, Trump congressmen who
(15:34):
have to go and get the votes of those Trump supporters.
Just six hundred and forty four days from now and
even they are beginning to say, you idiots put eighty
undocumented immigrants on military planes that cost eight hundred and
fifty thousand dollars per flight. You idiots trying to cont
trillions from the government expenditures, reduce our tax burdens by
(16:00):
trillions of dollars. You decided to deport a million people,
so you're going to spend nine hundred and sixty seven billion,
nine hundred million dollars of my money on that instead
of spending it on me at all. The undocumented immigrants
say nothing of the documented immigrants stop showing up on
the farms and at the construction sites. And now a
(16:20):
tomato costs how far is it going to go? Forty
seven dollars each? Because nearly all of them are rotting
in the fields. Oh, and the building industry grinds to
a halt. It is all well and good to crash
the system until the system turns out to be a
clown car. And when you crash it, it bursts into
(16:40):
flames and lights everything on fire. Because every immigrant food
worker in this country is smarter and tougher than Trump,
and every immigrant construction worker in this country will survive
when tom Homan will not, and the Mark Millies, with
(17:01):
or without a security detail, will always bury the Pete
Keg breaths, if only because Mark Milly isn't an alcoholic,
and every New Yorker, every single New Yorker, is more
resilient and smarter than Christy effing Nome. An old woman
(17:22):
wearing too much makeup coast playing in an ice uniform
that looks like the vest belonging to a suicide bomber,
also known as what she wears when she leaves the
house to go murder the family dog seems to me.
(17:46):
The one real risk to my scenario of some peaceful
blowback is, of course, the cowardice of the Democratic Party,
as Robert F. Kennedy Junior yesterday denied at his hearing
everything except that his name was Robert F. Kennedy Junior,
denying he ever compared COVID lockdowns and vaccines to Nazi
(18:09):
death Camps said, I never said that. Raphael Warnock read
him the transcript of him saying it. Then Kennedy said, well,
I wasn't comparing then, I was just comparing their effect.
While Kennedy was doing that, they were still rumbling. Some
Democrats like his law school roommate, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse might
vote to confirm. Senator, I have always deeply respected and
(18:32):
admired you. This, though, is existential. Kennedy is a madman.
His irresponsibility will lead to Americans dying, especially children. If
you vote to confirm him, Sheldon Whitehouse, you are dead
in the Democratic Party dead. You are deader than Eric
Adams is. New York Times is reporting our beloved mayor
(18:53):
has gotten the Trump Department of Enforcers to consider dropping
the federal investigation of him. Senator, you would be deater
than Kathy Hochel, the soon to be ex governor of
New York, who, like Adams, has pledged cooperation with Ice
on these Trump gestapo raids in New York. Senator, you
(19:13):
would be better than Hakeem Jeffries, and I'm sorry right now,
Hakeem Jeffrey should be removed as minority leader NBC News quote.
Less than forty eight hours after Trump was inaugurated, House
Minority Leader A. Kim Jeffries held a closed door meeting
with Democratic lawmakers to issue a warning and a clarion call.
The new administration was going to flood the zone and
(19:35):
Democrats couldn't afford to chase every single outrage or nothing
was going to sink in for the American people, Jeffreys
told them. According to a person in the room who
requested an anemity to discuss the private meeting, Jeffreys urged
members to focus their message on the cost of living
along with border security and community safety. Quote. The House
(19:58):
Republican Contract against America is an extreme plan that will
not lower costs for everyday Americans, Jeffreys told reporters the
next day, referring to the GOP agenda and spending cuts
it is weighing. It will make our country more expensive. Congressman,
the House Republican Contract against America. That's a line from
(20:18):
the nineteen ninety four midterms. If you're going to make
a mistake, at least make a new one. Bottom line, Congressman,
you are expected to do both of these things. If
you want to emphasize kitchen table issues along with Trump's
attempt to, you know, convert our form of government into
(20:40):
a monarchy. Cool. Cool, I guess it won't hurt if
you do the economy instead of the end of civilization
as we know it. You get the f out. I'll
support primarying you. Hell, I'll primary you myself, even if
it means I have to move to Coney Island. At
(21:01):
least they got a nice minor league ballpark in Coney Island.
As their confirmation hearings now begin. Tulsa Gabbard and Cash
Bettel were referred to by Russian TV propagandists as our
Tulsi and our Cash. And you somehow think you have
to campaign only on the price of eggs because you
(21:24):
couldn't successfully figure out how to campaign last year on
an anti dictatorship message. Get the f out of here.
You are all on the brink of collaborating with the
Nazis for the worst reason, because you're incompetent. Minority leader Jeffries,
(21:48):
the cliff is feet in front of you. My advice
is swerve. So here we are Republican stupidity versus democratic cowardice.
(22:13):
I feel like singing the national anthem, and yet I
still have hope our cowards will prevail over their morons,
because boy are they morons. You heard, of course, that
the wording in this government employee buyout program is almost
(22:35):
identical to the wording in Elon Musk's employee buyout program
for when he bought, crashed, and burned Twitter quote. Upon
review of the below deferred resignation letter. If you wish
to resign one select reply to this email. You must
reply from your government account. A reply from an account
(22:56):
other than your government account will not be accepted. To
type the word resign into the body of this reply
email hit send. Last day to accept the defird resignation
program is February sex, twenty twenty five. Firstly, you you
(23:16):
would accept a Trump buyout, a promise of money from
Trump with his track record of stiffing employees on contractors,
and as to this Muskian demand to unsubscribe from your job,
click this link. In other words, to resign. Press one
(23:40):
to accept as buyout compensation a previously owned Tesla instead
of money. Press two to join a general stripe to
unseat the fascists. Press three. Also of interest here in
this all new edition of Countdown, they are this close
(24:02):
to drinking kool aid for Trump. A congresswoman, and you
can take the break here to guess which one. There's
only like sixteen of them now. A congresswoman, A stupid congresswoman.
Haven't narrowed it down at all. Have a stupid congresswoman
has moved to add Trump to Mount Rushmore a bill
(24:28):
in Congress to add Trump to Mount Rushmore. Unfortunately for her,
her press release reads as if her bill says it's
to put Trump's actual head on Mount Rushmore, which, come
to think of it would be something we could all
get behind. That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown
(24:52):
with Keith Openman still ahead on an all new edition
(25:17):
of Countdown. I flashed back yesterday to the day I
met Jim Thorpe's roommate at the nineteen twelve Olympics at
a museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and that made
me flash back to the day I met someone who
knew someone who'd shaken the hand of Hitler. A lot
(25:38):
of strange things happen when you're coming out of anesthesia. Also,
this question related to all that, will we be playing
that handshake game someday with a current dictator? I'm not
shaking your hand ahead on things I promised not to tell.
Can't believe I shook this guy's freaking hand. First, there's
(25:59):
still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup
of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effets specimens
constitute two days. Other worst persons in the world, the
Bronze Worse, The Washington Post, Penny Saber and Hot Sex News.
Here's the new low and they find a new one
(26:20):
daily under the British idiot they brought in to destroy
the place. He's doing a great job. Anybody left, I
don't mean anybody left for another paper. I'm just asking
is there anybody left at the Washington Post? I mean
I spoke to a reporter last week. I think he's
still there. But it's been a week. This is the
latest farce from what the Washington Post has become. It's
(26:44):
an illustration. On one side is Bobby Kennedy, you know,
the man without pants who likes to masturbate on the
phone or on FaceTime. Bobby Kennedy, who would be in
charge of health and human services, as in ending health
and denying human services. He's on the left and he's
in a pink reason they made his picture pink. And
(27:06):
then over here on the other side is the is
looking right, Bobby's looking left. On the right side, it's
Michelle Obama and she's looking to the right and she's
mostly blue. And in between there's a carrot, and what
looks to be a radish, and either a strawberry or
heart is in Michelle Obama's hair. And this is what
this is the illustration for. Did RFK Junior or Michelle
(27:27):
Obama say it about food? Take our quiz? Did democracy
end in twenty seventeen or twenty twenty five? Take our quiz?
Are you still reading the Washington Post? Or are you
not seeing this? Take our quiz? Have we become collaborators
with an evil empire that may or may not be
(27:51):
willing to leave office when its term is over? Take
our quiz. I have a suggestion. Take your quiz and
shove it. Washington Post runner up Lauren Bobert, still congresswoman
from Colorado, from the particularly dumb place in Colorado where
they sent all the dumb people. She's complaining that that's right,
(28:15):
the minimum wage is too high that many of our
youth have lost the apportunity to mander the workforce. Do
the high minimum wage requirements seven dollars and twenty five
cents an hour? High taxes, insurance, and paid leave requirements
are a few of many issues. As well paid leave requirements.
Small business owners are unable to invest in first time workers,
(28:35):
or provide them with skills training for their future. This
was in response to a Thomas Massey tweet about how
you shouldn't charge kids who are working taxes. Not an
unreasonable suggestion from a lunatic like Thomas Massey, and then
Bobert takes it completely somewhere else, which is kids should
(28:55):
not have to work for minimum wage. They should work
for less manual labor, less than seven dollars and twenty
five cents an hour, stacking boxes, digging trenches, whatever it
is you want, working in shoe factories, whatever it is
she has in mind for manual labor, manual labor. Because
(29:17):
of course seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour,
that's still the minimum wage. That would be more than
Lauren Bobert charges for manual labor. Think about it, but
the winner worst another congresswoman who makes Lauren Bobert look
like Geraldine Ferraro, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. Real name Anna Meyerhoffer. Right,
(29:43):
your arm is Mayor Hoffer. I've officially introduced legislation to
put President Trump's face on Mount Rushmore. I swear to God,
this is actual, This is a real thing. His remarkable
accomplishments for our country and the success he will continue
to deliver, deserve the highest recognition and honor on this
iconic national monument. Let's get at carving. I do like
(30:07):
the imagery though, but let's get carving. So she has
a picture of Trump and a picture of her, and
that stupid pictures of her smile, that fake smile with
the fake lips and the fake face. And there it
is the revised Mount Rushmore, Washington on the left, Jefferson
looking over to the side, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and
(30:30):
in front of them all Trump. Of course, Trump when
he was like twenty eight years old. Breaking Representative Luna
introduces legislation to carve President Trump on Mount Rushmore. See
there's a problem with your language choice there, Congresswoman. You
want to carve President Trump on Mount Rushmore. Let's get carving,
(30:55):
she says, is that does the Secret Service know about this?
To put President Trump's face on Mount rush Race. See
I can go along with miss Luna here. Actually she
wants to carve Trump's face and stick it on Mount Rushmore. Well,
I believe reading this, Anna Paulina Luna means his face.
(31:18):
Let's go Anna, Paulina Luna, write your arm Missus Meyerhoffer
tick two days other worst person in the world. She
(31:38):
was the number one story on the countdown, and things
I promised not to tell on my way back from
the endoscopy. I'm fine. Just as importantly, I didn't wake
up during the endoscopy. Happily we did this once in
two thousand and five. That will last me the rest
(32:00):
of my life. I'm fine. Thank you for asking. It
was waytown in Manhattan, and it occurred to me that
although I've been there now twice in the last week
or so, I had not been passed the fabulous Frank
Lloyd WRIGHTE. Guggenheim Museum on Upper Fifth Avenue relative to
Manhattan anyway since nineteen eighty two. I've been there twice
(32:22):
in a week, and just because it's a downtown street
and I don't spend a lot of time uptown, and
it's passed the real museum row on Fifth Avenue. I'd
been as north as by eighty ninth Street, something like that,
but i'd never been as far as the Guggenheim for
forty two and a half years, and I've been passed
(32:43):
it twice in the last week, and it means only
one thing to me. Oh, great art itself is great art.
Frank Lloyd write all those stories the Guggenheim Museum means
to me Abel Kiviat. I'll explain able Kiviat, but I
also want to say that because my mind was emptying
(33:04):
the remainder of the sedations slash anesthesia, which was strong
enough so that I didn't wake up during it. This time,
I also thought of, for some reason, the Midpoint game.
You ever played the midpoint game? Like, this event happened
this far in my past? And if I double that,
what happened? You know, if it's ten years ago, what
(33:24):
happened ten years ago? Exactly before that happened? What was that?
The midpoint of relative is today? I think that's a
fun game, and it popped into my head too, because
strange things pop into your head as it's clearing, relatively speaking,
and that led me, of course to the famous handshake game.
We'll leave that for last. Let me tell you about
Abel Kiviat In the old days here in New York,
(33:48):
the New York Marathon, which now features like I don't know,
seventy five million people running on a Sunday as I've
described it many times, the New York Marathon, your worst neighbor.
They block all the streets, no matter where you go,
they're running there. They made the whole thing more and
more intricate over the years. This started back in the
(34:09):
old days, when there was no television, no radio, no publicity.
CNN once sent a live truck, the only live truck
they had to cover the start of the race on
the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and they got this great idea,
this unbelievable new idea, the first one perhaps ever in
cable television. Cover it live, but keep the truck moving
because the signal will work from all points of the
(34:31):
Verizona Narrows Bridge. You'll get a live, moving shot of
the start of the race. And they did it, and
they were so proud of themselves. And then they forgot
there was a toll booth and a low overhanging bridge
across the toll booth, and live on television. CNN, in
its first year, snapped its live truck's arm its mast
(34:55):
in half. Nobody was injured. Mary Alice Williams, who ran
the New York bureau for CNN, kept the destroyed sort
of knuckle of the mast in a frame on her
office wall, or as long as I knew her working
at CNN in New York in those old days, Yeah,
they got so little publicity for the New York Marathon
(35:16):
that they were happy to have the CNN truck drive
in front of the runners two thousand runners maybe in
the first ones in the early eighties, so happy to
have them there that they were willing to risk the
runners lives because the guy driving the CNN truck did
not think to stop at the toll booth. And I
believe it was Mary Alice Williams's brother, but that may
not be correct. I don't want to insult him. In
(35:38):
any event, it was true that in those days, nobody
cared about the New York Marathon unless nobody knew about
the New York Marathon, and so they called us up
one day. The head, the founder of the New York Marathon,
a little man named Fred Leebow, who ran with a
bicycle racer's cap from the eighties, a little tiny baseball
(35:59):
cap only shrunk to the head with the brim pushed upwards.
He walked around with that all the time, and he
was I forget from where somewhere in Europe and he
had a little European accent and he ran the marathon.
He is the founder of the marathon. I think there
is a statue to him, and it is deserved. He
built it out of nothing, and he built it out
of nothing. This way, I come back from a shoot
at CNN in nineteen eighty two and there is a
(36:20):
message for me, call Fred Libo at the New York
City Marathon. It's like, okay, fine, we need a story.
Maybe we can do something on the New York City Marathon.
I'm the sports reporter. Why not. I call up the
offices New York Roadrunners Club or whatever it was called,
and I get this, This is the switchboard New York
road Runners Club. Hi, Fred Libo's office, please, CNN returning
(36:41):
her call, speaking even though I called him her, he
was operating the switchboard. Well, it turned out that he said,
we're going to have an event at the Guggenheim Museum
for this man, Able Kiviat, and he's not actually going
to run in the nineteen eighty two New York Marathon,
but he's going to be like our starter and he's
(37:03):
going to run a little bit. Becase, because Able's ninety
four years old, and I said, I know exactly who
he is. Oh I doct you know who he is?
I said, he held like ten middle distance running records
in this country. Is the top middle distance runner sprints
and you know a thousand yards or whatever it was
how they measured them in those days. How do you
(37:24):
know that? I said, I have his his tobacco card
they made. They used to make cards of great athletes.
It was a set that had bowlers and golfers and
Abel Kiviat in it, and it was one of my
favorite sets of cards. So I knew who he was,
and I went, he's still alive, yes, and he's a
pis a pisser. And that's the first time I think
I ever heard that in publicity language. So we arranged
(37:47):
to go meet Abel Kiviat at this event. No other
television cameras were there, as I remember, and they sat
me next to Able Kiviat for lunch, and he was,
in fact, as Fred Liebo described him, a pisser was
Fred was not exaggerating. Abel talked like both my grandfather's
and he was from somewhere in Queens and he said
(38:08):
things like Tarty third Street and he was just marvelous,
and he had a full head of hair, and he
was shop as attack and he explained to me his
history as a runner, and I was enthralled by it.
A professional athlete from nineteen ten talking to me about
the Olympics, while he was not officially professional, but you
know what it was like then. This was marvelous to me.
(38:31):
This man had been on a baseball card, essentially a
track and field card. But it was like meeting I
don't know cy young Christy Matthewson, abel kiveat all of
an era. At some point we started talking about Abele's
role in the nineteen twelve Olympics, and he said, yeah,
I was Jim Thorpe's roommate, And I went, you what
(38:54):
probably the greatest natural athlete of all time in the
most different sports track and field basically invented professional football,
basically popularized college football. He could kick, he could pass,
he could block, he could receive. He sometimes did all
these things in the same game. He also played pro baseball.
He was also an actor, and he also achieved a
(39:15):
modicum of success anyway in a society that completely denigrated
the fact that he was a Native American, and he
survived the forcible translation of him from a native American
to a quote unquote modern American in the early twentieth century,
one of the great people in our history. And this
was his roommate. So he says, Abel does in his
(39:38):
wonderful way, sounding like both my grandfather is from the Bronx.
He says, Yeah, we went over to England to pick
up the team in a boat. Went big boat, I said,
like a cruise ship. Yeah, we're in a cruise ship.
And we get over there and we meet them in
Liverpool and they come on board, and then we go
to the Olympics and we're out there in the a
(39:59):
Sai Zephery. Was it Denmark? Was it Copenhagen? Was it Oslow?
I forgot what we were. He's mentioned like four countries
so far. But he's in there with them, and he says,
the night before all the lords and ladies of England
are there and all of our team and all of
their team, and we're they're we're all in tusas. I
had to borrow one. They had them on board this
(40:21):
ship and we're having this this party, and sooner or
later there's enough drink that every one of these athletes
decides they're gonna run up and grab this. They had
this huge chandelier and I went, my god, he could
be my grandfather. That's how both my grandfathers pronounced the
word chandelier. And in fact, one of my grandfathers was
named Charbonier. He pronounced it chabanir like that. He should
(40:45):
have been Charbonnier, and it should have been chandelier chandelier.
They had this big chandelier and I don't know how
high up that thing was, but it was huge, and
the bottom rung, the bottom sparkler on this chandelier, I
don't know, fifteen feet in the air off the ground,
twenty feet. Well, the more we drink, the more we
(41:05):
all start arguing which one of us can get up
there and touch the bottom of this damn thing. And
sure enough we try, and we put a hat down,
and everybody puts in a dollar or a pound or
five Bye, I forget what it was. There's a lot
of money in there for nineteen twelve, and all of
a sudden, we're doing this on nobody touches. And these
are the greatest athletes in the world, probably forty percent
of the greatest athletes in the world, and we're all
(41:26):
there and none of us come close to this damn thing.
And now the door opens to this banquet, and in
walks Thorp, and we hadn't even noticed, really thought, wasn't
there was a kind of a quiet guy. He's been
out on shore drinking and he wobbles in and he
looks at this, and he's wobbling past us, and he stops.
He goes, hebe what's this? And I explained it to him,
(41:49):
and he goes, how many of you have touched it?
And I had to tell him none of us that
touched it. And he said, you're kidding. How much is
in the how much is in the hat? And we
went through it was probably one hundred and fifty dollars.
He says, hold on, He takes off his hat, hold
my hat for me. We're j Abel, hold my jacket.
(42:11):
I can leave the vest on, but I'm gonna unbutton it,
and he says. Abel Kivat says. Jim Thorpe takes three
steps backwards and three steps forward and propels himself up
in the air towards this chandelier and not only touches
it on the first try in a suit, but grabs
(42:35):
it and we think, no, Jim, you're gonna bring down
the whole chandelier. We're all gonna get killed. The night
before the Olympics starts, Jim knew just when to let go.
He falls gracefully to the ground, like you were showing
a film backwards, lands almost in a bow. The hand
that was just holding the chandelier sweeps down to the hat,
(42:59):
picks it up, empties all the bills. He stuffs it
in the pockets of his vest and his pants, asks
me for on the night jacket and my hat, puts
the hat on, takes it off and dofts it to everybody,
and says, gentlemen, will see you in the morning, and
walks off. Abel Kiviat explained that Jim Thorpe could do
(43:22):
anything in athletics or anything else if you just showed
him once how to do it. He said he'd never
been a high jumper, certainly not a stationary high junker,
a high jumper, while inebriated, greatest athlete of all time.
He could take that microphone out of your hand, and
with a little practice, he could do a better job
than you could. And I said, well, this is my
(43:43):
second year on the job, so I have no doubt
anybody could do that. Ha ha, I like you, kid.
So now Abele agrees to go the mandatory shot of
the little old man running up Fifth Avenue and our cameraman,
who coincidentally his grandfather had played for the New York
Yankees briefly in nineteen twelve, Danny Danny Marra. Danny stands
(44:04):
out side and is expecting little old man, who still jogs,
to just sort of slowly waw, we're making fun of
the little Danny rolls and he's looking for a long
shot some b roll and Abel takes one step and
shoots past Danny so fast that Danny does not have
time to swing the camera around. The next thing I know,
(44:24):
Abel is crossing whatever it was eighty seventh Street onto
the other side. I have to go after him and
bring him back. So now we rearrange the shot and
able Kiveat runs in such a way that my cameraman
shoots him going past us. I said, Abel still runs,
and you see him take off, and the cameraman pans
and then stops where I'm standing as Abel disappears into
(44:46):
the distance. I said, he will not be running in
this year's New York City Marathon on whatever the date was,
which is good news for all of you who are
Keith Alerman, CNN New York. That's what I was reminded
of in the ten seconds we passed the Guggenheim Museum
on my way back from my endosc But that also, chandelieh,
(45:07):
that brought me to the midpoint game. You ever played
the midpoint game? Like the day I met Abel Caveat
and heard about Jim Thorpe and what truly a great
athlete he was was roughly forty two years and seven
months ago. So what happened forty two years and seven
months before that? You're applying that same timeframe to the
(45:29):
day I met him? How long ago is it since
I met him? How long ago was it to this
other event on the day I met him? So forty
two years and seven months is roughly eighty five years ago.
Forty two times two is eighty four and then seven
and say, okay, nineteen forty maybe late nineteen thirty nine.
Got a lot of World War Two vibes in those dates.
(45:51):
And this is the second time this week that happened.
Because I was texting with my friend Sam Rosen, my
first boss the Hall of Fame, voice of the New
York Rangers hockey team. And we figured out that in
six weeks or so, it will be exactly forty six
years since he and I met, and he listened to
my tape and he decided we should hire this idiot
(46:12):
kid from Cornell at twenty and forty six years March
nineteen seventy nine, forty six years at the midpoint game
forty six years before March nineteen seventy nine was March
nineteen thirty three, and it was almost exactly the day
FDR was sworn in for his first term as president.
(46:33):
That's how long ago it really is that Sam Rosen
and I met. That's how long ago it was that
Abel Kiviat and I met. And then, of course, now
we have two references to the Second World War in
Hitler and I had to go off in that direction.
Do you remember the Hitler handshake game on Twitter twenty
(46:54):
twenty two, twenty twenty three, where people were, you know,
trying to figure out how many hands stood between themselves
and Hitler, Like, okay, Queen Elizabeth obviously met her uncle
Edward the seventh, and Edward the seventh met Hitler. I
mean Queen Elizabeth at some point shook her uncle's hand,
(47:15):
and Edward the Seventh shook Hitler's hand. So Queen Elizabeth,
on this scale of how many people between you and
Hitler is a one, the one being her uncle Edward
the Seventh. But if you met Queen Elizabeth, she's standing
between you and her uncle, and her uncle met Hitler,
so that would be two people between you and Hitler.
(47:38):
You are a two on this scale. It's not limited
to meeting the Queen of England, though, because on March eighth,
talk about anniversaries nineteen thirty eight, Herbert Hoover, former President
of the United States, met Hitler forty minutes conversation and dinner.
Can't imagine how much fun either of those things was.
(48:02):
On the eighth of August nineteen fifty nine, and Herbert
Hoover went to the Yankees Cleveland then Indians game Yankee Stadium,
and they were holding Old Timer's Day where he met
Baseball Greats Hall of Famers Bob Feller and Joe DiMaggio,
and where Hoover threw out the first pitch. So Bob
Feller and Joe DiMaggio met Hoover, who met Hitler so
(48:25):
Feller and DiMaggio were each ones in this morbid game. However,
if you met Bob Feller, and there was a point
in this country where Bob Feller made so many personal
appearances that the odds were like six to five in
favor of you meeting Bob Feller and getting an autograph
from him, the old joke was the scarcest Bob Feller
item is an unautographed Bob Feller baseball. If you met
(48:48):
Bob Feller, you would also be a two. It would
be you, Bob Feller, Herbert Hoover Hitler two between you
and Hitler. Same thing for DiMaggio. Well I met, I
met Feller, so I would be at two. Except it
continues this way. Orson Wells met Hitler. Orson Wells knew
(49:13):
Joseph Cotton very well, and he knew my friend Norman
Lloyd very well. They worked together, and my friend Gil
Stratton they met a couple of times. Gil Stratton interviewed him,
so they shook hands with Wells, who shook hands with Hitler.
So they were ones on this. And I knew Gil
and Norman and Joseph Cotton. I shook all their hands,
(49:36):
so I would be a two, so try to top that.
See what you are, and of course you want to
be like a seventy four. You don't want to be
a two, and you certainly don't want to be a one.
And oddly enough, on a last note or next to
last note here, I'm a one with On Frank. Can
(49:58):
you believe that I knew a man very well, Peter Lesally,
the great late TV talk show producer, executive producer, inspiration
for David Letterman, the man who got Johnny Carson to
the extra heights that nobody ever thought he'd really achieve
to immortality in that field, and then worked with Letterman,
and then worked with Craig Ferguson, and then took me
(50:21):
out to dinner once because he was a huge fan
of mine. Peter Lesali kind of casually just sort of
threw out that he grew up going to school with
Anne Frank. Yeah, we're in the same class. Knew I
knew her brother. I think a little better, but yeah,
Peter Lesali, I shook his hand one on the on
(50:42):
Fronk scoreboard, which circles us back to the thought that,
of course, if we're playing the Hitler handshake game on
Twitter and other social media and other variations of that,
and other midpoints of that. Will we someday be playing
the Trump handshake game, in which case, unfortunately, if you
(51:09):
have met me, you are a one on the Trump
handshake gap. And the codicilt to that is always remember
(51:35):
to wash your goddamned hands. You never know where that
hand you just shook has been. I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening, especially
to this last part. May all your handshakes be unaffected
by infamy. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical
(51:55):
directors who Countdown, have had nothing to do with this
last segment, but they arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboard words. Mister
Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and it
was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and fifty musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two,
(52:17):
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today is my friend, Larry David. Everything else was,
as ever my fault, especially the part about the handshakes.
That's countdown for today, just and fifty two days until
(52:38):
the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term.
The next scheduled countdown is Monday. As always Bolton's, as
the news warrants remember in peach trumpet will not work
now it will win the Democrats the midterms. Until next time,
I'm Keith Oldraman good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
(53:11):
Countdown with 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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