January 22, 2025 • 40 mins
SEASON 3 EPISODE 89: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Impeach Trump.
Now. Again.
No, it won’t pass, it won’t work now. But it will pass, and it will work, next year, and it win the Democrats the midterms and the year after that it will brand Trump yet again as the most treacherous garbage in our history. Because lost in the avalanche of evil he has perpetrated since beginning his dictatorship, lost in the astonishment and even the despair of true Americans, lost in the numbed terrified capitulatory media coverage is the reality that his pardoning of the January 6th Traitors is amazingly unpopular, literally unpopular enough to cost him at least 43 house seats, right now, BEFORE he mindlessly signs more red meat Steven Miller slides under his piggish face. And the second part of this is: he has also already violated the Constitution of the United States. Already. Not 48 hours on the job and he is already guilty of impeachable offenses. Already.
There is almost nothing to do to stop Trump NOW. The Democrats are minorities in both houses, the courts are crooked, the SUPREME court is just another Trump Scam, the billionaires like Musk and Bezos and Zuckerberg and the other tech scum have lined up beside him just as Krupp and IG Farben and Opel stood next to and behind Hitler.
There is nothing to do TODAY except (to borrow from the musicals of the fascists) to make sure Tomorrow Belongs To Us. Introduce a bill, or even multiple bills, to impeach Trump. Keep the crimes he has already committed, including the ones he has been convicted of, and the ones he wriggled out of with dubious legality and non-existant morality, front-of-mind. Fight back, thwart him, anger him, waste his time, make him play defense, enrage his base, and terrify the billionaires because you could see on that mouse Zuckerberg’s face at the inauguration that he wasn’t so sure any more he picked the right side, and fight back.
Moreover – give the opposition – not the resistance this time but the DEFIANCE – something to DO with this time other than just sit here and replay November 5th and all the days leading up to it in some P-T-S-D doom loop. Nothing that is wrong in the history of the world has ever been stopped without the same first step: people standing up and SAYING this is wrong, this must BE stopped. 76 and a half million people voted against Trump – 49 and two fifths percent - and we are all just sitting here saying nothing, doing nothing, watching Trump wreck train after train.
B-Block (28:03) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Twitter-X user so stupid she thinks Biden "parted" more people than Trump. That he "partied" his whole family. Much worse, CNN's Jake Tapper thinks Trump ran a disciplined campaign that "depicted (him) as someone who was within the realm of normalcy." When was that, Jake? When he insisted Immigrants were eating pets in Ohio? No wonder CNN is on the verge of disappearance. And lastly: $MELIANA. You'll figure it out.
C-Block (38:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: When Trumpists say I should shut up because I don't know him and I have "TDS" (what's that, I ask. Trump's Deranged Syndrome?) I like to mention that I met him in December 1983 and he wrote me a fan letter once and I've ALWAYS thought he was off his rocker.
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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. Impeach
(00:25):
Trump now again. No, it will not pass. No, it
will not work, not now, but it will pass, and
it will work next year, and it will win the
Democrats the midterms and the year after that. It will
brand Trump yet again, impeached yet again, as the most
(00:45):
treacherous garbage in our history. Because lost in the avalanche
of evil he has perpetrated since beginning his second dictatorship,
lost in the astonishment and even the despair of true Americans,
lost in the numbed, terrified, capitulatory media coverage, is the
reality that his pardoning of the January sixth Traders is
(01:08):
amazingly unpopular, literally unpopular enough to cost him at least
forty three House seats right now, right now, before he
mindlessly signs even more red meat, Stephen Miller slides under
his piggish face. And the second part of this is
(01:31):
he has also already literally intentionally violated the Constitution of
the United States, already not forty eight hours on the job,
and he is already guilty of violating one of the
amendments and doing so deliberately. He is already guilty of
at least two impeachable offenses. Already, there is almost nothing
(01:58):
to do to stop Trump now. The Democrats are minorities
in both houses, the courts are The Supreme Court is
just another Trump scam company. The billionaires like Musk and
Bezos and Zuckerberg and the other tech scum have lined
up besides him, just as Kroup and I G. Farbin
(02:19):
and Opal stood next to and behind Hitler. There is
nothing to do today except to borrow from the musical
version of the lyrics of the fascists to make sure
tomorrow belongs to us. Introduce a bill today, or even
(02:41):
multiple bills today, to impeach Trump. Keep the crimes he
has already committed, including the ones he has been convicted
of and the ones he wriggled out of with dubious
legality and non existent morality front of mind, and the
new ones too. Fight back, thwart him, anger him, waste
(03:03):
his time, make him play defense, enrage his base, and
terrify those billionaire idiots. Because you could see on that
little mouse Zuckerberg's face during the inauguration that he wasn't
so sure anymore. He picked the right side and fight
back against these bastards moreover, give the opposition, not the
(03:30):
resistance this time, but instead the defiance. Give the defiance
something to do with our time other than just sit
here and replay November fifth and all the days leading
up to it in some PTSD doom loop. Nothing that
has ever been wrong in the history of the world
(03:53):
has ever stopped being wrong without the same goddamned first step,
people standing up and saying this is wrong, this must
be stopped. Seventy six and one half million people voted
against Trump, forty nine and two fifths percent of the population,
(04:16):
the voting population, and we are all just sitting here
saying nothing, doing nothing, feeling sorry for ourselves, watching Trump
wreck train after train, and insisting to ourselves there's nothing
to do about it. Well, there is. Few of us
(04:43):
have even noticed that gift he gave us by pardoning
nearly sixteen hundred convicts and suspects to start within freeing them.
Trump and MAGA and their Republicans have gained full ownership
of January sixth, in a way they had spent four
years denying and trying to avoid. The Republican Party is
(05:03):
now officially pro vigilante. It is now officially pro militia.
It is now officially pro political violence. It is now
officially pro politicization of the Department of Justice. It is
now officially anti law and order. Make every Republican answer
for this every day until Tuesday, November three, twenty twenty six.
(05:28):
Make them answer for it because they will not be
able to. Because if you want something with which to
figuratively beat Trump over the head every month, every week,
every day until the midterms, if you want to defy
this idiot, just handed you the stick just a week ago.
(05:51):
The Protect Democracy nonprofit. The board and advisors there include
everybody from my friend John Dean to historian Tim Snyder,
from Matt Dowd to Ian Bassen. Protect Democracy conducted a
YouGov in the forty three most competitive House districts. Seventy
five percent of voters in those districts opposed pardoning anybody
(06:15):
using a deadly or just a dangerous weapon on January sixth,
three quarters that includes fifty five percent of the Republicans
in those districts. Fifty four percent of Republicans who will
vote for those House seats next year opposed pardoning anybody
who assaulted Capitol police officers, and among all voters. It's
(06:36):
seventy three percent. Fifty five percent of voters in these
districts oppose any pardons for anybody convicted in federal court.
Let me just do this again. Three quarters of voters
in the forty three swingiest House swing seats oppose basically
(06:58):
the first thing Trump did upon taking the dictatorship. Again,
a clear majority of the Republicans in those districts also
feel that way, and even among those who support him,
this was not what they voted for. Out of seventeen priorities,
choose three, these voters said pardoning the January sixth thugs
(07:19):
was the fifteenth most important thing. Seven percent support for
pardoning the January sixth mob seven percent. Trump Ism is
a blinding, deluding, psychological disorder, but there are degrees of it.
(07:44):
Forty five percent of them said curbing inflation was the priority.
Forty one percent said the border and immigration. Pardoning the
January sixth perpetrators was down at the bottom, next to
nine percent support for gutting healthcare and five percent support
for ending Title nine protections for transgendered students. That is
(08:05):
more important to Trump voters in these forty three districts
that could not only take back the House next year,
but give the Democrats the modern equivalent of a super
House majority. That nonsense is more important to the ones
voting against the Democrats than was freeing Trump's stochastic terror squads.
(08:26):
He blew it for whatever short term gain he will get,
for whatever loyalty he will now buy from the bullies
and the criminals, Trump has really really screwed this up.
If the issue is pressed, hammered, enshrined in legislation, if
it becomes unavoidable, it becomes the basis of a new
(08:48):
impeachment bill every month from now until the midterms. If
we do that, it will mean that Trump and MAGA
and the Republican Party will have committed electorals suicide. When
have you ever heard of anything any president did, especially
in the brilliant honeymoon unforgettable light of his first goddamned day.
(09:11):
When have you ever heard of anything producing polling that
says three quarters of swing voters in swing districts hated it.
It is now imperative that we the Defiance, and the
Democrats in the House, and the Democrats in the Senate,
and the Democrats in every state, the Democrats on every street,
(09:33):
take this pardon nonsense, this pardon bullshit, and shove the
pardons up Trump's ass. And then there is and also
(10:05):
the small matter on this issue of the reality that
impeaching Trump is a moral necessity. Simply put, it's the
right thing to do, because freeing sixteen hundred violent gangsters
is morally wrong. It is the equivalent of what Putin
did to fill the ranks of his army in Ukraine.
(10:27):
It is morally wrong on so many levels, in so
many ways that the levels are almost uncountable. And not
the least of those background moral issues is that he
who inspired them to commit these crimes has now let
them out of jail, which is the definition of a
(10:47):
quid pro quo. It is also part of a cover
up conspiracy about Trump's own crimes related to trying to
overthrow the government, exactly like Watergates cover up conspiracy was
about Nixon's own crimes. What Trump did was morally wrong,
and taken in concert with his other impeachable offense on
(11:09):
day one, which I will get to, it is clear
and inarguable evidence that he's already violated the constitution sufficiently
to be removed from office. Now today, where the House
Democratic right now, there would be a rush to promulgate
impeachment bills. It is wrong, it is illegal, it is impeachable.
(11:30):
That it will not happen for two years does not
mean you sit back and let it die. The concept
of moral right and wrong has long since fallen into
obscurity in the political cesspool of our damaged nation, well
behind the current primary organizing principle of the United States
of America. What can I get away with this time?
(11:53):
But right and wrong still exists, and the first step
towards defeating wrong is to stand up for what is right.
Move to impeach Trump today and again in February and
in March, and on television and at rallies and in campaigns,
and as we build out and build up defiance. The
(12:17):
Republicans are the party of criminals. The Republicans are the
party of circumventing the law. The Republicans are the party
of immorality. The Democrats are the party of justice and
enforcing the law, and of moral force. And not incidentally,
(12:40):
the idea of deliberately being a broken record about these
cynical evil pardons is not as stagnant as it may
first sound. As Brian Boutler, who also by utter non coincidence,
titled his newsletter yesterday Impeach Trump, emphasizes the story of
the January sixth pardons does not end with the release
of these manifest threats to the safety not just of
(13:02):
democracy but of other citizens. Here. What do you think
they're all going to retire from thuggery and political violence?
You think they're all going to take their undeserved wins
and go home. Now, what they do next will not
be sixteen hundred gangsters signing up to go to monasteries
and nunneries to become priests and sisters. Thus, what they
(13:26):
do next will be its own, continuing, evolving, disgusting story.
And we must make Trump and the Republicans own each
of those stories, Boiler writes, quoting him. Democratic operatives should
be in the business of tracking the public conduct of
freed insurrectionists. What do they say on social media? Which
(13:48):
of them recidivates with what crimes? Trump will bear direct
responsibility for all their future transgressions, whether that's violence in
his name or run of the mill criminal activity. They
should not want memories of his action to fade, or
for the consequences to go unnoticed unquote, he's Enrique Trump.
(14:14):
Now they're all Trump. This, of course, will probably require
figuratively decapitating the leadership of the Democratic Party at all levels.
Bouler quotes Chuck Schumer, or I should say, more correctly,
he quotes both. Chuck Schumer's the one who says the
January sixth convicts quote should not have been pardoned. Trump
(14:37):
is ushering in a golden age for people that break
the law and attempt to overthrow the government. And then
Bouler quotes the other Chuck Schumer. It is time to
look to the future. The Senate must respond with resolve,
by partisanship and fidelity to the working and middle class
of this country. By partisanship with whom, Chuck, the party
that just freed those you just said, attempted to overthrow
(15:00):
the government. So you are standing up for bipartisanship. Betwe
the pro government Democrats and the pro violent overthrow Republicans.
This is madness. Resign from the leadership, Resign from the Senate,
get the hell out of the way. By partisanship got
us the second Bush term by partisanship. And this now
(15:23):
antique thought that the voters will reward the most bipartisan
party got us the second Trump term. It is a
hell of a way to run a country. But we
have re entered the kill them and eat them stage
of the politics of the United States of America. We
have been here before in eighteen sixty one. You have
(15:43):
two choices, Chuck Schumer, you metaphorically kill them because they
are scum and they are wrong, and Trump is a
madman and a dictator. You do that, or you can
be metaphorically eaten by them. To Chuck Schumer and all
the Chuck Schumers, busy or get out now. I apologize
(16:16):
for having repeatedly referenced, but not explained, the dictator's other
immediately impeachable act. A little afternoon Monday, Trump, his hand
not on the Bible, presumably out of fear that the
book would burn the effing flesh off his bones, swore
he would to the best of my ability to preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States. Yet within
(16:39):
hours he not even bothering to get his horrors on
the Supreme Court to pretend to do what is after all,
their job and do this for him. He was overruling
the Constitution, specifically the Fourteenth Amendment, and birthright citizenship, and
rewriting that amendment, and rewriting our Constitution to deny the
(17:01):
right of citizenship to anybody born here, whether they're the parents,
are here legally or not. This was not, just, as
Trump promised, terminating the Constitution as it pertains through undocumented immigrants. However,
this was not just a Trump action vaguely within that
framework of the migration dilemma he caused. This was an
(17:24):
act against all immigrants, and all foreigners, and all minorities.
It is an act of white supremacism. And the writers
of the executive order that the white supremacist Trump may
or may not have read, didn't even try to pretend
this wasn't an act violating what has been the accepted
(17:47):
interpretation of the Constitution by every Supreme Court and every
other court, and every Congress and every Senate since ratification
of the Fourteenth Amendment in eighteen flipping sixty eight. If
the drafters of that amendment and the state legislators that
passed it meant no children of immigrants, they would have said,
(18:07):
no children of immigrants. Trump's order simply pretends none of
that is true. It is Orwellian memory holding. It is gaslighting,
quoting the order. The fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted
to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.
The fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons
(18:29):
who were born in the United States but not subject
to the jurisdiction thereof. And Oceania has always been at
war with East Asia. Bullshit, nonsensical, obvious, and impeachable bullshit.
So impeach him for it, because what I said before
is true. If only Democrats and whichever Republicans still believe
(18:53):
in representative government, get off off the goddamned floor sees
the gift Trump has moronically and unnecessarily handed us. He
has already committed impeachable acts. So introduce resolutions to impeach
him every month, every week, every day, every hour, if
you have to introduce enough of them, so he will
(19:14):
not be able to see over them as they pile
up in his office. Bury him alive under impeachment bills.
Think of those forty three swing house districts and the
three quarters of voters in them, and the fifty five
percent of Republicans in them who oppose Trump. Letting the
bubonic play rats out of the prisons and back out
(19:35):
into our homes. Think of them, and impeach Trump now.
Impeach Trump now and later. And lastly, if you are
(19:58):
shying away from this because you are still on the floor,
it's understandable. Now get off the efing floor. If you
hesitate to do this because you see democratic leaders folding
looking at you, John Fetterman, get back on the spaceship,
(20:19):
or more accurately, if you see democratic leadership going mia.
Consider this. After Trump freed sixteen hundred hardened criminal January
sixth slime, after he officially and immediately and forever sided
with the domestic terrorist attack on this nation and on
(20:41):
democracy itself, the Republicans were still out there trying to
sell the idea that Biden's last minute, tiny preemptive pardons
of his family and Liz Cheney and Anthony Fauci and
others that that was somehow criminal, and moreover, that it
certainly meant the recipients were guilty. By that Republican logic,
(21:07):
a pardoned criminal or just a pardoned potential politicized prosecutorial
target is guilty than what are these sixteen hundred January
sixth scumbags? And what are they guilty of. They are
guilty of, as Schumer even phrased it, attempting to overthrow
the government. And on whose behalf? At whose instigation were
(21:28):
they trying to do this? Who is as guilty as
anybody just pardoned Trump? This is easy. Trump has convicted
himself of insurrection, trying to overthrow the government, and treason,
and he has bought off his little stochastic army. This
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isn't complicated, it isn't risky, and among things to be
defiant about, it isn't even all that defiant. It must, however,
be exploited. It is being handed to us on a
silver platter, or since it's Trump, it's being handed to
us on a fake, dull, ugly restolium gold platter. Take it,
(22:19):
impeach Trump, and then take the platter and shove that
up Trump's ass as well. A scheduling note barring Bolton News,
this episode live just as Tuesday the twenty first became
Wednesday the twenty second will take the place of the
regular Thursday edition. I could have stuck to the schedule
(22:41):
or spread the good news about impeachment. Now, it's the
point was to do it. Now, I think I made
the right choice by doing it now all se of
interest here bluntly, Jake Tapper needs to resign. Talk about
going to a monastery somewhere to a tone. Jake Tapper's
(23:03):
performance at the Trump Biden debate was pathetic and desperate,
and he has somehow now outdone himself. Of course, very
few people noticed that because he and CNN began to
destroy their outlet in twenty twenty three, and the inauguration
ratings are now in and they suggest congratulations are in order.
(23:25):
CNN has completed its task of self immolation. CNN finished
third on inauguration coverage behind MSNBC in primetime, the last
area of CNN semi relevance covering breaking news, and Jake
Tapper helped reduce it to last place. He's in worse persons.
(23:51):
That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith
Oberman stell ahead on countdown. Trumpists who can put together
(24:22):
actual sentences and have more than three digits on each
hand and foot but less than eight digits on each
hand and foot often say, aldermin, what do you know
about Trump? And I do enjoy stunning them by explaining
I first met him in nineteen eighty three, and I
(24:43):
knew him well enough that just over a decade ago
he wrote me a goddamned fan letter. And I know
him well enough to say when I say he's nuts
and dangerous, I have credentials. I said the same thing
about him forty one years ago, ahead on things I
promised not to tell the first time I met Trump.
(25:08):
By the way, impeach him first. There are still more
new idiots to talk about. The daily round up of
the misgrids, morons and Dunning Krueger effect specimens who constitute
two days other worst persons in the world. The first
is Christy eight nine, three, one, two, six, seven seven,
And if I mentioned Trumpsts who have the ordinary number
(25:28):
of fingers and toes, at the opposite end of the
spectrum is Christy. Christy is a moron. Christy is Trump's base.
Christy could be a bot, But looking at the Twitter
x of Christy, I don't think so. I just think
she's the kind of person who a century ago never
(25:49):
reached maturity because one day, while out of the house,
they forgot how doors worked, and they couldn't get back inside,
and thus they died of exposure. Still trying to remember
what knobs were for I swear to God, I'm I'm
reading this verbatim. It is a defense of Trump pardoning
the Sewer rats. In a reply to a clip of
(26:11):
Daniel Dale of CNN eviscerating Trump's lies about the pardons.
For the record, so you understand what I'm reading, let
me emphasize the word is pardons pa r do ns Christy.
That's Christy eight nine three one two six seven seven.
She does not know this quote. Christy eight nine three
(26:34):
one two six seven seven, replying to at CNN, why
don't you say anything about Joe Biden partying his whole
family and, by the way, parted eight thousand more people
than any other president, CNN, look at your ratings partying.
Biden parted way more people than Trump did. He partying
(26:57):
his whole family, he issued pardons. Why are we in
this situation this country? Because Christy and several million other
Christie's are utter idiots the runner up worser. On the
other hand, she does have CNN about the ratings part
(27:19):
not that this is unexpected given who would have been
watching the inauguration, but during midday Monday, while it was
actually happening, CNN was actually in second place in cable news,
CNN had more than double MSNBC's ratings. On the other hand,
Fox had more than six times CNN's ratings. And then
(27:39):
the numbers got bad for CNN. By noon, CNN had
fallen into a tie in the demo audience with MSNBC.
By seven PM, CNN had collapsed into a total audience
tie with MSNBC. By eight pm, MSNBC a million one,
CNN a million, third in a three team race in
breaking news, Why welser when from the days we put
(28:06):
it on the air, and I do mean we. I
started there. As year two began in nineteen eighty one,
CNN increasingly dominated first cable ratings and then all TV
ratings in breaking news. That's what it was. For the
rest of the time. They couldn't charge as much for
the commercials. Breaking news made them all the money they
would ever make. And that's gone. And I have no
(28:29):
means of proving this, but I think I know something
about cable news audiences. I was there when they started,
and I was there when they finished, and I believe
this collapse due to CNN is now simply the reality
that CNN is just the TV version of the Washington
Post and Penny Saber and Hot Sex News. Some people
(28:53):
still go there by habit, Oh, something's happening They've put
on CNN. Some people are not yet personally offended enough
to have found it alternative television Viewers are not required
to be fully informed about the quality of the product
they are about to watch. But most of the viewers
(29:13):
of CNN got the message three years ago, and Chris
lickt took over and started pandering to the fascists, and
anybody left probably dropped out when Dana Bash and Jake
Tapper refused to fact check Trump's lies at the Biden
Trump debate. And you can frame that anyway you want,
but that is doing Trump's job for him. That is
Dana Bash and Jake Tapper and CNN having successfully put
(29:34):
their fingers on the scale to help get Trump elected.
I hope that Dana Bash and Jake Tapper lived to
be one hundred and eight years old each. And I
also hope that their last thoughts on this earth are
I helped get Trump elected. What you did was you
let Trump lie while you just stood there Bash and
(29:56):
you just stood there Tapper, which is like a cop
or two cops letting a thug beat up a victim,
and now, as if this were possible, Tapper may have
chased the rest of once was CNN's default audience away
at two pm Eastern on Monday in the post inauguration glow,
(30:18):
and they were still a factor in the ratings. Quote Tapper,
I think it's important to point out that the Trump
dvance campaign in twenty twenty four was a very disciplined
campaign and did a decent job of depicting Trump as
somebody who was within the realm of normalcy. He said,
(30:39):
this aster God, he said, this disciplined campaign depicting Trump
is within the realm of normalcy, Jake, Which part the
part where they spent a week insisting that Haitian immigrants
were eating pets in Ohio, the Madison Square Garden part
where the alleged Trump comedian called Puerto Rico an island
of garbage, when he said all the FEMA money had
(31:02):
already been spent and Biden had spent it on immigrants
to fly them in and Kamala Harris had brought them
into Chicago. Which part was the realm of normalcy and
which part was the discipline Trump's constant moronic consistence that
the migrants were coming from insane asylums, because Trump is
so stupid and brain dead that he does not realize
(31:26):
that what we used to kind of crassly call insane asylums,
those aren't the same thing as political asylum, you efing moron.
Which part of the campaign was the most within the
realm of normalcy? Jake Tapple, your hapless ass kisser. We
are left with two choices, Jake. You have either joined
the line of vhy collaborators, and in that line you're
(31:48):
like two thousandth behind Bezos and Lauren Sanchez who was
so affected by the inauguration speech that she almost managed
to move her face. It's that, Jake, or you need
to see a neurologist today. Either way, Jake Tapper, f
you but our winner, speaking of the face almost moving
(32:09):
during the inauguration, it's Milagna. Do you know already about
the crypto scam she and her employer. I'm sorry she
and her husband ran over the weekend, but I have
to point this out. All the advertising done to rip
off the Rubes with Milanya's meme coin, they are all
variations of her pictures grinning hands in front of her nose,
(32:32):
eyes so covered over by liner that it looks like
they're closed, and then prominently displayed or written in the
text the name of the meme coin she was selling.
And meme coin names consists of a dollar sign and
then the name. But of course a dollar sign is
just an s with a vertical line through it. And
(32:52):
I defy you to find anybody who doesn't see that
dollar sign when it has a name or word directly
attached to it, with no spacing between them, as in
mean coin names. I defy you to find any who
doesn't see dollars sign millennia and here in their minds
smell onya as in ah, what's that awful smell on
(33:16):
YOUA Milania hereafter to be called Smellania Trump invest in
distens to day's first person indiverse.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Smell Anya.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I have had the misfortune to meet Trump in person
four times, the first late in nineteen eighty three, and
each time I saw the exact moment that his face
went from an emotionless, almost lifeless, certainly non human mask
to a beaming, phony smile. That's who he is, That's
(34:14):
what he thinks is his asset, an irresistible smile. You
and I look at him and see a face of
evil and debauchery, and mostly a guy who claims to
be rich and yet clearly buys his makeup at the
cheap end of the notions department at Filein's basement. But
he really thinks he can sell anybody anything, and somewhere
(34:36):
early in life he decided his means of doing that
was to mimic a human smile and really make it
as big and as preposterous as possible. And he's done
this now for at least seventy years, from his childhood
dementia to this dementia. And the way he registers a
sail with people, his receipt for convincing them to do
(35:00):
his bidding is their smile in return. So the jury
didn't smile at him, so the jury was biased against him,
So the jury was corrupt, so the trial was rigged.
So when he says these crazy things, there is a
part of him that truly believes it is rigged, because
they are, as the kids say, not buying what he's selling.
(35:20):
He believes life is a transaction, and when he gives
you his smile, you have to give him yours, and
then he owns you. I met him in the lobby
of the apartment building I used to live at here,
the no longer Trump Palace. I saw him first, then
he saw me. Then he whispered to one of his flunkies.
(35:42):
I'm guessing he was double checking it was me. Then
he stared at me for a moment. Then when he
thought I was first looking at him, his dead face
turned immediately into that fake smile. Remember the Senko Demayo
Taco bowl tweet from twenty sixteen where he says I
love Hispanics, like there were actual Hispanics in the taco
(36:02):
bowl and he was eating them that fake smile. But
his eyesight is not as good as he lets on,
so he doesn't know that you have seen him first.
He had done the same thing twice in the lobbies
of thirty Rock at NBC, once stopping just to shake hands,
once actually stopping to tell me how good countdown was,
(36:25):
and how pissed off his buddy Bill O'Reilly would get
whenever he told him how good countdown was, and then
striding off. And I watched to see if I could
see that fake smile that had appeared so suddenly vanished
justice suddenly, but his back was turned to me. However,
December fifteenth, nineteen eighty three, CNN sends me to cover
(36:45):
a New York Post sports forum where owner George Steinbrenner
of the New York Yankees, owner Fred Wilpond of the
New York Mets, Sonny Werblin of the New York Rangers,
and Nixon this real estate hump Trump who owned the
sort of pro football team in New Jersey. They would
speak and do interviews and meet fans and whatever. He
interviewed them all briefly, and when it came time to
(37:07):
interview this Trump guy, he stood there and looked at
me like he was trying to guess my weight. Then
we put the camera light on and there it was,
this big fake smile out of nowhere, and I asked
some questions about the New Jersey Generals, and he boasted
he was hiring a new name coach who used to
coach the Jets. When we turned out he hadn't hired
(37:27):
him yet, and he spent a week cleaning up that mess.
And when I said thank you, when we turned the
light off, he turned off the big fake smile zap
it was gone, and the blank look repeated in his
eyes A couple of years ago, on a cold night,
I turned a corner here and a familiar but older
face shouted Keith, And suddenly I realized it's a CNN
(37:48):
cameraman I haven't seen in thirty years. Remember when we
covered Trump at that sports thing, he says, And I
realized he was the cameraman that day at the post thing.
Remember what you said about him? And I didn't? And
he laughs, and he says, we were walking back to
the truck and you didn't say anything thing, and that
worried us, because when have you ever shut up for
five minutes? And so finally I say, what's bothering you?
(38:10):
And you stopped, and you turning, you looked at me
and Jimmy, and you said that last guy we interviewed Trump,
what the f is wrong with that guy? I've done
(38:32):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanell, the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged,
produced and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled
orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass
and drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers. We're satirical
and fifty musical comments are by the baseball stadium organist
Arran Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme
(38:54):
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcwer tod He was my friend Stevie van Zante.
Everything else was, as ever my fault. So that he
is countdown for today, just one thousand, four hundred and
sixty days until the scheduled end of his lame duck
(39:17):
and lame reigned term. The next scheduled countdown is Monday.
As always, bulletins, as the news warrants, remember in peach Trump,
it won't work now. It will, however, win the Democrats
the mid terms. Until next time. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(40:05):
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. Impeach
(00:25):
Trump now again. No, it will not pass. No, it
will not work, not now, but it will pass, and
it will work next year, and it will win the
Democrats the midterms and the year after that. It will
brand Trump yet again, impeached yet again, as the most
(00:45):
treacherous garbage in our history. Because lost in the avalanche
of evil he has perpetrated since beginning his second dictatorship,
lost in the astonishment and even the despair of true Americans,
lost in the numbed, terrified, capitulatory media coverage, is the
reality that his pardoning of the January sixth Traders is
(01:08):
amazingly unpopular, literally unpopular enough to cost him at least
forty three House seats right now, right now, before he
mindlessly signs even more red meat, Stephen Miller slides under
his piggish face. And the second part of this is
(01:31):
he has also already literally intentionally violated the Constitution of
the United States, already not forty eight hours on the job,
and he is already guilty of violating one of the
amendments and doing so deliberately. He is already guilty of
at least two impeachable offenses. Already, there is almost nothing
(01:58):
to do to stop Trump now. The Democrats are minorities
in both houses, the courts are The Supreme Court is
just another Trump scam company. The billionaires like Musk and
Bezos and Zuckerberg and the other tech scum have lined
up besides him, just as Kroup and I G. Farbin
(02:19):
and Opal stood next to and behind Hitler. There is
nothing to do today except to borrow from the musical
version of the lyrics of the fascists to make sure
tomorrow belongs to us. Introduce a bill today, or even
(02:41):
multiple bills today, to impeach Trump. Keep the crimes he
has already committed, including the ones he has been convicted
of and the ones he wriggled out of with dubious
legality and non existent morality front of mind, and the
new ones too. Fight back, thwart him, anger him, waste
(03:03):
his time, make him play defense, enrage his base, and
terrify those billionaire idiots. Because you could see on that
little mouse Zuckerberg's face during the inauguration that he wasn't
so sure anymore. He picked the right side and fight
back against these bastards moreover, give the opposition, not the
(03:30):
resistance this time, but instead the defiance. Give the defiance
something to do with our time other than just sit
here and replay November fifth and all the days leading
up to it in some PTSD doom loop. Nothing that
has ever been wrong in the history of the world
(03:53):
has ever stopped being wrong without the same goddamned first step,
people standing up and saying this is wrong, this must
be stopped. Seventy six and one half million people voted
against Trump, forty nine and two fifths percent of the population,
(04:16):
the voting population, and we are all just sitting here
saying nothing, doing nothing, feeling sorry for ourselves, watching Trump
wreck train after train, and insisting to ourselves there's nothing
to do about it. Well, there is. Few of us
(04:43):
have even noticed that gift he gave us by pardoning
nearly sixteen hundred convicts and suspects to start within freeing them.
Trump and MAGA and their Republicans have gained full ownership
of January sixth, in a way they had spent four
years denying and trying to avoid. The Republican Party is
(05:03):
now officially pro vigilante. It is now officially pro militia.
It is now officially pro political violence. It is now
officially pro politicization of the Department of Justice. It is
now officially anti law and order. Make every Republican answer
for this every day until Tuesday, November three, twenty twenty six.
(05:28):
Make them answer for it because they will not be
able to. Because if you want something with which to
figuratively beat Trump over the head every month, every week,
every day until the midterms, if you want to defy
this idiot, just handed you the stick just a week ago.
(05:51):
The Protect Democracy nonprofit. The board and advisors there include
everybody from my friend John Dean to historian Tim Snyder,
from Matt Dowd to Ian Bassen. Protect Democracy conducted a
YouGov in the forty three most competitive House districts. Seventy
five percent of voters in those districts opposed pardoning anybody
(06:15):
using a deadly or just a dangerous weapon on January sixth,
three quarters that includes fifty five percent of the Republicans
in those districts. Fifty four percent of Republicans who will
vote for those House seats next year opposed pardoning anybody
who assaulted Capitol police officers, and among all voters. It's
(06:36):
seventy three percent. Fifty five percent of voters in these
districts oppose any pardons for anybody convicted in federal court.
Let me just do this again. Three quarters of voters
in the forty three swingiest House swing seats oppose basically
(06:58):
the first thing Trump did upon taking the dictatorship. Again,
a clear majority of the Republicans in those districts also
feel that way, and even among those who support him,
this was not what they voted for. Out of seventeen priorities,
choose three, these voters said pardoning the January sixth thugs
(07:19):
was the fifteenth most important thing. Seven percent support for
pardoning the January sixth mob seven percent. Trump Ism is
a blinding, deluding, psychological disorder, but there are degrees of it.
(07:44):
Forty five percent of them said curbing inflation was the priority.
Forty one percent said the border and immigration. Pardoning the
January sixth perpetrators was down at the bottom, next to
nine percent support for gutting healthcare and five percent support
for ending Title nine protections for transgendered students. That is
(08:05):
more important to Trump voters in these forty three districts
that could not only take back the House next year,
but give the Democrats the modern equivalent of a super
House majority. That nonsense is more important to the ones
voting against the Democrats than was freeing Trump's stochastic terror squads.
(08:26):
He blew it for whatever short term gain he will get,
for whatever loyalty he will now buy from the bullies
and the criminals, Trump has really really screwed this up.
If the issue is pressed, hammered, enshrined in legislation, if
it becomes unavoidable, it becomes the basis of a new
(08:48):
impeachment bill every month from now until the midterms. If
we do that, it will mean that Trump and MAGA
and the Republican Party will have committed electorals suicide. When
have you ever heard of anything any president did, especially
in the brilliant honeymoon unforgettable light of his first goddamned day.
(09:11):
When have you ever heard of anything producing polling that
says three quarters of swing voters in swing districts hated it.
It is now imperative that we the Defiance, and the
Democrats in the House, and the Democrats in the Senate,
and the Democrats in every state, the Democrats on every street,
(09:33):
take this pardon nonsense, this pardon bullshit, and shove the
pardons up Trump's ass. And then there is and also
(10:05):
the small matter on this issue of the reality that
impeaching Trump is a moral necessity. Simply put, it's the
right thing to do, because freeing sixteen hundred violent gangsters
is morally wrong. It is the equivalent of what Putin
did to fill the ranks of his army in Ukraine.
(10:27):
It is morally wrong on so many levels, in so
many ways that the levels are almost uncountable. And not
the least of those background moral issues is that he
who inspired them to commit these crimes has now let
them out of jail, which is the definition of a
(10:47):
quid pro quo. It is also part of a cover
up conspiracy about Trump's own crimes related to trying to
overthrow the government, exactly like Watergates cover up conspiracy was
about Nixon's own crimes. What Trump did was morally wrong,
and taken in concert with his other impeachable offense on
(11:09):
day one, which I will get to, it is clear
and inarguable evidence that he's already violated the constitution sufficiently
to be removed from office. Now today, where the House
Democratic right now, there would be a rush to promulgate
impeachment bills. It is wrong, it is illegal, it is impeachable.
(11:30):
That it will not happen for two years does not
mean you sit back and let it die. The concept
of moral right and wrong has long since fallen into
obscurity in the political cesspool of our damaged nation, well
behind the current primary organizing principle of the United States
of America. What can I get away with this time?
(11:53):
But right and wrong still exists, and the first step
towards defeating wrong is to stand up for what is right.
Move to impeach Trump today and again in February and
in March, and on television and at rallies and in campaigns,
and as we build out and build up defiance. The
(12:17):
Republicans are the party of criminals. The Republicans are the
party of circumventing the law. The Republicans are the party
of immorality. The Democrats are the party of justice and
enforcing the law, and of moral force. And not incidentally,
(12:40):
the idea of deliberately being a broken record about these
cynical evil pardons is not as stagnant as it may
first sound. As Brian Boutler, who also by utter non coincidence,
titled his newsletter yesterday Impeach Trump, emphasizes the story of
the January sixth pardons does not end with the release
of these manifest threats to the safety not just of
(13:02):
democracy but of other citizens. Here. What do you think
they're all going to retire from thuggery and political violence?
You think they're all going to take their undeserved wins
and go home. Now, what they do next will not
be sixteen hundred gangsters signing up to go to monasteries
and nunneries to become priests and sisters. Thus, what they
(13:26):
do next will be its own, continuing, evolving, disgusting story.
And we must make Trump and the Republicans own each
of those stories, Boiler writes, quoting him. Democratic operatives should
be in the business of tracking the public conduct of
freed insurrectionists. What do they say on social media? Which
(13:48):
of them recidivates with what crimes? Trump will bear direct
responsibility for all their future transgressions, whether that's violence in
his name or run of the mill criminal activity. They
should not want memories of his action to fade, or
for the consequences to go unnoticed unquote, he's Enrique Trump.
(14:14):
Now they're all Trump. This, of course, will probably require
figuratively decapitating the leadership of the Democratic Party at all levels.
Bouler quotes Chuck Schumer, or I should say, more correctly,
he quotes both. Chuck Schumer's the one who says the
January sixth convicts quote should not have been pardoned. Trump
(14:37):
is ushering in a golden age for people that break
the law and attempt to overthrow the government. And then
Bouler quotes the other Chuck Schumer. It is time to
look to the future. The Senate must respond with resolve,
by partisanship and fidelity to the working and middle class
of this country. By partisanship with whom, Chuck, the party
that just freed those you just said, attempted to overthrow
(15:00):
the government. So you are standing up for bipartisanship. Betwe
the pro government Democrats and the pro violent overthrow Republicans.
This is madness. Resign from the leadership, Resign from the Senate,
get the hell out of the way. By partisanship got
us the second Bush term by partisanship. And this now
(15:23):
antique thought that the voters will reward the most bipartisan
party got us the second Trump term. It is a
hell of a way to run a country. But we
have re entered the kill them and eat them stage
of the politics of the United States of America. We
have been here before in eighteen sixty one. You have
(15:43):
two choices, Chuck Schumer, you metaphorically kill them because they
are scum and they are wrong, and Trump is a
madman and a dictator. You do that, or you can
be metaphorically eaten by them. To Chuck Schumer and all
the Chuck Schumers, busy or get out now. I apologize
(16:16):
for having repeatedly referenced, but not explained, the dictator's other
immediately impeachable act. A little afternoon Monday, Trump, his hand
not on the Bible, presumably out of fear that the
book would burn the effing flesh off his bones, swore
he would to the best of my ability to preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States. Yet within
(16:39):
hours he not even bothering to get his horrors on
the Supreme Court to pretend to do what is after all,
their job and do this for him. He was overruling
the Constitution, specifically the Fourteenth Amendment, and birthright citizenship, and
rewriting that amendment, and rewriting our Constitution to deny the
(17:01):
right of citizenship to anybody born here, whether they're the parents,
are here legally or not. This was not, just, as
Trump promised, terminating the Constitution as it pertains through undocumented immigrants. However,
this was not just a Trump action vaguely within that
framework of the migration dilemma he caused. This was an
(17:24):
act against all immigrants, and all foreigners, and all minorities.
It is an act of white supremacism. And the writers
of the executive order that the white supremacist Trump may
or may not have read, didn't even try to pretend
this wasn't an act violating what has been the accepted
(17:47):
interpretation of the Constitution by every Supreme Court and every
other court, and every Congress and every Senate since ratification
of the Fourteenth Amendment in eighteen flipping sixty eight. If
the drafters of that amendment and the state legislators that
passed it meant no children of immigrants, they would have said,
(18:07):
no children of immigrants. Trump's order simply pretends none of
that is true. It is Orwellian memory holding. It is gaslighting,
quoting the order. The fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted
to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.
The fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons
(18:29):
who were born in the United States but not subject
to the jurisdiction thereof. And Oceania has always been at
war with East Asia. Bullshit, nonsensical, obvious, and impeachable bullshit.
So impeach him for it, because what I said before
is true. If only Democrats and whichever Republicans still believe
(18:53):
in representative government, get off off the goddamned floor sees
the gift Trump has moronically and unnecessarily handed us. He
has already committed impeachable acts. So introduce resolutions to impeach
him every month, every week, every day, every hour, if
you have to introduce enough of them, so he will
(19:14):
not be able to see over them as they pile
up in his office. Bury him alive under impeachment bills.
Think of those forty three swing house districts and the
three quarters of voters in them, and the fifty five
percent of Republicans in them who oppose Trump. Letting the
bubonic play rats out of the prisons and back out
(19:35):
into our homes. Think of them, and impeach Trump now.
Impeach Trump now and later. And lastly, if you are
(19:58):
shying away from this because you are still on the floor,
it's understandable. Now get off the efing floor. If you
hesitate to do this because you see democratic leaders folding
looking at you, John Fetterman, get back on the spaceship,
(20:19):
or more accurately, if you see democratic leadership going mia.
Consider this. After Trump freed sixteen hundred hardened criminal January
sixth slime, after he officially and immediately and forever sided
with the domestic terrorist attack on this nation and on
(20:41):
democracy itself, the Republicans were still out there trying to
sell the idea that Biden's last minute, tiny preemptive pardons
of his family and Liz Cheney and Anthony Fauci and
others that that was somehow criminal, and moreover, that it
certainly meant the recipients were guilty. By that Republican logic,
(21:07):
a pardoned criminal or just a pardoned potential politicized prosecutorial
target is guilty than what are these sixteen hundred January
sixth scumbags? And what are they guilty of. They are
guilty of, as Schumer even phrased it, attempting to overthrow
the government. And on whose behalf? At whose instigation were
(21:28):
they trying to do this? Who is as guilty as
anybody just pardoned Trump? This is easy. Trump has convicted
himself of insurrection, trying to overthrow the government, and treason,
and he has bought off his little stochastic army. This
(21:52):
isn't complicated, it isn't risky, and among things to be
defiant about, it isn't even all that defiant. It must, however,
be exploited. It is being handed to us on a
silver platter, or since it's Trump, it's being handed to
us on a fake, dull, ugly restolium gold platter. Take it,
(22:19):
impeach Trump, and then take the platter and shove that
up Trump's ass as well. A scheduling note barring Bolton News,
this episode live just as Tuesday the twenty first became
Wednesday the twenty second will take the place of the
regular Thursday edition. I could have stuck to the schedule
(22:41):
or spread the good news about impeachment. Now, it's the
point was to do it. Now, I think I made
the right choice by doing it now all se of
interest here bluntly, Jake Tapper needs to resign. Talk about
going to a monastery somewhere to a tone. Jake Tapper's
(23:03):
performance at the Trump Biden debate was pathetic and desperate,
and he has somehow now outdone himself. Of course, very
few people noticed that because he and CNN began to
destroy their outlet in twenty twenty three, and the inauguration
ratings are now in and they suggest congratulations are in order.
(23:25):
CNN has completed its task of self immolation. CNN finished
third on inauguration coverage behind MSNBC in primetime, the last
area of CNN semi relevance covering breaking news, and Jake
Tapper helped reduce it to last place. He's in worse persons.
(23:51):
That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith
Oberman stell ahead on countdown. Trumpists who can put together
(24:22):
actual sentences and have more than three digits on each
hand and foot but less than eight digits on each
hand and foot often say, aldermin, what do you know
about Trump? And I do enjoy stunning them by explaining
I first met him in nineteen eighty three, and I
(24:43):
knew him well enough that just over a decade ago
he wrote me a goddamned fan letter. And I know
him well enough to say when I say he's nuts
and dangerous, I have credentials. I said the same thing
about him forty one years ago, ahead on things I
promised not to tell the first time I met Trump.
(25:08):
By the way, impeach him first. There are still more
new idiots to talk about. The daily round up of
the misgrids, morons and Dunning Krueger effect specimens who constitute
two days other worst persons in the world. The first
is Christy eight nine, three, one, two, six, seven seven,
And if I mentioned Trumpsts who have the ordinary number
(25:28):
of fingers and toes, at the opposite end of the
spectrum is Christy. Christy is a moron. Christy is Trump's base.
Christy could be a bot, But looking at the Twitter
x of Christy, I don't think so. I just think
she's the kind of person who a century ago never
(25:49):
reached maturity because one day, while out of the house,
they forgot how doors worked, and they couldn't get back inside,
and thus they died of exposure. Still trying to remember
what knobs were for I swear to God, I'm I'm
reading this verbatim. It is a defense of Trump pardoning
the Sewer rats. In a reply to a clip of
(26:11):
Daniel Dale of CNN eviscerating Trump's lies about the pardons.
For the record, so you understand what I'm reading, let
me emphasize the word is pardons pa r do ns Christy.
That's Christy eight nine three one two six seven seven.
She does not know this quote. Christy eight nine three
(26:34):
one two six seven seven, replying to at CNN, why
don't you say anything about Joe Biden partying his whole
family and, by the way, parted eight thousand more people
than any other president, CNN, look at your ratings partying.
Biden parted way more people than Trump did. He partying
(26:57):
his whole family, he issued pardons. Why are we in
this situation this country? Because Christy and several million other
Christie's are utter idiots the runner up worser. On the
other hand, she does have CNN about the ratings part
(27:19):
not that this is unexpected given who would have been
watching the inauguration, but during midday Monday, while it was
actually happening, CNN was actually in second place in cable news,
CNN had more than double MSNBC's ratings. On the other hand,
Fox had more than six times CNN's ratings. And then
(27:39):
the numbers got bad for CNN. By noon, CNN had
fallen into a tie in the demo audience with MSNBC.
By seven PM, CNN had collapsed into a total audience
tie with MSNBC. By eight pm, MSNBC a million one,
CNN a million, third in a three team race in
breaking news, Why welser when from the days we put
(28:06):
it on the air, and I do mean we. I
started there. As year two began in nineteen eighty one,
CNN increasingly dominated first cable ratings and then all TV
ratings in breaking news. That's what it was. For the
rest of the time. They couldn't charge as much for
the commercials. Breaking news made them all the money they
would ever make. And that's gone. And I have no
(28:29):
means of proving this, but I think I know something
about cable news audiences. I was there when they started,
and I was there when they finished, and I believe
this collapse due to CNN is now simply the reality
that CNN is just the TV version of the Washington
Post and Penny Saber and Hot Sex News. Some people
(28:53):
still go there by habit, Oh, something's happening They've put
on CNN. Some people are not yet personally offended enough
to have found it alternative television Viewers are not required
to be fully informed about the quality of the product
they are about to watch. But most of the viewers
(29:13):
of CNN got the message three years ago, and Chris
lickt took over and started pandering to the fascists, and
anybody left probably dropped out when Dana Bash and Jake
Tapper refused to fact check Trump's lies at the Biden
Trump debate. And you can frame that anyway you want,
but that is doing Trump's job for him. That is
Dana Bash and Jake Tapper and CNN having successfully put
(29:34):
their fingers on the scale to help get Trump elected.
I hope that Dana Bash and Jake Tapper lived to
be one hundred and eight years old each. And I
also hope that their last thoughts on this earth are
I helped get Trump elected. What you did was you
let Trump lie while you just stood there Bash and
(29:56):
you just stood there Tapper, which is like a cop
or two cops letting a thug beat up a victim,
and now, as if this were possible, Tapper may have
chased the rest of once was CNN's default audience away
at two pm Eastern on Monday in the post inauguration glow,
(30:18):
and they were still a factor in the ratings. Quote Tapper,
I think it's important to point out that the Trump
dvance campaign in twenty twenty four was a very disciplined
campaign and did a decent job of depicting Trump as
somebody who was within the realm of normalcy. He said,
(30:39):
this aster God, he said, this disciplined campaign depicting Trump
is within the realm of normalcy, Jake, Which part the
part where they spent a week insisting that Haitian immigrants
were eating pets in Ohio, the Madison Square Garden part
where the alleged Trump comedian called Puerto Rico an island
of garbage, when he said all the FEMA money had
(31:02):
already been spent and Biden had spent it on immigrants
to fly them in and Kamala Harris had brought them
into Chicago. Which part was the realm of normalcy and
which part was the discipline Trump's constant moronic consistence that
the migrants were coming from insane asylums, because Trump is
so stupid and brain dead that he does not realize
(31:26):
that what we used to kind of crassly call insane asylums,
those aren't the same thing as political asylum, you efing moron.
Which part of the campaign was the most within the
realm of normalcy? Jake Tapple, your hapless ass kisser. We
are left with two choices, Jake. You have either joined
the line of vhy collaborators, and in that line you're
(31:48):
like two thousandth behind Bezos and Lauren Sanchez who was
so affected by the inauguration speech that she almost managed
to move her face. It's that, Jake, or you need
to see a neurologist today. Either way, Jake Tapper, f
you but our winner, speaking of the face almost moving
(32:09):
during the inauguration, it's Milagna. Do you know already about
the crypto scam she and her employer. I'm sorry she
and her husband ran over the weekend, but I have
to point this out. All the advertising done to rip
off the Rubes with Milanya's meme coin, they are all
variations of her pictures grinning hands in front of her nose,
(32:32):
eyes so covered over by liner that it looks like
they're closed, and then prominently displayed or written in the
text the name of the meme coin she was selling.
And meme coin names consists of a dollar sign and
then the name. But of course a dollar sign is
just an s with a vertical line through it. And
(32:52):
I defy you to find anybody who doesn't see that
dollar sign when it has a name or word directly
attached to it, with no spacing between them, as in
mean coin names. I defy you to find any who
doesn't see dollars sign millennia and here in their minds
smell onya as in ah, what's that awful smell on
(33:16):
YOUA Milania hereafter to be called Smellania Trump invest in
distens to day's first person indiverse.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Smell Anya.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I have had the misfortune to meet Trump in person
four times, the first late in nineteen eighty three, and
each time I saw the exact moment that his face
went from an emotionless, almost lifeless, certainly non human mask
to a beaming, phony smile. That's who he is, That's
(34:14):
what he thinks is his asset, an irresistible smile. You
and I look at him and see a face of
evil and debauchery, and mostly a guy who claims to
be rich and yet clearly buys his makeup at the
cheap end of the notions department at Filein's basement. But
he really thinks he can sell anybody anything, and somewhere
(34:36):
early in life he decided his means of doing that
was to mimic a human smile and really make it
as big and as preposterous as possible. And he's done
this now for at least seventy years, from his childhood
dementia to this dementia. And the way he registers a
sail with people, his receipt for convincing them to do
(35:00):
his bidding is their smile in return. So the jury
didn't smile at him, so the jury was biased against him,
So the jury was corrupt, so the trial was rigged.
So when he says these crazy things, there is a
part of him that truly believes it is rigged, because
they are, as the kids say, not buying what he's selling.
(35:20):
He believes life is a transaction, and when he gives
you his smile, you have to give him yours, and
then he owns you. I met him in the lobby
of the apartment building I used to live at here,
the no longer Trump Palace. I saw him first, then
he saw me. Then he whispered to one of his flunkies.
(35:42):
I'm guessing he was double checking it was me. Then
he stared at me for a moment. Then when he
thought I was first looking at him, his dead face
turned immediately into that fake smile. Remember the Senko Demayo
Taco bowl tweet from twenty sixteen where he says I
love Hispanics, like there were actual Hispanics in the taco
(36:02):
bowl and he was eating them that fake smile. But
his eyesight is not as good as he lets on,
so he doesn't know that you have seen him first.
He had done the same thing twice in the lobbies
of thirty Rock at NBC, once stopping just to shake hands,
once actually stopping to tell me how good countdown was,
(36:25):
and how pissed off his buddy Bill O'Reilly would get
whenever he told him how good countdown was, and then
striding off. And I watched to see if I could
see that fake smile that had appeared so suddenly vanished
justice suddenly, but his back was turned to me. However,
December fifteenth, nineteen eighty three, CNN sends me to cover
(36:45):
a New York Post sports forum where owner George Steinbrenner
of the New York Yankees, owner Fred Wilpond of the
New York Mets, Sonny Werblin of the New York Rangers,
and Nixon this real estate hump Trump who owned the
sort of pro football team in New Jersey. They would
speak and do interviews and meet fans and whatever. He
interviewed them all briefly, and when it came time to
(37:07):
interview this Trump guy, he stood there and looked at
me like he was trying to guess my weight. Then
we put the camera light on and there it was,
this big fake smile out of nowhere, and I asked
some questions about the New Jersey Generals, and he boasted
he was hiring a new name coach who used to
coach the Jets. When we turned out he hadn't hired
(37:27):
him yet, and he spent a week cleaning up that mess.
And when I said thank you, when we turned the
light off, he turned off the big fake smile zap
it was gone, and the blank look repeated in his
eyes A couple of years ago, on a cold night,
I turned a corner here and a familiar but older
face shouted Keith, And suddenly I realized it's a CNN
(37:48):
cameraman I haven't seen in thirty years. Remember when we
covered Trump at that sports thing, he says, And I
realized he was the cameraman that day at the post thing.
Remember what you said about him? And I didn't? And
he laughs, and he says, we were walking back to
the truck and you didn't say anything thing, and that
worried us, because when have you ever shut up for
five minutes? And so finally I say, what's bothering you?
(38:10):
And you stopped, and you turning, you looked at me
and Jimmy, and you said that last guy we interviewed Trump,
what the f is wrong with that guy? I've done
(38:32):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanell, the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged,
produced and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled
orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass
and drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers. We're satirical
and fifty musical comments are by the baseball stadium organist
Arran Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme
(38:54):
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcwer tod He was my friend Stevie van Zante.
Everything else was, as ever my fault. So that he
is countdown for today, just one thousand, four hundred and
sixty days until the scheduled end of his lame duck
(39:17):
and lame reigned term. The next scheduled countdown is Monday.
As always, bulletins, as the news warrants, remember in peach Trump,
it won't work now. It will, however, win the Democrats
the mid terms. Until next time. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(40:05):
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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