MURKOWSKI COULD LEAD GOP REVOLT AGAINST TRUMP - 4.21.25 - Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Now,

(00:29):
I will tell you the answer to my question. It
is this, the Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.
We are not interested in the good of others. We
are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury, or
long life or happiness. Only power, pure power. What pure

(00:57):
power means you will understand presently. We are different from
all the oligarchies of the past in that we know
what we are doing. All the others, even those who
resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and
the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods,

(01:21):
but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.
They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized
power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just
round the corner of their lay up paradise where human
beings would be free and equal. We are not like that.

(01:44):
We know that no one ever sees his power with
the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means,
it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship
in order to safeguard a revolution. One makes the revolution
in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution

(02:10):
is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object
of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?

(02:31):
Nineteen eighty four by George Orwell, the pen name of
Eric Blair, published on eight June nineteen forty nine. Sometime
today or this week, Donald Trump will again prove George
Orwell eric Blair a prophet, or will prove that he
Trump read nineteen eighty four, but read it as an

(02:54):
instructional manual, and he will do something his advisors will
have told him this week not to do, and he
will do it. Because Trump seeks power entirely for its
own sake. That he knows no one ever seizes power
with the intention of relinquishing it at an end. That
power is not a means to Trump, that the object

(03:15):
of power is power. Even two fascist imbeciles who surround
him heg Seth, his secretary of Defense, and Vodka and
Garden Gnome, the secretary of dress up dolls, they will
officially tell him not to do this, that it is

(03:35):
not necessary, that the problem is resolving itself, that he
can take credit for that, And he will do it anyway,
because in his reptilian brain, he will think, I am
not establishing a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution.
I am making a revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
And Trump will, despite the advice, invoke the Insurrection Act

(04:00):
of eighteen oh seven if I'm wrong about this, If
something else in his reptilian brain tells Trump to defer
to Gnome, and hegxeth, he will only defer and delay
now because doing it later will hurt more. He will

(04:21):
invoke the Insurrection Act of eighteen oh seven, and then
we will be inside his dictatorship soon or late. And
that's why the most important person in this country today,
right now, the person who is most likely to be

(04:47):
able to save the country or begin to that person
may be Senator Lisa Murkowski, because, like so many of
us before her, Lisa Murkowski just realized what George Orwell
meant when he wrote that in his novel nineteen eighty four,

(05:11):
what do.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
You have to say to people who are afraid.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Or are resent people who are afraid?

Speaker 4 (05:19):
We are all afraid. Okay, that's what I say.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
But we are where we're in it. We're in a
time at a place.

Speaker 5 (05:41):
Where I don't know.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
I certainly have not.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
I have not been here before, and I'll tell you
I'm I'm oftentimes very anxious myself about about using my voice.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Because retaliation is really that which I suspect you have
heard before. Was at a conference in front of people
from nonprofit groups at Anchorage, Alaska, and it's a damn Shane.
The audio is so bad there because it is the
most important thing yet said by a Republican in any
office this year, and thus Lisa Murkowski may be the

(06:22):
most important person in this country right now. She said
that she is afraid she has reached the exact baseline
state Trump has sought. It is the exact premise of
O'Brien's speech in the Torture Chamber to Winston Smith in

(06:43):
nineteen eighty four, that the objective torture is torture and
the objective power is power. She is afraid. She is
afraid of retribution. She is afraid of the mob. She
is afraid of what is next. She vows to be confrontational,
to use her voice in public in front of the

(07:04):
rest of us, and to her, I say, forget the
rest of us, Senator, use your voice in private, use
it among your Republican colleagues in the Senate. You and
thirteen other Republican senators and at most four Republican representatives

(07:24):
can stop all of this cold You, Senator Murkowski, can
save the country. You can impeach Trump, or if you
still can't get over the last hump, if you still
think that his power is somehow Republican Party power, or

(07:47):
that his power is somehow Conservative power, or that his
power is somehow your power, or that his power is
somehow anything but his power, the eighteen of you can
use the threat to impeach him, to virtually fetter him,
to at least control the width and breadth of the
damage he does, to make him know at all times

(08:10):
the Senate and if necessary, the House, will vote against him.
You only need three other Senate Republicans to join you
just to rein him in thirteen others, and you can
literally destroy this man. And there is reason to hope

(08:35):
this might actually happen before the iron curtain of dictatorship descends. Later,
in her confession of fear at Anchorage, Lisa Murkowski hinted
at doing exactly what I just suggested.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
You's charm that I am or as a young girl
and eng.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
And am able to affect.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Way, and I will figure out how I can do
my ass to help the many who are so anxious.

Speaker 6 (09:22):
And are so afraid.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Murkowski was driven in fear to this point, not by
the pending decision on the Insurrection Act, nor by the
rendition of an innocent Maryland father without due process, nor
by the attempted rendition of hundreds of others, nor by
the tariff disaster, nor by Trump ignoring the courts, but
by people she knows in the federal government career, people

(09:48):
summarily fired through the efforts of this stoned fascist foreigner Musk,
their bodies symbolically piling up in front of her Senate
office door fire, just so Trump can exercise the power
that is exercised for its own sake. That's what has

(10:11):
made this visceral to her. That is her specific creed
decur that is what she is afraid of. It doesn't
matter if she's just afraid of the one thing and
acting on just the one thing. It is a start,
and it is a breakthrough, and it is one lit

(10:31):
match in the darkness that is conservatism and the Republican
Party in this country right now, because Murkowski will now
find what all of us have found. Start down this
path of resistance, and you will discover there are only
two roots. There is to be presented to you, the

(10:52):
false promise of compromise and appeasement and partial dissent while
retaining your power. And that root goes directly over a
cliff behind the woods. That was the one Gretchen Whitmer
took the other week. That was the one dozens of
Republicans have taken. Look down below at the pile at

(11:16):
the bottom, it's Lindsey Graham. And then there is the
only other path utter resistance. To stop this. You must
stop this. As Trump wields power solely. In order to

(11:37):
wield power forever, you must become such that you resist solely,
to resist him forever, Senator, Because the voice of the
scared Senator Lisa Murkowski may be the most important voice
in the nation right now. She's going to use her charm,
She's going to have conversations. There are so many conversations

(12:00):
Senator Murkowski can have that can save the nation. I
don't dream of her joining the Bernie and AOC tour,
but god damn, would that be something. But there is
one advantage to having a Republican feel this way. When

(12:21):
Republicans don't believe in the rules the rest of us do.
Republicans have had no squeamishness for decades now about meeting
the justices of the Supreme Court. Senator, take some of
your colleagues with you, the ones who are even more
afraid than you, are too afraid to even admit it
the way you did, And go and see Amy Coney Barrett.

(12:44):
I will always be suspicious of Amy Coney Barrett, but
her voting record shows it is undeniable. There is a
human being in there. There is somebody who holds at
least some of the law sacred in there. Go see
Chief Justice Roberts. I'm not sure what's inside of him,

(13:08):
but it is clear he lives in abject terror of
the executive branch subsuming and perverting the judiciary. And it
looks like it has just dawned on him that Trump
doesn't just intend to ignore the courts out there somewhere,

(13:29):
the inferior courts, the district courts, the local courts on
those minor things, the minor things, the Supreme Court can
survive and still claim it is in charge. It looks
like the idea is forming in John Robert's head that
Trump means to kill him metaphorically, of course, or worse.

(13:53):
Friday night, in the middle of the night, the Supreme
Court took its second unmistakable shot across Trump's bow. It
is one of the other signs hope, besides the fear
inside Lisa Murkowski. The Court stepped in, not waiting for
inferior courts to rule, not waiting for one of its

(14:14):
own justices to rule, just stepping in as the whole
court and saying, no, you will not kidnap and disappear
anybody from the soil of the United States of America
using the Alien Enemies Act, at least until further notice.
We will get back to you, President Fatso they put

(14:36):
this out so late, I was already asleep. They put
this out at one am Eastern daylight time, Friday night,
Saturday morning. It is a very polite, very legalistic fu
to Donald Trump, very much of a piece with Senator
Van Holland spitting the truth yesterday that Trump is already

(14:57):
ignoring the courts and already ignoring the Supreme Court, and
thus we are already in a constitutional crisis and guess
who doesn't like getting ignored or being the victims of
a constitutional crisis. Well, surveys say seven out of nine
members of the Supreme Court don't like this quote aarp

(15:20):
et al v. Trump, President of US et al. There
is before the Court an application on behalf of a
putitive class of detainees seeking an injunction against their removal
under the Alien Enemies Act. The matter is currently pending
before the Fifth Circuit. Upon action by the Fifth Circuit,
the Solicitor General is invited to file a response to

(15:41):
the application before this Court as soon as possible. That's
shoving the Fifth Circuit Court out of the effing way.
The government is directed not to remove any member of
the putative class of detainees from the United States until

(16:03):
further order of this Court. C. Twenty eight USC. One
sixty five to one a. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito
dissent from the Court's order. Statement from Justice Alito to
follow Now. The Court could undo this today, even though

(16:24):
it's pretty obvious it was seven to two, with even
Kavanaugh and Gorsich saying no more renditions, no more, using
nineteenth century laws designed to protect the nation when it
is next literally invaded by Britain or France and armies
with Muskets rendezvousing with their spies who already live here

(16:45):
and are wearing tricorn hats to try to blend in
No More Alien Enemies Act, asshole. This is especially pertinent
because last week refugees from Afghanistan here legally after working
with US at their own peril against the Taliban there,
they got emails from the Trump regime telling them they

(17:11):
had seven days to quote self deport in their case,
to go back to Afghanistan and get killed. These are
the same people Trump treated like martyrs when the withdrawal
he arranged from Afghanistan went predictably tragic. Under Biden, We're
so sorry for them, Let's send them home to be killed.

(17:34):
This is also especially pertinent because of Hegseth and Noam
and the Alien Enemy Act's cousin, the Good Old Insurrection Act.
At eighteen oh seven, the day Trump returned from Elba
and seized power again, he directed those two clowns to
submit a report in ninety days advising him on conditions
at the southern border and whether or not he should

(17:56):
invoke the Insurrection Act. And guess what he expected them
to say yesterday was da Friday. CNN reported the Hegseth
Gnome report will conclude border crossings are low lower and

(18:16):
they do not need the additional authority provided by the
Insurrection Act, you know, authority like suspending much of the
constitution over a large part of the country, or effort
over all of the country. I don't doubt the CNN reporting.
I also don't doubt that if that's what they're going
to do, it will enrage Trump and he might even

(18:37):
fire Hegseth and Gnome and invoke the Act anyway, because
the object of power is power, and Trump cannot process
why these other carbon based life forms in the room
with him would delay grabbing more power. As I said,
he will do it or try it. If it be now,

(19:01):
tis not to come. If it be not to come,
it will be now. If it be not now yet,
it will come. The readiness is all, Senator Murkowski. It

(19:46):
is also clear I think that those in Trump's inner
circle have recognized something is wrong with Trump, I mean
extra wrong with him. You see it now in every
public statement of fealty and those televised cabinet meetings that
would make Kim Jong un blush. They are soft soaping
him whenever possible. They are, so to speak, throwing small

(20:10):
fish at his mouth to keep him happy and to
keep him from trying to attack the peaquad. They are
forcing him, or massaging him into doing a series of climbdowns.
There's no mistaking it. He has even started some of
the climbdowns himself. Iran is a climb down. The tariff

(20:32):
disaster was in mismanagement, lies and changes. Of course, the
twenty first century equivalent of how the Johnson administration managed
Vietnam only condensed into like three weeks. They climbed down
on it. They made money off the climb down, but
they climbed down off of it. He's climbed down on

(20:53):
Musk erratically. Sometimes there have been climbs back ups, but
Musk is on the periphery. Again. There are even the
vague shadows of a climb down about Ukraine, the attack
on the universities climb down. Why would you admit the
threatening letter to Harvard was sent without authorization If you
didn't realize that Harvard had now decided to retaliate in

(21:16):
a fight, it will win. This reported recommendation against the
Insurrection Act, that's a climb down the National Intelligence Council.
The Reader's Digest version of our eighteen intelligence agencies wrote
a secret assessment earlier this month that no, sorry, sorry, Trump,

(21:37):
Venezuela is not directing an invasion of the US and
using the trend Deragua gang as its mercenaries, so Trump
can't use that as his excuse to invoke the Alien
Enemies Act. The whole attempt to stage manage Senator Van
Holn's visit to see kilbar of Rego Garcia was a
climb down. First of all, who decided to let Van

(22:00):
Hollends see him after insisting he could not possibly be seen.
Two countries were aligned against. Oh yeah, he's over there,
go see him. Who made that decision? The dictator of
Al Salvador, who draws his hair on Trump made the decision?
Who thus confirmed to America that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is

(22:26):
not dead or mutilated? Trump did that. Who tried to
make it look like this guy was at a resort,
passing the time chain, drinking bloody Mary's Trump did. Who
has panicked over how this has turned out? Trump did?
This is why Lisa Murkowski might be the most important

(22:47):
person in this country right now, because Trump's people are
experts in one thing, only making people afraid, by putting
up a seemingly impregnable front, by insisting that one day
rebounds by the stock market in the middle of a crash.
Oh no, that's the single best day market history. By

(23:08):
sending out Steven Miller to sound crazier and crazier, and
for the sweat on his cue ball noggin to shine
worse and worse under the TV lights. Never let him
see his sweat, Steve. Oh sorry, I guess I should
have told you that before. But inside the White House,

(23:31):
the people who replaced the deep state suddenly have realized
there's nobody left to do the things that the Trumpets
are too incompetent to do, and those people have now
been building a new deep state. But it is hardly
all positive, because for every Lisa Murkowski over whose head

(23:54):
not one light bulb went on, but all of the
light bulbs in Times Square on New Year's Eve all
went on at the same moment, Lisa's scared. It's hardly
all positive because for every Lisa Murkowski, this truth is
still true. Trump is not the only impaired, stupid person

(24:16):
who has a chief power for its own sake, there
is still Gavin Newsom. As I have said previously, I
knew twenty years ago he was as John Madden wants
dismissed a famous CBS sportscasting colleague of his. Just to
hear do hell Newsom married Kimberly Gilfoyle, didn't he How

(24:43):
stupid do you have to be to do that? Trump
Junior didn't even do that? This disastrous. Gavin Interviews Satan's
Minions podcast. This seems to have vanished, but not before
it ended Gavin Newsom's career. I'm going to be president
in twenty twenty a of my building association. But now

(25:08):
after this, Gavin Newsom frankly should be recalled. California Democrats
should start a recall petition and a recall election to
remove their own Democratic governor because he's not a Democrat.
He's also not a small D Democrat. He's an idiot.
He thinks defending the Constitution and the people, including citizens

(25:32):
of his own state, whom he has sworn an oath
to protect. He thinks defending people from being disappeared is
a political distraction, a distraction DuJour. And he said it
in front of effing cameras.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Yeah, it's a you know, this is the distraction of
the day, the art of distraction. Don't get distracted by distractions,
we say, and here we sing and zag. This is
the debate they want. This is their eighty twenty issue,
as they've described it. You know, those that believe in
the rule of law defending it. But it's tough case

(26:16):
because people are really are they defending MSR thirteen? Are
they defending you know, someone who's out of sight out
of mine in El Salvador. I mean, we're perfect sheep.
So I want to answer your question. I don't know
I add much value answering it. I mean, are you
kidding me? When a judge adjudicates it's not a question,

(26:36):
How in the hell are even debating that? It's Orwellian
that you're debating that. And it's exactly the debate they
want because they don't want this debate on the tariffs.
They don't want to be accountable in the markets today.
They don't want to answer for Nvidia taking a five
point five billion dollar charge.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
They don't want to have a.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
Real conversation with Christine and what's going on in terms
of the export uncertainty here in the valley. They want
to have this conversation. Don't get distracted by distractions. We're
all perfect sheep. Thank you guys very much.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
Fraud great, flaming, bone headed, power hungry, stupid Gavin fraud Newsom. Resign,
mister Newsom, save us the trouble. Flee California, go to
I don't care where you go, but do stop off
in Michigan and pick up Gretchen Whitmer. Tell her no,

(27:32):
she was right. If she puts a folder in front
of her face at the White House and she can't
see anybody, nobody can see her selling out her state,
selling out her party, selling out her nation. Why don't
you both resign and take a vacation, a nice trip,
some nice warm place like to El Salvador. Maybe go

(27:54):
have some Bloody Mary's with Bukela. Ask him how he
draws his hair on. Oh, and before you go, identify
and out whoever the House Democrat was who provided these
next quotes to Axios. These House Democrats are specifically identified

(28:14):
as Congressional Democrats. So the top suspects for this kind
of quote, which would be Schumer and Fetterman and Newsome,
they're out. It's none of them. I want to know
who this is, and I want him or her primaried,
because we don't put people in public stocks anymore. I
don't care if this person changes parties and joins the

(28:37):
Congressional Republican Caucus because he's a Republican anyway. And by
the way, hell is coming for Republicans as it is.
Here's the quote from Axios Reality Check. The sentiment within
the Democratic Party about rallying behind deportees. They're not deportees,

(28:58):
they're kidnapped victims. It's human trafficking. Deportation is a legal process.
The sentiment, but then the party about rallying behind victims
is not universal. The second House Democrat, who spoke anonymously,
a centrist. Centrist is political ease for asshole. A centrist

(29:19):
called the deportation issue a soup DuJour. Huh sounds kind
of like what Gavin Newsom said, arguing Trump is setting
a trap for the Democrats, and like usual, we're falling
for it. Rather than talking about the tariff policy and
the economy, the thing where his numbers are tanking, We're

(29:42):
going to go take the bait for one hairdresser, they said,
likely referring to Andre Hernandez Romero. Who could it be.
Let's start with homophobic democrats in the House, bald homophobic
democrats in the House. And let's also look for somebody

(30:04):
who doesn't realize the great truth of America in the
age of the Internet and in the age of hundreds
of Democrats who are nationally known one way or the other.
You want to talk about the tariff policy and the economy,
and the constitutional rights and the disappearing of people off

(30:25):
the streets. We can do all of this at the
same time. You effing moron, launch four podcasts, one on
each topic. There is, though some hope within the Democratic Party.

(30:49):
There are some Democrats to whom I listen rather than
try to instruct, because they are smarter than I am
and they know what they are doing. There is one
who should be the Democratic leader in the Senate. One
senator has done something very smart, or is going to
do it. It's kind of in a twilight zone at

(31:10):
the moment. He has soft pedaled this, I guess with
the reason of why try to put this frontend center
now and all the rest of this stuff about the
Constitution is cresting right now. But this will be big
when it hits. I haven't even seen a lot of
coverage of this. The impeccable Scott MacFarland of CBS put

(31:32):
it out, I haven't seen a lot of coverage of this.
Who did this? Who should be the Senate majority or
Minority leader and Majority leader when the time comes? Ed
Marquis of Massachusetts. It's a simple sense of the Senate
Resolution number one five four. All we have is the

(31:54):
number and the title. But it has already been referred
to the Committee on the Judiciary. It is, like all
such resolutions, symbolic, but it proves again that you can
draw a line in this sand and in the process
use only thirty six words, one comma and a period.
Sen Rez one, p. Fifty four from mister MARKI of
Massachusetts quote a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate

(32:17):
that Donald Trump is ineligible in any future elections to
be elected Vice president or president, or to serve as
president beyond the conclusion of his current term. Ed, You're

(32:40):
goddamned right. This personal note. So I took last week's
second episode off to catch up after these intestinal treatments
that actually has been going really well, and the day

(33:00):
I took off, I broke my foot, and I was
in a doctor's office anyway. Well, not all of my foot,
more like three quarters of an inch of my foot.
But where's the drama in saying I broke three quarters
of an inch of my foot. And I might add

(33:22):
that's a total three quarters of an inch. There are
two fractures, stress fractures. That's the approximate combined measurement of
how much. How much is kind kind of broken, but
it means therapy and office visits and meds and wraps
and compression. And I've been through this before, my third

(33:42):
and fourth stress fractures, and they appeared on April fifteenth,
twenty twenty five, the previous one, number two in the series,
April fifteenth, twenty eleven, fourteen years to the day. I
guess my goddamned warranty on my foot expired. It should
not affect this podcast unless the little crack, the three

(34:05):
quarters of an inch in total lengthen just a heads
up for you or a foots up plus this hurts,
I want sympathy. Also of interest, here in an all
new edition, the memo from Hegseth the Gnome telling Trump

(34:27):
not to invoke the Insurrection Act. This all depends on
heg Seth still being Secretary of Defense later this week
if you missed it, The Times reported last night he
shared the bomber flight schedule times against the Huthis in
Yemen on a different signal chat. This one included the

(34:48):
missus Missus secretary of Vodka. Also on the chat his brother,
who works at the Pentagon. I think maybe in the
mail room, if they're smart, they'll fire Pete and replace
him with his brother so they don't have to explain
the change to Trump and they can still tell him
it's still Secretary Hegseth, missus brother and lawyer on the chat,

(35:11):
but surprisingly not Hegseeth's bartender. Also, Trump banning the Associated
Press from the White House led me into a conversation
about all the times I've been banned as a reporter,
and the answer appears to be I've been banned eight times.
And the Pennsylvania congressman whose heart goes out to Governor

(35:32):
Shapiro because of that whole, you know, attempt to incinerate
the governor and his family on passover. But says Congressman
Dan Muser, he did kind of have it coming. Maybe
next time he should tone it down and not criticize
Trump and his policies. And if you think I'm kidding,
it's on radio and thus it's on tape. And then

(35:55):
he doubled down on Itchland Bland. That's next. This is Countdown.
This his Countdown with Keith Olboman still ahead on this

(36:29):
all new edition of Countdown with Trump moving into round
two of trying to ban the Associated Press. You've come
to the expert on this banning reporters? Bullshit? How many
times have I been banned? You mean this century or
in the nineteen hundreds? Next in things I've promised not

(36:53):
to tell, and yet I am not the world record
holder in getting banned from places first, believe it or not,
there are still more new idiots to talk about. The
roundup of the miss Green morons and Dunning Krueger effects
specimens who constitute the latest other worst persons in the world,

(37:14):
the brons worse. The guy with the musk cyber truck,
that thing that, whatever else it does or doesn't do,
looks broken. The guy who has one of these twenty
first century forward edsuls without the charm, who parked it
on seventy sixth Street in Manhattan, just off Second Avenue.

(37:36):
Look you want to buy one of these, have fun.
Our complaint isn't with you wasting your money and possibly
having the thing blow up while you're driving it. It's
with the psycho who owns the company and is raping
the country all because he may or may not have
had botched implant surgery. But you seventy sixth Street, sir,

(37:59):
you have our condolences, but I must note you're going
to increase your chances of being mocked if you do
what you did and park it there and put on
the back of your musk crapper truck a large decaal
perhaps two feet wide in decal lengths reading in a

(38:19):
script like font Girl Dad, Girl dad on the back
of a muskmobile speaks for itself. Somebody called Child Protective Services.
Look for the guy driving around with the cyber truck

(38:40):
with girl dad on the back. He may be looking
out the back window, or driving it in reverse or
upside down, or how the hell could you tell? It
looks broken? The runner up worser speaking of looking broken,
Congressman Dan Mauser of Pennsylvania, who twisted the old cliche

(39:06):
after the attack on the official residence of the governor
of his own state, Dan Mauser, and I'm thinking I'm
mispronouncing it. Yes, I am, It's it's Muser me e User, Muser.
To twist the old cliche around, Congressman Muser praised the

(39:27):
attack with faint condemnation. He's on one of those fascist
radio shows where they keep playing music in the background
during the interviews, just to add to the hypnotic. This
is actually being emanated by the Mullahs in Iran. Quality.
Here is an elected Pennsylvania congressman soft peddling an assassination

(39:51):
attempt by fire of the governor of his own state.
Absolutely awful. It needs to be condemned.

Speaker 5 (39:59):
But you know, it just kills me.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
And I hate to have to go back to this, but.

Speaker 5 (40:02):
There's been so many Testa dealerships, fire bomb there was
a firebomb GOP headquarters out west and and and then
and I meanwhile, you got you got those on the left,
you know, continuing to you know, make a kind of
you know, violent, type of hostile commentary, and this happens,
and we all jump right on board, saying this is horrible,

(40:22):
This needs to be condemned, but by all and you know,
so the left got to you know, looking look in
the mirror here too, and our hearts go out to
the Shapiro family on this, but you know, they got it.
They got to tone it down too. I mean, every
action Josh Shapiro has taken so far against the president.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Has either been a lawsuit or a falsehood.

Speaker 5 (40:44):
And you know that that's not helpful either, not helpful either.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
I had thought at first that mister Muser meant that
liberals needed to tone it down, which is bullshit, but
at least it's not psychotic bullshit. No, no, he literally
meant Governor Shapiro was kind of asking for it, a
point he made when because his passive aggressive advocacy of

(41:10):
you know, burning the Jewish governor and his family to
death on Passover. That's too much even for MAGA. Now,
when he posted the by now obligatory Republican clarification for
justifying attempted group murder, he doubled down on this idea
that it really is Shapiro's fault. He cited the vandalism

(41:32):
of Tesla's again. He cited the Trump assassination attempts again,
a reminder, half of which were in fact conducted by
Trump supporters. He said liberals had called his party fascists
and Nazis, which I think is perfectly reasonable, since the
President did keep Hitler's speeches by his bed at night,
and he is acting as a fascist and Nazi would.

(41:55):
But he doubled down on Shapiro having asked for it.
His clean up quote was. What frustrates me is when
leaders make outrageous false claims, like the governor stating President
Trump's policies would make Pennsylvanians go hungry. We now know
his claims were entirely inaccurate. I'm looking at both sides

(42:18):
of the paper to see if there's more than just that. No,
those are his rationalizations for this, because those things are
cause and effect. Criticized Trump's policies about food kitchens, and
what do you expect will happen? Somebody will try to
incinerate you, and you blame MAGA for that. Just remember
to never criticize Trump's policies again. What's the problem? And

(42:40):
we won't fire bomb the official state residence for its
governor again with you and your family in it. Probably
And when I say we, oops, I misspoke, I meant
they Representative Dan Muser pronounced like Muse, spelled like Mauser,
like the rifles the Nazis used in World War Two.

(43:01):
Just to keep it clear, it's Muser, but the winner
the worst. It's a tie. Riley Gains, the one time
fifth rate college swimmer who has turned being a sore
loser into a full time profession. And Pam Bondi, a
bubblehead who, under the definition of the term by her

(43:21):
own employers the Trump administration, is herself a dei hire
as Attorney General. I mentioned this, let me say it again.
The home of the Governor Pennsylvania, a Jewish man was
firebombed in the middle of the night on Passover with
him and his family in it, by a man who
later told authorities that he went into the house and

(43:42):
looked for Governor Shapiro in hopes of killing him with
a hammer because he didn't like Shapiro's politics and his religion.
Open and shut hate crime, terrorism, perhaps assassination attempt and
Attorney General Pam Blondie hasn't even devoted a minute to
it publicly. Nothing might as well have said what the

(44:03):
anti Semite blamed them, victim Congressman Muser said, But Attorney
General Blondie and one of her twice a day appearances
on the Fox News WAFFA through the weight of the
Justice Department into the Shapiro case, new into any of
the other crimes going on, into the President repeatedly violating

(44:28):
the Constitution and the courts through the weight of her
Justice Department into altering high school and college swimming records
in Maine because there may have been one or two
transgendered swimmers in competition there in the last twenty five years,
might have been. The NCAA estimates there are ten transgendered

(44:53):
athletes in all of college sports in the whole country. Ten.
Maybe there is a transgender main swimmer. Maybe there's been
one in two twenty five years. The odds would say
it's about one hundred thousand to one against. But Riley Gaines,

(45:13):
a mediocrity with extra eyelashes, once finished behind one of
them in a swim meet and has thus turned herself
into a living, breathing twenty four to seven martyr. And
once again on Easter weekend, and this idiot Bondie goes

(45:34):
on Fox and paints Riley Gaines as the Jesus of
college swimmers. Quote.

Speaker 6 (45:39):
Dalley Gaines started training for swimming when she was four
years old. She made it to the Olympics. Spoiler alert,
Riley Gaines did not make it to the Olympics, and
she had nothing to do with a transgender swimmer in
her failure. The reason she didn't go.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
To the Olympics is for the fact that Riley gains sucks.
The swim meet at which all of this began, At
which all of this thinly veiled attack on transgender people began.
When this dark undercurrent became overt was in March twenty
twenty two at the NCAA Freestyle Championships. Leah Thomas of

(46:21):
a University of Pennsylvania won. Lea Thomas was assigned mail
at birth. Riley Gaines her life destroyed by Lea Thomas.
Riley Gaines was in that meet too, and she finished
fifth in the race that Lea Thomas won. Riley Gaines
finished tied for fifth. If Lea Thomas had never existed
or never transitioned, Riley Gaines would have finished fifth or

(46:46):
maybe tied for fourth. And as to this idiocy by
Attorney General Bondi, a parrot who happened to be in
the right place at the time, at the right time
as Matt Gates flamed out, Riley Gaines didn't go to
the Olympics. She went to the Olympic Trials. She qualified

(47:07):
for the twenty sixteen Olympic Trials, and at the twenty
sixteen Olympic Trials she finished eighty fifth out of one
hundred eighty fifth. She was invited then to try out
for the twenty twenty four Olympic Trials and she didn't
even make it past the qualifier event. Eighty fifth place

(47:29):
was her Olympic best. Her Olympic record is closer to
yours and mine than it is to people who have
gone to the Olympics her career best. Her career best
was the fifth place tied finish in the race won
by Leah Thomas, the best she ever did. The day
Riley Gaines became America's favorite fifth place martyr, the day

(47:52):
she was denied finishing only one spot off the metal
stand instead of two. Was the best she ever got
in big time swimming. And it didn't have a guy
damned thing to do with Leah Thomas or transgendered people
or MAGA or Donald Trump or liberals or American culture.

(48:13):
It had to do with the fact that Riley Gaines
was a flash in the pan or a splash in
the pool with at best eighty fifth place talent. The
Attorney General lying about Riley Gains going to the Olympics
is probably low on the list of this administration's lies,
like I don't know number, just to pick a number

(48:35):
at random. Number maybe eighty fifth this week. But this
whole fake debate, this whole scapegoating and othering and persecuting
transgendered people and the debate over their role in sports
is legitimate. My friend doctor Renee Richards says, so says
it should be debated. But it's about literally maybe a

(48:58):
dozen athletes in this country. It's as if we started
passing laws and threatening people and electing people over whether
it's illegal, whether it should be a federal crime to
let a baseball team somewhere use a pitcher who can
pitch with his left arm and his right arm. It's
literally that specific and small and stupid and resolvable. This

(49:20):
whole debate is actually about one failure, Riley effing Gains,
who's lucky she's always gotten out of the water and
remembered not to try to live there. Riley Gains is
being advocated for by another total human failure, Pam Blondie.

(49:42):
Pam doj Bondie and Riley I was eighty fifth gains
Today's other worst Worsens.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
In the World.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Deh And finally, on this all new edition of Countdown,
I was thinking about and talking with a friend about
the banning of the Associated Press by the White House
from the White House coverage, from the White House pool coverage,

(50:43):
the ignoring of the court orders ordering that the Associated
Press be permitted back into White House news coverage in
place of the Daily Nazi or whoever they gave the
ap space to. And I was thinking about the premise
that this idiot ex softball player from Saint Anselm's College
who is now the press folksperson and looks like she

(51:07):
flunked out of an audition for the price, is right
as a card girl that she's banned the Associated Press.
I have, finally, after years of being the UPI guy
who looked at all Associated Press people as sort of
the enemy, I've become an Associated Press fan. They don't

(51:27):
do a great job, but they rarely screw it up.
That's about the most you could ask from the media
at the moment. And in any event, I was thinking,
we're talking about being banned as a reporter and my
friend asked me, wait, you've been banned, haven't you? And
I went, oh, my yes, And so to the number

(51:47):
one story on our countdown, Me and banishment. The number
of times I have been banned as a member of
the media, or I guess in other contexts, sometimes by
the media, sometimes as the media, and they all make
fairly entertaining stories, but of course you'll be the judge
of that. I think the first time I was ever banned,

(52:11):
I was at KTLA in Los Angeles as the sports
director of the station that carried the games of the
Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. You have to understand that
as competitive as the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team has
been in the last few years and how they have
expunged their ownership disaster of the racist Donald Sterling, this

(52:32):
was right after they moved to Los Angeles from San Diego,
and they were the worst team in professional sports and
one of the worst teams in professional sports history. I
have the record in front of me of how they
performed on the court the first three years that I
worked at the station that carried their games, and I
did not feel like I was obligated to make excuses

(52:54):
for them because the first year, they played eighty two
games and lost fifty of them and finished in fourth place.
This would turn out to be not just the high point,
but the high point by basically double. The next year,
nineteen eighty six eighty seven, the Los Angeles Clippers played
eighty two games and lost seventy of them. They went
twelve and seventy. That's not very good. You only win

(53:18):
twelve times in a season that stretches from October into April.
It was a long winter. And then the last year
that I worked at their station, more or less eighty
seven eighty eight, they improved from twelve and seventy to
seventeen and sixty five. So there was a bad team there,
and they did stupid, stupid things, and many of them

(53:38):
were on the court, but it seemed like more of
them were off the court. And I used to upbraid
them every night, and I often when they were on
our air and the Lakers of Los Angeles were playing
on the same night, I would lead the sportscast with
the Lakers highlights. Now, if the Clippers won, which, as
you can tell from those numbers I just gave you,
was not very often, I would lead with them as

(53:59):
in my God, the Clippers won. Let's look at these
highlights before they disappear. Needless to say, at Clipper HQ,
they were not fond of me. Many attempts were made
to get me what would be the right word fired.
But finally, after one incident in I think nineteen eighty six,
the then president of the team, his name was Allan

(54:21):
something I can't remember. He went on to be involved
in soccer, suspended me, banned me from covering the Clippers.
And the incident was this, one of the players children
died in a tragic accident in a swimming pool, and
the Clippers for weeks had been rumored to be firing

(54:41):
their head coach, and an announcement was going to be
made finally about this poor guy who'd been twisting in
the wind, as the next administration would have called it.
They were going to announce this on Wednesday, and then
on Tuesday night there was this tragedy involving or Tuesday
during the day sometime one of the players children, and
the Clippers used this as a reason not to hold

(55:07):
the news conference about the coach. They canceled the news
conference about the coach, citing humanitarian reasons. And respect for
the tragedy. And they didn't postpone it. They didn't say
we're gonna have a moment of silence at it. They
didn't say, Okay, it's not gonna be Wednesday, will do
it Thursday. They canceled it. And they never had a

(55:30):
press conference about this poor coach. They just issued a
press release saying this guy who they had leaked about
every day for weeks, that he was terrible and he
was the problem, and they were going to fire him.
All these stories coming out. It went on for day
after day after day and week after week, and this
poor guy who'd been in the NBA since I don't know,

(55:51):
the nineteen fifties, had had to read about himself this
way every day in the papers and couldn't say anything
because if he did, they'd fire him for cause and
not owe him any money. The cause being speaking to
the media without alle authorization. He had to read that
he was about to be fired, and here was going
to be the news conference at least which he'd be
able to stand up and say something about it, even

(56:14):
if it was just thanks for the opportunity to restore
the image of himself as a human being and not
the cause of this disastrous franchisees disasters. Instead of there
being a news conference, he had to read finally, he
had been fired in a one page press release. And
also no press conference meant the coach not only couldn't

(56:35):
meet the press and say whatever he wanted to say
about the Clippers and Clippers management such as it was.
And I always suspected the Clippers were run by a
couple of lawn chairs, not guys in lawn chairs, run
by actual lawn chairs. The Clippers could avoid any questions
about how they fired this guy, but only after leaking

(56:56):
for weeks and destroying his reputation. And they could avoid
any questions about how in a city like Los Angeles,
with the amount of money this guy Stirling had who
owned them, they could win only twenty nine games over
two seasons? How'd you do? Played one hundred and sixty games?
How'd you do one twenty nine of them? Can't have

(57:16):
that news conference out of respect? Well, I said, there
may have been an element of respect to it, but
that principally the Clippers had exploited the child's death to
avoid holding a news conference. It was an excuse. They
didn't plan it. It wasn't their responsibility, but they saw

(57:36):
the opportunity to not have to face the media or
let this coach face the media. That it was cheap,
that it was irresponsible, that it insulted their player at
a time of tragedy, that insulted his family, insulted his grief,
insulted the child's passing, and that it was like everything
else the Clippers had ever done, just another excuse. And

(58:02):
the Clippers erupted in ray, how dare you invoke this
poor man's dead child? And I was like, well, no,
you did that. That's what I was complaining about, and
they bann. I got a letter saying you are hereby
banned from all games and practices of the Los Angeles Clippers.
And in a PostScript from the president of this team

(58:25):
to the general manager, one of the all time great
basketball players for the LA Clippers, for the LA Lakers,
but then general manager of the LA Clippers, Elgin Baylor,
ps Elgin, make sure he's taken off the mailing list too.
I'm like, oh no, what am I going to do
without the press releases about the latest promotional night when
they're giving away socks? Well, of course number one, I

(58:49):
should point out with glee that what the result of
that PostScript was was that I started to receive two
of everything on the mailing list because whoever Elgin Baylor
told to remove me from the Clipper publicity mailing list
got it wrong and added my name a second time.
And as to the suspension and the denial of the

(59:09):
privilege of attending Clippers practices or games, as I wrote
back to the president of the team, you have made
me the envy of every other reporter in town. I
have been asked by my colleagues how they can be
suspended from Clipper basketball, hopefully for life. So that was
my first experience with the attempt to ban me from

(59:32):
somewhere or from some team or from something. It was
hilarious and needless to say, I put it on KTLA
Channel five News at ten, and they liked me even less.
The next time I think I was banned was after
I worked for ESPN. The first time. I actually left
ESPN in nineteen ninety seven under pretty good circumstances, given

(59:54):
that they had stupidly, as they later admitted, suspended me
over a joke I made about the city of Bristol,
Connecticut and what was supposedly an unauthorized appearance on the
Craig Kilbourne Show to promote a book for which they'd
given me universal permission to promote the book that Dan
Patrick and I had written about sports Center that got
to the New York Times bestseller list and added to

(01:00:16):
the patina of ESPN and Sports Center. Even as I
was leaving it, I left to go somewhere else. We
agreed on that it was mutual. As I went out
the door, we reconsidered the possibility of my doing one
show a week for them as long as they would
let me work somewhere else full time. They thought about
it and then decided against it. And when I left

(01:00:37):
under those circumstances, the vice president in charge of things there,
Howard Katz, said, look, we can't make this work. It's
not going to work. If we let people work on
other networks, we can't control you. And I said, truer
words have never been spoken. But he said, if you
want to come on as a guest on an ESPN
show or on radio, we'd love to have you. Good
luck on the new gig at NBC. What happened was

(01:01:00):
that blew it up and then turned it into nuclear war.
Was an ESPN executive decided in the fall of nineteen
ninety seven, after I left to leak the ratings of
my new MSNBC show, which were then almost non existent
because it was a terrible show and a new show
on a new network, to the USA Today sports media writer,

(01:01:20):
who of course promptly called me up and told me
that this executive had done that. This kind of enraged me,
so I took shot after shot at ESPN, and I
did it publicly, and this led to them saying he
didn't just burn the bridges, he napalmed them. And I said, no,
that's insufficient. I didn't just burn the bridges. I burned
the river, and on and on it went. Years later,

(01:01:43):
perhaps two thousand and five, it was some of those
same executives called and asked me to help Dan Patrick out.
His radio show was not doing well. They thought he
was overworked and needed a spark. They wanted it to
do better, they knew it could. He just seemed uninspired,
and they thought if they brought me on for an
hour a week, and later an hour a day, he

(01:02:06):
would perk up. He did, and I think the radio
show that he took out on his own in two
thousand and seven has largely succeeded because he perked up.
Things were at a pivotal moment in his career at
that point. I'm not claiming credit for his show, or
his work or his success. That's all his. I'm just
saying that at a critical moment, it was bad enough
that the ESPN people who were furious at me, and

(01:02:28):
it was still nuclear war, and I'd gone to work
for competition against them that was trying to do a
Fox version of SportsCenter and constantly made fun of ESPN
whenever I could, and got Fox's name and Fox Sports
News into every story about ESPN. I did that job terrifically,
I might add, although the ratings were terrible. In the

(01:02:49):
middle of that, they called and asked me to help out,
and I said yes. And that was largely the end
of the active shooting in that war. However, at some
point I said, maybe, if you want to have real fun,
why don't I come up there and do a couple
of shows in person and with him, And the executive
in charge said, and this is two thousand and six probably,

(01:03:09):
he said, well, we can't do that. You've been banned
from the ESPN campus. And I said, I have, And
apparently this was well known at ESPN, and I later
found out by many people in the industry. Folks at
NBC knew it, and nobody told me because they thought
my reaction was going to be violent. I went to

(01:03:30):
somebody at NBC Sports who knew about this and had
known about this, and apparently it had been done ten
years earlier, and nobody told me. And I said, what's
the point of suspending me or banning me from a place?
They banned me from campus and told you, but you
didn't tell me. What's the point of it. It's the
Doctor Strange love line about the doomsday device. What's the

(01:03:53):
point of having an automatic nuclear weapon if you don't
tell anybody that you have it. What's the point of
banning a guy from a campus if you don't tell him?
And they said, well, oh, they didn't want to exacerbate
the situation further, and blah blah blah, And I said,
but banning me from a television studio in the middle

(01:04:14):
of Bristol, Connecticut, that is itself a ten or twelve
minute drive from the nearest line highway line that is
wider than two lanes, what was the chance that I
was going to go there anyway? Did they think I
was going to stop by for some nostalgia. The only

(01:04:34):
time between nineteen ninety seven when I left ESPN and
went back to work there in two thousand and eighteen,
the only time I came within a fifteen minute drive
of actually getting to the campus from which I had
been banned. The only time was when I was being
chauffeured in a limo from Boston to New York for

(01:04:57):
Fox for a baseball broadcast in which I would be
in the dugout for Fox during the World Series. Because
my banishment from the ESPN campus had caused me such
professional collapse. Needless to say, my ban from the Bristol
campus was removed, and all of those problems, the nuclear
war was not only ended but paved over, and I

(01:05:20):
went back to work with The Dan Patrick Show in
two thousand and five, and then I went back to
work full time in twenty thirteen for ESPN, and it
turned out that the nuclear war and the forever wars
between Olderman and Bristol lasted sixteen years. In fact, I
went back to work for ESPN another time twenty eighteen,
and my most recent sports forays for the fan duel

(01:05:41):
sports network that's all run by three or four executives
who rehired me at ESPN twice. So that's how that
banishment ended. I think I have been banned from the
press box at Yankee Stadium at least when I'm not
on assignment from a network, and that's not likely to
happen again. I went back without incident a couple of times,

(01:06:04):
but when I have gone on to the field at
Yankee Stadium, there's been a guard standing behind home plate
who was only responsibility for that day was to make
sure I did not come near the Yankee dugout like
I was going to firebomb it or something. I don't
know what that was all about. I do know, and
I will tell you why they banned me, but I

(01:06:25):
do know that it was an incredible surprise to them
that after they banned me and stopped giving me sort
of courtesy credentials to the press box to just sit
there even when I wasn't on assignment for a particular game,
access to the field, when I wasn't working for ESPN
or NBC or Fox. That that was that preceded my

(01:06:47):
decision to stop buying season tickets at Yankee Stadium after
forty one years of my father and I buying season
tickets there, and they were surprised that I stopped spending it.
And this amount was in the six figures, and they
were shocked that I stopped buying the tickets. And for
eight or nine years after this, the Yankee He's kept
sending me letters and emails and phone calls. Hi, I'm

(01:07:09):
the new season ticket director. We know that you miss
your Yankee tickets. And I went, I'm not going back there.
I wouldn't go back there if you paid me to
sit there. And in fact, I have vowed and still
maintain that I will never walk into Yankee Stadium having
paid for the privilege of going in there again. You
pay me to go there, it's a job, I'll go

(01:07:30):
and do that. So what precipitated this was and I
need to set this up by saying I did indeed
take over the season tickets at Yankee Stadium from my dad,
mostly for my mom's edification in I think nineteen ninety three.
So I paid for the season tickets for thirty seasons
from when they were seventeen dollars a ticket to when

(01:07:52):
they were twenty five hundred dollars a ticket. Most of
those high end tickets went to the Make a Wish
Foundation and other charities. But that's the point. And one
of the things they used to have me do was
on Old Timer I used to assist the late great
announcer Bob Wolf, who would sit there during Old Timers
Day at Yankee Stadium when they bring back the old players,

(01:08:12):
and I would help him do the play by play
of the game. And it was a fun game just
to see the old timers pitch and swing and try
to run and hopefully not trip over the bag at
first base. And I was Bob's friend, and he relied
on me for things he couldn't see in the corners
in the outfield. And I did this for ten years
and it was great fun. Those were my Yankee players

(01:08:33):
and the guys I liked the most. And it's there's
no reason to be fanciful about this or to undersell it.
It's a hoot to get on the public address system
at Yankee Stadium and talk to forty or fifty thousand people.
And one day the Yankees fired me from that job
by leaking that news to the New York Post. The

(01:08:54):
Yankees were mad at me because I had found a
guy sitting near me in the front row who was
signaling to Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees what the speed
and the nature of the preceding pitch had been, because
where he stood on the other side of me. This
guy was sitting on one side of me, and Alex
Rodriguez was standing in the on deck circle on the
other side of me. Almost a line bisecting this line

(01:09:18):
was my seat. He was telling Alex Rodriguez what that
last pitch was, because Alex Rodriguez, being perhaps the highest
paid player in baseball at the time, couldn't figure it
out on the field what that was and how fast
it was. And I took a picture of this and
published it, and it became a huge story, and the
Yankees literally got a handslap, and they assured me there'd

(01:09:40):
be no ramifications. And then right before Old Timer's Day
they dropped me as the Old Timer's Day color announcer
in the PA system. So, of course, not being one
who would leave well enough alone under any circumstances, when
the next Yankee controversy arose, and I still had a
column that appeared on the MLB website MLB dot com.

(01:10:04):
I meant mention that I didn't think Yankee management was
quite what it used to be. That when it was
my late friend George Steinbrenner running the place, there were
lots of things wrong, and I like to point out
what they were, but efficiency and fairly good management skills,
and certainly an idea of when to stir the pot
and when not to stir the pot that was pretty

(01:10:25):
well done by George his son Hal. I wasn't sure
that Hal Steinbrenner, as I said, was well. The phrasing
was I'm going to need to see a paternity test.
For some reason. The Yankees responded to this by banning
me from the press box at Yankee Stadium, So there's

(01:10:45):
that one. The Yankees then helped ban me from the
MLB network when MLB Network offered me a job in
twenty twelve, a story I've told here many times. They
were going to give me a show, and then the
Yankees found out about it, and the message, as I
understood it, was, if you even talked to him further
about this, we will shut off all the MLB network

(01:11:06):
equipment in Yankee Stadium and we will not help fund
the network any further so that when my agent got
on the phone with the president of MLB Network, who
is going to make the offer? When he said and so,
how about Keith, the guy literally went silent, not I
can't talk about it, Not we have to withdraw the offer.
He literally did what the Yankees told him to do,

(01:11:28):
to do, do not talk about this again. He took
it perhaps a little too literally. So I got banned
from MLB Network, which is kind of unfortunate for one
reason only, which is that MLB Network is although they
will be moving apparently, MLB Network is located in what
was the original MSNBC studio, So going back there was

(01:11:48):
always like this time travel thing, because everything was the
same except the eighty or ninety million dollars they spent
on improving the studios and the control rooms, all the
technical guts of the place they spent money on that.
They literally did not change the signs on the backs
of the bathroom doors that told you what number to

(01:12:09):
call in case the john overflowed. All they did was
changed the extension, and they did this by taping a
piece of paper with the new number over the actual plaque.
They did not spend the three dollars on the plaque.
I always found this entertaining, and the whole experience was
like having a dream about your childhood home, and everything

(01:12:29):
is exactly the same, down to each creak of each floorboard,
except for the fact that in the middle of your
living room there's a nuclear reactor that you never noticed before.
Now I can't go there anymore because the Yankees banned
me from MLB network. Similarly, I believe I've been banned
by MSNBC. If they haven't banned me, they can give

(01:12:50):
me a buzz. We could stop by and maybe, you know,
join forces, which is what I would do if I
was in the business of being anti Trump and there
was an anti Trump asset out there who was familiar
to my audiodians, who was willing to not even address
the subject of bygones be bygones, but just ignore them

(01:13:10):
because we have a bigger mutual enemy. You know, the
Americans and the Soviet Union were allies during the Second
World War, and then as soon as that was over,
they went back to threatening to blow each other and
the world to bits. I think that could be the
relationship with MSNBC. But I've been banned by them. I
may have been banned by CNN. Jeff Zucker insisted I

(01:13:32):
was banned as a possible host, but not as a guest.
But I was in fact booked and then canceled by
a CNN show several years ago so that I might
be banned by CNN. I know I've been banned by
Stephen Colbert because I caught Stephen Colbert, who is a
reprehensible human being, hiding behind a smile. Stephen Colbert changed,

(01:13:56):
or had somebody change or somebody in management changed the
introduction to a pre taped bit that I did for
him that wasn't fun. But I came over in the
morning and did this bit for him, and he changed
the intro. The intro that I heard as he introduced
me was, here's the man who's had more jobs than
you've had hot dinners. Keith Olderman and I played some

(01:14:17):
sort of stupid game that they pre taped in the morning.
When I saw it on the air that night, the
introduction was, here's a man who's been fired or suspended
or thrown out of more jobs and you've had hot dinners.
They changed it, and they changed it after I left
the building, and I called him a weasel, and I
called him a weasel in public places, and then that
was the end of my Stephen Colbert career, which, by

(01:14:39):
the way, I wasn't going to go back anyway. I
assume I have been banned by Madison Square Garden. I
have hit up the owner of the New York Nixon Rangers,
the trumpist James Dolan, several times for being generally a
slob and a guy who delights in humiliating the people
who pay his team's salaries, the customers. Ironic that because

(01:15:05):
it was his brother who with whom I worked at
CNN for many years, Pat Dolan, who was then in
charge now of Cable Town or whatever it is that
they owned and made all their money off of because
they were in this unprofitable business when it suddenly became
the only thing in town. Now that's my history, and
it's obviously twenty five minutes worth of history. I've been
banned a lot, that's me. But I will say this,

(01:15:29):
for all the banning that has happened to me, I
need you to know this is true. I know a newscaster,
a late newscaster with whom I worked early in my career,
who was banned from going into the state of Maryland. Later,
when I went into television, I discovered a sportscaster who

(01:15:51):
was also banned from going into the state of Maryland.
And the punchline to this is the two men unrelated
both had the same name. I don't mean they both
had the same first name. I mean they had the
same professional name. One was the newscaster or such and such,
and the other was the sportscaster such and such. So

(01:16:12):
I believe the state of Maryland has some sort of
law making it illegal for people with that name to
enter the state. Now that's being banned, I've done all

(01:16:34):
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening
and for not banning me. The Clippers one is still
the best. Oh No, I can't go to see the
worst team in professional sports. What will I do? I
had never gone to any of their games or practices.
Who would go to see their practice other than to
try to confirm this team practices practice? We're talking about practice.

(01:16:58):
Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel, the musical directors have
countdown who barely need practice. Arrange produced and performed most
of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister
Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. He did
all his practicing when he was a kid. It was
produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.

(01:17:22):
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
From whose campus I am not banned other music, Well,
I better check that other music arranged and performed by
the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my
friend from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and Airplane
Jonathan Banks. Everything else was as ever my band self fault.

(01:17:49):
That's countdown for today, Just three hundred and seventy one
days until the scheduled end of his lane duck and
lame brained term, unless Musk removes him sooner, or the
actuarial tables do, or Lisa Murkowski does. I'm telling a
senator the world is in your hands. The next scheduled
countdown is Thursday. If I don't break anything else or

(01:18:10):
get sick again. As always bulletins, as the news warrants,
remember impeach Trump. It will not work now, it will
win the Democrats the midterms, and I want polling right
now on a presidential recall vote, just to see how
pissed off everybody really is. Until next time, I'm Keith Olrimman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck Ted. Stevie.

(01:18:52):
Do you want to treat? Do you want to treat?
Tell me? Do you want to treat? Yes or no?
Do you want to treat? Thank you Rose? Do you
want to treat.

Speaker 6 (01:19:04):
Kit? Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
Kitty Kit? Do you want to treat?

Speaker 6 (01:19:07):
Kit?

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
Doesn't know how to bark? Hit for treats, Stevie, Stevie does. Okay,
we're gonna stop recording now you can stop barking. Countdown
with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

(01:19:28):
wherever you get your podcasts

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MURKOWSKI COULD LEAD GOP REVOLT AGAINST TRUMP - 4.21.25

Episode Transcript

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Keith Olbermann

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}MURKOWSKI COULD LEAD GOP REVOLT AGAINST TRUMP - 4.21.25