December 30, 2024 • 62 mins
SEASON 3 EPISODE 82: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: My friend – and what a privilege it has been to call him that – President Jimmy Carter would disagree that he is STILL the lead story, the day after. After all, he might note, he WAS 100, he was in hospice a year-and-a-half, his own grandson said he was in his final days – that was last May 15th. How, Keith, is this a surprise to you? The Braves letting Freddie Freeman leave should have been a surprise to you!
He would probably disagree he was the best since FDR, probably arguing that the best since FDR at least got re-elected. I will make my case, and more importantly, my case that the fact he WASN’T re-elected was the beginning of the end. The 1980 election was when I realized America wanted a spokesmodel, not a leader. A fake smile, not principles; often somebody dumber than they were. Even Clinton and Obama and their exceptional presidencies prevailed on charisma. That we turned away a complete human for a mentally diminished bad actor who wasn't that sharp to begin with has set a pattern we may never break before the nation ends.
I will also tell the thoroughly satisfying story of how President Carter became my friend, after which there was very little I could point to professionally and say 'I have left this unaccomplished.'
B-Block (29:52) NEWS BREAK: Two legal scholars insist that a week from today Democrats in the house must refuse to certify Trump’s election because the specific legislation to disqualify him for insurrection that the Supreme Court demanded in this year’s 14th Amendment case already exists.
But on the Washington-focused news site “The Hill” they insist no matter what the Supreme Court says and no matter what the consequences might be, Trump has already been DISQUALIFIED from federal office under the 14th Amendment AND Article Two gives the House sole authority to confirm a presidential election and I will add that while once again I cannot tell you how much this is not going to happen it would be nice to see Democrats do something, something, anything at all, just to peacefully protest what a failed and useless crapshow the government and its supposed protections against dictatorships and authoritarians and foreign control of our government has become – and what a hapless and flaccid vessel the Democratic party has become in the wake of Trump’s treacherous conspiracies to transform and subvert what was our clunky but largely functional form of representative government in, you know, the good old days of yore, like, oh, 2013 and 2014 into a subsidiary of Trump or Musk Enterprises. You know: AmericaX.
C-Block (56:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: What did you do on Christmas Eve? Go out into the cold, under-dressed, to search for Sasquatch? Last time they'll try that! Marianne Williamson is running for DNC chair because things ain't hella enough. And Cenk Uygur manages to beclown himself in a new way for the record-breaking 1000th time.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
greatest President since FDR is dead, My friend, What a
(00:29):
privilege it has been to call him a friend. President
Jimmy Carter would disagree that he is still the lead
story the day after. After all, he might note he
was one hundred years old, he was in hospice for
a year and a half. His own grandson, a reliable
reporter on most occasions, said he was in his final days.
(00:51):
That was last May fifteenth. How Keith, is this a
surprise to you? President Carter would say, the Braves letting
Freddie Freeman go to the Dodgers should have been a
surprise to you. He might have argued that the story
of constitutional scholars arguing that even at this late hour,
(01:13):
Congress has all the enabling legislation it needs to disqualify
Trump from taking power, that the Supreme Court roadblock had
been overcome without the Supreme Court noticing that that was
the lead story. I'm going to overrule him. I will
get to that story in a moment. I do not
(01:34):
honestly know if Jimmy Carter would have argued about my
other point. I don't know he would have argued that
he was not the greatest president since FDR. Jimmy Carter
was an extraordinary mixture, possibly a unique mixture of intelligence,
self confidence, uncertainty, honesty, and realism. I suspect he might
(02:04):
have said, whoever the greatest president since FDR was? He
got re elected, and here I will again overrule him.
The essence of the election of President Carter as an outsider,
the governor of Georgia, who once went, as the famous
story goes on the show What's My Line, where contestants
(02:28):
used to guess what somebody did for a living, and
as he was running for president, none of the contestants
knew who he was, underscored the fact that the American
political system still worked after what Richard Nixon did to
it in the nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies. In fact,
(02:50):
the entirety of the Carter presidency, sometimes successful, sometimes desperately unsuccessful,
but always professional, even in dealing with crises in his
own family and his own cabinet. Professional, operative, open wherever possible,
(03:10):
restored the premise of American government, whatever the outcome, was
the transformation of the presidency, which was a joke. On
January first, nineteen seventy six, a joke along with the
idea of believing that the government might actually do something
(03:30):
good rather than something to you. That was a joke
held universally in spite of party. Not a menace, not
a conspiracy, not a maga, lunatic, paranoid, sons of bitches
kind of stupidity, but genuine We're done with this attitude.
(03:52):
Maybe we should make a new country attitude, not violent,
not retributory. Just after Nixon and Ford, I've had enough
of this whole government thing. The man who changed that
Wasjimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter was a president from the first
day to the last day, and in ways he has
(04:12):
yet to be given credit for restored the concept of
American government. And then the guy after him pissed it
all away. But look what he did in the Middle
East midway through his only term. The Camp David Accords
(04:33):
essentially peace in the Middle East, or at least a
stopping of the escalation of the disasters of the Middle
East that have been going on uninterrupted for forty years,
well four thousand and forty years. Peace in the Middle
East until the terrorists in both of the principal countries
undid it, killed their own leaders, assassinated their own directors
(04:55):
and presidents. Because of course, too much peace is bad
for the terrorism business, and thus too much peace is
bad for the military business. On the second day of
Jimmy Carter's administration, he pardoned the Vietnam draft evaders. Spiritually,
the next time Trump says something about Jimmy Carter, somebody
(05:18):
should smack Trump in the mouth. Pardoned those who did
not and would not fight in Vietnam, would not subject
themselves to the draft. He was a hardliner President Carter
against Russia while also reducing nuclear weapons. He gave the
(05:41):
Panama Canal back. This is in the news recently because
of course we did steal the canal from Panama. In fact,
we fomented a revolution within Panama to create the entire
country and the canal zone. And my source for this
(06:02):
is President Theodore Roosevelt, who did it and said I
stole it fair and square. At least reportedly he said
that others certainly did. In his cabinet, Carter fought back
against an economy the GOP had sabotaged throughout the nineteen
sixties and seventies for the sake of big business. He
(06:23):
fought back against the energy crisis, and we may never
know to what degree since the Republicans got involved in
the thing that resulted from the energy crisis, the Iran
hostage drama, they got involved in that illicitly. We'll never
know to what degree the Republicans were involved in the
raising first of gas prices and then the gas shortage
of nineteen seventy eight. In nineteen seventy nine, Carter was
(06:49):
the first to address toxic waste dump sites and the
poisoning of the land the love Canal idea. He actually
drained the swamp. One of the reasons he did not
get all the support that he needed to run a
competitive race against Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty was because
he'd pissed off all the Congressmen and the senators. He
(07:09):
would not play Democratic Party politics. He would not take
their phone calls, he would not give them the appointments
that they wanted. He would not support their boondoggles and
their pork barrel options. He actually did with this idiot
Trump has been talking about. He actually tried to turn
the government back into a government. He bailed out Chrysler,
(07:37):
he bailed out Chrysler and in turn probably bailed out
the entirety of the American auto industry in the seventies,
and if it had collapsed in the nineteen seventies, the
nineteen eighties would have seen another depression. He created the
Department of Education, and boy oh boy, though what he
should have done was given the Department of Education weapons
nuclear weapons. Because the lack of education in this country,
(08:00):
which was already becoming a parent by the time the
Department of Education was instituted Byjimmy Carter to just set
some sort of minimum standards, that decline has now turned
into a world in which half of Americans are mortally stupid,
and of course, under dire circumstances in which part of
(08:21):
this country, part of the political structure of this country,
was operating against him. He dealt honorably with the Iran
hostage crisis, and it did him in And did that
make him the greatest president since FDR? I think it did,
because let's look exactly at the histories in capsule of
(08:45):
the ones since FDR Truman well meaning, and he did
well under the circumstances. I guess. On the other hand,
he did not stand up to Joe McCarthy, and when
the tough got going, or the going got tough, he
got out of town and back to independence Missouri. He
also failed internationally. Yes, we probably should have been involved
in some way in Korea. The way he handled it
(09:08):
met with disaster, he pleased no one. Eisenhower twice lied
about his health and his near fatal heart attacks. Should
not have been able to run for presidential reelection in
nineteen fifty six, spent months not in charge of the government,
(09:34):
and he introduced Richard Nixon to US. JFK didn't stop
the Bay of Pigs, set the tone for the Cuban
missile crisis, introduced in many respects the TV presidency that
we have now. It was fine for him. He was
a smart man who understood that it could not be
just a TV presidency. But do you think the current
(09:55):
guy understands that, I mean, the guy who's supposed to
take office in two weeks, do you think he understands that.
I don't think he understands which is left and which
is right. But I digress. JFK didn't stop the Bay
of Pigs, set the tone for the Cuban missile crisis.
Was late on civil rights and under different circumstances. Perhaps
(10:18):
a second term, his personal life could have been the
background for a new international blackmail attempt every hour. Maybe
it didn't bother people at the time that he appointed
his own brother as Attorney general. Maybe the institutionalization of
(10:38):
that family as a political force and the beginning of
regal families in this country wasn't apparent to be the
disaster that it has become. But let me know what
you think of the idea of your brother as attorney
general if and when in the next four years Trump
announces that one of his relatives is going to be
(11:00):
his successor, and then we'll talk about the Kennedys. And
of course it was the youngest of the Kennedys who
undermined Jimmy Carter Lyndon Johnson. The idea of the great
society and the integration, as we called it in the
sixties would have made him the best of the presidents
(11:21):
since FDR. Except for the small matter of Vietnam, which
destroyed his presidency and nearly this country and overwhelmed everything
good that he did. Johnson is the most tragic president
since FDR Nixon. All he tried to do was make
everything that the president did illegal into something that was
okay among them. All he tried to do is choose
(11:44):
the nominee of the other party who would run against him,
and in many respects he succeeded to turn it into
a two party system in which one of the parties
was the subsidiary of the other party. Don't tell Trump
Ford pardon Nixon. You will never ever ever convince me,
(12:05):
and I am now yes, vouching for a conspiracy theory,
you will never convince me that there was not some
sort of tacit agreement beforehand between Ford and Nixon that
if Nixon resigned, Ford would pardon him. But the whole
idea that this country was spared something because Nixon did
not go on trial. There wasn't going to be a trial.
(12:25):
He wasn't going to go to jail. But we might
have gotten something out of that that would have told
future presidents, don't break the goddamned laws. Instead, Gerald Ford,
never elected to the vice presidency and certainly never elected
to the presidency, decided for all time that all future
presidents should get this message. Do whatever you can get
away with. Then we have the Jimmy Carter presidency. As
(12:49):
I outlined, it before. Reagan, terrible actor, political opportunist, a
one time liberal leader of the Union in Hollywood, whose minions,
at best, this is the best interpret his minions treasonously
betrayed this country and caused our hostages to be held
(13:11):
longer in Iran, just so that they could use that
as a political hammer to beat Jimmy Carter into the
ground during the nineteen eighty election. Those hostages might have
been out sooner but for Ronald Reagan. May he be
burning in hell. I might add as well, Ronald Reagan
was mentally unfit for that office no later than nineteen
(13:31):
eighty five, and if he had not been shot in
nineteen eighty one, he would not have been reelected. As
we have seen that play out again. Bush one was
a condescending joke. Clinton. His presidency was fine in terms
of most of the things that can go right or
go wrong. His personal choices, including the idea that somehow
(13:55):
the first Lady should be considered, based largely on that
as a candidate for the US Senate in let's see
what state shall we pick, or that the first Lady
should become president, those turned into furtherances of the disasters
previously outlined by the Kennedy presidency. We should not have
(14:18):
legacy presidents Bush two, if his father was a joke.
Bush two was a lazy joke who had no interest
in America and who mainstreamed torture and the breaking of laws. Obama,
I don't think he achieved what he could have achieved.
(14:39):
I think the healthcare system is marvelous. I think they
will eventually find ways to roll most of it back.
So I think Obama's legacy will become he did not
prosecute Bush or at least say no, you broke the law.
Your people broke the law, and we are going to
do something about it. Another president who defended the rights
(15:01):
of presidents Biden, my friend, never once saw Trump needing
to be defeated, not just defeated with principles and uprightness
and results and a good place to live, but defeated
in that way and then come over here, mister Trump
(15:22):
and your supporters and kick them all on the groin.
He never saw it. I don't know that he sees
it now. Whoever defeats this, if we do defeat it,
will have done both of those things. Be an upright
citizen leading an upright presidency or an upright opposition and
also beat the hell out of these people. Jimmy Carter
(15:44):
was the best president since FDR, and that he did
not get reelected was the beginning of the end. When
I realized sometime late in the nineteen eighty campaign that
he was going to go down to a big defeat,
it was clear what America wanted was a spokesmodel, not
(16:08):
a leader. I mean, honest to goodness, we had never
before elected somebody solely on the idea that they were
acting like a president. There was no choice there. Out
of touch, not mentally fit, wasn't mentally fit when he
was mentally fit. A man who advocated cruelty and was
(16:30):
a big fan of the nineteenth century. He thought eighteen
ninety four was a good year. Only unlike Trump, Reagan
was virtually there in eighteen ninety four, and he might
have thought he was in eighteen ninety four a fake
smile instead of principles, a guy who pretended to be
perfect as opposed to somebody who acknowledged he was flawed.
(16:52):
The nineteen eighty election was the beginning of the end
of our democracy. Even Clinton and Obama won on charisma,
we re elected him because he was shot work for Trump.
Jimmy Carter's problem, and he admitted to this in many
(17:14):
public interviews and also in private. He did not suffer
fools gladly. He never hid that he was the smartest
in the room. And he suffered from something that people
who are like that often suffer from. He could not
understand why it was not clear to everybody that this idea,
whether it was his idea or somebody else's, was the
best one. It was obviously the best one. Well, people
(17:35):
don't necessarily perceive things as quickly as Jimmy Carter did.
Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer and a small businessman
and the governor of Georgia. He had more smarts in
that head than the three presidents before him and the
three presidents after him combined. And his one fatal tragic
(17:57):
flaw was he could not hide that. He could not
just smile with those giant teeth of his and nod
and then say something unfortunate off camera. Now he stood
behind everything he did and everything he said, and America,
(18:20):
which claims to believe in standing behind everything you say
in everything you do, punished him for it. Now, it
is interesting that the remaining reasonable people of the other
party would agree with this. There is no doubt that
Jimmy Carter had the best post presidency of any president
in the nation's history. Now, the competition for this is
(18:44):
kind of minimal because very few presidents live for forty
three years nearly after their presidency's end. At least many
of the early ones did not. His post presidency, including
advocacy for international representative government, a willingness to travel to
(19:07):
places I wouldn't even spell correctly, to go and try
to make sure the elections were fair, and his willingness
to get out a hammer and build somebody a home
underscored who this man was. He was the greatest president
since mtr and we did not re elect him because America,
(19:31):
and if you have not noticed this since November fifth,
is largely made up of stupid people, the Reagan Bush
Trump people. Now why I got the privilege of calling
him a friend in two thousand and eight at the
Denver Democratic National Convention, the one that nominated Obama. That
(19:54):
made that official. I was co anchoring with Chris Matthews
on MSNBC. Yes, I know it was. I haven't been
able to even say the s correctly since then have I.
I was co anchoring with Chris Matthews on MSNBC and
Chris Matthews when it was announced Jimmy Carter was going
to come over to our location near the train station.
(20:14):
Because of course, MSNBC's idea of covering the Democratic National
Convention was that its co anchor should never actually be
inside the convention. There was just a room with people
in it who wanted to watch that. So we were
set up by the train station out under a tent
I digress. When it was announced that Jimmy Carter would
(20:37):
be coming over to be interviewed by Chris Matthews and
I one afternoon during the convention, I was like, oh
my god, I'm going to meet a former president, the
first one of my adult life. Goodness. Matthews then began
to tell stories about Jimmy Carter's good friend, Jimmy Carter,
Jimmy Carter, my good friend I used to work for.
I used to advise me. In a minute, it sounded
(20:59):
like when we used to have reel to reel tape
and it would begin to run out at the end,
and the thing would speed up in somebody's voice would
just kind of start a faster pastor president. That was
Chris Matthews when he got over excited as opposed to
the normal level of just slightly over excited. Well, his
good friend Chris matthews good friend Jimmy Carter came over
(21:20):
and basically ignored Chris Matthews and said to me off camera,
but with Matthew standing next to me, that he watched
Countdown every night. Now, my opinion about his presidency was
formed before he said that, but it wasn't hurt by
the fact that he said this. The thought of such
(21:42):
a thing, and I did not tell him that Ted
Kennedy also watched Countdown every night. I didn't want to
bring that up, but the thought of such a thing
was still one of the pinnacles. In fact, where do
I go from here moments of my career? It's a
president of the United States. There, I know he didn't
get reelected. He watches my newscast. But then he went on,
(22:02):
he said, we watch it. My wife and I watch
it with the kids. In fact, several of them usually
come over every night at eight o'clock so we can
all watch it together. Now I'm beginning to wonder if
I am getting pranked, if there's the cameras that are
around us are in fact rolling, and President Carter has
(22:23):
for some reason decided to play a trick on me
to see what my reaction is. If I will faint,
or if my head will swell to such proportions that
it will burst. If the President goes on to say,
we can't all be together. We tend to watch it
(22:43):
and talk to each other on the phone during the commercials.
That's how much we enjoy your newscast. I have disagreed
with many of your conclusions, but never your process. By
this point I had lost the ability to speak. That
he had a little further surprise for me. When it
(23:08):
nears eight o'clock and the phone rings, I know that
it's one of my kids or one of my grandkids,
explaining that they're a little delayed somewhere. So let's hold off.
They'll be home in nine or ten minutes, so let's
just pause. I believe it was still a t bow
at that point, or a DVR. Let's just pause that
(23:28):
until we can all watch it simultaneously. Jimmy Carter was
not just a fan of Countdown. He was a super fan.
And then he said, and the final note to this
and the reason that he has been in my heart
(23:49):
since that moment. I had always been fond of him
and his presidency and what he stood for, and the
fact that he might have been our last ultimately principled
man in the office. After this, with me gasping for
breath inside at least trying to put up a brave
(24:11):
face and saying thank you more than I have anytime
in my life, President Carter then asked, saying that his
wife regretted that she could not be with him for
this interview. She had a speaking engagement during the convention
orhether otherwise she would have been there to meet me.
(24:33):
She said, Keith, do you mind if if we take
a picture so I can show her? And of course,
at that moment, Chris Matthews rose and moved into the shot,
and President Carter, with a big smile on his face, said,
(24:57):
we'll get a shot another time. This is for Rosalind.
This just Keith me, Jimmy Carter the best president since FDR.
And if you disagree with me on that point, I
think you may agree with me that he probably also
was the funniest president since FDR. Also, of interest, here,
(25:26):
thank you, Chris, will get you next time. Also of
interest here in a world that just got at least
one percent worse, even though the man who died had
not been president for sixteen thousand and fifty days. I
was not kidding about that earlier reference. The plea bi
legal scholars who have written even now that there is
a means to at least protest the return of an
(25:47):
insurrectionist to an office once held by Jimmy Carter might
as well just have put a pile of human feces
on the chair. Even now, these legal experts, constitutional scholars,
in fact, former clerks at the Supreme Court, insists there
(26:10):
is a means to at least protest the return of
Trump to power, that Democrats need to just do what's
right for once and damn the consequences, at least say no,
even if yes is going to win. They say that
when the Supreme Court made up a requirement last year
(26:31):
earlier this year for a legislation to disqualify a presidential
candidate or president who is connected to a rebellion, the
Supreme Court missed something. Alito actually slept on the job.
It did not realize that that required legislation is already
in place and that if they could do it, they
(26:52):
could legally and peacefully deny Trump the presidency. That's next.
This is countdown. President Carter would have looked at the
headlines as Trump continues to threaten wars of aggression to
(27:14):
annex Greenland or Mexico or Canada, or maybe it's somewhere
else like Mars. I haven't checked in the last hour,
headlines like Musk threatening Maga and Maga turning on Ramaswami.
While Biden reportedly thinks he would have beaten Trump, President
Carter would have pointed to this story as the most
(27:34):
important one. Two legal scholars and former Supreme Court clerks
insist that a week from today, Democrats in the House
must refuse to certify Trump's election because the specific legislation
to disqualify him for insurrection, the legislation the Supreme Court
made up and demanded in this year's fourteenth Amendment case.
(27:56):
That legislation already exists. By the way, a week from
today is January sixth. I will say what I said
previously on this topic. There are not enough words. There
is not enough time left in eternity for me to
(28:16):
completely cover how much this is not going to happen.
But on the Washington focused news site The Hill, the
former editor in chief of the Columbia Law Review and
Justice Potter Stuart Clerk Evan Davis, and the former editor
in chief of the Yale Law Journal and Justice Potter
(28:36):
Stuart Clerk. David Shulty insists that no matter what the
Supreme Court says, and no matter what the consequences might be,
Trump has already been disqualified from federal office under the
fourteenth Amendment and Article two of the Constitution gives the
House the sole authority to confirm a presidential election outcome
(28:57):
or not. And I will add that while I can't
tell you how much this is not going to happen,
it would be nice to see Democrats do something, something,
anything at all, just to peacefully protest what a failed
and useless shit show the government at its supposed protections
(29:17):
against dictatorships and authoritarians and foreign influence on our government
has become, and what a hapless and flaccid vessel the
Democratic Party has become in the wake of Trump's treacherous
conspiracies to transform and subvert what was our clunky but
largely functional form of representative government in you know, the
(29:39):
good old days of your like you know, twenty thirteen
and fourteen, to transform it from that time into a
subsidiary of Trump or Musk enterprises. You know America X
in their Peace for the Hill, Davis and Schilty do
(30:00):
not put it this way, but goddamn it, Democrats, your
response to this is as telling and cringing a confirmation
of one party rule as would be any threat from
Steve Bannon or any goose honk from Maria Bartiromo. And
until this hour your response to this has been the
shrug emoji quote. No person shall hold any office civil
(30:26):
or military under the United States or under any State, who,
having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution of
the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion
against the same, or given aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. Congress may, by a vote of two thirds
of each House, remove such disability. And what about the
(30:51):
Supreme Court's interference in the constitution Last March in the
Colorado case Anderson, you may recall Colorado had thrown Trump
off the ballot there because the fourteenth Amendment says you
can't be president if you've engaged in or give an
aid or comfort to an insurrection or rebellion engaged, not
(31:12):
that you've been convicted or imprisoned for doing so. Engaged.
It's automatic that the Constitution specifically provides a legal requirement
not to prove guilt of insurrection and disqualification, but to
disprove it. Namely, that the Congress may waive the insurrection
disqualification of anybody, even Trump, by a two thirds vote.
(31:36):
Tells you what the founders had in mind, and the
authors of the amendment. You are guilty until proven innocent.
But Sam Alito's all you can eat fascist buffet conveniently
made up a requirement that reverses what the Constitution says.
Alito's quote court unquote insists that there must be specific
(32:00):
legislation to keep Trump or anybody else off the ballot
or out of office. And Messrs Davis and Sheilton say,
all right, fine, guess what. That doesn't happen to be
the case, but let's pretend that is the case. There
has to be a specific piece of legislation to keep
Trump out of office. And they say there already is,
(32:22):
to quote them, specific legislation designed for this situation already exists.
The Electoral count Act, was first enacted in eighteen eighty
seven and later amended and restated in twenty twenty two.
That statute provides a detailed mechanism for resolving disputes as
to the validity of electoral College votes. The Act specifies
(32:44):
two grounds for objection to an electoral vote, if the
electors from a state were not lawfully certified, or if
the vote of one or more electors was not regularly given.
A vote for a candidate disqualified by the Constitution is
plainly in accordance with the normal use of the words
(33:05):
not regularly given. Disqualification for engaging an insurrection is no
different from disqualification based on other constitutional requirements, such as
age citizenship from birth and fourteen years residency in the
United States. To make an objection under the Count Act
requires a petition signed by twenty percent of the members
(33:26):
of each House. If the objection is sustained by majority
vote in each house, the vote is not counted, and
the number of votes required to be elected is reduced
by the number of disqualified votes. In other words, the
legislation that is required is the Count Act. It's the
Electoral Count Act of twenty twenty two, once again not
(33:50):
going to happen. The only people in this country who
actually believe Trump and MAGA and the Republicans got a
mandate two months ago and must be obeyed are the
craziest of his supporters, and maybe Trump himself, and of
(34:12):
course Joe Scarborough and most PTSD adduled Democratic politicians. Trump
is guilty of insurrection and cannot be president did not
work as a campaign slogan this year, so the Democrats
are now afraid to say it, let alone act on it.
(34:32):
Let alone act on it by taking a risk, Let
alone taking a risk for something that ultimately will be
purely symbolic. Oh no, Now, I'm not standing up for
the constitution or the truth or reality or the future
restoration of democracy in this country because in our next
election somebody will run against me by throwing my objection
(34:55):
back in my face and calling me a sore loser.
Oh no, sorry, that was Ted lu the congressman who
called those who claim Trump is disqualified from office because
of the twenty twenty one insurrection quote sore losers. Democratic congressman,
sore losers wouldn't want to be sore about the electoral
process being overthrown by someone whose first plan is to
(35:17):
make it easier for him to then sue you for
claiming the electoral process was overthrown. Wouldn't want to stand
for something, even in a losing cause. Wouldn't want to
put up a protest to protect your preferred form of
government when the other guys, with not even one one
millionth of the constitutional validity behind them, decided they needed
(35:38):
to protect their preferred form of government and fabricated out
of whole cloth the African prince spam email equivalent of
a legal theory of nullifying an election, and to enforce it,
they sent a mob to try to kill or take
hostage anybody who got in their way while they were
at the effing capital four years ago. Next Monday, you know,
(36:06):
the day the Republicans stuck to the peaceful transfer of
power and we're not sore losers. The Davis Shilty article was,
for what it is worth, the most popular piece at
the Hill website. Normally that kind of fact is irrelevant
to the public discourse, but since the essence of the
piece is, maybe you could do what's right rather than
(36:28):
just what you think you can get away with without
getting your hands dirty. Maybe you could be just a
little aggressive rather than maintaining the new democratic mantra of
they go low, we go high. You'll see the electorate
will give us a golf clap and then reward us
with landslide victories forever. This distribution of the article suggests
(36:50):
that the other way, the way in which Trump's entire
existence what can I get away with? Does not produce
a Trump resistance predicated on don't say anything about it,
trump is getting away with it does not permit a
judicial response predicated on how can we disfigure the law
on the Constitution so Trump can get away with it?
(37:10):
Does not permit a media environment predicated on let's look
at our latest polling showing how well Trump is getting
away with it. That there is an alternate to this.
There is something akin to Henry la Boucher's comment about
the imperious holier than thou nineteenth century British Prime minister
William Gladstone, that well, la Boucher did not object to
(37:35):
Gladstone's habit of hiding a fifth ace up his sleeve.
Laba Cher did object to Gladstone's repeated insistence that the
fifth ace had been put up his sleeve by Almighty God,
that there is a philosophy that we could adopt that says,
(37:58):
no matter the consequences, somebody somewhere, at some point has
to say, I don't care if you got away with it,
you still stole it, that that philosophy shall not perish
(38:18):
from the earth. I will confess that, despite my clenched fists,
(38:47):
and despite my taking a page from the late President
Carter's attitude towards such things, I also like the completely
opposite approach to the certification next week of King Dumbass.
The first, namely let them fight. The Democrats, as you know,
(39:10):
disappeared just after midnight on November sixth, And the group
that has done more damage to Maga and Trump than
even revivified punch throwing Democrats could even dream of is
Maga and Trump and Musk and Ramaswami, the Schwam as
(39:33):
we call him. If somehow you missed this, Musk told
the nativist, racist, anti immigrant Magabase to quote take a
big step back and quote f yourself in the face, which,
(39:57):
to be honest, I always thought was a Robert F.
Kennedy junior quote, take a big step back and f
yourself in the face. Somebody's Ketaman arrived on time. This,
(40:19):
I think is the ten thousandth time I have said this.
The democracy abides, not so much because of the exertions
of those of us who want to preserve it as
the utter stupidity of those who would destroy it. Now,
I am not going to try to recap every part
of the Maga Civil War, except to mention the two
newest developments, which, like the old developments, each reminds me
(40:42):
of exactly the same comedy bit Dave Chappelle as Clayton Bigsby,
the sightless KKK member who had never learned he was black.
That's Maga, that's everybody in Maga. That's Trump, that's Musk,
that's Ramaswami, that's all of them. The new developments. After
(41:03):
spending forty four billion dollars to turn Twitter into an
asset for Putin and China and Trump and a haven
for Nazis and a place he himself can write f
yourself in the face in caps, Musk yesterday pleaded, please
post a bit more positive, beautiful or informative content on
this platform. That's stupid, even for him. What could be
(41:31):
even more stupid than that? Ramaswami yesterday posted and affirmative Action,
America is the land of meritocracy, let me do it
Ramaswami's voice, and affirmative Action America's land for meritocracy. True.
If by meritocracy mister Hairdoo means not merely selling the
(41:52):
snake oil but running up the stock price of the
snake oil company to make countless millions before it all collapses,
that's a meritocracy. Also, even after this weekend, it is
not clear to that genuinely stupid man that the vast
majority of his fascist supporters believed that he vivet Ramaswami
is where he is because and only because of affirmative action.
(42:18):
For a while, I was trying to figure out which
was true here, Whether Musk and Ramaswami were not aware
that when the maggots said they wanted all foreigners out,
they meant all of them, except maybe Musk and Ramaswami,
but certainly the kinds of foreigners that Musk and Ramaswami
wanted to hire and bring here on H one B
(42:39):
employment visas. I've been trying to figure out whether it
was that or that the MAGA rank and file on
scum and vermin did not realize that when Trump promised
to round up and expel all migrants. He meant all
migrants except the ones that he and Musk and Ramaswami
want to hire and bring into this country. The answer,
(43:01):
of course, is why can't it be both? Because it
is both, because they are all Clayton Bigsby. Conveniently, Trump
has ratcheted up a notch here by revealing he appears
to have been involved in aiding illegal immigration, that is,
immigration that violates immigration law. He told the New York Post, quote,
(43:24):
I have many H one B visas on my properties.
Not only did Trump repudiate H one B visas during
the twenty sixteen campaign, but the H one B visa
is exclusively for specialty occupations and foreign applicants who have
expertise that cannot be found, or at least cannot be
found easily among Americans who are already here. Think nuclear engineers,
(43:49):
not grounds keepers. Tending to the first hole where Ivana
is buried at Trump's Gulf Rama in Bedminster, New Jersey.
H one bees Less, Carl Speckler, more Werner Van Prau,
unclear who will fire whom here, though Bannon has called
(44:12):
Musk a toddler and my god it's happened to Bannon
is finally right about something. But Musk and Trump now
cannot coexist because Musk seems to think Trump will let
him decide things like this, and Musk's behavior is getting
even more deranged than Trump's, and Trump has got to
realize this. Musk has now, in addition to all this
(44:35):
telling people to f themselves in the face while then
asking for a more beautiful content, He has now written
an editorial supporting those German AfD neo nazis an actual
newspaper editorial, and the first rule of Trump Neo Nazi
club is say whatever you want, just remember never write
it down. Never write it down, Elmo. Meanwhile, Ramaswami, of course,
(45:02):
sees the opportunity to become other Musk. This raises the
delightful prospect of what happens to Musk and his influence
when he and Trump split or at least distance themselves
from one another. I mean, maybe Musk does wind up
as Speaker of the House. God knows. Mike Johnson is
now one vote away from being thrown off the bridge
(45:24):
of death. African or European swallow my Mike Johnson impression.
Back to seizing the Panama Canal and moving it to
(45:44):
Greenland or whatever the latest non forever war. Trump is
ginning up. Hard to believe the media could get more
complicit in the coming fascism. But yeah, you know, that's
one area in which they all appear to be hiring.
New York Times. Trump showed that his America First philosophy
(46:05):
has an expansionist dimension by calling for or asserting US
control over the Panama Canal and Greenland. An expansionist dimension,
that's what it is like, you know, Hitler's expansionist dimension. CNN.
(46:27):
Trump is teasing US expansion into Panama, Greenland, and Canada.
By Steve Contorno, Trump appears to be entertaining an American
territorial expansion that, if he's serious, would rival the Louisiana
purchase or the deal that netded Alaska from Russia. Yes,
(46:52):
that's exactly what it's like. It's like the Louisiana purchase
where we sent the French money for Louisiana and the French. Okay,
it's like the purchase of Alaska from Russia, not like
(47:14):
Hitler marching into the Rhineland. It's it's expansion, like we're
adding two teams to our league. What it is is
it's more media ass kissing. That's what it is, coming
from shock of shocks, the fatally compromised CNN and it's
(47:37):
new chairman, Scott Jennings. I made that up. Scott Jennings
is not the chairman of CNN. But you believed it,
didn't you. And while we are on the subject of
kissing Trump's ass I'd like to just say to hell
with Alvin Bragg. Yes that Alvin Bragg. I repeat, I
(48:00):
am completely opposed to the targeted assassinations of any buddy,
especially in my neighborhood. It's murder and it should be
prosecuted as such, and Alvin Bragg should resign. Today Alvin
Bragg has added a charge of first degree murder in
(48:22):
furtherance of terrorism. Trump's insurrectionists attacked the capital of the
United effing States of America, and none of them has
been charged with anything resembling terrorism. And again, not to defend,
nor encourage, nor excuse Luigi Mangione's presumed shooting of Brian
(48:47):
Thompson around the corner from my house. But guess when
it isn't terrorism. Remember when I said I really hope
they didn't do any polling on this murder because part
of me was afraid of what it would show. Turns
out should have been all of me that was afraid
Nork and Orc. The posters at the University of Chicago
(49:11):
asked who bears responsibility for the assassination. Eight out of
ten Americans said the assassin allegedly that is mister Mangione.
Eight out of ten said he bears a great deal
or some responsibility. Can't sneak anything past the American public
eight out of ten. Seven out of ten, however, said
denials of coverage and excessive profits mean the healthcare industry
(49:34):
bears at least a moderate amount of responsibility for the
death of Brian Thompson. Seven out of ten is not terrorism.
It's a vast majority. And if you are Alvin Braggan,
you have decided this is the place to test out
the what about the corporations? Won't anybody think about the
corporations terrorism bonus clause law? You are knowingly or otherwise
(49:59):
doing it as a sop to Trump and his minions,
because this is Trump logic. Try to hang or shoot
or beat to death politicians and their husbands who disagree
with Trump, not terrorism, shoot corporate executives so detached from
morality that seven out of ten Americans think that to
some degree they had it coming. That's terrorism if you're Trump,
(50:26):
or if you're trying to save your own ass and
you are Alvin Pragg. I will note that District Attorney
Bragg and Judge Van Mere Shawn also both stealthily slow
walk the sentencing of Trump before the election. I don't
know if it would have made a difference in the
(50:48):
election or not, but I think it is pretty clear
now that they both were confident it would make a
difference in how much vengeance Trump would seek against them.
So to hell with them both. Speaking of which worst
persons is next? Spoiler alert, it's Jank Yuger. Does this
(51:09):
countdown with Keith Olberman Aberman? Believe it or not, There's
(51:37):
still more new idiots to talk about before we close
this one out. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, Morons,
and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's other worst
persons in the world, The Brons worse Two unidentified men
from Washington State. What did you do for Christmas? How
(51:57):
did you spend Christmas Eve? These guys went out looking
for sasquatch. They're not living anymore. Actually they died in
Washington State. They were from Oregon. A fifty nine year
old and a thirty seven year old unidentified as we
(52:19):
recorded this, appeared to have died from exposure. According to
the Scamania County Sheriff's Office at a Facebook post from
the Associated Press story, the weather and the men's lack
of preparedness led the office to draw that conclusion. It
said they went out looking for sasquatch in a heavily
(52:42):
wooded area of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Coincidentally, talking
about best presidents and funniest presidents, that would be Gifford
Pinchow was the head of the first Department of Interior
under Teddy Roosevelt. So this is one hundred and fifty
miles northeast of Portland, Oregon. A family member reported the
(53:03):
missing at around one am on Chris Day, after they
failed to return from their Christmas Eve outing. They said
they were looking for sasquatch. Apparently they went out into
the woods on Christmas Eve wearing overcoats. I'm inferring that
from the story. I don't know that it was overcoats.
It might have been sweaters. Sixty volunteer search and rescue
(53:26):
personnel helped in the three day search, canine teams, drone teams,
ground teams, infrared technology to search from the air. Because
we let people like this out in public, Let's go
find sasquatch. Now you're dead. Is Sasquatch there? And we
(53:49):
have all the pious Oh what a tragedy. It's they
went looking for sasquatch. The runner up, mary Anne Williamson.
I don't know her attitude about Sasquatch, but I wouldn't
be a bit surprised she is running for Chairman of
the Democratic National Committee because this is not enough of
(54:10):
a hell for us. What fresh hell is this? It's
one in which Mary Anne Williamson wants to be the
chair of the Democratic National Committee. MAGA is a distinctly
twenty first century political movement, and it will not be
defeated by a twentieth century toolkit. Data analysis, fundraising, field
organizing and beefed up technology. While all are important, will
(54:31):
not be enough to prepare the way for the Democratic
victory in twenty twenty four and beyond. That's why I
have decided to run for DNC chair this year. Writes
Mary Anne Williamson. So what else is there going to
be besides data analysis, fundraising, field organizing, beefed up technology.
What do you got, Marianne, Crystals, vibes. We've tried crystals
(54:52):
and vibes, but you got you got Sasquatch, your Democratic
nominee in twenty twenty eight. Sasquatch. We found him. As
we're continuing to build the memorial for those two men
who died just after Christmas in twenty twenty four, when
they went out looking, they found him. Because of those men,
that idiot Olderman, remember him, He made fun of them.
(55:14):
Now we've made seven hundred foot tall monuments to them
in the forests in Washington State. I have mentioned this before.
Somebody tried to set me up on a date at
Mary Anne Williamson's request. With Mary Ann Williamson, I have
described to you in my personal life and the many,
many bad choices I have made, that was one of
(55:35):
the good choices. Pew pew pew. Those are all the
bullets that I avoided in that one. And speaking of
which in a different context, no dating involved here, but
bullets ducked are winner Jank Huger, who did some sort
of panel discussion with Charlie Kirk because sure, let's negotiate
(55:58):
with them. Joe Scarborough would not have sat down with
Charlie Kirk. Jank. I have to admit I underestimated the
tribalism on our side. These people are fascists. It's not
tribalism to oppose fascists. We spilled the blood of what
five hundred thousand Americans in the Second World War fighting fascists.
(56:22):
That's not tribalism. It was self defense. I thought once
people realized that I am defending left wing positions in
front of right wing crowds, they would understand that's not
selling out, that's the opposite. But no, most seem to
think just the mere act of talking to the other
side is an unbearable heresy. This is because it's an
unbearable heresy. The only thing you get from them in
(56:43):
talking to them is the possibility that one of them
might say something stupid that you can then put on
your show, which they will then clip and alter in
such way to make you look stupid. We should never
talk because that's appeasement, etc. Yes, it's appeasement. It's exactly
the same thing. Jank. The fact that people can't see
(57:07):
how crazy that sounds shows you how thick the bubbles are.
The bubbles are in your bloodstream. Jank see a physician.
On and on and on this rationalization for Jank Huger,
who has taken every political position available for the last
twenty years loudly and with absolute certainty and bashed everybody
(57:30):
who disagreed with him, is now telling us that the
key to this is to exchange ideas with Charlie Kirk.
Let me explain briefly Jank Huger. At MSNBC, I think
we had him on once and I listened to him
and realized that what he was talking about and what
(57:51):
had actually happened were not the same things. I said,
we don't put him on again. Somebody at MSNBC, I
believe it was Phil Griffin hired him as a guest
host or invited him in as a contributor, and I
remember himing around my office waiting for me to come
out so he could meet me. And I was literally
in that position of having to leave to go to
(58:13):
the bathroom. And I held it in later at Current TV,
where I tried to hire first Rachel Maddow. Well, okay,
It was an idea, as I said to her, look
at least, said to her through her agent, who had
been my agent. At least you'll get more money out
of it from NBC. Little did I know, And when
(58:37):
that didn't work out, I had an idea for a
show at nine o'clock, an extension of Countdown with Chris
Hayes and Gene Robinson. Those are the people I wanted
to hire. The guy that Al Gore's business partner, Joel
Hyatt hired was Jank Huger. When Jank Huger was hired,
I gathered my staff together and I said, I think
(58:58):
I think they spent all the money on me this.
If you guys want to start looking for work, I
will not hold it against you. I will write you
all letters of reference. I think I said to them
in Whenever. That was July of twenty eleven. I think
we have eight to twelve months, but I'm not sure
(59:19):
they got rid of me. I believe eight months from
that point. And if there's any further information about Jank Yuger,
you need to know a lot of people are paying
attention to Jink right now. He's having a moment and
then a reposting of that. I have to admit I
underestimated the tribalism on our side. A lot of people
(59:41):
are paying attention to Jank right now. He's having a moment,
signed former Congressman Matt Gates, showing an interest in something
other than a seventeen year old girl for the first
time in months. Jank, when Matt Gates is on your side,
you're on your way out. He's not having a moment.
(01:00:01):
What he's having is an episode. Uger two days other
worst person than the world. I've done all the damage
(01:00:34):
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Shank Huger,
Holy crap. Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel, the musical
directors of Countdown Arranged, produced and performed most of our music.
I never ascertained by the way, whether or not Current
TV paid Jank Huger or it was the other way around.
Brian and John Phillip Chanel Arrange produced and performed most
(01:00:55):
of our music. Mister Chaneil on orchestration and keyboards, mister
Ray on guitars, bass and drums. It was produced by
Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by
the best baseball stadium organist ever Nancy Faust. The sports
music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by
Mitch Warren Davis courtesy ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and
(01:01:15):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today
was my friend Larry David doing his impression of the
late announcer a Yankee Stadium, Bob Shepard. Everything else was
as ever, my fault. That's countdown for today, Just eighty
three days until the scheduled end of the lane duck
presidency of Trump. Probably the next scheduled countdown will be
(01:01:38):
next Monday, because it's New Year's As always, bulletins is
the news warrants till next time. I'm Keith Ouldraman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, good luck, and Happy New Year.
(01:02:10):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
greatest President since FDR is dead, My friend, What a
(00:29):
privilege it has been to call him a friend. President
Jimmy Carter would disagree that he is still the lead
story the day after. After all, he might note he
was one hundred years old, he was in hospice for
a year and a half. His own grandson, a reliable
reporter on most occasions, said he was in his final days.
(00:51):
That was last May fifteenth. How Keith, is this a
surprise to you? President Carter would say, the Braves letting
Freddie Freeman go to the Dodgers should have been a
surprise to you. He might have argued that the story
of constitutional scholars arguing that even at this late hour,
(01:13):
Congress has all the enabling legislation it needs to disqualify
Trump from taking power, that the Supreme Court roadblock had
been overcome without the Supreme Court noticing that that was
the lead story. I'm going to overrule him. I will
get to that story in a moment. I do not
(01:34):
honestly know if Jimmy Carter would have argued about my
other point. I don't know he would have argued that
he was not the greatest president since FDR. Jimmy Carter
was an extraordinary mixture, possibly a unique mixture of intelligence,
self confidence, uncertainty, honesty, and realism. I suspect he might
(02:04):
have said, whoever the greatest president since FDR was? He
got re elected, and here I will again overrule him.
The essence of the election of President Carter as an outsider,
the governor of Georgia, who once went, as the famous
story goes on the show What's My Line, where contestants
(02:28):
used to guess what somebody did for a living, and
as he was running for president, none of the contestants
knew who he was, underscored the fact that the American
political system still worked after what Richard Nixon did to
it in the nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies. In fact,
(02:50):
the entirety of the Carter presidency, sometimes successful, sometimes desperately unsuccessful,
but always professional, even in dealing with crises in his
own family and his own cabinet. Professional, operative, open wherever possible,
(03:10):
restored the premise of American government, whatever the outcome, was
the transformation of the presidency, which was a joke. On
January first, nineteen seventy six, a joke along with the
idea of believing that the government might actually do something
(03:30):
good rather than something to you. That was a joke
held universally in spite of party. Not a menace, not
a conspiracy, not a maga, lunatic, paranoid, sons of bitches
kind of stupidity, but genuine We're done with this attitude.
(03:52):
Maybe we should make a new country attitude, not violent,
not retributory. Just after Nixon and Ford, I've had enough
of this whole government thing. The man who changed that
Wasjimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter was a president from the first
day to the last day, and in ways he has
(04:12):
yet to be given credit for restored the concept of
American government. And then the guy after him pissed it
all away. But look what he did in the Middle
East midway through his only term. The Camp David Accords
(04:33):
essentially peace in the Middle East, or at least a
stopping of the escalation of the disasters of the Middle
East that have been going on uninterrupted for forty years,
well four thousand and forty years. Peace in the Middle
East until the terrorists in both of the principal countries
undid it, killed their own leaders, assassinated their own directors
(04:55):
and presidents. Because of course, too much peace is bad
for the terrorism business, and thus too much peace is
bad for the military business. On the second day of
Jimmy Carter's administration, he pardoned the Vietnam draft evaders. Spiritually,
the next time Trump says something about Jimmy Carter, somebody
(05:18):
should smack Trump in the mouth. Pardoned those who did
not and would not fight in Vietnam, would not subject
themselves to the draft. He was a hardliner President Carter
against Russia while also reducing nuclear weapons. He gave the
(05:41):
Panama Canal back. This is in the news recently because
of course we did steal the canal from Panama. In fact,
we fomented a revolution within Panama to create the entire
country and the canal zone. And my source for this
(06:02):
is President Theodore Roosevelt, who did it and said I
stole it fair and square. At least reportedly he said
that others certainly did. In his cabinet, Carter fought back
against an economy the GOP had sabotaged throughout the nineteen
sixties and seventies for the sake of big business. He
(06:23):
fought back against the energy crisis, and we may never
know to what degree since the Republicans got involved in
the thing that resulted from the energy crisis, the Iran
hostage drama, they got involved in that illicitly. We'll never
know to what degree the Republicans were involved in the
raising first of gas prices and then the gas shortage
of nineteen seventy eight. In nineteen seventy nine, Carter was
(06:49):
the first to address toxic waste dump sites and the
poisoning of the land the love Canal idea. He actually
drained the swamp. One of the reasons he did not
get all the support that he needed to run a
competitive race against Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty was because
he'd pissed off all the Congressmen and the senators. He
(07:09):
would not play Democratic Party politics. He would not take
their phone calls, he would not give them the appointments
that they wanted. He would not support their boondoggles and
their pork barrel options. He actually did with this idiot
Trump has been talking about. He actually tried to turn
the government back into a government. He bailed out Chrysler,
(07:37):
he bailed out Chrysler and in turn probably bailed out
the entirety of the American auto industry in the seventies,
and if it had collapsed in the nineteen seventies, the
nineteen eighties would have seen another depression. He created the
Department of Education, and boy oh boy, though what he
should have done was given the Department of Education weapons
nuclear weapons. Because the lack of education in this country,
(08:00):
which was already becoming a parent by the time the
Department of Education was instituted Byjimmy Carter to just set
some sort of minimum standards, that decline has now turned
into a world in which half of Americans are mortally stupid,
and of course, under dire circumstances in which part of
(08:21):
this country, part of the political structure of this country,
was operating against him. He dealt honorably with the Iran
hostage crisis, and it did him in And did that
make him the greatest president since FDR? I think it did,
because let's look exactly at the histories in capsule of
(08:45):
the ones since FDR Truman well meaning, and he did
well under the circumstances. I guess. On the other hand,
he did not stand up to Joe McCarthy, and when
the tough got going, or the going got tough, he
got out of town and back to independence Missouri. He
also failed internationally. Yes, we probably should have been involved
in some way in Korea. The way he handled it
(09:08):
met with disaster, he pleased no one. Eisenhower twice lied
about his health and his near fatal heart attacks. Should
not have been able to run for presidential reelection in
nineteen fifty six, spent months not in charge of the government,
(09:34):
and he introduced Richard Nixon to US. JFK didn't stop
the Bay of Pigs, set the tone for the Cuban
missile crisis, introduced in many respects the TV presidency that
we have now. It was fine for him. He was
a smart man who understood that it could not be
just a TV presidency. But do you think the current
(09:55):
guy understands that, I mean, the guy who's supposed to
take office in two weeks, do you think he understands that.
I don't think he understands which is left and which
is right. But I digress. JFK didn't stop the Bay
of Pigs, set the tone for the Cuban missile crisis.
Was late on civil rights and under different circumstances. Perhaps
(10:18):
a second term, his personal life could have been the
background for a new international blackmail attempt every hour. Maybe
it didn't bother people at the time that he appointed
his own brother as Attorney general. Maybe the institutionalization of
(10:38):
that family as a political force and the beginning of
regal families in this country wasn't apparent to be the
disaster that it has become. But let me know what
you think of the idea of your brother as attorney
general if and when in the next four years Trump
announces that one of his relatives is going to be
(11:00):
his successor, and then we'll talk about the Kennedys. And
of course it was the youngest of the Kennedys who
undermined Jimmy Carter Lyndon Johnson. The idea of the great
society and the integration, as we called it in the
sixties would have made him the best of the presidents
(11:21):
since FDR. Except for the small matter of Vietnam, which
destroyed his presidency and nearly this country and overwhelmed everything
good that he did. Johnson is the most tragic president
since FDR Nixon. All he tried to do was make
everything that the president did illegal into something that was
okay among them. All he tried to do is choose
(11:44):
the nominee of the other party who would run against him,
and in many respects he succeeded to turn it into
a two party system in which one of the parties
was the subsidiary of the other party. Don't tell Trump
Ford pardon Nixon. You will never ever ever convince me,
(12:05):
and I am now yes, vouching for a conspiracy theory,
you will never convince me that there was not some
sort of tacit agreement beforehand between Ford and Nixon that
if Nixon resigned, Ford would pardon him. But the whole
idea that this country was spared something because Nixon did
not go on trial. There wasn't going to be a trial.
(12:25):
He wasn't going to go to jail. But we might
have gotten something out of that that would have told
future presidents, don't break the goddamned laws. Instead, Gerald Ford,
never elected to the vice presidency and certainly never elected
to the presidency, decided for all time that all future
presidents should get this message. Do whatever you can get
away with. Then we have the Jimmy Carter presidency. As
(12:49):
I outlined, it before. Reagan, terrible actor, political opportunist, a
one time liberal leader of the Union in Hollywood, whose minions,
at best, this is the best interpret his minions treasonously
betrayed this country and caused our hostages to be held
(13:11):
longer in Iran, just so that they could use that
as a political hammer to beat Jimmy Carter into the
ground during the nineteen eighty election. Those hostages might have
been out sooner but for Ronald Reagan. May he be
burning in hell. I might add as well, Ronald Reagan
was mentally unfit for that office no later than nineteen
(13:31):
eighty five, and if he had not been shot in
nineteen eighty one, he would not have been reelected. As
we have seen that play out again. Bush one was
a condescending joke. Clinton. His presidency was fine in terms
of most of the things that can go right or
go wrong. His personal choices, including the idea that somehow
(13:55):
the first Lady should be considered, based largely on that
as a candidate for the US Senate in let's see
what state shall we pick, or that the first Lady
should become president, those turned into furtherances of the disasters
previously outlined by the Kennedy presidency. We should not have
(14:18):
legacy presidents Bush two, if his father was a joke.
Bush two was a lazy joke who had no interest
in America and who mainstreamed torture and the breaking of laws. Obama,
I don't think he achieved what he could have achieved.
(14:39):
I think the healthcare system is marvelous. I think they
will eventually find ways to roll most of it back.
So I think Obama's legacy will become he did not
prosecute Bush or at least say no, you broke the law.
Your people broke the law, and we are going to
do something about it. Another president who defended the rights
(15:01):
of presidents Biden, my friend, never once saw Trump needing
to be defeated, not just defeated with principles and uprightness
and results and a good place to live, but defeated
in that way and then come over here, mister Trump
(15:22):
and your supporters and kick them all on the groin.
He never saw it. I don't know that he sees
it now. Whoever defeats this, if we do defeat it,
will have done both of those things. Be an upright
citizen leading an upright presidency or an upright opposition and
also beat the hell out of these people. Jimmy Carter
(15:44):
was the best president since FDR, and that he did
not get reelected was the beginning of the end. When
I realized sometime late in the nineteen eighty campaign that
he was going to go down to a big defeat,
it was clear what America wanted was a spokesmodel, not
(16:08):
a leader. I mean, honest to goodness, we had never
before elected somebody solely on the idea that they were
acting like a president. There was no choice there. Out
of touch, not mentally fit, wasn't mentally fit when he
was mentally fit. A man who advocated cruelty and was
(16:30):
a big fan of the nineteenth century. He thought eighteen
ninety four was a good year. Only unlike Trump, Reagan
was virtually there in eighteen ninety four, and he might
have thought he was in eighteen ninety four a fake
smile instead of principles, a guy who pretended to be
perfect as opposed to somebody who acknowledged he was flawed.
(16:52):
The nineteen eighty election was the beginning of the end
of our democracy. Even Clinton and Obama won on charisma,
we re elected him because he was shot work for Trump.
Jimmy Carter's problem, and he admitted to this in many
(17:14):
public interviews and also in private. He did not suffer
fools gladly. He never hid that he was the smartest
in the room. And he suffered from something that people
who are like that often suffer from. He could not
understand why it was not clear to everybody that this idea,
whether it was his idea or somebody else's, was the
best one. It was obviously the best one. Well, people
(17:35):
don't necessarily perceive things as quickly as Jimmy Carter did.
Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer and a small businessman
and the governor of Georgia. He had more smarts in
that head than the three presidents before him and the
three presidents after him combined. And his one fatal tragic
(17:57):
flaw was he could not hide that. He could not
just smile with those giant teeth of his and nod
and then say something unfortunate off camera. Now he stood
behind everything he did and everything he said, and America,
(18:20):
which claims to believe in standing behind everything you say
in everything you do, punished him for it. Now, it
is interesting that the remaining reasonable people of the other
party would agree with this. There is no doubt that
Jimmy Carter had the best post presidency of any president
in the nation's history. Now, the competition for this is
(18:44):
kind of minimal because very few presidents live for forty
three years nearly after their presidency's end. At least many
of the early ones did not. His post presidency, including
advocacy for international representative government, a willingness to travel to
(19:07):
places I wouldn't even spell correctly, to go and try
to make sure the elections were fair, and his willingness
to get out a hammer and build somebody a home
underscored who this man was. He was the greatest president
since mtr and we did not re elect him because America,
(19:31):
and if you have not noticed this since November fifth,
is largely made up of stupid people, the Reagan Bush
Trump people. Now why I got the privilege of calling
him a friend in two thousand and eight at the
Denver Democratic National Convention, the one that nominated Obama. That
(19:54):
made that official. I was co anchoring with Chris Matthews
on MSNBC. Yes, I know it was. I haven't been
able to even say the s correctly since then have I.
I was co anchoring with Chris Matthews on MSNBC and
Chris Matthews when it was announced Jimmy Carter was going
to come over to our location near the train station.
(20:14):
Because of course, MSNBC's idea of covering the Democratic National
Convention was that its co anchor should never actually be
inside the convention. There was just a room with people
in it who wanted to watch that. So we were
set up by the train station out under a tent
I digress. When it was announced that Jimmy Carter would
(20:37):
be coming over to be interviewed by Chris Matthews and
I one afternoon during the convention, I was like, oh
my god, I'm going to meet a former president, the
first one of my adult life. Goodness. Matthews then began
to tell stories about Jimmy Carter's good friend, Jimmy Carter,
Jimmy Carter, my good friend I used to work for.
I used to advise me. In a minute, it sounded
(20:59):
like when we used to have reel to reel tape
and it would begin to run out at the end,
and the thing would speed up in somebody's voice would
just kind of start a faster pastor president. That was
Chris Matthews when he got over excited as opposed to
the normal level of just slightly over excited. Well, his
good friend Chris matthews good friend Jimmy Carter came over
(21:20):
and basically ignored Chris Matthews and said to me off camera,
but with Matthew standing next to me, that he watched
Countdown every night. Now, my opinion about his presidency was
formed before he said that, but it wasn't hurt by
the fact that he said this. The thought of such
(21:42):
a thing, and I did not tell him that Ted
Kennedy also watched Countdown every night. I didn't want to
bring that up, but the thought of such a thing
was still one of the pinnacles. In fact, where do
I go from here moments of my career? It's a
president of the United States. There, I know he didn't
get reelected. He watches my newscast. But then he went on,
(22:02):
he said, we watch it. My wife and I watch
it with the kids. In fact, several of them usually
come over every night at eight o'clock so we can
all watch it together. Now I'm beginning to wonder if
I am getting pranked, if there's the cameras that are
around us are in fact rolling, and President Carter has
(22:23):
for some reason decided to play a trick on me
to see what my reaction is. If I will faint,
or if my head will swell to such proportions that
it will burst. If the President goes on to say,
we can't all be together. We tend to watch it
(22:43):
and talk to each other on the phone during the commercials.
That's how much we enjoy your newscast. I have disagreed
with many of your conclusions, but never your process. By
this point I had lost the ability to speak. That
he had a little further surprise for me. When it
(23:08):
nears eight o'clock and the phone rings, I know that
it's one of my kids or one of my grandkids,
explaining that they're a little delayed somewhere. So let's hold off.
They'll be home in nine or ten minutes, so let's
just pause. I believe it was still a t bow
at that point, or a DVR. Let's just pause that
(23:28):
until we can all watch it simultaneously. Jimmy Carter was
not just a fan of Countdown. He was a super fan.
And then he said, and the final note to this
and the reason that he has been in my heart
(23:49):
since that moment. I had always been fond of him
and his presidency and what he stood for, and the
fact that he might have been our last ultimately principled
man in the office. After this, with me gasping for
breath inside at least trying to put up a brave
(24:11):
face and saying thank you more than I have anytime
in my life, President Carter then asked, saying that his
wife regretted that she could not be with him for
this interview. She had a speaking engagement during the convention
orhether otherwise she would have been there to meet me.
(24:33):
She said, Keith, do you mind if if we take
a picture so I can show her? And of course,
at that moment, Chris Matthews rose and moved into the shot,
and President Carter, with a big smile on his face, said,
(24:57):
we'll get a shot another time. This is for Rosalind.
This just Keith me, Jimmy Carter the best president since FDR.
And if you disagree with me on that point, I
think you may agree with me that he probably also
was the funniest president since FDR. Also, of interest, here,
(25:26):
thank you, Chris, will get you next time. Also of
interest here in a world that just got at least
one percent worse, even though the man who died had
not been president for sixteen thousand and fifty days. I
was not kidding about that earlier reference. The plea bi
legal scholars who have written even now that there is
a means to at least protest the return of an
(25:47):
insurrectionist to an office once held by Jimmy Carter might
as well just have put a pile of human feces
on the chair. Even now, these legal experts, constitutional scholars,
in fact, former clerks at the Supreme Court, insists there
(26:10):
is a means to at least protest the return of
Trump to power, that Democrats need to just do what's
right for once and damn the consequences, at least say no,
even if yes is going to win. They say that
when the Supreme Court made up a requirement last year
(26:31):
earlier this year for a legislation to disqualify a presidential
candidate or president who is connected to a rebellion, the
Supreme Court missed something. Alito actually slept on the job.
It did not realize that that required legislation is already
in place and that if they could do it, they
(26:52):
could legally and peacefully deny Trump the presidency. That's next.
This is countdown. President Carter would have looked at the
headlines as Trump continues to threaten wars of aggression to
(27:14):
annex Greenland or Mexico or Canada, or maybe it's somewhere
else like Mars. I haven't checked in the last hour,
headlines like Musk threatening Maga and Maga turning on Ramaswami.
While Biden reportedly thinks he would have beaten Trump, President
Carter would have pointed to this story as the most
(27:34):
important one. Two legal scholars and former Supreme Court clerks
insist that a week from today, Democrats in the House
must refuse to certify Trump's election because the specific legislation
to disqualify him for insurrection, the legislation the Supreme Court
made up and demanded in this year's fourteenth Amendment case.
(27:56):
That legislation already exists. By the way, a week from
today is January sixth. I will say what I said
previously on this topic. There are not enough words. There
is not enough time left in eternity for me to
(28:16):
completely cover how much this is not going to happen.
But on the Washington focused news site The Hill, the
former editor in chief of the Columbia Law Review and
Justice Potter Stuart Clerk Evan Davis, and the former editor
in chief of the Yale Law Journal and Justice Potter
(28:36):
Stuart Clerk. David Shulty insists that no matter what the
Supreme Court says, and no matter what the consequences might be,
Trump has already been disqualified from federal office under the
fourteenth Amendment and Article two of the Constitution gives the
House the sole authority to confirm a presidential election outcome
(28:57):
or not. And I will add that while I can't
tell you how much this is not going to happen,
it would be nice to see Democrats do something, something,
anything at all, just to peacefully protest what a failed
and useless shit show the government at its supposed protections
(29:17):
against dictatorships and authoritarians and foreign influence on our government
has become, and what a hapless and flaccid vessel the
Democratic Party has become in the wake of Trump's treacherous
conspiracies to transform and subvert what was our clunky but
largely functional form of representative government in you know, the
(29:39):
good old days of your like you know, twenty thirteen
and fourteen, to transform it from that time into a
subsidiary of Trump or Musk enterprises. You know America X
in their Peace for the Hill, Davis and Schilty do
(30:00):
not put it this way, but goddamn it, Democrats, your
response to this is as telling and cringing a confirmation
of one party rule as would be any threat from
Steve Bannon or any goose honk from Maria Bartiromo. And
until this hour your response to this has been the
shrug emoji quote. No person shall hold any office civil
(30:26):
or military under the United States or under any State, who,
having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution of
the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion
against the same, or given aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. Congress may, by a vote of two thirds
of each House, remove such disability. And what about the
(30:51):
Supreme Court's interference in the constitution Last March in the
Colorado case Anderson, you may recall Colorado had thrown Trump
off the ballot there because the fourteenth Amendment says you
can't be president if you've engaged in or give an
aid or comfort to an insurrection or rebellion engaged, not
(31:12):
that you've been convicted or imprisoned for doing so. Engaged.
It's automatic that the Constitution specifically provides a legal requirement
not to prove guilt of insurrection and disqualification, but to
disprove it. Namely, that the Congress may waive the insurrection
disqualification of anybody, even Trump, by a two thirds vote.
(31:36):
Tells you what the founders had in mind, and the
authors of the amendment. You are guilty until proven innocent.
But Sam Alito's all you can eat fascist buffet conveniently
made up a requirement that reverses what the Constitution says.
Alito's quote court unquote insists that there must be specific
(32:00):
legislation to keep Trump or anybody else off the ballot
or out of office. And Messrs Davis and Sheilton say,
all right, fine, guess what. That doesn't happen to be
the case, but let's pretend that is the case. There
has to be a specific piece of legislation to keep
Trump out of office. And they say there already is,
(32:22):
to quote them, specific legislation designed for this situation already exists.
The Electoral count Act, was first enacted in eighteen eighty
seven and later amended and restated in twenty twenty two.
That statute provides a detailed mechanism for resolving disputes as
to the validity of electoral College votes. The Act specifies
(32:44):
two grounds for objection to an electoral vote, if the
electors from a state were not lawfully certified, or if
the vote of one or more electors was not regularly given.
A vote for a candidate disqualified by the Constitution is
plainly in accordance with the normal use of the words
(33:05):
not regularly given. Disqualification for engaging an insurrection is no
different from disqualification based on other constitutional requirements, such as
age citizenship from birth and fourteen years residency in the
United States. To make an objection under the Count Act
requires a petition signed by twenty percent of the members
(33:26):
of each House. If the objection is sustained by majority
vote in each house, the vote is not counted, and
the number of votes required to be elected is reduced
by the number of disqualified votes. In other words, the
legislation that is required is the Count Act. It's the
Electoral Count Act of twenty twenty two, once again not
(33:50):
going to happen. The only people in this country who
actually believe Trump and MAGA and the Republicans got a
mandate two months ago and must be obeyed are the
craziest of his supporters, and maybe Trump himself, and of
(34:12):
course Joe Scarborough and most PTSD adduled Democratic politicians. Trump
is guilty of insurrection and cannot be president did not
work as a campaign slogan this year, so the Democrats
are now afraid to say it, let alone act on it.
(34:32):
Let alone act on it by taking a risk, Let
alone taking a risk for something that ultimately will be
purely symbolic. Oh no, Now, I'm not standing up for
the constitution or the truth or reality or the future
restoration of democracy in this country because in our next
election somebody will run against me by throwing my objection
(34:55):
back in my face and calling me a sore loser.
Oh no, sorry, that was Ted lu the congressman who
called those who claim Trump is disqualified from office because
of the twenty twenty one insurrection quote sore losers. Democratic congressman,
sore losers wouldn't want to be sore about the electoral
process being overthrown by someone whose first plan is to
(35:17):
make it easier for him to then sue you for
claiming the electoral process was overthrown. Wouldn't want to stand
for something, even in a losing cause. Wouldn't want to
put up a protest to protect your preferred form of
government when the other guys, with not even one one
millionth of the constitutional validity behind them, decided they needed
(35:38):
to protect their preferred form of government and fabricated out
of whole cloth the African prince spam email equivalent of
a legal theory of nullifying an election, and to enforce it,
they sent a mob to try to kill or take
hostage anybody who got in their way while they were
at the effing capital four years ago. Next Monday, you know,
(36:06):
the day the Republicans stuck to the peaceful transfer of
power and we're not sore losers. The Davis Shilty article was,
for what it is worth, the most popular piece at
the Hill website. Normally that kind of fact is irrelevant
to the public discourse, but since the essence of the
piece is, maybe you could do what's right rather than
(36:28):
just what you think you can get away with without
getting your hands dirty. Maybe you could be just a
little aggressive rather than maintaining the new democratic mantra of
they go low, we go high. You'll see the electorate
will give us a golf clap and then reward us
with landslide victories forever. This distribution of the article suggests
(36:50):
that the other way, the way in which Trump's entire
existence what can I get away with? Does not produce
a Trump resistance predicated on don't say anything about it,
trump is getting away with it does not permit a
judicial response predicated on how can we disfigure the law
on the Constitution so Trump can get away with it?
(37:10):
Does not permit a media environment predicated on let's look
at our latest polling showing how well Trump is getting
away with it. That there is an alternate to this.
There is something akin to Henry la Boucher's comment about
the imperious holier than thou nineteenth century British Prime minister
William Gladstone, that well, la Boucher did not object to
(37:35):
Gladstone's habit of hiding a fifth ace up his sleeve.
Laba Cher did object to Gladstone's repeated insistence that the
fifth ace had been put up his sleeve by Almighty God,
that there is a philosophy that we could adopt that says,
(37:58):
no matter the consequences, somebody somewhere, at some point has
to say, I don't care if you got away with it,
you still stole it, that that philosophy shall not perish
(38:18):
from the earth. I will confess that, despite my clenched fists,
(38:47):
and despite my taking a page from the late President
Carter's attitude towards such things, I also like the completely
opposite approach to the certification next week of King Dumbass.
The first, namely let them fight. The Democrats, as you know,
(39:10):
disappeared just after midnight on November sixth, And the group
that has done more damage to Maga and Trump than
even revivified punch throwing Democrats could even dream of is
Maga and Trump and Musk and Ramaswami, the Schwam as
(39:33):
we call him. If somehow you missed this, Musk told
the nativist, racist, anti immigrant Magabase to quote take a
big step back and quote f yourself in the face, which,
(39:57):
to be honest, I always thought was a Robert F.
Kennedy junior quote, take a big step back and f
yourself in the face. Somebody's Ketaman arrived on time. This,
(40:19):
I think is the ten thousandth time I have said this.
The democracy abides, not so much because of the exertions
of those of us who want to preserve it as
the utter stupidity of those who would destroy it. Now,
I am not going to try to recap every part
of the Maga Civil War, except to mention the two
newest developments, which, like the old developments, each reminds me
(40:42):
of exactly the same comedy bit Dave Chappelle as Clayton Bigsby,
the sightless KKK member who had never learned he was black.
That's Maga, that's everybody in Maga. That's Trump, that's Musk,
that's Ramaswami, that's all of them. The new developments. After
(41:03):
spending forty four billion dollars to turn Twitter into an
asset for Putin and China and Trump and a haven
for Nazis and a place he himself can write f
yourself in the face in caps, Musk yesterday pleaded, please
post a bit more positive, beautiful or informative content on
this platform. That's stupid, even for him. What could be
(41:31):
even more stupid than that? Ramaswami yesterday posted and affirmative Action,
America is the land of meritocracy, let me do it
Ramaswami's voice, and affirmative Action America's land for meritocracy. True.
If by meritocracy mister Hairdoo means not merely selling the
(41:52):
snake oil but running up the stock price of the
snake oil company to make countless millions before it all collapses,
that's a meritocracy. Also, even after this weekend, it is
not clear to that genuinely stupid man that the vast
majority of his fascist supporters believed that he vivet Ramaswami
is where he is because and only because of affirmative action.
(42:18):
For a while, I was trying to figure out which
was true here, Whether Musk and Ramaswami were not aware
that when the maggots said they wanted all foreigners out,
they meant all of them, except maybe Musk and Ramaswami,
but certainly the kinds of foreigners that Musk and Ramaswami
wanted to hire and bring here on H one B
(42:39):
employment visas. I've been trying to figure out whether it
was that or that the MAGA rank and file on
scum and vermin did not realize that when Trump promised
to round up and expel all migrants. He meant all
migrants except the ones that he and Musk and Ramaswami
want to hire and bring into this country. The answer,
(43:01):
of course, is why can't it be both? Because it
is both, because they are all Clayton Bigsby. Conveniently, Trump
has ratcheted up a notch here by revealing he appears
to have been involved in aiding illegal immigration, that is,
immigration that violates immigration law. He told the New York Post, quote,
(43:24):
I have many H one B visas on my properties.
Not only did Trump repudiate H one B visas during
the twenty sixteen campaign, but the H one B visa
is exclusively for specialty occupations and foreign applicants who have
expertise that cannot be found, or at least cannot be
found easily among Americans who are already here. Think nuclear engineers,
(43:49):
not grounds keepers. Tending to the first hole where Ivana
is buried at Trump's Gulf Rama in Bedminster, New Jersey.
H one bees Less, Carl Speckler, more Werner Van Prau,
unclear who will fire whom here, though Bannon has called
(44:12):
Musk a toddler and my god it's happened to Bannon
is finally right about something. But Musk and Trump now
cannot coexist because Musk seems to think Trump will let
him decide things like this, and Musk's behavior is getting
even more deranged than Trump's, and Trump has got to
realize this. Musk has now, in addition to all this
(44:35):
telling people to f themselves in the face while then
asking for a more beautiful content, He has now written
an editorial supporting those German AfD neo nazis an actual
newspaper editorial, and the first rule of Trump Neo Nazi
club is say whatever you want, just remember never write
it down. Never write it down, Elmo. Meanwhile, Ramaswami, of course,
(45:02):
sees the opportunity to become other Musk. This raises the
delightful prospect of what happens to Musk and his influence
when he and Trump split or at least distance themselves
from one another. I mean, maybe Musk does wind up
as Speaker of the House. God knows. Mike Johnson is
now one vote away from being thrown off the bridge
(45:24):
of death. African or European swallow my Mike Johnson impression.
Back to seizing the Panama Canal and moving it to
(45:44):
Greenland or whatever the latest non forever war. Trump is
ginning up. Hard to believe the media could get more
complicit in the coming fascism. But yeah, you know, that's
one area in which they all appear to be hiring.
New York Times. Trump showed that his America First philosophy
(46:05):
has an expansionist dimension by calling for or asserting US
control over the Panama Canal and Greenland. An expansionist dimension,
that's what it is like, you know, Hitler's expansionist dimension. CNN.
(46:27):
Trump is teasing US expansion into Panama, Greenland, and Canada.
By Steve Contorno, Trump appears to be entertaining an American
territorial expansion that, if he's serious, would rival the Louisiana
purchase or the deal that netded Alaska from Russia. Yes,
(46:52):
that's exactly what it's like. It's like the Louisiana purchase
where we sent the French money for Louisiana and the French. Okay,
it's like the purchase of Alaska from Russia, not like
(47:14):
Hitler marching into the Rhineland. It's it's expansion, like we're
adding two teams to our league. What it is is
it's more media ass kissing. That's what it is, coming
from shock of shocks, the fatally compromised CNN and it's
(47:37):
new chairman, Scott Jennings. I made that up. Scott Jennings
is not the chairman of CNN. But you believed it,
didn't you. And while we are on the subject of
kissing Trump's ass I'd like to just say to hell
with Alvin Bragg. Yes that Alvin Bragg. I repeat, I
(48:00):
am completely opposed to the targeted assassinations of any buddy,
especially in my neighborhood. It's murder and it should be
prosecuted as such, and Alvin Bragg should resign. Today Alvin
Bragg has added a charge of first degree murder in
(48:22):
furtherance of terrorism. Trump's insurrectionists attacked the capital of the
United effing States of America, and none of them has
been charged with anything resembling terrorism. And again, not to defend,
nor encourage, nor excuse Luigi Mangione's presumed shooting of Brian
(48:47):
Thompson around the corner from my house. But guess when
it isn't terrorism. Remember when I said I really hope
they didn't do any polling on this murder because part
of me was afraid of what it would show. Turns
out should have been all of me that was afraid
Nork and Orc. The posters at the University of Chicago
(49:11):
asked who bears responsibility for the assassination. Eight out of
ten Americans said the assassin allegedly that is mister Mangione.
Eight out of ten said he bears a great deal
or some responsibility. Can't sneak anything past the American public
eight out of ten. Seven out of ten, however, said
denials of coverage and excessive profits mean the healthcare industry
(49:34):
bears at least a moderate amount of responsibility for the
death of Brian Thompson. Seven out of ten is not terrorism.
It's a vast majority. And if you are Alvin Braggan,
you have decided this is the place to test out
the what about the corporations? Won't anybody think about the
corporations terrorism bonus clause law? You are knowingly or otherwise
(49:59):
doing it as a sop to Trump and his minions,
because this is Trump logic. Try to hang or shoot
or beat to death politicians and their husbands who disagree
with Trump, not terrorism, shoot corporate executives so detached from
morality that seven out of ten Americans think that to
some degree they had it coming. That's terrorism if you're Trump,
(50:26):
or if you're trying to save your own ass and
you are Alvin Pragg. I will note that District Attorney
Bragg and Judge Van Mere Shawn also both stealthily slow
walk the sentencing of Trump before the election. I don't
know if it would have made a difference in the
(50:48):
election or not, but I think it is pretty clear
now that they both were confident it would make a
difference in how much vengeance Trump would seek against them.
So to hell with them both. Speaking of which worst
persons is next? Spoiler alert, it's Jank Yuger. Does this
(51:09):
countdown with Keith Olberman Aberman? Believe it or not, There's
(51:37):
still more new idiots to talk about before we close
this one out. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, Morons,
and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's other worst
persons in the world, The Brons worse Two unidentified men
from Washington State. What did you do for Christmas? How
(51:57):
did you spend Christmas Eve? These guys went out looking
for sasquatch. They're not living anymore. Actually they died in
Washington State. They were from Oregon. A fifty nine year
old and a thirty seven year old unidentified as we
(52:19):
recorded this, appeared to have died from exposure. According to
the Scamania County Sheriff's Office at a Facebook post from
the Associated Press story, the weather and the men's lack
of preparedness led the office to draw that conclusion. It
said they went out looking for sasquatch in a heavily
(52:42):
wooded area of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Coincidentally, talking
about best presidents and funniest presidents, that would be Gifford
Pinchow was the head of the first Department of Interior
under Teddy Roosevelt. So this is one hundred and fifty
miles northeast of Portland, Oregon. A family member reported the
(53:03):
missing at around one am on Chris Day, after they
failed to return from their Christmas Eve outing. They said
they were looking for sasquatch. Apparently they went out into
the woods on Christmas Eve wearing overcoats. I'm inferring that
from the story. I don't know that it was overcoats.
It might have been sweaters. Sixty volunteer search and rescue
(53:26):
personnel helped in the three day search, canine teams, drone teams,
ground teams, infrared technology to search from the air. Because
we let people like this out in public, Let's go
find sasquatch. Now you're dead. Is Sasquatch there? And we
(53:49):
have all the pious Oh what a tragedy. It's they
went looking for sasquatch. The runner up, mary Anne Williamson.
I don't know her attitude about Sasquatch, but I wouldn't
be a bit surprised she is running for Chairman of
the Democratic National Committee because this is not enough of
(54:10):
a hell for us. What fresh hell is this? It's
one in which Mary Anne Williamson wants to be the
chair of the Democratic National Committee. MAGA is a distinctly
twenty first century political movement, and it will not be
defeated by a twentieth century toolkit. Data analysis, fundraising, field
organizing and beefed up technology. While all are important, will
(54:31):
not be enough to prepare the way for the Democratic
victory in twenty twenty four and beyond. That's why I
have decided to run for DNC chair this year. Writes
Mary Anne Williamson. So what else is there going to
be besides data analysis, fundraising, field organizing, beefed up technology.
What do you got, Marianne, Crystals, vibes. We've tried crystals
(54:52):
and vibes, but you got you got Sasquatch, your Democratic
nominee in twenty twenty eight. Sasquatch. We found him. As
we're continuing to build the memorial for those two men
who died just after Christmas in twenty twenty four, when
they went out looking, they found him. Because of those men,
that idiot Olderman, remember him, He made fun of them.
(55:14):
Now we've made seven hundred foot tall monuments to them
in the forests in Washington State. I have mentioned this before.
Somebody tried to set me up on a date at
Mary Anne Williamson's request. With Mary Ann Williamson, I have
described to you in my personal life and the many,
many bad choices I have made, that was one of
(55:35):
the good choices. Pew pew pew. Those are all the
bullets that I avoided in that one. And speaking of
which in a different context, no dating involved here, but
bullets ducked are winner Jank Huger, who did some sort
of panel discussion with Charlie Kirk because sure, let's negotiate
(55:58):
with them. Joe Scarborough would not have sat down with
Charlie Kirk. Jank. I have to admit I underestimated the
tribalism on our side. These people are fascists. It's not
tribalism to oppose fascists. We spilled the blood of what
five hundred thousand Americans in the Second World War fighting fascists.
(56:22):
That's not tribalism. It was self defense. I thought once
people realized that I am defending left wing positions in
front of right wing crowds, they would understand that's not
selling out, that's the opposite. But no, most seem to
think just the mere act of talking to the other
side is an unbearable heresy. This is because it's an
unbearable heresy. The only thing you get from them in
(56:43):
talking to them is the possibility that one of them
might say something stupid that you can then put on
your show, which they will then clip and alter in
such way to make you look stupid. We should never
talk because that's appeasement, etc. Yes, it's appeasement. It's exactly
the same thing. Jank. The fact that people can't see
(57:07):
how crazy that sounds shows you how thick the bubbles are.
The bubbles are in your bloodstream. Jank see a physician.
On and on and on this rationalization for Jank Huger,
who has taken every political position available for the last
twenty years loudly and with absolute certainty and bashed everybody
(57:30):
who disagreed with him, is now telling us that the
key to this is to exchange ideas with Charlie Kirk.
Let me explain briefly Jank Huger. At MSNBC, I think
we had him on once and I listened to him
and realized that what he was talking about and what
(57:51):
had actually happened were not the same things. I said,
we don't put him on again. Somebody at MSNBC, I
believe it was Phil Griffin hired him as a guest
host or invited him in as a contributor, and I
remember himing around my office waiting for me to come
out so he could meet me. And I was literally
in that position of having to leave to go to
(58:13):
the bathroom. And I held it in later at Current TV,
where I tried to hire first Rachel Maddow. Well, okay,
It was an idea, as I said to her, look
at least, said to her through her agent, who had
been my agent. At least you'll get more money out
of it from NBC. Little did I know, And when
(58:37):
that didn't work out, I had an idea for a
show at nine o'clock, an extension of Countdown with Chris
Hayes and Gene Robinson. Those are the people I wanted
to hire. The guy that Al Gore's business partner, Joel
Hyatt hired was Jank Huger. When Jank Huger was hired,
I gathered my staff together and I said, I think
(58:58):
I think they spent all the money on me this.
If you guys want to start looking for work, I
will not hold it against you. I will write you
all letters of reference. I think I said to them
in Whenever. That was July of twenty eleven. I think
we have eight to twelve months, but I'm not sure
(59:19):
they got rid of me. I believe eight months from
that point. And if there's any further information about Jank Yuger,
you need to know a lot of people are paying
attention to Jink right now. He's having a moment and
then a reposting of that. I have to admit I
underestimated the tribalism on our side. A lot of people
(59:41):
are paying attention to Jank right now. He's having a moment,
signed former Congressman Matt Gates, showing an interest in something
other than a seventeen year old girl for the first
time in months. Jank, when Matt Gates is on your side,
you're on your way out. He's not having a moment.
(01:00:01):
What he's having is an episode. Uger two days other
worst person than the world. I've done all the damage
(01:00:34):
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Shank Huger,
Holy crap. Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel, the musical
directors of Countdown Arranged, produced and performed most of our music.
I never ascertained by the way, whether or not Current
TV paid Jank Huger or it was the other way around.
Brian and John Phillip Chanel Arrange produced and performed most
(01:00:55):
of our music. Mister Chaneil on orchestration and keyboards, mister
Ray on guitars, bass and drums. It was produced by
Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by
the best baseball stadium organist ever Nancy Faust. The sports
music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by
Mitch Warren Davis courtesy ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and
(01:01:15):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today
was my friend Larry David doing his impression of the
late announcer a Yankee Stadium, Bob Shepard. Everything else was
as ever, my fault. That's countdown for today, Just eighty
three days until the scheduled end of the lane duck
presidency of Trump. Probably the next scheduled countdown will be
(01:01:38):
next Monday, because it's New Year's As always, bulletins is
the news warrants till next time. I'm Keith Ouldraman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, good luck, and Happy New Year.
(01:02:10):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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