November 5, 2024 • 45 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 65: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Well what do you THINK this episode is about?
There are plenty of polls, interior numbers, and tea leaves to read (see "Marist Poll," see Univision polls of Hispanics in Pennsylvania, see Harris outperforming Biden and Hillary in key demos). But if you want to know how this campaign is wrapping up it's way simpler.
The Trump-Vance closing argument: misogyny and violence against women. Trump says Mike Tyson should step into the ring against her. And after a week of trying to deny their comedian's "garbage" remarks had anything to do with their campaign, then trying to turn "garbage" into a bloody shirt attack on their own supporters, the night before the election, the world's most smug sexist J.D. Vance undid all of that by calling her "trash."
The public polls all look very good for Kamala Harris. The private polls the Trump people see? They must've decided their only chance is to get every last hateful white guy to vote for him - because nobody else is.
B-Block (26:54) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Politico's "Who Won The Day?" is a new high in low. Kari Lake explains her polling is better because she mixes in A.I., and Herschel Walker endorsed Trump. Or did he?
C-Block (33:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Solely because at times of stress it always gives me great joy to re-tell the story of how I met my friend the late actress Elizabeth Montgomery, and how she promptly pranked my parents.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
Got good news and I Got bad news. The bad
(00:27):
news is we are finally here. We are staring into
the abyss. The good news is the abyss that the
Trump cult is staring into is way worse. The polls
and especially the interior numbers in the polls show it
and more. Obviously, the behavior down the stretch of Trump
(00:48):
and Vance and their surrogates and their staffers is in freefall.
The closing argument of the Trump Dvance campaign hemorrhaging women
voters as it is is misogyny, especially violence towards women.
Was ruminating about former heavyweight championship boxer Mike Tyson, a
(01:08):
convicted rapist himself who served three years in prison for that,
when he picked up on somebody's suggestion that Tyson should
physically fight Vice President Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Mike, Mike's went through a lot, but he could fight.
Let me tell you that I could fight. But can
you imagine Mike, Oh, he says, put Mike in the
ring with Kamala Nelbant.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
That was less than four days after Trump suggested Liz
Cheney should face nine guns pointed at her face firing
at her. And before you could finish processing that murderous brutality, JD. Vance,
possibly the most condescending sexist in America, went after the
vice president in a different way, with potentially just as
(01:56):
much violence in its imagery.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
But in two.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Days, we are going to take out the trash in Washington,
d C. And the trash's name is Kamala Harris. The
Trump campaign had devoted an entire week to insisting that
it's comedian who called Puerto Rico garbage did not speak
for Trump. Then it tried to turn the word garbage
into a bloody shirt attack on its own supporters. Now,
(02:20):
on election Eve, Vance just ruined the entirety of that
week long argument and called Kamala Harris trash. If you
saw good internal polling numbers, if you saw fair internal
polling numbers, if you saw internal polling numbers that were
not some kind of irrevocable disaster, even the least disciplined
(02:45):
campaign in the history of this nation would still have
managed to shut its two lead idiots up for one day,
the one day before the election. It didn't. That's because
it didn't see any good internal polling numbers. What we
saw was the ABS NPR Marris poll, with Harris head
(03:07):
by four nationally, and more importantly, there are those interior numbers.
In that poll, Harris has cut Trump's lead among men
from sixteen points last month to four points now, and
having cut Trump's essential argument that he is stronger on
the economy to a one point deficit now. A week ago,
the Fox News polls of the swing States showed her
(03:30):
within two to six points of Trump on the economy.
Focal Data, the British company that pulled thirty thousand Americans
over a month Mega polls the way they do them
in the UK, put out swing state numbers yesterday. She's
up by five in Michigan. She's up by three in Wisconsin.
She's up by two in Pennsylvania. She's up by one
(03:50):
in Nevada. She's tied in North Carolina, down by one
in Arizona and Georgia. Three other sets of interior numbers
inside the Times Siena pole of the swing states from Sunday,
Harris continued to get three out of every five late
deciders in that poll. It was have you decided in
(04:13):
the last few days? And fifty eight percent of them
were saying yes. I have and I voted for Kamala Harris.
In the demographics that will decide the Blue Wall states,
so called, Harris is uniformly doing better than Biden did
in twenty twenty and Hillary did in twenty sixteen. In
voters sixty five and older, she is either ahead by
(04:34):
a couple or trailing by a couple, depending on which pole.
Obama lost that group by nine points in twenty twelve.
She is comfortably far ahead among women voters, and the
next largest demo in those blue Wall swing states, non
college educated whites, is showing her trailing Trump, but by
only twenty seven points, and yes, twenty seven points only
(04:57):
it is only Biden lost non college educated whites by
thirty one points, Hillary lost him by thirty three. And
we are now only now getting a measurement of the
true impact of the disaster. At Trump's Madison Square Garden
Nazi rally two weekends ago, Unevisione polled Hispanic voters in Pennsylvania.
(05:22):
There are about half a million of them. They are
breaking for Harris sixty four to thirty now, and those
specifically of Puerto Rican heritage go for her sixty seven
to twenty seven. In short, Trump has lost eighteen percent
of his Hispanic support from twenty twenty and all of
his supposed gains in this campaign. And yes, eighty nine
(05:45):
percent of Hispanic voters in that poll by Unevisione had
heard quote a remark referring to Puerto Rico as a
floating island of garbage eighty nine percent, sixty percent had
heard a lot about it. How does Trump have any
remaining support among Hispanics? Out from the October New York
(06:06):
Times Siena Pole asking Hispanic voters if when Trump talks
about problems with immigration, they feel as if he is
talking about them, sixty three percent say no, he's not
talking about me. The number among voters under age thirty
zooms to seventy one percent who say no, he's not
talking about me. He'd never eat my face. What we
(06:29):
do not have is an updated version of that demographic
after the Madison Square Garden garbage remarks. My guess is
it's only a guess that what is going on inside
the Trump campragn right now. That could have made somebody think.
Having jd Vance call Kamala Harris trash the night before
(06:49):
the election, while the line to get into her rally
was a mile and a quarter long, and there were
no lines of any kind at Trump's rallies. I'm just
guessing this has something to do with those Hispanic interior nones,
and the Trump camp is presumably also seen another round
of terrible numbers among women after a brief rebound for Trump.
(07:12):
As Ron philip Kowski noted, a round of MAGA influencers
all came out with the same belligerent, insistent message by
midday yesterday, white men, you must vote. That would also
explain calling Harris trash and implying Mike Tyson should have
a boxing match with her. Who in the hell would
(07:33):
that appeal to white men and psychopaths and psychopathic white men.
They've also probably seen more and more harrowing data on
a macro level, like what the PBS Marris poll reported
publicly that by last Saturday, fifty five percent of likely
(07:54):
voters said they had already voted, and Harris had fifty
six percent of that vote. Among those who say they
have yet to vote, only fifty three percent said they
intended to vote for Trump. That math, That math doesn't
work for Trump at all. And of course, the other
thing the Trump campaign saw was the beautiful architecture at
(08:15):
the historic Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, yesterday because
the first rally of Trump's last day on the trail
was there and at least thirty percent or more of
its seventy five hundred seats were empty and available to
be appreciated for their mid twentieth century design elements, and
there was no line to get in, And as has
(08:38):
been obvious four weeks, the phenomenon of the Trump rally
has petered out, as has any self discipline among Trump's help.
Jen O'Malley dylan, chair of the Harris campaign, her husband
Patrick tweet's pro tip campaign manager's confident of winning do
not leak their whole CYA case in long form for
(09:01):
the weekend before the election, points to Susie Wiles and
Chris Lasavita for clocking that the Atlantic is not really
at their candidate's literacy level. Though Stephen Chung, official Trump
spokesperson the Guy who says all the wise ass remarks,
responds to this snarky, cynical, mean spirited comment from Jen
(09:26):
O'Malley Dylan's husband by retweeting it with this edition. Kuck,
husband of Kamala chairperson, has no idea what he's talking about,
because he's used to not knowing what's going on behind
his back. First off, mister Chung, I'm sixty five years
(09:47):
old and I'm barely plugged into the internet anymore. And
even I know nobody uses the word cuck anymore and
has it for at least five or six years. Secondly,
you're the spokesman for a presidential candidate. My god, the
two of you have the IQs of waffles. And if
you think that was bad, gen Z democratic influencer Harry
(10:10):
Sisson tweeted and Rob O'Neill, the Trump advocate who claims
he was the guy who killed Ben Laden, He replied,
you remember he's the one who killed Bin Laden, just
him on his own with just a toothbrush or something.
This guy O'Neill responds, The original tweet was a picture
of five of them. We're gen Z voters, wrote Harry Sisson,
(10:31):
and we all proudly voted for Kamala Harris. Real men
support Harris. I'm sorry I'm laughing already. But Captain Bouya
or whatever he calls himself, Robert J. O'Neil, Seal Team
six member, proud shoot him up guy. He retweeted this
(10:53):
and added, you're not men, your boys. If there was
no social media, you would be my concubines. It's a
picture of five guys. What exactly are you revealing here?
(11:14):
Seal Team six guy, it was my friend, the late
genius Bill Goldman who wrote the line for the Princess Bride.
You keep using that word. I do not think it
means what you think it means. Okay, here is your
(11:54):
schedule for today. The Harris campaign is expecting nearly complete
results from Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvany, Virginia,
and Wisconsin by some time late tonight tomorrow morning. Almost
all of Wisconsin and most of the rest incoming from
(12:14):
Michigan and Pennsylvania, but it could be even longer, more
days still for the full results in many key states,
including Pennsylvania. Hour by hour. Georgia polls close at seven PM,
so I would assume Trump declares victory at seven oh one.
Laugh loudly enough that nobody even has to open a
(12:34):
window to hear you. There's a new law in Georgia
requiring counties release their absentee and early votes within an
hour of poll closing, so it's possible Georgia will be
reporting eighty percent of its vote by eight pm Eastern.
Biden won that state by twelve thousand, as you will
remember from Trump's call. If you want to gauge Harris's
(12:56):
chances in Georgia, Cherokee and fortsyth Counties are the Republican bedrocks.
North Carolina closes at seven point thirty. They will be
delayed by a new law demanding counties wait until after
poll's close to tabulate the early, by mail and absentee ballots. Now,
if Harris has pulled off a win in either of
(13:17):
these states, she's almost president. But the big one, of course,
remains Pennsylvania. Polls close at eight o'clock results. Last time,
it was for Friday morning, when Decision Desk HQ called
it for Biden, and the answer to the question how
long could Keith hold his breath? Was Friday morning. This
(13:39):
time they have streamlined the count, but Pennsylvania could easily
not report a winner before mid morning tomorrow Thursday. Maybe.
Michigan and Wisconsin close at nine eastern eight local ten
am tomorrow. In Bali, Arizona also closes at nine eastern.
(13:59):
Iowa also closes at nine eastern. As you have heard her,
polling margins in Michigan and Wisconsin have been growing. Wisconsin
also gets its results out fast. We might hear Wisconsin
first of all states. You know the drill. Harris gets Michigan, Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin ninety nine out of one hundred scenarios are Then
(14:20):
she wins Nevada closes at ten eastern. Other states. If
Harris actually does win Iowa or any other supposedly solid
red state, you will know by that same reference I
made earlier. You would even have to open your window.
You'll just hear the giant sigh of relief sound. Now
(14:42):
all times are subject to modification due to riots by fascists.
To quote Jeffrey Clark, though, well, that's why there's an
Insurrection Act, President Biden. And then the current schedule looking
out into the next six weeks or so is as follows.
There is a new national deadline. It is December eleventh
(15:03):
for governors to certify their state's vote and submit their
slate of electors. One slate of electors per Customer Police.
December seventeenth is the in state electoral college vote. A
vote in each state capital. January sixth, you'd think we'd
(15:23):
have changed the date. That's the certification in the House, which,
if it hasn't been sabotaged by Mike Johnson, should proceed
come hell or high water due to the Updated Electoral
Count Act of twenty twenty two. The variabilities, of course,
are there is an excellent chance the Democrats take the House,
and even if they don't, there is an even more
(15:44):
excellent chance that the Republicans, some of them, will try
to sink Mike Johnson, or there will at least be
a multi day balloting over who should be Speaker of
the House. So certification day could easily take place without
there being a Speaker of the House. Oh, I'm sorry,
I left one critical date out. I'm sorry, November twenty sixth.
(16:08):
November twenty sixth, if the case hasn't been dismissed. That's
the sentencing of Trump on the hush money election interference
case here in New York, two days before the final
Thursday of November. So have a happy Thanksgiving when nor
(16:34):
lose raids the headline atop the op ed in where
else the holy goddamned New York Times When noorlse Jesus H.
Christ on hockey skates. It really says this when nor
lose Trump has already won. I don't know how much
(16:57):
further towards absolute metaphysical both sides of nihilism the New
York Times can get. Maybe they could take out the
word win and just write even in losing, Trump has
already won, or cut right to the chase, win or
lose death has already won. The thing is the piece
when norlouse is actually just drivel about free trade and
(17:21):
immigration and it sounds all serious and changes at the FED,
and it just happens to have a stupid Election Day
headline on it, And then you find out the author
is a founder and editor of Compact Magazine, other whose
editors are Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracy, who have never
as much as rented one ethic between them. So no,
(17:45):
Compact Magazine is not about trash compactors, or not about
ladies portable makeup mirrors or portable makeup mirrors for male anchors.
It would probably be more politically insightful if it were
when norloose Trump has already won. How about win or
(18:07):
lose cancer has already won? Or maybe the New York Times,
and I assume they're just trolling this now, or they
have a bet a tontine as to who gets The
Times when everybody else is no longer subscribed, the last
subscriber gets the paper. I don't know. Maybe the Times
(18:28):
could be honest for once and frame this win or
lose Trump is cancer. It's not only I don't want
anybody fighting cancer or cancer in their family to hurt
because of that reference or this next one. I've been
there more even than twenty twenty. This to me right
now feels like waiting for a biopsy to come back.
So then there are two ways to get through today
(18:51):
and tonight and however long the counting goes on. Keep busy.
If you have a means of contributing to the safety
of polling places, do so. If you need a voter
who needs a ride, provide it. If you have to
make a phone call to get somebody to get out
there and vote, do something. Do you have a podcast. Secondly, yeah,
(19:11):
it kind is a biopsy. Don't assume the worst. Be
prepared for the worst. Make an internal plan of how
to fight back if it breaks that way. If you
don't need that plan, it'll be the happiest day of
your year, if not your life. But also make another
internal plan, because for twenty years now, somebody has asked
me the same question every election, most prominently in two
(19:35):
thousand and eight, when dozens of people, smart, people who
could tie their own shoes and everything, ask me the
same question, don't you really want McCain to win? Don't
you really want McCain as president? I mean, your opposition
to Bush made your news career, it made your network,
it made you your money. Most of these people were
actually shocked, and I answered no, See, I also live
(19:58):
in this country. I'm much more concerned about who's president
than how my ratings bring. And they were even more
shocked by my follow up. Do you think, by the way,
that if they lose, these people are going away? Now?
I don't know what you mean. If McCain loses, it's
all over. Next year we had the Tea Party, and
(20:21):
of course it got worse. If it wasn't clear in
twenty twenty, it's got to be clear to you now.
These people not only do not revere democracy or equality
or America, but they have never lived within democracy or
equality or America. Consider the speaker of the House of
Representatives ten days after the next inauguration. For assuming we
have one, Mike Johnson turns fifty three years old, which
(20:45):
means he was eight years old when Ronald Effing Reagan
was elected and seventeen when Reagan left office, so he's
like fourteen the last day Reagan remembered he was in office.
Rush Limbaugh was already nationally syndicated when Mike Johnson was sixteen.
Mike Johnson graduated college in nineteen ninety five, Fox News
One on the air in nineteen ninety six. Johnson graduated
(21:07):
law school in nineteen ninety eight. Mike Johnson has only
lived in two Americas, one in which repression and white
supremacy and misogyny have been officially enshrined in government, and
the other in which those forces are actively trying to unseat, undermine,
and thwart well truth, justice in the American way. And
(21:32):
Mike Johnson is supposed to be one of the reasonable ones.
Because there are people voting for Donald Trump today who
were nine when he began his first campaign. They don't
know an America without a subculture of boastful stupidity and conspiracy.
They don't know even in America, where it's just George W.
(21:55):
Bush making up terror threats to start wars and win elections.
They only know this shit, So either way, win or lose,
we have to begin to correct this. The question that
(22:16):
will be decided today and the days or weeks to
come is whether or not we will have all the
tools to begin to correct this and do it this time,
or we will be left using our bare hands. By
the way, I don't think it'll be weeks. I think
(22:38):
it's an even bet that it'll be settled tonight, and
I'm serious. Also of interest here, we haven't heard word
one from good old herschel Walker since he lost that
Senate seat in Georgia. Now we know why. Apparently he
had forgotten Donald Trump's name. Do you think I'm kidding?
(22:59):
That's next this Discountdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman
(23:28):
still ahead on this edition of Countdown. On a day's
stress like today, I find it useful to think of
all those who stand behind me, my parents, my ancestors,
my friends of decades, my friends of just a few years.
I like to invoke their memory and the joy they
brought me. There's no reason to bring up one of
them in particular today, but retelling how I met her
(23:49):
always makes me happy, And so the day that actress
Elizabeth Montgomery pranked my parents on their doorstep. Next in
Things I Promised not to tell first, there are still
more new idiots talk about the daily roundup of the
miss Grints, morons and Dunning Kruegerriffet specimens, who constitute two
(24:09):
days most bewitched worst persons in the world, the Bronze
Worst Politico, as the New York Times had to get
one last both sidest absurdity in before the deadline, so
too did Politico. What happened to Trump on Sunday? Do
you remember back that far he said you should shoot
the press, acted like he wouldn't mind if you shot
(24:32):
through the press and shot him. He clearly thought he
was in Pennsylvania when he was really in North Carolina.
He's still getting ripped for pretending to felle a microphone
the day before, still getting ripped for his desire the
day before that to see Liz Cheney shot. He saw
his polls collapse from the previous Sunday's anti Hispanic slur
fest at Madison Square Garden. So late night every night
(24:56):
eleven pm Eastern or so Politico home of editor Ryan Lizza,
the lowest ranked participant in the RFK junior my ex
and Ryan Lizzi scandal. Politico selects who won the day?
So who won the day? On Sunday quote who won
the Day? Trump? Trump won the day because he's still
(25:16):
in a margin of error election after a week filled
with talk of garbage, grievances and hell. Or as the
Times might have put it, win or lose, Trump has
already won. Oh wait, they did put it that way.
Next on Politico's who won the day? Explosive diarrhea because
somebody still has it somewhere, or if Harris wins today?
(25:37):
Who won the day? Trump? Because he finished a strong second.
The runner up worser Carrie Lake, the fascist Senate candidate
from Arizona, losing in the last polls to Reuben Diego
by four or five, six, a couple of unreliable ones
by eight, even the crap Zone Republican polls have are
(25:57):
losing by two or three. But that's not the world,
Carrie Lake lives in. My internal polling looks good good,
she says, We're ahead of my opponent, and I feel
comfortable with our polling. Our polling is a little different.
We take polling, but we also combine it with AI,
(26:18):
which reads all of what's happening on social media and
across the Internet. So Carrie, you use AI to read
the Internet and see what's happening on social media. So
it's your bots recording the opinions of Russian bots about
(26:39):
the Arizona Senate race. Okay, I mean, it never dawned
on me until I read this quote, but it makes sense.
It makes all the sense in the world. You ever
seen one of those carry Lake interviews where she's in
her own studio and she has maybe six gauze filters
over her own camera lens. She looks like she's speaking
(26:59):
to you from a crystal ballune and tell HER's shop Hello,
I'm coming from another world, the world of weekend TV weather. Well,
it never dawn of me if you think about all
those lenses. She must look out at the world through
the back of those same gauze filters. And by the way,
(27:22):
since this may be God willing my last chance to
take a gratuitous shot at her, and she is among
the worst. It hit me the other day, between that
haircut and that voice and that contemptuous attitude of hers
doesn't carry late give off the vibe that she tried
real hard but she just couldn't help it. She bombed
out of Dominatrix School. But finally our winner the worst
(27:48):
He's back, Hershel Walker, father of our nation, almost literally,
the man who appeared to have run for the Senate
in Georgia two years ago because Donald Trump gave him
a lot of money to play for the New Jersey
General's football team. Forty years ago, Walker lost. He kept
all the campaign funds. He's been paying off the lawyers
(28:10):
ever since, and we have not seen him since then
until he came out of wherever he's been to endorse Trump. Well,
I think that's who he endorsed, and.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
It is time for it to stop, and to stop
on Tuesday, when we get to the polls and we
vote from my friend and your friend Donald Trump Junior,
Donald Trump J.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Trump Herschel, I'm Jnald J. Trump jenij approved this message
Walker two days worst person and Elizabeth Montgomery, one of
(29:17):
the most famous actresses of the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies,
star of the TV series Bewitched, daughter of a famous
actor Robert Montgomery, and my friend from early on the
morning of January fourteenth, nineteen ninety two, until she died
in the spring of nineteen ninety five. Our friendship happened
only because of one thing. My sister had given me
(29:40):
a book about one of our favorite topics, the never
to be solved mystery of Lizzie Borden and the Borden
Family Acts murders of eighteen ninety two in Fall River, Massachusetts. Yes,
We're weird. And also the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery had
played Lizzie Borden in a TV movie. So on January fourteenth,
nineteen ninety two, as I sat waiting for our flight
(30:00):
to leave ICJFK Airport in New York from my then
home in Los Angeles, then I began to read from
my airplane seat my sister's gift from the aisle. From
the last one to board, I hear the voice of
Elizabeth Montgomery saying to me, ooh, Keith, you're reading about me.
She was a gas my brief but eternal friendship with
(30:24):
Lizzie Montgomery, and the eternal lesson she taught me in
one moment. Please While I first explained what I was
doing on that flight a month or two earlier, I
had agreed to join ESPN to co host Sports Center
with Dan Patrick starting in late March nineteen ninety two.
I had just finished up three financially rewarding but souls
sucking years at Channel two in Los Angeles, and I
(30:46):
was going to go to Hawaii for three months and
just live are until I felt better. On Monday, December thirtieth,
nineteen ninety one, I had literally just opened my address
book to find the number of a travel agent I
knew to make the Hawaii arrangements. I was reaching for
the phone when the phone rang. It was my business
agent who had just gotten off the phone with my
(31:07):
new ESPN boss, John Walsh. He and they were launching
a new radio network in five days. I found this
interesting but not particularly relevant. ESPN was one thing then
it was one TV network, no magazine, no radio, No
ESPN the O SHO. So this was their first big
move outwards. The radio network would start with only two
(31:29):
seven hour shows on Saturday and Sunday nights, and Walsh
explained to my agent that everything was going great and
they were right on target, and they had great guests
lined up for the first weekend, like Ronald Reagan, and
they only had one tiny problem. They needed three hosts,
and they had two terrific hosts, just terrific hosts, one
Keith worked with named Tony Bruno, and another terrific, just
terrific host from Providence named Chuck Wilson. And they tried
this guy as the third host, and that guy, and
(31:50):
this guy and that guy, and all told, forty different
people had tried out to be hosts. They had nobody,
nobody to be the third host. Who was any good
good Keith just come here just for the first weekend,
just to get it off the ground. Then he can
go back to LA and come back here in March
takeover sports. And please, please please get Keith help us, please,
because if he Canada, what on earth they're going to
do it? Please please please. As I said to my agent,
(32:11):
well all right, I suppose at least way, at least
a ESPN will always think of me as a team player.
So instead of going to Hawaii in January, I go
to Bristol, Connecticut in January, and I go stay at
my folks house outside New York City, and a friend
(32:33):
I had recommended to help ESPN launch their radio network
offers me a ride up to ESPN for the weekend,
and it's like twenty degrees and we get out of
his car and his parking lot, and three spots over
getting out of his car in the parking lot is
Chris Berman, who I went to high school with, and
already in January nineteen ninety two, when I'm not quite
thirty three years old, I already know Chris for twenty years.
(32:55):
And before I can say hey, he screams, listen, we
had a good thing going here, don't if it up.
And I say, good to see you too, Chris, And
I remind myself it's only till Monday. And I meet
the gang, and then I go to the hotel and
the hotel is beige. The walls are beage, the carpets
(33:16):
are page, the guests are beige, the food is beage.
The only thing that isn't beige is the six inches
of snow that falls overnight. And remind myself it's only
till Monday. The launch of the network on Saturday goes well.
They have me interview Ronald Reagan about something in football.
The Sunday Night show is going well too, and we're
trying to figure out where the big baseball free agent
of that winner, Danny Tartable is going to sign. And
(33:39):
we're interviewing Bobby Valentine, who was the manager of the
Texas Rangers, and they were one of the team's rumored
to be a likely landing for Tartable, and I asked Valentine,
he says, no, not anymore. They just canceled their trip.
I was supposed to go meet them at the airport tonight.
I think he signed with somebody else. And the alarm
bells go off in my head and I tell the producer,
let's call everybody we know in baseball and put them
on and figure out where Danny Tartable is going. I
(34:01):
have a source who knows his agent. Let me call him.
We'll go story chase. So we spend four hours following
the story in real time, and it's great radio, and
we're coming up on the last hour and our guests
have helped us eliminate like thirty teams out of twenty eight.
But we're not sure where Tartable is going still, and
the producer says, if only we had his home phone number,
(34:21):
And I look at the producer and go, oh, crap, sorry,
And I grabbed my address book and I explained he
was my co host. Tartable was on some of our
baseball postgame shows in La last I'm sorry, I forgot
I had his number all this time. Hang on, So
I called Danny Tartabule, and just as our last hour
on Sunday Night is starting, he calls me back and
(34:43):
I say to him, look, we know you've decided. It's
all over baseball. It's got to be the Phillies, the Mets,
or the Yankees. And he's saying, correctly, I can't tell you.
And I said, give me one guess and just tell
me if I'm wrong, and I will call you a
source close to the negotiations, that's all. And he says okay,
And I say, is it a team that wears pinstripes?
And of course the Phillies, the Mets, and the Yankees
(35:04):
all wear pinstripe so he laughs and he says yes.
And I say, is it the team I grew up
a fan of? And he says, what team did you
grow up a fan of? And by the way, the
phone call is taking place with me on the floor
of the studio in which the other two hosts are
live on the new radio network. So I whispered as
Tartable if I say it to the Yankees, Am I wrong?
(35:27):
And he says, I can't tell you and starts whispering.
But off the record, the press conference is Wednesday at
Yankee Stadium. Is that enough for you, you bastard? And of
course I said no, come on the show and tell
us come on and he laughs and says I'll see
you Wednesday and hangs up. And I get up and
I sit in the vacant chair and I can say
breaking news. ESPN report now that the free agent outfield
or Danny Tartable, has agreed to a multi year deal
(35:49):
with the New York Yankees. Sources close to the negotiation
say there will be a press conference Wednesday at Yankee Stadium,
and the other hosts are trying not to crack up
because they know I've just been talking too Tartable from
the phone in the same room with them. Well, this
story explodes way more than it deserved. It's a dull
(36:10):
Sunday night. It's still early enough in the evening that
the story makes all the Monday newspapers and it's attributed
not to ESPN or to Sports Center, but to the
brand new ESPN Radio network on its second day in business,
and it's on the front page of USA Today and
the New York Times. New ESPN Radio Network makes splash
with tartabules scoop the next morning, and I can't tell
(36:32):
you how big a deal that was back then in
nineteen ninety two. So now, instead of going back to
LA on Monday and maybe to Hawaii on Tuesday, as
I had planned, I have to go to the press
conference at Yankee Stadium to say hi to Tartable on
Wednesday and sort of thank him for the scoop. And
on Tuesday, this guy, John Walls from ESPN calls me
and my agent says, look, we have to take advantage
(36:54):
of this. It's the best possible start we could have
hoped for for the radio network. Keith has to stay
with us for the next three months. Why doesn't he
stay in and do this weekend and then go back
to LA and pack up apartment, then come back here
the weekend after that.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
And and.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
I say again to my agent, well, at least ESPN
will always think of me as a team player if
I do this a So I am not in Hawaii
and instead I am on board this flight. When Elizabeth
Montgomery walks down the aisle and sees my Lizzie Bordon
book given to me by my sister and says, ooh, Keith,
(37:30):
you're reading about me. Hi, I'm Lizzie Montgomery. I'm a
big fan of yours. Is that seat taken? And I say,
the hell if I care, sit down? And the only
time we're not talking for the next six hours is
when we are drinking. I believe, if I remember this correctly,
they had to send up a champagne refueling flight halfway
to LA And she's a huge sports fan. Her father
(37:52):
was a founder of one of the southern California horse
racing tracks, and she loves the Lakers, and she thinks
she was related to Lizzie Borden. Did I ever see
the European version of her Lizzie Bordon film where they
show the wide shots where they make it look like
she's new And I say, I'm absolutely certain I have not.
And her son and her driver and her rolls Royce
meet us at Lax and she wants me to see
her house, and then her driver and her rolls Royce
(38:15):
will give me a lyft home and oh, by the way,
she's flying back to New York in a week, should
we become flying buddies. On that trip, our flight gets
canceled and we have to find a new one. I'm
hand carrying a lot of my more valuable baseball cards,
including like five hundred different from the year nineteen oh nine,
and she wants to see them, and she wants me
to tell her something about each player while we drink again.
(38:38):
And we land and she says, how you getting to
your folks house? And I say, well, I'm going to
get a car here or something, and she says, no,
you're not. I'll give you a lift in my limo
going right past your house. And sure enough we get there.
And as Lizzie Montgomery's limo is taking me to my
folks house at ten o'clock at night, she says, will
they still be up? Your folks want to play a
(38:58):
practical joke on them. So two minutes later I knock
on the door of my childhood home and my father
opens it instead of seeing me, it's her in the doorway,
and she says, hi, mister Olderman, I'm Lizzie. I'm a
friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play? And
my dad goes silent for the only time I in
my life. And now my mother appears, so Lizzie can
(39:19):
pull the same routine on her. Hi, missus olverman, I'm Lizzie.
I'm a friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play?
And now my mother is silent for the only time
in my life, I might add. I thought Lizzie looked fabulous,
and I looked her up in Hallowell's film Guide, and
I saw she was forty eight, and I thought, boy,
she looks fabulous for forty eight, And then I realized
my math is wrong. She was fifty eight, and she
(39:41):
was a joy. We talked my phone every couple of
weeks after that, and she died three years later of
colon cancer. But she is with me always, and not
just as the proverbial force of nature. Within minutes of
that day we met, January fourteenth, nineteen ninety two, she
bestowed upon me a lesson, an eternal lesson. We were
(40:03):
a little late taking off, and since she had just
loudly introduced herself to me like I didn't know who
she was, anybody on the plane who wasn't sure it
was her was now sure. As we waited to taxi.
Every man on that plane came over and did the
same thing. Oh hi, miss Montgomery, excuse me, and they
give me some sort of nodding acknowledgment, like, hey, how
(40:25):
you doing? As they lean in past me. I was
a big fan of you, witch. I know you must
get asked this a million times a day, but is
there anything I'm so sorry to ask? Could you do
that little nose twitch you used to do in the show?
And she would say, of course, and then she'd do it,
and these men age twenty two one hundred all then
giggle like schoolboys. After the thirtieth or thirty first time
(40:46):
this happened, I say to her, Lizzie, I don't know you,
but I like you a lot already, and your attitude
towards your fans and the nose twitch is wonderful. And
I have to tell you I certainly hope that was
the last of them, because the next one who comes over,
I'm gonna have to strangle him with my bare hands
because I can't take it anymore. And for the only
(41:08):
minutes of all the time I knew her, Elizabeth Montgomery
got very serious and said, oh no, Keith, that is
not the attitude you must have about this remind me
what year did Bewitched go off the air. I had
to guess, nineteen seventy two, and she said, exactly, good, correct,
twenty years ago. And these people have remembered that nose
(41:30):
twitch for twenty years at least bewitched. Keith is not Hamlet,
it is not Arthur Miller, it is not the Godfather,
but they remembered it. This is why you and I
both do what we do for a living. We have
transcended time with what we do for a living, something artistic,
something creative, no matter how small that we have done,
(41:51):
they have remembered it. People do it with you, I'm sure,
and I'm sure they'll continue to. And what you do
then is you say thank you for remembering, as if
they were the only one who ever remembered. Because that's
why we do this, Because they remembered me from twenty
years ago for a stupid little nose twitch. Duly chastised,
(42:16):
I apologized, and the huge, welcoming, conspiratorial, permanent friendship sexy
smile of Elizabeth Montgomery broke across her face like the sunrise,
and she whispered, either that Keith or they saw Bewitched
on cable last week, which means Lizzie gets another check
(42:37):
next week. And she twitched her nose at me and
I will always love her. I've done all the damage
(43:01):
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Follow me
for the podcast videos on Blue Sky YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram, threads,
and Bluetube, but no longer on TikTok. I got banned
forever from TikTok. I shared a satirical anti Trump meme
because TikTok is crap, though their production tools are good.
(43:23):
But enough about me. What are you doing tonight watching hockey?
I'll be hiding in the corner behind all of my dogs.
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil the musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration
and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy
(43:45):
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 of ESPN Inc.
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today was my friend Stevie van Zant. Everything
else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for today,
(44:09):
the day of the twenty twenty four presidential election and
the fourteenth hundredth day since convicted felon dissociative fugue Jay
Trump got away with his first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the election,
did I mention? It's today, Use the mental health system,
use presidential immunity to keep him from doing it again
(44:33):
while we still have a chance. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. I guess I'll put something out, but if
we don't have a result, I'll be damned if I
know what I mean. What can I tell you that
isn't going to be outdated by the time you hear it?
Run that risk every day, don't I in any event?
Till then? Breathe? Yeah right, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
(44:56):
good afternoon, good night, And I've never meant this more
than I mean it right now. Good Luck. Countdown with
(45:17):
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. I
Got good news and I Got bad news. The bad
(00:27):
news is we are finally here. We are staring into
the abyss. The good news is the abyss that the
Trump cult is staring into is way worse. The polls
and especially the interior numbers in the polls show it
and more. Obviously, the behavior down the stretch of Trump
(00:48):
and Vance and their surrogates and their staffers is in freefall.
The closing argument of the Trump Dvance campaign hemorrhaging women
voters as it is is misogyny, especially violence towards women.
Was ruminating about former heavyweight championship boxer Mike Tyson, a
(01:08):
convicted rapist himself who served three years in prison for that,
when he picked up on somebody's suggestion that Tyson should
physically fight Vice President Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Mike, Mike's went through a lot, but he could fight.
Let me tell you that I could fight. But can
you imagine Mike, Oh, he says, put Mike in the
ring with Kamala Nelbant.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
That was less than four days after Trump suggested Liz
Cheney should face nine guns pointed at her face firing
at her. And before you could finish processing that murderous brutality, JD. Vance,
possibly the most condescending sexist in America, went after the
vice president in a different way, with potentially just as
(01:56):
much violence in its imagery.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
But in two.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Days, we are going to take out the trash in Washington,
d C. And the trash's name is Kamala Harris. The
Trump campaign had devoted an entire week to insisting that
it's comedian who called Puerto Rico garbage did not speak
for Trump. Then it tried to turn the word garbage
into a bloody shirt attack on its own supporters. Now,
(02:20):
on election Eve, Vance just ruined the entirety of that
week long argument and called Kamala Harris trash. If you
saw good internal polling numbers, if you saw fair internal
polling numbers, if you saw internal polling numbers that were
not some kind of irrevocable disaster, even the least disciplined
(02:45):
campaign in the history of this nation would still have
managed to shut its two lead idiots up for one day,
the one day before the election. It didn't. That's because
it didn't see any good internal polling numbers. What we
saw was the ABS NPR Marris poll, with Harris head
(03:07):
by four nationally, and more importantly, there are those interior numbers.
In that poll, Harris has cut Trump's lead among men
from sixteen points last month to four points now, and
having cut Trump's essential argument that he is stronger on
the economy to a one point deficit now. A week ago,
the Fox News polls of the swing States showed her
(03:30):
within two to six points of Trump on the economy.
Focal Data, the British company that pulled thirty thousand Americans
over a month Mega polls the way they do them
in the UK, put out swing state numbers yesterday. She's
up by five in Michigan. She's up by three in Wisconsin.
She's up by two in Pennsylvania. She's up by one
(03:50):
in Nevada. She's tied in North Carolina, down by one
in Arizona and Georgia. Three other sets of interior numbers
inside the Times Siena pole of the swing states from Sunday,
Harris continued to get three out of every five late
deciders in that poll. It was have you decided in
(04:13):
the last few days? And fifty eight percent of them
were saying yes. I have and I voted for Kamala Harris.
In the demographics that will decide the Blue Wall states,
so called, Harris is uniformly doing better than Biden did
in twenty twenty and Hillary did in twenty sixteen. In
voters sixty five and older, she is either ahead by
(04:34):
a couple or trailing by a couple, depending on which pole.
Obama lost that group by nine points in twenty twelve.
She is comfortably far ahead among women voters, and the
next largest demo in those blue Wall swing states, non
college educated whites, is showing her trailing Trump, but by
only twenty seven points, and yes, twenty seven points only
(04:57):
it is only Biden lost non college educated whites by
thirty one points, Hillary lost him by thirty three. And
we are now only now getting a measurement of the
true impact of the disaster. At Trump's Madison Square Garden
Nazi rally two weekends ago, Unevisione polled Hispanic voters in Pennsylvania.
(05:22):
There are about half a million of them. They are
breaking for Harris sixty four to thirty now, and those
specifically of Puerto Rican heritage go for her sixty seven
to twenty seven. In short, Trump has lost eighteen percent
of his Hispanic support from twenty twenty and all of
his supposed gains in this campaign. And yes, eighty nine
(05:45):
percent of Hispanic voters in that poll by Unevisione had
heard quote a remark referring to Puerto Rico as a
floating island of garbage eighty nine percent, sixty percent had
heard a lot about it. How does Trump have any
remaining support among Hispanics? Out from the October New York
(06:06):
Times Siena Pole asking Hispanic voters if when Trump talks
about problems with immigration, they feel as if he is
talking about them, sixty three percent say no, he's not
talking about me. The number among voters under age thirty
zooms to seventy one percent who say no, he's not
talking about me. He'd never eat my face. What we
(06:29):
do not have is an updated version of that demographic
after the Madison Square Garden garbage remarks. My guess is
it's only a guess that what is going on inside
the Trump campragn right now. That could have made somebody think.
Having jd Vance call Kamala Harris trash the night before
(06:49):
the election, while the line to get into her rally
was a mile and a quarter long, and there were
no lines of any kind at Trump's rallies. I'm just
guessing this has something to do with those Hispanic interior nones,
and the Trump camp is presumably also seen another round
of terrible numbers among women after a brief rebound for Trump.
(07:12):
As Ron philip Kowski noted, a round of MAGA influencers
all came out with the same belligerent, insistent message by
midday yesterday, white men, you must vote. That would also
explain calling Harris trash and implying Mike Tyson should have
a boxing match with her. Who in the hell would
(07:33):
that appeal to white men and psychopaths and psychopathic white men.
They've also probably seen more and more harrowing data on
a macro level, like what the PBS Marris poll reported
publicly that by last Saturday, fifty five percent of likely
(07:54):
voters said they had already voted, and Harris had fifty
six percent of that vote. Among those who say they
have yet to vote, only fifty three percent said they
intended to vote for Trump. That math, That math doesn't
work for Trump at all. And of course, the other
thing the Trump campaign saw was the beautiful architecture at
(08:15):
the historic Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, yesterday because
the first rally of Trump's last day on the trail
was there and at least thirty percent or more of
its seventy five hundred seats were empty and available to
be appreciated for their mid twentieth century design elements, and
there was no line to get in, And as has
(08:38):
been obvious four weeks, the phenomenon of the Trump rally
has petered out, as has any self discipline among Trump's help.
Jen O'Malley dylan, chair of the Harris campaign, her husband
Patrick tweet's pro tip campaign manager's confident of winning do
not leak their whole CYA case in long form for
(09:01):
the weekend before the election, points to Susie Wiles and
Chris Lasavita for clocking that the Atlantic is not really
at their candidate's literacy level. Though Stephen Chung, official Trump
spokesperson the Guy who says all the wise ass remarks,
responds to this snarky, cynical, mean spirited comment from Jen
(09:26):
O'Malley Dylan's husband by retweeting it with this edition. Kuck,
husband of Kamala chairperson, has no idea what he's talking about,
because he's used to not knowing what's going on behind
his back. First off, mister Chung, I'm sixty five years
(09:47):
old and I'm barely plugged into the internet anymore. And
even I know nobody uses the word cuck anymore and
has it for at least five or six years. Secondly,
you're the spokesman for a presidential candidate. My god, the
two of you have the IQs of waffles. And if
you think that was bad, gen Z democratic influencer Harry
(10:10):
Sisson tweeted and Rob O'Neill, the Trump advocate who claims
he was the guy who killed Ben Laden, He replied,
you remember he's the one who killed Bin Laden, just
him on his own with just a toothbrush or something.
This guy O'Neill responds, The original tweet was a picture
of five of them. We're gen Z voters, wrote Harry Sisson,
(10:31):
and we all proudly voted for Kamala Harris. Real men
support Harris. I'm sorry I'm laughing already. But Captain Bouya
or whatever he calls himself, Robert J. O'Neil, Seal Team
six member, proud shoot him up guy. He retweeted this
(10:53):
and added, you're not men, your boys. If there was
no social media, you would be my concubines. It's a
picture of five guys. What exactly are you revealing here?
(11:14):
Seal Team six guy, it was my friend, the late
genius Bill Goldman who wrote the line for the Princess Bride.
You keep using that word. I do not think it
means what you think it means. Okay, here is your
(11:54):
schedule for today. The Harris campaign is expecting nearly complete
results from Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvany, Virginia,
and Wisconsin by some time late tonight tomorrow morning. Almost
all of Wisconsin and most of the rest incoming from
(12:14):
Michigan and Pennsylvania, but it could be even longer, more
days still for the full results in many key states,
including Pennsylvania. Hour by hour. Georgia polls close at seven PM,
so I would assume Trump declares victory at seven oh one.
Laugh loudly enough that nobody even has to open a
(12:34):
window to hear you. There's a new law in Georgia
requiring counties release their absentee and early votes within an
hour of poll closing, so it's possible Georgia will be
reporting eighty percent of its vote by eight pm Eastern.
Biden won that state by twelve thousand, as you will
remember from Trump's call. If you want to gauge Harris's
(12:56):
chances in Georgia, Cherokee and fortsyth Counties are the Republican bedrocks.
North Carolina closes at seven point thirty. They will be
delayed by a new law demanding counties wait until after
poll's close to tabulate the early, by mail and absentee ballots. Now,
if Harris has pulled off a win in either of
(13:17):
these states, she's almost president. But the big one, of course,
remains Pennsylvania. Polls close at eight o'clock results. Last time,
it was for Friday morning, when Decision Desk HQ called
it for Biden, and the answer to the question how
long could Keith hold his breath? Was Friday morning. This
(13:39):
time they have streamlined the count, but Pennsylvania could easily
not report a winner before mid morning tomorrow Thursday. Maybe.
Michigan and Wisconsin close at nine eastern eight local ten
am tomorrow. In Bali, Arizona also closes at nine eastern.
(13:59):
Iowa also closes at nine eastern. As you have heard her,
polling margins in Michigan and Wisconsin have been growing. Wisconsin
also gets its results out fast. We might hear Wisconsin
first of all states. You know the drill. Harris gets Michigan, Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin ninety nine out of one hundred scenarios are Then
(14:20):
she wins Nevada closes at ten eastern. Other states. If
Harris actually does win Iowa or any other supposedly solid
red state, you will know by that same reference I
made earlier. You would even have to open your window.
You'll just hear the giant sigh of relief sound. Now
(14:42):
all times are subject to modification due to riots by fascists.
To quote Jeffrey Clark, though, well, that's why there's an
Insurrection Act, President Biden. And then the current schedule looking
out into the next six weeks or so is as follows.
There is a new national deadline. It is December eleventh
(15:03):
for governors to certify their state's vote and submit their
slate of electors. One slate of electors per Customer Police.
December seventeenth is the in state electoral college vote. A
vote in each state capital. January sixth, you'd think we'd
(15:23):
have changed the date. That's the certification in the House, which,
if it hasn't been sabotaged by Mike Johnson, should proceed
come hell or high water due to the Updated Electoral
Count Act of twenty twenty two. The variabilities, of course,
are there is an excellent chance the Democrats take the House,
and even if they don't, there is an even more
(15:44):
excellent chance that the Republicans, some of them, will try
to sink Mike Johnson, or there will at least be
a multi day balloting over who should be Speaker of
the House. So certification day could easily take place without
there being a Speaker of the House. Oh, I'm sorry,
I left one critical date out. I'm sorry, November twenty sixth.
(16:08):
November twenty sixth, if the case hasn't been dismissed. That's
the sentencing of Trump on the hush money election interference
case here in New York, two days before the final
Thursday of November. So have a happy Thanksgiving when nor
(16:34):
lose raids the headline atop the op ed in where
else the holy goddamned New York Times When noorlse Jesus H.
Christ on hockey skates. It really says this when nor
lose Trump has already won. I don't know how much
(16:57):
further towards absolute metaphysical both sides of nihilism the New
York Times can get. Maybe they could take out the
word win and just write even in losing, Trump has
already won, or cut right to the chase, win or
lose death has already won. The thing is the piece
when norlouse is actually just drivel about free trade and
(17:21):
immigration and it sounds all serious and changes at the FED,
and it just happens to have a stupid Election Day
headline on it, And then you find out the author
is a founder and editor of Compact Magazine, other whose
editors are Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracy, who have never
as much as rented one ethic between them. So no,
(17:45):
Compact Magazine is not about trash compactors, or not about
ladies portable makeup mirrors or portable makeup mirrors for male anchors.
It would probably be more politically insightful if it were
when norloose Trump has already won. How about win or
(18:07):
lose cancer has already won? Or maybe the New York Times,
and I assume they're just trolling this now, or they
have a bet a tontine as to who gets The
Times when everybody else is no longer subscribed, the last
subscriber gets the paper. I don't know. Maybe the Times
(18:28):
could be honest for once and frame this win or
lose Trump is cancer. It's not only I don't want
anybody fighting cancer or cancer in their family to hurt
because of that reference or this next one. I've been
there more even than twenty twenty. This to me right
now feels like waiting for a biopsy to come back.
So then there are two ways to get through today
(18:51):
and tonight and however long the counting goes on. Keep busy.
If you have a means of contributing to the safety
of polling places, do so. If you need a voter
who needs a ride, provide it. If you have to
make a phone call to get somebody to get out
there and vote, do something. Do you have a podcast. Secondly, yeah,
(19:11):
it kind is a biopsy. Don't assume the worst. Be
prepared for the worst. Make an internal plan of how
to fight back if it breaks that way. If you
don't need that plan, it'll be the happiest day of
your year, if not your life. But also make another
internal plan, because for twenty years now, somebody has asked
me the same question every election, most prominently in two
(19:35):
thousand and eight, when dozens of people, smart, people who
could tie their own shoes and everything, ask me the
same question, don't you really want McCain to win? Don't
you really want McCain as president? I mean, your opposition
to Bush made your news career, it made your network,
it made you your money. Most of these people were
actually shocked, and I answered no, See, I also live
(19:58):
in this country. I'm much more concerned about who's president
than how my ratings bring. And they were even more
shocked by my follow up. Do you think, by the way,
that if they lose, these people are going away? Now?
I don't know what you mean. If McCain loses, it's
all over. Next year we had the Tea Party, and
(20:21):
of course it got worse. If it wasn't clear in
twenty twenty, it's got to be clear to you now.
These people not only do not revere democracy or equality
or America, but they have never lived within democracy or
equality or America. Consider the speaker of the House of
Representatives ten days after the next inauguration. For assuming we
have one, Mike Johnson turns fifty three years old, which
(20:45):
means he was eight years old when Ronald Effing Reagan
was elected and seventeen when Reagan left office, so he's
like fourteen the last day Reagan remembered he was in office.
Rush Limbaugh was already nationally syndicated when Mike Johnson was sixteen.
Mike Johnson graduated college in nineteen ninety five, Fox News
One on the air in nineteen ninety six. Johnson graduated
(21:07):
law school in nineteen ninety eight. Mike Johnson has only
lived in two Americas, one in which repression and white
supremacy and misogyny have been officially enshrined in government, and
the other in which those forces are actively trying to unseat, undermine,
and thwart well truth, justice in the American way. And
(21:32):
Mike Johnson is supposed to be one of the reasonable ones.
Because there are people voting for Donald Trump today who
were nine when he began his first campaign. They don't
know an America without a subculture of boastful stupidity and conspiracy.
They don't know even in America, where it's just George W.
(21:55):
Bush making up terror threats to start wars and win elections.
They only know this shit, So either way, win or lose,
we have to begin to correct this. The question that
(22:16):
will be decided today and the days or weeks to
come is whether or not we will have all the
tools to begin to correct this and do it this time,
or we will be left using our bare hands. By
the way, I don't think it'll be weeks. I think
(22:38):
it's an even bet that it'll be settled tonight, and
I'm serious. Also of interest here, we haven't heard word
one from good old herschel Walker since he lost that
Senate seat in Georgia. Now we know why. Apparently he
had forgotten Donald Trump's name. Do you think I'm kidding?
(22:59):
That's next this Discountdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman
(23:28):
still ahead on this edition of Countdown. On a day's
stress like today, I find it useful to think of
all those who stand behind me, my parents, my ancestors,
my friends of decades, my friends of just a few years.
I like to invoke their memory and the joy they
brought me. There's no reason to bring up one of
them in particular today, but retelling how I met her
(23:49):
always makes me happy, And so the day that actress
Elizabeth Montgomery pranked my parents on their doorstep. Next in
Things I Promised not to tell first, there are still
more new idiots talk about the daily roundup of the
miss Grints, morons and Dunning Kruegerriffet specimens, who constitute two
(24:09):
days most bewitched worst persons in the world, the Bronze
Worst Politico, as the New York Times had to get
one last both sidest absurdity in before the deadline, so
too did Politico. What happened to Trump on Sunday? Do
you remember back that far he said you should shoot
the press, acted like he wouldn't mind if you shot
(24:32):
through the press and shot him. He clearly thought he
was in Pennsylvania when he was really in North Carolina.
He's still getting ripped for pretending to felle a microphone
the day before, still getting ripped for his desire the
day before that to see Liz Cheney shot. He saw
his polls collapse from the previous Sunday's anti Hispanic slur
fest at Madison Square Garden. So late night every night
(24:56):
eleven pm Eastern or so Politico home of editor Ryan Lizza,
the lowest ranked participant in the RFK junior my ex
and Ryan Lizzi scandal. Politico selects who won the day?
So who won the day? On Sunday quote who won
the Day? Trump? Trump won the day because he's still
(25:16):
in a margin of error election after a week filled
with talk of garbage, grievances and hell. Or as the
Times might have put it, win or lose, Trump has
already won. Oh wait, they did put it that way.
Next on Politico's who won the day? Explosive diarrhea because
somebody still has it somewhere, or if Harris wins today?
(25:37):
Who won the day? Trump? Because he finished a strong second.
The runner up worser Carrie Lake, the fascist Senate candidate
from Arizona, losing in the last polls to Reuben Diego
by four or five, six, a couple of unreliable ones
by eight, even the crap Zone Republican polls have are
(25:57):
losing by two or three. But that's not the world,
Carrie Lake lives in. My internal polling looks good good,
she says, We're ahead of my opponent, and I feel
comfortable with our polling. Our polling is a little different.
We take polling, but we also combine it with AI,
(26:18):
which reads all of what's happening on social media and
across the Internet. So Carrie, you use AI to read
the Internet and see what's happening on social media. So
it's your bots recording the opinions of Russian bots about
(26:39):
the Arizona Senate race. Okay, I mean, it never dawned
on me until I read this quote, but it makes sense.
It makes all the sense in the world. You ever
seen one of those carry Lake interviews where she's in
her own studio and she has maybe six gauze filters
over her own camera lens. She looks like she's speaking
(26:59):
to you from a crystal ballune and tell HER's shop Hello,
I'm coming from another world, the world of weekend TV weather. Well,
it never dawn of me if you think about all
those lenses. She must look out at the world through
the back of those same gauze filters. And by the way,
(27:22):
since this may be God willing my last chance to
take a gratuitous shot at her, and she is among
the worst. It hit me the other day, between that
haircut and that voice and that contemptuous attitude of hers
doesn't carry late give off the vibe that she tried
real hard but she just couldn't help it. She bombed
out of Dominatrix School. But finally our winner the worst
(27:48):
He's back, Hershel Walker, father of our nation, almost literally,
the man who appeared to have run for the Senate
in Georgia two years ago because Donald Trump gave him
a lot of money to play for the New Jersey
General's football team. Forty years ago, Walker lost. He kept
all the campaign funds. He's been paying off the lawyers
(28:10):
ever since, and we have not seen him since then
until he came out of wherever he's been to endorse Trump. Well,
I think that's who he endorsed, and.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
It is time for it to stop, and to stop
on Tuesday, when we get to the polls and we
vote from my friend and your friend Donald Trump Junior,
Donald Trump J.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Trump Herschel, I'm Jnald J. Trump jenij approved this message
Walker two days worst person and Elizabeth Montgomery, one of
(29:17):
the most famous actresses of the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies,
star of the TV series Bewitched, daughter of a famous
actor Robert Montgomery, and my friend from early on the
morning of January fourteenth, nineteen ninety two, until she died
in the spring of nineteen ninety five. Our friendship happened
only because of one thing. My sister had given me
(29:40):
a book about one of our favorite topics, the never
to be solved mystery of Lizzie Borden and the Borden
Family Acts murders of eighteen ninety two in Fall River, Massachusetts. Yes,
We're weird. And also the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery had
played Lizzie Borden in a TV movie. So on January fourteenth,
nineteen ninety two, as I sat waiting for our flight
(30:00):
to leave ICJFK Airport in New York from my then
home in Los Angeles, then I began to read from
my airplane seat my sister's gift from the aisle. From
the last one to board, I hear the voice of
Elizabeth Montgomery saying to me, ooh, Keith, you're reading about me.
She was a gas my brief but eternal friendship with
(30:24):
Lizzie Montgomery, and the eternal lesson she taught me in
one moment. Please While I first explained what I was
doing on that flight a month or two earlier, I
had agreed to join ESPN to co host Sports Center
with Dan Patrick starting in late March nineteen ninety two.
I had just finished up three financially rewarding but souls
sucking years at Channel two in Los Angeles, and I
(30:46):
was going to go to Hawaii for three months and
just live are until I felt better. On Monday, December thirtieth,
nineteen ninety one, I had literally just opened my address
book to find the number of a travel agent I
knew to make the Hawaii arrangements. I was reaching for
the phone when the phone rang. It was my business
agent who had just gotten off the phone with my
(31:07):
new ESPN boss, John Walsh. He and they were launching
a new radio network in five days. I found this
interesting but not particularly relevant. ESPN was one thing then
it was one TV network, no magazine, no radio, No
ESPN the O SHO. So this was their first big
move outwards. The radio network would start with only two
(31:29):
seven hour shows on Saturday and Sunday nights, and Walsh
explained to my agent that everything was going great and
they were right on target, and they had great guests
lined up for the first weekend, like Ronald Reagan, and
they only had one tiny problem. They needed three hosts,
and they had two terrific hosts, just terrific hosts, one
Keith worked with named Tony Bruno, and another terrific, just
terrific host from Providence named Chuck Wilson. And they tried
this guy as the third host, and that guy, and
(31:50):
this guy and that guy, and all told, forty different
people had tried out to be hosts. They had nobody,
nobody to be the third host. Who was any good
good Keith just come here just for the first weekend,
just to get it off the ground. Then he can
go back to LA and come back here in March
takeover sports. And please, please please get Keith help us, please,
because if he Canada, what on earth they're going to
do it? Please please please. As I said to my agent,
(32:11):
well all right, I suppose at least way, at least
a ESPN will always think of me as a team player.
So instead of going to Hawaii in January, I go
to Bristol, Connecticut in January, and I go stay at
my folks house outside New York City, and a friend
(32:33):
I had recommended to help ESPN launch their radio network
offers me a ride up to ESPN for the weekend,
and it's like twenty degrees and we get out of
his car and his parking lot, and three spots over
getting out of his car in the parking lot is
Chris Berman, who I went to high school with, and
already in January nineteen ninety two, when I'm not quite
thirty three years old, I already know Chris for twenty years.
(32:55):
And before I can say hey, he screams, listen, we
had a good thing going here, don't if it up.
And I say, good to see you too, Chris, And
I remind myself it's only till Monday. And I meet
the gang, and then I go to the hotel and
the hotel is beige. The walls are beage, the carpets
(33:16):
are page, the guests are beige, the food is beage.
The only thing that isn't beige is the six inches
of snow that falls overnight. And remind myself it's only
till Monday. The launch of the network on Saturday goes well.
They have me interview Ronald Reagan about something in football.
The Sunday Night show is going well too, and we're
trying to figure out where the big baseball free agent
of that winner, Danny Tartable is going to sign. And
(33:39):
we're interviewing Bobby Valentine, who was the manager of the
Texas Rangers, and they were one of the team's rumored
to be a likely landing for Tartable, and I asked Valentine,
he says, no, not anymore. They just canceled their trip.
I was supposed to go meet them at the airport tonight.
I think he signed with somebody else. And the alarm
bells go off in my head and I tell the producer,
let's call everybody we know in baseball and put them
on and figure out where Danny Tartable is going. I
(34:01):
have a source who knows his agent. Let me call him.
We'll go story chase. So we spend four hours following
the story in real time, and it's great radio, and
we're coming up on the last hour and our guests
have helped us eliminate like thirty teams out of twenty eight.
But we're not sure where Tartable is going still, and
the producer says, if only we had his home phone number,
(34:21):
And I look at the producer and go, oh, crap, sorry,
And I grabbed my address book and I explained he
was my co host. Tartable was on some of our
baseball postgame shows in La last I'm sorry, I forgot
I had his number all this time. Hang on, So
I called Danny Tartabule, and just as our last hour
on Sunday Night is starting, he calls me back and
(34:43):
I say to him, look, we know you've decided. It's
all over baseball. It's got to be the Phillies, the Mets,
or the Yankees. And he's saying, correctly, I can't tell you.
And I said, give me one guess and just tell
me if I'm wrong, and I will call you a
source close to the negotiations, that's all. And he says okay,
And I say, is it a team that wears pinstripes?
And of course the Phillies, the Mets, and the Yankees
(35:04):
all wear pinstripe so he laughs and he says yes.
And I say, is it the team I grew up
a fan of? And he says, what team did you
grow up a fan of? And by the way, the
phone call is taking place with me on the floor
of the studio in which the other two hosts are
live on the new radio network. So I whispered as
Tartable if I say it to the Yankees, Am I wrong?
(35:27):
And he says, I can't tell you and starts whispering.
But off the record, the press conference is Wednesday at
Yankee Stadium. Is that enough for you, you bastard? And of
course I said no, come on the show and tell
us come on and he laughs and says I'll see
you Wednesday and hangs up. And I get up and
I sit in the vacant chair and I can say
breaking news. ESPN report now that the free agent outfield
or Danny Tartable, has agreed to a multi year deal
(35:49):
with the New York Yankees. Sources close to the negotiation
say there will be a press conference Wednesday at Yankee Stadium,
and the other hosts are trying not to crack up
because they know I've just been talking too Tartable from
the phone in the same room with them. Well, this
story explodes way more than it deserved. It's a dull
(36:10):
Sunday night. It's still early enough in the evening that
the story makes all the Monday newspapers and it's attributed
not to ESPN or to Sports Center, but to the
brand new ESPN Radio network on its second day in business,
and it's on the front page of USA Today and
the New York Times. New ESPN Radio Network makes splash
with tartabules scoop the next morning, and I can't tell
(36:32):
you how big a deal that was back then in
nineteen ninety two. So now, instead of going back to
LA on Monday and maybe to Hawaii on Tuesday, as
I had planned, I have to go to the press
conference at Yankee Stadium to say hi to Tartable on
Wednesday and sort of thank him for the scoop. And
on Tuesday, this guy, John Walls from ESPN calls me
and my agent says, look, we have to take advantage
(36:54):
of this. It's the best possible start we could have
hoped for for the radio network. Keith has to stay
with us for the next three months. Why doesn't he
stay in and do this weekend and then go back
to LA and pack up apartment, then come back here
the weekend after that.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
And and.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
I say again to my agent, well, at least ESPN
will always think of me as a team player if
I do this a So I am not in Hawaii
and instead I am on board this flight. When Elizabeth
Montgomery walks down the aisle and sees my Lizzie Bordon
book given to me by my sister and says, ooh, Keith,
(37:30):
you're reading about me. Hi, I'm Lizzie Montgomery. I'm a
big fan of yours. Is that seat taken? And I say,
the hell if I care, sit down? And the only
time we're not talking for the next six hours is
when we are drinking. I believe, if I remember this correctly,
they had to send up a champagne refueling flight halfway
to LA And she's a huge sports fan. Her father
(37:52):
was a founder of one of the southern California horse
racing tracks, and she loves the Lakers, and she thinks
she was related to Lizzie Borden. Did I ever see
the European version of her Lizzie Bordon film where they
show the wide shots where they make it look like
she's new And I say, I'm absolutely certain I have not.
And her son and her driver and her rolls Royce
meet us at Lax and she wants me to see
her house, and then her driver and her rolls Royce
(38:15):
will give me a lyft home and oh, by the way,
she's flying back to New York in a week, should
we become flying buddies. On that trip, our flight gets
canceled and we have to find a new one. I'm
hand carrying a lot of my more valuable baseball cards,
including like five hundred different from the year nineteen oh nine,
and she wants to see them, and she wants me
to tell her something about each player while we drink again.
(38:38):
And we land and she says, how you getting to
your folks house? And I say, well, I'm going to
get a car here or something, and she says, no,
you're not. I'll give you a lift in my limo
going right past your house. And sure enough we get there.
And as Lizzie Montgomery's limo is taking me to my
folks house at ten o'clock at night, she says, will
they still be up? Your folks want to play a
(38:58):
practical joke on them. So two minutes later I knock
on the door of my childhood home and my father
opens it instead of seeing me, it's her in the doorway,
and she says, hi, mister Olderman, I'm Lizzie. I'm a
friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play? And
my dad goes silent for the only time I in
my life. And now my mother appears, so Lizzie can
(39:19):
pull the same routine on her. Hi, missus olverman, I'm Lizzie.
I'm a friend of Keiths. Can he come out and play?
And now my mother is silent for the only time
in my life, I might add. I thought Lizzie looked fabulous,
and I looked her up in Hallowell's film Guide, and
I saw she was forty eight, and I thought, boy,
she looks fabulous for forty eight, And then I realized
my math is wrong. She was fifty eight, and she
(39:41):
was a joy. We talked my phone every couple of
weeks after that, and she died three years later of
colon cancer. But she is with me always, and not
just as the proverbial force of nature. Within minutes of
that day we met, January fourteenth, nineteen ninety two, she
bestowed upon me a lesson, an eternal lesson. We were
(40:03):
a little late taking off, and since she had just
loudly introduced herself to me like I didn't know who
she was, anybody on the plane who wasn't sure it
was her was now sure. As we waited to taxi.
Every man on that plane came over and did the
same thing. Oh hi, miss Montgomery, excuse me, and they
give me some sort of nodding acknowledgment, like, hey, how
(40:25):
you doing? As they lean in past me. I was
a big fan of you, witch. I know you must
get asked this a million times a day, but is
there anything I'm so sorry to ask? Could you do
that little nose twitch you used to do in the show?
And she would say, of course, and then she'd do it,
and these men age twenty two one hundred all then
giggle like schoolboys. After the thirtieth or thirty first time
(40:46):
this happened, I say to her, Lizzie, I don't know you,
but I like you a lot already, and your attitude
towards your fans and the nose twitch is wonderful. And
I have to tell you I certainly hope that was
the last of them, because the next one who comes over,
I'm gonna have to strangle him with my bare hands
because I can't take it anymore. And for the only
(41:08):
minutes of all the time I knew her, Elizabeth Montgomery
got very serious and said, oh no, Keith, that is
not the attitude you must have about this remind me
what year did Bewitched go off the air. I had
to guess, nineteen seventy two, and she said, exactly, good, correct,
twenty years ago. And these people have remembered that nose
(41:30):
twitch for twenty years at least bewitched. Keith is not Hamlet,
it is not Arthur Miller, it is not the Godfather,
but they remembered it. This is why you and I
both do what we do for a living. We have
transcended time with what we do for a living, something artistic,
something creative, no matter how small that we have done,
(41:51):
they have remembered it. People do it with you, I'm sure,
and I'm sure they'll continue to. And what you do
then is you say thank you for remembering, as if
they were the only one who ever remembered. Because that's
why we do this, Because they remembered me from twenty
years ago for a stupid little nose twitch. Duly chastised,
(42:16):
I apologized, and the huge, welcoming, conspiratorial, permanent friendship sexy
smile of Elizabeth Montgomery broke across her face like the sunrise,
and she whispered, either that Keith or they saw Bewitched
on cable last week, which means Lizzie gets another check
(42:37):
next week. And she twitched her nose at me and
I will always love her. I've done all the damage
(43:01):
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Follow me
for the podcast videos on Blue Sky YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram, threads,
and Bluetube, but no longer on TikTok. I got banned
forever from TikTok. I shared a satirical anti Trump meme
because TikTok is crap, though their production tools are good.
(43:23):
But enough about me. What are you doing tonight watching hockey?
I'll be hiding in the corner behind all of my dogs.
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil the musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration
and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy
(43:45):
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 of ESPN Inc.
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today was my friend Stevie van Zant. Everything
else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for today,
(44:09):
the day of the twenty twenty four presidential election and
the fourteenth hundredth day since convicted felon dissociative fugue Jay
Trump got away with his first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the election,
did I mention? It's today, Use the mental health system,
use presidential immunity to keep him from doing it again
(44:33):
while we still have a chance. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. I guess I'll put something out, but if
we don't have a result, I'll be damned if I
know what I mean. What can I tell you that
isn't going to be outdated by the time you hear it?
Run that risk every day, don't I in any event?
Till then? Breathe? Yeah right, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
(44:56):
good afternoon, good night, And I've never meant this more
than I mean it right now. Good Luck. Countdown with
(45:17):
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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