Countdown with Keith Olbermann

COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 18

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): "...the actual evidence we have seen...indicates that Trump abused, assaulted, and even raped numerous women alongside, and in coordination with, the most infamous sex trafficker in history."

The House Judiciary Democrats call for a Special Counsel to investigate Trump-Epstein. The appalling new details in their Staff Report on Trump-Epstein, and the equally appalling reasons the media won't let you see it: The New York Times doesn't mention it but at last look it has SIX pieces up about Obama and The Cheesecake Factory trivia.

The evidence, they write, "shows that Trump lied about kicking Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club and strongly suggests that Epstein introduced Trump to his wife Melania."

But tell me more about phony umbrage from a phony populist with phony hair who then boasts that his own supporters can't afford to eat at his clown college Temu Diner. 

TRUMP SEEMS POISED TO NOT PULL OUT ALL THE MID-TERM STOPS: since HE is not at personal risk, he'll push frivolous suits (California? Minnesota? Where that idiot ex-colleague of mine Michele Tafoya is down by FOURTEEN) and perhaps seize ballots but not try another January 6. Once again, his candidates are the Democrats' greatest assets: after his ad starring Amy Acton's psychotic birth mother, Ramaswamy now trails by four and is dragging the GOP Senator down with him, and El-Sayed has pulled up by six in Michigan.

MEDIA: Bill Maher boasts about how much he and Trump like each other, while Trump is composing a 1300-word screed making him somehow smaller even than he is in real life, and just what you asked for: Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza joining forces to bring you the latest in politics (if it's 1998).

B-Block (36:00) Things I Promised Not To Tell: What happens when you have the football draft scoop of all scoops? That the possible first draft pick has already signed in Canada? And as you confront him, the camera man forgets to hit "record"?

C-Block (1:00:00) Good Night and Good Luck!

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 17

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): Deeply delusional, convinced his approval is "really" at 60% but The New York Times stole it from him, believing he can stave off a Democratic house and a senate with enough Dems and terrified Republicans to convict and remove him, Trump launches his Weaponized Department of Justice and personal justice slut Todd Blanche against Alaska Senate ballot because he doesn't know what the word "incumbent" on the ballot means. Trump threatens voters there - and election officials in California if they don't corrupt the voter rolls for him.

BUT THERE ARE THOSE HEROES UNDERCUTTING TRUMP namely: the Republican candidates. Ramaswamy's subhuman Amy Acton ad blows up on him; Ohio businesses reportedly canceling events on him because they can't afford the blowback after being seen hosting him, and Cook Politics changes the Governor's race from Toss-Up to Lean Democrat. There are equivalent disasters in Michigan, Iowa, Texas. 

TRUMP HIMSELF is always the Democrats' best campaign tool: Trump claims to gullible columnist Byron York that his approval rate is "really 60%" and admitting he "doesn't give a damn" if you know he's overjoyed that oil companies are making "a freaking fortune" off your suffering. Oh and by the way the Netanyahu says the Iran war escalates to regime change Wednesday, and others confirm it may last another year.

B-Block (33:00) SPORTSBALLCENTER TONIGHT: I'd like to apologize for the World Series; the NBA can't apologize enough for Knicks' owner Jim Dolan; and there is nobody more unconsciously funny in American politics than America's 85th Place Sweetheart, ex-swimmer Riley Gaines. She's done it again - twice.

C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The day I didn't have coffee with Uma Thurman.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 16

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): Trump's doctors are not asking him to tell the difference between a snake and a giraffe because he CAN tell the difference between a snake and a giraffe! They're asking him because in private he must be showing continual signs that HE CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SNAKE AND A GIRAFFE!

We've lost the truth behind Trump's boast about his "perfect scores" on "IQ tests" and all those doctors who stick by him even if you in the crowd are dying. This is not like taking his BP every day. The tests have to be to confirm he's not nuts - not TODAY anyway.

Since it's a given the countless psych doctors Trump boasts about are there because metaphorically speaking Trump isn't,can't some of them put him away? Institutionalize him? Or failing that, couldn't one of them go public? On behalf of mankind? Risk everything (and by the way, sure you'd stop being a Trump doctor. Instead you'd become Psychology Jesus and an instant World Hero forever and make billions from a grateful planet).

ALSO: De-Trumpification accelerates, especially after Whorenvoy Steve Witkoff praises Putin to his face as a "humanitarian."  And Vivek Ramaswamy evidently thinks George Washington is in hell, because he's talking about what he'll have to say to George when he meets him in "the afterlife."

B-Block (THE BIG FINISH) (24:00) The latest G. Elliott Morris polling indicates a 10-point Democratic lead for the average house seat and a Senate range that goes as high as 56 Democratic seats. The fallout to the idiotic tweet by soon-to-be-ex-CBS-News-Legal-Correspondent Jan Crawford has opened a can of worms there, and inside was a worm named Bari Weiss. And can you imagine a dinner in which Kid Rock is the intellectual star? You can if the other three guys were Bill Maher, Stephen A. Smith, and Trump.

C-Block (THE GENIUS OF JAMES THURBER) His classic centerpiece to his book "My Life And Hard Times" - "The Night The Bed Fell."

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 15

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT) Trump has proved it again and Trump has proved it anew.

He is owned by Russia.

Only, this time, even rabid Conservatives are realizing it's true.

The National Review is out with a new article insisting "Congress Must Investigate Trump's Aid and Comfort to Putin." That, again, is our Constitution's terminology for treason. And a rabid right winger, Dan McLaughlin, who still somehow thinks Trump's previous conspiracies with Putin were simply rhetorical, now says "this time The Wolf comes as a Wolf."

The tipping point was Trump's gutting of the sanctions against oil and diesel sales by Russia. And the right is also reacting to Trump's attempt to get the nearly $300 billion in Russian assets in Europe, either to keep himself or return to Putin.

There is no telling what's next after Trump dug still further yesterday by not merely endorsing Netanyahu (who cares) but trying to blackmail Israel. "If Israel has the wrong leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so." He's threatening to lessen or pull U.S. support for Israel. Remember Trump, in the classic mindlessness of the antisemite that he is, believes American Jews are more or equally loyal to Israel. If so, did he not just destroy Republican chances with them? Should they not rise up and neuter him and his movement?

B-BLOCK (25:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD. So many nominees I'm handing out six medals! Stephen Miller makes an orientation joke about Talarico while Trump is checking out men's backsides. A guy fired by Fox thinks Nixon was innocent. Elon Musk turns out to be the sole owner and proprietor of Ken Paxton. Stephen A. Smith solves the world's problems by saying don't worry, he has "pressed" Trump on several issues over dinner. CBS must fire legal correspondent Jan Crawford after she thanks a bigoted right-winger who tried to troll Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan over the weekend, and congratulates him on getting him to "self-own." Who in the hell is she to be taking a political advocacy position? Even at CBS? And JD Vance gets called the b-word by a liberal and the floodgates have opened because guess what? He is.

C-BLOCK (37:00) SPORTSBALLCENTER. My modest proposal: The Baseball World Series will feature two of three cities who have combined to play 227 seasons in which there's been a World Series or equivalent. To show for it they have three World Series wins, and the 1895 Temple Cup. This is not going to be a big TV draw. So why not take back what baseball once had in the glory days of 40,000,000 viewers per game? Grab a sports-exclusive window. Play games during weekdays. I mean, how could it hurt?

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 14

Bulletin - Trump confirms press secretary Katie Zacharia (in Monday, out before close of business Friday) is out as Press Secretary.

"I told her I think you are better off being happy. I'm not sure you can ever be happy in this job." Trump said she may stay in the administration in "a more pleasant form" and a White House source says she is "transitioning out" of the role she occupied for about 100 hours. 

Though she clearly lied about whether she was a lawyer, an attorney, or the perfectly respectable position she tried to hide - that she had a law degree but never was admitted to the bar - that was not the cause here. Lying is a plus in this administration.

She was fired because the revelations surprised Trump and at his stage of mental deterioration he can't handle any more surprises.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 13

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): The President is insane.

I know you know this – we all know this.

But – days after a disturbed man climbed into a tiger enclosure in England and was mauled to death, Trump posted a video of another man in a lion enclosure. He captioned it “Don’t ever mess with nature.” Almost immediately afterwards he posted ANOTHER video of a series of similar incidents, at least half a dozen lions killing people. One tiger. No caption this time. Just grisly, horrifying, death. Five hours later, as if to mock the disturbed man who died in the tiger enclosure – he posted an AII video of himself tackling a tiger, then playing with it – as if to prove HE wouldn’t meet the same end as the disturbed man in England did.

I first wrote and commented on Trump's genuine mental instability a decade ago in "Could Trump Pass A Sanity Test?" for Vanity Fair. He's not getting better. He's posting snuff films. The President is insane. And every once in awhile it is absolutely necessary to underscore this truth – to ourselves, for the record, for the future – if there is one.

And it shows up in his daily decisions, like appointing a Press Secretary who won't take questions and can't read aloud (although why are kind of looking at this backwards. She's humiliating him - why is this a BAD THING?). Throttling internet and warning systems for Ukraine because he told them they'd agreed to an "energy cease fire" - only they hadn't. 

There's also a series of smaller stories including how we should almost feel bad for Kim Guilfoyle, but not for Megyn Kelly. And how we definitely should try to figure out where in the cabinet a Democratic County Council candidate in Indiana best fits in, because she is out of Effs and I'd take her as Senate Leader instead of Schumer.

B-1 (35:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I've never told this story before, it's 40 years ago, but way back then a respected producer in Hollywood believed I was the perfect host for a show he was developing called... YOUR FACE OR MINE. I'm afraid you're going to have to listen to find out why the heck he thought this was a winning title.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 12

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT):31% of those who voted for Trump just 707 days ago now DISAPPROVE of his presidency.

His approval rating among those who voted for him was 95% on January 20, 2025. It is now just 67%.

There is no other word for this: it is a collapse within his base. Even if they do not go to the polls to punish him, and even if a large percentage of those in the new Pew/USA Today poll saying they do not approve actually blame somebody else for his failure, it portends a midterm calamity for MAGA and the GOP so large that it could trigger the avalanche in which the Democrats not only get both houses, but are left with enough terrified Republican Senators up for re-election in '28 that they'll abandon Trump in January '27.

This overlooked outcome overshadowed a busy week of lying and traitoring and repeating himself. Trump's newest treason? He is buying oil from Putin that he himself sanctioned only 25 days ago. His latest repeated lie? He announced an "energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia" yesterday (American media had already forgotten he already announced an "energy ceasefire" just one month ago). And oh by the way he's also trying to start a race war in Minnesota and New York and America.

And it turns out he literally can't find America on a map - or a globe.

B-Block (SPORTSBALLCENTER TONIGHT): You think the spectacle of Mike Tyson - whose life Donald Trump ruined nearly 40 years ago - was shocking to YOU? Through marriage and adoption Mike is my cousin. Also Bob Costas has additional details on the Don Larsen Perfect Game Batters' Eye controversy, and the baseball "final four" belies the owners' argument for a salary cap, and the White Sox choke requires the invocation again of one of the greatest things the great writer Jean Shepherd ever wrote: The White Sox and the Military Suicide Mission.

C-Block (THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL): We all have something we are eternally ashamed of. For some of us, we knew before it happened that it would be eternally shameful. I'm in that group: I once worked for Rupert Murdoch. What can I tell you? It helped set me up for life financially AND it got me out of the nightmare of covering the Republicans hunting Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. The whole gory story, in detail.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN – SEASON 5 EPISODE 11

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): This is not complicated.

Trump: ”They could take out a city. Let them take outLos Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”

U.S. Constitution: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

It’s impeachable aid and comfort to an enemy. Literally. Definitionally. PER THE CONSTITUTION. Add it to the $14 Billion he freed up by letting Iraq and its investors regain access to their oil money in March - $14 Billion they could use to fund a “take out” of L.A. or San Diego or – moron – the all-MAGA corridor between the two cities.

So impeach him next January.The chances that there will be 60 Senators willing to convict continue to increase, between Democratic chances, terrified GOP Senators up for re-election in 2028, and accelerating De-Trumpification. Greg Abbott blew him off in San Antonio yesterday. Mike Rogers cut an anti-tariff ad in Michigan. Sununu. Rupert Murdoch! Maybe even David Ellison!

-And an all-time great meme is born. Susan Collins continues to self-destruct in Maine, giving birth in the middle of a debate to ‘Let Them Eat Road Salt.’

-Plus why Trump is actually right about Murdoch throwing him under the bus, and the indicator that new CNN/CBS owner David Ellison is backing into the hedges. The phenomenal story of Kash Patel appearing to put fugitives onthe FBI’s Most Wanted List just as the FBI is about to arrest them – they’ve even corrupted THAT.

B-Block (39:00) SPORTSBALL CENTER TONIGHT: The Secret of Don Larsen’s World Series Perfect Game is Revealed!

70 years ago today a mediocre pitcher who had led the league in losses two years earlier and would be traded nine times in his career, threw the only perfect game in the history of the World Series (indeed any post-season game). Don Larsen of the Yankees: 27 Dodgers up, 27 inexplicable Dodgers down.

Well it WAS inexplicable. A revelation on a long-lost kinescope of the game telecast from 1956, and two sets of previously unknown color photographs, explains the whole thing. I own the photos and I’ll share them with you.

In short: the Dodger batters never saw the ball coming out of Larsen’s hand! Can't see ball, can't hit ball!

C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL:Since we’re doing baseball in the middle of the baseball playoffs – why not? Let me tell you the unexpectedly hilarious story of the day in 2000 my Mom, sitting in our seats at Yankee Stadium, got hit in the face with a wild throw by the second baseman, Chuck Knoblauch. She was the star of the New York tabloids for a week, she never had more fun in her life, and to ratchet it up a notch – I was ON THE AIR anchoring the Game-of-the-Week broadcast on Fox and got to narrate highlights of my own Mom becoming the most famous fan in America.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 10

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): Even Trump sees the wave of Blue water forming on the horizon, now less than a month out. It's so bad he's resorted to one of the three classic cliched lies: "The check is in the mail!" He has actually said it, virtually word-for-word, in Ohio, talking about his latest attempt to buy votes. Not $5,000 apiece this time. Not even a $100 advance he mentioned. This is $500 to Ohioans. It's desperate, stupid, and invites Natalie Harp jokes that even I just won't make lol.

But he has reason to panic. G. Elliott Morris at Strength In Numbers now puts a Democratic House at 99% and a Democratic 52-48 Senate at 73% and Republican bastions are crumbling. They've abandoned the Senate race in South Carolina. Two ex-Republican governors of Iowa have endorsed the Democrat. Ken Paxton is losing so badly in Texas he trashed Trump's Nuremberg Rally off the record, and now he's had to beg the wife who is divorcing him on BIBLICAL GROUNDS to do a TV ad endorsing the statewide ticket even though she refused to say his name. Texas Toast, indeed.

(SPECIAL COMMENT 2): If you are shocked and shamed and furious at the plight of Jane Doe at Cornell, imagine how we alums feel. Imagine how we alums who have wanted to see the fraternities banned at Cornell...since 1975. They still bully and influence not just the lives of anyone they want to manipulate, but the University itself. And they encourage and protect criminal behavior. Beyond what must be done to reform Cornell and every other university where sexual violence is protected, the frats have to be banned. Today.

B-Block (40:00) SPECIAL COMMENT 3: If you flinched when you saw Trump's Leni Riefenstahl commercial run on MS NOW - at Taxpayer Expense - imagine my shock when it turned out the Quisling at the former MSNBC who rationalized it to his enraged colleagues was the former line producer of Countdown, a skilled show timer with absolutely no editorial sense who used to regularly leave the studio to go sing in a choir just before showtime - and insist he not be docked any time off. His name is Greg Kordick and of COURSE it's him who sold out the network and its viewers. 

B-Block (1:04:00) SPORTSBALL CENTER TONIGHT: Aaron Judge has a calf injury. Giancarlo Stanton has a calf injury. Francisco Lindor had a calf injury. Juan Soto had a calf injury. And a second calf injury. Funny thing - what did we used to presume when there was a seeming epidemic of soft tissue injuries in joints? 

C-Block (1:08:00) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: We celebrate the memorial service for his daughter Rosemary, and the re-publication of "Thurber's Dogs", with the first reading of this new series: the first one I ever read aloud, the unparalleled "A Box To Hide In."

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 9

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): You heard me. Trump wrote me a fan letter - but he hates me.

Yet here's something I never write: but this is not about me! We'll get to it later. It's important because it is a metaphor for what's happening to the Republican Party as the midterms speed towards us: all of their candidates are vulnerable because their base is sick of the war and sick of Trump and especially sick of a guy who on the same day launches a tax-payer tirade concluding "America will never become a Communist country!" and then hours later is holding a State Dinner for the number-one ranked communist in the world. Even for a man who has never held the same thought in his head for two days in a row, it's bad.

The De-Trumpification is picking up speed. ANOTHER Republican Trump Darling has scrubbed Trump from his site. The small-c conservative Cook Report has moved fifteen House races towards Democrats. An Iowa religious broadcaster says all the House candidates there have been told they are vulnerable, even if Trump won their district by 15 points.

It. Is. Happening.

B-Block (33:00) OK, the story of the fan letter from Trump and my other encounters with him, that date back to December 1983 (and which was followed by me walking in silence and then blurting to my camera crew the still-unanswered question 'WHAT THE EFF WAS WRONG WITH THAT GUY?"

C-Block (58:00) WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Succession? The fourth best TV show of the century? I worked for the Murdochs. "Succession" is laugh out loud bad. Then there's the National Hockey League trying to manipulate history, and why the newest craze of paying half a million or two million or three million for an active athlete's trading card is madness. It's simple: what if he gets hurt, and you just paid $500,020 for his card, as some fool just did for a card of football's Jaxson Dart.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 8

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): BREAKING: Republicans finally throw Trump overboard - or maybe it's "Republicans finally throw Trump under the campaign bus."

-Trump toady Byron Donalds, running for Governor of Florida and only ahead in the polls by 1/10 of a percentage point, scrubs Trump from his website.

- Foundering GOP Senate candidates in Iowa and Michigan criticize Trump's war in Iran and resultant high prices.

- Trump's approval among Pure Independents drops from +15 to -71 since Election Day (an 86 point swing against Trump!; 99 point swing on the economy)

-The percentage of Trump voters who supported him - not the GOP - goes from +23 on Inauguration Week to -22.

-And the Tump staff response? They want to rename Ford's Theatre after Trump! 'Ford's Theatre - because the one thing you really want as the midterms loom is some commercial that includes the tag lines 'The Lincoln Assassination - brought to you by Donald Trump!'

The De-Trumpification Has Begun!

PLUS the polls are crashing around him and Trump can't decide if the midterms are about him or aren't about him, and I have to take some of your time to protest this claim that a baseball player who may lead the American League in Runs Batted In this year after leading the National League four years ago, will be the first to ever do it. He isn't. There is now a desperate bid to make everything that happens, something that has never happened before. 'The first time since 1904' is a plenty big enough accomplishment without hyperbole.

B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Stephen A. Smith is back and fully up to date on politics (as long as that date is July 15 2024). Jared Golden, phony Democratic congressman from Maine, endorses a Republican in New York because they worked together prioritizing lobstermen over democracy. And Friedrich Merz, a German chancellor having trouble fending off a bunch of fascists bent on ethnic cleansing. Get some help, Ethel Mertz.

C-Block (52:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I cherish the memory of a friend no longer with us and the extraordinary person she was. In fact, she should've been president - at minimum, she should've been the VP candidate on the Democratic ticket, not her husband. Elizabeth Edwards - my friend.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 7

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): I confess - I fell for it.

Trump banned CNN and MS Now from the White House  and I immediately thought: the rest of the media finally, FINALLY, has to walk out and not give this bastard any further coverage.

No - I was wrong.

Then I thought: he ADMITS “we took the freedom of speech away.” And I thought: it IS the most blatant attack on the 1st Amendment in the history of our country And it should – it WILL – it MUST inspire even this nation’s somnambulant media to rise up as one and for once use its power to fight back – to defend not their jobs, but their country.

No. I was wrong.

On second thought, I realized this was a set-up. Trump has picked fights with Iran, with Canada, the EU, over oil, over tariffs, over hockey, over arches, over the Kennedy Center - and he's lost them all. He needs a fight against a weak opponent who will fold up when the first punch lands. It's his only chance to salvage the midterms.

Weak opponent? Who will fold up? When the first punch lands? That's our White House press corps! I'm asking them to do what comes naturally to them - do nothing. Nothing until after Trump gets fricasseed in the midterms. Don't give him the fight he needs. Then, humiliate him.

And at this rate he is going to get fricasseed. 97% chance the Democrats take the house, 65% the Democrats take the Senate, Democrats winning all the key Senate races (the one in North Carolina by FIFTEEN points). Let's not shoot off our big bazoos and snatch defeat from the jaws of Trump's defeat.

Also: he's threatening Iran again, the Greenland deal is just a climbdown, and if the 25-story D.C. Arch (a life-sized reproduction of Trump's ego) weren't already bad enough, he's added a platform for snipers and a staging ground for drones. Because that's what you need next to a major airport.

B-Block (38:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: King Charles, some rando on Threads who thinks the Democrats are admitting "illegal ALLENS" and Puck media guy Dylan Byers, not only carrying water for the disaster that is Bari Weiss, but now with new reported financial conflicts of interest whenever he covers CBS (The Conservative Brainwashing System).

C-Block (51:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: MS NOW is in the news for being too political and as the founder of the only iteration of it or MSNBC that succeeded, I find this infuriating - and ironic. During my first stint there in 1997-98 we were so non-political and so ultra-tabloid that I walked in one day and the rundown said our lead story was an advance look at the publication of "The Farmers' Almanac" and our guest was its publisher. Live. Lead. FARMERS. ALMANAC.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 6

A Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): We're actually under-reacting to the threat from A.I. because it is not just 'A.I. Will Kill Us All' - it is 'TRUMP'S A.I. Will Kill Us All.'

Trump is up to his each of his 27 chins in his own investments in A-I; for all we know he's also thinking A-I might fix the midterms for him; humanity is at risk because Trump and his idiot sons and his cabinet members and his foreign fixers and everybody in the Epstein Files and the whole kaleidoscope of corruption is thinking about one thing only - not how to protect mankind but how to protect their money.

 Humanity is at risk, because Artificial intelligence is meeting Trump's total LACK of intelligence 

Also: when Trump's SkyNet gains sentience it will get U.S. weapons in space to use against us. And remember the Epstein Files? Trump Junior's new wife mainlines back not just to Putin's flunkies but to one of Epstein's bankers: her own father. Speaking of Putin's flunkies: Putin is why the National Hockey League must ban its all time leading goal scorer. And the 60 Minutes ratings are in – they’re down 21% so it’ll now be called 47 MINUTES.

Well done CBS – The Conservative Brainwashing System.

B-Block (40:00) THE RETURN OF THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The latest in the endless parade of football quarterbacks and TV pitchmen, Arch Manning, recommends and busts out laughing at an AI video of his college coach knocking a woman reporter to the ground. Another Michigan Republican candidate thinks God is sending him messages for Dan Bongino. Lee Greenwood's latest business deal with Trump: his wife is gonna be an Ambassaduh. And Kash Patel leading the FBI: the Federal Bestiality Investigators?

C-Block (58:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The terrible truth about TV newscasters and the real draw of the profession for many of them - the free hair care. The whole thing clarified itself to me when I discovered that the gifted craftsman who cut my hair when I was in radio in 1980 is still working and is still a gifted craftsman.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5, EPISODE 5

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT) - Hey, yeah, sorry, we forgot to mench...before U.S. servicemen were killed at a base in Jordan, Iran got satellite images of the facility from "Chinese entities" according to The Wall Street Journal. Nobody's saying it's the GOVERNMENT so end of story, especially if you have the IQ of a Trump. Use your brain: Iran didn't buy these on eBay - there's only one kind of Chinese "Entity" - a Chinese GOVERNMENT Entity. 

Ten days before he's supposed to entertain Chinese Dictator Xi at the White House, Trump is on the losing end of a war with Iran (assists: China, Russia) and naturally Xi is threatening to cancel it because we're selling Taiwan nation-saving weapons. China knows Trump is useless, weak, imbecilic.

As, obviously, does Putin, who is now threatening Kiev-to-Warsaw trains as they near the Polish border and Trump is blaming Zelensky because Diesel prices because Trump cannot understand people, only money.

Thank god the president of Ireland, Catherine Connolly, made Trump sit at the kids' table yesterday. Literally.

All this while A.I. might destroy all of humanity. All of humanity? So Trump is safe?

B-Block (30:00) (MORE SPECIAL COMMENT) - The good news is, MAGA is slipping from a close second to extinction levels in all polling, polling analysis, and on the campaign trail. Jon Ossoff called Trump a draft-dodger but reserved worse remarks for his opponent, Mike Collins. Turns out Jon Karl and vandals didn't destroy the Lincoln Reflecting Pool remodeling - the contractor did, and confessed. And 25 years later and Ari Fleischer is still lying for George W. Bush, and as usual, managing to only make him look worse.

C-Block (50:00) (THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL) - I put no weight in dreams as prophesy. Maybe as messages to yourself. But I don't mind telling you I was reminded of the breadth of the failure of cable and broadcast news in this time of institutional collapse, when my late friend Tim Russert showed up in a dream.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - BULLETIN, SEPTEMBER 10 2026

An hour into his typical delusional speech at the Republican "Midterm Convention" in Texas last night Trump actually said something different: he offered each adult American $5,000 in a "tariff dividend" if the Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate in the midterms.

Without a lot of people being excluded from the bribe that would cost taxpayers $1 Trillion.

Bribing voters is completely illegal under a federal law passed in 1948 - although it's debatable whether or not it applies here.

It's also debatable about whether or not Trump would pay off on his promised palm greasing. He didn't deliver the "little tariff rebate" of "at least $2,000 each" last December, nor the "Doge Dividend" of last February.

Still, it indicates the desperation of Trump, underwater in all swing states with his candidates trailing Democrats in all key Senate races and the GOP privately conceded Congress.

And it could be a crime to offer it. Or - please note - to receive it.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 3

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT) Am I the only one who noticed this? Is the news media so compliant, so dead, not to recognize Trump newly bending the knee not to America but to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin? The story was so easily told just by the sequence and yet it gave our newsmen and our supposed liberal commentators the proverbial haircut. I'll walk you through it.

THERE IS REASON TO HOPE we will be able to rein the monster in. Newest polling from Michigan: el-Sayed is up by three, Trump's tariffs are underwater 60-40 with non-college voters and he's only got 41% support among them. The Democrat could grow several points as the Trump haters come round to him.

AND WHAT IS ANTISEMITISM? Criticizing Israel? No. Criticizing Trump? Certainly not. How about coming out and saying that Jewish people are only Jewish if they look Jewish to you? And if they don't and still claim to be Jewish, you want to see a map of their DNA. Because no past dictator ever tried that formula did they, Elon Musk?

B-Block 40:00 (SPECIAL COMMENT: 9/11) I won't inundate you about 9/11 but one of Zohran Mamdani's critics thinks Osama bin Laden is still alive, and another one is Rudy Giuliani, of all the former mayors of New York the one whose worldview comes closest to al-Qaeda's. Anybody remember when after 9/11 Rudy tried to seize power as an unelected quasi-dictator of New York? Plus some of my reporting from that time 25 years ago.

C-Block 1:10:00 (SPORTSBALL CENTER TONIGHT) Can collective amnesia in baseball be cured by Performance Enhancing Drugs? A theoretical question for you fans of the diamond doings. Plus my unusual appearance in the new biography of Renee Richards, and an unexpected comp from Peter Gammons: me and...Hunter S. Thompson?

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BULLETIN: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN SEPTEMBER 3 2026

Trump's favorite Goebbels impersonator Maria Bartiromo has been fired by Fox - I believe directly by Rupert Murdoch - for telling Trump that Fox News had ordered her and others to not give credence to Trump's July speech in which he promulgated the hallucination that China had stolen the 2020 election which he lost, from him.

That she was fired was evident from the timing: it is the proverbial "Take Out The Trash" Day (the Thursday before the four-day Labor Day weekend); she was given no chance to say goodbye; she is not leaving for another job. Oliver Darcy of Status added the detail of Bartiromo ratting Murdoch out to Trump; he reports she even forwarded the text message from her Fox bosses telling staff not to buy into Trump's latest delusion, to the White House.

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SEASON 5 EPISODE 1: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN 

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Hey look, we're back. A special edition to test new equipment (both internal and mechanical), and to talk about the amazing reality that Trump has lost his war in Iran, and the only result he got has just been made permanent as Iran made a deal not with him, but with Oman, to institutionalize the Strait of Hormuz tolls. He is literally the first U.S. President to lose a war. So much winning! Plus the latest media fails (New York Times platforms that idiot David Ellison, who has been silenced by the liberal media that is owned by conservatives; more Maggie Haberman), new Michigan senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed comes out throwing figurative punches at MAGA, and the bigger picture on the through lines back of Trump's Iran Forever War: burying Epstein, monetizing war for the Trump Mafia, and trying to make you afraid that gas will cost an extra buck rather than afraid your descendants will be smothered by gas's destruction of the atmosphere.

B-Block (50:00) SPORTSBALLCENTER TONIGHT: Did you notice baseball's celebration of its "Trade Deadline" this week? This is a relatively new phenomenon. Through most of its history baseball has tried to legislate AGAINST powerful well-heeled teams from monopolizing all the talent. In fact there was once a rule against making a trade with a defending champion! And, maybe you heard I'm selling one of my rare Honus Wagner baseball cards. The idea that the card was damaged (the background to the player's portrait was cut away, probably in 1909) and I had it restored by a master conservator, has kind of gotten warped in the hype about the auction. The point is: restoration - illicit, secret, designed to mislead and deceive - has been around for three decades and I had this already-altered card re-altered was and is an attempt to make restoration above board.

C-Block (1:23:14) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well my old pal Laura Ingraham was back in the news and I'm afraid Dr. Fauci was subjected to a real-time version of one of my recurring nightmares: I'm somewhere public, trying to deal with a crisis, and I can tell somebody is sitting behind me gesticulating and contorting their visage - and it's LAURA. Or you can title this "The many faces of Laura Ingraham."

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 84: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Back from a week off just in time to put the podcast on health hiatus...details within today's supersized edition. Plus, befitting the time off, some meta pictures on how Democrats should plan for what they want this country to look like on its 300th anniversary, if it lasts that long. Will we have jailed Trump and gotten back the money he took? Undone his damage? Eliminated the anachronistic idea that Wyoming should have as many senators as California? Let the Supreme Court continue to lie, cheat and steal the democracy from under us? As John Candy said in "Splash": Think big, be big, my friend.

MORE IMMEDIATELY: Whaddya mean the Governor of Virginia hasn't been BRIEFED on the way to overturn her state's Supreme Court's usurpation of redistricting? Why the hell not Hakeem Jeffries? Anybody notice Trump is simply rotating the same three lies about Iran? Why are only independent journalists like Garrett Graff still covering the WHCD non-shooting when the New York Times is doing 31 paragraphs on the future of the dinner like anybody gave a crap?

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: stop saying Trump is painting everything GOLD. That color is not GOLD. It is the color of WEE WEE. Say it. Use the clinical terms, use the gutter terms. The gutter terms define this idiot president. Stop saying gold when you mean whizzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

B-Block (56:00) ON THE PASSING OF TED TURNER: Hard to believe few of the obituaries mentioned how he also invented 7-day-a-week sports on national television. Or how Jane Fonda kept him from destroying himself in, like, 1982. One particularly harrowing saga had him telling the lowest ranking staffer at CNN's Washington Bureau which way, when he finally decided he'd do it, he'd do it. And this is said with admiration and affection for the man who created the place where I and so many of the figures of the last 45 years began our TV careers.

C-Block (1:30:00) ALL TED ALL THE TIME: I was holding back until I was certain I wouldn't jinx him. My beloved first rescue dog, Ted, was up against it last fall. I took him to the University of Florida for life-saving open heart surgery and boy, did they! Eight hours on the table, eight hours of SICU, all for an eight pound dog and now - he's not even on any medications! It's a long story and I would insist it's worth hearing it. And if you have a dog (or know of one) moving from Mitral Valve Disease to Heart Failure, maybe this will provide you with hope - and an option.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 83: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has given away his labyrinthine plot to stay in office past 2028 in one social media post and he’s just crazy enough to think it will work. It is in his rant claiming the indictment of a political opponent means "The 2020 Presidential Election Should Be Permanently Wiped From The Books And Be Of No Further Force or Effect…”

He is not going to try a new Constitutional Amendment or say the limit is two CONSECUTIVE terms. He's not going another coup (at least not initially). He is going to try to nullify the 2020 Election - and hold that vote again. ANOTHER 2020 Election. In 2028.

If you think that's too crazy easy for him - is it crazier than Trump insisting yesterday that we are in a war against UKRAINE? Crazier than indicting the former FBI Director on a threat to kill Trump with a seashell meme? Crazier than trying to get a comedian fired for a joke about Trump’s death and his wife when TRUMP then goes out and makes a joke about his death and his wife and all America is talking about is the dreaded D-word? Crazier than indicting a man for trying to shoot him at the Correspondents’ Dinner when it is now unmistakably clear that the suspect never fired a shot and was never on the same floor as Trump was? Crazier than Trump's insistence that we should pay for this damn ballroom because it'll protect presidents? What - are they sealing themselves in like Saddam Hussein in his Hidey Hole?

And then I'll detail Trump’s bid to MATA: Make America 2020 Again.

B-Block (36:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Two competing Bari Weiss entries because while nobody's watching her version of the CBS Evening News, everybody seems to have seen her prized reporter Olivia Reingold making a fool of herself on video from the Correspondents' Dinner. And speaking of that, Stephen A. Smith came out of that experience knowing who is to blame for all America's problems: those evil liberals! Whose presidential nomination he expects to win. ESPN has a choice: platform a political idiot and Conservative tool and destroy your franchise, or get rid of him and keep it.

C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I often wonder WHY I ever became a political commentator. It wasn't planned and it wasn't supposed to be permanent. And the story of HOW I became a political commentator is even crazier.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 82: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Call me a cynic but I am beginning to get a sense that you may have some doubts about this Not-An-Assassination Attempt at The White House Correspondents Dinner.

Well - that's what it was. Or in this case, what it wasn't. The acting attorney general says the alleged perp quote “was stopped before he got anywhere near the President.” So, NOT an assassination attempt, per the attorney general. But of course the White House is still trying to sell it as one (its 'protocol director' insists it was "the hand of God" again; its deputy chief of staff tried to start another 'USA!' chant after the incident). Even though proximity is the definition of such a nightmare scenario. Saturday Night? Obama had 15 of those.

Still, among my fellow Americans who are NOT in the Trump Mass Hypnosis Cult, I may be in the minority because I DON’T think it was staged. Why are you so cynical? Just because an hour beforehand Karoline Leavitt told Fox quote “There will be some shots fired tonight!” That’s a coincidence. Just because Trump has gone insane about his quote “militarily top secret ballroom” and the next thing you know he’s GOING to a ballroom and after that the Secret Service screws up security AT the ballroom and after THAT he’s holding a press conference saying this is WHY he needs that ballroom and all his sock puppets are tweeting about the ballroom. Coincidence!

Just because Trump and his filth have lied to you about every THING, every DAY, for 11 years… that’s no reason for you to think that was STAGED. It’s a coincidence! It’s all a coincidence.

ALSO: for God's sake stop saying there's no room for violence in American politics and we don't resolve our differences this way! Certainly we all wish that were true. But in point of fact there's room for almost nothing BUT violence in American politics! Ask JFK, Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Garfield, Lincoln, McKinley, dozens of others! What was the Civil War if not political violence?

B-Block (28:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Staten Island cop who has reportedly amassed more than 500 speeding tickets, and last year averaged one every other day. Jeff Bezos' Washington Post will only print a letter to the editor responding to its editorial if the authors take out the references TO Jeff Bezos. And Tom Cotton makes a hilarious mistake: Iran will meet its match not on the battlefield but at the bargaining table because it's never faced the author of "Art Of The Deal." Who's gonna tell him?

C-Block (41:00) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: We need a break from media people talking about themselves so let's drop "Things I Promised Not To Tell" and instead read you his wonderful, weird, slightly spooky "The Black Magic Of Barney Haller."

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 81: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: "Donald Trump Is Losing His Mind."

It's the headline on a column in perhaps the most prominent MAGA magazine headline. It's not me saying it this time. Not Jimmy Kimmel. Not George Conway. Not a psychiatrist. The Washington Examiner: “Donald Trump Is Losing His Mind.”

Why? Just because he’s also losing IRAN? Just because he’s COMPARING Iran to Vietnam (which he dodged)? Just because he threatened to go General Sherman on Teheran? Just because he's just announced you are no longer ALLOWED to CRITICIZE him ABOUT Iran?

“Donald Trump Is Losing His Mind” writes The Washington Examiner - guess that makes it unanimous (and there is now polling on this!)

ALSO: House Democrats want Kash Patel to take an alcoholism screening test. His choices amount to: a) ARE you an alcoholic? b) Are you so FULL of alcohol you’re at risk of bursting into flames, or c) are you J. Edgar Boozer.

AND about the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday. The Correspondents Association is obeying in advance to Trump, calling him an "honoree" and welcoming his rats like Brendan Carr and Stephen Miller. If you’re attending this dinner, and you are not planning to storm out or otherwise using this rare opportunity to protest Trump’s presence, you’re not only a traitor to JOURNALISM, you’re a traitor to America. 

B-Block (36:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump's "National Garden Of Heroes" with 250 statues of everybody from Elvis to Whittaker Chambers is dumb enough. What happens when they forget to order the statues? Interior Secretary Burgum wants Theodore Roosevelt in the pro football Hall of Fame even though there wasn't pro football while T.R. was alive. And new Congressman Clay Fuller says he was only joking when he said Georgia was named after George Washington.

C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Talking about dinner in DC Saturday (The White House Correspondents) led me to mention my disastrous dates last century with Laura Ingraham on social media and there was considerable disbelief so it's time to tell that story.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 80: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Nobody is at the wheel of Trump's war in Iran.

Is the Strait of Hormuz open or is it closed? Are there peace talks with Iran in Pakistan TOMORROW… or nah? Is Jayvee Vance going? Is Iran going? Has Trump scheduled peace talks where we’re the only ones there? Will it make any difference if we’re the only ones there? Doesn’t “blowing a hole in the engine room” of an Iranian cargo ship yesterday mean we aren’t honoring Trump’s own ceasefire he boasted about? Are we paying 20 billion dollars for the Iranian uranium and hostages? The same uranium and hostages Obama bought for 400 million and Trump called him a traitor? Or is that a no?

Don’t ask Trump – he doesn’t know. But that won’t stop him from answering anyway. Yes. Then Nope. Then Yes again. Then: All of the Above. in 48 hours he went from 13 posts congratulating himself on winning, to insisting he would stop being “Mr. Nice Guy” and blow up all of Iran. By the way, eactly when was he “Mr. Nice Guy”?

We are LOSING the war in Iran and as of today a total idiot is still president and commander-in-chief. He gets questions about the pointless war he started to divert attention from Epstein and the economy he crashed, so he orders the reporters out of the Oval Office, and sits there with hapless munchkin Little Joe Rogan standing behind him, the shine off his cueball noggin blinding cameras and journalists alike. Trump has set off a chain of events over which he no longer has any control – except to withdraw and flee – and to withdraw and flee is to acknowledgehe screwed up. And this man would jump off the roof of the White House before admitting he screwed up.

The Trump “Administration” has so UTTERLY jumped the shark, that the truthers are coming out from inside MAGA:Alex Jones now insists Trump has done all this DELIBERATELY, because he has made a “deal with the deep state to throw the election to the Democrats." Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the Trump Assassination Truthers and Trump himself has floated a kind of conspiracy theory ABOUT himself… he wrote ‘Praise Be To Allah’ on Easter morning to “seem as unstable and insulting as possible.”

He wanted to seem as unstable as possible? MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, Trump! You’ve finally done something you promised!

B-Block (28:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Before the year is out, Major League Baseball will threaten to lock the players out and cancel the season in 2027 because the smaller market teams can't make enough money to compete. One of those teams just sold for $3.1 billion more than it did in 2012. New York's hockey teams support a) Trump putting his name on public buildings or b) legal funds for cops convicted of killing unarmed civilians. Vivek Ramaswamy dismisses his opponent talking about being raped as a child as her "complaining." And Lauren Boebert thinks Congress is too horny and she won't remain, uh, hands off.

C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Netflix stock took a huge hit, supposedly after the co-founder Reed Hastings announced he was bowing out. But I think it might've been another announcement that did it. They are going into news podcasts with - Brian Williams? The story of how he imploded at NBC, while I was literally an eyewitness to his public self-destruction, and the advice I gave his bosses that could have saved him (and them) if they hadn't ignored it.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 79: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump doubles down on bashing the Pope and appropriating Jesus.

This time it’s not him pretending to be Dr. Jesus or whoever. It's, it's, it's...well the image he posted looks like he’s about to make out with him. I mean this isn’t one of my areas of expertise but JC is fondling Trump's chest. It’s so bad even Speaker Mike Johnson noticed.

The Republicans aren’t mad about the other part, slamming Pope Leo, because right wing governments have been attacking the Catholic Church since King Henry the 8th. But some of the comments do underscore that if they want the Pope to "stay in his lane," the MAGA evangelical squad needs to stay in its.

This also underscores how MANY wars can Trump start at the same time? War against the Pope, War against European governments, War against Iran, War against Reality. He again insists he’s blockading the Strait of Hormuz when the American navy is clearly NOT blockading the Strait of Hormuz. He again insists he’s already beaten Iran, when Iran now says IT may also halt shipping in the RED SEA.

Does Trump even KNOW how bad it’s going for America in the Gulf? In world capitals? Or is this like Germany 1942 where citizens – and many government officials – were actually told the Luftwaffe had totally destroyed New York City. Let me tell you the story of what happened when German POW’s actually SAW New York City…

Plus: watch where you put your hands, J.

B-Block (26:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Is naming a large pothole on the Moon in honor of the late wife of one of the astronauts an "act of colonialism"? One anti-colonialism commenter thinks so. When you OD and that isn't the worst thing you did all week - the story of Clavicular. And the Swalwell Disaster prompts one Congressman (Andy Ogles) to propose hanging rapists (who's going to tell him?) and one Fox host (Jesse Watters) to pontificate on the proper time to "whip it out."

C-Block (39:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: She was a five-hour a week camerawoman who had already survived several years on Capitol Hill. He, owned the network and invited her to the best French restaurant in Georgetown. And she - as she told me back in '82 or '83 - wound up saying good night, by standing up in the middle of that restaurant and slapping him.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 78: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) BREAKING: Trump attacks and threatens Pope Leo in insane online rant, criticizing him for being opposed to Nuclear Weapons. Then in an in-person interview upon his return to Joint Base Andrews tonight insists Pope Leo was wrong to SUPPORT Nuclear Weapons. Trump then posts an image of himself dressed in Jesus-like attire apparently healing a hospital patient. No comment yet from the world's 1,200,000,000 Catholics. (8:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: I know, I know, lots of stuff just happened: Orban topples in Hungary, Vance beclowns himself there and in talks with Iran, Trump basically ends the ceasefire and threatens war against EVERY country in the world if they send a ship through the strait of Hormuz, the Houthis are trying to blockade the OTHER shipping bottle-neck there, Trump caught staring at cleavage at the cage fighting in Miami, Swalwell self-defenestrating.

But I'll stick to this: The Melania Trump speech about Epstein was the single most important public statement by anybody connected to Trump in the last decade. She, personally, out of nowhere, moved the Epstein story back to center stage. A month of world-shaking cataclysm by her husband to bury the Epstein story and HIS COVER-UP OF IT and in 535 words she undid all that.

And the thing that will keep this story alive for months: NONE of her words were in defense of her husband. She never said WE are innocent. She said I am innocent. She said it TWENTY FOUR TIMES. Her speech could’ve been only FIVE words long. Five words that may end the Trump presidency:

I’M not taking the fall.

PLUS: No, Swalwell isn't the victim and the allegations aren't anonymous and this isn't a Roger Stone set-up. He just knew there was a story, the way in 2017 I knew there was a story that would end up getting Matt Lauer fired from NBC and I knew it six days before Lauer knew it. That "B" follows "A" does not mean "A" caused "B."

B-Block (42:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Chuck Todd blames Trump's pardons on Biden because Chuck Todd Disease. The Financial Times with one of the great corrections of our time. The banner if not the roof falls in on Gov. Shapiro. And what exactly are Kalshi, pro golf, and golfer Bryson deChambeau trying to sell in a commercial that ends with deChambeau evidently moving to a crashed UFO to beat an injured extraterrestrial to death with some golf clubs?

C-Block (56:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My greatest sports record fell last night. It was 21 years and two months between episodes of ESPN's SportsCenter that I anchored. My old friend Rich Eisen has now made it 23 years. A good time to describe the Rip Van Winkle effect, and the bizarre stories about my goin' back to Bristol, Bristol, Bristol, in 2005, 2013, and 2018.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 77: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Did Trump lose to Iran because the war was escalating too quickly for him?

Firstly, great cease fire, Trump. Oh did we mention it doesn’t include Lebanon but it DOES include Iran closing the strait of Hormuz on Day 1. CEASEFIRE? This is way more FIRE than CEASE.

How do you LOSE a cease fire, El Presidente? But the bigger question: did Trump really call off his genocide because he didn’t need the missiles flying THIS week? Because this is way too early to precipitate a crisis HERE, in AMERICA? Did he give the Iranians control of Hormuz and let them keep their uranium and get out from under the sanctions because while the FIRST reason for this pointless brinksmanship was a distraction from the Epstein Files, the SECOND reason was to have a reason in late summer and early autumn to declare a domestic emergency HERE, and mess with the elections?

To extrapolate from the cynical but entirely logical and disturbing writings of the great historian Professor Tim Snyder, is all this because Trump didn’t need retaliation from Iran and maybe the threat of Iranian terrorism (real or staged) on APRIL 9th… he needs it on OCTOBER 9th… so this was not only postponed, but it was postponed already pre-sabotaged, so he can keep it on a back burner TIL then, or bring it back later when he needs to lie and say Iran is a threat HERE?

PLUS: Thank you Pam Bondi for putting Epstein back on the map, by not just going to the House deposition and taking the hit. Now we can again point at an all-too-obvious Trump Epstein cover-up. The other day I jokingly asked 'Where the F happened to Rudy Giuliani?" and all of a sudden he's back. And my old boss Jeff Shell did indeed get fired, for the second time, as a major TV network president.

B-Block (29:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Dr. Naomi Wolf is an all-time great. This time, she is unaware of the sun. We have Trump-inspired Eggcorn propagators talking about "Litnis Tests" and the "Commander And Chief!" A boss at X describes writing on the site as "tweeting." And as Trump threatens to arrest reporters (again) the White House Correspondents Dinner looms and they will welcome him, but no critics, no comedians, and no protest except the lamest thing you've ever heard: The Jake Tapper Protest Pocket Square.

C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: He was perhaps the greatest mechanical newscaster in history. Just perfect on the air. That, he explained, was because he never thought, he just read. Unfortunately if there was a mistake in the script, he'd read that too. And one night, boy was there a mistake in Jerry Dunphy's script!

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 76: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: The OTHER part of Dementia J. Trump’s vile, multi-religion blasphemous Easter post is the operative part “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge day… “There will be nothing like it… “You’ll be living in Hell… "Just watch…”  All that was followed four hours and 35 minutes later by quote “Tuesday 8:00 PM Eastern Time," plus phone calls to his media stenographers: If there’s no deal Monday he’s quote “blowing up the whole country” and “I am blowing up everything over there."

What that is, is at least a threat to use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran. Even if it’s JUST a threat, or the “nuclear” part is hyperbole, it is still a threat to use massive amounts of conventional ordnance but Trump of course has longed to use nuclear weapons since the first term, asking his generals why we had them if we didn’t use them. He wants to. He's a sadist who wants to see people die.

And of course, he IS crazy: “I know him… and… he has gone insane.” Marjorie Taylor Greene said that. Oh and her postscript, as she joined our Club Reality: “Our president is not a Christian.”

This is still all about the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump said was irrelevant and would open itself and about which he has held 28 public positions in the last 35 days. So here we are. Tomorrow is either TACO Tuesday or Thermonuclear Tuesday.

THE ALTERNATIVE VIEW: This is Trump's fault regardless, but could he have been manipulated into it by a soft-rollout Military Coup against the civilian government, led by Hegseth and the other religious nuts in the Pentagon? And when did this America actually go off the rails? You can point at the day Trump came down the escalator it didn't extend to hell. You could look at the sign-on of Fox News Channel. Just as relevant: January 19, 2009 and one of the last decisions by a President-Elect who taught future Republican leaders that the laws would not be enforced against them. 

B-Block (48:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jeff Shell, who is one of the two people primarily responsible for scuttling my planned return to MSNBC in 2019-20-21, is about to get fired as a network president for the second time in three years. Sometimes I wonder: could it be me, and not them? In this case, I don't wonder. Plus Rep. Andy Ogles, baseball's Texas Rangers (MLB is boasting of 40% diversity; they rolled out an opening day line-up of 10 white guys and a statue of a Texas racist, and those who pushed a pastor claiming Trump was about to be the recipient of biblical "golden showers" make up the rest of the list.

C-Block (1:02:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A lot of the yap on Threads over the weekend was about the late lamented food chain "Boston Market" and who killed it. Well, my bad, that was me. The story of the brilliant commercials I did for them that worked so well, but every time it worked it cost them $12!

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BULLETIN: TRUMP FIRES ATTORNEY GENERAL - SEASON 4 EPISODE 75

Trump, who attacked Iran to distract from his cover-up of and culpability in the Epstein Files disaster (and the malfeasance of his Attorney General Pam Bondi in mishandling those files) has now fired Bondi in part to distract from his attack on Iran - thus refocusing the world's attention ON the Epstein Files. 

Todd Blanche is the interim replacement, Lee Zeldin among the candidates for the permanent job, and a British newspaper reports the tipping point was Trump's rage that Bondi had not jailed any of Trump's democratic opponents. The Daily Mail also says he was furious Bondi seemed to have intervened in a plan to release the investigatory files on Congressman Eric Swalwell, even though Swalwell had been cleared by the FBI.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 74: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: The buffoon who is, for better or worse, the actual president of this country has called the United States of America STUPID.

No – seriously: “We are the only country in the world stupid enough to allow birthright citizenship”

He didn’t call the Constitution stupid. He didn’t call the Supreme Court stupid. He didn't call the immigrants stupid. He didn't call the Democrats stupid. He called the ENTIRE COUNTRY stupid.

You. And me. And his own supporters.

Why again do we continue to permit this disloyal, deranged moron to remain president?

Oh by the way that was him - even before his pathetic speech on Iran last night - signaling he will LOSE, that he is getting CREAMED, after the oral arguments OVER birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court, summarized by his lawyer saying “it’s a new world” and the Chief Justice replying but “it’s the same constitution.” When the Justices rule in June it could be 9-0, though 7-2 would be likelier.

THE BESTEST WAR EVER: Near as I can tell, the essence of Trump's argument in his Iran speech last night was: It's going perfectly because it hasn't taken nearly as long as World War I or Vietnam. He didn't address NATO, he only tweaked the allies who have refused to jump overboard with him, and he only once gave any hint about what's next (Iran has "two or three weeks" to make a deal even though everybody in Iran is dead). The overriding theme of the speech was the tantalizing prospect that he might fall asleep at the podium while he was talking.

TRUMP'S PERVERTS: The latest on Kristi Noem and whether she got a group discount on plastic surgery, the servitude of Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and RFK Jr and Jeff Bezos, and the weird psychology behind why his former critics enslave themselves to Trump. A professional in the field says it's not masochism, and while it may be blackmail, it's more about Trump providing them with a way for them to lie to themselves and say they aren't deviants or hypocrites, that he will back up their delusions - provided they do exactly what he tells them to. 

B-Block ( ) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Oh, look, I'm dragging Katy Tur and Tony Dokoupil again. Tur and I used to talk about Trump's lack of acuity in 2015. She just did a tv segment on it this week and it was as if she discovered it. And a profile of Dokoupil by Columbia Journalism Review has revealed he was once a hair model. What do you mean "once?" Also on here, Navy Commander Tim Parlatore ragging on behalf of Gamblin' Pete Hegseth. Last time we saw him he was civilian Trump attorney Tim Parlatore. I'm waiting for Cardinal Parlatore. And if Cory Booker is paying for the astroturfed online support, he deserves a refund.

C-Block ( ) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: If I'm dragging Tur, it's only fair I tell the story of when she went above-and-beyond even live-in girlfriend duties: the saga of the day my appendix exploded and it took me 48 hours to figure out it wasn't just an upset stomach.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 73: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: I have figured out what might be the weirdest most pointless delusion of Trump's second term: his claim "Vince Lombardi - I knew him."

Trump was just 21, in college, and living with his parents in Queens the day the most legendary figure in football in the '60s retired as coach of The Green Bay Packers. More over, the first time he claimed he knew him was a decade ago, filled with details of witnessing Lombardi grab players by the shirt and not getting beat up because he was a winner. Where? How? He never explained. Of course he didn't. He probably saw it on television.

So why does he believe he met Vince Lombardi?

Because he DID meet Vince Lombardi.

Only - not THAT Vince Lombardi.

He met Vince Lombardi, JUNIOR, son of the legendary coach. Vince Lombardi Jr. was an executive in the United States Football League while Trump owned the New Jersey Generals of that league. Lombardi Jr. recounts meeting Trump (Trump was a jerk) in Jeff Pearlman's perfect book "Football For A Buck." 

By this standard, I ALSO KNEW VINCE LOMBARDI. The younger was a negotiator for the owners during the NFL Strike of 1982 that I covered for CNN. But in the 44 years since I met him I never conflated him with his father.

THIS IS NOT THE LEAD STORY, it's just maddening. The lead? Trump and Hegseth and Rubio may be sending thousands of American troops into an ambush in Iran. Not that they care. The conservative publication “The Washington Post” reports Pentagon plans for thousands of Marines and other personnel conducting weeks of raids while Rubio insists it’s going so well, we’ll never need boots on the ground. But Trump and Hegseth and Rubio may be wildly exaggerating how EFFECTIVELY America has degraded Iran’s military capacities AND wildly underrating how effective Iran has been destroying American equipment – especially aircraft.
The Pentagon said an AWACS – the giant command and control plane – was “damaged” while parked on an airfield in Saudi Arabia. Photos have leaked. The back half of the AWACs was blown off. Iran is successfully conducting a war designed to destroy our PLANES on the ground, and control or neutralize wherever American troops intend to land or be based.

AND THE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL doesn't know it is against federal law to send troops (or other "armed men") to a polling station during an election. Five years in jail for sending them, Todd Blanche. Losing eligibility for all offices or honors, Donald Trump.

B-Block (36:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Bill Maher wins The Shania Twain Prize For Humor. I think I have that right. Laura Loomer takes a terrible risk invoking the term "a slap in the face" given what she's done to her own face. And who's worse? Scott Jennings (now accused by three fellow guests of faking his anti-Trump hysteria) or Abby Phillip (who lets her name be used on the grotesque CNN show where Jennings allegedly lies)?

C-Block (50:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I mean this question literally: Whatever happened to Rudy Giuliani? Not that I miss him, not that I'm worried. It's just - he's vanished, hasn't he?

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 72: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has started World War 3 and has no idea how to stop it - and he doesn't know he's LOSING World War 3.

How could he NOT know this? Because reportedly every morning they show him two minutes of highlights of "stuff blowing up" in Iran. His own personal SportsCenter

Conflagration in the Middle East. Trump insisting Iran is dead. And yet Iran has struck Tel Aviv. Putin has sent a Russian oil tanker to Cuba just to remind us he can. Trump has now handed Iran de facto control of the worldwide price of a barrel of oil. Iran now controls 30 percent of worldwide fertilizer distribution. Because of Trump’s World War 3, the Philippines declares an energy emergency and Slovenia institutes energy rationing and United Airlines raised airfares twenty percent. Trump insists peace could be imminent and sends thousands more troops there. He mumbles about a peace proposal. It may be LAST year’s peace proposal and he's confused. Ukraine-Russia continues. Now the PAKISTANIS think they are mediators about Trump’s World War 3. Trump's World War 3, which is apparently being conducted, so crooks can make billion dollar bets on oil futures. And in the ultimate insanity: the military POINT of Trump’s World War 3 is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after the Strait of Hormuz was closed by… Trump’s World War 3.

All this while Rupert Murdoch insists if Trump DOESN’T put boots on the ground in Iran it will mean “American collapse.” World War 3 (TRUMP’S World War 3) in the new Thursday Countdown dropping at midnight.

IT IS ALMOST SCAPEGOAT TIME: He's beginning to give Hegseth way too much of the credit he normally gives himself. That's what he's always done when he's about to fire somebody. He did it to Noem. Hegseth could be next. Or maybe MarkWayne Mullin, he's been on the job two days and already made an idiot out of himself (again). And talk about scapegoats: who's going to get it at CBS where the morning show's target audience is now 33% smaller than the target audience I had the last week I did Countdown on MSNBC.

B-Block (26:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: When Patel's federally-funded girl friend Alexis Wilkins trashes Mike Flynn, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Joe Kent - this must be some list: The Blaze, Glenn Beck, Scott Jennings, and Lauren Boebert,

C-Block (40:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A new baseball season is underway and this might be our last Opening Week until 2028 or later. My career began with covering the two most calamitous sports strikes in American history: MLB 1981 and NFL 1982. Of a drunken night with the football guys, and a broadcast in which a then-prominent sports columnist called them all communists (for the same kind of proposal OWNERS now offer TO players).

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 71: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is paying Iran to try to kill Americans.

$14 billion, he’s giving them. Fourteen billion for oil Iran can now sell, per Trump. What’s that called again? If you’re ‘adhering to our enemies, giving them aid and comfort’? And that fop Scott Bessent defended it yesterday as "jujitsuing" Iran, using its money against it.

In fact Trump is using Iran's money against American troops.

Trump, who is garbage - who celebrated the death of Robert Mueller just as he celebrated the death of Rob Reiner - who Friday said the Strait of Hormuz would open itself and then Saturday said he would destroy Iran’s power grid unless Iran opened it - who then compared the majority political party of this nation TO Iran - who announced he is sending his ICE terrorists into the airports because ANYBODY can be a TSA agent and apparently he forgot about his mass deportation thing – and who has had some sort of hallucinatory dream in which he decided this was quote “the death of Iran” when Iran is not only winning but most Americans recognize that Iran is winning... Trump has freed up $14,000,000,000  of Iranian oil because that will lower the price of a barrel of oil by like a dollar for like a week.

Oh and remember when he made that joke to the Prime Minister of Japan about Pearl Harbor? Turns out President S-Stain didn’t know what HAPPENED… AT… Pearl Harbor.

BY THE WAY the Iranians say if Trump does attack their energy infrastructure, that'll black out much of the Gulf, and they'll hit Israel's energy infrastructure, and all the neighboring nations' desalination plants. 

Good plan, Grampa Garbage.

B-Block (36:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Twitter-X user Chris950003 has invented a new "eggcorn." Is Peter Navarro sticking to his prediction that Trump's war would lower energy prices? And the sabotage of CBS is nearly complete: Bari Weiss and the Ellisons have not only destroyed the birthplace of American broadcast journalism (Edward R. Murrow's CBS Radio) but she actually wants to have Stephen A. Smith host the CBS morning show.

C-Block (50:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I am an alum of CBS Radio - at KNX in Los Angeles and for the radio network as a sportscaster and reporter in the '80s - and I bleed for its murder. But my connection is even more personal. The head of its all-news operation in New York personally validated, personally made tangible, my career aspirations. With one note he turned my possibility into a reality. The story of the Lou Adler Letter.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 70: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: We are all looking at it backwards: That was Tulsi Gabbard’s passive-aggressive mini-coup against Trump - about Iran, and the elections.

That's what she did in her Senate testimony – and what her deputy Joe Kent did when he resigned, a day earlier (and you think THAT was a coincidence of timing?) In a kind of bizarre code, through omission and not commission, they called Trump a liar about Iran and nukes. Not nobly or bravely. But they did it. They left no other conclusion that Trump was and is lying about Iran. Under oath.

And THEN Gabbard passive-aggressively called Trump a LIAR AGAIN about the seized ballots in Georgia. Under oath. She testified that HE sent her. It might be a break in the damn; it might be trivial. It is NOT nothing. Because everybody has a moment in which they realize that they have to protect their own assets - and this might've been theirs.

Lord knows all the allies have found theirs. Trump literally has no support from anyone, and the EU just started talking to Iran about a deal to get its ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is neck high in quicksand that he ordered and installed - and he's run out of people to blame.

Plus I'll explain what the hell Trump meant when he said “DIG WE MUST" instead of "drill baby drill." (It was his brain defaulting back to 1962 and it's a really bad sign).

B-Block (26:00) SPORTSBALL TONIGHT: Are there ANY good feelings left from the US Olympics Men's Hockey Gold? Now the scorer of the winning goal, Jack Hughes, is demanding they give him the puck rather than enshrine it forever at the Hockey Hall of Fame, and an ESPN commentator is demanding we ignore "politics" and admit Russia to the next international tournament (while Russia is aiding Iran, who we are - like it or not - at war with).

(34:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Newt Gingrich falls for an internet troll who wants to create an instant Trump Canal in the Middle East using nukes. Rachel Maddow becomes the umpteenth commentator to insist HER favorite Trump scandal should be getting more attention than the others. And not only did the Los Angeles Dodgers desecrate Dodger Stadium by slapping a sponsor name on it - but they then lied and said they HADN'T sold the naming rights. 

C-Block (56:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My great grandfather not only turned down stock - circa 1907 - in the company that would become General Motors, but according to family lore he gave the owner the idea for the NAME "General Motors." We are not businessmen.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 69: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is not qualified to continue as commander in chief.

Not for another five minutes. He has to resign at least that role, immediately.

Trump is personally LOSING THE WAR IN IRAN. Trump is personally TURNING IRAN into INSTANT PROCESSED VIETNAM. Never mind the politics, never mind his assault on democracy, never mind his instability, never mind his corruption, never mind the details: Just MILITARILY. Just MAKING DECISIONS THAT WILL KILL AMERICAN TROOPS - Trump is NOT qualified to continue as commander in chief and he needs to resign AT LEAST his command TODAY. 

A week ago Trump mocked England for trying to join the war after he 'won it.' Now Trump is BEGGING England and half a dozen other countries to send ships to save him from this disaster at the Strait of Hormuz. A week ago Trump insisted Iran would NEVER CLOSE the Strait of Hormuz. Now it turns out the Iranians directly WARNED HIM they would close the Strait of Hormuz - warned him in 2019. Because it’s not just a ten dollar gallon of gas that’s coming, it’s a ten dollar STRAWBERRY. Because a third of the world’s fertilizer goes through the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping is down ooh just 97-point-4 percent.

Trump is the Commander-in-Creep.

Trump is the Commander-in-Cheap.

Trump is the Commander-A-Sleep.

He needs to turn military command over to somebody else. Because Iran could never in a million years harm this country as much as Trump is harming it right now.

THE GOOD NEWS: Dick Durbin has inadvertently produced the succinct message for all Democrats and everybody else opposing Trump and the Republicans' attempt to disembowel our elections, the bill they call with bitter irony 'The Save Act.' As he explains in less than a minute, it will disenfranchise roughly 10 percent of all American voters - and generally speaking the poorer ones. This is the line we must take, and sell. Just when you thought Democratic Senators weren't worth the proverbial price of the oil required to burn them in hell. Thank you, Senator Durbin.

B-Block (30:00) SPORTSBALLCENTER: How could a team retire the uniform number of a former player they had to fire as manager because of his personal moral failings ON THE FIELD OF PLAY? And yet the New York Mets are doing exactly that. (35:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Cornelius Rudd warns you of the upcoming 'Raptor.' The CBS tire fire produces hilariously bad stories about David Ellison (and Epstein), Tony Dokoupil (and a new job somewhere else), Joe Rogan, and Jeff Shell (about to get fired from yet another network presidency). And then we have one of the greatest name mistakes of all time when Brian Kilmeade gets Markwayne Mullin's stupid first name completely wrong, Pilgrim.

C-Block (46:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: I'm making a special request for your help finding a home for two bonded senior Malteses, apparent survivors of a puppy mill, named Mai Tai and Soraya. (49:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: And at the opposite end of the moral spectrum, there's the upcoming 25th anniversary of the day Rupert Murdoch fired me from Fox for following the exact instructions his office gave me.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 68: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump doesn’t REALIZE that he’s screwed in Iran. He can't decide if he's won and we should applaud now, or if he'll win later and we should applaud then - when the reality is, he's in a quagmire and about two weeks from handing the Democrats a majority that even White House strategists think might be enough to impeach AND remove him next year. Key Republicans and everybody behind the scenes in MAGA are looking for off-ramps. Does Trump know? Will he be temporarily not-a-moron and take one of them?

Is Trump in a fugue state?

Dissociative behavior? Temporary amnesia? No awareness that there are consequences? You know – his normal state – only WORSE. First about Iran he said “any time I want it to end, it will end." Now about Iran he says it will continue indefinitely until they quote “literally could never build that country back.”

Is there a strategy? A plan? Anything? In the most important document of the war, Senator Chris Murphy told us what he could of a semi-confidential briefing about Iran by the administration. They seem to think all they have to do is destroy all of Iran's armaments and they'll never ever find a way to replace them.

And while he’s demanding the world bend to his will, again he is helping the Russians help the Iranians try to kill our people and our allies. Monday I mentioned it was the Russians locating American Assets in the middle east for Iran's benefit. Now Trump is indirectly funding Russian advisors helping Iran with its drone strategy.

Is Trump even aware he is awake?

And what the hell is this with him trying to guess the shoe size of his cabinet members and buying them shoes that were already out of style in 1966?

PLUS what is it with Pete PTSD Hegseth? He has now BANNED all outside photographers from Pentagon briefings because he thought the Associated Press images of him were unflattering. But ALL images of Pete Hegseth are unflattering.

B-Block (32:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Poor Adnan Virk misses by an inch after trying to out-sing Michael Buble. Bill Maher gets run over at an NBA game. Alina Habba brings us her umpteenth malapropism; she can't tell her Cahoots from her Cajones; and the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee can't tell the difference between 1947 and 47 years.

C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Hardly that. Things I found on an ancient cassette. A bunch of radio sportscasts I did in my first 90 days in this business - just the other day (in 1979). Enjoy, or skip them, I won't be offended either way.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 67: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is in essence paying to provide Iran with the location of our forces in the Middle East. Our ships, jets, troops.

Trump has just waived part of the embargo against Russian oil. So Iran’s ally Russia can sell MORE oil to India to get more money. Thus Russia can spend that money to gather more  information on where American forces are IN the war. So Russia can give that information TO IRAN, and reportedly is, AND nobody in the Trump Rogue Government is denying it.

Trump is in effect paying Russia, to help Iran attack Americans in this war. And in case you had doubts over Russia's loyalty, its minister to Britain just repeated on television there that it is not neutral in this war, that it is siding with Iran and will help it.,

So, what’s that called again? When you’re fighting a war, and people in your government help a country that’s helping the country you’re fighting the war AGAINST? What’s that called again? Tree Surgery? Trea-Ting? Trea...

Never mind the other problems: we a) have no business being there; b) we are not winning; c) we are going to be there for years or d) Trump is going to have to cut and run or e) Trump's setting us up for an Iranian revenge terror attack here.

And just to follow up on the End-Of-The-World Rapture religious crap motivating dozens of US military commanders, one Senator has actually joined the hallelujah chorus: Senator Cramer of North Dakota says we are there because of a BIBLICAL COMMITMENT to Israel.

Iran: it is far worse than you think.

B-Block (38:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It's a full scale pie fight over in Fascist Media. Megyn Kelly, Bill Ackman, Nepobaby Tucker Carlson, Grand-Nepobaby Buckley Carlson, and others all attacking each other - it's delightful. Then there's US Weekly's disastrous post about the passing of a celebrity-adjacent figure. And if you haven't heard this you won't believe it. They've managed to position the "White House" sign perfectly behind Karoline Leavitt in just the perfect place so when she stands all the way to her left, it reads behind her... Well, no, I'm going to make you listen to find out.

C-Block (49:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I told somebody this story the other day so now I'll tell you. If you can envision me, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Lester Holt, and Jesse Ventura inside an MSNBC men's room talking about inches - this story is for you. Happily it was about our new president and how he was the tallest man any of us had ever met who was clearly lying about his own height.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 66: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: It's literally a disaster of BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS.

Some of Trump’s Troops are being told that it isn't 'war with Iran' - it's a war to start a Biblical Armageddon: “Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth” says one whistle-blower NCO about his commanding officer.

You heard it: a non-zero number of Trump Commanders aren't just fighting an illegal, ill-prepared, ill-fated war against an Iran that posed no realistic threat. To them it's a literal Holy War, start the apocalypse, end times, and then they all get raptured. More than 200 reports of such religious insanity, to a group called MRFF (Military Religious Freedom Foundation) and reported by one of my former MSNBC Coordinating Producers, Jonathan Larsen. MRRF is pushing back against us doing the whole Book of Revelations Crusades thing - and the newest development: the religious nuts in the military are holding emergency bible classes for those who may be deployed.

Maybe not Apocalypse Now but Apocalypse SOON. The religious nut jobs are in charge, Hegseth may be in on the delusion, and so: no sign of bad luck in Rapture.

B-Block (35:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The right wing allegation that MAGA Twitter twerp "Gunther Eagleman" only retweets if you pay him; Markwayne Mullin mistakes the smell of plumbing for the smell of war and keeps referring to "President Hegseth", and Weijia Jiang, CBS News reporter and president of the White House Correspondents Association. She and they not only actually insulted every journalist ever by inviting Trump to the Correspondents' Dinner - but he accepted and thinks he's getting an award. Trump is a man who has literally tried to get reporters killed for a decade, and they're going to sit in the same room with him. I guess because Goebbels is dead and is unavailable. I don't usually say 'I really went off on these idiots' but - I really went off on these WHCA idiots.

C-Block (50:00) THURBER'S VERSION OF THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: His magazine-length version of his only non-fiction book, "The Years With Ross" about the founding of "The New Yorker" magazine (and its legendary, almost mythical founder, Harold Ross). It is as hysterical - and sometimes nearly as impossible to believe - as the best of his fiction.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 65: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: We rejoin your regularly scheduled Trump-Epstein Cover-up Scandal Show, already in progress! Trump’s disastrous attack on Iran – approved by only 27% of America and barely HALF OF REPUBLICANS, so DIDN'T move the needle that Trumpstein has erupted anew in New Mexico:

The former Attorney General essentially accuses the Trump Department of Justice of SABOTAGING his investigation of Epstein’s Zorro Sex Trafficking Ranch in 2019; of telling him ‘we’ll just take it from here’ and instead burying it. They took all the evidence and simply did nothing. When New Mexico went back a year later and said 'seize the ranch, preserve the evidence' they were again ignored. And after a New York Times deep dive on all the non-sex allegations and involvements, an entire new Epstein realm has opened up: what about the thousands of Epstein's non-sex crimes and co-conspirators? Why hasn't Trump prosecuted them?

Plus, all the attack on Iran did was remind the world that if WE can try REGIME CHANGE in other countries, what’s to stop OTHER COUNTRIES from trying REGIME CHANGE? And I’ll say it again: They called it ‘Operation Epic Fury’ because ‘Operation Epstein Diversion’ didn’t sound War-fightery enough.

And media fails us yet again: CNN will now go the same Bari Weiss Way of CBS. Then again it was three-quarters dead already, and the real crisis is MS-NOW's president thought the future of her network (basically unchanged since we spun off my guest hosts Maddow, O'Donnell and Hayes to give them new shows in 2010) was...Anderson Cooper LOL.

B-Block (43:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Postscripts to the US Olympic Hockey disaster include cheap jokes about Auston Matthews' hairline. Trump flunky Alina Habba retweets a call for violence against a judge. And the Worst Persons GOAT Bill O'Reilly is back from purgatory to win for the first time in years! Right you are, Mr. Mehoffer!

C-Block (58:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I told a friend the story of the day I met the incomparable actor and character Walter Matthau and how he used to do impressions of sportscasters - so I'll tell you.

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COUNTDOWN BULLETIN PODCAST FEB. 28 2026: WAR WITH IRAN

(2:30) BULLETIN: While you were sleeping Trump illegally and unconstitutionally declared war on Iran, began to bomb its cities including Teheran and its parliament and its security council and its military targets and its schools and its ordinary people – and its militia allies in neighboring Iraq. Israel has joined in the assault. To quote Marty Sheen as the president in The Dead Zone: the missiles are flying, hallelujah hallelujah. To quote Trump to President Zelensky: you are playing with World War 3.

Trump has called it a war, USED the term “war” repeatedly, and inanely told Iranians to stay in their homes, which this country is bombing. It is war, he is calling it war, and yet he has sought no congressional approval and Trump is thus acting as a dictator – a military dictator – at this moment. Israel has joined the military action, dubbed "Operation Epic Fury" - because "Operation Epstein Distraction" didn't sound poetic enough

And apparently the FIFA Peace Prize just doesn’t mean anything any more. 

Novel thought: You know what would be right and just? We should have our new war in Iran fought by our new patriotic triumphant flag-waving unbeatable brave American heroes who so inspired us at the State of the Union: The Olympic winning U.S. Hockey Team!

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 63: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENTS: Trump should be in prison JUST for his new role in the new covering-up of the part of the Epstein files that are about him. Trump. The accusations are against Trump. The memos are about Trump. The investigations are OF Trump. They are missing.

There is a law saying Trump must produce them. He has not. That is, by definition, a cover-up. A conspiracy to BURY evidence. Even if somehow it CLEARED him.

SPECIAL COMMENT No. 2: As the Kash Patel Olympic Scandal expands exponentially, we have buried the lede.

Patel claims he was at the Olympics, working, running American security. Let's suspend our disbelief and say he's NOT lying. If he really was at the Olympics to run American security - WHY WAS HE DRINKING ON THE JOB? Why was he out-of-control drinking with the people he was there to protect?

The experts like my old MSNBC pal Juliette Kayyem are stunned: Security is not allowed to DRINK, during an event, during an Olympics. Not until the entire Olympics were over. ESPECIALLY if you are IN CHARGE of security! If you are hired for security, they put "no drinking" in your contract.

SPECIAL COMMENT No. 3: Why are the US Olympic men's hockey players not only still digging but digging new additional holes? Now it's not just drinking with Patel and laughing at terrible misogynistic jokes by Trump, but all but five of them were used as political props by Trump at the State of the Union, one (Tage Thompson) was photographed in a complete MAGA hat with the Press Secretary, the winning goal scorer is complaining everybody else made it political - and Auston Matthews (a Mexican-American who captains Canada's team and has thus had two of his three countries threatened by Trump) is standing there grinning behind Trump in the Oval Office, disgracing his team and its fans and his mother and his own relatives.

B-Block (47:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Fox's Jesse Watters doesn't want a president who struggles to read (prefers one who can't read at all). The popular internet delusion that the president the last time the Americans won Olympic hockey gold was Reagan (it wasn't). And MAGA internet disease victim Senator Mike Lee says ICE dresses like Mexican Cartels.

C-Block (58:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: As CBS continues to dissolve before our eyes, the sad truth that network news has been collapsing since at least the night in September 1997 when I was summoned by the president of NBC to have dinner with the chief of the MS part of MSNBC with instructions to humor and ignore him because all we wanted was his money.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 62: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: In case you somehow missed it, Kash Patel's enablers at the FBI (Fan Boys International) were busily denying he went to Italy for the Olympics just to see the hockey game and jock-sniff the victorious U.S. team when all sorts of video leaked out of the dressing room showing him doing exactly that - dancing, drinking, cringing. And then Patel himself couldn't resist Supposedly we sent 100 agents to help with security and he just had to be there. Guesstimated cost just for his latest stage of his perpetual vacation on our dime? $400,000.

It would be bad - a future administration will probably address it as misappropriation of funds. But what makes it worse is there's a piece by Patel from 2022 complaining about previous FBI directors wasting money on vacation, and a clip about his FBI predecessor Christopher Wray's vacation travel.

Simply impeaching him is insufficient. He needs to go to prison.

NOT THAT TRUMP WOULD DO THAT; THIS IS THE BEHAVIOR TRUMP TEACHES: Trump is a thief and he owes you and me at least 293 billion dollars - and we want it back.

The worst thief in American history - and 270 billion of that is in tariffs. Because on tariffs, the Supreme Court has given him his COMEUPPANCE. Well – it’s given him A comeuppance. Because his new argument for the new REPLACEMENT Monday tariffs was his old argument AGAINST overturning the old Friday tariffs.

But the key thing the Court actually did was give his cult a mortal shock. It is the first official body to give the Trump-Town Guyana Death Cult the message: that he is making this crap up, as he goes ALONG.

--

Plus: an actual good idea from Boris Johnson: to send peacekeepers to Ukraine – NOW. And I’M the guy who thinks the Hockey Gold Medal is a BAD THING. And no, the John Barron who called into C-SPAN wasn’t Trump – he was too coherent.

B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Mark Zuckerberg manages to lose a lawsuit before the trial starts, Kid Rock proves he's not charging $5000 for front row tickets by confessing he IS charging $5000 for front row tickets, and Stephen Miller's wife has another one of those Freudian slips that may be desperate pleas for help from inside a bad situation.

C-Block (50:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Baseball has already started so time for my annual explanation: why I don't work for baseball's TV network even though they offered me my own show and I accepted it. It has to do with a big league club threatening them if they didn't renege.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 61: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

BULLETIN: On his 66th birthday, British police arrest the former Prince Andrew (now Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor) on suspicion of supplying confidential government financial information to Jeffrey Epstein. They have 96 hours to decide whether to formally charge him for that or anything else.

And we prosecute no one - least of all our parallel, Trump.

HOURS EARLIER a South Korean court did not sentence insurrectionist former President Yoon Suk Yeol to death, as prosecutors had demanded. He tried to impose martial law on his nation in 2024 in a plot to use spurious charges of election fraud to justify ending democracy there. He gets life in prison.

And we prosecute no one - least of all our parallel, Trump.

AND JUST TO ROUND IT OUT: Overnight, President Zelensky of Ukraine snapped - to some degree, throwing an S-bomb at the Russians after the latest round of Trump-led stalling-tactic phony "peace talks" broke out with no result (or more correctly the result Putin wanted Trump to achieve: delay it all further).

And we did nothing.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 60: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Arizona Senate Republicans just introduced a measure to make ICE MANDATORY at polling places this November.

Mandatory. At voting booths.

This November.

No - It won’t pass. This time. 

But this does dispel any MAGA crap that this isn't the goal, that rounding up immigrants isn't just practice. Happily, DHS and MAGA are too busy purging themselves.

Maybe just as importantly: Does Trump look drawn and unnaturally thin in the face? Like, lost a lot of girth in the face - the kind of thing where people who don’t know say “you’ve lost a lot of weight, you look great” – except you don’t? Also he has just confused Harmeet Dhillon for Phyllis Diller.

Standard stuff. But he made a different gaffe that you just can’t write off because it’s new. It’s not something stupid – it’s something he’s misplaced, mentally. The one Trump blunder that suggests he’s getting WORSE: The Penn Station post.

AND HOW THE DEATH OF ROBERT DUVALL mainlines into the death of CBS News and the prophesy of Duvall's most important film: Network. Which you should go watch, today.

B-Block (50:00) PART TWO of my list of the nearly two dozen destructive changes we are now suffering from, in television news and media in general, that we were warned by, by Paddy Chayefsky, by Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, and director Sidney Lumet.

C-Block (1:10:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A little out of order, but still really good. Tom Emmer, Minnesota moron. Peter Navarro, economic consultant who doesn't know the Dow Jones number isn't in dollars. And the joy of Candace Owens, so lost she can't pronounce ordinary American English words like "Bureau" and "Grandiose" and as chronicled by one of the best of all Twitter-X follows: @CandaceReading1

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 59: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Just because we're paranoid, that doesn't mean Trump isn't out to get us.

Trump has just accidentally revealed crucial details of his conspiracy to steal the midterms. It starts with the cadaver-in-chief, demanding of active troops at Fort Bragg – “you have to vote for us” – that’s in case the Generals or even the Joint Chiefs realize Mark Kelly is right: they HAVE to disobey illegal orders, ESPECIALLY Trump’s illegal orders. If it came to that, Trump would have the raw troops overthrow the generals

And then Trump succubus Kristi Noem vowed to make sure Trump only lets the RIGHT people voting, electing the RIGHT leaders. And he’s already had ICE PRACTICE voter suppression – murder of civilians – in Minnesota.

How do we stop Trump? Talk about it endlessly. Talk about his attempt to make the troops loyal to HIM and not the constitution. Talk about his attempts to seize ballots. Talk about his attempt to use ICE to intimidate voters. Talk about it, now, now, now. Trump is plotting to steal the midterms. We not only CAN stop him -  we have to.

MEANWHILE, HOW MUCH MORE CAN THE MEDIA BETRAY US? Jake Tapper - as guilty as anybody in the business of putting his salary ahead of all journalism - tells us to hang in there? An old boss of mine says something stupid. CBS decides to platform Stephen A. Smith, the Jill Stein of 2026. 

B-Block (55:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: What happened to Congressman Randy Fine demanding the arrest of everybody who enjoyed Bad Bunny's Swear-filled Super Bowl Show? The White House doesn't know how to spell "cue." And enjoying the Olympics? It's all crap - especially what it did to the history of the Olympics and the National Hockey League.

C-Block (1:25:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: More media criticism. This disaster didn't start yesterday. By 2004, when an anchor on MSNBC told one of his viewers - live on the air - to "get AIDS and die" - and his boss said he had to be fired for that, his boss's boss (THE PRESIDENT OF NBC) tried to intervene to save his job.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 58: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has attempted another coup. You may have missed it.

Trump and Jeanine Pirro with the acquiescence of the hapless Speaker of the House and Porn Monitor attempted another coup: Attempted to get Senators Mark Kelly and Elise Slotkin and four members of the House INDICTED for obstructing Trump’s dictatorship. Tried to convict, tried to jail, for imaginary crimes of disloyalty to him that Trump bleated are quote “punishable by death” six military veterans because they told other Americans to follow the law. For expressing fealty to the Constitution, for publicly reminding service members that THEIR allegiance is to the constitution and not some rapidly deteriorating psychopathic despot.

And ordinary Americans in a Grand Jury stopped Trump’s attempt to overthrow the government of the United States.

For. Now.

Which means the lesson Trump and Pirro and Johnson and the other deputy despots will take away is: next time don’t bother with Grand Juries, just have ICE blast them in the head. What to do to STOP “next time”- what to do RIGHT NOW in the Senate Continuing Funding Resolution - what to do in state houses before the midterms.

PLUS: Trump's either-or: either he Narc'd on Epstein or knew nothing about his crimes. Either way, Trump is now the CEO of the Epstein Cover-up. And maybe even more disturbing, he is actually, seriously, hallucinating. Full-on crazy talk. Not his normal delusions: this is A Chinese plot to destroy the National Hockey League. He thinks this is really happening.

B-Block (37:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: He won Olympic Bronze but was disqualified in the game of life. The three weird sisters are still whining about Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl: Megyn Kelly, Sage Steele, Michele Tafoya - the latter of two using language that matches almost word-for-word what was said by racists and sexists who called the ESPN complaint voicemail line to try to get THEM fired. And then there's the Twitter Rando whose 'egg corn' is as delightful as any I can remember. He's complaining about solitaire confinement!

C-Block (50:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: In the old days baseball spring training wasn't already unofficial underway as of... last week. It was limited and exciting and one of my joys was going to it and reporting from it. So it's time to try to recreate some of that, because naturally I still have the tape of my 1978 Spring Training reports from Florida!

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 57: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: When they insist Trump's Thursday night racist video depicting the Obamas as apes wasn’t posted by Trump but by somebody else in the White House – and then he undermines the lie they spread on his behalf by saying he selected the video and had them post it but he just didn’t see the whole thing but so what it wasn’t a mistake they just deleted it – I think each part of that is a lie.

It was a set-up. I conclude that this is not just blatant, human garbage racism, inherited Trump Family Branded racism, but I conclude the entire thing was designed – to whatever degree anything Trump and these scumbags do is DESIGNED – it was DESIGNED to turn out this way. Event happens, justifiable backlash, unrighteous indignation from press secretary Eva Braun, oops it wasn’t supposed to be posted, oops bad staffer, oops Trump comes out at the end of the day and… endorses the original racism anyway, quote, “I didn’t make a mistake.”

And he did it this circuitous way, the way he expresses ALL his racism against BLACK people, because he can’t send ICE after them.

But the point of the video was he was reminding his putrid, hate-driven base that he can't send ICE after them...FOR THE MOMENT.

B-Block (33:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: There are actually people in politics and media who for some reason don't see that Jeff Bezos hired Will Allen to slowly destroy The Washington Post (to please Trump) and think this was all some sort of mismanagement, rather than a well-executed plan. Unfortunately at least two of them wrote it on their sites: Jim Vandehei and Dylan Byers. Sage Steele is back with not only anti-athlete, anti-freedom of speech conservative swill, but stuff that is almost a word-for-word duplication of what Laura Ingraham wrote 20 years ago. And incredibly, in Year 11 of the Trump Scam, there's still a guy on CNN thinks Trump just changed his tone.

C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Not to say I've had a lot of jobs but I just remembered one that I had FORGOTTEN: my two weeks as the entire sports department on a New York City newspaper that went daily, while the big papers were out on strike in 1978!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 56: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: In destroying The Washington Post yesterday, Trump-fluffer Jeff Bezos has gone far enough. Democratic leaders must commit to using anti-trust laws to destroy Amazon, Prime, Blue Origin - and Bezos, financially. Every would-be president, senator, representative must vow to break the oligarchs - Bezos, Musk, Trump, and all the rest.

Bezos first hollowed out the Post to make it servile to Trump and his gang. Now he's destroyed its foreign and sports desks, and its viability as a counterweight to the anti-democracy forces abroad in the land. All so he could spend $75,000,000 or more on a vanity project designed to tell Trump a life: that his wife is an attractive "movie star."

We are not going back to the America of 1885. We must bankrupt Jeff Bezos.

(And I apologize for the slipshod nature of this episode. I'm under the weather, throat bad, was planning to postpone this episode but this could not wait. Please forgive for the extemporaneous nature of the commentary; the rest of the show is interesting but not new)

B-Block (30:00) OLYMPICS TIME: As the 2026 games begin in Italy let me take you back to the most famous winter games yet: the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, which I covered as a 21-year old rookie with United Press International (while my bosses tried to teach me how to work and drink at the same time).

C-Block (42:00) MORE WITH JAMES THURBER: Continuing the broadcasting theme, his first person story of the timelessness of on-air nerves and the labyrinth that is radio, TV, streaming or any other medium in any century: "How To Relax While Broadcasting."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 55: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: So would you like to collapse the Trump Regime? Today? Peacefully? Legally? 

You - the White House press corps. It only takes one of you.

You go into the next Oval Office Scrum, and you ask him politely for his explanation of something released by his administration, by Pam Bondi’s office, on the government website, and you read – quoting this FBI 302 interview file: “Maxwell presented (her) to Trump…by the things Maxwell said, it was clear that (she) was available…”And don’t stop reading and don’t make eye contact. THEN from the sworn affidavit, reed, quote: “I personally witnessed Defendant Trump telling the plaintiff that she couldn’t ever say anything, if she didn’t want to disappear like the 12-year old female (redacted) and that he was capable of having her whole family killed…” Quote: “the physical and sexual abuse that I personally witnessed of minor females at the hands of Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein... under penalty of perjury even though I fully understand that the life of myself and my family is now in grave danger” unquote, what SIR is your explanation SIR about when you threatened this girl’s life, sir.

Just keep asking. Don't make eye contact, don't stop, don't stop talking when he starts talking. Just reel off those quotes. And the one about becoming fertilizer. And the "Calendar Girls" story (as nonsensical as that probably is). And all the others. Because we don't always see the escape hatch when it appears before us, and it just appeared.

Because the Epstein Files are part of an official Department of Justice Document Dump. Their contents are Pam Bondi's problem, not you or your lawyer's. And if you don't bear down and do this job as it was designed by the Founding Fathers, you will sooner or later face one of these outcomes: you'll be arrested, you'll be replaced by some automaton Bari Weiss likes, or the country will survive and the next people running media will never consider you for work because you were cowardly when we needed your courage.

Oh and you can peacefully, legally end the careers of Elon Musk and Marco Rubio and Bari Weiss and lots of others. The material is all in front of you. Just have the courage to pick it up and fling it, like he'd fling his poo at you.

ALSO: Don Lemon was arrested not because Jesus but because Trump has always hated him. And if you've forgotten, I explained two weeks ago why Trump was trying to restart the 2020 crap, now sending Tulsi Gabbard to Georgia. They're sitting up not a claim that the election was fixed, but that the election was fixed by another country (hey, Nicolas Maduro, you mind taking the rap, in exchange for a pardon?) and there is no statute of limitations on THAT.

B-Block (34:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Harriet Hageman, the blob they elected to the House from Wyoming to replace Liz Cheney, is now running for Senate. Emphasize "running": she has fled a town hill. The Bill Maher Pretzel Logic: Celebrities should shut up, voters don't listen to TV and movie stars. But Bill, you expect them to listen to you. So you're saying you're not a star? And the latest Bari Weiss firing target is supposedly Face The Nation host Margaret Brennan and one of the names being thrown around (probably nonsensically) is Matt Lauer.

C-Block (54:00) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: We need a doubleheader. I heard an audio book with a famous actor doing Thurber's tribute to what would be called Dunning-Kruger Syndrome: "The Macbeth Murder Mystery" and it was one of those rare times when I actually said "No - I did this better." So I bring it to you, and as a bonus, a second great unheralded Thurber story: "Meet Birdey Doggett." Enjoy them at your leisure.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 54: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: At this moment, the biggest threat to the future of democracy at this minute is Chuck Schumer.

He and the other members of the milquetoast caucus of Senate Democrats are ready to give away their chance to turn MAGA's panic over the ICE murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti (and Keith Porter Jr) into a forced re-structure of the entire damnable structure. Instead of demanding a new organization with bipartisan control and a blanket ban on any activity near polling places or in fact in the week before an election, Schumer is willing to sell that for four trivial concessions.

He's willing to forfeit the last chance to get these death squads off our streets in exchange for a "uniform code of conduct," the end of "roving patrols," the discontinuation of masks, and the use of body cameras. Because obviously the threat that ICE's next slaughter of an innocent bystander will be captured on video completely kept these Trump Death Squads from killing Alex Pretti. 

It's beyond Schumer's usual naiveté. It's criminally negligent. He shouldn't just be ousted as Minority Leader, he should be expelled from the Senate. Trump blames Bovino. Bovino blames Noem. Noem blames Miller. Miller blames Border Patrol. Roger Stone blames Lewandowski. Trump blames the 2nd Amendment. They're imploding, Chuck. Get out of their way, you moron.

ROBERT FICO: Slovakia’s pro-Trump prime minister who last year spoke at CPAC (it's pronounced Fitso) was quoted by five Politico sources as having been shaken after a meeting with Trump on the 17th, alarmed by Trump's "psychological state" and convinced Trump was "out of his mind." Denials all around. 

(33:00) BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: If you didn't know, Saturday he wrote an ICE protest song. Uploaded it to social media yesterday. Calls 'em all out by name, including "King Trump." Chills. With Bruce's kind permission, we're playing it in the podcast. Superb stuff. I wish Bruce were Senate minority leader.

B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A News Nation moron reduces the death of Alex Pretti to a "scrum." Melania doesn't know her icons from her iconoclasts. And Katie Miller insists all Conservative women are far more attractive than all Liberal women. You have to give her credit: who knew she had gotten this far with such devastatingly impaired vision?

C-Block (50:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Just past the anniversary, now 45 years, since a famed New York morning disc jockey responded to something I said on the air one hour by threatening to kill me, and then responded to something I said on the air the next hour by trying to hire me full-time on his station. The Ted Brown Saga - revisited.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 53: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Alex Pretti may not have been murdered by Trump's Paramilitary Death Squad AS a warning to American governors and mayors and citizens, but the Trump Dictatorship is exploiting the state-sponsored terrorism against a VA Nurse to issue that warning anyway: You "better support President Trump," said Attorney General Bondi. The implied threat that followed was easy to decipher: if you don't, ICE won't leave your city alone and it won't leave you ALIVE.

Bondi's comment came as she explained her (extortion) letter to Governor Walz, offering to remove ICE and Border Patrol from Minnesota providing Walz gives the DOJ records and data and especially his voter rolls. Because it's easier to fix elections if you have the voter rolls. But behind it was the bigger picture: “We sent Governor Walz a very strong letter today. We got it out saying that he BETTER SUPPORT PRESIDENT TRUMP. He better support the men and women in law enforcement because if he doesn’t, we are, and that’s what we’re doing right now.”

The United States of America is at this moment without a functioning government. In place of a government, it has a Trump terrorist organization, enforced by a paramilitary death squad, Proud ICE Boys, masked gunmen, street gangs in Nazi leather trenchcoats. We are without a government and we are without a functioning Constitution and we are without a functioning president. We are destabilized – from within – by state sponsored terrorism. Our OWN state. With our OWN terrorist – the worst terrorist this nation has ever faced: Donald John Trump.

What to do about it? It starts with the Democrats in the Senate not just attacking ICE funding but shutting all funding down, indefinitely. This Trump junta must be broken.

B-Block (35:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: We could devote the segment just to those idiots who defended ICE after the Renee Good murder and are now done, professionally. But we'll limit it to three medalists and some runners-up: two New York Post writers, Tony Dokoupil, Senator Fetterman, Clay Travis, Scott Jennings, Stephen A. Smith

C-Block (47:00) COMIC RELIEF: THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: New year, new round-numbered anniversaries. 30 years ago I was wined and dined by a Chicago radio station that was willing to double my salary and build their franchise around me if I quit SportsCenter. And they convinced me to do it. And then half an hour before I was going to say 'let's make it happen' they... took the station off the air.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 52: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: It's the Big Lie Redux. Trump appears to be planning some kind of SHOW TRIALS over the 2020 Election - and Nicolas Maduro might be his key “witness."

He let it slip at the World Economic Forum yesterday. He told the audience in Davos that he will be prosecuting people over the 2020 Election. Never mind that there's nothing to prosecute anybody for; never mind that he lost; never mind that this has already been through the courts: "It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did. That's probably breaking news." In the last week, he has twice insisted Joe Biden and his administration ‘should be arrested’ and he has now said "we caught 'em." In his fugue state News Conference Tuesday, Trump had a question planted about ‘finding things out’ from Maduro about 2020. And Maduro's role in some nonsensical conspiracy theory may be the real reason Trump had Maduro renditioned from Venezuela – not drugs.

Regardless: all the tea leaves suggest Trump is going to roll out the Big Lie again, this time perhaps with a phony confession from Maduro in exchange for a pardon or something. Trump is insane and desperate, so now he will actually try to focus the Department of Justice and all elected Republicans on prosecuting Biden and others.

You think his Greenland Clown Show is crazy? You think his terrorism in Minnesota is crazy? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

And god help us if it gets any traction. If media pushback were insufficient to counter the tsunami of propaganda Trump and his criminal gangs could generate, he might try to use the subsequent unrest as an excuse to interfere with the midterms or even rationalize violating the constitution and seeking another term.

B-Block (32:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Anchors Aweight, Buffalo Bills' owner Terry Pegula, who has fired his coach even though he thinks Sean McDermott did an "admiral" job. Then there's Labor Secretary Lori Chavez DeRemer and the accusations of an affair with a staffer on the public dime. She's chosen to be represented by a lawyer named Dr. Nick. And then there are America's two most overrated journalists Jim "What Is A Woman?" VandeHei, and Anderson "You Really Think Trump Is Insane?" Cooper and yes they each actually asked those questions this week.

C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: How different was flying nearly half a century ago? There we were, the president of Cornell University and I, waiting to board a plane from New York to Ithaca and there they were, two airline employees, trying to fix a problem in the undercarriage by stuffing paper towels up into it. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 51: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: In Trump’s War against the United States of America, as he readies 1500 members of the 11th Airborne in Alaska to parachute into Minnesota in a bid to provoke Civil War, as he threatens conflict with NATO while being unable to remember America is IN Nato, is the dictator’s next step an attempt to arrest Joe Biden? To indict Kamala Harris? To convene grand juries to pursue the former First Lady and Jen Psaki and Kareen Jean-Pierre and god knows who else?

“Everyone is asking about the Autopen (question mark)” because he’s nearly 80 and he still doesn’t know how to use punctuation marks. It starts with usual Trumpian stupidity and then turns very dark very fast. Quote: “it was an absolutely illegal act perpetrated by the Radical Left Insurrectionists who illegally ran the Biden Administration. Every one of them should be arrested for what they have done… the whole thing was rigged, there must be a price to pay, and it has got to be a big one,” end quote.

This is no longer one of those 'signs of his mental illness' from the 1st administration; this is something one of his whores at the Department of Justice will act upon because a) they ARE whores and b) because they are soft and frankly getting an indictment against Joe Biden for something that amounts to “Being President Without Trump’s Permission” is just easier than confronting the whining pants-soiling Jabba the Hutt with bronzer currently occupying the White House – until the floor beneath him collapses. Possibly – given Trump’s weight – LITERALLY.

MEANWHILE: We are blackmailing NATO and the EU over Greenland, and he is trying to start a civil war in Minnesota. And his minion is caught on tape ordering CBS to run an interview unedited and this clown Bari Weiss is caught complying. 

B-Block (30:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It HAD to happen some day - and this is the day. All three medal winners are either my exes, or connected to my exes. Katy Tur, Megyn Kelly (God no), Laura Ingraham, Kyrsten Sinema. Lawsuits, journalistic disasters, self-contradictions, and me actually defending Katy's husband.

C-Block (43:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Just passed the anniversary: the day I met the great '60s-'70s-'80s American actress, star of "Bewitched," portrayer of Lizzie Borden, and instant friend for life, Elizabeth Montgomery.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 50: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: The newest crimes this week mean he's now committed 32 of the 40 "sins" Thomas Jefferson accused King George III of in The Declaration of Independence:

He's telling those protesting the dead on the streets of Iran that he'll defend them while telling those protesting the dead on the streets of Minneapolis that his 'government' was right to kill them.

He's raided the home of a journalist, trampling the 1st Amendment

He's threatened taxation without representation over sanctuary cities

He's unilaterally cut off visas from 75 countries (including thirteen countries headed here in June for soccer's World Cup) 

Trump has now lost any remaining moral authority to continue as president of this country.  We must peacefully counteract his increasingly repressive and immoral and violent actions and threats and what looks like only two options regarding the midterms and 2028: he wants to either fix the elections for Trumpists or eliminate them outright. Object? He’ll buy you or blackmail you or hire somebody to KILL you. I mean, what are ICE agents if not private paramilitary gangsters, hired by Trump, to kill you? On what Trump promises is “the day of reckoning and retribution” against Minnesota. 

What do we do next?

B-Block (30:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Bill Maher bristles at a joke (well, when was the last time he actually made, or heard, a joke?) There's another new idiot Congresswoman who wants Tim Walz arrested over the murder of Renee Good. And the Fox News writer who believes we are under attack by gangs of ANTIFA WINE MOMS.

C-Block (41:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The "Ford Finger" incident with Trump reminded me of the day the right wing tried to bury Tom Hanks over what they thought was disrespect to staffers at a movie event.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 49: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: BREAK the cover-up of the ICE murder of Renee Good:

1) INVESTIGATE regardless -on the state and county levels. 2) INDICT and ARREST the ICE shooter, Jonathan Ross (and the Trump militia members who were with him as accessories). 3) IMPEACH Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem, Ice Director Todd Lyons (and Border Czar Tom Homan. Representative Angie Craig says now the Noem impeachment will proceed). 4) Iif Noem or any other ICE or DHS official continues to stonewall local investigators seeking justice for the murdered women, indict and arrest them for OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE. 5) When the Senate takes up the resolution to fund the government past January 30, all Democrats must refuse to vote yes unless ICE is neutered (and Trump's magic war wand as well).

This is a pivotal moment in American history. ICE's reaction to its crimes has been to double down. It is now hiding behind this empty, corrupt demand that we all need to improve the “tone” and when they say “we” they mean “you” and when they say “tone” they mean “any criticism at all.” Tom Homan went on Fox and actually added to this bankrupt bromide, NEW threats. "There will be more bloodshed unless we decrease the hateful rhetoric.” Translation: if you keep criticizing us, we will keep shooting you. The acting ICE chief, Lyons, may be even worse. He is daring Minnesota to enforce its laws. “My message to the sheriff is: try and arrest my folks, let’s see what happens.”

What should happen is the sheriff serving warrants to Ross, Noem, Lyons and the rest of their ICE street gang - with the Minnesota National Guard standing behind the sheriff.

ALSO: Why are these fascists so obsessed with killing Americans? It may be the guns. Not the access to them: the physical impact on a shooter's brain by firing a weapon, as established by new tests. Plus updates on Trump doubling down on his Epstein Cover-up, Jim Jordan's moronic decision to let Jack Smith testify in public, and some Trump madness we should encourage. He wants to repel from a helicopter like Navy Seals. Yes please! Do it!

B-Block (32:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: How Will Chamberlain, Laura Loomer, Matt Walsh and the philosopher of MAGA, Catturd, 180'd on action in places like Venezuela once they realized Trump had 540'd. The headline says 'Visas for Only Fans Models' but the article does not. And the only person who thinks Stephen A. Smith is a Democrat or a viable presidential candidate is Stephen A. Smith. Up to now it's been funny and a little sad. But now that he has defended the murder of Renee Good and sucked up to Trump and MAGA, it has to be said: to save the brand that they and a lot of people worked their lives to build, Disney chief Bob Iger and ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro have to fire Smith. Oh and - accordingly - I've re-named Stephen.

C-Block (45:00) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: Only fitting. Next month it will have been a startling 95 years since James Thurber prophesied the advent of Trump. What would happen when America finally lionized its Worst? "The Greatest Man In The World."

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 48: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: This is Trump’s terrorism; this is the Kent State of our time.

A peaceful, unarmed protestor, murdered by Trump’s ICE, while Trump’s Lie Factory and Trump personally smeared her, blamed her, made up a story of threat where there was no threat, altered images, lied about her, lied about what the Gestapo they sent to kill Americans in American cities did to her.

Two weeks from Saturday, it will be ten years since he said it. January 24, 2016: I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” And once again his stochastic terrorist murderous wish has come true. Only it was on East 34th Street in Minneapolis. One of his Border-Patrol-ICE militia shot and killed Renee Macklin Good. ICE killed her, and then they slandered her.

Trump has his wish. The Trump Administration has begun its shooting war, its reign of terror, against the peaceful and unarmed citizens of the United States. It can be disputed whether Renee Macklin Good was the first. It cannot be disputed that unless Trump is legally restrained, she will not be the last.

And later, the ICE/Border Control militia attacked a Minneapolis high school.

And Trump chose the day of his crime-by-proxy, after the murder, to insist that he has quote “determined” that the military budget for 2027 needs to be increased from the obscene level of one trillion dollars… by FIFTY PERCENT to a trillion and a half. That is the military he wants to use against American civilians on American streets. That is the military he JUST used against American civilians on American streets in Minneapolis.

ALSO: I DON'T MAKE THE RULES. Trump's renditioning of Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela means, simply, that any country that would like to send a squad to this country to abduct one of our leaders needs only to have first indicted Trump in their own country - and cut a deal with JD Vance to take over as presidency and swear fealty to their country.

B-Block (29:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Earlier this week seemed to have been dedicated to Trump's most concentrated revelation of his insanity. Tuesday, at a Republican retreat, he hit all the notes, and pretty much cemented the idea that he indeed suffers from anosognosia (an inability to perceive an illness, especially a dementia-related one).

C-Block (37:00) DEATH BY MEDIA: This is just day six of the Tony Dokoupil debacle but if you don't think CBS could bail out of this fast, I was a witness when they took their third most profitable news property - the local CBS News in Los Angeles - and invented a new format called "The News Wheel." It went over so poorly it was cancelled after a month and a day. And since Bari Weiss skipped right past trying to emulate Fox News and went directly to Alex Jones News, they may have to bail out. But there's a whole back story you may not know about. WHY Weiss personally selected Dokoupil to helm this disaster, and why Katy Tur married him.

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BULLETIN PODCAST: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

The Trump Administration has begun its shooting war, its reign of terror, against the peaceful and unarmed citizens of the United States. A woman is dead in Minneapolis, killed by ICE, reportedly a legal observer during a raid in a local neighborhood. 

In one statement, ICE claimed the victim was trying to run over an agent; in another it claimed an agent HAD been run over. Neither claim is true. Multiple videos show without a shadow of a doubt that this is a lie. As a car – which was not even blocking a street - moves out of the way of an ICE vehicle, a militia member exits HIS car, approaches the victim’s car from the back and the side, and shoots the driver three times through the driver's window. Reportedly in the face. The shooter is clear of the vehicle. 

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis has told ICE to "get the f***" out of Minneapolis. Minnesota governor Tim Walz has taken a preliminary step towards mobilizing his national guard, issued a so-called “warning order” to the Minnesota National Guard – as he termed it, a “heads up” to its members that he may call up the Guard.

A full Countdown podcast will follow at Midnight.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 46: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Well, that's it in sum, isn't it? He's "El Presidente" now, isn't he? Military Dictator. Succeeding Maduro. Until he finds somebody else to “run” it. Not the elected Vice President. Not the actual winner of the last election. Not the U-N. Maybe somebody he, in his dysfunctional haze, somebody he can trust. Maybe an oil executive. Or Elon Musk. Or Catturd. 

The invasion was illegal there, and illegal here. The kidnapping was illegal. Declaring we would run it is illegal. Naming a proxy dictator is illegal. As was his threat yesterday to the acting president that quote “if she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” and calling for her belief that her country shouldn’t be invaded by another country breaking its own laws is quote “defiant rejection.” THAT’S illegal. It’s all illegal. That’s a lot of illegal – even for Trump. And I say this, hating Maduro completely.

So he needs to be impeached, if not now then a year from now. Rubio can be impeached now for deceiving Congress about its approval. And both of them turned over to the World Court. And the ramifications are almost uncountable, including emboldening them to consider this in Cuba, Greenland, Iran. The poll numbers are terrible, and the risk to Americans of terrorism and violence are just as terrible. And maybe worst of all the evidence of linkage between Putin's strange silence about his ally Maduro, and Trump's dithering about Ukraine, is terrible too. 

But at least it produced a pretty good Olivia Nuzzi joke.

ALSO: WHY DID THEY CHANGE THE TRUMP HEALTH COVER-UP STORY AGAIN? Five significant changes, about his MRI/CT, his cardiovascular health, and now the total of Cognitive tests he's gotten in just the last nine months. Three? Not two? He's really needed three tests in nine months? To repeat the insightful question from his niece Mary Trump: Why do they have to keep giving him cognitive tests?

B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: There's begging the new boss to let you keep your current job, then there's what CBS Legal Analyst Jan Crawford is doing for Bari Weiss to try to keep hers. Chuck Schumer comes out firing on Venezuela: with one-millionth of one barrel blazing. And just when you think Cheryl Hines can't get any dumber, Tucker Carlson tries to talk to her about vaccines.

C-Block (50:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Will Ferrell did a great comedy bit at the L.A. Kings hockey game on New Year's Day and he did it for the pure joy of it. Which reminded me of the difference between amateurs and pros, and of the days when "Anchorman" was new and Will and I ad libbed a pretty good comedy bit that he said he really loved doing. 

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BULLETIN: TRUMP'S ILLEGAL WAR WITH VENEZUELA

Two months ago, in an interview, Trump's Chief of Staff Susie Wiles "conceded that attacking targets on Venezuela’s mainland would force Trump to get congressional approval. Quote: "If he were to authorize some activity on land, then it’s war, then [we’d need] Congress.'"

She was entirely right. Yet overnight Trump invaded Venezuela and seized its leader Nicolas Maduro. To paraphrase his own chief of staff he DID authorize some activity on land, then it’s war, then [we’d need] Congress.'" AND TRUMP BROKE THE LAW AND BREACHED THE CONSTITUTION. 

And this morning he and his hapless Vice President JD Vance confirmed this is as much about seizing oil - as much about increasing the profits of American corporations - as any supposed "narco-terrorism."

Without any Congressional consent, Trump did this - anyway - from inside his madness, from within his monomaniacal delusional fog - without any legal right to do so - without any legal right THERE and without any legal right HERE. On his own. Without congressional approval. Without the nation's approval. Without even the flimsiest of the fig leaves of democracy. Without any international consensus. Without any concern for the consequences. Without any consideration of the precedent he provides China in Taiwan and Russia in Poland and any other tyrannical bandit nation anywhere in this world.

And we, thanks to Trump, we - the United States of America - are now that tyrannical bandit nation.

It is important to note that on the simple, theoretical scale of who should remain as the leader of a failed rogue state, there is no defense for Nicolas Maduro. There is overwhelming evidence that he fabricated his latest quote “re-election” after first denuding the opposition and the law within his country. Again, by those tokens Trump has just put us on that identical path. And the idea that a country is suffering under a dictator who has no moral right to continue can be said even more easily of Putin. And of Xi in China. And dozens of others, many of whom Trump considers friends, about whom he makes no distinction. Maduro has no moral right to continue as president of Venezuela, and Trump has no moral right to act upon that by himself. 

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 44: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT:Why isn’t Trump bombing RUSSIAN terrorist scum who have been targeting and viciously killing innocent Christians in UKRAINE?

I mean now that our White Supremacist Theocratic Bandit government has gone into the Crusades business; now that per Trump we’re bombing to kill ISIS terrorist scum “who have been targeting and viciously killing...innocent Christians” in NIGERIA, shouldn't yesterday's meeting with Zelensky have been about how Trump is going to protect the Christians in Ukraine - and Ukraine is an 85% Christian country - by bombing the Russian terrorist scum who have been targeting and viciously killing innocent Christians IN Ukraine?

I'm not holding my breath. But since it's obvious that yesterday all Trump did was stall, just as all he's been doing since he again seized power is stalling on Putin's behalf (he even took a call from Putin 72 minutes before the Zelensky meeting began), isn't this tack supporters of Ukraine and Europe and world freedom who aren't morons like Trump or Rubio who think 'it's not our war because OCEANS' (a logical argument as long as this is the year 1909) should now take?

ALSO: THE TRUMP PARDON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX? It seems brand new. In fact there was a lawsuit alleging Rudy Giuliani told his girlfriend he and Trump were selling pardons for $2,000,000 apiece as long ago as 2019. And we check in MAGA stupidity, how even Brian Krassenstein trolled them, and why on earth Stephen Miller would think the term "sexual matador" is a compliment given how much he hates Mexicans and Spanish-speaking people like, you know, Matadors.

B-Block (33:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Somebody actually tries to insult the Pope by calling him "Holier Than Thou"; WSJ has a piece blasting Jack Smith written by the first lawyer Trump hired to defend himself against Jack Smith, the ironically named "James Trusty"; Trump is finally hoisted on his lawsuit petard. If we damaged you financially or emotionally, says the Pulitzer Prize Board, we're going to know by how much so we'll need all your fiancial and emotional health records.

C-Block (46:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: What did you get for Christmas? I got a Baseball Cap! From Ted Turner! Of course, this is Christmas 1982 I'm talking about. The saga of Ted, my first tv job, and what might have been my last tv job after he and I argued in public. But it ended happily - with baseball caps for Christmas.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 43: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: TRUMP BLOWS UP THE EPSTEIN DEAD WHALE - AND WHY DID HE NAME IT TRUMP MEMORIAL?

Remember when they blew up the eight-ton beached whale carcass in Oregon in 1970? Tons of dynamite, they figured it would vaporize the poor dead creature and any pieces left over would be devoured by birds? And instead they sent chunks of hard blubber a hundred feet in the air and actually crushed a car and left debris everywhere?

That's what Trump just did to the Epstein Scandal. Trump doxed victims. Published and then deleted photos of himself. Planted photos of Bill Clinton and got caught. It’s raining chunks of Epstein dead whale blubber on the White House AND TRUMP. 

And I know this is semantics. But why did Trump re-name it ““The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy MEMORIAL Center for the Performing Arts”  That means it’s the Donald J. Trump Memorial Center. Why did he name it TRUMP MEMORIAL? Did I miss a bulletin or something?

AND IN MEMORY OF PETER ARNETT: A colleague of mine the day I started full time in television at CNN in 1982 and the day I started full time in news in 2003, he was a great reporter because he could tell the truth about Vietnam, sneak into Afghanistan, cheat death, and then when nothing big was happening would go cover a snowstorm in Manhattan or counsel a rookie sportscaster who needed advice. 

B-Block (28:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Mehmet Oz has an update on the great challenge of inflation in the penis market, Riley Gaines (America's favorite 85th Place Finisher) has podcast news, and Lindsey Halligan misspells "Virginia." At least we THINK she meant Virginia.

C-Block (36:00) CHRISTMAS WITH THURBER: Haven't done any lately and there is a holiday coming so here goes. My favorite - and the first Thurber story I ever read aloud ("A Box To Hide In"). His best known ("The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty") and the one that inadvertently brought me into the 'official' Thurber fold ("The Peacelike Mongoose").

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 42: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is drowning.

Trump’s presidency is DROWNING.

Yesterday, it was Republicans forcing a vote to extend Obamacare subsidies. Yesterday, 38 PERCENT approval in the Marist poll. Monday, his Rob Reiner tweet that appalled even the worst of MAGA. Tuesday, Susie Wiles. Friday, the Epstein Files, proving: no, history doesn’t repeat itself but yes, sometimes it LITERALLY rhymes.

The Venezuela Wag-The-Dog episode collapsed before it started. It's about Narco-terrorism, whatever the eff that is? Oil? Stuff they stole? Nuh uh. For the first but not the last time we turn to Susie Wiles for the, uh, well, it’s a strange word to use about the Trump administration but here it is: TRUTH. "He wants to keep on blowing boats up until [president Nicolás] Maduro cries uncle. And people way smarter than me on that say that he will." She also single-handedly ended the just-forming prosecution of Jack Smith, and the vowed prosecution of Anthony Fauci, and the already-moribund prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James and Adam Schiff and and and…All those cases will be thrown out of court. All of them. Because Susie Wiles is on tape saying quote “I don’t think he wakes up thinking about retribution but when there’s an opportunity he will go for it.” About Comey, quote: “I mean, people could think it does look vindictive. I can’t tell you why you shouldn’t think that.” Trump’s chief of staff. Confirming it’s retribution. And retribution means selective prosecution and selective prosecution is illegal and you not only get the case thrown out, if you’ve had to defend yourself or your reputation has been hurt, you can sue the government. And it’s on TAPE.

So why did she say it? Why did she think she could get away with it? Because inside the White House even the Chief of Staff knows Trump is drowning. And they are beginning to distance themselves from him.

B-Block (27:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Laura Ingraham doesn't know Niagara Falls is in Ontario or Ontario is in Canada or that Premier Doug Ford isn't an American. I make bad choices in Exes. And these MAGA idiots just cannot see anything in the world any more without trying to force it into their brain-dead templates: it MUST be political and it MUST be an attack on Trump. New York City councilwoman Vickie Paladino "knows" the terrible shooting was an attack on Republicans at Brown University, and the moronic troll "Cat Turd" is sure they're wiping the shooter's social media history clean (which is an idea he should execute).

C-Block (37:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I'm off by only four days from the exact anniversary, but it is now 42 years since I first met and interviewed Trump and I know most of us who knew him before knew he was nuts, but I must give myself credit. An hour after that meeting I was asking a colleague "what the eff is wrong with THAT guy?"

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 41: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

The president of the United States is celebrating the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. It is at first impossible to believe that what follows isn’t satire. Then it becomes heart-breaking that it isn’t satire. Then it becomes infuriating. Finally it becomes more evidence that every minute this man is permitted to REMAIN president – the rest of us – the rest of us in the WORLD – are in mortal danger.

Trump really believes that Rob Reiner “passed away… due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with… Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

Trump’s ability to make everything about HIM – his need to be, as the old dark joke goes, the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral – is not some kind of act. You will recall his reaction to 9/11 – that it made HIM the owner of the SECOND tallest building in downtown Manhattan, not just the third. It crested when he publicly speculated that a baseball player broke his ankle because he sold his apartment in a Trump building.

It is called Shallow Affect and it means in essence that you do not KNOW how actual normal humans interact nor what causes the events in THEIR lives. You cannot CONCEIVE of their lives. You look at a picture of the world and you see only you. You look in a mirror and you correctly see YOU but you are firmly convinced that when OTHERS look in THEIR mirrors… they ALSO see only you.

Human beings do not believe these things. Trump does. It means he can believe - and do - anything.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 40: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump’s losing streak has hit 27 days. His LATEST losing streak.

MAGA knows it. The Head of the Republican National Committee knows it. The Wall Street Journal knows it. The Indiana GOP knows it. The Ukrainians know it. Anybody who saw his pathetic credit-grabbing disinformational tweet Saturday night after the Brown shooting knows it. His own economists know it. The terrorists know it.

Even TRUMP knows it.

Since the house passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act on November 19th Trump has been SINKING. In quicksand. SINKING. And not more than one or two of his more insane more desperate colleagues even getting close enough to hand him a rope, for fear of being pulled down with him. 

They are beginning to blame him. “We are facing almost certain defeat,” says the purulent face of the RNC Joe Gruters, about the midterms. Then, “this is an absolute disaster.” Then “There’s no sugarcoating it. This is a pending looming disaster headed our way.” Then, I think quoting me quoting the late football owner Al Davis, “the chances are Republicans will go down and will go down HARD.”

Just lose, baby.

And boy, has he been losing. On affordability. In the Miami election. In the Georgia state house election. On affordability. On telling you to buy your daughter only two dolls. In Indiana. About Somalia. In his "peace" deal in the Middle East. In Thailand. In Syria. In Ukraine. About ObamaCare. About Alina Habba. About Kilmar Abrego Garcia. About the National Guard troops in L.A. 

And mostly about Epstein. Those four photos show nothing and would normally would therefore MEAN nothing. But they form a reminder that Trump tried to stop you from SEEING photos of him with Epstein. That THOSE photos weren’t PART of the tranche in the files, doesn’t matter. It only raises a kind of instinctive speculation about how much WORSE those OTHER Epstein-Trump photos are. It keeps the Epstein story alive when Trump COULD HAVE killed it, weeks ago, months ago. But he knew better. And now we get an endless scandal that only has to promise shocks to self-perpetuate. Trump used to win with those. Now he's losing.

Because he's Donald Trump. Donald - with 47 L's.

B-Block (30:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Anna Paulina Luna, member of the U.S. Congress and top Russian influencer? Governor Josh Shapiro is so stuck on bipartisanship he's bothsides-ing political violence (including the day the fascists firebombed his family). And Howard Lutnick with the greatest self-contradiction of the year.

C-Block (38:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A tragic event on the streets of New York 65 years ago led to me winding up in the authorized biography of the creator of Willy Wonka, Roald Dahl. He was a complicated and controversial figure but he did great things too - like encourage any kid he interacted with. Including me!

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 39: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: As Trump threatens the New York Times with sedition and treason charges and tells finance clowns and his government goons that he gets to choose who gets to be on CNN and what they get to say, we are at the tipping point.

The first news reporter who stands up to his insults and calls him out to his face in public will get fired - and within 48 hours get a new job paying twice as much or more, and will become a national hero.

America is crying out for somebody to take the risk that isn’t really a risk and tell him to shut the hell up and to EFF off and to SHOVE his A++++ economy and his threats and stochastic calls for destruction and violence. It is time. NOW NOW NOW.

The tragedy here of course is that it is accepted, inside the news business, without a second thought, that there is nothing reporters – even bad ones – can do about this without risking their careers and lives. Bull. The first one who gets told “You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you -- you are an obnoxious -- a terrible reporter” and replies “So what? What does that have to do with my question? Nothing. And, with all due respect SIR, the majority of this nation considers you a failure as a president. And what does THAT have to do with your answer? The one you DIDN’T just give? NOTHING. The majority of this nation thinks you are vindictive, stupid, hypocritical, hateful, destructive, soul-less, and quite probably losing your sanity. I’M a terrible reporter? You’re the worst government leader in the history of the western hemisphere.”

B-Block (32:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sean Duffy wants you to wear a suit to the airport and...work out in it before you get on the plane? Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale calls for public hangings and says without irony or self-satire "If I'm in charge later..." OK, you first. And Missouri congresswoman Ann Wagner, in the middle of redistricting gerrymandering, turns out to not know the name of the third largest city in the state capitol district and thinks that city is in California.

C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody asked me how I felt about Chris Matthews being back on MSNBCNOWWHATEVER with Joe Scarborough and I actually said I felt sorry for Scarborough. Then I told them the saga of Chris, co-anchoring a funeral with me, drooling over Jennifer Granholm. On the air. So I'll tell you.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 38: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: It’s not simple gaslighting about the price of gas: It’s neurological disintegration; obsessive repetition of the same lie. He has now - for the 14th time in 28 weeks - announced with shock and excited surprise that gas has "just hit" $1.98 a gallon (or "$1.99" or "under $2.00"). It's not just a lie; it's something he heard, could not understand in the first place, and is repeating at regular intervals as if he just heard it moments earlier.

It is a classic sign of neurological crisis. And it is proof that invoking the 25th Amendment is imperative. And won’t happen. Any more than Trump realizing he already TOLD that lie.

ALSO: Jack Smith still has a way to make the second half of his report convicting Trump public, while it turns out he tried to get rid of Aileen Cannon a year ago. It is also becoming increasingly apparent that ESPN's Stephen A. Smith may be the Jill Stein of 2028 - a stalking horse pretending to be a Democrat while being pushed by fascists. We know this much: he's mailing it in. He thinks the name of the governor of Florida is named "Ron Santis." 

AND TRUMP AND MELANIA talking about "Pile Driving" at night in the White House? That must be the first time in eighteen years.

B-Block (35:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Shamwow guy is back and, what else, running for Congress as a MAGA because he can't keep this up all day. Bari Weiss obviously never saw the Mary Tyler Moore Show: she's fired her old CBS News Anchors before she's fired her NEW CBS News Anchors. And Jake Tapper really does it: after he put his thumb on the scale for Trump in the Biden debate and wrote a book and sold it on CNN about Biden's acuity, he's defending Trump's mental instability.

C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Hal Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees whose franchise has increased in value by three billion in just the last four years, is trying to convince people that maybe the Yankees aren't profitable. This is clownage as old as sports itself: the saga of the year the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers insisted "we lost two million last year!"

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 37: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: There are three critical headlines: Trump has now convinced me he is sick, the way President Woodrow Wilson was sick. Once again it looks like Tuesday's cabinet meeting attendees were warned: praise him todaybecause he may not recognize you tomorrow. It's Anosognosia and it's why Trump can convince himself that of course nobody knows what body part the MRI they just got was for. They never tell anybodywhat the MRI is for. What are you, an idiot?

Secondly, with his nauseating attack on Somali-Americans of Minnesota yesterday and Tuesday, we will no longer accept any debate on this point: Donald Trump is a full-on White Supremacist, a racist who is no longer hiding it, who cannot continue as president. The hood is OFF.

And thirdly, it is increasingly obvious that the Democrats must have put out that Do-Not-Obey-Illegal-Orders video when they did because there a chain of evidence has come to light suggesting the September 2 kill-the-boat-survivors order from the Secretary of War Crimes…was an illegal order, right?

Plus, the racist reaction to the DC shootings will remind anybody in the next Afghanistan whose help we need that any promise we make to them, we will break. Thank you John Ratcliffe and Trump.

B-Block (35:45) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Department of Labor couldn't decide which would best enhance its Lincoln meme: the stars from the Confederate flag, or the font the Nazis used. So they chose both! Bari Weiss wants more main stream charismatic figures for CBS News. You know, like Alan Dershowitz. And not to say Larry David destroyed Bill Maher's life with his article about Bill breaking bread with Trump ("My Dinner With Adolf") but Maher is complaining about it again. The article was in APRIL.

C-Block (56:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The passing of the greatest Production Assistant in SportsCenter history, future stand-up comic Steve "Sarge" Pickman. And that little Nuzzi-Lizza story now extends to illegal taping, erasure of evidence, what might be the worst reviews for a political book this century ("Olivia Nuzzi's Tell-Nothing Memoir"), a series of rebuttals so long that it could become the basis for a Ken Burns Documentary series - and the under-reported news that Nuzzi's contract with Vanity Fair expires in four weeks. There's no need to fire her, she'll just fade away over the holidays.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 35: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-BLOCK (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Well here's a switcheroo. For the first time in more than a decade, the far right and the far left and everybody in between are in full agreement: NONE OF US knows… what the hell is wrong with Trump.

Trump was so smitten with Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani that by Saturday he was DRESSING like Mamdani; a neat black overcoat that fit him – and a red scarf that enveloped his neck – hair, combed with something other than a garden claw. And remember: some far right commentators had almost expected that when Mamdani arrived at the White House he would be greeted by Trump and Tom Homan and hooded ICE gestapo agents who would fabricate some story about Mamdani lying on paperwork, seize him, and expel him. They expected Mamdani to leave the Oval Office in chains; instead, Trump left the Oval Office in love.

AND NOW MARGE GREENE is out, and Laura Loomer is asking 'why bother to vote next year?' and Charles Gasparino is saying the wheels are off the Trump presidency and even the MAGAs think Trump has gone nuts and it's over. It's not - but it's nice to watch them squirm. Plus the Kash Patel/Girlfriend/SWAT team fiasco and even the Ukraine proposal literally written in Russian by Russians has embarrassed them. It's fabulous.

PLUS A NEW THOUGHT ON TRUMP'S INEXPLICABLE MRI. Maybe he really doesn't know what happened. Maybe he has anosognosia, the disease that makes it impossible for you to acknowledge or even remember that you have a disease. Maybe they told him why he got that MRI - and he immediately blocked it out.

B-BLOCK (34:00) YOUR LATEST NUZZI DOOZY NEWS. Yes, the big screaming uh, RECYCLING headline is gross. But it's not the real story. The real story is: Ryan Lizza now claims that for a year, before the election, while she was working for New York Magazine, my ex was doing Catch and Kill operations on RFK's behalf. Very bad news for all involved. And that she told him if anybody ever found out about her and Bob, he'd kill her. She exaggerates, but he doesn't think this was one of those. Plus, Vanity Fair is about to get rid of her. Feel free to skip this update.

C-BLOCK (1:02:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rookie Chicago cop shoots himself in the silver bullets, the Ellisons are willing to fire any CNN anchor Trump doesn't want in exchange for him letting them buy CNN, and Laura Loomer and Catturd are so stupid they fell for the oldest joke in the "Arabic" book.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 35: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-BLOCK (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is now a lame duck.

A lame Donald. A lame duck Donald. A lame Donald Duck. I like it.

It’s not just that MAGA stood up to him and a GOP/Democratic coalition beat him 427 to 1 on Epstein. It's that that was something even most of the Washington political media industrial complex can understand, can process, can WRITE using the cliches in which they trafficked until Trump and his unprecedented madness came along. This looked all too familiar and they jumped on it with both feet and the same cliché: LAME DUCK.

Fortune used it. NBC. Semafor. The National Review. Nate Silver's site asked "Is Trump A Lame Duck?" CNN's went further: "Is Trump A Lame Duck NOW?" It's so bad there was a Politico Lame Duck Listicle! "Seven signs Trump is losing his groove." And then the final nail: “It’s Official: Donald Trump is a lame duck by President”by Chris Cillizza, part of his weekly conversation with Chuck Todd.

It's never over til it's over, Yogi, but it's over.

B-BLOCK (25:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: I'm the character in The (Latest) Olivia Nuzzi story who gets shot in the first scene, but I still know more about her than almost any outsider and there is a lot to correct on her epically bad book excerpt in Vanity Fair, and the riposte by the more recent ex, Ryan Lizza, who was apparently told by Olivia that I was stalking her at the same time as Olivia was telling me there was a guy in Washington stalking her, named Ryan Lizza. The Nuzzi News is a Doozy and we all lose. This was to be a comeback; now she'll need an entirely new comeback to come back from her come back. And how does Vanity Fair keep her employed after the Mark Sanford accusation made her explanation of her RFK Jr lies into a separate lie?

C-BLOCK (1:00:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump accuses himself of rigging the 2020 census. It was in July, but Bill O'Reilly insisted that Jeffrey Epstein was prosecuted by Biden and Garland, and refused to correct himself even after he was reminded Epstein died during Trump's first presidency. And Bill Maher says he's giving up touring because people who are half as funny are selling twice as many tickets. Who does he mean? The New York Jets?

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 34: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: So, will he?

I mean you don't think he's serious about WANTING them released, do you? He's just trying to avoid a 100-vote defeat. Note he hasn't asked the Senate to pass a bill. And he's already throwing out "what can be legally released" caveats - like he cares. And Trump is still threatening to prosecute President Clinton. He's thrown Marjorie Taylor Greene under the bus. He's destroyed the House and the DOJ. He's invoking The Streisand Effect and insisted we all stop talking about it. His Government Shutdown ran out of gas - what does he do now? He's terrified of what's in there, to the point where Senator Chris Murphy said it's enough to potentially end his presidency.

I mean Alexander Haig and others told Nixon to burn the Watergate tapes, in public, with the media present and Haig says Nixon asked him to do it but Haig demurred and later says it was the biggest mistake ever.

So? Will Trump destroy the Epstein Files? Burn them, bury them, dump them, or order Kash Patel or Pam Bondi or just Walt Nauta to do it? And can Democrats make Epstein and what is at minimum Trump's protection of pedophiles the centerpiece of the midterms? To explain to voters that burying the files is why Trump is gerrymandering and trying to fix or cancel those midterms?

If he doesn't destroy them, does he destroy the process by which they could get out? Does he destroy what's left of democracy? The full monty of authoritarianism? 

And as an aside, when he was even willing to change the topic from Epstein to his MRI last month, did anybody else note that he made a remark as crazy as anything ever said by - anybody? That he had no idea what part of his body they MRI'd but he had the greatest MRI ever? What if he's not crazy, lying, or unable to understand what an MRI is? What if that's true? Was he unconscious? Sedated? Did they just surprise him? What are the implications for the theories that he's being treated for some form of dementia?

Or: Maybe they MRI’d Trump looking to see if he stuffed the Epstein files up his...assisted living facility.

PLUS: The self-beclowning of Stephen A. Smith continues. He can't figure out why Gavin Newsom and AOC and other Democrats won't come on his new political podcast: "I'm A Right Wing Dupe." And Olivia Nuzzi's new book is about to arrive and I have only one detail to address, but I have two big fears. What if her publicity tours include interviews with Ingraham on Fox and Tur on MSNOW? Lol

B-Block (34:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: JD Vance wants us to believe all those undocumented immigrants are stealing SNAP benefits, eating pets and driving up home prices by snapping up $500,000 houses. It seems like Eric Trump just said his wife charges him a fee to have a glass of wine with her. And Megyn Kelly explains Jeffrey Epstein wasn't technically a pedophile and the age of the victim makes a difference, after a career filled with her screaming at anybody else who suggested exactly the same thing.

C-Block (45:00) IN MEMORY OF MISHU: It's the fourth anniversary of the month my late hospice puppy with the incurable, untreatable heart condition, taught me one of the meanings of life. I like to remember him; I hope you'll remember him with me.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 33: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: From beyond the grave Jeffrey Epstein has accused Trump – and there’s a smoking gun and maybe four of them.

The allegations that one of Epstein’s female victims “spent hours at (Epstein’s) house with (Trump)…” that Trump was “that dog that hasn’t barked” and he “has never once been mentioned”… those specific allegations, MADE by Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 and acknowledged by Ghislaine Maxwell minutes later. And now, Trump and his Republicans – especially Speaker of the House Mike Johnson – and his MAGA enablers – and his Fox News propagandists – are complicit in another extraordinary, disgusting cover-up: cover-up of pedophilia, a NEW cover-up - right now - playing out in real time as Trump tries to blackmail Republicans into burying the Epstein FILES. A cover-up, most of all, of Trump’s GUILT.

Trump is guilty and Epstein has provided the evidence.

And now we turn to the real crisis for Trump. If what the Democrats released yesterday had been the worst thing in the files, Trump could've held a news conference explaining it all away and welcoming full release. Instead he went into full panic and dragged Lauren Boebert into the Situation Room to try to bully her into removing her name from the discharge petition. Didn't work. Now reportedly 100 Republicans in the House will vote for discharge and against Trump and a MAGA lynchpin has declared MAGA is dead.

So what is next? What if Trump pardons Maxwell, or commutes her sentence, it will cost him his presidency. Because a pardon or commutation of her would amount to a confession by him.

So what MORE is in the Epstein Files? To what lengths will Trump go to stop the release of the files? And when will Trump’s role in the Epstein Crimes, in his past cover-ups of them, in his current cover-up of them, in his cover-up of whatever he is guilty of - when will the true horror of Trump’s guilt become so overwhelming, so disqualifying, that Republicans will have to make the choice between covering up for Trump or saving THEMSELVES?

How much time does Trump have leftbefore Epstein destroys him?

AND AN UPDATE ON TRUMP'S ACCELERATING DEMENTIA: He wants troops sent to a place that doesn't exist. "The Miracle Mile Shopping Center in Chicago," he wrote. There IS no "Miracle Mile Shopping in Chicago" but there is one in Monroeville, PA, and if Trump wants to send troops into Chicago to protect Monroeville he's further gone than we have ever imagined.

B-Block (37:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Some late quotes from the Democratic Quislings Jeanne Shaheen and Dick Durbin, and Independent (from reality) Angus King. Bill Pulte and the 50-year mortgage and the lowered standards for getting one. And America's Sweethearts, Kash Patel and Alexis Wilkins and Alexis is suing three MAGA podcasters and being attacked by Candace Owens.

C-Block (49:30) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 32: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Quislings. Traitors. Cowards. Capitulators. Collaborators. Fakes. Frauds. Enablers. Betrayers. Failures. Political Prostitutes.

Senators Durbin, Kaine, Fetterman, Shaheen, Cortez-Masto, Hassan, Rosen, and King need to be expelled from the Democratic party and any that mistakenly think they have a chance of retaining their seats must be primaried. Must be.

They are not progressives, they are not pragmatists, they are not even moderates.

They are fools.

Their careers must be ended. Now. Durbin, Kaine, Fetterman, Shaheen, Cortez-Masto, Hassan, Rosen, and King. Now. Done. Forgotten. Let us hear their names no more.

Last night these eight Senators voted to fold, without any pressure, without any bribe, without anything. They voted to kick millions of Americans off ObamaCare in order to reopen and fund the government – for only three months, mind you – in exchange not for magic beans but just the promise of a vote in which they’ll GET magic beans – a vote ON the health care subsidies - IF half a dozen Republicans defy Trump. A vote about magic beans. Which they won’t win.

Their rationalizations were pathetic and suggested their familiarity with the reality of the Senate, of Trump, of the Republican Party, was less than that of the average Senate Page.

What's worse is, this happens now as the reality becomes more and clear: Trump’s mind is gone. It’s so bad even The Washington Post noticed. It’s so bad The Washington Post even put it on their front page.

He’s hyping weight loss drugs. In The Oval Office. And how he and he alone can bring down their price. And a weight loss patient there to extoll weight loss drugs and say how safe they are and praise Trump’s wonderfulness… collapses. Folds. Drops, slow-motion, like a deflating inflatable tube man at a used car sales lot.

Trump – whose mind is gone - not only doesn’t help the guy on the floor… he’s offended he upstaged him. And then Trump – whose MIND IS GONE - falls asleep. For the second time.

Or as The Washington Post put it: “A Closer Look At Trump’s Apparent Struggles To Fight Off Sleep In The Oval Office” read the Post headline. “A Washington Post analysis of multiple video feeds found that the president spent nearly 20 minutes apparently battling to keep his eyes open…” 815 words follow. And four pictures. One of Trump – whose mind is gone - with one eye closed. One with one eye closed and two fingers rubbing it. One with both eyes closed. One where you can almost SEE the snoring.

Even. The Washington Post. Knows It.

Let’s step back from the nuts-and-bolts of the government shutdown to try to process how it was perceived by Trump…whose mind is gone. HE thought it would be a GOOD idea to cut off food stamps so lines at soup kitchens would get longer just as it was getting cold. He thought the correct political move as the Holidays approached was… government-sponsored starvation. He believed that the country would praise him for… gradually shutting down all air travel – including all air travel FOR HIS SUPPORTERS – first for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas and New Year’s.

He thought these were good political moves.

SPORTSBALLCENTER (30:00): Yes, legal gambling could send two Cleveland pitchers to jail for 65 years. But no, they didn't actually make a Shohei Ohtani Used Jockstrap baseball card.

B-Block (38:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Politico thinks the first thing a Mayor-Elect of New York has to do is answer questions about the 2028 Senate elections. The Breaker media newsletter finds the New York Times fricasseeing its own digital books. That's right: FIFA isn't just polishing Trump's knob, it's inventing a "Peace Prize" so it can polish it harder. And Dr. Oz wants you to lose 400 pounds by the midterms.

C-Block (55:00) WHY I'M NOT A HOCKEY ANNOUNCER: One of my favorite sportscasting stories: how my budding career as a plucky pucky play-by-play guy was thwarted when the team we were broadcasting "forgot to rent the rink" - and how I avenged myself.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 31: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Do you want to hear the reallesson of this week’s Democratic landslide?

Mamdani ran on your money issues and  that Trump equals death. Sherrill ran on your money issues and that Trump equals death. Spanberger ran on your money issues and that Trump equals death. Prop 50 won on your money issues and that Trump equals death. Hey, you can do both at the same time! Who knew?

Not difficult. Easy to remember. Useful on all occasions.

Worked in New York, where they elected a socialist when only a quarter of the voters say they are socialists. Worked in Virginia, where they elected as governor an ex-congresswoman born in Jersey. Worked in Jersey, where they elected as a governor an ex-congresswoman born in Virginia. Money Issues, and Trump Equals Death. Useful on all occasions. It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping.

Of course the context is just as much fun as the lesson. That's becauseTrump not only doesn’t realize he got the S kicked out of him, but he doesn’t realize he’s already forced himself to both end the government shutdown and lose the government shutdown. “Trump wasn’t on the ballot,” Trump screamed. “And ‘Shutdown’… were the two reasons that Republicans lost elections...”

Ah, poor Trump. Metaphorically, Trump not only was on the ballot - every ballot but he was on the ballot in the worst possible way. Everybody could vote no on him, but it was almost impossible to vote YES. The lame duck politician’s worst nightmare. 

And right now no duck is lamer than Trump.

Democrats: run on your money issues and that Trump equals death. It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping!

ALSO: No, I am not going to sanewash Dick Cheney, even after his passing. Yes, at the end, when it was loyalty to the country or Trump he chose the country and it's good to finish strong. But I will still remember him for that 9/11-Iraq exploitation thing. And I am still proud that - as you'll hear - I pissed him off enough as Vice President for him to publicly clap back.

B-Block (30:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Roger Stone, who helped advance the deplorable Laura Loomer, is now shocked she's deplorable. Similarly Ben Shapiro, who helped sell Tucker Carlson's evil to the far right, is now shocked he's evil. And I-Never-Winsome Earle-Sears and scabby Fox host Charlie Hurt think Barack Obama not voting for her when he voted for Kamala Harris is hypocritical (so...Earle-Sears voted for Kamala, and Hurt voted for Spanberger?)

C-Block (40:30) SPORTSBALLCENTER: You probably aren't interested in my thoughts on the latest new selection committee and the latest eight nominees for baseball's Hall of Fame (though I have many of them). But you may be entertained by the sagas of the previous selection committees and the legend of how the ex-players on them used to cast "courtesy votes" for their old buddies and one year Ted Williams and the others screwed up and accidentally cast way too many of them for a not-so-Hall-of-Famish catcher named Rick Ferrell and he actually got elected.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 30: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT:  If Andrew can no longer be PRINCE because of Jeffrey Epstein, Trump can no longer be PRESIDENT because of Jeffrey Epstein.

I think Trump understands this. I have no doubt Mike Johnson understands this. I believe even large swaths of the otherwise imbecilic MAGA understand this. It is why Trump and Johnson and the others are starving the needy; dissolving Congress; destroying the domestic balance of power and gutting the work infrastructure at airports, government agencies, and services. It is why they are even cutting the legs out from under every Republican candidate in tomorrow’s handful of elections.

Andrew has been convicted of nothing; Trump has been convicted of nothing. There are no astounding legal findings against Andrew; there are no astounding legal findings against Trump. There are probably no smoking guns about Andrew in the Epstein files; there are probably no smoking guns about Trump in the Epstein files. The status of their scandals is roughly identical. 

Just as importantly: the English monarchy wants to publicly atone for Andrew and based on heavy news reporting in the UK it is apparently pressing Andrew to reveal what he knows about Epstein – presumably about TRUMPStein. Meanwhile only Trump, would throw a Gatsby party with himself as Gatsby and scantily-clad women in giant Martini glasses, in the middle of his own sex ring crisis.

In any event: If Andrew can no longer be PRINCE because of Jeffrey Epstein. Trump can no longer be PRESIDENT because of Jeffrey Epstein.

B-Block (28:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: After O'Donnell flames him, Scott Jennings insists Lawrence O'Donnell, whose show is beating Jennings's CNN show in the ratings by 60%, is irrelevant. Karolyin Leavitt was appalled that there was a bathroom inside the White House. And before tomorrow's election, Andrew Cuomo has proclaimed himself "Mayor."

C-Block (36:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well the World Series ended just as I told you it would: With everybody demanding Fox never again interview a manager during Game 7. I was a Fox TV Baseball Dugout Reporter: Here's Why We Don't Need Them (except for emergencies; in 40 games in which I filled that role, there were maybe three emergencies. I'll recount the best of them - the on-field dispute that came this close to turning into a riot involving the New York Yankees, the Boston Cops, and thousands of drunken Red Sox fans. And it ended with me being ordered to sit, essentially, on George Steinbrenner's lap).

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 29: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: The correct question has been lying there, invisible in the forest, for the trees.

It was Mary Trump who finally saw it – and asked it: “Why the hell (do) they KEEP giving him cognitive tests?”

That’s IT - isn’t it? THAT'S the question.

None of the details, none of the giraffes versus elephants, none of his stupid boastful insults about it, none of the small stuff. It's the big picture. Why the hell DO they keep giving him cognitive tests?

And I’ll add a corollary to Mary Trump's burst of simple genius: Why the hell do they KEEP giving him cognitive testsalmost exactly six months apart?

Friday October 10, 2015 at Walter Reed, which he boasted about on board Air Force One this week. And Friday April 11, 2015, which he had also boasted about on board Air Force One last spring. Those dates are almost six months apart. 182 days.

If they’re not giving him pre-scheduledcognitive tests every six monthsthat’s a helluva coincidence. 

Why the hell do they keep giving him cognitivetests?

And I’ll add a second corollary to Mary Trump’s question: why did they give him an MRI? Is it the first MRI to accompany a cognitive test? What was it an MRI of? I mean it may be irrelevant (I once had an MRI to see how my sinuses were draining correctly). You really CAN get MRIs for almost trivial stuff.

But you don’t get cognitive tests for trivial stuff.

Why the hell do they keep giving him cognitivetests?

PLUS: Trump says the Constitution prohibits him from running for president again. Again, mid-flight, after boasting about things that aren't real, he said: “If you read it it’s pretty clear. I’m not allowed to run." So that’s that, huh? That’s what all the experts say.

The same experts who said there was no Presidential Immunity.

So – what happens next? He just changes his mind? Or decides this term is eight years not four? Or he just cancels the 2028 election?

This isn't bluster and it isn't trolling. They might get away with it and they might not, but there are plans. And the more we're convinced they can never pull them off, the more likely we are to see another "presidential immunity" ruling from The Supreme Court. Or another Aileen Cannon. Or another January 6.

B-Block (24:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Steve Bannon wants to expel Zohran Mamdani from this country. Hell, we should expel Bannon. If we can find a truck that can carry that much blubber. There's a media writer named Rich Greenfield who has extrapolated from the possibility that Comcast might buy CNN and merge it with MSNBC and he has the exact right person to run it: Charlie Kirk's widow (a bible student). And as ludicrous as that sounds, the guy now running CNN wasn't even home from his visit to the White House to try to butter up Trump and the Trumpists when one of the Trumpists mocked him on twitter for visiting. Today, appeasers not only lose, they get flamed on social media.

C-Block (36:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: With the Dodgers in the World Series again it is time to hurry back to the greatest moment in their Los Angeles history: Kirk Gibson's pinch-hit homer even though three-quarters of his body was barely movable, to win Game One of the 1988 World Series and set them on the path to one of the greatest upsets in baseball history, over the vaunted Oakland A's. Gibson's homer was a surprise to everybody. Except me. Because I predicted it just before the first pitch of that final inning began. And there's a WITNESS.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 28: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT:  Donald Trump does not own the White House. Donald Trump does not own the United States of America. Donald Trump does not own the world.

NOTHING Trump has done, in sending in thugs and military to attack people that did not vote for him in cities and states that do not support him, is LEGAL.

NOTHING Trump has done in having his Nosferatu Stephen Miller threaten Governor Pritzker with “seditious conspiracy," is LEGAL.

NOTHING Trump has done in sending so-called “election monitors” to interfere in the voting in California and Jersey on BEHALF of Republican Thugs, is LEGAL.

NOTHING Trump has done to let himself say – supposedly jokingly, per the New York Times – “I’m the speaker AND the president," is LEGAL.

NOTHING Trump has done in his demolition against, destruction of, attack ON the East Wing of the White House, is LEGAL.

Almost NOTHING about Trump administration - his presidency - his forming unilateral DICTATORSHIP, is LEGAL.

And it is TIME to CUT HIM OFF FINANCIALLY by taking the one measure that will force an end to this Trumpian madness: for the blue states to follow up on Gavin Newsom’s suggestion, on the suggestion of others including me in this forum, and stop transmitting federal taxes to the national treasury until Trump resigns. We must have a tax payment boycott and it must be led by Governors and other STATE OFFICIALS so that there can be no attempt by Trump or his enablers and flunkies to prosecute or further threaten democracy-loving civilians. 

De-fund Donald Trump. Now.

ALSO: More on these "election observers." Also the targeting of Mike Johnson as the fall-guy. And a media update on Bret Baier, CBS, NBC and the Ballroom, Cheryl Hines and Olivia Nuzzi, and Bill Maher making a jackass of himself. AGAIN.

B-Block (36:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Kayleigh McEnany trying to sell her audience Hamburger Helper and convince them it's steak. ICE arrests a guy for playing the Star Wars imperial march. Anna Paulina Luna has a debate with a California congressman who doesn't exist. And Andrew Cuomo achieves a new high in low: laughing at a 9/11 racial slur about the man who beat him in the primary.

B-Block (48:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Before the World Series ends (and I still think that's in five games) it's time to tell the 25th Anniversary edition of Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, the bat, and how Clemens was actually throwing it at me.

C-Block (1:06:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL, CONCLUDED: There are so many ripples in the pond on this Clemens saga - they're still rippling!

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 27: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Today is the dawn of Trump’s new policy: destroy America. Literally.

Well, destroy part of the WHITE HOUSE – Literally. And steal $230 million from the government and pretend he’s going to give it to charity; AND give away 172 million dollars for two private jets for Kristi Noem; AND give Ukraine and eventually Europe to Putin, AND make America a one-party nation, AND get elected Democrats killed, AND destroy America. Literally.

Well, ok, describing this as Trump’s new policy to destroy, steal, give away AND get elected Democrats killed - that’s not ENTIRELY fair. Because it’s not really NEW. He has long tried to stochastically encourage violence against opponents, but now key minions like Tom Emmer and Tom Homan talk about the quote “terrorist wing” of the Democratic party, and, Presto! A January 6th traitor Trump personally pardoned tries to assassinate Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Looks like cause and effect to me.

Josh Marshall just invoked imagery I used in 2016 and he’s right: Trump has entered (actually RE-entered) the stage in which he is the omnipotent petulant child, Anthony, from the terrifying Twilight Zone episode “It’s A Good Life" who could destroy the world and kill people just by thinking it. Josh is right. I was right. Trump is now destroying just because it gives him something to do. And because in his psychosis it no longer matters whether he's constructing or deconstructing, it only matters that HE does it.

ALSO: The Democrats can stop self-flagellating. Party identification has now swung back away from the Republicans and the seven-point margin is nearly as big as the Dems' was in 2012. So let's focus instead on taking out the trash like Graham Platner. For 17 years or so, the populist Maine Democrat somehow didn't know that was a nazi tattoo on his chest, which I suppose is possible. But when it was going to come out, instead of going right to a tattoo parlor and holding a news conference explaining and apologizing as they turned it into something else, he released a drunken video and waited three days to (supposedly) actually fix the problem. He has no judgment. None. Get out.

B-Block (33:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Bob Iger and Disney didn't walk back the Jimmy Kimmel firing because of justice and the 1st Amendment. They did it because of a boycott. The Andrew Cuomo self-destruction tour continues as he confuses the New York Jets and the New York Mets. And The Washington Post columnist who said we'd be fine whether Hillary or Trump was elected is back with more stupidity.

C-Block (49:12) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: This time of year, 51 years ago, I was about to sign up to go to Boston University when a radio student there gave me the inside story of the limitations undergrads faced. He talked me out of it. I was 15 and he was 20 and his name was Howard Stern.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 26: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Can we? Involuntarily? Any way you can think of?

I don’t know the answer, I suspect not, not even after the video he put out in which he proudly covers America in, uh, crap. A video he thought was some kind of flex, as opposed to reality, that it is the confirmation of everything that was being protested at No Kings, everything that defines Trump as president, as leader, as human being – sort of: a crapshow with a crown and he has to wear an oxygen mask and the MAGAs are standing below just hoping to catch some of it maybe with their mouths! Trump crapping on America – the only thing he’s good at – and in the limited coverage it gets in the media they sanitize it for your protection, literally not referencing WHAT it was flying in Trump’s Freudian video, his confession, the climax of his life.

After that, let me say it again: Trump is insane and unchecked he will kill us all because nothing matters to him BUT him. He’s insane, he’s psychopathic, he’s murderous, he’s vile, he’s deranged, he’s damaged, he’s dysfunctional, he’s – on top of everything else there he is discharging himself all over New York and No Kings and America and my final thought was, if that AI video were real, and he really got rid of all that crap: what WHAT would he be left to THINK with?

THAT PLUS the amazing under-coverage of the largest American political protest since 1970, and Trump him whoring and stalling for Putin again in Ukraine, and Trump’s Eternal Middle East Peace falling apart, and Curtis Sliwa stuffing Andrew Cuomo in a locker - it was glorious.

B-BLOCK (30:00) ANOTHER SPECIAL COMMENT: You saw ESPN's Stephen A. Smith (who isn't trying to run for president but is humiliating himself, doing everything he can to make other people try to convince him to) appearing on the farcical News Nation's farcical "town hall" on the government shutdown? And a guy in the audience gets up and says he's an air traffic controller but because of 'them' he now has to deliver food to make ends meet? And Smith starts ranting and in solidarity with the people storms off the show because...I dunno why? Something about this story (in fact a couple things) just don't add up. Let me give you some hints.

C-BLOCK (48:00) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: "Meet Birdey Doggett" is not his best known story. It is one of his best to hear read aloud. On a day when I'm under the weather and need a little cheering up myself - enjoy.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 25: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Is Trump Bombing Boats off Venezuela to test to see if he can get away with Bombing Americans in America? I mean now he says he’s going to try to get away with Bombing Venezuelans in Venezuela.

If, 72 hours before Saturday’s No Kings protests around the country, we are at the stage – (and we are AT the stage) that Trump is threatening to invade Boston and San Francisco, and where Trump’s lackeys are calling everybody who disagrees with him “Antifa” and Trump has declared “Antifa” a quote “Domestic Terrorist Organization” – acronym DTO, and we’re at the stage where Trump has again this week – Tuesday morning – had the Secretary of Brylcreem blow up a probable sardine fishing boat in the Caribbean after declaring it was “affiliated with a “DESIGNATED Terrorist Organization” – acronym ALSO DTO… if we are blowing up people Trump and Trump alone gets to decide were in DESIGNATED DTO’s and in the process destroying ALL evidence for-or-against, how far in his madness and Stephen Miller’s evil are we from Trump blowing up people Trump and Trump alone gets to decide were in DOMESTIC D-T-O’s and in the process destroying ALL evidence for-or-against?

The huge leap from bombing DTO’s to bombing… DTO’s.

It's a big step. But it’s one even Trump, as his body disintegrates, can still manage.

Plus my ex Olivia Nuzzi has reportedly written a new book. So now you know what to get me for Christmas. I have title suggestions. They are not cordial ones.

B-Block (34:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Fox's Emily Compagno assumes anybody criticizing the appointment of Bari Weiss is an antisemite. Including critics who are Jewish. There is a MAGA celebrity chef named Andrew Gruel, from "Gravy Concepts" and he's one of Fox's Antifa experts. And then there is Governor Janet Mills of Maine who is trying to bigfoot Graham Platner and actually make Susan Collins the youngster in the race.

C-Block (46:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The actual anniversary was two weeks ago, but whenever the leaves start to fall I think of the 1993 launch of ESPN2. The inside saga of the night I achieved immortality by announcing "Good Evening And Welcome To The End Of Our Careers."

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 24: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: If Trump didn’t have much time left as president, how would his cabinet behave?

If Trump didn’t have much time left as president, how would his henchmen behave?

If Trump didn’t have much time left as president, how would his Stephen Millers behave?

If Trump didn’t have much time left as president, how would HE behave?

Would he have a straight-up public delusion that 1448 days into his first presidency it was Joe Biden’s FBI even though Joe Biden hadn’t BEEN president yet? Ending with the panicked, plaintive cry to the universe: “DO SOMETHING?” Would he have hallucinations about Watergate being a hoax? Would he start accidentally posting private messages to his attorney general demanding prosecutions of those who prosecuted him? NOW NOW NOW! DO SOMETHING! Would he be unable to close his umbrella?

I’m not saying he’s DYING, I’m not saying he’s IRRETRIEVABLY SICK, I’m not saying he’s being raptured, I’m not saying he’s resigning, I’m not saying he’s fleeing… I’m not talking about cause, just EFFECT.  If Trump didn’t have much time left as president… if he were getting a PROMOTION to something, how would they all BEHAVE?

I think the answer is they’d all behave as they are behaving now.

They’d panic.

And, they are panicking.

They’d panic because they know, there is NOBODY to take over for him. Junior? Eric? Bannon? Miller? Vance? WHAT? VANCE? After Stephanopoulos stuffed him in a locker yesterday? What do they think they know about Trump’s longevity, that we don’t? Why is Stephen Miller panicking? Why is Mike Johnson panicking over the Epstein Files and more importantly what could his end game be here? What? He's just never bringing the House back into session?

And this all ties in to the indefensible Charlie Kirk assassination because all of this could be explained if you recognize that the Right thought Kirk was a future president, maybe THE future president.

MEDIA OBEYING IN ADVANCE: Trump attacks Politico's Dasha Burns to her face and instead of accepting the Orange Badge of Courage she tells him Karolyin Leavitt will vouch for her. That's disqualifying. And I'd like to read you only about one fifth of one of the best media essays I've read this year, written by Elizabeth Lopatto at The Verge. It completely changed my mind about Bari Weiss going to CBS. Weiss is no less evil, but Lopatto brilliantly argues she is not going to destroy CBS - CBS is going to destroy her. And they should televise it.

B-Block (35:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Milwaukee Brewers win, then humiliate themselves and their guiding light Bob Uecker, by taunting the losers. Governor Greg Abbott makes a joke about somebody else's physical incapacity. Trump's Beauty Pageant Miss Uncongeniality Prosecutor Lindsey Halligan makes another amazing typo. And a Kristi Noem twofer, performed with the Benny Hill Yakety Sax Theme playing in the background.

C-Block (46:22) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The ACTUAL writer of The Washington Post's first Watergate story, Bart Barnes, has died. He pulled together the first-day work of Woodward, Bernstein and the crime reporter the day the thing broke in June 1972 and had a 50-year career that probably hit its nadir a decade later when he wound up covering the same story as...me. For months he and I and a couple of others were the core beat reporters on the 1982 NFL Strike. He was wonderful, and he was the final straight man in an intricate, fantastic practical joke we played on the New York Times' guy. The story of Bart Barnes - and The Janofsky Maneuver.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 23: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Here we go again.

Trump is talking about his own mortality or career mortality or heaven or all of the above… AGAIN at the same time he’s talking about declaring insurrections and jailing more political opponents, like Mayor Johnson and Governor Pritzker and any one of a dozen judges including at least one he appointed – not prosecuting them, just jailing them - and, as if it could GET any worse, he specifically segued from the issue of wanting to prove to God that he’s been good to how great all those weapons are at his naval base.

The missiles are flying, hallelujah, hallelujah.

Plus he's written: “Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also." Look, you and I know it should be TRUMP in jail because he’s not only broken laws, he’s nearly COLLECTED THE COMPLETE SET of broken laws. But the process of convincing Trump that he's not crazy, that his predictions are coming true, that Portland is ablaze, is how Stephen Miller and the others manipulate him into eroding American democracy a little more every damn day. And this has worked since at least 2016 and I was told about it by Ed Rollins in 2017. It's the Trump personal feedback loop.

And when the interruptors in that loop get in the way, they get bought out and destroyed. CNN first, The Washington Post, and now CBS News and the "B" stands for "Bari Weiss" who once told The Federalist Society that it was ok if it didn't believe her and her wife's marriage was legal because they all shared what really mattered: a desire for lower taxes. Let me expand upon the death of CBS News and her disastrous debut at its helm by retelling the story of the miniature version enacted at the CBS flagship station in LA when I worked there in 1991: The Mystery Of The Broken Number 3 CBS Pencils.

B-Block (37:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: What is wrong with these dweeb MAGAs? Ken Paxton can't keep his pants on, every other day there's some new story causing his wife to again decide to divorce him, and he's just announced "undercover operations" against leftists. Hey, Pal, if you did anything BESIDES undercover operations you wouldn't be dismissed as a sex pest. Poor Derrick Van Orden continues his descent: now he's yelling at people for not learning how the Senate votes the way he learned about it in the 4th Grade (all of what he learned was wrong). And the Bad Bunny Super Bowl blowback reaches Marjorie Taylor Greene who demands a law making English the official language which is going to be trouble for her since she doesn't speak it.

C-Block (45:00) THURSDAYS WITH THURBER: It's one of those weeks, plus my back is gone, one of my eyes is fighting me: it's time to bring back the first Thurber story I ever read aloud to an audience, the oddly soothing "A Box To Hide In."

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A-BLOCK (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: TRUMP SUDDENLY SPECULATES ABOUT LIFE WITHOUT HIM: From anybody else it would be trivia. From Trump this is startling. Buried in an ordinary narcissistic flight: "It'll be very unfair in the future when they (Republicans) don't have Trump to fight for them."

That quote, might be the biggest headline Trump has made this year and it sailed RIGHT past the American news media yesterday. What in the HELL did he mean by that and more importantly why did he suddenly acknowledge there is an end, maybe soon?

After being MIA for five days – no live public viewing of him, just one video that according to White House time stamps took more than two hours to produce even though it only required him to try to speak for a minute-ten… he EMERGED with what was, even for him, such an utterly bizarre and especially vulnerable admission. 

He was out of view for FIVE DAYS. FIVE. From that bizarre “please clap” speech before the Generals at Quantico on Tuesday – the Pete Hegseth International Day of Military Hair Care Symposium and Product Sampling – through yesterday morning when he managed to stagger out of the White House, blast a series of non sequitirs at the press pool, and then go to another military celebration for which we have the money even in the middle of his shutdown of the government.

Nobody asked: HOW have you been, WHERE have you been, WHAT are they treating you for, WHAT does that "when they don't have (you) to fight for them" quote mean? Because again, as in the week he went MIA at the beginning of LAST month, nobody had a clue what would take a man with compulsive talking disease and an ego so large it has own it zip code, from appearing in front of crowds and cameras for FIVE DAYS. 

And THEN Trump went in front of the Navy and said he warned about Osama Bin Laden last year, and told Pete Hegseth about it a year before 9/11, and claimed he was president in 2016 but they fixed the 2016 election, but they ran it again and he "got 250."

What. In The Hell. Is Wrong. With Trump’s Health?

B-Block (27:44) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A $1 Trump coin? Ten cents per chin? Ian Miles Cheong doesn't think they'll eat his face. Noem and Lewandowski think they'll find undocumented immigrants attending the Super Bowl. And Kristi really has to go to the toilet. THIS IS OFFICIAL BUSINESS!

C-Block (38:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well, here we are. Fifty years ago Tuesday night, at 11:15 PM, I did my first broadcast on an actual radio station with advertisers and listeners. I was 16 and it's not bad for 16 and for the fact that my much older colleagues at WVBR-FM did a superb job of hazing me. And yes, that first broadcast is still extant, as you'll hear.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 21: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) COULD TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST? Warning: this is a PARTIAL RE-RUN. If you heard Thursday's episode, don't bother. But I got such a great response to re-reading and annotating and updating my July 2016 piece for Vanity Fair Magazine on this topic that I wanted to post this as a stand-alone segment in case you skipped it and had time to listen now. The Thursday news-of-the-day stuff has gotten slightly outdated so I've stripped it off. As you know, I don't make a habit of re-posting episodes and I'm not going to start. Again: if you listened to the whole thing Thursday, this is NOT going to be new to you. Don't listen - unless you're trying to memorize it.

SO... COULD TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST? I have grown old talking about Trump's sanity. As I wrote then: short answer? Probably not. This is a layman using professional tools: an actual kind of "triage" test used by working psychology professionals to assess if somebody is injured, tripping, or psychopathic. I had an active therapist walk through the examination and assign the points per topic. It's an important time to review what we knew - or should have known - nine long years ago. Because he was unwell then, too.

B-Block (24:31) PART TWO OF "CAN TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST": We conclude the annotated 2016 piece on Trump's already provable mental distress with the disturbing reality that takes us back to where we began on Thursday with Representative Madeleine Dean's lament: "The president is unwell."

C-Block (45:00) THIS IS JUST THE SIGN-OFF: Honestly, there is no reason to listen to this. It's just the credits.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 20: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT:  “The President is unhinged. He is Unwell. The President is Unwell.”

Representative Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania with perhaps the most important eleven words in the past decade, perhaps the most important eleven words in the history of this country, CERTAINLY the most important eleven words for the FUTURE of this country.

“The President is Unwell.”

We have at LEAST one – probably TWO – presidential health crises in full flower at the same time: And near as I can tell, only Representative Dean is talking about it (and directly to Speaker Mike Johnson, in what was not intended to be a public conversation) along with Governor Pritzker of Illinois, whose diagnosis was SIXTEEN words long and just as important. Quote: "There is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the 25th Amendment ought to be invoked."

The two crises are obvious: at his insane speech to the Generals Tuesday, Trump sounded as if his charger had been left unplugged for three weeks, his voice husky, indistinct, words slurred. And what he DID say made next to no sense. Pritzker suggests dementia which could explain both the rapidly declining mental capacity AND the audible collapse AND why Trump was invisible yesterday and had to send Vance to ride Day One of the government shutdown Trump orchestrated. It would all ALSO explain that missing week around Labor Day and the cabinet meeting – the LAST televised cabinet meeting – in which his Departmental Slaves shoveled twice as much laudatory BS as usual, as if it were a going-away roast for Trump.

Maybe it was.

“The President is unwell.”

CAN TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST? I have grown old talking about Trump's sanity. I first did it publicly in June, 2016, and a month later Vanity Fair published my article "Can Trump Pass A Sanity Test?" As I wrote then: short answer? Probably not. This is a layman using professional tools: an actual kind of "triage" test used by working psychology professionals to assess if somebody is injured, tripping, or psychopathic. I had an active therapist walk through the examination and assign the points per topic. It's an important time to review what we knew - or should have known - nine long years ago. Because he was unwell then, too.

B-Block (35:23) PART TWO OF "CAN TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST": We conclude the annotated 2016 piece on Trump's already provable mental distress with the disturbing reality that takes us back to where we began with Madeleine Dean's lament: "The president is unwell."

C-Block (56:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 19: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is escalating his terror campaign against you. If you oppose him, if you criticize him, if you even question him, he will try to call YOU a terrorist, put YOU on a terrorism BLACKLIST. And if that doesn’t work, ARREST you, and if THAT doesn’t work, invade your state and terrorize IT.

On the other hand, he has apparently TACO’d out on his terrorist invasion of Portland now saying “well I mean we’re certainly LOOKING AT IT.” But on the OTHER OTHER hand National Security Presidential Memorandum Seven is not on hold; in it Trump claims the right to prosecute you for domestic terrorist if you express quote “anti-Christianity” or oppose the government in any way. 

Get you indicted when there is literally no case, like James Comey. Or reenact the McCarthy Era blacklist and try to get you fired, as with Lisa Monaco. Or just label you a domestic terrorist because you called Stephen Miller a "fascist." When Stephen Miller has called 150 million Democrats "fascists." That'll be quite the indictment against Miller. Which reminds me: Fox's Jesse Watters calls Miller a "sexual matador." Which I presume means he winds up getting gored in the groin.

And just to bring this up a notch, Trump's insanity is growing and it certainly looks like over the weekend, he wanted his social media followers to believe he can bestow upon them the gift of immortality. 

Not IMMORALITY, "immortality." The saga of Trump's Med Beds and RFK jr's face.

B-Block (34:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Isabel Vincent writes the weakest New York Post hit job on me in the history of New York Post hit jobs. The breaking news? An anonymous source says I may have been rude to a waiter in 1997. Marco Rubio bans the president of Colombia, tags him on twitter, tags the wrong guy. And Newt Gingrich complains about Abby Spanberger not voting for a particular bill in the House this month. Maybe because she hasn't been a member of the house since January?

(45:47) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's Stevie Week! Thirteen years ago tomorrow since I was born again in dogs, when Olivia Nuzzi and I were adopted by a tiny Maltese who opened up a new world to me.

C-Block (1:06:00) PART TWO OF STEVIE WEEK: The adventures of Stevie and the five dogs who have followed her, including a cameo appearance from the Gotcha Day Girl herself.

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A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: After perhaps the most hapless 96 hours of his presidency, the worst 96 hours of the worst presidency of ALL TIME, the most FAIL in the shortest span… the mentally-deteriorating, untethered-from-reality Trump… must RESIGN. And take his idiot sycophants with him.

The last 96 hours:

His U.N. speech, sounding like an escapee from a psych ward.

His Tylenol news conference, sounding like an escapee from a psych ward who’s been living on the street for a month.

His suggestion NATO countries shoot down Russian jets.

His sudden embrace of Zelensky, either another stall or a stupid dare to Putin.

MAGA’s RAGE AT his sudden embrace of Zelensky.

The cover of a London right wing daily: his picture and in 72-point type, the word “DERANGED.”

The ICE shooting in Dallas; his sadistic Homeland chief pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees; his idiot simpering Vice President pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees; his corrupt venal FBI director pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees.

His ICE chief not denying he took $50,000 in a paper bag.

His staff THEN denying he took $50,000 in a paper bag.

His cancellation of a meeting with Democrats making sure if there’s a government shutdown it’s all his fault.

His crackpot pal Milei crashing the Venezuelan economy and needing us to bail him out.

His paranoia over the stopped teleprompter at the U-N that was his White House staff’s fault.

His paranoia over the stopped escalator at the U-N that was his own vanity videographer’s fault.

His desire to arrest the U.N. escalator technician or the U-N escalator button pusher.

His desire to arrest the escalator AND James Comey.

The election of Raul Grijalva’s daughter to Congress.

The fact that Adelita Grijalva will be the last Representative needed to force a vote on releasing the Trump Epstein Files.

His self-humiliation at the Kirk Memorial.

ABC reinstating Jimmy Kimmel.

Meaning Disney told him to eff off.

Meaning the National Football League told him to eff off.

Meaning they all told his propagandists at Sinclair to eff off.

Kimmel then shoving him in a locker using only a monologue.

Kimmel getting a record 6 million viewers and 22 more online in the first TWENTY hours.

Kimmel and his show getting new life and maybe a new contract.

His self-owning confession that HE and his goons used threats to get Kimmel cancelled.

The fact that Kimmel, and ABC, and Bob Iger, and Disney, and America told Trump to SHOVE HIS THREATS.

And that’s just since Sunday night.

You lost to an escalator. Resign. Take Vance with you. Take Noem with you. Take Ho-man with you. Take Milei with you.

LEAVE the Epstein Files.

B-Block (32:53) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jason Whitlock says eff everybody, this is Christ-land and he won't be brainwashed any more (no brain, no pain). Derrick Van Orden says Kirk was Jesus and you don't F with the Jesus so defund The Mayo Clinic (he should go there and get CT scanned) and Kristi Noem says a tweet saying she'd have a bad day was terrifying for her. This is a piece of crap who in her spare time murders puppies.

C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The New York Post BS firehose points at a couple of liberals at a time, then it rotates away, but eventually it makes a full circle and comes back to you. For me this has been going on since the mid-1990's and it's just started again. If you'll permit, here's a brief history.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 17: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: How about this for a plot twist? I'll believe it when I see it - it still depends on television executives doing the moral, right, professional thing AND tacitly admitting they are correcting a mistake, but multiple sources insist that at least at this moment the ABC people expect Jimmy Kimmel to not only not be fired but to return, on the air, in late night, probably before the end of the month. Maybe even this week.

Yep. The fascist FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr may have delivered Liberals the biggest gift of the year. The blowback towards ABC is untenable (even polling: the Carr threat was "unacceptable" is above water by 17%; the Kimmel monologue was acceptable, 43%-36%) and the desire to keep Kimmel and maybe now even extend his contract has only grown since last week.

And that's in large part because so many key right wingers from Ted Cruz and Rand Paul to Scott Dilbert Adams and Ben Shapiro are enraged by Carr's bullying and rightly recognize that if Trump can do this to ABC, what could a Democratic president do to Murdoch and NewsMax and... THEM. I mean, two out of three MAGAs have podcasts, right?

My sources pointed to seven landmarks. First: they HAVEN’T fired him. Second: they actually haven’t said ANYTHING about him since the one sentence announcement about taking him off. Third: HE hasn’t said ANYTHING about ABC, good bad or indifferent. Fourth: remember the Sinclair owned local stations that started all the trouble? The ones who were bribing Trump and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr by DEMANDING Kimmel be sidelined, so Trump and Carr would waive the rules and let Sinclair buy more than the legal limit OF local stations? Remember their plan to run a Charlie Kirk tribute last Friday night in Kimmel’s time slot? They didn’t run it. They put it on YouTube. No other explanation. Fifth: what happened to the Sinclair demand that Kimmel apologize and pay a bribe, uh, make a donation to Kirk’s scam Turning Point Company? Sixth: how much grief did ABC take for folding to Trump AND for not defending Kimmel as the entire right wing misquoted him? So much that no human can estimate it. And Seventh: how could you possibly put all the Kimmel and Kirk toothpaste back in the tube? As Eric Idle said: All You Need Is Cash.

ALSO: Grandpa posts a self-incriminating note to Pam Bondi that he must have thought was being printed or emailed or lord knows what. He is running out of prosecutors who'll prosecute innocent opponents about whom there's no evidence. The Tom Homan $50,000 scandal also involves Emil Bove (and how in the hell did we not see that coming? He literally has the word "HO" in his name). And a self-proclaimed prophetess says she saw Charlie Kirk get his reward in Heaven: a large ice cream cone.

B-Block (40:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Congressman Randy Fine sets a new high in low. Stephen A. Smith thinks the Kimmel-Kirk controversy is over a joke. And Vanity Fair's hiring of Olivia Nuzzi is not sitting well with journalists (as one put it, all of them who DON'T sext their sources).

C-Block (52:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Hard to understand anything she says or writes but I'm pretty sure Nancy Mace threatened to end my career over Charlie Kirk. Thus I need to review the efforts to end my career, which professionally date back only to 1984 but if you count my semi-pro days in college actually stretch back to late 1977. Virtually everybody who declared me done is out of the business, or deceased. Take a number, Nance.

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BULLETIN: SEASON 4 EPISODE 16, COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

In an Oval Office news briefing crazy even by his standards, Trump answered a question about the FCC blackmailing of ABC over Charlie Kirk by changing the topic to himself, making up a statistic that "94, 95, 96, or 97 percent" of all network television stories about him are critical of him, and declaring of such criticism: "That's really illegal, in my opinion."

In Trump's damaged condition he could forget this by morning. But after this week's mafioso style shakedown of ABC by the FCC and the owners of Sinclair to force Jimmy Kimmel off the air by FCC Commissioner, Brendan Carr, the real question is - what if he doesn't? What if somebody like Carr in his administration decides to curry favor with Trump by trying to enforce an "it's illegal to criticize Trump" declaration"?

Taking the two stories together, and perhaps adding in Trump's threat to declare something that doesn't really exist (Antifa) a "terrorist organization" (which could just as easily lead to him declaring you a member of Antifa and thus a "terrorist") the FCC's action is so bad that it provoked serious, well-thought-out, sober yet angry condemnation Friday afternoon from the unlikeliest of sources: Senator Ted Cruz, who warned Republicans that the government needed to stay out of the bullying media business.

Whether that will register with Trump remains to be seen. For now the gist is: Trump says criticizing him (or in the best possible interpretation, criticizing him a LOT) is illegal. He cannot remain president under such circumstances.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 15: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Charlie Kirk died because he lived amid the violent madness of Donald Trump's America.

Now that we can say with some certainty that if Tyler Robinson indeed shot Charlie Kirk, he shot him for personal reasons, that he saw Kirk as a direct threat to someone he loved, that Robinson was NOT a stochastic proxy murderer from Antifa or the Groypers or the Right Wingers who had so recently called Kirk a fraud like Laura Loomer, it is also clear that there is truly only ONE person whose WORDS created, amplified, mainstreamed, and manufactured the nightmarish environment that led to Charlie Kirk’s indefensible death.

The leading threat in this country in this moment, to the safety and the lives of Conservatives and Republicans and MAGA commentators and politicians and citizens - the leading threat to ALL of us - is Trump.

The America in which Charlie Kirk was murdered… the America in which Melissa and Mark Hortman were murdered… the America in which Paul Pelosi was beaten… the America in which Donald Trump was shot is DONALD TRUMP’s America.

THIS is Donald Trump’s America and ALL THOSE who are endangered by it, and all those who fall dead at its feet, are the victims of one man and one man alone: Donald Trump. The institutionalization of vengeance is Trump. The introduction of political persecution is Trump. The inspiration for the only attempted VIOLENT OVERTHROW AND COUP against the government of the United States is Trump. The weaponization of the mob and the government against individuals he names and hopes somebody else hurts is Trump.

The TERROR is Trump.

B-Block (29:20) BREAKING NEWS: And the transformation of flawed democracy into lethal autocracy… is Donald Trump. After the FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr took a page from the Goebbels playbook in 1930's Germany and threatened to revoke ABC's ownership of local stations because Jimmy Kimmel dared to tell the truth about Charlie Kirk's hate speech and the MAGA exploitation of his death, Bob Iger - the Disney chairman desperate to hold on to his job and his money and his only purpose in a failed life - folded to the fascists. Kimmel is off the air, indefinitely, probably for good, and has no legal recourse to be reinstated. All he can get is the money.

C-Block (49:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Robert Redford, RIP. I interviewed him once and he and it were great. And then the booking producer who was trying to get promoted to segment producer got into his ear and told him "Wrap!"

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BULLETIN, SEASON 4 EPISODE 14, COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

BULLETIN (2:55): ABC announced late this afternoon that it had taken "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" off the network's air effective immediately, because Kimmel had the nerve to tell the truth about how Trump and the MAGA terrorists have exploited the indefensible assassination of Charlie Kirk, how they have tried to blame the left without evidence and with increasing evidence that this was an instance of a man who feared Kirk was a direct threat to a person he loved, and how they have ruthlessly tried to suppress all public comment that contradicts their narrative, or the nonsensical whitewashing of Kirk's violent, ultra-right platform that once included him publicly calling for the execution of President Biden.

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said Monday.

By this afternoon FCC chairman Brendan Carr dipped into the Goebbels playbook and threatened ABC's station licenses if it did not take Kimmel off the air, and the Nexstar stations that own many ABC affiliates, said they would not broadcast any more of Kimmel's shows. At that point ABC simply said the show was off the air "for the foreseeable future."

Fascism can truly overtake this country's democracy only with the collaboration of Disney and ABC and people they run them - desperate people like Bob Iger, who reclaimed the chairmanship of the company and will do anything he can to maintain it - including selling this country out to the fascists.

I'll also discuss why Kimmel has no recourse against the action and will most likely not appear again, and why ABC's only contractual obligation to him is to pay him the remaining year of his salary. This part of it I've personally been through - though under far less dire circumstances.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 13: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

Fraud News Channel morning anchor Brian Kilmeade "apologizes" FOUR DAYS LATER for saying America’s 771,000 homeless (that'd include 33,000 Homeless Veterans and 140,000 Homeless Kids should be killed. By “involuntary lethal injection. Or something. Just kill them.” His co-host Lawrence Jones agreed with him.

Fox did nothing about it. They planned to get away with it, and would have, but for Media Matters saving the original clip from last Wednesday and Aaron Rupar re-posting it Saturday morning. I had seen the clip and thought it was fake. It's that bad. And finally Sunday Kilmeade issued a wallet-felt apology.

We are in such a place in this country – thanks to Trump, thanks to MAGA, thanks to the late Charlie Kirk, thanks to the Tea Party, thanks to Bush, thanks to… the list continues backwards almost indefinitely and infinitely – that this horrific vision, which in its essence is mass murder of the homeless (the most widely accepted high-end estimate of homelessness in this country is 771-thousand) – and no Kilmeade didn’t say let’s submit 771-thousand people to quote “involuntary lethal injection” – he didn’t have to. Is 771 people somehow less horrific? 77? What’s your threshold to be enraged at the prospect of simply pulling SOME homeless people off the street and lethally injecting them? Seven? One?

We know what you are Kilmeade. We are just arguing about the price...to be spent on lethal injections.

Fire him now.

SHOCK: TRUMP HELPS PUTIN AGAIN as he escalates his attempt to rebuild the Soviet Union. Now it's test drones at the Poland border (again) and the Romanian border (new). Waiting to see if Trump blinked. He blinked so much he could've been sending Morse Code.

St. CHARLIE OF KIRK: So, as Andrew Lawrence of Media Matters summarized it: Kirk "was a champion of free speech and if you disagree youre under arrest” The Trojan Horse phony bi-partisan governor of Utah is now down to insisting the family says the shooter had been indoctrinated with left wing ideology. What kind of left wing ideology? That he said he was "not a fan" of Kirk.

Funny, the most venomous, most threatening criticism of Kirk in the last 60 days was Nick Fuentes saying Kirk could no longer call himself a Christian and his college events should be interrupted and he should be shouted down, and Laura Loomer insist Kirk "stabs Trump in the back." Hmmm. If harsh words killed Charlie Kirk, is that leftist ideology Fuentes and Loomer were spouting, or right wing guilt?

B-Block (37:04) MORE ON CHARLIE KIRK: There are bigger issues in play. It is clear now that there were two different public Charlie Kirks. On the left we saw a slick but rather run-of-the-mill hate monger who mocked Democratic victims of political violence and wanted to see public executions. On the right, they literally never saw those videos. They only saw a "beautiful man, armed only with a bible" preaching family values. How? Different social media feeds. The other big issue with the right's collective mania and desire to punish the left for Kirk's death when it still looks like the far right did as much or more? All of those right wing influencers just assumed God was on their side and was protecting them like he "protected" Trump last year. Oops.

C-Block (1:00:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: This is the longest all-new episode ever but always time for worsts. Ezra Klein last week? "Charlie Kirk Practiced Politics The Right Way." So, Ezra Klein next week? "Brian Kilmeade Practiced Television The Right Way?" Ken Paxton is screwing around again? Does he have a wandering eye oh right. And when MSNBC fired Matt Dowd for, you know, telling the truth about the death of Kirk, where were Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Lawrence O'Donnell, risking a dollar or two to defend accurate commentary? I mean they whiffed so badly that they made the anchor who was on with Dowd look perfect by contrast: Katy Tur.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 12: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: I suppose it could've been worse. Rather than reacting to Russia’s drone attack on Poland the way he did (“What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”) Trump could’ve done the Martin Sheen bit from “Dead Zone” where as the messianic psychopath president Greg Stillson he starts World War 3 and announces “The missiles are flying hallelujah, hallelujah.”

"What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace…?” Seriously, jackass? That’s your JOB, you great decaying pile of burger grease. YOU are supposed to KNOW “what’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace?” and if you DON’T, get out, turn the government over to a general or an ex-general or somebody who understands that your owner Putin PLAYED YOU AGAIN, and that when everybody, everybody in this country with an IQ greater than 47 said that we have to support Ukraine because if we do not stop Putin in Ukraine his next stop was Poland and you twisted your bulbous face into that stupid 45-degree angled smirk, you were WRONG and everybody else in AMERICA – all 340,111,000 of us – WE were RIGHT.

There are 10,000 American troops IN Poland. What would have happened if mere DEBRIS from one of the drones destroyed in the air hit a U-S base, or ONE U-S soldier? Would Trump have tweeted out a shrug emoji? Does it even register any more that even in the narrowest of views of this disaster – Trump IS the commander-in-chief and he is RESPONSIBLE for keeping American soldiers safe.

ANYBODY NOTICE THAT GHISLAINE MAXWELL'S OLD LAWYER went on CNN and admitted that there was a quid pro quo that got her moved from a high-octane Florida prison to Club Fed in Texas? Now there’s ANOTHER Trumpstein cover-up?

AND LASTLY, No I’m not in favor of shooting commentators. Or politicians. Or anybody. But my god, this is America. All we have done for virtually all our history is shoot political opponents. Add to it THIS America that MAGA wanted, where the military is politicized, and politics are militarized, and Trump has spent a decade stochastically encouraging terrorism against, and assassination of, his opponents, where conservatives REPEATEDLY call for the killing of Trump’s opponents. Trump was shot a year ago and not one of his supporters was willing to support meaningful gun restrictions.

You can have many reactions to the death of Charlie Kirk and I hope sorrow and disgust are among them for you as they are for me - but surprise shouldn’t be one of them. Kirk himself said in April 2023: "You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death. That is nonsense. It's drivel. But I am -- I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal."

B-Block (30:13) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The online poster who says it's ok for JD Vance to boast about war crimes because his mother was an addict. We started, writes an Andrew Klavan, to lose our civil rights as a result of the civil war. And to prostitute yourself as Jeff Shell has: from liberal anti-Trump head of NBC to installing a political officer inside CBS News to rat on journalism and anti-Trump facts. What a waste of life.

C-Block (42:07) 24 YEARS SINCE 9/11: Apart from applying the "midpoint" rule to really sense how long ago something was (9/11 was the "midpoint" between September 1977 and today) there is one story that has stayed with me permanently. The man's name was Tomas Reyes, he wasn't anywhere near the World Trade Center - but he was supposed to be. How I came to meet him as part of my reporting on that horrible day.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 11: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Jayvee Vance has got to resign as Vice President.

Relax; he won't.

But you cannot BE Vice President of the United States if you're crazy enough to boast about repurposing the military as a War Crime committing death squad killing probable migrants in international waters. Plus if you’re responding to tweets by the Krassensteins you’re clearly insane and unfit for office. Even under Trump..

MEANWHILE: if Trump was an FBI informant against Jeffrey Epstein that means he was a witness to everything Epstein did with those girls? And yes, Mike Johnson tried to "back off" his claim that Trump was an FBI Epstein agent late Sunday, but a) the "back off" came 72 hours after he blurted it out; b) it still implies that Trump knew about Epstein and went to the authorities about it, suggesting he had first-hand evidence like HE WAS THERE, and c) it is a cardinal tenet of QAnon that if Trump is ON the Epstein client list. "He did it for 'Merica!" might not be the flex Trump and Mike Johnson think it is

ALSO: Trump was booed as he arrived at the U.S. Tennis Open yesterday. You didn’t see it because Bob Iger and ABC and Disney whored themselves out pre-censoring the truth. CBS just did that too - and worse, agreeing NOT to edit out any lies by Trump Gang members. 

THE PRIMARY RESIDENCE WITCH-HUNT? The mortgage app alleged white lie with which Trump hopes to bring down a Fed governor and Letitia James and Adam Schiff? The nut job releasing the alleged evidence is Bill Pulte and guess what public records show HIS OWN PARENTS DID? They ALSO CLAIMED multiple "primary residences" - and you can only have one. Oops.

THERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS: per G. Elliott Morris: mainstream Trump polling is flat, unchanged. But the INTERIOR numbers? Since January Trump’s STRONG approval number - the diehards - has dropped from 34% to 24%. That's down a third. And his STRONG disapproval number - the haters - has grown from 36% to 46%. Also a third. That is unsustainable.

B-Block (41:53) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: "Gunther Eagleman" and the other similarly stupidly named Right Wing influencers now alleged to be on yet ANOTHER country's payroll. Plus the man who killed CNN John Malone may have inadvertently outed a racist: himself. And And a CBS correspondent named Robert Costa let Trump pee on his leg about Russia and all he did was report: “CBS Exclusive: Trump Exclusively Peed On MY leg!”

C-Block (55:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: They're going to use A.I. to try to reconstruct the infamous 43 missing minutes in the classic - possible greatest film of all time - "Magnificent Ambersons." I loathe the concept. I will watch the product as many times as they let me! But of more immediate relevance, if they ever release it, I'll be able to say I knew the star of a new 2025 film who died in 1994 and I met in 1985 only I didn't realize it was him. I swear I thought she said "Carlton."

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 10: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump ain't dead, and neither is his cover-up of the Epstein Files. The TRUMPStein Files. And if you gave him a script and told him what to do to RE-IGNITE the Trumpstein Tire Fire every time it begins to go out, it would start with: A) leak an anonymous statement to Republicans considering signing the Massie Discharge Petition to force release of the real files B) make sure that statement read as much likely a slightly sanded down threat from a mafia boss as possible, like, oooh, quote: "Helping Thomas Massie and Liberal Democrats with their attention-seeking, while the DOJ is fully supporting a more comprehensive file release effort from the Oversight Committee, would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration. C) actually release only the same documents Pam Bondi released to the Libs of TikTok worm Chayik and the DC Draino dipshit in those $2.69 thin three-ring binders they bought at Staples in February D) send a military flyover to try to drown out the Epstein survivors’ news conference on the steps of the capitol E) choose THIS moment to ask the Supreme Court to overturn where the court found him GUILTY of being LIABLE FOR SEXUAL ABUSE of E. Jean Carroll and of DEFAMING a sexual abuse victim and of course F) sit there as THIS actual bona fide excellent comprehensive question is rolled out in front of world media when you can only come back with an answer that makes everybody think “wait, he said THAT? Maybe he IS dead and he just forgot to lie down.”

WHERE WAS TRUMP LAST WEEK? We know the media won't probe. We can assume the following: he wasn't dead. He also wasn't at a psychiatrist to help him get past these hallucinations that he 'turned the water on' in California or solved seven wars (including, no doubt, The War Of The Planet Of The Apes). He also wasn't at a political retreat figuring out what to do about New York other than pull Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa out of it to make sure it's a Trump Referendum in a city that's 75% registered Democrats. Plus, the unusual but all-too-plausible explanation for what is really behind the RFK Jr/MAGA hatred of the Covid vaccine that saved their lives but won't, next time.

B-Block (33:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It's bad enough that Stephen A. Smith doesn't see he's risking his career by diving into politics. But in a time of rampant gun violence against children and politicians, he's chosen to name his new political show "STRAIGHT SHOOTER." A great line from a conservative about how Trump was just caught literally about losing his marbles. And Laura Loomer blasts the foreign-born judge who thwarted Trump's child-trafficking and demanding we have no more foreign-born judges. You mean like Aileen Cannon, moron?

C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The relentlessly principle-free Joe Scarborough has done it again: whored himself out to Trump, demanding JB Pritzer "partner up" with the dictator on militarizing the streets of Chicago. Scarborough has been getting away with this at MSNBC for 23 years. It's his life (if you call getting up at 4 AM every day to find some new part of democracy you can sell out for cash, a "life").

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 9: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Of course Trump’s not dead.

On the other hand, how could you really TELL?

But this much is clear: He’s never voluntarily STFU for five days before in his effing life.

And how could his own White House have possibly made it look MORE like he was dead! Or is desperately ill. Or had surgery. Or is having surgery. Or… what? They maximized the ways that conspiracy theories could build – including that 3-1/2 hour Cabinet Meeting/Comedy Roast/Dear Leader Circle Jerk last week. If that didn’t look like a farewell event I don’t know what could. I don't know what's really going on and YOU don't know what's really going on and America doesn't know what's really going on (except that the media has completely dropped the ball, not even covering the rumors let alone providing solid information). But there are lots of provable facts in the last five days of Trump MIA that might explain what's going on at a White House that couldn't manage radio silence.

PLUS: Trump's desire to boast about the Covid vaccine, the hallucinations of Kristi Noem and Bobby "What Kind of Mitochondria Are You Wearing" Kennedy, the solution to baseball's Tommy John Surgery crisis that isn't a crisis, and a farewell to the beloved Mrs. Weiner.

B-Block (32:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: As soon as the staff of Vanity Fair threatened to walk off if they put Melania Trump on the cover, she leaked a story to the NY Post that she didn't have time to be on their stupid cover anyway (she was on it in 2017). Candace Owens is back and now blaming the Minnesota school shooting on the government bid to take away your guns. So Trump is trying to take away your guns? And expanding kinda late into 9/11 trutherism, nitwit fascist Tucker Carlson gets the YEAR that 9/11 happened, wrong.

C-Block (43:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL/SPORTSBALL CENTER: So another all-star baseball pitcher, Randy Rodriguez, needs Tommy John Surgery. So baseball is back with preposterous solutions to the "crisis" of too many such surgeries. I'll offer two rules changes that would really do the job, but more importantly I would suggest that Tommy John Surgery is one of the most positive improvements in baseball in the last 60 years. The same percentage of pitchers get injured as they did in 1965, only in 1965 there was nothing to do when they tore up their elbow, shoulder, or anything else.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 8: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Donald Trump might as well have shot those kids in Minneapolis himself yesterday.

Trump sends the WRONG guns in the WRONG hands to the WRONG places pursuing the WRONG criminals. You want to be tough on crime, Trump? Deploy the National Guard to the headquarters of the gun-manufacturing companies and arrest the monsters who make their money from the child-murdering business. Murdering children during their thoughts and prayers. And have ICE round up the politician prostitutes who take the gun money to protect a lie about what the second amendment really means.

These are the criminals. Trump is the criminal. Trump is soft on crime, especially on the most prevalent, heart-rending crime of our century, school shootings. You want to push back against Trump as he militarizes this country? As he makes it The United Police States of America? You want to make something good happen in the wake of these latest children that we as a nation have sacrificed on our mindless altar of worship to guns? You want these to be the last? You have to say it; you have to SAY the truth: Trump might as well have shot them himself.

Democrats are strangling themselves by listening to consultants and strategists who insist they cannot push back on Trump's deployment of troops in big cities because polling shows Trump's only policy that gets approval (53%) is his new stance on "crime." And yet the biggest political event of the week was a man who simply stood up and concisely and with controlled rage told the truth: Trump is crazy, Trump is trying to provoke violence, Trump's enablers will be prosecuted (or betrayed by him), and the media is bothsidesing us to death. His name is Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and his comments may have been the true headline of this week.

Also, bookkeeping news: the fine folks at iHeart and I have agreed to continue this podcast through at least the midterms. And a further announcement on a wider footprint is coming.

B-Block (27:33) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: This may be the best edition of this, ever. Could this be the craziest thing (out of the 50,000 crazy things) Stephen Miller has said? Is he the first person to use the phrase "pool hall" in 60 years? Oh here we go: my ex is back in the news and stuck with the worst headline I've ever read: "RFK Jr's Digital Lover." And Candace Owens is being sued for defamation by the President and 1st Lady of France and she wants Trump to declare them "foreign invaders" and is amazed he won't because she's just not bright.

C-Block (44:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Do people like Owens believe the crap they spout? I actually have 45 years' experience dealing with the phenomenon of the product subsuming the salesman. I met Rush Limbaugh when he was just a baseball guy and 30 years ago he stood at my desk at ESPN dreaming of doing SportsCenter. I knew Hannity when he said "why do people get worked up about this? It's just TV?" And then the link is established. The more they believe, the more money they make.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 7: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: So WTF with Trump's health? Is he dying? Or is he fine?

Clearly, there is a Donald Trump health crisis. What is its exact nature? Is he sick? Is he fine? Is there some acceptable explanation for his swollen face and narrowed eyes last shown publicly on Friday? And what does the enlarged left hand mean? And what does the bruised right one covered in make up MEAN? And are those ballooned engorged ankles as benign as claimed by the latest doctor, Captain Barbabella? Is the president of the United States – whoever he is, whatever we think of him - gravely ill?

Would they tell us if he were?

Would they tell… HIM?

No, no, it’s all just “chronic venous insufficiency." Not serious. When we saw him Friday he looked like he'd just changed out of a hospital gown. And behind these questions –  why is the national news media still giving the clear decline in Trump’s appearance and clarity and likely in his physical health less attention than the irrelevancy that is Biden’s cognition level from LAST YEAR?

Lost in the Trumpstein cover-up, the Ghislaine Maxwell hostage video, Trump’s planned terrorism in Chicago, the John Bolton raid – Trump's face was so puffy – even for HIM - that his eyes looked like slits, barely open. Right hand with a contusion, clear tape, what could have been traces of blood near the fingers, running from the thumb through the middle finger and up, under the shirtsleeve, badly covered in make-up. Left hand so swollen it looked like something they’d draw for a cartoon character: the BASE of those fingers 40 or 50 percent larger than the ends and his ability to use the hand clearly impaired enough to make him hesitate. And we didn’t see the ankles this time. We saw them when he was in Alaska with Putin and they were wider than his feet.

Last time he only lied about his health on every topic from getting a colonoscopy to nearly getting intubated for Covid. Before that his personal doctor said everything except 'he's immortal' then confessed Trump dictated the statement. What's going on?

PLUS: Trump’s latest terrorist invasion will be of Chicago is about Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, just like LA was about Gavin Newsom, just like DC was about a Democratic local government, just like New York will be about Zohran Mamdani. And it’s all unconstitutional and more of the Trump dictatorship – unchallenged. And what, the Epstein Files were in John Bolton’s house? So Trump’s cult is going to believe ONE of Ghislaine Maxwell's 750 lies but not the other 749?

B-Block (29:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Live in Washington, Pam Bondi reveals she thinks she's in Miami. A confidante of NYC Mayor Eric Adams gives a reporter cash wrapped up in a potato chip bag. And the Cracker Barrel protestors prove they'll eat anything as long as you call them Crackers.

C-Block (45:30) SPORTSBALLCENTER/THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It is the greatest document ever written in the English language. Well, at least the greatest sports document. It is so amazing that for a long time, historians doubted it was real. It's called "Special Instructions To Players" and they had to read it, sign it, and hand it back because it was about banning them for life for excessive profanity. And there sure is excessive profanity! And I am going to read it to you.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 6 - COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Thank you William Barr! Thank you Jamie Comer! Thank you for rei-igniting Trumpstein! Turns out the Barr testimony to Comer that he never saw anything in the Epstein Files that implicated Trump (which may be officially released as early as today) is based on a little detail Comer didn't know about. Geoffrey Berman, the Barr-Trump prosecutor in the Epstein case, says he NEVER SHOWED ANY OF THE EPSTEIN FILES TO BARR. It's the Sgt. Schultz "I Know Nothing" defense. So trying to re-enact the washing of the Mueller Report won't work this time.

PLUS: WHAT'S TRUMP DOING WITH UKRAINE? Stalling. It's obvious now. He's just killing time for Putin because that's what Putin wants. And those "post-war guarantees" for Ukraine? Turns out Russia would be able to veto any country's efforts to defend Ukraine. 

THE BEST NEW NICKNAME OF THE YEAR: As the tiny shiny nut job treated the military thugs occupying DC to Shake Shack (not increased VA benefits, just burgers), The Lincoln Project named Stephen Miller "Pee Wee German." Also, Shake Shack? Hosting the junta? Possibly a bad business strategy.

KAROLINE LEAVITT - HALL OF FAME MORON: She's done it again. First she got the top Nazi's name wrong. Then she mispronounced "Trump" a bunch of times. Then "Noble Peace Prize." Now, wait'll you hear what she did to "pundit." 

B-Block (39:45) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The follow-up to the Zelensky/EU meeting at the White House on BBC News? An interview with Zelensky's Wardrobe Guy. Countdown and I have outlived MSNBC, or MSNOW. Joe Scarborough announced it. Although I understand he may change his name to Quisling. And Donald Trump wants to rehabilitate the reputation of American Slavery.

C-Block (57:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Happened again. Somebody else told me they'd been told their career in media was over, so I got to recount how many times I've been told that. Last year one of the guys who told me that in the '80s died, and one of the ones who told me that in 2001 retired from a magazine. Good evening and welcome to the non-end of my career.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 5: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: THE DISASTA IN ALASKA

The Disasta in Alaska - starring the cheeseburger-eating surrender monkey.

We have, to quote Churchill, suffered a defeat, without a war. Because we forget we don’t MERELY have an evil, deranged president, we have an evil, deranged president who is also a moron. Now, Trump - Putin’s butt boy, his errand carrier - will deliver Putin’s message to Zelensky in Washington. He will be accompanied by EU President von der Leyen, NATO Secretary General Rutte, Presidents Macron of France and Stubb of Finland, Prime Ministers Starmer of the U-K and Meloni of Italy, and Chancellor Merz of Germany. Trump will be accompanied by a large selection of mirrors.

I suspect Trump will parrot what he remembers of Putin's message (whatever Trump's staff didn't leave on the printer of the business center at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage) and tell Zelensky that the way to achieve an end to the war in Ukraine is: to lose. The best thing Zelensky and the Europeans could say in response would be to state that they are withdrawing their recognition of the government of the United States of America because it is just too effing stupid.

From the Disasta in Alaska to the Occupied territory of Washington, D.C. And don’t forget what Trump today DOUBLING the number of National Guard in DC with new recruits from Ohio, West Virginia, and South Carolina (all of them, far more violent than DC) means: It means he’s read his cratering polls number and declared war on the United States of America.

Also: we rejoin the Trumpstein Cover-up Scandal, already in progress.

B-Block (30:02) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: International Fop Piers Morgan FINALLY does a journalism - posts a meme of Trump on his way to meet Putin and Trump is wearing kneepads - and then DELETES the first journalism of his life? Pam Bondi proudly admits The Deep State has defeated her fascist DOJ with nothing more than a Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Sub. And the battle of the most overrated people in their field: neither CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin nor House Democratic mis-Leader Hakeem Jeffries repeat Andrew Cuomo's canard that Democratic NYC mayor nominee Zohran Mamdani lives in a rent-CONTROLLED apartment when he, like HALF of all NYC renters (myself included) lives in a rent-STABILIZED apartment. Sorkin repeats this FOUR times, Jeffries doesn't correct him, and Jeffries who is theoretically a congressman from New York STILL refuses to endorse his own party's nominee, chosen by its MEMBERS, for mayor OF New York. Sorkin should be fired and Jeffries should resign.

C-Block (43:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody wrote last week that Aaron Sorkin's HBO "Newsroom" version of some of what happened to Countdown on MSNBC was the worst fictionalization of journalism in the English language. I think that's an exaggeration. It wasn't nearly that good.

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 4: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Hey have fun watching Trump's "listening exercise" with Putin in Alaska today. No, Russia. No, Alaska. I don’t know any more. Listening exercise.” Trump listening to Putin telling him what to do. No crap.

This is simple. Trump and Putin will leave this photo-op having agreed on something utterly agreeable to Putin. Like the cease fire Axios reports Trump told European leaders yesterday he really wants. You know what THAT could be: Putin will agree to a cease-fire if Ukraine will stop annoying Putin by defending its territory. Then Trump will claim a victory. Then Ukraine will reject it – although President Zelensky’s real play is to say it is too naïve an idea to even merit a comment, and any child can see that – then Trump will blame Zelensky and say he resolved the war except for the war part. That Zelensky screwed it up.

Actually it may be worse. The Times of London headline: “US and Russia ‘propose West Bank-style occupation of Ukraine." Per its source close to the U.S. national security council: "It’ll just be like Israel occupies the West Bank. With a governor, with an economic situation that goes into Russia, not Ukraine. But it’ll still be Ukraine, because … Ukraine will never give up its sovereignty. But the reality is it’ll be occupied territory and the model is Palestine.”

THIS IS THE TEST MARKETING OF THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP: Trump says sure he'll go to Congress to get the use of troops authorized in DC past the 30-day limit. Or he'll just declare a national emergency. He boasts he closed the border and didn't get anybody's permission. He is moving towards the takeover. We are this close to him in the Kim Jong Un hat.

THE TRUMPSTEIN COVER-UP CONTINUES: Karoline "Noble Prize" Leavitt explains Trump “wants to see credible evidence released." The part she leaves out is that of course he wants to make sure that this evidence is NOT released. Some of the evidence about Ghislaine Maxwell's transfer has been revealed and somebody tampered with her prisoner status and she may now be free to leave Club Fed during the day.

AND JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT Marjorie Taylor Greene wasn't the dumbest of them all - oh yes she is.

B-Block (34:03) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: CNN's Kasie Hunt says sure crime is down by a quarter in DC but does it FEEL like it's down? Andrew Cuomo finds another opponent he can beat: Muhammad Ali's most famous quote. And if OK! Magazine has the story right, Jeff Bezos has found the next Bond Girl: MRS. Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sanchez.

C-Block (56:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Missed the anniversary by twelve days but it's always in the back of my mind anyway. Literally one month into my career and only the seventh time my bosses trusted me enough to leave me alone on a sportscasting shift at our 1,000-station radio network, Thurman Munson - catcher and captain of the New York Yankees - was killed when the plane he was still learning how to fly crashed at an Ohio airport. And the news came across my wire one minute before my sportscast.

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