Episodes
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 69: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Forget for a moment "Attorney General" Matt Gaetz and the bottom falling out of the market for prosecuting men who have sex with underaged girls. Forget for a moment associating Tulsi Gabbard with the word "Intelligence." Forget the prospect of Press Secretary Sage Steele. Even forget Trump's plan to adjourn both houses of Congress so he can appoint an entire cabinet without a single hearing and the Republicans rushing to bark like seals as the Lame Duck Dictator starts rolling out the Third Reich.
The lead story was a different 'third.' âI suspect I wonât be running again,â Trump said to his newly elected Republican House slaves, âunless you say âheâs good, we got to figure something elseâ and every news organization reported he was joking and kidding and trolling and - spoiler alert - heâs NOT. Heâs NOT kidding. Heâs intending to stay in office and if weâre nice to him heâll let us elect him again. They've been working on this for more than a year: it's a re-interpretation of the 22nd Amendment and the two-term limit, claiming it means three CONSECUTIVE terms, or going around it and getting him by any one of four different backdoors.
That Trump is emboldened enough to go public with his "kidding" tells you how badly he has misread the shock this would create. Oh yes, everyone reported, he's a kidder. He's kidding. Ask Mike Pence how much of a kidder he is.
MEANWHILE: Lincoln had his "Team of Rivals." Trump is building his "Team of Trifles." And the key appointment isn't Gaetz or Gabbard or Huckabee or any of these other empty vessels. It's Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense because when the protests against Trump starts and he wants the protestors to face U.S. Army tanks and be shot with your taxpayer bullets, the guy who is just crazy enough to order it is this lunatic Hegseth.
B-Block (27:54): POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Jack Smith will get out, and get out a report. Putin continues to turn the screws on Trump. At Mar-a-Lago, Elon Musk is "getting a little big for his britches" (Ozempic time!). Musk is also at war with Steve Bannon. Melania won't live at the White House. And one third of network news viewers voted for Trump so all the limp ABC/CBS/NBC coverage mattered more than we thought.
C-Block (40:00): THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Olivia Nuzzi has suddenly backed off all her stalking claims against Ryan Lizza. Wait I'll get my dumpster-sized bag of popcorn. Tim Pool, Pine Cone. And the Idaho Republican who tells a Democrat to go back to where she comes from. You won't believe which minority group she belongs.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 68: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (2:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: If you're wondering who's the boss here it ain't Trump. Putin refused to call him first and instead had Russian State Television "celebrate" his becoming the 21st Century Grover Cleveland by showing nude photos of Melania.
Russian TV - which has figured out Trump is a lame duck - also reported Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo would not be in the new administration long before Trump announced it. Putin also seems to have soured on RFK Jr, leaving Sideshow Bobby to aspire only to becoming Secretary of Masturbation.
MEANWHILE, NO, THE ELECTION WAS NOT STOLEN - not in the sense you're thinking. It WAS stolen in the sense that the fascists and the anti-democracy billionaires have been running a series of illicit, hidden, disguised pro-Republican advertisements 24/7/365, for at least thirty years. They have been bombarding the underachievers of this nation, the incels, the morons, the idiots, the bros, and now the social media addicts of America, with a series of easy-to-digest, sweet-tasting conspiracy theories on a thousand streaming networks and podcasts and the Democrats have...MSNBC.
The Left not only doesn't compete in the new Marketplace of Ideas it doesn't know where the shops are. It has to change this or you can forget '26 and '28 as well.
On the other hand, this circular firing squad? Utterly ludicrous. It looks like Kamala Harris will have ultimately lost by 1.5% which would make Trump's the fifth SMALLEST popular vote win all time. You do not burn it all down after that. You rebuild.
B-BLOCK (32:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Corey Lewandowski and Chris LaCivita show us what winning means: you get to try to kill your rival on the winning team. Finally we figure out what's really behind the deportation scam: the companies that will make billions building the private prisons to turn into concentration camps for deportees. Nevermind the future of NATO. Will its members ever trust us with intel again? And the Dallas Cowboys honor founding coach Tom Landry on Veterans' Day by...misspelling his name. But it'll all come out in the wash.
C-BLOCK (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: With only 7% of the city believing he didn't commit a crime, New York Mayor Eric Adams has reached out to...Trump. The Massachusetts congressman has the New Democratic rallying cry: Transphobia! And the White House "correspondent" so stupid she publicly accused the Democrats of trying to fix the Kari Lake/Ruben Gallego race so they can "steal" Congress. Except Lake and Gallego were running for the Senate!
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Missing episodes?
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 67: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: "No one in this world, so far as I knowâand I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help meâhas ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly." H.L. Mencken (1926).
Nice of Hispanic males to vote for the guy who will deport all their relatives and friends and namesakes and when they run out, deport them.
Also: the anti-Trump conservative who's trying to be optimistic: at least now Trump won't try another coup!
And Jeff Bezos congratulates Trump because if they're still blackmailing Bezos on Trump's behalf, this is what it would look like!
And details on the future of this podcast (yes, it has one).
B-Block (20:51) SPECIAL COMMENT TWO: My theory of The Lifeboat and how it explains who voted for Trump and why.
C-Block (34:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 66: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
Russia has committed an act of war against this nation and our government.
We were attacked last night, as certainly as if they came across the borders or BOMBED polling stations - 40 or more - 32 Russian bomb threats just in Fulton county Georgia alone.
And what are you going to do about it, President Biden? What are you going to do about it Merrick Garland? There is real-time evidence of Russian interference in our elections. Russians deciding who becomes president, who goes to the Senate, the house.
32 bomb threats â many already identifying as coming from Russian email sources â in the most Democratic part of Georgia. A quarter of the stateâs black population subjected to a terror attack â in Fulton and DeKalb Counties. And in Pennsylvania â one that closed a county elections offense for an hour, at least 10 others. AND in Wisconsin. AND in Michigan. AND in Arizona â at least 10 in Arizona. AND when Georgia extended voting, the Republican National Committee went to court to stop it.
Regardless of the outcome of the election, this is an act of war.
Russian interference means Trump â Trump already admitted at the debate he talked to Putin AFTER he left office - and now Trump means Elon Musk and we know Musk has been in contact with Putin frequently since 2022, and turned Twitter into a whorehouse for pro-Russian and pro-Trump indoctrination.
The Russians just shot our democracy in the heart and those who are there solely to protect it â and its citizens â have responded by establishing⊠a toll-free FBI tip line.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 65: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Well what do you THINK this episode is about?
There are plenty of polls, interior numbers, and tea leaves to read (see "Marist Poll," see Univision polls of Hispanics in Pennsylvania, see Harris outperforming Biden and Hillary in key demos). But if you want to know how this campaign is wrapping up it's way simpler.
The Trump-Vance closing argument: misogyny and violence against women. Trump says Mike Tyson should step into the ring against her. And after a week of trying to deny their comedian's "garbage" remarks had anything to do with their campaign, then trying to turn "garbage" into a bloody shirt attack on their own supporters, the night before the election, the world's most smug sexist J.D. Vance undid all of that by calling her "trash."
The public polls all look very good for Kamala Harris. The private polls the Trump people see? They must've decided their only chance is to get every last hateful white guy to vote for him - because nobody else is.
B-Block (26:54) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Politico's "Who Won The Day?" is a new high in low. Kari Lake explains her polling is better because she mixes in A.I., and Herschel Walker endorsed Trump. Or did he?
C-Block (33:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Solely because at times of stress it always gives me great joy to re-tell the story of how I met my friend the late actress Elizabeth Montgomery, and how she promptly pranked my parents.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 64: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Yeah, I heard it too.
I heard him he "shouldn't have left" the White House when his term ended. And I heard him say AT his rally that he wouldnât mind people shooting at the reporters COVERING his rally. And I guess itâs shocking. Except heâs been saying these things (a little more coded) since 2015, and he said the shooting thing about Liz Cheney last Thursday night. And after all he is going through what the shrinks call âdisinhibitionâ AT the rallies where he loses all sense of what he should say in private not public.
But thatâs not what got me. I heard something I have never heard before. WHEN he said he wouldnât mind people shooting the "fake news," he said he wouldnât mind them shooting THROUGH "the fake news" - THROUGH it - AT him. Doesnât that sound kind of⊠whatâs the word? Suicidal?
Plus: I understand that we are inside the 48 hour bubble before the election and the pressure is like 887 Atmospheric Units and our rage against this creature and his cult that wants to burn this country to the ground â burn this world to the ground â and our amazement that there is ANYBODY voting for him â that RAGE is at unbearable levels â but⊠didnât he sound kinda dead yesterday? At one point he was inaudible. At another, in North Carolina, he thought he was in Pennsylvania. Throughout, he sounded exactly like Hal the Computer in the movie â2001â when they unplugged him.
PRACTICALLY SPEAKING on the eve of the election, the polls continue to support a Harris victory (size TBD) and this shocking poll where she's up by 3 in Iowa hides an even more shocking number (she's ahead by 20 among women in the whitest part of the midwest). And the reaction to the pollster who published this 21 point swing from June tells you all you need to know about polling. They have previously insisted Ann Selser was an immortal. Now they're saying she's making the rest of them look bad by not tailoring her poll to fit their narrative.
B-Block (30:33) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A Trumpist has vowed to "castrate himself on camera" if Harris wins Iowa (if you're a Trumpist, haven't you already castrated yourself?). Chris Cillizza 2024 mocks everybody who didn't buy the conventional wisdom about the vice presidency (evidently including Chris Cillizza 2020, who had disproved it), and courtesy Tim Alberta in The Atlantic, we find a new reason to hate Trump. This is the real reason he's so mad Biden dropped out. Trump thought he had the perfect nickname for the President - and it's appalling.
C-Block (37:48) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I call it The Annual Day I Get Trapped Inside My Home Day. You know it - and may have seen it on TV yesterday - as "The New York City Marathon."
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BULLETIN SERIES 3 EPISODE 63: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) In a late night appearance in Arizona, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump said of former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney "Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face."
At publication time, no Republican had repudiated Trump for his implicit threat, nor had any even repudiated him upon realizing that the next time he expresses such a desire to have a critic killed by a firing squad, it could be them.
What follows is the Friday Countdown podcast as originally produced.
(3:52) TRUMP INTERNAL POLLS MUST BE TERRIBLE: HE IS ALREADY FOMENTING INSURECTION II: There can no longer be any doubt that the Trump camp knows that he is losing and losing by enough that however close the popular vote may turn out to be, he will lose handily in The Electoral College and his only chance is to foment another insurrection, whether by violence or by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
Axios has printed a Trump press release (and describes it as a "scoop") that Trump's pollster has told him tells The Garbage Man "he's in a radically better position than he was right before the 2020 election...(it) draws on Real Clear Politics polling averages to argue that Trump's "position nationally and in every single Battleground State is SIGNIFICANTLY better today than it was 4 years ago."
This is like relying on stuff Rudy Giuliani heard from the voices in his head.
The Trump campaign is furiously stoking up racial hatred, white supremacism, anti-woman rhetoric - and the insistence that he's already being robbed in Pennsylvania. He'd only be doing that if he's being told he's LOSING in Pennsylvania and needs to try to steal the election.
Speaking of Rudy: he has now came this close to dropping a milder version of the N-word.
B-BLOCK (31:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Russia fines Google more money than there is in the world. Elon Musk goes full antisemite. Tucker Carlson insists he was mauled while asleep by demons.
C-BLOCK (46:40) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: There's only one story for the weekend before the election. Thurber's Nostramadus moment: his prophecy of Trump, written in...1931?
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 62: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-BLOCK (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There can no longer be any doubt that the Trump camp knows that he is losing and losing by enough that however close the popular vote may turn out to be, he will lose handily in The Electoral College and his only chance is to foment another insurrection, whether by violence or by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
Axios has printed a Trump press release (and describes it as a "scoop") that Trump's pollster has told him tells The Garbage Man "he's in a radically better position than he was right before the 2020 election...(it) draws on Real Clear Politics polling averages to argue that Trump's "position nationally and in every single Battleground State is SIGNIFICANTLY better today than it was 4 years ago."
This is like relying on stuff Rudy Giuliani heard from the voices in his head.
The Trump campaign is furiously stoking up racial hatred, white supremacism, anti-woman rhetoric - and the insistence that he's already being robbed in Pennsylvania. He'd only be doing that if he's being told he's LOSING in Pennsylvania and needs to try to steal the election.
Speaking of Rudy: he has now came this close to dropping a milder version of the N-word.
B-BLOCK (29:53) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Russia fines Google more money than there is in the world. Elon Musk goes full antisemite. Tucker Carlson insists he was mauled while asleep by demons.
C-BLOCK (44:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: There's only one story for the weekend before the election. Thurber's Nostramadus moment: his prophecy of Trump, written in...1931?
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 61: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Kamala Harris closing argument: "The fact that someone does not agree with us does not make them the enemy withinâŠI will always put country above PARTY and above SELF."
The Donald Trump closing argument: "I'm not Hitler!"
Well, I'M sold! THAT'S the way to make sure you aren't associated with Nazis and Hitler. Bring them up! And the way to avoid the continuing reverberations from Tony Hinchcliffe's Puerto Rican "garbage" insult is to dress up in a garbageman's orange reflective suit and give interviews from the cab of a garbage truck with the TRUMP CAMPAIGN LOGO ON THE SIDE.
And Jeff Bezos has already learned the wages of sin: Trump is touting The Washington Post's "decision" to not endorse anybody as a repudiation of Harris and an endorsement of him. It's time to boycott Amazon, Whole Foods, The Washington Post.
GOOD POLLS NEWS: CNN polling, Harris by 5 in Michigan, 6 in Wisconsin, tied in Pennsylvania - but she leads by 3 in Pennsylvania among "extremely motivated voters." The interior numbers continue to go entirely in Harris's direction.
AND AN ANNOUNCEMENT about the short-term future of this podcast.
B-BLOCK (32:37) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ohio's Republican Senate candidate doesn't realize the VICE President can't issue Executive Orders. Any remaining thin veneer of journalism falls away at Fox. And Politico's Rachel Bade and Ex-CNN Now Just Stopping Passersby Chris Cillizza humiliate themselves over Biden's quoting of Hinchcliffe's "garbage" remarks.
C-BLOCK (41:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 60: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SPECIAL EARLY POSTING
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump keeps digging, and a Trump surrogate named Brenden Dilley doubles down on the scatological, foul, obscenity-filled insults against Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican people:
"F*** you, f*** you right back to f***ing Puerto Rico. If you are in the f*****g United States of America right now and you're on the actual f***ing, the lower 48, you're there, you're not on your s***-ass island, you have no right to complain about how people perceive your dirty-ass island. Period. I expect more from Puerto Rican AmericansâŠso, yes, there was a joke made at your f****ing expense, and it wouldn't be funny if your island wasn't actually a floating trash heap."
As Trump pretends nothing happened Sunday - or again last night - he is torched by everybody from the Archbishop of San Juan to Bad Bunny to Megyn Kelly. A disturbed entertainer named Tony Hinchcliffe turns out to have been work-shopping the line at a New York comedy club Saturday night, destroying the Trump contention they didn't know what was coming. Now he may turn out to clinch Pennsylvania for Kamala Harris, and Pennsylvania would likely clinch the presidency for her.
Meanwhile she gave the speech of her life, nailing her "final argument" before a delirious crowd at the Ellipse. It was so good even Dana Bash noticed.
And there's a rumor posted online by a veteran investigative reporter about a relationship between Trump and my former MSNBC colleague Tampon Hall.
B-Block (25:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Almost a three-peat! After flooding the world with her side of the repulsive Nuzzi/Lizza/RFK Jr story, Olivia wants to seal all the subsequent legal action? Laura Ingraham outdoes herself in Trump sycophancy. And somebody actually defends Tony Hinchcliffe's right to be an unfunny racist (on the premise that well, he was funny at the Tom Brady roast). It's the incalculably overrated Jon Stewart.
C-Block (42:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since he held a news conference yesterday where he took no questions, time to tell of when I met Trump at a news conference - and took questions! It was just the other day - in 1983!
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 59: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: "GARBAGE" IS STICKING TO THE TEFLON DON AS SCANDAL WORSENS; 'COMEDIAN' WANTED TO CALL KAMALA HARRIS THE C-WORD: The Madison Square Garden âPuerto Rico Is Garbageâ disaster is not only NOT going away; it is still getting worse, with the news that Trump staffers VETTED that statement AND the tasteless reference to Latinos entering the country and the rest of the Tony Hinchcliffe comments and Hinchcliffeâs script originally included a line in which he dropped a c-word in describing Kamala Harris. The news site âThe Bulwarkâ is reporting that, and that Trump staffers directed Hinchcliffe to take it out⊠BUT that they missed the anti-Hispanic material or as they have now claimed Hinchcliffe ad libbed all that even though the video clearly shows him reading his material off the same teleprompter everybody else used.
Day three of Trumpâs self-immolation among Hispanic voters who make up twelve percent of the electorate â one WEEK before the election and no sign that it â like every previous racist Trump controversy â is actually abating. STILL the lead story at the New York Times â at one point it had SIX front page stories â AND at the Washington Post â AND on the Fox News talk shows AND at the Wall Street Journal AND at the ultra-conservative Washington Examiner AND when the Trump campaignâs defense is âwell at least he didnât call her a rhymes-with-bunt like he plannedâ they have actually stepped neck high in it, especially since the pro-Trump PAC run by Elon Musk posted tweets based on the C-Word. Literally, says âThe C- Word.â
Even the fig leaf usually accepted by the bothsidesist media looking for a way â SOME way, ANY way â to avoid slamming Trump â has opened up a whole new line of stories: the disingenuous statement from the conveniently Latina spokesperson disavowing the jokes only served to spin off a series of reports on all the OTHER remarks Hinchcliffe and others made Sunday at Madison Square Garden: from the line about African-Americans and watermelons and the line calling the Vice Presidentâs staff âpimp handlers.â
And the story is still expanding. Now Joe Rogan and Robert F. Kennedy Junior have been sucked under.
AND AS THE VIBE KEEPS SHIFTING TOWARDS HARRIS there are plenty of different flavors of insurrection to worry about but a Contingent Election isn't one of them.
B-Block (21:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump has a "Sir" story. The Border Patrol agents said he was better on the border than Lincoln. The Don't-Cancel-Your-WaPo-Subscription crowd is missing the point: don't criticize angry ex-customers. If you can, join them. And it's not enough to bully reporters into sanewashing Trump, you must reward them. Thus CNN's embarrassment Dana Bash is profiled in The Wall Street Journal and we are told: This Is Her Moment.
C-Block (33:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: If Trump ruined Giuliani's life, why was Rudy at Trump's self-immolation at Madison Square Garden? Well among other things I believe Rudy now lives in a hallway at Penn Station so it was a quick commute. Plus, you may not have known but Rudy's been nuts since at least the mid-90's, as I'll tell you.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 58: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
As Kamala Harris's lead among Hispanic voters nearly triples in less than a month, one of Trump's preliminary speakers at his Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden attacks them. âThese Latinos, they love making babies, too" says somebody named Hinchcliffe.âThereâs no pulling out. They donât do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.â
If a crass attack against 12% of the nation's likely voters would not cause enough damage to Trump in the final week, Hinchcliffe then added "Thereâs literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think itâs called Puerto Rico."
As even Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott attacks the remarks, a Trump flunky tries to distance itself from the extraordinary attacks saying they don't represent the campaign. At the same time, Donald Trump Jr re-posted video of the remarks.
There is a day in each failed presidential candidacy where the losing candidate woke up with his chances of BECOMING president still intact, but went to bed with them irrevocably destroyed. I think for Trump that day was yesterday. The viability of his candidacy has largely depended on his growing support among Latinos.
450,000 residents of Pennsylvania self-identify as Puerto Rican â 127,114 of them in PhILLY and 33,531 in Allentown. 100,000 residents of North Carolina do so. 65-thousand in Wisconsin. 50,000 Michiganders. To say nothing of a million Floridians and a quarter million Texans.
EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT HISPANIC THERE WAS PLENTY OF HATE TO GO AROUND: Stephen Miller echoes Goebbels. Elon Musk, Dr. Phil, Hulk Hogan and Tucker Carlson beclown themselves. just as the German-American Bund discovered in 1939 when they paraded the swastika into the old Madison Square Garden, there is something about parading Trumpâs backed-up sewer of hateful has-beens into the heart of bright blue New York City to scream their filth. Somehow the context, the location, underscores that they not only believe this, they not only see a future only for white people and others who have been approved BY white people, they not only think they are a majority, they not only think Trump is beloved, they not only think the tens of millions of us who repudiate their bestiality and their hatred and their racism are somehow just PRETENDING to repudiate these things but most of all, WORST of al these scumbags think theyâre going to get away with it.
And against a fresh background, we are reminded what shame they have brought to us.
Meanwhile the interior numbers for Harris continue to explode. In the ABC poll, likely African-American voters are now hers⊠NINETY to seven. The CBS poll has her up by 1 despite something curious in the very first interior number. She leads among women by 12 points. He only leads among men by nine. If that difference is correct, she wins.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 57: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN: After the Wall Street Journalâs stunning story linking Elon Musk to Vladimir Putin and other members of the Russian dictatorship, it is no longer feasible nor safe to permit Elon Musk to continue to have access to any project involving the government of the United States, nor for Musk to remain at large in this country. The government should sever all connections with him immediately and seize all his technological assets including SpaceX, StarLink, and Twitter-X â and if need be, detain him, deport him, or if it descends to that level, arrest him. The safety of the nation may depend upon it.
A team of journal writers led by Thomas Grove has now reported â to quote them - âElon Musk, the worldâs richest man and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022. The discussions, confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.â
The Journal cites two sources who say that Muskâs relationship was more than just conversational. They claim Putin asked Musk to NOT activate his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan, as quote âa favor to Chinese leader Shee Jinping.â That, the Journal reports, happened late last year and its source is a former Russian intelligence officer.
The Journal further reports one of Musk's primary contacts is a Putin henchman just cited by the Department of Justice as the agent behind more than 30 websites designed to spread disinformation about Ukraine and the U.S. election - some of it via Musk's Twitter-X platform.
(7:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Why is Kamala Harris in Texas tonight? I mean, yes, Colin Allred has a longshot's chance of upsetting Ted Cruz and a Democratic Infomercial starring Beyonce is a national event not a local one. But taking the time from stumping in a battleground state would, on the surface, be something Trump would do (and will do, Sunday, in New York, unless he gets lost on the way to Madison Square Garden).
Strategically the Harris Texas trip makes no sense - unless...
Unless her internal polling confirms two things that are beginning to show up in the early voting data and polling, plus the simulations of the Electoral College vote. It appears that even in states where Republican early voters outnumber the Democrats, she's winning by 55-45 (or better). And the forecasters are suggesting that as close as the swing states look they make actually all go to one of the two candidates, though they can't say who.
So there is the very real possibility - and don't relax, just take a deep breath as you contemplate this - that Kamala Harris can actually afford to take the night "off."
(23:20) THE WORST JOURNALISTS IN THE WORLD: A special segment saluting the gutless owner of the L.A. Times who refused to print the paper's endorsement of Harris in one of the bluest communities in the country; Dana Bash, who somehow did worse than she did at the debate; Erick Erickson who says Trump has a type and it's not Melania.
B-Block (30:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Yankees boss Brian Cashman explains his total under-performance since 2001 by blaming cheaters (ignoring evidence of Yankee cheating in 1999, 2000, 2009, 2011). Nicole Shanahan reportedly offered to pay off a Washington Post reporter working on a story about her. Lara Trump thinks there are 81 states.
C-Block (40:10) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: The political fables! Including "The Peacelike Mongoose," "The Very Proper Gander," "The Moth And The Star," and "The Owl Who Was God."
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 56: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Republican silence or in some cases rationalizations have met General John Kelly taking his story ON the record about Trump coveting generals personally loyal to him the way Hitler's were personally loyal to him, and Trump insisting Hitler did good things for Germany.
With other of mortified Trump military officials reportedly contemplating going public in similar ways, it is absolutely necessary for General Kelly to convene a live news conference - to be joined by any of those other officials - to name names.
And the names he must name are Trump and Hitler.
We are at an inflection point right now as surely as we were at Yorktown or Gettysburg or Normandy except that with WORDS you can prevent the bloodshed that will happen not on ONE battlefield at home or abroad, but in every corner of this nation, because bloodshed and the threat of it will be the essence of the Trump dictatorship. And bluntly, General, you helped get us there because while you were witnessing this madman in real time yearn for a military personally sworn to him as the Wermacht was to Hitler, you⊠said nothing.
Now that youâre talking, and the test of your patriotism â to say nothing of the test of the CHANCE for this nation to still exist five years from now in something LIKE its current form â depends on YOU winning The Battle of Trump Because the choice, General, is: A free America, or a dictatorship where you in the military, are expected to shoot Trumpâs critics for him. Period.
B-BLOCK (18:23) This issue merits an entire episode and a lot of explanation. It is only a year since Trump began to openly mimic Hitler but his admiration of him was first identified in 1990. The saga of Trump's gradual revelation, beginning with Ivana Trump's confirmation to Vanity Fair magazine that he kept a book of Hitler's speeches by his bed.
C-BLOCK (34:59) The darkest component to Trump's admiration of Hitler is that his defense against all such revelations is that he's such a supporter of Jewish Americans. But of course he isn't. He's a supporter of Israel, which buys him the support of Evangelical Christians who actually believe their "rapture" will happen only after all the Jews are in Israel, and they are converted - or killed.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 55: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The obvious problem with John Kelly going on the record and saying yes, I heard Trump say quote âI need the kind of generals that Hitler hadâ is that a huge number of his supporters will applaud it.
And the obvious problem with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic quoting those who were there as Trump was told the cost of the funeral heâd offered to pay for, for a murdered U-S soldier named Vanessa Guillen, and Trump screamed âIt doesnât cost 60-thousand bucks to bury an effing Mexican!â is that even MORE of Trumpâs supporters will applaud THAT.
Because the real, disgusting, nauseating truth behind the revelations in the Goldberg Atlantic piece is that it touches the third and FOURTH rails of Donald Trumpâs America: many of his people believe whoever is in charge SHOULD be supported by and in fact kept in power by âthe kind of generals Hitler had.â The antisemites in the Trump cult love it. And the ones who arenât antisemites just authoritarians love it even if theyâre queasy about the antisemitism. And the ones who arenât antisemites or authoritarians but have always secretly believed the word âDemocracyâ was just another brand name or FLAVOR love it because it posits a kind of America not just where MIGHT makes RIGHT, but where ONLY might makes right.
And if there is anybody missing from the Trump Coalition of Evil, anybody who ISNâT inspired by âI need the kind of generals that Hitler hadâ they are certainly covered by âIt doesnât cost 60,000 bucks to bury an effing Mexicanâ because if violence and militarism are the Trumpian third rail, racism and specifically anti-Hispanic racism are the FOURTH rail.
MEANWHILE:19% of Republicans think if Trump loses he should just seize power (28% of Mormon Americans). The latest great polling numbers for Kamala Harris? In July she was getting less than half of voters under 35. She's now getting 60% And it sounds ridiculous: Ex-Flamenco Correspondent and Trump concierge judge Aileen Cannon as Attorney General?
Honestly - how much more could she do for Trump than Merrick Garland has?
B-Block (26:29) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jeremy Peters of The New York Times says on MSNBC (with help from Katy Tur) that Kamala Harris is not as clear in her speaking as is Trump. Newsweek Magazine isn't certain if that photo of Trump in a Pittsburgh Steelers 100 pounds lighter and 40 years younger MIGHT BE A FAKE. And Trump's own campaign can't spell "Steelers" - and in a very Freudian way.
C-Block (36:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: More of my atypical World Series previews: Why I'm adopting ex-Yankees manager Ralph Houk's attitude towards the team he, like I, grew up with: "Piss on the Yankees."
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 54: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Ignore, for the moment, the horserace numbers in the national and even swing state polls and consider two "interior numbers." Emerson says those 20% or so of voters who hadn't decided for whom to vote until the last week or last month are breaking 60/36 for Harris.
The implications for this are profound. With two percent still undecided (around 3,250,000 people) if the pattern holds, Harris could see a net gain of 648,000 votes (perhaps a net 28,000 in Pennsylvania alone). That kind of gain applied to her swing state leads from The Washington Post poll could secure victory.
There's also some impressive work out of CNN's Harry Enten and his analysis of a small but important decline in the core of Trump's support: Non-College Whites in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Polls show he's down about 13% in that demographic and since in those states that demographic is a majority of likely voters, that's a world of hurt.
And then there is the Associated Press polling on economic issues where Harris is ahead of Trump on everything but handling gas and grocery prices (and trailing him by only two points in that).
Be of good cheer.
PLUS TRUMP KEEPS SAYING STUPID THINGS: Assassination attempt survivor Trump has now endorsed the threatening of FEMA officials by armed gunmen in North Carolina, and has said we have to go back to 1798 (you know, when it was illegal to criticize the government but legal to own other human beings).
I wonder how a pro-slavery position polls with late deciders?.
B-Block (20:45) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Dr. Said Masih Noori certainly appears to be what he claims: a British doctor who wrote that he would like to "vanish" Jews. His fulsome apology didn't work, so he went back on the attack and just to ratchet it up a notch he endorsed the Trump-Musk campaign. New York Magazine asks 57 experts you've never heard of if Media can survive. Not if people like those running New York Magazine keep running the field. Hours after publication they fired Olivia Nuzzi. And National Review promotes Rich Lowry's non-insightful criticism of the WNBA basketball finals. All 83 words of it. Which, like anything else he writes about women, requires another reading of his 2008 masturbatory paean to Sarah Palin after the VP debate.
C-Block (32:00) SPORTSBALLCENTER: We're on the eve of the World Series! Well, the eve of the eve OF the eve, because baseball can't get anything right. It's another legendary match-up between the legendary Yankees and legendary Dodgers who are, unfortunately, now legendary for being two of the most under-performing franchises in sports. But I can offer you an amazing fact you can stun your friends with, about how the starting pitching in THIS World Series is likely to be better than that in the 1955 Dodgers-Yankees clash.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 53: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: You are HERE - at this spot in the map of madness where the New York Times and Politico tried to get away with lying and reporting Trumpâs Saturday Arnold Palmer Penis Length monologue â the first thing he has seemed actually INTERESTED in, in weeks - was just âtelling golf stories.â You are HERE - where Howard Kurtz actually held Trump more accountable than the Times or Politico or nearly every major news organization.
You are HERE where the Times has been front row for one of the greatest unprecedented political stories in human history â just on a sell-more-newspapers, first draft of history level â I mean itâs up there with the rise of Hitler and the mid-press conference suicide of the Pennsylvania State Treasurer and the death of President Faure of France with his mistress atop him and both of them atop the presidential desk â the Madness of King Trump â and the Times could have owned this story for all time but the Sulzberger-Kahn idea of how to cover this presidential race was to finally look at the Trump Penis Envy and try to explain or analyze it and come up with only two possible explanations: frustration or a desire to entertain. Not: Trump is a full-on KKK level racist and a rapist-in-spirit if not in absolute literal legal fact, and/or Trump is absolutely, positively nuts.
You are HERE where Nate Silver predicts Kamala Harris will win the popular vote, win the Electoral College - and still lose the election. Where the polls in Michigan have her behind by half a point OR ahead by eight.
You are HERE where a putatively STRAIGHT man Trump spends an awful lot of time talking about other menâs penises and using expletives to demean women, and where Trump drags in a really damaged former SportsCenter co-anchor of mine named Sage Steele and makes her the emcee of one of his staged events and the crowd BOOS HER and he MISPRONOUNCES her name.
Journalism. Use it or lose it. On January 20th. Mr. Sulzberger, you and your Times executives and editors will have helped end democracy in America or damn near done so. Those of us who survive will remember.
B-Block (20:26) SPECIAL COMMENT: So why are we in this horrific place? How are we one week and one day to the election and how is it possible that the polls show anything other than a double-digit lead for the party of the non-racist, able-to-read, non-conspiracy theory candidate? The answer is two words: Mike Tyson. It was trainer Cus DâAmato and his associate Kevin Rooney who perfected managing Tysonâs medication in such a way that they could keep him stable nearly all the time, and then gradually lower his dose in the weeks and days before a fight so that all his maniacal energy would appear IN the ring.
And then in 1988, two men stepped in to try to take over Mike Tysonâs contract and Mike Tysonâs life: Don King and Donald Trump. King said Tyson should be making millions more than he did under Rooney and manager Bill Cayton, and Trump showed Tyson the world of jet-setters. When Tyson complained that the drugs he needed to keep life manageable made him sleepy and uncomfortable and unhappy, Trump told Tyson: Why are you TAKING them? You are the youngest heavyweight champion in history, you can do what you WANT, you tell THEM what drugs youâll take. They donât know you and who knows if the drugs really do you any good? Youâre not the troubled kid any more, youâre an adult man, a champion, a God. Dump these idiots making money off you and come with me and Don King and we wonât make you take those drugs!
Today? America is the Mike Tyson of 1988.
C-Block (28:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 52: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I suppose it is possible that Trumpâs brain has liquified, and heâs cancelled half his events and all his interviews, and that he is now frantically demanding somebody FORCE Kamala Harris off the ballot and Joe Biden back ONTO it because heâs just been shown internal polling indicating heâs going to WIN two weeks from Tuesday.
Or nah. He's just been shown internal polling indicating he's going to LOSE.
Why else would he demand that she "be investigated and forced off the campaign, and Joe Biden be allowed to take back his rightful place" because 60 Minutes screwed up the editing the editing of its Harris interview?
Trump is crazy and getting crazier, but this reeks of somebody showing him internal polling indicating heâs going to LOSE two weeks from Tuesday which means that he might avoid ONE of the criminal cases that would send him off to die in prison but he ainât going to avoid BOTH of them and as the expert on cults and cult leaders Matthew Remski wrote the other day, Trump has become one of those quote âcultic leaders who â exhausted, ill â and at the end of their cognitive ropeâ reduced to a âshrinking repertoire of melted talking points.â
Especially given that a network idiotically edits a clip with a presidential candidate means the. Presidential candidate has to drop out? So Harris has to drop out, and of course since Fox edited out the part where Trump talks about the enemy within, Trump also has to drop out so two Tuesdays from now itâs the presidential election between Tim Walz and Jayvee Vance?
MEANWHILE, IF SHE WINS it will have been sealed by the 24-hour span in which she looked authoritative and righteously indignant while on Fox News, followed by the moment some pro-Trump hecklers crashed her rally in Wisconsin and her response was... well, put it this way: There were no heckler survivors.
B-Block (19:04) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: BBC News cancels one of the most informative news programs in the world: "HardTalk" dead after three decades. Dead inside: Christina Bobb predicts a surge of celebrities endorsing Trump after the election because...they're all pedophiles? So she's not just One America One Reich television crazy but QAnon crazy? And Chris Licht is tanned, rested, and ready, to help rebuild the fractured media landscape he personally helped fracture.
C-Block (28:21) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: He never wrote a novel, he did write a history of The New Yorker, he did write epic short stories like âThe Greatest Man In The Worldâ and at least three that became movies. But then there are his miniatures â his polished gems. His fables. There is more cynicism, more criticism, more liberalism, per square inch, in these â than in any other examples of his writing. So this week three of the Fables of James Thurber: "The Unicorn In The Garden," "The Moth And The Star," "The Rabbits Who Caused All The Trouble."
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 51: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Iâd like to congratulate Kamala Harris on her victory in the Presidential Debate last night against (checks notes) Bret Baier. Despite the refusal by the moderator to stop her opponent from compulsively interrupting her. The moderator⊠(checks notes) Bret Baier. And despite the fact that when she called out Trump for threatening to use the military against citizens and jailing those who criticize him and about âthe enemy within,â the anchor claimed to playing a clip of Trump pertaining to that only they did a bait-and-switch â the anchor played a Trump clip about a different topic⊠the anchor⊠(checks notes) Bret Baier.
She kicked Baierâs ass. She went on Fox and despite being subjected to a failed gotcha and conspiracy-theory interview that could have been prepared by Catturd or one of the other neurotic paranoids on the right, answered his questions AND called Fox out on its lies.
THE POLLING IS THE CHEF'S KISS: As the Harris interview aired on Fox News it put out its new poll. Last month it had HARRIS up by two, 50-48. NOW it has TRUMP ahead by two, 50-48 HOWEVER Foxâs polling â Registered voters - shows HARRIS AHEAD IN THE BATTLEGROUND STATES BY SIX POINTS. Thatâs all they say. If their current polling is correct Trump would win the popular vote but Harris would win the Electoral College. There are four other prominent polls that now show Harris at 50% or higher nationally.
It could all change tomorrow but right now, there is a polling surge - for Kamala Harris.
B-Block (19:41) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: More from America's favorite media-political complex love triangle: Nuzzi, Lizza, and RFK Jr. James Dolan is not only now tied to the fascism of Trump, but the Madison Square Garden/Knicks/Rangers owner is also now tied to the idiocy of Mayor Eric Adams. And why are David Zaslav and Elon Musk hanging out? Lots of postulations but the obvious one seems to have been overlooked. What if Zaslav is trying to sell CNN to Elon?
C-Block (29:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The New York Post attacked me yesterday because I made a joke. A "crass" joke. One word and an emoji. It wasnât crass. You may not have thought it was funny â but it wasnât crass. THEY tweeted about the Ryan Lizza reply to my exâs legal filing for what amounts to a restraining order against HER ex, with him saying she told him RFK Jrâs plan for Liv was to âimpregnate and possess.â I added âSameâ with the shrug emoji. Now it might not BE funny but to de-construct the effort: phrasing it that way I couldâve meant same as in that was ALSO my plan for her, or that it was RFKâs plan for me. Anyway â you decide if it was funny. I think it was. But they wrote an entire article about this because they were punishing me. When the Post attacks someone, if they fight bac, the rule there is â Iâve been told by their people â they have to attack harder. Youâre supposed to accept the Postâs punishment and shut up. Itâs Murdoch â itâs run like the mafia. Anyway, I didnât. They were about to report that Olivia and I had dated, you may recall, so I beat them to it. Rupert Mad! So this was my punishment yesterday. Theyâve been doing this â fake scandals followed by more fake scandals if I thwart them â since 1996.
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SERIES 3 EPISODE 50: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is now Day Three of Trumpâs Fugue State Crisis â from Monday night at Oaks, Pennsylvania when Trump abruptly STOPPED the town hall inexplicably and began to slur and behave bizarrely, through his announcement that Kamala Harris is physically disqualified from being president because she has hay fever through his cancelling of a softball interview on CNBC the same day she was to be interviewed on Fox, to the question from the Economic Club of Chicago about whether or not google should be broken up which he answered by talking about voting in Virginia.
A survivor of and expert on cults, Matthew Remski, has a different idea. What happened in Pennsylvania "echoes MANY instances of cultic leaders who, exhausted, ill, and at the end of their cognitive rope, outsource their emotional dominance subroutines to canned music they personally find exquisitely sentimental... The leader of the group I was in for 3 years maintained a Trump-campaign-like schedule of daily 2-hour sermons. Over the years he increasingly relied on his DJ to fill the room with emotional overwhelm whenever he gapped out. He was 78 too. He air-conducted the tunes. He had a shrinking repertoire of melted talking points. But because there was never any substance to his schtick, he didn't struggle to remember details that were slipping away. He just turned to the music."
B-Block (21:45) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Though The Washington Post noted this alarming change in Trump with real words and realer headlines, some of the key people along the tattered broken remains of some of the key guard-rails, are still sane-washing it. The New York Times: âTrump Bobs His Head To Music for 30 Minutes in Odd Town Hall Detour. After multiple interruptions, Trump cut off questions and seemed to decide that it would be more enjoyable for all concerned â and it appeared, for himself â if he fired up his campaign playlist.â
Joseph Kahn, executive editor of the New York Times, has been interviewed at length by Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio. The result is almost as disturbing as Trump playing the hits from that radio station that broadcasts only in his own mind. Iâm going to read a lot of it, verbatim, because Joe Kahn is almost as detached from reality as Donald Trump.
C-Block (43:45) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Russell Brand will sell you a $240 amulet to protect you from negative forces. Like Russell Brand? The report of a state poll that's 51-50 Trump ("do the math"). And just when you thought it was quieting down, the Olivia Nuzzi/Ryan Lizza/Robert F. Kennedy Jr scandal roars back to life as Lizza answers my ex's lawsuit against him by claiming she told him RFK wanted to "possess and impregnate her." Via FaceTime? That'd be some accomplishment! I'll have the details, if I can stop laughing long enough
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