Countdown with Keith Olbermann

SEASON 3 EPISODE 105: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has just lost World War Three. Trump listens to Musk maybe because he recognizes Musk is more insane than he is. Musk literally wants to own and rule the world. Musk just demanded this country withdraws from NATO. Other Muskers and Trumpers are following. If we leave NATO its remaining members will turn into a private hunting ground for Putin, or China, or both. Eventually he or they will run out of European countries to destroy and subsume and he or they will turn to destroying us. As Senator Chris Murphy said yesterday: "The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin." It's that simple. Trump is the Russian Commissar of America. And he's already lost World War Three - and evidently so have the British. Back home, Prime Minister Starmer did the unthinkable, met Zelensky not at the front door of Number 10 but he went INTO Downing Street to embrace him on the sidewalk. The front page of yesterday’s far right tabloid the Daily Mail headlined “outrage over U-S President’s humiliation of Zelensky” and insisted “Now stop the state visit for Bully Trump.” Demanded the British WITHDRAW their invitation for Trump to go there. But within hours their ambassador here undid all of that. Lord Peter Mandelson went on ABC This Week here and called for a “very radical re-set” that “has to consist of the United States and Ukraine getting back on the same page and President Zelensky giving his unequivocal backing to the initiative that Trump is taking to end the war and to bring a just and lasting peace to Ukraine.” Europe's nations “need to back the calls for a ceasefire and by the way I think that Ukraine should be the first to commit to a ceasefire and defy the Russians to follow." Hey, Lord Mendacious? Forgotten already? Zelensky already signed a cease-fire with Putin. Signed in 2019. Putin broke it in 2022. 200,000 guys named Lord Gaseous and Sir Toby Belch and they sent the one who sounds most like Neville Chamberlain. The British are defending Zelensky but their Ambassador just surrendered to Hitler. I mean Trump. No, Hitler. It’s impossible to believe the Prime Minister hasn’t fired Mandelson already (“recalled” is the polite term; “vaporized” would be the accurate one). Regardless the schism is present and the schism is a repeat, a throwback, a re-enactment of 1938, where as Churchill said the British leaders had a choice between shame and war. They have chosen shame, they will get war later. The war THEY got later was World War Two. The war WE will get later will be World War THREE. We will have to go to war – the real thing, none of this Iraq bullshit – the real thing, millions dead – not just to free Europe and all the other places who thought we understood that the world is simply successfully managed tension between the forces of more-or-less-good and the forces of the Putins, Hitlers, Musks, Trumps, Chamberlains, and Mandelsons… not just to free them but to save whatever’s left of this nation after the headstart Trump and Musk are giving, right now, as we speak, to Putin and China. Thus I’ll repeat what I said in the bulletin after the pre-planned performative and nauseating ambush of Zelensky last Friday: Trump has not only imperiled the freedom of the United States of America AND the existence of Ukraine AND the independence of all the nations of Europe he has also lost all moral right to keep power in this country and he must lose that power. B-BLOCK (25:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: So. HOW does he non-violently lose power (and it must be non-violent, albeit probably unconventional)? I have the beginnings of ideas: a shadow cabinet, weekly press conferences to co-opt the Sunday and Monday news cycles, a huge multi-faceted protest at Trump's speech to Congress tomorrow. Aggressive behavior. Maybe the Democrats can do it, maybe not. Also: some thoughts on Trump pardoning and baseball seeking to reinstate Pete Rose, the alleged...

SEASON 3 EPISODE 104: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN: Firstly I apologize to President Volodomir Zelensky and the people of Ukraine, on behalf of the United States of America. The REAL people of the United States of America, not the half-brained Russian stooges and assets. Our sense of shame and regret is immeasurable. OURS, the REAL people of the United States of America - almost always generous, largely well-intentioned, and when we are neither, when we are at our most self-centered, at LEAST smart enough and willing to let other people fight our fights for us, and die battling fascists and dictators like Putin instead of us. We will never let Trump forget what he did to you do today. We will make him atone. And all those who serve him and do not resign just in sheer embarrassment over being so wrong so loudly and in the service of such a moron as Trump – they have from this day forfeited their legitimacy as quote “leaders” of this nation, as the pack of diarrhetic farm animals Trump calls a cabinet has from this day forfeited ITS legitimacy as a government. And to that point, Trump must now lose power. Today was a 24-hour consumer boycott, poorly publicized, poorly covered by our increasingly stenographic media. Now we must have a 24-day consumer boycott. Then a 24-month consumer boycott. Today we witnessed the most disgraceful and un-American act by any president in our history and I include Nixon and Watergate, and Bush and Iraq, and everything Trump has previously done. Now we must consume his presidency and force it to do nothing but defend this disgusting, pre-planned act on behalf of Putin and Russia every hour and every day and every week until we force him to resign the presidency. On Presidents Day the 50501 Movement protested in Washington and in state capitols. Now we must protest Trump and his attempt, of which today’s shameful attack on Zelensky WAS a part, to install him permanently in power, and we must do it every day, in every city, until nothing else in this country matters and nothing else in this country HAPPENS. In the ‘60s and before and after we mobilized on the street to protest and stop the degradation of our citizens of color and the murder of our citizens of EVERY color via the draft and the Vietnam War. Now we must have protests that recognize that at this moment, all of us, you and me, are being shaped by Trump and his terrorist gang into the equivalent of the victims of segregation and the draftees sent to Southeast Asia to be slaughtered. Civil disobedience, tax strike, general strike. Today, CNN, Politico, The Washington Post and others downplayed what Trump did and positioned it as a "scolding" or a "shouting match" as opposed to a deranged attack by a deranged man. Now, these news organizations must either stop pandering to an immoral dictator or lose as he will. Because Trump crossed his Rubicon today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 103: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: There is an alternate, rogue religious theory about an afterlife. It goes like this: "Hell" is not some place deep in the earth or anywhere else with eternal torture and fire. In fact, what we call "life" - THIS is hell. There is considerable new evidence this week that this theory is probably correct. The Washington Post had already been proving that its slogan "Democracy Dies In Darkness" was not a warning but Jeff Bezos's game plan. Now he's made it official: Op-eds are out; pro-Trump "liberties" and "free markets" are in. Other opinions need not apply. Bezos is a fascist. And he's only the third of three media disasters this week. To my surprise, Rachel Maddow DID say something about the Racist Purge at her MSNBC. Unfortunately, it wasn't the truth. She gave out the corporate cover story that Joy Reid "left" and "went out the door" and and and... she was FIRED. I guess I should've known. Rachel also didn't tell the truth when I left. I had kept her in my confidence as I negotiated my exit in 2010 and 2011 and the night it happened she was on Maher's show and though she knew everything, when he asked her about the breaking news - a few hours after my last email to her suggesting "this is it" she answered "This is the first I’m hearing about any of this. I know nothing about it.” And Trump's response to MSNBC throwing Reid into the volcano as a human sacrifice? He's threatening to sue them all anyway. And change the laws. And then there's the White House Correspondents Association. It did nothing about Trump trying to rewrite the Associated Press's stories. So now he's told them they will no longer select the pool reporter. But don't worry, the WHCA's cowardice won't go unpunished. Its president will be one of the new MSNBC hosts who can get sacrificed in the Trump Bottomless Bit later. B-Block (35:38) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Welcome to political scrutiny, Stephen A. Smith. Musk loves Trump - now. 2020? Called him an effing idiot. And this is how bad it is: Trump put one of my exes on the Kennedy Center board. C-Block (44:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: She's in the news and we need the laugh, so once again, the saga of my two dates with Laura Ingraham, one of the last times I thought "this might be the night I die." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 102: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN: Now FIVE different anchors of color have been dismissed, demoted, or had their shows cancelled in an MSNBC purge so brutal and racist that it makes you think the place is being run by Elon Musk. The newest victims? Katie Phang, gone. Jonathan Capehart, loses his show. Ayman Mohyeldin, who was held up as the example of "we're not racist, we're giving him the show" when Mehdi Hasan was fired? HE'S lost the show. There wasn't even a non-anchor of color fired as cover (Katy Tur?) If this sounds familiar it's the same playbook used at CNN three years ago. Destroy the product, drive away the audience, claim it's about business and not fascism. And it's something GE wanted to do with MSNBC in 2009 when our success was too much trouble for Chairman Jeff Immelt. And where by the way are the protests from Maddow, Hayes, or O'Donnell? (9:00) ON JOY REID'S FIRING: repeated from today's full episode of the podcast. Feel free to not listen again, it's half an hour. Yes, firing her is racist and maybe worse yes it is designed to keep out people who might think differently and it is designed to reward professional political salespeople like party chairmen and press secretaries. But most of all, since they also fired Alex Wagner, it means that four women of color have solo hosted prominent shows ON MSNBC and all four of them have now been fired. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 101: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and replaced him with a junior officer he brought back from retirement whom HE claims once wore a MAGA cap in his presence. Then he fired the Judge Advocate of the army, the Judge Advocate of the Navy, and the Judge Advocate of the Air Force. What you have been told by news organizations – even ones that still have good reporters – that this is part of the Trump Racism Orgy. The fired Joint Chiefs Chairman Charles Q. Brown is black. The Chief of Naval Operations was a woman. Their identities are cover stories and red meat for the Trump cult. Trump looked at the top lawyers at the Army, Navy and Air Force, the ones who would tell him, no, you can’t have the Army shoot civilians, and you can’t have the Navy blockade Vancouver and Greenland and the Panama Canal, and you can’t bomb the next Democratic convention… and he fired them. At least six different reporters and commentators on the military beat said the same thing. Firing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is bad and a red flag. Firing the T-JAGS, the Judge Advocates, the lawyers who tell you when something you are going to do with the military is illegal… can mean only one thing… you are planning to do something with the military that is illegal. You fire the people who would SAY it’s illegal and replace them with people who would say it ISN’T illegal. There are degrees of nightmare ahead. They all amount to different versions of Trump's plot to permanently take over the government by using the military. B-Block (26:20) THE FIRING OF JOY REID: Yes, firing her is racist and maybe worse yes it is designed to keep out people who might think differently and it is designed to reward professional political salespeople like party chairmen and press secretaries. But most of all, since they also fired Alex Wagner, it means that four women of color have solo hosted prominent shows ON MSNBC and all four of them have now been fired. C-Block (58:00) SPORTSBALL CENTRAL: I could not have been more wrong about hockey's Four Nations Faceoff. But at least I wasn't as wrong as Wayne Gretzky, now under deserved attack in Canada as a remorseless Trumpist, and rapidly becoming The Man Without A Country. (1:11:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Senator Thom Tillis begins to suck up to Trump. Jared Polis, "Democratic" governor of Colorado, should resign. So too should Phil Murphy, "Democratic" governor of New Jersey. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 100: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump thinks we are not vulnerable to attack because the Atlantic Ocean separates us from Europe. He literally wrote this yesterday. This illusion of oceanic walls was shattered no later than the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 and more likely the first time a German craft was seen off the shores of this country during the First World War. It's madness. It's disqualifying. And it got lost amid the madness about calling Zelensky a dictator and threatening Ukraine and Trump describing himself as "King" and and and... "This war is far more important to Europe than it is to us. We have a big beautiful ocean as separation.” Ironically, the man who disproved the "separation" was Charles Lindbergh with his solo crossing of the Atlantic and it is Lindbergh's America First Isolationists of the '30s whom Trump is now emulating. If you've ever wondered what it would have been like had Lindbergh become president and done a deal with Hitler, stop wondering. We're living through it now - only with Putin. AND DON'T DISMISS THE "KING" STUFF: “Congestion Pricing Is Dead. Manhattan and all of New York is saved. Long live the king.” I don’t know who the king could BE in this construction if Trump doesn’t mean Trump. I do know a Tea Party slob Trump made Deputy White House Chief of Staff promptly tweeted it with an AI image of Trump in fetching king’s robes that like his suits was clearly cut to hide his belly. The official White House account then put out a fake magazine cover with him wearing a crown two or three sizes too small. It is tempting to dismiss this as trolling but at minimum this is part of the effort to make him look omnipotent and mandated instead of a president with 49-point-eight percent of the vote and a disapproval poll rating that went from 41 percent on inauguration day to 51 percent last week. B-Block (31:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Markwayne Mullin makes everybody really uncomfortable at a Senate hearing. The NHL somehow thinks Trump's threats against Canada are an excellent marketing tool for their little hockey game tonight. And Stephen A. Smith thinks it's an embarrassment that people keep saying he should run for president and by people he means himself and by embarrassment he means please somebody say it. C-Block (42:20) COMIC RELIEF: Two lighter stories. There's the weirdest thing ever said to me by an athlete in an interview, by the late hockey great Bobby Hull, who is posthumously in the news. And there was a flashback to my original MSNBC show at of all places The Animal Medical Center. And the flashback involved making fun of Wolf Blitzer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 99: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There's a small problem (naturally) that Trump overlooked (of course) when he misquoted (evergreen) the probably-apocryphal (saw that coming) Napoleon quote "He who saves his country does not violate any law.” The problem should be obvious. What if I think I'm saving my country FROM Trump? What if you think you are saving your country FROM Trump? Set aside for a moment the implicit stochastic call to terrorism or just law-breaking from Trump to his supporters. What about his message to them? Us? You? Me? Did he just indemnify all of us? Seems kind of dangerous. On the other hand, seems like something that somebody who has slipped fully into a delusion of universal support would say. The implications are, like Trump and Musk, just staggering. ALSO WHY IT'S TIME FOR A NEWS BOYCOTT OF THE WHITE HOUSE: Again, I don't have enough space or words to tell you how much this won't happen, but the response to the White House attempt to dictate what the Associated Press gets to write (and open the path to telling you what YOU get to write) should be obvious and unanimous: don't send any reporters to the White House or Air Force One until the AP is restored. And I'm sure The Washington Vichy Post and The New York Bothsidesist Times and CNN (Certainly Not News) will be right out front. On the other hand, there IS a good media pushback idea: A Democratic Shadow Press Secretary,. B-Block (31:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Some Dominican voters in Reading, PA, who according to the Mayor there voted for Trump because they just assumed when he said he'd deport "illegals" he'd give them amnesties because they're good people. Mark Zuckerberg is back, suppressing ads for the ever-controversial (checks notes) Invictus Games. And Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen praise the "masculinity" of Musk and Trump even though the four of them don't have enough masculinity to fill up a thimble. C-Block (40:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A confession. I didn't lie when I said why I discontinued the 2016-17 GQ Series "The Resistance." Nor did I tell the entire truth. I will now. It involves a threat against me, an inadvertent meeting with old SportsCenter friends, a deep hatred of the topic of Trump, and the firing of a loyal colleague. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 98: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Many Americans will not stop lying to themselves about Trump’s insanity. But the rest of us have to. The rest of us: every politician who steps in front of a microphone, every news producer who begins a newscast with some other story made trivial in contrast, every columnist who writes about alarm or some quarters or this Ohio diner, every commentator tempted to say this was the moment Trump truly became president. Trump is manifestly insane and this week he has entered that stage of whatever it specifically IS that’s wrong with him, that is characterized by mania: the conviction that something that is impossible WILL happen simply because he SAYS it is going to happen. HIS mania happens to be about Gaza. The next one could be about the sun rising in the west. Or about how Americans would survive a nuclear war because he’s leading them and he’s immortal. Mania doesn’t have to be MANIC. It doesn’t require hyperbolic words nor unsuppressed rage nor vivid hallucinations. He’s insane. He believes in things that aren’t true and can’t be true and he has a rationalization ready for whenever somebody tells him that they can’t be true. There is nothing of the cliched crazy man in his voice as he talks about Gaza. Nevertheless this guy is metaphorically about one inch away from having conversations with invisible gophers. He says the land is beautiful and he will "cherish" it. His language matches what someone would say if they were having sex with the land. It's a form of what film-maker Billy Wilder allegedly told Nancy Reagan when she quizzed him about why the character played by Gloria Swanson had a pet chimp in their movie “Sunset Boulevard”: "that's because she was f'ing the monkey." Trump talks about Gaza like he is f'ing the monkey. B-Block (30:04) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Fox's Emily Compagno knows how to reform the media. Literally have them just republish Trump press releases. Well, it works for Fox. Dinesh D'Souza celebrates an Army Base NOT being re-re-named after a Civil War General, and Eric Adams, polling at 10% to be renominated for Mayor of New York, has not only sold out his city but now he is actively toying with switching to the GOP, where he will probably poll at LESS than 10%. C-Block (41:10) IN SPORTS: Oh man do I hate it when leagues shut down their seasons so the players can play made-up international tournaments. Wait, only the National Hockey League does that? As part of its marketing strategy to make this great game even LESS prominent? And by the way its new tournament unfolds as the 45th anniversary hits of a truly great international tournament: the 1980 Olympic Hockey medal competition. I covered it, and I'm still cold. Memories, and one of my radio reports, included. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 97: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump and Musk and Vance are now clearly signaling their intent to ignore the court orders keeping Musk from pillaging the government financial computers and your personal information. It is the informal beginning of their Civil War against the government of the United States of America. We're not at Fort Sumter yet but it's visible. Yet there has been no update on the news that Trump’s minions have already been giving loyalty tests to applicants to the FBI, other law enforcement, national security, that include questions like “Yes or No: Was The 2020 Election Stolen” and “Who is your REAL boss?” No updates from Saturday’s Washington Post story and as nearly as I can tell it didn’t even COME UP during any of the Sunday shows. The question NOW becomes what happens when – and this seems increasingly inevitable – Trump and Musk defy the court orders and again access the treasury. First of all, who is there to STOP them? What do the courts who have ruled against them, and the others who are likely to rule against them THIS week, and the litigants like the 19 Attorneys General, do next? Does this go directly to the Supreme Court where the corrupt theologians can say “ah but we have precedent in this area. If you can’t prosecute an EX-President for crimes, if HE’S immune, how can you prosecute anybody for crimes ordered by a SITTING president?” in which case it’s official, it’s a dictatorship. Or TRUMP looks at the judges and say THEIR behavior is actually an attack on the country and HE invokes the Insurrection Act and rounds up the judges and the Democrats and… me. The other option is intermediate steps by the judges who really really don’t like being ignored and who while they might hesitate to pursue Trump, would probably line up to pursue Musk and the others. They could quickly order Contempt of Court orders against Musk and his employees and there are scenarios in which they move quickly enough to put them in holding cells for defying legitimate orders. Or there could be a confrontation between Court Officers and police loyal to them, and Musk’s people and police loyal to THEM. Or there could be a VIOLENT confrontation between those groups. Or this could end up the Juan Merchan route in which the courts act so slowly, so stupidly, so violating their purpose and indeed their history of blocking corruption, especially corrupt businessmen maneuvering a hostile takeover of the government, do… nothing. There IS one wild card I see here. Trump says he will have Musk look next at the Education Department and then the Army. If Musk tries to do to the Pentagon what he's done to the Treasury and goes in there, they may never find him. The rest of this episode repeats Sunday's emergency edition about Trump is having them ask candidates for jobs in his administration’s FBI field stations away from D-C what is probably the most chilling question ever asked by any government of the United States: “Who is your real boss?” This is, if you do not know, in The Washington Post’s brief, damning, almost (despite everything) unbelievable, nightmarish report posted late Saturday night. The Post is quoting applicants for the FBI and other top National Security positions – and they hint some of these are people who were IN these organizations, dismissed, and are being the opportunity to return to work. At least two FBI applicants were asked at least two questions out of George Orwell or the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. One, you heard: Who is your real boss? If you need more, don’t worry, there IS more. Who were “the real patriots on January 6th?” We know through the Post’s reporting, of at least two other questions, asked of those being interviewed for some kind of leadership positions WITHIN the Trump national security apparatus IN Washington. They are told to answer yes or no to each. Question one: was January 6th an “inside job?” Question two: Was the 2020...

SEASON 3 EPISODE 96: EMERGENCY EDITION A-Block (1:45) (AN EMERGENCY PODCAST): Trump is having them ask candidates for jobs in his administration’s FBI field stations away from D-C what is probably the most chilling question ever asked by any government of the United States: “Who is your real boss?” This is, if you do not know, in The Washington Post’s brief, damning, almost (despite everything) unbelievable, nightmarish report posted late Saturday night. The Post is quoting applicants for the FBI and other top National Security positions – and they hint some of these are people who were IN these organizations, dismissed, and are being the opportunity to return to work. At least two FBI applicants were asked at least two questions out of George Orwell or the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. One, you heard: Who is your real boss? If you need more, don’t worry, there IS more. Who were “the real patriots on January 6th?” We know through the Post’s reporting, of at least two other questions, asked of those being interviewed for some kind of leadership positions WITHIN the Trump national security apparatus IN Washington. They are told to answer yes or no to each. Question one: was January 6th an “inside job?” Question two: Was the 2020 presidential election stolen? At least these two applicants told their interviewers ‘no.’ Neither was hired. Just the asking of these questions alone – never mind the answers, let alone the implications that it is anything BUT political science fiction to conclude that some people have already answered YES and are moving into roles at the FBI and other law enforcement and national security organizations – just ASKING these questions, signals the end of democracy because if today you can ask candidates for FEDERAL law enforcement positions to swear personal loyalty to their “real boss” and if today you can ask candidates for those same positions to insist lies about January 6th and the 2020 election are the truth, and that the truths are lies… then tomorrow you can make it ILLEGAL to answer that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, and then next week you can make it illegal to publish or broadcast that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, and then the week after that you can put anybody who does in prison. We are already here. To be in law enforcement, you have to prove in advance you are willing to lie for Trump. I hope every bothsidesist reporter and whatboutist executive and bipartisan Democrat has a secret plan they've been saving for the last possible moment. Because we are at the last possible moment. PLUS: Musk is now hinting at ignoring the court ruling restraining him from further access to government computers and payroll systems. If he and Trump don't obey the rulings force of some kind will have to be applied and this entire issue of democracy versus dictatorship may come to a head faster than ever anticipated B-Block (26:20) MORE SPECIAL COMMENTS: We are at the point where I hope I've never been righter and the continuation of democracy actually does depend more on the stupidity of those trying to destroy it than it does on the efforts of those of us trying to save it. But there are measures we take - or at least our wobbling, dubious opposition party can take: deny support for anything in the House and put a personal hold on anything Trump wants from the Senate. And we need a Wartime Consigliere or if you're from this century, The War Doctor. C-Block (41:20) WRAPPING IT UP: I don't know when the next episode will be. I do know we need our own answer from Hakeem Jeffries and every other Democrat to the question of the hour: Who's Your Boss? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 95: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Now that the Democratic Party and the nation has realized that Musk is at the center of a Trumpian coup to privatize the government, the question becomes: HOW do we arrest Elon and his Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles? The reality of the crises of the tech-bro coup and the putsch to violate the constitution and the multi trillion-dollar attempted heist and Trump’s plan to invade Gaza so he can personally own it has gotten through. Congressman Al Green has confirmed he will make a motion to impeach Trump and remember even failed impeachment bills give the impeaching party a perfect record in the next House, Senate, and Presidential elections. But until we can replace the Supreme Court, Trump is immune. However, Musk is not immune. None of his little minions are immune. Any of the officials at USAid or in the Treasury Department or OMB who admitted these little clowns into secure areas are not immune, in fact they are subject to espionage charges and they will still be subject to them four years from now. There are at least 28 lawsuits in progress against the various tentacles of Musk's cyber-version of Oceans 11 meets The Nigerian Prince who only needs your routing number. One has already stopped the destruction of birthright citizenship in its tracks. And local prosecutions are doable and reasonable. The key to putting Musk away is publicity. What he is doing a story CREATED for local television news and its older, less affluent audience: somebody sent hackers into the government where they, right now, could be stealing your medicare money and social security? It’s EXACTLY what local television producers live for: Here’s Jack Liveshot in Scarsdale with his guest Concerned Grandma. This is low-hanging fruit because everybody hates Elon Musk. EVERYBODY. And body will hate him more than all the little tech-bros after it turns out Musk is NOT omnipotent and to do his dirty work for him, ends with your ass in jail. First one to flip on Musk gets probation and a brand new Hotmail account and AOL installation disk. B-Block (29:24) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Did nobody tell Roger Goodell of the NFL that to suddenly declare yourself anti-"End Racism" is the same thing as saying you are PRO-Racism? The average Conservative who got David-and-Goliath wrong. And Rahm Emanuel is destroyed online by my pal Will Bunch with one of the most efficient burns I've ever seen. C-Block (38:40) THINGS I PROMISE NOT TO TELL: I was quoted by the Washington Post complimenting Maddow and reportedly she's pissed (that they put me in her story). Coincidentally, this is more or less the anniversary that I bypassed my bosses and hired her at MSNBC out of my own pocket. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 94: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump and Musk are, at this moment, overthrowing our form of government. And this is how to stop them: Yell. Keep yelling. Government data about religious charities – private, if not necessarily secret – has wound up in the hands of Mike Flynn, the foreign asset, General Scumbag – and he’s posted it online, and mocked the Lutheran Church in doing so. Musk’s hatchet-men are literally inside the government right now demanding leaders of the U.S. Agency for International Development turn over classified documents inside restricted areas and those that have refused have been placed on leave. Trump has started a trade war with our closest allies just to have somebody for his morons to hate. Quote: “It’s a coup. Elon Musk is running a palace coup. Musk is taking classified information. Musk has taken YOUR social security number. Everybody involved should be arrested, by local DA’s if that’s all we can do, and denied bail,” unquote. A Democratic Senator, Representative, Governor, Mayor, needs to stand in front of microphones today and say that today and say that THAT BLUNTLY today. And, quote: “Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump might as well have killed those teenaged skaters on American 5342 themselves. The DC crash was their fault. Period.” Some OTHER Democratic leader, maybe the head of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, elected Saturday, needs to say that. As it is, Martin says: “We’re taking the gloves off. I’m always viewed my role as a chair of the Democratic Party to take the low road, so my candidates and elected officials can take the high road. Meaning, I’m going to throw a punch.”Good. Start swinging. Because the FIRST step towards stopping wrong is by publicly and loudly yelling, THIS is wrong. A Minnesota colleague described the new DNC Chair: “Ken will cut you if he has to.” I’ll bring the metaphorical Ginsu set because right now where we actually ARE is: the nominal leading Democratic office-holder is Chuck Schumer and as Trump and Musk began to ransack your social security number and starting trade wars with our literally closest allies, Chuck Schumer’s social media Saturday afternoon was: “You’re worried about tomato prices…” and ten minutes later “You’re watching the Super Bowl…wait’ll Trump’s tariffs raise your guacamole and beer prices.” Useless. I need a thousand Ken Martins, throwing punches and metaphorically cutting a MAG-itch. I need them saying this is a coup, we will stop it, it will take time, we will beat them and jail them because bottom line is they are lazy and they leave half their lives to chance – just look at their haircuts. B-Block (30:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: CBS, NPR, New York Times, Politico, NBC all tried to kiss Trump's ring. He just hurt them anyway. And this is not a joke: Semafor is hosting a "National Summit" on how to restore confidence in media. The speakers are Megyn Kelly, the idiot running CNN, the other idiot running NBC, and the idiot running The New York Times. No - seriously. B-Block (37:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Chuck Todd gets scooped on his own firing. Chris Licht finally gets a new job. Free-lance. Temp. At scale. And Neto-Baby Peter Doocy asks Softball Scholarship Recipient Karoline Leavitt about DEI. Also you doubted she called Hitler "Hilter?" I'll show you. C-Block (47:00) SPORTSBALL CENTER TONIGHT: A basketball trade deal so bad it must have been ordered by Trump. How many Petterssons? ALL the Petterssons. And for the last damn time: hockey's "Original 6?" They aren't original, and there aren't six of them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 93 - COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN (1:45) TRUMP INSULTS DEAD FROM WASHINGTON PLANE CRASH: In a stunning, sub-human dismissal of those who perished over The Potomac Wednesday night that tops even his earlier insistence that "DEI" somehow was responsible for the 67 deaths (and that he knew this because he had common sense when nobody else did), Trump insulted the memory of the victims and the grief of their mourning relatives. Asked if he would visit the site of the accident, he asked "You want me to go swimming?" Also tonight: despite Trump's mindless protestations about "DEI" this is more about "DOGE." The New York Times got hold of the initial FAA report on the disaster and discovered that staffing at the Air Traffic Control Tower at Reagan National was lower than normal for this time of day and year. The dead may have been victims of The Department of Government Efficiency. If "DEI" is a dogwhistle for enraged white supremacists like Trump, "Government Efficiency" is a dogwhistle for mindless billionaires like Musk who don't just want more money - they want ALL the money. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BULLETIN - SEASON 3 EPISODE 92: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) While recovery crews were literally still trying to find the bodies of the dead in the Potomac and with no material evidence of the air tragedy over Washington yet analyzed, President Trump, his eyebrows dyed an unnatural bright yellowish-white, rushed to a White House podium to explain that the crash was caused by DEI. He knows this because he claims he has "common sense," which he does not. Trump's metamorphosis into a candidate for institutionalization has now peaked with his obsession, his conviction, that the answer to any crisis, that the answer to any tragedy, that the response to any real human pain, is to blame DEI. .He must be removed from office. Impeachment bills, to be filed weekly until the minority power regains control of the House, MIGHT work. The 25thAmendment, providing for an emergency remedy for the exact inability to discharge the powers and duties of the presidency that Trump exhibited today, is the correct way to save this country. It is also, I add with I hope gravity and not menace, also the easiest. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 91: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Karoline Leavitt was already so stupid that she once on-air insisted there was a word pronounced "damaning" (as in 'the evidence is damaning') and pronounced the Nazi monster's name as "Hilter." Now with one tweet she may have topped herself. How do you publicly announce that the spending freeze struck down by a federal judge wasn't withdrawn, only its ANNOUNCEMENT was withdrawn, and only in response to the judge's ruling, and the freeze is going on as planned? That's called contempt of court. Trump's lawyers will literally have to talk their way out of spending a day behind bars. Besides which, another judge has said the conflicting statements about the freeze pause are irrelevant: it cannot proceed. This all underscores what has been evident since Trump again seized power. He is burning through the relative approval and patience of an exhausted America far more quickly this time than last, and there is a reckoning coming. His disapproval number jumped SEVEN points from last Tuesday to this past Sunday. The judges are fighting back. His hirelings are idiots. The public doesn't want this. Hopefully what follows is not unprecedented. B-Block (28:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Washington Post continues to trivialize and normalize the Madness of King Trump. Lauren Boebert is an actual expert on laboring with your hands, so I guess her opinion on how the minimum wage is too HIGH matters. And it's Anna Paulina Luna who finally gives in and proposes a bill to put Trump's head on Mt. Rushmore. Unfortunately she's phrased it in such a way that it could mean LITERALLY: put Trump's head ON Mt. Rushmore. C-Block (36:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Nothing like the stream of consciousness that comes as you awake from the stream of UNconsciousness. On the way back from the endoscopy I saw the building in which I met Jim Thorpe's Olympic roommate from 1912, and I rediscovered the game "Midpoint" and I remembered the Twitter game from two years ago: "Hitler Handshakes." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 90: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: To repeat myself - because I’m RIGHT - File motions to impeach Trump NOW. Move to impeach Trump today, AND KEEP MOVING to impeach Trump every day through next year’s midterms. Impeachment is UNDEFEATED. UNDEFEATED in American history. House Democrats: he handed you TWELVE, maybe FIFTEEN new counts on Friday night alone. Blatantly, brazenly illegal dismissals of Departmental Inspector Generals, just as Project 2025 promised, and the School Safety Board. Elimination of oversight. Elimination of legal protections against the mass murder of children. In the old days you might’ve arrested Trump. Now you are limited to impeachment bills that will all fail EXCEPT THEY WILL ULTIMATELY SUCCEED. Impeach him for the Friday Night massacre. Impeach him for circumventing the 14th Amendment. He just ramped up the migrant arrest quota to 1500 a day and started raids in Chicago yesterday: Impeach him for violating the 4th Amendment. And if I hear one more piece of blowback to my PREVIOUS call to impeach him no matter the outcome, one more head-shake from a cowardly Democrat, and especially one more factually inaccurate claim that it doesn’t work, one more self-absorbed loser saying ‘Impeach? Yeah, sounds good. How did it work out for us last time? Pretty effing well, actually. The mere TALK of impeaching Trump helped the Democrats win the House in 2018 and break Trump tri-partite control of government. The FIRST impeachment was followed by keeping the house in 2020 and after the Georgia election, taking the senate in 2020, and oh by the way the White House in 2020. The SECOND impeachment crushed any lingering attempt by Trump to overthrow the Biden Government-In-Waiting in 2021 and provided the impetus for the January 6th prosecutions. In fact, since Nixon, every party that impeached or TRIED to impeach a president won the next elections. House, Senate, White House. Thirteen straight. IMPEACHMENT – EVEN FAILED IMPEACHMENT - IS UNDEFEATED. ALSO: The Media capitulation continues. Acosta's show cancelled by the latest CNN job who hasn't been able to keep a job since 2000. And how did appeasing Trump work out for you ABC, CBS, and NBC? Trump's FCC reinstated license challenges against your stations, Trump wants Maddow jailed, and at Disney: ESPN's Stephen A. Smith just made a Trumpist idiot out of himself. B-Block (35:12) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump has too many Bennies to keep them all straight: can't remember the Chairman of the January 6th Committee he wants to jail. Even the NFL is sucking up to Elon "It Only LOOKED Like A Nazi Salute" Trump. And the first baseball player since like 1877 to get the mouth sores and skin rashes of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease just endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. C-Block (46:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: You know what it's like in this country right now? It's like we all just woke up from the anesthesia in the MIDDLE of a medical procedure. You know how I know this? Because I'm one of those people who actually DID wake up in the middle of a medical procedure - and I'm having the same procedure TOMORROW. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 89: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Impeach Trump. Now. Again. No, it won’t pass, it won’t work now. But it will pass, and it will work, next year, and it win the Democrats the midterms and the year after that it will brand Trump yet again as the most treacherous garbage in our history. Because lost in the avalanche of evil he has perpetrated since beginning his dictatorship, lost in the astonishment and even the despair of true Americans, lost in the numbed terrified capitulatory media coverage is the reality that his pardoning of the January 6th Traitors is amazingly unpopular, literally unpopular enough to cost him at least 43 house seats, right now, BEFORE he mindlessly signs more red meat Steven Miller slides under his piggish face. And the second part of this is: he has also already violated the Constitution of the United States. Already. Not 48 hours on the job and he is already guilty of impeachable offenses. Already. There is almost nothing to do to stop Trump NOW. The Democrats are minorities in both houses, the courts are crooked, the SUPREME court is just another Trump Scam, the billionaires like Musk and Bezos and Zuckerberg and the other tech scum have lined up beside him just as Krupp and IG Farben and Opel stood next to and behind Hitler. There is nothing to do TODAY except (to borrow from the musicals of the fascists) to make sure Tomorrow Belongs To Us. Introduce a bill, or even multiple bills, to impeach Trump. Keep the crimes he has already committed, including the ones he has been convicted of, and the ones he wriggled out of with dubious legality and non-existant morality, front-of-mind. Fight back, thwart him, anger him, waste his time, make him play defense, enrage his base, and terrify the billionaires because you could see on that mouse Zuckerberg’s face at the inauguration that he wasn’t so sure any more he picked the right side, and fight back. Moreover – give the opposition – not the resistance this time but the DEFIANCE – something to DO with this time other than just sit here and replay November 5th and all the days leading up to it in some P-T-S-D doom loop. Nothing that is wrong in the history of the world has ever been stopped without the same first step: people standing up and SAYING this is wrong, this must BE stopped. 76 and a half million people voted against Trump – 49 and two fifths percent - and we are all just sitting here saying nothing, doing nothing, watching Trump wreck train after train. B-Block (28:03) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Twitter-X user so stupid she thinks Biden "parted" more people than Trump. That he "partied" his whole family. Much worse, CNN's Jake Tapper thinks Trump ran a disciplined campaign that "depicted (him) as someone who was within the realm of normalcy." When was that, Jake? When he insisted Immigrants were eating pets in Ohio? No wonder CNN is on the verge of disappearance. And lastly: $MELIANA. You'll figure it out. C-Block (38:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: When Trumpists say I should shut up because I don't know him and I have "TDS" (what's that, I ask. Trump's Deranged Syndrome?) I like to mention that I met him in December 1983 and he wrote me a fan letter once and I've ALWAYS thought he was off his rocker. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 3 EPISODE 88: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Which one of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? Remember when he said he’d be a dictator but only on day one? It’s day one. BEST JOKE OF THE YEAR: “The great thing about moving Trump’s inauguration to the rotunda,” writes Biden-Harris advance man Doug Landry, “is that all of his supporters already know how to get there.” CAPITULATION NATION: CBS is discussing settling the most nonsensical lawsuit Trump has ever filed because the settlement would be a wonderfully legal bribe. IT'S NOT A SURPRISE IMMIGRATION RAID if you tell everybody. These fascist morons couldn't stop boasting about their move against Chicago. Now it's almost off. RAMASWAMY GONE! Or as we called him, The Schwam: GONE! Hey, whaddya know, the Department of Government Efficient actually HAS cut waste! B-Block (32:39) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rand Paul is so stupid he thinks running hoses out of the Pacific Ocean could've stopped the Firestorm. An actual major brand is introducing a new product and the catch phrase is "It's soup you can suck!" And Trump finds a new way to spray paint something that cheap flat gold color he loves while getting the name of one of his education employees wrong. C-Block (42:00) IN MEMORY OF BOB UECKER: The second worst thing about getting old – not VERY old, just old-old – is having to watch nearly all those older than you who, accepted in what was their field and then became theirs and yours – pass on. Especially when they are the widely beloved standard-setters of those fields like Bob Uecker. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 87: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: A reminder that what would become the Confederate states thought that secession was constitutional. A reminder that three and a half years earlier the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no right to ban slavery and slaves had no rights at all. I was thinking of that as President Biden gave his farewell speech last night. Where in the constitution does it say that the nation must commit suicide because a slim majority of its voters have been fooled into believing it ISN’T? Where in the law does it say that a criminal has to be protected from all laws by judges he corruptly appointed? Where in the law does it say that one man is above it? Where in our agency over our own lives does it say that we must defer to a traitor who has corrupted politics, voting, the judiciary, everything that we must defer to him just because he’s good at being evil? And where does a President's loyalty to his people rest? In protecting the forms and rules of a broken system, or protecting those people from the greatest threat they have ever faced – the threat of his successor who has perverted that broken system to serve himself and a few cronies and whores, and condemn the rest of us? Is it Joe Biden's constitutional and moral responsibility to declare a state of insurrection and put them all behind bars… or NOT to do so? As I’ve said before, I do not have either enough words nor enough time to tell you how much this ISN’T going to happen – Doomsday, and national suicide, will continue as scheduled. Have fun! ALSO: The good news is: Pete Hegseth was interrupted three times by hecklers at the hearing for his nomination as Secretary of Brylcreem… the bad news is: it wasn’t three HUNDRED times. He might be the SMARTEST. Pam Bondi apparently didn’t hear a single threat Trump made during his campaign and Tulsi Gabbard doesn’t know what her new job is. Trump goes full Reagan: tries to grab credit for Biden and Blinken’s Hostage Deal and Cease fire. Times, Running Out: is the New York Times actually INTENTIONALLY following the self-destructive path of The Washington Post and CNN. This is not a boat accident. You don’t know Jack-Smith: going out with a whimper not a bang. Love him, but what the hell was that. And how much fun was it to hear Elon Musk make a fool of himself as LA firefighters doused his conspiracy theories with reality? B-Block (29:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The final shoe has dropped in the saga of my ex, and it has knocked Ryan Lizza out cold. Someone named Dakota Lee Dilley has completely personified the Trump (lack of) mentality: sure they were traitors but they were GIFTED traitors. And if you hate Dan Abrams or Chuck Todd, wait'll you hear Dan Abrams DEFENDING Chuck Todd. C-Block 49:30 THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Lawrence O'Donnell's last interview? My heart raced with excitement. Then it turned out it was Joe Biden's last interview. Lawrence was just doing it and he, who correctly predicted years ago he could never host a cable news show with any skill for any considerable span, is staying. A terrible human who tried to take Countdown away from me while he was filling in for me while my dad was dying. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 86: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: MAGA in disarray. While the mass deportation scheme becomes the latest casualty of having elected a bunch of incompetent egomaniacs, Steve Bannon has declared war on Elon Musk. AND Elon Musk’s toady David Sachs. AND Peter Thiel. Bannon no longer will stop at getting Musk exiled from the White House because Bannon and the rest of the nativist lunatics hate all foreigners but Musk wants to not hate foreigners who can make him more rich via the H1B Visas. Bannon now wants Musk and the others to be the first immigrants thrown out of the country. He actually told this to Italy’s most-read newspaper, Corriere della Sala: "He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down... he should go back to South Africa. Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth...making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States." The point isn't whether Musk actually does kill and eat Musk. It's that they fight. Because at the same time Musk is admitting he can only cut half of the "government inefficiency" he promised to, and "Border Czar" Tom Homan is warning Republicans that Trump won't be deporting millions immediately. More like 60,000. And the Trump junta has admitted it can't unilaterally lower grocery prices, or install universal tariffs, and he's not going to dig up the Panama Canal and move it to Mar-a-Lago on Inauguration Day, he ain’t buying Greenland and coercing Canada and guess what, he didn’t “settle” Russia’s war on Ukraine in 24 hours, and his minions are hinting his attempts to turn the LA fires into an exploitable political event are going to crash. And even before re-gaining power, Trump has pre-failed. B-Block (34:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Joe Scarborough doubles down on his role as Marshal Petain-In-The-Ass at MSNVIchy. Politico dubs him "Elon Mush" then deletes it. And Naomi Wolf thinks victims of the Southern California firestorm aren't panicking enough. C-Block (45:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's bleak and the forecast for next week is Trump. So I need a laugh and maybe you do too. And this we bring you back to 1994 and the greatest off-air laugh in ESPN's history: Soccer Breakdown. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.