Countdown with Keith Olbermann

SERIES 2 EPISODE 220: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Finally somebody has said SOMETHING confirming we don't have any idea whether Trump was hit by a bullet or a piece of bubble gum during what was - unquestionably - the assassination attempt, now nearly two weeks ago. And the doubt is from no less a figure than the head of the FBI, in Congressional testimony day before yesterday that got almost no attention for hours after he gave it. This led to considerable umbrage from Ex-Doctor Congressman Ronny Glug Glug Jackson of Texas who insists he saw the wound (of course it was the next day) even as video emerges of him explaining his own nephew was near Trump and suffered minor superficial injuries from... debris evidently thrown up by a bullet hitting something. Something that is ever more certainly NOT Trump. ALSO: Superb polling numbers for Kamala Harris from The New York Times (Biden was behind by six; she is behind by one), Morning Consult (she is now ahead by one) and Change Polls (It was Trump by four over Biden. It is now Harris by one over Trump). The Times had to find some disaffected Democrat and somehow found a confidence trickster (literally, she went to prison over a fake finger-in-the-chili thing) and quoted her. The Times has jumped the shark. I AM BEGINNING TO THINK TRUMP WILL DUMP JD VANCE. It's not just the couch embarrassment (So-fa, so-good) or the horrible approval numbers. This video of him complaining that Harris has 'no skin in the game' because she's not a biological parent? So - Lindsey Graham has no skin the game? Tim Scott? George Washington? And maybe best of all, there is a new nickname for Vice President Harris and the momentum she's building: Kamalot. It's courtesy Trump's second worst press secretary, the imbecilic Kayleigh McEnany, who is convinced it's an insult. This person has had one good idea in her life - this is it - and she's disowning it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 219: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump’s nephew Fred III – the one who likes him – says Trump told him, in the oval office, in May 2020, that the disabled, quote, “these people…the shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.” It is somehow worse than it seems. Fred Trump III has a son William who has spent the whole of his 25 years on this planet fighting illness after illness and complication after complication. When the medical fund the family set up for William began to run dry in 2020, William called his uncle and asked for more help. “I don’t know,”Fred Trump quotes Donald Trump. “He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.” There are lots of words for this: euthanasia, mercy killing, assisted suicide, quietus; for the elderly senicide or geroniticide, the Nazis called it Akt-zone T-4. We all have our differing moral north stars but for most of us I think there are at least some circumstances in which it is valid and justifiable. You and I both knew Trump was this kind of monster. What we must realize is that while others might see individually justifiable acts of assisted suicide, with Trump we are talking forced euthanasia - mass murder. I have asserted here before that we saw of Trump during Covid suggested this was at the heart of his attitude towards people: that they were just another commodity. Kill a few… kill a few thousand… so what. Just let them die and move down to Florida. Round them up by the millions in camps before deporting them, leaving lord knows how many to DIE in those camps. "These people. The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die." It's kind of amazing that in Fred Trump III's upcoming book he quotes his uncle using the N-word to blame damage to his car and that's barely an afterthought here. Which circles back to the campaign against Harris. Brian Kilmeade of Fox may have said the Vice President was going to a "college sorority" and he may have said "colored sorority" but two weeks ago Trump flunky Sebastian Gorka proudly called Harris "colored" - and the birtherism has started again. This while Biden gave a moving and eloquent farewell address, Kim Jong Un told Trump to stuff his friendship, CBS reported there are a dozen potential VP candidates, and the next round of polls shows her - in a wildly conservative poll - just a point back in Pennsylvania, and cutting Trump's lead in half in the CNN poll while improving 5 points on Biden's last numbers among female voters and 11 among young voters and 16 points among black voters B-Block (27:46) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: To analyze how the fascists are NOT running a misogynistic campaign against Kamala Harris, NewsMax brings on Mark Halperin and Ed Henry - both fired for harassment and worse. If you think Trump has been screwed up by Biden bowing out, The New York Times is down to criticizing HOW he bowed out and the astonished headline "The Most Ruthless Political Operator in the Country Is a WOMAN." And Russell Brand, super-genius, thinks melatonin controls skin color. C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The old joke about this hated baseball figure was: you're in a boat with this guy, Hitler and Mussolini. You have a gun and two bullets. What do you do? Answer: shoot this guy, then throw Hitler overboard, then throw Mussolini overboard, then shoot this guy again just to make sure. The saga of how the Los Angeles Dodgers "lost" several million dollars in 1964 while making a huge profit. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 218: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) I have been thinking for awhile now that there will come a point, this year, this election, maybe this MONTH, where we will all be saying “Can you believe we came THIS CLOSE to not making Vice President Harris the nominee?” You have heard about THE poll: Ipsos for Reuters (Harris 42 Trump 38 Kennedy 8 third-party race; Harris 44 Trump 42 head-to-head) that's a four point shift TO Kamala Harris… in a week. But have you heard the OTHER polls? Marist for NPR and the PBS News Hour? Harris 42 Trump 42 Kennedy 7 / Trump 46 Harris 45.YouGov for Yahoo News? Harris 46 Trump 46. These numbers are from the FIRST FULL DAY of the Harris campaign and she is already in a statistical tie. Harris's favorables are at a net -2, sounds meh. Biden's? A net -18. Trump's? Net -19. More jaw-dropping still? The top Republican internal pollster in Georgia has Harris starting off there, trailing just 48-47. And best of all: Do you agree or disagree: at 78 years old Trump is too old to work in government? Agree – 53%. Disagree – 43%. Trump's pollster issued a panicked memo lowering the bar just as the Reuters poll was coming out. Funny he never mentioned the age issue! Polling, polling, polling. Plus it's hard to tell what the Fascists are freaking out about the most: the polls, Kamala declaring war on their suddenly oldest-ever candidate, or their leadership's insistence that they can't call her "colored" (like Sebastian Gorka did a week ago) or use racial epithets and especially not call her "DEI." Which, of course, is what they immediately called her. Or maybe it's J.D. Vance. There's instant buyers' remorse because he's so bad on stage that they can't tell if he's inflated or stuffed - or both. B-Block (35:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Colombian emigre Valentina Gomez is running for Secretary of State in Missouri on an anti-immigration platform and now she's illegally used the balcony of the Speaker of the House on which to film an ad. An Ohio State Senator becomes the last Republican to threaten Civil War, and the New York Post and Senator Mike Lee both fall for the worst fake announcement of the fake death of the fake Jimmy Carter on fake stationery imaginable. C-Block (47:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I mentioned Aaron Sorkin yesterday. Time to explain the story of the day I was watching one of his TV shows and suddenly my father's favorite saying was coming out of the mouth of Aaron's lead character because Aaron had gotten in the habit of borrowing my life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 217: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Oh, nothing. Kamala Harris only raised $223,000 a MINUTE or $13,380,000 an hour in her first 24 hours as the Democratic presidential candidate-presumptive and will only rap up the pledged delegates by today or tomorrow and has already opened her campaign five points closer to Trump than any other Democrat. And as somebody mentioned (cough; cough cough) Friday it turns out if President Biden had not seen the wisdom of the choice and bowed out before the new week started Nancy Pelosi was ready to go public - with polling. And now, everybody's together again and everybody's endorsed here and even that moron Manchin has gotten out of the way and the only question is where in town do you want YOUR Joe Biden statue to be. ON THE OTHER HAND Trump intends to sue. Somebody. Maybe Hannibal Lecter. The man who is suddenly history's oldest presidential candidate wants to be reimbursed and the debate moved and they want to force Biden to stay in the race AND resign as president and don't you know Trump was shot with a wadded up piece of gum so you must defer to him. If there's anything more delightful than watching Trump implode because it never occurred to him the other side had better tactics, it's watching Hannity complain that Kamala Harris has a funny laugh when... shoot... who has ever actually heard Trump laugh? Like a person? There's a lot to go through, including the reminder that if you're worried about this nation's racism and its misogyny: in the last four US elections: we have elected a man of color president, then re-elected him, then a woman candidate won the popular vote, and most recently, a woman of color was elected VP defeating a ticket led by racist incumbent Assume nothing. But - Excelsior! B-BLOCK (37:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: So. Much. Stupid. Takery. Aaron Sorkin, Brian Stelter, Olivia Nuzzi and Katy Tur could've forged a four-way tie (well, three; Sorkin would've just 'borrowed' one of their ideas). C-BLOCK (56:15) IN MEMORY OF MINET: I'm a little unfocused today and when I get unfocused I get verbose because I'm ad libbing. And if you didn't see it on social media, my extraordinary 17-year old rescue pup, Minet, died Sunday just six days after hitting that amazing milestone of longevity. If you've been scared off adopting a senior dog or even a geriatric one, please listen to Minet's story and how much he gave me - and consider getting one yourself! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 216: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-BLOCK (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I’m sorry to write this, but it is now time for Joe Biden to withdraw his name for nomination for re-election as president of the United States. He should release his delegates with instructions to vote for Kamala Harris for president. We can, I hope, spend the next twenty years embracing Joe Biden and the greatest sacrifice made by any American politician in our lifetimes while we celebrate Trump being turned down by the pardon board for the twentieth consecutive year. For now, we must approach this without emotion because what is now a problem is on the verge of becoming a disaster. Its essence can be boiled down to five points. First: democracy lives or dies on this. Also the climate and thus continuing life on the planet. We have to choose whatever path offers the best odds. Second: the long awaited FOB (Friends of Biden) push in private is complete. Friends of Biden. Obama’s warning to “allies” that the Biden path was “greatly diminished” followed Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, and possibly the Clintons reaching out in private to the president to tell him he must exit. I believe if he does not do so by next week these same leaders will risk a temporary rupture of the party by publicly saying they can no longer support him. Third: as I said previously America will always choose the old man yelling at the cloud, especially over the old man whispering intelligently but inaudibly. This nation elected Reagan twice. Fourth: the president has said he will be re-elected because he’s done such a good job. This, sadly, is no longer predominant in elections. And it is no how you beat a liar promising the gullible eternal life. Fifth: the polls are cratering. The last 47 of them, Trump leads. I’m beginning to spot a pattern. In new polling by Emerson College, Biden is down by four nationally, and now an average of five-and-a-half in the seven swing states. On the other hand, the same poll pitted Trump against a mythical “younger Democrat who is qualified for the job.” As ludicrously vague as that is, and as much as the rule that the Imaginary Candidate always out-polls the real one, the results are too staggering to totally ignore. In those same seven swing states, that imaginary Democrat beats Trump by an average of seven points. The pendulum swings nearly thirteen points, and even with all the caveats it should at least reassure Democrats that they would not be throwing away their only chance of victory by changing – even now. MEANWHILE: Evidence continues to mount that Trump was not hit by a bullet but by debris knocked towards him, and is lying about it - as he lies about everything else. The usual idiots were fooled into believing he’d pivot. His acceptance speech at FascistCon24 was the pivot everyone expected, until he demanded that all the charges be dropped against him CUZ UNITY. And the exploitation of the firefighter killed at his rally kind of went off the rails when he brought what was supposedly the man's uniform onstage as if it were a religious icon - and they had misspelled his names. And one of Trump's longest-standing pro-conspiracy co-conspirators is dead. Lou Dobbs – an original birther and a despicable human being – died yesterday. B-BLOCK (32:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: We now have more information on who thought MSNBC would do better taking Joe Scarborough off the air as the Republican convention opened and replacing him with NBC’s online-only news anchors. It’s Cesar Conde, the NBC News boss who’s as bad as all the other NBC News bosses. Matt Gaetz spoke at the RNC and he either got too much botox or he had himself laminated. And we have that rare consecutive edition winner. Van Jones of CNN is back and badder than ever. C-BLOCK (47:47) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: So the Republicans have officially nominated a convicted felon still scheduled to be on trial for espionage and for leading an attempted violent overthrow...

SEASON 2 EPISODE 215: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is now my expectation that if by next week President Biden has not withdrawn from the presidential race, a coterie of key Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries will publicly announce that they and their caucuses cannot support his candidacy. The first true dam break in that process occurred Saturday, but only became known last night when ABC News reported that Schumer went to the president's Delaware home and "forcefully made the case that it would be better for Biden, better for the Democratic party, and better for the country if he were to bow out of the race." The Schumer office issued something less than a non-denial denial and the White House press office put its head down and shouted full steam ahead. But the Schumer news followed a day in which it became more and more apparent that those key Democrats no longer care if this becomes public. Congressman Adam Schiff, soon to be Senator from California, publicly called for Biden to step aside. More and more ugly details emerged from a Zoom call between the president and House Democrats. A really startlingly tepid defense of Biden's continuing on the ticket by Bernie Sanders was published by The New Yorker. And it was revealed that Schumer and Jeffries working in concert got that "virtual roll call" confirming Biden's nomination delayed into August. There was also new polling (65% of Dems want a new candidate, Associated Press) that wasn't so new (66% of them wanted one in April, Pew Research). And then there was that weirdly timed presidential positive test for COVID yesterday in Las Vegas forcing the cancellation of a speech and a trip back east. From all I can tell that's what it is: the virus. Your willingness to compare it to the "cold" President Kennedy suddenly developed while on a campaign tour during The Cuban Missile Crisis is up to you. ALSO: Five days after the assassination attempt and we now have to assume that Trump is LYING about getting shot. That he was SHOT AT, is not in doubt. That the blood came from - in the unfortunate phrase he himself chose – his EAR BEING PIERCED, by a bullet – has been verified… by absolutely nobody. Nothing from Butler Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania. Nothing from the Secret Service. Nothing from the Department of Justice. Nothing from ANY branch of government. Nothing from the FBI even though it has gone to unusual lengths of confirming the INVESTIGATION is of an assassination attempt AND domestic terrorism AND they’ve broken into the shooter’s phone AND they know there were eight shots AND they know who ELSE was shot AND they released names AND Nothing from ANY news organization, each of which has cleverly and almost ARTISTICALLY avoided saying Trump WAS shot and avoided saying Trump WASN’T shot. The entire official medical report from the Trump campaign is that he is quote “fine,” unquote. 100 hours and they can't get an anonymous statement from a hospital. We now have to assume he's lied about something about the attempt. B-Block (25:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It's been awhile. Time for Ted Cruz to make a jackass out of himself again. The Washington Post editorial writer with the unfortunate name of "Shadi" asks if Trump not dying was "God's will." And CNN must fire Van Jones. Its remaining 837 viewers will accept no less. C-Block (37:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The onetime American counter-culture soccer star Alexi Lalas is now just another D-list "celebrity" at the Republican Convention. But once he was the straight man in an ESPN commercial that rings through the ages. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 214: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Whaddya MEAN Tucker Carlson warned Trump last month that he might be assassinated if he DIDN'T pick a non-Neocon VP like J.D. Vance? Whaddya MEAN The New York Times had Carlson warning Trump weeks ago that if he chose somebody besides Carlson's choice - Vance - "the U.S. intelligence agencies would have every incentive to assassinate Mr. Trump in order to get their preferred president" - and they put it in paragraph 69 of a 71-paragraph article? Anybody ASKING Carlson about this, uh, coincidence? Or the Times about the sources? Or Vance? Trump still hasn't called the family of the man murdered at his rally; England's Channel 4 says the 2016 Trump Campaign had the shooter's family in a special database of battleground state voters who probably owned guns. Nothing new from the Pittsburgh station's report that there were Trump signs in front of the family home. There's new polling on who voters blame for the atmosphere that led to the Trump shooting (Trump), their reaction to his selection of Vance (27% of Republicans think he was the best choice; 56% have no idea who he is), Rudy Giuliani falls at the convention, and why nobody should ever compare Trump to Braveheart. BIDEN MEANWHILE is going to run against Trump AND the Supreme Court and propose term limits and mandatory ethics. And while he is reportedly not broadening but tightening his circle of advisers about the race, the impossible happens. The polls show Trump ahead by about two - no "near miss bump" - but the 538 Electoral College simulator shows Biden with a 53% chance of winning (and by 16 votes). B-Block (24:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: I got Jon Stewart interviewing Bill O'Reilly in a kind of Old Timers' Day of frauds. Joe Scarborough is so mad at NBC for suspending his show to appease the Republicans that he's risked firing by calling them out on the air (who do you root for in THAT battle?), Katy Tur seems to have forgotten Trump tried to get her killed, Ron Johnson becomes the latest to lose in Republicans Versus TelePrompters, and inexplicably Hugo Lowell deletes the greatest tweet to emanate from the Republican convention C-Block (35:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: MSNBC silencing Joey Scars and having Tur praise him seems awfully familiar to some of us and when I say 'some of us' I mean: Me. The Republicans blackmailed NBC to get ME off the air after their convention in 2008 because nothing is more easily scared than a billion dollars. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 213: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: This is the America Trump wanted. This is the America Trump got. He was shot at by a gun-obsessed MAGA kid, with Trump signs in the front yard of his home, in a MAGA world in which stochastic terror threats are Trump's only campaign, only belief, only religion. Republicans! Stop shooting at Trump! This wasn't an MSNBC viewer and it wasn't a Democrat and it wasn't the fault of the corporate media and Biden's oratory didn't impact him and this didn't happen because I keep saying Trump is a Hitler. TrumpIS a Hitler. The Republicans trained the weapon on Trump and they fired. And shame on Biden and the other Democrats and the eternally gullible media for falling for the promises of a Trump pivot. He said we need to unite the way the extraterrestrials put "To Serve Man" on their Twilight Zone cookbook. The moment the Democrats took the bait, he explained what his demands were: as part of "unity" he expects all criminal charges to be dropped against him immediately. He probably secretly hopes the Democrats will also nominate him. Same fraud. Different con. ALSO: Anybody see those photos of him as he screamed "Fight!" like a giant rabid rodent? When he let his true soul out? They were chanting that as the GOP convention yesterday. There is no joining of hands here. As always, when the Republicans mean unity, they mean everybody has to agree...to do what they say. Nice timing on delaying the Documents case, "Judge" Cannon, until the morning the GOP Convention opened, and dismissing it. Bluntly, Biden should take presidential immunity and use it. What would Trump do in the mirror image of the assassination attempt? Less than four months before the election and the guy ahead in the polls gets shot at. And the Secret Service clearly screwed security into the ground. And we don’t know WHY a kid registered with the same party as the candidate would try to kill the candidate. And we don’t know WHY a local police officer confronted the shooter moments before the shots only to back away. And we don’t know why, most insanely of all, the kid had a cameo in a Black Rock commercial for retirement plans. And we DO know it is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism. And you know, you KNOW, a Trump in charge would look at this and say ‘good enough excuse for me! I am declaring a national emergency and invoking the insurrection act.” Do it, Joe. AND: please, stop with the "violence has never had a role in America." Our politics is a river of blood. 20 of the 45 presidents have either been shot and killed in office, shot and wounded in office, shot and wounded while seeking to regain office, or the subject of shooting plots averted at the last minute or last hour. If we stopped lying to ourselves about how peaceful we are, maybe we could begin to fix our bloody story. B-Block (27:52) SPECIAL COMMENT II: The conventional wisdom of the electoral effect of the assassination attempt against Trump is - as always - wrong. The attempted murder of a Republican gun nut by a Republican gun nut using a weapon Democrats tried to ban is no longer even the lead Republican story. It may have no impact on the election at all. Candidate victims in the past have always lost. C-Block (41:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: So many fascists said so many stupid things before the truth came out about who the shooter was, that the list today is literally EIGHTEEN PEOPLE LONG, climaxing with Chuck Todd, Lester Holt, Mike Johnson, Elon Musk, Mike Lee, Mike Collins, and J.D. Vance - who once compared Trump to Hitler (those Biden ads are gonna be lit) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 212: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I've never actually seen it done before: somebody put the toothpaste back into the tube. Not all of it. Not hardly. There are still a thousand reasons to ask President Biden to leave the ticket. He called Zelensky "Putin" and Kamala Harris "Vice President Trump" and when Trump tried to mock him on it he shoved it up Trump's posterior. And more importantly, for 50 minutes he interwove foreign and domestic policy, his own post-debate mistakes, the history of the relations between South Korea and Japan, his own calculations and miscalculations about retaining the presidency, and expressed an openness to change both his approach and maybe candidates. It was unprecedented. Simply, if he had been like this at the debate, or if he had held this news conference the day after it, it is impossible that the events of the last two weeks could've unfolded the way they have. So I do not know what to think (that'll get me kicked out of the pundits club) but I think there is a germ of an idea here if the plan is to stick with Biden atop the ticket: Put him on TV live once a week. Press conferences, sit-down TV interviews, Town Halls. Put him on TV to do THAT every week and maybe he will put all the toothpaste back in the tube. In the interim, he needs to offload many of his campaign advisers and handlers because they are killing him. B-Block (25:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Chuck Todd somehow transfers his own selfishness and personal failure onto Biden. In humorous relief, the Toronto Globe and Mail asserts that a man fought for his life while being interviewed by NBC. And Lauren Boebert gets caught speeding. Was it because she couldn't handle a stick? C-Block (30:20) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Fitting for an examination of the dumbing down of America and how it has kept Trump viable: the woman who thought MacBeth wasn't as good as her standard paperbacks: "The Macbeth Murder Mystery." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 211: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat," said Will Rogers. I said in February that the worst outcome was the scenario in which this played out in public and Biden dug in and those who doubted him kept coming back every 48 hours and saying “what about NOW?” And yet here we are. In February, Axios reported, quote: “When White House aides appear on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," they're often booked between 7 and 7:40 AM ET. That's so they'll reach one crucial and loyal viewer: President Biden.” Guess who was on yesterday at exactly 7:39 AM? To speak to the proverbial audience of one? Nancy Pelosi. And she soft-soaped him and urged him to make his decision. Obviously the point is: she said he should make a decision and of course he has not only insisted for ten days now that he’s MADE his decision but he PUT IT IN WRITING. Why? So it alarms him, without looking like she’s providing a platform or encouragement for the Joe-Must-Go’s – encouraging them YET anyway. THE BEST THING SAID YESTERDAY was actually from Biden's former White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield: “I know first hand better than almost anyone,” Ms. Bedingfield writes “how smart the Biden team is about DATA and about ignoring the noise. They are right that the game here is to convince voters, not pundits. But when the battle over the public data is so overwhelmingly negative, it’s a good moment to put forward your theory of the case. If they have data that supports the path to victory that they see, they should put it out there now and help people who badly want to beat Trump, rally around it. People want to see the path.” The thing is, there actually ARE indicators that there IS a path: a study suggesting that Biden retains 94% of the support he had before the debate while Trump only retains 85%. And “Asked about the upcoming presidential election,” Warner Bros Discovery CEO and CNN Uber-boss David Zaslav, "said it mattered less to him which party wins, as long as the next president was friendly to business. ‘We just need an opportunity for de-regulation, so companies can consolidate and do what we need to, to be even better.” Good morning fascism! B-Block (26:14) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Yeah the Federalist Society sure is backing up Trump's contention he knows nothing about Project 2025. It is a SPONSOR of the Republican National Trump Fascist Convention. There's a new exoplanet in the neighbor and to put it bluntly it smells like Fart. And speaking of which, Trump whore Sebastian Gorka just called Kamala Harris "Colored." C-Block (29:46) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since I'm trashing corporate media it's a good time to talk about how, in the span of a couple of minutes in 1905 or so, my great grandfather made a great observation and a terrible mistake that handed as much as $70,000,000 to a big American corporation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 210: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It's over. If President Biden and his campaign team and his party discipline team can handle Trump and the electorate and the news conferences and the debates as efficiently as they have turned around the effort to push him off the ticket, they are going to win the election in a landslide. You never say it’s over, especially not with Biden headed for a news conference tomorrow as the NATO summit in Washington concludes in which literally two bad answers or one REALLY bad answer could end his candidacy before noon on Friday. But for now, and skipping for a moment the obviously larger question over whether this signals the start of democracy’s going out of business sale… it… is… over. Final score: Number of Democrats in the House who called for him to step down, on the record… SEVEN. Number of Democrats in the Senate who called for him to step down, on the record… NONE. Number of ex-presidents who called for him to step down… NONE. Number of historians he loves who called for him to step down…NONE. Number of former Speakers of the House who reportedly told friends in private she’s deeply uneasy with his continued candidacy and of whom a Biden confidante said "He would listen reluctantly, but he'd listen to her”who called for him to step down… NONE. Semafor News asked an attendee, off the record, if the mood was comparable to that at a funeral. The answer? “That is an insult to funerals.” Now there’s just one problem in all this and I think you already know what it is. The only problem it solves is the one Joe Biden had, or has. Out here on the going-out-of-business sale floor, the President is suddenly losing Wisconsin by five, and the Cook Political report just moved Arizona and Georgia and Nevada from Toss-Up to Lean Trump; and just moved Minnesota, Nebraska-Second, and New Hampshire from Likely Biden to Lean Biden. And the Biden Campaign seems to think this is over, rather than permanent. They will find out otherwise tomorrow night when he gets parsed at that press conference like he was a newly-found Dead Sea Scroll. ALSO: Two Senators actually call for a Special Prosecutor to investigate Clarence Thomas! Project 2025 is trending. And we'll play another edition of "What Crime Did Trump Commit TODAY?" B-Block (27:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: There are people preparing to be cryogenically frozen at the facility where they still keep Ted Williams in a jar who are setting up thousand-year investment funds for when they get thawed. Brian Stelter is so desperate to be rehired by The New York Times he's pretending his old paper also wrote an editorial calling for Trump to bow out. And Dana Bash? Jake Tapper? Trump praised your work on the debate. Your careers are thus over. C-Block (38:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I watched an Atlanta Braves game the other night and was thus flashed back to the World Series I covered there where the hotel put me in a room next to all-night choir practice. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 209: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The dam was supposed to break yesterday, against President Biden. It didn't. Meetings were delayed and stances were softened. And if we are really going to do this, I finally have some actual advice for the president. If you want to change the topic, REALLY change the topic: Arrest the Trump terrorists. This Federalist Society president who again yesterday vowed revolution against the government of the United States and implied he was ready to make it bloody and violent? Arrest him. The North Carolina Republican candidate for governor? Who called for mass killings of the people he doesn't like? Arrest him. The Supreme Court - corrupt, insane, amoral - was also ultimately unimaginative. It tried to give Trump absolute immunity from prosecution for official acts. It didn't even think it was giving Biden the same tools. Use them, Mr. President. Arrest Kevin Roberts for calling for the violent overthrow of the government. Arrested Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson for terroristic threats. Arrest Trump's gang. If need be, invoke the Insurrection Act as Trump intends to - and arrest him. If you really want to change the topic, CHANGE THE TOPIC. Change it from words, to action. Save the nation. Now. B-Block (25:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Maureen Dowd finally writes a column about Maureen Dowd writing a column and misquoting Biden in it. Marjorie Taylor Let's Compare Biden's Acuity To Hers Greene lists a dozen signers of the Declaration of Independence, there are only eight names on it, and six didn't sign it. And of all times, NOW the Biden Campaign is posting online ads looking for... a Rapid Response Director? C-Block (36:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Perfect time to retell it, forgive me if you've heard it before. 17 years ago I was taken to lunch by a senator looking to stop sounding crazy when he was angry, and instead sounding more like my righteous indignation. His name was Joe Biden See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 208: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) COUNTDOWN BULLETIN: In a disturbing end to an otherwise low-news interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, President Biden was asked how he will feel if he stays in the race and loses to Trump. "As long as I gave it my all and I did as good a job as I know I could do, that's what this is all about." I'm not sure how that question could be answered, but that answer is terrifying. As Mr. Biden undertakes his second rehab tour this year, with the interview and a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia is reportedly convening a meeting among his Democratic colleagues to urge them to join him in a trip to the White House to burst what they see as an informational bubble around the president. In the meantime, Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts, who just six weeks ago led a big-money fundraiser for the president, issued an on-the-record statement urging Biden to carefully reassess whether he's the right candidate to defeat Trump. And House Minority leader Jeffries will convene his committee ranking members on Sunday to discuss the situation. While a groundswell seems to be forming for a consensus Kamala Harris candidacy, there seem to be two questions to ask yourself in formulating your own opinion as to what to do next: 1) the debate is two months from next Tuesday. Do you want JOE Biden participating in it? And 2) Do you want a story, the lead story, or the only story every day between now and the debate to be some form of: How does the president seem? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 207: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: “No one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving.” The President yesterday on a conference call with his campaign staff, and notably ALSO with Vice President Harris. “Let me say this as clearly and simply as I can: I’m running. I’m the Democratic Party’s nominee. No one is pushing me out. I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end…” the President’s fundraising email last night. “I had a bad night… I screwed up,” he told a radio interviewer. I understand why the president said what he said, and I understand why the email reads as it does, and I understand he may fully or almost fully believe all that and I do NOT understand WHAT they are doing at The White House. The New York Times led a succession of reports that President Biden had told an ally “that he is weighing whether to continue in the race” although, perhaps crucially, after the White House issued a flat denial the Times ALTERED the hook and the story to focus on the idea that “he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince voters that he is up to the job." I do NOT understand the litmus test the President and his advisers have apparently convinced themselves will be the magic wand. I’ll quote The Times: “Mr. Biden’s allies said that the president had privately acknowledged that his next few appearances heading into the July 4 holiday weekend must go well, particularly an interview scheduled for Friday with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” The interview with Stephanopoulos is not live. It is taped. The campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are presumably going to follow all the other campaign stops with teleprompters. If someone is telling the President that doing well in more totally controlled, utterly contained, hothouse environments, is going to quell in the slightest the impact that continues to resonate from a week ago in Atlanta, THEY are crazy. And if the PRESIDENT thinks doing what amount to canned events will quell the impact, he is DOOMED. And between them, if he gets through a pre-recorded sitdown interview, and he gets through two speeches and there AREN’T questions from reporters or at minimum questions from THE CROWD, and he and the campaign boast about these events as some kind of TRIUMPH, then the outcome will be this: he will have forced HIMSELF off the ticket, NOT because of the debate, but because of the week AFTER the debate. The way to steer out of the skid, the way to find the magic wand, the way to “salvage his candidacy” as the Times put it and “save his reelection bid” as CNN put it and “stay in the race” as ABC put it, was – maybe still IS – to hold a news conference, and I mean call a news conference on 20 minutes’ notice – not one next week at the NATO summit in DC, but NOW, and take whatever they’ve got for you; and it’s to do a town hall somewhere (or as Jim Clyburn says, a series of them), and if you want some comparatively comfortable exercise, that Stephanopoulos interview has got to be LIVE. And it would be best to do these things on consecutive days. B-Block (19:49) JULY 4TH AND THE BAD PRESS LOU GEHRIG GOT FOR DYING: It's a remarkable reflection on media then and now. We think of the tragedy of the New York Yankees star as having moved 85 years of fans and writers and just humans. Not so. One columnist insisted Gehrig was faking it. Another insisted he had infected his teammates. Funny you don't hear those articles read often. I'm going to do it for you. C-Block (47:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 206: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: “I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world shortly before the debate,” the President has now said at a fundraiser in Virginia. He then described his arduous travel through 15 Time Zone changes for the G7 and D-Day, and how it affected him at the debate: “I didn’t listen to my staff and then I came home and nearly fell asleep on stage.” The debate was June 27. He returned from his travels on June SIXTEENTH. This followed by only a few hours a suggestion from Nancy Pelosi that Biden (and Trump) takes an acuity test: "Both candidates owe whatever test you want to put them to, in terms of their mental acuity and their health — both of them. I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? When people ask that question, it's completely legitimate — of both candidates." Pelosi thinks Biden has an episode? Or a condition? If there were anything Pelosi could have said that would do LESS to contain all of this, I am hard pressed to guess what it could have been. And there are disastrous new internal polling numbers leaked from Democratic pollsters OpenLabs to Puck News. Since the debate, New Hampshire has now become Trump by three, Virginia is Trump by one and a half; that the president now has leads of half a point or less in New Mexico, Maine, and Minnesota; that Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, George, North Carolina and the Nebraska Second are all Trump by four or more and it’s seven in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Biden’s support dropped by roughly two percentage points in all twelve of these states and in Colorado and Minnesota. If he cannot recover all of this, the Democrats are looking at a loss of at least 100 electoral votes. The profound moments of American political history – secession, Watergate, Teapot Dome, the retirement of Lyndon Johnson, all the rest – share one commonality. These stories have each taken on a momentum of their own; they have each reached a tipping point when – whether quickly or imperceptibly – the other option began to disappear. The momentum in the Biden Re-Election story changed yesterday. And the tipping point may have been reached. The good news could be that suddenly the only candidate with the age problem, would be Trump. The only candidate with the uncertain grip on reality, would be Trump. The only candidate to be called feeble or gaffe-prone or lost, would be Trump. And if Biden really were convinced to retire from the ticket and the office in order to send Kamala Harris into the campaign with the incumbency, she would be the first woman president of the United States asking the voters to validate her with a full term of office – and doing so when a primary plank of the Democratic campaign is the Republicans’ assault on the rights of every woman in this country. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 205: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN: I now believe the President is going to stand aside and Kamala Harris will replace him as the nominee, and I think there is as much as a 50-50 chance he will also resign his office before the election. This is NOT based on sourced reporting or inside information but merely an accumulation of new developments during the course of Tuesday, and I take no pleasure in making any of these conclusions, and I haven't even thought long enough about them to be certain if I concur or am opposed to this outcome.But After Nancy Pelosi's comments today about President Biden and how "I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? When people ask that question, it's completely legitimate" and how nothing she could have said would do less to tamp down speculation or debate, and especially after today's report of leaked internal swing state Democratic polling, I think - as my friend of half a century Will Bunch put it, "it feels like an energy shift in the force." The polling is described in detail. The bottom line is that in the 72 hours after the debate, Democratic internal pollsters OpenLabs reported that the six swing states had become twelve swing states and Biden had lost about two points in both of them and was now trailing Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania by seven. It's not sustainable. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 204: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: If Joe Biden had been pulling his punches in fighting back against the Trump/Supreme Court conspiracy to subvert democracy, he stopped doing so last night. To my mind he should take the Court's unprecedented decision to transform our form of government into a monarchy by the fabrication of something called 'presidential immunity' by showing how it works, announcing he was adding six seats to the Court by Executive Order, and daring SCOTUS to stop him. But as a start, Biden took off the gloves, insisting the American people should join him and Justice Sotomayor in dissenting from the Court immunity decision. Biden attacked Trump by name, said that because the Supreme Court had done “a terrible disservice to this nation” by preventing a Trump trial on January 6th before the election, that therefore the people “must decide” on Trump, and acknowledged “there are virtually no limits to what a president can do." It was a clear declaration of war on the Supreme Court; it was a clear re-positioning of Trump from an unprincipled political opponent to a menace to our form of government. “Any president will be free to ignore the law.”He closed with “may god help preserve our democracy.” The Supreme Court has thrown out 248 years of American history – more really – at the start of the week in which we CELEBRATE that 248thbirthday. As Sotomayor also noted, Alexander Hamilton was specific about the necessity to have a FORMER president be subject to possible prosecution for any crimes he committed, IN OFFICE, because THAT would be one of the key differences between the new United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain, from which we had to stage a revolution to free ourselves. THEIR king was “sacred and inviolable.” OUR president would be subject to “personal punishment and disgrace.” As to the nomination uncertainty: the polls continue to be inconclusive and the tightrope just gets longer. I remain agnostic on the outcome (I want whatever wins). But I want to suggest that the logical extension of calling for Biden to drop off the ticket because you don't think he's sharp enough to win re-election and/or serve another term, is to say he's not sharp enough to be president NOW - and should resign. If you're going to be cynical enough to force him out of office later, why not now, when you could still offer new president Kamala Harris as the incumbent on Election Day? B-Block (31:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ken Dilanian of NBC, Matthew Belloni of Puck, and Ben Smith of Semafor all miss the point of the Biden candidacy story. Ralph Nader blames Hillary for the Chief Justice appointed the president who is Nader's fault. Worst Persons Hall of Famer Bill O'Reilly makes up a story about Biden quitting (but it must be true! It's from the Bill-O'Reilly-Dot-Com-News-Headquarters!) C-Block (42:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Another 4th of July falling in the middle of another week, just like it did the year I started my professional career in network radio simply because... the 4th of July was falling in the middle of another week and they needed somebody unemployed, cheap, and immediately. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 203: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:40) BULLETIN: The New York Times has called for a candidate to drop out of the presidential race after his performance in a debate - a debate which has IMPROVED his standing against his opponent in several polls. No, President Biden is not dropping out. And that wasn't a family oligarchy intervention Sunday at Camp David to tell him to. It was an offing photo shoot. There are no indications (and let's not fully exhale; we don't know if the impacts might appear long-term) that the debate had any significant impact on the presidential race. CBS-YouGov polling released Sunday says even in the wake of the understandable blunt-force trauma we all went through as we watched, 55% of the Democrats have NO interest in changing horses while after the same debate 54% percent of EVERYBODY says TRUMP should drop out. “I am finishing my second battleground state poll post-debate,” writes the Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, “and both surveys show the same thing: the debate had no effect on the vote choice. The election was extremely close and competitive before the debate, and it is still extremely close and competitive today.” Morning Consult and Data For Progress polled right after the debate, the percentages of those who think Biden should drop out went up like four points, but the Biden-versus-Trump match-up… Biden went UP a point. In Survey USA he went UP THREE points. Translation: yeah, maybe he should drop out but if he doesn’t, I’m still voting for him. The almost negligible impact on Biden’s poll numbers may be as transitory as whatever it was that impaired the president during the debate, because his health and age is baked-in to the voters’ perception of him. There was nothing before the debate, nothing in his grueling international travels to the G7 and Normandy and elsewhere that was as bad as what he did during the debate. He was clear the day before and the next morning. And there is a plausible and intuitively satisfactory possible explanation for what CAUSES something like that in an 81-year old man. If the President had a cold – and I don’t know about you, but I’ll admit it: I’VE had colds in my life, and his hoarseness, it sounded to me like a cold – if he had a cold, did he take cold medicine? You know, like just Tylenol. Cold medicine. The Yale School of medicine professor, cardiologist and head of outcomes evaluation at Yale New Haven Hospital Center Dr. Harlan Krumholz wrote a piece for Newsweek: “Biden's symptoms are consistent with someone suffering from temporary drug-induced cognitive impairment. Most people believe common over-the-counter cold medications such as Dayquil, Tylenol, or Advil to be harmless. While generally well tolerated, these medications have well-documented side effects and can cause reduced alertness, diminished attention, poor memory, and reduced reaction time, especially in older individuals. These impairments are transitory but can appear consequential and alarming. Every experienced clinician has seen this effect thousands of times…" The real illness right now may be in our media. NBC News got the Camp David thing utterly wrong. The Times made fools of its editorial board and top columnists and based on something a staffer wrote there is every reason to suspect that it acted as it did because if Biden were to drop out it would prove the Times wasn't a fatally broken organization that put its thumb on the scale because he wouldn't give them a one-on-one interview. Regardless: the breaking news is - nothing's broken. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A-Block (1:40) SPECIAL COMMENT: As I reported in our live video version of this podcast on YouTube and Twitch right after the "debate," there were three participants in the CNN event last night, not just two. President Biden was competing against the tag team of Trump and CNN. I warned here on Wednesday that CNN's abrogation of the primary responsibility of any journalistic effort anywhere and at any time in the history of the world (when the guy urinates on your leg and tells you it's raining, you're supposed to SAY something) had the potential to render the first Biden-Trump "debate" into a repeat of the network's disastrous live Town Hall with Trump last year. But in that one, and though she failed, Kaitlin Collins at least tried to push back against Trump's firehouse of lies. Last night, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash disgraced themselves and disqualified themselves from any future reportorial credibility (under the guidance of CNN political director David Chalian and new chief Mark Thompson). CNN gave Trump 45 minutes in front of an audience that may have topped 100,000,000 to lie about everything from January 6th to his own golf performance. I documented 40 of the lies. I think I missed two-thirds of them, or more. CNN pushed back against exactly none. The network had promised to at least not abide Trump's lies about the 2020 election and having set the truth bar as low as it could have gone, failed to reach even that. It's not just that Bash and Tapper should be fired (and Chalian and Thompson and anybody else in management responsible for this utter, corrupt pandering to Trump). If I had done what they did, I would have resigned and fled the country by now. And probably changed my name. In a just world, CNN would be forced off the air and out of business, today, and its offices evacuated and the empty buildings leveled. The operation where I began my TV career in 1981 and resumed my news career in 2002 is dead and its credibility is now marked with the NewsMaxes and RSNs of this world. As to Biden's halting and hoarse performance, he is bloodied but unbowed. More on that in the third segment of this podcast. B-BLOCK (17:01) MORE SPECIAL COMMENT: We'll review some of the key clips from the Trump Town Ha--- I'm sorry "CNN Presidential Debate" including the remarkable truth that while one of the candidates is seeking the office to avoid prison and will do anything to anybody to win - as he tried to do in 2020 - Tapper and Bash did not even bring up the topic of democracy until the 39th minute of the "debate," and waited even longer to question Trump about his status as the worst criminal in our nation's history. C-BLOCK (40:28) QUESTIONS FROM YOU: Observations from viewers of the debate and the live podcast and my replies - including the three or four different components to one obvious question: "Is it too late to replace Biden?" There are three answers, the most important of which is: if you do, you trade a still likely victory over evil for certain defeat. No would-be replacement comes within 10 points of Trump in polling. It's that simple. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 201: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: As debate day arrives there could not be a more potent nor ominous metaphor for our political crisis than the one in DC. There, a 3000-pound replica of the Lincoln Memorial is… at this hour… melting in the hot sun. As Trump tries to destroy democracy and Biden tries to destroy Trump, the climate disaster that has already begun and on which Trump would apply the finishing touches, has so imperiled the six-foot tall wax statue of Lincoln outside a Washington elementary school, that the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities has removed Lincoln’s head “to prevent it from falling and breaking.” Can you think of worse imagery? Polling indicates more than half of voters expect to watch tonight, and that a rather startling 11% actually expect to have their opinion of who to vote for changed by the results. The three groups produce the most voters who feel that way are the ones in which Trump has had the most unlikely growth: voters under 35, African-Americans, and Hispanics. If Trump actually blows that growth tonight he's cooked. And we will either have a debate right after the Supreme Court rules on this Trumpian "Presidential Immunity" nonsense, or the night before it. It becomes a simple, tangible truth that if the Court invents this immunity and declares this nation a monarchy, the king won't be Trump but Biden and he can take any steps he wants without fear of consequence. It's kind of hard to believe but it is literally true that if SCOTUS creates immunity today, Biden could have arrest Trump tonight - during the debate. B-Block (17:22) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jamaal Bowman didn't lose because a Nevada Republican called him names, or because AIPAC spent millions, or because progressives are in retreat. He lost because of Jamaal Bowman. The sports TV world is in such trouble a Major League Baseball team is now in essence PAYING its fans to watch its game broadcasts. And Hung Cao, the nut job GOP candidate for Senate in Virginia, tries to get out in front of a huge scandal by blaming a USA Today story that he may have padded his military resume on... the font their reporter used in their email. C-Block (30:35) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: He should've been one of the greatest of all-time in the news business. But bad luck and bad survival skills combined to lay Will Spens low: The Most Talented Man I Ever Worked With. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.