Countdown with Keith Olbermann

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.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 85: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Justice Samuel Alito must be off from the Supreme Court of the United States. Immediately. Today. He is without any morals, ethics, judicial standards, and if he is aware of the CONCEPT of the appearance of the conflict he no longer gives a damn. ABC News reports – and Alito confirms – that on TUESDAY he SPOKE to Trump – the day before Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency request demanding Alito and the other justices BLOCK New York Judge Juan Merchan from sentencing Trump tomorrow for his 34 convictions in the Election Interference/Stormy Daniels case here. Even though there is 0% chance of jail time, and probably not much more of one of probation or a fine. The convicted felon constitutionally ineligible president-elect is also has the TikTok case in front of the Supreme Court AND will probably take the release of either or both of the two halves of the Jack Smith report on Trump – Espionage and the Coup Attempt – to the Supreme Court to try to keep those reports from ever seeing the light of a day and this human embodiment of sleaze Sam Alito TALKED TO HIM BY PHONE less than 48 hours ago.And what is Alito’s excuse for this complete breach of judicial etiquette? Alito told ABC the conversation WAS not about the cases, it was about… a job reference he wanted to personally given to get his law clerk a job in Trump's administration - even if it's true, ALSO a conflict of interest. Sam Alito to ABC News: "We did not discuss the emergency application he filed today, and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed. We also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or might in the future come before the Supreme Court or any past Supreme Court decisions involving the President-elect."  Nonsense. Sam Alito lied in the case of the political flags flown over his homes and his conflicts with neighbors. He has publicly complained that the American public has had the nerve to disagree with him. He has imposed his religious nut job views on cases at the Court. How could you be so dense, so unaware of the hatred you personally have brought down upon this once most respected of American governmental institutions, as to conduct that call, NOW? I mean this would be cheap and petty and obvious and a conflict of interest even by Trumpian standards. Just recusing is insufficient. He must be off the court. In point of fact, Alito should recuse, resign… and go to hell. SOLUTION TO AILEEN CANNON? Ignore her. Solution to Mark Zuckerberg: Wonder with what Trump has threatened him. Solution to a tough Fox News town hall: Give Trump the questions secretly beforehand. Solution to invading Greenland, Canada, and Panama when we are by treaty required to protect Greenland, Canada and Panama? You got me. B-Block (46:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jen Psaki does a lengthy commentary wondering, four years too late, if Merrick Garland was the wrong choice to be Attorney General and she was wrong to promote him. Ultimately she decides she didn't screw up because "nobody can predict the future" even though the rest of us did. Like even Erick Erickson, whose J6 tweet resurfaces in which he called for barring Trump for office for life. And the suicide bomber Bezos brought in to destroy the Washington Post actually asked how to attract Trump supporters. C-Block (58:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The mandatory evacuation line in Santa Monica is three blocks north of the home I used to own when I worked there. It's amazing how a trivial detail like that can clarify a disaster like the L.A. fires - and how millions of us Angelenos (me included) managed to live in denial about the risks of living and building and expanding there. This is not criticism - it's confession.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 84: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:50) SPECIAL COMMENT: Happy Insurrection Day, when Republicans will certify the election of a “president” who is constitutionally ineligible to hold the office according to the 3rd clause of the 14th Amendment and the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 and who himself fomented the assault four years ago that ended our conceit about the peaceful transfer of power. The illegitimate president’s Republican whores and servants may in fact trudge to the capitol through a blizzard to make this prostitution of democracy official The Democrats? They won’t say anything because this didn’t TEST well as a campaign ad and their flaccid willingness to risk anything in our defense is further deflated by their perception that this is a fait accompli and since it is a fait accompli ESPECIALLY because of their own cowardice they now have to do their best to compromise, and obey in advance, a group of bandits and pirates posing as a presidential administration, whose only desire TO compromise is to compromise Democrats and the Free Press and Reality and democracy itself. These are some of those Republicans: Freshman Congressman Riley Moore – “My constituents have sent me here to this town not to work with Democrats but to destroy their agenda." “We asked everyone not to leak. Please for god’s sake do not give inside information to the enemy” that's from the LEAD Republican in the House, the CREEPIEST Republican in the House since Denny Hastert, Mike Johnson and I don’t know if by “the enemy” he means the Democrats or the media or both or the temptations of his anti-porn app, and I no longer care. This is Insurrection Day and we all KNOW what the Republicans would be doing today in the mirror version of this grim reality; if they were in charge and Trump were in office and had presidential immunity and a new president was about to sign off on putting him in jail and it would be what they actually did four years ago today only they wouldn’t bother to try to be subtle or legal about it (they’d be gassing up the tanks). AND NO, JUDGE JUAN MERCHAN IS NO HERO. He too is obeying in advance. Along with the Washington Post, squeezing out cartoonist Ann Telnaes. And Brian Stelter, covering up for Fox News. And the media soft-pedaling the Vegas bomber's hopes to see all Democrats murdered, and Congressman Tom Suozzi, and soon-to-disappear Senator Kyrsten Sinema. B-Block (29:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Those memorializing Aaron Brown without including the incident about his refusal to cover The Challenger explosion; Congresswoman Nancy Mace and "Gunther Eagleman" who only read the headline; and the meticulous Oliver Darcy who only gets mentioned here because he asked a question that really traumatized me: What will Olivia Nuzzi do in 2025? (42:14) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Remember dear Flaco? The majestic owl liberated from the Central Park Zoo? There is an extraordinary new book about him. And from an old book: remember the Ash Heaps in "The Great Gatsby"? They were real and you'll never believe what was built were they used to sit. C-Block (52:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Young Tippy needs the same surgery my new pup Kitt just got, and we need your help to pay for it. (55:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's an actors' story that invokes Trump, Orson Welles, The Odd Couple, Mike Nichols - and me?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 83: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN Bulletin (1:45) In the worst post-disaster, post-terrorism news conference in our history, a string of elected officials and police and other law enforcement officers somehow managed to make worse a terror tragedy that has left at least ten people dead in the French Quarter of New Orleans on New Year's Day. If the least sophisticated form of terrorism – a car driving onto a sidewalk and then into a crowd on the street during holiday celebrations – happens in a city known for crowds on the street during holiday celebrations – do not congratulate each other on the great job you’ve done and will do - and get mad at reporters for asking how the hell it happened. And most of all, Superintendent of Police Anne Kirkpatrick and Captain LeJon Roberts, do not explain as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that the bollards – the removable stainless still blocks designed to keep terrorists from driving onto pedestrian-filled streets – that you bought a decade ago didn’t work right so two months ago you started to replace them and you have the new ones ready to go and they’ll provide total safety only they weren’t there on New Year’s Eve so you had a police car blocking the road but that the terrorist simply drove up onto the sidewalk instead. And then to listen to Senator John Kennedy, the Foghorn Leghorn of American politics, and Governor Jeff Landry, with the tone and stupidity of a supervisor of a chain gang, try to score political points, foment conspiracy theories, make jokes while bodies still lay on the streets, and assure everyone The Sugar Bowl (and, in a month) the Super Bowl will be safe because he, Landry The Human Talisman, will be there - combined with the lies of Trump and Marjorie Greene about the Texas-born terrorist being an immigrant - add up to this: the non-rank-and-file people responsible for protecting New Orleans last night didn't know what they were doing last night, and they don't know what they are doing today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 82: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: My friend – and what a privilege it has been to call him that – President Jimmy Carter would disagree that he is STILL the lead story, the day after. After all, he might note, he WAS 100, he was in hospice a year-and-a-half, his own grandson said he was in his final days – that was last May 15th. How, Keith, is this a surprise to you? The Braves letting Freddie Freeman leave should have been a surprise to you! He would probably disagree he was the best since FDR, probably arguing that the best since FDR at least got re-elected. I will make my case, and more importantly, my case that the fact he WASN’T re-elected was the beginning of the end. The 1980 election was when I realized America wanted a spokesmodel, not a leader. A fake smile, not principles; often somebody dumber than they were. Even Clinton and Obama and their exceptional presidencies prevailed on charisma. That we turned away a complete human for a mentally diminished bad actor who wasn't that sharp to begin with has set a pattern we may never break before the nation ends. I will also tell the thoroughly satisfying story of how President Carter became my friend, after which there was very little I could point to professionally and say 'I have left this unaccomplished.' B-Block (29:52) NEWS BREAK: Two legal scholars insist that a week from today Democrats in the house must refuse to certify Trump’s election because the specific legislation to disqualify him for insurrection that the Supreme Court demanded in this year’s 14th Amendment case already exists. But on the Washington-focused news site “The Hill” they insist no matter what the Supreme Court says and no matter what the consequences might be, Trump has already been DISQUALIFIED from federal office under the 14th Amendment AND Article Two gives the House sole authority to confirm a presidential election and I will add that while once again I cannot tell you how much this is not going to happen it would be nice to see Democrats do something, something, anything at all, just to peacefully protest what a failed and useless crapshow the government and its supposed protections against dictatorships and authoritarians and foreign control of our government has become – and what a hapless and flaccid vessel the Democratic party has become in the wake of Trump’s treacherous conspiracies to transform and subvert what was our clunky but largely functional form of representative government in, you know, the good old days of yore, like, oh, 2013 and 2014 into a subsidiary of Trump or Musk Enterprises. You know: AmericaX. C-Block (56:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: What did you do on Christmas Eve? Go out into the cold, under-dressed, to search for Sasquatch? Last time they'll try that! Marianne Williamson is running for DNC chair because things ain't hella enough. And Cenk Uygur manages to beclown himself in a new way for the record-breaking 1000th time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 81: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: To paraphrase Van Jones and other panderers: This was the weekend Elon Musk truly became president. It was also the weekend the other guy became Donald J. Trumpuppet. The number of Republicans who defied Trump over the Continuing Resolution ranges, depending on your point of view, from 29 to ALL of them. Because they also voted by unanimous consent to bury Musk's fabricated controversy over the no-cost land transfer to the District of Columbia. Trump, for his part, is in a bigger hole now than he ever was during his presidency as the self-inflicted losses pile up: The Gaetz Lack-of-Ethics Report may come out today. Other nominations are in trouble. One new one may be Alan Dershowitz and another may have padded his resume. The idea of Recess Appointments is forgotten. Trump has been taunted with the "Musk Is President" chatter. Some Republicans are taking it seriously and suggesting him for Speaker. And that in turn let Democrats emphasize Trump tanked the deal to benefit his interests with the Chinese Communist Party. And Trump spoke yesterday for the first time in weeks and sounded drunk - which is a problem, because he doesn't drink. All while he is being pursued by his two worst enemies: himself - and Musk. B-BLOCK (27:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Remember my suggestion that MSNBC's response to Trump's win and its own tanking ratings was to do nothing but double down and exploit the Liberal Media Monopoly the cowards at CNN, The Washington Post and others were giving them? Guess what! MSNBC's new boss wants... better relationships with Republicans. (40:56) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Martin Shrkeli emerged from his sewer to get owned on social media, New York sends a bill for damages to the family of a guy a police officer killed with an unmarked car, and are there secret Mark Burnett Trump Outtake Tapes? Don't ask Burnett - he now works for Trump. C-BLOCK (50:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: You have your Christmas story, I have mine. Mine is about falling off a cliff near Malibu filming a commercial for fast-food chicken. Stick around for the post-closing theme guest appearance Easter eggs courtesy some of my dogs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 80: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump’s chief thug wants to put Rachel Maddow in prison. Steve Bannon: “I need investigations, trials and then incarceration… Andrew Weissmann on MSNBC and Rachel Maddow and all of them." Oh and just so we are clear on this: YOU are next. Or close to it. Trump is this close to suing YOU for writing mean tweets about him. Or for not voting for him. Or, if your name is Anne Selzer, for putting out a Des Moines Register election poll that didn’t favor him. Emboldened by such pathetic self-prostituting excuses for American leadership as Jeff Bezos, Patrick Soon-Shiong, Joe Scarborough -- and Bob Iger and all the snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory cowards at Disney and ABC News -- Trump has now lost any remaining sense that anybody is even going to try to stop him. It is hard to point at a crazy man and say he’s now lost it, but… he’s now lost it. You are next. Well, you’re probably behind me, and we’re both behind Maddow, and she’s behind Anne Selzer, but you know what I mean. So Bannon wants to lock up Maddow and others at MSNBC and their co-workers Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski scuttled to Mar-a-Lago to save their own worthless asses. Ten days ago the entertainment news site Variety asked me to write a piece for their year-in-review on what MSNBC should do now. The TL;dr was: double down because all the other progressive and neutral news organizations have fled in fear and left you the same kind of opportunity for monopoly that we had there in 2005. The audience will be back with you directly. Stay the course. Of course you have to fire Mr. and Mrs. Scarborough or you let them turn you into MSN-Vichy. I'll give you a longer version of what I did for the magazine.  B-Block (32:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump's Tariffs Plan. It apparently never dawned on him it would draw retribution. Ontario's premier threatens to cut off the Canadian electricity that directly services 1.5 million Americans. A Democratic pollster says the campaign should've been food costs not democracy and never once gets near the actual answer: both. And the most recent GOP candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania can't tell the difference between a "downed drone" and a "toy movie prop headed for the next Comicon." C-Block (41:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: At 86, Ted Turner is in-and-out. At 43, when I worked for him, none of us would have bet on him still being in, at all. He was a crazy man and a danger to himself, and thank goodness he steered out of the skid. But the crazy version left me countless stories, like the time he nearly fired me over the cameraman's choice of hats, and I nearly responded by socking him.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 3 EPISODE 79: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is now revealed that at a Thanksgiving-eve dinner on a patio at the Mar-a-Lago Crapshack, Trump had his minions play a recording of the national anthem sung by the January 6th Terrorists. Some of them at Trump’s table put their hands over their hearts as the people who stormed our capitol intending to take over our government sang words, the actual meaning of which they cannot possibly understand. Per The Wall Street Journal, one of those who put his hand over his heart during this travesty was… Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg leads the parade of pathetic billionaires also including Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman, who just happen to be donating a million dollars to Trump's inauguration committee. Except for ABC News, which is donating FIFTEEN million to Trump's presidential museum (which may be in an empty warehouse or a sinkhole somewhere) to settle his frivolous and easily winnable defamation case against George Stephanopoulos. On March 22nd, 1979, I was ushered into the small office of a Vice President at the ABC television series “The Wide World of Sports.” His wife had been an assignment editor at the local New York TV station I had interned at the previous summer – though we were not there simultaneously. He and the Mrs. and my friends from the local station all warned me this gentleman would not have a job for me nor even any job leads, just advice. His name was Robert Iger. “Call me Bob,” he insisted. Within fifteen years he was president of ABC and thus the boss of all my bosses at ESPN and he was my boss there three times and for two further years at ABC and he gave me brilliant advice I've repeated a thousand times: if you want to be on the air, don't take an off-air job. It has truly changed lives. And now, after 45-and-a-half years I’d like to repay Bob Iger and give him MY advice: Sell ABC News to somebody who actually cares about the future of news and the future of journalism and the future of this country because you guys at Disney ain’t it any more. What do you think you bought for yourself here, Bob? Trump’s gratitude? Him somehow remembering you fondly the NEXT time ABC News does something he doesn’t like, like, say, accurately report how many people show up to his inauguration, or how many insurrectionists he pardons, or how many people die during the migrant round-ups into the migrant concentration camps? Even if Trump CAN still remember do you think he WILL remember? Or all the mini-Trumps? What you have done is merely become part of the process by which freedom of the press, and freedom in the nation, dissolve. My advice, offered again in gratitude for YOUR advice in 1979: sell ABC News to somebody who cares. B-Block (27:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Did Trump demand the end of Daylight Savings Time but think he was demanding the end of STANDARD Time? Van Jones plus Chris Cillizza equals Extra Large Stupid. And the New York radio station that is quite literally running a bulletin "sound" for "DRONE WATCH 2024." (39:27) SPORTSBALLCENTER: I have actually solved baseball's playoff crisis, the one in which in three of the last four years the team with the best record has been eliminated in its first playoff round and 14 of the 24 division winners have, too. It's actually a really really good idea. C-Block (52:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Offended by this CNN crapfest every night where Abby Phillip lets this jackass Scott Jennings insult everyone and everything good about America, in front of an ever-shrinking audience? We tried this at MSNBC long ago only the clown was Michael Savage. It didn't end well for us and it ain't gonna end well for CNN.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 3 EPISODE 78: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: How did this not generate more headlines? It's just a proposed maneuver out of the legal morass Judge Juan Merchan has helped Trump create. But New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg has suggested that one way to solve this sentencing/but he's president/but we can't dismiss the conviction is to treat Trump - in a legal sense - the way you treat a convicted defendant who DIES before he appeals or is sentence. In short: just pretend Trump is dead. SPEAKING OF A BROKEN LEGAL SYSTEM: I'm not advocating for that, nor for guys assassinating CEO's five blocks from my home. But our legal system is broken and it would behoove commentators, columnists, writers, those who suck up to the moneyed class, and conservatives to stop being so surprised at the idea that maybe a majority of Americans is not as outraged as the wealthy are at the actions of Luigi McDreamy. Maybe you need to wonder more about why they perceive the legal system to be broken and the corporations to be legal excuses for nobody being responsible for innocent people dying and being injured. CHRIS WRAY OBEYS IN ADVANCE: He'll quit as FBI director before the inauguration. Maybe he can make a comeback as Trump's second pick for DNI because Tulsi Gabbard is being attacked from the left, the middle, and now from The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. Also Hegseth's been caught in another lie, about something he had said in public 48 hours earlier.  B-Block (23:46) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The World Cup goes to Saudi Arabia because everything is for sale. And an announcement of a candidacy for New York City Council suddenly made me realize that Bill DeBlasio and Eric Adams both became mayor here in part because between us one of my exes and I screwed around with the 2013 campaign. OOPS. (30:22) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Yes she sneaked a gold-plated gun into Australia but how else was she supposed to protect herself at clown school? Speaking of: Newsweek beats the L.A. Times to a "Fairness Meter" for its articles. And Elon Musk insists there's no homelessness because now is exactly the right time for a CEO to assert that. C-Block (39:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My favorite Holiday story. The day, on my way to interview Mickey Mantle, I ran into somebody I mistook for just another fan - albeit a well-dressed man. Oops. Turned out he was one of the stars of the greatest movie ever made.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 77: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump's return to the world of TV interviews is important (and crazy) but the shooting of the head of United Health Care just blocks from my home actually seems to be one of the watershed moments of 21st Century American Politics. We have often descended into the slough of despond that all political parties, voting, law, government, the entirety of the power structure mean nothing and that the only way to change things is violence. I think we're entering such a stage. If so: fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night. AS TO TRUMP apart from his latest threat to imprison opponents (everybody on the January 6 House Committee should go to jail) did anybody notice his insistence that we are "subsidizing" Mexico and Canada by $100 Billion a year and at those rates they should become states. Wait. What? Mr. Numb Nuts Psycho President? If Mexico is a STATE in the United States – you know, where you are right now – the people LIVING there become CITIZENS of the United States, so not only can’t you deport people from the US State of Mexico… but you can’t put up a wall between Texas and the state of Mexico and in fact you can’t inhibit movement BETWEEN Mexico and any state of the union. I hope somebody told MAGA about Trump’s new Mexico solution: make it a state. That’d be two senators from Mexico and if New York has 20 million people, 26 congressmen, Mexico with130 million people at 13 congressmen per 10 million residents would get 169 Congressional seats. Trump proposes giving Mexico 169 seats in the US Congress. Also a GOP Senate operative uses the A-word on Tulsi Gabbard, and a Trump operative is ready to blackmail Republican Senators to get Pete Hegseth confirmed anyway. B-Block (25:00) THE OTHER WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: "Democratic" Governor Polis again sides with Sideshow Bob Kennedy. Laura Loomer isn't just hateful, she's stupid. And Marshal Petain would be proud: Jeff Bezos, Joe Scarborough, and Mika Brzezinski all double down on collaborating with the Trump Regime. C-Block (35:55) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My Lunch With Elie. How a delightful afternoon getting to meet Elie Mystal meant I did NOT meet Martin Scorsese. That, in turns, evokes the story of Francis Ford Coppola unintentionally paying a former colleague of mine something like a million dollars to be in the background of one scene in Godfather II.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 76: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I'd like to thank the one person doing the most to undermine and derail the Trump transition, and dissipate any momentum he might have. Trump himself. He learned nothing from Matt Gaetz and so Pete Hegseth spends another day "twisting slowly, slowly in the wind." We are now reduced to Hegseth's mother pleading directly on Fox to Trump - staring in the camera as she does so - to continue supporting her idiot child for Secretary of Defense. But when asked if she'll testify on his behalf to the Senate confirmation hearings she refused to commit to it. Amazeballs. What's relevant here is that among the big names mentioned as Plan B is yet another Republican congressman. If he gets the job rather than Hegseth or DeSantis or Ernst, the GOP will have a House margin of one (1) vote - which isn't a margin at all. ALSO: I TOLD YOU SO. Sunday night I suggested not only should Biden pardon Hunter but that he should pardon everybody else he thinks of. Last night Politico reported they're talking about it, but that only the names Adam Schiff, Tony Fauci, and Liz Cheney came up. And in case like me you thought Chris Cillizza and Chuck Todd were the same person, have I got a shock for you. B-Block (33:43) SPECIAL COMMENT NO. 2 - I have been pondering when we started on the road to Trump - or at least when we discovered that what should be the final guardrail to protect American democracy, the President himself, wasn't a guardrail at all. I've settled on January 19, 2009 and read you what I wrote and said that night and even what sounds awfully like a prediction of the advent of Trump Brand Stupid Fascism. C-Block (52:00) IN SPORTS: Have you heard about it? The worst sports idea of all-time? "The Golden At Bat" as proposed by Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred. It is a gimmick as stupid as if you stopped the 7th Game of the NBA Finals and had the title decided by a free-throw shooting contest. And it's supposed to "attract young people to the game" which is a euphemism for "we expect you fans to be intensely concerned with how much money we owners make."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 75: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN Special Edition (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Some time over Thanksgiving in Nantucket the light bulb went off over Joe Biden’s head and he finally realized that no, the norms and traditions and institutions to which he and most of the rest of us have dedicated our lives did NOT miraculously re-grow, did NOT suddenly spring, fully restored and intact, from the ground. He saw that not only was his son about to go to prison because of his own foolish decision to not interfere with an enfeebled Department of Justice, and because of the dictator it let get away, who would now aim his DOJ at Hunter Biden - and Joe Biden - and anybody else - for personal revenge. The President figured this out and pulled his son out of harm’s way. And much of he left attacked him for it. They are Morons. I don’t care about Hunter Biden, particularly. I care about the fact that we are 48 days away from a nascent military dictatorship taking over this government, supported by an unknown percentage of the population that wants to see Hunter and Joe Biden hanging from construction cranes parading through the streets, and wants to see Trump in power for life. A We JUST got one more guy out of their sights and we JUST shoved one more plotline up Trump, and up Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller and whichever other lunatics Trump wants to take over the asylum. And countless liberals – and anti-Trumpers – think this will actually provide cover for Trump pardoning the January 6thinsurrectionists because apparently for the last ten years they have been hallucinating and thinking Trump has ever bothered to seek cover for anything. Or they think we should be "better" than them. The Trumpists are planning to put us in camps. I don’t care if we are better than them or worse than them or monstrous to them. If somebody’s going to go to camps, it ain’t going to be us, it’s got to be them. End of debate. In addition to explaining why this was not just the right decision but should be a template of thousands of further pardons, permit me to excoriate a bunch of the clowns who cannot see the forest for the trees. Or the fact that the forest is on fire. And then for giggles we have the moronic comments of Nate Silver and Dinesh D'Souza, complaining about pardons when he himself got an undeserved pardon. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 74: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN: Biden pardons his son. Terrific. Fully support. Now, do the rest of us. Literally offer a pardon to anybody Trump might go after for prosecuting him, criticizing him, covering him, or looking at him funny. I want a 1-800-PARDONME hotline. I want 10 million pardons. SPECIAL COMMENT (2:44): And the pardons should be a jumping off point for how Biden can protect the citizens of this country. What does THIS mean, exactly? “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” Joseph Robinette Biden Junior has taken that exact oath NINE times – seven, as Senator, two as Vice President. He has sworn to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and nothing I have found, and no Constitutional scholar I have consulted, indicates that once taken, those oaths expire.  And the obligation to defend the United States becomes more profound still now that presidents have been immunized by the Supreme Court from prosecution for.. effectively anything. The incoming President, the one who wants an unqualified toady like Kash Patel to head the FBI and desperately wanted a lawless menace like Matt Gaetz to head the DOJ but will instead settle for a cheap lawyer who LED the “lock her up” chanting against Hillary Clinton at the Republican convention, that president-to-be will be immune and thus unstoppable. The CURRENT  president IS immune and thus unstoppable. And already in power and in command and… under oath. So. This raises this theoretical constitutional question: Do the TEN oaths Joe Biden took as Senator, as Vice President, and as President, even PERMIT him to NOT act against enemies, BOTH foreign and domestic – and defend the Constitution of the United States? So help him god? When the Supreme Court has immunized him from prosecution for doing… anything? Anything at all? As long as it’s official? B-Block (24:52) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: You do realize that Trump's lies about his phone call with the president of Mexico means we will, soon or late, invade Mexico, right? The quote from the Trump Transition Team member to Rolling Stone is "How MUCH do we invade Mexico?" Trump has now nominated both his daughters' fathers-in-law as envoys to the Middle East - including the one who set up his brother-in-law with a taped sex sting and sent the tape to his own sister. And why did JD Vance post a meme of himself in a dress? C-Block (36:00) THE OTHER WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Vivek Ramaswamy self-owns over unelected bureaucracy. We've found George Carlin's Worst Doctor In The World and he owns The Los Angeles Times. And Sideshow Bob (RFK Junior) is seen, uh, hanging out, in his wife's new supplements commercial.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 73: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Is Elon Musk going to buy MSNBC and turn it into pro-Trump propaganda channel? And, if not Musk – could somebody else? I may be asking the question backwards. Is there anybody to STOP someone, Musk or not, from buying MSNBC and turning it into pro-Trump propaganda? Well – who stopped Musk from doing that to Twitter? Who stopped Warner BROS Discovery from buying CNN and doing that incompletely but sufficiently enough to render CNN irrelevant in television news? We don’t know for certain that MSNBC is for sale. Companies like Comcast take assets like MSNBC – which by itself has made a profit of something around five or six billion dollars since I made it into “the liberal news channel” in 2006 – and spin them off into another separate company they also own, and throw in CNBC and Oxygen and The Golf Channel and USA Network and half a dozen other assets and do it so hastily they don’t even have a name for the new company and they’re just calling it “SpinCo” – companies like Comcast do that all the time and never sell the new separate company oh no I'm being informed they never do that. Musk and Trump Junior have now had a "joking" exchange about it online but it underscores that this is exactly what Musk did to twitter and there's nobody and nothing to stop him from doing it here. This comes as The Wall Street Journal reports how corporations are seeing Musk as the new portal to Trump - and so is China. And as a purported old friend of his is insisting Musk has lost control of himself. This did not begin with the Joe Scarborough Trump disaster last week (though his audience in the "advertiser demo" is down to 51,000 people). It didn't even start with Trump. It pre-dates even my arrival there in 1997. MSNBC and NBC News and NBC and NBC's corporate owners have been at loggerheads continuously since long before the first newscast in 1996. To understand what's happening now, you have to understand what's happened already. B-BLOCK (31:35) SPECIAL COMMENT 2: This is not MSNBC's first existential crisis. The pre-Comcast corporate ownership at GE was ready to not merely sell the then-newly profitable network in June 2009, it was ready to shut it off and shut it down, just because the mother of the chairman of GE was a Fox fan and Bill O'Reilly was insulting her son. What happened then, and what happened with my departure in 2011, again forms a straight line with the sudden spin-off and the Musk "joke." C-BLOCK (48:00) THE OTHER WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Philadelphia police department thinks a burned body may be "suspicious" (no; it happened naturally). Pete Hegseth once insisted it couldn't be rape if she was too drunk to refuse consent. And Nancy Mace and her chest are attacked by her former Communications Director. It's all part of life's rich pageant.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 3 EPISODE 72: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN: A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Hours after the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee ask the FBI for its report on the Attorney General Matt Gaetz Underage Sex Scandal, an extraordinary Gaetz Sex Diagram leaks. It's the Venmo records of the Venmo payments by Gaetz and others to the women in question, and there are more crossing lines and different routes than the map of the London Subway system. And it underscores anew why the Democrats must never compromise nor collaborate with Trump or Republicans who defend him. To hell with Jared Polis, who decided to suck up to Sideshow Bob Kennedy about vaccines, or Hakeem Jeffries, who declared the nomination of these gangsters like Gaetz and Hegseth as "distractions." Throw punches. Eat faces. Metaphorically drive the metaphorical Trump Train off the metaphorical track as often as possible. And most of all, never become Joe Quisling Scarborough or his wife, Marshal Petain Brzezinski. I can state with some assurance that this time, finally, he has ended his career. Morning shows the world over always see their ratings grow as it gets later (more people are awake). The average growth from 6 AM to 7 AM is around 20% On Monday, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski saw their 7 AM ratings DROP by 17 percent compared to their 6 AM ratings.  On Tuesday, ratings for the WHOLE show were down ANOTHER eleven percent from Monday. Scarborough is now on the path we at MSNBC used to call “A Rita Cosby.” On Monday, the debut Rita Cosby Live and Direct has the highest ratings on the network. On Tuesday, it’s down a typical 10 percent from the debut. By Wednesday HALF the audience is gone. On Thursday, it’s a re-broadcast of “Rita Cosby Live and Direct.” On Friday it’s “What was the name of that show we used to have that Rita Cosby was on?” Joe and Mika are done, and they are going to hit every stair on the way down. And for those of us for the whom the headline is "You somehow BELIEVED Scarborough was being sincere?" we are going to enjoy every thud. B-Block (23:45) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Matt Gaetz gets dunked on about 18-year old laws, JD Vance directs his misogyny against Steve Bannon's woman CFO and has to eat it, and Marjorie Taylor Greene has actually invited a transgendered woman somewhere to meet her - Greene - in the bathroom and beat the crap out of her (Greene). C-Block (34:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Because my schadenfreude diet hasn't started yet let me tell you the whole Joe Scarborough story. This scumbag finally ran out of other people to try to sabotage and instead destroyed himself. In my days before I escaped MSNBC it amazed me he ever got on the air: he spent 90% of his time and 99% of his energy on trying to sabotage Maddow and me and others. And so he goes from "Joey Scars" to "Joe Scared-Bro."    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 3 EPISODE 71: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has started down the path to purges of the military, political prosecutions and show trials. His fascists have actually leaked plans to court-martial and even seek treason charges against army leadership and even retired generals. NBC News reports: "“The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plan. Officials working on the transition are considering creating a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal… and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason… “They’re taking it very seriously,” the person with knowledge of the plan said." Thus, President Biden has to proactively pardon ALL of them. In point of fact, President Biden must now assemble a list of thousands of people to pardon – in the military – in the Democratic party – in state and local governments – in election supervision - in the media – in the protest movements – in the climate movement – people in any of the fields this psychopath Trump thinks wronged him and against which he is not only plotting retribution but now actively PLANNING it. Hegseth, already facing an unlikely confirmation due to, you know, Crusader Tats, has now been revealed to have paid off a woman after a sexual assault allegation in 2017. Trump may throw him under a bus but he's reportedly doubled down on Matt Gaetz at DOJ: “Trump wants Gaetz confirmed ‘100%’ a source told CNN. ‘He is not going to back off. He’s all in’” This figures to turn on whether or not Trump and the majority of Republican Senators who will not vote for Gaetz meet in the middle - and the middle is a Recess Appointment (and a dictatorship). So, back to my earlier point about Pardons. B-Block (23:30) SPECIAL COMMENT 2: There IS much to do, no matter how January 20th and the days thereafter play out. You want some practical advice? A little spiritual inspiration? St. Hubbins Day if not St. Crispin's Day? Got half an hour? Cause I have half an hour of advice. C-Block (56:0) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Haven't done these in awhile but somebody was asking about our election night and special political coverage at MSNBC in 2004-06-08-10 and I flashed back to the continuing adventure that was Chris Matthews - particularly how he began ogling a prominent woman in the church at a presidential funeral and I was assigned to get him to stop.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 3 EPISODE 70: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BONUS EDITION: We are missing the POINT of the nominations of Sideshow Bobby Kennedy and Beavis and Botox Gaetz. This, simply, is Trump finding out how MUCH of a dictatorship his Republican House and Senate slaves will let him have. It's hard to believe that the literally worm-eaten brain of RFK Jr and the Madison Cawthorn wannabe that is Matt Gaetz could decide whether the Republicans will stop him here (or anywhere) but this is where we are. Because Trump is explaining his plan: I decide, I tell you what to do, and you do it or else. We are already HERE: THIS is the fork in the fascist road: deliberately choose people with no morals, no qualifications, and no qualities except absolute fealty to the dictator, then insist everybody else salute them. Same for Noem. Same for Gabbard. Same for Hegseth. Same for Patel. THE NEXT TEST will be openly demanding that he be permitted to run again in 2028, if he isn't dead by then. A lot of people asked me why I devoted so much time to the topic yesterday since it's a settled issue. Congressman Dan Goldman was concerned enough by Trump's third term "joke" to introduce a resolution affirming that the 22nd Amendment precludes it. Except, since early this year, the far right has been insisting that you're wrong, that's not what the 22nd Amendment says. The headline in a recent edition of the magazine The American Conservative: “TRUMP 2028.” Sub-head: “The 22nd Amendment is an arbitrary restraint on presidents who serve non-consecutive terms – and on democracy itself.” The American Conservative, by the way, is a "partner" of Project 2025.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 3 EPISODE 69: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Forget for a moment "Attorney General" Matt Gaetz and the bottom falling out of the market for prosecuting men who have sex with underaged girls. Forget for a moment associating Tulsi Gabbard with the word "Intelligence." Forget the prospect of Press Secretary Sage Steele. Even forget Trump's plan to adjourn both houses of Congress so he can appoint an entire cabinet without a single hearing and the Republicans rushing to bark like seals as the Lame Duck Dictator starts rolling out the Third Reich. The lead story was a different 'third.' “I suspect I won’t be running again,” Trump said to his newly elected Republican House slaves, “unless you say ‘he’s good, we got to figure something else” and every news organization reported he was joking and kidding and trolling and - spoiler alert - he’s NOT. He’s NOT kidding. He’s intending to stay in office and if we’re nice to him he’ll let us elect him again. They've been working on this for more than a year: it's a re-interpretation of the 22nd Amendment and the two-term limit, claiming it means three CONSECUTIVE terms, or going around it and getting him by any one of four different backdoors.  That Trump is emboldened enough to go public with his "kidding" tells you how badly he has misread the shock this would create. Oh yes, everyone reported, he's a kidder. He's kidding. Ask Mike Pence how much of a kidder he is. MEANWHILE: Lincoln had his "Team of Rivals." Trump is building his "Team of Trifles." And the key appointment isn't Gaetz or Gabbard or Huckabee or any of these other empty vessels. It's Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense because when the protests against Trump starts and he wants the protestors to face U.S. Army tanks and be shot with your taxpayer bullets, the guy who is just crazy enough to order it is this lunatic Hegseth. B-Block (27:54): POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Jack Smith will get out, and get out a report. Putin continues to turn the screws on Trump. At Mar-a-Lago, Elon Musk is "getting a little big for his britches" (Ozempic time!). Musk is also at war with Steve Bannon. Melania won't live at the White House. And one third of network news viewers voted for Trump so all the limp ABC/CBS/NBC coverage mattered more than we thought. C-Block (40:00): THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Olivia Nuzzi has suddenly backed off all her stalking claims against Ryan Lizza. Wait I'll get my dumpster-sized bag of popcorn. Tim Pool, Pine Cone. And the Idaho Republican who tells a Democrat to go back to where she comes from. You won't believe which minority group she belongs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 3 EPISODE 68: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: If you're wondering who's the boss here it ain't Trump. Putin refused to call him first and instead had Russian State Television "celebrate" his becoming the 21st Century Grover Cleveland by showing nude photos of Melania. Russian TV - which has figured out Trump is a lame duck - also reported Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo would not be in the new administration long before Trump announced it. Putin also seems to have soured on RFK Jr, leaving Sideshow Bobby to aspire only to becoming Secretary of Masturbation. MEANWHILE, NO, THE ELECTION WAS NOT STOLEN - not in the sense you're thinking. It WAS stolen in the sense that the fascists and the anti-democracy billionaires have been running a series of illicit, hidden, disguised pro-Republican advertisements 24/7/365, for at least thirty years. They have been bombarding the underachievers of this nation, the incels, the morons, the idiots, the bros, and now the social media addicts of America, with a series of easy-to-digest, sweet-tasting conspiracy theories on a thousand streaming networks and podcasts and the Democrats have...MSNBC. The Left not only doesn't compete in the new Marketplace of Ideas it doesn't know where the shops are. It has to change this or you can forget '26 and '28 as well. On the other hand, this circular firing squad? Utterly ludicrous. It looks like Kamala Harris will have ultimately lost by 1.5% which would make Trump's the fifth SMALLEST popular vote win all time. You do not burn it all down after that. You rebuild. B-BLOCK (32:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Corey Lewandowski and Chris LaCivita show us what winning means: you get to try to kill your rival on the winning team. Finally we figure out what's really behind the deportation scam: the companies that will make billions building the private prisons to turn into concentration camps for deportees. Nevermind the future of NATO. Will its members ever trust us with intel again? And the Dallas Cowboys honor founding coach Tom Landry on Veterans' Day by...misspelling his name. But it'll all come out in the wash. C-BLOCK (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: With only 7% of the city believing he didn't commit a crime, New York Mayor Eric Adams has reached out to...Trump. The Massachusetts congressman has the New Democratic rallying cry: Transphobia! And the White House "correspondent" so stupid she publicly accused the Democrats of trying to fix the Kari Lake/Ruben Gallego race so they can "steal" Congress. Except Lake and Gallego were running for the Senate!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.