Countdown with Keith Olbermann

COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 19

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): What Fresh Hell will the world look like after the midterms?

Certainties: it will look like a Wednesday, and Haley Stevens' time as an American will be over. She betrayed her state, party, constituents, and now the Republicans will betray her. All for the sake of her fiancé, Uncle Fester.

Probabilities: a Democratic House. By double digits. And Trump bombing Iran as early as Wednesday, possibly using nukes, to help Netanyahu, and to try to force a regime change that will not happen.

Possibilities: a Democratic Senate (but remember it could be a Republican Senate, possibly by more than it is now). If the former, the most immediate outcome will be Trump forcing Alito and Thomas off the Supreme Court even if it means nuking them. He would have two months before the Senate would deny him any nominee. There is also an easy-to-see scenario in which the process by which Trump resigns because a Democratic Supreme Court would invalidate both Presidential "Immunity" and his own self-pardon. It might not happen until the morning of January 20, 2029, but he'll have to do it.

Also: somehow even with the Haley Stevens heel turn Michele Tafoya is still the worst human being involved in the Senate races. Attacking Lisa Guerrero over her miscarriage? Sometimes you can read a book by its cover (especially if Michele's pages are blank). The CBS News/60 Minutes disaster worsens, and Anthropic thinks AI has a soul - and can make bioweapons.

B-Block 37:00 (PATRICK STEWART): I got to meet the late legend, and that fact gives me the chance to not only recount the pleasure of the encounter, but how we talked mostly about...Cable News. I got to tell him that a show you probably don't know him for called "Blunt Talk" - about an impeccable cable news/political anchor who off the air was a basket case, was perfect, and on the money, and reminded me of...everybody I ever worked with, including one of them we called "Lawrence Of Egomania." How he loved THAT.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 17

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 16

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 15

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

He is owned by Russia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 14

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 13

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

I know you know this – we all know this.

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN – SEASON 5 EPISODE 11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 9

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

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

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

It. Is. Happening.

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

The De-Trumpification Has Begun!

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 7

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

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

No - I was wrong.

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

No. I was wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 6

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

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

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

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

Well done CBS – The Conservative Brainwashing System.

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5, EPISODE 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - BULLETIN, SEPTEMBER 10 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 3

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

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

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

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

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

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BULLETIN: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN SEPTEMBER 3 2026

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

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

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SEASON 5 EPISODE 1: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

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

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

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

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SEASON 4 EPISODE 84: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

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

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

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

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

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

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