Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. These eight are quizzlings, tradeorse, cowards, capitulators, collaborators, fakes, frauds, enablers, betrayers, failures, political prostitutes. Last night, eight senators, nominal Democrats, voted to fold, without any pressure, without any bribe, without any anything. They voted to kick millions of Americans off Obamacare in order to reopen and fund the government to reopen it for
only three months. Mind you, So we have to go through this again in exchange, not for magic beans this time, but just for the promise of a vote in which they might get magic beans, A vote on the healthcare subsidies, which they will win if half a dozen Republicans defy Trump, a vote on magic beans, which they will lose. Eight of them, six Democrats, the independent Angus King of Maine, who caucused with Democrats until last night, apparently, and John Fetterman.
You cannot recall a senator in Pennsylvania and anyway, that would not be enough for Fetterman. He should be institutionalized, or worse, he should be sold on waivers to Maga. His mind is that unsound, f you Fetterman. The other traders whose careers in the Senate, in the Democratic Party, in public life must now end are Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Senator Limp Dick Durbin never someone to sit around and fight when an opera tunity would arise to
give in. Senator Maggie Hassen of New Hampshire, who, in betraying America, had the nerve to say she was doing so to quote, make sure the government is functioning and continue the fight to a realistic platform to get the premium tax cuts done. If that is not successful, then shame on the Republican Party and shame on Donald Trump. No, shame on you, miss Hassen, you useless clown. Republicans do not feel shame. Trump has no human emotions, You have
no intelligence. You have been played by shameless people who you think will feel shame. Get the f out. Senator Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire, who for most of us, for the first time, has made us realize that she and Maggie Hassen are not the same person. They might as well be. What do you say to your colleagues who say this isn't a fight, this is a capitulation. She was asked last night. She answers, we have a guaranteed vote by a guaranteed date, which you imbecile, you
are certain to lose. You traded a stalemate where the other side was beginning to crack for a total defeat. Get the f out of our party, Senator Catherine Cortes Mastow, it's our responsibility to work not only here amongst ourselves, but across the aisle, to solve these problems for the Americans, make their lives a little bit easier. I gather, Senator Cortez Mastow, You've never actually been to the Senate or
to Washington, where there is no isle. There's just a moat full of swamp creatures that Trump owns, and there is no problem solving to be done with the other side. The other side is just a series of whores for Trump, whores for Trump with which you are now attached. Senator Jackie Rosen of Nevada quote, Senate Republicans need to work with us in a bipartisan way before the next deadline.
Un quote.
I hate to break this to you, Senator Jackie, but they won't. You have deluded yourself, You have sold your constituents out your only honorable course is to resign your office today. And lastly, there is Senator Tim Kine of Virginia, who has been essentially a zombie since he went through an entire presidential campaign without ever really noticing once that he was the vice presidential nominee. Useless, at least he's consistent.
Counting Fetterman, there are seven nominal Democrats there, and they need to be expelled from the party. And those that mysticularly think they have a chance of retaining their seats must be primaried and defeated must be The seven and Angus King are dead to us. They are not progressives, they are not pragmatists. They are not even moderates. They are simply gold plated, hot and cold running fools. Their careers must be ended now. Durban, Kane, Fetterman, shen Cortes, Mascow, Hassen, Rosen,
and King now done forgotten. Let us hear their names no more. And as to the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who voted against this bill the rare occasion where he voted correctly, this bill will now sail through the House and give Trump what he wants and gut Obama Care and then we get to do this all over again in February, when they're Republicans will have seen only Democratic weakness and how they can plow through these eight ghosts
in the Democratic Senate Caucus. As to Chuck Schumer, minority leader, who could not keep even half of these bereft, disingenuous, untrustworthy, uselessfeckless Democratic Senate assholes in line, Chuck Schumer's time in
this role must come to an end. One of the responsibilities of Senate leadership is to make wandering members of your own party realize that it doesn't really matter where their principles might sit or what they think they're going to do with their careers, but they must realize at all times that, no matter how good and just you may be, they must know that if they go to talk to the enemy in the middle of a war and cut a deal with the enemy, they are likely
to be metaphorically shot in the back by you, then and already leader. Which did not happen, Chuck Schumer, You presided as your party, got a promise of a vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies, a promise of a vote, a promise for a vote, which you will lose. Getting a promise from a Republican is simply exactly the same
thing as not getting a promise from a Republican. And now it is also the same thing as getting a promise from Durban, Kane, Feederman, Shaheen, Cortes, Mascow, Hassen, rosenand King, and to hell with each of them. As if this could be more infuriating than it already is. There is also this fact. It is more evident now than it has been at any point in the past, that Trump's mind is gone. He is at his most vulnerable position. His mental health now down to about a zero on
a scale of zero to anything. Is so bad even the Washington effing Post has noticed. It is so bad. The Washington Post even put it on its front page. He's hyping weight loss drugs in the Oval office and how he and he alone can bring down their price. And a weight loss patient there to extol weight loss drugs and say how safe they are and to praise Trump's wonderfulness. Collapses, folds, drops slow motion like a deflating
inflatable tube. Man that he used car sales lot. Weight loss patient fates at weight loss meeting It's like the bit in the Jack Nicholson pictured Chinatown, where the corner says to Nicholson.
Mettle of a drought. The water commissioner drowns only an la. Trump, whose mind is gone, gets up, looks at the guy on the floor, looks away, stares forward, totally pissed off. How dare he interrupt my latest attempt to rip off America? Photos taken while they carry the poor deflated tube man out of the Oval meeting resumes. Trump sits down. He does, not, however, fully fall asleep this time, Trump, whose mind is Gone,
had already fallen a sleep quote. A closer look at Trump's apparent struggles to fight off sleep in the Oval office read the Washington Post headline. A Washington Post analysis of multiple video feeds found that the president spent nearly
twenty minutes apparently battling to keep his eyes open. Eight hundred and fifteen words followed that headline and four pictures, one of Trump whose mind is gone with one eye closed, one with one eye closed and two fingers rubbing that eye, one with both eyes closed, and one where you can almost see the snoring quote. The president displayed a constellation of movements familiar to anyone who was attempted to stay
awake during a work meeting. He closed his eyes, he put his hand to his temple, He slouched in his chair. The Washington Post The Broken Fascist, Quizzling Bezos. Washington Post even writes that after Gordon the weight loss guy exited stage left, that the Trump stroking quote resumed about an hour later, with Trump noticeably perkier, but still caught on camera at moments with his eyes closed. The article is amazing. What's also amazing is that writers Dan Diamond and Jam
Readers still work for The Washington Post. It's amazing that they are still unindicted by Trump's corrupt, morally bankrupt Department of Justice. Maybe that's because Trump, whose mind is gone, forgot to tell his Department of Justice to indict the writers.
Look, don't don't. Don't get me wrong, Nodding off in a meeting is hardly conclusive, self contained proof that your mind is gone. There is a reasonable chance that you will nod off during this podcast, and you're fine. But Trump's quick trip to Sleepy Town, his quick role as the nod father, was just the symbolic part of all this.
Because Trump's mind is gone, and sudden sleep, bordering on a kind of colloquial narcolepsy is often a component to dementia of all kinds, just as is a cognitive test in April and then the same test exactly six months later, accompanied by an MRI. Just as is increasingly erratic behavior over a short period of time. And I know it's amazing to look at crazy Trump and use the phrase increasingly erratic. He's been increasingly erratic since December nineteen eighty three.
I can only speak to December nineteen eighty three, to that date, nearly forty two years ago, because that's when I first met him. It probably started long before then. But he is his his mind is gone, and it's accelerating again. Even if the snooze was just a snooze and the non human response to the guy there to tell you how safe the drugs are passing out in front of the media, even if the response to that
is just part of Trump's evil. Let's step back from the nuts and bolts of say the government shut down, to try to process how it was perceived by Trump, whose mind is gone. He thought it would be a good look to cut off food stamps, so lines at soup kitchens outdoors would get longer just as it was getting cold. He thought the correct political move as the
holidays approached was government sponsored starvation. He believed that the country would praise him for gradually also shutting down all air travel, including all air travel for his supporters, first for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas and New Year's. Marjorie Taylor Green got on a train for Georgia. She was having such trouble getting on a plane over the weekend. Marjorie Taylor Green advised people to take the train. Trump
thought these were good political moves. He thought he could even get America to blame the Democrats for this, even though he runs the White House, he runs the Senate, he runs the House, and he runs the Supreme Court. And of course, since he only watches television that feeds back his propaganda to him, he thinks he's right because his mind is gone again. I am reminded of a movie scene Anthony Perkins as the troubled baseball player Jim
pearsall in fear strikes out. They wanted him to change from the outfield to shortstop, and he didn't want to play shortstop, and basically he had a breakdown over it. One day Piersaul Perkins as Pearsall is suddenly chipper and happy, and his wife says, Jim, what happened, and he merrily explains that he doesn't have to play shortstop anymore because he's hidden his shortstops glove, and she looks at him
like she is saying to him herself. He doesn't realize there's more than one shortstops glove in the world, does he. His mind is gone Trump is Jim Pearsall. When it comes to the media, he doesn't see it. That means nobody said it, kind of a Mike Johnson way of looking at life.
His mind is gone.
Every week now he says something about lowering food prices by seven hundred percent or lowering energy prices by a billion percent, and nobody says, you know, uh, sir, you can raise stuff by more than one hundred percent, but you can't lower anything by more than one hundred percent. It's not mathematically possible. So he keeps saying it because his mind is gone. Every week he lets his crazy Renfield Steven Miller spend yet crazier and more dangerous conspiracy theories.
The newest one yesterday was about Obama and Comer and Clapper. I think he's got Jimmy Hoffe in this one, and maybe the people who killed Julius Caesar and Doge payments or something. Because Trump's mind is gone and Miller's mind has been gone for decades now, Trump has decided to defend his disastrous tariffs by promising a two thousand dollars dividend to everyone in the country except the rich. And that's something around six hundred billion dollars right now during
a shutdown. So the Treasury Secretary, you, who literally cannot keep his head straight up on his shoulders, races to the Nearest Sunday Show to explain that the two thousand dollars dividend might just be the money we met along the way. Quote tax decreases, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of older loans, says Scott Bessen unquote, here's your two thousand dollars. Oh wait, no, there is no two thousand dollars. You
already got your two thousand dollars. So Trump, whose mind is gone, also suggested that's how to change the Affordable Care Act simply send people money for healthcare from the government. I'm not sure what planned Trump has because his mind is gone, but it sounds like you just write Trump a letter and tell him how much you need. Now, be honest, don't pad it. Let's all play fair and this will work out fine. How much do you need for healthcare? Right Donald Trump, Washington, DC, and he'll send
it to you. I don't know how to put this exactly. Trump's mind is gone, and he spent yesterday gushing about a flyover when two thousand flights for you the little people were canceled, and gushing about gold drapes at his new ballroom at the White House, gold drapes at the executives at the Rotary Club of Skinny Atlas, New York would look at and say, are you crazy? We have
class here. But again, it may be easiest to understand all this if we underscore the more symbolic stuff, like his Thursday nap before and after Gordon the Ozembic victim fainted, the nerve of him to upstage El Presidente like that, or like what happened yesterday went at the Washington Commander's NFL game, the team owner Josh I'm not Daniel Snyder. Harris reportedly did discuss naming his new stadium after Trump and discussed it with Trump. Most impressively, Harris supposedly kept
a straight face as he did this ESPN. It was a first reported Trump was making the hint demand threat full expression of his narcissism. He wanted the stadium named after him because his mind is gone. His version of the North Korean news anchor that would be Caroli and Levitt immediately announced this would be wonderful because Trump enabled the building of the stadium, which is absolute nonsense. It
all happened during the Biden administration. On the other hand, the possibilities for new names for this stadium have inspired some of the most searing anti Trump commentary of our times. Several wags noted that for years in Miami we already
had the Orange Bowl. There were many variations of Trump is in the Epstein Files Stadium, but the winner came from an actual football guy, former Ravens and Eagles Super Bowl winning receiver Tory Smith, who wrote, simply impeached field at Insurrection Stadium, whereas I added, it could be colloquially known as the Big House, the Big House for those of you untainted by college football. That's what they call the football stadium at the University of Michigan. There is
actually in this episode more actual sports to mention. Give me a moment, though, first, let me circle back to the disaster in the Senate last night and the need to excommunicate the Quizzlings led by Dick Durbin and our visiting senator from Cannimatet Territory, John Vetterman. They are cowards, they are failures. They have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Moreover, it is the exact opposite of what the last two weeks has shown us. Stand up to Trump.
He is still terrified of anybody who fights back. Run against Trump on what he is doing to the economic lives of your constituents, and run against Trump on what he is doing to the civil rights lives of your constituents. The New York Times revealed the seven percent solution in the Jersey and Virginia governor's elections. Why were they blowouts? Quote the two Democrats won so decisively because they also flipped a crucial sliver of voters who said they supported
mister Trump. In twenty twenty four, Miss Chryl and Ms. Svanberger both won seven percent of mister Trump's supporters. According to the exit polls, seven percent of Trump's supporters. Do you want to do the math on that? In a national race, what seven percent of Trump's supporters would do? That might be a shutout in the electoral college. The exit polls to resume the Times report in New Jersey found that Miss Cheryl won a whopping eighteen percent of
mister Trump's Hispanic support in the state. No figures were reported for Virginia, where the Hispanic vote is smaller. Run against Trump. Do not make deals with Republicans in the Senate, and it's not just big picture like the governor's races. The magas sheriff in Bucks County in Pennsylvania is gone. Fred Harron landslided by the Democrat Danny Seisler, who ran
against Harron's collaboration with Trump's ICE. From the Bucks County Courier Times quote, Seisler's victory was driven in part by backlash to Heron's decision to partner county deputies with ICE. The partnership, which a Bucks County judge upheld last month, would have allowed sheriff's deputies to act as Ice agents. Seisler pledged to end the program if elected. Seisler spoke at anti Trump protests across the county, urging voters to show their anger at the president by voting out Republicans
in Bucks County. And guess what they did run against Trump? Just try to do two things at the same time. Economy and Trump is death. I mean a Trump is who just left the dictatorship is now threatening judges with a vague, violent kind of motif. This guy spoke to a Federalist Society conference of lawyers. A judge disagrees with Trump, impeach him or her. Quote, what's going to force the Supreme Court to do something is fundamentally political pressure, says
this guy Myzell. It's going to be when Congress starts impeaching judges and saying you are now encroaching into our territory. Now here's the vague threat. Quoting myzel again, what do I think Trump should do? He should stand up and he's already done this and say judges, I know how to deal with stray cats. Who knows exactly what that means, But it doesn't to me sound like catch them and rehabilitate them through reward based training. Punchline, This goober Mizelle
threatening to treat judges like stray cats. Cornell law naturally that Mizelle is married to a judge. I'm sorry, dear, I didn't mean you. I didn't mean you were a stray cat. Run against Trump or against Vance? Do they really think Vance is?
You?
Know it? Do trump ists and MAGA look at JV and see a leader, a macho figure of some kind. Do they not see an eye wearing guy who in the places where Trump uses his TMU Hitler act, Vance simply pinches Politico polling on favorites for twenty twenty eight. In the nominations, Vance is the Republican favorite. Now the reality check here is it's Republicans, so there is no reality. Vance polls thirty five percent, and second at twenty eight percent is Trump.
Yes.
Six out of ten of the police are also in favor of amending the constitution to allow a third term. Even though thirteen states can in effect veto any constitutional amendment, even if you could get one up and running in the next three years, and there are sixteen no question unshakable permanent blue states, that number is probably actually nineteen, and by next year it'll be in the low to
mid twenties. Run against Trump advance to quote another line written by my late friend Bill Goldman that has been transformed into history, even though we don't think Deep Throat actually said it in real life, only in the movie All the President's Men. The truth is these are not very bright guys. Trump's appeal of the court order denying him the chance to starve Americans by not paying snap benefits literally concluded. Quote. This is in the document filed
with the courts. Quote just think of JD.
Vance.
There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find four billion dollars in the metaphorical couch cushions.
Oh this is Sports Senate. Wait check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith Alberman.
Couch cushions.
Did you say? Okay?
Two things. The marriage between legalized sports gambling and the actual sports leagues is now claiming victims. Those two suspended Cleveland pitchers, Emmanuel Classe and Luis Ortiz, who didn't see the playoffs because well, there was some problem with legal gambling. They've now been charged or tees has been arrested. The allegation is they took a couple thousand each to throw specific pitches or pitches at specific speeds, so gamblers could bet on how fast the pitch was or if it
was a ball or a strike. Micro betting, not on a game, not on a run, not.
On a hit.
Just no harm, right, just a couple of pitches. First pitch of the inning is a ball, I win? Who loses? Allegedly, the gamblers, all with legal bets, won something approaching a total of half a million dollars. Class A and Ortiz deny everything. Both are not pitching at the moment and probably won't for at least a while, and they face, oh, by the way, sixty five years in jail. Fortunately, though, we can all relax because these are the only two
pitchers who ever even thought of doing anything like this. No, of course, it couldn't be wide spread. No, no, definitely, not just these two instances, just these two guys and their friends ever, anybody else, nobody else ever ever at all couch cushions. And on a lighter note, if you saw it online, no, the supposed one of one super rare baseball card of show hey Otani is a fake.
It is clearly a photoshopped version of a tops now card, a kind of baseball card that has the picture of a player along with a game used artifact, like part of a baseball that's been cut up, or a bat or a bass or in this case, part of show Hey o'tonani is jockstrap.
That's the claim. That's the claim.
It's a baseball card with show Hey Otani's jockstrap one of one. It's not true. Nobody has made a game
used jockstrap card. Yet on the other hand, when I first broke into television, it was common belief, I would say knowledge maybe at CNN Sports, that one of our reporters had seriously gotten a bizarre game used item and had it bronzed and mounted on a plaque, and he presented it to our network founder and owner, Ted Turner, because this reporter thought it would be a great gift that Ted would love and it would curry favor with Ted.
And instead Ted was in one of his clearer moments of the early eighties and he said, get that the f out of my face, and he never quite trusted this reporter ever. Again, out of respect for the reporter, who is no longer with us. I will leave his name out of this. I did ask him about it once and he didn't deny it, and I don't think he liked me anymore after I asked him about it. I asked Ted Turner about it years ago. Ted and I got along fine for many many years. And Ted
laughed and he nodded yes. All he said was that guy, what a jackass. The game used bronze item intended for Ted Turner as a gift from a CNN Sports reporter reportedly went instead onto the wall of the reporter's home. I don't know what happened to it thereafter, and in fact, I'm glad I don't know.
It was.
Kansas City Royal star George Bretts Jockstrap.
Collect the entire series. What is this over here? This is the smallest basketball hoop I've ever oh.
Also of interest here back to that fateful Oval Office dog and pony show so boring that the star civilian witness passed out, and Trump, whose mind is gone checked out. Incredibly, neither of these things constituted the dumbest thing said that fateful afternoon. That was something said by mister crue de Tay himself good old doctor Oz once again, trumpsts mister math book is our friend. Wait till you hear this. That's next. This is Countdown.
This is Countdown with Keith Oberman.
Still ahead.
On this episode of Countdown, I'm reminded that Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill's son once proudly wrote an article called why I'm Not a Socialist. I am going to offer you the equivalent of that in podcast form, Why I'm Not a Hockey Announcer. I know you think of this often and wonder what the truth is. The truth is I was trying to be one and then they pulled the rugout from under me. So I pulled the rugout from
under them. The story of the Ithacus Stars and Why I'm Not a Hockey announcer coming up next in Things I Promised Not to Tell First, Believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other.
Worst persons in the world.
Sharing the bronze in the media division Politico and The New York Times. We do the Times first, per the Sill newsletter from Lachland Cartwright breaker. He found this in the New York Times quarterly profit statement, in which on their earnings call last week, they announced they had four hundred and sixty thousand new digital subscribers. As he pointed out, it was the biggest quarterly gain since The Times started
disclosing that metric a few years ago. And it's a very large number, he writes, when you consider the Times that only averaged two hundred and forty eight thousand new subscribers per quarter going all the way back to the start of twenty twenty two. How did it manage, he asks, to increase subscribers by more than forty six percent in just one earnings period. Well, Sir Lachland Cartwright found on page twelve of the third quarter results press release, that's right, he reads this stuff Times.
That the Times.
Started marketing a family subscription plan, not a higher price, earlier in the year like the Flick's family plan. One build account includes separate identities, as he writes, for each family member. And it started to take off mostly because people like to play games. And here's what it is,
even though it's one subscription. As he found in the Times quarterly statement quote, each family subscription is priced higher than a comparable individual subscription, and is counted as one build subscriber and one additional subscriber to reflect the additional entitlements in these subscriptions. The footnote in tiny print reveals the additional subscribers represented approximately two percent of total digital only subscribers at the end of third quarter twenty twenty five.
As he writes Voila, the Times new double counting method magically added two hundred and thirty five thousand new subscribers, more than half of the four hundred and sixty thousand it claimed at the top of Tuesday's earning release. In other words, when they were averaging two hundred and forty eight thousand new subscribers every quarter, this new accounting method allowed them to double that figure to make it look like they had double the new subscribers than they actually do.
All the books that are fit to cook. That's my quote, not cartwrights. Then there's Politico. I have often suggested that most of Washington media is like this. It's not just that they look in the wrong end of the telescope. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year, fifty three weeks a year if they could arrange it. It's not just that, but they insist they're doing it correctly, and they have welded these telescopes to the eyeballs of everybody who works in the
Washington Press Corps. But it's politically true universally, but particularly true at Politico. There are lots of things that you can point to about the election of Zoron Mam Danny as mayor of New York. There are many things, whether you're opposed to it or you believe it's the greatest thing since slice bread. I happen to point at one thing, which is I think the guy is going to show up to work, unlike the last four mayors, maybe five. I like the idea that he's not seventy five years old.
I like the idea that he's a wonk and a nerd and he wants to do the job. I just want somebody to do the job, just the job. I don't know how many of these things he's going to get done that he's promised. Good luck to him. Many of them make sense. The worst of them are like, Okay, that probably won't happen, but go ahead, try try The last guy all he tried to do is get free upgrades on trips to Turkey. The cheapest crook in America. You can buy the mayor of New York for five
hundred dollars if you pay cash three percent off. But my point is not about It's not about any mayor past or present or future. It's about how Politico the lens through which they see the Mamdani election. This was after Mamdanni's election. They wrote this start your day with the man of the moment, New York City Mayor Alexora and Mamdani, who spoke with Politico's Joe Anuda for four
and a half questions to unpack Tuesday's results. It's the final question half question that's the most revealing in democratic circles at least. So this is what about socialism, about the future of the party, about the about the nature of getting elected mayor of New York, How to be a thirty mid thirties mayor, how to look towards managing a city with almost as many people in it as Abigail Spanberger just found out as the whole state to Virginia. No, no,
this is what they think. What Politico thinks is the story of the election of this man as mayor of New York. Lightning round our man, Joe says, with what can only be a gleam in his eye? First off, he should have been fired at that spot right there, Lightning round. This is one of the great cliches of journalism, people asking lightning round questions. It's relatively new, Probably nineteen seventy.
Was the first time I heard it used in a political context.
It's from my experience from a game show called Password with Alan Ludden, Betty White's late husband. Lightning round, our man Joe says, with what can only be a gleam in his eye? That actually, that might be an infection. Here's what they think is the most important question to ask zaraon mom Donni. He takes into that period of time of transition between his election and becoming mayor.
Of New York.
Quote, should Chuck Schumer face a challenge in twenty twenty eight? Seriously, that's what you ask him. If that's your fifth most important question, you should be fired. If you think it's your first most important question, you should be fired and leave the industry. And I don't I mean media, not just news media, ma'am. Donnie finally answers for himself. I'm focused on this transition, my brother. But thank you, and
then and then here's the insight. This is what makes Politico Politico, sometimes writes the editor, silence is the loudest noise of all. Oh my god, you got abused and hosed for asking a stupid quot question. And you think the fact that the guy wouldn't answer it is some sort of great revelation. And I mean, we're not even talking about the merits of whether or not Chuck Schumer should face a challenge in twenty twenty eight. You know
how I feel about Chuck Schumer. Why the hell you're asking, ma'am, Donnie. That man just a historic election to become mayor of New York, which hasn't had a mayor at some point in the Bloomberg administration when he violated the city charter and the votes by the city twice by the residents who said you can't have a third term, and he had a third term. Anyway, we haven't had a mayor in like twenty years.
Here, you think.
Chuck Shermer should face a challenge in twenty twenty eight, I mean, I would be if the child journalists who always appears in these things and does interviews at age nine of hockey players and political candidates and newly elected mayors of New York asked do you.
Think Chuck Schumer should face a challenge in twenty twenty eighth? The kid should have been fired?
All right, I'll stop now.
Runner up worser Gianni Infantino, the head of World football, or as we in the real sports country call it soccer. Johnny Infantino was the replacement for I'm forgetting if it was directly. He succeeded the guy who went to prison, who had like sixteen apartments in New York City and used to sleep in a different one every night because he was convinced people were trying to kill him. Johnny Infantino was considered the clean guy, the reform candidate. You've
seen him. Trump thinks his name is Johnny. That's Johnny. H I'm that's sick. This is the NPR account of what he's done. Now see if you can see where this is going. In fact, raise your hand when you know where this story is going. FIFA has announced the creation of a Peace Prize, which it plans to award at the draw for the World Cup on December five in Washington, the draw being who plays who The award called the FIFA Peace Prize. Ah, that's going on on
a limb there. We'll quote recognize exceptional actions for peace, soccer's governing body said Wednesday, because when I think peace, I think the World Cup. When I think peace, I think guys who when they break into a brawl on the soccer pitch fight with their feet. I think FIFA for international peace Prizes. Now, admittedly the Nobel Peace Prize
was started by the guy who perfected dynamite. In an increasingly unsettled and divided world, it's fundamental to recognize the outstanding contribution of those who work hard to end conflicts and bring people together in a spirit of peace, FIFA president Jiohnny Infantino said. FIFA said, the award, which Infentino will present this year. Can you now guess who it's going to, will be bestowed annually on behalf of fans from all around the world. That's right, He's going to
give it to Trump, isn't he? He has been polishing Donald Trump for years now. The World Cup is in America. I don't know if anybody's heard about that. I don't know if anybody's going to hear about it when it happens, but they're going to give Donald Trump the FIFA Peace Prize, and he is so sick in the head that he's going to think it's a big deal, and he will then claim and I think this is the evil genius
in the Infantino decision here. I think he will then claim Trump that is that he has won this award every time it's ever been given out. But it's not al timate, but our winner. One of his employees, doctor Oz. You may remember Doctor Oz from such farces as his run for the Senate in Pennsylvania and the tone deaf video he made that he shot of himself in a supermarket, actually had a crew shooting him in a supermarket, complaining about the price of vegetables to put in crude detays.
His wife wanted to make cru detays like everybody. Everybody on earth knew what a crup detay was, and everybody on earth went shopping for the components of a crue de tay every day, so that when he said she wanted to make a crue de tay, well, you'll hear the clip in a moment, but he's topped himself. He is now head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, but he is still a moron the Crewe detay first and what turns out to be his crude understanding of mathematic X.
Second, there's some grocery shopping.
I'm at weg nurse and my wife wants some vegetables for crude to day. Right, So here's a broccoli that's two bucks. We thought it was one hundred and twenty five billion pounds. As president, our estimate based on the company numbers as well, is Americans will lose one hundred and thirty five billion pounds by the midterms.
You heard him first, he said it right. They thought that with ozempic and the other drugs that were getting people hooked on rather than teaching them how to eat correctly or even close to correctly. I speak as somebody who's fought this battle my whole life. I understand it. But it's guess what happens in twenty years when they find out what the long term side effects are and
the drugs. We thought it was one hundred and twenty five million pounds that would be lost, and then of course he wanted to impress Trump, and in his haste to do that, he insisted, as you just heard, Americans will lose one hundred and thirty five bill billion pounds
by the midterms billion. Now, depending on your account of our population, three hundred and thirty plus or minus million, that would be each person loses somewhere between three hundred and ninety nine pounds and four hundred and three pounds. So you've got till midterms to drop one fifth of a ton each of you, including the new born. How big is your baby? Well minus three hundred and ninety five. This is the same math that allows Trump to claim
he lowered prices by eleventy billion percent. Only Memet, Oz is not supposed to be this much of a moron, and yet he is because you can take the cruditae out of Oz, but you can't take the oz out of the one hundred and thirty five billion pounds. Nice work, fella, doctor Memetz. So who could lose four hundred and three pounds do you think I mean? Besides, it's Trump Oz
two days hotter, worst person. And I mentioned recently that one of the things I wanted to do, In fact, my original career goal in broadcasting was to become play by play announcer of the New York Yankees. The second one, and the one I actually tried to work on for a while, was to become play by play announcer of the New York Rangers hockey team. My high school, Hackley, had a hockey team and a radio station, not that anybody listened to us, and we had a sports director.
His name was Chris Berman, and he did the basketball games, and one day put out an ad for somebody to do the hockey games. And the requirement was do you own your own cassette tape recorder? And I've played you the tapes of what I sounded like long before my
voice even began to change. The play by play wasn't bad for a thirteen year old kid, And I have to say the next year, nineteen seventy three, when the Pittsburgh Penguins job opened for play by play radio guy, I had the nuts to actually send them a tape and say, look, I know my voice is a little high, but think of the novelty aspect. So I always wanted to do hockey play by play. And then I went to Cornell, which might as well have had a professional
hockey franchise, and that's still true. Lina Rink is one of the great sporting event locales in the world, certainly in college hockey, and it always sold out, and the team was competitive and number one in the IVY League and the national Championship contender. And the rights to the games were owned by Cornell and immediately, of course dispersed to the two radio stations Cornell University, Inc. Own so we never got close to doing play by play of
Cornell hockey. I once asked my friend who was the general manager of those stations, Don Martin, who I've talked about here before as one of the most important people I ever met in broadcasting. I asked him, could we do the JV Games? Could we do the women's games? No, because you'll get advertising for it. I know you'll do a good job. You'll be taking bread out of the food of my announcers. And I was like, yeah, but I'm asking for like one slice of bread. You're gonna
go far, but not in Ithaca. So anyway, one day a fellow named Al Goldstein, who had come to us I believe from Berkeley, California, and was twenty eight years old and long past college days or college radio days. Moved to Ithaca, New York to try to become a radio sportscaster, newscaster, radio salesman, and had heard had done research on this and had determined that WVBR, the student owned professional radio station at Cornell University, was the best
training ground for radio in the country. Al was known as weird as and long before Yankovic, and he was a delightful guy. And he used all the southern or northern California lingo that none of us understood, happening in Gnarley and all these other things, long before they became famous things. I was like, what did I'll just say I'm not sure, but whatever. He works hard. So he did sports cast, and he did newscast, and he became a salesman because we sold advertising on the radio station.
And one day he came to me he said, you know, Ko, I've been talking to uh a lot of my clients out there, and they I just mentioned the Ethnica stars and their eyes light up, like why aren't they on the radio. I mean, like, I know it's not Cornell hockey, man, but they Cornell Hockey gets four thousand people if the Stars get eighteen hundred year. There's a lot of people people want to hear, why don't we do the games?
I'd get it sponsored immediately, and I went say that part again, and he went through it again, and I said, why don't we? So we all knew the president of the Ithaca Stars. It was, I believe, a car salesman. His name was Bob Toddy. We called him up and said how much for the rights to broadcast your games? Would do it on an experimental basis, and he went first ones free, and I said, I think my colleagues here will agree to that, and sure enough we scheduled
a broadcast of the Ithaca Stars versus somebody. The Ethica Stars would be made up of Cornell graduates who did not make it in professional hockey, or had played professional hockey and lived in the area came back to Ithaca. In other words, if you were a Cornell hockey star in nineteen seventy two and did not make a career of it, you could become an Ehaicca Stars star in nineteen seventy eight, which is when we are in the history of semi pro hockey in this country.
And they did.
They drew two thousand and a game at line of rink. They almost often when it would be a team like the Montreal former Canadians, they would fill the place out. People like their hockey and Ethica New York. The ice
is already the the rank is fantastic. So we put Al out on this and I was like, we'll try it, and I'll do the games, and the program director, Glen Cornelius, he'll be the he'll be my color man, and we'll have somebody host in between periods, and we'll have a reporter and we'll you know, maybe we'll get some wireless. But Al came back in twenty four hours and said sold it out. I was like, but I figured out how many availabilities we'd have and how many spots, and
we were going to have a waiting list. We've already taken in like twenty thousand dollars for this. I went, are you out of your mind? He goes, no, man, let's go ahead. Don't tell Toddy this will be demanding money. But I bet if we do, you know, we could do ten games before the end of their season. I
was like, let's go. So we now begin to promote this thing on WVBR coming up on Saturday night, and Glenn Cornelius and I go to a Corneill hockey practice and we do a practice broadcast of a game, and We're like, this isn't bad, and I'm thinking, maybe I could still become a hockey play by play man and my voice is changing, maybe I can send the tape to the Pittsburgh Penguins again. So now this is Monday or Tuesday, and then the broadcast is coming up on Saturday.
And we went wall to wall every commercial break on WVBR, every newscast, every sports cast, every disc jockey show, even the public affairs broadcasts. In the breaks, it was don't forget to listen to the other guitars they're premiering on WVBR with Keith Olverman and Glenn Cornelias, and we had five announcers, and we literally rented wireless mics.
And we had this whole thing.
We had a scoreboard show planned and a studio. It was just it was network level excess.
On Friday afternoon, I walked into the radio station and Al Goldstein was sitting at the desk in the newsroom that I usually used, in my chair in front of my typewriter Ashen and Al had what would have been politely referred to as a ruddy complexion, and he was white as a sheet. And I said, what's wrong? He goes, what's go inside? Man, Let's go inside. And we went into a studio and he went, they canceled the game. I went, what our game? Our game tomorrow night? It's canceled.
I said, what do you mean? It's canceled the Apparently there's a they forgot they forgot to rent the rink. So what do you mean they forgot to rent the rink? They think the Stars have been in business for twenty years. Suddenly he forgets to rent rent the rink. Yeah, there's a JV women's hockey practice and they won't interrupt it.
They won't change it.
There's no game Saturday. Man. I I can't remember the
rest of that day. I do know from having gone and listen to the tape that at some point I decided that there was a very simple solution to this that more than likely my old friend Don Martin from whcuat enough of Mythica, had prevailed upon Bob Toddy, the general manager of the Ethica Stars, to not have any game that would be broadcast on WVBR and the mention, by the way, when we called Bob Toddy and did the nineteen seventy eight equivalent of WTF on his backside,
he said, I'm I've also rethought the whole idea. We're not going to do any more games on radio. So we haven't done any goddamn games on radio because you just forgot to rent the rink. What kind of business are you in? Do you sell cars that don't have wheels? I hung up on them.
I was just the same then when I was twenty years old. In fact, I was still nineteen. I'm very proud of that. In any event, we solved this one pretty clearly. I went on the air that night and I said, we have breaking news from the world of semi pro hockey. It's sad news, particularly in light of the fact that we were intending to bring you the Ithaca Stars game tomorrow night here on WVBRS. You may have heard in the three thousand advertisements we do for today,
we have bad news. The Ithaca Stars have gone bankrupt. Don't mess with the nineteen year old olderman. Thank you very much. I've done all the damage I can do here, thank you for listening. Yes, yes, I lied to the audience. Yes I suspect I was lied to by at least two major organizations in the city of Ethica, New York. I felt it was justified I might do the same thing now.
So there.
Most of our countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel, the musical directors of Countdown, and it was produced by TKO Brothers. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums, and mister Schanale was kind enough to handle orchestration and keyboards. Our pithy and satirical musical comments are by the best baseball stadium
organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Some other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. And my announcer today was my friend Stevie van Zant. Everything else was as always
my fault. That's countdown for today. Day two hundred and ninety four of America held hostage again, just sixty nine days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term unless he is removed sooner by Maga and Epstein or whatever that is on his hand, or a bad escalator or tail and all, or his jet made out of poop, or or the next Alzheimer's test. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Until then, I'm Keith Oulderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.