BIDEN SOMEHOW PUTS TOOTHPASTE BACK IN TUBE - 7.12.24

six or two thousand and eight. I was seated at an anchor desk on an election night at thirty Rock, probably a primary night, and the man seated next to me, who was at least sixty years old at the time, got the queue to do our reset at the top of a new hour, and his millions watched, he loudly and quickly announced, quote, good evening, the polls have just closed. Alongside Chris Matthews. I'm Keith Olberman. He never noticed he said it, He never corrected it, he never thought to

correct it. He certainly never ever would have made a joke about it at his own expense. I will now say to you, with those two statements as preface, something that very few political commentators will say, or sports commentators or analysts or political analysts will ever say, I do

not know right now what we should do next. I will also say I was prepared to insist that today President Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Chris Dodd and Ted Kaufman and Jim Clyburn and Majority Leader Schumer and Minority Leader Jeffries and John Meacham and anybody else they think would help, needed to go to the White House and plead with President Biden to withdraw his name from the Democratic ticket. And I am not certain that that is

not still the best course. And I will also say that when ninety minutes before four last night's news conference even began, mister Biden called Zelenski Putin, and then when the news conference began, he called Vice President Harris vice President Trump. I thought that was still the only course, and then Joe Biden acknowledged that might be the course.

There may be multiple courses. And then Biden acknowledged that he had to do better, and he had to show more people in more unrehearsed settings that he does better. And then Biden spent fifteen minutes deconstructing and recapitulating every conceivable aspect of our foreign policy, from how this Israel different from golda my years Israel, through Ukraine towards China's movement towards Russia and Europe's subsequent movement away from China.

And then he moved effortlessly into self evaluation and evaluation of Vice President Harris and of what had changed in his original twenty twenty plan to be a transitional president to the next generation, and of what's circumstances he might not run in after all. And as I started to delete line after line after line from my notes from yesterday afternoon, up popped something on the front page of

the Holy goddamn New York Times. President Biden had some flubs, but he also delivered kagent responses on some complex issues. You bet your ass. And then Joe Biden took the two gaffs that he made and he made fun of them, and he made fun of himself, and most importantly, he jiu jitsued Trump tried to make fun of him, and he shoved it back up Trump's ass.

to be vice president. I think she was not qualified to be president. Misso in your oling answer, you preferred to Vice President Harris as vice President Trump.

By the way, yes, I know the difference one's a prosecutor and the others a felon. I do not know what to do next. I do know that I am not alone in suggesting that had President Biden spoken in that way during the debate, or if he had held that news conference the night after the debate, it would have been almost impossible for the events of the last two weeks to have unfolded the way they did. Impossible. It is also impossible to conceive of Trump holding such

a press conference dealing substantially and accurately with foreign policy. Now, I mean the actual foreign policy of the world out here that we live in, and not the vainglorious fantasies of a madman who I am convinced does not believe he is mortal or is that he is ever going to die. I don't mean asking Trump to hold a substantive fifty minute news conference. I mean asking him to hold three or four minutes about other things and other

people besides himself, and how wonderful he is. And by the way, every three or four minutes Trump makes more gaffs than Biden did in one hour last night. In two thousand and nine, I had the odd pleasure of an off the record lunch at the White House with President Obama, and I believe eleven other commentators and news

analysts were there. I could look up the names the premise of it, explained Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, when I expressed surprise that people were taking notes, was that all of these guys, John Dickerson was there, Geene Robinson from the Washington Post, a bunch of others. They would be writing columns or doing pieces on what Obama might think about this foreign policy issue or what his options might

be in that domestic policy dilemma. And the White House thought, what the hell, let's at least let them find out what he's actually thinking. So when they guess in their columns, maybe they'll be right. And I got to hear of Barack Obama weave together over one of the best meals I've ever been served, everything from Afghanistan to the price of the produce sitting in front of us, and I was confident I would never hear anything as intricate and

as accurate or as comprehensive again in my life. Biden exceeded that last night and mixed in humility and mixed in pure anger at the end. And by the way, on the record, and that little.

week in and week out. Because the other guy is the president of the United States and not insane, so we hold him to a higher standard, and because the news media of this nation is irreparably broken, and because that opposition campaign has sixty one million dollars in AD money to spend on making sure that everybody in this country who's not giving Joe Biden to benefit of the doubt or wasn't watching the news conference. Here's him calls

Zlenski putin. And after the debate, that benefit of the doubt started to dry up, and as of last night the wellbed had been pretty dry. I'm out of analogies here. Maybe toothpaste in the well bed. There also remains the unmistakable reality that the news conference last night was a first step, and it should have been taken first, and now instead it could easily be the last straw, because ultimately this is not about Joe Biden doing the job.

It's about him winning the election. But one thought it is possible that in that news conference are the seeds of a way to keep President Biden on the ticket and get him over the finish line. I have suggested here previously that taped television interviews are useless, as was the opening of the news conference where he read from the teleprompter other than to let him toot his own horn for a while. But live television interviews would not

be useless. Tell NBC the President will give Lester Holt an hour, but it must be live, or it must be a live town hall, or cancel the interview and hold another news conference or a town hall or have him just stop people on the street, live, live, live, Live. Saturate the airwaves with Joe Biden Live, Joe Biden making sense on foreign policy, making sense on jobs, making sense on inflation, on democracy, on immigration, on guns, on Trump.

Flood the Zone with Joe Biden Live every week. Last night he did something extraordinary, something I flatly thought impossible until I saw it, and I wish I would not have believed if I had merely heard an account of it. Keep doing that. Bring him back once a week, hell twice. If you can get people to carry it, put them on live so often that he begins to bore voters to tears. All right, all right, I'll vote for you.

Get off my television. Lost in our attempt to fathom how the idiots and haters of this country not just stand Trump but love Trump is the simplicity of what he means to them. He is a television show. Virtually every Saturday for two years, he has gone somewhere and in front of a raucous crowd, presented this bizarre cross between an hour of he Haw and a Hitler rally. It's always there, always talking, always soothing the people whose lives are failures, and need somebody else to blame. But

mostly he's just there like McDonald's. Well, maybe Biden can be that for the rest of the nation. Maybe that is the lesson the last night. It is sad, and as a sixty five year old man, it is terrifying for me to contemplate that I will be there soon enough to remember the harshness of my own words. But America, especially our underinformed voters, will in fact choose the crazy old man yelling at the cloud over the sane old man who's whispering at the wind. It is cruel, It

is the opposite of their best interests. That don't make it any less true, because, as I have said for two weeks, the worst place in the world for the hopes of this country and this humanity is where we are in the middle, as forces on both sides of this heart rending uncertainty gather strength and will and resoluteness, and even gather anti Harris polling leaked by the Biden campaign in as irrational a political decision as I've ever seen, do we give Joe Biden a week to fight his

way completely back to put the rest of the toothpaste in the tube? He said, if they show him data that shows he cannot beat Trump, he'll go. He said his delegates can vote for somebody else in August at the convention. And I know he conditioned on a lot of other factors, but can you imagine anybody else saying that ever in American history? And then, by the way, segueing back to the complicated history between Japan and South Korea again, this is not an unquestioned endorsement of the

continued candidacy of Joe Biden. I have reached the conclusion after two years of doing this podcast, and after the two weeks since the debate, in which I have thought about nothing else, that if Joe Biden's age were not part of this campaign, and Joe Biden's gaffes were not part of this campaign, and the efforts to shield Joe Biden from risky situations were not part of this campaign, all of the spotlights, the justifiable spotlights, and the media

creation spotlights would turn entirely on Trump. The media would be full time hunting Trump. I'm not an idiot. I don't think Vice President Harris or President Harris would sail untouched through an unprecedented replacement campaign. But I do think she would get nearly all of the independent voters, and I do think she would get nearly all of the

so called double haters. And I do think she would every day speaking, not speaking, smiling, not smiling, tooth pasting or not tooth pasting, she would remind every American that Trump is a dangerous, psychopathic, unstable old man. Trump's candidacy I think is viable, plausible, not inherently ridiculous, largely because Joe Biden blunts much of the shock each day that

Trump should inflict but does not. The number of things that we cannot now say about Trump, the number of things that would in Biden's absence occur to our vast under informed demographic who will actually decide this election, would be enormous. The oxygen supply for Trump the other thing we can't conceive. He can point to Joe Biden and say to his supporters and say, I'm not old, he's old, I'm not unreliable. He's unreliable. No Biden, and that vanishes,

not vanishing from Trump. He will continue to say those things, and now he would say new and racist things as well. But the ability to point at President Biden and score both sides ist, what about his points By merely noting Biden's age, or his infirmity or his struggles, that would be gone. That enticing scenario remains. And the other problem that isn't going away is about those around the president.

After the news conference yesterday and the news stories yesterday, there's no immediate need to test Joe Biden's acuity, but there certainly are reasons to test his staff sanity. The ABC Washington Post poll yesterday that showed fifty seven percent of Democrats want the president to drop out actually buried the lead from the poll. It also polled a Trump Kamala Harris matchup. She leads that forty nine to forty seven.

Trump and Biden are tied at forty six, and those poll numbers would be Vice President Harris's start, not her finish. But a campaign staff memo leaked to The New York Times from the Biden campaign chairman and manager insists that for the president there is quote clear pathway ahead and then goes in a dark direction quote. There is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president versus Trump.

Hypothetical polling of alternative nominees will always be unreliable, and surveys do not take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic nominee will encounter. The only Democratic candidate for whom this is already baked in is President Biden. That there is mud slinging by implication against the vice president by those around the president is bad enough. What's

worse is that those conclusions are ridiculous. After Trump's convictions, the President had finally taken the lead in the polling averages. He was on the upswing nationally, he was on the upswing in every swing state, and now this tie in the post ABC poll is the best result since the debate. Most polls have Biden trailing by three or four or five points and hemorrhaging support in the swing states. It is not baked in. To continue the analogy, there is a lot more of it in the oven, and the

goddamned oven may also be on fire. There were also three other sets of other leaks yesterday, one to NBC attributed to campaign staffers saying they see no path for

a Biden victory and he should drop out. One to The New York Times, attributed to longtime aids and advisors saying they are seeking ways to convince him to drop out, and a third to the nonprofit Notice News, saying that the unanimous support of the Congressional Black Caucus covers up several members who believe he needs to step down but

aren't saying it so they can say they're unanimous. The senators at the meeting with Biden staffers say they were provided no new data yesterday, no polling, no new information. One Democratic senator has now called for Biden to step aside. Fourteen Democratic members of Congress have done the same, including the contrarian Marie Glusen camp Perez, and she says the President should also resign his office. And then there were

the radio interviews. The White House provided questions to WURD in Philadelphia before it interviewed President Biden, and to the Civic Media Progressive Radio Network in Wisconsin. The Philadelphia station has already parted ways with its host, who went along

with this manipulation. Now the Wisconsin outlet is revealing that after their interview with the questions, President Biden certainly were considered ready for the campaign, was concerned that he had made a factual error in one answer and made an unfortunate reference to hanging in another answer, and they asked the network to edit those answers down, and it complied. The New York Times and yes, their editorial choices have damaged their reputation beyond repair. The solution here maybe to

replace The New York Times with Kamala Harris. The New York Times actually then did some decent gum shoe reporting. It went and looked for more instances of this. It cited two interviews on the same day before the State of the Union in March, in which Biden was asked, first by a radio host in Charlotte, quote if he would list his accomplishments, say why he had decided to run for a second term, and explain what was its

stake for black voters in the election. And then same day he was asked by a radio host in Dallas, quote if he would list his accomplishments, say why he had decided to run for a second term, and explain what was at stake for black voters in the election.

And The Times found repeated instances in which, quoting them again, the president has been served up identical questions, pre screened or suggested ahead of time by campaign staff members, and in nearly every case, the questions set the president up to deliver on message talking points without notable flubs. The ethics of this are atrocious and stupid. How could they not know this would come out? The people around Biden

who did that can destroy him. Yet, so to me, the first step now is he needs new people making these decisions. Maybe he could do a live news conference about it, about new people to make his decisions. Just keep him talking every week forty five minutes any topic, because he still has got it. They just haven't let

him show it off. And I might circle back to the beginning of this and add that after several years of things like the other guy calling himself me, they actually management at MSNBC, that is, told me that it was now my choice. I could anchor the elections and primaries solo going forward, or we could keep the other guy as my co anchor. And I said keep him. I mean, other than those gaffes, he really knows his stuff. And man, those gafs are really funny. You guys ever

thought of trying to get them sponsored by advertisers? Also of interest here, of course, if I invoke Chris Matthews, there must be a Chuck Todd story. Well, who could make the Biden situation worse. Who could suck the humanity out of it, the tragedy even and try to make Biden look petty and selfish and merely wind up doing that only to himself. Who the hell do you think could do that, Chuck Todd, That's who. That's next countdown.

This is countdown with Keith Oldwoman. Presidents may rise and fall, but there are always new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world, the brons worse. Chuck Todd still lurking over in the basement at NBC News. He still goes to work even after

they fired his ass or meet the press. And I know this might be seen as somewhat hypocritical of me, giving what my open commentary was, but still, Chuck Todd sucks. Listen to this clip from his podcast about the president's decision to stay in the race.

semi colons and all that kind of stuff. Right there there was a picture of the cargo ship the Dolly, knocking down the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Harbor, with crumpled girders sitting on its bow. The headline that the Globe and Mail added, Baltimore Bridge collapse. Survivor recounts fighting for his life in NBC interview After this week, I think we all know how that poor NBC interviewee felt Paul's fighting for his life in an NBC interview.

But our winner, the worst Congresswoman Lauren Bobert, caught on May twelfth. It turns out Mother's Day doing eighty four in a sixty five mile an hour zone by the Colorado State Patrol at Vale Pass. They gave her a speeding ticket, told her to pay one hundred and seventy four dollars and fifty cents, and she was supposed to pay it by July third, and guess what she didn't a scoff law. She now has a court appearance scheduled

for July twenty sixth. Well, I'm just going to assume here that she at that court appearance will be explaining to the judge that the speeding was accidental because she isn't good at handling a stick. Lauren Bobert, get a grip. Two Day's worst person in the world.

All the others were detective stories. I'd read all the others, so I bought this one without really looking at it carefully. You can imagine how mad I was when I found it was Shakespeare. I murmured something sympathetically. I don't see why the Penguin Books people had to get out Shakespeare's plays in the same size and everything as the detective stories. Went on. My companion, I think they have different colored jackets,

I said, well, I didn't notice that, she said. Anyway, I got real comfy in bed that night and all ready to read a good mystery story. And here I had the track. If Macbeth a book for high school students, like like ivan Hoe or Lorna Doone, I said, exactly, said the American lady. And I was just crazy for a good Agatha Christie or something. Ercule Poirot is my favorite detective. Is he the Rabbity one, I asked, Oh, no,

said my crime fiction expert. He's the Belgian one you're thinking of, mister Pinkerton, the one that helps Inspector Bull. He's good too. Over her second cup of tea, my companion began to tell me the plot of a detective story that had fooled her completely. It seems it was the old family doctor all the time. But I cut in on her. Tell me, I said, did you read Macbeth? I had to read it, She said, there wasn't a scrap of anything else to read in the whole room.

Did you like it, I asked, No, I did not, She said decisively in the first place, I don't think for a moment that Macbeth did it. I looked at her blankly. Did what I asked? I don't think for a moment that he killed the king? She said, I don't think the Macbeth woman was mixed up in it either. You suspect them the most, of course, but those are the ones that are never guilty, or shouldn't be anyway. I'm afraid I began that I but don't you see,

said the American lady. It would spoil everything if you could figure out right away who did it. Shakespeare was too smart for that. I've read that people never have figured out Hamlet, so it isn't likely Shakespeare would have made Macbeth as simple as it seems. I thought this over while I filled my pipe. Who do you suspect? I asked suddenly, Macduff, she said promptly. Good God, I whispered softly. Oh McDuff did it all right, said the

murder specialist. Erkuo Paro would have gotten him easily. How did you figure it out? I demanded, Well, she said I didn't right away. First I suspected Banquo, and then of course he was the second person killed. That was good right in there that part. The person you suspect of the first murder should always be the second victim. Is that so, I murmured. Oh, yes, said my informant. They had to keep surprising you well after the second murder.

I didn't know who the killer was for a while. Uh. How about Malcolm and Donald Bain, the King's sons, I asked, as I remember it, they fled right after the first murder. That looks suspicious. Too suspicious, said the American lady, much too suspicious. When they flee, they're never guilty. You can count that, I believe. I said, I'll have a brandy, and I summoned the waiter. My companion leaned toward me, her eyes bright, her teacup quivering. Do you know who

discovered Duncan's body? She demanded? I said, I was sorry, but I had forgotten McDuff discovers it, she said, slipping into the historical present. Then he comes running downstairs and shouts, confusion has broke open the Lord's anointed temple, and sacrilegious murder has made his masterpiece, and on and on like that. The good lady tapped me on the knee. All that stuff was rehearsed. She said, you wouldn't say a lot of stuff like that offhand, would you, if you'd found

a body. She fixed me with a glittering eye. I began, you're right, She said, you wouldn't unless you had practiced it in advance. My god, there's a body in here is what an innocent man would say. She sat back with a confident glare. I thought, for a while, but what do you make of the third murderer, I asked, You know the third murderer has puzzled Macbeth's scholars for three hundred years. That's because they never thought of McDuff,

said the American lady. It was McDuff. I'm certain you couldn't have one of the victims murdered by two ordinary thugs. The murderer always has to be somebody important. But what about the banquet scene, I asked, after a moment, how do you account for Macbeth's guilty actions there when Banquo's ghosts came in and sat in his chair. The lady leaned forward and tapped me on the knee again. There

wasn't any ghost, she said. A big strong man like that doesn't go around seeing ghosts, especially in a brightly lighted banquet hall with dozens of people around. Macbeth was shielding somebody. Who was he shielding, I asked, missus Macbeth. Of course, she said, he thought she did it, and he was going to take the rap himself. The husband always does that when the wife is suspected. But what I demanded about the sleepwalking scene, then the same thing,

only the other way around, said my companion. That time she was shielding him. She wasn't asleep at all. Do you remember where it says enter lady Macbeth with a taper? Yes, I said, Well, people who walk in their sleep never carry lights, said my fellow traveler. They have a second sight. Did you ever hear of a sleepwalker carrying a light? No, I said, I never did. Well, then she wasn't asleep. She was acting guilty to shield Macbeth. I think, I said,

I'll have another brandy, and I called the waiter. When he brought it, I drank it rapidly and rose to go. I believe I said that you have got hold of something. Would you lend me that? Macbeth. I'd like to look it over tonight. I don't feel somehow as if I've ever really read it. I'll get it for you, she said, but you'll find that I'm right. I read the play over carefully that night, and the next morning, after breakfast,

I sought out the American woman. She was on the putting green, and I came up behind her silently and took her arm. She gave an exclamation. Could I see you alone? I asked in a low voice. She nodded cautiously and followed me to a secluded spot. You've found out something, she breathed. I've found out, I said, triumphantly, the name of the murderer. You mean it wasn't McDuff, She said. McDuff is as innocent of those murders, I said,

as Macbeth and the Macbeth woman. I opened the copy of the play which I had with me, and turned to act too seem to hear, I said, you will see where Lady Macbeth says, I laid their daggers ready. He could not miss him. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it. Do you see no, said the American woman bluntly. I don't. But it's simple, I exclaimed. I wonder I didn't see it years ago. The reason Duncan resembled Lady Macbeth's father as

he slept is that it actually was her father. Good God, breathed my companion softly. Lady Macbeth's father killed the king, I said, and, hearing someone coming, thrust the body under the bed and crawled into the bed himself. But said the lady, you can't have a murder who only appears in the story once. You can't have that I know that, I said, and I turned to Act two, Scene four.

It says, here enter Ross with an old man. Now that old man is never identified, and it is my contention that he was old mister Macbeth, whose ambition it was to make his daughter queen. There you'll have your motive. But even then, cried the American lady, he's still a minor character, not, I said, gleefully when you realize that he was also one of the weird sisters in disguise. You mean, one of those three witches. Precisely, I said,

listen to this speech of the old man's. On Tuesday last, a falcon towering in her pride of place was by a mousing owl, hawked at and killed. Who does that sound like? It sounds like the way the three witches talk, said my companion reluctantly. Precisely, I said, again, Well, said the American woman. Maybe you're right, but I'm sure I am, I said. And do you know what I'm going to do now? No, she said, what buy a copy of Hamlet? I said, and solve that. My companion's eyes brightened. Then

she said, you don't think Hamlet did it? I am? I said, absolutely positive, he did not, but who she demanded, who do you suspect? I looked at her cryptically, everybody, I said, and disappeared into a small grove of trees as silently as I had come. The Macbeth Murder Mystery by James Thurber. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Maybe by Tuesday I'll

figured this out. Probably not. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and

performed by No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of ESPN inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium morganist ever our announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this the one hundred and seventeenth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election. Now, wouldn't it be funny if over the

weekend Trump dropped out or was dropped out. It's also the eighty second day since convicted felon Donald J. Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the mental health system, mister president, you've got it. Use presidential immunity against Trump to stop him from doing it again while we still can put the toothpaste back in his tube.

You know what I mean. The next scheduled countdown he is Tuesday bulletins is the news requires till then, I'm Keith Olberman. I'm going to go think good morning, good afternoon, good night, 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.