Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Follow said Deep Throat the money, as it was true then in Watergates, so is it true now in Stoogegate, the federal indictment of two Russian state media operatives on charges they funneled millions through a Tennessee company to right wing influencers via intermediaries to transform putin propaganda made at the
Kremlin into pro Trump, anti America talking point videos. Of course, the Watergate source Deep Throat actually FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt. He never actually said follow the money. That was something my late friend William Goldman, the screenwriter of the movie version of All the President's Men, wrote. He wrote it for money to make it all more memorable. Bill Goldman told me because it was a great line. Bill Goldman
told me because it was not true. Bill Goldman told me that Deep Throats said follow the money, but it was still the truth. And that's kind of the point about what Felt's modern day successors in the Department of Justice have now done, because in their indictment of the Russians, they never say that the Tennessee company is called Tenet Media, and they never say that Tenant Media was founded by Lauren Chen, and they never say that Lauren Chen also
happens to work for Glenn Beck and Blaze TV. And they never say that Tenet Media's YouTube channel got ten million dollars from Putin's propaganda arm RT to grow and make and distribute videos about how America star did the Russian war in Ukraine, how it's all Biden's fault and vote Trump or die, and how America shouldn't get trapping forever wars, and how terrorists you're coming into the country across the southern border in the billions, And they didn't
say that through Tenant the Russians washed large sums of money to get it to scumbags, and Merrick Garland didn't say that the scumbags might have been Tim Poole, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, and others. And they didn't say those morons unwittingly did Putin's work for him. The Attorney General didn't say any of that, in exactly the same way that
Deep Throat didn't say follow the money. The other Watergate parallel pertains to the certainty that Bob Woodward's editors never knew in nineteen seventy two and nineteen seventy three, though he probably did that Deep Throat was not one source but a clearing house of sources, all the sources the FBI had, from its own informants and rumor passers to
its own executives. Deep Throat was his own newsgathering organization, and the Washington Post went unwittingly there's that word again, into partnership with that news gathering organization of mister Felts. From the reaction of the Russian stooges who were not mentioned in the indictments, but who like Tim Poole, have kind of volunteered that at minimum they yeah worked for Tenet Media. Is sure. They are clearly insistent that they
too are victims and that they were unwittingly involved. And you know what, I'm going to assume they're right, because if you had to come up with a list of conservative influencer morons who utterly define the word unwitting, you could do far worse than to begin with the names Tim Poole, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin. I mean, I would still take Jesse Waters first in my definition of unwitting fantasy draft, but I would have considered the others too. I mean, Tim Poole is the thirty eight year old
man who dresses on camera like a beanie baby. This is professional grade unwitting Right here, there is potentially another shoe to drop, As it was widely noted when this broke. It is hardly as if Pool and Johnson and Ruben and the others have not been parroting Russian propaganda for years. But it is also hardly as if they were the leading parrots. I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now. No, he's not dead,
he's resting. Remarkable bird, the Norwegian blue? In't it? If a plumage? Is this just the tip of the iceberg? I mean, there is a reference in the indictment to the alleged American end of this scheme and the people in it here looking at the video of a top American television news personality at a Moscow supermarket and being so insanely over the top in his praise of the dump that even they thought that the video was of no value as a propaganda tool for Russia or for
their own arguments about Russia. I mean, did the two indicted Russians or anybody else connected to this, like the Glenn Beck employee. Glenn Beck employee. I mean, we're this close to posthumously indicting Russia. Limbai here, I got so much shot in Freude. I'm wading knee deep in shot than Freuda in my living room. Did any of the plotters underwrite any of the other Russian tools in this
country or think about it or approach them? Because look, Tucker Carlson and a trader Joe Stalins might be over the top, but what about his other nine thousand hours of pro Russian bullshit? I mean, when I heard this story first yesterday, I read that they were not going to indict Tucker or Tommy Tuberville or Elon Musk, And all I could think was why not follow the money?
You know, Trump makes a lot of videos just saying the stonewalling and the covering up of the Trump team's physical altercation with the woman employee at Arlington National Cemetery and his illegal use of video of the graves of the war dead in a campaign commercial. That stonewalling and that cover up continues, but Trump has clearly not escaped the damage that his actions at his two different and completely contradicting versions of events at Arlington have inflicted on
his support from military members and their families. That impact is in fact startling. Change research in polling that was completed for Semaphore News a week ago today, four days after the altercation at Arlington, but just now released, shows that Trump's lead over Harris among veterans is down to ten points, his lead among active duty service members is down to five points. His lead among families of active duty service members is now inside the margin of error
at just two percent. Trump won veterans in twenty sixteen by nineteen points, he won active duty by nineteen points. He won family members by twelve points. There has been almost no new polling among active military during this campaign until this new poll, though. Last month the Economist and Hugov found service members and veterans believed Trump cared more about them than Harris did by fifty one percent to thirty two percent. That's a lot different than these new numbers.
Back to these new numbers showing damage to Trump, Change research also says fifty three percent of military related voters who have previously voted for Trump in twenty sixteen and or twenty twenty but say they will not vote for him this year. They attribute their change of mind to how he has talked about and behaved towards the military and those who have served in it. I'm adding this note the military and those who have served in it,
like the dead at Arlington. For his part, after insisting Tuesday that the entirety of the confrontation with an Arlington employee tried to stop the Trump campaign from its illegal commercial filming, that that never happened, That nothing happened, not even something that would let him portray himself as the victim.
As usual, he went silent on this issue online yesterday, despite another spasm of more than four dozen posts and videos so haphazard as spasm, so rushed a spasm that in one video he insisted Kamala Harris had quote always been a communist and maybe more crazy than that, he appeared in another video without his trademark communist red colored
tie back to you, Tavaresh. It is remotely possible that the message somehow got through the forest of mirrors surrounding Trump's head to just drop this now while he still can, if he still can, despite his ever narrowing lead among voters connected to the military, those voters in the Change Research Semaphore Pole do not appear to have any illusions about basically what a coward Trump would be in actual conflict.
They asked seven hundred and three veteran active service family members if they agreed or disagreed with six scenarios, and they started by asking them to imagine themselves, quote, being Donald Trump's team member in a combat situation. Do you agree or disagree with this statement He'd only look out for himself. Fifty five percent agreed with that, he'd talk a big game but not do much. Fifty four percent of the military people agreed with that he would crumble
under pressure. Trump did well. Only forty nine percent of the military voters think he would crumble under pressure. Fifty one percent think he wouldn't. He'd have my back. Forty six percent believe that Trump would have your back or their back in an actual combat situation. He'd be a good team player. Fifty seven percent said, oh, you know what, he would not be a good team player. And then lastly, he'd win a Medal of valor. Do you agree with
that statement? Yes, thirty four percent, no, sixty six percent. Two thirds of the military voters can't even produce a fantasy scenario in which Trump displays conspicuous valor. Fifty seven percent of them can't imagine him being a good team player. Back to the Arlington scandal, The Washington Post analyzed what Trump did with the video illegally shot literally atop the graves of US war dead, and concluded, quote Trump appeared to have misled gold Star families on troop deaths in Afghanistan.
That's post speak for he lied, to quote the paper quoting Trump, we didn't lose one person in eighteen months, and then they took over that disaster. Those cameras appear to have recorded Trump saying these were words to the gold Star families, reports the Post. The TikTok shows him talking to families as the words are spoken as a voiceover. In his phrasing, it sounds as if no troops were killed in Afghanistan during the late last eighteen months of
his presidency. That's false, though there was an eighteen month gap with no fatalities across Trump's and Biden's combined presidencies the last eleven months of Trump's presidency and the first seven of Biden's. In a rare throwback to its democracy dies in darkness days, the Post had an even bigger
surprise for Trump. Aaron Blake analyzed the CNN polling in the swing states and determined that, especially with President Biden now out of the race, the message about the existential dangers of another Trump presidency are getting through after months of being lost in the noise, or even of diminishing as the far right tried to do an Orwellian rewriting of January sixth and other Trump attacks on representative government and elections. See earlier story about follow the Money to
quote the Post on this story. Across six key swing states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, de batt of Pennsylvania. In Wisconsin, an average of fifty four percent of registered voters said Trump was too extreme, with forty eight percent also saying that he threatens the country. In each state, at least half a voter said Trump was too extreme, at at least forty six percent said he was a threat to the country. Harris's numbers were significantly lower. An average of
forty four percent said she was too extreme. Just thirty nine percent regarded her perceived extremness as a threat to the country. In no state did a majority regard her as too extreme. Most voters instead regarded her as generally mainstream. Then there is what the CNN's swing state results. Its
newest polling looks like. Arizona Trump forty nine, Harris forty four, Georgia Harris forty eight, Trump forty seven, Michigan Harris forty eight, Trump forty three, Nevada Harris forty eight, Trump forty seven, Pennsylvania Harris and Trump tied at forty seven, Wisconsin Harris fifty, Trump forty four. Biden, of course, won all six of those states, some by as little as the eleven thousand
in Georgia and Arizona. The caveat. Both Georgia and Pennsylvania remain thoroughly up for grabs according to the polls, with tight margins overall and double digit shares of likely voters twelve percent in Georgia and sixteen percent in Pennsylvania saying they have not yet decided on a candidate or that they might change their minds. That is the CNN analysis of the CNN polling. The point of all the polling is not to memorize the numbers, nor calculate how they
have changed per day. This isn't the stock market. We're not investors at the macro level. The point is the momentum and the idea that the undecided or soft voters total twelve percent in Georgia and sixteen percent in Pennsylvania, which in turn means Harris or Trump could not only win those states, but could run away with them. But at the micro level, there's something that the CNN swing
state polls don't even address. We may soon officially have to expand the number of swing states that have to be polled. Redfield Wilton, the UK based polster working for the newspaper there the Telegraph, is now polling those six states I just mentioned, and Florida and North Carolina. We know from other polls that North Carolina is essentially a toss up at the moment, but now we have new Redfield Wilton polling suggesting Florida is getting there. It's Trump
forty eight Harris forty three in Florida. It might not get any closer than that, or maybe it will. And maybe that Trump campaign TV commercial by in the West Palm Beach market was not solely to provide one particular resident in that market some political porn for him to enjoy one resident named Trump. And then there is something that has to be read almost verbatim to be believed. I have rigorously charted the excuses and cover ups that the website Politico has provided for Trump, but I'll give
them credit for this much. These people know rats leaving a sinking ship when they see them. The website's playbook feature began a piece with near astonishment that the deplorable right winger Eric Erickson had tweeted that some Republicans thought that the only hope for their party long term was for Trump to lose, and lose big. Jonathan Martin, the Politico writer, as Cubby hold an ancient beltwere as there
is said. He contacted a series of Republican leaders for a column, thinking that his belief that the best hope for the Republican's future was to lose and lose soundly would be met with anger and pushback and denial instead quote, what he found while making calls was that many Republicans agreed with the take. There follows this astonishment eighteen paragraphs worth of various songs whistled by various Republicans as they
walk past various graveyards. So everybody from the defense hawks angry at Trump's cobbling up to the dictators, to anti abortion diehards who now hate him over his attempt to be all things to all voters on that issue. There is even and try to follow this, there is even a supply of Republicans who have already decided that if Trump wins, but the Democrats take the House or the Senate in November or both, that the Democratic House or Senate will be more difficult to take back in twenty
twenty six. So they want Trump to lose so that the Republicans have a better chance and the Senate and the House not this year, but two years from now. In other words, they have not even lost yet the presidency. They have not even lost yet the House. They've not even lost yet the Senate. Yet there are Republicans right now trying to sound like they meant for all of
that to happen. You and I have already learned this year, this summer how fast one can go from digging your own grave to instead shoving Trump's campaign into said grave. But get a load of wow. Politico finished this piece up quoting, again quoting an anonymous Conservative leader quote, I think a lot of old school conservatives might hope that if he loses, there's an opportunity to just completely forget the last eight years happened. In other words, Trump Trump Who.
If you're new here and you have arrived via the advertising, thank you, Welcome to the party. I am here five days a week, forty to sixty minutes a day except for Monday mornings, posting just after midnight Sunday through Thursday nights. Oh and I am America's most reliable news source. Just ask me. Oh, and you have arrived propitiously this podcast, this one right here. This is episode number five hundred, and also of interest here in episode number five hundred,
the Tim Walls family hates. Tim Wall's thing kind of collapsed. It turns out his older brother says when he said he had terrible stories to tell about his younger brother, he meant how Tim used to get carsick and throw up on his siblings in like nineteen sixty eight, and a question was asked on national television, quote, we have a damaged, delusional old man who again might get re elected to the presidency of the United States. How did
this happen? How did the Republican Party get here? You know, whose show that was asked on The answer is Joe Scarborough. You know what. The answer to the question how did we get here? Is why? Coincidentally enough, the answer to that question is also Joe Scarborough. How the chief trump enabler of twenty sixteen has tried to make you forget he made this monster? Mainstream Worst Persons is next Discountdown. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman still ahead of us
on this five hundredth edition of Countdown. I know it only seems like five thousand. Continuing our week long celebration of the beginning of another season in the National Football League, Tonight begins weekend one of when is it now fifty weeks?
Fifty fifty seven weeks? I'll take you back to the year that NBC rather unexpectedly offered me the job of co hosting Football Night in America before it's Sunday night games, And like three weeks in I had to call in sick because MAAIX blew up and I didn't know it. And I kept working and I anchored a George Bush press conference and I beat CNN in the ratings while literally in the middle stages of septiscemia in things I promised not to tell. How you feeling. Oh, I'm okay,
other than the septu seemia, well, septi seemia later. First, there's still more new idiots to talk about, besides me for saying that the daily roundup of the miss Grants morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days
worst persons in the world the Bronze. Remember yesterday's story about Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark some folks need killing Robinson, their candidate for governor in North Carolina, And how six Greensboro, North Carolina poorn aficionados told a local news outlet that a quarter century ago, Robinson was a five nights a week customer to those visits rooms, the private rooms in which men quote watch unquote porn, And how the main source of the story, a guy used to work there
named Money Money, said he also sold Robinson at least one bootlegged porn video a week, and how Money says the last one a compilation tape of some really wild New York made videos he sold to Robinson for twenty five dollars, but Robinson never paid him. This was just the start of the story. It turns out there were lots of unpaid bills at the Robinson household back in those days, from the website notes from the Chalkboard dot com.
According to public records obtained from Guilford County Court, the wife of Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson was sued by Tarheel Triad Girl Scouts over quote money owed in Guilford County Small Claims Court in two thousand and three, and the Girl Scouts won. Continuing the quotation, it's September two thousand and three, the Girl Scouts filed suit against Yolanda Hill due to a two nine hundred and fifty six
dollars and three cent bad check. The matter was heard the following month, and court documents indicate nobody attended on behalf of the defendant. The magistrate, well, you know, we know where the defendant was, right, He's down in that booth. The magistrate found in favor of the Girl Scouts and tacked on fees and damages as permitted by state law on return to checks for a grand total of three
four hundred and eighty six dollars and three cents. The records do not explain what the check was for or any other context around what happened between Hill and the Girl Scouts, Hill being Missus Robinson. Missus Robinson, I think you're trying to steal cookies from me. Lieutenant Governor Robinson
is a dangerous, unbalanced individual. But you have to give he and the wife credit when you and your wife, and yes, they've been married since nineteen ninety, so all this, including the porn took place in the context of them being married for years already, when you and your wife, and yes, he worked at some of her daycare operations. And yes, the federal government says they owe it money too. That is, the daycare operations owe the government money. Still,
this is a pretty broad spectrum of creditors here. In short, mister and Missus Robinson stiffed the porn store and the Girl Scouts the runners up the group. Walls is for Trump. A right wing Trump troll named Matt Wolking has posted a photo of eight people wearing Trump t shirts. His caption, Tim Walls's family members in Nebraska are voting for Trump. Mister Wolking does not note that the eight people are all wearing the same blue shirt, reading quote Nebraska Walls'
is for Trump and in it. Walls's is spelled w Alz apostrophe s. The debate over what to do with a plural form of a word or name ending in s is eternal. Those who are wrong will never be defeated. But there is no debate over what to do with a plural form of a word or name ending in z.
The rule is clear. You add an e and an S to it, So the shirts should read Nebraska Walls is for Trump wal Zees, not walz apostrophe s. But if this is too high falutin for the vice presidential candidates dumber relatives, the shirts could read Walls family members for Trump or something else easy, using grammar that doesn't make them seem like there are court orders preventing them from leaving Nebraska. Now, before you complain, I'm being way
too judgmental here. There is an organized effort to make Tim Walls look bad, the way Mary Trump and Young Fred and the other sane Trumps have made Psycho Trump look bad, and this effort to make Tim Walls look bad it's not going well. His older brother, Jeff Walls, started this, apparently inadvertently. He says he regrets it now. He wrote on Facebook that the governor is not the type of character who should make decisions about our future, and he could tell terrible stories about him if he
wanted to. But Jeff Walls has now done an interview with the News Nation channel that's the Nick at Night of news, and he's told NewsNation that he regrets the post that he made on Facebook. He's not endorsing Trump. He still thinks of his brother as his brother, and they just disagree on all policies. So he's sitting out the election. But he did tell one of those terrible stories, one of those stories that's just gonna sink. Tim Walls and Kamala Harrison put Trump back in the right house,
are you ready? Quote? I'll give you one example. My little brother, when we were younger, we would go on family trips in a station wagon and the thing was nobody wanted to sit with him because he had car sickness and would always throw up on us. That sort of thing unquote. Now, you know, if they'd revealed that before the Democratic Convention, maybe Walls would have had to withdraw. You know, that also may not be quite the sick burn the trumpests think it is. Democratic dominee threw up
on a Republican. Hell, that's the basis for a Tim Walls twenty thirty two presidential campaign, Make America throw up on Republicans again. But our winner. Speaking of which, the worst Joe Scarborough. I don't have to go back to the beginning here, do I and discuss the three hundred and eighty seven examples I've given just in this series about how, on balance Joe Scarborough may have been the worst person I have ever worked with, the worst human being,
the most reprehensible one. And I worked with Tucker Carlson and the guy who went on to blackmail David Letterman. So when I say worst, I mean worst. And the guy in the middle of this story related to Joe Scarborough, Mike Barnacle. I've known him literally forty five years. We worked together during the entirety of my time in Boston, and then we worked together several years at MSNBC, and I've worked with his sons and Mike in his career.
He's cut corners now and again, but I do not doubt for a moment his overall sincerity, especially on the issue of Trump and preserving American democracy. But on their Little Morning Joe Show yesterday, which the latest breezes are always bent to and the latest conventional wisdoms are turned into words etched into the walls of the ancient Greek
temple of Apollo and Delphi. And some guy who got canceled ten years ago for not wearing pants while pressuring women employees is rehabilitated, brought back from beyond the grave. On their s show yesterday, Mike Barnacle went on passionately about this rhetorical question. Quote, today we have a damaged, delusional old man who again and I'm reading this thinking Scarborough's not that old. Oh, today we have a damaged, delusional old man who again might get re elected to
the presidency of the United States. How did this happen? How did the Republican Party get here? And they tweeted
it out again, a legit question all the way. But in saying this, Mike Barnacle forgot and in clipping it off and sending it out virallly and that cynical handwringing, Oh, we finally have a product we can sell, which is true of one hundred percent of the time on MSNBC before say seven or eight o'clock in the evening, and a lot of the time thereafter that cynical way that they treat progressivism or non conservatism, or whatever it is
they think they're doing. Before say, four in the afternoon, the Morning Joe team forgot a little bit of the answer to that question. Mike Barnacle posed one of the answers to how did this happen? How did the Republican Party get here? One of the answers is Joe Scarborough made sure it got there for some reason. Barnacle and Morning Joe and the MSNBC Comms department don't mention this
a lot anymore, but in twenty fifteen. In twenty sixteen, Joe Scarborough fervently tried to mainstream Donald Trump and make him president of the United States, had him on MSNBC, advised him, traveled to a debate to coach him. CNN February twelve, twenty sixteen, their media reporter noting that in November of twenty fifteen, quote Joe Scarborough sat on stage at the ninety second Street Why in New York and recounted the various times he had given Donald Trump political advice.
I've actually called him up and said, Donald, listen, you need to speak in complete sentences. At debates. Scarborough said, after the second debate, I walked into his office. I said, Donald, do you know how to read? I said, you should read before a debate. Read a paragraph on Syria. Read a paragraph on education reform. The anecdotes, which were meant as a testament to Trump's off the cuff political savvy,
drew laughter from the audience. Both Scarborough and co host Mika Brzhinsky, who used to be somebody else's wife and his now Joe's wife, are close friends with Trump and members of his family. This is February twenty sixteen. Scarborough, a former four term congressman from Florida's first District, has often stayed at Trump's Marilago Club in Palm Beach with his family and was there during which family and his family and was there during the week between Christmas and
New Year's. Two sources at the hotel during that time said on the night of the New Hampshire primary, CNN went on, Scarborough and Brzhinsky visited Trump's hotel room for what MSNBC described as background discussions with the candidate's senior staff and a conversation with Trump that lasted less than
five minutes. In recent weeks, Scarborough has spoken about Trump in increasingly glowing terms, praising him as a masterful politician and defending him against his political opponents and media critics. The Washington Post has noted that Trump has received a tremendous degree of warmth from the show, and that his appearances on the show in person and over the phone often feel like a cozy social club. Some MSNBC insiders also cringed at an on air exchange Scarborough had last
month with radio host Hugh Hewitt. Well, that's an evergreen sentence, but he meant something specifically CNN did in twenty sixteen. Hewitt pressed Scarborough on whether he would serve as Trump's vice president. Scarborough ruled out the possibility, but not before saying he would do quote just about anything to try to get the White House back. End the CNN quote from twenty sixteen. How did we get here with Donald Trump?
I don't know? Does anybody know how? And Joe Scarborough looked even more blankly into the camera than he has every other minute of his life, little slit eyed bastard. We all know about this from the beginning of twenty sixteen, and then, oddly enough, Trump didn't like Scarborough anymore, and they fell out, And then we forget that after Scarborough
disavowed Trump, he reavowed him after Trump won. December fifth, twenty sixteen, Politico writes a saga that included co host Joe Scarborough comparing Trump policies to Nazi Germany, and the candidate tweeting that co host Mika Brazinski is crazy and very dumb. Has taken a distinctly positive turn. I don't know those quotes sound pretty positive or at least accurate. The co hosts are now in regular communication with Trump and his circle, so much so that they are fielding
criticism for being a house organ for the incoming administration. Well, if anybody could be described as an organ, it's Joe Scarborough. They have always been boosters. Things turned south when Trump froze them out, but coverage always stilted. They are transition spokesman now tweeted a rival morning anchor, CNN's Chris Cuomo again, this is twenty sixteen. Indeed, most viewers Politico wrote seemed
to agree, knowing the co host's direct pipeline to Trump Tower. Scarborough, in an interview, declared that he and Brashinsky talked several times a week with Trump himself, and last week Brazinski traveled to Trump Tower and visited Ivanka Trump for coffee. I'm just going to guess here, by the way, as an aside, I assume Mika had to pay. Indeed, many members of Trump's inner circle, including his influential son in law Jared Kushner, stayed in close contact with the show
in the campaign's final weeks. An NBC source close to the show says the Trump campaign appreciated that Morning Joe never wrote off their candidate as other media did. Now, in the wake of Trump's election, Mourning Joe is becoming a go to spot for Trump watchers. That is the end of twenty sixteen, a month and a half before
Trump became president. And what it says, if you heard it in there, is that even while they were supposedly fighting and Scarborough was opposed to a Trump presidency, even then, behind the scenes, the two camps were in touch and the Trump people still appreciated Joe Scarborough's support. So when the question is raised, how did we get here, maybe the answer, the third or fourth answer is Joe effing Scarborough got us here and the next time somebody on
Scarborough Show asks how did this happen? Or why is Trump still there? Take that photo that I tweeted yesterday and send it directly to Joe at Joe NBC. It's the shot of him in Trump at MSNBC, both grinning like the fascist idiots. They are both giving Trump's thumbs up. If you don't want to do that, just get a
package together and send Joe Scarborough a mirror. Joe Scarborough, who helped elect Trump and is thus helping to possibly elect Trump again because he didn't do what a moral man or just one with a conscience might have done after Trump was elected and did what he did, which would be to resign from your television show, leave the public arena in shame, and take a ten year vow
of silence. Joe Scarborough Today's worst person in the world, to the number one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell. So it's another anniversary. One Sometime on Wednesday, September twelfth, two thousand and seven, I began to feel bad, all
strained on my right side. But my girlfriend at the time, Katie Turr, and I had just moved only a few weeks before into our new apartment, and I was still pushing boxes around and I thought I'd just strained something. The next morning, the thirteenth, I was still feeling like crap, but now my stomach also hurt, and I thought I was bloated or constipated or something, and maybe some sit ups would help. And actually they felt like they had
relieved some of the pressure. And Katie's father, who was among many many things in emt, happened to be in town. He gave me a vico In or something, and I took a nap and went into work a little later than usual at MSNBC, which I could get away with that day because President Bush was speaking that night and almost all of my work that night would be ad
live before his speech, and then after his speech. I wrote what I needed to write quickly, and at about seven point fifteen, I went out to the show line producer Greg Kordick, who sat in exactly the right place that he could make certain that I had left tour makeup and was going to the studio on time. I had to walk right past him and I said, I'm exhausted. I'm just going to close my eyes at my desk for a couple of minutes. If you don't see me go pass by, like seven forty, come in and wake
me up. And I sat down and put my legs up on my desk. I folded my hands behind my head, and I just closed my eyes, more to rest my eyes than in any real hope of sleeping. I am a fickle sleeper. There's not a chance I could snooze like that. Next thing I know, it's seven forty and I'm feeling somebody shaking me and seriously a hand on
each shoulder. Apparently it took mister Cordick a little while to wake me up, and I thanked Greg and staggered to the makeup room, and I realized now I had a little fever, but it was too late to do anything about it. So I got my makeup, went to the set, did the lead into Bush's speech, took some notes during it, did the post speech wrap up with the analysts, and after two hours on the air, I got in the car that they sent for me to go home to New York from New Jersey, and I
fell asleep again in the car. I still thought this is some weird stomach flu and I'm bloated beyond belief, and I really don't feel good. But I bet that's just from listening to George W. Bush one time too many. I'll just go to bed. I found it was too difficult to lie on my stomach or my side, which presented a problem because rarely can I fall asleep on my back. But I had to try, and the next thing I knew it was morning. I slept like a stone, but I still felt really bad, in fact, a little
bit worse. On top of all which Katie was yelling at me about something. And I had a check up for something unrelated at my doctor's office, and I left early so I could go buy something for the constipation. And then when my doctor called me and he said, you look terrible. Are you okay? And I said no, I got this really so stomach and the last time I had this fever for a while, and he kind of gasped, and now he looked terrible, and he said,
when was the last time you ate? I said, you know, funny, I haven't thought about food for a couple of days. And then he asked me when was the last time that happened? And I said, when I was in the womb and he had me stand up and he pushed his finger into my stomach about five inches to the right of my navel, and holding the finger there, he said, does this hurt? And I said not at all, And
then he said does it hurt now? As I take my finger away, And I don't remember if I said anything or not, because I saw the proverbial stars in front of my eyes and I let out a scream. So he said, get back in your car, and you go to our other office at fifty ninth and tenth and go see our gastro specialist. And I said, sure, just don't poke me again. And when I got there, they showed me right in and she taps me and
she says, why are you hunched over like that? And I said, I'm hunched over and she says, if you haven't eaten in two days, how come your stomach is heard is a rock? And I said, is this a medical quiz because you're the doctor, And she says, I want you to go across the street to the hospital emergency room. I'll call them while you're walking. Just go right in and tell them you're the one doctor Lou
called about. Because boy, your appendix burst, and although I think you'll be fine, technically you've got about oh eight, ten twelve hours to live. Well, that got my attention, and as I'm grabbing my jacket my bag, I say, wait, if this isn't just constipation, how come it felt better when I did the sit ups? And she says, because when you did the sit ups, you only had an infected appendix that was going to burst. When you did the sit ups, dummy, that's when the appendix burst, you
burst it. So I said, wait, I went on TV for two hours after my appendix burst. Shut up, She explained, she was right. The our people saw me immediately. They ran a bunch of tests and reminded me that if I hadn't already, I should probably call in sick for a couple days. And I said, wait, what day is today?
And they helped out and they said Friday. So I called MSNBC, and I called the producer of Football Night in America, which I was doing for NBC on Sundays, and I said, hey, sorry, looks like I'm technically dying from a burst appendix. And they're going to operate on me as soon as they can get a surgeon in here, and they say it's real unlikely. I'll be out of the hospital by Sunday or Monday. Have a nice day.
I called Katie, who had already gotten to her job in local cable news in Brooklyn, and she turned around to come help me out at the hospital. And then I just waited and got Goofier and Goofier and Goofier and Goofier. I think they operated around seven or eight pm. The surgeon introduced himself. He was a big sports fan, Fred Kimmelsteele, the surgeon named by prophetic parents. And I went to the anesthesiologist and I warned him. I said I'd once woken up from anesthesia during an endoscopy, and
could he make sure that that didn't happen again. In fact, I said that the other day when I had my knee operated on, and this guy did the same thing. They both of these anesthesiology I just just laughed when I challenged them to knock me out a little bit harder. So doctor kimmel Steele asked me about the latest met choke job. This is the one in two thousand and seven,
not the one in twenty twenty two. And I started to talk about David wright, and the next thing I knew, I was freezing cold and trying to open my eyes. And it was three hours later and the surgery was over. What a mess, said doctor Kimmel Steel, never had one that bad before. Thank God, it absesss You'll be here
all weekend and I was the next day. They made me get out of bed and I think it took me half an hour to walk about twenty feet down the hallway and back, and there was a morphine drip and a new bag of intravenous antibiotics every two hours, and at one point the phone rang, and I really did have to go back the following weekend ask the producer if this actually happened or I merely hallucinated it.
But the phone rang, and it was the football night in America people, and they said they were going to shoot video of the hospital I was in, and I said, I don't think you can see me from the street, and they said, right, we know that. We're just pretty much doing this for a laugh at your expense while you're in the hospital and we're on TV. And then finally my appetite came back on Monday and I was able to eat some pancakes, and they sent me home
in the afternoon. And for two days after that, I was still sweating out the poisons and the antibiotics and the painkillers, and I mean I was so warm I could not bear to have a shirt on. But by Thursday I was able to go back to work, and just to show off, I wrote a special comment about Bush from my first show back. I was extremely pleased with myself. Now there are three postscripts to this. Now, obviously I learned, and I've just taught you the test
for appendicitis or a burst appendix. If you poke it and it doesn't hurt until you stop poking it, it's your appendix. Fat lot of good that'll do me. Now I don't have an appendix. Second weeks later, I was at dinner with my friend John Clees from Monty Python's Flying Circus, and he said he'd heard the story about my appendix and he was very upset with me. I did the exact same thing, John said, blew up, And for two days I had no idea how serious it was.
Thought it was a cold But don't kill people that don't undersell it and call it a burst appendix. You and I we were both dying of septacemia. Never let anybody forget that, and I haven't. And the last and best PostScript was, while I'm lying there recovering after the surgery, the phone rings and it's my executive producer and she says,
good news. When you anchored before and after Bush's speech and you got sick or after you got sick, you beat CNN in the ratings by like twenty five percent, And as stone on them painkillers as I might have been, I was still able to say to her, I beat CNN. I beat CNN with one appendix tied behind my back. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. We're now back to five episodes a week, posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. The YouTube version which
is which is the audio with some animation. I don't want to mislead you on that there's no video of this. The YouTube version posts about five am Eastern. If you're not subscribing, please subscribe to one or both, and please share this pod with somebody who does not listen or watch or is it watching audio on YouTube or is it some other verb you're listening to YouTube? Then why
is it a tube. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil the musical directors have Countdown Arrange, produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars that based on the drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist stepper,
Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Horn Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend Nancy Faust. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's this the five hundredth edition of the Countdown podcast for this sixty second day until the twenty twenty four presidential election and the one three hundred and thirty second day since convicted feudn dementia 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, use presidential immunity. The Supreme
Theocratic Court has given it to you, President Biden. I say, if it's official, it's legal to have fun. You're immune. Do it. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news requires till the next one. I'm Keith Olderman. 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.