Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I think there has been an unrecognized earthquake in presidential election polling. I'll get to Trump's trial and how he managed to blow it, and why he thought a guy celebrating his fortieth year of no longer being on Saturday Night Live was just the right choice to lead his courthouse posse yesterday. I'll get to that in a moment, But first, I think I think a series of lights may have gone
off over the heads of a series of voters. And not to sound like one of those British generals who believed he could end World War One by Thursday, they can take the sum by nightfall with less than a million casualties. But I think I think we may actually be seeing the start of the breakthrough, the voter breakthrough against Trump. This was Joshua Green writing for Bloomberg, and don't let his mixture of nonchalance and utter surprise infuriate you.
Just listen. Quote. As the rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump draws nearer, political professionals are detecting an unusual concern among some undecided voters that if Trump returns to the White House, he'll refuse to step down when his term is up. Oh no, kidding? Is that a thing? Wow?
Go on? Sa G. Carpenter, vice president at David binder Ree Search, noticed this fear in early April while conducting focus groups of people who had voted for Biden in twenty twenty but became disillusioned and we're considering switching sides quoting him. We were talking to Latino men and Asian American Pacific Islander women in battleground states, and they went straight to the issue of what if Trump won't give up power. It's not something we'd been testing for, but
what we've seen so far indicates a real concern there. So, so, mister Carpenter, this is something new. You say it just because he started doing his quote jokes about never leaving office in February of twenty seventeen. You haven't been asking about this just because we all think that he has a Banana Republic military uniform with the Vietnam medals he's awarded himself, already pinned on it. You have not been asking this question ten years. He's been a Democratic focus
group puller. According to Bloomberg, this, mister Carpenter. Republican strategists, the article goes on, have encountered the same thing it's showing up in our focus groups, says Sarah Longwell, the chief executive of Longwell Partners and publisher of the conservative
website The Bulwark. It happened just the other day. Longwell shared a video of a group of undecided Swing state voters who had been asked if they were worried that Trump might violate the constitutional amendment limiting him to one more term if he wins in November. Does anybody think he may not abide by the twenty second Amendment of the Constitution and leave office after the twenty twenty eight election.
Anyone worried about that? The moderator asked. In response, seven of the eight participants raised a hand unquote wait for or against? Wait this is the earthquake? Quote. A Pennsylvania man worried that Trump might go further and try to institute a dynasty, quoting him on this tape, I wouldn't put it past him now that he owns the RNC. The man said to say, Don Junior is going to do the next term, and he'll get to and then Baron will get to and we'll just have some fake monarchy.
As far fetched as it may sound, mister Green goes on the prospect of Trump overriding. We're simply ignoring the constitutional provision that limits a president to serving two terms. Seems to be pushing some undecided voters toward Biden. Yes, it's far fetched. The guy who wrote this article wrote a book about Liz Warren, Bernie and AOC and he has written this article. Like the next paragraph will start. You may not believe this, but the kids now think Baby,
the earth goes around the sun. Quote. Trump's flirtations with smashing limits on presidential power, while thrilling to many of his followers, alarm other voters, including some who once supported him. Laurie McCammon, a grandmother in Alma, Wisconsin, voted for Trump in twenty sixteen, but says she recoiled at his recent comments and won't be supporting him in November. She says she's worried that Trump won't seed power if he's reelected. Quote.
Based on what I've heard from him and figures like Steve Bannon, McCammon says this would be our last free and fair election. In other words, in this Wisconsin Grandma's house. They don't think Trump is joking about never leaving office just because he had. The American Conservative magazine publish a piece saying that the two term limit shouldn't apply to non consecutive terms and doesn't apply to them all right
Back to Bloomberg quote. Strategists and polsters say that, much like McCammon, many uncommitted voters don't perceive Trump's language to be jesting or ironic, nor do they view a potential power grab as a joke. I'm not alone. I'm not alone when we ask about his record on democracy. There's a lot of general concern, even among Republicans about what a second Trump term might be like, says Brian Bennett,
a polster with Navigator Research, a Democratic Alliance firm. Unease among non Democratic voters is also evident in public surveys. Bloomberg says. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that twenty one percent of independent voters and eight percent of Republicans indicated that preserving democracy in the United States was the most critical issue facing the country. As an aside, every poll
asks now for the top issue for voters. That often is not the same as the issue which voters say is actually the one on which they will decide their vote. Most of these polls also don't list second choice or third choice among most important issues, and very often that is the preservation of democracy, although the Republican definition of that and the democratic definition of that may not match exactly. But mister Green of Bloomberg has added something to this
that is actually new. And again, I quote, several political professionals who talk to voters for a living say they've detected a fundamental shift in the way people view Trump's motivations and intentions as compared with other politicians. Quote. Typically, when we raise concerned about a candidate's agenda, are skeptical and want to do their own research first, or think it's an attack, says Carpenter, the Democratic Focus Group director.
With Trump, that's not true. Voters believe that he would try to remove term limits and their nervous about what's possible. Carpenter's conversations with uncommitted voters have led him to believe that beyond January sixth and Trump's inflammatory comments, this shift owes a great deal to a less obvious catalyst. Are you ready? The less obvious catalyst is the Supreme Court quote. The dimensions of what constitutes a credible threat have expanded
because of Roe. Carpenter says, since that decision, you hear voters talking themselves out of the notion that an idea is too far fed. Hallelujah, hallelujah, thank you, somebody is listening to me. One assumes that all the groundwork for this story for Bloomberg was done before mister and missus Alito answered comedian Eddie Izard's rhetorical question do you have a flag? It does give an answer to a very practical question. Democrats are shrinking from asking what should we
do to Alito? Now? Senator Dick Durbin is saying no, hearings no, of course not, and is simply again asking, politely and pretty pleasing it that Alito recuse. In point of fact, Joe Biden and Democratic House and Senate candidates should be running not just against Trump or against Republicans per se, but running against the goddamned theocratic Supreme Court.
And if Durbin doesn't want to do anything about Alito, he damn well better resign his chairmanship of Senate Judiciary and put somebody in there who will take the obvious softball and hit this over the effing fence. Okay, coming down the stretch here. Back to Bloomberg's Joshua Green quoting again. Recently, the liberal group Priorities USA asked fifteen hundred likely voters across eight battleground states to rank more than two dozen
Trump statements or policies from most to least concerning. Do I have to write least? Can they all be most? In results not publicly released until now, Priorities found that Trump's dictator comment and calls to gut the Constitution ranked as the most concerning of all the options. As I said before, mister Green's wide eyedness seems less goofy or dumb, and more like he was cleverly trying to get this
article passed. Terrified editors at Bloomberg, and with good reason, because the real lesson in it is that Republican polsters are seeing Republican voters recoiling from Trump. Green quotes an unaffiliated Republican polster who are asked not to be identified because he didn't want to anger the Trump campaign. Quote. That's kind of the bet that the Biden campaign is making that eventually people are going to become so frightened about what the next Trump turn will mean that they'll
move over to Biden. The rest of the piece is about how repealing the presidential term limits contained in the twenty second Amendment would be nearly impossible. There is a dismissive quote from Steve Bannon saying they're just talking about this to own the Libs, presumably just like Bannon was talking about putting the heads of doctor Fauci and Christopher Ray on pikes just to troll doctor Fauci and troll FBI director Ray and troll fans of the French Revolution.
Just kidding. The point, of course, is not that the twenty second Amendment would be repealed. It would be that it would be ignored. Trump sometime in twenty twenty five, six, seven, eight, whenever he felt like it, would declare he's running in twenty twenty eight, try and stop me. Somebody would, somebody would sue him, and his defense would be that the twenty second Amendment doesn't say a goddamn thing specifically about
the Grover Clevelands of the presidential universe. This issue, again completely fabricated, like presidential immunity or like some sort of magic eraser that takes care of the fourteenth Amendment and makes him eligible. This would go to the Supreme Court, which Trump owns, and the Trump owned Supreme Court would erase the twenty second Amendment as it has you may recall recently erased the fourteenth Amendment. Ooh, libs. When we said own libs, we meant it literally. We own you now.
One last Bloomberg quote. The possibility that Trump might try to abolish term limits if re elected in November, registers as a serious threat to a meaningful share of voters, despite his claim to the contrary, and it appears to be driving them toward Biden. In an April twenty first NBC News Public Opinion Strategies poll, sixteen percent of registered voters named threats to democracy as the most important issue facing the country. Among them, Biden held a sixty seven
point lead over Trump, eighty one percent to fourteen percent. McCammon, the Wisconsin woman who once voted for Trump, now counts herself as part of this group. Quote. I will vote for Biden even if he is in a coma, she says, Grandma Laurie, you have unsuspected depth. I cannot recommend this piece too highly to you, or to Joe Biden, or to Jen Dylan, O'Malley O'Malley Dylan, to the campaign manager.
Bloomberg's Joshua Green tweeted this out with a gift link, So I sent it to my contacts at the Biden campaign since it won't cost them anything. Now reading this, it would seem that the play is pretty obvious from here on in. Run that piece from the American Conservative magazine about third terms and how Trump should get one as a campaign ad. Just quote it. Run every single Trump comment about staying in office as a campaign ad. Run the ones where he's joking and say is he joking?
Run the ones where he's not joking and say he's not joking. You have a seam of new votes here. You have the comstock load of new votes here. And like I said, also run ads against the Supreme Court as well, especially that scenario in which Trump urinates on the Constitution, the part about only serving two terms and
Alito applauds. If any more indication is required here, The Washington Post was nice enough to underscore yesterday that the New York Times siena poll last week with all the bad Biden numbers in the swing States actually has potentially really good news in it. Quote, a generic Democratic Senate candidate led a generic Republican by five points, but Biden trailed Trump by six points. That's an eleven point gap between Democratic Senate candidates and the president. We've also seen
big gaps when you ask about actual Senate candidates. The time SIENA poll in Nevada showed Senator Jackie Rosen doing fourteen points better than Biden on the margins, I e Rosen ahead by two but Biden trailing by twelve. Representative Reuben Diego did eleven points better in Arizona, Senator Bob Casey did eight points better in Pennsylvania, and Senator Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin did seven points better. A new CBS News yugub poll in Arizona released over the weekend showed
an even bigger gap. Diego led Republican Kerry Lake by thirteen points, even as Biden trailed Trump by five, a whopping eighteen point difference. One way to look at this, wrote the Post, is that those votes are gettable for Biden. Another is that he's uniquely unpalatable to voters otherwise supportive of Democrats. Right, I'm voting for Tammy Baldwin but not Joe Biden. I'm voting for Reuben Diego and Trump. Of
course it's possible. Of course those combinations must explain some of those numbers, but they don't explain all of those numbers. And I would put a bet down that they don't explain a majority of those numbers. The first point from the post is the key one way to look at
this is that those votes are gettable for Biden. You think, but if only they had a great new punchline for new campaign ads in Wisconsin for Tammy Baldwin and Joe Biden, like, oh, hi, I'm Grandma, Laurie mccommon, and I'm a Wisconsin grandma from Wisconsin, and I'm a grandma and I voted for Trump and then I found out he wants to stop having elections and be president at least two hundred and six. So this year I'll be voting for Joe Biden, even if
he's in a coma. Then there's a pause, and then you hear Joe Biden say I'm Joe Biden, and I approved this message because guess what, I'm also not in a coma. Coquet from the Trump trial here in New York, the defense rests, which, given the presence of drowsy Don torpid Trump day dreaming, Donald the comatose comb over, the defense rests is meant literally closing arguments begin next Tuesday, and then we'll see It's impossible to tell what the
jury saw compared to what we saw. What we saw was Trump's witness pissing off the judge enough for the judge to clear the courtroom Monday, and for then the defendant's key witness, the same guy getting blown up by the prosecution yesterday, and then they take a week off. Oh oh, and we also got to see Trump concluding that everybody in the world agrees with him.
Every single legal expert.
Job in the future, Martin, everyone, Rick Jerrard. They call it a cas and we just can't have it. That's right. There are only four legal experts in the entire world. Jonathan Turley, mcuh McLevin somebody else, and Levin Mark Levin whose name is actually Mark Levin, but don't tell Trump because Trump may have narcolepsy. The jury also does not get to see all of the idiots who form the
Trump posse every day. Remember that great joke I did yesterday about grabbing them by the Lieutenant General Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the guy who promised to die of COVID to protect his grand children's economy in Texas and then reneged spoke to the crowd Sebastian Gorka, who owns Nazi adjacent tunics and was the perfect guy to have in front of cameras the day, Trump reposted a fan video with all kinds of Nazi headlines over his picture,
including the headline Unified Reich. He was there, Doctor Ronnie Jackson because there might have been beverage service, and of course funny man Joe Piscopo, I guess because Kid Rock was still sleeping off the Rolling Stone interview Joe Piscopo. Incredibly forty years and ten days ago. Two day was Joe Piscopo's last day on Saturday Night Live, and I must say I can't shape my fondness for he was
very good on it. First of all, he did a sportscaster based on my friend Warner Wolf from Channel two in New York, who just screamed everything and asked questions, nothing else but questions, what does this mean? What is it going? To tell who says this? Who dropped that ball? Who cares? Joe Piscopole Live Saturday Night Sports loved it.
He did a great Frank Sinatra. He did Frank Sinatra singing the theme from the Flintstones Flintstones Meet the Flintstones, and he told what I thought was the greatest joke I ever heard about Frank Sinatra. After he became somewhat famous for doing this Frank Sinatra routine. Joe Piscopo says he took Frank Sinatra, or took his mother to a Frank Sinatra concert in New Jersey, and in the middle of it, as Frank was singing, Frank suddenly recognized him
from the stage. Someday when I'm awfully and stopped and pointed at Joe Piscopal and said, you out. Joe Piscopal for a while sat behind me. He was in the second row at Yankee Stadium, behind the plate. I was in the first row. This is ten years ago, so it's thirty years after he told that joke, and I told him one day. I still remembered it word for word, that's how good of a joke it was. But I
really needed to know did it actually happen. Did he actually take his mother to a Frank Sinatra concert actor portraying Frank Sinatra singing The Flintstones on national television back when Saturday Night Live was supposed to be funny and people over the age of seven years old watched it? Did it happen? And, honest to God, his answer was
he didn't remember. He didn't remember the joke. And you know, if you don't remember the joke or you don't remember what the truth was, whether or not an actually happened, the correct answer is one of two things. You say, of course it happened. I couldn't have made up anything that funny, or of course it didn't happen. I'm a comedian. I wrote that, you out, But what do you want?
Joe Piscopo thinks Trump is worth supporting, and forty years after his last big gig, ended forty years of Saturday Night Live and seventeen thousand different cast members ago, Trump thought he was the right guy to bring down as part of his bosse you out. Also of interest here, I may do the unified Reich video story tomorrow with some context, depending on events. Frankly, I don't think it's his big ad, as everybody else does. Because, as mentioned a couple of times here, Trump's a Nazi and an
anti Semite. Why is this a surprise? We have it on the record since nineteen ninety that he owned a copy of Hitler's speeches and kept it in a little nightstand near his bed, according to his wife, the one who's now in the now on the golf course, we'll see for now of interest here, anybody remember who was hosting Fox's eight pm news hour thirteen months ago tonight. The answer is not Joe Piscopo Saturday night Live Sports. It's the same guy who will now be hosting a
show on Blosaiya twenty four, Russian state TV. And you thought I've worked for a lot of networks. That's next this discountdown. This is countdown with Keith old woman still ahead of us on this initiative countdown. I told this story yesterday to a friend, and I want to tell it again. The morning disc jockey who threatened to kill me one hour and then wanted to give me a multi year contract one hour later, who came to me and said, young man, I was a young man, then
you punk things. I promised not to tell coming up at first. As ever, there are still more new idiots talk about the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in
the world. You out the bronze worse. Good old Marco Rubio, the senior idiot senator from Florida, the one who threatened to have me prosecuted for demanding we reform the Supreme Court because well, because Marco Rubio has the IQ of a chair, a chair that has one leg shorter than the others, well he may have topped himself, or he may just be maintaining the standards he has honed over
the years. Marco Rubio on Fox quote news unquote, there is only one person that would ever face charges like this, and it has to have the last name Donald Trump. No se Marco. While you get some water last name, it means, it means that there's a Christian and then there's this cert Okay, never mind, It's like trying to explain something to a chair runner up worser, speaking of
which Chris solicit is. Back days after posting his hilarious mission statement, Chris seemed to confirm that he only spends about an hour a day here on this plane of existence in the America of twenty twenty four. He is shocked, shocked to discover that people are diagnosing cognitive declines in presidential candidates. When the GOP consultant Stuart Stevens went on MSNBC and said Trump has dementia, Solissa retweeted the clip and added, this is absolutely ridiculous. You can hate Trump,
you can believe him unfit for office. I definitely think the latter, But diagnosing him from afar with something as serious as dementia, it's just deeply irresponsible. Now you know what's deeply irresponsible, Chris both sides in every goddamned thing while the country burns to the ground, and you're the last thing to go up in flames, and you say, well, at least I didn't I eight sides against the fire. I treated the fire fairly. George Conway kind of felt
the same thing I did. He came back with, no, it's not. Numerous mental health professionals have been watching him carefully and have come to the conclusion that he is cognitively deteriorating. Well, mister mission statement, would not seed, would not ask anybody one of them has actually seen him in person. No way, you should be diagnosing dementia from afar. No way. I have terrible news for Chris on two fronts three actually, first one being Chris, you're an idiot. Two.
Starting in twenty fifteen, maybe earlier, Donald Trump has diagnosed everybody he's met with mental illness. The number is well into three figures, maybe four figures, maybe five figures by now. A people he has called all kinds of diseases and pejorative names for mental impaired in some way or cognitively impaired in some way. So if you're trying to stop people from diagnosing others afar, you're literally nine years too late. He diagnoses Biden every day. Biden the President of the
United States. Joe Biden. No, Joe Biden's President of the United States. Chris, So, the ship sailed and it's already made its way around the world thirty seven times. Chris evidently did not know this. But more importantly, how do you think, Chris, that they diagnosed dementia a blood test? An X ray? Professionals observe behavior. They often ask the patient, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they ask relatives and those around the patient. But whoever they ask, it's it's still
all from afar. You cannot get into somebody's head and measure their neural synapses. And even more importantly, remember what were those Solizza Washington Post Hillary Clinton email headlines I quoted last week from his fifty articles about the topic in just six months of twenty fifteen, Several of them refer to quote Hillary Clinton's honesty problem. One said Hillary
Clinton as honest and trustworthy as Donald Trump. Well, the marriage of the words honest and problems suggests, well a problem, a clinical problem which Chris Solizza was diagnosing from afar. So what he's really saying here to Stuart Stevens and George Conway and everybody else in the world is you can't diagnose anybody's psychological or cognitive problems from afar. But I can. But our winner. Let me just quote newsweek dot Com. Conservative TV host Tucker Carlson has launched his
own show on a Russian state television channel. He decided to go to one American news. Oh no, I must have misunderstood. The former Fox News anchor is presenting the program Tucker on the Rolling News channel Russia twenty four and we know where they're rolling it over, with the first episode now available online. Russian state newspaper Rosiskaya Gazeta reported. Paper said that the show is part of a joint project with Carlson TV in which you will interview figures
and politicians who have alternative views to the mainstream. In other words, liars, Well, it turns out Newsweek is partially incorrect here. This is not going to be some news series, at least not yet. It's just going to be the videos that he's already posted to Twitter x only with subtitles, which raises this question, why would they need subtitles? I mean, everything Tucker Carlson says was written originally in Russia, wasn't it, Tucker. As the old joke goes, it loses something in the
original Carlson Today's Worse Person in the World, Tavis. I'm Dave Spencer, WNWWS and now WAW Sportsen Commentary with John Kenner.
And Good Morning Keith Olberman for Big John Sports is brought to you by Amtrak America is getting into training with Metro Ironers service thirteen times every business day to Philadelphia. They run from Penn Station and if you were there last night, you probably heard some noise from upstairs. It was Ranger fans celebrating the new year a little bit.
This remains, in short, as terrifying as anything else in my career, death threats, fake and threat What New York felt like post nine to eleven, the frozen feeling of realizing you've made a terrible, damaging mistake on a story, even working for Rupert Murdoch. Worse than that. Forty two years have passed since this event, and nothing has dimmed the memory, nothing has reduced the palpable sense of anxiety
in every joint in my body. On Sunday, December twenty first, nineteen eighty, the Oakland Raiders defeated the New York Giants thirty three to seventeen to end the Giant season at four wins and twelve losses, with the most points they had given up in one year. Since nineteen sixty six. I was the backup sportscaster at w NEW Radio in New York. We carried the Giants game broadcasts. In fact, we had carried them since I was two years old. I was now a month shy of twenty two, and
it being Christmas week. I reported bright and early to the studios at forty first Street and Third Avenue on Monday, December twenty second. My first sports cast was at five thirty am. There was a theme song which invoked the name of the regular sportscaster, John Kennelly. It said sports and commentary, and my first few weeks filling, and that year I stuck mostly to the sports, with just an
occasional commentary, but mostly a joke or pithy observation. Well kind of pithy, but that first weekend of winter, the giant stink was all that we could smell in New York, and I felt I had to point it out, pointed Lee, and so while I observed that there was a positive they had started one in eight but then had actually won three of their last seven games, the rest of my commentary was cynical, acerbic, dissatisfied, in other words, the
average day of the typical New York sports fan. I ended my show right on time at five thirty five am, and to my surprise, I heard the disc jockey skip his usual post sportscast remarks and instead simply play the next record, which I think was Frank Sinatra's The way
you like tonight we were a big band station. I stepped out of the booth and took the dozen strides through the newsroom, busy even at that hour, with eight or ten staffers, and I was sitting down at my desk when the door from the main air studio slammed open. In the doorway stood the disc jockey, and he had a message for me. The message was you punk. The
disc jockey's name was Ted Brown. On the air, he was your morning man, Ted Brown, speaking upbeat drivel, mostly to women who loved the mellow sound of his voice. Off the air. WNW was his station and the morning show was his show. He would fight for it. In fact, he had fought at least two news reporters in his time in the studio while Frank Sinatra records played on
a turntable thirty feet away. Ted Brown was a big man six ' three six ' four maybe by this point I don't know, two thirty forty two fifty thick tortoise shell glasses. He was a sportsman, a huge gambler racetracks mostly the Giants had begun on WNW in nineteen sixty one. Ted Brown had begun on WNW in nineteen forty nine, and he was tough, and it was not even the New York tough I had grown up with.
This guy had been a tail gunner on a B seventeen during the Second World War, and the Nazi shot him down, and they took him to Stalog nine CE, near Leipzig, and they kept him there for eighteen months, and basically he chewed up and spit out guys like me for breakfast. And I respected him. You punk say you don't like how the giants. Did you think any of us too? He gestured towards the newscasters and staffers. Nobody looked up. You know how easy it is to
sit there in a nice, heated, dry, comfortable newsroom. I was in Stalog NINEC. His contempt for the idea of the newsroom was amazing. You sit here in your newsroom and ponte while men men in helmets with mud on them, they're bones, breaking, their hearts pounding. They are out on the field, fighting and tackling and working on the field of battle. So you can sit here in your news room. It was at this point that I remembered where I
had first seen a photograph of Ted Brown. He was in a booth at Yankee Stadium, where the Giants played in the nineteen sixties. He was the third man, a combination color announcer and host on Giants radio broadcasts on WNW. He was the worst possible person to have heard me rip the New York Giants, even the four and twelve nineteen eighty New York Giants, even if editorially I was completely correct and not nearly as hard on the team as its own announcers had been on our station the
day before. What did you do to earn your spot? Here? Punk Ted Brown was turning red. One of his fists was already clenched, while the other arm cut through the air to emphasize how much I sucked. I truly believed he was about to take a swing at me. Then from behind him, the door from his studio swung open again, and the elderly engineer, the man who actually spun the records on Ted's show, came through it. Ted I just had to segue out of Sinatra to Jimmy Cagney singing
Yankee Doodle Dandy. And the general manager called and he said, I should tell you WNEW does not segue. No records, don't do it. Again, you better get back in here. The cagnes almost finished. The engineer then vanished silently back through the door. This warning did nothing but make Ted Brown even angrier the general manager. Have you met the
general manager, Punk, Jack Fair? And Jack Fair gets in here at eight twenty every morning on dot clockwork, Punk, when you finish your eight thirty sports cast, I'm dragging you in to meet Jack Thayer, the general manager. And that punk is when your career at WNW Radio will come to an abrupt end. You think the New York Giants had a bad nineteen eighty, how about your nineteen eighty punk when your career ended? Because the real men, the real men, are out there on the playing field,
not sitting inside a noseroom in a sweater. Miscontinued for some time. The engineer returned Tennant's Thayer again, I just segued to some mel Tourmae. Ted Thayer wants to talk to you. He thinks maybe you're not here, and I'm covering for you. Ted Brown turned and swore dark oaths against the engineer, and for that matter, against the general manager, Jack Thayer, and for that matter, against mel Tourmae. You and me, Punk, eight thirty five of your career, pug.
He lunged at me. Suddenly the engineer grabbed him and pulled him back through the door. In the newsroom, there were only two sounds, one my heart, which I suspect was audible perhaps the next block, the other typing. Nobody said a word, Nobody looked at me. A phone rang, The production assistant sang out WNW news. I went over to the newscaster who had been the most supportive of me to that point, Bob Hagen, and through my shaking I said thanks for to help Bob. Bob did not
look up from his typewriter. What he said matter of factly Brown? I said, yes, Brown, he's gonna get me fired in three hours. Bob Hagen laughed, No, he's not. I said, he just spent I don't know how many minutes he spent three records screaming at me. Didn't you hear him? I heard him, We all heard him. We've all heard him every time he said that. He said that to every one of us out here. He said that about every one of us out here. He took a swing at eyes grow over there. What was it,
Jimmy two months ago? Ignore him? I said, I failed to see why any of what he had told me should encourage me to ignore Ted Brown. When we had a meeting with the general manager at eight thirty five, Bob Hagen now stopped typhing and smiled up at me reassuringly from his chair. Keith, you do a good job. Ted is nuts. Ted is mean. Ted is a crazy Giants fan. Ted is also still bitter that he's not
on the radio broadcast of the Giants games. But Ted has also been doing morning radio almost every day since nineteen forty five. Keith, that's thirty five years of getting up in the middle of the night, and many many years ago, Keith, Ted stopped remembering things like what somebody said on his show. He doesn't remember, he won't remember who. Just finish off the next sportscast with one of your clever, funny,
little kicker stories. And even if he somehow remembers what you said about the Giants, when he hears a good laugh, all he'll remember is the laugh. I tried to be respectful of Bob, but I told him I found all this hard to believe. Keith. He also drinks. He has nightmares, he has pow nightmares, and he gets up at three am every day. He does not imprint new memories anymore. But no, why should you listen to me. I've only been on his show for ten years. Why would I know?
I'm telling you, get a good, funny kicker for the six thirty and he'll love you. I nodded grimly. I did not believe Bob Hagen, but I knew he meant well, and anyway, he had started to type again. The clock now moved impossibly quickly. Incredibly, I did find just the kind of funny, clever kicker story Bob suggested I should use to the six thirty sports cast. I minimized my assault on the Giants and then finished off my report with some story that shed a good light on Montclair
State College in New Jersey. I could not have known, and I swear I did not know that Ted Brown's sister had graduated from Montclair State College in New Jersey. I finished off the sports cast with the story something that made Montclair State look good a little chuckle, and then Keith ol Rimman for John Kennelly on the Ted Brown Show ominously again, to my terror, Ted Brown now said nothing on the air. I could not see him through the window into the main air studio. The engineer
played a record instead. It may have been the Montevanni strings play the Beatles. I opened the door back to the newsroom slowly and with trepidation. I crouched as I moved back towards my desk. And that's when it happened. The door from the main air studio slammed open again. It was Ted Brown again. Where is he? Where is he? Montclair State? My sister went to Montclair State. What a story,
what a great laugh, perfectly delivered. My God, that was the best sports cast we have ever had on this station. Don't you think so? Prely? God? Love you, kid? Whatna tell it? I laughed out loud, Kid, I don't laugh out loud. It was the same Ted Brown. I stole a quick glance at the newsroom to see if this whole thing was some kind of act being filmed for
a hidden camera TV series. Nobody looked up again. Nobody looked up Ted Brown, The man who an hour before was ready to beat me up and get me fired, was now repeating again and again that I had just delivered the best sports cast in the history of WNW Radio. That's when his engineer came back in. He had segueyed from Montavani to Perry Como and the general manager had called. And now Ted Brown's eyes widened behind the thick glasses. The general manager, Jack Thayer, say, Keith, have you ever
met Jack Theayer? This gives me a great idea. Jack Thayer comes in here every morning at eight twenty like clockwork. Look. I love John Kennelly, he's great, but you were exactly the kind of new, fresh young voice we need on this radio station. Dammit, I need on my show. When Jack Thayer comes in here at eight twenty this morning, you and I are going right into his office and we're gonna get you your own sports cast on my show. We can do two sports casts an hour. We'll take
it out of the stock Report Montclair stage. I'll get you a contract. You and Kennelly will seventy five grand being up for you. Kid. You're gonna hit the big time here, my friend, and out the engineer came again. Jack Thayer had again called in fourth time that I knew of he really needed Ted Mack in the studio to talk to the women. Ted Brown happily shouted okay, okay, and began to back up into the doorway. The look in his eyes towards me was one of unimaginable love.
Come come here, wait, come here, come here, come here, and he lunged at me and grabbed me into a bear hug. Just brilliant Montclair State. I gotta call my sister and tell you. Seeing Jack's office at eight thirty five, I stood there, having now been pummeled by two hurricanes arriving from different directions in the span of one hour. All was silent in the WNEW newsroom again but for the typing. But it was silent only for a moment. That's when Bob Hagen addressed me again. He did not
look up. All he said was Keith, he won't remember that either.
Finally, they call it disastro turf, and the closer and closer we get to game day, the more and more likely it is the Giants won't get to practice on it. As the steady rains continue in the Bay Area, the forty nine ers continue to suggest that the Giants cancel their scheduled Saturday practice at Cattlestick Park for the good of the bad field, which means that the first time folks like Rob carpenter will get their feet wet, literally will be when they come out for the game Sunday afternoon.
That sport's brought to you by Amtrak America is getting into trading with Metro Liner service thirteen times every business day to Philadelphia. I'm Keith Oberman for John Kennelly on the Ted Brown Show.
Good morning everybody. Thank you Keith. It's twenty one before seven. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars based on drums. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by tk Obras. Other music, including some of the Beethoven arranged and by
no horns allowed the sports music. The Olderman theme from ESPN two was written by Mitch Warren Davis. It's courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. My announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else was
pretty much my fault. Let's countdown for This the one hundred and sixty eighth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the undred and thirty third day since Dictator J. Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the legal system, use the mental health system, Use presidential immunity if it happens, Use the not regularly given elector objection option. Use the new article in Bloomberg to stop him from doing it again while
we still cam The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Still day to day with the sinus tomorrow till the next one. Whenever it is. I'm Keith Oldraman 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.