Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat. Will Rogers, of course, first quoted in nineteen thirty five, quoted posthumously in fact, which is completely appropriate given how the rest of us feel right now. I am afraid it is going to keep going exactly like this until Joe Biden with jaws, or until all
doubts are erased. And as we contemplate the upcoming NATO news conference, please tell me how all doubts would ever be erased. First, in this sequence of events, this Sisyphus and the hill and the rock jazz, the withdrawal will have been tamped down, or those talking it will have been bludgeoned and shamed, basically where we were on Monday. Then it will rise up again courtesy of the amazed, those who are amazed that it quieted down when the
thing seems so obvious to them. Then someone with actual power here, like say Nancy Pelosi, will say something in code indirectly to the President via television that sounds like maybe you should think about getting out, But then she will dilute her own words a few minutes later to a different source. Then a few electeds will insist he leave,
or they will seem to insist. Then celebrity democrats like say George Clooney will chime in, and everybody can make the same joke about it, like huh, good night and good luck Joe, and then somebody and yesterday it was an uninformed candidate for the Senate from New Jersey will wonder out loud and get into print if there is some way to force Joe Biden off the ticket, and there isn't, and the whole thing will calm down for as long as a day, maybe thirty six hours, and
then a day or thirty six hours later, all start up all over again, and the cycle will keep going through the beginning of November. The only variety to the equation, the equation of evasion, will be when we hit those moments of existential dread like today, like mister Biden's scheduled news conference at the NATO summit. Oh what's on his schedule today?
Oh?
Nothing much, just another bottomless pit he can fall into and take us with him. Oh no, even if he doesn't fall in, we'll get like twelve to twenty four hours of every one of his words being parsed on every news channel like they were from a newly discovered parchment from the Dead Sea scrolls. Ah, you're right, but don't use that Dead Sea Scrolls analogy where everybody can hear you. We're trying to avoid talking about his age.
On February twenty eighth, twenty and twenty, Catherine Joan Bettingfield retired as Joe Biden's White House communications director to become head of the Environmental Defense Action Fund. She was once campaigned spokesperson for John Edwards, which really means she was campaign spokeswoman for the late Elizabeth Edwards, who should have been president. She worked in the Obama administration. She worked with Vice President Biden. She was deputy manager of his
twenty twenty campaign. And if you can imagine this, I used to work for her father when he was an executive at CNN in my second stint there about two decades ago, and he very well might have been the only sane one in management there. So she is not a person of extremes or panic or indiscretion. And thus what she said yesterday matters more to me, and I hope more to you, than does what Nancy Pelosi said,
I know firsthand better than almost anyone. Miss Bettingfield writes how smart the Biden team is about data at about ignore the noise. They are right that the game here is to convince voters, not pundits. But when the battle over the public data is so overwhelmingly negative, it's a good moment to put forward your theory of the case. If they have data that supports the path to victory that they see, they should put it out there now and help people who badly want to beat Trump rally
around it. People want to see the path well exactly, less hand ringing, less where's your loyalty? Less nobody gets to tell Biden what to do. More data. The irony is there is data supporting the go with Joe conclusion. And again I remain agnostic about this, but Northeastern University is experimenting with advanced data and putting it together with polling. They call it Chip fifty, And the key to it isn't that advanced. Actually, it's not ask bunches of people
several times a year. It's ask the same bunch of people several times a year, and doing so before and after the debate. To quote the Chip fifty report finds that Biden held on to ninety four percent of the people who said they would support him before the debate. For Trump, eighty six percent of people who said they would support him before the debate said they would do so after the debate. Project leader Northeastern professor David Lazar says,
don't get too excited quoting him. What we see is that there is some churn, maybe ten percent or so of people change what they answer, but that the net result is not a movement away from Biden. If anything, it seems that Biden is holding on to his people somewhat better than Trump. Now, this is not decisive, and if it is relevant to the big question before the debate, Biden needed to grow his voter support, not just maintain it. If this is relevant to that, it's only and genturally so.
But where's the White House on this? Don't hit democrats over the head with guilt or by pulling rank on them. This is the president's decision. Hit them over the head with retained support metrics weighted retained support ninety four percent is a hell of a lot of percent. Tell people about it, and tell people how the Biden campaign sees it.
As a starting point for winning the election and burying Trump in the metaphorical Quicksand I said in February, and I said the night of the debate, and I said immediately after that that the worst outcome was the scenario in which this all played out in public and Biden dug in and those who doubted him kept coming back every forty eight hours and saying, oh, what about now are you leaving now? And yet here we are what
about now? You're going to leave now? And the most powerful voices in the Democratic Party are themselves participating in this, playing this game, except it's not a game, it's a deadly dance. In February, Axios reported, quote, when White House aids appear on MSNBC's Morning Joe, they're often booked between seven and seven forty am ET. That's so they'll reach
one crucial and loyal viewer President Biden. Unquote, Well guess what yesterday Nancy Pelosi went on that show at seven thirty nine am ET.
It's up to the president to sucide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. The I think overwhelming support of the caucus. It's not for me to say. I'm not the head of the caucus anymore. But he's beloved, he is respected, and people want him to make that decision.
He has me, he has said he has made the decision. He has said firmly this week he is going to run. Do you want him to run?
I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And that's the way it is. Whatever he decides we go with. I think it's really important and I would hope everyone would join in. She let him deal with this NATO conference. This is a very big deal. Thirty heads of over, thirty heads of state are here. He is the host of it, and that means not just hosting. It means orchestrating the discussion and setting the agenda. And he's doing so magnificently. And I've said everyone, let's just
hold off whatever you're thinking. Either tell somebody privately, but you don't have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week.
A clip from the best part of MSNBC's Morning Joe, the part where there was no Joe Scarborough seven thirty nine am to speak to the proverbial audience of one and when Nancy Pelosi showed up at her office hours later, she told ABC News, yes, she does think Biden can win, and she told CBS, I think the president is great, and there are some misrepresentations of what I have said. I never said he should reconsider his decision. The decision
is the president's. I don't know what's happened in the New York Times that they make up news, but if that's why you're here, it isn't true. Unquote. So she said one thing in a very specifically fuzzy way, if you can forgive that contradiction in terms, presumably just to
get the president's eyebrows to raise. Obviously, the point is she said he should make a decision, and of course he has not only insisted for ten days now that he's made his decision, but he put his decision in writing and sent it to all the congressional Democrats on Monday. And Nancy Pelosi is still a congressional Democrat. So why did she ask him to make a decision he's already made and then kind of walk that back while she
was not on his favorite television show. I guess we should be happy this favorite television show is not the monsters, so it alarms him. So it gets a message through the bubble to Joe Biden without making it look like Nancy Pelosi is providing a platform or encouragement for the Joe must Go crowd, not encouraging them yet anyway, and managing to do so before a meeting scheduled today between Biden, aids and worried Democratic senators. Let's see how many of
them show up to that. Yes, all of a sudden, the Democrats are doing exactly what the Republicans do when they want to get a message to Trump, go on TV and talk to the guy. And yes, there are many comparisons between Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough. There's one other thing here, though, that Pelosi mentioned. If Biden were to choose to go, he certainly would not have done it before the NATO summit ended. He loves NATO. It's kind of an obvious statement to say, well, he's not
going to do it before the NATO thing ends. Well, the NATO thing ends today, He's not going to go back in time and do it. I suppose the whole thing is an informal attempt to soften Biden up, to encourage him and him alone to bow out, or at least to see if it's possible that he might do that. I am comforted as an aside, really only by the fact that this idea, the use TV to twist a phrase,
the medium is the messenger that it's not new. In fact, you are alive today in no small part because of the chief diplomatic correspondent of ABC News in nineteen sixty two, a man named John Scally, and the fact that President Kennedy watched Scali's reports, and the chief KGB hood in Washington, Alexander Foeman, watched his reports, and when Premier Khrushchev needed a back channel to Kennedy to find some other way out of the nineteen sixty two Cuban missile crisis other
than you know, blowing the world up, Foeman told Khrushchev they should just go use John Scally. So Foeman met Scali at a diner and pitched the essence of the deal. But ultimately, you know, saved the world from being blown up, and they talked about it over a ham sandwich. A service of ABC News, still using television newspeople to decide the fate of humanity. What a way to run a railroad or a nation. The White House, of course, is proving the bromide that insanity is doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting different results. The taped interview with George Stephanoppolis on ABC last week, which was somehow supposed to address the President's failure in a live group setting, one on one taped interview, which produced more
indistinct responses added to the confusion. One horrifying answer in which Biden clearly accepted the idea of losing to Trump, rather than saying over my day body or something similar, and as if that fix it project had not resulted in more damage that night, Stephanoppolis was then asked by some rando with a camera phone rolling on the streets of New York if he thought Biden should or could serve for another four year term, and rather than saying it's not my job to say that, George said no,
he didn't, and it had been uploaded to TMZ within hours. The White House clearly thinks that all went well. They have now booked something totally different, a pre taped interview with NBC Lester Holtz, because that can't wind up like the one with George. The one with George was on ABC at eight pm. This one will be on at nine on NBC. AH Honest to god, I do not think the President of the United States has any you
in cognitive issues. None. I think he gets tired and various speech problems are catching up with him at age eighty one, like various speech problems are catching up with me at age sixty five. I have only one doubt about one corner of his sanity, which is that he thinks Scarborough knows what he's talking about and is honest. But I do have a series of questions about those around him making decisions like this one about the NBC interview.
I mean, if this goes poorly too, if Holt on a Friday is as bad as Stephanopoulos on the previous Friday. If the Biden campaign then goes to brainstorm for hours to figure out what to do next, and then somebody says, Fellas, Fellas, I got it, CBS put him on CBS. That's gotta work. This is simple news conferences one a week live, no taped interviews or town halls live. If he does well, this actually could all go away. If he doesn't well,
there's your answer right there. And while I understand that the words of elected Democrats have to be restrained and that a solution to this either with the President staying on the ticket or leaving the ticket, that it rests on a certain gentleness will everybody is tiptoeing around this, and a king Jeffrey says, yes, Biden can win, but these are family discussions. You can almost see him doing the
little button gesture with his lips. The rest of the neighborhood is burning to the ground, and nobody is being quiet about that. Clooney's obed in The Times begets more concern trolling from goddamn David Axelrod, who is becoming the mark pen of Pat Caddell's, and the genuine aspects of this crisis beget anonymous quotes to places like NBC News, in which sources close to the campaign say donations have
quote absolutely shut off. That's a problem. Journalism or whatever our American system is, abhors a vacuum and celebrity op eds and bad news and leaks become the only news if you are quiet forever. Because while that Northeastern study is really insightful and positive, Politico reported bad polling for Biden here in New York just an eight point lead
in this state. And now for the independent journalist Jacqueline Suite, Biden down in internal democratic polling in three swing congressional districts now held by Republicans, districts that Biden won four years ago, down by one point in the twenty second, down by double digits in the seventeenth and the nineteenth. And for God's sakes, please follow Kate Bettingfield's advice. I, for one, do not object to President Biden trying to hold onto the nomination like our lives depended on it.
I would like to see him recognize, though, that it is actually the election upon which our lives depend And as MS Bettingfield suggests, tell us what the plan is electorally. One last piece of advice for the Biden campaign and
for they get rid of Biden campaign as well. You are both moving towards the point of no return, and in our environment, the easiest way to identify that moment is the moment at which major news organizations, already corrupted by their corporate masters, no longer feel the need to make the slightest attempt to hide the fact that they are in the tank partially or completely for Trump and for fascism. And they are corporations. They don't even think
about the nation. They just think about their profits. We are approaching that moment. In fact, we may have already arrived at it. I will never back away from my contention that the lead story the night of the CNN debate was not Biden's failures, nor even Trump's fire hose of lies, but the fact that CNN not only agreed to but seemingly offered to not fact check anything, not
even occasionally. I have suggested here since this podcast began two years and twenty days ago, that some upper echelon of the companies that own every significant news organization in this country have had the same meeting in which the prospect of Trump seizing power again and thus this nation going fully fascist, is addressed, and the true threat is
confronted in the boardrooms of our masters. So, of course, to the people who own the New York Times and the people who own the Washington Post, and the people who own NBC, and especially the right wing who comparatively newly own CNN, they will perceive the true threat as the threat to their profits. Is that why Jake Tapper and Dana Bash failed the minimum test of journalism. Now, did the owner go to them and say you can't
say this? No, did the owner go to one of their boss's bosses and say that you bet your ass. When I was at NBC, the calls used to come from the president of NBC, Bob Wright, directly to the executive producer of My show, Phil Griffin. Asked about the upcoming presidential election, writes Bloomberg News from the annual Sun Valley Billionaires Retreat in Idaho. David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros.
Discovery the man who brought you Chris licked the man who brought you the twenty two three CNN Live town hall and Trump infomercial financed by the fascist John Malone. David Zaslav quote said it mattered less to him which party wins as long as the next president was friendly to business. Quote. We just need an opportunity for deregulation so companies can consolidate and do what we need to to be even better. Unquote. Zaslav did not add Trump Land,
Trump Land uber Alees because he didn't need to. That part can be safely assumed also of interest here well. Of course, one of Trump's longest standing confidence finally said it. One of them was going to just a question of which one you ever wonder why we cannot let Trump regain the controls no matter what. Remember that one of his henchmen has now called the Vice President of the United States the possible next president of the United States,
Kamala Harris quote colored unquote. It only remains to see now if you can correctly choose from a few options as to who it was. When I say a few options, I mean like five or six thousand. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead
of us on this ediative countdown. Since I just invoked corporate greed and corporate fascism and corporate influence over the news, it's a good time to tell again the story of my great grandfather who accidentally gave away at least sixty or seventy million dollars in about two minutes. But it's okay because the money went to a major American corporation. Things I promised not to tell coming up. But first
there's still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world, The Brons worse the Federalist Society and Project twenty twenty five. Trump may be pretending he knows nothing of a document that made me think of the Gestapo Black Book, which they
prepared for their invasion of London that never happened. It had the names and addresses of three thousand British citizens and organizations that were to be immediately rounded up or just shot. And the black Book included everybody from Winston Churchill to the Rotary Club. Well, the cat is kind of out of the bag about who knows what about
Project twenty twenty five, let me quote. While former President Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project twenty twenty five, the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind the policy plan, is on full display at the Republican National Convention. The Heritage Foundation signed onto the RNC as a convention sponsor.
The group plans to host a policy fest in downtown Milwaukee on Monday, which is the day Trump will become the nominee of the Republican Party, and a following social event at a nearby bar. Who's reporting that The Washington Examiner, the right wing news outlet. Do they seem to be hiding it at all?
By the way, hey, can we get somebody to send copy of Project twenty twenty five over to David Zaslavitt Warner Bros.
Discovery.
No, no, no, no, now tell him we want yeah, tell him. I want to know if he has any notes, any additions, anything he'd like, anything he doesn't like.
Zazz Lab again, z z as in Nazi the runners up exo Planet HD one eight nine seven thirty three B because it stinks. This may be the first time I've made a planet, the entirety of a planet the worst persons in the world, because of course they're not in the world. They're in the universe, and they're an entire planet, so they'd actually be the worst persons in another world. AnyWho. Scientists made an exciting and pungent announcement
about a nearby exo planet this week. According to news reports, planetary body with a likeness to Jupiter has one small problem. It smells of rotten eggs. Analyzing data governed gathered rather by the James Space Telescope, scientists discovered that exoplanet HD one eighty nine seventy three three B contains hydrogen sulfide, a colorless gas emitted by decaying organic matter with a
strong egg like odor. In addition to hydrogen sulfide, researchers found carbon dioxide, oxygen, water, and heavy metals in the unique exoplanet's atmosphere. According to what was published in Nature magazine on Monday, it was initially discovered in two thousand and five. It is located approximately sixty five light years from Earth in the constellation Vulpecula. So you just make here, Just go out here, make a laught at the light, and then go up b FDR for sixty five light years.
Some days that'll only get you to ninety sixth Street near the constellation Velpecula. Thought there was a hockey player's name, Bopecula, So a defenceman with the phoenix robe runners of the WHA. Now the reports we're getting all quoting nature have been cleaned up. They say that the place smells like rotten eggs. The BBC World News report on this was a little
less coy. It noted in a priceless Eternal on screen graphic that quote the hydrogen sulfide on HD one eight nine seven three three B is also found in farts unquote. This is the BBC Foughts, speaking of which the winner, doctor Sebastian Gorka, the former advisor to the Hungarian fascist Victor Orban, the former Steve Bannon ass kisser, the guy who dyes his gray hair and gray beard with I
don't know some of Rudy Giuliani's leftover shoe polish. The scumbags, so scumbag as she was actually fired by the Trump White House eight months in last time. The human fart who has still lingered around the fringes of the fascist community as an online common who is there to make sure the fascists continue to hate the right people. The asshole who wore the Nazi related tunic medal to Trump's inauguration in twenty sixteen. And he's the one who said it.
Listen to what he's called Kamala Harris. Do these donors really think that Kamala Harris is going to do better in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania than Joe Biden? Would?
I mean, that's siming because it can't it can't be anybody.
Rob, You're being logical. Stop it all right, she's a Dei higher, right, she's a woman, she's colored, therefore she's got to be good, That's right. Sebastian Gorka has called the Vice President of the United States, whom he is not as smart as nor as successful, a Dei hire, and he has called her quote colored unquote. There are several unpleasant aspects to the possible replacement of Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. When I say several, I mean
several hundred. But there is at least one absolute positive. Making Kamala Harris the presidential nominee or better yet, the president in the event of an actual Biden retirement, would be irresistible to the stains of this world like Sebastian Gorka, and they would out themselves as the stinking, oxygen wasting human fart planets that they really are. In the interim, he's just Sebastian the racist Gorka two days, worst person
in the world. Hey, maybe you'd like to Sebastian, you want to take a quick trip to HD one eight nine seven three three B. Yeah, it's sixty five light years away, so it's going to be a one way trip. Mother to the top of the countdown and the number one story in my favorite topic me and what is some much needed comic relief today. I think though my late father would never have agreed with that statement, not at all. My great grandfather told this story something like
every day until he died. It was legendary in the family. There is considerable circumstantial evidence that it is all true, and the last possible date that it could have happened was one hundred and fourteen years ago, last Friday, September sixteenth, nineteen oh eight. Anthony Zelenski was born in Crackoff in Poland in eighteen sixty eight. My sister just found some evidence that he changed the way his name was spelled, that it was originally Zelenski with two ys or two
eyes at the end, just like the Ukrainian president. We're kind of pleased with her discovery. Antony, or as my father nicknamed him, the Great Financier, was a natural musician. He could sing, play any instrument, He could compose music and lyrics. He could teach you how to play. He could build or repat hair anything from a kazoo to a grand piano, and that from his late teens is
how he made his money. He traveled all around Europe from maybe eighteen eighty six onwards, staying at rich people's houses for several days, teaching the girls had to sing and the boys how to play whatever was lying around the house, fixing the family harpsichord, cobbling together the odd flute. One day, we're guessing around eighteen eighty nine eighteen ninety, he traveled to the home of well off merchants in Odessa,
then part of Russia, the Shevchenkos. He taught the boys how to sing and the girls had to play the organ, and then he fell in love with the youngest daughter, Matrona. The Sheefchenkos were not happy when they discovered them in love and chased my great grandfather and their daughter out of the house, out of the city, and out of the country. Antony went home to poland married his child bride, returned to crack Off, where all of his family then chased them out of that house, out of that city,
and out of that country. Get lost with you and your Russian horror, he would later tell the nephew for whom my father was named Teddy. Antony and Matrona had to think fast it's eighteen eighty nine, eighteen ninety where's a hard working guy thrown out of Russia and Poland going to go? They arrived in New York City within weeks.
As I said, he was a natural musician. He picked up English quickly, and supposedly within a month or two, he was leaving his wife, my great grandmother, in an apartment in the Bronx and getting on trains for distant cities as far west as Chicago, going to the rich people's homes and getting one hundred dollars to teach the music, write music, repair musical instruments, and then get right back
on the train to New York. Though he earned a very good income doing this, especially for an immigrant, Antony and Matrona lived frugally, often without hot water in their home. Because my great grandfather was now driven, driven to avenge himself Teddy, he would tell his nephew, who told me, Dad, I save every dollar I can save. I in West, in the safest in westment in the world, the Polish national bonds. For one day, I shall return to the Krackoff.
I shall buy the biggest house on top of the biggest hill and stand outside all day waiving my money at my relatives who made me and your aunt leave, and saying to them, f you, this is my goal.
And on and on. This went for a decade and more until he went to Flint, Michigan, to do his usual routine to stay at the house of a prosperous American, write a family song, repair the broken tuba, teach the kids to play the guitar, and generally delight the family, in this case the family of a businessman who he
remembered as mister Billy. Came the end of my great grandfather stay with mister Billy in Michigan and his family in Michigan, and mister Billy was so taken with Anthony Zelenski that he took him personally to the train station in Flint and went with him onto the platform to wait for the train. Zelinsky, he said, we have been delighted to have you here that I would be honored if you would accept instead of the five hundred dollars I owe you, please take one thousand dollars in stock
certificates from my business. My way of saying thanks and hoping you can return and visit us again. My great grandfather said he was almost moved to tears by the gesture. But mister Billy, he explained, I live very inexpensively and I invest all my money in the world's safest in Westment, the Polish National Bonds. Mister Billy congratulated Antony on his prudence, but said, I believe I am at the cusp of the next great business in this country. I would again
offer you this stock. I think you will make so much money that you could buy all the Polish National Bonds. My great grandfather, standing there on the train station in Flint, Michigan, fought for a moment. I know, mister Billy, you mentioned you own a manufactory in town. What is this you manufactur? Mister Billy said, we are in the automobile old business. Mister Zelinsky, my great grandfather lit up is the streets of New York are filled with automobiles. This is the
coming thing. But I will still take the cash and in west in the world's safest in Westment the Polish National Bonds. The train was late. There was an awkward silence now between them, which my great grandfather finally broke. Do I know the name of your company, mister Billy, and mister Billy replied, well, that's the topic of the moment, mister Zelensky, and I must say, having gotten to know you a little bit, I'm not at all surprised you
brought this subject up. Currently, my company is called Buick Motor Cars. My great grandfather said, Ah, yes, Buck, I've heard of Buck. You're changing the name. Not exactly, said mister Billy. I believe the automotive business is going to grow exponentially. But we have one large company in the field, Ford, and we have dozens of smaller ones like Buick. And I'm about to buy up several of my competitors and form one big company, bigger than Ford, and we will
dominate automobiles for decades to come. Ah yes, said my great grandfather. And what will you call this behemoth? Mister Billy laughed again. You cut to the heart of the matter, mister Zelensky. We're debating that right now. We need a name that expresses our national stature. My great grandfather shook his head at the obviousness of this. The problem is an easy one. No, you use National National Motor Cars.
Mister Billy laughed again. Your insight is extraordinary. That was our first thought as well, but would you believe there is a company in Indiana, of all places, they make electric automobiles which will never work, and they're called National Motor Vehicles. We need another name. American has also taken. Continental has taken it. Damn it, mister Zelensky. We can't
think of a good name that isn't already taken. My great grandfather, who had just turned down the stock and a thousand dollars worth of the stock in this company, thought for a second, you wish to express the national, the American, the broadly available or available National? Continental? National? What is the word in English? The general the general availability of your vehiculars? Well, mister Billy, why not that? Why not general? General automobiles, general automotive, general motor car,
maybe general motors. Now it was time for mister Billy to become pensive. Finally he spoke general motors. Hmmm, does have a certain ring to it, mister Zelinsky. Oh look here's your train. Mister Billy was, of course Billy Durant, and he owned Durant Dorge, and then he owned Buick, and then he consolidated thirteen auto manufacturers and ten parts and accessory companies together into as It was called the day Billy and his partners opened the escrow account Wednesday,
September sixteenth, nineteen oh eight, General Motors Holding Company. My great grandfather, having gotten another five hundred dollars to invest in the world's safest investment instead of one thousand dollars in stock in not General Motors in nineteen oh eight, but the company that would become General Motors, and having given its chairman the name General Motors for free, waved goodbye, got on the train return to New York. He died
fifteen years later. And to his credit, we know of the detail of this story because the person who told it to everyone with a laugh, with a warning to his relatives that none of them had the genes of a businessman either, was my great grandfather himself. Needless to say, this good self deprecating humor makes him my favorite of all my ancestors, and I hope wherever he went when he died in nineteen twenty three, his humor went with him.
Because there were several postscripts to this story that lend it authenticity and induce further rage in his descendants. My father was very much alive in nineteen forty. He was an eleven year old boy with his uncle Teddy, Antony's nephew, living with my dad and grandparents and my uncles in the Bronx. My dad, who did not meet his grandfather, Antony Zelensky, said, there was a knock on the apartment door one day and he opened it to the site, as he put it, of the two best suits of
clothing I had ever seen. The men wearing them asked for my dad's uncle. He got him, and the men began to speak Polish to Uncle Teddy. Gentlemen, we are here in America. You will please speak English in front of my family, mister Zelinsky. One of them said, we know that your uncle left you his investments in Polish national bonds. He was obviously a great patriot. We represent the Polish government in exile when we run the Nazis
out of our homeland and freedom is again ours. I know, oh, your uncle would have and you would want the free Polish National state to not be burdened financially, to be unburdened. In fact, to the greatest possible degree, mister Zelenski, your uncle was the fourth largest private investor in Polish national bonds in North America. In fact, he was just behind the National Bank of Mexico. Will you retire his bonds
for a nominal fee as a great Polish patriot. My dad was never sure how nominal the fee was, but he was convinced his uncle got less than five hundred dollars for what was at least one hundred thousand dollars
in bonds during the year nineteen fifty or later. My dad did not spend his life wondering about his grandfather's magnificent moment of investment stupidity, but it would occasionally wake him in the middle of the night, and on his nightly commutes from Manhattan to our little home in the suburbs, he came to know the other regulars on the train, just like Don Draper did on Mad Men. In fact, and one of the regulars on the train turned out
to be a stock historian. Eventually Dad told him the story of antony' Zelensky and Billy Durant and General Motors, and the stock historian invited him to stop by the office at lunch one day. Sit down, Ted, and I
mean sit down ted. The historian showed his math. This was what one thousand dollars in buick in nineteen oh eight turned into when Billy Durant created General Motors in nineteen oh eight, and here's where it split, and see, and here's where it split again, and here's where it quartered. After they forced Durant out, and then he bought Chevrolet, and he came back in and took over General Motors again, and it split. And my father said, he started to sweat.
Just tell me already, ted the thousand dollars your great grandfather turned down in General Motors in nineteen oh eight would now be worth approximately sixty million dollars, my father said. He struggled to not pass out his friend from the train, then said, plus the value of the name. I can't get that exactly, the stock historian said, but it's got to be another couple million, five ten maybe, especially if he'd taken stock in exchange for the name. There's one
more twist to the knife. Well, so far, there's still plenty of time for more. When the Unions ran the Soviets out of Poland and Lech Valsa became President of the Free Poland in nineteen ninety, he gave a speech establishing the new government. He spoke naturally in Polish until that is, it was time to address one topic. The President read that part of the speech in English. My government will recognize and honor the following years of the
Polish national bonds. My father called me in Los Angeles that night. He had spoken to his stock historian friend
again and gotten a new rough estimate. My great grandfather had turned down sixty, maybe seventy million dollars in general motor stock to keep, say, one hundred thousand dollars in Polish bonds due in the year nineteen fifty, and lec Falessa had just said, we'll pay on those bonds that were doing nineteen fifty and so if great grandfather's nephew Teddy had just sat on them, those bonds would have
been worth five or six million dollars. Keith, my father said, quietly, let me remind you again what the great financier my grandfather told everyone told all of us, none of us, none of us have the genes of a businessman. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on
the guitars, based in drums. Mister Schanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, produced by Tko Brothers, and it was not sponsored by General Motors. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best
baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today is my friend Stevie van Zandt, and everything else was pretty much my fault, except for the GM part, which was my great grandfather's. That's countdown for this one hundred and eighteenth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election and the two hundred and eighty first day since convicted fellon Donald 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 you've got it, mister president. Use presidential immune against him to stop him from doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolton's as the news requires. Till then, 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.