THE SPECIAL GUEST WAS THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - 8.23.24

There is the RFK Junior thing. There is the increasing evidence that Trump is at least accidentally giving up on winning the election and instead focusing on raising the temperature so much among his fascists that they can run a coup from behind in the legislatures and in the House. And none of that, at least for a few hours today, is gonna top this.

Donald Trump tried to throw your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capital, where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his own party begged him to call off the mob and send help, he did the opposite. He fanned the flames. And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans, and separately and separately found liable for committing sexual abuse.

And consider consider what he intends to do if we give him power again. Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol, His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents, and anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active duty military against our own citizens. Consider consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be

immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails, and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States, not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had himself and understand he is not done. As a part of his agenda, he and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban medication abortion, and enact a nationwide abortion ban, with or

without Congress. And get this, get this, he plans to create a national anti abortion coordinator and force states to report on women's miscarriages and abortions. Simply put, they are out of their minds. We must be worthy of this moment.

It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done, guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish, and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on earth, the privilege and pride of being an American.

led among Texas independents by twenty four points. The new Hobby poll has Trump ahead of Independence by two. She has cut his lead among Texas independents by ninety two percent. The Harris campaign is still not invested in a full campaign in Texas, not officially, there is reason to believe that even if a Trump squeaker is the best to be hoped for there, a minor investment could help down

ballot Democrats in Texas. It might even knock out Ted Cruz, who is just two points ahead of the Democrat Colin Allred. The North Carolina number continues to indicate that that state has officially become a toss up Harris by one. In Survey US, the Nate Silver model has her favored by fifty two point seven to forty six point nine. It predicts a two hundred and seventy seven to two hundred and sixty Harris win in the electoral college. A Civics

poll has the newest net favorability scores. Walls is a plus three, Harris is a minus four. Trump is minus thirteen. Vance is minus fifteen. And now back to the question that I raised yesterday, and I am hardly the first who have done so, is it possible that Trump is now deliberately or inadvertently trying to lose with method to his madness, which I will circle back to shortly. Presumably you have heard about his crazy rant on Fox News yesterday where he twice refused to let even the supplicant

Fox hosts interrupt him. Presumably U I seen the video of JV Vance failing to successfully order donuts in Georgia. It wouldn't do it justice to play just the audio here, Go and watch it if you have it already. It ends with an unfortunate worker refusing to let them use her face on the video, and then when he explains his name is JD. Vance and he's running for vice president, she answers okay, in a way in which the okay

comes out sounding like are you sure about that? Well, all right, here's the audio anyway.

the threat by Trump to sabotage the elections. On the same day, leaked video appears from last year showing Trump at his golf crap shack at a gathering of families of those convicted, in some cases convicted after plea deals and confessions of participating in his first attempt to overthrow the government. Hours later comes this You are invited to the J six Awards gala. This is in gold printed on black, Thursday, September fifth, six pm Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster,

and then it gives the address. The address is Lamington Road. By the way, attendees will get a chance to win a justice for all Donald J. Trump and J six Prison Choir J six number one Music chart at plaque. The invited guest speakers, Rudy Giuliani, Donald J. Trump and it says invited, and Anthony Raymundi and I don't know who Anthony is, but he couldn't afford to tie. This is two weeks from yesterday at Bedminster. If you're there, please don't step directly on Ivana's grave. Thank you for

your understanding. At the same time, the same day come these videos out of nowhere from last year's Patriot Freedom Project August twenty second of last year at Bedminster. It is what he has said so often, this inversion of reality, in which the scum that he sent marching into the Capitol to kill congressmen and kill senators and kill his own vice president and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power are now heroes to be celebrated and pardoned.

having to overthrow the government by force. At the same time, Trump is going full racism and full anti semitism, and it is anything but difficult to imagine that he is ready to cross the streams here, as it were, to insist if the current political trends continue and Harris's three to four point national lead expands still further, and if more and more swing states and independent voters reject Trump, to insist that his gangs and his militias be ready

to take over the country by force or by legislative deceit because the last piece of the puzzle, it's the minorities who have rigged the election against him and them that is the final inflection point. And who knows what large percentage of his cultists are already there. There is no question he would turn to it. Hitler turned to it desperate despots in countless nations have turned to it, and to violence, and to ethnic cleansing, and to nightmares untold,

there is no question he would turn to it. There is only the question of whether or not he will. Again from Yale historian Timothy Snyder, I have the New York Times. I quoted it yesterday. I may quote it every edition of this program between now and the election. Quote. Trump is in the classic dictatorial position. He needs to die in bed holding all executive power to stay out of prison. This means that he will do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power, will do

all that he can to never let it go. This is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent with democracy. Trump and his cult will accept any inconsistency because they agree to no rules, and after nine years of this nation letting him and them run unchecked through our norms and laws and guard rails and collective goodness, that has convinced them they can get

away with anything. And one day Trump is insisting the Democrats are anti Semitic because they chose Governor Walls and not Governor Shapiro to be vice president, and the next day, Trump is insisting that Governor Shapiro is a bad jew To quote Trump, shortly after midnight on Wednesday night, Thursday morning, the highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, made a really bad and poorly delivered speech

talking about freedom and fighting for Comrade Kamala Harris for president. Yet she hates Israel and will do nothing but make its journey through the complexities of survival as difficult as possible, hoping in the end that it will fail. Judge only by her actions. Yet Shapiro, for strictly political reasons, refuse to acknowledge that I am the best friend that Israel

and the Jewish people ever had. I have done more for Israel than any president, and frankly, I have done more for Israel than any person, and it's not even close. Shapiro has done nothing for Israel. Blah blah blah blah blah. Israel is in big trouble. So what that is setting up is not defense of the Jewish people from anti Semitism. It is a refining of the Hitler plan or the plan of any other anti Semitic purges in human history.

If and when Trump finally activates a base that is more than happy to attack the Jews, there will be good Trump Jews and bad Trump Jews, as there are already good Trump people of color and bad Trump people of color depend upon it. And why on earth would you ever do this? Not Trump? Why would he ever do that? Professor Snyder's simple reminder is that it's win or die in jail for Trump. There are no other options. Why on earth, though, would those around him ever do that?

Because if there is no electoral path for him, there are no jobs for them. And we live in a time in which people think the only thing that matters is money. Not the people throughout our American history who have been corrupted by the idea that money is the most important thing. The people around Trump believe that money is the only measure of life. If there is no electoral path for Trump, there is only pure insurrection or

the promise of the contingent election. I hope when I extensively quote somebody here that you will at least go to their site. I do it the quoting that is because they have expressed something more compactly and more starkly than I ever could, and usually with less rage. I find myself doing this often with Brian Boutler, who was once a contributor to the current TV edition of this

news outlet. Brian Buler has the premise of the contingent election down and what President Biden should do about it, and what Democratic congressional leaders should be preparing to do about it and preparing now. I now steal three hundred of Brian's words, and I urge you to go subscribe to his newsletter. Quote. Trump loyalists don't necessarily need Trump loyal judges to validate their baseless allegations of impropriety. They

just need to run out the clock. Brian writes. They would be perfectly happy to see liberal voters take to the streets in say Atlanta, only for the results in Georgia or elsewhere to remain uncertified as of the constitutional deadline. At that juncture, with no candidate having received at least two hundred and seventy electoral votes, the question of who becomes president can only be answered by a contingent election in the US House, where each state delegation gets one vote.

Many times over the past decades, Democrats have controlled the House itself while holding majorities in fewer than twenty five state delegations. If Republicans still control more state delegations than Democrats on January sixth, they can hand the election to the loser, even if Democrats control the Chamber and the House Speaker is a keem. Jeffries I. Brian Boiler writes would like to see Democrats taking steps to preempt that outcome.

The starting point would probably be high profile Senate hearings with local elections officials willing to sound the alarm about their MAGA colleagues's dark intentions. Then advancing legislation to impose federal criminal penalties on elections officials who take results hostage. Make Senate Republicans filibuster it challenge House Republicans to hold a vote, but more radical action may be necessary, he writes.

If Democrats win the House, they should be prepared to exploit ambiguities in precedent and refuse to seat Republicans from states or counties where MAGA election officials have blocked statewide certification of the presidential election result. After all, if the top of the ticket is suspect, why should the rest of the ballot get a rubber stamp? If that's not enough to assure that a contingent election will deliver the

presidency to the true winner. President Biden should contemplate convening then adjourning the House and Senate pursuant to his Article two, Section three powers until Maga relents. It is harrowing. It is perhaps an accurate picture of the future, the immediate future. The Trump wins by losing future. And it is also a fulfillment of the old hackneyed phrase forewarned is forearmed boiler.

Brian Bouler b e ut l e R. Also of interest here, I think for the first time ever there is a three way time for worst persons in the world, and I goddamn mean it this time. The worst persons in the world. They are Meghan Kelly and two people who have publicly attacked Governor Tim Wallas's seventeen year old challenged son for having cried as his dad was being nominated. They are a Trump sucker and Delegate Mike Crispy and Coulter Geist herself. And they are scum. That's next. This

is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown breaking format on a Friday, because for everybody who's ever asked, hey, pal, did you hit your head or something when you were a kid, the answer is why, Yes, yes I did. And the forty fifth anniversary of it is tomorrow. Don't worry, I'll be getting better any day now. Next in Things I promised not to tell first, there are still more

new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. And ordinarily, although maybe it doesn't seem like this, every time there is an element of humor to the worst person in the world segment, there is some attempt to mock them, at least to if we can't laugh with them, at least we can laugh

at them. Not so today, these are three of the genuinely worst persons in the world, people who have been so turned from probably unpleasant, stupid, narrow minded, arrogant individuals into monsters because of the Republican Party and the conservative movement and Fox News and the right wing echo sphere. They all fit this category. They are all legitimately the worst persons in the world, and so we have a

three way tie Number one is Megan Kelly. Megan Kelly is the woman who used to be with Fox, used to be with NBC, used to be with Lawyer, and lost all three of those gigs who once went on and suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris slept her way to the top. And you should have heard the rumors at Fox News. Megan Kelly wrote this Lafonza Butler speaking she filled Feinstein's seat at the DNC this is happening, celebrating that she and Harris both graduated from historically black colleges.

Imagine the white person up there. I'm proud to tell you I went to a mostly white university. Quote. It seems to have never occurred to Megan Kelly, and why should it. She's a white woman with blonde hair. At least that's its color. Now she's a blonde woman with white hair, or a white woman with blonde hair, or she's just pasty white. And it's never occurred to her once because she's never been the victim of any kind of discrimination whatsoever. Possibly something was held against her because

she was a woman. That happens, That still happens. I don't know if it's happened in her case, she got into television with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever and got a huge contract from NBC, And her qualification for that was they had a news chief who was in decline, who had begun to hire and promote people who looked like women who looked like his wife did at various stages

of her life. I swear, in any event, it has never seemingly occurred, based on this tweet by Megan Kelly, it has never occurred to her that the reason there are historically black colleges is that, for you know, all of American history, it's been tougher for black people to get into historically white colleges. That there are historically white colleges. I went to a mostly white university. You bet your ass, Megan Kelly, and you all look good in your hoods there.

The idea of affirmative action was not to somehow benefit people at the expense of others, but to stop that from happening. That there were historically white universities, That there were college that did not admit black people, That there were golf courses like the one where they play the Masters tournament every year that did not admit black members. Well into the what was it nineteen nineties. Racism is

alive and well in this country. And if you need to find out where, follow Megan Kelly on Twitter X. As I said, it's a three way tie. They are worse, worser, and worse. This is from a guy named Mike Crispy, who we saw last as a man claiming that the Democrats are biased against Italian Americans, that Italian Americans are suffering racism at the hands of the Democrats. He was, apparently, if I remember correctly, a congressional candidate who finished like

two hundred and forty third. He lists himself as a twenty twenty four Trump delegate, So he's stupid and corrupt. Chairman of the America First Republicans of New Jersey. So he's stupid and corrupt and has a really stupid sounding accent, and he's a podcaster on Rumble, which means he has no ethics whatsoever. This is what Mike Crispy wrote about Gus Walls as we saw Gus Walls during his father's speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night accepting

the vice presidential nomination. This is what Mike Crispy wrote with a picture of Mike Crispy rather of Gus Walls and his mother. The video of this taken, ironically enough, from MSNBC. Mike Crispy wrote, Tim Walls's stupid crying son. Isn't the flex the left thinks it is. You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats? Does Baron Trump cry Nope? Does he love his father? Of course, That's the type of values I want leading the country. Mike Crispy called Gus Walls a puffy beta male, a

stupid crying son. I'll just mention this Schwallz is neuro divergent. He has ADHD, anxiety and a nonverbal learning disorder, and it is not surprising that at the age of seventeen, under those circumstances he would have trouble regulating his emotions

in social settings. I would argue that if Mike Crispy had some sort of normal human relationship with anybody else in the world, and that person was being nominated for Vice President of the United States, Mike Crispy, who looks like he's about fifty six fifty seven years old and pretending to be much younger, Mike Crispy might not fully control his emotions while that person who was important to

him was being nominated for vice president. He has the nerve to call this kid a seventeen year old, the nerve to call him your stupid, crying son, your kid to be a puffy beta male, and to compare him to Baron Trump. Baron Trump, who, by the way, I will assert, is the smartest of all the Trump males. He has never said a word in public. I don't care why he's the smart one. The other ones are all assholes. Mike Crispy, he should be fired from wherever he works. He should not have a job. He should

not have an income. He should not have a family, he should not have a future. He should not have a meal today. Mike Crispy Crispi on Rumble Chairman America, First Republicans of New Jersey. I'd like to say he knows where all the bodies are buried, but we already know the answer to that if Anna is on the first t. But there's somebody who is actually tied with

Mike Crispy. It's hard to believe that anybody could compete with Mike Crispy, or Megan Kelly for that matter, But competing with Mike crispy on the subject of Tim Walls and his son Gus, because of her reach, because of her experience, because of her number of followers, still ill, because of the familiarity one has with her words, and the fact that they have been for now thirty years inhuman unkind to a degree almost is immeasurable. Somebody who

made Rush Limbaugh look good. And Culture who finally got so disgusting that she was turned away by the Republican Party. And Culture with a picture of Gus Walls with his hand on his chest, his eyes closed, crying and pointing

that's my dad. An extraordinary moment. But and Coulter, who is as disgusting a human being as I've ever heard, who went to my college, Cornell University, and once called me an elitist because I mentioned it on the air that I went to Cornell University, and then said, I did not really go to Cornell University because I graduated from the Agriculture School and that was a partial state school. But she went to the Arts college. She was Ivy League Cornell. I was cow College Cornell, and I was

an elitist. And culture has now stepped down into what we used to clean out of the stables at the Agriculture College the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, the university, by the way, which does not list and Culture among its famed alumni, because years ago it decided it needed to separate itself from one of

its own alumni or alumni. And Culture runs this picture of Tim Walls in the middle of an extraordinary emotional moment for him and wrote, simply talk about weird and culture. May the next time I see you you be face down in the stables at the Cornell Agriculture and Life Sciences College. Horse manure pile, Mike Crispy, Megan Kelly, and Colter two day's worst persons, and I mean it in

the world. On Sunday, the twenty fourth of August nineteen eighty, I learned what Mom meant when she had said, never run for a train. There'll always be another one. Because I didn't know what it meant, I nearly killed myself. I permanently altered my health, and I put myself on

a path towards meeting the great doctor Renee Richards. I was sleeping late in my relatively new and tiny studio apartment on fifty Fifth Street in Manhattan, apartment ten F, when above me eleven F started making noise like pounding on the floor. And now it's eight thirty Sunday morning, and I'm awake, and I'm not doing my job as a radio sportscaster until about two, and I think, well, I'm a oh, the Dodgers are playing the Mets at Shay.

I can go to my other job as a semi professional photographer and go shoot the Dodgers and still make it to work on time. So I packed my semi professional emphasis on the semi photographer's bag and drag myself out on the subway and get to share stadium around eleven thirty am. And there's nobody there. No Dodgers players, no Mets players, nobody but the grounds keepers. And as the minutes pass, I'm beginning to calculate when I have to leave in order to not be late to my

job back in Manhattan. Weekend life in New York City in nineteen eighty might as well have been nineteen ten. I tell people this, they do not believe me. But when I worked weekends the next year in Times Square, I used to call into my newsroom from a payphone on Fifth Avenue and say, okay, I'm going to Arby's today. Who wants one? But or McDonald's or Burger King or wherever. Because our office was in Times Square and on weekends there were no restaurants open in Times Square. You could

not get food in Times Square on weekends. Today, the same four square block area probably has fifty restaurants and fast food places. So the train back to Manhattan from Shaye Stadium in Queens ran once every half an hour on that Sunday in August of nineteen eighty, And as I looked at my watch, I realized I should have

left the field three or four minutes ago. If you went out the press entrance and exit at Shaye Stadium, you could see the train approaching the elevated station out behind right field, And if you had just seen it, if it had just become visible, and if you then ran your fastest, you could make it to the viaduct that crossed the parking lot and led you up towards

the station platform. And if you could get your subway token out and into the turnstile slot with one fluid overhead motion, and if you kept running all time, you could just make the train if you didn't, you would be waiting half an hour, unless maybe the next train was late or on fire somewhere. Sure enough, as I got out of the ballpark, I could see the Manhattan bound train just appearing at the horizon. I was twenty one.

My knees still worked, and I ran, and I got into the viaduct, and I got the token out of my pocket, and I got into the slot like Darryl Dawkins doing a Tomahawk slam. And I not only made the train, but I made it by so much that I styled, I celebrated, I congratulated myself. I was guilty of premature jocularity. I could have just slowed to a triumphant jog and gotten a seat, huffing and sweaty, but eminently satisfied and on time for work. But no, I

decided to make an exultant, joyful leap. The next thing I registered. It was the loudest sound I had ever or have since ever heard, as if six hundred gongs had gone off simultaneously, or a dozen church bells, or every alarm clock that had ever awakened me from the deepest of sleeps. Something like this, but inside your head barm when it happened was forgetting that I was no longer six feet tall as I had been even two years before, but was now just under six y four.

My leap had ended with me slamming my forehead on the flat metal bar just above the train doorway an inch higher, I might have blinded myself. The bar an inch above the doorway is, in fact, as I found out later, the thickest piece of metal on a New York City subway train. As it was, my momentum carried me safely into the train. I hit the floor. I saw my sunglasses go flying off and rattling down towards

the back of the train like a plastic rat. I heard the train doors close, I felt the blood on my head and in my hair, and I crawled up onto the plastic bench seating behind me. The mass gong sound continued in my head, and my first cogent thought was to see the blood on the train floor and think, Oh, I have spilled blood all over their train, and I don't have anything to clean it up with. Similar nonsense continued to bounce around my concussed size eight noggin for seconds,

maybe minutes. It was beginning to really hurt, and of more practical import the bleeding had not really stopped. At this point, an older woman sitting more or less across from me handed me a small packet. It was a wet wipe. I mumbled thanks, opened it, dabbed it on my forehead for a second, and was surprised to find it instantly inundated with blood. This was the first time it occurred to me that I might be in real trouble. On the number seven local train to Grand Central and

Times Square. Apparently this thought occurred simultaneously to the woman with the wet wipe and to her friend, I think you're kind of hurt. One of them said to me, let's get you to the hospital. There's one a couple blocks from the next stop. Now understand this situation. The New York of nineteen eighty, and particularly the subways of

nineteen eighty were not nice places. Two years later, I took a rush hour train to my job at CNN at the World Trade Center and was annoyed to find one guy who had sprawled himself over three seats with a newspaper covering his face. Nine hours later, when I went home, I got onto a train and saw the same guy with the same newspaper on the same seats, because it was the same train, and more importantly, because he was dead anyway, it was now around twelve forty

five of a Sunday afternoon. If it had been night, or indeed certain other times of the day or on other train lines, I would have simply been the easiest mugging victim in New York history. Somebody could have knocked me over and taken my wallet with next to no effort. Hell, they could have asked me for my wallet, and I was so I probably would have said, sure, have a

nice day, got any wet wipes? Instead, I met not one, but two good Samaritans who knew where the hospitals were in a part of town I could barely find on a map. Sure enough, they helped me to my feet, walked me down the steps and to the two blocks or so that separated us from Elmhurst Hospital, And when I reassured them I was clear headed enough to get into the emergency room by myself, they wished me luck, and they would not even accept my offer of two

tokens to get them back on the subway. There should be a monument to these two women somewhere. If the New York City subways of nineteen eighty were scary, the emergency rooms of its hospitals were something out of a Brian De Palma film. I think there were a couple of dozen people in the er. I remember one of them asking me how I got so bloody, and I explained, and he said you should go ahead of me. And he opened his windbreaker to show a blood covered shirt,

and he added the bullet only crazed me. I know. I waited about two hours. During that time I had a singular experience which has informed my understanding of concussions and traumatic brain injury ever since. The desk nurse asked me for the name of a contact, preferably a family member. I gave my father's name, Theodore. Then she asked me for my full name, and when I went to say it, I could not remember my middle name. Could not remember my middle name Keith I got Olderman, I got that

was it. My middle name is also Theodore. I could remember Theodore my dad, but not Theodore my middle name. That is how fragile your brain really is. Think of that the next time you see somebody get clocked in a sporting event, there was some comic relief. I called into my office at United Press International's Audio network and explained to the news editor a veteran named Ed Caerans, the most dapperman in radio history, who looked like the

actor Ray Collins from Citizen Kane. I told Ed, I had just sort of almost you know, killed myself on the subway coming in from Queen's, and I really didn't know when or if I would be at work. About forty five minutes after that conversation, the desk nurse started shouting my name, and I thought, Okay, I'm finally going to be brought in to see a doctor. No, it was Ed Caron's calling from UPI. My bosses were all very sorry that I was wounded, he said, but there

was nobody available to fill in for me. So when could they expect me to be in the office, I explained, I did not know that since I was technically still bleeding to death. Forty five minutes more passed, and again the nurse summoned me and said there was a phone call, and this time I was sure it was my dad,

Keith ed Karin's again at UPI. He explained that my boss now said that they would bring in the guy who was supposed to do the next morning sports cast, my college friend Peter shack Now, but they expected me to do it his shift starting at four point thirty in the morning. I explained to Ed that I would try, but that honestly I didn't know where I was or what time it was. Now two nice ladies had mentioned the name of the hospital, but I really wasn't remembering

too well. Plus I was still bleeding to death. Needless to say, I did not bleed to death. I survived. It was a severe concussion, but it only took a stitch and a half to actually close that wound, and the er doctor and the nurses were outstanding, and they gave me easy to remember instructions, plus a note indicating that I should rest for at least forty eight hours just in case ED Karen showed up at my apartment.

No offense to ED. They told me what symptoms to expect, how to prepare for them, and when they would stop. And they stopped like one day earlier. It was a potential disaster that turned into a nothing burger, or so I thought. Two years later, I was at the original Louis Armstrong Stadium covering the nineteen eighty two US Tennis Open, on the other side of the same elevated subway station where I had run into the train going there. Always

actually made me laugh. Until the afternoon of Saturday, September eleventh, nineteen eighty two. I was watching the Women's final, covering it for CNN Chris Evert over Hannah Mandlakova and swinging my head from side to side as one does to follow the tennis action from over here, two over there, two over here, two over there, as I had swung my head from side to side for the preceding twelve

days of the tournament. Then I swung to the right, but my left eye kept looking to the left, the old Marty Feldman thing reversed crossed eyes that hurt worse than hitting the train had. I could barely stand any light. I often had to keep my hand in front of my eyes. I rushed to my optometris Monday morning and he started to laugh. This happened to you during the US Open. I said, yes, why are you laughing at me? He said, I'm going to send you to the best

muscle ophthalmologist I've ever met. I said, so, why are you laughing at me? He said, you don't know who that is? I said, no, I let my knowledge of the muscle ophthalmology ranking slip. Why are you laughing at me? He said? The best muscle ophthalmologist I've ever met is doctor Renee Richards, the transsexual tennis player. I said, I don't care who you're sending me to. I'm in trouble here. If they can fix this, I don't care who you're

sending me. My train accident was so far in my past that when I got in to see doctor Richards the next morning, I didn't even think to mention it in my patient history. It didn't matter. Thirty seconds of staring into my eyes through a wall sized feropter and Renee Richards said, when exactly did you hit your head August or September of nineteen eighty. I was stunned. I did hit my head in nineteen eighty August twenty fourth. She made a clicking noise of satisfaction. I've heard of

this before, but I've never seen it. You couldn't do this again in a million years. The good news is that muscle with the eyes, that's just muscle exhaustion. We can fix that with a thing that costs to buck ninety eight. The bad news is when you hit your head, most of the damage must have been absorbed by your inner ear. If you want to fix that, you'll need brain surgery. I don't recommend brain surgery. Doctor Renee Richards showed me the muscle exercises that cost a dollar ninety

eight that fixed my reverse crossed eyes. They felt better immediately. I still do the exercises I did them earlier today. Then Renee Richards said, so you're a sports reporter. It says here, listen, my next patient isn't due for half an hour. You should rest anyway after my exam. Let's talk about sports reporting. Renee Richards was an expert. Her transition had been outed by a sportscaster, Tucker Carlson's father.

If you can believe that, I can believe it, because she had been a man when she played in the US Open. As a woman, she had become almost instantaneously the most famous tennis player in the world. Then she became Martina Navratilova's coach. I learned more from her in that first half hour of conversation about the ethics of reporting than I had in all of my previous life experiences combined. Plus she was a gas Renee. Richards was hilarious, she was self effacing, She was a great doctor, and

to me, she was the definition of courage. And she, I am proud to say, is still my friend, all because I did not know what Mom meant when she said, don't run for a train. There'll always be another one. The other phrase I never really understood till then was break neck speed. Oh, when there is one more punchline here. If the name of that hospital that the two good Samaritans took me to, Elmhurst Hospital, sounds vaguely familiar, it should. It was ground zero when COVID nineteen hit, when the

pandemic had its hand around New York City's throat. The worst hit community was Elmhurst in Queens, and the worst hit hospital was Elmhurst Hospital. They were in desperate need at that point of ventilators, so I knew what I had to do. You could buy them for cash legally, So I got two ventilators. I had them delivered, one for each of the ladies who helped me to get off the damn train that day. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Please

share this podcast with somebody who does not listen. Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel, the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled the orchestration and the keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best

baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. Sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend Kenny Main. Everything else was pretty much my fault.

That's countdown for this the seventy fifth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, and they three hundred and twenty fourth day since convicted felon Donald J. Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing. If it happens, use the mental health system. You've got it. President Biden used

presidential immunity. If you need to get out the troops and stop him from doing it again while we still can, and anti Semitic, anti immigration, gun nut Republicans, please stop shooting at Trump. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins as the news requires. Until the next one of these, I'm Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.

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