Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I'm telling you Mini strokes Trump, Mini strokes Donald Trump on quote truth unquote social It's a brand name. Zuckerberg admits that the White House pushed to suppress Hunter Biden laptop story and much more. In other words, the twenty twenty presidential election was rigged. This is what everyone's been waiting for.
The twenty twenty presidential election was rigged. Let me just read that operative part again, if I might, Trump writes, Zuckerberg admits the White House pushed to suppress Hunter Biden laptop story. In other words, the twenty twenty presidential election was rigged. So the White House in twenty twenty rigged the election, says Trump in twenty twenty. When the president in twenty twenty, who pushed the suppression of the Biden
laptop story. The president in twenty twenty was Trump. Trump is not only claiming he rigged the election against himself, the White House, he says, the White House. He puts the date on it, but the thing is still up on his website. He is having a series of episodes mini strokes. This is not to absolve him. You will recall that on Monday, Trump was caught taking selfies smiling
with thumbs up at Arlington National Cemetery. NPR now reports this was in the area where recent American casualties have been buried. It has learned that two members of Trump's campaign had a verbal and physical altercation with an official at Arlington National Cemetery. A source with knowledge of the event said the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump's staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent US
casualties are buried. The source said Arlington officials had made clear that only a cemetery staff member could photograph in the area known as Section sixty and by the way, as an aside, this is for the privacy of the families of the recently deceased, the ones Trump was standing on giving a thumbs up and a big stupid shit eating grin. To continue the NPR report, When the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering Section sixty,
campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside. The source said. President Trump participate in a rethlaying ceremony at the cemetery on Monday. The event marked the third anniversary of a deadly attack on US troops in Afghanistan, as US forces withdrew. Is it bad enough? It is never bad enough for Donald J. Trump, This humanoid bully he has hired to portray the role of spokes idiot, former
wrestler or something. Stephen Chung. He decided that what this needed was an insult against the Arlington Cemetery staffer quote. There was no physical altercation as described, and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made, and PR notes and I would underscore they have not released this footage. The fact is it's Trump. There are no facts. A private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason, an unnamed individual clearly suffering from
a mental health episode. I believe we're giving away a little too much here, mister Chung. That would be trumping the mental health episode, decided to physically block members of
Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony. Stephen Chung, very solemn ceremony with Trump's stubby little thumb in the air, smiling next to headstones of dead American heroes, it is important to remember, no matter what's going on with him Neurologically, Trump is insane, He is unpatriotic, and the next time that he goes onto our nation's most hallowed ground, he might try to urinate on the graves. We have no idea what he could do next. He is that much
of a psychopath. Happily this reminder that if Trump in fact loses in November to Kamala Harris, he will die in prison. The superseding indictment that Jack Smith filed yesterday in the January sixth insurrection case in Washington was enough of a big deal that some of the television networks broke into programming without really understanding what they were talking about.
In point of fact, with a couple of exceptions, it is exactly the same set of charges phrased exactly the same way, and the difference is the references to President Trump have been for the most part changed to candidate Trump in order to follow the lead of presidential immunity as submitted by Trump's hand picked Supreme Court in its
attempt to circumvent the Constitution. The January sixth speech, in which Trump not very so utly encouraged his gangs to attack the Capitol and try to kill congressmen and try to kill senators, and try to kill his own vice president and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power that is now described in the new superseding indictment as quote a
campaign speech. In short, Jack Smith outsmarted the Court good because several members of the Supreme Court should die alongside Trump in prison, having spent the rest of their lives there. On the other hand, Trump has outsmarted the Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp. Kemp stood up for the members of his own party when Trump tried to illegally overturn the twenty twenty election results there, and then slandered the people who obeyed the law. Trump attacked Kemp as recently as a
few weeks ago. Tomorrow, the headliner at a Trump fundraiser in Atlanta will be Governor Brian Kemp. Is it blackmail? Is fear? Is it a diet of forty years of right wing propaganda? He is from the South. That could very easily be the prospect of the choice being Trump or a woman of color. Which is it? I don't care anymore. These people, especially those who have lost all moral compass after showing briefly that they might have had some and then it turned out no, this was just
another political trick. Those who have lost all moral compass, like Brian Kemp, like Nicki Haley, need to be removed from public discourse permanently. In some way. We must legally determine how the sound you heard late yesterday afternoons, columnist after columnist from Chris solicit to everybody at the New York Times opinion section hitting the delete key time after time after time. Vice President Harris will do her first sit down interview since Joe Biden Withdrew. It will be
with Dana Bash CNN to air tomorrow. It'll be a twofer. Tim Walls will join them. This, of course, matters really only to CNN and the belt Way. There is no none, zero push among the public to force candidates to do interviews. Most people, even though most journalists don't, Most people understand that the policy issue is this. Who wants a democracy or a similar form of representative government. That would be Harris. Who does not? That would be Trump? And every other
policy is subtlety and nuance. To the credit of the Harris campaign, they did pick the easiest one. Dana Bash occasionally lives up to the term journalists, probably above the average. At CNN, she would be a D plus, but usually not.
She is also lifeless enough that you wonder if they have to slip a mirror under her nose periodically to make sure she's still you know, of course, after this, so as of sometime late Thursday night, what will follow next is demands by every other reporter to interview Harris immediately, and the replacement complaint to replace the one in which they say she hasn't done any sit down interviews, which is it has now been filled in the blank days since Kamala Harris gave a one on one interview, and
don't forget there are no press conferences yet, and then there will not have been any press conferences while she was standing on her head in a bucket of piranha fish. To quote the python joke. There is one legitimate criticism here, which is, as follows CNN. They're doing this on CNN. It's now been x days since Kamala Harris gave an interview that anybody saw. This is not polling, per se, its analysis, but it continues the thread I talk about
here every day. To my own disbelief, today some degree cook political report has now moved three more states closer to Kamala Harris. New Hampshire and Minnesota had been in their estimation lean Democrat. They are now likely Democrat, a minor distinction, but a meaningful one. More interestingly, North Carolina goes from lean Republican to toss up. North Carolina is officially from a very conservative, small sea conservative, very slow
moving political analysis organization. North Carolina is now a toss up. This all might explain why Trump has agreed to the September tenth debate, or seemed to agree. Listen carefully, I have reached an agreement. I have reached an agreement with the radical left Democrats for a debate with Comrade Kamala Harris. That's not the way a normal human being would say it, or without many strokes, you'd say, the debate is on.
I will debate September tenth debate DEBATEMI. It will be broadcast live on ABC, fake news by far, the nastiest and most unfair newscaster in the business. Well, a newscaster is a person. ABC would be a news organization moron on Tuesday, September tenth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The rules will be the same as the last CNN debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone except perhaps Biden. The debate will be stand up and candidates cannot bring notes
or cheat sheets. We have also been given assurance by ABC that this will be a fair and equitable that's in quotes, fair and equitable debate. As an aside, you will have noticed that recently he has been falling back on terms that you usually find in agreements about property. Fair and equitable is a rental or purchase agreement term. To continue Trump's statement and that neither side will be given the questions in advance. No Dona Brazil this time
he spelled Brazil's name correctly. Harris would not agree to the Fox News debate on September fourth, but that date will be held open in case she changes her mind or flip flops, as she has done on every single one of her long held and cherished policy beliefs. That's too clever by half. Nobody who follows Trump will understand he's being sarcastic. A possible third debate, which would go to NBC Fake News, has not been agreed to by the radical left. He goes through several of the rules
that will continue from the C and N debate. But there was no mention of muted microphones. Why was that no mention of muted microphones? And he did not say that he will be debating. He said he had agreed to it. You will recall that yesterday Senior Harris guru Brian Fallon said, we suspect Trump's team has not even told their boss about this dispute because it would be too embarrassing to admit. They don't think he can handle himself against Vice President Harris without the benefit of a
mute button. CNN now reports Trump's handlers are trying to mute him on the debate stage. They want the mute because they know he will not look presidential. Per their reporter Elena Treen, they don't want him to come off looking like a bully. They want him to tone down his rhetoric. That is potentially even more important now. Before he posted he'd reached an agreement. And again that's not saying I'm doing the debate, just that he's reached an agreement.
And god knows how many agreements Trump has gotten out of in his careers. Trump wrote something really bizarre, even for him from one fourteen yesterday afternoon. You know, if Biden didn't do the debate, he would be the Democrat candidate for president right now. The fact is debater, no debate. Democrats really did a number on him. The main confident that Trump is still trying to find a way out of doing this debate. I mean, other than he still thinks somehow he can force Biden to be the nominee
or something. He still harbors that hope. What did that statement mean? Is it an excuse for him to not debate Harris out of some sort of fake empathy for Biden. I can't abide by what you did to Biden. Only I can abuse Biden. Is it something he thinks will cause his supporters to say, oh, no way, you should debate again, sir? Is it I already won that debate and I want it so much Biden dropped out. I don't need to debate again. I mean, what the hell?
That statement doesn't make any sense. Combine it with the previous one, in which he does not say I'll be at the debate, just says he's agreed to one. And I don't think anything is more firm now than it was before. And by the way, from morning Consult voters are only slightly more likely to say weird better describes the Republican Party than the Democratic Party thirty four to twenty nine percent, suggesting that the rhetorical jab has yet to catch fire beyond the confines of liberal corners of
social media. I feel seen Democrats' small advantage on the question is driven by their own voters, who are slightly more likely than GOP voters to say that word better describes the other party Morning Consult continues. The branding effort also appears to be resonating better with non white voters, especially black voters, who are thirty five points more likely to view the GOP as weird than the Democratic Party,
the largest gap along racial or ethnic lines. I once asked Kevin Costner when I was working the Red carpet one year in nineteen ninety nine at the Oscars. I asked him a question for a feature I was doing as a non writer, a non entertainment writer doing for the La Times. I said, what do you think of the idea of having like a six hour pregame show for the Oscars the way they do for the Super Bowl? And Kevin and said, I think we already know too much about the things we already know about, which I
thought was a wonderful quote. He came back to me about five minutes later and said, could you not run that? I sound like Yogi bearra if we are now polling, actually polling on which minority or racial or ethnic group, or demographic or age group or majority group or group of people whose last names begin with the letter G over which one of them believes the Democrats are less
weird than the Republicans. We may know too much about the things we already know about, but more importantly that number, that it's only thirty four to twenty nine. I'm sorry to become the coach yelling at the team that just came from three touchdowns down to go ahead by five or six points. But Madame Vice President, this is not good enough. The Republicans are existentially weird, and a five point lead over them in weird team needs to push
harder on this. To go back to doctor Strangelove and George C. Scott as General Turgenson, we must not allow a weirdness gap. Also, the headlines read Telsey Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Junior added to Trump transition BOYD did that surprised me. I thought, holy crap, Trump is transitioning. Shouldn't this be a bigger story. Turned out they meant transition team. I'd be surprised if either of them transitioned
into a human being or an American. Once again, to alter the Rodney dangerfield quote, as Thornton mellon from Back to School, Here's what this is all about. If you want to look sane, you hang out with crazy people. This applies equally to Gabbard, RFK and of course Trump and maybe trump spokes liar Stephen Chung, who we visited with earlier, who gets the self awareness Award for complaining to the Washington Post about the Harris campaign and how
it is I swear it says this. The Harris campaign is mocking Trump on social media, and Stephen Chung and Donald Trump are butt hurt. Acting like whiney school children is not a political strategy, Chung says, but it is a coping mechanism for the Kamala campaign, who knows they have a weak candidate incapable of being authentic. If anyone thinks that using emojis is some cutting edge message technique, they're severely out of touch. With reality and the seriousness
of the challenges Americans face. So you heard him, No emojis. Emojis are for Whiney's school children. Racist and sexist and anti semitic and violent memes and stupid ass nick names. Those are what serious presidential candidates use. I got one question. Is there an emoji or a meme for a mini stroke asking for a friend? Also of interest here, it is rare when a former worst Person comes back and wins the award years later in an entirely new category.
But a TV reporter fired for showing up in a bikini on tape at the house of a guy she was doing an investigative report on after his wife disappeared. She is now about to be fired for mocking Tim Walls's son. And the twist, not only is she a right wing media nut job now, but she's also the volleyball coach at a public school with a special and exemplary department dedicated to special needs high school kids. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman stell
ahead of us on this ediative countdown. So lou Dobbs has been dead for like six weeks now and just yesterday I found myself explaining to an old friend who didn't know that Lou Dobbs's inability to keep his pants on while he was living directly led to the start of my television career a scant forty three years ago. This month, Hey baby, I work for Cable News Network. If you get my drift, stocks are up ahead in things. I promised not to tell what I'm supposed to respect
him because he's dead. First, there are still more new idiots to talk about. The daily round up, the miss Grants, morons, undunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. Respect. I never respected him when he was alive. The Bronze worst Bill Mitchell talk about lack of respect. He is chairman of Your Voice America, and he's also a human weather van. As near as I can figure, this is the plot of his course in Republican party
circles since twenty fifteen. Hated Trump, liked Trump, hated Trump, liked Trump, wanted Trump to drop out, wanted Trump to stay in, supported Trump, rooted for Trump, demanded Trump, resign, got rid of Trump, disavowed Trump, got rid of his Twitter account, came back supported Trump, supported Trump some more now demanding Trump be elected. I've lost track how many times it is. It might be thirty five more times
that I've for got. Now he likes Trump again. Why are the Democrats, he writes, completely uninterested in the investigation of the Trump assassination attempt? Hold on before we go into this bill. Got a surprise in a reply from Congressional reporter Jamie Dupree, who wrote, all six Democrats on the Trump Shooting Task Force showed up in Butler, Pennsylvania for a site visit on Monday. Four of the seven
GOP lawmakers on that House panel missed the trip. Who is it that are completely uninterested in the investigation of the Trump assassination attempt? Phil wor Sir the Silver Donald himself.
There's lots to complain about h R. McMaster, who was Trump's National security advisor, but McMaster did point out that Trump negotiated with the Taliban, forced the Afghanistan government to release five thousand of some of the most heinous people on earth, as McMaster put it, and he added, and stopped the active targeting of the Taliban in Afghanistan When he said that. Even Anderson Cooper noticed he did something
that I thought was not allowed. On CNN, he asked a follow up question, Cooper, the Trump administration forced the Afghan government to release five thousand Taliban. The answer from hr McMaster correct. So Trump forced the release of five thousand Taliban terrorists, then caused Republicans to stop all the border security in this country and the deal to increase it, and then boasted the terrorists, including from the Middle East, were coming into this country over that border. So Trump's
guilty of treason. Again, harasked him, he's at trade tour. I don't care if he's having mini strokes put them behind bars. But our winner, I have to say, I love this woman's ingenuity. Do you remember her Amy Jacobson. Amy Jacobson was the Chicago TV news reporter who got fired in two thousand and seven after while she was doing an investigative report on a guy whose wife had disappeared, video turned up of her at the guy's house and she's in the video and she's in a bathing suit.
She got fired and then her husband filed for divorce against her. Remember her, Amy Jacobson? Well, Now, unsurprisingly, as all of the tumbling tumbleweeds blow over to this role. Everybody who got caught being a jackass winds up as a right wing nut job radio host or a member of the Trump transition team. She's on wid in Chicago, fittingly, what have you got on that radio? I've got wind?
And guess who she mocked in the August twenty second show, Gus Walls, governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walls's son, the young man with the nonverbal learning disorder. She mimicked Gus's emotional reaction to his dad's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. As you know, Gus is seventeen years old. If that were Baron Trump, who had been mocked that way by the liberals, I don't know, Trump would have
taken hostages by now. Jacobson's co host compared Gus Walls to a Chris Farley character, and Jacobson laughed and laughed and laughed. And this is bad enough. As we've seen, even Ann Coulter felt a measure of remorse about doing the same thing. But this gets much worse. Amy Jacobson is the clubhouse leader in the insulting Gus Wall and showing a total lack of humanity and showing your ass, as they say, full the ass not unfamiliar to her
from from the two thousand and seven story. Come to think of it, See, because Amy Jacobson is not just a right wing nut job on Chicago radio. She's also head coach of the varsity boys and girls volleyball teams at Roiled Amundson High School in Chicago. And guess what they have at Aminson High School in Chicago. Apart from periodic Arctic expeditions. I suppose they have a large so called cluster program designed for high school kids with learning disabilities.
It's such a good program they have at Alminson that licensed therapists who treat these kids and help them out. Many of them send their kids specifically to this school. So the volleyball coach at the school helping special needs kids mocked the special needs kid of the Democratic vice presidential candidate, who himself used to be a football coach at a high school in Minnesota. Well, guess what the parents at Aminsen want. They want coach Amy fired, and hell,
they want the guy who's jokes she laughed at. A guy named Dan Proft, fired two from his job. But oh, according to the Chicago trib what do you know, looks like he's already been removed as a board member of Envision Unlimited, which is, what else a disability advocacy organization. So anyway, Wind should fire this clown Jacobson, and obviously the school has to fire her. But happily, Amy Jacobson, you can always go back into TV reporting. Oh right,
Amy Jacobson unemployable? Two days? Whis Tyson now to the number one story on this all new edition of Countdown? And it's that time of year again. It's August when the odometer turns over and my TV debut becomes forty three years ago. This holy crap, and it all owes to Ted Turner and Lou Dobbs. Part of this I've told before. I actually interviewed with Cable News Network twice, once in April nineteen eighty when they were not yet on the air, and after that interview I saw no
reason they ever would be. I wrote in my diary there's no chance they're ever going to get it on the air in time. They were supposed to go on in September. Because the New York Bureau of CNN consisted of one coffee table, a couple of chairs, one coffee machine, a stairwell, one unisex bathroom, and one staffer New York Bureau chief Mary Alice Williams. Plus the day I went there, CNN Sports president Bill McPhail made it two staffers. He
was up from Atlanta after a long year. My phone rang one day and McPhail asked me to fill in for two weeks. In two weeks for their New York sports reporter. I had no television experience at all. Well, I'd watched it. She was going on vacation on August third, sooner, McPhail added if the baseball strike ended before then. Her name was Debbie Segur, and all I knew was vacation me okay. Turned out it was part vacation, part get
out of town quickly, very quickly. See CNN started as not just news news or just news and politics and interw views and guests. There was a half an hour business show every night, and a half an hour show business show every night, and a half an hour sports cast at seven, and another half an hour sports cast at eleven, and then one in the middle of the night. There was a fashion program, and there were hourly stock reports, and they had a staff of meteorologists, and they had
short sports casts almost every hour of the day. And the business anchor based in that New York bureau, which had expanded from the one unisex bathroom, was Lou Dobbs, and as the producer they had sent up to work with me when I filled in for this Debbie Sigura
Phil Griffin later the president of MSNBC. As he explained to me, when we got in the car to go out to Shaye Stadium to interview all those New York Mets guys, Lou Dobbs was rumored to be stepping out on his wife with the CNN New York sports reporter, and missus Dobbs had found out, so there was even a rumor there was somebody else who also worked in the CNN New York bureau who found out. So Bill McPhail's hurried call asking me to fill in for the
reporter for two weeks. In two weeks was because she was going on quote vacation. Not long after all this, Dobbs thought it would be smarter to leave New York for a while, like a decade or so, and Debbie went with him. They got married. This left New York without a sports reporter, and CNN tried another one of their Atlanta anchors for a while, but they kept giving him extra vacation time, so they would have to bring me in freelance every month, and finally the following March
they offered me the job full time. And I have not earned an honest pay check since. And I mean that in two ways. CNN was paying me five hundred dollars a week, that's one hundred dollars a day to go on national television. Even then, this seemed a little low, and it was about forty percent less than what I was making for like three days a week in network radio. I pointed this out acceptingly because I was learning how to do TV while on TV and getting paid for
it was a vocational school. And that's when they told me that the five hundred dollars a week was already more than they had been paying Debbie Sigura and more than the guy they were paying as their reporter in Los Angeles. And then Bill McPhail, the head of sports, called and offered me a contract for twenty five thousand dollars and I said, wait, twenty five thousands, five hundred dollars a week is twenty six that wait a minute, you're offering me less for the contract. Why would I
take less? Is there health insurance or something? And he said no, there's just the security of having the contract. And I said, well, I'd rather have the thousand dollars that you're docking me for signing, and they found it somewhere, but they always reminded me how generous they had been with that extra thousand dollars, and I kept saying, that's
not extra. You are already paying me that. Anyway, None of that would have happened, though, without Ted Turner, because CNN was his idea, and in fact, most of what you saw from me on ESPN later that was also mostly his idea too, sort of anyway, the basic idea of SportsCenter sports news on national television on more or less a daily basis, Ted did that. Not ESPN and the daily sports news studio show on at the same time every day or night with the same anchors treated
as seriously as a half an hour of news. Ted did that. And buying sports teams to have something to put on your television station, Ted did that too. WTCG Channel seventeen Atlanta was the fringiest of fringe ETV stations
when Ted Turner bought it in nineteen seventy. But then six years later he bought first the Atlanta Braves and then the basketball Atlanta Hawks, and he bought a couple of satellite dishes, and the FCC made the fateful decision to let him put Channel seventeen up on the satellite so it could be shown on those fledgling cable systems
around the country. And the next thing you knew, the Atlanta Braves were America's team, and Ted, who was shameless, promptly signed the first baseball player ever to take advantage of what we now know as free agency, Andy Messersmith. Andy Messersmith got what looked like all the money in the world, more money than any baseball player had ever gotten or or we were certain would ever get, one million dollars over three years with one catch. Andy Messersmith
had to wear uniform number seventeen WTCG Channel seventeen. You see where this was going. He had to wear uniform number seventeen, and instead of having Messersmith written on the back of the shirt over the seventeen, he had to have the word channel. So Andy Messersmith's uniform when he broke in with the Atlanta Braves in nineteen seventy six as the highest paid player in baseball history. The back of the uniform read channel seventeen. Baseball stopped that right quick.
It stopped Ted the day he decided that he should see what it was like to manage the Braves and if it really was as difficult as his managers had made it seem. His lifetime record was zero to one, and he said, yes, this is very difficult. But the cable sports genie, that one was out of the bottle and nobody was stopping it, and he haspn ran with it.
But next came news. Even then, his crazy idea cable news network rested squarely on the first regularly scheduled nightly sports newscast in national television history, CNN Sports Tonight at seven at eleven and two am Eastern. While Sports Center was on in those days for fifteen minutes one night at seven and then an hour the next night at ten and sports Tonight, was there come news or high
water seven nights a week. Of course, Ted Turner was not just shameless, he was also technically penniless, so he hired a couple of real veterans to run and anchor the thing. Bill mcphil who helped invent the NFL on CBS and Monday Night Football, was also his idea. And his former CBS colleague Bob Wessler, and he hired Nick Charles, who was a star of sportscasting on the Washington and Baltimore newscasts, but everybody else the cheapest hires they could find.
In nineteen eighty one, Turner sent McPhail to hire me. That was our second interview. When I told Bill I had made forty two thousand dollars the year before working for Charlie Steiner in radio. Bill spit his drink halfway across the room. We were planning on hiring six guys to start with, for a total of ninety five thousand. This is when they were staffing up what became CNN
Headline News. I answered that I hoped that the other five guys he was going to hire were prepared to make it on seven grand each, because there was no way I was moving to Atlanta for less than sixty thousand dollars. Well, they got me anyway, and for less than sixty thousand dollars, but I did not move to Atlanta,
Thank you, Lou Dobbs. And they got Dan Patrick and Tanna Storm and Fred Hickman and Dan Hicks and Gary Miller and dozens of others and reporters and cameramen and producers and executives and editors, and one sports production assistant from the original crew of CNN Sports wound up becoming the president of CNN Worldwide, and another wound up becoming the president of MSNBC. ESPN reshaped television sports news anyway, CNN created it, and early on CNN staffed ESPN and
much of the industry. And I'm skipping how Turner mainstreamed World Cup Yachting at least for a while, and Ted and TNT and Ted and the Goodwill Games and Ted and World Championship Wrestling, whose matches were actually held right above the CNN newsroom so that often you could hear the wrestlers slamming each other on our ceiling. And by the way, the Braves winning fourteen straight division titles, and
the repopulation of Bison in the country. It was also Ted Turner, But my favorite Ted Turner story comes from something he did not pull off, not that he did not try. When the football owners forced the players out
on strike in nineteen eighty two. Ted sent me to cover it every day for eight months, and one day he showed up at the football strike talks to meet with the players, and when he came out, he announced that he would be bankrolling and televising two football games in the middle of a football strike, one at RFK Stadium in Washington and the other at the Rose Bowl in southern California. And basically these two games would pit pickup teams of striking players the American Conference versus the
National Conference. And he called his two games the All Star Season. I've mentioned this elsewhere and before. When I asked him about the acronym for the All Star Season, he winked at me and shushed me, and then he took me aside and he asked me what I thought. I told him, nobody's going to watch and he's going to lose money. And he looked at me and he said, nobody watches you. I lose money on you, so what,
you'll make money eventually. He then explained that that was really just designed to set up the owners if he could put the games together and get them on TV with no more than one month's lead time, the players' union was willing to partner up with him. Ted's real motive for the ass the All Star season was nothing less than creating his own football league, twenty four teams, which would begin play in nineteen eighty three or sooner
if necessary, and would be televised exclusively on TBS. All he needed was the players going along with him, and one little labor court ruling that the owners had forced the players union to go out on strike and that would allow the union to negotiate with other employers. Well, obviously, you don't have to be a football expert to know that he did not get that court ruling, but they
went for it. Ted Turner was shooting for nothing less than killing off the National Football League and replacing it with a new National Football League owned by Ted Turner, and he was going to give the players fifty percent
of the whole league. And don't forget, nearly all of this was done on a shoe string budget, with borrowed money, with all of his employees convinced that he was crazy, and it wouldn't last until next Tuesday, and when we would get our paychecks at CNN in New York, we would race each other to the bank to cash them just in case there wasn't going to be enough for everybody.
So whenever something causes me to get nostalgic about my start in TV, I inevitably find myself going back to tales of Ted Turner, Owen Lou and Missus Dobbs and the Other Missus Dobbs, Missus Dobbs one and Missus Dobbs two. 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 Phillip Schanel, 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. He's a first little guy. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and fithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman 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 is
my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else was pretty much my fault. Your assignment, if you choose to accept it. Write some lyrics to the Beatles song Penny Lane about Kenny Maine. Kenny Maine, the barber shaves another customer. That's countdown for this the seventieth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the three hundred and twenty ninth 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. After all, he doesn't realize he was president in twenty twenty and you've got this President Biden. I mean, if Jack Smith can outsmart the Supreme Court, you and the White House can use the presidential immunity these idiots on the Court provided to stop him from doing it again while we still can. And anti Semitic, anti immigration, gun nut Republicans,
please stop shooting at Trumph. More Democrats than Republicans showed up at the investigation at the site christ The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins is the news requires until the next one. I'm Keith Oldreman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.