TRUMP BOMBED IRAN BECAUSE HE'S LOST AMERICA - 6.23.25

starting his war against Iran. He briefed Fox News in advance about starting his war against Iran. That's how their anchor was sitting in the student on a Saturday night, as he revealed it. He briefed Iran about starting his war against Iran. He briefed Russia about starting his war against Iran based on what Russian state media reported Friday. He decided last Wednesday and spent the rest of the time lying to this country about it. He did not brief this country about it. He did not brief nearly

any Republican congressional leaders. He did not brief any Democratic leaders. He did not brief the nation a nation, which polling suggests only twenty one percent of US supported bombing Iran. He did not brief the only one of his cabinet of idiots who managed to recognize how dangerous to us this is. He didn't even let her in the situation

room as it happened. He ignored the uniform unanimous advice of the intelligence community that a Iran was nowhere near a nuclear weapon and b bombing these sites would not eradicate their nuclear program and see any bombing of for Dow and the other locations would then require thirty days of intensive follow up bombing to have any long term impact. He ignored reality. He lied to America. He did everything he had campaigned against. He might as well be a neocon.

This is a forever war and we are now in it. And he told his pals in advance so they would have their praise ready. And he did this to benefit one person, and one person only himself. So we joined the Trump dictatorship already in progress. Not that any of this should be a surprise. Long term planning for Donald Trump has always been about three hours, maybe three and a half on one of his low insanity days. There

is no doubt he had seen the polling. Most polsters buried or at least did not emphasize that the ham handed attack on Los Angeles using ice Let's call it what it is, isis that that was incredibly unpopular. When even CNN's polster Harry Enton says, I think we can say Trump has lost the political battle when it comes to what has happened in Los Angeles. It must be

way worse than that. CNN has him fifteen points underwater on the ISIS raids, twenty four underwater on the ISIS raids, with independence on his top issue, the one that got him elected. Imgray shun even Trump, in the haze of confusion and denial that is at one of its peaks in his life, understands he is losing his grip on his own cult. Sees the huge majority saying he's gone too far. Sees the huge majority opposing more ice ISIS

raids at workplaces. Sees the economist pulling that his overall approval is underwater in fifteen states that he won last year. He's seven under in Pennsylvania, four under in Georgia, four under in North Carolina, eight under in Michigan, eight under in Pennsylvania underwater in fifteen states Trump won last November.

Trump attacked Iran because he has lost America. And of course, as I said here Thursday morning, because the baseline reason to have a war, a war against Iran as good as any other, is the same as the baseline reason to have had a war against Iraq, to have a war, to waste ordnance, to blow up your own bombs and then have to buy new bombs to feed the military

industrial complex. Then magnify this by the distraction element. As one political observer wrote on January seventeenth, twenty twelve, quote Obama will attack Iran in order to get re elected. The same political observer wrote on October ninth, twenty twelve, now that Obama's poll numbers are in tailspin, watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He

is desperate. And the same political observer then wrote on September sixteenth, twenty thirteen, I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face. And as the same political observer wrote on September twenty fifth, twenty thirteen, remember what I previously said, Obama will someday attack Iran. In order to show how tough he is.

And finally, that same political observer wrote on November tenth, twenty thirteen, remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly, not skilled, and that political observer in all five cases this was Donald J.

please everybody. Why don't you go supervise that yourself, Trump move to Iran. You have all the insanity and self absorption required to be a Mullah. Two for the first time in history, AOC and Congress and Thomas Massey are right at the same time about the same thing. This is unconstitutional, says Massy. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment, says Okasio Cortes.

with Putin today in Moscow. Here, in fun City, the Russian ambassador to the UN says he's got deja vu about the US and Iraq. Because of the US and Iran, whatever Putin told Trump to do here, Putin lied to Trump about supporting it, and Trump fell for it. Five And as usual, the entire event is overflowing like a backed up toilet, with more proof that every Republican accusation is actually just a confession. They called this mission Midnight Hammer.

If this is not an intentional reference to the head of DUI, I'm sorry. The head of DoD heg seth, it will sure do. In his briefing yesterday, Pete hegseeth got the target of the bombing run wrong. RB two's went in and out of downtown Tehran, Tehran. Excuse me of these nuclear sites in and out and back without the world knowing at all? Ah Hell Tehran, downtown Tehran and suburbs of Tehran, North Tehran. For dow Iran Iraq, it's over there in that sort of direction. Check with

me on the chat later. I'm just here enjoying Operation Midnight. Hammered more Republican admissions. JD. Vance. You know the guy who is on his second alias already in his life, but he got the name of a sitting US senator wrong, and he and his pals are boastful about his own stupidity and getting the name of the sitting US senator wrong. Who's who's a now, all right, Jimmy Vance, Jimmy Donalds, and Jimmy whatever your name is. JV. JV said this

on Meet the Press. This is the toilet overflowing with accusations that are actually confession.

not yet know how much more entangled. This president does not know how to accomplish anything for this country, especially international And of course we've had dumb presidents, but nobody is dumb as this guy. It is hilarious that Vance used the phrase dumb presidents. It must be impossible to

be near Trump these days without that impression. Dumb presidents being so vivid, it must seem as if it is about to form itself in gold letters in the sky above your head, dumb President, you will of course see naked genuistic support for this misadventure if we're lucky, not support if we're lucky, but that it's only a misadventure if we're lucky. CNN still somehow thinking it will keep itself from disappearing by drawing some kind of right wing audience.

Posted this within minutes of the bombing by Stephen Collinson. Analysis US strikes mark a stunning demonstration of military might and presidential power. Analysis from CNN Stephen Collinson. President Trump's attack on Iran's nuclear sites is both a stunning demonstration of US military might and unilateral presidential power. Other presidents chose not to take this step in the belief that such action could ignite a full on war with Iran.

But the Middle East has changed. Israel has dismantled many of the Iranian proxies that it would have used to fight back by attacking Iran's no nuclear sites, the president has attempted to fully eradicate Tehran's nuclear pro ran for good. So Collinson thinks it's in Tehran too. This is with a few letters, not even whole words, changed exactly what CNN and all the other major news organizations wrote about Iraq.

And this man Collinson. You have to compliment him. You really can't get more bullshit into a space that's small than he has. Collinson, incidentally, is the man who wrote for CNN in November twenty twenty two that the election of twenty twenty four would be defined by quote, dueling probes into Trump and Biden thirty two paragraphs of both

sides ism designed to trivialize Trump's treason. Now to the serious consequence to all this, the further and further we let Trump get away from any constraints, any fear of the Constitution, any fear that anyone will stop him by whatever means, the further he will go. Ten years ago, if a president bombed anywhere and a senior Congressman from his own party remarked simply, quote, this is unconstitutional, it would be the beginning of the end of that man's presidency.

Thomas Massey remarked that Saturday night, and he was mocked by his own party, and he is hardly a reasonable Republican. What ultimately reverses the course towards self destruction of those countries where it's not that the concept of right and wrong has vanished, but where it is the fear of getting caught and stopped that has vanished. What saves those countries? Sadly, the answer is universal and eternal. Germany learned it in

nineteen forty five. The Soviet Union learned it in nineteen ninety Napoleonic France learned it, Ancient Rome learned it, Cambodia learned it. The answer is always the same. Those countries are saved from destroying themselves by calamity, by part martial self destruction or total destruction from outside nations, or revolution

or upheaval dissolution. It is not that our concept of what America has always been at its worst even is incompatible with Trump, cannot continue long with Trump, cannot survive Trump. It's now approaching the point where America in any form is virtually incompatible with Trump. This path is not solely Trump destroying democracy or perverting the electoral process or jailing democrats or god knows what else. It's not what he's

already done. It elevated itself. The path is now America becoming so disconnected from its own reality that we will implode because this idiot thinks he's doing great things when he is pushing us off an effing cliff implosion. The good guys, the bad guys, the maga, and the humans, all of us over the cliff. But happily now Trump thinks God is directing all this, even if he doesn't really understand what everybody else means by the word God,

an omnipotent, an omnipotent individual, You mean me. What's somebody more omnipotent than me? This has never occurred to him before. He thinks of God as some sort of brand name. And I want to just thank everybody, and in particular God. I want to just say, we love you God, We love you God, rad Oh, yes we do. And if that reference to the musical Bye Bye Birdie is too old for you, I get it. How about I just

want to dedicate this bombing of Iran to God. We know you're watching us here on Fox, so I just want to say two things to God. You know I won the twenty twenty election, and God, this wars for you.

a few other actual news notes. Trump will continue to lie about the Iraq Iran comparison, especially when it comes to himself. For twenty plus years he has insisted he was a vocal opponent of going into Iraq. He was not. He is lying. There is nothing, nothing on the record of him opposing the Iraq disaster before it happened. His support was brief, tepid, disinterested, but he did not oppose it publicly. You want to know who opposed it publicly.

I demanded that we go to the UN and present all all of our evidence on ABC Radio in two thousand and two. I had healthy skepticism, followed by let's do what we did with Adle Stevenson and the Cuban missile crisis. I didn't even think they were decrepit and morally bankrupt enough to fake the evidence to the UN, which is exactly that Bush and Cheney and the late Colin Powell did. Trump meanwhile, has lied about this anew

as recently as Friday Friday went. As we now know, he had already chosen to launch his own private war against Iran while lying to his own nation that somehow elected him to lie to it. From the Pool report from Friday question twenty years ago, you were skeptical of a Republican administration that attacked the Middle East country on the idea of questionable intelligence of weapons of mass destruction. How is this moment different with Iran? That's not entirely true.

It's almost close enough that the reporter shouldn't be fired. Trump. Well, there were no weapons of mass destruction. I never thought there were, and that was something somewhat pre nuclear you know, it was a nuclear age, but nothing like it is today. That's entirely false. And it looked like I'm right about the material that they've gathered already. It's a tremendous amount of material, and I think within a matter of weeks or certainly within a matter of months, they were going

to be able to have a nuclear weapon. We can't let that happen. I was very much opposed to Iraq, all right. There's two lies in there. He was not very much opposed to a RAQ, or if he was, he never said anything about it. And number one, he's wrong about the nuclear weapon. Matter of months, not a chance. I was very much opposed to a RAQ I was. I said it loud and clear.

if you're going to go in, keep the oil. I actually did say don't go in, don't go in, don't go in. But I said, if you're going to go in, keep the oil. He said the part about the oil

about eight years later, but they didn't do that. Also missing in all this just before while he had already decided to attack Iran and that whole end of times, Jesus is coming back if you get all the Jews back to Israel, so we have to protect Israel, so we can destroy Israel instead, the fundamentalist evangelical position about Israel.

While that was happening, Trump posted reposted on his website a meme with three different q Andon cult phrases, trust the plan, nothing can stop what is coming, and I was the hunted and now I'm the hunter all over. A picture of him reposted this three QAnon cult phrases in one meme. There are two bits of good news. The budget bill, the moronically named Big Beautiful Bill because

Trump thinks gaudy ristolium gold is beautiful. It's being reviewed by the Senate Parliamentarian and one of its heinous add ons has been ruled in violation of the Bird rule about tacking on unrelated heinous add ons illegally to budget bills. The Republicans do not legally have to strip out these add ons, but they likely will. The Senate Parliamentarian says the provision limiting the ability of federal courts to restrain

Trump is not permissible. It has to be removed from the bill before the Senate can vote to approve the bill to remain in compliance with Senate rules. And despite Trump's instance, since that he won the court battle over the National Guard, it is a pyrrhic victory at best. The court ruled he could usurp the National Guard in Southern California. It also ruled that every time he tries to usurp the National Guard somewhere else, the governor involved can sue to stop it. Newsom may stop his effort.

Now take the big picture win here, because if you take this current ruling to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court could easily rule that future governors cannot sue to stop the usurpation of the National Guard, and that would be ultimately disastrous and ultimately a blank check to Trump. And Trump's brain is blank enough without a blank check lost in Trump's unconstitutional war against Iran. That is for

regime change. Oh no, it's not for regime change. Oh maybe it is for regime is the next stage of the perversion of the media in this country. First it was cites like CNN and Politico altering the news, literally shading it, not fact checking in debates, firing all the liberals to favor Trump and the GOP and the Conservatives and the corporations which are by their nature and their

construction conservative. The next stage now is well underway, to make sure only Democrats approved by Republicans get any kind of public media support. The current target is Andrew Cuomo, much of national media is trying to stave off this city's revulsion to Andrew Cuomo. The primary for mayor. For all intents and purposes, the election for mayor is now. Trump wants Cuomo. He wants Cuomo to be there so he can blackmail Quomo with a threat of prosecution. That

little shit Mike Bloomberg wants Cuomo. He's at least eight million dollar into it. Bloomberg has donated eight million dollars to the Cuomo campaign. Bill Clinton endorsed Cuomo. And understand that here in New York Bill Clinton is remembered and I hate to say this, if at all as a guy who lives way out in the suburbs and used to be in politics. Here is the Financial Times analysis of the money in this race, the super packs fundraising

by New York City mayoral campaigns and allied superpacks. Andrew Cuomo thirty five point six million dollars. Zorn Mamdani nine point one million dollars. Brad Lander, who is the comptroller,

got arrested last week seven and a half million. Scott Stringer, who has been running from mayor since before I was born, five million, good man, but he's not going to be Mayor Eric Adams, who is the mayor at the moment who does not show up to work, and every time he gets close to the office something terrible happens, usually to him four point eight million, Zellner Meyrie four point two,

Adrian Adams two point eight. She has refused to cross endorse in this ranked choice primary, so it's Cuomo versus Mam Danny, with Lander as the outside possibility. The latest polls are all over the place. It is ranked voting, so even when the polls are accurate, they are all over the place. Because you go on to a final round, your second choice may count more than your first choice. This month you have everything from Cuomo plus twelve to

Mamdani plus five. Mamdanny is a Democratic socialist. I have pointed out before that he has my endorsement because primarily, while we align on almost all political issues, my primary interest is this guy appears to be ready to show up to the effing office every day and work, unlike the last four mayors of New York. What a streak we are on here, Juliani, that little shit Bloomberg, Bill de Bossio, and this moron Adams who says God put

him there. Apparently God has forsaken you, Eric Adams. But the coup de gras in all this is being applied by such corrupt organizations as Third Way and Politico. I'll just read this from Politico's newsletter on Saturday morning. This was the lead item before the bombing of Iran Empire. State of mind.

We want all of the leadership removed. We want hunt the Mandanis of this world and the aocs of this world running the Democratic Party. To use a phrase I remember from my youth, trust no one over thirty maybe forty. Third Way, the center left democratic think tank well viewed from the Republican Party. Third Way would be center left, wrote in a memo Friday that they are deeply alarmed by Zoron Mamdani, whom they argue holds positions that border

on anti Semitism. He's about as close to anti Semitism as Third Way is to Nazism, and scan as if they were cooked up in the offices of a Trump aligned ad maker. No, actually, that's a Cuomo aligned ad maker who's used all these same phrases in the pro Cuomo ads. Isn't that a coincidence at a time when the Democrats are searching for a way out of the wilderness. Moderates in the part f the moderates in the party.

The moderates in the party got Trump elected. Moderates in the party say that given New York City mayor's outsized role in national politics, three of the last four have run for president, they gained two delicate delegates among them, and they were delicate delegates, weren't they Freudian slip? Given the New York City's mayor's outsized role in national politics three of the last four have run for president, Republicans could exploit Mandaney's positions for their gain up and down the ballot.

the stuff that's in the DSA platform. And we just cannot hand that to Republicans. Trump is underwater on overall approval in fifteen states he won last year. You efing idiot, press push and go loudly, and you will defeat MAGA forever. But we can't have anything outside of what we think is the mainstream. What of the banks think is the mainstream?

The Third Way memo highlights defunding the police, closing jails, panning private healthcare, and operating city owned grocery stores as positions American voters would find beyond the pale Oh, no food America is against food. Mam Danny has repeatedly pushed back against the anti semitism label. I've said at every opportunity, there's no room for anti semitism in this city, in this country. In point of fact, they asked him a question and he did not explode at them, so they

called that adjacent to anti Semitism. At a post election retreat for Democrats in Virginia earlier this year, Third Way concluded in a memo that the party needs your own failures of democratic governance in large cities and commit to

improving local government, start with the ones in Virginia. It's also a proxy battle political note political notes in this advertisement for the Third Way people, Mamdanny has not just the endorsements of Senator Bernie Sanders and AOC Jim Clyburn back to Cuomo on Friday, It's also a proxy battle in the sense that Israel and anti Semitism have come up again and again, which Cuomo wants to keep in

the spotlight on the topic, says their reporter. Cuomo has focused on Mandani's response to a podcast question on whether the phrase globalize the Intifada makes him uncomfortable. Mandani did not reject or condemn the phrase. He has said it means different things to different people, and reiterated that he

would protect Jewish New Yorkers and combat anti Semitism. I'm waiting for somebody to get onto the fact that Andrew Cuomo, when asked about whether or not he killed people during COVID or, was found liable for constant sexual pestering while governor and had to resign. If he's condemned any of that, did he condemn it enough? I don't think so. The key issue here is this Third Way is a trojan horse. It has worked on legislation introduced into the Senate by

Lindsey Graham. It was accused of suppressing anything that its own research found suggested that Democratic voters actually are enraged by Trump and maga that this is philosophical, that this is about democratic failure to act. Third Way is accused of deep tized banking. It is this close to being one of those groups that refers to the Democratic Party as the Democrat Party. It does not have the motto, but I think it might have considered it remember only

support Democrats approved by Republicans. Also of interest hearing this all new edition of Countdown? Who can destroy himself faster? Jake Tapper or Stephen A. Smith. Every time I think we have a clear winner, the other one starts talking again. That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown. Thilberman, my crazy friend still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown.

I ain't freud exactly, but for an amateur, I'm pretty good on the interpretation of dreams, and this subject came up yesterday as I was writing this show on of all things, the Fan Dual Sports Network telecast. That's a plug I work for them now of the Detroit Tigers

at the Tampa Bay Rays. What does it mean when a baseball pitcher who pitched his last game in nineteen ninety three keeps having this dream where he's supposed to get onto the mound to pitch the game right now, except the shoelaces on his spikes have been tied together and he can't move. It is the standard old dude stress dream. I have them too, but there is an amazing twist which explains why keep having them. It's nostalgia. It's memories of being young. I'll explain next in Things,

I promise not to tell the Dreamscape edition first. Believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Krueger effect specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world. And this is like Champions week on Jeopardy. These are three of the most frequent worst persons in the world in this incarnation of the program, The Brons. The mayor of New York mister soon to be seventh place finisher,

Eric Adams. He has now said he could have done a better job vetting the internet personality known for his anti Semitic views. Sneak O promised he didn't know his history before meeting with him over cigars. Maybe I'm just too optimistic, the mayor said that I believe there's something good in everyone and we should try to find that. Yes, maybe I should have reached out to the team late at night said hey, can you vet this person? But this is a challenge for me because everyone comes to me.

Adams told reporters about sneak O. The mayor, who has made fighting anti Semitism and support for Israel key focuses of his re election effort, said he was sitting on the porch of Gracie Mansion smoking his cigar Saturday, and then other people came and joined me, and they brought people with them, and they started engaging in the conversation, and he was one of the people people that engage in that conversation. Adam said about mister sneak O, I

didn't know his history. I don't support anything that is criticizing any group in this city. He's close with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. Sneak O. But the mayor didn't know anything about him. He just thought he was a guy who liked cigars and sitting on the mayor's porch. Because anybody can just walk up to the mayor's house and go sit on the porch with him, That's not how it works. You have to be invited and you have to get a security check. So somebody looked this

guy up and went mayor's running on an anti Semitism campaign. Well, this guy Sneako and the word anti Semitism they come up a lot in our Google search. Come on down here, have a cigar. It would befit this city and all the bad things we've done back when we used to finance the slave trade and other terrible things that we

did in the nineteenth century and earlier and later. It would befit this city if we got this idiot Cuomo as our mayor, because we had this idiot Adams is our mayor, who succeeded this idiot Deblasio as our mayor, who is going to get back and deal with the crisis here except he needed a ride to the airport in Iowa and couldn't get one, and he, of course succeeded this idiot. Bloomberg is our mayor, who of course succeeded the original gangster idiot Rudy Giuliani. I think we

shouldn't have an election. I should stay on as mayor forever because who could possibly replace me anybody, and anybody did replace you moving on the runner up. As I said, some people are satisfied with destroying their careers and others just have to keep on going and making sure it will never move again. It's been dead already for months. Jake hit it again. Wait, I'll do it, Tapper on c Span Now, what do you think he's talking about?

As you hear the start of this quote, I feel this way about the weapons of mass destruction on Iraq story. I was a reporter of that was skeptical of the WMD claim, but certainly, in hindsight I wish I had been more skeptical. Was he talking about the build up to Trump's war against Iran? The oh, never go for regime change. Let's have regime change, Lindsey Graham says, what

a good idea, Trump, Let's have regime change. Let's just drop bombs on a country with no congressional authorization and tell the nation, We're going to give it another two weeks. This nation, not their nation. Who gives a damn what you told that nation? You think Jake Tapper's talking about that. I was a reporter that was skeptical of the wn D claim, but certainly, in hindsight, I wish I had been more skeptical. I feel this way about the weapons

of mass destruction in rack story. Certainly when it comes to President Biden's acuity, I wish I had covered it more aggressively. Jake, Actually, this is my actual belief. At this point, you need a cat scan. You are no longer connected to reality. They're selling a book, selling your soul for a book. And then there's what you're doing now, which is ignoring all the reality when everybody around you

is saying stop, lay down, stay down. Dude. You've humiliated yourself and destroyed whatever reputation you had, and you just hear you're doing great, Jake, from invisible men who may live inside your cat scan. Seriously, let's hope it's just like an inner ear problem that can be fixed with medication. That's what I'm rooting for, Jake. I don't have anything personally against you. I don't want to see terrible things happen to you. Apparently you do. You're doing them to

yourself right now. But the winner, Jake Tapper, is not content with his own self destruct and is now doing it for the seventeenth time. Stephen A. Smith says, hold my anti semitism adjacent beer. That is the new term right that's there using this against Mam Danny. It's anti semitism adjacent. He has come back for a second helping of let me tell you how great Candace Owens is.

Smith and I'm reading from Mediaite addressed the recent controversy over his interview with right wing smear merchant Candace Owens on his show on YouTube, insisting that she quote knows what she's talking about. Stop Stephen, stop, unplug everything. Mute the microphone claim it was a glitch. Claim you've been hacked. Stop right there. She knows what she's talking about. She

doesn't know what she's talking about. She's an insane woman who was fired by people who are already insane by themselves. She was fired by Ben Shapiro. Look him up. Owens has been a vocal critic of Israel, going so far as to suggest, in a not so veiled anti Semitic trope, according to media, that the Jewish state is controlling US foreign policy. She posted recently on x this was a week ago recently, our foreign policy is dictated by Israel. Trump will continue to do as he is told by

Nettan Yahoo. If you want to know what America will do, spare yourself the fake White House press briefings and start listening to bb We are a colony of Israel. Your politicians are bought and paid for. Candace Owens, she knows what she's talking about, says Stephen A.

cannibals as well. Not everybody in America or this world for that matter, can say that what she says matters. And a lot more often than not, she seems to know what the hell she's talking about. It's very rare you hear somebody says she's clueless. She doesn't know what she's saying. She's clueless, Steve, she doesn't know what she's saying. She could not. I would not bet on her passing a Saturday test. She does not. You do not have to hand it to her to borrow the wind expression.

She seems to know what the hell she's talking about. It's very rare you hear somebody says she's clueless, she don't know what she's saying. You don't hear that about her. You want to refute what she has to say and defy her positions. You better know what you're talking about, because she certainly does usually, if not always. That's why I had on the show, Stephen, this is who you

keep endorsing the time. She discussed Adolf Hitler's nationalism at the Turning Point USA event in London in February twenty nineteen and said quote, I actually don't have any problems at all with the word nationalism. I think that the definition gets poisoned by elitists that actually want globalism. Globalism is what I don't want. Whenever we say nationalism, the first thing people think about, at least in America is Hitler. This is the woman Stephen A. Smith what says knows

what she's talking about. Owens went on Hitler was a national socialist, adding quote, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, okay, fine. The problem is that he wanted he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German, everybody to look a different way. To me, that's not nationalism, simple, I think acceptable admittable translation. Owens thought that whatever Hitler did

inside Germany was great. The word she was great. Just wanted to make Germany great by killing everybody. Well, ok, fine, ok, fine, she said. Last March, Candace Owens liked a post on x in which a user asked a rabbi if he was quote drunk on Christian blood. This is who stephen A. Smith says. She seems to know what the hell she's talking about. In fact, she does not seem to know what the hell she's talking about. It's the exact opposite, stephen A.

Smith's store in every city or whatever is next. This is going to destroy what you already have. Flee, Please flee, get away from Candace Owens. Get away from politics. You have an innate instinct as strong as your instinct for what makes good TV sports. You have an innate instinct for picking exactly the wrong person to sidle up to and to join yourself to glue to at your hip. You are going to destroy yourself, and if you don't,

she will destroy you for you. This ends with ESPN having no choice but to fire you and nobody else being willing to hire you. Flea get away from candae Owns as fast as you possibly can. Steven A. Smith, Today's other God help us, worst person in the world.

I just checked the calendar and it is. So this is what was going on in the background as I tried to make some sense of what Trump has done in Iran to the number one story on the Countdown and Things I Promised Not to Tell, my favorite topic me and general knowledge that it turns out, is not general knowledge, but should be about dreams, particularly anxiety dreams.

Trust me on this, because I've spent a good deal of money on this in the relentless pursuit of what's going on inside my head between my ears by legions of analysts over the years. They have come up with very few correct answers, or very few answers at all. You can imagine the travails involved in trying to do this in any event, one of the things that they won in particular, and I have come up with something

about these dreams, recurring anxiety dreams. I'm listening to my friend Jason Bennetti, one of the best baseball broadcasters there is, doing the Detroit Tigers game with his partner on the broadcast, Dan Petrie. Jason's also very good, apparently among the best in other sports like basketball and football, But I don't get paid to watch basketball or football, and those are the only circumstances under which I will watch them. So I'm going to have to take his word for it

that he's good at those two. But I know he's excellent in baseball, and I will always watch again. He is doing, and Dan Petrie is excellent too. And I happen to know Dan Petrie since the late seventies when he was a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. Not very well, but enough probably that he might remember if I told the story of when we met. And I know of his son, National Hockey League defenseman. He had a niece I knew, who was a swimmer at UCLA, A big

athletic family from southern California, and roughly my contemporary. I think Dan is like two months older than I am, So when I met him, I was a fledgling reporter and photographer who posed him for some baseball card photos in nineteen eighty something like that. In any event, Dan revealed towards the end of his broadcast, as I was preparing this edition of Countdown, he revealed that he has had a recurring dream that he still has even though his last game in the major leagues was more than

thirty years ago. And he has this dream in which the anthem is playing. He is at his cubicle, his locker, somewhere in the clubhouse. He's not sure where he is. It may be in Detroit. He's not sure he's playing for the Tigers. He's not sure where the stadium is. He's not sure of anything except he is just starting to get dressed and they are playing the anthem, and

he is the starting pitcher. You do not have to understand anything about baseball to understand that this is the standard I'm late dream, and to have it again and again and again references one thing in particular, which is the number of times that you have had to go through one thousand deadlines to get to your job. The first deadline is to be there when your job starts. So if you have a dream in which something keeps you from getting to the store part of your job,

it is essentially PTSD light. You have had this actual experience of worrying. Boy, I hope I get to the ballpark in time, four hours before the game. Boy, I hope I get my bullpen routine done, thirty five minutes before the game. Boy, I hope we get the game started at in time. Boy, I hope I'm out there for the anthem. Boy, I hope I don't have to go to the bathroom. Boy, I hope I haven't misplaced

my glove. Well, in the dream, of course, all of these things happen Petrie relates that in the dream, he can't find his spikes. All he has is a shirt and maybe some baseball pants. There's no uniform, he doesn't have his glove, he hasn't warmed up there playing the anthem, and there's no way he's going to get onto the field for his first pitch, let alone warm up or any of the other rituals beforehand. It is straight, strict anxiety.

But there's a twist to it, as I'm trying to explain to this by text, this whole story about how I have had similar dreams about college graduation. It's college graduation morning, it's five minutes to graduation. I have forgotten an entire course which almost actually happened. So there's a real reason for it. There's a reason it's burned into my mind since nineteen seventy nine. There's a real reason for it. But it doesn't have to have that reason.

Most people have a dream just like this. You're going to do something normal or planned, or something you've done a thousand times, and for some reason you can't get there. One of the reporters in the Tiger broadcast then related that she has the dream in which she's hitting a baseball, and then she hits the baseball successfully, but can't move her legs. She can't run. Everybody's had the can't run dream, they can't move dream. It's all of the same core

with a twist. As I am relating this and Jason Bennette says, do you mind if I mention this on the air to me by text because it'll make Dan feel a little less shaken by recounting his own dream,

I say, sure, go ahead, he says. Frank Tanana, who was a contemporary of both mine as a photographer and reporter and Petres as a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, and was a very famous pitcher in the American League for a good long time, possibly the hardest thrower, certainly among left handed pitchers in the American League in the nineteen seventies. Frank Tanana texts Dan Petrie in the booth and says, I have the same dream, only my shoes. The shoelaces on my shoes are tied together, and I

can't stand. And I would suspect every athlete has had a dream in which something incredibly mundane prevents you from starting the game. Never mind the thousand things you have to do that only you can do that had propelled you to fame and fortune, or at least fortune. Never mind those tough things. The easy one, like getting there when it's supposed to start, has failed you or you have been prevented by by reasons you don't fully understand.

And you have this dream while you're playing, and then in the years afterwards, and it makes perfect sense, because these rituals are burned into your mind and they're so heart of the structure that deadlines, that rules everybody's life, that you don't even think of them anymore, and they come out in dreams because you worry. You worry unconsciously, which is what a dream is, after all. You worry

unconsciously about not getting it done on time. So now we have two Detroit Tigers pictures of the nineteen eighties telling essentially of the same dream that they've had, and me with the I'm not going to graduate on time or the more recent version which I had two days before this broadcast that I'm hearing. When they're talking about Dan Petrie not being able to find his shoes, they're playing the anthem I had. The Sports Center is starting

in five minutes. Dream and you have at least half an hour worth of writing to do, and you're not in the studio, or you have a stage manager from any one of a million different broadcasts, and in the dream, it's always the real person. It's Jackie from MSNBC. It's one of the guys from Fox. It's one of the guys from ESPN, it's one of the guys from Channel two in Los Angeles, it's one of the guys from

Channel five in Boston. And suddenly they point at you and go five four three, two one, and you don't even know what the broadcast is. I once had the dream, and it was the inauguration of President Obama in the dream, and I didn't know where I was, what network I was on, And only because I saw the graphic over this guy's shoulder did I know it was the inauguration of a president. And I was not prepared. It is

the you're late, You're being prevented, You're not prepared. It's all of the standard issue anxieties that you actually we go through and try to prevent with an ordinary checklist in the back of your mind every time you do whatever you do, every time you ever did it, even if you're not doing it anymore, even if you're thirty

years removed from having done it the last time. But there's a twist to it, which I tried to convey to mister Petrie and through him to mister Tanana, who, by the way, Frank Tanana was probably the nicest guy to the Scrubini reporters and photographers of nineteen seventy six to nineteen eighty two that we ever knew. Everybody said the same thing. Didn't matter if he was pitching that day, when most pitchers just go into this semi psychotic state. This fugue, don't talk to me, don't look at me.

You're interrupting my rituals. If you don't get out of my way, I'll be stuck in my locker and they'll be playing the anthem and my shoes will be tied together. They gave off that kind of vibe. Frank Tanana never did that. Frank Tanana once asked me about the camera I was using, and I looked at him, and it was half an hour before the game was supposed to start at Yankee Stadium, and he was pitching for the California Angels, and I said, aren't you pitching today. He went, yeah,

half an hour or so. I said, what about He goes, Oh, I don't go for any of that. Don't talk to the pitcherer thing. He asked me about the camera and then he posed for me and he went out and he threw eight innings of two hit baseball against Catfish Hunter and the Yankees same day. So that's another psychological issue. But the thing that twists this. Frank Tanana is about five years my elder. Dan Petrie is about two months

my elder. We are more or less, although it would have been different then because they were Major League baseball players and I was a rookie radio reporter or a trivial figure in sportscasting, or a photographer completely fungible those days. There was a big difference then. Now we are all

in the same demographic. We are contemporaries, and I wanted to explain to them and to anybody else who has this dream or a dream like it, the I can't get to what I'm supposed to do dream, Even though I haven't had to do this for thirty years or ten years or whatever. I have an added bit of insight, particularly the dream about not graduating on time lingered with me on at best a once a month basis till about a year and a half two years ago. It

would always be updated. I would have to quit whatever job I had and go back to school because I had forgotten a course. I didn't make it to graduation. Something something, something happened. Under the worst pressure and stress of my career, I had this dream and I was sent back, not to start college all over again, or high school. I was sent back to the fourth grade. I was now going to have to do eight years of grammar and high school and then go back to college.

I had sixteen years penalty against me. I was being sent back to the fourth grade as an adult. I went into the classroom and had to sit in one of the little kids chairs, and I didn't fit into the little kids chairs. When I was in the fourth grade, I finally thought when I had this dream, and I suggested to my therapist, wait a minute, this dream doesn't bother me the way it used to. It used to really upset me and wake me, and I'd say, why

am I still having this dream. I graduated and in the one dream, this one time when it didn't bother me, I went back to the registrar's office and said, no, I graduated, what's wrong with you people? And then I had the dream again and it was kind of kind of nostalgic and pleasant. And that's when it dawned on me when I almost didn't graduate on time. And in the dreams, every one of the dreams, I'm twenty years old, or at worse, it's I'm forty years old, and for

some reason we're replaying graduation day. And the point ultimately is this, and it may be the point for every Dan Petrie and Frank Tanana out there who's having the My shoelaces are tied. Oh good, in your dream, you have shoelaces. In my dream, I can't find my shoes at all. I don't know what broadcast I'm doing. I

don't know how I'm going to get to graduation. The point is when you did this, when it actually happened in real life, when this pressure was on you, you were thirty years old, twenty five years old, twenty years old. If you comb down into the baseline of your life, yes, there are things that have been accomplished in the ensuing thirty forty fifty years since the occasion of the reality that is at the heart of this dream. There are many things you would never trade for anything in the world,

or anything impossible in the world. You would not trade these things for eternal life, family experiences, loved ones, whatever. On the other hand, if you had a dream, and in that dream you were offered the opportunity to be twenty years old again, or thirty years old again, or hell, by the time you get to my age, fifty years old again, guess what you'd take it, especially if you could bring all the good stuff of today with you back to your new second shot at twenty years old.

A very simple reason, you're now no longer that close. You are thirty years less close to the end. It's not more complicated than that. At some point, the dream stops being a terror dream full of life's ordinary, poisonous, mind blowing, disastrous, terrifying, mundane deadlines. At some point it becomes a nostalgic dream. Oh, I'd love to go back to Cornell and spend another semester there and be twenty. I'd go to the worst college in the world and be twenty. I wouldn't be in college at all, I'd

be in high school at twenty and be twenty. It's not complicated.

just roll with it. Enjoy the idea that you're twenty again or thirty, or you're still pitching in the major leagues and you can't find your shoes, because trust me, pitching in the major leagues without being able to find your shoes or finding your shoelaces tied together is better than A never pitching in the major leagues or b having pitched in the major leagues thirty five years ago. Just as not graduating on time but coming close today is better than not graduating on time but coming close.

Oh you did grad wait on time? Whoa fifty years ago? And I have one PostScript to this. Frank Tanana, the second baseball pitcher, as I said, did not go in for any of you. Do not talk to the pitcher the day that I talked to him now twenty minutes before his start, and he's just sitting there tossing the baseball in the air, and said, sure, I'll pose for you.

That day he was facing the future Hall of Famer Jim Catfish Hunter the New York Yankees, and he went out and threw two hit ball over eight innings and totally mesmerized the New York Yankees. There was one out in the bottom of the ninth inning. I stayed for the game and was watching it. The California Angels, behind Frank Tanana's flaw was pitching, were leading eight to nothing, eight to nothing with one out in the bottom of

the ninth inning, Frank Tanana mesmerizing the Yankees. The stadium half empty from fans who gave up in disgust, and I just kept thinking, boy, oh boy, pictures really don't need to be sequestered before a start. He's absolutely right. One out in the bottom of the ninth inning, two outs to go for a two hit shutout, and Frank Tinana proceeded to give up eight runs and did not win the ballgame, and the game went to extra innings.

Because as I always thought thereafter, not only to starting pitchers wisely not talk to anybody before the game, but certainly if they're really smart, they don't talk to some wise ass seventeen year old photographer who asks them to pose for bubblegum card pictures. The Angels, by the way, won that game and like the eleventh inning anyway, So the Yankee comeback came to nought. But boy, oh boy, was that an instructional evidence story for me at seven. Oh no, I'll be fine. I can talk to you

before the game. He gave up eight runs in the bottom of the ninth inning. For you youngsters, this is when a starting pitcher would still be pitching in the bottom of the ninth inning. I know it's like before electricity. In fact, everything was still in black and white in those days nineteen seventy six. So the gist of this is, at some point, your worst fears, in your worst dreams simply become nostalgia for the idea that it was better when you were twenty years old. I've done all the

damage I can do here. Thank you for listening to an old man complaining about being an old man. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanel, our musical directors of Countdown. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Mister Ray on guitars, bass and drums, Mister Chaneale handling, orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball

stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Olberman theme from ESPN two was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. That is the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today is my friend Tony Kornheiser. The dream sequence was orchestrated by Jason Bennetti and Dan Petrie. Everything else was, as always my fault. I hope that provided some levity under the circumstances. That's countdown for today, day one hundred and fifty four.

If America held hostage just three hundred and ten days until the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck lame brained term, unless Putin or Musk remove him sooner, or the actuarial tables do, or we do. Remember he did it ran because he thinks it will help him politically. Any strategic result, good or bad, is an accident of coincidence. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Until the next one. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, Good afternoon, good Night, and good Luck. Countdown

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