Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Let's face this. Trump has already lost the tariff wars he finally claimed he paused yesterday without really pausing them already lost. Only took him eight days, eight days from liberation day to a day, when in any other war, in any other country, literal or figurative, he would have been deposed by now. And never mind how much you and I
think he's crazy. A high priced advisor to macro fund manager says, quote, A few of them have quietly wondered if the president might be insane unquote. And after Wall Street came off the ledge and got back to where it was six days ago, only what three trillion lost four to seven? You lose track after a while. Trump declared victory up twenty five hundred points. Nobody has ever heard of it. Gotta be a record because he cannot
admit he made a mistake ever. If he did, his head would fall off, and his approval numbers have cratered. He's underwater by an average of six points last Wednesday. It was an average of two points. Since the election, He's lost twenty points among those over age sixty five,
He's lost fifty points among those underage thirty. And he's still yesterday raised the tariffs on the Chinese again to one hundred and twenty five percent, because he's mad at them, because they, of course are winning this war, because the Chinese aren't not negotiating. The Chinese don't negotiate the Chinese are as they have been for centuries, for millennia. The
Chinese are waiting for their opponents to die. The Chinese are apparently dumping our ten year treasuries, driving up our debt, and they've opened trading partnership negotiations with the head of the European Union. Surprise. And for all the claims about pausing the tariffs, Trump says a universal ten percent tariff will be maintained on everybody. That's not a pause. Oh and the very stable Genius began the day in full panic.
Between seven forty six and nine thirty seven yesterday morning, he made sure anybody who had not realized that it and he were in freefall, he made sure they realized we're all in freefall. First one, this is a great time to move your company into the United States of America, like Apple and so many others. In record numbers, are doing zero tariffs and almost immediate electrical energy hookups and approvals,
no environmental delays. Don't wait, do it now? Free balloons for the kiddies a few minutes later, make America great again. After that, Republicans, it is more important now than ever that we passed the one big beautiful bill. The USA will soar like never before the next one. It is imperative that Republicans in the House past the tax cut bill. Now our country will boom. Yeah, actually we've we've been
booming all the destruction in Mayhem. That's the sound you were hearing, was the boom fixing trade in tariffs is a good thing. Jamie Diamond, JP Morgan Chase chairman and CEO on Maria B Show. Did he call Maria Bartiromo a B be cool? Capitals? Be cool? He wrote in number six, be cool. Hello, my fellow teenagers, be cool. Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before. And the last one, this is a great time to buy DJT. You're making
Herbert Hoover look like Warren Buffett. Here chauncey and when all that didn't work, he paused, kind of the tariffs while his Trade Rep Jamison Greer was testifying to Ways and Means. Middle of his goddamn testimony, Greer had already spent four hours looking like an idiot bullshitter. When the idiot bullshit he was defending was completely changed, he found out on his phone. Then he looked like an uninformed, idiot bullshitter. I was waiting for mister Chairman. I'd like
to amend my remarks. Which ones missed your witness, all of them. But the tariffs were not reduced at all against China. They were increased, and not apparently the next tariffs they're not being reduced the ones against the pharmaceutical industry. Because when you pissed away almost all of your presidential support in eight days, the first thing you want to do then is drive up everybody's cost at the pharmacy counter.
And nobody told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, the guy who looks like a foppish character played by the actor Barry Bostwick. Nobody told him not to hint at the next next tariff quote. It's main streets, turn main street, clothing stores, restaurants, coffee, water, the street traffic of American commerce, kill it as quickly as possible. Remind people that when those prices double, you know, you can make your own own coffee at home, and you can buy one plastic bottle and refill it with
tap water for the rest of your life. Did you know that we used to do it that way. Make it clear to them that to Trump, America does not have people in it, only companies, and that the point of Trump's America is to charge Americans more for everything.
Citizens are a mere infestation in corporate land. The Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America Association now says that if running shoes now made in China or Vietnam that now cost you one hundred dollars are instead going to be made here, they will cost you three or four hundred dollars. That is not changing, that was not paused. If you drive a car, I'll tear if the street. If you try to sit, I'll tear if your seat. If you get too cold, I'll tariff the heat. If you take
a walk, I'll tariff your feet. Sorry, George Harrison, it is so bad, so bad that even the New York both sides as times, has begun to sit up and take notice, right next to the surprisingly timely and relevant investigative piece for which it expects to receive the next pulletzer. Seven ways to turn a can of tuna into lunch or even dinner was analysis by David Sanger about this
Trump policy. Even though the word policy implies there's some plan or just some similarity from one hour's actions to the next, the quote burn it down first, figure out the consequence's later recklessness. The costs of that approach are now becoming clear. That administration officials knew the markets would dive and other nations would retaliate when Trump announced his
long promised reciprocal tariffs. But when pressed, several senior officials can seated that they had spent only a few days considering how the economic earthquake might have second order effects. This was before they were trying to fish all the victims out of the water after Trump deliberately steered into the reherreic Iceberg, and most of them had already drowned, but some didn't. So Peter Navarro went on Fox Pravda Tasks and announced, this is one of the greatest days
in American economic history. Yes, Sir Shrimpy, just like the day after Black Thursday in nineteen twenty nine. I mean, there wasn't also a Black Friday that was also one of the greatest days in American economic history, wasn't it? Uh? Wasn't it all right? The too long didn't listen version to all this, the president might be insane. Let me circle back to that Wall Street big roller researchery. He is Thomas E. Lee, co founder, head of research at
FS insight by Fundstrat. Because the big money spends none of it on good company names. My old colleague Carl Kintonia pulled this for mister Lee's newsletter. In the last few days, we have had many conversations with macro fund managers, and their concern is that the White House is not acting rationally, but rather on ideology. Nothing gets past the billionaire, and some even fear that this may not even be ideology. A few have quietly wondered if the President might be insane.
I wrote this in twenty sixteen, Oh, big piecebo, could the president pass its sanity test? At least it's nice to know we're not alone in our assessment for all the rebounding yesterday. Hey, we're hemorrhaging less there's a problemigger
than all the positives put together. This is from Stephen McDonald, the BBC's man in China, a sharp Australian who was about a month ahead of every other Western correspondent on that little story coming out of there a few years ago called COVID quoting him lightest message from beijingg via a state media account. Well that's the way he talks, linked to China's central television. Washington is trying to defeat countries one by one, but the China will back the
multilateral trade system. It says, don't go to Trump with your begging bowl. It's what he wants to steamroll you. The message that Trump is lining up countries to steamroll of them one at a time could resonate well in the region. Developing countries like Cambodia, Laos in Vietnam are all being hit hard by his tariffs. Now Xijinping calling for increased supply chain cooperation with them unquote. The problem for US financial laymen is that Trump may now pretend
it's all better, and much of Wall Street may to. Certainly, yesterday's numbers suggested that we're only losing this ball game one hundred and thirty two to sixty one now, but China is now out to kill us financially, and they're doing it. And every one of our allies whom Trump threatened with a gun now realizes that was just his finger. He was pointing, concealing it in his pocket, and he's got really puny, tiny fingers and they're not loaded, and
they're impotent. Now the subtext here that most people did not notice because Wall Street was too busy re enacting nineteen twenty nine. Is there more to this than sheer insanity and in confidence? Did Trump crash the stock market deliberately as he boasted online semi trollingly, so that his insiders could make money. Politico inadvertently fed this narrative. Its chief stenographer and seapack part time spokesmodel, Dash of Burns
drank the whole pitcher of kool aid on Tuesday. Quote inside the White House itself, the outlook is downright rosie among a select group of Trump's inner circle. Ebuliant is how one insider close to the administration described the mood in the West Wing. Nobody is fearful. They knew this stock market reaction was coming. They feel like everything is going according to If only we'd remembered to write a plan. The key part of that quote, they knew this stock
market reaction was coming. They feel like everything is going according to plan. Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC said, there was real potential that quote. It would not shock me if we were to find out that a whole bunch of people who work in Washington as our elected leaders, ultimately sold stocks last week were potentially worse than that shorted the market. But how could we ever find something like that out? Oh, Marjorie stupid Green? Here it is
on a website called sludge. Readsludge dot com investigative journalism on Money in Politics, quoting them, Representative Marjorie Taylor Green are for GA and we know what the R stands for. A close ally of President Trump invested as much as seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in US Treasury bonds from mid to late March, according to transaction disclosures reviewed
by Sludge. The purchases made in three transactions between March seventeen and March twenty five aligned with her vocal support for Trump's recently imposed tariffs. How could we have ever found out?
All right?
It's Marjorie stupid Green. I knew there was grift here. That's not real insight. There's grift everything in everywhere. Anything he does is grift. And I knew it as soon as I heard Rand Paul as the sole voice of reason the teriff's debate. He said, the whole tariff debate is so fundamentally backwards, an upside down. It's based on a fallacy. And the fallacy is this, that's somehow in a trade someone must lose that somehow when you raid with someone, someone is taking advantage of you. I have
a trade deficit with my grocery store. The billionaire Ken Langone attacked Trump. The tariff on Vietnam was bullshit. According to Langon, Musk attacked Navaro. Navaro attacked Musk. Scott Besson's mentor, a billionaire named drucken Miller, posted, I do not support tariff succeeding ten percent. Incidentally, I think they're going to make besson't take the fall here. He just looks like the guy who takes the fall. But the all time
Lulu quote was this one. The tariffs are quote more severe than I would have expected, particularly the way it is impacting Vietnam, China and Cambodi is more extreme than I would have thought. That was from Wilbur Ross. Wilbur Ross, the ancient Trump Commerce secretary. Last time, you know how old Wilbur Ross is two hundred and six. And of course this time Trump continues to have only the best people.
The inflatable rubber raft known as Christy Nome has now been accompanied by the fascist stochastic terrorist influencer who smears liberals, and they gave her a dress up outfit two so she and the dog killer pretended to arrest criminals, even though a civilian can't really legally pretend to be part of homeland security. Then the Attorney General, Pam Blondie, I'm sorry, Bondi. Pam got backed into a corner by a reporter admitting
that they had deported innocent people. And when they pointed this out to her, that she had been backed into a corner, she just walked away from the microphone because she is drowning in this job. And you probably he didn't hear this one, but one of Marco Rubio's bodyguards has been arrested in Belgium. This was at the end
of last month. The Brussels Times reports Brussel's police took a Diplomatic Security Service shift supervisor don't say that five times fast into custody at the Hotel Amigo when they alleged he got violent with hotel staff because they would not reopen the bar after hours, which that night would have been at midnight. The embassy got him released. I smell the next head of the secret Service. Then there's Dan Bongino, new deputy director to the FBI director Popeye.
More on the FBI director Cash Patel and his guest shot on Russian state television coming up in Worse Persons, But this is about his deputy, Bongino and the intelligence community's genuine shock that when the Bureau issued a message to its staff they call it a canvas, asking for volunteer agents to serve on his twenty four hour a day protective security detail. They asked for a total of
twenty agents. They need twenty agents to protect this one skinny, useless guy, Like, what are eight of them at a time going to surround him on all sides as he walks down the hall. Actually that makes sense, that could explain it. They would then be able to make sure nobody gets close enough to confirm that Dan Bongino's hair
is not his own. And last week, of all the things Trump doesn't understand, the thing he most doesn't understand the best is he's a fat old man who keeps forgetting to put bronzer on anything but his face, so his hands look like he's holding mashed potatoes, and who the other day managed to shape his hair into an almost perfect square so that he looked like the President
of Minecraft. Trump, though, continues to make jokes about other people's faces, anybody else's face, anybody else in the world's face, eight billion, sixty two million faces in the world right now, and his would rank number eight billion, sixty two million. And he still says crap like this, Adam Shifty Shifts.
Can you believe this guy? He's got the smallest neck I've ever seen.
And the biggest. Said, we call them watermelon head.
I say, how could that big, fat face.
Stand on a neck that looked like this finger. Fortunately Trump has enough extra necks and chins to take care of Shift and the entire Senate for that matter, So I said, finally, but I did want to say goodbye first to Gretchen Whitmer, who Gavin Newsom to herself yesterday, first, the governor of Michigan came out in favor of tariffs, some tariffs anyway, on the day Trump would punt some tariffs.
Trump signed more executive arders in the Oval yesterday for higher flow shower heads for prosecuting Conservative election monitor Chris Krebs about shipbuilding. There's some anti miles tailor stuff. I don't know, more tariffs maybe who knows and who's in the corner not smart enough to get out of the goddamned Oval office while all this is going on. Gretchen goddamned Whitmer. Honored to have Gretchen Whittmer from Michigan, the great state of Michigan. And she's been she's really done,
an excellent job, very good person, that was Trump. Don't know what route you think you you are on politically, Governor. But whenever you get to your destination, say hi to Gavin Newsom when you get there, because he's done and you're done, because neither of you has learned the Howard Dean Rudy Giuliani rule. Do not start already running for president, especially if it involves compromising with the other side, whom
everybody hates. Do not start already running for president four years from now until it's only like eighteen months from now. And also governor. If you buy one Trump Executive idiot order, you get the rest for free, and never ever get the endorsement of the worst leader in the history of
the free world. Buy now, Gretchen. Also of interest here in an all new edition, watching Laura Ingram carrying all that water for Trump, still lying without pause even last night, as his Titanic goes to the bottom, Bob's back up to the top, then goes to the bottom again. This reminds me of my dates with her. You heard me because all of the liquid she drank NonStop, non stop.
I was worried about the explosion risk, but usefully she explained the nascent prototype of the fascist media ecosphere, which I will repeat things I promised not to tell, and in this case things I'm surprised I survived. And more on cash Betel, Wayne Gretzky and the hockey writer moron who is defending them both. That's next. This is countdown George Crowing the pleasure to have you here. Thank you.
This is the best news show ever. I told that to one of your producers, and I want you to know that I've seen them all and it's just for especially the first.
Thirty five minutes.
Thank you. So it's just unparalleled. I got bad news between you and I. We got six minutes to completely still that in my back. Yeah, that's okay. Still ahead in this edition to countdown. Well, I needed to bring George back here just for the moment because I needed to help today. I'm going to spare you the details actually good, but discerning regular listeners may have heard, may hear a roughness to my voice, a side effect of
some heavy duty medication for a heavy duty gut problem. Gut, I hope not guts, but it's playing Jiminy ned with my stamina. So still ahead on countdown. I'll think of something first, believe it or not. There's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute the latest other worst persons in the world. Here are the nominees. The Bronze worst. Joe Manchin, the former Senator and pretend Democrat
from West Virginia. Joe has just revealed he's writing a book. It's called dead Center in Defense of common Sense. It's about his political accomplishments and a defense of his politics. What is it? Four pages long, preface by Kirsten Cinema, once sentence, I'm great. The best part is the cover of Joe Mansion dead Center in Defensive common Sense is a tight shot of Mansion's Joe thaismanesque face, but only
half of his face. Seriously, it's a photograph of half of him only in terms of how you look at it, viewer left or viewer right, only the right half. Joe's photo, symbolizing the dead center of his politics, is actually a photo of the far right, only the far right, only his far right. Joe Manchin only on the far right kind of summarizes Joe Manchin, don't it? The runner up worser Marjorie's Stupid Green. First, I'll read her tweet, Then I'll read the caption of the screen shot she retweeted.
Then i will read the screenshot she retweeted first from Marjorie's Stupid Green herself quote left always pays protest hears and here's the pray. Meanwhile, we never had to hire anyone to attendance support praise. He d dramp at his he rally, then an account called Wall Street Ape. So that's what a musk Bitcoin NFT confidence game account. Remember NFTs quote paid to protest positions are being posted on Craig's list. A huge amount of the new positions being
posted everywhere are to protest cash paid. They've always lied. They used to be better at it than this. Here is the list, endorsed by Marjorie Stupid Green. Los Angeles hands Off Anti Trump Protest Merch Sales Team cash paid four days ago. Los Angeles hands Off Anti Trump Protest Merch Sales Team, cash paid four days ago. Los Angeles hands Off Anti Trump Protest Merch Sales Team cash paid five days ago, Central La sell protest and resistance products
at protest rallies in your area. Sales at protest and resistance rallies days ago. Los Angeles hands Off Anti Trump Protest Merch Sales Team cash paid seven days ago. I'm assuming you have noticed by now what all of those will pay you to protest against Trump Craigslist ads actually have in common. Not one of them offers to pay
you to protest against Trump. They are all trying to hire people to sell merchandise and products at the anti Trump protests, which I believe the fascists until I don't know they crashed the stock market the fascists used to praise as capitalism and bootstrapping and independent small businesses merchandise. They're not hiring protesters, They're hiring people to sell crap to the protesters. And Marjorie stupid Green missed that part.
Plus there is a special ey to her assertion that nobody has ever hired to work at the Trump rallies, given that all the Trump rallies are is merch sales. In fact, all the Trump presidency has been is merchandise sales. This con man sold t shirts with his own mugshot photo on it, and merchandise with pictures of the moment he got shot. I mean, consider this just on a human level, or whatever it is. He is just on
a base level. Do you know how stone cold dead your soul has to be if you are not bothered at all by pictures of the moment you got shot? How addicted, how consumed by money do you have to be to ignore that memory of hell? That was almost my last second on this earth, and I spent it in that town. Even that now he tries to make a profit off of it. There's nobody there there. What can I do with this? Well, if I don't die,
I can sell pictures of this. But tell me again about how nobody gets paid at a Trump rally when the ads are all about anti Trump merchandise at the anti Trump rally and Marjorie stupid Green, everyone but our winner. Worse even than that, the worst Frank Cerravali, who used to be a hockey reporter. He worked for the Philadelphia Daily News and then for the Canadian Sports TV Network TSN. He's now on a hockey website you've never heard of, just like I've never heard of, even though I've been
covering hockey professionally since nineteen seventy six. Somehow, though this Frank sara Vali is still the president of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. The PHWA professional applies to the writers, not the association. Frank is a dope, and Frank is maga. It happens. Unlike those people, the magadopes, the rest of us, You and I, we don't think that disqualifies you from working in sports, or working in general, or living in America. Go make your money, have a nice life. Just stop
trying to shove your stupidity down our throats. That's all we ask. But Frank is a real dope, and he has now crossed a real line. By way of background, this is not the first time he has crossed a real line. It is not the first time this hockey season he has crossed a real line. Frank once got the list of the players to be chosen in an
NHL expansion draft before the draft actually started. It was to be televised live, so Frank took this list and published it hours in advance without spoiler alerts or anything.
And last fall, after the Columbus Blue Jacket star Johnny Gudreau and his brother were killed by a drunk driver the weekend of their own sister's wedding, Frank Saravali wrote on his website his predictions for the twenty twenty four to twenty five hockey season, quoting screenshots saved by the Twitter account the win column, which is devoted to the Calgary Flames team. Here's the first version of what Frank
Saravali wrote about the Columbus Blue Jackets fourteen. With a little help from Gaudreau, that would be the star player one of the two who was killed. The Columbus Blue Jackets will win the twenty twenty five draft Lottery. It's the only consolation prize on a brutal year, but hope and help is on the way. But that is that
the Blue Jackets have never won the lottery. Somebody, maybe Frank, decided that was pretty sick, so he reportedly changed to According to another screenshot from the same source, fourteen, with a little help from above, the Columbus Blue Jackets will win the twenty twenty five draft Lottery. It's the only consolation prize a brutal year, but hope and help is on the way. Bananas that the Blue Jackets have never
won the lottery. Apparently Frank still thought he could finesse this and that he really hadn't done enough on the subject of Johnny Gudrou's death and how this idea got into his head that the Blue Jackets would be compensated for their beloved players heartbreaking death with a draft choice the third version of the Sarah Valley. Per the screenshots fourteen, with a little help from Gudrou in Heaven, the Columbus Blue Jackets will win the twenty twenty five Draft lottery.
It's the only consolation prize on a brutal year. But hope and help is on the way. Bananas that the Blue Jackets have never won the lottery, Well, based on your logic, it's because their previous players had not been killed. Remember what I said, Frank, Sara Valley's a dope. Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. At that point, after the third version of this heinous, unnecessary, gratuitous, indulgent, moronic paragraph, Sarah Valley gave up. Now he had no excuse for this.
The fatal accident was in August and the column was in early October. None of this was heat of the moment. None of this was ill advised, none of this was christ What did I write that for? Called out? Frank Saravali apologized and said I'll be better. Well, he has not been better. I've outlined here in the last few weeks or tried to the amazing pain being felt in
our neighbor's home. Canada, as its former hero of heroes, Wayne Gretzky, has gradually betrayed his country as Trump's threats against Canada economic threats, independence threats, insulting references to the Prime minister, just being the governor of the fifty first State, etc. As Trump's done that, Gretzky has incredibly, mysteriously self destructively
gotten closer and closer to Trump this climax. Last Friday night is Vladimir Putin's pal Alex Ovechkin tied Gretzky's record for the most career in National Hockey League goals, and Gretzky sat cheering from a suite in the arena, seated next to election denier and Trump thug and fanboy of the January sixth terrorists, Old Popeye himself, Cash Pattel. Hockey people in both countries, especially Wayne's friends in Canada, have tried to explain to him what he's doing to the
nation of his birth and thus to himself. Hockey, which among all sports, does a fairly good job of keeping politics out or at least at arm's length, Hockey, seems to have uniformly tried to help Wayne steer out of this skid, and lots of people would have been upset if, for some reason, Wayne Gretzky had been accompanied at that game by the former FBI director Chris Ray, or if he'd been accompanied by Jay Edgar effing Hoover for that matter.
But that's not the way Frank Siavali, whose organization represents all the hockey writers in both Canada and the US, that's not the way he sees it. This, he said on some podcast, is an unfair attack on Gretzky's patriotism and on Cash Patel. Sarahvali called this all political bs. Here is the clip, and as you rage over it, I will explain specifically why sarah Vali is so wrong and why this time he is once again such an asshole.
The continued political bs that came on the back end of Wayne Gretzky celebrating it with the ultimate class as he always does.
Alex Ovachkin.
Oh, he brought the FBI director Cash Patel to the last couple games. Okay, so what Cash Pattel is a hockey guy? Go look it up. He go watched the video and photos of Cash Betel playing hockey Guy's a legit hockey guye So because he's a Republican, because he's in a Republican office, all of a sudden, we can't have that. Kwayne Gretzky is a trader.
Okay, let's start at that beginning, Frank Saravali called the attack on Gretzky and Patel quote political bs. Well, the attack on Wayne Gretzky isn't political bs because it's a little bigger than that. Patel's boss threatened to crush Canada economically and force it to become part of the United States, implied in this, Eventually something more than economic pressure would be brought into the States force it to become part
of the United States. And while he's doing that, Gretzky's at Mary Lago wearing one of the Trump fascist hats and sitting next to Cash Patel at this landmark moment in hockey history. And the attack on Patel isn't political bs either, because Patel is not, just as Sara Vale just put it, a Republican in a Republican office. His aforementioned predecessor, Christopher Ray FBI director, was also a Republican.
And by the way, that's supposed to be neither a Republican nor a Democratic office unless you have a corrupt president in charge. Joe Biden had a Republican. Donald Trump had a nominal Republican who's actually just a trumpeken, a Trump slave, a Trump whore. Cash Pateel popularized the exploitation and misuse of our national anthem, mixing in singing with the convicted sometimes confessed January sixth criminals, with them actually singing.
Mixing that in along with some of Trump's famous Beertisgarden speeches, mixed it all together into a revised version of the Star Spangled Banner. Anybody else in American political history who wrote their own version of the Star Spangled Banner would have been living lining now in Trinidad and or Tobago if they were lucky. Cash Betel believes or pretends to believe, the big lie about the twenty twenty election. It was not fixed. They can keep saying it until the world ends.
It doesn't mean it happened. Cash Bettel has helped poison America. In twenty twenty, he was accused of risking the lives of two American hostages in Yemen by commenting publicly on their rescue before it happened. There was his involvement in Trump's actions that led to Trump being charged under the Espionage Act, and the story, maybe a real story, maybe not a real story, that Trump declassified everything in that
whole thing verbally but only to him Cash Battel. And then there was cash Betel's insistence in the past month that there was no need for an FBI investigation into this year's security disaster, also touching on Yemen with the hegseeth Waltz butt dials signal tre He also, if you can believe this, celebrated Ovechkin tying the Gretzky record by doing an interview with Russian State Propaganda Television, our director of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence on Russian TV Russian TV,
where nightly they fantasize about nuking Europe and US, and by US, I mean Canada and the United States. Cash Pttel isn't toxic because he's a Republican, Sara Vlli. He's toxic because he's an irresponsible, seemingly unstable political fanatic now in charge of and capable of utterly misusing the foremost law enforcement and investigation body in this country. And if, for some reason, Frank, he decided to use it against you, you couldn't stop him. And more importantly, he's a hockey guy.
Frank Saravali said, this is all okay because he's a hockey guy. Look it up. Look at the video. He played hockey ones. He coached some kids hockey team once, so that makes it okay. I did three years of play by play of my high school hockey team. I attended my first NHL game in nineteen sixty nine, my first Stanley Cup final game in nineteen seventy nine, covered my first final game in nineteen eighty, and I broke
of all things. Now in the context of what's going on, I broke the story of the Wayne Gretzky trade to Los Angeles. I'm a hockey guy, and guess what, if for some reason Wayne Gretzky had wanted to have me in that suite with him, that would have been just as inappropriate, never mind the politics, Just like, what the hell is that olverman guy doing there? Vladimir Putin is a hockey guy, Frank sara Vali, should he have been
there because he's a friend of Trump's Andovetchkin's. If Wayne Gretzky's got Bobby orr In there with him or one of Gordie Howe's sons, that's a hockey guys. Battel is not a hockey guy. Cash Battel is a psycho guy. And lastly, and Ultimately, there is the baseline hypocrisy and arrogance of the Frank Cea Valleys of this world. He has dismissed the broken hearted, lost, confused and angry response
over the Gretzky Trump America threatens Canada. Gretzky brings a Trump hoard to the witness the tying goal controversy story, literally one nation's anguish and another nation's queasy guilt. As political bs. He's called that political bs. He's speaking for Canada. Frank Cira Valley is from America, and he's calling it political bs. Not for the reason that you might call
it political bs. Because a political flunky and political hatchetman and political thug is there where he shouldn't have been, and is intruding on a celebration of hockey history at a time of great stress between two countries, caused entirely by this country of which he is a citizen, of which he is a supporter of our rogue, crazy president, intruding on a celebration of hockey history which should have featured no politicians. I don't care. I was Barack goddamned
Obama on skates. It's not political bs to Frank Saravali because there should be some lines between politicians and sports, like when the all time record is broken, especially if the politicians have threatened to attack the country in which the league in which this is all happening is based. It's political bs to Sarabali because Saravali is a Republican and in the face of any criticism of them, all
Republicans are, especially the magas. As a colleague of mind used to say in a different context, all Republicans are soft as church music. Cash Bettel shouldn't have been there, Wayne Gretzky shouldn't have been sitting next to him, and that great hockey moment should have just been a hockey moment. And Trump and his MAGA assholes should be prevented from trying to exploit everything that happens as if they had anything more to do with it than somehow managing not
to screw up remembering where the rink was. Imagine when the Los Angeles Dodgers went to the White House the other day and handed Trump a Dodger's forty seven championship World Championship uniform. If instead of wearing number forty seven on that if that uniform number had been number forty two to represent Jackie Robinson, who just last week Trump trying to erase from history in the Defense Department website. Imagine if they had done that, what would the reaction
to that have been? But criticizing Cash Patel is political? Bs insisting Patel and Gretzky were wrong, but criticizing Patel and Gretzky were right. That's not political, is it? Rank? Got it? Asshole? Frank Hey, why don't you write a column demanding they give Patel an assist on Ovechkin's tying goal or give one to Trump? Sarah Vali Today's other
worst person in the world. It is important to know that though Laura Ingram was the first star of MSNBC, literally shown on the cover of the New York Times magazine in a leopard print skirt in nineteen ninety five, a year before MSNBC even went on the air. It's why they hired her the skirt, she did not get her own primetime show in cable news for another twenty two years, and she did not get that show until
she fully embraced Trump. And as we've seen yet again, as Trump has circled the drain, she sure has embraced him in things I promised not to tell little personal experience about embracing her. My primetime cable news show debut on October one, nineteen ninety seven. That would be twenty years before hers. But she was a guest on my show the first time the next month, November nineteen ninety seven,
and she asked me out in December. I think it was long after that that Laura revealed to me that her mother's dying words to her had been, Lara, why aren't you sound BASSI I mean, who tells anybody else something like that, anybody else in the world. Why would you say that? Wouldn't you make up something nicer sounding? Laura, you have been such a great do I mean? How
in the hell could I check? Even more recently than that, she had invoked her mother again in public, I think, as an excuse for raising the Social Security age, or eliminating Social Security altogether, or having ninety year old's screw little screws into American iPhones or something. I can't remember
what it was. It's true, though, even as Laura flourished in television, she never said her mom, here's enough so you can retire Laura boasted in public that her mother, Anne worked until she was seventy three as a waitress full time, and boasted that her mother continued to pay off Laura's college loans. Anyway, the Ingram dates and something she told me on the first of these dates has resonated with me literally every month since and is relevant to politics today. I did not so much date her
as survive her. Even then before nine to eleven helped to slide her cheese off her cracker. I find a diary entry referring to her as Hurricane Laura. That was March fifteenth, nineteen ninety eight. Beware the odds of March Julius Caesar. I didn't, honestly, and God helped me. Nearly forty eight years of dating, I have not been a kiss. And tell her I have dated. I don't know dozens. We're in a couple of hundred, actually thirteen, seriously, with
maybe three exceptions. You don't know any of their names. One of them, now a political writer, basically lived with me for three years. I keep that confidence. So why am I telling this story relating that because not three months after that first date, when we were still going out, Laura Ingram asked me if she could look at a speech I was going to give it Corneill's graduation weekend and offer suggestions. This is so long ago I literally
faxed it to her. Sure enough, a couple days later, I'm watching Imus in the morning, which was televised by my network MSNBC, and there on his desk in front of him is the faxed copy of my speech, and he is reading from my facts. I could recognize the
exact sequence of the vertical stripes. My cheap fax machine used to streak all my outgoing pages with Laura used to go on his show a lot, so to curry favor with Imus, she sent him the speech without asking me, As I told her that day, all bets are now off. So I've told parts of this story before, like She had been in a Supreme Court clerk for Clarence Thomas, and our first date consisted of taking me on an insider's tour of the court and having me sit in
his chair in tribute to him. I did not say or do anything constructive. She then cooked me the largest steak I had ever seen that did not have a rodeo cowboy riding on it, and we watched a woman later discredited because she could not keep her stories straight. Go on sixty minutes and make allegations against Bill Clinton. This is my perfect date, Laura told me, seared into my memory. But the important Laura Ingram's story sitting there in the middle of all the debris. I don't think
I've ever told this. The first date was only about six weeks after the then First Lady Hillary Clinton got on the Today Show and blamed the at best exaggerated scandal about her husband at Monica Lewinsky on the quote vast right wing conspiracy man sounds, Laura said that night, as she showed me her small office upstairs, I expected that she was about to decry the idea that Republicans would exploit television, talk radio and the brand new Internet
to try to bring down a president from the other party. And I said, so naive little boy that I was no, not that, of course we're doing that. She was kind of offended that I doubted the conspiracy part. I explained, I'd only been covering politics for two months. At the end of the day, she said, end of the day, constantly, at the end of the day, it's the vast part. It's not vast, vast right wing conspiracy. Why, I bet
there's not even thirty of us. Laura Ingram then explained that she was essentially the central desk for what she called the miniature right wing conspiracy. She showed me a printed page that had the facts numbers of about two dozen people. There at the top are the sources, She said. There was Ted Olsen, the attorney, founder of the so called Arkansas down the husband of Barbara Olsen, a constant presence as a talking head on cable news. She later
died on nine to eleven. Everybody liked her. There were several numbers in the Office of Independent Counsel ken Starr. One of them read B Cavanaugh. I said, who's that? She said, nobody important. The only other name I remember was Spencer Abraham, who then was a senator from Michigan. She said, they, including the people in ken Starr's office, sent her all the rumors, the ideas, stuff about Clinton, stuff they made up, and she distributed them to the
other parts of the list. That's these numbers. One number was marked Hannity Radio, another Hannity TV, O'Reilly Radio, O'Reilly TV. There was one for Limbaugh. There was one mark Justice Thomas, and I pointed to it. He likes to stay and farmed. Now, maybe the most important name is not on that list. That's Matt Dradge. She said. Matt Drudge used all her stuff, but he didn't want any of it to be traceable, very big on not traceable. So I never fax it
to him. She said, I just give it to my brother. This is when she still liked her brother. He sees Drudge all the time. He gives the stuff to Drudge. Now, Oliver, here is my baseball collection. See, there were reasons to go out with her. At the time, I could think only of an old cartoon I had once seen. It was an octopus working in the post office, using all eight of its limbs to sort the mail. But every
couple of weeks it dawns on me afresh. Then I was actually a witness to one of the earliest configurations of the machinery. And there is no doubt today whether it is vast or miniature. It's beast, the machinery that links the right wing politicians and those who are supposed to be above the fray, like Supreme Court justices and
special prosecutors and people like that. There with the right wing publicity outlets that pretend to be news organization like Fox and Drudge and Oaan and Newsmax, and the ones that don't even pretend, like those who succeeded Limbaugh. This machine is, in fact everything that your typical paranoid conservative, republican fascist trumpest thinks is being run by George Soros or Bill Gates or doctor Fauci or me. You want to be able to say there are reports or accusations
about some Democrat or a liberal figure or celebrity. Well, somebody puts a rumor in at one end of the machinery, or somebody makes up a rumor at one end of the machinery. It is then sent to dozens of other people. They repeat it voila. Suddenly there are reports. The reports then get fed back to Fox News or Breitbart or the Wall Street Journal or the Supreme Court, or they're
just tweeted by a thousand bots simultaneously. You want to push this ancient racist anti simm paranoia called the Great Replacement, But you wanted to come out washed clean enough that soulless opportunists like Elis Stephanic and JD Vance can say it aloud on the campaign trail without forfeiting their candidacies. This is the machinery. And I saw the machinery when it was just a list of twenty and thirty people, And at that moment I barely recognized the importance of
what I saw. Then again, I was still on that night, recovering from not just the Giant's steak, but something far more visceral. Earlier that day, as we were leaving the Supreme Court, Laura Ingram had boasted about getting even with an ex boyfriend by going back into what had been their house and putting up exact copies of all the photos of the two of them together that he had taken down from his walls. And when he got smart and changed the locks, she went back again to finished
the job. Found her key didn't work so naturally as you would. She stuffed his garden hose through the mail slot of his front door and turned on the outdoors. Spagott ten thousand dollars worth of heart. When Florence ruined, she said proudly, And part of me screamed, flee, flee. Now I didn't flee. Later, as I tried to sleep, two noises kept me awake snoring, not my own and Laura's dog. Laura's dog kept talking in his sleep, I
mean almost in syllables, y like that. It was something like twenty five degrees out and I was on the second floor. And yet I resolved that if her dog really did make that last to formulate actual syllables. And it turned out her dog was the one telling her what to do, I was simply going to leave by the window without bothering to open it first. The next morning, Laura and I walked her dog. We got to an empty field. She threw a tennis ball, He went and
got it. She cocked her arm back again. He took off, loving life as he did. She did not throw it. He went forty to fifty sixty feet, then stopped and looked back at her with such disappointment and even a sense of betrayal, and she said, loudly, without a trace of affection for him or anything else, wait far at which is when I realized I was being courted to
be the next dog. A few weeks later, back home in New York, I got home from working an early morning shift filling in for the commentator Paul Harvey at ABC Radio. I was just waking up from a tortured nap when the phone rang and it's Laura. I'm downstairs. We're going to my old law firms party at the museum. I said. I was exhausted. We're going, or I'll just stay here at this payphone outside your planes calling you
all night. We went the next option opportunity probably was going to be me on the wrong end of a hostage drama. Turned out she was not invited to her party. We're crashing it. I'm going to drink heavily. Frankly. It was a great party. I got to meet Hillary Clinton's mother and her brother. And if you think the fascists are completely sincere about everything, even their neuroses and their paranoia, no, Laura Ingram hugged Hillary Clinton's mother and Hillary Clinton's brother.
They seem to be friends. Later we wound up meeting friends of her in the Oak bar at the Plaza Hotel, where she kept drinking. I was astonished. After about her sixth Cosmopolitan on top of everything she'd had at the party, she began to droop her head, nodding like a bobblehead doll. Her friend said, Okay, that's it, we'll take care of the check, you take care of her. She had not
gotten a hotel room or anything. And if you've ever heard of anybody who needed to be poured into a cab because they were so drunk, you don't really know what that means until you have to pour them into a cab. Frankly, I wanted to put her in a hotel somewhere, but the spectacle would have made the gossip pages.
She basically could not stand up, so I took her to my apartment, put her into my bed, and I went and slept on the couch at the far end of the apartment, which is where I was hours later in the morning when she woke me up because she came parading through using my phone to call my assistant to get a car sent to my address to take her to the airport, and to make sure that everybody in my office knew she had stayed overnight at my apartment. And all I kept thinking was why didn't I follow
my instincts. My instincts said flee, I fleed. Not, of course, if I had fled, I would have missed seeing the telephone tree of the miniature right wing conspiracy, wouldn't I I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneille, the musical directors have Countdown Arrange, produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and it was
produced by Tko Brothers. Now our satirical in fifty musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two written I'm Mitch Warren Davis Curtise, CBSPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns allowed. And my announcer today was just because I needed to hear his voice, my late friend George Carlin. Everything else was,
as ever, my fault. That's countdown for today, just eighty two days until the scheduled end of his lane duck lame brain term unless Musk removes him sooner, or the actuarial tables due, or the billionaires due. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Illness depending as always boltons as the news warrants also illness depending Remember impeach Trump. It won't work now, it will win the Democrats the midterms. And to add to the pressure on the Republicans, I want
poling on a presidential recall vote. Even though we can't have a presidential recall vote. Somebody ask people what they think. Till next time. I'm y, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Want some food? Do you said? Stevie Sit Countdown with Keith Olberman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.