TRUMP POLLS CRATER; HIS "IRAN HACKED ME" STORY DOESN'T HOLD UP - 8.13.24

try to meddle in the election. Saturday. Your campaign computers got hacked, you say, by the Iranians, you say, and you hadn't reported it to the FBI, you say, even though it's by Iran, and part of the whole campaign scam from Trump Headquarters Trump is that Iran is the root of all evil, and you didn't report it to the FBI, and you didn't provide any evidence that it actually happened. A two hundred and seventy one page Trump privileged and confidential document gets sent to The Washington Post

from an AOL user named Robert. Do you call Homeland Security Trump? You do not? And then Politico says it's been getting documents, including a long vetting report on JV Vance from Robert since the twenty second of July. Called the DOJ. Then nope, you just announced it. We've been hacked by the Iranians. Iranians named Robert Monday, the FBI again anonymously, not even a spokesman's name attached to this, just like that. No, he was too hit by a

bullet announcement by the FBI. The FBI gives a clear and compelling picture of the vast team that has fanned out across our country, across the Internet, across the world to track down this evil quote. We can confirm the FBI is investigating this matter, said, is anything on the

back maybe on the statement. We can confirm the FBI is investigating, investigating who, investigating what, investigating whether they were really hacked, whether they were really hacked by Iranians, whether Trump just made it all up, whether the Trump campaign fell for some sort of fishing op at a porn site. Can you be a little more specific or just specific at all? No, No, all the doctors know he got shot by a bullet. Oh, none of them will be

quoted on the record. And we don't have any medical records or anything from the hospital. But trust us, we've never lied. But now, of course Trump says I was hacked by Iran and the FBI says it's investigating, like I'm investigating buying Warner Bros. Discovery for one hundred dollars cash.

Because Trump's campaign claims this, that means that you Washington Post and you Politico, you can't print any of it because it's all part of an internal attempt to interfere with the election by a foreign agent, and the American media can't participate in anything like that this time. Anyway, Oh bullshit, publish all of it. You have some proof Trump? I should ask the Trump campaign. Trump no longer knows where he is, let alone what's happening to his campaign?

You have some proof, Trump campaign, Let's see it, anything, any proof otherwise to not publish whatever. The Trumpists are so worried about that they've made up this story about how the Iranians are better at computers than they the Trumpists are. Any decision to not publish this is campaign interference. Yeah, the Iranians did it, and they sent it to the Post in Politico via AOL. But American journalism, let's let Trump set the rules here without evidence, because why would

people like Roger turn in the barrel? I love wiki leaks. Oh no, I've been hacked. Stone and Chris swift Boat, Junior las Sevita and Susie Wiles and Don the basket case. Trump and Stephen Chung try to manipulate the major media outlets again. Stephen Chung October seventeenth, twenty sixteen quote, must watch leaked emails from Wiki Leaks show what Hillary Clinton's staff and allies really think. And there's a link to YouTube. Washington Post, Politico America. You're getting played by the Trump

campaign like Toby Ziegler's two dollars banjo again. Besides which maybe the salient hole in the logic here that any part of this Trump story is true. You're Robert from Iran and you want to hurt Trump by hacking his computers and sending all his stuff to news organizations that so clearly oppose him. So you sent it to the Washington Post and Politico. Have you read the Washington Post in Politico lately? I mean, why not just send it

to the New York Times while you're at it. Dear Joe Kahan, this will really hurt Trump at Wait but why what? Because they're still mad Biden wouldn't drop out when they told him to. The lead story in politicos PM newsletter yesterday was eight gullible paragraphs about Trump returning to Twitter and doing this crap with Musk because they're not enough crazy white supremacists on Twitter x right now.

The lead story in Politico's morning newsletter had been about the lack of a comprehensive Kamala Harris policy book after twenty three days of her campaign. I mean the nerve of the woman. Not Trump's insane AI charges against the vice president and the unexpected damage he did to himself with that, or why that resonated the way it did, not the fact that he was only off on his Willie Brown's story by twenty eight years, three thousand miles, two cities and seven inches in height, not that his

polling is cratering. Politico's lead was Trump returning to Twitter x with tweets he clearly didn't write, Yeah, boy, I'm telling you, and that's who I'd call Politico. This is a well coordinated campaign to damage Trump. And oh, by the way, Trump's polling is cratering. The polls continue to be Kamala Palooza. The most startling of them have gotten the least attention. The New York Times buried this in one of its buried stories on the Buried Trump Buried crisis.

Buried it in paragraph forty fty internal polls from Ohio. Quote for those three of you still reading down here in paragraph forty way down here. We're down here the most important part of the story. We're down here.

It is only the start of week four of her campaign, and there is a Trump honeymoon there, given that Ohioans are still rejoicing because if he wins, he would take this weirdo Senator JV. Vance off their hands. But if Trump is in trouble in Ohio, find a spot on the golf course, because his twenty twenty four campaign is already dying. And that's just the start. She is now more trusted than Trump on the economy. All the less big name poles ask questions like this, but now we're

getting the marquee poles. This one about the economy is from the Financial Times. She's favored forty two to forty one in polling done by the University of Michigan School of Business, and the last time they asked anybody, Trump was favored over Biden on the economy forty one to

thirty five. She made up a seven point swing on the economy in three weeks on the economy, who He's going to be on Twitter today, Let's do a story about boot where Political CNBC did a poll with a group called Generation Lab surveying only voters under the age of thirty five. They believe she is a better choice on the economy, also by a point. The kiddos also believed he is their pick for the presidency by twelve points. She's forty six to thirty four ahead voters under the

age of thirty five. We saw Harris leapfrog Trump in the Rust Belt last week. Now we are seeing it in polling that did not close until Sunday. Bullfinch Group for a site supposedly servicing independent voters. Harris by four in Pennsylvania, by five in Michigan, by nine in Wisconsin. And the pollsters claim their respondents rate themselves on average independent with a marginal lean towards the right. This is after the New York Times Siena College poll that closed

last Friday. Michigan Harris fifty Trump forty six, Pennsylvania Harris fifty Trump forty six, Wisconsin Harris fifty Trump forty six. I'm beginning to sense a pattern. Insider advantage. A polling group that often works for the GOPN the Trump campaign also did a Michigan poll Harris forty nine Trump forty seven as of Thursday. A Republican polster. Another republican polster,

decipher AI, did its own poll. No Republican money involved in this one in Nevada, and if they try to sell it to Republicans, they're not going to get any of their money this time either. Harris forty nine point two Trump forty three point six. That's nearly six points. It is three times the lead in Nevada that was seen when she took over the nomination. You gov. North Carolina results are from polling ending Friday, Harris forty six Trump forty six, a tie in North Carolina among voters

under thirty. Della Volpe Polling for Won't pack Down. It has Biden trailing Trump as of a month ago by a point. It now has Harris, beating him by nine points, and it has her approval with voters under thirty, jumping sixteen points she got the nomination. Then there's the JD Vance poll blueprint, which bills itself as a Democratic polster, but centrist polled on good old JV on July twenty first and twenty second, the two days after Trump picked

the weirdo. His net favorability then was seven points underwater. But with exposure and the post convention honeymoon and Trump's seal of ungodly approval, Vance should have improved. Right. New numbers from last week, His net favorability has changed, as predicted here, from seven points underwater to eleven points underwater.

They polled on specific words and terms too young, smart, businessman, sank on the rise about JV Vance, anti woman, weird, and extreme extreme about JV Vance is up by thirteen points. The lead polster, a man named Evan roth Smith said up the Vance data to semaphore news quote, everything has gone exactly as bad as Democrats had hoped and Republicans

have feared. Is it loll or loll? Five point thirty eight average is now Harris forty six, Trump forty three point three, even the Real Clear Politics average of polls, which they spend an hour a day compiling and the other twenty three hours a day trying to figure out how to make the ras muscin Pole seem not only legit but ten times as important as anybody else's poll. Even the Real Clear Politics poll the RCP has Harris up by half a point. But just remember the rules.

The polls are rigged unless they favored Trump, just like you backed the Blue except on January sixth. And you should carry the rallies live unless they're Kamala Harris's rallies. And misspeaking is nothing to worry about unless it's by Joe Biden. And vagueness about military service should be covered endlessly unless it's Trump's draft dodging or Dvance's work in the killing fields of press release management in Iraq. And insults,

especially insults about furniture, are hilarious unless they're about JV. Vance. And most important to remember, hacked emails stolen emails are sacro sanct and cannot be published under any circumstances unless they're Hillary Clinton's. Perhaps it is kind of funny what has actually tripped up Trump here The crazy post not a charge, but an absolute statement of fact in which he assumed everybody agreed with him that the images of

Kamala Harris's airport crowd were ai. That really was some kind of tipping point for a lot of people who somehow or another now revealed they were holding out hope that Trump actually isn't or wasn't insane, that it was a marketing scheme or campaign strategy. People who believe that those of us who have been insisting he actually is insane were being hyperbolic for some reason. Oh, yeah, we know what you mean. You mean he's quote crazy unquote No,

I mean he's crazy. Norm Eisen Trump Impeachment Council, former Obama White House ethicist in residence. I never really thought about this before. There's one thing even more scary than the idea that Donald Trump was lying about winning in twenty twenty or about today's nutty claim. It's this that he really believes it. Really. Norm never thought of that before. Trump's mental health crisis must be urgently covered by the media.

it well. Christ It's like the Chopper story. Sure it was Willie Brown slamming Kamala Harris on a white knuckled chopper flight with Trump and San Francisco in twenty eighteen. No, no, no, not Willie Brown. Jerry Brown. No, no, not Jerry Brown. The other politician, Nate Holden from San Francisco. No, he's from Los Angeles. And the flight wasn't in California, it was in Jersey. And no, it wasn't twenty eighteen, it was nineteen ninety. And none of them had ever heard

of Kamala Harris In nineteen ninety. Oh, and Nate is like my height and Trump's height, and Willy is like five foot six inches tall. Other than that, just another gold standard take it to the bank, Trump's stable genius recollection. I mean, do these things have any thing in common? Probably not, except if there is the proverbial run on the honesty bank where suddenly everything Trump does flying in Epstein's plane over the weekend. Oh wait, Epstein's been dead

five years, five years last week. Epstein probably has nothing to do with that plane. Now, I'm just saying, but there's that story. There's the Kamala harris Ai story, the Nate Holden nineteen ninety story that became Willie Brown twenty eighteen. There becomes a moment where everything he does that nobody thought to make a big deal of that, Nobody actually thought, maybe this guy's just crazy. They're now all looking for things to make a big deal about, in which case, oops,

just say oops and get out. Let me quote Burt Lancaster as JJ Hunsecker in the Dark classic the Sweet Smell of success, Your dead son, get yourself buried. But not to worry. Trump hasn't crashed and burned. He's not out of control. He's not crashing in the polls. He's not responding to the disastrous consequences of his obsession with revenge by stepping on the pedal and being even more obsessed with revenge. He's not dead and get yourself buried.

And the media isn't suddenly looking for things to make big deals of. Oh no, he's winning. Don't you see that? Look at all those pole that said the Rasmus and Pole. Those are they? They made ESPN and then sold it for three dollars. They're the geniuses. Everybody else is wrong. You'll see it be like nineteen forty eight with Harry True. Oh he was a Democrat. Don't use nineteen forty eight. No, No, we're winning. Don't you see that? We're winning like the Nazis.

We're winning in nineteen forty five. At this point, Eric Erickson grew up so poor we could only afford the one name. The GOP has so devastated. Tim Walls. I wouldn't be surprised to see Josh Shapiro show up at the DNC as their vice presidential pick unquote, which is

such a wildly inaccurate and desperate thing to write. I wouldn't be surprised to see somebody else One of those patented QAnon body doubles show up at the DNC, claiming to be the actual Eric Erickson, as if anybody knows who the f Eric Erickson is or you know what the f he looks like? Oh he's winning. No, absolutely don't, don't. Don't listen to the polls. They're all, they're all, they're all.

They're all rigged. They're all rigged. Also of interest here with the Olympics, over what percentage of the public now thinks that if it started right now it could make the Olympic team? Would you believe The correct answer is about twenty five percent people think they could make the Olympic team. And the death of news is usually slow and incremental, and don't you know what you got till it's gone, except when it is sudden and traumatizing. The

best all news radio station in history is dead. That's next.

This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman. Postscripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions, and today the words postscripts and news are actually in linked and never more appropriately so, and never more sadly so, Dateline New York WCBS News Radio eight eighty formerly WCBS News Radio eighty eight, two week shy of its fifty seventh anniversary as the lynchpin in the CBS News brand, the nerve center of its operation, WCBS News Radio is

going off the air two weeks from yesterday, the home of Charles Osgood and Lou Adler and Jim Donnelly and Rita Sands and Ed Ingles and Rich Lamb and Arth Athens and Irene Cornell and more recently Wayne Cabot and Paul Murnaine and Tom Kaminski and thousands of others of the best radio news broadcasters at the best radio news operation in history. They are all going off the air. The other allnews radio station in New York WIS WINS

We'll stay on the air. The two started to share reporters and some anchors two years ago, which was the first sign of the apocalypse. There are many people who prefer the WINS style, which dates back to their days as bloodthirsty rivals Wions, using the Westinghouse bulletin style. WCBS the more thorough style. I have been listening to them both since about nineteen seventy and I have met in that time many of those people who have preferred wions. And when I say many, I mean I have met

two of them. This is what it's sounden like when WCBS signed on on August twenty eighth, nineteen sixty seven. From the beginning, the news happened there. Literally that morning, August twenty eighth, nineteen sixty seven, the morning of the launch of all News CBS Radio, a plane hit their tower. I swear.

August twenty eighth, nineteen sixty seven. WCBS was on the air for forty four years before it went all news will be replaced at eight eighty on the AM dial by ESPN Radio in New York. And I say this in the following context. When the news director at WCBS told me when I was twenty years old that I would make it in broadcasting, I began to believe that I would make it in broadcasting. I want to tell that story in full in a moment when I heard

my own work on WCBS later the same year. I confirmed my own existence when they had an opening for a sportscaster the next year at WCBS, and they hired somebody else instead. Although I was the runner up, I could barely get out of bed for the next week. When I began to work on the sister station of WCBS, the one in Los Angeles KNX News Radio, at age

twenty six, I grew about an inch taller. I sometimes would mention KNX before I mentioned the TV station of which I happened to be sports director and paid half a million dollars. And when ESPN bought a station in New York in two thousand and one, the first person they approached to be the primary host for that station was me. I had to sign a non disclosure agreement

just to talk about it with them. So I've had a lot invested over the years in WCBS and WIS and ESPN Radio, and WIS outliving WCBS and WCBS to be replaced by ESPN Radio. It's like the war of Coke versus Pepsi finally ending and the winner turning out to be RC Cola diet r c Cola. They're all gone now, or they will be WNW, the unstoppable owner of the big band market. Here WABC, the Beatles station WOOR, which ran live daily shows by Bob Elliott and Ray

Goulding and then one at night from Gene Shephard. They might as well have had Thurber working there and now WCBS. No, you don't need to all news radio stations in New York City. It didn't need them in La. I worked for both of them in KFU. B doesn't exist anymore either. You don't need them both, just like you don't need coke and pepsi, or you don't need AM and FM or rock and roll. Yeah, that was the WCBS sounder twice an hour, three times an hour. Those notes mean

news still ahead of us. On this edition of countdown as I just referenced a letter from the news director at WCBS. The late Lou Adler, sits framed on my wall, memorized the way my dad used to keep his first architectural license above his drafting table. The letter and the future it promised was one thing that I nearly got killed on the drive to Ithaca, New York to read that letter after my friend's father had taken the snow tires off his son's car because it was April, and

since when did it snow in April? That story is nearly as good. It's next in things I promised not to tell, along with the Lou Adler letter. First, there are still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worse persons in the world, Lebrons worse. Usef Dikeatz, the Turkish Olympic air pistol Olympic medalist.

You've seen him everybody else wearing these extraordinary form fitting outfits to shoot their little guns at the Olympics, some wearing sights on their fingers and having one eye forcibly closed. And this guy Yusef Dickhetz just sort of stood there and went keep the target still boom and want to metal. Well, it's all his fault. YouGov did a survey and it reports that twenty seven percent of British people now think that if they started to train today, they could make

the twenty twenty eight British Olympic team. Isn't that special? Twenty seven percent of everybody in the United Kingdom, including everybody who really can't get up to change channels to stop watching the Olympics now, they think they could make the team if they started doing it now. This is the fundamental problem with and the reason for the continuation of humanity. No, you're wrong. None of you have a

chance of making the team. And you're gonna try anyway, and one person will and that will be enough for another one hundred years of humanity. But listen to this. The ten meter air rifle, the shooting competition, fifteen percent of Britain's think they can make that team. Thirteen percent think they could make the archery team, ten percent believe they could make Olympic badminton, nine percent believe they could play Olympic table tennis, seven percent believe they could row

on the Olympic rowing team. Have you ever tried rowing? I mean competitive rowing? Have you ever tried to be a member of a crew, just to say the collegiate level. I went to one practice one day and went five o'clock in the morning. Are you out of your minds? Six percent believe they can make the one hundred meters sprint team. Yeah, what's your name? Usain Bolt McGillicuddy cycling. Six percent believe they could make a cycling road race

Olympic team one hundred stoke. Six percent believe they could make the Olympic swimming team. Six percent believe they could make the Olympic British trampoline team. Five percent believe they could make the shot put. Five percent believe they could win a spot on the British cycling team. In track cycling the sprints, they could go faster than everybody else. Five percent believe they could make the equestrian team. Five percent fencing five percent Olympic golf, Well, this is universal.

All golfers think they could make the Olympic team. Five percent believe they could make Olympic volleyball. Four percent believe they could make the British Olympic basketball team. Four percent believe they could make the British Olympic soccer team, which is far crazier than the ones who think they could make the basketball team. Four percent believe they could make the sailing team, the triathlon team, four percent believe they could make water polo, three percent believe they could make

rhythmic gymnastics or artistic gymnastics. Three percent believe they could make the diving team. So let's everybody go and stand by the pool. To fish these people out of the water, you have to be able to swim. I didn't know that. Three percent believe they could make the British Olympic rugby team, and three percent believe they could make the Olympic skateboarding team.

I am flashed back to a day in nineteen eighty four when I was at Channel five in LA and we were carrying the Olympics, and we got the spillover phone calls from viewers who didn't know what the hell they were watching because it was a Wednesday afternoon and the soap operas weren't on, and they wanted to know what they were seeing. And one guy called in and said, what is this sport you have on? And I looked up at the monitor and it was a soccer game.

The guy had never seen soccer before. This is very interesting. How do you try out for this team? Well you don't. Those are basically professionals. Oh no, I could do that. I can run up and down a field like that for sixty minutes. Sure, I could do it all day. Where are they playing this match? And I said, it's at the Rose Bowl and pass Adena, California. And the guy said, what part of Boston is that? Is it

on the tee? He was not making this up. But the one I don't understand is I understand that the United Kingdom has not had a lot of success in international football recently, but four percent of people in Great Britain believe they could make the soccer team that would represent the UK in the twenty twenty Olympics if they

started trying. Now. The key thing in all this is this includes all the people who will turn forty nine four years from now or thirty nine four years from now, and now fifteen percent because of this, one guy from Turkey think they can make the air rifle competition. Ald Stell, Ald Stell, you ever used a gun before. No, you're supposed to point the hole out towards the target. No kidden, no Kiddenovna. The runner up, the worser Chris las Savita

Trump simp. You will recall he was behind the swift boating of John Kerry during the two thousand and four campaign.

He tweeted or somebody else tweeted a criticism of the lies of the two thousand and four swift boat campaign, which was designed to prove that John Kerry, during his service in Vietnam, when he won his medals during everybody getting around him, around him getting killed, didn't deserve any of those medals, and therefore should be defeated for the presidency by George W. Stay at home, fly a plane in Texas Bush. Yes, Chris Losovita was the guy in

charge of that. Rick Losovita was a CBS sports producer, almost as big a jackass, but not quite. Chris Losovita is now on the course the Trump campaign, basically the co manager. He responded to this criticism by tweeting, swift boat veterans for truth were never disproven. Reply to that, yes, it was disproven. I was chief strategist for Bush Cheney two thousand and four, and this, the swift boat attack

was nearly all lies. That's from Matt Dowd. I believe Chris Losovita was hoisted or hoist on his own petard. Of course los Aveta was hoist on his own petard into his own hell. The trump Ists have already landed on him and Pat Semral's daughter Susie Susie Wiles as the reason Trump has already lost the election, even though it's November and we're just in August. Now he's been attacked, this Lasavita has by everybody from James Carville to Nick Fuentes.

You have to feel sorry for krit now you don't fham. Speaking of which, the winner a woman named Michelle Morrow. Why do we have to play this election like it will be decided by one point each in fifty different states because of the Michelle Morrows of this world. It's not just that Trump has to be beaten. His gang has to be metaphorically chased down like they were the Clantons. And this is Wyatt earp Day. Who is Michelle Morrow.

She is the Republican candidate to run the public schools in North Carolina, and she is one hundred percent fascist, kill everybody else nuts you think they're eight hundred pound candidate for governor who thinks his opponent needs killing is a bad guy. This is Michelle Morrow, as CNN found on Facebook, and she recorded this on the night of January sixth, twenty twenty one. Oh, Michelle, it's your turn to be crazy.

All okay, And let me tell you President Trump. President Trump has the military on his side because the military and many leaders in the military who love this nation and who love our constitution, and who have put their life on the line to protect the freedoms of people in the United States that they will never meet, they chose President Trump to be their candidate. So as long as he invokes the Insurrection Act, before the inauguration. Then he's going to be reinaugurated. He's going to be put.

we lock her up and she dies in prison. Two. Michelle, we lost that January sixth, but we're going to win the next one, in which the victims are your children. Morrow, Republican candidate to run public schools in North Carolina and today's worst person in the world. This is the story, and it is a long one of the Adler Letter and the hell through which I had to go just

to read it. The Adler Letter falling into my hands on the night of Sunday, April eight, nineteen seventy nine, was like the PostScript to a breathless, five hundred page novel that turns out to be a million times, more exciting, more interesting, and more important than any of those five hundred pages or the five hundred pages combined. We had

driven by that point around nine or ten hours. I do not believe I ever actually expected to die on the trip, but I was at least a dozen times absolutely convinced that George and I would wind up in the hospital. He and I were college seniors, gone home to see the defending two time world champion New York Yankees opened the nineteen seventy nine baseball season, and then back on the road for the four and a half hour trip from the parking garage at Yankee Stadium to

the rural wilds of Ithaca, New York. We had done this countless times, but I did not know, as I got out of my dad's car and later on into George's that this trip had two previously unimaginable components. First, at that hour, the Adler letter had already been sitting in my mailbox at my apartment at two hundred and seven Delaware Avenue at the New York for at least one day, maybe two, and I did not know the other thing, and only found it out as George told

me about it at the ball game. His father had yelled towards him as George backed out of the driveway that morning, George, there's rain in the forecast. Drive carefully, remember I took off your snow tires because it's spring now. The midpoint of the trip to my school, Cornell and his Ethaca College, more or less, was a McDonald's restaurant in Liberty, New York. And we stopped there and got

a late lunch or an early dinner. And I was sitting facing the window and George was sitting facing the ca outer And as we ate and mumbled, I said, George, you have a really bad case of dan drift or did it just start really snowing? George wheeled around to look out the window. Uh oh. We wrapped up our burgers and took them with us and literally ran to the car my father and his goddamn snow tire obsession.

George shouted. Within an hour on the outskirts of Binghamton, New York, three or four inches of snow had reduced speed to just above single digits and visibility to next to nothing. George was a meticulously good driver, didn't matter. We spun out a full three sixty loop the loop. We're going north. Oops, we're going west and oncoming traffic. Oops, we're going south into the cars behind us. Oops, we're going east into the ditch next to the highway. Oh boy,

we're going north again. I think we spun out six or seven times on the highway alone before we got to Binghamton. There was some sola scenes seeing other cars in both directions doing exactly the same thing, and concluding that George's father could not have had the time to remove all their snow tires too. We were not far north of Binghamton, still skidding, still spinning, George swearing NonStop.

When he interrupted himself long enough to ask me what time it was, I had to hold my watch up to the car window to get brief flashes of illumination from the highway lights. A little after seven, we skid it again. George swore loudly put the Ranger game on. I'd do it myself, but we skid it again. By now, I was getting kind of used to it. I turned the radio literally before George regained control of the steering. I found the Rangers station, the one in New York. Wnaw.

If you had told me that night that a little over a year later, I would be broadcasting on WNW. My first thought would have been, so we don't get killed tonight because George's father took off the snow tires. That's nice. Oh and I work there and I'm not a ghost. If you told me that night that the aper letter was waiting for me back in my snow covered mailbox in Ithaca, I might have pressed George to go faster, and they might never have even found our bodies.

The storm, as storms often did in those long gone days, somehow boosted the AM radio signal from New York, and though we were two hundred miles away from the transmitter, Marv Albert and the WAW Rangers broadcast was clear as a bell. The traction even seemed to get a little better, But we both knew the ordeal that lay ahead. The exit from the highway at Whitney Point. It amazed us, as it amazes the students there now, as it must have amazed the students who went there a century ago.

A century and a half ago. That Cornell University, which I attended at Ithaca College, which George attended, were both an hour's drive away from the nearest highway There was in fact, no access to at the New York by anything more than a two lane road. It was legendary on the Cornell campus that old Ezra Cornell, the barely literate railroad tie preservative tycoon of the nineteenth century, decided to give away nearly all of his fortune, which today

would have been at least a billion dollars. And he told a friend he was going to open a university where anyone can study anything. His friend reacted in horror, They will stampede the place. Ezra Cornell laughed, Wait, you see where I put it. Ezra Cornell's little geographical joke was still vividly alive one hundred and ten odd years later. The easiest of the roots to his university was the

one that took you from Ithaca to Whitney Point. Whitney Point the capital of the metroplex there Whitney Point, Lyle and Center Lyle, also known as the Calcutta of Broome County, where nearly three thousand people live atop each other in conditions so crowded that every person barely has his own

square mile. Once you got off at Whitney Point, you were at the mercies of route seventy nine, where if traffic were light or the driver's adroit you might make it back to it again in thirty minutes, but if you got stuck behind somebody, it could be an hour or two. Or if there was an April blizzard and George's father had taken off your snow tires, it could take you longer than it took Antarctic explorers to reach the South Pole, and you'd see more snow and ice

than they did. I believe George and I skidded making the left turn off the highway, but he managed to stay on the road. The radio signal was not quite as fortunate. Within minutes of leaving the highway, WNEW began to compete for space on George's car radio, with some audible noise that the radio could suddenly pick up from his turn signals, Make a right, and Marv Albert was being drowned out by allowed Ejan Vickers crossed click pop

plan and slashes click click click. Within minutes after the first spin out on Route seventy nine, mercifully with literally no other cars on the road, the woo woos arrived. We never figured out what they were, but they waxed and waned so slowly that at first I asked George why Ranger fans at Madison Square Garden were chanting woo woo during the game. George was too busy swearing to answer.

The snow was now horizontal, and as it danced towards us in George's headlights, it was hypnotic, and the Ranger broadcast now sounded like this vickers crossly woo woo, woooo pok plan slashes click click, click, click, click, damn it all to hell, wooooo, tigrandson holds in the same woo woo, son of a bench. The trip from Whitney Point had taken well over an hour, and we were not halfway

there yet when the inevitable happened. George kept a stay at he slow paced ten or fifteen miles an hour tops. He really was a great driver. He did not accelerate, he did not turn, yet all of a moment, his green nineteen seventy Dodge Dark decided to make an abrupt left at about a forty five degree angle. We were off the road in seconds and headed for an unscheduled visit to the front porch of a farmer's house that had to have been sent back at least two hundred

feet from the road here. Finally, the heavy snow worked to our advantage. It slowed us, then it stopped us just two or three feet before we would have plowed into this guy's house. However, since we were in Richford, New York, birthplace of John Rockefeller, by the way, or we were in Caroline or Caroline Center or Slaterville Springs, or wherever the hell we were, the homeowner emerged bearing

not a gun nor an attitude, but genuine concern. In fact, he heard the Ranger game on the radio and asked me the score, which is when I noticed, at the moment we had left the road, the woo woos had stopped and the waw signal was as good as it must have been in Madison Square Garden in New York. The farmer helped us push the car back onto Route seventy nine, and as we got in he went and said, uh, wear are you snow tires? George started to swear again.

I took over and explained about George's father, never been up here has he? George started the car back up and now drove even slower. Within a minute, the woo woos were back marv Alvert Imsel Messina. Woo Woo woo where the Rangers lead.

my apartment. I lingered at WVBR for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then hiked back. The Rangers had won their game from the station I had called George's apartment and he had made it back there, and I took my first deep breath since the McDonald's in Liberty. Then I reflected that it was only six hours until my next class,

and guess what I was going to cut. I stopped off the snow on my porch at two hundred and seven Delaware Avenue and I opened the door and I dumped my bag inside, and then I reached into the mailbox and I saw it immediately the return address Adler WCBS, CBS Radio, the Division of CBS, Inc. Fifty one West fifty two Street, New York, New York, one zero zero one to nine two nine seven five four three two one. Lou Adler was radio news in New York City in

April nineteen seventy nine. And this was April nineteen seventy nine. I could barely breathe the Adler letter. What was in the Adler letter? Which explains why five decades later, I know it by heart and can tell you exactly where it is at the moment. That's next. This is Countdown, resuming the number one story on the Countdown and the

several lifetimes contained. On Sunday, April eighth, nineteen seventy nine, I survived nine or ten eight hundred hour drive in a blizzard, right after my friend's dad had helpfully removed the snow tires from my friend's car. I had lived to resume my desperate bid to graduate college in two months and get a job somewhere in radio in three months, and against all odds, amid all the snow and mess.

There was a letter waiting for me at my apartment in silent snow inundated Ithaca, New York, A letter from Lou Adler, the news director of the leading all news station in the United States of America. Lou Adler had begun on WCBS the year I was born. In nineteen sixty seven, the station went all news, and it immediately became the best all news station in the country. Lou Adler co anchored the mornings, and eight years earlier he had become the station's news director. He was the best.

His co anchor, Jim Donnelly, was the best. His sportscaster at Engles was the best. His reporters were the best. His weatherman was the best. His traffic guys were the best. His jingles were the best. I listened daily in high school, and when I was home from college, I did not take literal notes on, only mental ones. My college graduation, if I made it, was seven weeks away. I had never worked on television in any form, but I had been on radio two or three thousand times by then,

and I thought I was pretty good at it. In the preceding months, I had flooded every radio station in every major market in the Northeast. With a demo tape and a resume, I figured I might as well start in my home of New York and not eliminate a potential job, no matter how long a long shot it might have been. If I wasn't good enough to work there, I concluded I should let the people who ran New York's radio stations decide that, since that's what they were

paid to do. To this point, they had decided that by not responding. I got a few nibbles from some of the smaller stations, but as April eighth turned to April ninth, I had no job prospects. Other friends were getting offers in Waterbury, Connecticut, and Laconia, New Hampshire, thought of which and nothing against either of those cities filled

me with terror. And now, after this ordeal by snow and without snow tires, after the wnw wooo's and Georgia's father's near fatal decision to remove those winter tires, here in my hand was a letter from the man who was, to my mind, the best radio newscaster I had ever heard. Obviously it would be a rejection, but even in that moment, even at my age twenty years two months and change. I was awe struck not only that Lou Adler had replied, but that he alone, of all I had written to,

he had been the one who replied. I believe I did not remove my parka before opening the envelope. I did put on one lamp in my apartment, and I read WCBS. CBS Radio, a division of CBS Inc. Fifty one West fifty two Street, New York, New York, one zero zero one nine two one two nine seventy five four three two one April third, nineteen seventy nine, mister Keith Olderman, two hundred seven Delaware Avenue, Etica, New York,

one four eight five. Oh, dear mister Olderman. This will reply to your letter of March twenty seventh, with which you included a tape of your sports work on WVBRFM. Sometimes it's hard to know what a man can do by listening to a brief tape. I stopped wait a man, which oh me, I'm just a kid. Sometimes it's hard to know what a man can do by listening to a brief tape. But I must tell you I was

excited by what I heard of yours. I think you have exceptional talent and poise considering your age and experience. You read well, and you write well, and you know how to use tape. If the short tape is truly representative of what you can do, and if your knowledge of sports is broad, and if you can perform under pressure well, then I feel you have an excellent future in this industry. By this point, my heart was beating so furiously I could hear it. I was this close

to hearing it make the woo woo sound. I think it might be a good idea for us to meet. Let me know when you can make it to New York. I have nothing here for you, and I know of nothing solid. But if I feel as strongly about your potential after we meet as I do now, a meeting certainly could do you no harm. Sincerely, Lewis c Adler, Director News, Operations and Programs LCA slash Peepe George, I screamed into the phone. Can we drive back to the city right now? He swore. I read George the letter.

He paused, No, we shouldn't go tonight. You're not going to see him tomorrow. Wait till you get your appointment. But Jesus. This is like the manager of the Yankees asking you to stop by the stadium and bring your glove and bat, just in case I think I got to sleep at sunrise. I had read the Adler letter twenty or thirty times, and not until the fifteenth or so did I stop expecting it to have turned back into some courteous form letter rejection. Badly xeroxyton slightly offsetter.

Slowly it dawned on me that my own assessment of my radio skills were not predicated on ego or even the context of what else I could hear in Ithaca, which was then the three hundred and fifty first largest radio market in the country. Good but still three hundred

and fifty first. I cannot now describe the sense of validation, except to say that I have seriously considered not taking Lou Adler up on his offer to meet him at CBS World Headquarters, black Rock itself, where Bill Paley would be working upstairs, because short of offering me a job, there really was no chance mister Adler could do or say anything more that could make me feel better or more confident that my dream of becoming a sportscaster would

not lead me to starvation or to Laconia, New Hampshire. In fact, in person, Lou Adler found more things to say. If I had an opening for a sportscaster right now, I would seriously consider you for it. I would hesitate because of your age and your lack of practical experience, and then I'd probably do it anyway. He was as warm and supportive and informal as his letter had been, structured and serious and tempered. Let me take you on a tour. We saw the live studios, the production studios,

the writer's area. I wasn't just speechless again, I was breathless. And you should probably recognize this man by voice, if not by sight. Keith Olderman. Meet our sports director. Ed Engles, ed, this is Keith. This is the fellow with the tape. Ed Engles took a moment that his eyes widened. Hi, what a tape, Jesus, Lou, don't tell me you've hired him? Did you fire me? I must, ad meant. I thought for a second it might have happened. I did not

shrink entirely from that fantasy. Lou Adler laughed, No, Eddie. Then he paused, it was irresistible, not yet we went back to Lou Adweer's office. Have you got any job prospects? I explained that a month earlier, thanks to a chain of recommendations that stretched from my internship at Channel five Television the year before through a young ABC sports executive named Bob Eiger. I think it was to a friend

of a friend of a friend of a friend. I had met everybody at the radio network of United Press International, and I was supposed to go back and see them about working their freelance as summer vacation relief for the year ahead in sports and in news. Oh, that would be ideal for you, Lou Adwer said. It's a tough place to work. They don't pay well at UPI, but it's here in the city, and every other radio station in this country will hear you on the feed. That's

where we hired ed from ed Ingles. So if we have an opening, he smiled broadly, can poach you and get you here in less than two weeks? Can I? Mister Adler then suggested that CBS station in Atlanta would be needing a sportscaster in a few months. I'll stay on top of that. They already have a copy of your tape. I hope you don't mind. I made several copies of your tape. If UPI does not work out, I am confident you will be offered a job in Atlanta, and maybe quite a few other jobs. I hope I've

been of some help. Stay in touch. It's one of the privileges of this job to be able to help. But frankly, you're not going to need that much help. I may have taken the train back to my folks house, or I may have just walked the twenty miles or floated. The UPI job worked out full time. Two months later, at the first game I covered for money, I walked into the press box at Shay Stadium and there was

ed ingles. Thank god you went to UPI. The way Adler went on about you, I seriously wondered if he was planning to bring you in and kick me out. The Atlanta offer Lou Adler arranged came I turned it down. About a year later, I got a call from Adler's assistant saying they were going to need a new afternoon sportscaster at WCBS and would I send a new tape.

But by that fall, when the job opened, Lou Adler was leaving WCBS to become news director and vice president of another New York radio station, wor his successor would choose somebody else for the job. Just as I heard from the people who ran the radio network that the WR folks had started the year before, it was not coincidental Lou Adler had sent these people starting this new network my tape there is inevitably from the distant future

a punchline. In two thousand and six or two thousand and seven, when Countdown had become the highest rated cable news program that wasn't on Fox, an email appeared in my inbox. I could not believe the name of the sender, Lou Adler. He began just as formally as he had had in nineteen seventy nine. He actually felt it was necessary to remind me about his letter. He said he watched every night, and when he found other viewers of the program, he told them the story. Proudly, he said.

He asked if I remembered. I wrote back, immediately, remembered remembered. I told him I still had his letter, and I still had the sense of confidence it had given me that it was central to my decision to more or less give up my sports career at the age of thirty eight and try news. And I told him the whole driving back to Ithaca and the snow tire story,

just for fun. Lou wrote back again within minutes. He had just retired after running the mass communications program at Quinnipiac College, and he said he had had a strong sense of his career having been the proverbial punch into a pail of water. Now it was my turn to reassure him that the people like me who he had supported and taught and broadcast to had long since begun to support and teach the next generation, and that generation

was already supporting the one after that. And there would be people in this business beginning their careers after both of us were dead who would owe a debt of gratitude, whether or not they knew it to Lou Adler, as I always will. Lou Adler died five years ago at the age of eighty eight. There are letters and photos in the hallway that leads in from the front door

of my home. They are from Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden, and Lou Adler, and now WCBS will be off the air in thirteen days, might as well shut off CBS News. Well, from my point of view, this does seventy five percent of that. Anyway, I've done all the damage I can do here, not as much as Odissy has. Thank you for listening. Please share this pod with somebody who doesn't listen. Maybe we can pick up all the CBS listeners. We're up to a total

audience of a million of a week. Let's go. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil the musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handling orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray on guitars, bass and drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and fifty musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,

Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Alderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.

My announcer today was speaking of music, my friend Stevie van zandt everything else was pretty much my fault, although I tend on occasions like this to blame it all on lou That's countdown for this the eighty fifth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one three hundred and fourteenth day since convicted felon dementia j Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the

mental health system. You've got it. President Biden used presidential immunity to stop him from doing it again while we still can. And anti Semitic, anti immigration MAGA Republicans, please stop shooting at Trump. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news requires until the next one. I'm Keith Oldruman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.