TRUMP'S NEW THREAT: "THE BULLETS ARE FLYING AND IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE!" - 9.17.24

The man who voted for Trump in twenty sixteen and wanted to shoot or shoot at him in twenty twenty four did not make even the slightest attempt to resist a rest. Trump knows he was never in real danger. In fact, he was genuinely put out that they would not let him finish the round of golf he was cheating through, when the would be almost sort of kind

of assassination attempt didn't actually take place. Trump's knowledge of this only underscores that his statement yesterday is yet another stochastic demand for violence to be directed against Vice President Harris and other Democrats and anybody who doesn't like Trump, and that the only brush with reality within that statement is his demand that terrorists be deported from this country, and Trump is the leading domestic terrorist in this nation,

and we should start with him. We have known for weeks, we have known for months that even Trump has perceived that his chances of victory via the ballot are decreasing daily, and that violence and subversion are his only ways to

regain power and avoid dying in prison. And so this all becomes another excuse for Trump to threaten this nation and to exploit Sunday's events, events at a property he owns and apparently provides next to no private security for to treat this with sweeping statements to the nation's press, which the nation's press is letting him get away with out of fear of being accused of covering up something that, if it happened five hundred yards from Joe Biden while

Joe Biden was at the White House, would have gotten sober and serious coverage that would have by now faded from the front pages because there was no real danger. Trump unsurprisingly made as much danger up as he could and dragged in Kamala Harris and immigration and the prosecutions of him for his espionage and insurrection and other criminality. Quote he believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it. Trump first told Fox about the

non shooter. They do it with a combination of rhetoric and lawsuits. They wrap me up in. These are the thing that dangerous fools like the shooter listened to. That is the rhetoric they listen to. And the same with the first one. The first one, of course, the maga gun nut who actually shot at Trump. Then Trump posted quote the rhetoric lies, as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC debate. As an aside, I thought he won

the ABC debate? Is he saying otherwise? Quoting again, and all of the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage on Joe's than Kamala's political opponent, me has taken politics in our country to a whole new level of hatred, abuse, and distrust because of this communist left rhetoric. The bullets are flying and it will only get worse. Un quote. Trump's threat then takes a curious left turn, which explains

what his next political strategy is. Steal your elf for this quote, Allowing millions of people from places unknown to invade and take over our country is an unpardonable sin. Trump continued on the theme of deportation, and that segued into a later statement in which it became clearer what he is trying to do now. He is trying to transfer the threat of the political violence he invoked into some kind of threat against minority voters. The Poles, of course,

say he is hemorrhaging minority voters. Quote illegal migrants who are pouring into our country in record numbers, are taking the jobs away from black and Hispanic people who have held them for years unquote the black jobs line again,

but now added to it the threat to Trump. So, in what he would call weaving and what the rest of us would call cynical and irrational exploitation, the environment of political violence which Trump has been fomenting for a decade, suddenly becomes an excuse for more prejudice and more suspicion, and more violence directed at democratic leadership and at the migrants already here, whom Trump has previously threatened to expel,

even the ones here legally. And suddenly we are back in Springfield, Ohio, and Trump's gangs and militias and the new excuse they have for their racism. Trump is now saying that the migrants there being persecuted, being threatened, living in a city turned upside down by the lies he and JD. Vance and other Republicans have spread, they are,

in fact some kind of threat to him. The migrants in Ohio are somehow connected to the attempts to shoot at Trump, also connected to those threats defending the migrants prosecuting Trump, the debate he lost last week. It is one giant, delusional, paranoid demand by Trump to America to let him do whatever he wants to, And at its heart are those ten terrifying words. The bullets are flying, and it will only get worse. Only getting worse, of course,

is exactly what Trump wants. If, like me, you are of a certain age, perhaps the similarity has already occurred to you between this madman and the mad man President played by Martin Sheen in the Stephen King film The Dead Zone. Trump, the bullets are flying. It will only get worse, Martin Sheen, the missiles are flying. Hallelujah, hallelujah, it gets worse. Trump and his running mate are now, in fact playing a variant of good Cop Bad Cop, called bad Cop Other bad Cop, leaving it for JD.

Vance to try to exploit this still further and sew more death threats against the media for not selling the narrative Trump wants. Vance complains about one newscast, in particular, something on PBS he saw quote after spending thirty seconds on the second assassination attempt on President Trump, they then focused on the real danger me and President and Trump, who are, according to them, personally responsible for bomb threats

against Springfield. Of course, I repeatedly condemned those threats. Donald Trump and I are by their account, directly responsible for bomb threats from foreign countries. Why because we had the audacity to repeat what residents told us about the problems in their town. Meanwhile, Harris Allies call for Trump to be eliminated as the media publishes arguments that he deserved to be shot. If you think Vance is hallucinating and is way out on a limb here, he has in

fact only started to move out onto that limb. Quoting again, it is one thing to say that pets are not in fact being eaten, and another thing to say that anyone who disagrees is trying to murder people. Dissent, even vigorous descent, is a great tradition of the United States, censorship is not unquote. Now we are approaching Vance's endpoint here. You have to let him make up stories about pets

being eaten, otherwise you're not a real American. You have to let him paint a giant bullseye on a town in a state he putatively represents in the Senate of the United States, because the only other option is to support censorship, and JV says censorship means wait for it, quote, the logic of censorship leads directly to one place. For there is only one way to permanently silence a human being,

put a bullet in his brain unquote. So according to JV. Vance, this election is now a clear choice between letting him and Trump smear and slander and lie and endanger the lives of and about anyone and anything they want, or supporting bullets in the brain. And remember this insanity, this cold bloodless, laser focused stupidity of JD. Vance has actually overtaken the day to day lives of the people of Springfield, Ohio.

This is from the local newsroom. There of Spectrum News quote facilities in Springfield, Ohio that have either been placed on lockdown evacuated, closed, or searched at some point over the last week due to threats. It coincides with Vance and Trump, amplifying what local and state officials say are baseless claims about Haitian migrants eating people's pets and local geese in the community. Here's the list. One Springfield City Hall,

two Springfield's Bureau of Motor Vehicles, three, Springfield's Drivers Exam Station. Four, Springfield's Local Ohio Licensed Bureau, five Springview Government Center. Six Clark County Department of Job and Family Service This is seven Clark County Common Please Court, eight Clark County Board

of Elections, nine Clark County Juvenile Court. Ten A. B. Graham Building, eleven Springfield Academy of Excellence, twelve, Fulton Elementary School, thirteen, Parren Woods Elementary School fourteen, snow Hill Elementary School fifteen, Roosevelt Middle School sixteen, Kettering Health Springfield seventeen, Mercy Health Springfield Regional Medical Center eighteen, Wittenberg University nineteen, Clark State College, twenty,

Simon Kenton Elementary School, twenty one Kenwood Elementary School. And he adds Springfield's annual culture Fest has been canceled over security concerns and note next on the Trumpian schedule is Aurora, Colorado, where even before last week's debate, Trump was claiming immigrant gangs were quote taking over buildings, They're going in violently. It was of Aurora that he had said earlier, and

getting them out will be a bloody story. The New York Times yesterday quoted what has actually happened in Aurora. As far back as May twenty twenty three, Aurora officials have been trying to force an out of state landlord to fix up three blighted apartment complexes in the downtrodden East Colfax Corridor, which connects the cities of Denver and Aurora.

In July twenty twenty four, the landlord, CBZ Management, which says it is based in Colorado and Brooklyn, offered a new argument for Wyatt couldn't repair the buildings Venezuelan gangs had taken over and the property managers had been forced

to flee. On August fifth, a public relations agent, Sarah Latman, hired by CBZ, pitched a quote tip to the local Fox television network affiliate in Denver, quote an apartment building and its owners in Aurora, Colorado, have become the most recent victims of the Venezuelan gang trand de Arraguas violence, which has taken over several communities in the Denver area. None of this is true. No part of Colorado is

under the control of anybody but bad landlords. And there is criminality in Aurora, Colorado, and it is not gangs. It is a bunch of landlords and their pr person, Sarah Latman. And then there's the Leon theory Elon Musk to you, Leon to Trump, and the greatest rationalization of them all, it's the When I say it, everybody knows I'm joking. When you say it, it's the deep state

trying to murder our president. Sometime early Sunday evening, somebody called dodge Dog Designer, one of these crypto idiots, tweeted why they want to kill Donald Trump. Elon, of course, then retweeted this, adding, and no one is even trying to assassinate Biden slash Kamala with an emoji. It's his site and he can put out what he wants. But frankly, that is the kind of thing that if you wrote it in public, the Secret Service would be asking for

an appointment to see you. Within twenty four hours, and they should be asking to see what Elon Musk meant by this, since he is running a super pack for Trump, and he has expressed violence before, and he is a known drug user, and most importantly, he has government contracts and security clearances, none of which should continue beyond this. In point of fact, he should have been imprisoned by

Monday morning, but he wasn't. Musk deleted this tweet sometime early Monday without making any comment nor an explanation other than something about how he should know by now that if he says something and against a bunch of laughs in the room, that won't necessarily translate to this lousy

website which he owns and has made lousy. There was something that obscured or was obscured by Elon Musk that was even worse and more directly addresses this issue of when I say it, it's political commentary, When you say it, it's a threat against Trump, and you should be shot, arrested, jailed, castrated, whatever it is they feel like doing that day, or have your town turned into the focal point of every idiot and every racist and every backdoor bomber in the world.

This is from the Libertarian part of New Hampshire. At least it's their account they claim to be the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. Libertarian is just another word for trumpest of course, somebody wrote I disagree with the assault weapons band, but maybe save the threatening rhetoric a and they retweeted that with this message quote anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero at LPNH Libertarian

Party of New Hampshire. If they're not the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, they probably should have denied the existence of this and gotten the blue check mark removed from the account using that name. Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero. Well, I'm sure they just meant that as a metaphor it well, pray maybe not. Later on that tweet vanished. We deleted a tweet read a subsequent tweet because we don't want to break the

terms of this website we agreed to. It's a shame that, even on a free speech website, that libertarians cannot speak freely. Libertarians are truly the most oppressed minority. Yes, when you advocate in a stochastic manner, the murder of the Vice President of the United States, that is somehow a violation of your rights. What's the distance between what Elon Musk wrote and what this Libertarian Party of New Hampshire wrote.

And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden Kamala Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero. My argument would be these are adjacent and somebody from the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire who's responsible for their social media should be in jail next to Elon Musk. Musk minimally needs to have his security clearance revoked. It would be nice if we could get him out of

this country. I don't think we can do that. Apparently we have people in space who need his cyber truck or something to get home because we went to use a Boeing Craft to get them home, and the Boeing craft apparently cannot get out of the hangar. There's more than this, of course, it's not just the tech pros and the Libertarians who are doing this. Scott Perry, who I believe has his phone back finally after January sixth, then whatever his role was in the attempted coup said

yesterday that nobody is trying to assassinate Joe Biden. They can't get to his bedroom to find him sleeping. But President Trump is out there and they're actively trying to assassinate him. The Secret Service needs to take actions that are concurrent with the risk on the ground. Scott Perry,

Congressman of Pennsylvania. In other words, he's saying, takes security from Joe Biden and assign it to Donald Trump so he can golf whenever he wants to and not have the risk of having somebody from four hundred feet away

try to shoot him from a public street. Representative Laurel Lee of Florida basically insisted that Democrats must stop campaigning on all the bad things Trump does and says and threatens, because when the truth like that is revealed, it makes people mad might try to take a shot at Trump. One might suggest Representative Lee that perhaps it is mister Trump who should not be saying these things, mister Trump who should not have been invoking the question of violence

and politically violent activity and rhetoric. But of course that ship sailed literally in a previous decade, and the average congress person representing the Republican Party is a flaming idiot like Laurel Lee. And of course, again I'll circle back to the Trump quote himself. Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at. In short, the one through line in all of this, from Elon Musk to the Libertarians, to Scott Perry to Laurel Lee is I never thought

the leopard would eat my face. See, I'm gonna let you in on two secrets, one of which you already know and the other which you probably don't. About political violence. Number one, we have talked about the peaceful transfer of power in this country as if it were built into the Constitute, and it had been observed for every one of our presidential transfers since the first of them, and obviously it has not. The Civil War is a strong argument against the idea that we have had peaceful transfers

of power. The name Kennedy would be the same thing. In any event, You cannot open Pandora's box as Trump has and then pick the bock up, shaken it, and let its contents spill out everywhere, and direct the evils contained within the mythological Pandora's box. Direct those evils to leave you alone. Once you open the box, it can go anywhere. I have no desire to see politicians killed. I have no desire to see anyone killed, and particularly have no desire for any gun violence in this country.

But guess what happens. Leopards box, open box, leopards everywhere. Leopards eat faces. Trump has a face under all the makeup. Now the secret that you probably are not aware of. You cannot ultimately stop political violence. You can try, you can minimize it. We have done an excellent job, in fact, certainly since well let's see how many times was the Clinton White House shot at? How many times the threats against Obama and Bush and Biden and Trump? And well, okay,

we haven't done that good a job of it. But on the other hand, we haven't had one killed since nineteen sixty three, sixty one years without a fatality. But you cannot stop it ultimately. As has been said many times, if a madman wants to surrender their own life in the attempt to take that of a politicians, it will probably happen, not always, and there are ways to minimize that too. But I had a harrowing experience with this, and I've been dealing with violence or the threat of

it now for literally twenty six years. My first experience with it dates back to nineteen ninety eight. Minor threats, letters, anonymous letters, warnings, threats, et cetera, none of which was ever dealt with very seriously because it wasn't that kind of threat. And you cannot live your life that way. You cannot live your life inside a bubble. If you cannot run the risk, get out of the risk area.

But I've dealt with this as recently as twenty nineteen, and I've had the simple ones, idiots in public telling me to kill myself, and people leaving threatening notes and sending notes to old addresses. But in twenty nineteen, I got one of those serious ones where the FBI called me up and said, you're in Saysar Saox computer. We've

finally done unloading everything in Saysar Sayox computer. And you apparently were in his second wave Sezar Sayak, the magabomber, the guy with the drawn on hair and the van in which every inch of the outside of this van was covered in a trump sticker or something like it, who sent pipe bombs to a dozen Democrats and legislators and all kinds of liberals. Well, if he had not gotten caught and been sent to prison, I was on

the second list. But principally, and this is back to the point of the secret you probably are not aware of, there was two thousand and six. I've told many times the story of the guy who lived in his mother's basement in southern California who kept sending me threatening letters filled with fake anthrax. And obviously it was fake anthrax. The experts who deal with real anthrax in the mail, the one we know of, apparently killed himself because he

didn't do it right. It's not an easy fix. It's not a self addressed, stamped envelope full of anthras, so it probably was not anthrax. But I could not make that decision on behalf of everybody else who lived in my apartment building, especially the surprisingly large number of ninety

five year old women who lived in that building. So I got the authorities involved, and by the time of the fourth letter, I knew them all by their first names, and I used to make them call me up with updates, and I would call them with updates, And then came finally a letter to my office at MSNBC, and the giveaway was the return address was J Leno, NBC Burbank, California, J period Leno. Well, that's not how Jay Leno writes his name. Why would you abbreviate your name Jay as

a J period. If your name is J, it's J. Also, there was postage on this. I knew Jay Leno for nearly the whole run of his career at NBC on the Tonight Show, and I know very well that Jay Leno would never spend a dollar twenty five to send me a letter, not when he could put it in an interoffice pouch and save himself a dollar twenty five in anyay event. When I saw this, I knew immediately that it probably was from my correspondent in southern California

sending me the fake anthrax. And so I called one of the agents at the FBI. I went, hey, I got another one, but it's here in secaucas Oh, okay, we'll be right over. What do I do here? We had never gotten one here before? Well, tell whoever is in charge of the plant of the building. And if the small chance that it's actually anthrax, NBC irradiates all the mail. Remember from getting the antrax two thousand and one it's only five years ago. They're still irradiating all

the mail. There's no danger. Well, of course I called the guy who was running secaucus for NBC News for MSNBC, and when I told him what had happened, he went into a screaming panic. His solution to this was to insist that I stay in my office, in my little cubicle and not leave. And I said, well, what's the danger here? You you irradiated all of this. The mail's taken to separate facility, and everything is checked, and there's

no threat whatsoever. I just wanted you to know that this was here, and the FBI guys are coming over, so nobody should be surprised. There's no threat to this. He looked like, I don't know quite how to describe it. He looked like he had just eaten some anthras. Is the only way I can possibly describe it to you. Sure Enough, guess what I found out that day. They did not irradiate every letter in coming to MSNBC or for that matter, NBC News. They simply said that, thinking

that that would discourage people from sending actual anthrax. Thinking while I went to all this trouble of mailing anthrax and not killing myself, And here it is going to be of no damaging value to me. By the time it gets there, it will have spoiled or NBC will

have spoiled it through its irradiation machines. I don't know how universal this is, but I don't even know if there are irradiation machines that could neutralize anthrax or any other biological weapon, let alone something like a pipe bomb. But the look on the guy who was running the Secaucus plan for NBC told me all I needed to know.

The problem with political violence is not just that it is a tool to change history, not that it risks the lives of the people who are the potential victims, both the targets and the ones who are stochastically urged to take political violence into their own hands, as Trump has been doing NonStop since twenty fifteen. It's not just that. On a bigger level, it is what I mentioned before, the Pandora's box effect. You never know what the next step is going to be or what will happen. The

unintended consequences rule comes into play immediately. There was, in fact, nothing to protect any of us at NBC News except the illusion. I don't know to what degree this is true of the Secret Service. I think we found out around January sixth. Then in my commentaries of twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three, you may recall I urge President Biden to fire the Secret Service and start all over again, because they were not doing a very good job of protecting him. This might be the only thing

we all agree on. The Secret Service has not been doing its job, perhaps for several different presidencies. But this rages the larger question exactly what can they do? If you own the golf course, and the golf course is out there in public in Florida, how much of it can you protect? How much of it can you ring with agents? How many agents would you need thirty thousand to completely cover a place like a golf course. And

here's the end part of this story. Hopefully the laugh you can take with you, A dark and bitter laugh, I assure you, but it is a laugh. The response in two thousand and six, when the letter which did not actually contain fake anthrax, but did contain the means by which we finally identified this guy and he wound up going to prison as a result, the envelope itself with a barcode on it. That envelope produced this response

from MSNBC to protect all of us. The guy told me to stay in my office and close the door and he would be right back with a protective device. Within ninety seconds, he was back outside my clear sea through door and there was his protective device, bright orange, extra large traffic cone. We all felt safe after that.

Also of interest, here the good news. Democratic presidential nomine Kamala Harris, according to USA Today, narrowly leads Trump in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania and in two of

the state's key bell Weather counties. According to a trio of exclusive USA Today Suffolk University polls taken after the debate, the bounce is here and strong Harris leads Trump the Republican nominee forty nine forty six, five hundred likely Pennsylvania voters say that is, however, within the margin of era four point four forty ninety six, and thank goodness, built into the stupidity of the Trump cult, there's always comic relief.

One of Trump's guys thinks Trump was threatened with a riffle. There is clear evidence Trump is suffering from some kind of thumb irrectile dysfunction, and Trump may have just lost his most valuable endorsement, that life of the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs football team. Worst Person's next this Discountdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman stell ahead of us on this Editiontive Countdown, mixing up the format a little bit. Today, I'm going to tell the sad story of the financial

and esthetic suicide of Major League Baseball. The postseason will feature advertisements five inches wide each on the sides of every batting helmet, on every player in every game. Now, they're is a good news here. There is a silver lining, and that is that baseball's postseason ratings have collapsed so much almost nobody will see these I sores coming up in sports. First, there are still more new idiots to

talk about. The daily roundup of the misgrints, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world. The Bronze Worse Brilind Holly Hand. That's the name. I don't make them up. Pally Brilin Holly Hand, chairman of a youth group for Trump. I'm not your embryos for Trump, Brilin writes, camping outside the president's golf course without being detected until the gun barrel aims at the president. That's not true, another failure by the Secret Service.

Swift action once detected. But he never should have been allowed to camp by the fence with a riffle. Lots of questions, writes Brilin. Hollyhand. Yeah, I got a question. This kid is eighteen years old. Certainly, even being a Trump supporter, certainly he should know by now the difference between rifle, you know, a gun usually used to shoot school kids with, and riffle, which is a verb meaning

to leave through pages. Then again, if his parents, mister and Missus Holly Hand really named him Brilin b r I l y N, what chance did he ever have? The Runner is Up worser speaker Mike Johnson and Trump. Johnson visited Trump, still shaken and disturbed by not being allowed to finish his golf game Sunday. They took the thumbs up picture. Johnson's thumb is fully erect vertically pointed up as ordered by godd This Johnson works, but something

is clearly wrong with Trump's thumb. Trump's thumb is horizontal in the picture. It's pointing towards the camera. Trump just can't get it up. His thumb is thumb. He can't get up his thumb. What were you thinking? But our winner the worst Trump himself. He has cost himself a surprisingly useful endorsement. Taylor Swift, of course, endorsed Vice President Harris after the debate. Among other things, Miss Swift is the girlfriend of Travis Kelcey of the Kansas City Chiefs.

I believe she has a day job as well. But Trump had been endorsed by the wife of the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, Pat Mahomes. Then Trump decided he had to tell the world on Sunday quote I hate Taylor Swift from the British tabloids. Quote that prompted Britney Mahomes to quote question if she will continue to endorse Trump's campaign. She is questioning her support for Donald Trump after he lashed out at Taylor saying he hates her.

A source exclusively revealed to dillymail dot com. This deeply bothered Brittany because Taylor is like a sister to her and she has done absolutely nothing wrong. Quote. She didn't mention Trump in her post and is allowed to speak her mind. The source added, the Trump's decision to react in such a hateful manner upset Brittany quote. She does not believe in hate in any form and loves Taylor so much. The insider continued, this shook her to the core.

Trump Yeah, saying he hated her friend shook Missus Mahomes to her core. All the racism, sexism, criminality, the attempt to overthrow the government, the new attempt to overthrow the government, and by the way, all the hate in every form that he's already expressed. All that was dandy with her, all right, missus Mahomes. We take all people who see the light. All right, fine, and you just you redeem yourself easily, just withdraw your endorsement in public. Of course,

prepare yourself if you do that. Trump will then issue a fatoa against you, like he does everybody else who thwarts him. Donald domestic j terrorist, two days, worst Pyson in the world.

insightful days. However, there is a concombinant theory that relates to Major League Baseball. Rob Manfred, who I did not know, but was a contemporary of mine at Corneill University in the year nineteen seventy eight seventy nine. And if you told anybody on campus there is one guy here who will wind up being Commissioner of Baseball, they all would have pointed at me. Rob Manfred is working for somebody who is trying to destroy baseball. There is no other

possible explanation. I'll just read part of this press release. Major League Baseball has announced a multi year partnership with a German workware company called Strauss. The deal, we'll see the Strauss logo added to both sides of all twelve team batting helmets during every Baseball postseason and World Series game starting this year next month through the end of

the season of twenty twenty seven. It will also apply to all baseball regular season games held in Europe, as well as all minor league baseball games regular and postseason from twenty twenty five forward. The strous logo will appear in two different color ways, depending on the helmet on which it's being worn. For teams with red helmets, the decal will feature a transparent version of Strauss's Ostridge logo placed inside a white box. Helmets of any other color,

we'll have the ostrichen white inside a red box. Both feature the company named to the right of the ostrichen white letters five inch wide on both sides of every batting helmet in every baseball Playoff and World Series game, in addition to the ads on the uniforms. In addition to the patches that say World Series, they'll all look like racing car drivers or like a little league team five inches wide advertising a company selling a product. Nobody

buys Strauss German Workwear. They were the high bidder. I assume Strauss German Workware, so Commissioner Manfred is working for the Bundesliga. The German soccer outfit is that it because there aren't that many things left for rob manfre to do to destroy baseball's postseason and World Series. I have not gone to a Major League Baseball game in this

season of twenty twenty four. I believe there were two years in the nineties where, mostly because of logistics, I was out in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut, I couldn't easily get to one, and I didn't. I know at least one year I did not go at all. This year, I have not gone, even though the subway that goes to the Mets home stadium literally runs under

my house. It just has not been worth it. I miss my friends, I'd go to see them, but the games I know I'm watching have no relevance to the postseason. The teams that do well immediately get eliminated, or if they don't get eliminated and go on to play in the World Series, they'll meet a team so much better than they are that they'll be like the Phillies from

a couple of years ago. Leading the series two games to one, then they got no hit and never led again in the entirety of the series and got blown out. It was an embarrassment. I felt sorry for the players. I'm sixty five years old. There are no athletes I should feel sorry for. Baseball has destroyed itself and now it's going to stick a big ad on the side.

The big words Strauss and an Ostriche if there's anything more appropriate to describe the commissionership of Robert Manfred, who transferred from some local school into Cornell University in nineteen seventy eight, it's an Ostridge. In June of this year, the infielder Justin Turner, now of the Mariners and generally one of the most thoughtful of all baseball players in the last two decades, had one of the worst ideas of all time. This is how bad things are getting.

Appearing on a streaming show called Foul Territory, Turner was asked what he would do if they let him be commissioner for a day. Please God, let's try it anyway. He suggested expanding from thirty to thirty two different teams, completely eliminating the current format of American League and National League, and rearranging things so that the World Series is always East versus West, with a big Strauss logo on it

at an ostrich. The television audience for the World Series reached its peak in nineteen seventy eight, coincidentally, the year Manfred and I were both at Cornell. Forty four million viewers on average watched the World Series games the six games between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees. Last year, the average was I believe eight million viewers per game nine. So the audience is about one tenth

one ninth what it was in nineteen seventy eight. Even though the population is one third greater than it was in nineteen seventy eight, the net loss here is spectacular. It's more than ninety percent against the growth of the country. Why did the World Series die? There are a thousand reasons, one of which is an ostrich, but the easiest one to comprehend is this. In nineteen seventy eight, the average television viewer had four channels to choose from, maybe five,

maybe six. Some people had cable, but not many. There weren't a lot of choices. The World Series was live. Baseball was much more popular, but you know, if you're watching TV, there aren't a lot of choices. Necessarily, many more would be watching the baseball Who are now watching, I don't know, streaming something, watching mad Men for the seven hundredth time. But one of the other reasons that

the decline reached epidemic proportions. And I mean, if the audience was half what it was in nineteen seventy eight, that would make sense. It's it's realistically eight or nine percent of what it was. And the earliest signs of this, the earliest signs show up with the earliest actions that would go into the Justin Turner idea of eliminating the American and National Leagues. In nineteen ninety six, the Braves

and the Yankees played in the World Series. Even though the Braves won the first game by a huge amount, blew the Yankees out, and again in the second game looked like a runaway, they still averaged twenty five million viewers per game that year. And I remember going on Sports Center and saying, yeah, the ratings are in decline. Nobody is willing to say this, But what happens twenty five years from now, Well we find out nineteen ninety seven.

The next year, they began interleague play. Until nineteen ninety seven, teams from the American League and the National League had never played each other except in spring training or exhibition games or in the World Series never played each other when it counted. Since the American League opened for business in nineteen oh one. The World Series was an utterly novel event, and it was also that thing that all

sports leagues try to fabricate today create artificially. This was an actual but organic rivalry because most American League fans up till nineteen ninety seven hated the National League or at least disrespected it, and vice versa. There used to be endless arguments, scholarly articles, research in the Society for American Baseball Research, annual guide research into which league was

better than the other league. And this was true because while I'll use the example of my grandfather, Victor Charbineer, he died in nineteen eighty seven, and he died in nineteen eighty seven hating the American League. He would watch the World Series, he would watch the All Star Game. He would root against the American League. He didn't know most of the play He didn't know many of the teams.

He didn't know that the Washington Senators that he saw play in nineteen sixty one were an entirely different franchise than the ones he'd seen as the Washington Senators in nineteen sixty. He wasn't that sophisticated a fan, but he hated the American League. He knew that much. He would mock the New York Yankees of the American League. He insisted they played in the weaker league than did the National League New York Mets. He was loyal to the

National League. Even though his team, the New York Giants, had moved out of New York in nineteen fifty seven, he still preferred the National League because it was a rivalry, and his hatred in nineteen eighty seven owed to something that had happened in July nineteen oh three. My grandfather was a little boy when the star shortstop of his National League, New York Giants, a man named George Stacy Davis, jumped his contract and went and signed with the Chicago

White Sox of the New American League. That had happened actually in nineteen oh two. In nineteen oh three, Davis had jumped back to New York Giants, but as part of the peace settlement between these two leagues that were at war, and war in baseball means driving up salaries. Owners don't like that. When they settled it and drove salaries down. Davis was ordered back to Chicago as part of the settlement. Grandpa, even though he was a little boy who really didn't understand any of this stuff, and

I don't know that he heard it firsthand. It may have been his older relatives who were angry, and he just inherited that. Grandpa was still angry about George Stacey Davis eighty four years later. You can't possibly buy that kind of rivalry. Hatreds like that were inherited, cultivated, maintained, cherished, enjoyed. My mother became a New York Yankees fan entirely because she knew it would piss off her father, my grandfather.

That's why I had become a Yankee fan when I was a kid, because I went with the games to her see her team. You may try to create rivalries like that, in fact, they form only from true hatred, true division. It was Coke versus Pepsi. It was Republican versus Democrat for profit. And when Baseball stopped keeping the league separate, stopped making the World Series the battle the only battle between the leagues, it suddenly didn't mean that much. The New York Mets versus the New York Yankees was

something I dreamed of seeing as a kid. Oh what my grandfather would have made of that they finally faced each other in the World Series of two thousand. I was the host for Fox. Seemingly this would have been the epitome of my sports career. The ratings the lowest the World Series it ever had. That was the big sign. Interleague play began in nineteen ninety seven. The nineteen ninety six World audience had been twenty five million viewers a game.

Within four years, they were down to eighteen million since two thousand and four, when the Red Sox won their first World Series. Since nineteen eighteen, the average has been more than twenty million a game only once. It was last as high as fourteen million per game six years ago. If you want to make the World Series live again, you have to make it interesting to fans whose teams are not playing in it. That used to be everybody because you were also a fan, not just of a team,

but of a league. It may not be salvageable, it may be too late, it may be dead forever, it may be extinct. But what Baseball should do is eliminate all inter league play and see if it can bring the league versus league rivalry back to life. Rather than saying, you know, I think we could put a second ad on the helmets next to the ostrich like in the back of the helmet or on the front where that Why does the Texas Ranger helmet had that tea? We're

not getting any money off that. It's the team logo, sir, Wow, we're not making any money off of it. How about we put a little like a miner's light on top of each helmet and put an advertisement on each side of that. Think of all the different birds we can put up there. Grandpa wasn't just still angry about George

sta C. Davis eighty four years later. He was also convinced that the National League played real baseball and the American League was not only weak and bad, but that the American League was fixed, fixed so that the Yankees would win the pennant. Nearly every year he had to watch the World Series because it was It was existential to him and two millions of others forty four million TV viewers a night. They won't get forty four million viewers for the World Series in its entirety if it

goes seven games. Next month. You cannot buy that kind of devotion from customers. You cannot forge it. The crazy has to be organic, and Baseball has been steadily eliminating the crazy, and it has made its World Series small and smaller and smallest. And now it's putting ads for a company nobody's ever heard of before on both sides of every helmet in every playoff and World Series games, stals all the helmets. Not even mind you an ad

for a company people have heard of. I mean you could probably gain an audience if instead of the ads reading Strauss, they read Chico's bail bonds. I've done all the damage I can do here. And no, I'm not arguing against advertising on sports uniforms. You get used to it as long as it's small and not like standing out on top of every helmet only in the postseason. Here, here's our marquee item. Let's punish you with more advertising. What do you mean nobody watched the game last night?

I mean you're saying the ratings were down from but literally nobody watched. They're not even going to put all the lights on tonight to save some money. Look, the World Series once in eighteen ninety was so unpopular baseball so alienated its audience that the World Series of eighteen ninety was tied, three games for Brooklyn, three games for Louisville,

one game tied. The attendance had dropped to about four hundred fans, The weather was bad, and when it came time to play the decisive game, they said, nobody's here. Why bother? The World Series was abandoned in eighteen ninety. It could happen again, but at least Strauss will get its ads on the helmets as they knocked down the stadiums or something. Thanks for listening, Please send this to somebody who doesn't. We're now back to five episodes a week,

posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. Once again, there is a Monday Countdown. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass, and drums. This was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by

the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. Sports Music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend Stevie van Zant. Else it's pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this the fiftieth day until

the twenty twenty fourth presidential election. That counts to day and election day, the three and forty fourth day since convicted felon dementia j Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the election, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if we have to, to keep him from doing it again legally

while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Boltons, as the news requires, cross off the name Strauss workwear from potential advertisers here till the next one. I'm Keith Ulrman. Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.