TUBERVILLE CONFIRMS TRUMP'S PLOT TO EVADE GAG ORDER; TIMES MUST FIRE HABERMAN - 5.15.24

TV infomercial guy. Because Tuberville has spilled the beans, all of those Trump whorees who have shown up the first two days of his trial in New York City did so as part of some kind of plan to help Trump subvert the gag order. Tuberville says this. Tuberville said

this on the Newsmax propaganda network. So we'll talk about the gag order plot first, And I apologize if this is a little ragged, but as I said, there is a sinus infection in progress, and this is the most I could let the doctors or get from the doctors to let me do. We're sort of blowing through the headlines. Once again. Let me turn to my cliche of cliches. Democracy survives less because of our efforts to preserve it than because of the stupidity of those trying to destroy it.

They were there yesterday, Mike Johnson at a trial showing loyalty and fealty to Trump, just in time to see what happened to Mike Cohen, who showed loyalty and fealty to Trump, just as Johnson saw or should have seen, or has now evidently forgotten what happened to Mike Vents when he showed loyalty and fealty to Donald Trump. Loyalty and fealty to Trump is weakness. He will use you, exploit you, and then try to get a crowd to

hang you, Speaker Johnson. Johnson, who attended the trial yesterday, stood behind Trump in the background, did not go into the court, and simply held a news conference at which

he declared Trump was innocent. Is particularly dishonorable, even for a Republican Speaker of the House, even for a Louisiana congressman from the Republican Party, even for a tiny Johnson responding flacidly about a porn star Johnson is interfering with a defendant and with a prosecution, a defendant who has been indicted by a grand jury, and he has declared him innocent. It is borderline obstruction of justice legally, Ethically, it is utter obstruction of justice. Mike Johnson should have

resigned already. A responsible Republican party, even a somewhat non corrupt Republican party, would have thrown him out yesterday. Somewhere there must be, in a parallel universe a kind of ethical Marjorie Taylor Green who takes umbrage at the Speaker of the House using taxpayer money to go to New York and declare the biggest criminal in the history of the United States innocent without hearing any of the evidence, or of course caring about any of the evidence, because

all it is to them now is power. They don't care how they get it, they don't care what it costs them to maintain it, and frankly, once they are in office, they will kill all of us to maintain it. An hour longer. That is what Mike Johnson and the other ones, particularly this Ignoramus Tubberville, who looks like he escaped from a mausoleum, somewhere and is still somehow talking.

These guys are revealing to us how far they will go to show that they are behind Trump because Trump can win them power, and all that matters to them in the world is power. The world itself can go to hell, and obviously under Trump it will. When Charles Manson was arrested and indicted and I believe about to go on trial in the Sharon Tate murders of nineteen sixty nine, and my exact memory of this and the precise timeline is a little vague because I was ten

or eleven years old at the time. But as the trial was about to begin, perhaps just before jury selection, or maybe even after the jury had been selected, President Richard Nixon intimated that he believed that Manson was guilty. Well, they nearly declared a mistrial, They nearly sent Charles Manson home for a because Nixon had said something publicly suggesting

that Manson probably was guilty. I don't think there is a parallel legally the other way, in which because Mike Johnson, a tiny idiot, a corrupt Speaker of the House, a Republican, these things all mean the same thing. Just because he said Trump is innocent. That does not mean a judge somewhere can declare Trump guilty, although I wish it worked that way. There's nothing I don't think that Judge Merschawn can do to Johnson, or to Tuberville or that weasel jd.

Vance or Byron Donald's who is simply a prostitute, or Corey Mills, or this god awful burghum from North Dakota or Ramaswami. Ramaswami we let off because he did one of the funniest Freudian slips of all time, which I'll get to in a moment. I don't think they can do anything legally to them except to bring them into his courtroom and say, what did President Trump tell you to say? What did don Trump tell you to say?

What did this asshole Trump tell you to say? And he certainly can do something to Trump, even if he has no hard and fast evidence in front of him other than what Tubberville said, which I'm about to play for you. He can say you are in contempt of court and you are going to Rikers Island. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Because if Trump went further and literally asked them to say the things he is forbidden from saying by the gag order.

This would be contempt of court by Trump. The gag order says not only that he may not talk about the jury, talk about the case, talk about the witnesses, talk about their honesty, insult the judge's daughter, which several of them did. Not only he can't do those things, but he cannot instruct others to do so, because if Trump asked them to say the thing he is forbidden from saying by the gag order, its contemptive court. And

guess what, Senator Dumbo himself. Tubberville went on Newsmax and basically said, oh yeah, Trump did ask us to say the things he's forbidden from saying by the gag order.

You heard what he just said. And Justice Merschaan, who has not been aggressive about the penalty phase of contemptive court, but has been aggressive about dealing with this issue and telling people he wants them to act in a certain way and holding hearings. He should hold a hearing, and he should bring in Tommy Tupperville, and he should bring

in all the rest of them and Johnson. He should bring them in and swear them in and have them testify, and vivek Ramaswami and see if you can get vivek Ramaswami to repeat this Freudian slip, the Freudian slip of the trial, and perhaps so far the Freudian slip of the year. May God bless our country.

you've said it. And particularly that's true, she said, if you are lying at high speed, and if you are lying at high speed and the truth comes out like that about the scam politicians, it is comforting to know that when I call vivike Ramaswami a Trump whore, Okay, there's your evidence. He's a Trump whore. He is deliberately telling things that are not true, saying them aloud, participating in plots, and he doesn't even believe that there's anything

worthwhile in Trump. He is too. Vivike Ramaswami a scam. This obscured to some degree the actual cross examination of Michael Cohen. And again, I am just amazed by how many stupid people there are attempting to overthrow this government, Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer being one of them. Todd Blanche's first question to Michael Cohen, you went on TikTok and called me a crying little shit just before this trial began, and Cohen calmly said, sounds like something I would say.

And it went on and on and on and on from there, just trying to get Cohen on the record saying all the nasty things he said about Trump and about others, and then all the other nice things he had said about Trump, to indicate that he said one thing once and something else the other time. But where did they start. They started with the insult to Todd Blanche and the question from Todd Blanche about Todd Blanche. They thought this would impeach Michael Cohen as a witness,

because us here's the shocking thing. Trump's world consists of people who, to some degree, unlike vivid Ramaswami, actually believe the bullshit, their own bullshit. They believe the first piece of Trump World, that apparently everybody who gets sucked into it, actually believes that the world agrees with them, almost unanimously, that they are the victims here, that they are being crucified, that he is some sort of Christ with bad hair.

They believe this somewhere in the back of this moron Blanche's mind when he said that, and God calling to confirm that he had called Blanche a crying little shit that the trial should have ended right there. That is how these people now think, Wow, you got him to admit he wants to see Trump in jail and that he lied for Trump and then told the truth about Trump. Wow, great lawyer. I hope it's a flat rate than rather

than per hour. There's one other thing about reading all of these quotes, or confirming all of these quotes that touched a nerve with me. I have never testified, but I did undergo one of the worst ordeals of my life, and compared to the ordeals of others in similar situations,

it wasn't that bad. But I did two days of a deposition in twenty thirteen in my lawsuit against al Gore and Company, and it turned out later that the attorney was somewhat friendly to me and literally pulled punches legally could have hit me a little bit harder, did not.

We had friendly conversations afterwards. In any event, one thing my attorneys did, and my attorneys were the best, and they prepared me with one thousand wonderful pieces of advice to take into a deposition, and one of the best of them was if they ask you to read your own emails or your own words, and they're filled with insults and obscenities about anybody in the organization. Don't say well, what I meant was, don't equivocate, don't say well I

was a little angry at the time. Don't say embrace them, sing them, especially the obscenities. And I was handed an email about fifty of them they handed me at various times through these two days, and I was asked to read this, and I suddenly remembered it. The nicest thing in this email, which was probably about one hundred words long, was when I called one of the executives a jiminy cricket passed bastard. That was the nicest, most polite thing. The rest of it was just a string of adjectival

curse words. And I started to hedge and hesitate, and then I rem I heard my lawyer's advice, and I yelled it, do I have your permission to call this? And they actually asked me if I would quiet down a little bit. And it was the last time that they actually thought they were going to threaten me by getting me to read my own words aloud. And now

to the other topic. I asked yesterday for a Walter Cronkite moment from The New York Times, some awareness that everything we know in this country, every freedom, every piece of history, every law rests on Donald Trump or any other Republican not becoming president next January twentieth. It is a black and white choice. It is binary. If Trump gets elected, the democracy is over. We may never have an election again. We may not get out from under

the yoke of Trump until he dies. He may try to stay in office forever and turn it into a kind of monarchy, or make the presidency of the United States much like the presidency of Russia. It's a nice word, but it really doesn't have anything to do in terms of describing the job. You get that, I get that, Trump gets that. The New York Times, the New York Times, does not get that. What I want from them is some sudden awareness, as in the examples I gave yesterday.

Walter Cronkite had in nineteen sixty eight, after a trip to Vietnam, as Walter Cronkite had very early on in the Watergate scandal in October of nineteen seventy two, to come out and take a stance in defense of this nation and in defense of this nation at an imperiled time, as the New York Times did during the Civil War, and not often since. I asked for a Walter Cronkite moment, and I got a Judith Miller moment for the second time in this trial, but apparently the first time anybody noticed.

There were texts introduced as part of the People's case against Trump. People's exhibit to sixty texts from February thirteenth, twenty eighteen from witness Michael Cohen to Maggie Haberman of The New York Times. Quote, Big Boss, just to prove my responding to complaint and statement, Please start writing and I will call you soon. Big Boss just approved my responding to complaint and statement. Well, what did Maggie Haberman

write on February thirteenth, twenty eighteen? What was she texting off the record with Michael Cohen about on February thirteenth, twenty eighteen. While there it is on the internet. February thirteenth, twenty eighteen, New York Times by Maggie Haberman. Quote Michael D. Cohen, President Trump's longtime personal lawyer, said on Tuesday that he paid one hundred and thirty thousand dollars out of his own pocket to a pornographic film actress who had once

claimed to have had an affair with mister Trump. In the most detailed explanation of the twenty sixteen payment made to the actress, mister Cohen, who worked as a counsel to the Trump organization for more than a decade, said he was not reimbursed for the payment. Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with miss Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment,

either directly or indirectly. Mister Cohen said in a statement to The New York Times, the payment to miss Clifford was lawful and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone. She printed it. There are no caveats, There are no questions about the authenticity of the statement. She printed it. She printed it as if the only thing that were a fact in here that mattered was that Cohen said this, not whether or not it was true.

February fourteenth, twenty eighteen, by Maggie Haberman. Oh, he got two articles in which she lied for him and Trump and The New York Times lied for Michael Cohen and Trump February fourteenth, twenty eighteen by Maggie Haberman The New

York Times. The admission by President Trump's longtime personal lawyer that he sent one hundred thirty thousand dollars to a pornographic film actress blah blah, blah, blah blah, has raised potential legal questions ranging from breach of contract to ethics violations. That's the range. Breach of contract to ethics violations. Not an attempt to subvert the twenty sixteen presidential election. Not lies on behalf of the then president of the United States.

Not hush money being paid to a pornographic actress so that her story would not come out and sink his campaign. No, has raised potential legal questions. That's all she wrote. That's where that phrase comes from. That's all she wrote. The lawyer Michael D. Cohen told The New York Times, well, therefore it must be true on Tuesday that he had used his own funds to facilitate the payment, adding that neither the Trump organization nor the Trump campaign had reimbursed

him for the payment. He insisted that the payment was legal, So she lied for Cohen, and Cohen lied for Trump and Trump lied to the American people to get elected. And there it is still online, not even a correction note at the bottom of it by the New York Times. Nothing better than a New York Times correction note, We're sorry, we destroyed the country. We got this one small detail wrong.

When this came out, that these texts to Maggie Haberman from Michael Cohen indicated that she was an accessory after the fact to the Michael Cohen bullshit story on behalf of Donald Trump, for which he is now on trial, for which Cohen went to jail. When this came out, surprisingly enough, there was a lot of criticism of Maggie Haberman and The New York Times, and in fact, in some quarters, Maggie Haberman was defended. She was defended by, for one, the editor in chief of Mother Jones, which

is not exactly a conservative organization. I read this defense with great interest and took it quite seriously and said, well, you got this one wrong. The editor in chief said, Look, there are transactions in any relationship with any source, and that's true. I've had them. I've had them in sports, have had them in news. Often you will help a

source by quoting them. On a story that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise, quoted them in, or paraphrasing something they said, or emphasizing what they said as opposed to what somebody else said, or in some other way making a story easier for them. You can even ethically shade a story towards them or their point of view in areas of dispute. It's very flexible, the relationship between a source and a reporter.

I mean, to begin with, the source is giving you information you probably should not be having, and you are giving them anonymity that they probably should not be getting. But all of this is always predicated. And I was told this, I guess in high school. I certainly was told it at my college radio station, where we apparently had higher ethical standards of journalism than The New York Times does now, and definitely at my first news organization,

United Press International. The premise of any transaction between a reporter and a source is that whatever you wind up printing or reporting or publishing must be the truth. It is not enough merely to be a fact that somebody has told you something. That fact of somebody telling you something may itself contain a lie or a series of lies. Or enough lies to influence the outcome of a presidential election. It's not enough to have a series of facts. You

have to tell the god damned truth. And Maggie Habrenman does not tell the goddamned truth. This is the difference. There are facts. Donald Trump says he's actually Jesus Christ, only with bad hair. Well, let's just print that without any notation that it's crazy. You could factually say, well, Trump said that, Therefore we can print it because it's factual.

If I said the democracy is hanging by a thread from the top of the Washington Monument right now and we need everyone to rally towards it, to have a Walter Cronkite moment, well it's a fact that I've said. That, is it the truth? You have to put some effort into it. And there are circumstances under which no amount of digging by the reporter can verify whether or not the facts of the statement are in fact truth. There are occasions in which there's no way to do that.

And conceivably, when Michael Cohen texts you, big boss, just to prove my responding to complain and statement on February thirteenth, and you're writing on February thirteenth, you may not be able to disprove what he has told you. But if you're writing it again on February fourteenth, to goddamn betterwell have checked it out. And Maggie Haberman did not do it. She did not do it. And what happens after that? Well,

who got the Pulitzer Prize for covering Trump? Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, who was in court the other day dismissing Michael Cohen's testimony about what Trump told her would happen if the stormy Daniel's story got out, what would happen to his marriage? She dismissed it as legal hearsay. Trump says to Michael Cohen, well, I won't be on the market for long. And she dismisses that at hearsay in the New York Times, and no one

corrects her. And they will sit there and twist this and turn themselves into pretzels with so many knots to convince themselves at the New York Times that they have done nothing wrong, that they are the paragons of journalism, that they have never made a mistake, despite that fellow Blair they fired years ago just made up every story and every source he ever had, and despite Judith Miller, who I am, and again I will congratulate you if

you don't know who Judith Miller was. Judith Miller was the Maggie Haberman of two thousand and two and two thousand and three. Judith Miller was the irreproachable New York Times reporter who actually turned out to be merely serving the role of the person who washed the Bush governments. Lies about the non existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the lynchpin to the phony made up George W. Bush will burn in hell if any of the world's

religions are correct. Bullshit. The person who sold that more than Colin Powell sold it at the United Nations was Judith Miller of the New York Times in other worlds, in other markets, Judith Miller's crimes against journalism were so profound and so many that her organization would have gone out of business. It didn't. In fact, she got a best seller out of it, a best seller on the

New York Times bestseller list. Judith Miller wrote story after story simply repeating what the White House under Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney and Colin Powell all said. And we put Colin Powell last because he later went out there and said, I got it all wrong. I didn't know I was lying. I was lying. Set it on NBC. Still he lied. They all lied, and Judith Miller was the one who typed the lies up and put them

in the goddamned New York Times. And when she was caught, when they forced her to resign after she had also outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent on behalf of Scooter Libby, who was another one of these Bushies. After they destroyed Valerie Plame's intelligence career to try to discredit her husband because her husband had written a piece in The New York Times explaining that there were no weapons of mass destruction because the uranium that Saddam Hussein supposedly

bought in Niger did not exist. After Judith Miller bent the rules of the New York Times to discredit and op ed printed in The New York Times that contained more journalistic integrity in it than in the entirety of her career. After they forced her out, she explained, quote, my job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government thought

about Iraq's arsenal bullshit. Judith Miller wound up on Fox News, which is where she should have been all along. People who can contort themselves into pretzels explaining why their immorality is morality wind up on Fox News. What is a fact and what is the truth and what is the difference? And the answer is Maggie Haberman could not tell you. That is why the New York Times must fire her.

Getting less publicity from the New York Times. A grotesque ass named a Steed Herndon, who is a New York Times White House correspondent who has been in this podcast before. Somebody writes on Twitter x about the unlikelihood that President Biden can fix all the flaws in his presidency before the election, and he subtweets the link to this article and says, I've said this one hundred times, but it's not the message. It's the messenger. That is not to

say he can't win. He can, but the msnbcfication of National Democrats has blinded them to his problems. DEM's cleared the field for an unpopular candidate. You do that, you get a hard election. Astead Herndon emphasis in ass ass Also, he continued in his thread, what I'm antagonizing the glibness is part of the problem. While I'm antagonizing Biden's age is overcovered from mental acuity angle and undercovered as the filter to which voting public views this administration. Vibe killer.

If you are still saying something in public about vibes, and it's not meant ironically like the summer hats that were in vogue for men about fifteen years ago until everybody went, no, they did look stupid. We're not being ironically funny by wearing them. If you're not saying vibes as an insult to everybody who's ever used the phrase vibes, retire from public life. Have your brain washed. Stop using vibe killer. Astaed Herndon contributes to sense of lack of progress.

He's still going on about Biden's age. Big reason legislative economic wins haven't translated. Where did we hear this guy Herndon before? Oh, in February it was Herndon of the New York Times who posted Biden's age is very clearly the most important non Trump issue in this elect poling says so voters say so, it's just the White House slash DC have had a sort of gentleman's agreement for the last year to pretend like it's not. Maybe that

ends now. This guy Herndon was the guy who believed that the subject of Joe Biden's age had been undercovered, that the media was covering up for him, not unlike it covered up for the fact that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. Now he didn't say that, I did. Just the White House DC have had a sort of gentleman's agreement for the last year to pretend like it's not.

can't get over it. Biden's age is overcovered from mental acuity angle, and undercovered is the filter to which voting public views this administration. Vibe killer. He's looking for other things to hit Biden with because the entire Times revenge age porn thing against Piden for not doing the Q and A with them is for real, and they've had to find something new. Got a fire, Herndon, got a fire, Haberman, the editor Joe Kahn after that interview. He has no

credibility whatsoever outside of his own office. And I wonder how much he has inside his own office, because guess what, I like Joe Biden, just mine. But if you told me tomorrow that we'd have to force Joe Biden off the ticket today in favor of Lawrence O'Donnell as the next president of the United States to preserve the democracy, I would say, President Biden, thank you for your service. You will always be my friend. You're off the ticket.

This is about democracy or dictatorship. And this this mother effort from the New York Times is talking about vibe killers. That's where we are. Vibe killer. The Time still hasn't figured this out yet. This is democracy or dictatorship in the fall. The Times has not figured this out. Yet I asked somebody there to overthrow the government of the New York Times and get me a Walter Cronkite moment, because as if we did not have enough going on

to suggest this is necessary. Yesterday Trump posted Fox News should let Judge Janine cover the trial, not Eric Sean, who has no clue what's going on, just another rhino. I mentioned Eric Sean before I was surprised he continued to work there. I've known him since I was in television news at the beginning of my career at CNN, Honest, straightforward. Somehow it worked for Fox all these years. Now Trump

is trying to get him fired. Last week, Trump tried to give direction to Sean, told him he wanted him to read more of Greg Jarrett's analysis of the trial and his coverage. Understand that if Trump is elected next year, he will not be bothering to put posts up on truth Social or you must read this, or you go

to jail's social or whatever it would be called. Under a Trump presidency dictatorship, he will simply have Eric Seawan arrested if he doesn't like what Eric Seawan has reported, and he'll have Maggie Habraman arrested too, and you'll have Mike Johnson arrested too. If Mike Johnson displeases him. Joe Con, Joe Con will already be inside in the camps with me.

On day one, New York Times has to fire Maggie Haberman, Justice Wan Mshawn has to jail Trump, and he has to bring in Mike Johnson and Tuberville and Vance and Byron Donalds and Bergham and all the rest, and say, tell me about the plot to get around my gag order. And when you tell me the truth, that's when I will let Trump out of rikers. I have talked far

longer than my doctors would permit. The rest of the show will be a rehash of yesterday's Oddly enough, it will be the one in which I asked the New York Times to give me a Walter Cronkite moment. But I will close with one humorous anecdote, just to leven the moment, so that you don't jump off anything right after this amortization of Brian Ray's theme and thus also of interest here and the last new thing in this podcast, and if you turn it off, I will have no

offense whatsoever. Is something Laura Ingram said last night, because it is turned into one of those weeks in which every time I go on social media, there is something that Laura Ingram, who I went out with for a while, has said that is insane, or something that Katie Turr, who I lived with for three years has said that is insane. Or there's another one whose name I don't bring up because not many people know about their relationship. Apparently got herself kicked out of the coverage of the

Trump trial for violating the rules from the judge. Oh my god, I lived with her too. I make bad choices. I've only been dating fifty years. Why would I get it right? But Laura Ingram said something last night that actually made me smile. Didn't intend to make me smile when she said this, but she made me smile. Nonetheless, when do you get to the point, she said, and I'm paraphrasing here, when do you get to the point where you would believe a Michael Cohen or a Stormy

Daniels instead of a Donald Trump? And I thought, well, when I completed the second grade and they graduated me up to the third grade, I suppose Laura, why The New York Times owes us a Walter Cronkite moment. That's next, this accountant. We need a Walter Cronkite moment from the

New York Times. The New York Times needs one day, one day soon, one day now, to devote the entirety of the front page to one headline and one editorial signed by the publisher Sealzburger, and the editor Cohn, and the key columnists, and the important correspondence headlined Trump Imperils Democracy sub headlined your life at Stake and he is insane.

I'll get to the trial and Michael Cohen and how they got what they needed from him, which was a headline in the Washington Post with the word calmly in it. But first we need a Walter Cronkite moment from the

New York Times. And instead we get the backup, backup, backup, backup, election reporters, backup, trying to be witty as Trump crashes and burns intellectually, morally and phonetically, and as his whorees like Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott try to erase the bright lines of democracy while they think we are not watching them, and as his jihadists try to sabotage the

twenty twenty four election. The Times needs its Walter Cronkite moment too, like Cronkite shocking the nation out of much of its Vietnam delusion, Like Cronkite personally moving Watergate to the front burner, the Times needs its Cronkite moment to save itself. We need a Times Cronkite moment to just

add to our dwindling chances of saving this democracy. Saturday, Trump went to a Philadelphia area seaside resort called Wildwood, drew maybe ten thousand cultists, eleven thousand lied, and had the Republican mayor there lie and say it was eighty thousand. He talked, he complained, He complained that immigrant students don't speak English, and immediately afterwards he said something like bordenin Riviv,

and he said something else like Carrie Daudite. By right, he claimed the president between Ford and Reagan was named Jimmy Conners. He said the Chinese were preparing to invade Beijing, which is their own capital. He insisted the entire country was grateful that he killed off Roe v. Wade. He thanked by name the Supreme Court justices who gutted Roe V. Wade.

He suddenly invoked the fictional Cannibal character Hannibal Lecter, seemed to praise Hannibal Lector, claimed the character Hannibal Lecter was dead and got the name of the movie wrong, and then insisted all immigrants are Hannibal Lecter. And all of that was after he was introduced by some immigrant who called him President Chump, and the New York Times story by a sixth stringer named Michael Gold mentioned none of that. This was what Joe Conn's writer told consumers of the

most influential news organization in America. Quote. After a long and often tense week in his criminal trial in Manhattan, Trump took part in a time honored ritual enjoyed by countless New Yorkers. In need of a break, he went

to the shore. Oh oh, how clever, Michael Gold. The New York Times could save a lot of money by firing all of its political reporters and simply asking the fictional Twitter writer Doug J. Balloon of New York Times pitchpot fame to write all of its leads because they are now sounding exclusively like the Times pitch bot clunky attempts at wit that don't quite land. Trump has renounced his New York residence. He is thus not a New Yorker,

Michael Gold. Wildwood is not a destination for New Yorkers anyway, It's for Philadelphians. And he is the greatest criminal in the nation's history. Michael Gold. He is not in need of a break. He is in need of a lifetime prison sentence. This occurred over a weekend in which three of Trump's most fierce, most dishonest, most anti democracy supporters in the Senate went on national television and said, sure, they would accept the outcome of the election so long

as Trump won. The Times headline about that was Vance says he would accept the election results with a caveat, which sounds like he's wearing a tie with a caveat, a lovely floral caveat. Yet it was also a weekend in which a small newsroom called the Bucks County Beacon wrote about how Trump's sewer rats are openly subverting the election today, not twenty twenty, not twenty twenty two, but

one in November quote. The RNC and its allies have already sued in five states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada to challenge their voter roles, accuracy, and in turn, voter's credentials. In Georgia, a Republican bill empowering mass challenges of voter

registrations was signed into law on May seventh. More importantly, the Beacon also reveals the existence of something on the right wing social media site Telegram called the Election Education Channel, which is encouraging and setting the stage for legal and extra judicial challenges to every single stage of every presidential vote count in conceivably every single precinct in this country.

The kind of Sidney Powell Jenna ellis legal quicksand we saw after the twenty twenty election, only while the votes are still being counted, and immediately thereafter in every county in this country, to create chaos and genuine danger. The Times. The Times has reported none of that. It has instead let Maggie Haberman dismiss as hearsay Michael Cohen's first hand recounting of what Trump told him about not being on

the market for long. If Millennia dumped him, and if Haberman doesn't know the legal definition of here, say get rid of her. And The Times made room for an op ed bashing Joe Biden written by Mark Penn, a dishonest right wing polster who has been posing as a Democrat for at least twenty years, and it made room for a report on the upcoming attempts to sabotage the

election by the Republicans. No, a radio shock jock named Charlemagne the God, a reactionary who does nothing but take sides, and they pronounced he is someone The Times fell for it quote who won't take sides? We need a Walter Cronkite moment out of the New York Times. If the the reference eludes you, First of all, congratulations on your youth.

Then to explain briefly for all of the almost biblical invocations of his supposed impartiality and the use of the name Walter Cronkite as a substitute for complete impartiality in reporting. The three biggest moments in the career of the great CBS newsman were when he barely stopped himself from crying

while reporting the assassination of President Kennedy. When he burst through the constraints of his job as the anchor of the CBS Evening News to present fully informed, but fully opinionated commentaries, first on Vietnam, and then four years later

on Watergate. In February of nineteen sixty eight, Walter Cronkite went to Vietnam, and he spent a week there talking to people on the record and off, and he went back to his desk, and on February twenty seventh, nineteen sixty eight, he delivered an extraordinary closing editorial after a

long report on our status in Vietnam. His editorial began with, we have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. His commentary ended with it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to

defend democracy and did the best they could. President Lyndon Johnson was not watching Walter Cronkite live that night, but Bob Scheffer insists Johnson told him he did see clips, and Schaefer and Bill Moyers insist the President did then say something like if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America, and Johnson soon after then announced he was not going to run for reelection in October nineteen seventy two. Cronkite may have topped himself at a time when only the

Washington Post was giving Nixon's Watergate scandal daily coverage. Yes, the New York Times was largely asleep at the switch

then too. At that point, Walter Cronkite devoted roughly half of the editorial content time of two editions of the CBS Evening News just to the one story to Watergate, fourteen minutes out of what was basically a twenty two minute newscast on Friday, October twenty seventh, and what was cut down to eight minutes due to the threats of the Nixon administration and the pleas of Walter Kronkite's terrified bosses on Tuesday, October thirty first, Walter Cronkite did not

f around. We need that out of the New York Times, and we need it now. And if the Times does not have a Walter Cronkite moment in it, they need to get everybody out of their building and then fload that building because the Times is simply now mocking the idea of responsible American journalism. And also, I know that area I used to work a block away at sixth and fortieth. The City of New York could really use that lot for parking. And no, I'm not expecting a

Walter Cronkite moment from the New York Times. The New York Times does not make mistakes, let alone correct them. Don't you know that, by the way, if you missed it as the Times did, what follows is a mashup of Trump's now constant indecipherability and Trump on President Jimmy Conners and Trump on the late great Hannibal Lecter, and then Trump walking away from the microphones yesterday when an astute reporter at the trial asked him, Hannibal Lector, we'll play this and then we'll go to court.

more self abnegating jokes about angry even for me. It needs him testifying, as he did yesterday, that he was there in Trump Tower days before Trump was sworn in as President of the United States, with Alan Weiselberg reviewing a handwritten document with Trump to repay Cohen for the stormy Daniel's hush money and how they would hide it amid legal fees, and testimony that Trump said smart individuals had told him Trump to pay the one hundred and

thirty thousand dollars to Stormy Daniels, and that Trump told him he knew if the Daniels story got out it would be a disaster for the campaign that it needs Michael Cohen producing one outstandingly sleazy quote from Trump per day on the stand, like he did yesterday about the time Cohen asked Trump about the impact on his wife, Milania if the story got out, and Trump said, don't worry. How long do you think I'll be on the market for?

Not long? That's the quote Haberman of The Times falsely dismissed as hearsay, and the quote that underscores all of us who have viewed the latest of the many Trump quote marriages unquote as exactly what Trump clearly viewed it as a contract negotiated with terms dictated by the market. How long do you think I'll be on the market for? And all of it that Cohen testified to and testifies to today and in the cross examination accompanied by receipts,

metaphorical receipts and literal ones trial notes. In passing, Trump wanted some distinguished Republicans to show up and show solidarity, but he could only get Tommy Tuberville, JD. Vance, and

Nicole Mally attackus OH and Brenna Bird. Brenna Bird is the Attorney General of Iowa who was there in court, who should be disbarred, because whatever you think of this case or this defendant, you cannot be the head of criminal enforcement in any state and show up in court to kiss the ass of a defendant in another state. It is disqualifying. Senators Vance and Tubberville do not have to worry about that. They have long since disqualified themselves.

They caught Trump sleeping again in court, and somebody finally aptly compared this to his alertness during the Egene Carroll trial. Vance stayed only for the morning session yesterday, and then he and Tubberville blew town and Vance, violating court rules, evidently was tweeting from his phone in the courtroom. I saw a media report a few days ago. He wrote that Trump looked like he was falling asleep or board

or something. The obvious narrative they're trying to sell is yeah, Biden is mentally unfit, but this other guy's bad too. It's an absurd narrative. I'm thirty nine years old and I've been here for twenty six minutes and I'm about to fall to sleep. Unquote. I'm sorry, Sonny, but how does your failed mental health help Trump. It's like saying I'm jd Vance and I have multiple chins that shows

that Trump is in the best possible health. This scumbag Tubberville meanwhile went out to a propaganda conference with the media and said that the people in the court were quote, supposedly American citizens. Supposedly American citizens. He segued right from that into an insult towards the district attorney, and of course what he was saying was now that was code for, hey, this Alvin Brad guy is black. Today, Vivek Ramaswami will be there with Trump if Ramaswami can get his hair

done in time. And ABC News reports that Junior Trump has gone to visit Peter Navarro in federal prison, and I look at it this way, good practice for Junie for once Dad goes there. Last point, the nice thing about this nightmare is that Trump and his defense team and his cultists and his Republican supporters have so little to work with that they always telegraph their response because generally speaking, they can only find one response per crisis.

And the response to Michael Cohen is He's a liar. He lied, He's a convicted liar. The jury can't trust a liar. America can't trust a liar. Leave aside that liar might as well be Trump's actual middle name. But say this long enough to Cohen and they expect him to blow up in the witness box. Say this long enough to the fascists and they'll forget that Cohen was convicted of lying on Trump's behalf. Say this long enough,

and maybe we'll all forget that. If we disqualified everybody who has ever lied for Donald Trump, we had to wipe out about ninety nine percent of the Republican Party, wouldn't we. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums, and mister Shanelle handled the orchestration and the keyboards. It

was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Howard Fineman, and everything else was pretty much my fault.

Let's countdown for this the one hundred and seventy sixth day until the two twenty four presidential election, but twenty fifth day since Dictator Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the legal system such as it is, use the mental health system, Use presidential immunity if it happens, use the not regularly given elector objection option. Use the campaign to stop him from doing it again while we still can. The next

scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Again. I'm going to label that as probable game time decision till the next one. I'm Keith Olderman. 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 iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.