WE NEED A NEW COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IMMEDIATELY - 2.20.25

pouring himself out to putin. This is even less about his apparent reference to himself yesterday as the King, which was promptly amplified by White House social media, in which you dismiss as trolling at your risk and at the risk of the democracy. This is about Trump's now complete disconnection from reality, from the baseline truths about what risks

America faces in the twenty first century. This war, he posted in the middle of his diet tribe against Zelenski yesterday is far more important to Europe than it is to us. We have a big, beautiful ocean as separation. This idea that America is in some way protected by the Atlantic or the Pacific, or both of them, has been poignantly absurd, since no lighter than Pearl Harbor in nineteen forty one. It is madness exceeding anything Trump has

said or claimed before. Somehow Trump has forgotten about the prospect of weapons in space. Trump has forgotten about intercontinental missiles. Trump has forgotten about airplanes. Trump has forgotten that the big, beautiful ocean can be crossed in five hours. The ocean didn't do a damn thing to halt nine to eleven, that the ocean didn't do a damn thing preventing Putin's soft power invasions of our country the last nine years,

especially insomuch as Trump helped. But with this ocean madness, Trump has now moved his incompetence from a twenty four hour a day risk to the safety of every American citizen, city, territory.

He's moved it from that baseline of potential disaster around every corner to an immediate crisis in which, because of what he doesn't seem to understand, in which, because of what he doesn't seem to understand, our nation could be bombed out of existence in half an hour, and he would not even bother to come in off the goddamned golf course because he thinks we have a big, beautiful

Ocean as separation. You know, the last people to actively point to the Atlantic and the Pacific as the guarranteurs

of our safety. The isolationists of the nineteen thirties, the ones who wanted to cut a deal with Hitler, the ones led by Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic and thus the first to disprove what Trump said yesterday, Led by Lindbergh, led by the other quizzlings of the more disgraceful parts of our history, the Trumps of their time, the isolationists of the thirties

and early forties. What would have happened if Charles Lindbergh had been elected president in nineteen forty He was, for at least a while, one of the favorites for the Republican nomination to run against Fdr. What if this isolationist occasional brilliance atop a giant dunghill of selfish laziness nation really had sided with the Nazis in the nineteen thirties and either joined them in sublimating the world, or, as Lindberg and the elationists preferred, simply stood aside and watched

guess what we are finding out in real time? What would have happened if Lindbergh had been in power and had sided with the Nazis, Because that's what Trump is

doing now. And it's not even the comparatively happy ending versions of that which we've seen in the Wroth novel or a dozen other films and sagas, but the real life version in which there is no rescue and no remorse and no collective conscience that stops us in time, where we elect a president with prejudices and hatreds and evils in his heart, or worse yet, no heart at all, nothing but a wallet where his soul should be, and

nothing at all where his brain should be. What would have happened if Lindbergh had become the thirty third president, or Senator William Bora had or an unassassinated Huey Long, and they had done a deal with Hitler and sold it to this nation as our only chance of survival in a world where, for all they knew, the imaginary threats lind Bergen vote were real, but the real threats

he downplayed were unsurvivable. What would have happened to us then, well, we would have been in nineteen thirty nine or nineteen forty where we are today. First, we would have had, within a year, within maybe months, cleared the path for a European war in which one power would have swept back from failure and bankruptcy, a near national collapse into total ruthless, murderous domination of France, of England, to Poland, of Italy, of all the places who thought we would

help them. Their collapse would have meant nowhere for Canada or Mexico to turn. If the still resource rich Americans had wanted their territory or fuel, or people, or just the land, we would have taken them with little trouble, and we would have split Latin and South America with Hitler, maybe not even that, maybe just given him Africa and we take the entirety of this hemisphere. That would have been first. If we had made a deal with Hitler, it would have taken quite an army, of course, to

maintain all that new territory. So the first step would have been to strip social spending in this country such as it was in nineteen thirty nine, roll back everything those liberals had just put in place, destroy that new safety net put in for a Pentagon budget increase of just to pick a figure at random, say another three hundred and five billion a year, while virtually going through the rest of the budget and just refusing to spend that money, even though it's in constitution that you can't

just refuse to spend that money, no matter who the hell you think you are. And we would have folded the manufacturers and the cutting edge inventors and the new industries into the Government of nineteen thirty nine in semi official roles. Maybe something like international business machines would have been able to speed up the conversion from peaceful society with at least passing token, clunky efforts to enhance the lives of citizens, taken it from that into a wartime

literally machine, a perpetual wartime machine. Now there's no fear of unemployment. If everybody's in the military putting down the rebellions in British Columbia and British Guiana, well we would have had to change their names, since Hitler would have erased Britain by then. We'd have had to change other things too. If President Lindbergh had subsumed Mexico, I mean, you wouldn't have a Mexico anymore, would you so? Gulf

of Mexico would have been pretty silly, wouldn't it. We would have been in nineteen forty where we are today. The meetings with Russia are not about Ukraine. The Russians said as much. The meetings between the United States and Russia are about dividing Ukraine between US and dividing the rest of Europe between US. Jd. Vance wasn't just avenging himself against professors who told him he didn't know enough to pass a freshman course in modern European history. He

was giving them, the Europeans, a hint of what is coming. Noah, you better install fascist friendly regimes, because we are going to own North and South America and this neighborhood here, this is going to be Putin's. And if you already have a Putin friendly quasi dictatorship ready to roll dictator orban Madame La Penn, mister Wilders, Putin won't need to waste any money or blow to install one. He'll just use yours and you can stay in charge, running your

little corner of his empire. For now, we've been too focused, understandably on not being critical. I've been doing it too. We've been too focused to a ghast, to a ghast at the revisionist acceptance of the Holocaust, and even worse than now, active promotion of the Holocaust by people like the Fances and Musks, to a gas at the betrayal of Ukraine, and more selfishly, the seeming ignorance of our new insect overlords that know the Zelensky's right. Putin will

take Europe next. Who's going to stop him? In Poland, in Germany, in England. We have been too stunned by the details to even contemplate the big picture, let alone recognize that it is already being painted as we speak at this minute. The meetings with the Russians are about device up the world. Because we don't have Lindberg with his seven illegitimate children in Germany. We have Trump with

his four idiot adult children here. And the utter unabashed evil isn't in Germany this time anyway, it's lightly to the eastern Russia. And yet otherwise it's just the World War two, maps and plans and goals and dreams and nightmares all over again, only this time they were smarter than Hitler. Hitler didn't have the presence of mind to keep his big bazoo shut and keep his true evil goals to himself until it was too late for anybody

to do anything about it. It never really occurred to Hitler that sure, funding the German American League in this country the bund was a nice way to show the flag here. But again, where was the subtlety? He should have spent his money on influencers and covert propaganda and

buying it congresswomen. Hitler would have should have could have compromised the TULSEI Gabbard and J. D Vance and Mark Zuckerberg types of his day, and assessing the amazing lack of self defense built into the American form of government and its naive, pathetic reliance on the goodwill of all the parties, and spending every ruble he could find making

sure Trump got elected. I'm sorry, Typho, making sure Lindberg got elected, spending every Deutsche mark he could find, making sure Lindbergh got elected got my alternative nineteen thirty eight history confused with my alternative twenty twenty five twenty six history. It's sorry, except it's not alternative twenty twenty five twenty six history. Is it? Trump's five dollars horror. Marco Rubio meets with Lavrov in Riad to figure out which ways

to accelerate the dis memberment of Ukraine. The way in which we sell Ukraine a truce and take their rare minerals instead of getting our money back. If we have to get our money back from bandits who caused this,

that would be the Russians. And then after the truce or the ceasefire, when the Russians have resupplied and restocked their war machine and they violate the ceasefire and the token European troops get slaughtered in Kiev, and we don't defend our NATO allies and instead we attack the one north of us and putin rolls into Krackoff and Warsaw and Berlin and Paris. Hey, what are you gonna do? Shrug emoji? I mean, what's the big problem here? We've

got that ocean, don't we that beautiful ocean? And the video game networks is still intact, and look at that stock market, and the Netflix streams are clearer than ever they're now in seventy And is it nicer not to have to worry about where to bigation? Now? Given how cheap the Mediterranean view. Russian stewge suites are at the new Trump Gaza Riviera Resort, complete with its two hundred

and twenty seven different golf courses. The next European war is being planned, and probably the next World war is being planned, with it first this week in Saudi Arabia, then whenever Trump goes to the Kremlin and unfortunately comes back or Putin comes here. The Russians described the Riyad meeting not as a way to resolve the crisis they created in Ukraine, but as a first step towards improving relations with the United States. Their invasion of Ukraine is

incidental to them. Their invasion of the United States is the key. What the Russians are going to do next in our country is the key, because we have a president who thinks we are protected by water. But don't worry, you aren't at risk. Your stocks will continue to rise, the Times will keep publishing a new wordle every day, while both sides in forced relocation as opposed to ethnic cleansing. Because finally, finally, finally, the United States of America, it's

not going to get surprised by a world war. We're not going to make that repeat mistake of trying to stop it. We're going to help start it. Because our God send visionary fere Trump has seen what Wilson and Teddy, Roosevelt and FDR and all the other idiots never could. He has seen in the coming World War, what they never even dreamed of. He has seen the American ownership position in the next World War. The beautiful ocean will protect us. This nation needs a new commander in chief

and needs him or her to day. Oh and Trump's lies about President Zelenski of Ukraine, who clearly so ticked him off so much yesterday when he said Trump was quote living in a disinform space unquote manipulated by Russia, which is a plain statement of fact. Trump responded by calling Zelensky a dictator who didn't have elections, even though the constitution there prohibits elections while there's martial law. And then he threatens Lensky and this is all about the

phone call. I just need you to do me a favor. Though. Zelensky better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. Maybe, mister Trump, Zelensky can get himself a beautiful ocean. I understand an ocean solves everything. Interesting phrasing here, he better move faster, or he's not going to have a country left. Zelensky, better move faster. He's not going to have a country left. America. Better move faster. They are not going to have a country left. Just

thinking out loud. Trump later boasted that he had stopped congestion pricing here in New York. He hasn't. The city and state sued to overturn a ruling about that by the Secretary of Reality shows, mister Duffy. Even the secretary himself knew he would be in court instantaneously. His ruling was not even supposed to take effect for a month. But Trump wrote, congestion pricing is dead Manhattan and all

New York is saved. Long live the King. I don't know who the king could be in this construction of Trump doesn't mean Trump in that sentence. Manhattan is the king. He said, New York has been destroyed. Congestion pricing is the king. No, he meant Trump is the king. I

do know a tea party slob that Trump made. Deputy White House Chief of Staff promptly tweeted that with an AI image of Trump in fetching King's robes that, like his suits, was clearly cut to hide his belly, and the official White House account then put out a fake magazine cover with a drawing of Trump wearing a crown

two or three sizes too small. And it is tempting to dismiss, as many people did, as trolling or as a distraction, but at minimum, this is part of the effort to make him look omnipotent and invincible and mandated instead of what he really is, which is a president with forty nine point eight percent of the vote and a disapproval poll rating that went from forty one percent on inauguration day to fifty one percent last week, ten

points in a month in the wrong direction. By the way, I hear long Live the King, and having lived in LA for a long time, I think of the guy who used to do his own commercials for big screen TVs, Paul the King of big Screens. No emotion in his voice whatsoever. Sounded like he was trying to be enthusiastic, but Jess couldn't quite pull it off. And he'd finished this thing off with I Am the King. I hear that same inflection in Trump's voice, I am the King,

King forty nine point eight percent. As to the King's Boss. I hate to endorse anything from Steve Mannon, but Steve Mannon on e long musk quote a parasitic illegal immigrant Check who wants to impose his freak experiments and play act as God Check without any respect for the country's history, values, or traditions. Wait that last part, Bannon, are you four or against it? Then there's Trump's attempt to repurpose the failed mayor of New York City, Eric Adams as a

Trump drone b This will wait another day. The judge holding off a ruling maybe today on whether or not to go ahead with the dismissal of the corruption charges against Adams, giving Trump's first weaponizing tool inside the DOJ. Emil Beauveat the chance to insist at prosecuting Adams was weaponizing, and Bove got another chance to threaten everybody still at the Department of Justice, all five or ten employees. You know this guy. You've seen this guy. He's the one

who looks exactly like exactly like Uncle Fester. Thank you, Nancy Faust. We have our first white supremacist. Hey, your white clan sheet is showing citing the Texas Observer reports the operator of an extremely racist social media account with such pithy observations as quote, all blacks are foreign to my people and quote America is a white nation founded by whites. And last year quote nobody is proposing feeding migrants into tree shredders, yet unquote the author of that

is actually an ICE attorney in Dallas. This after the head of ICE Tom innumerable chins Homeman threatened to put AOC behind bars because she reminded migrants that they have rights even if the Gestapo grabs them. Can't be innocent until proven guilty. Not the Tom Hoeman, the interim US attorney in DC at Martin, maybe even crazier. He is angry the Democrats are reacting at all against the doge embezzlements. He is personally launching an investigation into Senator Chuck Schumer

for trying to stop doge I wish. This underscores my point to Democrats that milk toast color within the lines. Responses to the kaleidoscope of crime already perpetrated by Trump will be treated just as harshly by Trump and his whores, as will be the kind of responses that actually rally opposition and cheer. People who remember the good old days when we still had a democracy. The good old days, you remember them a month ago this morning, all right,

a couple of laughs. Lauren Bobert has appeared in a photo standing next to a statue of Trump with his hand raised and clenched. So she raised her hand and clenched it. Obviously, this statue honored Bobert's date at that theater in Colorado. Let's hear it for the boy. Let's give the boy a hand. Meanwhile, there is this from Congresswoman Claudia Tenny, who faulted into the House of Representatives after hosting a radio show in Oneida, New York. Oneida

near Wampsville. Congressman Tenny moves to make President Trump's birthday a federal holiday. Congressman Claudia Tenney blah blah blah blah blah, idiot from New Establishment Act officially designate June fourteenth as a federal holiday to commemorate President Donald J. Trump's birthday and flag day. Born on June fourteenth, nineteen forty six. That's right. Remind everybody he's really really old and coming

apart at the seams. Trump's birthday coincided with Flag Day, had it been adopted by then, had flag Day already started by nineteen forty six? I mean the Stars and Shrapes was adopted in seventeen seventy seven. That's roughly that's like the same decade as Trump's birth. Legislation would permanently codify a new federal holiday called Trump's Birthday and flag Day. Hey, let's run Trump up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes. Better be a strong flagpole. This goes along with the

Addison McDowell push to rename Dulles in Washington Trump Airport. Actually, and sorry in advance for this, the idea of naming anything Trump Airport that would probably be better used as the name of that stretch of the Potomac next to National Airport, and the annap Paulina Luna bill to put Trump's head on Mount Rushmore. Now hear me out, I think we should all consider supporting that. Consider Anna Paulina Luna's idea to put Trump's head on Mount Rushmore, as

long as she means his real head. Also of interest on an all new editions Senator Mark Wayne Mullen. As weird enough as it is without getting all broke back Mountain on US at a Senate hearing. And you would think even hockey guys would know that Trump's threat to coerce or annex or invade Canada might just be a third rail in Canada right before a title game between

the US and Canada. No, sir, the American team general manager has decided a possible war between these two countries is good motivation for his team in their stupid, meaningless exhibition little hockey game tonight. That's next. This is Countdown. Biscuit in the basket. This is Countdown with Keith Oberman. Oberman still ahead in this all new edition of Countdown, a new segment comic relief. It was the creepiest thing an athlete has ever said to me. I mean unintentionally.

And it just came to the four again with some sad news yesterday and the person I into it the animal hospital who sounded like the reporter from my first MSNBC show twenty seven years ago. That was because she was the reporter from my first MSNBC show twenty seven years ago. Well, that ahead in comic relief. I'm working on a new title first, believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the miscrants, morons, and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who

constitute today's other worst persons in the world. Dedicated today to Sean Hannity and Lara Trump. Lara Trump idiot, Eric's idiot wife, the one whose eyes go in different directions, who recently started quote singing unquote, who has produced a fitness video in which it certainly looks like she's appearing as the before in the before and after contrast. Hannity introduced her on his show the other night as quote, this is a exact quote the host of the upcoming

hit show My View with Laura Shitt Trump. Why did you have to add Trump? I mean he got something right for the first time, first honest thing, Sean said in twenty nine damn years My View with Laura, You bet your ass. Any who hear the nominees the runner up worse Senator Mark Wain, I'm not creepy at all, Mullin of Oklahoma. First off, Mark Wayne, Mark Wayne, make up your mind, Mark Wain. During a hearing last year, Mark Wayne nearly threw hands with union leader Sean O'Brien.

They screamed at each other and threatened to go outside. What we thought it was about a fight, Maybe maybe it wasn't. Yesterday O'Brien attended another hearing at which Senator said they were now friends, and Senator Mullen added, quote on the record, if we were in a relationship, I'd

be the man in the relationship. Okay, I am beginning to suspect, because it would explain everything that when we do the post mortem, I mean, the frustration and the lies and everything else, and the madness in these people, and the desire to hurt members of any minority group, any oppressed group. When we do the post mortem on the late United States of America, we will discover that as many as ninety percent of maga Republican men who were elected to office during this nightmare, that they were

actually self denying, self clothing gay men. That's just my guess. If we were in a relationship, mister O'Brien, I'd be the man in the relationship. Okay, you used your a loud voice for that, Senator Mark Wayne runners up the National Hockey League. Okay, at first, it's Bill Garren, the general manager of the United States team at the four Nations face Off and with him commentator PK. Sue Ban

from ESPN. The Four Nations Face Off is a series of meaningless exhibition games for which they stopped the National Hockey League season at its prime moment for two weeks so they could play seven exhibition games, which concludes tonight with the United States versus Canada, with Canada having been given a kind of penalty weight that could put extra wait on a jockey. To make it even with the other horses and jockeys, they have to play their worst

goalie again just to make it close. Mister Garin, who runs the Minnesota Wild and is from woos To, mass has decided that the threat made to Canada's sovereignty by the current president of the United States is bulletin board material for his team. I think there was a little bit of political flat to it. It's just the game that we're in Canada and the United States played Saturday night and there were three fights in the first nine seconds.

I think our guys use that as inspiration. You let it get the better of you, then you're in trouble. But I really do think the play has used it as inspiration. Garon also called the game the highest level of hockey ever played, and he extended an invite to Trump to attend the final game, which is tonight in Boston, Boston. We would love it if President Trump was in attendance. We have a room full of prouda may can play as and coaches and staff and listen, We're just trying

to represent our country the best way we can. Bill Garroon has a troubled, troubled history, and now he says this to you need to get him some help. I'm going no further than that. And then yesterday PK Suban, who first was the most overrated defenseman in the National Hockey League, then became the most overrated studio analyst for ESPN's appallingly bad National Hockey League coverage. He tweeted, imagine

Trump shows up on Thursday. Mister Trump, your up chips are pushed in folks who you got and he spelled your yo. You are, mister Bettman. Donald Trump has threatened to annex Canada. And if this is not a particular concern to you, I might point out that seven of your businesses, seven of your franchises, are in Canada. It's not like baseball where there's just the Toronto Blue Jays, or football where there are no Canadian teams in the NFL,

where the NBA, where there's one team. Seven of your businesses are located, including that one in Toronto, where the Hockey Hall of Fame is, your fans there, your players from Canada, and forty one percent of the league is still Canadian. They are enraged about this, just as Gary, you would be if Prime Minister Trudeau announced that he was going to annex the United States and he had the firepower to do it, make it an extra province.

God knows we need to do something else here. If the general manager of one of your teams in this four Nations tournament had invited, say the general manager of the Swedish team or the Finnish team had invited Vladimir Putin to a game to emphasize his plans to a next Ukraine, Or if the Canadians had invited AOC to emphasize plans to impeach Trump, the outrage and the recriminations from your office would have been amazing and total. There

would have been year long suspensions for this. Right now. The Canadians have been restrained right now, but as it has been in the last couple of years, Commissioner Bettman, you coward's erased Pride Night because of one of Bill Garn's players from the Minnesota Wild who is a Russian

homophobe and objected to all that gainess. Yet you allow this, You allow the general manager of the team to basically invite the president as he's threatening the other country, and the allow this idiot Sue Band to say essentially the same thing. No follow up, no comments, no don't do that again, no killing of the tweet. Even Canada's fans have been really restrained. I think they should stop being

restrained when the season resumes on Saturday. I hope Canadian fans at every game in which the American team is visiting the Canadian team, I hope Canadian fans not only refuse to even stand for the American anthem, I hope they boo continuously and drown the American anthem out. See what you do, then, Betman, you hapless clown, but our winner. Speaking of hapless clowns, Stephen A. Smith, I'm afraid to

report that Stephen A. Smith's ego has finally escaped. It is now destroying buildings like the god Zilla sized creature it is. He went on a podcast with Tommy Veeder talking politics. I'm not sure why his experience in politics as being a friend of Sean Hannity's. That's like less than knowing nothing about politics, but talking politics Stephen A. Smith when talking sports often proves too much for him.

Stephen did one of those I don't know why everybody's saying I should be president things, one of those hold me back, hold me back, I shouldn't be running for president. Veeter said, I do think there's space between yes, Trump has a mandate and the suggestion you see sometimes that Democrats shouldn't be fighting back, or that we're the problem for fighting back, that it's the wrong optics are messaging, to which Steven A. Smith said something that had nothing

to do with what had just been said. That's not that much of a surprise, but here it is. Quote Well, what I would say is that you are wrong, and the reason you are wrong is because never before has the Democratic Party been this damaged. This is bad, bro.

The Democratic Party lost, let's see the nineteen sixty eight elections, after a landslide in nineteen sixty four, then they lost in seventy two, nearly lost in seventy six, lost in eighty, lost in eighty four, lost in eighty eight, But never before has the Democratic Party been this damaged this year, that's true this year. Smith also said Democrats need to run a fearless candidate in twenty twenty eight who has

box office appeal. Quote. I believe it is an utter embarrassment to the Democrat Party that I am a candidate in people's eyes for the presidency of the United States. It's an indictment against them, and they need to get their act together. Steve, and I have good news for you, and I have bad news for you. The bad news there is only one person talking about you as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and that's you.

The good news is, I'm happy to inform you you will remain the only person talking about you as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. Stephen A. Smith candidate for well whatever it is he does on ESPN Today's other Worst Person. Hello, Well, however to the number one story on the Countdown, And I think I'm going to need to get new music done for a new segment called Comic Relief. It seems to me this is where the stupid stuff of the day should all go.

I mean the stupid stuff that does not directly pertain to this particular nightmare timeline in which the President of the United States believes that the ocean will keep us safe, which is something that Lincoln said and would have realized by certainly eighteen ninety, something that you know, Kaiser Wilhelm could have sent the German fleet to New York pretty easily buy you know, nineteen hundred, to say nothing of that new thing called the airplane which was used at

Pearl Harmer So comic relief. I have two stories. They are totally unconnected, and one of them involves brain disease, which isn't that funny a topic, but it relates only as the news hook for it. So let's try these two stories, and I'll save the hilarious brain disease story for a second. The first one is this the first time I did a show at MSNBE. It was about the Monica Lewinsky Bill Clinton story. It did not start

out that way, as I've mentioned many times. It was a news magazine show called The Big Show, and it premiered on October first, nineteen ninety seven, under the illusion at NBC management that I simply throwing my glove out on the mound would draw huge audiences to hear me talk about things they were not used to hearing me talk about. And so we did unique news stories. We did unconventional news leads, and one day I saw myself interviewing as the live guest in the leads story the

publisher of the Farmer's Almanac. The big news we chose that day in late nineteen ninety seven was the publication of the nineteen ninety eight edition of the Farmers Effing Almanac. It's not as interesting as it sounds. He was the

live guest. We were a little lost. And then unfortunately the Bill Clinton story came along, and instead of what I would have hoped in retrospect had happened, which is that they would have canceled my show, instead we got Bill Clinton in this stupid little magazine show, which had its moments, It had good feature segments. It just didn't convey the idea that at eight o'clock at night on a cable news network trying to establish itself against CNN,

that maybe we should put news on. Well, we got all the news we wanted, although I never was convinced that the story was always news. It was Clinton and Lewinsky every night, and finally I got so sick of it that I begged them to get rid of me, and they sold me to Fox Sports for a million dollars and I got out and got my wish and then had to get out of there too, and wound up going back to MSNBC in two thousand and three.

I've told these stories many times, but this was story number two thousand out of this and it is not yet complete because a new development in the story of the nineteen ninety seven nineteen ninety eight MSNBC The Big Show with Keith Overman, a new development has occurred this week. I used to have every night since we led with Clinton and Lewinsky an opening segment of five to ten minutes in length that was written for me, largely by a friend of mine from my CNN days in the

eighties named Bob Lily. Bob worked with me at CNN at MSNBC, came back to work with me at MSNBC the second time, and came with me to Current TV. He worked with me four separate times and lived to tell the tale and actually looked and felt younger at the end of the process than at the beginning. Okay, So Bob would write this, and I would put in a few tweaks, and sometimes Bob would hand me this script as we were going on the air at eight o'clock.

It was very intricate, a lot of sound bites and a lot of videotape, and a lot of puns and a lot of ad libs, and it needed and killed a couple of directors. It needed good directors and wore

them out really fast. And then we would go to the White House lawn where one of NBC's White House correspondents would appear, needless to say, the White House car respondents where NBC News were kind of busy in nineteen ninety eight, certainly from January onwards, so occasionally we would get still the late great David bloom Ill Starred Ill,

fated and ultimately a tragic story. But David, who would have been on the Today Show at six o'clock that morning, or would have been traveling back from Peru or wherever Bill Clinton had been at six o'clock in the morning, would often stick around and appear live at eight o'clock anyway where he got this energy, and how he spent his time and his money I will never understand in any event, if it wasn't him. The second choice usually was a great veteran NBC news correspondent named John Palmer.

And the first time I ever saw John Palmer, he was doing the news on the Today Show, and I was a kid, and one of the few genuine thrills as I became further and further disenthralled with news at NBC in the year nineteen ninety eight, was the chance to interview and introduce John Palmer, and I wrote him a note to that effect, and when he retired after I left NBC, he sent me a letter thanking me for having him on my show. One of the great

backwards juxtaposition stories I've ever encountered. You're thanking me, John Palmer. All right, So it was usually one of those two, or if not, then the other White House correspondent they had three of them at that point, was a lovely and talented woman named Claire Shipman. And Claire clearly had gotten the idea in her head that she was probably not going to go long term into news, even though she had all the skills to do so. But Claire had something a lot of other people did not. She

had control of her own ego. Claire did not need television. She did it extraordinarily well. But Claire would be out there, and if it wasn't Claire, and if it wasn't John Palmer, and if it wasn't David Bloom, they would break people in who were just starting at NBC News, either moved in from other cities where they had worked for NBC affiliates, or moved in from other publications making their TV debuts.

And the other three, including Claire, were known as somewhat insultingly but very affectionately in the nicest sense of the word, as Keith's harem three beautiful and gifted, talented, hard working women who deserved the job and also just looked like a million bucks at all times. And I'm not just saying how they appeared physically, but how they conducted themselves on television. These people knew what to do to make a good impression in a professional sense. And it was

always the highlight of the show to me. And the downturn of the show began when I would say thank you to her, to him, to whoever it was, and said you know, thank you Claire Shipman at the White House. That was the point at which there was no reason to watch the rest of the show, all right. So the three women who did this role, led by Claire Shipman, a White House correspondent, and the two kind of trainees who I think were in their first year at NBC.

And by the way, the other guy on the show who was always on from Washington in the middle was a guy named David Gregory who was just breaking into NBC News, who did a story for us on The Big Show every night, something to do with Clinton Lewinsky. And if you think I had a bad job, his job was way worse. He had to do a package. We had to decide and advance what his story was going to be. Poor David every day, five of them week. But it made his reputation and eventually, for good or

for ill, he wound up hosting Meet the Press. So it worked out all right for David. In any event, I keep teasing this Claire Shipman. If it was not Claire, and it was not David Bloom and it was not John Palmer, it was one of the two trainees, a woman named who we had just hired from a publication I think called The Hill, a woman named Nora O'Donnell.

Whatever happened to Nora O'Donnell other than her tenure at NBC News anchoring newscasts and working on all of the programs and then jumping to CBS to become the anchor of the CBS Evening News. The great Nora O'Donnell started her NBC big time career on My show. And if it wasn't her, the other one was the new local news person they'd hired with the big hair, who they brought in and had her appear several times. She was

like fifth string Campbell Brown. That's nineteen ninety eight. In two thousand and seven, when the bosses of CNN overruled the president of CNN who wanted to hire me to do their eight o'clock show, to take Countdown and move it from MSNBC to CNN, and they got overruled by a man named Jim Walton. They went instead and hired Campbell Brown away from NBC News. Campbell Brown and I once spent a weekend together at thirty Rock Co anchoring

weekend Today. She just looked like television. So there was my roster of White House Correspondence, David Bloom later weekend host of The Today Show, John Palmer, a Broadcasting Hall of Famer, Claire Shipman probably the best of the five of them, who then went on to ABC News and then sort of drifted out of news largely or certainly

out of the network news business. And then Nora O'Donnell, future anchor of the CBS Evening News, and Campbell Brown soon to be hired to work against me as CNN's eight o'clock primetime anchor and then to go off into right wing educational revisionism. So it was a pretty impressive bunch.

And I thought about them because as I was sitting with one of my pups at the Animal Medical Center here in New York the other afternoon, in the waiting area, I heard a very familiar voice and I saw a very familiar face, and I heard about a woman who talked about having been a reporter. And I looked at her and I went, boy, that she looks just like Clare Shipman. But it couldn't be Claire Shipment, because she looks like Claire Shipman did in nineteen ninety eight. That

can't be her. It's not nineteen ninety eight anymore. I mean, you hold up a picture of me from nineteen ninety eight compared to my face right now, and I look like my own great grandfather now, or if you can sidering the nineteen ninety eight picture, I looked like my own great grandson. Then sure enough it was Claire Shipman. She was in with her dog as I was in with my dog, and we visited and hugged and talked about something, and we weren't there long enough for me

to tell the quick Claire Shipman story. Claire was very straight laced on the air, with a great sense of humor, but she sort of restrained herself, and I, by the middle of May, say, nineteen ninety eight, stopped restraining myself. I was mocking the story whenever I could, in hopes for God's sake, stop watching this show and please fire me, and I could every time I tried that. The ratings went up. Tells you something. I don't have time to analyze it. Those of you who can do mass media

psychology can try to ascertain what that means. I guess it was the liberation and the freedom and the idea that I didn't give a crap and the audience went, I like this guy. He doesn't give a crap in any event. One day, Claireshipman reporting from the White House, and those days, Wolf Flitzer worked for CNN as the White House corresponded, and Wolf Flitzer was standing next to Claire Shipman live on CNN at eight o'clock at night

while we were live on MSNBC. And as Claire was talking, and she had a pleasant, good broadcasting voice, you could hear Wolf Flitzer, who's a little little louder than say, the public address system at Penn Station, the railroad station in New York, A little louder than that, not much, but just a little louder than that. You could hear him quite clearly. And you could see Claire kind of edging her way screen left to try to get away

from Flitzer. And it felt like this on television. And I finally she finished up, and I went Claire Shipman for us at the White House, and Claire, if you do me a favor, would you tell that Wolf Blitzer

from CNN to pipe down. I mean, I can hear and she burst into laughter and giggles, and then we just cut away and was one of my fondest memories of that show, and Claire, who was always together and always there, called me up afterwards and said thanks, I needed that laugh, And I said, I think we all needed that laugh. So that's the one humorous relief. I ran into her the other day and somehow or another she didn't look any older. Good for her. Congratulations to

Claire Shipment on that. And Claire is now I believe owns Columbia University or something like that. I didn't get quite the whole story, but she's been in charge of Columbia University trying to put it back together again, and as a Cornelian, I just sort of wished her good luck and with an emoji, you know, a shrug emoji, and said good, yeah, good luck with that. If you

need any help, don't call me. The other story is based on a tragedy, but it mainlines back to a really really, really really strange statement, possibly the strangest thing any athlete ever said to me in an interview. And it comes to bear now because the news came out yesterday officially that the hockey great Bobby Hull, who broke the record for most goals in a season back when

the record was just fifty goals in one season. Bobby Hull died two years ago, and it has now been confirmed that he died, as so many hockey players whose families donated their brains after their demise, obviously for study, died of CTE, of the brain damage illness that leads to madness, violence, hatred, all sorts of antisocial behavior, and Bobby Hull will No one will ever say, oh, poor Bobby Hull, because by the end of his life he

was largely disliked. I think that's a pleasant euphemism for how he was believed in in sports and in hockey in the waning years of his life, and in some quarters much more than that. There were racist overtones and sexism and violence towards women dating back to his early life. But of course nobody can tell yet at this point

when CTE would have started. And this pertains to our current situation, because, as I've mentioned many times before, there is growing indication that some people are getting in the military simply by handling the vibrations from these superpowered machine guns and other weapons. They are getting certainly some brain damage, and for all we know, it's going to wind up

being CTE later in life. I mean I hit my head on a train in nineteen eighty, and every once in a while I wonder if I'm going to have CTE, or maybe if I have it already, or if I had it in nineteen eighty. So we don't know when Bobby Hall started to get sick with this brain injury, how much of it was that, how much of it was him just being maybe a racist, sexist, misogynist, violent jerk.

Who knows, But it was an eye opening thing that somebody could have had that, and for all we know, we got the first symptoms of it in nineteen fifty five, not two thousand and five. It's a terrible thing, and it's going to become a bigger and bigger thing in sports and outside of it, particularly as it comes to

our veterans. Why we need more help for our veterans and not less as the Trump administration seems to think at the moment, because what would Donald Trump know about the needs of veterans being a guy who evaded the draft the way he did. Avoided the draft, evaded the draft. It's a gray area, just like everything between his ears. Okay, back to the Bobby Hall story. Anytime Bobby Hall's name has come up since November twenty first, nineteen seventy nine.

I have flashedback too November twenty first, nineteen seventy nine, and our other bit of humorous relief for this trying week after last week's trying week and an advance of

next week's trying week in the real world. Sam Rosen, my first boss at UPI Radio, the sports director now retiring after forty plus years doing the New York Rangers hockey games, assigned me on one of my non studio days to take a tape recorder and go to the Winnipeg Jets first game ever at Madison Square Garden to play the New York Rangers after the merger of the

National Hockey League and the World Hockey Association. When the World Hockey Association had gone into business in nineteen seventy two, the first big get was Bobby Hall being named player coach of the Winnipeg Jets. They stole him for some phenomenal sum of money from the Chicago Blackhawks and announced that the WHA the World Hockey Association, had arrived. It

never really got much further than that. Although Mark Messier played in that league first and Wayne Gretzky played in that league first, and a lot of other superstars played there first, but the WHA was on fumes by the time it quote unquote merged with the NHL in the summer of nineteen seventy nine, and so Bobby Hall, who was particularly voluminous in his scoring against the New York Rangers in his days with the Chicago Blackhawks, was back in Madison Square Garden for the first time since the

nineteen seventy one seventy two season, an old man playing one last lap around the NHL, and his only game as a Winnipeg Jet at Madison Square Garden was on November twenty first, nineteen seventy nine, a Wednesday, and they sent me there. Sam said, make sure you get Hull. And I talked to the PR guy beforehand, and I said, does Bobby give interviews after the game? Yes, he does. There's not much else for him to do, He's not

playing a lot. And so I went in and I interviewed Bobby Hall, and he gave me a great interview. But he said the creepiest, weirdest thing any athlete has ever said to me. Who wasn't trying to say something creepy, I said about after talking about his career and coming back to New York in many senses, and the World Hockey Association in Chicago and Winnipeg and the whole arc of his career, finally said, so, you're back in New York.

This has been a place for you of accomplishment, and you scored your fifty first goal against the Rangers in Chicago, and you're playing at Madison Square Garden. And the few times you've been back here in the WHA there were two or three thousand people here and now there were seventeen thousand, and wasn't a particularly big game other than they came to see you. I said, what is what

does it feel like? What sort of nostalgia? What sort of And hopefully I don't have the tape of me asking the question, but I hope it took less time than it does for me to recount it. I like to keep my questions to less than three and a half minutes in length. In any event, I asked him, how about coming back here? Does it bring back a lot of memories? And he said, and somewhere I have the tape, but I could not find it. Bobby Hall said, oh, never mind the past. We're here in the future now.

That is the creepiest thing I have ever heard. And I almost screamed then too, never mind the past. We're here in the future now. Did we just jump here from the past? We're in the po When are we talking? We're here in the future now. I mean, it's a science fiction line. You could create an entire short story. Hell, these days, you could create an entire Netflix series based on that one line. We're here in the future now,

time travel Bobby Hall, time traveler. Jeez, if you're a time traveler, could you've gotten a better weave for your thinning hair? All right, Well that's a cheap shot, and

he's dead too. But you know, in any event, I have never in forty five and a half years, forty five years and what two months now, November twenty first, nineteen seventy nine, I've never shaken that it's up there in those voices that still appear in my head periodically, like asking Catfish Hunter how his arm was, and he answered, marm feels real good. Marm feels real good. And for weeks upon weeks, all of us who heard that tape asked each other how our arms were, and we all answered,

marm feels real good. How's your marm today, Keith. It's in there in the Hall of Fame. Marm feels real good because we're here in the future now. Never mind the past. We're here in the future now, and it sucks my Bobby Hull impression. Done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. And on a serious note, boy, oh boy, do we need an acknowledgment from the National Hockey League that CTE is a real thing.

The NFL finally got around to saying something. The National Hockey League, afraid of being sued by every X player, is still denying that there could ever be a connection between brain injuries, particularly CTE, and the deaths of their players or their conduct and their remaining years of their last years. It's unforgivable, Like much of what the NHL does. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thanks

for listening. Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanelle, musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced and performed most of the music. Mister Chanelle handled the orchestration and the keyboards, and mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our Satirical in fifthy. Musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,

Nancy Faust Nancy, how is your arm? The 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 with marm was my friend Larry David. Everything else was as ever my fault. That's countdown for today, just four hundred and thirty one days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term, unless Musk removes

him sooner. Donald Trump CTE. I never thought about it. Is it's possible he's hit his head. Lord knows he's made other people hit their head heads against walls. So it's one four three one till he goes or the actual aerial tables taken first. The next schedule countdown is Monday, as always, bulletins, as the news warrants, remember, impeach trumpet will not work now. It will, however, win the Democrats the midterms, if there are midterms. Never mind the past.

We're here in the future, till next time, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, 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.