SERIES 3 EPISODE 69: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Forget for a moment "Attorney General" Matt Gaetz and the bottom falling out of the market for prosecuting men who have sex with underaged girls. Forget for a moment associating Tulsi Gabbard with the word "Intelligence." Forget the prospect of Press Secretary Sage Steele. Even forget Trump's plan to adjourn both houses of Congress so he can appoint an entire cabinet without a single hearing and the Republicans rushing to bark like seals as the Lame Duck Dictator starts rolling out the Third Reich.

The lead story was a different 'third.' “I suspect I won’t be running again,” Trump said to his newly elected Republican House slaves, “unless you say ‘he’s good, we got to figure something else” and every news organization reported he was joking and kidding and trolling and - spoiler alert - he’s NOT. He’s NOT kidding. He’s intending to stay in office and if we’re nice to him he’ll let us elect him again. They've been working on this for more than a year: it's a re-interpretation of the 22nd Amendment and the two-term limit, claiming it means three CONSECUTIVE terms, or going around it and getting him by any one of four different backdoors. 

That Trump is emboldened enough to go public with his "kidding" tells you how badly he has misread the shock this would create. Oh yes, everyone reported, he's a kidder. He's kidding. Ask Mike Pence how much of a kidder he is.

MEANWHILE: Lincoln had his "Team of Rivals." Trump is building his "Team of Trifles." And the key appointment isn't Gaetz or Gabbard or Huckabee or any of these other empty vessels. It's Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense because when the protests against Trump starts and he wants the protestors to face U.S. Army tanks and be shot with your taxpayer bullets, the guy who is just crazy enough to order it is this lunatic Hegseth.

B-Block (27:54): POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Jack Smith will get out, and get out a report. Putin continues to turn the screws on Trump. At Mar-a-Lago, Elon Musk is "getting a little big for his britches" (Ozempic time!). Musk is also at war with Steve Bannon. Melania won't live at the White House. And one third of network news viewers voted for Trump so all the limp ABC/CBS/NBC coverage mattered more than we thought.

C-Block (40:00): THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Olivia Nuzzi has suddenly backed off all her stalking claims against Ryan Lizza. Wait I'll get my dumpster-sized bag of popcorn. Tim Pool, Pine Cone. And the Idaho Republican who tells a Democrat to go back to where she comes from. You won't believe which minority group she belongs.

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 68: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: If you're wondering who's the boss here it ain't Trump. Putin refused to call him first and instead had Russian State Television "celebrate" his becoming the 21st Century Grover Cleveland by showing nude photos of Melania.

Russian TV - which has figured out Trump is a lame duck - also reported Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo would not be in the new administration long before Trump announced it. Putin also seems to have soured on RFK Jr, leaving Sideshow Bobby to aspire only to becoming Secretary of Masturbation.

MEANWHILE, NO, THE ELECTION WAS NOT STOLEN - not in the sense you're thinking. It WAS stolen in the sense that the fascists and the anti-democracy billionaires have been running a series of illicit, hidden, disguised pro-Republican advertisements 24/7/365, for at least thirty years. They have been bombarding the underachievers of this nation, the incels, the morons, the idiots, the bros, and now the social media addicts of America, with a series of easy-to-digest, sweet-tasting conspiracy theories on a thousand streaming networks and podcasts and the Democrats have...MSNBC.

The Left not only doesn't compete in the new Marketplace of Ideas it doesn't know where the shops are. It has to change this or you can forget '26 and '28 as well.

On the other hand, this circular firing squad? Utterly ludicrous. It looks like Kamala Harris will have ultimately lost by 1.5% which would make Trump's the fifth SMALLEST popular vote win all time. You do not burn it all down after that. You rebuild.

B-BLOCK (32:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Corey Lewandowski and Chris LaCivita show us what winning means: you get to try to kill your rival on the winning team. Finally we figure out what's really behind the deportation scam: the companies that will make billions building the private prisons to turn into concentration camps for deportees. Nevermind the future of NATO. Will its members ever trust us with intel again? And the Dallas Cowboys honor founding coach Tom Landry on Veterans' Day by...misspelling his name. But it'll all come out in the wash.

C-BLOCK (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: With only 7% of the city believing he didn't commit a crime, New York Mayor Eric Adams has reached out to...Trump. The Massachusetts congressman has the New Democratic rallying cry: Transphobia! And the White House "correspondent" so stupid she publicly accused the Democrats of trying to fix the Kari Lake/Ruben Gallego race so they can "steal" Congress. Except Lake and Gallego were running for the Senate!

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 67: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: "No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly." H.L. Mencken (1926).

Nice of Hispanic males to vote for the guy who will deport all their relatives and friends and namesakes and when they run out, deport them.

Also: the anti-Trump conservative who's trying to be optimistic: at least now Trump won't try another coup!

And Jeff Bezos congratulates Trump because if they're still blackmailing Bezos on Trump's behalf, this is what it would look like!

And details on the future of this podcast (yes, it has one).

B-Block (20:51) SPECIAL COMMENT TWO: My theory of The Lifeboat and how it explains who voted for Trump and why.

C-Block (34:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 66: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

Russia has committed an act of war against this nation and our government.

We were attacked last night, as certainly as if they came across the borders or BOMBED polling stations - 40 or more - 32 Russian bomb threats just in Fulton county Georgia alone.

And what are you going to do about it, President Biden? What are you going to do about it Merrick Garland? There is real-time evidence of Russian interference in our elections. Russians deciding who becomes president, who goes to the Senate, the house.

32 bomb threats – many already identifying as coming from Russian email sources – in the most Democratic part of Georgia. A quarter of the state’s black population subjected to a terror attack – in Fulton and DeKalb Counties. And in Pennsylvania – one that closed a county elections offense for an hour, at least 10 others. AND in Wisconsin. AND in Michigan. AND in Arizona – at least 10 in Arizona. AND when Georgia extended voting, the Republican National Committee went to court to stop it.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, this is an act of war.

Russian interference means Trump – Trump already admitted at the debate he talked to Putin AFTER he left office - and now Trump means Elon Musk and we know Musk has been in contact with Putin frequently since 2022, and turned Twitter into a whorehouse for pro-Russian and pro-Trump indoctrination.

The Russians just shot our democracy in the heart and those who are there solely to protect it – and its citizens – have responded by establishing… a toll-free FBI tip line.

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 65: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Well what do you THINK this episode is about?

There are plenty of polls, interior numbers, and tea leaves to read (see "Marist Poll," see Univision polls of Hispanics in Pennsylvania, see Harris outperforming Biden and Hillary in key demos). But if you want to know how this campaign is wrapping up it's way simpler.

The Trump-Vance closing argument: misogyny and violence against women. Trump says Mike Tyson should step into the ring against her. And after a week of trying to deny their comedian's "garbage" remarks had anything to do with their campaign, then trying to turn "garbage" into a bloody shirt attack on their own supporters, the night before the election, the world's most smug sexist J.D. Vance undid all of that by calling her "trash."

The public polls all look very good for Kamala Harris. The private polls the Trump people see? They must've decided their only chance is to get every last hateful white guy to vote for him - because nobody else is.

B-Block (26:54) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Politico's "Who Won The Day?" is a new high in low. Kari Lake explains her polling is better because she mixes in A.I., and Herschel Walker endorsed Trump. Or did he?

C-Block (33:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Solely because at times of stress it always gives me great joy to re-tell the story of how I met my friend the late actress Elizabeth Montgomery, and how she promptly pranked my parents.

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 64: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Yeah, I heard it too.

I heard him he "shouldn't have left" the White House when his term ended. And I heard him say AT his rally that he wouldn’t mind people shooting at the reporters COVERING his rally. And I guess it’s shocking. Except he’s been saying these things (a little more coded) since 2015, and he said the shooting thing about Liz Cheney last Thursday night. And after all he is going through what the shrinks call “disinhibition” AT the rallies where he loses all sense of what he should say in private not public.

But that’s not what got me. I heard something I have never heard before. WHEN he said he wouldn’t mind people shooting the "fake news," he said he wouldn’t mind them shooting THROUGH "the fake news" - THROUGH it - AT him. Doesn’t that sound kind of… what’s the word? Suicidal?

Plus: I understand that we are inside the 48 hour bubble before the election and the pressure is like 887 Atmospheric Units and our rage against this creature and his cult that wants to burn this country to the ground – burn this world to the ground – and our amazement that there is ANYBODY voting for him – that RAGE is at unbearable levels – but… didn’t he sound kinda dead yesterday? At one point he was inaudible. At another, in North Carolina, he thought he was in Pennsylvania. Throughout, he sounded exactly like Hal the Computer in the movie “2001” when they unplugged him.

PRACTICALLY SPEAKING on the eve of the election, the polls continue to support a Harris victory (size TBD) and this shocking poll where she's up by 3 in Iowa hides an even more shocking number (she's ahead by 20 among women in the whitest part of the midwest). And the reaction to the pollster who published this 21 point swing from June tells you all you need to know about polling. They have previously insisted Ann Selser was an immortal. Now they're saying she's making the rest of them look bad by not tailoring her poll to fit their narrative.

B-Block (30:33) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A Trumpist has vowed to "castrate himself on camera" if Harris wins Iowa (if you're a Trumpist, haven't you already castrated yourself?). Chris Cillizza 2024 mocks everybody who didn't buy the conventional wisdom about the vice presidency (evidently including Chris Cillizza 2020, who had disproved it), and courtesy Tim Alberta in The Atlantic, we find a new reason to hate Trump. This is the real reason he's so mad Biden dropped out. Trump thought he had the perfect nickname for the President - and it's appalling.

C-Block (37:48) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I call it The Annual Day I Get Trapped Inside My Home Day. You know it - and may have seen it on TV yesterday - as "The New York City Marathon."

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BULLETIN SERIES 3 EPISODE 63: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) In a late night appearance in Arizona, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump said of former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney "Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face."

At publication time, no Republican had repudiated Trump for his implicit threat, nor had any even repudiated him upon realizing that the next time he expresses such a desire to have a critic killed by a firing squad, it could be them.

What follows is the Friday Countdown podcast as originally produced.

(3:52) TRUMP INTERNAL POLLS MUST BE TERRIBLE: HE IS ALREADY FOMENTING INSURECTION II: There can no longer be any doubt that the Trump camp knows that he is losing and losing by enough that however close the popular vote may turn out to be, he will lose handily in The Electoral College and his only chance is to foment another insurrection, whether by violence or by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

Axios has printed a Trump press release (and describes it as a "scoop") that Trump's pollster has told him tells The Garbage Man "he's in a radically better position than he was right before the 2020 election...(it) draws on Real Clear Politics polling averages to argue that Trump's "position nationally and in every single Battleground State is SIGNIFICANTLY better today than it was 4 years ago."

This is like relying on stuff Rudy Giuliani heard from the voices in his head.

The Trump campaign is furiously stoking up racial hatred, white supremacism, anti-woman rhetoric - and the insistence that he's already being robbed in Pennsylvania. He'd only be doing that if he's being told he's LOSING in Pennsylvania and needs to try to steal the election.

Speaking of Rudy: he has now came this close to dropping a milder version of the N-word.

B-BLOCK (31:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Russia fines Google more money than there is in the world. Elon Musk goes full antisemite. Tucker Carlson insists he was mauled while asleep by demons. 

C-BLOCK (46:40) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: There's only one story for the weekend before the election. Thurber's Nostramadus moment: his prophecy of Trump, written in...1931?

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 62: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-BLOCK (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There can no longer be any doubt that the Trump camp knows that he is losing and losing by enough that however close the popular vote may turn out to be, he will lose handily in The Electoral College and his only chance is to foment another insurrection, whether by violence or by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

Axios has printed a Trump press release (and describes it as a "scoop") that Trump's pollster has told him tells The Garbage Man "he's in a radically better position than he was right before the 2020 election...(it) draws on Real Clear Politics polling averages to argue that Trump's "position nationally and in every single Battleground State is SIGNIFICANTLY better today than it was 4 years ago."

This is like relying on stuff Rudy Giuliani heard from the voices in his head.

The Trump campaign is furiously stoking up racial hatred, white supremacism, anti-woman rhetoric - and the insistence that he's already being robbed in Pennsylvania. He'd only be doing that if he's being told he's LOSING in Pennsylvania and needs to try to steal the election.

Speaking of Rudy: he has now came this close to dropping a milder version of the N-word.

B-BLOCK (29:53) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Russia fines Google more money than there is in the world. Elon Musk goes full antisemite. Tucker Carlson insists he was mauled while asleep by demons. 

C-BLOCK (44:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: There's only one story for the weekend before the election. Thurber's Nostramadus moment: his prophecy of Trump, written in...1931?

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 61: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Kamala Harris closing argument: "The fact that someone does not agree with us does not make them the enemy within…I will always put country above PARTY and above SELF."

The Donald Trump closing argument: "I'm not Hitler!"

Well, I'M sold! THAT'S the way to make sure you aren't associated with Nazis and Hitler. Bring them up! And the way to avoid the continuing reverberations from Tony Hinchcliffe's Puerto Rican "garbage" insult is to dress up in a garbageman's orange reflective suit and give interviews from the cab of a garbage truck with the TRUMP CAMPAIGN LOGO ON THE SIDE.

And Jeff Bezos has already learned the wages of sin: Trump is touting The Washington Post's "decision" to not endorse anybody as a repudiation of Harris and an endorsement of him. It's time to boycott Amazon, Whole Foods, The Washington Post.

GOOD POLLS NEWS: CNN polling, Harris by 5 in Michigan, 6 in Wisconsin, tied in Pennsylvania - but she leads by 3 in Pennsylvania among "extremely motivated voters." The interior numbers continue to go entirely in Harris's direction.

AND AN ANNOUNCEMENT about the short-term future of this podcast.

B-BLOCK (32:37) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ohio's Republican Senate candidate doesn't realize the VICE President can't issue Executive Orders. Any remaining thin veneer of journalism falls away at Fox. And Politico's Rachel Bade and Ex-CNN Now Just Stopping Passersby Chris Cillizza humiliate themselves over Biden's quoting of Hinchcliffe's "garbage" remarks.

C-BLOCK (41:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 60: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SPECIAL EARLY POSTING

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump keeps digging, and a Trump surrogate named Brenden Dilley doubles down on the scatological, foul, obscenity-filled insults against Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican people:

"F*** you, f*** you right back to f***ing Puerto Rico. If you are in the f*****g United States of America right now and you're on the actual f***ing, the lower 48, you're there, you're not on your s***-ass island, you have no right to complain about how people perceive your dirty-ass island. Period. I expect more from Puerto Rican Americans…so, yes, there was a joke made at your f****ing expense, and it wouldn't be funny if your island wasn't actually a floating trash heap."

As Trump pretends nothing happened Sunday - or again last night - he is torched by everybody from the Archbishop of San Juan to Bad Bunny to Megyn Kelly. A disturbed entertainer named Tony Hinchcliffe turns out to have been work-shopping the line at a New York comedy club Saturday night, destroying the Trump contention they didn't know what was coming. Now he may turn out to clinch Pennsylvania for Kamala Harris, and Pennsylvania would likely clinch the presidency for her.

Meanwhile she gave the speech of her life, nailing her "final argument" before a delirious crowd at the Ellipse. It was so good even Dana Bash noticed.

And there's a rumor posted online by a veteran investigative reporter about a relationship between Trump and my former MSNBC colleague Tampon Hall.

B-Block (25:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Almost a three-peat! After flooding the world with her side of the repulsive Nuzzi/Lizza/RFK Jr story, Olivia wants to seal all the subsequent legal action? Laura Ingraham outdoes herself in Trump sycophancy. And somebody actually defends Tony Hinchcliffe's right to be an unfunny racist (on the premise that well, he was funny at the Tom Brady roast). It's the incalculably overrated Jon Stewart.

C-Block (42:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since he held a news conference yesterday where he took no questions, time to tell of when I met Trump at a news conference - and took questions! It was just the other day - in 1983!

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 59: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: "GARBAGE" IS STICKING TO THE TEFLON DON AS SCANDAL WORSENS; 'COMEDIAN' WANTED TO CALL KAMALA HARRIS THE C-WORD:  The Madison Square Garden “Puerto Rico Is Garbage” disaster is not only NOT going away; it is still getting worse, with the news that Trump staffers VETTED that statement AND the tasteless reference to Latinos entering the country and the rest of the Tony Hinchcliffe comments and Hinchcliffe’s script originally included a line in which he dropped a c-word in describing Kamala Harris. The news site “The Bulwark” is reporting that, and that Trump staffers directed Hinchcliffe to take it out… BUT that they missed the anti-Hispanic material or as they have now claimed Hinchcliffe ad libbed all that even though the video clearly shows him reading his material off the same teleprompter everybody else used.

Day three of Trump’s self-immolation among Hispanic voters who make up twelve percent of the electorate – one WEEK before the election and no sign that it – like every previous racist Trump controversy – is actually abating. STILL the lead story at the New York Times – at one point it had SIX front page stories – AND at the Washington Post – AND on the Fox News talk shows AND at the Wall Street Journal AND at the ultra-conservative Washington Examiner AND when the Trump campaign’s defense is ‘well at least he didn’t call her a rhymes-with-bunt like he planned’ they have actually stepped neck high in it, especially since the pro-Trump PAC run by Elon Musk posted tweets based on the C-Word. Literally, says “The C- Word.”

Even the fig leaf usually accepted by the bothsidesist media looking for a way – SOME way, ANY way – to avoid slamming Trump – has opened up a whole new line of stories: the disingenuous statement from the conveniently Latina spokesperson disavowing the jokes only served to spin off a series of reports on all the OTHER remarks Hinchcliffe and others made Sunday at Madison Square Garden: from the line about African-Americans and watermelons and the line calling the Vice President’s staff “pimp handlers.”

And the story is still expanding. Now Joe Rogan and Robert F. Kennedy Junior have been sucked under.

AND AS THE VIBE KEEPS SHIFTING TOWARDS HARRIS there are plenty of different flavors of insurrection to worry about but a Contingent Election isn't one of them.

B-Block (21:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump has a "Sir" story. The Border Patrol agents said he was better on the border than Lincoln. The Don't-Cancel-Your-WaPo-Subscription crowd is missing the point: don't criticize angry ex-customers. If you can, join them. And it's not enough to bully reporters into sanewashing Trump, you must reward them. Thus CNN's embarrassment Dana Bash is profiled in The Wall Street Journal and we are told: This Is Her Moment.

C-Block (33:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: If Trump ruined Giuliani's life, why was Rudy at Trump's self-immolation at Madison Square Garden? Well among other things I believe Rudy now lives in a hallway at Penn Station so it was a quick commute. Plus, you may not have known but Rudy's been nuts since at least the mid-90's, as I'll tell you.

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