COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 8

A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): BREAKING: Republicans finally throw Trump overboard - or maybe it's "Republicans finally throw Trump under the campaign bus."

-Trump toady Byron Donalds, running for Governor of Florida and only ahead in the polls by 1/10 of a percentage point, scrubs Trump from his website.

- Foundering GOP Senate candidates in Iowa and Michigan criticize Trump's war in Iran and resultant high prices.

- Trump's approval among Pure Independents drops from +15 to -71 since Election Day (an 86 point swing against Trump!; 99 point swing on the economy)

-The percentage of Trump voters who supported him - not the GOP - goes from +23 on Inauguration Week to -22.

-And the Tump staff response? They want to rename Ford's Theatre after Trump! 'Ford's Theatre - because the one thing you really want as the midterms loom is some commercial that includes the tag lines 'The Lincoln Assassination - brought to you by Donald Trump!'

The De-Trumpification Has Begun!

PLUS the polls are crashing around him and Trump can't decide if the midterms are about him or aren't about him, and I have to take some of your time to protest this claim that a baseball player who may lead the American League in Runs Batted In this year after leading the National League four years ago, will be the first to ever do it. He isn't. There is now a desperate bid to make everything that happens, something that has never happened before. 'The first time since 1904' is a plenty big enough accomplishment without hyperbole.

B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Stephen A. Smith is back and fully up to date on politics (as long as that date is July 15 2024). Jared Golden, phony Democratic congressman from Maine, endorses a Republican in New York because they worked together prioritizing lobstermen over democracy. And Friedrich Merz, a German chancellor having trouble fending off a bunch of fascists bent on ethnic cleansing. Get some help, Ethel Mertz.

C-Block (52:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I cherish the memory of a friend no longer with us and the extraordinary person she was. In fact, she should've been president - at minimum, she should've been the VP candidate on the Democratic ticket, not her husband. Elizabeth Edwards - my friend.