EPISODE 300! - COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Judge Tanya Sue Chutkan is about to become the most important person in the 2024 presidential campaign and maybe the most important person in the fight to prevent the sabotaging of democracy.

Because if Judge Chutkan sides WITH Trump and AGAINST Jack Smith in the Gag Order case, she will be enabling Trump to claim that everything he does – every threat he makes, every conspiracy theory he stokes, every lie about Biden he proclaims – has been authorized by a Federal Judge and YOU cannot stop him and the LAW cannot stop him and the CONSTITUTION cannot stop him and THAT fresh hell will make the current one read like a quick dance in the spring rain.

To read the full 25-page Trump Gag Order filing is an exercise by Trump to get the Judge – and thus the Courts – to sign off on every one of his anti-democracy rages and every call for assassination by proxy and to exonerate him on January 6th and to enshrine him as the REAL victim in this case. The Trump lawyers response filed late Monday night BURSTS with Trumpian claims of rights that do not exist, and precedents that do not authorize his dangerous rhetoric, and constitutional means to DESTROY the constitution that are not part of the American system of representative government. But if Judge Chutkan finds for Trump, he will immediately claim they are ALL in effect and he will exploit them and 482 days from now we will be living in an authoritarian state.

Trump’s lawyers gave away the sub-plot in the first sentence. Literally. The answer to the Smith demand for a Gag Order begins: “President Trump respectfully submits this response in opposition to the prosecution’s motion to impose unconstitutional prior restraints." If Chutkan agrees with Trump, Trump will proceed and boast that his threat that kicked this all off – If you go after me, I’m coming after you – is constitutionally protected. He might as well put it on bumper stickers and MAGA hats.

B-Block (20:15) IN SPORTS: In memory of Brooks Robinson, the greatest 3rd Baseman but a greater person (22:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: For the 20th consecutive year ex-pitcher Curt Schilling tells you who he really is. Benny Johnson lies about what Biden said and gets pounded - by the Right? And RFK Junior grabs and kisses yet another 3rd Rail: 9/11 Trutherism and Idiocy.

C-Block (28:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: There is a Hall of Fame of people who have helped to ruin American journalism and I ran into one of the immortals the other day. His name is Andy Lack, he ran NBC News into the ground, and among other things he put Chuck Todd on Meet The Press and mainstreamed Megyn Kelly. Now you get to hear what a jackass he is.