Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This is a Countdown bulletin update. In a late night appearance in Arizona alongside Tucker Carlson, the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, the candidate in next Tuesday's election for the Republican Party against Kamala Harris, the sitting Vice President, in essence, threatened to kill former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This is a Countdown bulletin update. In a late night appearance in Arizona alongside Tucker Carlson, the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, the candidate in next Tuesday's election for the Republican Party against Kamala Harris, the sitting Vice President, in essence, threatened to kill former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney.

And I don't blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb.

And I don't blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb.

She's a radical warhawk.

She's a radical warhawk.

Let's put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrel shooting at her. Okay, let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained in her face.

Let's put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrel shooting at her. Okay, let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained in her face.

As we record, there has been no further explanation from Trump for his threat. There is no other way to interpret it than as a threat to the life of Liz Cheney. It is noteworthy that, even in the immediate moments after this statement was made by the former president, that there was no Republican who had the moral, courage, clarity, nor humanity to say this is where I draw the line. This is where I must repudiate this crazed would be dictator. Nor perhaps more disturbingly, was any Republican there to say, my God, the next time he says something like this about a Republican who has disagreed with him, it will be me. We now follow with the rest of the Friday Countdown podcast, as previously recorded before the late night event in Arizona in which President Trump threatened Liz Cheney with a firing squad.

As we record, there has been no further explanation from Trump for his threat. There is no other way to interpret it than as a threat to the life of Liz Cheney. It is noteworthy that, even in the immediate moments after this statement was made by the former president, that there was no Republican who had the moral, courage, clarity, nor humanity to say this is where I draw the line. This is where I must repudiate this crazed would be dictator. Nor perhaps more disturbingly, was any Republican there to say, my God, the next time he says something like this about a Republican who has disagreed with him, it will be me. We now follow with the rest of the Friday Countdown podcast, as previously recorded before the late night event in Arizona in which President Trump threatened Liz Cheney with a firing squad.

She's a radical warhawk. Let's put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrel shooting at her. Okay, let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained in her face.

She's a radical warhawk. Let's put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrel shooting at her. Okay, let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained in her face.

I think there can no longer be any doubt that as the last weekend of the campaign hits, the Trump internal polls are telling his handlers that he is losing, and losing by enough that, however close the popular vote might turn out to be, he will lose handily and decisively in the electoral College, and his only chance now is to foment another insurrection, whether by violence or via the machinations of that little shit eating Weasels. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson Axios. It's Mike Allen reporting this. Possibly the most gullible and easily led man in the history of American journalism, and I include Bill Hemmer and everybody else who's ever worked at Fox News. Mike Allen, possibly the most gulliblelan in journalism or whatever he's actually in. Presented this as a scoop. I quote a new internal memo by Tony Fabrizio, chief polster for all three of Trump's presidential campaigns, tells the former president he's in a radically better position than he was right before the twenty twenty election. Mike, this is not a scoop, It's a press release. Why it matters. The memo reflects the exuberance that Trump staffers and allies exude in interviews and behind the scenes conversations. The optimistic framing could make it even more difficult for Trump followers to accept a law as legitimate. Mike has just hit the lead there at that end of that sentence and hasn't even noticed. Might make it even more difficult for Trump followers to accept a loss as legitimate. But back to his scoop. The memo addressed to capital letters only Team Trump has the subject line President Trump is on the verge to some degree. It is terrifying, and not just for the fact that this guy Allen has founded two of the larger news organizations and two of the newer successful news organizations in this country in the last fifteen years. It's terrifying because it sounds like they have internal data that suggests they're winning, and then we discovered what actually happened here. Quote Fabrizio 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 for years ago. I point this out not to stoke over confidence or complacency, but to illustrate just how close this election is and that victory is within our reach. The upholster ads they needed to plant this somewhere, and somebody said plants, like in ferns plants. Oh, of course, Mike Allen. Let me explain real clear politics for a moment. Real clear politics is the Rasmussen made up numbers. And remember the Rasmussen organizations. There's now two different sets of Rasmussen polls. The Rasmussins are the people who invented ESPN and then sold it for like eighty seven dollars. That's where they started. Somebody who got fired as a local sportscaster in Hartford, Connecticut invented ESPN and gave it away for nothing. They're now in the polling business, except they don't do real polls. They just produce numbers that Republicans like. So real clear politics, the real Clear Politics average is the Rasmussen made up poll plus some disreputable ones. As I have been saying for a month, October would be devoted to various organizations you have never heard from or heard of before, issuing polls showing Trump leading by ten, Trump leading by seventeen in Michigan, Trump leading in Wisconsin, Trump ahead uncatchably in Pennsylvania, maybe in some state, Trump leading four million, three hundred and twenty seven two hundred and sixty one votes to nothing, things like that. So the Rasmussen numbers are the more reliable ones, and the real Clear Politics result is there solely to make Republican voters think they are winning and to set up another Trump insurrection, to stoke the idea if it were not stoked enough by this psychopath. Every time he opens his orange blow up sex doll mouth, as we saw in the shots of him from Wisconsin in the Orange vest. And I'm sorry for the imagery, but the imagery is way worse than me talking about the imagery. It's worse than every time he opens his mouth and that stuff comes out. Because here it is in print, it must be true. It's real clear politics. We know that's good because it says real clear. Trump has been questioning the vote in Pennsylvania for a week now. Has been threatening legal action, has been threatening to get people arrested, has been insisting there has been fraud, has been insisting that there have been ballot stolen and there were ballots stolen by Republicans. Has been insisting it's all fixed in Pennsylvania. It's already happening. And there's only one possible explanation for that. He knows, or somebody knows, looking at you, Tony Fabrizio, that the internals, particularly in Pennsylvania, and the early voting particularly and in Pennsylvania are bad enough to cost him that pivotal Keystone state. And here's the evidence of it from Politico, which still occasionally occasionally runs an actual news story as opposed to something planted by the GOP. Trump is lagging Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania early voting with a critical and once reliable Republican constituency, seniors in Pennsylvania, where voters over the age of sixty five, Holy crap, that would be me, have cast nearly half of the early ballots. Registered Democrats account for about fifty eight percent of votes cast by seniors, compared to thirty five percent for Republicans. That's despite both parties having roughly equal numbers of registered voters aged sixty five and older. I will point something out to you that sounds shocking if you are not sixty five or older, But once you get to sixty five, as I am, suddenly becomes well to use a phrase, real clear, you do tend to think in terms of if I get this done now, it'll be done in case I die suddenly. Like voting in advance, Oh my god, I get a two week advantage. My vote will still count even if I'm dead, or if I die on election morning. It's not morbid. It's not prophesying your own death. It's not doubting you're gonna make it. It's just you know, planning, Like while you're out and you're near a post office and you get a whole row of stamps. I'm not gonna use them all today. Remember what the idea here is and why Trump has been continually talking about Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the key, but not because Trump is going to win in Pennsylvania. Because all that, from what I can tell, the internal polls inside the camp at Harris HQ suggest the other that they are going to win, That all of their trends in Pennsylvania are positive, that they have been positive and ever more so positive since she took over the nomination in July, and that they've been moving incrementally one tenth of one percent a day every day since then in every category except nazis that they might win the state of Pennsylvania by more than Biden did, That they might get to six figures. They might win the state by one hundred thousand votes. That would be a comparative landslide. That they might win all the swing states, seven swing states, by a total of four hundred thousand votes. We'll take it, because, of course, what the result would be in the electoral college is the same as if you won each of those swing states by ten million votes. Remember the Trump idea here. If there is no electoral path to victory, you force a contingent election. And again just to go over that, that is one in which for some reason there are not enough electors, there are not a clear majority being presented, and the electoral decision is made by the House of Representatives. One vote per state, and obviously that would be like at the conventions. There's one vote per state, the majority in that state in terms of the Electoral college, in terms of the House of Representatives, group would get the one vote. Most of the states are Republican. Therefore Trump would win thirty seven to twenty three. But you can't accomplish that, as we heard earlier this week in the Peace in the Washington Post by professors Lawrence Tribe Neil Buchanan to Michael Dorf, you can't do that simply by holding up the Pennsylvania delegation. That's where you start. You say, oh, there's something wrong with the Pennsylvania delegation. What you would need to do is, depending on the margin of victory for Kamala Harris, you'd either need to hold up two other states Pennsylvania and Arizona and Wisconsin say, if she won all three of those, and then suddenly Trump would have the majority of the available votes at the Electoral College and he would be the winner, with the other ones being recorded as zero votes. The other option is, of course, to try to get an alternate vote of electors in there, no matter what the outcome is, if Trump indeed loses Pennsylvania, you somehow get a second set of electors. The twenty twenty Eastman plan, the alternate electors. You just have been planning it and working on it and refining it and making it legal and lining it up with the judges four years in advance, four years of groundwork to this point. The idea that came to them far too late for it to actually work in twenty twenty has been percolating ever since. So that's the idea. Keep selling the idea that he is winning and has had it stolen from him, and take your chances with violence or with Mike Johnson and the little secret that they have going for them. It is either a coup by murder, which again can be responded to by tanks, or a coup by Mike Johnson. And you just have to ask yourself, if you're a president of the United States, and Mike Johnson tries to steal the election, what do you do? My advice to President Biden would be, Hey, the other idea works well here too. Mike Johnson tries to steal the election, get the tanks out anyway. Yeah, he would respond the way the guy did at Tiananmen Square. No stop, anybody see Mike Johnson around here anywhere? Well, check the pavement. He may be down there somewhere. Crazily enough, all of what I am postulating in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and this idea that Trump at least is being told that he is winning so he can sell them is part and parcel of a larger idea to make it look to the Trump crazies that they are well ahead and having the stolen from them. It would match what otherwise would look like the Trump campaign deliberately trying to lose. The things that have been done in the last week, including with the availability of a little perspective of time, including the Madison Square Garden event a week ago Sunday, could be attempts simply to gin up that racist base. Because they continue to pull out all the stops to fire up those people. The white supremacists. The white supremacists. After all, if you go look at the videotape from January sixth, these are the people who being told Trump is winning and there has been fraud, and that it has been stolen from them. They are the ones most likely to have the guns and the most likely to have fun storming the castle. Again, remember the other night, the attempt to turn garbage into a pro Trump message, Trump and the garbage truck, Trump and the garbage man's orange outfit, and the previous reference to the blow up sex doll Trump garbage force one. In one of those speeches in Wisconsin, Trump said Harris even though she didn't say it, Biden said it, and he didn't say it. He was quoting the guy Tony race Bait, whatever the name of the former comedian is. He said it. But Trump said Harris had insulted two hundred and fifty million Americans, and setting aside the facts of who said what about garbage for a moment, where does that number come from? Where does two hundred and fifty million Americans come from? I mean, even Trump can't get that wrong. That's not the population of the United States, and that's not his base that's not his voting total. We are at, depending on the count, three hundred and thirty six million or nearly so in this country as of the beginning of this year, probably three forty five. Now, there were eighty one million Biden voters in twenty twenty, seventy four million Trump voters in twenty twenty. So that's eighty five one hundred and fifty five million. Where does two hundred and fifty million come from? Well, sir, per Statista resident population of the United States by race, Black or African American forty five million, seven hundred sixty thousand. They have American, Indian, and Alaska, and they over here, what's this white? Two hundred and fifty two million, seventy thousand. Why, that's a coincidence. Two hundred and fifty two million. So Trump was actually being conservative when he said she had offended two hundred and fifty million people. He means white people. He means racist white people. And thank god, it's not two hundred and fifty million racist white people. But there's a lot. I don't know if you'd noticed that. Now, the two hundred and fifty two million in the Statista number includes and this is a clunky and if it is an offensive term, and I would think it would be, I apologize. You know what is meant by this white Hispanics, non African Hispanics, Hispanic African Americans. That's the number. It's Caucasians plus white Latinos, and you get the point. The point is the number, and Trump thinks he's got them, and so Trump is referencing them as America and everybody else can go to hell. Two hundred and fifty million Americans and the rest of you are sol Now, it is possible he's just being fed what he wants to hear by his handlers, just as his voters are being fed what they want to hear. I would never use the term victim when it comes to Trump, but it is clearly possible that he has long since lost the ability to process this or lead this campaign, and he is simply being fed material by the Stephen Millers and this guy from the beginning here that was this name, Tony the polster. Fabrizio smells bad in here, sprits some Fabrizio around the room. It is either Trump's last again wrong term, intellectual gasp, or it's being what he is being told. But clearly he has been told go heavy on the whole white people thing, especially the white males. So now we have attack the minorities even more like the other Tony at Madison Square Garden. And don't forget to attack women because women, as we keep hearing, women who don't vote the way their husbands tell them to are going to hell. That message has been pushed through forughout the last week. But so go after the independent women and say extraordinary things like He's going to protect women whether they like it or not, whether they like it or not, whether they like it or not, women, whether they like it or not. Why that sounds like what a rapist might say.

I think there can no longer be any doubt that as the last weekend of the campaign hits, the Trump internal polls are telling his handlers that he is losing, and losing by enough that, however close the popular vote might turn out to be, he will lose handily and decisively in the electoral College, and his only chance now is to foment another insurrection, whether by violence or via the machinations of that little shit eating Weasels. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson Axios. It's Mike Allen reporting this. Possibly the most gullible and easily led man in the history of American journalism, and I include Bill Hemmer and everybody else who's ever worked at Fox News. Mike Allen, possibly the most gulliblelan in journalism or whatever he's actually in. Presented this as a scoop. I quote a new internal memo by Tony Fabrizio, chief polster for all three of Trump's presidential campaigns, tells the former president he's in a radically better position than he was right before the twenty twenty election. Mike, this is not a scoop, It's a press release. Why it matters. The memo reflects the exuberance that Trump staffers and allies exude in interviews and behind the scenes conversations. The optimistic framing could make it even more difficult for Trump followers to accept a law as legitimate. Mike has just hit the lead there at that end of that sentence and hasn't even noticed. Might make it even more difficult for Trump followers to accept a loss as legitimate. But back to his scoop. The memo addressed to capital letters only Team Trump has the subject line President Trump is on the verge to some degree. It is terrifying, and not just for the fact that this guy Allen has founded two of the larger news organizations and two of the newer successful news organizations in this country in the last fifteen years. It's terrifying because it sounds like they have internal data that suggests they're winning, and then we discovered what actually happened here. Quote Fabrizio 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 for years ago. I point this out not to stoke over confidence or complacency, but to illustrate just how close this election is and that victory is within our reach. The upholster ads they needed to plant this somewhere, and somebody said plants, like in ferns plants. Oh, of course, Mike Allen. Let me explain real clear politics for a moment. Real clear politics is the Rasmussen made up numbers. And remember the Rasmussen organizations. There's now two different sets of Rasmussen polls. The Rasmussins are the people who invented ESPN and then sold it for like eighty seven dollars. That's where they started. Somebody who got fired as a local sportscaster in Hartford, Connecticut invented ESPN and gave it away for nothing. They're now in the polling business, except they don't do real polls. They just produce numbers that Republicans like. So real clear politics, the real Clear Politics average is the Rasmussen made up poll plus some disreputable ones. As I have been saying for a month, October would be devoted to various organizations you have never heard from or heard of before, issuing polls showing Trump leading by ten, Trump leading by seventeen in Michigan, Trump leading in Wisconsin, Trump ahead uncatchably in Pennsylvania, maybe in some state, Trump leading four million, three hundred and twenty seven two hundred and sixty one votes to nothing, things like that. So the Rasmussen numbers are the more reliable ones, and the real Clear Politics result is there solely to make Republican voters think they are winning and to set up another Trump insurrection, to stoke the idea if it were not stoked enough by this psychopath. Every time he opens his orange blow up sex doll mouth, as we saw in the shots of him from Wisconsin in the Orange vest. And I'm sorry for the imagery, but the imagery is way worse than me talking about the imagery. It's worse than every time he opens his mouth and that stuff comes out. Because here it is in print, it must be true. It's real clear politics. We know that's good because it says real clear. Trump has been questioning the vote in Pennsylvania for a week now. Has been threatening legal action, has been threatening to get people arrested, has been insisting there has been fraud, has been insisting that there have been ballot stolen and there were ballots stolen by Republicans. Has been insisting it's all fixed in Pennsylvania. It's already happening. And there's only one possible explanation for that. He knows, or somebody knows, looking at you, Tony Fabrizio, that the internals, particularly in Pennsylvania, and the early voting particularly and in Pennsylvania are bad enough to cost him that pivotal Keystone state. And here's the evidence of it from Politico, which still occasionally occasionally runs an actual news story as opposed to something planted by the GOP. Trump is lagging Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania early voting with a critical and once reliable Republican constituency, seniors in Pennsylvania, where voters over the age of sixty five, Holy crap, that would be me, have cast nearly half of the early ballots. Registered Democrats account for about fifty eight percent of votes cast by seniors, compared to thirty five percent for Republicans. That's despite both parties having roughly equal numbers of registered voters aged sixty five and older. I will point something out to you that sounds shocking if you are not sixty five or older, But once you get to sixty five, as I am, suddenly becomes well to use a phrase, real clear, you do tend to think in terms of if I get this done now, it'll be done in case I die suddenly. Like voting in advance, Oh my god, I get a two week advantage. My vote will still count even if I'm dead, or if I die on election morning. It's not morbid. It's not prophesying your own death. It's not doubting you're gonna make it. It's just you know, planning, Like while you're out and you're near a post office and you get a whole row of stamps. I'm not gonna use them all today. Remember what the idea here is and why Trump has been continually talking about Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the key, but not because Trump is going to win in Pennsylvania. Because all that, from what I can tell, the internal polls inside the camp at Harris HQ suggest the other that they are going to win, That all of their trends in Pennsylvania are positive, that they have been positive and ever more so positive since she took over the nomination in July, and that they've been moving incrementally one tenth of one percent a day every day since then in every category except nazis that they might win the state of Pennsylvania by more than Biden did, That they might get to six figures. They might win the state by one hundred thousand votes. That would be a comparative landslide. That they might win all the swing states, seven swing states, by a total of four hundred thousand votes. We'll take it, because, of course, what the result would be in the electoral college is the same as if you won each of those swing states by ten million votes. Remember the Trump idea here. If there is no electoral path to victory, you force a contingent election. And again just to go over that, that is one in which for some reason there are not enough electors, there are not a clear majority being presented, and the electoral decision is made by the House of Representatives. One vote per state, and obviously that would be like at the conventions. There's one vote per state, the majority in that state in terms of the Electoral college, in terms of the House of Representatives, group would get the one vote. Most of the states are Republican. Therefore Trump would win thirty seven to twenty three. But you can't accomplish that, as we heard earlier this week in the Peace in the Washington Post by professors Lawrence Tribe Neil Buchanan to Michael Dorf, you can't do that simply by holding up the Pennsylvania delegation. That's where you start. You say, oh, there's something wrong with the Pennsylvania delegation. What you would need to do is, depending on the margin of victory for Kamala Harris, you'd either need to hold up two other states Pennsylvania and Arizona and Wisconsin say, if she won all three of those, and then suddenly Trump would have the majority of the available votes at the Electoral College and he would be the winner, with the other ones being recorded as zero votes. The other option is, of course, to try to get an alternate vote of electors in there, no matter what the outcome is, if Trump indeed loses Pennsylvania, you somehow get a second set of electors. The twenty twenty Eastman plan, the alternate electors. You just have been planning it and working on it and refining it and making it legal and lining it up with the judges four years in advance, four years of groundwork to this point. The idea that came to them far too late for it to actually work in twenty twenty has been percolating ever since. So that's the idea. Keep selling the idea that he is winning and has had it stolen from him, and take your chances with violence or with Mike Johnson and the little secret that they have going for them. It is either a coup by murder, which again can be responded to by tanks, or a coup by Mike Johnson. And you just have to ask yourself, if you're a president of the United States, and Mike Johnson tries to steal the election, what do you do? My advice to President Biden would be, Hey, the other idea works well here too. Mike Johnson tries to steal the election, get the tanks out anyway. Yeah, he would respond the way the guy did at Tiananmen Square. No stop, anybody see Mike Johnson around here anywhere? Well, check the pavement. He may be down there somewhere. Crazily enough, all of what I am postulating in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and this idea that Trump at least is being told that he is winning so he can sell them is part and parcel of a larger idea to make it look to the Trump crazies that they are well ahead and having the stolen from them. It would match what otherwise would look like the Trump campaign deliberately trying to lose. The things that have been done in the last week, including with the availability of a little perspective of time, including the Madison Square Garden event a week ago Sunday, could be attempts simply to gin up that racist base. Because they continue to pull out all the stops to fire up those people. The white supremacists. The white supremacists. After all, if you go look at the videotape from January sixth, these are the people who being told Trump is winning and there has been fraud, and that it has been stolen from them. They are the ones most likely to have the guns and the most likely to have fun storming the castle. Again, remember the other night, the attempt to turn garbage into a pro Trump message, Trump and the garbage truck, Trump and the garbage man's orange outfit, and the previous reference to the blow up sex doll Trump garbage force one. In one of those speeches in Wisconsin, Trump said Harris even though she didn't say it, Biden said it, and he didn't say it. He was quoting the guy Tony race Bait, whatever the name of the former comedian is. He said it. But Trump said Harris had insulted two hundred and fifty million Americans, and setting aside the facts of who said what about garbage for a moment, where does that number come from? Where does two hundred and fifty million Americans come from? I mean, even Trump can't get that wrong. That's not the population of the United States, and that's not his base that's not his voting total. We are at, depending on the count, three hundred and thirty six million or nearly so in this country as of the beginning of this year, probably three forty five. Now, there were eighty one million Biden voters in twenty twenty, seventy four million Trump voters in twenty twenty. So that's eighty five one hundred and fifty five million. Where does two hundred and fifty million come from? Well, sir, per Statista resident population of the United States by race, Black or African American forty five million, seven hundred sixty thousand. They have American, Indian, and Alaska, and they over here, what's this white? Two hundred and fifty two million, seventy thousand. Why, that's a coincidence. Two hundred and fifty two million. So Trump was actually being conservative when he said she had offended two hundred and fifty million people. He means white people. He means racist white people. And thank god, it's not two hundred and fifty million racist white people. But there's a lot. I don't know if you'd noticed that. Now, the two hundred and fifty two million in the Statista number includes and this is a clunky and if it is an offensive term, and I would think it would be, I apologize. You know what is meant by this white Hispanics, non African Hispanics, Hispanic African Americans. That's the number. It's Caucasians plus white Latinos, and you get the point. The point is the number, and Trump thinks he's got them, and so Trump is referencing them as America and everybody else can go to hell. Two hundred and fifty million Americans and the rest of you are sol Now, it is possible he's just being fed what he wants to hear by his handlers, just as his voters are being fed what they want to hear. I would never use the term victim when it comes to Trump, but it is clearly possible that he has long since lost the ability to process this or lead this campaign, and he is simply being fed material by the Stephen Millers and this guy from the beginning here that was this name, Tony the polster. Fabrizio smells bad in here, sprits some Fabrizio around the room. It is either Trump's last again wrong term, intellectual gasp, or it's being what he is being told. But clearly he has been told go heavy on the whole white people thing, especially the white males. So now we have attack the minorities even more like the other Tony at Madison Square Garden. And don't forget to attack women because women, as we keep hearing, women who don't vote the way their husbands tell them to are going to hell. That message has been pushed through forughout the last week. But so go after the independent women and say extraordinary things like He's going to protect women whether they like it or not, whether they like it or not, whether they like it or not, women, whether they like it or not. Why that sounds like what a rapist might say.

I want to protect the people. I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women. Sir, Please don't say that. Why they said, we think it's we think it's very inappropriate for you to say. So I'm going to do it, whether the women like it or not. I'm going to protect them.

I want to protect the people. I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women. Sir, Please don't say that. Why they said, we think it's we think it's very inappropriate for you to say. So I'm going to do it, whether the women like it or not. I'm going to protect them.

I will comment on the former president Donald Trump's remark about women and whether they like it or not, and listen, it's just it actually is I think very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies. And this is just the latest on a series of reveals by the former of how he thinks about.

I will comment on the former president Donald Trump's remark about women and whether they like it or not, and listen, it's just it actually is I think very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies. And this is just the latest on a series of reveals by the former of how he thinks about.

Women, whether they like it or not, that would fit in with the entirety of Donald Trump's life on this earth. Now they have not given up on getting women to vote for him. Trump's ads, particularly the ones that ran during the World Series, and I'd like to point out that the increased ratings in the World Series were largely due to the fact that viewers in New York and California were watching two of the bluest states. There are, so any Trump ad being shown to the large audience in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City total waste of money. But all of those ads were about women needing to be afraid of minority men, especially immigrants. And just in case you missed the point and it was too subtle for you, with the bunch of old ladies sitting around the diners saying they were spat on while taking their dog for a walk, Rudy Giuliani decided enough of this subtlety and new once I'm just gonna come out and get this close to using the terms bunny and jungle in the same sentence they years ago.

Women, whether they like it or not, that would fit in with the entirety of Donald Trump's life on this earth. Now they have not given up on getting women to vote for him. Trump's ads, particularly the ones that ran during the World Series, and I'd like to point out that the increased ratings in the World Series were largely due to the fact that viewers in New York and California were watching two of the bluest states. There are, so any Trump ad being shown to the large audience in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City total waste of money. But all of those ads were about women needing to be afraid of minority men, especially immigrants. And just in case you missed the point and it was too subtle for you, with the bunch of old ladies sitting around the diners saying they were spat on while taking their dog for a walk, Rudy Giuliani decided enough of this subtlety and new once I'm just gonna come out and get this close to using the terms bunny and jungle in the same sentence they years ago.

They just shouldn't have been taken out of the jungle and placed in the middle of a small town America.

They just shouldn't have been taken out of the jungle and placed in the middle of a small town America.

That's ridiculous, or be town America for that matter. There is still time to bet on whether Trump or one of his surrogates drops the N word before Tuesday. I mean, Rudy, Jungle, You're so close, You're getting there. Rudy's back, baby. More signs they're trying to gin up outrage, any outrage. You may recall the plan to immunize the police. Policeman shoots some innocent bystander up, you can't prosecute him, you can't sue him, you can't fire him. And who does he have to thank for that? Donald Trump? Therefore, who does ever repolicemen in the country work for? Donald Trump now plans once again to take over the police force by defunding the police as Trump protests correction, as Trump promises the largest mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in US history if re elected, His team is considering withholding federal police grants from local law enforcement agencies that decline to take part in the deportations. Three sources close to the Trump campaign told NBC News tried it last time. But the point is, if the cops are immunized and they see there's no funding and they work for Trump and the cities try to stop the mass deportation and killing of immigrants and people who will defend them, why the cops can then turn around and be used against the leaders of the local cities. So, for instance, here in New York, immunized conservative cops in this city who live on Long Island for the most part, or Staten Island, could be used to arrest Mayor Eric Adams. And what a miscarriage of Wait a minute, I'll get back to you on that idea. More comically, the website Red State, which may be bought by the Onion simply because the content on Red State is far more satirically funny than even the best of the revivified Onion. Plus, if they merged, it would be the Red Onion breaking another Mike Allen scoop at Red State. Oh no, he doesn't work there. For the moment breaking, Trump sues CBS News for gigantic sum over sixty minutes fiasco. Well, I don't know. I got a story coming up later about Russia suing Google for more money than there is in the world. Trump sues CBS News for jike antic some over sixty minutes fiasco. It was the journalism fail heard round the world. Well, no, it was on CBS. CBS News is long running show sixty minutes interview Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harrison early October, but presented two different versions of her answering a question about Israel. Clearly one of those answers had to be deceptively edited. Clearly, some overwork bastard in the edit room put the wrong answer with the wrong cutaway of the wrong question. I don't know how many times I saw this happen. I don't know how many times I saw it happen at my college radio station. Now Trump is taking action, ensuing the network for a staggering ten billion dollars in damages, stating the network practiced deceptive conduct for the purpose of election interference in its interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump attorney said the complaint comes due to CBS's partisan and unlas lawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive and substantial news distortion calculated to confuse, deceive, and mislead the public. Confuse, deceive, and mislead the public, isn't it the motto of the Trump campaign, translated into into pig Latin. Trump attorneys also argue the edits were done in an effort to attempt to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party. Wait a minute, somebody wrote democratic instead of Democrat. Fire him. As the heated twenty twenty four presidential election, which President Trump is leading, approaches its conclusion And what was the reaction to this at CBS and CBS News. Well, of course they were delighted because this is the first time anybody has suggested that there were enough people watching to influence the election. Ooh, also of interest here, thank you for your kind words about my rescue puppy Kit and the changes that I am going to enact in this As you may have heard, principally now the script is ad libbed. The promotional efforts for this podcast are down to a minimum because I want to spend the next couple of weeks with Kit before he has his surgery, which has now been scheduled. We've gotten an extraordinary surgeon to do it, and the situation is much more hopeful today than it was yesterday. And thank you for the kind messages of support and the prayers. And Kit continues to scratch me in the face just to say hello. I'll keep you updated on Kit and still ahead of us here in Worse Persons, one of my favorite worst persons stories in years, One of my favorite in years. It's not only ridiculous, stupid, nonsensical, hilarious, but it involves Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson says he's been mould in his sleep by demon monochronk Guy a CBS News that's next. This has come down.

That's ridiculous, or be town America for that matter. There is still time to bet on whether Trump or one of his surrogates drops the N word before Tuesday. I mean, Rudy, Jungle, You're so close, You're getting there. Rudy's back, baby. More signs they're trying to gin up outrage, any outrage. You may recall the plan to immunize the police. Policeman shoots some innocent bystander up, you can't prosecute him, you can't sue him, you can't fire him. And who does he have to thank for that? Donald Trump? Therefore, who does ever repolicemen in the country work for? Donald Trump now plans once again to take over the police force by defunding the police as Trump protests correction, as Trump promises the largest mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in US history if re elected, His team is considering withholding federal police grants from local law enforcement agencies that decline to take part in the deportations. Three sources close to the Trump campaign told NBC News tried it last time. But the point is, if the cops are immunized and they see there's no funding and they work for Trump and the cities try to stop the mass deportation and killing of immigrants and people who will defend them, why the cops can then turn around and be used against the leaders of the local cities. So, for instance, here in New York, immunized conservative cops in this city who live on Long Island for the most part, or Staten Island, could be used to arrest Mayor Eric Adams. And what a miscarriage of Wait a minute, I'll get back to you on that idea. More comically, the website Red State, which may be bought by the Onion simply because the content on Red State is far more satirically funny than even the best of the revivified Onion. Plus, if they merged, it would be the Red Onion breaking another Mike Allen scoop at Red State. Oh no, he doesn't work there. For the moment breaking, Trump sues CBS News for gigantic sum over sixty minutes fiasco. Well, I don't know. I got a story coming up later about Russia suing Google for more money than there is in the world. Trump sues CBS News for jike antic some over sixty minutes fiasco. It was the journalism fail heard round the world. Well, no, it was on CBS. CBS News is long running show sixty minutes interview Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harrison early October, but presented two different versions of her answering a question about Israel. Clearly one of those answers had to be deceptively edited. Clearly, some overwork bastard in the edit room put the wrong answer with the wrong cutaway of the wrong question. I don't know how many times I saw this happen. I don't know how many times I saw it happen at my college radio station. Now Trump is taking action, ensuing the network for a staggering ten billion dollars in damages, stating the network practiced deceptive conduct for the purpose of election interference in its interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump attorney said the complaint comes due to CBS's partisan and unlas lawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive and substantial news distortion calculated to confuse, deceive, and mislead the public. Confuse, deceive, and mislead the public, isn't it the motto of the Trump campaign, translated into into pig Latin. Trump attorneys also argue the edits were done in an effort to attempt to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party. Wait a minute, somebody wrote democratic instead of Democrat. Fire him. As the heated twenty twenty four presidential election, which President Trump is leading, approaches its conclusion And what was the reaction to this at CBS and CBS News. Well, of course they were delighted because this is the first time anybody has suggested that there were enough people watching to influence the election. Ooh, also of interest here, thank you for your kind words about my rescue puppy Kit and the changes that I am going to enact in this As you may have heard, principally now the script is ad libbed. The promotional efforts for this podcast are down to a minimum because I want to spend the next couple of weeks with Kit before he has his surgery, which has now been scheduled. We've gotten an extraordinary surgeon to do it, and the situation is much more hopeful today than it was yesterday. And thank you for the kind messages of support and the prayers. And Kit continues to scratch me in the face just to say hello. I'll keep you updated on Kit and still ahead of us here in Worse Persons, one of my favorite worst persons stories in years, One of my favorite in years. It's not only ridiculous, stupid, nonsensical, hilarious, but it involves Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson says he's been mould in his sleep by demon monochronk Guy a CBS News that's next. This has come down.

This is countdown with Keith Alberman.

This is countdown with Keith Alberman.

Still ahead on this ediative countdown. If this is the last weekend before the election, there can be only one Thurber with which to leave you, the one where he saw the Advent of Trump, which he wrote in nineteen thirty one. The ending is the best part. First, there are still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the miss grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze the worst, the government of Russia. This is an epic headline from BBC News Russia finds Google more money than there is in the entire world. Russia media outlet RBC reports the fine on Google relates to the restriction of content of seventeen Russian media channels on YouTube. A Russian court has fined Google two Undiscilian rubles that's a two, followed by thirty six zeros for restricting Russian state propaganda channels. In dollar terms, that means Google owes the government of Russia twenty commas zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero dollars and ninety eight cents I made up the last part. That is much more. According to the International Monetary Fund, then there is money in the entire world's gross domestic product, which is allegedly, according to the IMF, the impossible missions Force, one hundred and ten trillion dollars. As in a sign, how come every time we refer to and they do it on the business channels hourly, the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, how come nobody ever says, what about Peter Graves and the impossible Mission Force. If you decide to accept this, Greg Morris will explode. The fine has reached these gargantuan levels, according to the BBC, quoting Tasks the Soviet News Agency, which is somehow still in business. It's because it rapidly increases all the time, because it doubles every day, and it's been doubling every day since the year twenty twenty. According to Task, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Preskoff admitted that he cannot even pronounce this number. Well, of course, if that's the definition of a lot, there's an awful lot of things that Dmitri Preskoff and the Russian government can't pronounce. Google management should pay attention. So it's more money than there is in the entire world. Two undecillion rubles. Now. The bad news for Russia is, of course, that's how much Trump owes it too. Runner up worser Elon Musk. If you haven't noticed this, Elon Musk has gone full Nazi. There's a neo Nazi account called im yes you are No that wrote we live in a society of double standards and posted wiki entries for black pride and white pride, indicating that black pride is a good thing and white pride is you know. Musk answered this to his whatever two hundred million followers what was the number in the Russian case, to undecillion replies. Is the Anti Defamation League still pushing this too? Hello, anti Semitism. You can take the South African drugged up intellectual thief out of the apartheid state, but you can't take the apartheid state out of the South African drugged up intellectual thief. The good news, though, is Musk has bought a compound in Texas or his various women and children, so he's going the full David Koresh evidently. So get those tanks ready, everybody. I'm telling you this is just a piece of advice from an old man. Put him out of business. I'm not saying harm him. I'm just saying remove him from our society as quickly as we can. Or one day he's going to press a button somewhere and all of his self driving cars will attack us. Actually, what harm would that do if he pressed a button for all the self driving cars to do anything? They just stall out or explode. The winner, though, the worst, speaking of Elon Musk speaking of Donald Trump, speaking of Russia. Tucker Carlson, he went on a podcast called Christianities. I believe this is a combination of the term christian and inanity, although they don't realize that perhaps the subject was good versus evil. There is a conservative writer named Rod Dreyer who says, yeah, this is all true. Carlson told this story a year ago. That, of course, is about the time that Carlson began to fully lose his mind. And also those pains began and the mark started showing up on his body. You think I'm kidding about that. Let me just read you some of this. After all this, he said he had an urge to read the Bible. Asked about good versus evil and the manifestations of evil in society by the host, mister religious psychopath of the day, I had a direct experience with it, Tucker Carlson says, in the milieu of journalism, He's asked, who says milieu. There was a guy wearing a monocle when he said this in the milieu of journalism. No, Tucker Carlson answers, in my bed at night, and I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs and mauled physically mauled. I'm just gonna as a as a side step aside here and just ask if you woke up mauled in your bed at night by evidently some sort of outside force, that's your first conclusion, it was by some sort of spiritual evil, and your wife and your four dogs are there. I mean, I have four dogs and occasionally I'm joined by well, wife is too strong a term. I'm occasionally joined and and if I woke up mauled, I would suspect one of them, some of the past, some of the exes, I would suspect them first. Some of the dogs, I would suspect them first too. I mean little Kit, who I love and and and as you know, changing the format of this podcast for little Kid likes to throw hands. Little kid comes over and gives me kisses and then punches me in the face. And he's pretty good at it too. He's got a good left and right. So I'm just saying, if you wound up whoever you are, if you wound up in the middle of the night where you got mauled with scratches all over your body, particularly if you're Tucker Carlson. I'm suspecting the wife. So anyway, the host asks in a spiritual attack by a demon, and his monocle pops out as he asked that question. Yeah, Tucker Carlson says, by a demon or by something unseen that left claw marks on my sides. The guy says, so it left physical marks, and the monocle pops back in. Carlson says, oh, oh they're still there. Yeah, yeah, a year and a half ago. All right, So you got cut up by your wife, probably maybe in her sleep, just as a manifestation of her frustration all these years to being married to one of the biggest assholes in human history, or by one of the dogs, because dogs know good people versus bad people. And I'm honestly surprised he's got four dogs and they haven't killed him and eaten him yet. Every once in a while, my dogs look at me and go, well, we think you're a good guy. But we have had meetings about this, and there's still physical marks. Tucker Carlson is still he has got physical marks that were inflicted a year and a half ago, and he hasn't like like seen and bought some back teen and put it on there some neosporin, a couple of band aids. I mean, I worked in the same place with Tucker Carlson for nearly three years, and he is legitimately that great gap between what you think your IQ is and what it really is. His might be as large as Trump's. He believes his IQ is up around two hundred, it's actually closer to two. There is no more self satisfied, self convinced, never doubting person in the history of the world. Go back and look at the interview with John Stewart, who I also do not support. Go back and look at John stewart interview on CNN's Crossfire years ago where John Stewart canceled Tucker Carlson and the show Crossfire by saying what damage Tucker Carlson was doing to society? And it's not until the very last moment after John Stewart has left a series of marks on Tucker Carlson's side, So until the last moment that Carlson realizes he's being cut up and left for roadkill and start, I'm not joking the early version of the psychonic laugh. That's him, Tucker Carlson. Maybe John Stewart left these marks in the middle of the night, although he would have filmed it and run it and then said I'm really good. Okay, back to the conversation on Christianity. Oh they're still there. Yeah, yeah, year and a half ago. The interlocutor says, was your wife terrified? I know you were. I wasn't. I was totally confused, like that's an uncommon feeling. I woke up and I couldn't breathe, and I thought I was going to suffocate, and I walked around outside and then I walked in and my wife and dogs had not woken up, and they're very light sleepers. And then I had these terrible pains on my rib cage and on my shoulder, and I was just in my boxer shorts, and I went and flipped on the light in the bathroom and I had four claw marks on either side, underneath my arms and on my left shoulder and they're bleeding. Well, this alarm's monocle. Boy, Wait, they were bleeding. Carlson says, they were bleeding. Yeah, no actual claw marks. And I sleep on my side, so I wasn't clawing myself. Again. I'm going to step aside from the quote to ask this question. You wake up suddenly apparently not feeling anything, no pain, no attack, no presence of any other force living, dead or trump in the room. You feel nothing, and suddenly you wake up and you're bleeding from claw marks on the sides. And your first thought is to say, have I been clawing myself? Because of course everybody sleeps like that, dragging somehow, razors, sharp fingernails, or I don't know, gardening tools against your rip cage while you sleep, because that's perfectly normal. And actually, the more I think about it, I think maybe I heard something like that with Tucker Carlson, that he keeps gardening tools in bed with him and claws himself every night. I don't have long nails and they didn't fit my hands anyway. Well, there it is. That must be the reference to the gardening tools. So he's saying the claw marks the first thing he did. The first thing he did was check to see if he had done this to himself in an unconscious attempt to literally kill himself painfully. If this lasts for more than three hours, see your physician. But yeah, Tucker Carlson concludes, that happened. Tucker, you think that was demons. No, that was that was me, Tucker Carlson, Today's worst president in the world. Sit back and relax, if relas is the right word for it, for the greatest man in the world by James Thurber. Looking back on it now from the vantage point of nineteen forty, one can only marvel that it had not happened. Long before it did. The United States of America had been ever since Kitty Hawk blindly constructing the elaborate petard by which, sooner or later it must be hoist. It was inevitable that someday there would come, roaring out of the skies a national hero of insufficient intelligence, background and character, successfully to endure the mounting orgies of glory prepared for aviators who stayed up for a long time or flew a great distance. Both Lindbergh and Byrd, fortunately for national decorum and international amity, had been gentlemen, So had our other famous aviators. They wore their laurels, gracefully, withstood the awful weather of publicity, married excellent women, usually fine family, and quietly retired to private life and the enjoyment of their varying fortunes. No untoward incidents on a worldwide scale, marred the perfection of their conduct on the perilous heights of fame. The exception to the rule was, however, bound to occur, and it did in July nineteen thirty seven, when Jack Pal Smirch erstwhile mechanics helper in a small garage in Westfield, Iowa, flew a second hand, single motored Breasthaven Dragonfly three monoplane all the way around the world without stopping. Never before in the history of aviation had such a flight as Smirches even been dreamed of. No one had even taken seriously the weird floating auxiliary gas tanks invention of the mad New Hampshire professor of astronomy, doctor Charles U was Gresham, upon which Smirch placed full reliance. When the garage worker, a slightly built, surly unprepossessing young man of twenty two, appeared at Roosevelt Field early in July nineteen thirty seven, slowly chewing a great quid of scrap tobacco, and announced nobody ain't seen no flying yet. The newspapers touched briefly and satirically upon his projected twenty five thousand mile flight aeronautical and automotive experts dismissed the idea, curtly implying that it was a hoax, the publicity stunt. The rusty, battered second hand plane wouldn't go, the Gresham auxiliary tanks wouldn't work. It was simply a cheap joke smirch. However, after calling on a girl in Brooklyn who worked in the flap folding department of a large paper box factory, a girl whom he laid you're described as his sweet Petuti climbed nonchalantly into his ridiculous plane at dawn the memorable seventh of July nineteen thirty seven, spit a curve of tobacco juice into the still air, and took off, carrying with him only a gallon of bootleg gin and six pounds of salami. When the garage boy thundered out over the ocean, the papers were forced to record in all seriousness that a mad, unknown young man his name was variously misspelled, had actually set out upon a preposterous attempt to span the world in a rickety one engine contraption, trusting to the long distance refueling device of a crazy schoolmaster. When nine days later, without having stopped once the tiny plane appeared above San Francisco Bay, headed for New York, spluttering and choking, to be sure, but still magnificently and miraculously aloft the headlines, which long since had crowded everything something else off the front page. Even the shooting of the governor of Illinois by the Valetti Gang swelled to unprecedented size, and the news stories began to run to twenty five and thirty columns. It was noticeable, however, that the accounts of the epoch making flight touched rather lightly upon the aviator himself. This was not because the facts about the hero as a man were too meager, but because they were too complete. Reporters who had been rushed out to Iowa when Smirch's plane was first sighted over the little French coast town of Serlee Lemaire to dig up the story of the great man's life had promptly discovered that the story of his life could not be printed. His mother, a sullen short order cook and a shack restaurant on the edge of a tourist's camping ground near Westfield, met all inquiries as to her son with an angry and the hell with him he drowns. His father appeared to be in jail somewhere for stealing spotlights and lap robes from tourists automobiles. His young brother, a weak minded lad, had but recently escaped from the Preston, Iowa Reformatory, and was already wanted in several Western towns for the theft of money order blanks from post offices. These alarming discoveries were still piling up at the very time that pal Smirch, the greatest hero of the twentieth century, blear eyed, dead for sleep, half starved, was piloting his crazy junk heap high above the region in which the lamentable story of his private life was being unearthed, headed for New York and a greater glory than any man of his time had ever known. The necessity for printing some account in the papers of the young man's career and personality had led to a remarkable predicament. It was, of course, impossible to reveal the facts, for a tremendous popular feeling in favor of the young hero had sprung up like a grass fire when he was halfway across Europe. On his flight around the globe. He was therefore described as a modest, chap taciturn blonde, popular with his friends, popular with girls. The only available snapshot of Smirch, taken at the wheel of a phony automobile in a cheap photo studio at an amusement park, was touched up so that the little vulgarian looked quite handsome. His twisted leer was smoothed into a pleasant smile. The truth was in this way kept from the youth's ecstatic compatriots. They did not dream that the Smirch family was despised and feared by its neighbors in the obscure Iowa town, nor that the hero himself, because of numerous unsavory exploits, had come to be regarded in Westfield as a nuisance and a menace. Pal's Smirch had, the reporters discovered, once knife the principle of high school, not mortally, to be sure, but he had knifed him, and on another occasion, surprised in the act of an stealing altar cloth from a church, he had bashed the sexton over the head with a pot of Easter lilies. For each of these offenses he had served a sentence in the reformatory. Inwardly, the authorities, both in New York and in Washington, prayed that an understanding providence might, however awful, such a thing seemed, bring disaster to the rusty, battered plane and its illustrious pilot, whose unheard of flight had aroused the civilized world to hosannas of hysterical praise. The authorities were convinced that the character of the renowned aviator was such that the limelight of adulation was bound to reveal him to all the world as a congenital hooligan, mentally and morally unequipped to cope with his own prodigious fame. Trust said the Secretary of State at one of the many secret cabinet meetings called to consider the national dilemma. I trust that his mother's prayer will be answered, by which he referred to missus Emma's Smirch's wish that her son might be drowned. It was, however, too late for that Smirch had leaped the Atlantic and then the Pacific as if they were mill ponds. At three minutes after two o'clock on the afternoon of July seventeenth, nineteen thirty seven, the garage boy brought his idiotic plane into Roosevelt Field for a perfect three point landing. It had, of course been out of the question to arrange a modest little reception for the greatest flier in the history of the world. He was received at Roosevelt Field with such elaborate and pretentious ceremonies as rocked the world. Fortunately, however, the warren and spent hero promptly swooned, had to be removed bodily from his plane, and was spirited from the field with a having opened his mouth once. Thus he did not jeopardize the dignity of his first reception, a reception illumined by the presence of the Secretaries of War and the Navy, Mayor Michael J. Moriarty of New York, the Premier of Canada, Governors Fanamine Groves, mcpheey and Critchfield, and a brilliant array of European diplomats. Smirch did not, in fact come too in time to take part in the gigantic hullabaloo arranged at City Hall for the next day. He was rushed to a secluded nursing home and confined in bed. It was nine days before he was able to get up, or to be more exact, before he was permitted to get up. Meanwhile, the greatest minds in the country in solemn assembly, had arranged a secret conference of city, state and government officials, which Smirch was to attend for the purpose of being instructed in the ethics and behavior of heroism. On the day that the little mechanic was finally allowed to get up in dress, and for the first time in two weeks, took a great chew of tomacco, he was permitted to receive the newspaper men this by way of testing him out. Smirch did not wait for questions. Use guys, he said, and the Times Man winced. Use guys can tell a cock eyed world that I put it over on Lindbergh. See yeah, man, an assaid, I'm two frogs. The two frogs was a reference to a pair of gallant French flyers who, in attempting to flight only halfway round the world, had two weeks before unhappily been lost at sea. The Times Man was bold enough at this point to sketch out for Smirch the accepted formula for interviews in cases of this kind. He explained that there should be no arrogant statements belittling the achievements of other heroes, particularly heroes of foreign nations. A the hell with that, said Smirch. I did it. See I did it, and I'm talking about it, and he did talk about it. None of this extraordinary interview was, of course printed. On the contrary, the newspapers, already under the discipline direction of a secret directorate created for the occasion and composed of statesmen and editors, gave out to a panting and restless world that Jackie, as he had been arbitrarily nicknamed, would consent to say only that he was very happy, and that anyone could have done what he did. My achievement has been I fear slightly exaggerated. The times Man's article had him protest with a modest smile. These newspaper stories were kept from the hero, a restriction which did not serve to abate the rising malevolence of his temper. The situation was indeed extremely grave for Palell's Smirch was, as he kept insisting, raring to go. He could not much longer be kept from a nation clamor to lionize him. It was the most desperate crisis the United States of America had faced since the sinking of the Lusitania. On the afternoon of the twenty seventh of July, Smirch was spirited away to a conference room in which were gathered mayors, governors, government officials, behaviorist, psychologists, and editors. He gave them each a limp moist paw, and a brief, unlovely grin hi, he said. When Smirch was seated, the Mayor of New York arose and, with obvious pessimism, attempted to explain what he must say and how he must act when presented to the world, ending his talk with a high tribute to the hero's courage and integrity. The mayor was followed by Governor Fannmen of New York, who, after a touching declaration of faith, introduced Cameron Spottiswood, second Secretary of the American Embassy in Paris, the gentlemen selected to coach Smirch in the amenities of public ceremonies. Sitting in a chair with a soiled yellow tie in his hand and his shirt open at the throat, unshaved, smoking a rolled cigarette, Jack Smirch listened with a leer on his lips. I get you, I get you, He cut in nastily. You want me to act like a softie? Huh? You want me to act like that memny mumty baby face lind big huh, Well nuts to that. See. Everyone took in his breath sharply. It was a sigh and a hiss. Mister Lindbergh began. A United States Senator purple with rage, and mister bird Smirch, who was paring his nails with a jackknife, cut in again. Boyd, he exclaimed, Oh, for God's sake, that big Somebody shut off the blasphemies with a sharp word. A newcomer had entered the word the room. Everyone stood up, except Smirch, who was still busy with his nails, and he did not even glance up. Mister smur said someone sternly. The President of the United States. It had been thought that the presence of the Chief Executive might have a chastening effect on the young hero, and the former had been, thanks to the remarkable cooperation of the press, secretly brought to the obscure conference room. A great painful silence fell. Smirch looked up, waved a hand at the President. How are you coming? He asked, and began rolling a fresh cigarette. The silence deepened. Someone coughed in a strained way. Jesus hod ain't it, said smirch. He loosened two more shirt buttons, revealing a hairy chest and the tattooed word sadie enclosed in a stenciled heart. The great and important men in the room, faced by the most serious crisis in American history, exchanged worried frowns. Nobody seemed to know how to proceed. Come on, come on, said smirch. Let's get the hell out of here. When do I start cutting in on the parties? Huh? And when is there gonna be this in it? He rubbed a thumb and forefinger together meaningly. Money, exclaimed a state senator shocked Pale. Yeah, money, said pal, flipping his cigarette out of the window. And big money. He began rolling a fresh cigarette. Big money, he repeated. Frowning over the rice paper. He tilted back in his chair and leered at each gentleman separately, the leer of an animal that knows its power, the leer of a leopard loose in a bird and dog shop. Ah, for God's sake, let's get someplace where it's cool, he said, I've been cooped up plenty for three weeks. Smirch stood up and walked over to an open window, where he stood staring down into the street nine floors below. The faint shouting of newsboys floated up to him. He made out his name, hot Dog, he cried, grinning ecstatic. He leaned out over the sill. You tell him, babies, he shouted down, Hot Diggity Dog, and the tense little knot of men standing behind him a quick, mad impulse flared up. An unspoken word of appeal of command seemed to ring through the room, yet it was deadly silent. Charles K. L Brand, secretary to the Mayor of New York City, happened to be standing nearest Smirch. He looked inquiringly at the President of the United States. The President pale grim, nodded shortly. Brand, a tall, powerfully built man wants to tackle at Rutgers University, stepped forward, seized the greatest man in the world by his left shoulder and the seat of his pants, and pushed him out the window. My god, he's fallen out the window, cried a quick witted editor. Get me out of here. Cried the president. Several men sprang to his side, and he was hurriedly escorted out of a door toward a side entrance of the building. The editor of the Associated Press took charge, being used to such things crisply, he ordered certain men to leave, others to stay quickly. He outlined a story which all the papers were to agree on, sent two men to the street to handle that end of the tragedy, commanded a Senator to sob and two congressmen to go to pieces nervously. In a word, he skillfully set the stage for the gigantic task that was to follow, the task of breaking to a grief stricken world the sad story of the untimely accidental death of its most illustrious and spectacular figure. The funeral was, as you know, the most elaborate, the finest columnist, and the saddest ever held in the United States of America. The monument in Arlington Cemetery, with its clean white shaft of marble and the simple device of a tiny plane carved on its base, is a place for pilgrims in deep reverence to visit. The nations of the world paid lofty tributes to little Jackie Smirch, America's greatest hero. At a given hour, there were two minutes of silence throughout the nation. Even the inhabitants of the small, bewildered town of Westfield, Iowa observed this touching ceremony. Agents of the Department of Justice sought to that. One of them was especially assigned to stand grimly in the doorway of a little shack restaurant on the edge of the tourist's camping ground just outside the town. There, under his stern scrutiny, missus Emma Smirch bowed her head over to Hamburger steaks sizzling on her grill. Bowed her head and turned away so that the secret serviceman could not see the twisted, strangely familiar leer on her lips. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert, who are you? Tom Broke? A spoiler alert after the fact, that story is about Trump. I mean, it's right down to the horrific look on Trump's mom's face. I've done all the damage here. Thank you for listening. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil the musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass, and drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. 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 was my friend Larry David. Everything else was pretty much my fault, including Tucker Carlson's scratches. I feel like playing the Looney Tunes theme whenever I talk about Tucker Carlson. That's countdown for today. Four days until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one three hundred and ninety sixth day since convicted felon dissociative fugue j Trump got away with his first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the election, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity to keep him from doing it again while we still have a chance to do so. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Have fun spending the weekend, holding your breath, bulletins as the news requires. Till then, I'm Keith Alremman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olberman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.